The Cowboy and the Lady (9 page)

“Could I?” she asked, and her whole face changed, grew younger. “Oh, but Terry…” she murmured, her enthusiasm dampening.

“He’ll be just fine with me,” Marguerite said cheerfully. “I’ll take care of him for you, and tonight he and Jace will be busy discussing the accounts. So why not go, dear? You look as if you could use a little gaiety.”

“If you don’t mind…”

“Go put on a pretty dress,” Duncan told her, grinning. “I’ll give you a whole half hour.”

“Done!” Amanda said excitedly. She excused herself from the table and darted upstairs. It was like being a child again. She’d forgotten the magic of being wealthy enough to take off and go anywhere, anytime. The Whitehalls took it for granted just as Amanda had once, but those days were long past. Now she had to budget everything, especially groceries. Trips and holidays were something she could no longer afford.

She changed into a white sundress with yellow daisies on the bodice and a full eyelet skirt, a delightful little frock she’d found on sale at a small boutique last fall. She scooped up her lightweight tan sweater and slipped on her sandals in a rush, barely stopping long enough to check her makeup and add another pin to the hair she had carefully tucked into a neat chignon. She forgot her purse and had to go back for it. Not that there was more than a few dollars in it, but she felt more secure having it.

She darted downstairs to find that Terry had finally made it to the breakfast table. He looked sleepy and faintly hung over, but he grinned at Amanda pleasantly.

“Hi!” she said. “I’m doing to desert you and go to New York, okay?”

“Sure. Have a good time. I’ll work on my sales pitch out by the pool,” he told her.

“Just don’t fall in. He can’t swim,” she told the others with a laugh.

“We can’t all be fish like you in the water,” came the teasing reply.

“If you’re ready,” Duncan said, slipping into his brown suit coat.

“More than,” Amanda told him.

He studied her outfit carefully, and his eyes narrowed on the sweater. “Honey, there’s a lot of difference between Texas and New York, and we’ll be leaving after dark. Are you sure that sweater’s going to be enough on your arms?”

Amanda nodded, too proud to admit that the only coat she owned was back in San Antonio, and that it wouldn’t have done for anything more than a trip to the neighborhood grocery.

“I’ll loan you my spring coat,” Marguerite said easily, smiling. “You simply can’t pack coats, Duncan, they’re too bulky,” she added.

Amanda blessed her for that, knowing the older woman had deliberately covered up for her.

Marguerite came back with a lightweight gray coat, very stylish, and very expensive.

“But I can’t…” Amanda protested.

“Of course you can, dear. I have several more, and we’re about the same size. Here, try it on.”

She helped Amanda into it, and it was a perfect fit. Her soft brown eyes said it all, and Marguerite only nodded.

“Have fun, now, and don’t be too late. Which plane are you taking?”

“The Cessna,” Duncan called back as they went out the front door. “Don’t keep supper for us—we’ll have it there.”

The twin-engine plane made good time, and Duncan was a good pilot. Almost as good as Jace, and not quite as daring. Before Amanda knew it, they were landing in New York’s sprawling terminal, despite the wait to be sandwiched in between jumbo jets.

Duncan hailed them a taxi with the flair of an experienced traveler and hustled Amanda inside. He gave the driver an address and leaned back with a sigh.

“Now, this is the way to travel,” he told her. “No bags, no toothbrush, just leap on a plane and go.”

She laughed, catching his exuberant mood. “Sure. Since we’ve come this far, let’s just go on to Martinique.”

“Now, there was a fun island,” he replied, going back in time. “Remember when you and I flew down there with Uncle Macklin and forgot to tell Mother? I thought the end of the world was coming when they caught up with us. But we had fun, didn’t we?”

“We certainly did,” she replied, turning her head against the seat to look at him. He was nothing like Jace. She liked his boyish face, his sparkling personality. If only she could have loved him.

“I hate it when you do that,” he remarked, grinning.

“Do what?” she asked softly.

“Measure me against Jace. Oh, don’t both to deny it,” he said when she started to protest. “I’ve known you too long. Anyway, I don’t really mind. Jace is one of a kind. Most men would fall short of him by comparison.”

She let her eyes drift to the moving meter. “Sorry. I wasn’t trying to be mean.”

His hand found hers and squeezed it. “I know that. The joy of being with you, Mandy, is that I can be myself. I’m glad to have you for a friend.”

She smiled at him. “Same here.”

“Of course, it wasn’t always friendship,” he said, lifting a corner of his mouth. “I had a crush on you when you were about sixteen. You didn’t even notice—you were too busy trying to keep out of Jace’s way. I was terribly jealous, you know.”

“Did you, really?” she asked. “Duncan, I’m so sorry…!” Maybe that explained the lie he’d told Jace about her reason for inviting him to the long-ago birthday party.

“Just a crush, darling, and I got over it fast. I’m glad I did. It was never there for you, was it?” he asked, more serious than she’d ever seen him.

“No,” she said honestly. “It never was.”

“If I can help, Mandy, in any way, I will,” he said suddenly.

His kindness, coming on the heels of Jace’s antagonism, was her undoing. Hot tears swelled up in her eyes and overflowed onto her cheeks in a silent flood.

“Mandy,” he said sympathetically, and drew her gently against him, rocking her softly while she cried. “Poor little mite, it’s been rough, hasn’t it? I should have been keeping in touch. You need looking after.”

She shook her head. “I can take care of myself,” she mumbled.

“Sure you can, darling.” He laughed gently, patting her shoulder.

“It’s just…if I could will Mama to somebody with tremendous assets,” she laughed.

“Some rich man will come along and save you eventually,” he told her. “After all, your mama is still a beautiful woman. Sweet, intelligent…”

“…addlepated and selfish,” she finished with a wry grin, drawing back to pull a handkerchief from her purse and dab at her wet eyes with it. “I don’t usually give in to self-pity. Sorry. It gets to be a heavy load sometimes, having all the responsibility.”

“Which you shouldn’t, at your age,” he said tautly. “You haven’t been able to do anything but support her since it all happened. I know you don’t mind, but the fact is, you’re not being allowed a life of your own. All you’re doing is working to keep Bea up. There’s nothing left for you to enjoy after you pay the bills, and it isn’t fair, Amanda.”

“Duncan, if I don’t do it, who will?” she asked gently. “Mother can’t work. She’s never had to. What would she do?”

“People could rent her, an hour at a time, to stand in the corner and look beautiful while holding a lamp or something,” he suggested.

She burst out laughing at the idea. “You’re horrible.”

“That’s why you like me,” he returned. “Amanda, remember the summer we tied bows on Jace’s sale bulls just before that auction?”

She whistled softly. “Do I ever! We’d never have outrun him if you hadn’t got that brilliant idea to turn out all his brood mares as we went through the barn.”

“That made him even madder,” he recalled. “I went to spend a week with my aunt that very evening, before Jace got back from the sale. And you, if I remember rightly, went away immediately to boarding school.”

“I felt it would be safer living in Switzerland at that point in my life.” She grinned. “He was furious!”

He sighed. “They were good days, weren’t they, Amanda?”

She nodded. “What a shame that we have to grow up and become dignified.”

Chapter Six

T
hey were homeward bound when some unfamiliar sound woke her. She sat straight up in the seat to find Duncan struggling with the controls, his face more somber than she’d seen it in years.

“What’s the matter?” she asked with a worried frown.

He was bending slightly forward, one hand on the wheel, the other on the instrument panel. “I think it’s the left mag, but I can’t tell yet.”

“Mag?” she echoed.

“Magneto.” He reached for the ignition switch and turned it momentarily left and then right. The plane was literally doing a hula in midair. Duncan gritted his teeth. “I’m going to try different power settings and ease in on the mixture, then I’ll know if we can risk going on,” he mumbled to himself.

She just stared, the language he was speaking vaguely incomprehensible to her. But whatever he was doing, it didn’t seem to help. The vibration in the plane was terrible.

He cursed under his breath. “Well, that’s it. We’ll have to put it down at Seven Bridges and have it fixed. I won’t risk going any farther like this.”

Duncan nosed the Cessna down where the string of runway lights stretched like a double strand of glowing pearls through a low-lying mist.

“God, I hope there’s not a cow on the landing strip,” he mumbled as he held the vibrating airplane on course.

“You’re such a comfort to me, Duncan,” she said, biting back her nervousness. “Where did you say we were?”

“Seven Bridges, Tennessee.” He grinned. “Hang on, honey, here goes.”

“I trust you,” she told him. “We’ll be okay.”

“I sure as hell hope so.”

The next few minutes were the most dangerous Amanda could ever remember. The engines felt as if they were trying to shake apart, and the landing lights in that fog were a little blurry. If Jace had been at the controls, she’d never have worried at all…she was sorry she had to think of that, knowing that Duncan was doing his best. But Jace had steel nerves, and his younger brother, despite his flight experience in the twin-engine plane, didn’t. Once, as he put the plane down, he lost control for just a split second and had to pull up and come around again, an experience that threatened to turn Amanda’s hair white.

Her hands gripped the edge of her seat so hard that she could feel the leather give under them, but not a word passed her lips. Nothing she said would help, and it might distract Duncan fatally. She kept quiet and whispered a prayer.

Duncan eased the plane down, his eyes on the controls, the landing strip, the airspeed indicator, the artificial horizon, the altimeter. Now training was taking over, he relaxed visibly, and put the twin-engine plane carefully down the runway with a gentle screeching noise followed by a downgrading of the engine, and sudden, total silence as he cut the power entirely and taxied in.

“In the veritable nick of time.” He sighed wearily.

“You done good, as they say,” she teased, able to relax now that they were safe. “Now, how do we get home?”

“Hitchhike?” he suggested with a grin.

“Call for reinforcements?” she suggested.

“Reinforcements would be Jace,” he reminded her, “and my jaw hasn’t healed from the last time I upset him.”

She hadn’t thought about that. They’d promised to be home by midnight, and it was…she sighed deeply.

“Shall we see if the gentleman has a house for rent with a good view,” she asked with a nervous laugh, “and maybe a couple of jobs open?”

“At this point, it might be wise to consider the folly of going home.”

They climbed out of the plane in the rear and the fixed base operator approached them out of a lighted hangar wiping his hands on a rag. He was a big, aging man with a shock of white hair and a toothy smile.

“Thought I heard a plane,” he grinned. “Got problems?”

“One of my magnetos went out on me,” Duncan told him. “I’m going to need a new one. If you’ve got one you can put on for me.”

“What is she? A Cessna by the look,” he guessed, and Duncan nodded. “Sure, I can fix it, I think. I run an aviation service, and the wife and I live in that trailer over there.” He chuckled. “I couldn’t sleep, so I came down here to wrestle with a rewiring job in an old Aeronca Champion I just bought. Well, let’s have a look at your problem.”

Minutes later, Amanda was comfortably seated in Donald Aiken’s trailer with his small, dark-haired wife, Annette, enjoying the best cup of coffee she’d ever tasted while she recuperated from the hair-raising experience.

They were discussing the economy when Duncan and the airport operator walked in.

“Donald can fix it,” Duncan said with a tired grin. He needed a shave, and looked it, but at this hour of the morning it didn’t really matter.

“Thank goodness.” She sighed. “You know, we really do need to call your mother. We can make her promise not to tell Jace…”

“Uh, I’m afraid you won’t be calling anybody long-distance,” Donald said apologetically. “Or locally either for the time being. Cable got cut, and they’re still trying to fix it. I heard over the radio earlier while I was working. And you can’t get a decent cell phone signal anywhere around here. Sure am sorry.”

Duncan sighed. “It’s fate,” he said, nodding. “Out to get me.”

“I’ll protect you, Duncan,” Amanda promised.

“Unless I miss my guess, you’re going to need protection as much as I am.” He shook his head. “Well, can’t be helped.”