A Texan's Honor Page 3

  “I asked how far it was so I’d know if I had enough money to give you a bigger tip.”

  The change in the boys’ demeanor was almost comical. They hoisted the trunk as if it weighed only ounces, their faces transformed by smiles.

  “I never thought you’d stiff us, mister,” the urchin said. “I can tell a man of character when I see one.”

  “Stow it,” Bret barked. “I know all the lines to use on dudes, tenderfoots, or any other name orphans use to refer to people like me, because I used them myself.”

  “We ain’t orphans,” one of the other boys protested. “We got parents,” he stated proudly.

  “Then don’t embarrass them by behaving like street rats.”

  “Just because I ain’t got no parents don’t mean I’m a street rat,” the first urchin exclaimed.

  “I didn’t think you were, but a gentleman watches his behavior around a lady. Most importantly, he doesn’t tell lies, not even little ones. And that playacting about the heavy trunk was a lie.”

  “But I wasn’t lying to her.”

  “You lied in her presence. That’s what counts.”

  Emily knew she was staring, but she didn’t know what to make of this man. He appeared to be scolding the boys, but she was certain there was a glint of humor in his eyes, even slight admiration for their gumption.

  The urchin turned to Emily, raised his head, his face grimy as he looked at her with big brown eyes. “Sorry, ma’am. I didn’t mean to tell no fibs. I just thought he was a soft touch. I couldn’t help myself.”

  It was all Emily could do to keep from laughing. His shamefaced expression was masterful.

  “I accept your apology,” she said with as much gravity as she could muster. “I’m sure you’re a very nice young man.”

  “My pa says he’s a young hellion who’ll be lucky if someone don’t shoot him dead before he’s twenty,” one of his friends said.

  “Shut your trap, you whey-faced brat,” the urchin said. “You’ve no call to find fault with my character in front of a lady.”

  “Well, it’s what Pa said.”

  “A fella can change, can’t he? I’m going to be a gentleman like this tender—um, I mean fancy dude.”

  “We’re going to the Grand Union Hotel,” Emily said. “Why don’t you boys go on ahead?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the urchin said. “We’ll wait outside. They won’t let the likes of them two”—he pointed at his two companions—“inside.”

  “They won’t let you in, neither,” his friend said.

  “They would if I wanted in, but I don’t.”

  And with that he marched off, proud as a peacock, ignoring the slanderous remarks of his friends.

  Emily turned to Bret. “Do you always set the cat amongst the pigeons wherever you go?”

  “I see no point in not dealing in plain truths.”

  “Then why did Mr. Abbott choose to send you to Texas?”

  “Because he knows I always get the job done.”

  “Then I’m sorry to be the one to interrupt your string of successes. You could always go back and tell him you couldn’t find me. Texas is a big state. It would be easy to lose a female or two.”

  His answering smile was forced. “But I’m a very determined man. I’d have found you.”

  Emily turned and headed toward the hotel. “Then you should be grateful I’ve saved you a lot of time. That’ll give me plenty of opportunity to refute all your reasons why I should go to Boston.”

  He caught up with her. “You haven’t heard my reasons yet. You might find them irrefutable.”

  “And you haven’t heard my reasons for refuting them. You might find them irrefutable.”

  “Then I expect we’re in for a very interesting month.”

  “A month!” Emily exclaimed as she stopped dead and turned to face him.

  “Or year. Whatever it takes.”

  Even if Mr. Nolan had been as charming as he was attractive, she wouldn’t have wanted him around more than a few days. She didn’t have time to entertain a man who knew nothing about the West or ranching. He probably thought cows were kept in barns and were tame enough for milking.

  “It’s my father’s house, and he’ll determine how long you stay, but I can promise you it won’t be as much as a year. I’d say two weeks at most.”

  “Then I’ll have to make sure I’ve convinced you by then.”

  “I told you, I’m not going to Boston.”

  “We’ll see.”

  His unshakable calm infuriated her. He acted as though she didn’t have enough intelligence to know her own mind. As though after a few well-chosen words from him, she’d be so overwhelmed by his brilliant arguments, she’d be in a frenzy to pack and leave. Maybe women in Boston kowtowed to their men, but she was a Texan. She didn’t jump to obey anybody’s orders.

  “I’ve asked for dinner to be served at seven-thirty in a private dining room. You can dine with me and the other men, or make your own arrangements.”

  “I’ll dine with you,” he said. “What time will we be leaving tomorrow?”

  “Seven o’clock. We have a long two days in the saddle. You do ride, don’t you? The train doesn’t go to our ranch.”

  “Can’t we take a stagecoach or at least a buckboard?” he asked.

  “There is no stagecoach to the ranch, and you’d be bounced to death in a buckboard.”

  “How about a wagon?”

  “You’re welcome to take a wagon if you want to spend a week on the trail.” This man was pathetic. Didn’t he know anything?

  “I couldn’t go a week without eating.”

  “If we were to go by wagon, we’d carry our own supplies and cook over an open fire.”

  “I couldn’t ask you to do that for me.”

  “It’s a good thing, because I wouldn’t.”

  Emily didn’t know Mr. Nolan, and she admitted she’d started off without a good opinion of him, but she couldn’t get over the feeling he was laughing at her. Young, unmarried women were so scarce in Texas, her appearance usually caused young men to start blushing, stammering, and falling over themselves to please. Mr. Nolan appeared completely unaffected by her youth and attractiveness. That irritated her as well as aroused her curiosity. He’d been sent to persuade her to do something against her will. She would have thought he’d try to ingratiate himself with her, or at the very least, try not to make her dislike him. He appeared not to care what she thought.

  “We won’t have a midday meal tomorrow,” she told him. “We’ll have breakfast before we leave the hotel. I’ve made arrangements for dinner and beds with a rancher for tomorrow night. We should be home in time for dinner the second night. Are you sure you can stay in the saddle all day?”

  “I’ll manage somehow.”

  She expected he’d be too sore to sit down and too stiff to walk. “You can probably ride in those clothes,” she said, thinking it would be a shame to ruin such a nice suit, “but you should see about getting some boots.”

  “I’ll see what I can come up with. How long will it take my trunks to arrive?”

  Good Lord! She hoped he wasn’t a dandy. She shuddered at the thought of him mincing about the ranch trying to keep from getting his clothes dusty or mud on his boots. It would be all she and Lonnie could do to keep the hands from playing tricks on him.

  “Lonnie will strap them to a packhorse. You’ll need to have them ready a little while before we leave.”

  “Just let me know the time, and they’ll be ready.”

  He couldn’t be very high up in the company if Silas Abbott could spare him for as much as a year. He was probably used to getting up at dawn and working late into the night. She felt sorry for anyone who was treated like that, but she couldn’t imagine anyone worse to have as a traveling companion across the Texas plains. She was relieved to reach the hotel and see the three boys waiting outside with Mr. Nolan’s trunk and suitcase. A young man who blinked, then stared foolishly when he saw her, jumped to open
the hotel door for her.

  “Thank you.” She gave him a big smile as she passed.

  “Be careful,” Mr. Nolan said softly. “You don’t want to dazzle him so completely that he’ll stumble into the street and get run over.”

  Emily stiffened. There was no mistaking his words or his tone. He believed she was so proud of her looks she couldn’t resist flirting with every man she encountered. “I was just trying to show my appreciation.”

  Much to her chagrin, when she turned around he was telling the boys to bring his trunk and suitcase inside and he’d pay them a dollar each. He had to be crazy. They’d have carried his trunk all the way to Dallas for a dollar.

  “The room is reserved in your name,” she told him when he followed the boys in. “If you need anything, ask Lonnie. He’s our foreman. The clerk will give you his room number. I’ll see you tonight.” She turned and headed toward the stairs and her room. She wondered how Mr. Abbott thought Mr. Nolan could convince her to go to Boston. So far, Mr. Nolan was a good argument against having anything to do with that city.

  She let her hand skim along the banister as she climbed the curving stairway to the second floor. The coolness of the interior of the hotel was a relief from the intensity of the Texas sun. If Mr. Nolan insisted upon wearing his wool suits, he was in for a miserable time. The man seemed angry, unbending, and thoroughly unhappy about being in Texas.

  Then why on earth did she still feel attracted to him? She was an intelligent woman. She’d never been foolish about men or fooled by them. She’d liked several in her nineteen years, but she’d never been infatuated with a man. So what on earth could have caused her to be attracted to this surly sourpuss of a dude?

  He was unquestionably the most attractive man she knew. She hadn’t failed to notice several women turn to stare at him as they passed, but surely she wasn’t such a shallow female, she’d fall for a man just because he was handsome.

  She reached her room, unlocked the door, and let herself in. She wouldn’t think about him until tonight. Once they got to the ranch, she had no intention of being shut up in the ranch house with him any more than necessary. Sending her to Boston was her father’s idea. Let him deal with Mr. Bret Nolan.

  Bret tipped the boy who tossed Bret’s suitcase on the bed and set his trunk against the wall between the door and a large bureau. He was relieved when the door closed behind them, but his privacy didn’t do anything to release the painful tension between his shoulders. He didn’t know how many kinds of an idiot a man could be at once, but he figured he’d probably set a record. He’d done just about everything he could to make certain Emily wouldn’t listen to a word he said.

  Neither did he have to pretend he didn’t know anything about riding or cooking over a campfire. She’d soon find out he could do all of that, and it would only make her angry at him for deceiving her. And likely to believe that anything he told her about Boston was equally untrue. Was he trying to make sure she didn’t decide to go to Boston?

  He stopped in the act of opening his suitcase. He had no intention of praising his cousin Joseph in an effort to make Emily more willing to marry him, but would he really go as far as discouraging Emily from going to Boston when his own job hung in the balance?

  He shook his head in dismay at his own actions, opened his suitcase, and began to lay out the clothes he would wear to dinner.

  He planned to do everything he could to persuade Emily to go to Boston. He knew Texas was no place for a single woman who was young, beautiful, and rich, but he would make sure she knew what he thought of Cousin Joseph. If she decided to marry him after that, his conscience would be clean.

  He unpacked his best navy blue suit and hung it up so the wrinkles would fall out of the wool fabric. He unfolded a sturdy cotton shirt and laid it out on the bed. Both would need to be pressed before tonight. Socks came next. He would have to get his shoes from the trunk, but that could wait. He unpacked a change of underwear. He wanted a bath. The man at the desk had told him hot water was available in a building behind the hotel. This might be the last chance he had to take a hot bath for some time. Sam Abercrombie was very wealthy, but he wouldn’t be the first rancher to see no need for baths except in a nearby creek.

  He’d shave, too. And make sure he used some of the new French cologne water he’d bought in New York. That thought made him smile. It would probably confirm Emily’s opinion that he was a tenderfoot who would be so appalled at the living conditions in Texas he’d turn tail and run back to Boston without making more than a feeble attempt to convince her to go back with him.

  He walked over to the window and looked down at the street below. It had been almost six years since he’d been in Texas, but the street looked more familiar to him than those of Boston. It was cut up from the shod hooves of horses, the wheels of wagons and buggies, and the high heels of hundreds of cowhands. A breeze sent dust swirling into the hot, dry air, causing the smell of horse manure to penetrate every building. Women traversed the boardwalk, staring into store windows or hurrying along children trying to do the same. The air was filled with the sound of shouting male voices, the whinny of horses, and the tinny sound of a piano in a nearby saloon.

  It sounded so much like San Antonio. It sounded like home. He could almost see Isabelle marching them into the mercantile and announcing to the shocked owner that she wanted to purchase new outfits for all eleven of her children. The boys had all pretended indifference to anything as unmasculine as being interested in new clothes, but as orphans they’d often had to wear rags. They’d never had warm winter clothes. They’d each left with a bundle of clothes they jealously guarded. It was a physical sign that for the first time in their lives, someone cared about them.

  Bret shook his head to rid himself of memories that tended to give him a heavy heart. His family was in Boston, not in the Texas hill country. He was an adult now, not a scared and angry twelve-year-old who saw the world as his enemy and didn’t know how to protect himself except by attacking everyone who came near him. Jake and Isabelle had taught him how to feel safe, how to value his own abilities and accomplishments without having to be better than everyone else. He could stand on his own.

  He turned away from the window and his gaze fell on his suit, the white shirt. His brothers would ridicule him for wearing a suit every day and working inside an office in a city. They all lived the kind of life they’d learned while growing up on Jake’s ranch. Even Drew, the only girl in the group, was raising horses on her own ranch.

  Bret had spent hours talking to Isabelle about her life before her aunt died, when she’d had money and been a part of Savannah society. From the very beginning, he’d intended to go to Boston as soon as he was ready and present himself to his mother’s family. They were proud, hard people who had turned their backs on his mother because she didn’t conform to what they expected of a member of their family. He’d been determined he would do nothing to give them an excuse to look down on him.

  But he’d discovered that merely having grown up in Texas and lived on a ranch was a hurdle he had yet to overcome. There were times when he wondered if he ever would. His looks had garnered plenty of attention from the female members of Boston society, but they were rigidly controlled by their husbands, fathers, brothers, or uncles—men who felt Bret didn’t quite measure up to their standards. The very unfinished quality that appealed to women caused the men to question his worthiness to join their inner circle.

  He collected his clothes, locked the door behind him, and headed for the wash house. The hotel wasn’t large, so it took only a few minutes to reach the end of the hall, descend the back stairs, and come out into an alley between the hotel and a livery stable. The wash house was about a hundred feet to his left. He was surprised when the boy who’d carried his suitcase opened the door to him. “What are you doing here?”

  “This is where I work,” the boy said, drawing himself up.

  “When you’re not waylaying strangers and trying to squeeze higher tip
s out of them.”

  “It’s been right slow lately,” the boy explained. “There’s not many that wants a bath.”

  “Well, I do, and I don’t want you skimping on the hot water.”

  “I never,” the boy replied indignantly.

  “Yes, you would. Now stop pretending to be innocent and tell me your name.”

  The boy hung his head. “It’s Jinx, sir.”

  “Is that all? What about those parents the other kid said you didn’t have?”

  “Nobody knows who I belong to. I just turned up one day. People passed me back and forth until I was old enough to take care of myself.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Eight.”

  Four years younger than Bret was when Isabelle rescued him off the street. “Where do you live?”

  “Here.”

  “In the wash house?”

  “It’s real warm in winter. Are you going to take a bath? I can’t afford to waste hot water if you ain’t gonna use it.”

  “Yes, I’m going to take a bath. And after I’m done, I want you to take one. You look like you’ve been dragged through the stockyards backwards.”

  “The boss don’t pay me to take baths.”

  “I’ll pay for it. Now where is the tub?”

  “Through that door. There’s two pipes leading into the tub, one hot and one cold. You can fix the water to suit yourself.”

  Bret entered a small room built of rough wood. The floor had been smoothed by thousands of feet. He took his clothes off, folded them, and looked around for soap and towels. He didn’t see either. “How am I supposed to wash without soap or dry without a towel?” he called through the door.

  “That’ll be extra.”

  “It had better not be too much extra, or you might not live to see your next birthday.” He thought he heard Jinx laugh.

  “Fifty cents each,” Jinx said.

  “Fine.” Bret opened the door a few inches. “Hand them here.”

  The soap looked harsh and the towel was rough, but he figured they were the best he was going to get. He stepped into the tub and turned the valve on one pipe. Tepid water came out. Apparently, the tank was on the roof and open to the sun. He turned the valve on the other pipe and water only slightly hotter came out. “Put some extra wood under the boiler,” he called out to Jinx.