Scarlet Sunset, Silver Nights Page 7

  “You want the dun?” The unexpected request jolted her out of her misery. “That’s the meanest horse on the place.”

  “I’ll lay you a bet he’s also the best.”

  “Possibly, but no one will ride him.”

  “How much?”

  Faced with the reality of his departure and the suspicion that her snobbery was driving him away, she was overcome with shame, so overwhelmed she didn’t realize at least a small part of her reluctance to see him go had nothing to do with guilt.

  “You really shouldn’t leave yet,” Pamela said abruptly. “Your feet aren’t well, and I doubt you’ll get very far with that arm. Even a slight jar could start it bleeding again.”

  “I’ve taken care of myself for a long time. I’ll survive a few blisters and a flesh wound.”

  Pamela changed her tact. “Are you going to let those men who shot you get away without finding out who they are?” Why did she stand here arguing with him, trying to get him to stay? It would be better if he left. She hadn’t had a moment’s peace since he arrived. He would only cause more trouble if he stayed.

  But she didn’t want him to leave. She had never met anyone like him. She felt a tug of attraction despite his lack of polish. Immediately she thought of Frederick and their years together in Baltimore. He had always been her idea of the perfect man. Taller than this cowboy, better looking, richer, and brimming with ambition to make his father’s bank the biggest of its kind south of Philadelphia, he had remained her ideal. But despite finishing way behind Frederick in virtually every way, something about Slade wouldn’t let her ignore him. He had a kind of presence, an aura, Pamela didn’t understand, but she had experienced its powerful effects from the moment she set eyes on him.

  Let him leave before you make a fool of yourself, the voice of caution whispered. Whatever it is about him that fascinates you, it’s not worth it.

  “Thirty dollars,” she said. “Ten for the horse and twenty for the saddle.”

  “He’s worth more than that.”

  “The saddle’s used and nobody will ride the horse. I ought to give him to you just to save the cost of feeding him.”

  “I’ll pay,” Slade said. He took off his hat and dug two gold coins out of their hiding place in the hat band.

  “That’s forty dollars,” Pamela pointed out.

  “The other ten’s for food, lodging, and medical care.”

  “I won’t take money for that,” Pamela replied, furious over his implied slight of her hospitality. She handed Slade a ten dollar silver piece from her father’s drawer, but he refused it.

  “Take it or walk out of here without a horse.”

  “You’re one tough lady,” Slade said, a reluctant smile lighting his eyes. “Looks like your father knew what he was doing when he left you in charge.” He took the proffered ten dollars. “Sorry I can’t stay to find out who tried to burn your barn, but your father is bound to return soon.”

  “I’ll manage until he gets back.”

  “I’m sure you will. And I don’t imagine you’ll need any help. You’ll make some rancher one hell of a wife, if you can find one strong enough to handle you.”

  “I won’t be handled by anyone.” She hadn’t meant to shout at him, but his words were insulting. For a moment longer her anger had the upper hand, then she took a deep breath to calm her racing heart. “Besides, I don’t intend to marry a rancher. I’m returning to Baltimore after the round-up.”

  She hadn’t intended to tell him that—it didn’t concern him at all—but the startled look of surprise and disapproval made it even worse. She didn’t need or want his approval. She admitted she had no right to prejudge him, but by the same token, he had no right to presume to know her motives. He also had no right to look disappointed. Whether she stayed or left wouldn’t mean anything to him, not with him in California.

  “I’m sure your friends will be sorry to see you go,” Slade said after a pause.

  “They’ll be glad to see me return,” Pamela corrected him.

  “Oh, it’s like that, is it?”

  Pamela didn’t know why her tongue should suddenly turn into a malevolent force. She hadn’t meant it that way, but she couldn’t take her words back now. Why couldn’t she control her temper around Slade? Why did he make her motives seem suddenly shameful? He had no right to make her wish to go back to Baltimore sound like something distasteful. What was so wonderful about Arizona and its suffocating heat, terrible cold, and constant shortage of water? Nothing here could compare to life in Baltimore or any other eastern city.

  It was none of his business what she did or why she did it, and she wouldn’t dignify his curiosity by recognizing it.

  “I’ll have Belva put together some food for you. Come by the kitchen on your way out. You’re welcome to stop by if you’re back this way. I’m sure my father would like to thank you for saving the barn.”

  She was dismissing him now, just like a queen dismisses a subject. Well, he would go. There was no reason to stay.

  Chapter 5

  After Slade left her, Pamela tussled long and hard with her conscience. His accusation hurt her deeply, and she closed the door behind him determined never to let a single thought of him cross her mind again. But no sooner had he gone than her anger began to evaporate. Then her own innate sense of honesty made her examine her actions since he arrived. She had to know if his words were true.

  She decided they weren’t. She hadn’t wanted him here, she admitted that, but once he arrived, she had done her best to make him welcome. Hadn’t she taken care of his feet and his shoulder? And with her own hands, too. She hadn’t done that for anyone else.

  But why had she done it? Her mother had always been careful to preserve a distance between herself and those she considered to be the hired help. And Pamela had always tried to follow her mother’s example.

  So why did there seem to be no distance between her and Slade? Why had she been determined to see to him herself, even before he set foot on the place? Why did everything he said and did affect her so? Why had she cared for his wounds with her own hands? More importantly, why was she still thinking about him? He had no intention of coming back for the food she offered him.

  With sudden decision, Pamela hurried to the kitchen. “Put some supplies together for Mr. Morgan,” she said to Belva. “He’ll be leaving at daybreak.”

  Usually she would have stayed to help. She felt a little guilty now that she hadn’t, but she wanted to be by herself. She wanted to think, but she was almost afraid to. She was unlikely to appreciate any answer she came up with. And the one she was going to dislike most was the knowledge that Slade Morgan had made a much stronger impression on her than anybody since Frederick.

  Of course nobody was like Frederick. He was unique, but there was something rare about Slade, too. There wasn’t much about his looks to attract her. True, his grey eyes were wonderfully expressive, especially when they sparkled with amusement, but he wore a beard and she hated beards with a passion. True, he was tall, slim, and well-muscled, but he still looked like a dusty saddle tramp. He seemed to be intelligent, but he had no ambition to be anything more than an ordinary cowhand. Worst of all, he wore guns, and if Pamela knew anything about his kind of man, he had used them many times. He had used them just last night, and she was certain he would use them again.

  Was it possible to separate the essence of a man from the things he did? Wasn’t his life largely a series of actions which he made by choice and thus the result of what he wanted to do?

  Maybe not.

  She thought of her mother. She’d never been able to control the course of her life. Pamela felt the same way sometimes, but she couldn’t imagine Slade being helpless. There was something about him which conveyed the feeling that he would always be in control of his destiny.

  Pamela got to her feet. There was no point in devoting any more time to this fruitless exercise. Slade Morgan was going to ride out of her life about fifteen minutes after sunrise,
and she knew it was the best possible thing, that could happen. If he had some mysterious attraction that wouldn’t let her stop thinking about him, especially when she didn’t want to, then she wasn’t safe. The sooner he left the better.

  But she knew she would never forget the fire that flamed between them.

  “You couldn’t talk him into working for you?” Belva asked when Pamela returned to the kitchen. “We sure could use a man like him around here.”

  “We’ll get along,” Pamela said, slightly irritated that Belva should be so anxious to have Slade stay, especially after she had pointed out he couldn’t have come from where he said he did. “Dad will be back soon with the extra men.”

  “I always say a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” Belva continued obstinately.

  “I don’t think we ever had him in hand,” Pamela replied, half to herself. “I don’t think anybody ever did.”

  “I thought he liked it here.” Pamela was sure Belva meant more than she was saying.

  “Maybe he did, but not enough to stay. Now go on back to bed. I’ll see he gets this before he leaves.”

  “You need your rest, too.”

  “I’ll catch a nap later. I ought to be here when he leaves. Anyway, I’m not sleepy now.”

  Belva regarded her young mistress skeptically, but she didn’t say any more. There really wasn’t anything to say that Pamela didn’t already know.

  Belva still made no comment when she returned to the kitchen hours later to find Pamela sitting by the window, a cup of coffee at her elbow, her abstracted gaze directed somewhere between the bunkhouse and the corral. Their day proceeded much as it always did, but by the time Slade emerged from the bunkhouse and headed for the corral, Belva had been wishing him gone hours earlier. Pamela never said a word, but Belva could see the strain in her eyes and hear it in her voice. She knew it wouldn’t ease until he was gone.

  Belva barely suppressed a sigh. Pamela wouldn’t be in very good spirits for the next few days, but if she must be disappointed—and it had to happen—then the sooner the better.

  By the time Slade got back to bed, it was nearly four o’clock. His wound made him feel weak and extremely tired. He had intended to get up at dawn, but he didn’t wake until mid-morning. Two more hours passed before he completed his preparations for leaving.

  The hammerhead dun put up a good fight, far too much of one for a man with a wounded shoulder, but Slade didn’t feel any triumph as he prepared to climb into the saddle. On the contrary, he experienced a great sense of loss. Leaving Texas had been easier. What could have gotten such a hold on him in less than twenty-four hours?

  He looked past the house to the lush, green land rising to meet the mountains in the distance and the towering ridges that protected the valley from the drying winds and sand storms. He felt the cool quiet of the spring morning settle all around him, and he had all the reason he needed to want to remain. But he knew his reluctance to leave had its real roots inside the ranch house. He didn’t want to leave Pamela White.

  Slade gave vent to an audible snort of frustration. He couldn’t change the way he felt, but he hadn’t expected his brain to let him down just because his heart chose to act like it belonged to an impetuous adolescent instead of a man of twenty-eight. He would ride out immediately, and in a few days everything would be back to normal. The passing of a dream never came easy, but it hurt less if you never had any hope to begin with.

  He didn’t intend to take advantage of Pamela’s offer of food. He would go back and pick up his own saddle and abandoned supplies. If they were gone, he would kill an antelope or stop at the next ranch, anything to get him off the Bar Double-B as quickly as possible.

  He knew if he gave himself half a chance, he could fall in love with Pamela. About the only thing more stupid would have been to stay in Texas and try to convince a jury he had been set up.

  Yet he couldn’t help but think about what might have been if things had been different? If! His life had been a series of sharp turns, any one of which could have changed everything else. If his father hadn’t taken to drink, If his mother hadn’t deserted them, If Trish hadn’t broken their engagement, If the Whittakers hadn’t stolen his horse, If … well, after that it didn’t much matter what happened. It looked like Fate didn’t intend for the Bar Double-B to lay at the end of his trail.

  With a smothered curse, Slade started to swing up into the saddle. He paused, then he heard a door at the ranch house slam; Pamela had come out of the house and was heading toward him with a package under her arm. He relaxed against the side of his horse but stepped aside just in time to keep the dun from taking a bite out of his good shoulder. He smiled. That girl knew he hadn’t meant to come up to the house, so she decided to bring the food out to him. He wondered how long she’d been watching at the window.

  You had to give it to her. She could out-think just about any man he ever knew, and so far she had done a right fair job outmaneuvering him. He had already started to move in her direction when the sound of an approaching horse halted him in his tracks. He didn’t know why he pulled the hammerhead back around the corner of the barn, but a sixth sense warned him it might be a good idea if he didn’t advertise his presence just yet.

  Pamela had just stepped outside when she saw the approaching rider. It took only a second to recognize Mongo Shepherd, the biggest of the new ranchers to have moved into the area. Pamela groaned. At this moment she would rather see almost anybody else.

  Mongo had arrived in Arizona a year earlier with a fat bankroll, a crew ramrodded by a pugnacious foreman, and enough cattle to overgraze the whole area. Everybody told him to keep going, that he could find plenty of open land farther west or north, but Mongo had taken one look at Pamela White and decided he would stop here. He got a look at Josh White’s valley and decided he had found exactly what he had been looking for.

  Mongo was a big man in every way, and he won acceptance from the other ranchers almost immediately. Eastern born and reared with polished manners and elegant dress, Mongo’s good looks and his tendency to see himself as a white knight in a savage land had all the women panting after him in no time at all. All except Pamela. But Mongo had set his sights on Pamela, and he immediately began a campaign to win her hand. At first he found an ally in Pamela’s father. Josh White knew several men he liked better than Mongo, but he wanted to keep Pamela in Arizona, and he thought the best way to do that would be to marry her to a rancher.

  By the time he decided he didn’t want Mongo for a son-in-law, Pamela knew she didn’t want him for a husband. In fact, Mongo seemed to be the only person who hadn’t figured that out. He treated her polite refusals as a coy invitation to continue his visits and increase his flattery. From the gossip in town, Pamela knew the other ladies had decided Mongo persisted in this hopeless pursuit because he was too arrogant to believe anybody would turn down the chance to become his wife. The men had decided he was just plain dense.

  Pamela didn’t want to see Mongo on this particular morning and would have slipped out of sight if she could. Even less did she want to explain her reasons for giving food to a drifting cowboy.

  Mongo waved to her the minute she stepped out of the house. She waved back and started toward the bunkhouse with quickened steps. If she didn’t invite him in, maybe he wouldn’t stay long.

  She had nearly reached the bunkhouse when he came abreast of her. But even before he opened his mouth, she wished she had waited at the house. It was virtually impossible to miss seeing the charred barn timbers from where they stood.

  “Good morning,” Pamela said before her visitor could speak. “What brings you over this way?” She positioned herself to face the barn forcing Mongo to stand with his back to it.

  “You,” the big man said to her in his deep, rumbling voice. He spoke with a careful deliberation that always irritated Pamela but never more so than this morning. “I’ve been inspecting my herds, and I couldn’t go back to town without coming by to see you and your fat
her.”

  “Dad’s not here. I’m afraid you’ve wasted a trip.”

  “It’s never wasted when I can see you.”

  Pamela had never been able to decide why nearly every word this man spoke annoyed her. When she dreamed of a lover, she dreamed of a man who spoke just such words. When she visualized him riding across the desert to rescue her from the wilds of Arizona, he rode just such a flashy chestnut and wore the same kind of dark suit trimmed in white. But even though Mongo Shepherd came from Boston, rode a horse with Morgan blood, dressed like an Eastern tenderfoot, and courted her with flowery phrases, Pamela didn’t love him.

  “It’s nice of you to drop by, but everybody is away from the house right now. I’m rather busy.”

  “You’re always busy. What is it today? You can’t be holding one of your soul-saving meetings if there’s nobody here.”

  “My mother instituted those gatherings to help instill in our men a sense of right and wrong, of justice, of the importance of what they do in this life,” Pamela said, her words clipped. “And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mock her work.”

  “But you misunderstood me,” Mongo protested quickly. “I admire what you’re doing. In fact, I wanted to ask if my men might come as well. It would do them good to listen to some well-chosen words from someone as lovely as you. I will guarantee their close attention.”

  “I would love to include your men,” Pamela said hoping God wouldn’t punish her for lying, “but there’s not enough room.”

  “But your crew is small.”

  “Dad has hired more men, but I’ll tell him you’re interested.”

  Pamela had been so busy being irritated with herself for telling Mongo about her father’s new hands, she barely caught the momentary flash of surprise and then anger that blazed in his eyes. But a moment later his face was again composed into a look of deep concern.