Much Ado About Mavericks (34 page)

“And you?”

“I’m finishing the roundup.”

Stubborn man.
  “Then I’ll stay.”

“I’m not marrying you, Patience.  I want that senior partnership, but I’m not marrying you.”

Yes, he would!
  Daddy wanted this marriage and so did she.  She just hoped she could get him to say his vows before she was positive she was with child.  “I’ll wait.”

“You’ll wait a long time.  I’m going to bed.”  And he left her standing there, all alone, in the hostile wilderness.  She sniffed, then picked up her skirts and went back to her tent.

Tomorrow, he’d never know what hit him.

*   *   *   *   *

The next morning, Jake readied herself for another day.  But it wasn’t just another day—Miss Patience Morris would turn the whole place upside down if she had her way.  Which she wouldn’t.

Luckily, the lazy woman hadn’t come out of her tent, yet.  She could rot in there for all Jake cared.  Because when she came out, Jake knew the men would fall all over themselves to do whatever Patience wanted.

Jake made her plan, then called the crew together.  “Boys, we got a job to do.  Make no mistake about it—that don’t include entertaining uninvited guests.  The first man that comes within fifty feet of her, I’m docking him a day’s wages.  Got that?”

The men grumbled like she knew they would.  “Don’t worry,
Wilson
’s called in plenty of whores for the week we get back.  Ain’t none of you gonna go without any.”

They whistled and cheered. 

“All right, let’s get on with it.  You all know your jobs.”
 
She saddled the strawberry roan, filled her canteen, and grabbed her day’s grub from Whip. 

On her way back from the chuckwagon, she saw Ben saddle Henry’s horse, then lift the little girl into the seat and adjust the stirrups.  Henry leaned over and gave Ben a big squeeze around the neck.

Jake smiled, all mushy inside at Ben’s tenderness to the strays.  He’d be a good father.  She rode to them and asked Henry, “You ready to ride?”

“Yup!  Ben even brought me some . . .” her gaze darted from side to side, and she whispered, “horehound candy.”  She covered her mouth and giggled.  “I ain’t sharing it with the boys.  Ben said I don’t have to.”

Ben mounted his own horse and rode alongside Jake.  He leaned close to her and whispered, “Don’t worry, I gave Teddy and Homer some, too.”  In a louder voice he said, “I’ll see you later.  I’m roping today.”

“Ben!” 

Jake saw Patience standing in front of her tent, waving.

“Oh, Ben!”

Jake almost laughed when Henry rolled her eyes.  The girl tugged on Ben’s sleeve.  “You better get over there and see what she wants, Ben.”

“Hell, no.  I’m not getting docked a day’s pay.”  He spurred his horse to a gallop, heading for the herd.

“See that, Henry?”

“Yup, Ben got away from that woman before she could put her hook in him.”

“Naw, that ain’t it.  Don’t never gallop your horse without warming him up first, lest it’s life and death.”

Henry watched Ben’s dust as he galloped away.  “I think it was.”

*   *   *   *   *

Ezra snorted, smiling at his near victory.  For once, that idiot Fred had been right—Ben had a woman after him.  And this particular woman had that steely manner about her. Ezra knew she wouldn’t settle for less than what she wanted, and she must want that no-good Ben pretty bad.  He chuckled.  She didn’t look like the type of woman who enjoyed life in the country.

He spurred his horse, taking off for the meeting place, Rastin following.  Ten minutes later, they pulled into a little box canyon in an area that had already been scoured for cattle. 

Fred tipped his hat.  “Howdy, boss.”

Ezra got right to the point.  “I want you and Rastin to stampede the herd tonight.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And I don’t want no foul-ups like you did with the horses.  Hell, that didn’t even set ‘em back a day.”

Fred’s horse whinnied and kicked up a little dirt.  Ezra thought Fred looked a little nervous himself.  “What’s the matter, boy?”

“We got women in the camp.  They might get hurt.”

“What women?”

“Your wife and daughter.  And Miss Patience Morris, the one I told you about last time.”

“What the hell are they doing in a roundup camp?  That’s no place for a woman.”

“I know it, boss, but Miss Morris, well, she’s damned determined to snare that son of yours.  I hear tell that if he don’t marry her, he won’t get some high-falutin’ promotion where he does his lawyering in
Boston
.”

Ezra thought for a moment, then said, “Miss Morris just might help us out.  Meet me here, same time, day after tomorrow.”  To Rastin, he said, “Let’s go.”

He kicked his horse into a gallop, leaving in a different direction than he came from.  Fred didn’t need to know where to find him.

Chapter 17

Sweat ran down Ben’s face as he tossed the loop around another calf.  He’d worked himself and the men hard this cool mid-October morning.  Dallying, he turned the calf while Jake roped its heels.  After the men branded the calf and removed the ropes from its head and feet, it bounded back to the herd, greeted by its anxious mother.

The morning grew late, and he knew he needed to confront Patience before the men came back to camp for the noon break.  He rode up to Jake.  “I have to make su
re Patience went back to town
.”

Jake nodded, then motioned for one of the other cowhands to take over Ben’s job.  “Make sure she gets good and gone.”

He tipped his hat and reined his horse around, then stopped, facing her.  “Jake, I’m staying.”  She gazed into his eyes, and into his soul.  “With you.”

“We’ll see.”  She spurred her horse and twirled the loop, aiming for another calf that Henry and Teddy had cut out of the herd.  Ben couldn’t help but watch a minute.  One thing he admired above all other qualities—being the best at what you do. 

And Jake was the best at
everything
she did.

He galloped back to camp, slowing only a few hundred yards away in order not to kick up too much dust.  Whip got downright testy when he had to serve dirt with the beans.  But the cook wasn’t who he worried about at that moment.  Patience seemed determined to bring him back to
Boston
.

Well, he wouldn’t go.  Not now.  He had a job to do, he said he would do it, and he would.  Nothing would stop him.

He swung off his horse and unsaddled him.  He’d worked hard enough for one day.  He took his time leading the paint to the remuda, then ambled to Patience’s tent.

Clearing his throat, he called, “Patience!”

She opened the tent flap and smiled.  She had spent a lot of time carefully arranging her blonde curls, he saw, and wore a tasteful yellow dress, probably the latest fashion from
Paris
.  “Come in.”

To the lion’s den?
  “No, you come out here.”

“It’s much more comfortable in here.  You can sit on the trunk and we can have tea.”

“I have no time for that.  Come out, Patience.  Now.”

She emerged from the tent with a winning smile.  “Are you ready to go back to
Boston
?”

Resisting the urge to grab her by the arms and shake that false smile off her face, he replied, “I told you when I’d be back.  I also told you that I am
not
marrying you.  Ever.” 

“Oh, you will.”  She opened her parasol and held it over her head.  “You want that senior partnership too badly.”

“I want you out of here, Patience.  Today.”

“Why, Benjamin, I can’t possibly do that.”  She tilted her head and gazed at him in a way that would have been attractive two months before, but not now.  “Reginald has ridden out with a group of your men.  I do believe he wants to be a cowhand when he grows up.”  She tittered, the sound grated on Ben.  “Silly brother.”

“You two are leaving in the morning, if I have to get one of my own men to drive the carriage.”  He stomped off, afraid of what else he might say or do.

Every single time he’d had contact with her since coming to
Idaho
Territory
, he grew more puzzled that he’d ever even considered marrying her.  Back in
Boston
, he’d never noticed how she manipulated and controlled others.  He noticed now, and he would
not
dance to her tune. 

He saddled a dun and headed back to the herd in none too much of a hurry.  Frustrated beyond reason, he couldn’t seem to get the fact that he’d never be Patience’s husband through her thick skull.

He caught a glimpse of yellow in a stand of junipers by the creek, then heard a giggle.  Dismounting, he groundtied the horse and crept to the edge of the water.  Hearing another giggle downstream, he followed the sound.

What he saw, he could have gone his whole damned life without seeing.  He cleared his throat.  His s
ister, flushed and gasping, spra
ng away from Reginald.

Gritting his teeth, Ben rested his hand on his Colt and glowered at the womanizing profligate.  “Leave. My. Sister. Alone.”

Suzanne ran up to him, frowning, “Oh, Ben!  He’s not doing anything wrong.  He’s courting me.”

Ben pushed her away and glared at Reginald again.  “The hell he is.”

“Now, Ben, old fellow, my intentions are perfectly honorable.  Your sister is a beautiful woman and I think it would be quite interesting for sister and brother to marry sister and brother.  Why, our chil—”

“Shut up.”  He had all he could do to keep from throttling the bastard.  “Don’t touch her again.”  He grabbed Suzanne by the arm.  “You’re coming with me.”

She yanked back.  “I am not!  I’m twenty-two years old and quite capable of making my own decisions.”  She raised her chin.  “Reginald has proposed.”

“Oh, so he has proposed, has he?”  He sneered and caught her arm again.  “Do you have any idea how many women he has proposed to?  They let him have his way with them, then the next morning, all they have to show for it is a nice little bauble—or large bauble, depending on who her daddy is.  I refuse to allow you to be treated that way.”

Reginald stepped forward.  “That’s not how it is, Ben.  I think the world of Suzanne.  What she says is true, I want her for my wi—”

“You want her for what’s under her petticoats.”

Reginald’s nostrils flared.  “Benjamin Lawrence, I challenge you to a duel over the love of my fair lady.  Epée.”

Ben thought Suzanne would swoon on the spot.  Nearly nauseous with anger, Ben narrowed his eyes.  “You’re on.  Tomorrow morning.  Dawn.”

Only after he’d hauled Suzanne back to camp did he remember that his sword-cane was at the Bar EL. 

*   *   *   *   *

Jake took her plate of grub and hollered at the strays to join her down by the creek.  She damned well wasn’t about to let that syrupy blonde spoil her supper.

While she waited for the kids, Whip walked up and said, “Lots of cows this year.”

Nodding, she said, “And the camp crew have kept up with them.  Most all the herd’s been done to whatever needed done to them.  Hell, I figger we only got a week left.”

“Damn, I don’t ever remember it lasting less than a month.”

“Me, neither.”

“Got any reason for that?”

She spotted the strays walking gingerly, careful not to spill the food off their plates.  “Yeah, there’s a reason.  We got the best damned cow man I ever saw on the crew.”

“Ben’s that good?”

“Never seen a man what had such good cow sense.”

“Does he know that?”

She shrugged, happy that the strays got there just in time to prevent Whip from asking any more questions that she didn’t want to answer.  “C’mon, strays.  Let’s go have us a picnic.”

Henry stuck her nose in the air.  “We can’t have a picnic, silly.  Picnics are
only
on Monday.”

Jake ruffled the girl’s hair, wondering where the hell she got that rule, and said, “I must’ve forgot to tell you—I changed today to Monday.  Picnic day.”

“Yup,” Teddy said with a stiff nod.  “And she ain’t never wrong.”

“That’s right,” Homer agreed.  “Jake made it Monday, just for us.”

One side of Henry’s mouth tilted up.  “Well,” she said slowly, “I do like picnics.”

Jake was glad of that, because eating supper at the camp was out of the question.  Not that she wanted to avoid Patience—she’d love to see what that ninny could do in an honest fight.  But Ben, well, she couldn’t bear to look at him and wonder what it would have been like to have partnered up with him.  Maybe even have a few strays of their own.

She knew he cared for her—liked her—but she also knew that his eye was on that high paying lawyering job.  He’d leave her as soon as roundup was over and go back to
Boston
.  No, she had no worries or jealousy over Patience, but that job, well, Jake couldn’t compete with that.  And wouldn’t.