Ryan's Hand (16 page)

During the drive back to the house, Jeth flicked a glance over the silk blouse and tailored slacks that she had chosen for the outing and remarked, “If you plan to be here during the winter, you'll need some new ranch clothes. Tomorrow take the Continental and go see Miss Emma again.”

“You'll probably think me a coward, Mr. Langston, but I'd rather wear the rags I have than have another encounter with Miss Emma. Besides, I don't have any money.”

The Texan looked at her in surprise. “What about Ryan's money?”

“That's just it—it's Ryan's money.”

“Don't feel guilty about spending it now. You've earned it. If you're disinclined to spend it, consider it payment for your work while you've been at La Tierra. You've certainly earned more than your room and board. Marfa isn't the only place around here to buy clothes. You can go a few miles farther the other way to Alpine and shop. No one will know who you are if I'm not with you.”

“Who will clean the stables?” she asked, more for his reaction than anything. A warm little glow had begun in the center of her heart.

“No one as well as you,” he answered, surprising her still further, even though his mouth remained stern and his eyes on the road straight ahead. “However, I told you that you'd keep that job until I needed you more somewhere else. I need you in the study.”

Instantly on guard, she faced him. “Doing what?”

Jeth laughed shortly. “Why, Miss Martin, what a suspicious mind you have! I want to take advantage of your skills as a librarian, not you. My library is in chaos. It's time the books and papers were put in some kind of order. Will you please see to it for the next few weeks?”

It was a command couched in a request, Cara knew, but how much nicer to tell her like that than in the high-handed fashion he usually used with her. “What about the fields? Am I still to work out there?”

“Pepe will be putting them to bed for the winter. He won't need you for that. Your talents will be put to better use in the study. You'll begin Tuesday. Take tomorrow off and take your time looking around Alpine. There's a museum there that might interest you and a fairly good restaurant where you can get a decent lunch. Write me a check for the amount you think you'll need, and I'll leave you cash for it on the hall table. Also a map of the town and my keys to the car.”

He thinks of everything, Cara thought, happy for the opportunity to have a change in her routine. She had only been off the ranch one time with Jeth, and tomorrow would be an especially nice time to get away: it was her birthday.

The fall roundup was in progress and Jeth Langston had been gone from the ranch over three weeks. Cara thought about him constantly as she indexed and catalogued the valuable collection of books in his study. Her suggestion that Ryan's books from upstairs also be included had earned her a silent look of gratitude from the rancher that had warmed her heart for days. “How ridiculous!” she chided herself. “After all, I'm doing
him
a favor, not the other way around!” But she spent hours lost in the scrapbooks and photograph albums depicting the Langston family and the history of the ranch. By the time she had indexed them with the other memorabilia and documents, she felt intimately knowledgeable about every Langston who had ever been, including Jeth. He was impossible to imagine as an infant, but Cara found that indeed he had been one, and, from the photographs, held lovingly and often on his beautiful mother's lap.

Touching Jeth through the photographs, learning about him in the articles and clippings she read, made her miss him terribly, with a craving that gnawed at her heart and violated her sleep. She longed for him to return to the ranch, if only briefly, as he had during the spring roundup, leaving Jim in charge. Just a glimpse of his tall figure striding toward the house from the landing strip would be enough. She could content herself with that.

Cara was puzzled that she had not seen Jim since their broken date. The foreman had been in the mountains with the roundup for the remuda when she returned from her shopping trip to Alpine, but she thought it strange that he hadn't sought her out to offer an explanation before he left for the October cattle drive.

She was sitting in the living room playing the Steinway when she sensed Jeth's presence. Her fingers stilled over the keys, her shoulders tensed in anticipation of her joy before she turned on the bench to find him watching her, the black Stetson, now returned for the winter, pushed back on his dark head. Quietly she pulled the cover down over the keyboard. “Hello,” she said, turning back to him. The interrupted notes of “Clair de Lune” hung in the air as they stared at each other.

Slowly Jeth said, “I haven't heard Debussy played like that since…well, in a long time,” he amended. “How have you been?”

Lonely, Cara wanted to say, but she spoke calmly, giving him a slight smile. “Busy. The library is finished.”

“I'll go up and change and then you can show it to me. We'll have a drink together.” He did not wait for her to answer but left the room, the welcome sound of his black boots striking the tiled floor.

While Jeth changed, Cara decided to run out to the Feed-trough to see Leon. She had missed the dear old fellow. Like Jim, she had not seen him since her return to the ranch from her day's outing, not having wanted to interfere with his preparations to ready the chuckwagon for the roundup.

A half hour after speaking with Leon, she stormed across the ranch yard into the house to Jeth Langston's study. A small balled fist rapped sharply on the door, and when Jeth called, “Come in,” Cara opened the door, not bothering to close it after her, and marched up to the rancher with blazing eyes and heaving chest. “You are insufferable!” she announced to the startled Texan. “How could you fire Jim Foster just because he asked me out!”

Jeth regarded her without speaking, all expression in the gray eyes slowly fading. Then he calmly returned to the task of pouring their drinks. “Here,” he said, handing her a glass of wine. “Maybe that will settle you down.” His eyes fell to the low opening of her blouse, then traveled back to her face. “You still have a tan,” he observed, “and your hair is still sun streaked. What have you been doing to get so much sun?”

Struggling to gain control of her temper, Cara set the glass of wine down untasted. “I've been helping Pepe,” she answered. “With so many men gone on the roundup, he needed help. This Indian summer has kept everything out there growing and productive. Now, Mr. Langston—”

“I didn't tell you to work out there,” he interrupted. “You take too much on yourself, Miss Martin.”

“Mr. Langston, don't change the subject. How could you fire Jim because of me? He'd been with you for years and was an excellent foreman. No wonder you didn't get away from the roundup like you did in the spring…” Cara bit her lip. She hadn't meant to say that.

Jeth's brows raised. “So you noticed?” He took a sip of his drink, considering her over its rim. “Jim meant to weave his way into your affections, Miss Martin. I don't mean to shatter any illusions you might have concerning his feelings for you, but you could have been as plain as a fence post, and he would have done the same. He had in mind to convince you not to sell your share of La Tierra to me; then he meant to put himself in charge of running one-half of my ranch.”

Cara knew Jeth spoke the truth. It was all as clear to her now as the straight nose on his hard, handsome face. There had been something basically self-serving in the foreman's character, an opportunistic streak that she had dimly suspected. But what really hurt was to know that Jeth thought Jim could have succeeded. That was why he had kept her busy the evening Jim was fired. That was why he had taken her out on the range all the next day, had sent her to Alpine to shop and sightsee the day after.

Another thought struck her. Jeth had never been jealous of Jim at all! He had only been fearful that his foreman would gain an inside track on her affections, a possibility that might have cost him half of his beloved La Tierra.

Her fists still balled, Cara wanted to strike at the ruthless face that she loved with all of her heart and soul. “You didn't have to pretend that you wanted me to have some new clothes, Mr. Langston, in order to prevent Jim from seeing me after you fired him. I wouldn't have turned over Ryan's share of the ranch to him, no matter how much you'd like to believe otherwise.” Tears stung her eyes. “I don't feel like showing you the library tonight. If you will excuse me—”

She was halfway to the door when Jeth's words stopped her. “I sent you to Alpine because it was your birthday.”

Cara was sure her feelings were expressed in the tensing of her shoulders, the halting of her footsteps. Because she knew her face would betray her, she did not turn around. “How did you know?”

“I know everything about you, Miss Martin. The detective, remember?”

“Oh, yes.” All he needed to know of her, he was saying, could be reduced to a few pages in a file folder.

The rancher had come up behind her. “Turn around, Miss Martin.” When she did, he saw the sheen of tears in her eyes. “Are those for Jim?”

Let him think so, she thought. “I feel responsible. If I hadn't been here, then this wouldn't have happened.”

“Many things would not have happened if you had not been here, Miss Martin. Believe me, Jim is a minor casualty.”

The tears dried in Cara's eyes. She understood what he was implying. He hated her very presence on La Tierra. Well, he needn't worry that she would impose herself on him in the future. She would stay completely out of his way. He would not set eyes on her again, not if she could help it. On the day her promise to Ryan was fulfilled, she would quietly disappear. He wouldn't even know what had happened to her, nor would he care, for on that day the papers would arrive releasing her claim to the ranch, and he would be free to marry.

“I dislike you intensely, Mr. Langston,” Cara said bitterly. At the moment, it was the truth.

“I am aware of that, Miss Martin. It's such a shame.”

Without a word, she turned and left him standing in the middle of the paneled room, a tall, forceful figure who gazed after her long after she was gone.

As winter approached, the shorter days made it more difficult for Cara to avoid the owner of La Tierra Conquistada. Twilight came early and fell fast, halting the ranch activities that kept Jeth out of the house. Having no assigned duties and finding solace in work, Cara volunteered her now-coveted services where they were needed. She helped Homer in the stables and Leon in the Feedtrough, ignoring Jeth when he happened to appear unexpectedly. For convenience, she had to bring Lady back to the smaller stable for the winter, where Jeth's bay was stalled, and resigned herself to the anguish she felt when their paths crossed there.

Still, because he was essentially a man of routine, she was able to chart his comings and goings with some accuracy, and the two of them rarely met. For Cara, the long hours before bedtime were the hardest to fill. Occasionally she watched television with Fiona in the housekeeper's suite of rooms off the kitchen. In her own room she studied Spanish, which she was now able to speak with increasing fluency. She wrote her once-a-week letter to Harold St. Clair and read the best sellers and classics she got from the traveling bookmobile that stopped at the ranch every Tuesday.

Cara looked forward to the arrival of the bookmobile each week. She had become friendly with Honoria Sanchez, the gentle Mexican woman who was its driver. Honoria was also a librarian, and Cara enjoyed their professional chats.

Thanksgiving came and went and La Tierra began to gear itself for the Christmas holidays.

“They won't be nearly as exciting as in years past,” Fiona grumbled in the kitchen one morning. “Señor Ryan is gone and El Patrón will spend the holidays in Dallas.”

With the Jeffers, Cara conjectured, and why not? They must be like family to him, and with this the first Christmas without Ryan…Sympathy for Jeth lay in her heart for days before she found the nerve to go to his study one evening after dinner.

He had expected Fiona, as was evident by the surprised lift of his brows, the unblinking stare with which he regarded her entrance into his sanctuary. “Why, Miss Martin—” He spoke ironically. “To what do I owe the unexpected pleasure of this visit?” He rose languidly from the wingback chair to greet her, but not before his posture had suggested to Cara that he had been deeply sunk in his thoughts, his gaze lost in the fire that burned brightly in the limestone fireplace.

Cara's hands fidgeted at her sides. “Uh, Mr. Langston, I—I would like to discuss with you your plans for Christmas. Or rather, that is…
my
plans for Christmas.”

“Sit down, Miss Martin,” Jeth invited, indicating the other chair next to the fireplace. “You have plans for Christmas? I had thought you would be staying here.”

“Yes, well, you see, that's what I want to talk to you about.” She was acutely embarrassed. She had to moisten her lips to go on, a gesture that brought the lids half down over Jeth's eyes. “Fiona has told me that ordinarily when…Ryan was alive, you stayed home for Christmas and that the ranch hosted many festivities and parties. This year I understand that you are going to Dallas to be with your…fiancée's family—”

“My fiancée?” Jeth raised up in his chair, his expression instantly alert. “Who told you about my fiancée?”

So it is true, Cara thought, a hand squeezing her heart. “I read of your engagement in the Dallas
Morning News
,” she answered, amazed to hear the steadiness of her voice. How is it possible that the dead can speak? “I'm afraid you're leaving because of me, that you'd be entertaining if I weren't here. If I go away for several weeks, your normal holiday activities won't have to be interrupted. Mr. Langston—” Cara raised an imploring hand when she saw Jeth about to interrupt. “I would like to do this for Ryan's sake. I can't bear for his brother to have to go somewhere else to spend Christmas because of me.”