A
S THEY RODE IN LEWT WATCHED DUNCAN, WYATT, and Sumner all stand, rifles in hand. He saw no sign of the girl Duncan had called Anna and wondered if she’d decided to remain behind.
“Relax, Rangers. It’s just me.” Lewt laughed, glad to see that they’d all made it back.
Duncan limped a little as he rushed to meet them. He was within ten feet of Lewt’s horse when Em jumped down and ran into his arms.
Lewt watched her. He knew that she must know Duncan—after all, her father worked on his family ranch—but he hadn’t quite expected her to be so friendly.
“Duck!” she yelled, as he swung her around laughing. “You’re all right.”
Lewt wore the exhaustion of the day as he climbed down and walked toward them. The contentment he’d felt holding Em shifted to a memory. They were back in the real world, where he was a gambler and she worked with horses, no longer two lonely people who’d found each other for a few short hours in time.
When the ranger finally set her down, Lewt complained, “Watch out, Em, you’ll break his neck.” He tried to smile, but the effort hurt. “You two act like you’re in love.”
“I do love him,” Em shouted. “Though now and then over the years I’ve hated him too. Mama used to say that a wolf pup would have been easier to housebreak than him.”
Duncan kept his arm around her. “I’m glad you came, Em, but if you ever do something so foolish again, I swear I’ll give you that spanking you’re long overdue for. You should be back at the ranch, not here.”
Lewt wasn’t sure he liked any of this. What kind of woman let him touch her and hold her like he’d been doing a few hours ago, then turned around and ran into another man’s arms?
She laughed, looking only at Duncan. “That will be the day, Duck. Rose and I have already planned terrible torture for you for sending houseguests and not even showing up to help entertain them.”
Duncan looked at Lewt. “I didn’t send this one,” he said.
Lewt didn’t miss the edge in Duncan’s tone. The ranger didn’t give up on mad easily.
“I know, but he was the pick of the litter, as it turned out. He was the only one willing to come save your hide. One had his mother to think about first, and the other complained that since he didn’t even know you, he could hardly abandon his ranch on a wild mission across the border. Only Lewt rode with us.”
The look in Duncan’s eyes didn’t soften.
Lewt raised his hand. “Now before you start beating me to a pulp, Duncan, I got to tell you, none of your cousins liked me. You were right, I didn’t fit in. I could barely keep up with the dinner conversation, and the group singalongs almost drove me to drink.”
Duncan raised an eyebrow.
Lewt continued, “I didn’t spend much time with the ladies. In fact, I chose to ride with Em and let her spend the day trying to work me to death rather than sit around with your cousins. No offense. They’re all three beautiful ladies, but they weren’t for me.”
Duncan scratched his head. “Let me get this straight. You got on that train planning to court one of my cousins but ended up not spending time with
any
of them?”
Lewt smiled, thinking he’d finally gotten his point across. “Right. They were sweet ladies, but not one was interested in me. Rose was polite, Beth was sweet, and Emily silent most of the time. I would have been smart to stay in Austin and let Freeport the Fourth take the train. Only, trust me on this, those very proper cousins of yours would have hated him. He couldn’t hold his liquor or his tongue.”
Duncan looked at Em. “Want to explain what this gambler is talking about, Emily?” he asked. “One of you didn’t hit him in the head real hard, did you, because my former friend here seemed to think he hasn’t spent any time with you and Sumner tells me the two of you have been together for a week.”
“She’s not Emily . . .” Lewt froze, his finger pointed at Em. As if lightning had struck him full force, the truth hit him. The times he’d seen Em, Rose, and Beth putting their heads together talking. The way Sumner treated her as if she were the boss. The way she stood up to Wyatt and demanded to come along. She’d said her papa taught her to know horses. Papa was the name the girls called Teagen McMurray.
As the truth hit him, so did the knowledge that he’d been fooled completely—no, tricked. Hell, he’d been conned. He’d forgotten the first rule of reading people. Always look for what they don’t say.
Em stood between the two men even now and didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to. They’d both figured it out. Duck realized his cousins had tricked Lewt, and Lewt realized he’d been fooled by women way out of his league where manipulation was concerned.
Duncan ignored Em and turned to Lewt. “I could use a drink before I kill you. How about you?”
Lewt nodded once. He followed his friend to the camp without glancing at Emily. She’d lied. For more than a week she’d only been pretending. Pretending to be someone she wasn’t. Pretending she was his friend. Pretending more, far more.
He should be furious with her. If he had any pride, he would turn around and yell at her. Tell her what he thought. She must have had some great laughs with her sisters talking about how he told her he was planning to marry a rich wife. He’d even been dupe enough to ask for her help.
No wonder she was always around the house. She had no family in the hills to go home to. She was living right under the same roof, and he was too dumb to know it. She’d played him as no one else had ever played him. And when they were alone, she played him for a fool.
Today, in the shadow of the trees, he’d thought he was falling in love with her. Falling in love for the first time.
Lewt swore under his breath. “Falling in love for the last time. Damn dumb thing to do.”
He didn’t hate her, he hated himself for being so blind. He could have made love to her today, but he hadn’t; he wanted to wait because she was so special. More special than the McMurray girls with their small talk and their lace napkins. His Em was so much more, so much deeper, so much more worth the loving.
Only his Em wasn’t what she appeared to be. She wasn’t his Em, she was Emily McMurray, a rich pampered brat who thought she could play with a man. How she must have laughed at him.
Lewt accepted the bottle from Duncan and downed a third of it.
Duncan laughed. “Slow down there, partner,” he said. “I’ve never known you to drink like that.”
Lewt noticed Em—correction, Emily—step into the circle of light from the fire. Her slender body moved with such grace, even now, that knowing what he knew about her, his hand itched to touch her.
He forced himself to turn away and face Duncan as he downed another drink. “I’m thinking about becoming the town drunk as soon as I can find a town with an opening.” He glared at Em. “You were right, Duncan, I should never have gone to Whispering Mountain. Men like me don’t belong there. While I’m still sober enough, I wish to say I’m deeply sorry to have tricked my way into your plan to marry off your cousins and I wish you more success next time. From my point of view, you’ll need it.”
Duncan took the bottle. “I’d be mad at you, but you seem to have been beat up enough. Don’t feel alone, though; the girls have been playing tricks on me for as long as I can remember. Maybe this time I’ll let you live for what you did back there for me. Besides, you look like a man bent on killing himself.”
He started to offer Lewt the bottle, then thought better of it. “How about we call it even? You got me out of that hell, and apparently you sent yourself into a whole different kind of one.”
They heard a horse ride out, and all turned.
“Where’s Wyatt going?” Lewt asked.
“He’s running patrol down by the water. It’s unlikely, but Toledo might send a few of her guards to find us. I really doubt it, though. I wasn’t worth that much to her. My guess is she’ll cut her losses, and tomorrow it’ll be business as usual around Three Forks.”
“Where is the girl?” Lewt asked. “Didn’t she make the trip with you?”
Duncan nodded. “She’s over there curled up asleep in the dark. It seems she likes me all right, but she’s afraid of Sumner and Wyatt. She watches them as if she thinks they might attack her at any moment. So after supper, I finally sat with her and got her to sleep. It’s really sad to think that the only time she feels safe is when she’s locked in a room.”
“What are you going to do with her?”
Duncan shook his head. “If she has people, I can’t get her to talk and tell me where they might be. My guess is she doesn’t have anyone, or she wouldn’t have been with the witch. She’s so young, she’ll need folks to take her in and take care of her.”
“Duncan.” Wyatt’s voice echoed through the night air. He’d ridden out on a horse a few minutes before, but now he dismounted and walked back toward the fire.
Both men looked up as Wyatt’s shadow continued to come closer, as if he didn’t want to yell.
“You need to come with me.” Wyatt pointed with his head. “I found a horse out here.”
Lewt grinned. “We found your Shadow, but she wouldn’t come within fifty feet of us. I guess she followed us over.”
Duncan ran to Lewt’s horse and took off. “Thanks,” he yelled back at Lewt.
Lewt managed a smile. “Got any coffee?” he asked Sumner as he warmed by the fire.
“Yep,” Sumner said. “And there’s stew in the pot. We figured you two would be in sometime tonight, so we left it warming.”
Em didn’t look at Lewt as she helped herself to the stew. She’d been so quiet he’d almost forgotten she was there.
Lewt watched her out of the corner of his eye. He was starving, but he wasn’t going to ask her to pass him a bowl or get anywhere close to the pot until she moved away. He didn’t want to be in the same state with her, much less around the same campfire. The sisters would probably put their heads together and have a great laugh when she got back home and told them what a fool she’d made out of the gambler.
He’s spent his life reading people. It didn’t seem possible that those three could have fooled him. Thinking back, he knew the signs were there, he’d just been too distracted to notice.
The night seemed suddenly very quiet. The fire crackled and now and then an owl hooted from somewhere beyond the light. Sumner banged around the camp collecting cups and tossing out bedrolls. When Em moved away, Lewt filled his bowl and sat as far away from her as he could manage and still be in the light of the fire. He ate without tasting the food.
Finally, the old man seemed to have had enough of the silence. Sumner stood halfway between them and cleared his throat. “I’ve watched you two for a week,” he said, without looking at either one of them. “It surprised the hell out of me, but you seemed to get along. Now, the way I see it is, neither one of you has enough friends to lose one over a minor lie. Lewt, you lied to get introduced to a McMurray, and Miss Em, you lied so you wouldn’t have to meet him. In my book that means the lies cancel each other out.”
“Nobody asked for your opinion.” Lewt said.
“It’s none of your business,” Em added, as she began scraping the dishes clean.
Sumner swore and moved toward his horse. “Think I’ll ride out and talk to that devil of a horse Duck rides. He’s better company than you two.”
Before either of them could say anything, he was gone.
Lewt stood staring at the fire for a long while, and then he rummaged through the packs and found the clothes he’d bought when he’d gone to Anderson Glen with Em. He began stripping off the remains of his wrinkled muddy suit as he remembered how they’d had fun eating in the café. She’d been pretending to be a man then—and not doing a very good job of it, as he remembered.
He wasn’t surprised when he heard Em’s sharp voice. “You’re not going to undress in front of the fire, are you?”
“Why not? No one’s here and you’ve seen me before.”
She turned her back. “That doesn’t mean I want to see you again.”
“Well, as soon as I can get out of here, lady, you’ ll never have to see me again, so you might as well take a last look.” He stripped down to his skin and grabbed the warm work shirt. “I can’t believe I was just a game to you ladies. What did you do, decide which one of you was going to play me? Tell me, did the short straw get me, or was it more like a vote to see who had to play the charade?”
Em turned her head toward him, squealed, and turned back around.
Lewt smiled. “Now you know, darling, what I look like all over.”
“I already knew,” she shot back. “I saw you sleeping in the bath.”
He pulled on his heavy twill trousers. “I don’t care.”
She faced him as he buckled his belt and reached for his coat. “I’m not the only one who lied here, Paterson, so get off that high horse. Your whole life story was a lie.”
“You’re right, Miss Emily. I lied to try to make a dream come true. I wanted the normal life everyone else seems to have. But you, you lied for the fun of it. Just a little trick you played at my expense. Tell me, did Boyd and Davis know? Were they in on the game? Sumner must have been and all the other hands. And sweet-little-always-sewing Emily or whatever her name is, did she just go along, or did you pay her?”
Em frowned. “We paid her, but she’s a friend; she would have helped just because I asked her to. Her real name is Tamela. Everyone always said we looked alike in school, and she was between husbands at the moment, so she thought it would be fun.”
“I don’t give a damn,” he yelled.
“Don’t you dare swear at me.” She moved a few feet closer.
“Why? Hasn’t anyone ever yelled at the rich little Miss Emily McMurray before? I find that hard to believe, as irritating as you are most of the time.”
She raised her hand to slap him, and he caught her wrist in midair. For a blink he saw fear flash in her eyes, and he realized she thought he might hit her.
He dropped her hand and stepped away, all the anger knocked out of him without a blow. If he ever got through hating himself, he decided he’d hate her for a while. All the years he was growing up he’d always thought of himself as worthless; everyone including his parents treated him so. With one look she’d told him what she thought of him. She agreed with the majority. She thought he might be the kind of man who hurt women, the lowest kind of man.