Texas Tender (7 page)

“How can she be perfect for me when she thinks she's in love with you just because you kept a drunk from kissing her?” Carl countered.

Will thought he'd done a little more than that, but his reputation wasn't the issue here. “I only stepped in because no one else was helping her.”

“Van would have stopped Newt,” Mara said. “He's not afraid of anybody.”

“Van is a spoiled, selfish brute who's not smart enough to know when he's in danger,” Carl said. “He'll get himself killed just like Webb did.”

“How dare you say that about my brother!” Mara said and burst into tears.

Will looked at Carl for an explanation. “Webb thought he could ride anything with hair,” Carl said, then turned to Mara. “He wouldn't have been on that
horse if he hadn't been showing off for his new girlfriend after he'd ditched Idalou.”

“He wouldn't have ditched her if she'd stopped accusing my father of being behind everything bad that happens on your ranch.”

Remembering his own desolation when Jake had nearly died from a gunshot wound, Will felt some empathy for Mara. Still, he was horrified to find himself in the middle of a squabble that was dragging up family skeletons faster than a grave robber. He didn't know what to do to calm these tempestuous waters—Isabelle was the peacemaker in the family, even if she had to use a big stick to do it, but Isabelle was far away.

“Look, kids—”

“We're not kids.” Mara and Carl turned in unison and glared at him. “We're eighteen.”

“Then stop acting like you're eighteen
months,
” Will shot back. “You're not going to solve anything by dragging up things to blame on each other.”

“I don't have to drag up things.” Mara eyed Carl angrily even though she was speaking to Will. “He and his sister keep handing them to me.” When she spun around to face Will, all traces of anger had vanished. “Don't forget to come early to supper. Mama's had me tell her at least half a dozen times how you saved me. She can't wait to thank you in person.” She flashed a brilliant smile filled with defiance at Carl. “I have something special for you,” she said, speaking to Will again.

“You're a low-down, rotten sneak,” Carl fired at Will the moment Mara went through the office door. “You're a belly-crawling snake, a yella coyote, a—”

“Hold on before you run out of interesting things to call me,” Will said, relieved to have just an irate
young man to deal with. “I'm none of those things and wouldn't be if I had the chance.”

“What do you call a
skunk
who makes up to another man's girl by having dinner with her parents?”

“Dinner is part of my payment for being sheriff. I wasn't going to set myself up to get shot at and have to eat bad food in the bargain.”

“Don't go,” Carl said.

“Are you going to cook supper for me?”

Carl looked stunned that the idea would even occur to Will.

“I didn't think so. And you can get shut of the idea that Mara's in love with me.”

“I wouldn't have to
get shut of it
,” Carl snapped, “if you'd minded your own business.”

“So you think I should have let Newt have his way with Mara.”

“Of course not, but—”

“There's no
but
about it,” Will snapped impatiently. “Besides, how was I to know you and Mara were having a fight and she'd turn to me as the answer to her prayers?”

“She's just bowled over by your looks,” Carl said, scowling. “Every female in Dunmore is. Even my sister.”

That stopped Will in his tracks. He hadn't gotten off to a very good start with Idalou, but that hadn't affected his eyesight. Idalou was a damned fine-looking woman. A little too spirited, mind you, but he'd entertained thoughts of a few strolls in the moonlight. Just because he didn't want to get married didn't mean he wanted to turn in his tickets to the dance. “Your sister thinks I'm nice-looking?”

“No guy has a chance with you parading around looking like some fancy actor in one of them shows I
saw in Fort Worth. You wouldn't be so popular if you had my face.”

Carl still looked like a teenager, but he had muscles on those broad shoulders and a tan from working in the sun. He'd soon develop into a man women would definitely give a second glance. “There's nothing wrong with your looks,” Will said.

“Yes, there is. I don't look like you.”

“If you looked like me, you'd have to
be
like me, and that would get you in all kinds of trouble. Would you have let yourself be talked into being sheriff of a town you'd never seen the day before?”

“Hell, no. That's stupid.”

Will shrugged. “There you go. You wouldn't want to be stupid. Mara wouldn't like that. Idalou wouldn't like it, either.”

“I wouldn't care if I was stupid if Mara would marry me.”

Will hadn't grown up with nine older brothers without recognizing the signs of a lovesick kid. Left alone, Carl would probably just make things worse. “Sit down,” Will said. “Being angry with me isn't going to solve anything.”

“Nothing can fix things,” Carl moaned, charging across the small office. “Mara hates me, and we'll lose the ranch because I can't find the bull.”

“Sit down,” Will said. “I can't think with all this activity.”

Carl threw himself into a chair next to Will's desk and dropped his head in his hands.

“Women are a peculiar breed,” Will said. “They have this way of making a man think his life isn't worth a bent horseshoe unless he can corral one for himself, but they don't make it easy. They don't mean to be so contrary, but they can't help themselves.”

“What are you talking about?” Carl demanded without looking up.

“Women want to get married, but it goes against their nature to make it easy for you. Chances are, Mara decided you were the one the moment she set eyes on you, but did she let you know that?”

“No. I was mooning after her for months before she'd even talk to me.”

“Exactly.” Will came around the desk and leaned against it with arms crossed. “They set it up so you have to do all the work. Then if anything goes wrong, it's your fault because you were pursuing them, not the other way around.”

“But men are supposed to pursue women. Any woman who went after a man would be considered loose.”

“And who made up that rule?”

Carl looked blank.

“Women. You won't see a man objecting if a loose woman takes a shine to him. No sirree. He'll consider himself a lucky devil and dive right in.”

“I don't want a loose woman,” Carl protested. “I just want Mara.”

Will decided this wasn't the time to describe some of the attractions of loose women. “And she wants you,” Will said. “I'm sure of it.”

“She sure has a funny way of showing it.”

“I know this is hard for you, but try looking at it from her viewpoint.”

“You don't have to tell me I'm not rich like Van or handsome like you.”

“That's not what I was going to say,” Will said, restraining his impatience. “Now, here's an attractive young woman caught between two handsome men. She likes you very much and wants to marry you, but you're not rich and her parents disapprove. Van, however,
is rich and her parents do want her to marry him. She doesn't, so she's at an impasse.”

“I tried to get her to run away, but she won't.”

“Of course she won't. She'd miss out on all the drama and on a bang-up wedding. Now, imagine this impressionable young woman is suddenly rescued by a handsome stranger who just happens to be the son of a rich man. Naturally, she'll think she's fallen in love with him. She wouldn't be a woman if she didn't.”

“I don't see how any of this is going to help me,” Carl moaned. “If she wants to marry you, and her parents want her to marry you, I don't have a chance.”

A shiver of fear ran down Will's spine. If he left town now, he'd miss dinner but be spared a wife. But he wanted to buy the bull, so he'd better get things straightened out first.

“Mara doesn't want to marry me. Do you think she'd have gotten so mad at you if she did? She overreacted and is probably now wishing she hadn't said anything to her parents about marrying me. She's in a quandary. How can she marry you and save face doing it?”

“She can't,” Carl moaned.

“Certainly she can.”

“How?” Carl asked, hopeful.

“That's what you have to figure out.”

Carl looked deflated. “I thought you had an answer.”

“Hell, I don't understand females. They scare me to death. We'll have to put our heads together to figure out something. And while we're doing it, we have to find that bull.”

“I've looked everywhere,” Carl said.

“Well, there's one place you haven't looked.”

“Where is that?”

“Where he is. Once you figure that out, you'll have the money to keep your ranch, I'll take the bull and leave town, Mara will marry you, and everybody will live happily ever after.”

Carl didn't look convinced.

“Come on,” Will said. “I need to work off some of Mrs. Davis's breakfast. You can show me what's so wonderful about this hot-as-hell part of Texas that makes everybody determined to stay here.”

“I need to know what will happen if I'm late with the next payment on Dad's loan,” Idalou said to Lloyd Severns. She hated having to admit to anyone that she couldn't meet the loan payment on time, but it was better to know what she was up against than to find out when it was too late to do anything about it.

“Why will you be late?” Lloyd looked like a banker. Married at twenty-five, he wore a black suit, kept a punctual schedule, and was unflappable.

“I can't find the bull.”

“When do you expect to find him?”

“Any minute. Carl is out looking for him now.”

Lloyd opened a drawer, looked for and found a folder, which he laid open on his desk. “You haven't been very regular with your payments in the past.”

“You know how much trouble we've had since Mom and Dad died. It seems like everything that happens around Dunmore hits us worse than anybody else.”

“That's because your place is so small you don't have any margin for safety,” Lloyd pointed out. “You ought to sell the ranch and move into town.”

“And let Jordan McGloughlin win?”

Lloyd sighed and closed the folder. “I know there are bad feelings between you and Jordan, Idalou, but it doesn't help to blame everything on him.”

“Everybody knows he's trying to get me to sell him my ranch.”

“What everybody
doesn't
know is that he'd do anything underhanded to force you to sell.” Lloyd leaned forward. “You and Carl have worked hard to make the place pay off, but I told your father I didn't think it would work even before he mortgaged the ranch to buy that bull. I'm sympathetic to you, but I have a duty to my investors. I can't keep their money tied up in loans that don't pay. And as much as I like and admire you—”

“You don't have to say the rest,” Idalou said. “Even though I am only a woman, I understand business as well as you do.”

“I never disputed that.”

“You're about the only one who hasn't.” She heaved a deep sigh. “I'll have the money on time, but just in case I can't, what will happen?”

“I'll have to foreclose on the loan and put the ranch up for sale.”

“Which would mean Jordan would get it for a fraction of what it's worth.”

“Frank Sonnenberg is just as anxious to have control of Dunmore Creek as Jordan. If you were to put the place up for sale yourself, you could find yourself the beneficiary of a bidding war.”

Her father had been farsighted enough to homestead the only year-long source of water. McGloughlin and Sonnenberg had offered to buy her father's ranch several times, but he'd always refused. What he hadn't understood was that controlling the water didn't necessarily mean he controlled the land on either side of it, especially when his neighbors were rich, powerful, and had a bunkhouse full of cowhands.

“I don't want a bidding war,” Idalou said. “I just want to keep our ranch.”

Lloyd leaned back in his chair. “I'm sorry, but I can't give you any extra time.”

“I wouldn't need it if we had a sheriff who could force Jordan to keep his cows off my land.”

“You know as well as I do that grazing land belongs to the man, or woman, who can control it.”

“My father established the boundaries before either Jordan or Frank Sonnenberg came here. They honored them until Dad died.”

“That's out of my control. Why don't you discuss it with the new sheriff?”

“What new sheriff? Who is he?”

“Go see for yourself. He stopped Van Sonnenberg from running down Pepper and stopped Newt Mandrin from forcing his attentions on Mara. He might be interested in helping you find your bull.”

“Is he a gunslinger?”

Lloyd laughed. “Not at all. He appears to be an easygoing man with a way of handling guys other men can't.”

Idalou left the bank and headed toward the sheriff's office without much hope of finding a quick solution to her difficulties. She didn't like the way Lloyd had grinned at her when he'd said the sheriff might be interested in helping her find the bull. Lloyd was usually pretty serious, but occasionally he found humor in things that other people didn't think funny.

Still, it was good to have a sheriff. After Newt killed the last one in a fair fight, she had given up on anyone ever taking the job as long as Newt stayed in the area. And as long as Frank Sonnenberg gave him work, Newt would stay.

Idalou looked up at the sound of her name to see Mara waving at her and preparing to cross the street. Idalou didn't want to speak to anyone whose name was McGloughlin, but she couldn't very well ignore
Mara. Dunmore was a small town. It would be uncomfortable not to be on speaking terms with people she met nearly every day.