Johanna Lindsey - A Man to Call My Own

Karl had been hard to turn away, though, since he'd come by right after they'd been told the news of Mortimer's death, and he had heard about it from Amanda. He'd been waiting in the parlor since they'd returned from the funeral, prepared to offer as much comfort as he could today. But Amanda didn't appear to need comforting. She needed calming because she still looked furious.

"There, I've setded the matter," Amanda said triumphantly. "I'm now engaged to marry Mr. Ryan. So I'll hear no more talk about leaving home." And then she added snidely, "But I'll be glad to help you pack, Marian."

"Unless Mr. Ryan is willing to travel with you to Texas, to meet your aunt and obtain her approval, marrying him will not release your inheritance to you, Miss Laton," Albert was forced to point out. "Without that approval, you would forfeit everything."

"No! My God, I can't believe Papa did this to me. He knew I despise traveling."

"He didn't die on purpose just to inconvenience you, Amanda," Marian said in annoyance. "I'm sure he thought you'd be settled long before he died."

"I will be most happy to travel with you to Texas," Karl offered.

"Don't be absurd," Amanda snapped at him. "Can't you see this changes everything?"

"No, it doesn't," Karl insisted. "I still want to marry you."

Marian saw what was coming, and tried to spare Karl's feelings. "You should leave for the time being," she suggested quickly. "She's upset—"

"Upset!" Amanda shouted. "I'm beyond upset. But yes, do leave. There's no longer a reason for me to marry you; in fact, I can't think of a single one now."

Marian glanced away, unwilling to see just how crushed Karl was by those few careless words, but not soon enough. She saw it anyway. And he'd looked so happy when he'd come into the room moments ago, his hearts desire unexpectedly achieved. He really did want Amanda for his wife. Heaven knew why, but he did. Somehow, he hadn't seen or had chosen to ignore this vicious side of her—until now.

But hopefully, after he got over the rejection, he would rejoice to have escaped marriage to such a heartless bitch.

IT WAS A SMALL ranch by most standards, but even smaller by Texas standards. Nestled in the fertile plains west of the Brazos, with a quarter mile of an ofrshoot of the river passing through the northeast corner of die spread, the Twisting Barb encompassed some prime land, if not a lot of it. With less than a thousand head of cattle, the ranch had room for more, but its owners had never aspired to be "cattle kings."

There was only one owner now. Red had taken over the running of the ranch after her husband died. She had learned ranching well, could have handled the task with ease, except for one thing—a lack of good cowhands who would listen to her.

At her wits' end, she'd been seriously thinking about selling. All their good cowhands had up and left when her husband died. She'd put out the word in town that she was hiring, but any hand worth his salt sought a job on the Kinkaid spread. The only ones willing to work for her were wet-behind-the-ears teenagers, and young Easterners who'd drifted west for one reason or another but had to be taught every step of the way when it came to ranching.

She was willing to teach. But they weren't willing to learn, at least not from an old gal they viewed as a second mother. Like a passel of youngsters, they'd listen to her, but they didn't hear. Her instructions went in one ear and out the other. She'd been on the verge of giving up and selling out when Chad Kinkaid came along.

She had known Chad for many years. He was the son of her neighbor, Stuart Kinkaid, a rancher who did aspire to be known as a "cattle king." Stuart owned the biggest ranch in the area and was always looking to expand it. He would have been knocking on her door if he'd known Red was thinking of selling. But she didn't really want to sell, she'd just figured she had no choice, as bad as things had gotten after her husband died. But Chad turned her situation around, and she still gave thanks for the storm that had brought him to the Twisting Barb three months ago.

It had been the last bad storm of the winter season. And the only reason Chad happened to be nearby when it broke was that he'd had a falling-out with his father and was leaving home—for good. Red had put him up for the night. Being an astute man, he'd noticed that something was wrong, and over breakfast the next morning, he'd dragged it out of her, the troubles she'd been having.

She hadn't expected his offer to help. But she should have. Stuart Kinkaid might be an ornery cuss, but he'd raised a real fine son in Chad.

If she were twenty years younger, she'd be in love, she was that grateful to him. But she was old enough, or pert near old enough, to be Chad's mother, and the truth was, though no one else knew it, she was in love with his father. Had been since the day she met him twelve years ago when Stuart rode over to welcome her and her new husband to his neighborhood, and gave them one hundred head of cattle to help them get started on their fledgling ranch.

Stuart had been about the most handsome man she'd ever met, and coupled with his kindness that day, he'd gradually wormed his way into a corner of her heart and stayed there. Her husband never knew. Stuart never knew. No one would ever know if she could help it. And even though Stuart's wife had died long before she'd met him, and her husband had died just recendy, she never once thought about doing anything about her feelings for that tall Texan.

Stuart Kinkaid was just too grandiose for her: rich, still handsome, a bigger-than-life personality, a man who could have any woman he wanted if he set his mind to it. While she was a kindhearted redheaded mouse of a woman, who hadn't turned any heads in her youth and certainly didn't now when she was nearing forty.

Chad was like his father in many ways, too handsome for his own good, but she'd never heard of him breaking any hearts along the way, so she didn't think he took advantage of his looks in that regard. He might have been a bit rowdy in his youth, might butt heads with his father quite frequently, but he was dependable. If he said he'd do something, come hell or high water, it would get done. And, of course, he'd been raised to be the best catdeman around. He'd been raised to take over the huge Kinkaid spread.

It didn't take long for Chad to turn the bunch of greenhorns Red was stuck with into a well-oiled outfit. The hands looked up to him, heck, they loved him. He knew how to work men, so even when he had to scold, they didn't feel they were hopeless. They were more than willing to learn from him, and learn they did.

Chad was a cattleman through and through. The logical choice for him would be to start his own ranch somewhere. But doing that would truly cut the ties with his father, and she didn't really think that was his intention. He was making a point in leaving home. He was giving Stuart time to figure out what that point was and to accept it.

Red was realistic though. Three months was long enough to get one's point across. Chad would be leaving soon, either for another state or to go home and settle things with his father. But he'd be leaving her in good hands, she hoped. He seemed to be putting a lot of effort into training her oldest hand, Lonny, to take over when he was gone. Another month or two and Lonny would make a fine foreman. She had no doubt of that. She just never knew from one day to the next whether Chad would stick around for those couple more needed months.

He probably would. She'd sprained her foot last week, and even though it was feeling better already, she hadn't let on that it was. Chad had been worried about her since the accident, and she was reasonably sure that a worried Chad would stick around.

AFTER DINNER THAT EVENING, Red joined Chad on her front porch to enjoy the setting sun for a while. It was a long, wide porch, but then it was a nice-sized house that stretched behind it. Red's husband hadn't stinted when building their home. Having both come from the East, they were used to fine accommodations.

A second story had been added to the house a few years after they'd arrived in Texas, to accommodate the children they were hopeful of having. Red couldn't say why they'd never been blessed in that regard. It wasn't for lack of trying. It just wasn't meant to be, she supposed.

The soft strains of a guitar drifted around the corner from the bunkhouse. Rufus was right handy with the instrument, and it had become almost a ritual that he'd play a few songs in the evening as the boys wound down from a hard day's work. Red always heard it from a distance. The one place she restricted herself from on the ranch was the bunkhouse.

Chad bunked down with the rest of the men, but being the son of the richest rancher in the area, no one thought it odd that Red insisted he dine with her in the main house. It was also usually just the two of them who occupied the porch each evening. They didn't always talk. The ranch was running so smoothly that, most evenings, anything that needed to be said got said over dinner, leaving the porch time just for quiet introspection.

Red was going to keep it that way tonight, except Chad's distant look, and the direction in which he was gazing, made her guess he was thinking of his father. She often thought of Stuart, too, but along different lines.

She was amazed that Stuart hadn't found out yet that Chad was staying on the Twisting Barb. Her hands had been warned never to mention Chad's name when they went into town, but with liquor flowing freely on those town visits, there was no guarantee that one of them wouldn't slip and mention it. And they did know that Stuart had hired some of the best trackers around to find Chad.

They had nothing to trace, though, because the storm that had brought him to her had washed away his trail. And no one suspected that he'd gone to roost so close to home, only a few miles away, especially not Stuart. But if Chad was getting homesick, she wouldn't try to stop him from patching things up with his father. The two had always been close, even if they didn't see eye to eye on a lot of things.

"Miss him?" she asked quietly.

"Hell no," he said in a grumbling tone that had her smiling to herself.

"So you're still not ready to go home?"

"What home?" Chad replied with some heavy sarcasm. "It was turned into a circus with Luella and her mama there. Pa arranged that match without even discussing it with me, and just moved them in until the wedding. I still can't believe he did that."

"She's a nice gal though," Red replied in Stuart's defense. "I met her a few years back at one of your pa's barbecues. Pretty, too, as I recall."

"She could be the best-looking thing this side of the Rio Grande, and I'd still run the other way."

"Because Stuart handpicked her for you?"

"That mainly," Chad allowed. "But if that girl has one whit of intelligence in her head, it's there because it got lost."

Red tried to hold back a chuckle, but couldn't manage it. "Guess I didn't talk to her long enough to figure that out," she replied.

"Count yourself fortunate."

Red said no more. She was grateful he wasn't hankering to go home, but sorry, too, because this rift with his father had to be tearing them both up. The truth was, she'd miss him. She might not have loved her husband, but at least he'd been good company, and since his passing, she'd been lonely.

The sky was still blood red when the rider came galloping toward the house at a breakneck speed. "Best step inside, Chad. Looks like the mail runner, and he'd recognize you if he got a good look."

Chad nodded and moved into the house. Red got up to greet the rider. "Evening, Will. Bit late for you to be delivering, ain't it?"

"Yes, ma'am. Dang horse threw a shoe, set me back a few hours today. But figured this might be important, so didn't want to wait till morning." He handed her the letter he'd gone out of his way to deliver, then tipped his hat. "Late for dinner. Have a good evening, now."

Red waved him off, then limped back into the house, stopping next to the nearest hall lamp to read the letter. Chad had retrieved his hat and was about to head to bed.

Her exclamation, "Son'bitch!" stopped him at the front door.

"What?"

"My brother's gone and died."