“So be it,” he said tersely. “I’m staying.”
Sloan raised his eyebrows to Wayne, who lifted a brow in return. Neither man had ever heard Neal take that attitude toward his daughter. “Suit yourself,” Sloan said, “but if you’re not back by morning, I’m coming for you.”
“No need to worry, son. I’ll be back by breakfast,” Neal said.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Bad news?” Silbia asked when Samantha had finished reading Eleanor Brewster’s note.
Samantha thought of Silbia’s description of her father’s sudden mood change, recalled her unacknowledged wave as he’d thundered off on the hunt. She now believed he’d pretended not to have seen her. “My father didn’t see this, did he?”
Silbia, sifting flour for biscuits to be served in lieu of cornbread, said, “No, how could he? It was buried beneath the figs.”
“Right,” Samantha said, feeling uneasy. The moist envelope flap would have been easy to open and reclose without notice. “The basket was not disturbed?”
“Only by your papa when he snitched one or two higos.”
Samantha wagged the letter in front of her. “Let’s keep this between ourselves, Silbia.”
“Sí, querida. As I told Mildred, what your papa don’t know can’t hurt him.”
It was their housekeeper’s favorite expression when they agreed to keep things from el patrón, but this time, Samantha had the niggling feeling the horse was out of the barn before the gate was closed. Her father’s quick mood change suggested something had disturbed him. But how could he have read the letter, buried as it was under the figs? It could be that his concentration on tracking down the vicious marauder after their cattle accounted for his mood, and his eyesight had weakened in the last year. He might not have seen her coming from her workshop. Samantha helped herself to several figs. They burst sweet and succulent in her mouth, but their taste did little to allay her apprehension as she pushed open the swinging door to go upstairs to change for her guests.
The housekeeper glanced after her as Samantha left the kitchen. Silbia had no idea of the contents of the letter, only that it contained secrets el patrón was not to know, secretos that Miss Sam thought would upset him. Silbia had spoken the truth when she told her little mistress the basket of higos had not been disturbed, but perhaps she should have mentioned the sticky bowl she’d had to wash before pouring the figs into it. A mystery. She never put away dirty dishes. And there was the puzzle of el patrón’s bark when she asked him if he would be back for supper and what he was to tell his hija. “Anything you want,” he’d snapped, and that didn’t sound like el patrón.
She shrugged. Still… how could Señor Gordon have read the letter if he hadn’t known it was there? Silbia poured buttermilk into the dry ingredients, her temper flaring once again at Grizzly’s theft of her cornmeal.
Sloan sent his ranch hand on to the Triple S and rode back to Las Tres Lomas with Neal’s men, as reluctant to leave their boss alone to face the mountain lion as he, but in their case, better to follow orders than disobey them. Twilight was approaching. Billie June and Millie May would be riding over shortly for supper and a game of cards. Sloan must speak to Samantha before they arrived.
“She’s upstairs,” Silbia told him in the foyer of Las Tres Lomas. “I’ll let her know you’re here.”
“Don’t bother,” Sloan said. “I’ll go up.”
Aghast, Silbia said, “But, Señor Sloan, she’s dressing.”
Sloan flashed her a grin. “Don’t worry. I’ve seen her in her underwear before.”
But not since they were children and swam and fished nearly buck naked in the Trinity, he thought. Lately, he’d been thinking back on that carefree period when Samantha had been his only companion. Boys his age lived on ranches too far apart to build friendships. He and Samantha had been tutored together, and after lessons, they’d run wild as they damn well pleased under the not-so-watchful eyes of their doting fathers. It had been an odd pairing, a boy and a girl nearly four years younger than he, but from the time Samantha could walk, he’d taken it upon himself to look after her, not that she needed bird-dogging after a while, so when she could keep up with him, they’d become buddies. He’d thought of her as a sister, but not the motherly kind like Millie May and Billie June. She’d been a tomboyish type of sister, ready for any derring-do. She was the sort a boy could confide in, explain things to, share discoveries with, and never think of as a girl.
But then one day that changed. Sloan remembered it well. He’d been at the tail end of twenty, working eighteen-hour days struggling to fill his father’s shoes. Samantha had just turned seventeen, and they hadn’t seen as much of each other after she went to live in town during the week to attend school. He’d been consulting with Neal at Las Tres Lomas, and when he took his leave and walked out of the library, there was Samantha in the great room framed before a sunny window that set her hair aglow and outlined her feminine figure. He’d noticed then the purity of her skin and the color of her eyes, gray as clouds with the sun shining through them. It was like seeing the miracle of a butterfly just emerged from its chrysalis. Right then and there, he should have followed his heart and marched right up to Samantha and said, “Okay, it’s time we tied the knot, don’t you think?” just as when he suggested it was time for him to teach her how to swim.
But he had not. His time and energy had been consumed by the never-ending demands of the ranch. It was a period of drought, rustlers taking advantage of his youth, battles with the railroads over freight charges, declining cattle prices and profits, and a shortage of men when his father’s most trusted and reliable ranch hands took off to fight in Cuba with Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders. By the time he had some breathing space from the pressures of work and responsibility, he’d become a hardened man and Samantha an independent woman, and their special closeness had faded, at least on her part.
Sloan reached the landing. It had been years since he’d been here, but how could he not remember the location of Samantha’s room at the end of the hall? Memories flooded: checkers and card games on rainy days, a cardboard puzzle of Barnum and Bailey’s circus he and Sam had put together on a tray when she was confined to bed with a broken leg, and a very special occasion when they’d sneaked a fledgling fallen from its nest into her room under the disapproving nose of Mrs. Swift. They’d cared for it in a basket until the day they released the bird together and watched it fly away. He’d been around twelve years old then. He knocked.
“Come in!”
“Are you sure? It’s Sloan.”
He heard a scurrying around like a mouse bolting for a hole, then the door opened a fraction, framing a sliver of Samantha’s surprised face. “Sloan! What are you doing here?”
“I came to speak with you. Open up. I don’t care if you’re dressed. I have sisters, you know. We don’t have much time.”
She opened the door and backed away, barefoot, dressed in a robe and smelling of bath soap. Her hair was thickly knotted on top of her head and secured by barrettes. “Why? Is something wrong?”
“You tell me. The boys and I just came from the north border of Las Tres Lomas where we spotted a mountain lion. It’s the culprit getting our cattle. Neal thinks he’ll be back for another kill tonight.”
“A mountain lion,” Samantha repeated, grimacing. “And you came up to my room to tell me that?”
“Your father is staying out there to take him on alone. There was no arguing with him, Sam—not in the mood he was in. Something’s got his drawers in a twist, and I came up here to see if you’d talk to me about it. Maybe I can help.”
Samantha reached to untie her robe. “Oh, my God! I’m getting dressed and riding out there. He shouldn’t tackle that animal alone.”
“No, you’re not.” Sloan motioned to refasten her robe. “You hightail it out there now and you’ll scare that cat away if he’s in the area, and you can imagine what Neal Gordon would think of that. Besides, he says he’s got some think
ing to do—alone, he made it clear.”
“Thinking?”
“About you, if I’m not mistaken. Is there something going on between you and your daddy?” Sloan decided not to mention Neal’s cryptic remark about betrayal. It would hurt Samantha terribly. Neal had been speaking of his daughter, no matter his claim that he’d misspoken, but let it come from Samantha what it was all about.
Samantha tightened the sash of her robe and dropped into a nearby chair. “Oh God…” She rubbed her forehead and closed her eyes, lashes dark against the sudden paleness of her skin.
Sloan sat down on the chair’s footstool, pushed back his hat, and took her tensely balled hand in his, “Talk to me, Sam. What’s happened between you two? I’d like to help if I can.”
“What’s made you think something is going on between Daddy and me?”
“His manner today, and here you sit wound tight as a tourniquet.”
Her eyes still closed, she said, “Why would you think either has to do with my father and me?”
Sloan had no choice. He would never get Samantha to confide in him if he didn’t relate Neal’s bitter advice. Her pulse was racing so strong he could feel it in the heel of her hand. “He advised me to have many babies when I marry so that when one betrayed me, I wouldn’t… lose everything.”
Her eyes flew open, the light gone, dark clouds gathering. “He said that, did he?”
“He said that. I never thought I’d hear anything like those words pass Neal Gordon’s lips. So what’s happened between him and the light of his life?”
Samantha stood in the narrow space between chair and footstool and stepped to a window still holding warmth from the western sun. There was no doubt. Her father had read the letter. Cold panic gripped her. She could only imagine her father’s hurt and pain and… anger—deep, dark anger. How could Samantha do this to him… to Estelle, the best mother on earth? God help her, what should she do now? Should she lay everything on the table to her father and explain how Eleanor Brewster had come to write her that letter? Would he understand her curiosity and be convinced that her visit to Marietta had satisfied her urge and settled her interest to learn more? After all, he’d been the one who recognized and stated to her mother that certain questions were normal to an adopted child. She would start at the beginning, explain how she’d only been worried about his health and gone to Grizzly…
Her plan halted midstream. Good Lord, no! Whatever happened, she could not implicate Grizzly. Letting out a moan, she dropped her face into her hands.
Sloan was up from the footstool immediately and turning her to face him. “For goodness’ sakes, Sam, tell me what’s happened. It can’t be all that bad. Whatever it is, we’ll work it out together.”
Her face still covered, Samantha shook her head and murmured into her hands, “No one can help this situation, Sloan. I’ve committed an irredeemable act in my father’s eyes, and I’ll never be able to undo what I’ve done. That’s all I’m willing to tell you.”
He pulled her hands away and held them. “You could never commit an irredeemable act in Neal’s eyes, Samantha.”
Tonelessly, she said, “I should have listened to Grizzly and Wayne’s advice and never started down this road.”
“What road?”
Samantha pulled her hands from Sloan’s grip and turned back to the window, kneading them before its warmth. “Please tell your sisters the party is off,” she said.
“Sam, let me go down to the library and get you a glass of sherry,” Sloan persisted. “That will put some color back in your cheeks, and then maybe you’ll talk to me.”
“No, I need to be by myself,” she said. “You can’t fix this, Sloan. Nobody can.”
“At least let me try. What are big brothers for?”
Irrationally, the question struck Samantha’s nerves like the grate of fingernails on a chalkboard. She turned from the window and gave Sloan her full, critical attention, a vibration of anger in her despair. Sloan thought he could repair the impossible as when they were children, did he? The boy-grown-man that everybody, including her, had believed that someday would take her to be his wife had chosen another woman more beautiful, more sophisticated, more willing to honor and obey, a shallow fraud. And yet here he was expecting—demanding—to be taken into her family’s deepest confidences as if he had a right to be there. He had no rights other than those of friendship, and friendship carried boundaries.
She walked to her bedroom door and drew it open. “I appreciate your offer of help, Sloan, but I’ll work this out myself. No need to trouble yourself over the… misunderstanding between my father and me, and I’m sure I don’t have to mention that I’d like your concerns to stay private.”
She stood at the wide-open door stiff as a sentry, face hard, gaze cold. Sloan stared at her, lips parted in surprise and the shock of insult. He reset his hat and said, “As if you even have to ask me to keep your confidence, Sam, but if I choose to trouble myself over the misunderstanding between you and your father, I will.” He stepped by her into the hall hardly able to look at her, his hurt was so deep. He managed to say, “Well, if you change your mind and need an ear, you know where to find me. Brothers have big shoulders, you know.”
“You’re not my brother, Sloan,” she called after him, as he started toward the stairs.
Her words were like a lasso, yanking him to a stop. He turned slowly around. “What’s that?”
“You’re my friend. Nothing more, nothing less. I count myself fortunate that you are, but that’s all you are—a friend.”
Sloan studied her, feeling a chill tunnel through his heart. If he’d ever had doubts about her true feelings for him, she’d just confirmed them. “Well, that’s good to know, Sam. Thanks for clearing up the distinction,” he said. “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind from now on.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
A full moon appeared as twilight melted into pale night along with the fading sound of horses carrying the men back to their respective ranches. Soon the April sky would darken and fill with stars, providing enough light to make out the shape of the mountain lion skulking in for his nightly kill. Neal had his men drive Saved closer in to the ranch and out of harm’s way. He regretted his remark to Sloan implying that Samantha had grown indifferent to the steer. She often rode out with treats for him—bags of prime hay, sugar lumps, even pancakes with syrup. Too much paint was harmful to a grazing animal’s horns because of its sensitive inner tissue, so Samantha took a brush only to the insensate tips of the steer’s horn when the last coat had faded enough to put him in danger of the slaughterhouse. Self-pity had made Neal place her in a bad light to Sloan, and he knew he should be ashamed of himself, and he was.
He tethered his horse loosely to the barbed-wire fence and took up position on the ground in the black shadow of two giant, side-by-side boulders that formed a narrow tunnel through which the wind whistled continuously. The sound would cover any human noise, and the deep darkness hide his presence from the cat. Mountain lions had great night vision in low light, but they could not see in complete darkness, and while they possessed sensitive hearing, they had a weak sense of smell. The cat would emerge from the woods in front of him and see his horse, but Neal would be concealed, and the cat unaware that it was in the crosshairs of his Winchester repeater, model 1894, that allowed him to fire a number of shots before having to reload.
A lust to annihilate the threat to his land burned within him. At least Neal attributed this particular lust to that offense, but really, was he out here in substitute to his greater desire to destroy the danger to his family unit? Dr. Tolman was dead—“my late father’s papers,” Eleanor Brewster’s note had read—and the doctor’s daughter apparently knew nothing of Samantha’s birth but for the name of the midwife who might have assisted with it. Would Samantha try to contact her? The midwife might be dead, too, and that would be the end of the road for Samantha’s inquiries. He and Estelle would be safe from the competition.
But
would it ever be the same for him? That was the question. And how in hell had Samantha connected the name of Dr. Tolman from the letter’s return address to the doctor who’d placed her in their hands? Grizzly? Never. He would never reveal the doctor’s identity to her, even if he remembered the name after all these years.
Unless…
In startled reflection, Neal thought back to the day Samantha brought him the doctor’s letter. She’d been worried and anxious that it pertained to his health and had not looked at all convinced by his cockamamie story that the letter had come from a veterinarian. And then when she saw that he’d burned the letter before she could read it…
Risking movement that the cat could detect, Neal sat up straighter as mentally he tracked Samantha’s possible footsteps after she left the dinner table that day. Unconvinced that he was telling the truth about his health, deeply concerned, she’d have gone to the two men who knew him best, Wayne and Grizzly. She’d have shared her worry with them, told them about the letter her father had burned, the word “Confidential” written on the envelope, asked if they knew a doctor by the name of Tolman. Wayne had no knowledge of the night Samantha had come to them, but Grizzly…
Neal could not fathom Grizzly disclosing a word of information that would lead Samantha away from him and Estelle, but in the hands of his daughter that he loved like his own, his cook and close friend would have been malleable as putty. Somehow Samantha had wriggled out of him who Dr. Tolman was. There was no other explanation. From there, it was easy to track Samantha to Marietta, a ferry ride conveniently tacked on to the train trip to Gainesville. Did Mildred know of Samantha’s clandestine excursion? Had his daughter slipped secretly across the border without her knowing? No, Estelle’s housekeeper had to have been in on the plot, or why would she have hidden Eleanor Brewster’s letter beneath a basket of figs?
Neal’s horse tossed his head, and Neal came alert. Slowly, he removed his spectacles from his pocket and slipped them on, hoping starlight and moonshine did not strike the lens and give his position away. A long, sleek shape moved stealthily out of the dense shelter of rock and woods into the light of the full moon. It paused, listening, then turned its yellow-eyed gaze to Neal’s horse tethered to the barbed-wire fence. The horse whinnied softly, nervously, but with temporary trust in the protection of his master close by. The cat began a slow, feline stalk toward his prey before sinking into a moving crouch, a signal for Neal to bring the sight of the Winchester to his eyeglasses. He fired just as his horse pulled at his loose tethers and bolted away, his panicked neigh simultaneous to the sound of the gunshot. The impact of the bullet jerked the mountain lion into the air a few inches before it fell with a thud to the ground. The shot had caught the devil in the neck, Neal saw as he approached the inert but still breathing predator. The animal gazed at him in yellow-eyed hatred and gave a final snarl of defiance before his vanquisher raised the rifle once more and shot him in the head.