Fool for Love (Montana Romance) (22 page)

He looked around the yard and the barn as if he’d missed an entire crew of men.

“Jed Archer mostly,” Curtis said.  “He’s got a good crew of men working with him.”

“Jed Archer?” 

“They’re probably out in the pasture rounding up the rest of the herd as we speak.”

“Jed Archer couldn’t convince a pack of dogs to follow him if he had britches made of steak.”

Curtis laughed at his joke.  Eric wasn’t moved.

A man with sandy hair and a ruddy complexion stepped out of the front door of the big house.  He tripped when Eric turned to glare at him, righting himself and darting an anxious look around the porch.  His eyes rested on Curtis.  He swallowed and scurried down the stairs and around the far corner of the house, out of sight.

“Who the hell was that?  In my house?”

“He’s one of the new workers, Murphy,” Curtis said.

Eric didn’t wait for the explanation.  He fixed his hat back on his head and marched toward his house.  He took the front stairs two by two and cut straight across the porch to throw open the front door.

A rush of emotion struck him as the sights and smells of his home filled him.  The same braided rug lay in the front hall.  A matching rug filled up the living room to his left where his mother’s rocking chair and the ridiculous overstuffed sofa he’d bought off Delilah when she was redecorating the hotel stood against the wall.  His simple dining room table and mismatched chairs waited, dusty, in the room to the right of the front door.  He marched on to the kitchen, breathing in the smell of candle wax, wet wool, and bacon that never failed to remind him of home.

The kitchen was the only room in the house that looked like it had seen a peep of life in the last eight months.  Dirty dishes and empty beer bottles littered the table and counters, like vagrants had broken in and helped themselves then left in a hurry.  A half-eaten, moldy loaf of bread sat on the counter collecting flies.  Eric threw open the ice box to find it warm and empty.

“What the hell, Curtis?  I thought you were going to keep things in order while I was gone.”

“I’ve done the best I could, cuz,” Curtis said, “but when Butch Walter left, Mrs. Walter left with him.  I haven’t had time to tidy up.”

“Oh?”  Eric spun to face him, planting his hands on his hips.  “What’ve you been doing?  Hosting poker nights?”

“No, I’ve-”  Curtis stopped.  He broke into a wide, sheepish smile.  “I’ll get the boys to clean it up right away.  Not the kind of thing you want your beautiful English rose to see, eh?”

“No!”  Eric had to check himself to keep from shouting.  “Amelia wouldn’t like this at all.”

“Then why don’t you spend a few more weeks at the hotel?  I’m sure she’d love that.  I hear she’s making plenty of friends in town.”

“She and Charlie get along well, and she’s helping Delilah up at the school right now.”

“Splendid!  That’s the life for a lady like that.”

“Curtis, what the hell is going on around here?” Eric launched into the concerns churning his gut.  “I left so I could improve our business dealings, strengthen the ranch.  I come back and the place looks like some two-bit operation run by monkeys who ain’t never seen a cow before in their lives.  What’ve you been doing while I was gone?”

“Working hard,” Curtis said.  “Working hard.  And it was a tough winter.  Plus with the desertions it’s been hard to keep things operating at peak.”

“Why in hell would a bunch of good men I’ve counted as my friends for donkey’s years just up and-”

“Come on.  Come back out to the porch and we’ll talk business.”

He put a hand on Eric’s arm to lead him out of the kitchen.  Eric was too irritated to protest.

As he turned he caught sight of the man Curtis had described as Murphy through the window.  Murphy hurried down a path toward one of the bigger hills at the back of the property, about half a mile or so off.  He couldn’t tell for sure, but it looked like a curl of smoke was coming up from the other side of the hill.

“You been making improvements on your end of the property?” he asked.

“It’s a crying shame that you didn’t have more success in England.”  Curtis ignored him.  They walked back through the hall to the porch.  “But haven’t I always said that you just don’t have a head for business?”

“Yeah,” Eric grumbled.  He followed Curtis through the front door and plopped into one of the wicker chairs on the porch facing the barn.  The paint on the barn was peeling and the door to the second-floor loft was missing a hinge.  Hellfire.

Curtis took a seat across from him.  “I just don’t know what’s going to happen to the ranch after that fiasco.  Your trip to England cost a pretty penny.  No business means no business, Eric.”

“Yeah, I know, but-”

“It’s not just the money that was wasted.  Your time was wasted too.”

“Well it was your idea, wasn’t it?”

Curtis ignored him.  “I didn’t want to break it to you quite this way, but you don’t have the capital to keep going like this.”

“It’s not a problem, Curtis.   See, we met-”

“But it is a problem, Eric,” Curtis blew over him.  “You just don’t understand the way these things work.  Ranches need money.  You have no money.”

“Maybe not, but I do have opportunity.  There was this man on the ship-”

“Without money you’re sunk, Eric.  That’s the one thing you need to try to understand about all this.”

“Will you shut up and let me get a word in edgewise?”

“There’s no time for your foolishness, Eric!  Running a ranch is not the same as playing cowboy when we were kids.”

A tick of irritation was growing in Eric’s craw with each of Curtis’s interruptions.  He shifted forward in his chair.

“On the ship back from England, Amelia-”

“Now I have a proposal for you that just might solve all of your problems.”

Eric blinked mid-sentence.  He frowned and shut his mouth.

“What proposal?”

Curtis leaned toward him as though they were in cahoots.  His eyes shone bright with mischief, like they always did only sharper.

“Come on, Eric.  I’ve known you since we were kids.  We’re family, for Christ’s sake.  I know how you struggled in school and all.”  Eric flushed.  “And I’ve kept that secret for you all these years.  I never told your Pop and Mama how you cheated off my tests.”

“I didn’t always-”

“You and I both know that running this place is too much for you.”

“Do we know that?” Eric said.

Curtis didn’t hear him.  “I want you to be happy, to do what’s best for you.  There’s got to be something out there you’d be better at, something more suitable to … to your simple ways of thinking.”

“Simple?”

“I’m just looking out for you, cuz, because I care about you.  You’re good with people.  Why don’t you take the job of Sheriff of Cold Springs?”

“Because it’s already taken?”

Curtis laughed.  “Kent Porter is a good man, but he’s no sheriff.”  He shifted forward until the bone of his butt barely touched the edge of his chair.  “What I’m proposing is that you sign the other half of your stake in the ranch over to me.”

Hot prickles poured down Eric’s back.  He glanced past Curtis’s shoulder to the spreading acreage of his land.  Jed Archer and another man he didn’t recognize were working down by the barn.  He loved that barn.  He loved the hills and the waving grass, the skirt of the mountains that kissed the swell of the fields.  He loved the animals, wild and tame, that made their homes on his land, the stretch of trees that ran along the creek at the back of the property.  He’d dreamed of bringing Amelia home, showing her all there was to fall in love with.  He wanted to raise children, their children, running loose in the dirt, picking up bugs and playing house in the shade of the oaks.

“Now why would I want to do a fool thing like that?” he told Curtis, a grin tickling its way up from his expanded heart to his mouth.

“Because this isn’t the life for you,” Curtis argued.

“Bullshit!”  He stood and Curtis stood with him.  “This land is as much a part of me as my liver and my brains, Curtis.  Pop and Mama left a part of it to you too-”

“Half, Eric.  They left half.”

“Was it half?”  Eric shrugged.  “I thought it was less.  Anyhow, that doesn’t matter.  If you’re worried about losing the whole thing, you’ve got nothing to fear.  I’ve made a deal with a Canadian gent, name of Benton Chase, to supply angus beef to him to sell back east.”

“You what?”  Curtis shifted, folding his arms across his chest, and gaped at Eric.

“I’d’a thought you’d be over the moon about it.”  Eric laughed and thumped his cousin on the back.  “Amelia set the whole thing up.  She’s a light and a treasure, Curtis.  I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

“Amelia.”

Eric nodded.

“Your fancy English wife.”

“Yep.  She’s as smart as a fox in a thunderstorm, that one.”  Now if only he could convince her that her place was by his side.

“I see.”  Curtis rubbed his chin, looking like he’d swallowed a bug.  “Well congratulations to you then, cuz.”

“Congratulations accepted.  For both of us.  Like you said, Curtis, you’re family.”  Eric gave him a manly sideways hug.  “We both reap the benefits of this.  We’ll be ranching for years to come thanks to Amelia.  Just you wait and see.”

As if someone had turned on one of those new-fangled electric light switches, Curtis was all smiles again.

“Why don’t you high-tail it back to town and join your pretty, smart wife.  I don’t think I could bear the thought of leaving a woman like that alone.”

A shard of worry pierced Eric’s good mood.  “Delilah’s keeping an eye on her,” he said.

“Still, you shouldn’t leave a woman like that alone for long.”  Something in the grit of Curtis’s tone struck genuine worry into Eric’s gut.  “I’ll have Jed Archer saddle Titan up and I’ll bring that old natty thing you rode out back to town later.”

The prospect of riding his own horse after months and months of missing him was a terrific temptation.

“I’d be much obliged,” he said.  “But first I’m gonna ride on down and fix that spot in the fence so the herd can roam a little wider.”  Before Curtis could object he called out, “Hey Jed!  Get some work gloves!  You’re helping me fix a fence!”

When Jed just stood there gaping, Eric shook his head and started down the steps.

“Eric, you should really-”

“I should really take care of my ranch, Curtis.  And so should you.  How about riding out and rounding up the rest of the herd, wherever they are.”

Curtis stood at the top of the porch steps in his Sunday suit, mouth open, expression unreadable.  A second later he shook himself and his smile returned.

“Whatever you say, boss.”

Eric laughed.  Good old Curtis.  He could always rely on him to dream big if nothing else.

Chapter Thirteen

“Careful not to get any of that paint on your dress, sweetheart,” Delilah cautioned Amelia.  She picked up a spare apron from the pile on a table in the middle of the empty classroom and brought it to her.  “I wouldn’t want
you to ruin something so nice.”

“Thank you.”

Amelia did her best to smile as she accepted the apron.  She glanced around for a place to rest her paintbrush.  It had been something of a surprise when Delilah’s invitation to tea had turned into helping the Ladies’ Auxiliary paint classrooms inside the new school.  As eager as she was to have a chance to speak to Delilah, she hadn’t wanted to do it with other Cold Springs women near enough to listen.

“I’ll hold that, honey.”  Delilah took the wet paintbrush, giving Amelia a chance to slip the apron over her head and tie it at her back.

Amelia’s glance crept sideways to the young saloon girl smiling away as she stroked paint on the wall.  She was one of the girls who had greeted Eric the day they’d arrived in Cold Springs.  She had white drops of paint on her cheeks and worked as though she hadn’t a care in the world.

As soon as she caught the curiosity in Delilah’s eyes, Amelia turned away from the girl.  She cleared her throat and said, “Charlie tells me I should count myself fortunate to be invited to a Ladies’ Auxiliary function.”

“Charlie West is a firecracker,” Delilah answered her with a knowing grin.  “And I mean that with the highest regard.  Not everyone would share her opinion.”  She retrieved her own brush from a can of white paint.

“Everyone I’ve met in Cold Springs thus far speaks of you in the highest terms,” Amelia said.  The two of them moved to the wall perpendicular to where the saloon girl worked, painting over the bare plaster with broad strokes.

“Well bless their hearts,” Delilah said with a smile.

“Mrs. Reynolds is a wonderful woman,” the saloon girl agreed, her shy smile bright.

Pink heat spread across Amelia’s face and neck.  She hadn’t known the girl was listening to them.

“Why thank you, Sarah, you’re a doll.”

Sarah blushed and giggled and went back to painting her wall as if it were a masterpiece.