Felicia Andrews Read online

  She had her opinions, and often the territorial politicians valued them-and just as often they did not. It made little difference to her. Not even when one of them had once suggested she try to run for office once the territory became a state. That, she thought, would be the height of sheer folly.

  "Where is Alex?" she asked to change the subject before Hope began fawning.

  "Out," the girl said, snapping open her napkin just as Fae came in with a platter of steaming beef. There were a few moments of chatter, then, and the passing of gossip before Fae left.

  "Out where?" Amanda asked as though there had been no interruption.

  "Riding. He likes to ride Storm on clear days. And he wanted to see how many cows were going to calve come spring. "

  "I think he works too hard , " Amanda said.

  "You would think that if he stayed in bed all day."

  Amanda stared at her, before grinning sheepishly. "Am I really that bad?"

  "Sometimes, " Hope told her. "But we don't mind . "

  We, Amanda thought; and remembered the days when she and Guy were--

  "Have you seen Livy lately?"

  She blinked quickly before the flood could bury her. "No. Livy and I . . . well, we don't always get along anymore. "

  "That's sad."

  "It is. But as long as she thinks . . . what she thinks, then there's nothing I can do about it. "

  "Is Harley still going to buy the Circle B? Or will he use that option and get out of the deal?"

  Amanda paused with a knife poised over a thick and steaming biscuit. "I think so. It's an awful lot of money. " She smiled, though with a distant hint of melancholy. "He won't be happy.

  He likes working too much. He may let Livy pull him around the country for a while, but he'll be back. Somewhere he'll go back to working on the land. He has to. He loves it too much.

  The rest of the meal passed in silence, and as Fae cleared away the remains, the two women walked outside and around the house toward the stables.

  At the corral Hope leaned against the fencing and stared at the other side. Amanda said nothing. There was something in the girl, she thought, that had to come out; and it had occurred to her once already that it might be the announcement that she was going to have a child. But the notion had been dismissed; there was nothing in the eyes that supported that idea, and she knew that reading a person depended primarily on the glimpses of the soul she could see through the eyes.

  "Amanda?"

  It was coming; and suddenly she felt a fleeting sense of foreboding. She wished then she were wearing a dress so that she could bury her hands in its folds to hide their slight quivering.

  "Amanda, I saw Sheriff Mitchell two days ago."

  "That's nice. "

  Another silence.

  What are they driving at, nosing into my life?

  "I . . . Have you heard from Mr. Eagleton? Do you know when he's coming?"

  "It's April. Sometime soon. " She smiled briefly. "He doesn't always announce himself, you know. It's a bad habit I'm going to have to break. "

  Hope turned and leaned back against the fence, her arms propped on the top rail, her small breasts thrust forward beneath her light woolen shirt. "Are you going to marry him?"

  Amanda shrugged.

  Hope's tongue moistened her lips, and she swallowed hard.

  "I think you'd better talk to Doug first, don't you?"

  "Why?" The question was delivered as a demand, not a query. "He's going to marry that . . . Carla Menoz. We have nothing left between us, Hope. Nothing. "

  Hope's expression turned quizzical. "Who said they were getting married?"

  "Why, she did," she answered quickly. "In fact, it was the night you and Alex told me you-"

  "Did you ever talk to him?"

  "Really, Hope, I don't see what you're driving at here. First of all, what I do with-"

  "Did you ask him?"

  She stared at the girl and saw the frightened determination hardening her features. Then she shook her head.

  "I think you'd better."

  Amanda put her hands to her cheeks, covered her eyes, then dropped her arms wearily. "Hope, I really don't understand what you're trying to tell me. If you don't like Trevor, well, that's something I suppose I'll have to learn to live with until you change your mind. Though how you could dislike him is beyond me. I don't think you said two words to him the entire time he was here.

  "And if you think Sheriff Mitchell still feels anything for me, you're sadly mistaken. There are"-she remembered him in the saloon, coming from Diane's room-"other things involved that you don't know about. "

  Hope opened her mouth to say something else, closed it again, and shook her head in defeat.

  Amanda took her arms, then, and shook her lightly. "I'm all right," she whispered. "I know that you care about me, and I know that Alex is worried. But it's all right. Everything is going to be all right ."

  "Amanda, " she said, no longer able to fight back the tears, "Amanda, I wish I could tell you how wrong you are. "

  She tried to turn it into a joke. "Really? Good God, I must be losing my powers ."

  But Hope did not laugh.

  "All right, then," she said, snapping out the words as though they were acid. "If you're so damned sure of yourself, give me an example. All this hinting around does nothing but turn my stomach."

  Hope slapped her hands away, walked several yards toward the house, and spun around.

  "All right," she said. "Goddamn it, all right! Doug Mitchell."

  "What about him?"

  "He's not getting married."

  Amanda knew her mouth was agape, felt it, and could not close it. "What in hell are you talking about?"

  "Are you deaf?" She was almost shouting now, the tears flowing unchecked down her cheeks. She brought her fists to her temples as though stifling a scream, then took a deep breath and repeated her words. "I said, Doug Mitchell is not getting married."

  "And how do you know that, missy?"

  "Because I did something you never bothered to do," she answered bitterly. "I asked him, Amanda. I asked him and he told me he didn't know what the hell I was talking about. "

  BOOK THREE

  Devil

  TWENTY- ONE

  The room was a haven in the continuing storm of living. Its walls were lined with glass-fronted bookshelves in which were placed volumes bound in leather and volumes bound in stiff board , all of which were well used, well read, and well cared for. There were also carefully placed thick ledgers, tied shut with brightly colored ribbons, and careful stacks of letters separated by correspondent. The furniture was of heavy, finely polished oak-from the two armchairs comfortably creased in leather to the massive desk whose top was, at the edges, so gleaming as to seem like glass and in the center covered with a thick layer of red leather rimmed with broad-topped brass tacks. On the wall opposite the desk was a carved panel door that led to the living room and a large display case in which had been placed several rifles and a gunbelt, complete with ammunition. Behind the desk was a single window, and on the wall facing the porch a window and a little-used door.

  Amanda stared longingly at the latter for several minutes before her conscience overcame her temptations and she returned to the business at hand. It was puzzling. A large, though not devastating, portion of the beef herd had been taken ill by drinking tainted water at several of the holes placed throughout the pastureland. Many of the animals had died, and most of her hands were struggling to drag the corpses off the range into large pits where the bodies were burned. Many others survived, but she knew that it would not be until at least next season before they would be ready for market-if she dared send them.

  Her first and most natural suspicion had been that someone had salted the water holes in an attempt to decimate her herd; but if that were the case, the deed had been done too sloppily. As it was, the financial loss would be absorbed--though not with much margin for comfort remaining. The event was not unusual; there had be
en times when the natural salt tables here and there below the range leaked into the water system, though never before on such a large and destructive scale.

  On the other hand, she thought, it could have been worse. The heavy spring rains could have taken far more head than it did down the swollen rivers; predators both animal and human could have taken their toll with far more efficiency; or the market could have denied her sufficient access to sell off what she had to.

  It could have been worse. But, she thought sourly, not by very much.

  She pushed the ledger she had been working in away from her with a determined grunt and stretched her arms rigidly over her head. Deeper in the house she could hear murmurings of conversation, and outside a brawling May wind was testing the country's new greenery. She smiled. Though she had to admit that the colors of autumn and the sometime peace of winter brought pleasures that could never be put into words, this time of year was undoubtedly her favorite. The grass was new and green, the winds fresh from the mountains to cool the threatening heat of midday, the animals brought out their young to teach and to save . . . No, she decided, there was nothing like it. It was, in more ways than one, an affirmation of beginnings, of continuation, of promises that life, no matter how difficult the period before, always goes on.

  Her smile became sardonic. The lesson, especially after Guy had died, had been a difficult one for her to learn. But she had, after all, learned it, and in learning gave herself a vigor that she had never known was possible to tap in one human being.

  Not even Trevor's failure to return as he'd promised was so much of a bother that she was unable to work. She had finally decided that given her geographical position and their rather strained parting the fall before, whatever relationship they had left would have to be reseeded for it to succeed. If not, it would perish of its own lack of weight. It was a melancholy thought, one that once in a while made her features soften into a semblance of daydreaming. But it was also one far more realistic than waiting on the porch every morning for signs of dust clouds on the road, or riding into town and standing forlornly on the depot platform watching every passenger intently for a sign of his coming.

  If he came, he came; if he did not, she would not allow herself to plummet into deadening depression.

  Besides, she told herself as she pushed away from the desk and grabbed for her hat on the rack near the porch door, there were other things to worry about now, things that might only become more complicated if she allowed her emotions to rule her head.

  There was Doug. After Hope had bludgeoned her with the news that he had no intention of marrying anyone, least of all Carla Menoz, Amanda had tried several times to find the courage to ride into Coreville and talk with him. And each time she could not. She did not trust herself to say the right thing . . . because even now, weeks later, she had no idea what the right thing was.

  It was maddening. It was frustrating, more so because she had finally come to the conclusion that, come hell or high water, she had to dissuade Harley in his intentions about the Circle B.

  When she had heard of the deal between Peterson and Ephraim Wilder, she had pondered the facets of the agreement carefully. Harley had been bitterly disappointed she was not overjoyed, but something like this was too unusual, sparked too many cautionary warnings for her to be able to lie. She did not begrudge Wilder his own, rather peculiar ways of doing things; obviously, from the money he had lavished on the town during his visit, however he did his business worked exceedingly well. Nevertheless, there were too many pitfalls. There were too many options. And she did not want Harley hurt, not after all that he had done for her and her family.

  Ten minutes later she was riding across the Circle B's western range. Wind was difficult to control; the day was too sharply beautiful, too blatantly made for enjoyment for him to behave as she commanded. Struggling with him, then, was wearying-though she admitted, too, it was fun-and by the time she pulled up in front of the house, her face was gleaming with a light sheen of perspiration. Wiping it with her forearm, then, she slid off the palomino's back and had the reins over his head when Harley came to the front door.

  She frowned. On a day like this he should have been out with his men.

  She smiled as he came slowly down the steps, a smile that slowly faded when she realized he had no intention of inviting her inside. In fact, as soon as he reached her, he took up Wind's reins and began walking the animal back toward the road, his head down, his right hand jammed tightly into his waistband.

  "Harley, " she said, almost having to skip to keep up with him, "what's the matter? Did I . . . I'm sorry if I came at a bad time. "

  His face was slack, the toughness that had resided there somehow drained; and that same draining process had affected his hair, taking the color and making it seem more sand than fire. When she asked him again if anything were wrong, he only swung his gaze toward her-a warning to keep silent until he was ready to talk.

  Livy, she decided then; he'd had a fight with Livy. And I'm certainly the last one she would want to see after something like that.

  And once they reached the road, he dropped the reins and watched dully as Wind, his mane and tail caught by his namesake, kicked up his heels and raced for a stand of pine a hundred yards distant.

  "I know why you're here," he said at last. He turned to face her, determination turning his eyes to steel.

  "Do you?"

  "Come on, Amanda, let's not fence, all right? I'm not in the mood.

  She slapped her hands to her hips, tossing her head to free her gaze from her hair. "Really?" she said. "In that case, since you can read my mind, maybe you can give me an answer and save me a lot of trouble. "

  "Because there's nothing wrong with it," h e snapped.

  She shook her head. "There's a lot wrong with it, Harley. A hell of a lot, only you're so blinded by all that money you're making that you can't see it. "

  He took a step back toward the house, and she grabbed his hand tightly.

  "Since you're so sure this is all going to work, " she said,

  "would you mind telling me what'll happen if he changes his mind?"

  "He won't," said Harley simply.

  "But suppose he does. "

  "He won't, I said . "

  Amanda released him, her eyes narrowed and her chest rising quickly with a deep breath to prevent her from shouting. Or from grabbing hold of him and shaking him like a rag doll.

  "I know what I'm doin', " he said then.

  "Harley," she said. "Oh, Harley, why won't you listen to your friends?"

  His steady gaze became a glower. "I wonder, sometimes, if I got any friends left."

  Her hand came up to slap him, but she caught it in time and took hold of her belt instead, yanking at it, pulling it, until the edges began to cut into her waist.

  "So you wonder, huh?" Her voice rose in spite of her control. "So you wonder? Really? Well, whether you want to listen or not, I'm going to tell you something, Harley Peterson. Something you should have thought of before you got into this . . . this mess . "

  "Don't want t'hear it. "

  She ignored him. "Right now you're working for Ephraim Wilder. Every dime this place makes goes into that man's pockets. It won't be until fall before you'll realize any profit for yourself, at least according to what you've told me about what you signed. And why Ryan let you sign that damnable piece of paper is beyond me!

  "But. But, Harley, suppose Wilder changes his mind and exercises his option. What are you going to do? You're living on what he pays you, and I'll bet you've had to take a few dollars from the bank to cover that time Livy was ill. There isn't anything free in this world, Harley, and you're already paying and you don't even know it. "

  He pulled a handkerchief from his hip pocket and blew his nose loudly. Then he brushed a hand patiently through his hair. Amanda wanted to strangle him.

  "Well?"

  "Well what?" he said, his face darkening with the pressure of his anger. "You think I'm stupid,
I didn't think of them things? You think Wilder will pull some trick?" He slapped a palm with a fist. "But he won't, Amanda! I got his word. I got his word! July first, this place belongs to me and Livy and ain't no one, not even you, goin' to take that from me."

  He wheeled to leave her, but she planted herself in his path, her hands flat against his chest.

  "Do you . . . ?" She shook her head, closed her eyes briefly.

  "Do you really think I'm trying to take the Circle B away from you, Harl? I don't believe this is you I'm listening to."