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“There are still hands there, aren’t there?” Edwards’s cheeks flushed and his eyes widened in alarm.
“Don’t you know?” Derek tried to pin the banker with a sharp frown, but the man refused to meet his gaze. “Your letter said you were overseeing the place until I got here.”
“I…” Edwards paused as though reconsidering whatever he’d started to say, then merely nodded. “Yes, of course. I haven’t been there in a while, though. Busy here, you know.” He waved a hand to indicate his desk, which looked remarkably clutter-free.
Derek swallowed a sigh. What the hell was the use? No one seemed inclined to confide in him. “The place isn’t quite deserted.” He made no effort to keep the displeasure from his voice. “There are two old men, a couple of Mexican families, a boy too young to have seen much of any kind of work and a woman. Those are my ranch hands?”
“Six Parker worked for your uncle from the very beginning, and the Mexicans stayed through the whole of the war.” Edwards counted off the workers on his pudgy fingers. “Whitley Andrews may be young and inexperienced, but he’s willing. As for Micah Smith and Amber Laughton, they came together—a pair, you might say. They moved to the ranch when she was run out of town.”
“Run out of town?” The incredulous question slipped out before he could think better of it. Derek snapped his mouth shut, effectively cutting off any other indiscreet remark, but his earlier observations taunted him.
Why would a beautiful young woman confine herself to keeping house at a remote ranch, and for a man old enough to be her father?
And his reply to himself: Unless she defined friend differently than he did.
“I am not one to carry tales, mind you,” Edwards said in a prim voice that told Derek otherwise. “However, since Amber Laughton is living under your roof, I feel obligated to warn you that she was involved in some trouble with a number of men. She consorted with them after her father died—or so they say. Your uncle—well, I don’t know if she bewitched him, or if he thought to do a good deed and take the hussy from our midst. In any case, she moved to the ranch, and she’s been there since.”
Derek said nothing for the space of a heartbeat. “Amber was Richard’s mistress.” It was more a statement than a question. Dozens of other questions raced through Derek’s mind, but a particular reluctance to ask them of Edwards kept him silent. He’d already said too much. He would get his answers, but he’d get them from Amber.
“Only she can tell you that for sure, now that Richard is dead,” said Edwards stiffly, without meeting Derek’s gaze. “But I believe so, yes. I, certainly, will have nothing to do with her.”
Derek tightened his jaw. He couldn’t risk unleashing any emotion over Edwards’s announcement. He had certain secrets from his own sordid past that he wished to leave behind him; he couldn’t afford to start something he wasn’t prepared to finish. He’d already revealed too much in his desire to learn more.
“All right, Mr. Edwards,” he said. “And just what is it you suggest that I do as the new owner of the Double F?” He had no real interest in Edwards’s opinion, but it seemed an easy diversion for the moment.
He was right. Edwards’s mouth flattened in a self-deprecating smile. “It’s your ranch now, Mr. Fontaine. Nothing has to remain as it was. You are under no obligation to maintain the same workers your uncle employed. At the very least, I encourage you to disassociate yourself from Amber Laughton once and for all.”
“I see.”
“Times are changing, people are moving west.” Edwards leaned forward as though warming to his topic. “We’ve had two new families settle in Twigg, a man to take over the newspaper Amber’s father once owned, and a man who plans to build a new hotel. More Mexicans are drifting farther north again, without the Yankee army to get in their way.”
He paused expectantly, his features smoothing themselves back into their thin, rodentlike appearance. “The railroad has come, you know, and here in Twigg, we have plans to be a part of the progress. That can only bode well for you and your ranch. They want cattle up north, and we’ve got them here. Your uncle had great plans for the Double F.”
“As you said, Mr. Edwards, it’s my ranch now.” Derek offered a sparse, distant smile. “However, I am not prepared to rush into ill-advised changes at the moment. You will find that I never make rash decisions.
“In the meantime, I have other concerns about the ranch and its financial situation. And I’d like to arrange for a personal account with your bank. If you don’t mind…”
Edwards nodded, perhaps a bit eagerly, and Derek felt a coil of apprehension relax inside him. He understood this man and his desires; he was a businessman, and Derek had money. Not a fortune, perhaps—a major’s commission hardly made a man rich, but there had been precious little on which to spend it during the war. In these days of reconstruction, it was more than many had. Not that he intended for Edwards to know exactly what he had or how he’d acquired it.
No, he would show the overfed rodent just enough to make them friends—good friends in Edwards’s eyes. And then?
Well, maybe then Derek would have the means to get answers to some of his other questions.
Chapter Three
Andrews Mercantile looked like a thousand other general stores that had sprung up in the fledgling towns that had begun to dot the West. Derek stopped just inside the doorway and glanced around, inventorying the crowded interior with narrowed eyes. Groceries, dry goods and hardware filled the shelves. Kegs and barrels of sugar, flour and molasses littered the floor, squatting next to half-filled sacks of potatoes, onions and other produce.
Several women stood in a semicircle near the dry goods, murmuring among themselves, while two old men sat crouched on a pair of stubby, three-legged stools next to a cold woodstove. A middle-aged man, the proprietor, no doubt, shifted canned goods on a shelf to make room for more.
“Them wimmen cackle like a bunch a’ chickens.”
“Flock.”
Derek followed the voices and found himself looking at the old men. They stared back. “I beg your pardon?”
The thinner of the two, balding on top and scowling, jerked his head in the direction of his companion. “A flock. A group a’ birds is a flock. Clem called them a bunch.”
“Dang it, Twigg.” The other man, really no heavier, with fewer hairs and an almost identical sour expression, spoke up. “It don’t matter about the damn birds. I was talkin’ about the wimmen.”
The corner of Derek’s mouth kicked up in amusement, then faded in bafflement. “Twigg?” He stepped closer. “Like the town?”
“Yep.” The old man straightened with peremptory pride. “They named the town after me. We was the first ones here—the founders. Clem wanted to name the place after him, but that ain’t no name fer a town. Clem!” He snorted.
“Yer him, ain’t you? The new feller at the Double F.”
Derek hesitated, then nodded. “I’m Derek Fontaine.”
“Ha! I knew it!” Clem slapped his knee with a liver-spotted hand. “Yer Richard Fontaine’s nephew, all right. I’d recognize you anywhere. You look just like him. Pay up, Twigg.” He held out the same wrinkled hand, palm-up.
“Dang it, Clem, when he come in you said you never seen the man before. Now yer sayin’ you knew him all the time. That’s cheatin’ an’ I ain’t payin’ no cheater.”
The old men’s quarrel took on a snappish tone, and Derek blocked them out with an ease that surprised him for a moment. But—no. It made perfect sense that the habits of the past remained deeply ingrained within him. Hadn’t he spent years listening to Jordan’s tirades and lectures, standing at attention before the old man’s desk with bright eyes and a thoughtful face, while his mind had darted off to a far different world?
And later, when the noise and stench of thousands of men and animals, all crowded together in the hell that masqueraded as life in the army camps, had become too much, hadn’t he stolen away inside himself for his own private solitude? He’d escaped that and more rather than dwell on things far more oppressive. Things like the emotions conjured up by Clem’s observation.
When he’d first learned that Richard was his father, Derek had embraced the news with equal parts relief and fury. Relief because it explained so much—and fury for the very same reason. He had never seen a portrait, tintype or photograph of his father, if any had ever existed; even the mention of Richard’s name was banned in Jordan’s household after the death of Derek’s grandmother. As a child Derek had never understood why there were so few opportunities to learn about his “uncle” Richard. Now, none of it seemed to matter.
And how odd to realize that, in order to see his father’s face, he’d only needed to look in the mirror. But, damn, he was tired of hearing how he looked just like the man.
“Did they, young Mr. Fontaine?”
The sharp voice recaptured Derek’s attention. “Pardon me?”
“You deaf, boy? I asked if the law ever found out who kilt yer uncle.”
A thousand denials shrieked in his head, each one fierce with disbelief. Derek blinked, gathering his concentration, before attempting to eye the men with cool calculation. “Killed…as in murder?”
“Yeah, murder. Ain’t nobody told you nothin’?” demanded Clem peevishly.
“Apparently not. Or maybe I’ve been talking to the wrong people.”
“You have if you been talkin’ to Frank Edwards. He sits over there in that bank, thinkin’ he knows so much ’cause he studied that law and he owns the bank. Hell, he’s even been pretendin’ to run the Double F since Richard died. Well, let me tell you, he ain’t done nuthin’—an’ he knows even less. He oughta get out here with the rest a’ us, and he might figger a few things out.”
“What’d he tell you, anyway?” Twigg asked.
Derek hesitated. These men seemed to know more than he did, and his purpose here today was to get answers to his questions. He shrugged. “That Richard was found dead several miles from the ranch. That he’d been out alone and it looked like an accident.”
“Accident, my foot!” Clem stamped the floor for emphasis. “He was shot—murdered—by rustlers. You mark my words!”
“Rustlers?”
“Rustlers. They been plaguin’ us since the end a’ the war. An’ everybody ’round here knows it. Edwards knows it, too. But maybe he didn’t wanna scare you off by tellin’ you the truth.”
Richard had been murdered, and Derek had had no idea. He hadn’t even considered asking for the grisly details; after all the death and mutilation he’d seen during the war, it had seemed enough that dead meant dead.
He should have known better.
He took his time in answering. “Looks like I need to visit the sheriff.”
“Bah, don’t waste your time on that worthless no-good nincompoop. There’s been nothin’ but trouble since he took over. First year there was that mess with the Laughton girl an’ her daddy, and then last year he let Fontaine git kilt.”
“Uncle Clem, Uncle Twigg! Lower your voices, please! There are ladies present!” The middle-aged man strode over, his forehead creased in a harsh frown that looked remarkably identical to those of the men who were apparently his uncles. He turned to Derek, his frown easing until he looked as though he merely suffered from a severe case of dyspepsia. “I’m sorry, sir, if my uncles disturbed you. They can be quite a nuisance, I know. I’m Bill Andrews, and I’m the proprietor of this establishment. May I help you?”
Derek settled his gaze on the man. “I’m Derek Fontaine. Has someone from the Double F been in for supplies today?”
“No, sir, we haven’t seen Whitley—”
“Whitley won’t be in. I brought another man with me, a new hand named Gideon. Tall, dressed in black?”
Andrews shook his head. “No, sir, I haven’t seen him—”
“You lookin’ fer help, young Fontaine?” Clem demanded suddenly. “You got enough men to run that place yet?”
“No, Clem, not enough men. But I’m working on it.”
“Well, don’t you worry. There’s a bunch—” Clem flashed a triumphant smirk in Twigg’s direction “—a’ men movin’ around the countryside these days. Men who cain’t settle down after all the years of soldierin’. You hire you some a’ them good Southern boys when they show up at yer door.”
“Yes,” Derek agreed, though he refrained from acknowledging that he’d hire a good Northern man just as quickly. The war had been over for three years, and it was past time for them to put their lives back together and go on. Now didn’t seem the best time to make his point, however. Not if he had any other questions to which he wanted answers.
He blinked, seeking a quick diversion. “Now, about some purchases I’d like to make.”
“Yes?” Bill Andrews’s response carried a stiff formality as his gaze darted disapprovingly between his uncles and Derek.
“Billy’s got some wrinkled potatoes and soft onions he’s been tryin’ to get rid of,” Clem suggested with a sly grin.
“How about them radishes and beets and turnips, Billy?” Twigg asked, his tone far too innocent for Derek to believe. “You ain’t managed to find anybody else to take them off yer hands yet, have ya?”
The younger Andrews’s eyes bugged out and his face turned a deep, shocking red. Lord, had the old men sent him into a fit of apoplexy? Derek shot a half concerned, half amused glance from one to the other.
The breath rushed out of Bill Andrews in one great whoosh, and he bellowed, “Uncle Clem! Uncle Twigg!”
The old men beamed at Derek and nodded proudly before they turned their attention back to their nephew. Their antics tempted Derek to smile—dammit, to grin—as he hadn’t been so persuaded in a very long time.
As a child he’d often wished for a bit of nonsense from the ever-serious Jordan, but jokes and teasing had been beyond the man. Instead, Derek and his older brother—his half brother, he knew now—had relied on each other for their all-too-brief bits of fun, and he could almost picture the two of them in thirty or forty years, languishing in Clem’s and Twigg’s places.
God, Nathan. Memories slammed through Derek with all the force of a minié ball. He turned away and closed his eyes. Where did we go so wrong? I never meant for things to end like they did. I’m sorry…so damn sorry.
“Mr. Fontaine! Wait a moment…please! My uncles were just making sport, and I—well, I sometimes lose my temper with them. We’ll have an excellent variety soon, but at the moment we have only a few early crops and what’s left from last year.”
Derek swallowed a weary sigh and turned back. “I don’t need anything like potatoes or onions, Mr. Andrews. The Double F has a very healthy, producing garden of its own.”
“Thanks to that horrid Amber Laughton!” The pronouncement came from the direction of the dry goods, where the ladies present had seemed busy choosing among several bolts of fabric. One of the women, rotund and frowning, separated herself from the group and stalked over to them.
“Now, Eliza, don’t get started.”
“Bill Andrews, how can you say that? After what she did, why do you men insist on taking up for her? Thank God some men, like my dear son-in-law, are smarter than that.”
Derek stared at the woman, eyes narrowed to cloak his instant dislike of her and her intrusion. “I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage, madam.”
“Oh, don’t listen to these fools, young Fontaine.” Clem waved his hand at the store in general. His earlier frown returned, and he stared at the others, blinking rapidly. It put Derek oddly in mind of a demented chicken. “This here’s Eliza Bates. Eliza, meet Derek Fontaine, Richard’s nephew. If’n he’s anything like his uncle, he ain’t gonna wanna listen when you bellyache about Amber anymore’n we do. It gets mighty tiresome, let me tell you.”
“Clem Andrews!”
Derek ignored the disgruntled cry. “And what is there to bellyache about, Clem?” He rather enjoyed Eliza Bates’s sharply indrawn breath.
No one answered for a moment, nor did they meet Derek’s gaze as he looked at them, one by one, until Twigg finally said, “There ain’t nothin’ wrong with Amber. She had her a little trouble a couple a’ years back an’ some folks cain’t fergit it.” He shot an angry chicken-blink, identical to Clem’s expression, at Eliza. “Some folks just don’t want ’er to have a life ’cept’n what they decide she kin have.” Twigg’s eyes sparked with defiance. “Me an’ Clem, we feel different.”
“Yep,” Clem added. “We feel different about a lot a’ things from other folks, an’—”
“If you gentlemen—and ladies—will excuse me…” Derek interrupted as smoothly as possible. He sought an even tone, firmly stifling the impatient snap that would have satisfied him far more. He couldn’t afford to alienate these people—not yet. Not if there was a chance they could provide answers to other questions he had.
Indeed, they seemed willing enough to talk.
But, Christ! Why hadn’t Richard gone insane himself, living with this bunch—Derek fought back an impulsive smile—of lunatics?
“Mr. Fontaine, wait!” Bill Andrews’s cry stopped him before he’d taken a step. “You said you had some purchases to make?”
“That can wait, Mr. Andrews. I think I’ve had enough for one day.” He shot a last, amused glance at Clem and Twigg as he turned to leave. Clem winked at him.
“Mr. Fontaine!”
The strident grating of Eliza Bates’s voice stopped him just short of the door. He turned, waiting as she bore down on him, but he made no attempt to disguise the impatience in his voice when he said, “Yes?”
“Don’t let a pretty face and soft voice fool you, Mr. Fontaine.” Her expression offered a peculiar mixture of angry disapproval, authority and earnestness. “Amber Laughton has a history of bewitching men into seeing whatever she wants them to. You listen when I tell you she was responsible for her own downfall and the death of her father.”
He stared, withholding any outward reaction. “And why should that concern me, madam?”
She snorted in a startlingly masculine manner. “She is a shameless hussy with no morals or decency! When she couldn’t seduce my son-in-law, she became your uncle’s mistress, and she’s still living at the ranch, from what I hear. Your ranch now. If you’re looking for a fancy woman of your own—”
“It will be no one’s business but my own, Mrs. Bates.” The whole ridiculous exchange suddenly irritated the hell out of him. “Good day.”
Escaping to the veranda at the front of the house, Amber started the rocking chair in motion with a push of her toes, and settled back for a few moments of relaxation.
It was her first chance of the day to relax. She’d wasted too much time watching Derek ride toward Twigg—too much time thinking—which left her scrambling to catch up on her chores. Even in the garden, where she could usually dawdle for hours, she’d had to rush just to finish the watering. Now, finally, this private time came as a pleasant escape.
Amber closed her eyes and laid her head against the back of the chair, yielding to the enveloping darkness. With unerring precision, she found herself again considering the precariousness of her situation, the uncertainty of life. If she was forced to leave the ranch, where would she go? She had no family save Micah, and they weren’t even related. And how could they leave? Micah’s rheumatism would never stand the trip, and they hadn’t the money to go. Frank Edwards had been stingy with their wages since Richard’s death.
Enough of that. The shadows had become oppressive, her perspective distorted, and life seemed only painful—unbearable.
