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A soft yellow light flared suddenly and the smell of sulfur tickled his nose. Amber stood across the hall, next to a small table. She dropped the spent match, its tip blackened and shriveled, into a small pottery bowl, then replaced the glass chimney on the flickering lamp and turned to face him.
“I don’t work for you.” She spoke evenly but firmly. “I worked for your uncle and stayed until Richard’s heir arrived. It was part of my obligation to him.”
“And that’s finished now?” He probed her face, the verdant green eyes that shone like emeralds in the golden lamplight, but her expression revealed nothing.
“Nearly so, it seems. You haven’t hired me, and without that, you have no rights where I’m concerned.”
“Do you want to work for me?” The question came from nowhere.
She watched him for several long, silent moments, then finally blinked. “I don’t know.” She nestled her hands together and held them in front of her, against her stomach.
It was the faded gray dress that she wore today, with the round white collar and tiny white buttons down the front. Was she trembling? Surely not. She had defended herself and Richard adamantly, fearlessly, at every turn.
Or was it his stare, intense and relentless? But what other choice did he have? Her crystalline eyes revealed little and saw far too much. And her lips, soft and full, parted just enough to tease him with a hint of white teeth and pink tongue.
“Your position here is secure,” he snapped. It had never occurred to him that she would not remain. “I can’t afford to fire anyone. There aren’t enough of us to work the ranch now. But I expect the same work for the same wages Richard paid. Until we make some improvements and the Double F starts paying for itself, there isn’t money for anything more.”
He paused, waiting, but she didn’t respond. Irritation and relief battled for dominance. Hell, he didn’t need a housekeeper; why didn’t he just fire her?
“Is that what you wanted to hear?” he demanded with some frustration.
“I suppose so, yes. Something like that.” Something in her expression flickered, disturbing him. Was that…vulnerability he saw?
“You intend to stay, then?”
She blinked, averting her eyes. “Yes.”
“Then you must accept one thing.” He meant to regain control of the situation. “There can be no misunderstanding.”
“And that is?”
“Honesty. I expect complete honesty from all who work for me. I will not tolerate a lie, under any circumstances. Is that clear?”
Amber drew herself up, tall and proud and sure. “Absolutely. Honesty is a virtue I greatly esteem, myself. I have never lied to you, and you have my word that I will not do so in the future.”
She turned toward the back of the house and her bedroom, tucked behind the stairs at the end of the hall, then stopped and glanced back over her shoulder. “I will always be honest with you, Derek. But that doesn’t mean I will share my every thought with you. Those are mine, burden or comfort, and I will keep them to myself.”
Amber wielded her broom with swift, sure strokes, cleaning dirt, twigs and leaves from the back stoop. She had long ago accepted the light, gusty breeze as a part of everyday life in south Texas, and the daily routine of sweeping the walkway gave her some comfort now and served as a balm to her fractious nerves and wounded pride.
Derek’s questions, followed by his other bold, disdainful remarks, had kept Amber awake through much of the night. The multitude had chased themselves around in her mind like a litter of kittens after their tails. Somewhere in the middle of the night, she had realized the significance of her refusal to answer his direct question. For reasons Amber still didn’t understand, he had let her have her way. She had not bested him, and she did not try to delude herself into thinking that she had. It wasn’t that he had accepted her answer—or, more accurately, her lack of an answer. Nor had he given up searching for a response that satisfied him. He would ask again—and likely soon.
And then what?
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered as long as she could keep her job.
The words echoed with importance as she reached the cookhouse. Amber swallowed. Derek could fire her as easily as he’d agreed to let her stay. He had given her nothing more than an opportunity to prove herself…a little space in which to breathe. Only a fool would waste it.
She swept the pile of debris into her weeding bucket before she propped the broom against the wall, next to the door. If she hurried, she could start her own recipe for son of a gun stew before Six got to it. She wiped her dusty hands on her apron and stepped inside.
A huge worktable dominated the room, its top nicked and scarred from years of use. Amber used it to assemble the first ingredients for her stew. Banging a large cook pot down on one end, she turned toward the door and spied Derek.
He watched her as he pulled the brown, wide-brimmed hat from his head and tossed it onto the tabletop. He ran his hands through his blond hair, shoving it back from his face.
She swallowed and inhaled a deep breath. He moved with an unhurried, lazy grace she’d never noticed in another man. And his hair—did it feel soft as silk, as it looked? One breath stumbled over another and sent her heart pounding.
Don’t be stupid! She forbade herself the least physical reaction to Derek. He presented enough complications to her life as it was.
“Were you looking for me?” she snapped. “I was on my way to the smokehouse.”
“We need to talk.”
“Talk?” He wanted to talk? Already?
“Talk. As in engage in a discussion.”
“Yes, I know what it means. But…now?” She swept a quick, agitated gaze around the room. “I’m in the middle of son of a gun stew.”
He almost smiled. “That’s good news. I expected to have to fetch the doctor if Six kept feeding us. Are you sure you can do it?”
“I’m an excellent cook.” She drew herself up and threw her shoulders back, emphasizing every capable inch.
“I didn’t mean that. I meant do you have time?”
Amber nodded. “I can manage. For a while. At least until you hire more men.”
“I’ll see if I can find us a cook then.”
“Well, if that’s all you wanted…” Surreptitiously she stepped to the side, hoping he wouldn’t notice until she had reached the door. How did he manage to fill a room with little more than his presence, or make her feel as though she needed the open skies and fresh air to breathe?
“Do I make you uncomfortable?”
“What?” She stopped moving and peered at him—and couldn’t help noticing differences between them. He stood at least six inches taller and outweighed her by close to eighty pounds. His muscled strength was apparent in his arms and chest, even under the fabric of his brown cotton shirt, and his narrow waist made his thighs look like the trunks of large trees.
She felt like the weakest of saplings next to him.
“You don’t want to talk to me, do you?” His eyes glittered with challenge, daring her to answer.
Will you do it? they seemed to demand. Will you tell me the truth, like you promised last night?
“No.” She shook her head. “I don’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because you never seem satisfied with what I say.” It was enough of the truth for now. She just didn’t add that she had trouble concentrating on the things she said because a part of her was too busy noticing him as a man. She had from the very beginning. And that his physical presence made her suddenly aware of herself as a woman.
She swallowed and added, “And because you never take anything at face value. You always seem to suspect a hidden meaning, an ulterior motive—and you make me…uneasy.” It was a better word than nervous. Or self-conscious.
“Maybe I wouldn’t have to look for hidden meanings if someone would talk to me. If I didn’t have to pry out every bit of information as if you held the secrets to Lincoln’s assassination and the rest of us had never heard of John Wilkes Booth.”
She glared at him. “Don’t be ridiculous. There’s nothing to tell that you don’t already know.”
“Just like I knew that Richard was murdered? Like I know how your father died? Or that you were run out of town?”
“You didn’t ask those questions,” she said tightly as she battled the urge to throttle him. “It wasn’t my place to tell you anything about Richard’s death. I thought you knew already. The rest of it was none of your business.”
“None of my business?” He shot her a fierce glare. “I own the Double F. I didn’t ask for it, I didn’t expect it. This inheritance was thrust upon me with no warning, no explanation, and I’m entitled to some questions.”
“Why accept your inheritance then, if you didn’t want it? Why not stay in Charleston with your family and forget about this ranch in godforsaken Texas?”
Derek closed his eyes for a moment, two, then opened them to reveal a very clear, very blue void. He stared at her with blank simplicity and said, “Will you answer my questions?”
What choice did she have? She recognized his growing frustration in his inability to find satisfactory answers, but she hated remembering the things he was asking about. She knew so little. Only enough to be frightened.
She had already far overstepped her bounds with her impudent questions and brazen observations, however. If she continued with such insolence or refused to answer him, he might reconsider his offer.
She sighed. “All right.”
“Please sit down.” He gestured to the nearest chair of four that flanked the table.
She sat, folding her hands together with prim seriousness and resting them on the tabletop. She watched him cautiously, expectantly, but made no attempt to conceal her asperity.
Derek remained silent, studying her with those brilliant blue eyes that shared nothing of the man behind them. Finally he pulled out a chair, and the wooden legs screeched across the plank floor. He sat, never taking his eyes off her.
“Frank Edwards said the Double F was once a successful cattle and horse ranch, that the war caused its present condition. Is that true?”
“For the most part.”
His mouth tightened. “What is the rest of it, then?”
She shook her head. “Richard didn’t confide in me, and he stopped discussing business in my presence after my father died. I can only tell you what I witnessed or overheard.”
“Go on.”
She took a deep breath and wet her suddenly dry lips with her tongue. “The Double F did very well for a long time. Once the war started, Richard all but worked himself to death to keep it going. But after a while, around the middle of the war, I suppose, he had to slow down.”
She glanced down at her twined fingers and noticed her knuckles had turned white. She tried to relax her grip. “By then, not only weren’t there enough men, but the Cause desperately needed money, supplies, whatever anyone could spare.” She looked at Derek. “You must know what it was like.”
He stared back at her, his gaze distant. Eventually he angled his head in her direction. “Yes.”
“Richard gave all that he could. More than he should.” She smiled sadly. “He had a little cash besides Confederate scrip, which by then was all but worthless, but he couldn’t afford to part with it. He had to start making choices. The cattle and horses came first or there wouldn’t be a ranch, he said, so that’s what he worked to save. Other things just had to be ignored.”
She glanced at Derek, whose eyes were alert with polite interest. “When the fighting was over, things didn’t improve. There still wasn’t any money, and Richard couldn’t afford the wages he’d paid before the war. When men began drifting through…well, too many young, healthy ones didn’t come home. Some were unable to do this kind of work, while others couldn’t settle down.”
She paused, listening for a moment to the distant sounds of men and horses on a typical ranch workday. Richard had always said they were the sounds of heaven to him. The thought made her smile, and she continued.
“The violence started…oh, more than two years ago. At first it seemed like just something more for Richard to worry about. There wasn’t enough law here, with too many strange, angry men moving through the countryside. Sheriff Gardner was new and untrained, and the violence became considerable. Eventually it seemed like rustlers were targeting the Double F.”
“The same rustlers who murdered him?”
Amber closed her eyes, but then immediately reopened them. The question allowed no escape, and the darkness made it all too easy for Richard’s image to return in full color and detail. Not the warm, laughing man she had come to love, but as she’d last seen him, cold and still, with a bullet in his chest.
She glanced aside, through the window, and saw Gideon stride purposefully across the yard to the corral. “I assume so,” she said in a sketchy voice no more than a whisper. “No one ever saw them, before or after. I believe Richard had his suspicions before the shooting, but he refused to share them with me. For my own protection, he said. And since he’s been gone, the rustling has stopped.”
“Stopped?” Derek straightened and stared at her, his interest obviously piqued.
“At first I thought it was because Richard was dead. That it may have been a personal grudge, though I can’t imagine it. He had no enemies that I knew of.”
She paused, probing Derek’s expression. Had something flickered in his gaze? Had his mouth tightened? He stared back, his expression as flat and distant as she had come to expect from him, and she decided she must have been mistaken.
“During the first few months I was here, several others were wounded mysteriously. No culprit was ever found, and they left before Richard died. More left after his murder, until we had only the men who are here now. I’ve thought about it and decided perhaps the rustlers simply didn’t need to continue. Without a leader and enough men to work the ranch—”
“There was no need to steal the cattle. They could just round them up after they wandered off,” Derek finished for her.
“Yes. Men on smaller ranches simply turned their cattle loose when they left to fight.”
He leaned back, tilting the chair to stand on its rear legs, and nodded thoughtfully. “It’s quite ingenious, really. You’ve heard nothing more since Richard died?”
“No. I don’t go into Twigg and only the Andrews brothers visit, so I remain relatively isolated. Men don’t often tell women things of that nature, and though my father was an exception, that hasn’t been the case here.”
Derek leaned forward, resting his powerful forearms on the table. “Who was in charge until I arrived?”
“No one, really.” She paused as sudden activity in the yard caught her attention through the window. A man and horse approached, and Gideon strode out to meet them, Whitley close on his heels. Amber smiled to herself, wondering if admiration or jealousy struck Whitley more. Since Gideon’s arrival, the young cowboy had rarely let the man out of his sight.
Regretfully, she turned her attention back to Derek. “Six has been here the longest and knows the most about ranching, but he’s not a leader and he knows it. Micah does what he can, but he had no one when I left Twigg, so he came with me. He doesn’t have the experience and he’s not up to the challenge physically. Whitley would like to take control, but he’s young and inexperienced, and no one listens to him. Frank Edwards issued instructions from town, but he never came himself. He sent them with Whitley so, again, no one would listen. Juan and Carlos are hard workers and will do what is asked of them, except…”
“Except what?”
“Well, they disapprove of taking orders from a woman.”
Derek’s eyes narrowed. “You were willing to take on the responsibility if the men had cooperated?”
“Please don’t misunderstand.” She almost reached for him, intending to make her point with a light touch to his arm as she would have done with Richard, but she stopped herself after merely unclasping her hands. She flexed her fingers, then laid them flat on the tabletop. “I don’t want to get anyone into trouble. We all did our best, in our own ways, to keep the Double F going until you arrived. I just thought if the men would have listened—”
“Boss? You in here?” Whitley barreled into the cookhouse, scouring the room with wide, sullen eyes. The youngest vaquero at the ranch, he retained the thin wiriness common to boys who had not yet reached their full maturity. Amber had rarely seen him with anything but a brooding expression on his face.
Derek turned, and she heard him sigh. “What?”
“Gideon said to fetch ya.” Whitley’s voice carried an unmistakable edge, sharp enough to approach the point of disrespect. “There’s a man here lookin’ fer work.”
Derek blinked. “Good.” He spoke as though he didn’t notice the insolence, but Amber knew better. Derek missed nothing. “I’ll be right out.”
“I dunno, boss. We need men, but…”
“But what?”
Amber glanced out through the window once more, but she could see only Gideon’s back and the well-ridden gelding that stood next to him. Curious, she looked from Derek to Whitley.
“Well, I dunno what he can do. He ain’t all there.”
