"I"ll do it," Dan offered.
"The h.e.l.l you will!" Lantz shouted. "I said my men would do it, and they will, by G.o.d."
"Then please find them," Melody said. "I"m sure Belle is exhausted. I know I am."
Lantz looked reluctant to leave, but he had no choice. Melody accepted the keys from a clerk who, agog with curiosity, had listened to every word of their exchange. She handed one to Belle. "Let"s go before Lantz gets back. I"m too tired to deal with him."
"No lady should have to put up with such a display of bad manners," Dan said. "Just say the word, and Chet and I will get rid of him for you."
"If you really want to do us a service, you"ll disappear as well. Just seeing Chet makes Lantz irrational."
"What have you been up to?" Dan asked, his glance shifting between Chet and Melody. "It"s more what Chet has kept Lantz from doing. You two can go to a saloon and catch up on old times. Belle and I are going to our rooms."
"Don"t forget, dinner at seven-thirty," Dan called after Belle.
She turned and gave him a warm smile. "I won"t forget."
"Belle Jordan," Melody said with mock severity the moment they turned the corner on the stairs, "I do believe you were flirting with that man."
"Do you mind?" Belle said, looking a little conscience-stricken. "Your father has been dead for nearly a year, and I have hardly spoken to a man since then. I don"t count Lantz."
"I don"t mind at all," Melody a.s.sured her. "I think he"s charming."
"I do like men who say pretty things."
"Then you must have had a dry run of it with my father."
"Admittedly, he wasn"t very good with compliments, but he was so good in so many other ways. He"s very much like that young man of yours."
"He"s not my young man, but I"d give anything if he were."
"He won"t pay you compliments or bring you small gifts."
"I wouldn"t want them," Melody said. "Just seeing him across the table, being able to reach out and touch his hand, to hear his soft breathing while he"s asleep would be more than enough."
"Do you think you"ll ever have that?"
"I don"t know, but I mean to give it everything I"ve got. He"s too big a prize for anything less."
Melody couldn"t believe Lantz would return so quickly with two foreman candidates for them to interview. She and Belle had barely managed to unpack their clothes before they were called back downstairs. Lantz expected his recommendation would be enough to secure the job for either candidate. Belle had shocked him when she insisted on inviting Dan Walters to be present.
"He built up his own ranch in a part of Texas infested with bandits and rustlers," she explained to Lantz. "I"m depending upon him to think of all the things that would never occur to me."
Melody had angered him even more when she insisted that Chet be present. "He knows the men and the ranch," she said. "It only makes sense to ask for his opinion."
The partic.i.p.ant all of them had overlooked was Sydney. "You keep telling me I"ve got to think of something besides guns all the time, so let me start learning how to run the ranch. If I"m going to do that, we"ve got to pick out somebody I can work with."
"The boy"s right," Chet said, forestalling Lantz"s explosive disagreement. "Jake made me his foreman when I was pretty much Sydney"s age."
"And look how you turned out," Lantz snapped.
"That was my decision," Chet replied. "But while I was foreman, only one bunch of rustlers got out of our valley with any Broken Circle cows. I brought them and the cows back inside a week."
"If you have someone for us to see, bring him in," Melody said, furious at Lantz for attacking Chet.
"I"ve got two men," Lantz said to Melody. "They"re both perfect for the job. All you have to do is tell me which one you like best."
Melody disliked Lantz"s first choice on sight. The man did look the partbig, strong, and selfa.s.sured. Trouble came from an unexpected direction. Excited over being included with the adults, Sydney wanted to be the first to ask questions. It became apparent almost at once that the man didn"t have any patience with Sydney or his questions. His answers were short and unhelpful, his att.i.tude brusque.
"Have you been a foreman before?" Chet asked. Melody though he entered the discussion to prevent an unwise outburst from Sydney.
"On two places," the man replied, giving the names of the ranches and their owners.
"Have you ever worked for an owner of Sydney"s age?" Chet asked.
"I don"t work for boys," the man said. "I"ll be the one making the decisions."
"That"s understood, but the boy has to learn. He"ll soon be giving the orders."
"I don"t take orders from boys who still answer to their mothers."
The man didn"t appear to realize he"d cooked his goose. He"d not only made Sydney furious, he"d insulted Belle as well.
"I think that"s all we need to ask you," Melody said, refusing to waste any more time on this man. "We"ll now talk to your second candidate, Lantz."
Both Lantz and the man seemed surprised at the shortness of the interview. Neither seemed to realize that as far as Melody, Belle, and Sydney were concerned, the ability to work with cows was rather far down on their list. They certainly didn"t want a foreman as stubborn and willful as the ornery beasts themselves.
"I"m Orian Meeks," the second man said as he introduced himself to Melody and Belle and shook hands with the men. "Mr. Royal tells me you"re in the market for someone to manage your place for you."
"Yes, we are," Belle said. "My husband pa.s.sed away, and our foreman is no longer able to continue in his position."
"I"m mighty sorry to hear that, ma"am. Are these handsome-looking young people your children? You don"t look old enough to be their mama."
Melody guessed she could forgive the man some flatteryafter all, he was trying to get a jobbut she would have preferred a man less glib of tongue.
Belle seemed quite taken with the man, and he was soon able to smooth Sydney"s hackles. Melody decided she was just prejudiced against anyone who wanted to take Chet"s place. She determined to be as objective as possible, but sitting next to Chet made that virtually impossible. There was no way she could look at this man, or any other, and not compare him to Chet. She had to admit Chet was just as stubborn and determined to do things his own way as the first man. But Chet didn"t ignore others or make them feel they were in his way. He"d even let her ride with himonceand never afterward reminded her that even though she"d gotten herself out of trouble, her presence had nearly turned a carefully planned scheme into a disaster. He had been Sydney"s severest critic from the first, but he"d also supported the boy"s right to start being treated like a man. And he"d been kind to Belle even when she"d been acting her silliest.
Where else could you find a man who could do all that and still be the best foreman in Texas? Melody realized that she hadn"t been paying attention when she felt Chet start to tense. She looked at him, but his attention was on Mr. Meeks. Sydney was asking his questions. Meeks was answering them, but Melody gradually detected an undercurrent of mockery.
"I"d like to ask a few questions, if I may," Dan Walters said. Belle a.s.sured him he could ask anything he wanted. Meeks"s att.i.tude changed immediately. Melody thought she might have misinterpreted him, until Belle asked a question. True, it wasn"t the most intelligent question Belle could have askedBelle had to be forgiven for being more interested in the house than the cowsbut the mockery was back at once. Clearly this man didn"t have any respect for women or boys, a recipe for disaster if he were to take over the job at Spring Water.
That impression was intensified when it came Melody"s turn to ask questions.
"We"ve had some trouble with rustlers," she said. "Our old foreman insisted upon arming the cowhands, but I"m against the use of guns. How would you handle the situation?"
His smile grated on her nerves. "All gentlewomen are afraid of firearms," he said. "I"d be surprised if it were otherwise. It"s best to leave that sort of thing to the menfolk. We"re not so high-strung, our sensibilities so refined."
"It has nothing to do with sensibilities or being high-strung," Melody snapped. "It has to do with principle."
"You"re perfectly right," Mr. Meeks a.s.sured her. "I admire a woman who has principles and holds to them, but some things that need to be done are beyond a gentlewoman. Some things are beyond decent men, too. That"s why we have a need for men like your foreman here. Mr. Royal explained why you don"t want to keep him around any longer than you have to. Very wise, I might add."
"Mr. Royal knows nothing of the matter," Melody snapped, turning her angry glare on Lantz. "I have perfect confidence in my foreman. I"ve done everything in my power to convince him to stay on."
While Lantz just looked angry, Meeks tripped over his tongue to try to retrieve his words. Melody wouldn"t have let him set foot on the ranch under any circ.u.mstances. She stood. "Come on, Belle. I"m afraid neither of these men is acceptable."
"What"s wrong with them?" Lantz demanded. "They"re the best around."
"They"re too much like you," Melody told him, "stubborn, pig-headed, and contemptuous of women. Furthermore, I refuse to hire anyone who won"t take the time to work with Sydney now, and Neill when he gets older. The Spring Water is their inheritance. They need to know how to take care of it themselves."
"I"ll be close by," Lantz said. "After we"re married"
Melody"s tiny scream of frustration stopped Lantz in mid-sentence.
"I"ve told you over and over, I"m not going to marry you," she said. "We appreciate your help, but you have nothing to do with what goes on at the Spring Water."
"I"ll have that ranch," Lantz roared. "If you don"t"
"Do you want your herd scattered again?" Chet asked in his same quiet, unhurried voice. "Or would you rather we burned down your ranch house next time?"
Lantz gaped at him as if he were crazy.
"Didn"t you ever wonder why none of your cows were missing?" Chet asked.
"My men went after them right away."
"Not for hours. And you left your ranch vulnerable. Anybody could have ridden up and set your haystack and barn afire."
"I"ll have you killed for this," Lantz blazed, charging from his seat.
Dan Walters blocked his path.
"You won"t do anything to anybody," Chet said. "Your reign of terror is over. The Spring Water is going to get itself a foreman who can stand up to you as well as to those rustlers. If you get up to your old tricks, I"ll come back. Don"t look at Melody. She won"t know I"m here. n.o.body will see me, but you"ll see my work. When I"m done, you"ll be lucky to be able to hang on to your ranch."
"You"re working with the rustlers," Lantz accused him.
"If I had been, you"d be picked clean by now."
Melody was growing uneasy with the increasingly heated argument. She didn"t want Chet to make Lantz so mad he"d send his gunfighter after him. "Thank you, Mr. Meeks," she said, "but I don"t think you"re what we"re looking for."
Meeks left the room quickly, his chagrin plain to see. Lantz stayed long enough to utter a few more threatsMelody had heard them all by nowbefore making his usual noisy exit.
"That was very interesting," Dan said to Chet. "Would someone like to bring me up to date on what"s been going on around here?"
"Chet can do that," Belle said. "Since our business is over, Melody and I are going shopping."
"I"m not going shopping," Sydney stated.
"You"re staying with us," Chet said. "You"ve got to tell Dan what"s been happening. You know far more about it than I do."
If Melody hadn"t already been certain Chet was the kindest, sweetest man in the world, Sydney"s proud smile would have convinced her. Lantz would never understand. She wouldn"t have herself a few weeks ago. She could only marvel that two such contradictory natures could exist side by side in the same man. She didn"t know how she could live without one. She didn"t know how she could live with the other. But she intended to do her best to make sure she had the chance to figure it out.
Melody settled back while the waiter poured a fresh cup of coffee. Dan Walters was a delightful host. And once they"d gotten rid of Lantz, everyone was able to enjoy themselves. Even Neill and Sydney. They thoroughly enjoyed Dan"s telling of the hunt for the rustlers. Though he made it sound like fun, Melody was certain it had been a very dangerous time for him and Chet. She didn"t like Dan making it sound like such a grand adventure. Sydney had begun to show signs of maturity. She didn"t want him to start regressing.
"Did you hang them all?" Neill asked.
"Yes. They had killed a lot of people both here and in Mexico."
"Are there any more bandits?"
"Too many," Dan said. "That"s why I decided to sell up. I want to be a rancher, not a gunman."
"That"s what Chet says," Sydney said. "He says it"s not fun after a while." "It"s never fun," Chet said. "But after a while it gets to be hard to forget their faces."
"How about you?" Sydney asked Dan. "Do you still see their faces?"
"Yes," he admitted. "I guess that"s one of the reasons I sold up. If I"d stayed, there"d have been more. Now, let"s talk about what we"re going to do for the rest of the evening."
"I"m going to look around," Sydney announced.
"Me, too," Neill echoed.
"Neill, you know you can"t go off by yourself," Belle said.
"He can go with Sydney," Chet said. "Breaking in green boys is one of the things you have to learn to be a rancher," Chet said before Sydney could protest.
"I"m no green boy," Neill said.
"No, but you could pretend, just so Sydney would have somebody to practice on."
The two boys eyed each other uncertainly.
"I don"t mind taking him along if he"ll do what I say," Sydney said. "What"s a green boy like?" he asked Chet.
"He"s never been in town before. You have to show him around, tell him what to look out for. Think you can act like a green boy?" Chet asked Neill.
"Sure. I can be like Melody when she first got here. She didn"t know nothing."
"I still don"t know much," Melody said, smiling, "but I"m learning."
"Thank Mr. Walters for his hospitality and you can go," Belle said.
The boys mumbled their thanks and quickly disappeared.
"I"m nervous about them," Belle said. "They"ve never been turned loose in town before."
"I know how to fix that," Dan said. "We can take a walk and keep an eye on them at the same time."
"I wouldn"t want to impose on you," Belle said.