Proving Herself Read online

  Proving Herself

  Yvonne Jocks

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  PRAISE FOR YVONNE JOCKS AND THE RANCHER'S DAUGHTERS

  FORGETTING HERSELF

  "A tender, sweet story that carries a powerful message readers will not be able to ignore."

  —Romantic Times

  "A-wonderful, can't-put-it-down read, Forgetting Herself is a wel­come addition to my keeper shelf."

  —Amazon.com

  "Ms. Jocks shows promise, and she obviously did her research."

  —All About Romance

  BEHAVING HERSELF

  "Yvonne Jocks has written an engaging novel with warm, wonder­ful characters her readers will give their hearts to. Nicely done, Ms. Jocks."

  —Amazon.com

  "Compelling characters and rich description add up to a savory read."

  —Romantic Times

  THE QUESTION

  Papa cleared his throat, startling them. His amusement had dark­ened to something more intense. "You want this Englisher to call on you, Laurel Lee?"

  This was the moment of truth, the point where he would guess their charade. And yet, smelling Cole's clean scent of soap and leather and shirt starch, with his hand warm around hers, the words came easier than she'd feared. "I... I think so," she admitted, as if it really were the truth. "I'd at least like to find out."

  Collier squeezed her hand in approval.

  Papa scowled at him. "You employed?"

  "One definition of a gentleman," Collier offered, "is a man who need not work for a living. I receive a quarterly allowance from my inheritance."

  "A remittance," clarified Papa in disgust.

  Collier stiffened, but conceded, "If you like."

  Papa shook his head, as if he'd seen everything.

  Unwilling to let Collier make all the effort, Laurel said, "You always did want me to be a lady, Papa."

  Her father looked like he might just argue with her, then shook his head and simply turned to leave. "You two got enough rope to hang yerselves, anyhow," he offered. And with that, he stalked off to talk to Laurel's mother.

  Other Leisure books by Yvonne Jocks:

  THE RANCHER'S DAUGHTERS:

  FORGETTING HERSELF

  THE RANCHER'S DAUGHTERS:

  BEHAVING HERSELF

  A LEISURE BOOK® November 2001

  Published by Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc. Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10001

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any pay­ment for this "stripped book."

  Copyright © 2001 by Yvonne Jocks

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmit­ted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including pho­tocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

  ISBN 0-8439-4910-4

  The name "Leisure Books" and the stylized "L" with design are trade­marks of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Visit us on the web at www.dorchesterpub.com.

  To those people brave enough to carve their own place in the world, no matter the obstacles or expectations, and who are kind enough to do it gently.

  In memory of Davey.

  PROVING

  HERSELF

  Prologue

  London, 1897

  Collier Pembroke had never seen his brother so frightened.

  Excusing himself to Lady Vivian, he made his way across the ballroom, past sombreros, feathers, war paint, and fringed shirts celebrating a Wild West theme. When he reached his older brother he asked, "What happened in France?"

  "I need to marry," said Edgar.

  Collier stiffened, as if struck by an arrow from one of the brightly painted bows being bandied about. They'd had a deal!

  Rather than discuss this publicly, he steered his brother to the terrace, away from the heart of the party. Several guests nodded as they passed, particularly ladies. Despite his rela­tive youth, Collier had managed his family's estate for two years; people knew him. Besides—blond and charming, the two eldest of the Viscount of Brambourne's sons made an attractive pair, even with slashes of aboriginal "war paint" decorating their cheeks.

  "You are joking," he accused, once outside in the not-so-fresh air of the London terrace. "And I hardly find it amusing."

  Edgar sank onto a balustrade. "I need a drink."

  When Collier signaled a waiter, Edgar asked for bourbon instead of his usual Courvoisier. "What I'd really like is ab­sinthe," his brother admitted once the waiter left. As if anyone drank absinthe in polite company!

  But societal acceptance rarely influenced Edgar's prefer­ences.

  "You have to marry whom?" More than a little curious, Collier felt only relief when Edgar said, "Anybody."

  "So you've not put some innocent in the family way, then?"

  "Good heavens, no! I could if I had to, though." Edgar's frown matched his war paint. "Really. I'm rather sure of it."

  Collier's eyes narrowed. "And ruin your life, as you so often put it?" And ruin mine, too?

  His only hope of inheriting rested on his older brother's never marrying, never siring heirs. Until now, Edgar's partic­ular tastes—and distastes—had complemented just such a plan. Lord Edgar Pembroke wished to neither work, marry, or inherit more than he needed for his amusements. Collier, though, wanted it with a determination beyond his twenty-six years.

  But clearly something had changed.

  "That was before I saw him!" insisted Edgar. "He was so ..."

  Collier waited.

  Edgar clenched and unclenched his gloved hand, shaking his golden head. "Broken," he whispered.

  "Your... friend?" tested Collier. "The one in France?" To mention the notorious playwright's name at a ball, even in assumed privacy, could be social insanity. One did not openly consort with convicted "deviants."

  No, one traveled secretly to France to visit them after their release from jail, instead. At least, one did if one was Lord Edgar Pembroke, heir to Brambourne.

  Collier had stayed in England, done most of the work, and tried, as ever, to keep his brother out of trouble.

  When the waiter brought their drinks, Edgar downed his far too quickly for a man of his upbringing. "They ruined him," he repeated. "Auctioned his possessions, banned his work. His wife sends him a hundred and fifty pounds a year. Who can survive on that? He's not seen his children since before the trial. Good Lord, Collier! I thought if anybody could maintain his spirits through two years in prison it would be he, but he didn't, not really, and now..."

  Collier, accustomed to his broth
er's histrionics, waited.

  "I mustn't take that chance," insisted Edgar, shaking his head. "I have to undo some of the damage I may have dealt my own reputation. Our family's reputation."

  "And you think defrauding some poor woman into mar­riage will help?" Collier could not keep the disgust from his voice.

  Music from inside nearly muffled Edgar's reply: "Yes, I do."

  "Your friend's marriage hardly helped him."

  Edgar wasn't listening. "I'm sorry. We had an understand­ing, and I'd not have broken it if this weren't so consequen­tial. But I—I've turned over a new leaf. I will marry. I will sire heirs. And ... and I've told the guv'nor as much."

  Edgar's vehemence unnerved Collier even more than had the thought of his getting some woman with child. "Father?"

  His brother, eyes begging sympathy, handed him the letter. "I told him I'd like to start managing our properties myself."

  Collier did not have to break the wax seal or unfold the crisp paper to know what it said. Everyone knew what hap­pened to second sons who got in their older brother's way. They vanished, exiled to the ends of the earth.

  Though some fathers would tell them so in person.

  "We'll say you're traveling on business," continued Edgar. "That we're sending checks for expenses, not remitt—"

  "Bastard." Collier interrupted one ugly word with another. From overseer of Brambourne to "remittance man," just like that?

  "You can go to America," suggested Edgar, gesturing through the open doorway toward society's mockery of the Buffalo Bill show that had so delighted Her Majesty. "Have adventures."

  Adventure? From across the room, Lady Vivian Fordham peeked coyly at them both from behind a fetching purple bandit mask. She too was part of the future Collier had built— in England.

  "I'm sorry," repeated Edgar, wincing at his betrayal.

  He blanched when Collier said, "You will be."

  Chapter One

  Wyoming, 1898

  When she left the land office, Laurel knew to seek out her father and confess. Jacob Garrison would frown on any of his girls riding alone into town, much less what his second daughter had just done there. Best that he hear it from her.

  But love tempted her away from her good intentions.

  Halfway to her family's ranch and the battle that awaited her, she reined her bay gelding off the worn track. Snapper responded with ears up and head high. Together they es­caped for the treeline, up inclines of varying steepness, past large boulders and small meadows—running away, and yet going home. The same wildness that had gotten Laurel into so much trouble throughout her eighteen years spurred her on toward sanctuary.

  She didn't stop until she reached the high pine grove.

  A one-room plank shack slumped in disrepair, testament to four years of Wyoming's harsh winters. To Laurel, it held heaven. Swinging her knee up and over the top pommel of her sidesaddle, she hopped to the ground with more agility than elegance, rubbed Snapper's broad forehead, then hur­ried to the rough-hewn door.

  She had to brace her shoulder and push. Her booted heels dug into the dirt, and she heard a rip from her shirtwaist. The door, dragging the ground on worn leather hinges, slowly opened.

  Wide enough for a woman, anyhow.

  Eagerly she slipped into shadows lit by one small win­dow—into peace, belonging... happiness. She drank in the afternoon coolness, planned where to put a bed, a table. Relaxing into the enormity of what she'd done, Laurel knew she'd found the love that could endure her entire life.

  As of today, this abandoned shack in the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains was hers. Not her father's, or some hus­band's—hers! So were the trees, a stretch of creek, and the columbine that misted blue across patches of meadow. She'd just joined a growing number of girl homesteaders populating the frontier, and she now owned a quarter section—a whole hundred and sixty acres—of Wyoming.

  For this, she would risk her father's reproach. Still, her head came up when she heard her horse nicker a clear greeting outside. Along with everything about ranching, her father knew his second daughter too well.

  Taking a deep breath of her air, Laurel squeezed out through the barely open door and squared her narrow shoul­ders. Time to face the consequences.

  As usual, judgment sat a worn California saddle, double-cinched atop a tall buckskin.

  One of the first ranchers in the Sheridan area, Jacob Gar­rison had earned every white hair on his head, every deep crease in his bearded face. And he would stop at nothing to protect his ranch and family... whether they wanted his pro­tection or not.

  As he drew his buckskin to an easy stop, his gray eyes shining with disapproval from the shadow of his black Stetson, Laurel felt more acceptance from the land than from her father.

  "I guess you heard," she admitted, awaiting his certain rep­rimand. "I filed on the claim."

  "So they say," he drawled. He didn't dismount.

  "I didn't outright lie," she assured him. She cared what he thought. "I didn't say I was twenty-one. I just swore I was as old as Clarence Perry and Stubby Harper. And that's true."

  She hadn't liked doing even that. But when this beautiful stretch of land came available for a second time—after she'd thought it lost forever—what choice did she have?

  Nobody had balked at Clarence or Stubby filing claims!

  Her father grunted, noncommittal, and his gaze swept across the shack, the trees... the thick wilderness of the area. His silence worried her. He was not a talkative man, but nei­ther was he ambivalent—especially when his daughters bucked him. Laurel had known that even before her older sister had shocked the family by marrying up with a sheep fanner. Her father was no less ambivalent now.

  "Don't you have anything to say to me?" she asked.

  "Nope."

  And in that simple answer, she felt her peace with this place drain into uncertainty. "Why not?"

  "Won't last."

  That knocked the wind out of her, sure as pitching off a horse. Her response—" What?"—did not carry the confidence she would have liked.

  "Hard enough for a full-grown man to prove up a claim," her father said, "much less a girl. Not alone." Was he referring to the man who'd just quit this claim to go east? She had more mettle than him!

  "I can work hard," she insisted. "I'll start small, just a few head! I'll have hay cut for them before autumn, for the horse, and..."

  She faltered to silence.

  "Maybe you could." It wasn't the praise she longed for, but it soothed her some. Then he added, "But you ain't hazardin' winter up here. Not alone."

  Too late, she realized just what she faced. Papa's disap­proval she could ride out; his fear for her safety was a differ­ent matter.

  Nobody could stand against that, especially with the truth about Wyoming's deadly winters on his side. Even cowboys who wintered in line camps did so in pairs.

  "There are residency requirements," she reminded him. "To prove up this land, I have to live off it. I can't leave for the winter. I can't leave my cattle!"

  From the height of his saddle, her father said, "Best not buy any, then. You'll be home this winter, where you belong."

  With one final nod to punctuate his decision, her father reined his buckskin in an easy circle, then rode off downhill toward the ranch—the empire—where he'd filed his own claim twenty years earlier. In that time cities had been born, railroads had moved in, and most of the free land worth work­ing was taken. Folks said the frontier was vanishing.

  Laurel meant to keep at least a piece of it for herself.

  Despite a lifetime's conviction that her father's word, like God's, finished the matter, she shook her head.

  "I need my own place," she whispered as he rode into the trees. "My own life. It's time."

  She still had three good months before winter would sweep down the Rockies to terrorize her claim. In three months of hard work, who knew what she could accomplish?

  "I'll prove it to you," she insisted softly.
>
  Maybe if she said it often enough, she'd make it true.

  The ends of the earth, for Collier Pembroke, turned out to be somewhere in northeastern Wyoming. The train that carried him there had its comforts, thank the Lord. He could still travel in first class, instead of crowding onto an immigrant-class cattle car, despite his own alien status.

  But hell with burnished walnut fittings, plush brocade seats, and a dining car was still hell. And accepting charity from his only relative on this side of the Atlantic surely placed him in its third level, at least.

  "It's a lovely residence." Mrs. Alexandra Cooper, his older cousin, spoke the first proper English Collier had heard since New York City. "We often hire it for the summer, while the Garrisons are in the countryside, and it offers a great deal of room."

  "Garrison is your partner?" clarified Collier, glancing at her American husband. A stylish, dark-haired fellow with graying temples and a thick mustache, Benjamin Cooper had danc­ing blue eyes that belied his advancing age and distinguished position as a gentleman rancher.

  "Now, Jacob might say I'm his partner," corrected Cooper pleasantly, with that odd familiarity that Americans so often adopted. Jacob, indeed. "Or his segundo—his second. He figures doing most of the work puts him on the moral high ground."

  "If you'd not provided financial backing, he'd have nothing with which to work," assured Alexandra loyally.

  Her husband laughed. "Could be the Circle-T wouldn't ex­ist, darlin', but Jacob Garrison will always find work to do."

  Cooper had come from a good family, Collier understood, before that foolish war had ended America's Southern aris­tocracy. His background showed in his ability to leave labor to the laborers, as well as in his choice of a wife ... if not in his speech.