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Proving Herself Page 2


  "Perhaps you could suggest some investment opportunities in the area," asked Collier, forcing the words out. They all knew his traveling on "business" was a pitiful excuse for his expulsion. And if the desiccated wasteland rolling past the Pullman palace car window was any indication, Wyoming held no more opportunity than had the heat of Texas.

  Or hell.

  The red dirt, exposed rock, and occasional bits of rolling brush called tumbleweeds certainly fit the description.

  "Well, son," drawled Cooper, "I'll be honest with you. The beef bonanza's 'bout over. Most of our foreign investors pulled out after the Die-Up—that's when a lotta cattle just up and died back in the winter of '—and I can't say as folks wept to see those investors go. You'll have to do some lookin' for your opportunities."

  The Coopers' young son, who until now had managed to be seen but not heard, spoke up. "Uncle Jacob says there's always opportunity for a man who's willing to work hard."

  "Hush, dear," said his mother. "Mr. Garrison is a lovely man, but he is decidedly middle-class."

  "He's as rich as Father!"

  Alexandra flushed. Collier glanced quickly out the window to hide his own amusement at the boy's gaffe, while she ex­plained why true gentlemen never mentioned money in pub­lic.

  How often had Collier heard the same speech? In the last half year he'd found the lesson came more easily when one had money. His own remit—rather, expense account— barely provided.

  Hell. At least in Texas they'd played polo.

  "So you see," finished Alexandra, "if we did not employ people to do the work for us, where would they be? It's the natural order of things."

  "You haven't been reading that Darwin fellow again, have you?" teased her husband.

  "Benjamin!" Alexandra turned away, properly put out.

  Collier asked, "You're familiar with Darwin's theories?"

  "Ever' once in a while," admitted Cooper, eyes dancing, "you Brits smuggle one of them newfangled books over here."

  "May I ask what you think of his theories on survival of the fittest?"

  Alexandra protested—"Collier, really!"—and put her gloved hands over their son's ears.

  "I think" conceded Cooper, with excellent aim, "that it's about as far from that primogeniture business what's sent you out here as an idea can get."

  Exactly. Collier decided not to underestimate this man's intelligence, despite the thick drawl.

  The Cooper boy, even with his mother's hands for ear-muffs, asked, 'What's prime... primo... ?"

  "Primogeniture," explained Alexandra, "is a law in Britain that allows only the eldest of a nobleman's sons to inherit. It keeps our estates from being parceled into tiny, useless plots."

  "No matter how competent the eldest son may or may not be," Collier added grimly. But if he could prove himself the fittest...

  "Can't say as a law like that would stand a healthy chance in these parts," Cooper noted. "Nor the fellow who proposed it."

  Though the thought cheered Collier, Wyoming was still hell.

  During her first month homesteading, Laurel Garrison felt like the luckiest person in the world.

  Her sister Victoria, always hungry for adventure, could not fully grasp it. Not even after roughing it alongside Laurel for the whole month—one reason Laurel had managed as well as she had.

  "I admire what you're doing," Vic insisted, rubbing lini­ment into her sister's sore shoulders. "So does Mama." That had been a second reason. "And this is better than helping at the law office. But... do you really want to do it for five years?"

  Forearms braced wearily on her knees, Laurel watched the silhouette of aspens swaying between her and the stars through a second window that she'd cut for herself. From a ridge, farther up-mountain, she'd caught a distant glimpse of wild horses today, and she'd felt free.

  She smiled. "Guaranteed."

  When Vic dug into a particularly tender spot, even that was fine. Laurel had strained those muscles working her claim.

  The two girls had cleared the cabin of brush and empty cans from its previous claimant, and even shot a few snakes. They'd blocked gaps beneath the walls with rocks and mud, and built their own bed of logs and rope. Vic's callused hands on Laurel's shoulders proved that the younger girl had pro­vided more than just companionship.

  Laurel's own palms felt like rock. Her left thumb was swol­len purple from a blow with the hammer. She'd scraped her knuckles raw and torn a fingernail nearly off. Laurel did noth­ing but work, stopping only when nighttime forced it.

  She had so much to do! Irrigation ditches to dig for her late-season garden. Shingles to lay for the roof. Wood to chop—always more wood to chop, whenever she found fallen timber to drag home on horseback. During a Wyoming winter, firewood meant life over death. And she just had to stay the winter.

  "If I write about our experience homesteading, I've got to explain it," insisted Victoria. She lightly slapped Laurel's sore shoulder, then wiped her hands on a flour-sack apron. Water was too dear to wash in, what with toting it from the gravel-bottom creek... and who knew? With all Vic's scribbling, perhaps the younger girl's hands could use some liniment, too.

  Laurel drew her wrapper back around herself, against the mountain chill, and rolled back onto their bed. She'd cut the straw that filled their tick mattress herself. It crunched be­neath her, smelling of her very own mountain meadow.

  "Laurel," prompted Victoria at her silence. "Is it really worth all this? Look at you!"

  Even avoiding their stained mirror, Laurel knew her face had sunburned, peeled, and burned again. Her brown hair had lightened on the ends, where her hat didn't cover it. She'd strained and sweated until her dresses hung too big on her.

  "I'm not trying to win a beau," she pointed out midyawn. As if she ever had! "I'm trying to start a ranch."

  "We already have a perfectly good ranch!" But Vic's voice seemed to recede beneath the whisper of aspen leaves, the haunting call of an owl. A tiger moth fluttered about their coal-oil lantern, throwing odd shadows.

  The Circle-T isn't ours, Laurel wanted to protest. Papa's lending his half to Thaddeas.

  But she must have fallen asleep instead, because she woke to predawn gray. Only the rat-tat-tat of a woodpecker, then the call of a jay, broke the stillness that wrapped itself like a blanket around her.

  She crawled wearily over her sleeping sister to abuse her body and feed her soul some more, fortunate beyond mea­sure—with only a few problems.

  "I'm sorry, Miss Laurel," said Mr. Harper from behind his big, glass-covered desk. "Your, er, ranch simply is not a feasible investment for us at this time."

  "Why not?"

  His smile faltered. "Pardon?"

  She'd been within the hallowed walls of the First Bank of Sheridan only a few times in her life, usually with her mother. In fact, her mother was the only other woman she'd ever seen in here. It unnerved her to come alone. But Laurel did know, from previous experience, that questions were permitted.

  "Why is my ranch not a feasible investment?"

  Mr. Harper glanced nervously out his office door, which he had properly left ajar throughout their interview.

  Laurel felt the pull between her eyes that meant she was turning obstinate. She hadn't wanted leave her claim to come here. She hadn't enjoyed letting Victoria style her hair, powder her face, lace her into this bolero-jacketed, gored-skirted, green-serge excuse for a suit. And she despised asking for help.

  But as a landowner, she had responsibilities beyond cut­ting wood and digging ditches. So she tried again. "Why isn't—"

  "Our criteria are rather complicated," Harper assured her.

  "Maybe you could explain them."

  His smile tightened. "Miss Laurel..."

  "Garrison." He would not call her brother Mr. Thaddeas!

  "Miss Garrison." Somehow he made even that sound like a pat on the head. "It might be easier for all involved if you sent your brother or father in to discuss this with me."

  "It's not their r
anch!"

  "I am unsure," said Mr. Harper, "if it qualifies as a ranch at all until you've purchased some livestock."

  "That's why I need the loan."

  "Now, Miss Garrison," chided Harper. "I've been patient with you because of your family's ties to Mr. Connors." Mr. Connors owned the bank. "But I have real business to conduct. If you want cattle, your family has plenty. As far as the First Bank of Sheridan is concerned, however, you are simply not a feasible—"

  "Clarence Perry was a feasible enough investment," she pointed out. "Why did you approve his loan?"

  "I refuse to debate this with you." Mr. Harper stood and went to the door. "Good day, Miss Laurel."

  "Is it because he's a man?"

  "I said good day, Miss Laurel."

  She reached down and grasped the back legs of her chair, then raised her chin. "I'm the same age as Clarence," she reminded him. "And I advanced further in school. So if there's any other reason—"

  "Yes, Miss Lau—Miss Garrison." Harper changed the ap­pellation only when she glared at him. "We did approve Mr. Perry's loan, in part, because he is a man. Men have business sense that ladies do not, as I believe you've just demon­strated. Men do not let their emotions override their judg­ment. Men have valid work experience, as does Mr. Perry. And men, might I add, reach their majority sooner and so are less likely to be evicted from their homesteads by their fathers before they prove up. Good day."

  She stared at him, furious and mortified. It wasn't fair that men got special opportunities. It wasn't fair that the whole town knew Papa meant to keep her off her claim this winter. And that he could do just that wasn't fair either!

  "Must I send someone for your father?" threatened Mr. Har­per. So she stood. This was her interview, about her loan application, for her ranch. She would not be carried out the same way her father had once carried her away from a roundup she'd refused to leave.

  But she wished she had worn her cowboy boots under her skirt, the way she normally did, so that she could stomp on Mr. Harper's cloth-topped shoe as she walked by. In these foolish, button-up girl shoes of hers, she'd damage her own foot as surely as his.

  But she had to strike out somehow. So once she'd passed him, crossing into the marble-floored foyer of the bank, she spun back to him and announced, "When I succeed with my ranch, Mr. Harper, I guess I'll do my banking elsewhere. Good day!"

  "Good day to you, Miss Laurel," said the banker wearily.

  Stalking to the door, Laurel nearly collided with a gentle­man who was entering.

  "Pardon. Quite my fault." And he stepped out of her way to hold the door open. He had an accent; in her mood, even that annoyed her. Probably this foreigner would get a loan before she ever would, and for no better reason than that he was a...

  Man.

  And he was that.

  When she actually looked at the stranger, the worst of Lau­rel's rancor drained right out of her.

  The fellow holding the door open for her had to be the prettiest man she'd ever set eyes on.

  His golden hair caught late-morning sunlight like an arch­angel's halo, and he had full lips, and the brightest eyes she'd ever seen—lash-fringed eyes, silvery eyes that reflected the blue Wyoming sky. Darned if he didn't even outshine pretty.

  She'd never seen so beautiful a man in her life.

  When he gazed back down at her, she felt oddly as if the rest of the world faded off, as if nothing mattered more to him at that moment than her. He cocked his head gracefully, and his smile hinted at dimples in his perfect cheeks.

  "Miss?" he prompted, his British accent as thick as honey. "Are you quite all right?"

  Flushing, she looked quickly down... but couldn't keep from noting his fine configuration as she did. The man had a sleekness about him, like the line of a thoroughbred horse. The cut of his tailored coat, from the width of his shoulders to the slim tapering of his hips, complemented it beautifully.

  But he wore pricey, cloth-topped shoes, like the banker's. Impractical. And he smelled of soap, as if sweat had never touched his handsome brow. Even his suit, a spotless tan linen, showed him unfit for actual work.

  What a waste.

  Laurel looked back up at him. "No," she admitted. "I'm not all right. I wasn't born a man, so I must be incompetent." She moved to pass him, then paused to add, "Though I guess I'm a better rancher than you are."

  He smiled, with real dimples this time. Despite his strong jaw, the smile itself pulled lopsided, boyish. It nearly lit up the afternoon. "No doubt," he agreed amicably.

  Beautiful. What a waste.

  Laurel stalked away to figure out how to get cattle, any cattle, without asking her family—or more men—for help.

  The man behind her entered the bank.

  Chapter Two

  Quite the shame, thought Collier as the little suffragette flounced off with a swish of green skirt. She had the potential to be pretty, with all that gleaming brown hair and those flashing blue eyes. She even dressed well enough, though with a bolder carriage than her fashionable suit merited. But her high flush could not disguise the warm tones of a face too much in the sun. And her brazenness, though amusing, was beyond the pale.

  Odd that he would think about her at all... except for how her determined stride made those skirts sway. And yet within an hour, his encounter with the rancher girl lingered in his thoughts as the most amusing part of his errand.

  "The banker was insufferably rude," he told his cousin and her husband that evening, enjoying an after-dinner brandy in the parlor. The home the Coopers had leased was indeed fine, though sparse in decoration for a fashionable residence. Of particular luxury were the modern conveniences—gas­lights, indoor plumbing, even a telephone oddly situated in the kitchen pantry.

  The parlor where they sat had a simple, light wallpaper and striped, fabric-covered seats. The chairs made up in com­fort what they lacked in true dignity.

  This is still a rough country," drawled Cooper. "Folks don't always savvy finely mannered types like yourself."

  Rough, Collier could understand. But... "Do local women really work as ranchers?"

  The Coopers looked at him blankly enough to answer his question in the negative.

  "A young lady I noticed at the bank, who seemed agitated, said she was a better rancher than I."

  "Laurel?" Alexandra seemed taken aback.

  Cooper, however, grinned broadly. "I'll bet you're right, darlin'. Now did this gal have brown hair, like coffee without cream, and fine blue eyes? 'Bout seventeen... no, eighteen years old now, I reckon?"

  "Yes." Collier put down his empty snifter, intrigued.

  Cooper's eyes were dancing to match his grin. "Well, isn't that a caution? You met up with Laurel Garrison."

  Garrison. "Related to your business partner?"

  Cooper nodded. "She's gone and filed on a homestead; I'd forgotten she means to run cattle. She'll do it, too, if her papa doesn't set himself against her. That girl's a pistol."

  Pistol seemed to be a compliment.

  "I wonder," mused Alexandra, "why she was at the bank?"

  At the same time, Cooper chuckled. "When she was a little thing, learnin' to crawl, Laurel ran her poor mama ragged. Jacob took to tying a stake rope 'round the baby's waist, so's Lillabit could take a rest from chasin' after her."

  "Oh?" Collier, who had a younger sister he rather liked, found the image nowhere near as amusing as Cooper clearly did.

  "She had a nice, roomy spot to play in," defended Cooper. "No cactus or chips. And Jacob braided the rope out of rags, so no real hemp touched her soft skin ... except once or twice, after she'd started two-footin' it. She'd wriggle loose and jackrabbit off so fast, her papa had to rope her." Again Cooper laughed.

  Good heavens. In light of all this, the girl's conduct today might be thought exemplary!

  "Either she was depositing or withdrawing," mused Alex­andra. "That is how banks work, is it not?"

  "Banks?" Benjamin Cooper blinked back his memories, as if surpr
ised to find his wife talking to him. "That's correct, darlin'. More or less."

  "If the bank cooperates," added Collier dryly. Neither this bank nor the town's other two had suggested useful invest­ment opportunities... within his limited means, in any case. To prove himself worthy to return to England, Collier knew full well that he, unlike true remittance men, must actually do something.

  As long as he did not embarrass the family by lowering himself to labor, service, trade, or journalism.

  Increasingly depressed, he said, "I believe I should take some air. Where is the best place for amusements around here?"

  He refused to say "these parts," even in jest.

  "Try the inn," said Cooper. "It's a fine establishment, and you might even find some other remittance men—"

  "Mr. Cooper!" scolded Alexandra, even as Collier flushed.

  The American looked from one of them to the other, clearly ignorant of his insult.

  "A remittance man," clarified Collier slowly, "is a rotter, sent away to spare his family the embarrassment of his scan­dals. I have evaded such scandal. I am merely a second son."

  "My apologies," said Cooper. "Around here we don't al­ways see that fine a difference. But if you visit the Sheridan Inn north of town, you might find some other second sons making use of Bill Cody's saloon. I recommend you try the Wyoming Slug—instead of a soda mixer, the barkeep uses champagne."

  Collier had so many protests to that bit of information, he could not organize them all, so he simply said, "Thank you.

  Good evening, then. Alexandra." He bowed politely to them before escaping to "the inn." Alexandra had a rather sly expression on her pretty face, one that Collier did not wholly trust. Looks like that could indeed drive a man to drink something called a "slug."

  Standing knee-deep in mud and thigh-deep in water, ex­hausted from her struggle with a bogged heifer, Laurel feared her father was right. What if she couldn't do this on her own?

  When Snapper lifted his head toward still-unseen com­pany, Laurel even thought, If they offer help, I won't take it!

  But that would be foolishness. Cowboys accepted a hand when they needed one. She couldn't endanger a cow for mere pride.