Beckett's Birthright

Trouble was, it was May. Windows remained open, allowing the warm air to circulate, and in the still of an evening, with the humid air laden with the scent of manure and wildflowers, voices carried too easily.

They were carrying now. When Lilah’s voice rang out clear as a bell, every man looked toward the main house. Not another sound was heard.

“I damn well will not go back to school! I don’t need any damn diploma to run this farm, I can do a better job of it than that—”

The next sound they heard was a string of curses that ended up in a fit of hacking. Then, “Oh, dammit, Papa, that’s not fair! Pearly May, bring Papa his medicine!”

Every man in the cookshack was still turned toward the house, forks suspended between plate and mouth. Pete was smirking. Shem closed his eyes and assumed a prayerful attitude.

“She telling it straight?” Eli asked quietly. “She’s actually planning on taking over?”

“Over Burke’s dead body,” the old man replied.

“I ain’t working for no woman,” one of the other men declared, stuffing his mouth with potatoes.

Streak told him quietly to shut up. “They been having this, uh—discussion ever since I come to work here,” he said to Eli. “Reckon they’ll go on till one or the other of them gives in.”

Cookie brought in the dessert, a pie heaped high with meringue that was as good as anything Eli had tasted in all his months in Charleston. Talk turned to the condition of the experimental alfalfa fields, with Shem declaring alfalfa wouldn’t thrive. “We’d do better to stick with corn, soybeans and hay, but you can’t tell Jackson nothing.”

“Don’t hurt to try,” said Streak, who tended to be a peacemaker.

“What, to grow alfalfa or to talk sense to Burke Jackson?”

There was general laughter, and then the talk turned to the condition of the herd. Depending on the time of year, the Bar J ran roughly a thousand head, mostly Herefords, the bulk of which would be headed for market by the end of the season.

After tucking away two slices of lemon pie, Eli excused himself and headed for the cramped manager’s quarters he shared with Shem. Passing under the cook-shack windows, he heard one of the men say, “She ain’t really going to run this place, is she?”

He waited for Shem’s reply. “Yep, I reckon she is. You want to argue it out with her?”

“No, sir, not me, that I don’t. Woman like that, she could hurt a man real bad.”

“And don’t you forget it,” Eli muttered a few minutes later as he kicked the mud off his boots and went inside. Might be interesting to see how she’d fight, though. Of course, a man would have to grab hold of her and hang on tight. No hitting—he didn’t hold with striking a woman, no matter how aggravating she was.

On the other hand, he wouldn’t mind holding her while she squawked and wiggled. He always had enjoyed a challenge.

The men ate breakfast early so as to make the most of daylight. All but Shem and Eli had headed out on the day’s assignment by the time Delilah strode across the clearing toward the barn the next morning.

It occurred to Eli, watching her from the big opening in the hayloft where he’d been working on a balky block and tackle, that she neither minced nor strolled. What she did was move like a woman who knew precisely where she was going. Not since that first day had she asked anyone to fetch her horse. She had led Demon out and saddled him herself. Eli tried and failed to picture either Abigail or Rosemary slinging a heavy saddle up onto the back of a horse that stood sixteen hands high.

“Need some help?” he’d offered the second morning, more out of devilry than any chivalrous impulse.

If looks could kill, he’d have been halfway to hell by now.

“Just thought I’d ask,” he’d said, hiding a smile. Damn, she was something, all right—that fetching little mole and all. Bold as brass and twice as tough. If any woman could manage a spread this size, she just might be the one to do it, as long as she handled things the way Burke did, from a distance. Working through a manager, which would definitely not be Elias M. Chandler. By the time she took over—if she ever did—he’d have long since moved on.

For that matter, Jackson could sell out and leave her the money. With that much money behind her, she might even find herself a husband, he mused as he tested the double pulley.

About that time she came into his line of sight, headed down the back lane. Pausing in the task of clearing the gear, Eli watched her, noticing the straightness of her back, the proud angle of her head under all that red hair, and the surprising narrowness of her waist above the lush spread of her behind.

He felt a stirring in his loins he hadn’t felt in a long time.

You need to ride into town more often, man, he told himself. Might not find a cement bathtub full of naked ladies, but there was bound to be an accommodating widow looking for a way to pick up a few extra dollars.

He watched until she moved out of sight when the lane curved around a grove of field pines, then turned back to his work. Shem needed to remind her to wear a hat. Skin like hers, pale as cream and twice as smooth, couldn’t take too much sun without blistering.

For the rest of the day Eli made a conscious effort not to think about Delilah Jackson. It worked…after a fashion.

The next morning when Lilah came down to the barn, Eli made a point of stepping out of the office to meet her. The men had already been given their orders for the day and had ridden out, some singly, some in pairs, depending on the task. “Good morning, Miss Jackson.”

“Where’s Jenny? Is she available?”

“The sorrel mare? Yeah, she’s around.” Curious, he asked, “Why, is Demon lame? I didn’t notice any problem yesterday.”

“Demon’s fine, I just feel like riding a different horse today.”

Ignoring the impatient tapping of her booted foot, Eli reached for a lead rope and nodded toward the paddock at the far end of the barn. “Want me to get her for you?”

She glared and snatched the lead from his hand. “Get on with whatever you’re doing, I can manage just fine.”

It was only as she strode toward the side door that he noticed the way she was dressed. He’d been so caught up in wondering how the devil she managed to keep all that hair anchored on top of her head with only a handful of tortoiseshell pins that he hadn’t realized she was wearing a dress.

Or rather, a divided skirt. Black twill, with a wide belt and another cotton shirtwaist. Blue, this time. No frills and ruffles for Miss Jackson, he thought, amused. Good thing she knew her style. Some women could carry off fancy frills and lacy ruffles—others were better off not even trying.

The truth was that he’d never thought much about women’s clothes before. Admired them, oh, hell, yes. The shorter the skirt and the lower the bodice, the better he liked it.

But not on real ladies. Ladies like Rosemary and Abigail were in a different category. He could admire them, and he surely did, without wanting to plow through acres of satin and lace to find out what was underneath. Which made it hard to understand why just looking at Lilah Jackson in her divided skirt and her cotton shirtwaist could give rise to the kind of stirrings no man had any business feeling around a lady.

Without taking time to reason it out, he saddled up a big gray gelding and ambled off down the lane. Not that he was following her, because he wasn’t. He sure as hell was not.

Not that he thought she might be meeting anyone, either. She could meet an entire regiment for all he cared. It was a good day for a ride, that was all. From time to time a man needed a change of scenery.

Chapter Three

It had been months since Lilah had been able to visit the Randalls. The cabin was in worse condition than ever, both the tiny front porch and the roof sagging badly. The yard had been raked clean except for a few toys, although the honeysuckle vines had been allowed to ramble freely, adding a softening touch. In spite of what had happened to her husband, Martha Randall had obviously not given up.

The family had lost so much that Lilah was determined to see they didn’t lose their home, regardless of her father’s orders. Burke Jackson had taken it for granted that the Randalls had been turned out immediately after Ed Randall had gone to jail. Without discussing the matter, Shem had simply never gotten around to asking them to leave.

Dismounting, Lilah looped the reins around a catalpa tree and began unpacking her bulging saddlebags. Then the door burst open and a child shouted, “It’s Miss Lilah! Mama, Miss Lilah’s here!”

The yard was suddenly alive with children.

By the time the last bundle had been carried reverently inside Lilah’s eyes had taken on a soft, damp glow. Her hair was tumbling; there were dusty smudges on her dark skirt and small, grimy handprints on her shirt from all the eager hugs she’d received, but she felt enormously full of…love?

Well, yes. Love. And it felt damned good, too.

Laughing and listening to the childish confidences, she followed the five young Randalls inside to where a thin, faded woman was putting away beans, sugar, tea and dried apples. Lilah herself carried the slab of bacon through the shotgun-style house to the coolhouse on the back stoop.

“Aren’t you home early?” Martha Randall queried.

“Yes, and this time I’m home to stay.” Lilah broke into a smile, her eyes twinkling. “Papa’s still grumbling, but I told him it would take blasting powder to pry me loose again.”

Martha cocked an eyebrow. She was a handsome woman, tall, calm and patient. Lilah had always liked her, although the older woman had not encouraged a closer relationship.

The children, though, were another matter. Soon, the sleeves of her shirtwaist turned back, Lilah was seated at the table surrounded by Randall children, from four-year-old Betty to nine-year-old Brantley, who took seriously his role as acting man of the house. Barbara, the eldest, was helping her mother put away food. “You just missed Willy,” Martha said, filling the kettle for tea. “He brought me a mess of fresh-caught fish.”

Willy was not a Randall. In fact, no one knew his last name. As for his age, it could be anywhere from twelve to twenty, although Lilah thought he must be about fifteen. Even Willy didn’t know how old he was, not that it seemed to matter. He had simply turned up at the cookshack one day a few years ago, looking for food. Streak and Shem had taken him in. With his freckled face, his overlarge ears and his guileless smile, he’d come in for more than his share of teasing from the hired hands until Shem had let it be known that teasing Willy was a firing offence. He slept in the wide-open loft or in an empty stall, depending on the season. He ate at the cookshack, ran errands and fed the buttermilks—the motherless calves. Between tasks, he played with the Randall children.

While eleven-year-old Barbara carefully measured out tea, four cotton-white heads leaned over the large picture book. Three pairs of blue eyes and one set of brown peered eagerly at the pictures as Lilah carefully spelled out the words beneath each one.

After almost an hour passed, the time filled with questions and earnest confidences about teeth lost, minnows caught in the creek, and how high Brantley could jump, Lilah handed around sheets of paper and pencils. “First, I want you to copy the picture of the boy on the raft. Then I want you to copy the words underneath. I have prizes for whoever remembers what the words spell, and for whoever draws the best picture, and—and for—”

Lilah tried to think of another category so that each child would receive a prize and, more important, so that each child would have bragging rights. She would think of something. She always did. She’d been coming to see the Randall family whenever she was home ever since Edward Randall, once her father’s blacksmith, had been convicted of stealing a box of shotgun shells from the hardware store in Hillsborough. He’d admitted the theft and gone to prison for eight years, leaving his family totally without support.

Lilah knew Martha did sewing and took in washing for Streak and Shem, but that would hardly provide much in the way of security.

Since then, in unspoken conspiracy, Willy brought fish while Streak hunted rabbits, which he skinned out and took to the Randalls. Lilah, when she was home from school, watched for an opportunity to help herself from Pearly May’s pantry. Burke Jackson would have turned them all out without a second thought, Lilah knew to her sorrow. If the man had ever harbored a single generous impulse, his daughter was not aware of it.

“Have you heard anything from Edward?” Lilah could remember watching the farrier as a child, fascinated by the glowing coals and the way the brawny man could shape metal by turning it fiery red.

“Not a word. He’s shamed, I know he is.”

What could she say? Of course he was ashamed. Edgar Randall was a decent man, but even decent men sometimes made mistakes.

“It’s not the stealing that shames him—well, I reckon it is, but what shames him worse is being shut up in that place and not being able to take care of his family. I should never have had so many babies,” she said, her voice low so as not to be overheard. “But they just kept on coming and every one was such a blessing.”

Lilah thought, damn you, Papa, for being a mean, miserly old man. Right or wrong, her father could have easily prevented the man from being sent to jail. He was certainly not without influence, being one of the wealthiest men in the entire area.

Both women glanced toward the table, where four pale heads were bent studiously over their tasks. The older woman smiled, a spark of animation momentarily brightening her lined face. “I never could say no to the man. Lord, he was a dandy.”

Which was not exactly the way Lilah had seen the burly blacksmith, but then, she didn’t know all that much about men. She’d never been offered the opportunity to learn.

“You know what I miss most with Edward gone?”

“I can probably guess,” she said, not wanting to get into the kind of things that went on between a married man and his wife.

“I miss the way he used to play with the young’uns. He used to hold Betty’s hands and let her walk up his legs and turn a somersault.” She shook her head. “Laugh? I swear, you never heard a child laugh so hard. Used to wet her pants near about every time. He knew it, too, my Eddie did, but he never let on. She used to run up to him when he came in from work and say, ‘Flip me, Daddy,’ and he’d hold out his hands to her. Never did it with any of the others, that was Betty’s special treat. With the boys, it was fishing. Lord, I don’t know what we’d do if there weren’t fish in that creek.”

Half an hour later, Lilah rode away with the sound of children’s laughter ringing in her ears. Candy prizes had been handed out for the neatest lettering, the best drawing of a foot, of a smile, of a fish, and for remembering to sign the drawing. Lord knows, she thought ruefully, if Edward had lured Martha into his bed many more times, Lilah would have been hard pressed to come up with enough categories to reward.

She was halfway back to the horse barn when she heard someone riding up behind her. Turning, she shaded her eyes against a blinding sun. Most of the men were over near the creek cutting the first crop of hay.

Chandler. Her hand rose instinctively to the hair that was tumbling from its pins, thanks to so many enthusiastic hugs. “You’re riding Demon,” she accused. It was the first thing that popped into her mind when she saw him ride up on the big bay stallion.

Actually, it was the second thing, but she wasn’t about to acknowledge the way her stomach quivered at the sight of those yoke-wide shoulders and his lean, unsmiling face.

He nodded to the docile mare. “Jenny’s a bit tame for you, isn’t she?”

It was a perfectly innocent observation, Lilah told herself. So why did it instantly set her teeth on edge? “She needs the exercise.”

“She gets enough exercise, Shem rides her every day.”

“Yes, well…”

She could hardly tell him that Demon couldn’t be trusted to behave around children, much less to stand patiently while she read to them for more than an hour. She had learned that lesson soon after Edward had been sent to prison, when she’d first started riding out to see to the family’s welfare.

Head held high, she did her best to look down on a big man who sat a tall horse. “Don’t you have anything else to do today? Shem can’t do it all, you know.”

Shem could do little more than offer advice. Which he did freely, and which Eli gratefully accepted. “I thought I’d ride out and see how soon we can start planting corn. We’re more than a month late, as it is.”

“Shem always had the corn in by the middle of April.” It was an open accusation.

“Shem never had to wait out a solid month of rain.”

“We’ve had sunny days this spring.” She hadn’t been here, but the weather in Salem couldn’t have been all that different.

“Not enough to dry the ground.”

She couldn’t argue the point. She’d heard Shem complaining too many times about the poor drainage of the fields nearest the creek. He’d wanted to try ditching, but her father had complained that it would take too long and cost a fortune besides.

“There’s ways of draining a soggy field, you know,” he said mildly. Demon was stamping and flicking his tail.

“Of course there are.” She could hardly argue with him. “Actually, I’ve been thinking of several ways to go about it.” She’d been thinking of no such thing, but her thoughts were none of his business.

He looked—the term magnificent came to mind, and she dismissed it. He looked…capable. Big, with large hands, muscular arms and straw-colored hair that showed the marks of his hatband whenever he removed his curl-brimmed black Stetson. Gray eyes…at least she thought they were gray. She’d never been close enough to be sure.

The thought of being close to that muscular body and those tanned, blunt features made the breath catch in her throat. She hadn’t reacted so physically to any man since she’d been fourteen and one of the young hands had had to carry her to the house after she’d tried to jump off the fence onto the back of a half-wild horse.

Elias Chandler bore no resemblance to the scrawny cowpoke who had staggered up the front steps with her long legs dangling over his arm all those years ago. For one thing, there was his arrogance. Some women would probably consider him attractive, but if he thought that just because he’d been hired to manage her father’s farm he was going to manage her, he was sadly mistaken. She didn’t take orders from any man, not even from Burke Jackson.

“I’m planning on getting the field turned by week’s end as long as the weather holds. Conditions here are some different from Oklahoma, where I’m from.” He gazed out over the rolling green pastures as if he had nothing better to do than to sit on top of a restless horse and talk about the weather.

Demon had a notoriously short fuse. Chandler controlled him as easily as if he were the gentlest of mares. One more thing to chalk up against him. “If you don’t like our weather,” she snapped, “why don’t you go back to Oklahoma?”

Here we go again, Eli thought, amused. He could tell by the way her cheeks flared up, the way she set her lips together in a tight line, that she was hankering for a setto. He was just as determined not to give in to her.

“Well, as to that,” he began, struggling to hide a grin, but before he could finish, she waved a dismissive hand.

“Don’t bother,” she said, gigging her placid mount into a trot. “I’m really not at all interested.”

He held the impatient stallion back while she rode off ahead, watching her as she jiggled on the saddle. Wishing he were the saddle.

What the devil ails you, Chandler? What you need is to take a few days off and spend some time enjoying the delights of a willing commercial lady.

He made a mental note to ask Shem more about the family that lived in the dilapidated old cabin, and whether or not Miss Jackson had any business sneaking off there.

Not that she’d exactly been sneaking. She’d headed off down the lane in broad daylight, both saddlebags full to busting. He’d ridden on past to check the condition of a section they been clearing. Jackson had been using it for a woodlot. Once they cleared out the stumps, he planned to turn it into another pasture unless Jackson had other plans.

When he’d ridden past the cabin on his way back, she’d still been inside. Sensing his distraction, Demon had started acting up and it had been all Eli could do to stay aboard.

Dammit, he’d been hired to oversee the operation of Jackson’s cow farm, not to keep his daughter out of trouble. God help the man who signed on for that duty.

For the next three days in a row Eli watched her ride off down the back lane. It was none of his business where she went or who she met up with. He hadn’t bothered to ask Shem, maybe because he didn’t want to know. He’d sooner come between a hawk and a three-legged rabbit than try to run interference between a hardheaded man and his headstrong daughter.

While Mickey was rounding up strays, getting ready for weaning and castrating last fall’s crop of calves, the driest of the cornfields was being seeded by a couple of the newer hands. It was hard, monotonous work, but it was what farmers did. If they’d signed on thinking they were going to be cowboys, they wouldn’t last long. The men who worked with the herd had to do more than wear the right hat. Mickey was experienced. His helper, another of the other new hires, had worked briefly on a Florida cattle ranch.

And then there was Streak, the herd boss, who was slow, deliberate and methodical. He kept records in his head, which was a problem for anyone trying to maintain an overall view of the operation, but Streak was a good man. And like Shem, he thought the sun rose and set on Miss Lilah’s head.

Eli made the rounds each day, checking on the work in progress. Repairs on the damaged chute and the shed roof they were extending weren’t finished yet, but until the corn was in and he had manpower to spare, they’d hold. He’d sent a man out at first light to check the fences. That was a mandatory daily patrol. Now he lingered to look over the new crop of calves, and then rode out to see how the planting was coming along.

One thing he hadn’t quite figured out yet was the difference between Carolina and Oklahoma when it came to crops and seasons. Back home he’d barely got started on his plan to fence and stock the land he’d inherited from his grandfather. Having left his fortune with Lance Beckett, he’d had to start all over again. He’d got as far as running a few lines of fence and had made plans to buy out a cattleman whose wife insisted on going back to Baltimore when everything had come apart.

Eli was still musing on the unlikely train of events that had brought him east again when Shem rode up, spat a wad of tobacco and said, “Three new men just turned up. Word o’ mouth, I reck’n. I thought we took down the hirin’ sign at the feed and seed.”

“Did it last week. Farmers or cowhands?”

“Bit o’ both, I reckon, ‘pending on what we need. Right now I’d say we need this weather to hold long enough to finish getting them seeds in the ground. Time we wind up there, we’ll have us another crop of hay to get in. I ‘clare, if this ain’t been the wettest spring since Noah went into the boat-building business.”

“Glad to hear it’s unusual,” Eli commented, not that he’d be here come another spring. Might not even make it to harvest time, if he got lucky. “Miss Jackson went out again today on the mare. I understand she has friends in that direction?” He nodded toward the lane that led through forty acres of second-growth timber to the woodlot and the hayfields beyond.

“The Randalls. Her paw don’t know, so I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t let on.”

“Jackson doesn’t know what? That she has friends?”