The Best Man

by Maggie Osborne

Genres: Historical Romance

Synopsis

This is one of the best books that I have read in a long time. It made me laugh, cry, and the way love won out in the end was wonderful. -- Beverly Willeford, Bev's Books (Highlands, TX) Joe Roark's three daughters have just learned that the only way they will inherit their father's ranch is to drive a herd of 1,200 longhorns to Dodge City, Kansas and sell them there. If they fail, his wife Lola inherits everything. Terrified, but knowing they will be penniless without their inheritance, the girls decide to drive the cattle. What follows is an unparalleled adventure filled with the raw wildness of nature, the force of sheer determination, and an unexpected love that will change one sister's life...

Release date: October 14, 2014

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 448

Sample

Listening to the talk around town, Dal Frisco could believe that Joe Roark’s funeral was the biggest event to happen in Klees, Texas, since the war ended five years ago.

As every business in town was closed as tight as a new bottle of whiskey, and he had nothing to do until the interviews began Monday, Dal stood on the hotel porch and watched Roark’s hearse roll past. From the line of buckboards, horses, and gigs, it appeared that no one in the county wanted to miss seeing Roark lowered into the ground.

Actually, he supposed that included him. It wasn’t every day that a dead man offered the living a second chance. When he considered Roark as a possible benefactor, he felt like he ought to join the procession to the cemetery and take his hat off for the man. He was shaved, shined up, and sober; and there wasn’t anything else to occupy his time.

By the time he overtook the tail end of the cortege, most of the buckboards and wagons had reached the cemetery. Falling into step behind the mourners, Dal angled around for a view of the gravesite when he reached the assemblage. He didn’t care about seeing Roark’s expensive brass-fitted casket, but he did want a look at Joe Roark’s daughters.

He spotted them at once and knew who they were because they had the polished look he expected from a rich man’s daughters, and because they were the only seated mourners. When the first prayer began, Dal pulled off his hat and held it against his chest. He gave Roark’s casket a passing nod, then turned his attention back to the daughters.

They looked like delicate, high-strung types who carried smelling salts in their fringed wrist purses. He could have believed they were society women who had never set foot on a working ranch. If Dal had been a lot less desperate, he would have turned his butt around and headed back to San Antonio.

The same dispiriting thought had crossed his mind yesterday when he’d recognized a half dozen other trail bosses in town, undoubtedly sniffing around the Roark job like he was. No right-thinking employer—even three ignorant women—would trust a herd to Dal Frisco if he could hire Shorty Mahan or W.B. Pouter. He should just turn around and walk away. He might have done it except he suddenly noticed a detail he’d missed on the initial once-over.

One of the daughters was sitting in a wheelchair.

Shock stiffened his shoulders and he stared. Accepting three greenhorn, coddled society women as hands on a cattle drive lay just barely within the realm of imagination. If he hired experienced men, the best of the best, to fill out the outfit, he figured he might be able to take up the slack and work around the women. Maybe. If he was luckier than he’d been in the past. But putting a woman in a wheelchair in the middle of a cattle drive would be sheer insanity. No trail boss in full possession of his senses would consider such an invitation to disaster.

That thought stopped him cold. One man’s disaster was often another man’s opportunity.

Craning his neck, he skimmed a thoughtful glance over the crowd, looking for Mahan and Pouter. Only a desperate man would agree to take a woman in a wheelchair on a seven-hundred-mile cattle drive. And last he’d heard, Mahan and Pouter were a long way from desperate.

Feeling more hopeful, Dal stepped behind a woman short enough that he had a clear view of the daughters over her bonnet. They didn’t look enough alike to be related, let alone be sisters, he decided, but every one of them appeared more elegant in her black funeral clothing than most of the women standing around him. If Joe Roark had been the kind of man who cared about such things, he would have felt proud that his daughters were putting him down in style.

He also noticed the sisters were dry-eyed. Either they weren’t the type to display emotion in public, or their father’s passing hadn’t plucked too deeply at their heartstrings. Or it might be they were furious at the old bastard for tying their inheritance to a cattle drive.

A different man would have said the Roark daughters were beautiful, but Dal didn’t care for the patrician superiority of the blonde in the wheelchair, nor the sullenness of the one he guessed to be the youngest. The middle daughter, however, riveted his attention. Her black hair and green eyes fit the description he’d been given of Frederick Roark, the daughter who had run off to join a touring theater company. She was definitely a beauty, and bold, too. Instead of fixing her eyes on her father’s casket, she scanned the mourners as if she were looking for someone.

Dal didn’t believe the widespread conviction that actresses were whores who could spout Shakespeare, but he did know that a woman who defied her father and threw away her reputation to run off with a touring company was defiant, willful, and reckless. This daughter was trouble.

Her slow scan of the mourners reached him and paused, probably because he was staring at her. But most men would stare, and most would experience the same shock of electric connection that he felt when their eyes met and held.

He should have looked away when she caught him inspecting her, but he met her gaze head-on, admiring thick lashed, emerald-colored eyes and smooth milky skin. A full lush mouth. Eyebrows a shade lighter than black curls framing the oval face beneath her hat.

Whatever she saw in his expression, it caused her to raise her chin a notch, square her shoulders, and narrow her gaze into a flashing spit-in-your-eye glare. He could almost hear her thinking. “Stare all you want, cowboy, I don’t give a damn about your opinion.” If it hadn’t been inappropriate, he would have laughed. Instead, he shifted his gaze to the sullen daughter.

Faint shadows circled the dark eyes she fixed on her father’s casket, but at least she was paying attention to the recently deceased. As Dal watched, a man standing behind her leaned and whispered something in her ear. She didn’t look up, but her eyelids fluttered and she stiffened. Her gloved hands clenched in her lap, then she nodded.

The man placed a proprietary hand on the top rung of her chair and touched his watch pocket. A brief victorious smile twitched his lips, suggesting he was pleased that the preacher was about to plant Joe Roark. Most likely he was Ward Hamm who, according to the hotel clerk, had commenced a serious courtship of Lester Roark.

Finally, Dal turned his attention to the sister who worried him most, the one in the wheelchair. It only took a moment to squash his hope that the wheelchair was a temporary measure. Without glancing down, she dropped a gloved hand to the wheel beside her armrest and made a slight adjustment. That kind of unthinking motion was the result of long familiarity.

Frowning, he moved a few yards so he could see her feet. One tasseled black boot peeped from her hem and her skirt lay flat on the right side, suggesting that she was missing one leg, probably from just below the knee. The question was, could she ride a horse?

Scowling, he lifted his gaze. This daughter was the aristocrat in the bunch, and by elimination, she had to be Alexander Roark Mills, the oldest of the three. For a price, the hotel clerk had informed him that Mrs. Mills lived back East in Yankee territory, and she had buried her husband last spring. The clerk had not mentioned that she was confined to a wheelchair.

Her honey-colored hair was parted in the center and swept back into a stylish knot beneath the brim of her hat. Black pearls at her throat and ears caught the weak glow of the winter sun. Although she kept her face turned toward the preacher’s droning voice, Dal had a clear view of high cheekbones, a sharp thin nose, and a firm clean profile. Unlike Frederick, this sister did not wear her emotions for all to see, but her stiffly erect posture suggested an excess of pride. This sister would be difficult to second-guess, and she would not easily admit to a mistake.

As the pallbearers lowered Joe Roark’s casket into the ground, Dal patted his vest pockets, looking for a cigar, and he gave the Roark sisters a final once-over. Not one of them looked capable of performing a task more strenuous than lifting an embroidery hoop. He doubted any of them had ever ridden a cutting horse or coiled a lariat. It wouldn’t surprise him to learn that the closest they’d been to a longhorn was the beef on their supper plates. Two years ago, he would have walked away from this job and never looked back.

Once the service ended, he stepped out of the way as the mourners filed past the seated sisters, murmured a word or two, then dropped a handful of Texas dirt on top of Joe Roark. That’s when he spotted a woman he hadn’t noticed because she’d also been seated, but on the near side of the grave opposite the sisters.

The only person unaccounted for was Roark’s wife, but Dal doubted this woman could be the wife because she was wearing dark grey, not black weeds. Moreover, the auburn knot on the nape of her neck didn’t show a speck of grey as he would have expected on a woman old enough to be the mother of three grown daughters.

Then he noticed the way she held one shoulder a little higher than the other, and the way her head tilted toward the high shoulder. He’d known a redheaded woman in New Orleans who held her shoulder and head like that. He’d never forget her.

Curious, he walked through the headstones, circling around behind the sisters, delaying the moment when he looked at the face of the seated woman in grey. It couldn’t be Lola Fiddler. Joe Roark might spend a week in Lola’s bed, but he would never have married a woman like her.

But damned if it wasn’t the same double-crossing Lola Fiddler who had almost gotten him killed. She was dressed expensively and wearing more paint than she’d worn in the past; otherwise, marrying a rich man hadn’t changed her much. She was still brazen enough to show cleavage at her husband’s funeral and wear what she damned well pleased—including a smug expression that announced she didn’t give a cow chip what the good citizens of Klees thought of her.

As if she sensed someone watching, she raised her head and ran a glance over the people moving past the gravesite. Her gaze slid over Dal, then came back, and her eyebrows lifted in recognition. If she was surprised or dismayed to discover him at her husband’s interment, nothing in her expression revealed it. In fact, Dal thought he identified a flash of amusement in her eyes and the flicker of a tiny smile. His own eyes narrowed, and he bit down on his back teeth.

Slowly, he lifted two fingers to his hat brim, offering the minimum gesture of courtesy. Lola being Lola acknowledged his salute by dipping slightly forward, enough to expose a deeper glimpse of cleavage. A low hissing buzzed down the line of mourners. The widow Roark was obliging the town gossips with enough scandal to fuel tongues for a long time to come.

Dal flipped his cigar toward a fallen headstone, pushed his hands in his pockets, and glanced at the sisters again, hating it that his future depended on them.

On the other hand, the Roark cattle drive had just gotten a lot more interesting. Learning that Lola Fiddler was Roark’s widow gave him an added stake in helping the Roark sisters earn their inheritance. When he’d ridden into Klees, he’d needed this job. Now he wanted it too.

“There has to be a way that we can get our rightful inheritance without going on a cattle drive,” Freddy said again, scowling out the parlor window. In the distance she saw two King’s Walk hands riding after a half dozen longhorns. She could easier imagine herself strolling down Main Street in her shimmy and stockings than she could visualize herself chasing cattle.

“You were there when Luther Moreland read Father’s will,” Alex said from behind her “There’s nothing ambivalent about Father’s last wishes or about the list of instructions and conditions he drew up. Unless we do this, that woman gets everything.”

The heavy draperies framing the windowpanes were dusty and permeated with the odor of cigar smoke. For a moment the smoky smell was so strong that Freddy could almost believe Pa stood behind her, looking out at his land over her shoulder. Pressing her lips together, she turned away and walked to the fire flickering in the grate, extending her hands to the flames.

“Even if we agree, how can we possibly succeed?” she asked Alex and Les. “That’s what makes me so furious. Pa knew we couldn’t turn ourselves into cowhands. Lola’s going to get everything in the end.” She waved an angry hand indicating the ranch house, the barn and outbuildings, the land and the cattle. “Damn him. It isn’t fair!”

“Please.” Les raised a hand to her temple. “Pa’s two days in the grave. If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything. And must you be so coarse? You know swearing offends me.”

“Well pardon me. I certainly wouldn’t want to offend your tender sensibilities.” She rolled her eyes, but the truth was she didn’t care what Les thought. Long ago she had decided since everyone in Klees, including her own family, thought she was an immoral woman, she might as well behave like one, “You can quit defending Pa, it won’t do you any good now.”

“Just shut up! All you ever did was embarrass Pa or turn your back on him. You wouldn’t even live here at the ranch. Oh no. You had to have a place in town.” Les stood and clenched her fists in the folds of her skirt. “You could at least have come out here for Sunday dinner!”

“And talk to that creature he married? Do you know what they say about her in town?”

“Do you know what they say about you in town?”

“Stop it,” Alex said in a tired voice. “They’ll hear you screaming down at the barn.”

Color flamed up from Freddy’s throat. “I didn’t like you telling us what to do when we were children, and I don’t like it now!”

During the two weeks that Alex had been home, the three of them had slipped backward into childhood habits. From her lofty position as the oldest, Alex judged, criticized, and issued orders. She had rearranged the funeral plans and had decided when Luther Moreland would read the will. It had been Alex who persuaded Lola to vacate the ranch and obtain a residence in town at least until the inheritance was decided. Alex who insisted that Freddy stay at the ranch until everything was settled. Freddy and Les had stepped aside and let her take the lead.

Freddy made a sound of disgust. Alex was still lording it over them, still taking charge. It didn’t matter that the decisions Alex had made were sound, it mattered that she had come home after a five-year absence and taken control as if she’d never been gone.

Alex folded her hands in her lap and studied Freddy’s hot face. “I would rather that you didn’t air personal grievances when we know the household staff is listening.”

“Why are you addressing these remarks to me? Was I talking to myself?” For as long as Freddy could remember, it had always been: Take care of the baby. Long after Les ceased to be a baby, that had still been the refrain. Take care of Les. Protect Les. She was sick of it.

“You start these things, Freddy,” Les said, her chin coming up. “You’re not happy unless everything is stirred up around you!”

“Do you suppose the two of you could stop bickering long enough to discuss the problem we’re facing?” Alex rolled to the tea table Señora Calvos had laid for them and poured herself another cup of tea from the silver service that had belonged to her mother.

Suddenly Freddy’s anger seemed overblown and petulant, a reversion to childhood. But they were no longer children. Observing her sister, Freddy tried to imagine what it would be like to spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair. To know you would never dance again or spin around in a new gown. She watched Alex place her cup and saucer in her lap and roll the chair toward them, trying not to spill her tea. Even the smallest tasks that Freddy took for granted were now challenges for Alex.

Freddy drew a breath and struggled to be more sympathetic. “How can you even consider undertaking the ordeal of a cattle drive,” she asked curiously.

Alex glanced at her. “I’m entitled to a third of Father’s fortune. And I’ll do whatever I have to do to make certain that Lola doesn’t get her hands on Father’s money.”

“Are you saying that Payton didn’t provide for you?”

“Not at all.” Alex’s neck stiffened. “I have my home and a modest income.”

Freddy guessed that Alex would rather have endured torture than admit her life in Boston was less than the image of perfection she had painted in her infrequent letters home. She also guessed that “a modest income” would not support the life Alex had led before Payton’s death. But Alex would never admit to anything as vulgar as a lack of funds.

“It’s my understanding that Father paid the expenses on the house you rented in Klees after he married Lola. He paid for your clothing and food, paid the salary of your housekeeper.”

“If you’re suggesting that I need Pa’s money, you’re absolutely correct.” Freddy lifted her chin. “I hated living off of Pa, but I didn’t have a choice.” At age twenty-seven, she had given up hoping that she could rise above the six months she had spent with the theater troupe. No decent man was ever going to propose marriage to her, and she had no way to support herself.

For a brief while she had thought that maybe Jack Caldwell… but no, she would never tell her sisters that Lola’s latest escort was a man whom Freddy had been seeing on the sly. Jack was a humiliation she did not want to share.

“It’s your own fault,” Les commented sharply. “You should have considered your future before you ran off with those actors. But you never think about consequences.”

“Believe me, I’d rather be a spinster than settle for someone like Ward Hamm!”

Les jumped to her feet, crimson pulsing in her face. “You can’t stand it that I’ll have a husband and you never will. You’ve always been jealous of me!”

Freddy’s mouth dropped. “Jealous of you? Whatever for?”

“Because I’m going to be married, and you never will be. You were always resentful that my mother lived while your mother and Alex’s died. And you hate it that Pa liked me best!”

“Pa didn’t like any of us! You’re deluding yourself if you think differently. He wanted sons, not us. He ignored us, tolerated us when he had to, and tried to control us like we were part of his herd!” Freddy came to her feet, anger shaking her hands. “As for being jealous of you and Ward Hamm, that makes me laugh. He’s a shopkeeper, for God’s sake. And a petty tyrant in the bargain. And”—her eyes narrowed—“isn’t it interesting that he didn’t come courting until Pa got sick? One could almost think he’s more interested in Pa’s money than in you!”

“You… you…” Sputtering in fury, Les gathered her skirts in both hands. Scarlet flooded her face. “I hate you!” Spinning in a swirl of black skirts, she ran toward the staircase.

Freddy poured the last of the tea into a cup and raised it to her lips with shaking hands. The day she was jealous on account of Ward Hamm was the day she had sunk to depths beyond redemption. Even Jack Caldwell—gambler, womanizer, reprobate—was better than Ward Hamm.

“You owe her an apology,” Alex said quietly.

She had forgotten Alex. “I’m so sick of Les always defending Pa! He ran off every suitor she had, just like he did to you and me. Given enough time, Pa would have run Ward off, too.”

“Les loves him.”

“Really?” Fresh anger infused her cheeks. “Does it ever occur to you that you could be wrong about something?”

“You’re going to attack me, now?” Alex inquired, raising an eyebrow.

“Les was prepared to spend the rest of her life running Pa’s house, serving as his hostess, hoping to be his companion, then Pa trailed a herd to Sante Fe and brought Lola back with him and suddenly he didn’t need Les anymore. That’s when Ward Hamm appeared. Les used him to punish Pa. Love isn’t part of it; Les picked a man she knew damned well that Pa would detest!”

“Then why hasn’t she broken off the engagement now that Father is gone?”

“I don’t know.” Freddy spread her hands. “It’s a mystery.”

“Is it?” Alex rolled her wheelchair toward the door. “Or is it possible that you could be wrong about something?”

The heat of anger lingered in the room after her sisters had gone. Fuming, Freddy walked to the window, letting the chilly air leaking around the panes cool her face.

They hadn’t liked each other even as children. They had been competitive and combative, arguing over which of their mothers Joe had loved most or best, fighting over who got to sit next to him at supper. As they grew into adolescence, they had struggled to assert their individuality and distance themselves from each other. Alex tried to reject the responsibilities foisted on her by her stepmothers. Freddy had loathed being the recipient of Alex’s hand-me-down gowns, and she felt forgotten, the attention focused on the oldest or the youngest, seldom on her. Les wanted to be taken seriously instead of having her opinions rejected as trivial because she was the youngest. They had always seen each other as rivals blocking access to Pa, or as obstacles standing in the way of getting what they wanted.

Was it any wonder that they hadn’t acted in unison against Joe’s iron fist of control? They had each rebelled alone. Alex had eloped with a man after hearing two of the lectures he gave during his tour of the South. Freddy had joined an acting troupe that came through Klees. Les had agreed to marry a man with all of Pa’s worst traits and none of his good qualities.

Well, why should she care who Les married or for what reason? She didn’t.

She had her own troubles. Les would have Ward Hamm to take care of her, and Alex had a home and modest income. But Freddy had nothing. Without Pa’s financial support, there was a very real and horrifying possibility that she would have to beg for charity simply to live.

Pressing her forehead against the windowpane, she gazed out at the range and watched the King’s Walk punchers herding strays back toward the barn and corrals. It was a scene she had witnessed all of her life, but hadn’t paid any attention. Now she did, and her heart sank.

She knew nothing about longhorns except that they stank and had vicious-looking horns that terrified her. It was inconceivable that she could take an active role in a cattle drive.

But unless she rode into Abilene, Kansas, alongside two thousand bad-tempered cattle, she would be penniless. With no place to live, no place to go. Panic choked her.

When her breathing steadied, she let herself think about Jack Caldwell. Even before Pa died, Jack and Lola were driving out together, scandalizing the county, not that either of them cared. But Freddy had cared. Being rejected in favor of her hated stepmother had shocked her.

At least no one knew. In retrospect, she thanked heaven that her relationship with Jack had been discreet. She’d felt ashamed of herself for refusing to appear in public with a gambler, and she had intended to change that. Before she did, he’d gotten impatient and started seeing Lola.

Well to hell with him. She didn’t need Jack or any other man. All she had ever needed was herself.

“Mr. Moreland, ladies, I’ve listened to this damned fool proposal and there ain’t no way I’d boss this drive. Women got no place on a cattle drive, ‘specially a woman in a wheelchair.”

“Mr. Connity, we don’t have a choice. We can’t wink at the rules as you put it and simply go along for the ride,” Freddy repeated. She nodded at Luther Moreland, the Roark family attorney. “Mr. Moreland will accompany the drive to see that all conditions are met, and our stepmother is entitled to send along a representative to observe on her behalf. People will be watching. My sisters and I must be active participants, or we lose our inheritance.”

Mr. Connity hauled to his feet and stared at each of them in a way that made Freddy aware of their pale, sun-protected skin and smooth, callus-free hands. “Some damned fool might accept you three as full hands, but it ain’t going to be me. Afternoon, ladies. Mr. Moreland.” He nodded, then walked out of the parlor.

They had interviewed four trail bosses, and all four had turned them down the instant they learned that the conditions of the will could not be circumvented.

“They take one look at Alex’s wheelchair and that’s the end of it,” Les said in a discouraged voice. “Would you care for more coffee, Luther?”

“No thank you,” Luther said, rifling through the papers on his lap.

“You’re wrong if you think you and Freddy would have no difficulty engaging a trail boss if I withdrew!” Alex said hotly.

Freddy smiled. Alex so seldom lost control that it was a pleasure to watch when it happened.

“Oh for heaven’s sakes, I was merely stating an observation,” Les said, giving Luther a put-upon look. “No matter what I say, one of them jumps down my throat.”

Luther Moreland touched a dark bow tie and cleared his throat. “Ladies, Mr. Connity was our last acceptable candidate.”

“Surely there’s someone else.” When Luther didn’t answer, Freddy swallowed hard. “Luther, are you saying the cattle drive won’t happen? That it’s over right now, and we don’t have a chance to win our inheritance?”

Les sat down abruptly and Alex froze. They all fixed anxious eyes on Luther Moreland.

He was a tall man, too thin for his frame, with ears that protruded like handles from the sides of his slender face. Even so, Freddy thought, he would have been an attractive man if he hadn’t been so shy in the presence of women. Though Luther had known her and her sisters since they were children, their concentrated attention made him uncomfortable.

Dark color filled his cheeks, and he fumbled with the papers in his lap. “There’s one name remaining on the list of candidates, but I cannot recommend this man.”

Freddy spread her hands with an impatient gesture. “If there’s another trail boss who is willing to talk to us, then send for him. We can’t just give up.”

“Why can’t you recommend him?” Alex inquired, rolling her chair forward.

“Dal Frisco is a drunk,” Luther said with a frown. “He lost the last two herds he trailed, and consequently he hasn’t worked as a trail boss for two years.”

“I’ve heard that name,” Les said, tapping a finger against her lips.

“Frisco claims he’s been sober for eighteen months.” Luther spoke slowly, disapproval underscoring each word. “But he also said I could contact him at the Lone Star Saloon.”

“I remember now.” Les looked at Freddy and Alex. “Ward’s heard all about the disastrous drives that Luther just mentioned. He warned me that we shouldn’t even consider Mr. Frisco.”

Luther hesitated. “In fairness, I should mention that Dal Frisco was considered one of the best trail bosses in Texas before liquor ruined him.”

“He says he’s sober now?” Alex asked in a tight voice.

Les stared. “We can’t possibly hire a drunk. Ward would never agree.”

Freddy narrowed her eyes. “Ward doesn’t have a vote here.” Before Les could respond, she added angrily, “Maybe you don’t need Pa’s money, but I do. And I sure as hell am not willing to let Ward Hamm make my decisions for me!”

Les bit her lip. “I want my share of the inheritance as much as you do. But I don’t see why we have to make this decision today. We could print flyers soliciting more candidates.”

“Les, all of south Texas has known about your father’s will for at least a month,” Luther said gently. “The trail bosses who were interested in this drive have already contacted me. Those whom we interviewed today apparently believed they could get around actually using you three as full hands. There are no other candidates.”

Alex looked at Luther, and stated flatly. “Send for Mr. Frisco.”

“I agree,” Freddy said, annoyed that it was Alex who appeared to make the decision.

“What we’re deciding now is whether to abandon the cattle drive and forfeit your father’s estate to Mrs. Roark, or, before conceding defeat, at least talk to Mr. Frisco,” Luther said, still addressing Les. “I cannot recommend Mr. Frisco, but it’s my duty to mention that he’s offered himself as a candidate. The decision to interview or hire him is yours, not mine.”

It was then that the full impact of the day’s business truly made an impression. If Dal Frisco turned them down as the other trail bosses had, they would lose everything. Lola would win Joe’s estate by default. Fear flooded Freddy’s throat. “What happens if Les won’t accept Frisco but Alex and I want to hire him?”

“The majority prevails. I should mention that any of you can withdraw at any time. Should that occur, the inheritance will be split equally between the sisters who complete the drive and sell two thousand head in Abilene.”

Freddy folded her arms over her breast and glared at Les. “Fine. If you don’t want to talk to Frisco, then withdraw, and Alex and I will split a larger fortune.”

“Don’t take that tone with me! You don’t want to suffer this ordeal any more than I do!” Les threw out her hands. “I just think it would be lunatic to trust our future to a man who has lost h