“I brought you out here to have a lesson.”
“Really? Will she take me as a rider?”
“She will. We’ve all been on her.” He pointed to the barn’s back door. “Everyone took her out through there so there was no chance that you would see. I wasn’t sure they could keep the secret much longer. Jem was near to bursting with it at breakfast.”
“I have never had so fine a present at Christmas.”
“She’s a wedding gift. I meant what I said, Jane. She’s always been yours. I cut her from the herd for you.” Morgan saw the sparkle in Jane’s emerald eyes fade ever so slightly. He shook his head as if he could stop the direction of her thoughts. “For you,” he said again. “For my wife. Forget Rebecca. Sophie would dislike her as much as I do.”
Jane only offered a mild challenge. “You do not know that.”
“I do. They share the same features, and Sophie wears them better.”
Jane blinked. “What?”
Morgan tapped Jane’s chin and pointed her to Sophie. “Look at her. Long nose. Flaring nostrils. Muscled cheeks. Strong neck. Broad shoulders. She’s a beautiful animal.”
“I don’t understand. You think Rebecca looks like Sophie?”
“Don’t you?”
Jane stared at Sophie. In her mind’s eye she overlaid it with Rebecca’s bold features. She saw her cousin’s face in a new light, one that did not flatter Rebecca in the least. Jane put her hand to her mouth as her lips parted. “No wonder you thought she could pull a plow.”
Morgan chuckled. “I never said that. You’re the one who mentioned plowing. I said I wanted a strong wife.” He nudged her chin back in his direction. “And I got what I wanted. And she’s beautiful, too.”
Jane batted his hand away and shook her head. “Don’t.”
“Why can’t I say it? It’s true.”
“You don’t go into town enough. It’s easy to forget what a pretty woman looks like.”
“I never said you were pretty. Well, maybe I did, but I didn’t mean it. I just couldn’t say the other.” He shrugged a little diffidently. “About you being beautiful and all, I’m saying. Partly I kept my tongue in my head because it hurts a mite to look on you that way, like there’s a radiant light coming from you that could blind me if I stare too long. Mostly, though, I didn’t say anything because you wouldn’t believe me. I thought maybe that had passed some, but I guess not. That family of yours sure did twist the way you see yourself. The reasons I want to take a swing at them just keep piling up.”
Jane searched his face. She said quietly, “I never know what you are going to say, Morgan Longstreet.”
“Is that good?”
“I don’t know about good, but it keeps me on my toes.” She came up on them again and kissed him. It would have been easy for her to allow it to linger, but she kept it short and full of promise. “Now, about that riding lesson.”
CHAPTER 11
A brief respite from falling snow in January gave Jane the opportunity to visit Bitter Springs. She was confident enough of her riding skills by then to suggest that she take Sophie and go alone, at which point Morgan looked at her as if she’d sprouted a third eye. He did not argue about the trip, but he insisted on using the buckboard and accompanying her. She thanked him, acknowledging his superior judgment in these matters, and immediately returned to working on her list. Morgan knew he had been had. Oddly enough, he wasn’t so sure that he minded it.
Morgan hung back at the entrance of the Cattlemen’s Trust and let Jane go up to the teller’s cage on her own. He stood with his hands behind his back, occasionally rocking forward on the balls of his feet as he looked around. He was an infrequent visitor to the bank, conducting most of his business when he and his men drove cattle to town to be taken up by the railroad.
Nothing had changed at the bank since his last visit. There were two teller cages, but as usual, only one of them was occupied. Morgan did not recall the man’s name. Hall? Hollis? He was a quiet sort and kept transactions brief. He did not allow people to linger at his station, which Morgan thought was wise on his part. Familiarity and chitchat were proven ways to lower a man’s guard. Morgan knew precisely how that worked.
The door to the manager’s office was open wide enough for Morgan to see Mr. Webb hunched over his desk. To his right, the safe’s door was also ajar. Morgan had been in the bank often enough to know it was a practice, not an oversight. Sometime during his long tenure as the manager of the Cattlemen’s Trust Bank, Mr. Webb had become complacent.
The safe was a black 1884 Barkley and Benjamin pin and tumbler model with a four-inch steel door and two-inch steel lining. It was impressively large, standing four feet tall and thirty-two inches deep and wide. Empty, it weighed 536 pounds. It was sold with the Barkley and Benjamin name painted in gold leaf on the door. Most banks added their name. That was true of Cattlemen’s Trust, although Mr. Webb had turned away from the elaborate flourishes used by Barkley and Benjamin, and had chosen plain block letters instead. He did, however, elect to use gold leaf.
Morgan’s gaze moved on as Mr. Webb straightened and sat back in his chair. There was no eye contact, which was the way Morgan wanted it.
The lobby was wide and uncluttered. The hardwood floors were polished. There was a table close to the large window that was mostly used by customers as a place to set their parcels. Sometimes people sat there to read and sign papers or study their savings books, but no one was using it today. On the opposite side of the bank, Evelyn Stillwell, the barber’s wife, was engaged in animated conversation with Heather Collins, grandmother to Rabbit and Finn. Morgan made it a point not to eavesdrop. He had never known anything good to come of it.
“Mornin’,” Cobb Bridger said, tipping his hat to the women as he came through the door. They stopped speaking long enough to acknowledge him then immediately reengaged in their discussion. Instead of heading for the teller’s cage, he stepped sideways and joined Morgan. “It must be important, whatever they’re talking about. I think it’s the first time they haven’t asked after Tru. Her condition generally provokes a ten-minute interrogation.”
“Umeh.”
