The Founding Father. Diana Palmer

no cure to be had for it, I’m afraid.” She adjusted her oversized hat atop the dark bun of her hair and looked at him with miserable blue eyes in a pleasant but not very attractive face. She was slight and thin, and not the sort of woman to whom he’d ever been attracted.

      “Your companion has no manners,” he remarked.

      “Thank you for your concern.”

      He tipped his hat. “It was no trouble. I wouldn’t have minded being splattered. As you can see, I’ve already sampled the local mud.”

      She laughed and her animated face took on a fey quality, of which she was unaware. “Good day.”

      “Good day.”

      She moved away and he started into the barbershop to put himself to rights.

      “John!” a man called from nearby. “Thought that was you,” a heavyset man with a badge panted as he came up to join him. It was Deputy Marshal James Graham, who often stopped by John’s ranch when he was in the area looking for fugitives.

      They shook hands. “What are you doing in Sutherland Springs?” John asked him.

      “I’m looking for a couple of renegades,” he said. “They were hiding in Indian Territory, but I heard from a cousin of one of them that they were headed this way, trying to outrun the army. You watch your back.”

      “You watch yours,” he retorted, opening his jacket to display the Colt .45 he always wore in a holster on a gunbelt slung across his narrow hips.

      The marshal chuckled. “I heard that. Noticed you were trying to help that poor young woman out of a fix.”

      “Yes, poor little thing,” he commented. “Nothing to look at, and of little interest to a man. Two left feet into the bargain. But it was no trouble to be kind to her. Her companion gave her no more help than the rough edge of his tongue.”

      “That was Sir Sydney Blythe, a hunting companion of the railroad magnate, Colby. They say the girl has a crush on him, but he has no use for her.”

      “Hardly surprising. He might have ended in the mud puddle,” he added on a chuckle. “She’s not the sort to inspire passion.”

      “You might be surprised. My wife is no looker, but can she cook! Looks wear out. Cooking lasts forever. You remember that. See you around.”

      “You, too.” John went on into the barbershop unaware of a mud-covered female standing behind the corner, trying to deal with wiping some of the mud from her heavy skirt.

      She glared at the barbershop with fierce blue eyes. So he was that sort of a man, was he, pitying the poor little scrawny hen with the clumsy feet. She’d thought he was different, but he was just the same as other men. None of them looked twice at a woman unless she had a beautiful face or body.

      She walked past the barbershop toward her hotel, seething with fury. She hoped that she might one day have the chance to meet that gentleman again when she was properly dressed and in her own element. It would be a shock for him, she felt certain.

      A short while later John walked toward the Sutherland Springs Hotel with a confidence he didn’t really feel. He was grateful for the marshal’s conversation, which helped calm him. He wondered if Colby’s daughter was also enamoured of the atrocious Sir Sydney, as well as that poor scrawny hen who’d been out riding with him? He wasn’t certain how he would have to go about wooing such a misfit, although he had it in mind.

      At thirty-five, John was more learned than many of his contemporaries, having been brought up by an educated mother who taught him Latin while they worked in the fields. Since then, he’d been educated in other ways while trying to keep himself clothed and fed. His married sister, the only other survivor of his family, had tried to get him to come and work with her husband in North Carolina on their farm, but he hadn’t wanted to settle in the East. He was a man with a dream. And if a man could make himself a fortune with nothing more than hard work and self-denial, he was ready to be that man.

      It seemed vaguely dishonest to take a bride for monetary reasons, and it cut to the quick to pretend an affection he didn’t feel to get a rich bride. If there was an honest way to do this, he was going to find it. His one certainty was that if he married a railroad tycoon’s daughter, he had a far better chance of getting a railroad to lay tracks to his ranch than if he simply asked for help. These days, nobody rushed to help a penniless rancher. Least of all a rich Northerner.

      John walked into the hotel bristling with assumed self-confidence and the same faint arrogance he’d seen rich men use to get their way.

      “My name is John Jacobs,” he told the clerk formally. “Mr. Colby is expecting me.”

      That was a bald lie, but a bold one. If it worked, he could cut through a lot of time-wasting protocol.

      “Uh, he is? I mean, of course, sir,” the young man faltered. “Mr. Colby is in the presidential suite. It’s on the second floor, at the end of the hall. You may go right up. Mr. Colby and his daughter are receiving this morning.”

      Receiving. Go right up. John nodded, dazed. It was easier than he’d dreamed to see one of the country’s richest men!

      He nodded politely at the clerk and turned to the staircase.

      The suite was easy to find. He knocked on the door confidently, inwardly gritting his teeth to gear himself up for the meeting. He had no idea what he was going to give as an excuse for coming here. He didn’t know what Ellen Colby looked like. Could he perhaps say that he’d seen her from afar and had fallen madly in love with her at once? That would certainly ruin his chances with her father, who would be convinced that he only wanted Ellen’s money.

      While he was thinking up excuses, a maid opened the door and stood back to let him inside. Belatedly he swept off his hat, hoping his forehead wasn’t sweating as profusely as it felt.

      “Your name, sir?” the middle-aged woman asked politely.

      “John Jacobs,” he told her. “I’m a local landowner,” he added.

      She nodded. “Please wait here.”

      She disappeared into another room behind a closed door. Seconds passed, while John looked around him uncomfortably, reminded by the opulence of the suite how far removed he was from the upper class.

      The door opened. “Please go in, sir,” the maid said respectfully, and even smiled at him.

      Elated, he went into the room and stared into a pair of the coldest pale blue eyes he’d ever seen, in a face that seemed unremarkable compared to the very expensive lacy white dress worn by its owner. She had a beautiful figure, regardless of her lack of beauty. Her hair was thick and a rich dark brown, swept up into a high bun that left a roll of it all around her head. She was very poised, very elegant and totally hostile. With a start, John recognized her. She was the mud puddle swimmer from the hotel entrance.

      He must not laugh, he must not…! But a faint grin split his chiseled lips and his green eyes danced on her indignant features. Here was his excuse, so unexpected!

      “I came to inquire about your health,” he said, his voice deep and lazy. “The weather is cold, and the mud puddle was very large….”

      “I am…” She was blushing, now apparently flattered by his visit. “I am very well. Thank you!”

      “What mud puddle?” came a crisp voice from the doorway. A man, shorter than John, with balding hair and dark blue eyes, dressed in an expensive suit, came into the room. “I’m Terrance Colby. Who are you?”

      “John Jacobs,” he introduced himself. He wasn’t certain how to go on. “I own a ranch outside town…” he began.

      “Oh, you’re here about quail hunting,” Colby said immediately. He smiled, to John’s astonishment, and went forward to shake hands. “But I’m afraid you’re a few minutes too late. I’ve already procured an invitation to the Four Aces Ranch to hunt antelope and