The Rustler. Linda Miller Lael

put a fatherly arm around her shoulders. “You’ve fought the good fight, Sarah,” he said. “Run that bank as well as any man could, better than most. But it’s time to let it go.”

      “You don’t understand, Doc,” Sarah answered miserably, wringing her hands in her lap. “Papa and I will have nothing to live on, if his salary stops coming in.”

      “Ephriam has always been the thrifty sort,” Doc said, a frown puckering the flesh between his bristly eyebrows. “He must have saved a considerable amount, over thirty years.”

      Sarah’s eyes burned. “There were bad loans, Doc, a couple of years back, during the worst of the drought. Papa used his own money to cover them, so the Weatherbys and the Connors and the Billinghams wouldn’t lose their ranches—”

      A muscle ticked in Doc’s jaw. “And of course they never paid him back.”

      “They couldn’t,” Sarah insisted. “Now that the railroad’s come as far as Stone Creek, things are getting better, but you know Mrs. Weatherby’s a widow now, with four young children to feed, and the Connors got burned out and had to go live with their folks up in Montana. They might or might not be able to make a new start. Jim Billingham pays what he can, when he can, but it isn’t much.”

      “Oh, Lord,” Doc said. “Is the house mortgaged?”

      Sarah shook her head. “The deed’s in my name,” she answered. She looked back over one shoulder at the big house, the only home she’d ever known. There were six bedrooms, in total, because her parents had hoped to have that many children, or more. “I suppose I could take in boarders,” she said. “Give piano lessons.”

      Doc lowered his arm from Sarah’s shoulder and took her hand, squeezed it lightly. “You’re the sort who’ll do whatever has to be done,” he said fondly. “Ephriam’s lucky to have a daughter like you.”

      Privately, Sarah believed her father would have been better off with a son, instead of a daughter. If she’d been born male, there’d be no question of giving up control of the Stockman’s Bank—a man would be allowed, even expected, to take over the helm.

      Sarah didn’t mind hard work, but taking in boarders was one step above beggary, in small, gossipy communities like that one. There were already several women offering piano lessons, so pupils would be hard to come by. She’d be pitied and whispered about, and keeping her spine straight and her chin up in public would take some doing.

      “You could always get married,” Doc said. “Any one of several men in this town would put a ring on your finger, if you were agreeable.”

      Wyatt Yarbro ambled into Sarah’s mind, grinning.

      She blushed. The man was a self-confessed outlaw, despite the badge pinned to his shirt, and for all that he’d walked her home the night before, and stopped by the bank that very day to offer his assistance, should it be required, marriage wouldn’t enter his mind.

      Men like Mr. Yarbro didn’t marry, they dallied with foolish women, and then moved on.

      “I’d have to love a man before I could marry him,” she told Doc forthrightly. Although she would have married Charles Langstreet the day she met him, and certainly after she discovered she was carrying his child—if he hadn’t admitted, after Owen’s conception, that he already had a wife.

      “Love might be a luxury you can’t afford, Sarah Tamlin,” Doc said. “You’re a strong, capable woman, but the reality is, you need a man.” His weary old eyes twinkled. “I’d offer for you, myself, if I were thirty years younger.”

      Sarah chuckled, though she was dangerously near tears. “And I’d probably accept,” she said, rising to her feet. She had things to do—look in on her father, start supper for her guests, due to arrive in just under an hour, tidy up the parlor and lay a nice table in the dining room. She said as much, adding, “Will you stay and join us?”

      Doc Venable stood, too. “I’d be honored,” he said.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      OWEN’S FACE WAS SCRUBBED, and someone, probably Charles, had slicked down his hair. Standing on the front porch, gazing earnestly up at Sarah, he held out a bouquet of flowers and bravely announced, “Papa said to tell you he’ll be along as soon as he can. He got a telegram at the hotel, and he’s got to answer it.”

      “C-come in,” Sarah said, stricken by the sight, the presence, of this boy. Accepting the flowers with murmured thanks, she stepped back to admit him.

      Owen moved solemnly over the threshold, a little gentleman in a woolen suit, taking in the entryway, the long-case clock, the mahogany coat tree. Sarah wondered if he ever wore regular clothes and played in the dirt, like other children his age.

      And she wondered a thousand other things, too.

      “Let’s put these flowers in water,” she said, and started for the kitchen.

      “You have gaslights and everything,” Owen marveled, walking behind her. “I thought you’d live in a log cabin, and there’d be Indians around.”

      Sarah smiled to herself. “There are a few Indians,” she said. “But you don’t have to worry about them. They’re friendly.”

      “Good,” Owen said, with evident relief, as they passed the dining room table—she’d set it for five, since her father was snoring away in his room—and the plates, glasses and silverware sparkled. “I wouldn’t want to get scalped or anything.”

      “Nobody’s going to scalp you,” Sarah said, with certainty.

      Owen pulled back a chair at the kitchen table and sat while she found a vase for the wild orange poppies he’d apparently picked for her. “Papa says this is the frontier,” he announced.

      Sarah’s spine tightened briefly at the mention of Charles. She hoped Doc Venable would be back from his evening rounds before he or Wyatt Yarbro arrived. “We’re quite civilized, actually,” she said, pumping water into a vase at the sink, dunking the stems of the poppies, and setting the whole shooting match in the center of the table.

      “Do you live in this great big house all by yourself?” Owen wanted to know. He was small for his age, Sarah noticed, trying her best not to devour the child with her eyes. His feet swung inches above the floor, but he sat up very straight.

      “No,” Sarah said, taking a chair herself. “My father and I live here together. Isn’t your house much bigger than this one?”

      Owen allowed that it was, then added, “But I’m not there very much. If I’m not at school, I mostly stay with Grandmama. She’s got all sorts of money, but she lives in a town house. That way, she doesn’t need so many servants.”

      “Do you like staying at your grandmama’s town house?” Sarah asked carefully.

      “Not much,” Owen said. “You can’t run or make noise or have a dog, because dogs have fleas and they chew things up and make messes.”

      Sarah didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Would you like to have a dog?”

      “More than anything, except maybe a pony,” Owen answered.

      “Do you like school?” A thousand other questions still pounded in Sarah’s mind, but it wouldn’t be appropriate to ask them.

      “It’s lonesome,” Owen said. “Especially at Christmas.”

      Sarah stomach clenched, but she allowed none of what she felt to show in her face. “You stay at school over Christmas?”

      “My mother doesn’t like me very much,” Owen confided. “And Grandmama always goes to stay with friends in the south of France when the weather starts getting cold.”

      “Surely your mother loves you,” Sarah managed.

      “No,” Owen insisted, shaking his head.