Best Man in Wyoming Page 3

  “What?” he shouted, running back across the room to jump up and down near her desk. “What is it, Lindsay? Tell me, tell me!”

  What indeed, she thought gloomily, staring at the wilted flowers.

  She’d made this rash promise, and judging from Danny’s shining face there was no doubt she needed to come up with something.

  “This special treat is a big secret,” she told him, trying to sound solemn. “I can’t tell you about it just yet, and you have to be a very good boy and keep it to yourself for a while until I can...get things organized. All right?”

  “Okay,” he breathed, eyes sparkling.

  “Don’t tell a soul,” she cautioned. “Not a soul, do you hear, Danny?”

  He bobbed his head in abrupt jerky nods and used a pudgy forefinger to cross his heart. “Not a soul,” he whispered.

  “Good. Now you run off and play. I’ll let you know as soon as the treat is going to happen.”

  Feeling both amused and despairing, she watched through the window as his small figure whirled and dipped joyously across the meadow, arms outspread, looking more like a bird in flight than a little boy in khaki shorts and T-shirt.

  Lindsay looked down ruefully at her desk full of papers, wondering what on earth she could do for Danny that would make him feel special.

  Perhaps a trip to Casper and a day on the water slides? No, that was already scheduled for the younger boys in the coming autumn term.

  Possibly a whole day alone with her at the Cheyenne rodeo? Or maybe a...

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of a van bearing the logo of a television station. Almost grateful for the distraction, Lindsay shoved the papers aside and smiled as a couple of young newswomen entered the ranch office.

  But she tensed again when they displayed their press cards. The two women represented a station in Los Angeles that had been to the ranch before. They worked for a program that fancied itself as a kind of West Coast “60 Minutes,” doing hard news and exposés, turning rocks over and searching tirelessly for any whiff of scandal.

  Lindsay had been upset by the tone of a feature they’d done on the bachelor auction the previous autumn. Rex had actually discussed launching a suit over some of the veiled allegations about fraud and misappropriation of charity funds at Lost Springs Ranch. Finally the board had chosen to let it pass rather than stir up the kind of publicity the show’s producers obviously craved.

  She forced herself to give the two women a casual smile as they settled into the visitor chairs opposite her desk.

  “What can I do for you today?” she asked.

  The spokeswoman was also one of the on-camera personalities, a tall woman with clipped black hair and a pugnacious manner.

  “We’re still interested in your bachelor auction fund-raiser,” she said. “The station is considering a small follow-up piece. You know, just some light human interest stuff.”

  I’ll bet, Lindsay thought.

  “Well, that sounds fine,” she said aloud. “Most of the boys are away for the summer, but you’re welcome to wander around and get any kind of footage you want.”

  The other woman, a heavyset blonde with a clipboard, consulted her notes. “Actually, we’re more interested in the bachelor auction couples,” she said. “Who bought each of the men and how their weekends turned out, that sort of thing.”

  “There’s already been a lot of coverage on that,” Lindsay said mildly. “In fact, I think every single bachelor has had a camera shoved in his face at some point during the past year.”

  “All but one of them,” the anchorwoman said, her eyes suddenly hard and watchful.

  Lindsay tensed again, sensing danger. “What do you mean?”

  The woman glanced at her partner, who consulted a report affixed to the clipboard.

  “According to our notes, Ms. Duncan,” the blonde said, “you personally purchased Rex Trowbridge, the director of the board of Lost Springs Ranch. That transaction occurred near the beginning of the auction and set the tone for some very high bidding throughout the event.”

  Lindsay’s heart began to thud uneasily, but she kept her face calm. “Yes,” she agreed, “that’s true, I bid on Rex. It was...kind of a joke. He was so reluctant to be a personal part of the auction.”

  Neither of her visitors seemed amused. “We have no record of what you did with the bachelor you purchased, Ms. Duncan,” the blond woman said. “It does seem like a rather expensive joke.”

  Two pairs of eyes watched her closely.

  “What do you mean?” Lindsay said. “Are you implying some kind of wrongdoing?”

  The dark-haired woman shrugged. “Considering all the money you’ve raised and the huge coverage this thing has received, your purchase of Mr. Trowbridge really doesn’t look good, does it?”

  “It would appear,” the blonde chimed in, “there was some kind of collusion between you and the ranch director to inflate the auction prices. We wondered if that isn’t a little fraudulent.”

  “But the money I bid for Rex was paid in full!” Lindsay protested. “There was no fraud, nothing like that at all.”

  “Still, it appears you never did anything with Mr. Trowbridge after going to the considerable expense of purchasing his company,” the woman persisted with maddening calm. “We have records of all these other transactions, Ms. Duncan. The Lost Springs bachelors did things like escort women to school reunions, hunt down lost family members and help solve all kinds of other problems for their purchasers.”

  “Yes,” Lindsay said. “I know they did.”

  “So what did Mr. Trowbridge do for you in return for all that money you spent?”

  “We...” Lindsay picked up a ballpoint pen and began to make some aimless doodles on a notebook. “This past year has been a really busy time for us,” she said. “The auction gave me a ton of administrative headaches.”

  “No doubt.” The brunette newswoman favored her with a dazzling, insincere smile. “But now that a whole year has passed, you must be ready to take advantage of having spent so much money to acquire Rex Trowbridge. Because, you know, we’d really hate to think...”

  The woman’s smile vanished abruptly and her eyes glittered.

  “We’d hate to think,” she continued, “that your purchase of the board director was just a setup to inflame the other buyers to high bids. That wouldn’t sound good at all, Ms. Duncan. Would it?”

  “No,” Lindsay said, taking a deep breath. “It wouldn’t. But the fact is—” she crossed her fingers under the desk “—I have...something in mind that I want Rex to do for me. Actually, we’re planning to spend a few days together before the school term starts.”

  “You’re quite sure about that?” the blonde asked sharply, her pen poised above the clipboard.

  “Of course I am. It’s going to be happening very soon.”

  “How soon?”

  “I told you, before school starts again. Within the next couple of weeks.”

  Two false promises in the same morning, Lindsay thought in despair, and she had no idea how to fulfil either of them.

  Danny’s sad little face appeared in her mind, accompanied by an image of Rex in his sunglasses and handmade shoes.

  Suddenly she had an idea.

  Crazy, she thought slowly. It was a totally crazy plan, but it just might work.

  At least it would get these women off her back, and it would certainly be a thrill for Danny.

  The only one who wouldn’t be happy was poor Rex. His choice for their enforced weekend would probably be some luxury resort in Acapulco where they could go their separate ways. Lindsay would suntan on the beach while Rex went scuba diving and conducted discreet flirtations with beautiful girls in bikinis.

  There was no doubt, Rex preferred the glamorous life.

  W
ell, who cares what he prefers, Lindsay thought recklessly. I bought him. He’ll be mine for a few days, anyhow, and totally under my control....

  “You’re smiling, Ms. Duncan,” the blonde woman said, startling Lindsay out of her reverie. “This must be a pleasant weekend you’ve got planned.”

  “Yes, it is.” Again Lindsay crossed her fingers. “We’re all going to enjoy it.”

  “All?” the other woman asked. She still looked alert but also mildly regretful, as if sorry to see Lindsay wriggling off the hook.

  “What I’m planning,” Lindsay said, for all the world as if this had been in her mind for months, “is to have Rex help me take a few of the boys on a trail ride and camping trip.”

  The blond woman began to write again. “How many boys?”

  “We have half a dozen boys who spend the summer here at the ranch because they have nowhere else to go during the holidays. They get pretty bored and restless, so I thought this would be a nice treat for them.”

  “And is Mr. Trowbridge also looking forward to your camping trip?”

  “He doesn’t know about it yet,” Lindsay said, relieved to be giving a truthful answer for once. “But he can hardly object, right?” she added with a cheery grin. “After all, the man’s bought and paid for.”

  Her guests didn’t smile back. “How long will you be gone?”

  “About a week.” Lindsay calculated rapidly. “We’ll haul our horses over to some of the rough country in the mountain ranges just west of here, and then ride in with a couple of pack animals to carry our camping gear. It’s going to be a real adventure.”

  Danny would be out of his mind with excitement, she thought. Even the older boys were going to be thrilled by this plan.

  But Rex...

  “Is Mr. Trowbridge an accomplished outdoorsman?” the blond woman asked, as if reading her mind.

  “He used to be,” Lindsay said. “Years ago when we were growing up together, Rex was the best rider and wilderness survivalist at the ranch. But his interests have... changed in recent years.”

  Well, that was certainly putting it mildly.

  The truth was, she didn’t know if he’d even been on a horse in more than a decade, and he wasn’t going to be the least bit happy about spending days on end in the mountain wilderness.

  Maybe he couldn’t even ride anymore. Rex had never been the kind of man who was anxious to revisit his childhood.

  Lindsay felt a brief pang of guilty concern for him, but it passed immediately when the two newswomen got to their feet and the tall brunette gave her another penetrating glance.

  “We look forward to hearing about your adventure, Ms. Duncan,” the woman said. “In fact, maybe we’ll drop around in a few weeks to see how it went, and bring a camera crew with us.”

  The warning in her tone was unmistakable.

  “That’s just fine,” Lindsay said calmly. “I’m sure we’ll have some exciting stories to tell.”

  She got up and escorted them to the door, then watched as they drove off, vanishing into the dazzle of sunlight beyond the ranch gates.

  After they were gone, Lindsay went back to her desk and sat down, twirling a curl of hair nervously around her finger.

  She frowned, wondering exactly how to break the news to elegant Rex Trowbridge that he was about to spend the better part of a week riding horseback, eating beans from a frying pan and sleeping under the stars with his childhood friend and a half dozen high-spirited boys.

  CHAPTER THREE

  WHILE LINDSAY was brooding about Rex’s probable reaction to the bombshell she was about to spring on him, the object of her concern was much nearer than she suspected.

  Instead of being in Casper, as Lindsay assumed, seeing clients or lunching downtown at the elegant Mesquite Club, Rex Trowbridge was actually within the confines of Lost Springs Ranch. In fact, the man was only a couple of miles away from her.

  He drove his Cadillac carefully down a rutted trail bordering an old fence line, then eased it into a stand of birch trees, being careful not to scratch the gleaming surface.

  When he decided the car had been sufficiently concealed, Rex parked and got out, took off his designer sunglasses and tossed them onto the seat. First checking to make sure nobody else was around, he reached into the back seat for a crisp new cowboy hat, which he fitted on his head.

  Then he paused, a little sheepishly, to admire his image in the reflective surface of the big car’s side window.

  Keys in hand, Rex strode to the rear of the Cadillac and opened the trunk, taking out a duffel bag and a round metal can about two feet in diameter, designed for transporting nylon lariats.

  He carried the bag and the rope can down a leafy trail to an old set of corrals, enjoying the warmth of the summer day. Magpies chattered raucously in the trees overhead, and a black squirrel scampered across the trail in front of him.

  Near the corrals an older man waited, sitting patiently on horseback near one of the sagging fences. At the man’s side was another saddle horse, a big sorrel standing hip-cocked and silent against the fence, swishing his tail lazily at flies.

  “Hi.” Rex approached and tossed his gear down near the fence. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

  Sam Duncan grinned and coiled a rope in his gloved hands.

  “That’s a nice hat,” he commented with approval. “Now you look like a real hand, not some fancy drugstore cowboy.”

  “Well, that was the general idea,” Rex said, feeling another touch of embarrassment.

  “So you’re ready for this?” Sam asked. “Not too sore from last time?”

  Rex rubbed his shoulder and grimaced. “I took a pretty nasty tumble. Who’d have thought team roping could be so dangerous?”

  “When you’ve got two horses weighing half a ton each, and a five-hundred-pound steer with a mind of his own, and two nylon ropes in the hands of two cowboys, and one of those cowboys doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing,” Sam said mildly, “then team roping can be a real dangerous sport.”

  “Sorry,” Rex muttered, knowing that his carelessness during their last practise session had come perilously close to causing his partner a serious injury, too. “I won’t make the same mistake again.”

  “Damn right you won’t,” Sam agreed.

  He watched as Rex gathered the reins, fitted his boot in the stirrup and mounted the tall sorrel gelding, who danced and sidestepped nervously when he felt the sudden weight on his back.

  “Let the reins off easy,” Sam cautioned. “Don’t saw at him, he’s got a nice tender mouth. All right, now pull him in gently, let him know who’s boss....”

  Rex obeyed the curt instructions. He felt tense and cautious, every nerve alert to danger. But as he did what Sam told him, the big horse settled down, ears twitching, and fell into a placid walk around the outside of the corral.

  “Nice touch,” Sam called behind him.

  Rex felt warmed and happy, as if he were thirteen years old again with Sam teaching him to ride for the first time.

  Sam Duncan’s praise had always been sweet to the boys at Lost Springs, because it was hard-won and given only sparingly.

  Over the years, everybody else had changed except Sam, Rex thought as the older man’s horse fell into step beside his, circling the corral.

  Though he must be seventy now, Sam looked practically the same as he always had, with his lean, craggy face and gentle smile, his big rangy body and the bald head concealed by a characteristic pearl-gray Stetson.

  Sam did his own laundry and was always immaculately clean, his blue jeans neatly pressed, his plaid western shirts crisp and bright.

  Rex loved the old man deeply, although he could never recall saying the words out loud.

  “Well,” Sam said at last, reining his horse toward the open gate, “let’
s try some roping. You ready for this, son?”

  “Ready as I’ll ever be.” Rex dismounted and opened the metal can to take out a couple of stiff nylon ropes, which he slung over his saddle horn, and a pair of leather gloves to protect his hands.

  From the back of his horse, Sam watched these preparations with an unfathomable look on his face. “I still don’t rightly understand why you’re doing all this,” he said.

  “I told you.” Rex concentrated on attaching the spare rope. “I want to enter the team roping with you at the Lightning Creek Rodeo next month, and I intend for us to win.”

  “That’s a real tough roping,” Sam said mildly. “It’s hard to win even for guys who’ve been cowboying all their lives. And you...” He paused tactfully, picking at a rawhide strap on his glove.

  “I’m a lawyer,” Rex said with a rueful grin. “Haven’t even been on a horse for years. That doesn’t mean I can’t learn if I want to, Sam.”

  “I reckon not.” Sam cleared his throat. “But I’m still not sure why you want to. You know, Lindsay always says...”

  Rex looked up so abruptly that the sorrel horse rolled his eyes in alarm and danced backward a few steps.

  “Look, you haven’t said anything about this to Lindsay, have you?”

  Sam looked amused. “Don’t bite my head off, son. I told you it would be our secret, and I’m a man of my word. As far as Lindsay knows, you haven’t even been near the ranch since the last board meeting.”

  “Good.” Rex gathered the reins and hauled himself into the saddle again. “That’s how I want it to stay, right until the day of the rodeo.”

  “And then you’re planning to ride out, win the roping and knock her socks off,” Sam observed.

  Rex rode beside him into the practice ring. “Yes, that’s exactly what I plan to do. I’ve been thinking about it all winter.”

  The two men dismounted, looped their reins over a fence rail and went inside the barn to run a few long-horned steers up the alley and into a roping chute.

  “Seems to me,” Sam grunted, heaving on the gate while Rex held the final steer in position, “that it’d be a whole lot easier to send her flowers or chocolates like normal guys do.”