Cowboy For Hire (39 page)

Except,
perhaps, one tall, lean, lanky cowboy whom she’d pushed away and
might never see again.

She sighed
heavily and turned her face to the side of the tent. The blank
side. The side where all she could see was canvas.

“Amy? Amy, are
you awake?”

With
another deep sigh, Amy turned her head at Karen’s soft voice. She
truly was glad to see her friend, even if she couldn’t drum up any
overt enthusiasm. “Hello, Karen.” She tried to smile, failed, and
decided it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered now.

Karen’s
smile was big enough for both of
them, although it looked as if she had to force
it. She strode over to the bed, yanked off the big straw hat she
wore, tossed it aside, and sat with a thump on the chair beside
Amy. “Whew! It’s a real mess out there.”

“
I expect
so.” Blast. This was no way to talk to her new best friend. With a
massive effort, Amy managed to put a little—a very little—spark
into her next words. “How long is it going to take to get the whole
thing packed up?”

“I don’t know.
Here, I brought you some lemonade. It’s not great, but it’s wet,
and I managed to finagle a piece of ice from the cook, so it’s
almost cold.”

Lemonade. Now,
there was something Amy could view with slightly more animation
than if she were a dead cow lying on the desert. She was thirsty.
“Thanks, Karen. That sounds good.”

“Well, it’s
not, but it’s wet.”

“
T
hanks.” With a
good deal of struggle, because her muscles were still sore from the
damage they’d sustained the day before, she sat up and took the
lemonade glass. She hoped Karen would initiate a conversation since
her own mind was a blank. The only topic of conversation that
interested her was Charlie Fox, and he was gone.

“Martin said
he’d drive us both home in his Pierce Arrow, so at least we won’t
have a miserable bumpy ride in the wagon with the rest of the
cast.”

“That’s nice of
him.”

“He feels
guilty about not keeping a better watch on that wretch,
Huxtable.”

Amy would have
shaken her head if she’d had the vitality. “That wasn’t his fault.
Huxtable alone is responsible for his actions.”

“
I know
it. And I suppose Martin does, too, but he still feels bad that he
wasn’t able to prevent what happened.”

Amy managed a
tiny shrug. It hurt, but at least it spared her from thinking up a
string of coherent words to say.

“But it’s nice
to know that Huxtable won’t be fit to act in any more pictures for
a while, so he won’t menace any other poor actresses.”

“Good.”

“
It
is
good. And it
was Charlie Fox who did it, too. He ought to get a
medal.”

He ought to get
more than that. He deserved the world on a platter, and if Amy were
worth spit, she’d be there with him. She wasn’t. She tried to tell
herself not to be maudlin, but didn’t have the strength of will or
body. She lifted her glass and sipped instead.

The lemonade
tasted good, although she was beginning to pin for some of her
uncle’s fresh orange juice. Soon. Her uncle was always telling
people how beneficial and healthy orange juice was. Maybe a
sufficient quantity of orange juice could cure the lovesick
blues.

She doubted
it.

Karen fidgeted
in the chair for a second, then rose abruptly and began striding
around the tent. Amy watched her, vaguely curious. Suddenly, Karen
turned and spoke to her. “Listen, Amy, I don’t know what happened
between you and Charlie, but whatever it was must have been bad,
but I can’t imagine either one of you doing anything so terrible as
to cause such a rift between you. Why, you’re both terrific people,
and you’re perfect for each other.”

Holding her
lemonade glass to her warm cheek in order to capture some of its
coolness, Amy again turned to the wall. Her heart hurt too much to
talk about it. She heard Karen stomp her foot, and she sighed.

“
Will you
stop sighing and tell me what happened? For heaven’s sake, Amy, you
can’t keep everything inside of you. You’re eating your heart out,
and so is Charlie, and now he’s disappeared, and you’re lying here
like Camille dying, and it’s stupid! You’re both intelligent
people. If you had some sort of problem, certainly you can work it
out!”

Tired, sore,
and now feeling beleaguered, Amy turned her head and scowled at her
friend. “My love life is none of your business, Karen
Crenshaw.”

“The hell it’s
not!”

Karen’s profane
outburst was enough to shock even the wounded Amy out of her
lethargy. She gaped at Karen, who blushed. Astonishingly.

“
Dammit,”
Karen continued, stomping her foot again, and again shocking Amy,
who wasn’t accustomed to hearing young ladies swear. “It’s my
business because I care about you. Both of you. It’s my business
because I’m your friend. It’s my business because I don’t want
friends of mine to be miserable—and you’re both
miserable.”

In reaction to
this, Amy pruned up her lips. She was beginning to feel abused as
well as wounded and beleaguered, and she didn’t appreciate it.
“Nonsense.”

“
It’s not
nonsense!” Karen exclaimed. “What happened, Amy? I swear to God, if
you don’t tell me, I’ll track down Charlie Fox and make him tell
me! Then I’ll hog-tie him and haul him to you and make the two
of
you
talk it
out.”

“Don’t be
silly.”

“It’s not
silly.”

And then Karen
did something that so alarmed Amy, she could only gape in wonder
for a second. She burst into tears. Amy said, “Stop it, Karen.
Please.”

“
Oh,
you’re driving me crazy. Both of you! I care so much about you, and
you’re both so unhappy, and that makes me unhappy, and I
know
there’s some bit of nonsense at
the bottom of it that if you’d just talk about it, everything would
be fine, but you won’t talk to each other, and you won’t talk to
anyone else, and Charlie’s run away, and you’re lying there like
some expiring heroine in a bad melodrama, and it’s not
fair!”

Although
she could sort of appreciate Karen’s point of view, Amy felt it
important to point out the obvious to her friend
—whom she truly did esteem. “It’s my life,
Karen.”

Karen
wiped at her cheek furiously. “I know it. But it’s my life, too,
and I value my friends. I don’t have enough
of them that I can afford to see one of
them making an egregious mistake and not butt in.”

Amy took in a
breath and let it out. That was indeed one of Karen’s most notable
characteristics, she supposed: assertiveness. “All right, I
appreciate your concern. But I’m not really up to talking about
it.”

“
Bother.
What
else
do you have
to do?” Karen threw out her arms in an extravagant gesture that
dislodged her hat from the bureau on which it had landed. She
caught it gracefully and replaced it on the bureau.

“Recover,” Amy
said dully.

“Right. And
I’ll bet you anything that you’d recover a darned sight faster if
your heart didn’t hurt so much.”

Without
realizing what she was doing, Amy pressed a hand over her heart,
which did ache abominably. Karen, needless to say, saw the gesture
and pounced upon it.

“
There!”
she said in triumph. “It’s
exactly
as I said!” She rushed over and sat in the chair again.
Taking Amy’s hand in hers, she said, “Please, Amy, talk to me. I’m
sure it won’t seem so bad if you let yourself talk about
it.”

“Well....”
Actually, it might feel good to unburden herself a little bit. Not
about everything. She’d die before she’d admit she’d slept with
Charlie Fox before marriage.

“
Please?”
Karen pleaded. “I haven’t told you my news yet, but Benjamin has
asked me to marry him.”

“Oh, Karen!”
Amy was actually able to drum up some excitement for her friend.
She squeezed Karen’s hand. “I’m so happy for you.”

“
I’m
happy for me, too. And I want to be happy for
you
, too. What’s more, I want you to be my maid of
honor, and Benjamin wants Charlie to be one of his
gentlemen.”

“My
goodness.”

“
But in
order for that to happen, the two of you have to be willing to
exist in the same space together—at least long enough for the
wedding ceremony to take place. As it is now, neither Benjamin nor
I feel comfortable about asking the two of you to be together in
the wedding party, but you’re the only two we want, besides my
sister and Benjamin’s brother.”

Karen had a
point there, Amy guessed.

“
Please,
Amy, won’t you give talking a chance? I promise you—I’ll swear on a
Bible if you want me to—that it will go no further than the inside
of this tent. I won’t even tell Benjamin, if you don’t want me
to.”

Horrified that
her secrets might be spread about, Amy spoke before thinking. “Good
God, no, don’t tell anyone! Please!”

Karen held up a
placatory hand. “I won’t. I promise.” She crossed her heart. Amy
remembered making that gesture when she was little and playing with
her friends in Pasadena. The only things she could remember about
her life before Pasadena were cold and ice and fright and misery.
Which sort of prepared her for the coming ordeal.

She took an
enormous breath, paused to gather her wits, and told Karen almost
everything.

Karen stared at
her throughout her recitation and for a long time after she’d
stopped talking. After what seemed like a century, Karen said, “I
see.” Another stretch of silence ensued; then Karen said, “I hadn’t
realized how deeply your experience in Alaska had hurt you. It
really left scars, didn’t it?”

An all
too familiar sensation of helpless dread began to creep through
Amy. It always started the same way, with a sinking feeling in her
stomach. It worked its way through the entirety of her body, not
skipping her heart, until the whole of her felt like a lump of
lead—cold, vulnerable, powerless, and unable to think. “Yes.” She
shivered in the smothering heat.

“I see.” Karen
tapped her chin with her forefinger. “I’m very sorry, Amy. I’m sure
it was an abominable, frightening experience.”

“It was.”

“And it’s
certainly damaged you, if you’re willing to give up Charlie Fox,
who would never in a billion years hurt you, in order to keep
protecting the little kid you used to be.”

Now, there, Amy
thought, was an interesting way of looking at it. She tried to
resent Karen’s assessment, but it sounded perilously like the
truth. “I guess so.”

Karen got up
and slowly circuited the tent, pausing now and then to pick up and
put down homey decorative items that Amy had set out here and
there. She lifted an old photograph in a silver frame and peered at
it closely. “Are these your parents?”

“Yes.”

Karen
nodded and continued her circuit of the tent, carrying the
photograph with her and studying it as she walked. When she got to
the flap of the tent, she stopped, lifted the flap and stared
outside. Light poured in, and Amy was surprised to see how bright
it was. The coldness that had invaded her soul had tricked her into
thinking it must be cold outdoors, too, even though it was around
noon on a blistering summer day.

After several
minutes of staring, Karen turned, dropped the flap, and held the
photograph out in front of her. “You know, don’t you, Amy, that
your parents were a couple of darned fools.”

So startled was
she by Karen’s words and tone of voice, which was quite harsh, that
Amy jerked and stared at her. “Wh-what? What did you say?”

“You heard me.
Any two people who would take a tiny child into the wilderness
without the means to keep her safe are no better than idiots.
What’s more, they were lousy parents.”

“Don’t you dare
talk about my parents like that!” Furious, Amy sat up in bed. She
felt her face flame. If she’d had anything to throw besides the
lemonade glass, she just might have thrown it.

“Why not?
They’ve been dead for years, and anybody would think they’d already
done their worst, but they haven’t. Why, they just ruined your
life!” Karen sounded angry, too.

“How dare you
say such a thing! You don’t know anything about it!”

“
I do,
too! I know
you
! If this is
what your parents made of your by their bumbling, then I hope
they’re roasting in hell!”

“My father was
a minister!” Amy was appalled to hear her voice shake with rage and
tears.

“
I don’t
care what he was! If he’d had the sense God gave a gopher, he’d
have left you in some civilized place in the care of somebody with
a brain instead of taking you to God knows where to do God knows
what so you could watch him and your mother die of improper food
and inadequate medical attention!”

“That’s not
fair!”

“It is so
fair!”

“No. You’re
wrong!”

“
I’m not
wrong! My God, Amy, do you realize what you’re doing? You’re
willing to give up a man who would treat you like a precious
treasure—who’d treat you the way your parents
should
have treated you—because your parents
abandoned you!”

“They didn’t
mean to!”

“Of course they
didn’t mean to. But any idiot would have known to take precautions.
Evidently, they were absolutely alone on their iceberg, except for
you, a little girl, to take care of them. What kind of planning was
that?”