Forever and Always (12 page)

“Logan will be with me, and he's not a teenage boy.”

“Okay, okay. Go to Camp Verde, and convince them they'd be crazy not to let you set up an office there. But if you tell me you've decided to operate the office yourself, I'm going to lock you in your own house.”

Sibyl laughed, all tension gone. “I'm thinking about asking Cassie. One look at her, and they'll probably give her an army escort.”

The two cousins put their arms around each other and had a good laugh.

“I just want you to be safe,” Naomi said when she released her cousin and sat back.

“I will be.”

“And happy and successful and married to a man who adores you.”

Sibyl's smile faded. “Being married to a man who adores me might be a bit much. I'll settle for happy and successful.”

“Don't you dare. Laurie found Jared. You'll find someone.”

Sibyl was afraid she'd already found someone. And she could hardly have made a more unfortunate choice.

* * *

“There's a dog in the bushes,” Kitty said to Logan.

Peter jumped up from where he was drawing in the dirt. “Where? I don't see him.”

“He hid when you jumped up,” Kitty said. “I think you scared him.”

“He's not much of a dog then.” Peter tossed his stick away. “I'm going to the livery stable. Ted says they're getting some new horses today. Want to come?” Little Abe and Esther were quick to join him.

“I'll stay,” Kitty said.

“Why? Logan's not going to tell another story.”

“I just want to,” Kitty replied. “I don't like horses.”

“Ma says she used to be afraid of horses, but she's not anymore.”

“I'm not afraid,” Kitty said. “I just don't like them.”

“I do,” Peter said. “When I get big, I'm going to have a dozen horses all my own.”

“Uncle Colby won't give Peter a dozen horses,” Kitty told Logan after the others had left. “He says horses are for work, not for play.”

Logan was sorry he wouldn't have much time to get to know Colby. From what everyone said, his younger brother was quite a remarkable man.

“The dog's back,” Kitty said.

Logan looked to where Kitty was pointing. He wasn't really surprised when Trusty pushed his way through a juniper thicket and sidled up to him. Logan ruffled the dog's fur affectionately. “Just couldn't stay away, could you?”

“Is that your dog?” Kitty asked.

“No. He's just a friend.”

“Would he be my friend?”

“I think so. Why don't you ask him?”

“How do I do that?”

“Hold out your hand. Let him sniff it.”

Kitty held out her hand to Trusty, but he didn't move.

“Why isn't he sniffing?” Kitty asked.

“People haven't been very nice to him.”

“What's his name?”

“I don't know, but I call him Trusty.”

“I won't hurt you,” Kitty said to the dog.

After hesitating a moment, he started toward her. The next moment he disappeared into the juniper thicket. The reason was apparent when Sibyl came into view.

“I thought I'd find you here,” she said to her daughter. “Why aren't you at the corral with the others?”

“I wanted to stay here. Logan has a dog named Trusty for a friend. I think he wanted to be my friend, too, but you scared him away.”

“Somebody beat him very badly,” Logan explained when Sibyl turned to him. “He only took to me because he was starving.”

“Where is he?”

“In there,” Kitty said, pointing toward the juniper thicket.

“Are you sure he's safe?” Sibyl asked.

“He's nice, Mama,” Kitty said. “I know he is.”

“Then maybe he'll come back another day. You need to go stay with your aunt Naomi. Logan and I have to go to Camp Verde.”

“I thought we were going to do that later,” Logan said.

“So did I, but Naomi spoke to Laurie who spoke to Jared who is at the bank right now waiting to talk with us.”

“Then you don't need me,” Logan said. “If Jared worked there, he'll be far more help than I would be.”

“I want you to go with me. Opening an office there was your idea. In any case, Jared isn't a banker. He's a rancher. What kind of advice could he give me?”

“Very sound advice, I expect. A man has to be a good businessman to be a successful rancher.”

“Maybe, but I still want you to go with me.”

“Why?”

“I already told you.”

“But you don't
need
me.”

“If I said I
did
need you, would you go with me?”

Logan didn't know what to say. The words that nearly tumbled out of his mouth would have been the worst possible response. He would rather suffer greater pain than he'd yet endured than have Sibyl turn away from him in disgust.

“Don't you want to go with Mama?”

Kitty's question brought Logan to a crossroads. Answering the question truthfully would subject him to the misery of spending an entire afternoon next to the woman he knew he could never have. A false answer would send him back to his camp cursing himself for giving up the chance to spend a few more precious hours in her company. “Yes,” he said to the little girl, “I would like to go with her.”

“Why didn't you say that in the beginning?” Sibyl asked.

Another question he couldn't answer truthfully. “I thought I'd be in the way.”

“Nonsense. You know I depend on you to help me understand all sides of a decision before I make up my mind.”

“Mama thinks you're brilliant. I heard you say it to Aunt Naomi,” Kitty told her mother when she looked put out. “You also said you thought he was a wonderful man.”

Sibyl turned crimson. After a brief glance at Logan, she turned to her daughter. “I did say both of those things, but it's not always wise to tell everything you know.”

Logan would never know what Kitty might have said to her mother because just then Trusty stuck his head out of the juniper thicket. “Look!” she exclaimed, no longer interested in whether Logan would go with her mother. “Trusty's back. Do you think he'll sniff my hand now?”

Logan struggled to turn his attention from Sibyl. He longed to ask how she could think he was a wonderful man. He wanted to ask if she really meant it or was just saying it. He didn't believe she would lie, but neither could he imagine she could think he was wonderful. What had she really said? What were the
actual
words? Had she said he was wonderful, or had she used terms like nice, agreeable, pleasant, polite, or good-natured? They were all good words, but they weren't the same.

If she really had said he was wonderful, just what did she mean by it? Was he wonderful at figuring out Norman's books? Was it wonderful of him to spend so much time telling the children stories? Was it wonderful that he'd stopped the runaway horses? Was it wonderful of him to offer to help her without being paid? He tried to convince himself there were too many ways what she had said could be misinterpreted, but he couldn't dismiss the chance that she had used that word because she meant it.

“Look, he's licking my hand.”

Logan pulled his wits together. “He likes you,” he told Kitty. “He wants to be your friend.”

“Mama, let him sniff you.”

Sibyl looked as uncomfortable as Logan felt, but she extended her hand to Trusty. After a moment's hesitation, she inched forward until his nose touched her hand.

“He's got scars,” Sibyl said.

“He was badly beaten, but he's recovering.”

“It takes a particularly awful kind of person to beat an animal that way. I'm glad you've taken him in. It's time for you to go to your Aunt Naomi,” she said to Kitty. “Logan and I have to go to Camp Verde. We can't keep Uncle Jared waiting any longer.”

She hadn't looked at Logan, but Logan didn't need to see her face. The tone of her voice, the way she enunciated each word as though it were an enemy, told him she was unhappy about the confession her daughter had forced from her. The ride to Camp Verde was going to be all business and nothing else.

* * *

“Are you sure it was a good idea to let the dog come with us?” Sibyl and Logan were nearing Camp Verde. “He doesn't like me as much as he likes Kitty.”

“He doesn't dislike you,” Logan said. “He just doesn't trust you yet. Anyway, I don't know how I could have left him. At camp he either sleeps next to me or sits at my feet. He follows me to town and waits outside the bank or in the grove where I eat lunch. He doesn't like to let me out of his sight. I'm not sure whether he's trying to protect me or depending on me to protect him.”

Trusty ran alongside. When he'd followed them out of town, Logan had tried to coax him up into the buckboard, but he'd balked at the sight of Sibyl. His easy stride was a welcome sign he'd regained much of his strength. He was starting to look like a real dog, not a badly chewed piece of hide stretched over some bones.

“I think he likes me because I feed him.”

Sibyl looked down at the dog. “His attachment to you is a lot more than like. He's yours as long as you'll have him.”

Logan had already realized that was going to be a problem. He hoped he could talk Sibyl into adopting Trusty after… He didn't like putting his future into words. Saying it, hearing it, even thinking it, made it seem too real, too imminent. Facing his illness day after day was enough. He preferred to spend what energy he had left enjoying being with the people who'd become important to him. Horace came to him for practical man-to-man advice. Cassie was trying to turn him into a surrogate father for Little Abe. The children came to him for stories of adventure and excitement. Sibyl came to him…Well, she hadn't exactly
come
to him for anything, but she'd started to turn to him when she wanted to talk, even when it was about things that didn't concern the bank.

At first he tried not to become too invested in their lives, but he quickly gave up. He
wanted
to become involved with them. Doing so gave his remaining days meaning. He didn't want to be a pathetic man just sitting around waiting to die. There, he'd thought it. He was going to die, but he wasn't going to give up. And there were things he'd been thinking about Sibyl that he couldn't go a moment longer without saying. It had all built up too strong inside.

“I've never been to Camp Verde,” Sibyl said. “I have no idea where anything is.”

“I don't expect you'll have any trouble,” Logan had told her. “One look at you, and half the men will be fighting each other for the chance to take you anywhere you want to go.”

“Only half?” Logan chuckled at the gleam in Sibyl's eye.

“The other half will be staring out their windows after being locked inside by their wives.”

Sibyl chuckled delightedly. “If I didn't know both Laurie and Naomi are prettier than I am—not to mention Ted's wife Martha, who's absolutely beautiful—I could become rather vain.”

“You're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. And there are a lot more attractive women in Chicago to be compared with than Cactus Corner.”

Sibyl's humor dried up. “I wish you wouldn't say things like that.”

“That's how I feel,” he said quietly.

“That's an even better reason. We shouldn't…we can't…I don't know. It just makes me uncomfortable.”

“Then I won't
say
it again, but I will continue to
think
it.”

“I wish you wouldn't.”

“Why not? Do you object if I say Kitty is the most charming little girl I've ever met?”

“Of course not. She's my daughter. I think she's perfect.”

“A perfect daughter requires a perfect mother. Did you adopt her or find her under a cabbage leaf?”

“Now you're being ridiculous.”

“Good. I'm glad we've settled that because we've reached the camp.”

Jared had described the camp for Logan. Instead of a wood stockade, twenty-two adobe and wood buildings had been built along the four sides of a large open square that served as a parade ground. The officers and their families lived on one side. The regular soldiers who had to survive on fifteen dollars a month lived in barracks scattered among buildings such as the hospital, the sutler's store, general storehouses, and wagon sheds. The fort had one cavalry unit and one infantry unit. Their job was to provide protection for the settlers from attacks by the Apache and Yavapai Indians. The original camp had been moved about a mile from the river because of malaria.

“Where do we go?” Sybil asked.

“Jared said we should talk to the commander. He'll be the one to decide if we can start a bank here.”

There was a lot of movement about the camp, but no concerted action. Soldiers moved in random groups or singly, some on horseback, but most on foot. Children played under the watchful eyes of their mothers. Logan was headed toward what appeared to be the largest of the houses when Trusty's deep-throated growl caught his attention.

“What's wrong, boy?” he asked. “You won't find any bears or cougars here.”

Trusty's response was to bare his teeth and snarl menacingly.

“Something or somebody has upset him,” Sibyl said. “What's he looking at?”

“I can't tell, but he seems to be looking at a group of soldiers lounging against that building.” The building appeared to be a barracks, and the soldiers were standing around, laughing and passing the time. A couple of dogs had flopped down under the shade of a cottonwood tree. Logan snapped his fingers at Trusty. “Get up in the buckboard,” he said. “We're trying to do business here, and getting into a fight with the local dogs won't help.”

Trusty's growls were unabated.