This Calder Range (55 page)

“She was an extraordinary woman,” Benteen murmured. To this day, everyone believed her association with Benteen had been purely a financial one. He was content to leave it at that. It had eventually become a close relationship, based on deep respect rather than affection, something that few people would have understood.

“It's been a while since we've heard from Bull. I wonder how he's doing?” Lorna thought aloud.

“From what I've heard from other ranchers, his hotel in Denver is making quite a name for itself. He's catering to the upper crust, I understand,” Benteen said. “He had a lot of practice over the years as Elaine's male secretary, bodyguard, and … friend.”

“They were an unusual combination—beauty and the beast,” she said, but affectionately.

It had been an odd alliance. Bull, who had always been so argumentative and resentful of authority, had trailed along with Lady Crawford wherever she went, taking her orders and running her errands, yet he never truly bowed his head to her. There had been a strange equality between them. When Lady Crawford had died, the bulk of her wealth had been left to Bull Giles. In a sealed letter left for Benteen, she stated that she
had already helped him to acquire great wealth of his own while she was alive, so she didn't feel she was obliged to leave him anything on her death.

“You never really minded that she left most of her fortune to Bull, did you?” Her side glance wandered over his profile, handsome in its strength and male vigor.

“No.” It was a rather bland look Benteen gave her. “She was never truly my mother and I was never her son. Any obligations we had to each other were canceled out a long time ago—along with the bitterness.”

“I'm glad.”

He reined in his horse, and it sidled against her roan. “I remember the way you cried the day we left Fort Worth. Are you sorry we came here?”

Lorna was taken aback by his question. “How can you ask that? No, I'm not sorry. This is my home.”

“But you'd like to see your parents again, wouldn't you?”

“Yes.” She didn't try to deny that. “In Mother's last letter, she said Daddy wasn't feeling too well.”

“Maybe this fall we can go back for a visit,” Benteen suggested.

For a long second she could only stare at him. It had been something she had wanted to do for several years, but she knew he had no desire to go back. When he'd left Texas, it had been for good.

“I'd like to go,” she said simply.

“We'll plan on it,” he said. “I might buy a couple of bulls while we're there.” His mouth slanted in a mocking smile. “When a wife stops complaining, a man doesn't mind doing things for her.”

“Tell me, Benteen, are you sorry you don't have a quiet little wife who waits patiently at home?” The warm gleam in her eye challenged him.

“I'm sure it would be different if I had a wife who knew her place,” he murmured dryly.

“But I do know my place,” Lorna stated. “And it's right here beside you.”

We built this Calder range

To last five times a score

It's a legacy we're leavin'—

Of pride and something more.