Faint shadows circled the dark eyes she fixed on her father’s casket, but at least she was paying attention to the recently deceased. As Dal watched, a man standing behind her leaned and whispered something in her ear. She didn’t look up, but her eyelids fluttered and she stiffened. Her gloved hands clenched in her lap, then she nodded.
The man placed a proprietary hand on the top rung of her chair and touched his watch pocket. A brief victorious smile twitched his lips, suggesting he was pleased that the preacher was about to plant Joe Roark. Most likely he was Ward Hamm who, according to the hotel clerk, had commenced a serious courtship of Lester Roark.
Finally, Dal turned his attention to the sister who worried him most, the one in the wheelchair. It only took a moment to squash his hope that the wheelchair was a temporary measure. Without glancing down, she dropped a gloved hand to the wheel beside her armrest and made a slight adjustment. That kind of unthinking motion was the result of long familiarity.
Frowning, he moved a few yards so he could see her feet. One tasseled black boot peeped from her hem and her skirt lay flat on the right side, suggesting that she was missing one leg, probably from just below the knee. The question was, could she ride a horse?
Scowling, he lifted his gaze. This daughter was the aristocrat in the bunch, and by elimination, she had to be Alexander Roark Mills, the oldest of the three. For a price, the hotel clerk had informed him that Mrs. Mills lived back East in Yankee territory, and she had buried her husband last spring. The clerk had not mentioned that she was confined to a wheelchair.
Her honey-colored hair was parted in the center and swept back into a stylish knot beneath the brim of her hat. Black pearls at her throat and ears caught the weak glow of the winter sun. Although she kept her face turned toward the preacher’s droning voice, Dal had a clear view of high cheekbones, a sharp thin nose, and a firm clean profile. Unlike Frederick, this sister did not wear her emotions for all to see, but her stiffly erect posture suggested an excess of pride. This sister would be difficult to second-guess, and she would not easily admit to a mistake.
As the pallbearers lowered Joe Roark’s casket into the ground, Dal patted his vest pockets, looking for a cigar, and he gave the Roark sisters a final once-over. Not one of them looked capable of performing a task more strenuous than lifting an embroidery hoop. He doubted any of them had ever ridden a cutting horse or coiled a lariat. It wouldn’t surprise him to learn that the closest they’d been to a longhorn was the beef on their supper plates. Two years ago, he would have walked away from this job and never looked back.
Once the service ended, he stepped out of the way as the mourners filed past the seated sisters, murmured a word or two, then dropped a handful of Texas dirt on top of Joe Roark. That’s when he spotted a woman he hadn’t noticed because she’d also been seated, but on the near side of the grave opposite the sisters.
The only person unaccounted for was Roark’s wife, but Dal doubted this woman could be the wife because she was wearing dark grey, not black weeds. Moreover, the auburn knot on the nape of her neck didn’t show a speck of grey as he would have expected on a woman old enough to be the mother of three grown daughters.
Then he noticed the way she held one shoulder a little higher than the other, and the way her head tilted toward the high shoulder. He’d known a redheaded woman in New Orleans who held her shoulder and head like that. He’d never forget her.
Curious, he walked through the headstones, circling around behind the sisters, delaying the moment when he looked at the face of the seated woman in grey. It couldn’t be Lola Fiddler. Joe Roark might spend a week in Lola’s bed, but he would never have married a woman like her.
But damned if it wasn’t the same double-crossing Lola Fiddler who had almost gotten him killed. She was dressed expensively and wearing more paint than she’d worn in the past; otherwise, marrying a rich man hadn’t changed her much. She was still brazen enough to show cleavage at her husband’s funeral and wear what she damned well pleased—including a smug expression that announced she didn’t give a cow chip what the good citizens of Klees thought of her.
As if she sensed someone watching, she raised her head and ran a glance over the people moving past the gravesite. Her gaze slid over Dal, then came back, and her eyebrows lifted in recognition. If she was surprised or dismayed to discover him at her husband’s interment, nothing in her expression revealed it. In fact, Dal thought he identified a flash of amusement in her eyes and the flicker of a tiny smile. His own eyes narrowed, and he bit down on his back teeth.
Slowly, he lifted two fingers to his hat brim, offering the minimum gesture of courtesy. Lola being Lola acknowledged his salute by dipping slightly forward, enough to expose a deeper glimpse of cleavage. A low hissing buzzed down the line of mourners. The widow Roark was obliging the town gossips with enough scandal to fuel tongues for a long time to come.