That night they came in for supper only fifteen minutes behind the other drovers, earning themselves a nod from Dal.
Les could feel Ward watching from the observers’ camp, but she didn’t look in that direction. Falling into step behind Freddy, she washed her face, then filed past Alex to receive her supper. After Alex forked a slab of meat onto her plate, Les looked up. “Thank you.”
“Blood is thicker than water,” Alex said with a shrug. Then she smiled and touched Les’s wrist. “Don’t rush off. For dessert we have sizzling hot, melted tallow poured into a plate of black sorghum molasses. Grady’s recipe, naturally. He claims the boys love this.”
“Tallow?” Les’s mouth dropped open. “Animal lard and molasses?” She and Alex looked at each other, then both burst into helpless laughter.
“I have it on good authority that you have to eat the stuff fast,” Alex said with a slight shudder. “Or the tallow congeals and sticks to the roof of your mouth.”
Freddy returned in time to hear. “I hope you’re writing down all these recipes, Alex, so you can dazzle your fancy friends when you return to Boston.” She laughed. “Course it might be kind of hard to find a longhorn’s stomach tube in Boston.”
“And she couldn’t call it son of bitch stew,” Les said. “She’d have to call it something more highbrow, like nongentleman’s stew.” That set them off, and they laughed until they were weak, until they became aware of the silence behind them.
When Les turned, she discovered the drovers were watching. At first she didn’t understand. And then she did. This was the first time the cowboys had heard the Roark sisters laugh.
Still smiling, she studied her disheveled, sunburned sisters. For all Freddy’s vulgarity and posturing and competitiveness, there were moments when Les truly enjoyed her company. And beneath Alex’s stiff pride and standoffishness was a caring woman, more likable than Les had ever imagined.
Laughing with her sisters, glad to be with them, was the nicest, warmest moment she had experienced in recent years.
She had to do it. Freddy had delayed the chore for two days. After supper, rubbing her tongue over the roof of her mouth to scrape off congealed tallow, she slowly walked through the early darkness to the observers’ camp. Ward was off somewhere with Les, but Luther and Jack were sitting beside their fire, drinking coffee.
Jack stood. “Evening, Fancy honey. I was wondering when you’d come calling.”
Heart sinking, Freddy slipped a look at Luther. His puzzled expression told her that he hadn’t missed Jack’s familiarity. Now everyone would know that she and Jack knew each other and there had been something between them. Squaring her shoulders, she looked him in the eyes. “Don’t call me honey,” she said, hoping she sounded as cold as Alex. “And don’t buy me any more presents.” She pushed the bandanna into his hand.
“Now, Fancy honey, don’t be like that. We talked about that, remember? And we decided it wouldn’t do any harm to be friendly during this drive. Sort of pick things up where we left off.”
She stared at him with disgust. They had been meticulously discreet during the time he was calling on her. She hadn’t wanted Pa to get a whiff that she was seeing a gambling man, and she didn’t want to give the town gossips something new to hang her with. Jack had said he understood. What she hadn’t mentioned was that she had never come to terms with seeing his kind of man. Now he’d spilled the beans in front of Luther.
It got worse. Dal walked out of the darkness between the wagons with Ward and Les behind him. They all heard what Jack said next.
He stepped toward her, waving the bandanna. “I bought this for you in San Antonio. A little token of my affection, Fancy honey. For old times’ sake.”
She was so angry that she was shaking. “I told you to go to hell once, Jack Caldwell, and I’m telling you again.”
He laughed. “You’re a feisty little thing, aren’t you? I’ve always liked that about you.” He gave her one of those contrived melting looks that made her want to slap him. “There’s a nice moon tonight. How about a little walk out there under the stars? Five will get you ten that I’ve got some things to say that you want to hear.”
“You lose,” she snapped. “You have nothing to say that I want to hear, not now, not ever.” Turning on her heels, her face flaming, she marched back to the fire where the drovers were sitting, drinking coffee, swapping tall tales.
She hadn’t made it halfway when Dal moved up beside her, shoving his hands into his back pockets. “Well, Fancy honey, seems that you neglected to mention that you and Lola share an interest in the same man. You want to tell me again how you don’t trust me because I used to know your stepmother?”
“My association with Jack Caldwell was over before I ever met you!”