Her smile would be as contagious as the chicken pox if he weren’t so well practiced at keeping stern.
“I’d say you need to see Jeremiah Calhoun in the worst possible way,” she said as she took the reins from him. “That is, unless you’ve got trousers to spare.”
“This here is a Bald Knobber’s pony,” Joel grumbled, but even he couldn’t miss the humor in the situation. Her eyes sparkled as their gazes met and held. It was . . . companionable, lacking most of the artifice that he expected from women. Night after night of sitting at her family’s hearth had given him more of an appreciation for her.
All the more reason to keep his distance.
“I’m sorry for whatever Pritchard told you, but I didn’t request your company today,” he said.
Now the humor hardened to something a bit more challenging. “You can find the Calhouns’ on your own?” she asked.
“Surely there’s someone else headed that way.”
With theatrical flair, she looked first one way, then the other. A week he’d waited. How much more could he afford? How many pursuits might he miss, how many arrests would he have to make? And now that he’d crossed that gang of outlaws, how many men might be hunting for him, and him stuck on a runty horse?
Evidently she took his hesitation as acceptance, for she started up the hill, dragging his pony behind her.
Her pride wouldn’t let her turn around to look, but Betsy was confident the deputy was following.
Nearly confident.
Pretty sure.
Well, fiddlesticks, she might just have to peek. Under the pretense of checking on the horse, she tossed a look over her shoulder. His head was ducked, watching the uneven surface of the mountain even as they climbed higher and higher, but he was there, him and his new, stiffly starched cavalry shirt and his canvas trousers that fit snug, not like the soft, worn britches that men here favored, hanging as loose as a turkey’s wattle.
He looked up and caught her watching. Betsy whirled around to face forward. If there were ever to be enough installments of her Dashing Deputy serial, she’d need more material. So far all he’d done was save a kitten from a well and arrest a middle-aged seed salesman for straightening out his own nephew. Surely he’d done something more noteworthy than that in Texas. Maybe now was a good time to find out.
She stopped in the road and waited. It seemed that he slowed down, but when he realized that she wasn’t moving, he heaved himself up past the horse and joined her.
“We might as well be conversating while we walk,” Betsy said.
“As long as you’re not walking behind me,” he answered. “I’m feeling a definite draft.”
So he did have a sense of humor, despite his granite-jawed delivery. If she had the courage to look hard enough, would she catch an eye-twinkle? But he was still too wary when she paid attention to him.
“I’ve never been out of these mountains.” Betsy lifted her chin to scan all the way up the trees that hemmed both sides of the road. “What’s Texas like?”
Eduardo’s chest filled and his shoulders went even straighter, if that was possible. “I can’t pretend to have seen much of Texas. It’s vast. You can’t even imagine how big it is, and I don’t figure there’s anyone who’s traveled the breadth of it.”
“Then what’s your Texas like?”
He seemed to warm to the question. His face eased into friendlier lines, making him seem almost like someone Betsy would like to get to know. “My Texas revolves around the town of Garber, which is pretty cosmopolitan as far as that goes. There’s a lot of trade—markets, cattle, railroads. People come from all over. And it sits smack-dab in the middle of the largest prairie you’ve ever seen. All around it are ranches that cover thousands of acres. You can see for miles and miles and the sky is so big. . . .”
His deep voice drawled even slower with yearning. It was as if he’d taken her on a journey, just the two of them. Her heart skipped a beat at his tone.
Then her curiosity kicked in again. “You love it so much. Why on earth did you leave?”
He winced at her words. She’d hit a sore spot, but at the sight of the rider approaching them, all was forgotten.
Chapter 14
The hair on the back of his neck rose. It was that man Clive Fowler. Even alone and unmasked, he left a formidable impression. What could he want? Joel forced his brow to ease. Maybe Fowler had simply come to town for some business, but just seeing him put Joel on edge.
Never letting Fowler out of his sight, he spoke to his companion. “You might want to step aside, ma’am. This man may have dangerous intentions.”
A whistle pierced the air—and his eardrum. He turned to spot Betsy with two fingers in her mouth and her free hand waving the reins of his horse overhead.
“Mr. Fowler! Over here.”
“What are you doing?” Joel asked. “I don’t initiate meetings with criminals when I have a woman in attendance.”