3. Chapter Three

Chapter Three

F orcing himself not to follow Isa's trek to the apartment with his eyes, Junior trailed his fingers along Mirage's glossy coat. When he patted the mare's rump, shining in the morning sun, her long black tail swished in his face. He almost smiled.

"Looks like Dora found a horse that matches her temperament, eh?" David asked conspiratorially from a safe distance. "Tries to kick and bite a chunk out of every horse within reach."

Junior pulled his brown kerchief higher up his neck. "Too old to be acting that way. Probably isn't worth a damn to ride."

"Oh, Dora's certain she can train it right." David pulled a snuffbox from his jacket lining, took out a pinch, and snorted some before returning the modishly decorated box into the recesses of his fine jacket. "We picked the thing up under the cover of night like a Grimm fairy tale. I thought she'd shown me everything, then she takes me to a godforsaken slaughterhouse to pick up a five-hundred-dollar horse." He laughed wryly, wiping his nose with a starched handkerchief from his back pocket.

Dislike curled its way along Junior's arm to his trigger finger, making it twitch. In the parlor, the young Mr. Corner had admitted he'd accompanied Isa to the train station Tuesday. Now, he told Junior that she went off in the night to make expensive purchases. What if it had gone wrong and they'd been robbed or killed for their efforts? And where the hell had Isa gotten five hundred dollars?

"The two of you spend a lot of nights alone?" Junior asked.

David's next laugh was forced. "I'm not answering that."

"Miss Pickney know about this? She's supposed to be watchin' out for Isa, making sure she's not being…taken advantage of." The threat in his soft words was clear.

A hint of challenge flared in the other man's eyes. He was a city boy through and through, pretty enough to make plenty of ladies flutter their lashes, and Junior resented his begrudging respect that Isa's beau wasn't backing down.

"I would never take advantage of her. I have looked after Isa for the last two years. Where have you been?" When Junior only glared, David's lips twisted up. "Besides. Have you ever tangled with her? A greasy eel is less slippery. I doubt many men could take advantage of that woman."

Now Junior really hated him. Only his training kept him from wrapping his fingers around the smug bastard's neck. This dandy had wrestled her? Put his hands all over Isa, tried to overpower her? It didn't matter if it had been in play. An outpouring of protectiveness stiffened every one of Junior's muscles.

You don't have a right to feel this way, a voice sneered.

No. He didn't.

Forcing his stony expression not to crack, Junior approached the other man, who was smiling unpleasantly. "You're right. Her brother and I taught her how to fight; I doubt anyone could pin that one down for long." David's smile melted away as the blond cowboy clapped a hard hand on his shoulder. Junior positioned himself imposingly close. "As for keeping an eye on her for the last couple years, I reckon her family and I owe you our thanks. Why don't you make yourself scarce? I can take it from here." Junior squeezed David's shoulder.

"I—" David swallowed and glanced at the front door. "I should say goodbye."

"No need. I'll tell her for you." He released the man's shoulder with a little shove. "Get goin'."

"Well…tell her I'll be waiting at my father's bank—"

"Sure, I'll tell her." Like hell he would. He grazed the pinstriped suit jacket with his plain work shirt as he passed and sauntered across the road to where his dapple-gray gelding and pack mule were tethered. He didn't spare Isa's beau another look, and when he returned with Champion and Red, David Corner was gone.

Isa stepped out the front door as Junior was checking his timepiece for the third time, and he nearly choked on a laugh. She wore something that couldn't decide if it was a hat or a bouquet of flowers. She was fashionable, yes, but at what cost? Reflexively, he thought of things he could say to her.

Did your head turn into a vase when you went inside?

Here's some water. You're wilting.

She was muttering and adjusting the wide brim of her gargantuan hat when she noticed his expression.

"Not a word," she growled, tying a ridiculously wide blue satin ribbon beneath her chin. "Miss Pickney bestowed this on me when I earned my degree."

Not a word would pass his lips...for now. He was in too big of a hurry to worry about starting a long-winded argument.

She made a face at him, then paused. Looked around. "Where did David go?"

"I told him to leave."

Isa's brows knitted. "Why did you do a thing like that? I didn't get to tell him goodbye."

"I'm sure he'll cry into his pillow tonight over it."

Shooting darts at him, Isa untethered Mirage's reins from the post.

"So. She's a circus horse." Junior eyed the intractable way the mare nodded her head, ears back.

"She was before the owner sold her, perhaps because circus animals are conditioned to travel by train and this one breaks the mold. Not only does she spook at trains, but she's also hostile toward other horses. I assume she had an act alone. She's young, has never been bred, and is intelligent. Her manners, however…" Isa trailed off as Mirage pinned her ears at Champion, squealed, and stamped her foot.

He'd been right. The horse wasn't worth a damn. Champion, a veteran cow pony that was used to untrained quarter horses at the ranch, remained good-natured and unbothered. "Circus trainers couldn't tame her, but you think you can?" What an arrogant, foolish notion.

"I know I can train her." Her smile was a sickly sweet grimace.

"It'll be a long ride home—"

But she'd had enough naysaying. "Oh, why don't you put a stocking in it and ruin someone else's dreams." She mounted Mirage, who had stretched her velvety nose toward the gelding to scent him. Her ears lay flat against her handsome head, and her foreleg lashed out. Prepared for this, Isa pulled the reins and brought the horse's sleek black head up. "No! Don't even think about kicking!"

Miss Pickney and the professor looked up.

An untrained, kicking mare was dangerous, striking at another horse without thinking of a person standing between them. Many a kneecap had been shattered by an intemperate horse aiming a kick at someone's mount. The last thing Isa and Junior needed was an easily avoided injury before their journey.

"Yep, I'd say she needs some lessons in manners," Junior drawled, mounting his unperturbed gelding.

Isa, who had been tucking her skirts modestly around her legs, turned to look at him. Her hat was so large it created its own breeze. "I forgot how much you love stating the obvious."

"You'd better get a crop if you're going to ride her around people."

"But what would stop me from using it on you?"

"Stubborn brat," he muttered.

"What?"

He didn't repeat himself. If they continued to rib each other all day, they'd never get out of Austin. He rode Champion over to Miss Pickney with Red behind on the lead rope and Isa's devil-horse prancing sideways in their wake. Junior had planned to tip his hat at Miss Pickney, but she stalled him with a liver-spotted hand on his boot.

"Promise me you will keep a keen eye on Isadora. Let no harm befall her, Mr. Stone."

Before he could get a word in edgewise, Isa said, "It's quite alright, Miss Pickney. Junior is a Texas Ranger. I'll be on the right side of the law with him by my side."

"Then, I am grateful to you, sir, for doing your part in service of our great state's police force. She will be in capable hands."

Junior's upper lip prickled with sweat, and his underarms grew damp and humid. He tipped his hat to her, waited for the fragile hand to release his boot, and nudged Champion forward. Behind him, Isa said something low to Miss Pickney, then called out to Junior that she needed to pick up her last month's wages from the bank.

But all he heard was dry, burning wood.

"PLEASE. WILL YOU reconsider?"

It was the only time the eldest Mr. Corner had ever said please.

Typically, his demands were offered on a serving platter of suggestion. He was perfectly polite, certainly within his realms as the direct manager of the small bank he supervised. Sometimes, he'd share a humorous anecdote with her, typically watered down, with no interesting bite of wit for the only woman who worked for him.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Corner." Isa had already cleared off the desk tucked neatly in the corridor outside his office. To everyone in the building, she had been his secretary. But, under the guise of bringing in his coffee and sweets from the shop next door, she'd ignore the review of that week's secretarial duties and would instead advise him on the more fraught natures of his personal investments. By the end of this, her first year with him, she had earned Mr. Corner nearly a quarter of a million dollars. She could not have conceived of such a fortune as a child raised barefoot and thin on her family's sharecropper farm. Now, real money was just as tangible as the poker chips she and David raked in on weekends at the gambling casino.

"Is it a promotion you want?" Mr. Corner's hands fondled the 14-karat gold chain drooping from his vest pocket. "You know I cannot—"

"Eleanor Brackenridge is a bank director in San Antonio and has been since '87." She couldn't resist goading him and was pleased when his cheeks went florid beneath his frothy white mutton chops.

"Now, I can't give you my job, Miss Williams. We've been over this."

Isa tucked her face away so he wouldn't see her smile. Did the old man genuinely think she wanted his job? What a farce. She had more than enough money holed away for a year's travel abroad, plus up to three years of living comfortably without working. In no way was she interested in delegating work to resentful men, or managing a bank during this depression, one newspapers dubbed "The Panic of 1893." She'd warned him to get out while he could, but the man had dollar signs in his eyes and greed in his heart.

Still…to not work at all? She shuddered at the thought. Even now, her mind raced and her fingers twitched to do something, anything. A fountain pen forlornly lay on the bare desk, and she picked it up, touching its silver filigree.

"My son is in love with you, Miss Williams."

Isa's fingers halted in their investigation.

"If you leave, and if I know my child—which I do—he may come after you."

Setting the pen down, Isa faced Mr. Corner. He looked a little at a loss, tugging at the bush of his facial hair, fingers plumper now than the year before.

Carefully, Isa reminded him, "David is married."

Mr. Corner waved that away. "He did propose to you first if you'll recall."

Isa winced. "I recall."

"Against my good judgment, I might add."

"I recall that as well."

"Don't take it personally—"

"I don't."

"—but you hadn't worked for me yet. I didn't know…" He trailed off, and the awkward stillness made room for past discomforts.

Befriending David in her fourth year at school.

Tutoring him in mathematics so he could pass his rigorous exams—and in return, him helping her financial situation.

The drunken night months before when they'd won thousands at gambling and celebrated by pushing the boundaries of their friendship. The subsequent proposal and her gentle refusal, the only time she'd ever been gentle with him. And David's dignity-preserving mistake that had landed him in a spot of trouble with a lawyer's daughter. He'd married the girl the following month, strangers. Isa had not been invited to the wedding. No, that was untrue. David had insisted she attend, but with his young fiancée's missive, pleading that Isa not cause a scandal by showing her face at the wedding, burning like a hot coal in her pocket, Isa had stubbornly refused to go.

David didn't act unduly miserable with married life, but he also didn't spend a day away from Isa either. The elder Mr. Corner and Isa had both been bullied and beleaguered by David until she'd had a position at the bank. In a fit of temper, David had shouted, "I may not have you as my wife, but I will by God see you supported."

Guilt and exasperation had encompassed Isa's first day on the job. Mr. Corner, who had very exacting opinions of women in a man's environment, had been disgruntled until he'd seen with his own two eyes what she could do with numbers. The minute she'd interpreted the cash flows, balance sheets, and income statements that had piled and creaked precariously on his desk, he'd blinked owlishly at her. And when she'd gone head-to-head with his top investment banker, arguing vehemently over the stodgy fool's investment decisions of the last two quarters, Mr. Corner had actually chortled.

She'd been relegated to his personal secretary that same hour. A year later, he was her sincerest advocate.

Pitying David's father, the sufferer of a man incapable of changing his child's strange ways, Isa strode forward and gave the proud manager a swift hug. "It will all work out for the best, me leaving," she soothed.

From the narrow stairwell, David's voice called, "Dora! Has he convinced you to stay?"

Sharing one final look with Mr. Corner, she called back, "No, but it was a valiant effort." The oath that floated up the stairs made her laugh. "Goodbye, Mr. Corner. It was mostly a pleasure to work with you. I'll be sure to stop for a cup of coffee on my next visit."

She hid a smile at his mutters of "mostly a pleasure" and left him.

Downstairs, David stood with his arms folded and mouth petulant. The floor-to-ceiling window revealed Junior in the street on Champion, holding tight to Mirage's reins, a cigarette between his lips.

"I don't like him," David said soberly.

"I don't like him particularly well, either," she agreed, pecking her pouting friend on the cheek. "Goodbye."

He didn't say anything, just squeezed her hand between their outstretched arms until she walked away and he was forced to let go.