AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"Yes, it has to do with Shane," Melanie said.
"Anything you'd like to tell me about?"
"Shane and Josh are meeting for a duel."
"What?" Terrance gasped.
Melanie laughed. "Not with guns," she explained. "With cards. They are playing a game of poker. The winner will get everything. The farm. The house. The land. The cattle. Everything. That will settle their differences once and for all!"
"Well, I'll be damned," Terrance drawled.
"As for you, Terrance?" Melanie said, "you're going to show me where Trapper Dan lives. And then you're going to clear out. I'll talk to our lawyer soon and see how the inheritance can be divided up. You will get your share. But you won't live under the same roof with me any longer. I don't trust you. I'll hire someone to look after my interests."
Terrance bolted to his feet. "You can't do that!" he gasped.
"You just watch me," Melanie said, firming her chin.
"I won't let you."
"If you try to stop me I guess I'll have to go to the sheriff and tell him that my brother is guilty not only of burning his neighbor's stable, but also of stampeding his cattle." She paused and smiled smugly down at him. "Need I go on?"
"Melanie, I never thought you had it in you," Terrance said, shaking his head. "You'd do this to your own brother? What'd Pop think if he were alive?"
"If only he were," Melanie said, sighing. "None of this would ever have happened. He would have had his eye on you all along. He'd have known you were up to no good that very first night! I sus-
pected it. I should have acted on it as Pop would have done. But I wanted to think the best of you, Terrance. I was wrong to."
"What can I do to make you change your mind?" Terrance asked in almost a whine. "The farm is my life! I can't leave!"
"Your twisted love for power got you where you are today," Melanie said, walking toward the door. "As I see it, there's nothing you can do to make me change my mind."
She looked over her shoulder at him. "I'm going to go and wash up and change into something more comfortable. I won't take long. Don't you either. I want to see where Trapper Dan lives, then come home and try to get some rest. I want to be fresh for tomorrow. Shane is depending on me."
Chapter Twenty-nine
Melanie paced the parlor floor. Shane had encouraged her not to go into St. Paul to watch the poker game. A saloon was not the proper place for a lady, even though Melanie would be there for a purpose other than that which drew the sorts of women who could be found there regularly.
She had argued with Shane, yet in the end finally acquiesced because she knew that he had enough on his mind without her causing him undue stress.
Stopping to stare at the clock on the mantel, Melanie sighed. The hands on the clock seemed not to have moved at all since the last time she looked. The minutes were dragging into hours.
She went outside to stand on the porch. She lifted her hair from her shoulders and let the summer breeze caress the nape of her neck. The sound of hammering drew her gaze to Shane's farm. The new cowhands had arrived. The stable was being rebuilt.
Her gaze traveled back to her own farm, seeing the activity of her cowhands doing their chores. A feeling of apprehension swept through her with the realization that she was now in total charge of the cowhands. With Terrance gone, all the responsibilities of the farm rested on her shoulders. If she did not succeed, the end result would be the same as if Terrance had gambled the farm away on a reckless game of poker.
She could lose it all.
Her thoughts went back to the previous night, when she had told Terrance he had to leave, and later, when he had shown her where Trapper Dan lived.
"Trapper Dan," she whispered, peering up at the butte that reached into the dark depths of the forest. "Perhaps I should go there now after all, instead of later to plead with the man. If I could talk him into leaving the area, not to be seen or heard from again, even pay him a good amount of money to leave, Shane wouldn't have to chance being hurt by challenging him."
She placed a finger to her lip. "Should I?"
She exhaled a nervous breath. "I'll wait a while longer," she said, moving back into the house. "If Shane doesn't come soon, I'll go and talk with Trapper Dan."
Plopping disconsolately into a chair, Melanie picked up her embroidery piece and began to work on it. She grumbled to herself when she pricked a
finger. She hated to sew! She would rather be outdoors in the sunshine! When she got married and had children, would she be content caring for them? Would she not long to be with Shane, to do everything with him, side by side? It seemed that when that time came, she would have to make adjustments as Shane was now doing in his new life. If he could do it, so could she.
