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“Well, she damn well has pursued me. Said she wanted to spend the rest of her life with me.”
“Would that be so bad? A home and kids?”
Tynan stood and refilled his glass. “Are you going to start on that again? Look, even if I did marry somebody, it couldn’t be her. Her father holds the papers for my release. I take her back to him, leave her and I get a full pardon. I touch her and I go back to jail. And then there’s the money, too.”
“For taking her back?”
Ty looked at Red. “Did you see that city dude that rode in behind me? He’s a fine, upstanding citizen, born with parents and a silver spoon in his mouth, and Mathison wants his daughter to marry him. I get ten thousand dollars if I bring his daughter back in love with Mr. Asher Prescott. Course she had to go and fall for me.”
“How inconvenient for you.”
Tynan grinned at her. “It wasn’t my fault. I told you she followed me everywhere. I tried to stay away from her but there she’d be—usually stark naked. I’m only human, you know.”
“More human than the rest of us. Did you ever think that maybe shelikedyou?”
“A girl like her? All she wanted was a fling before going back to her rich daddy. I’d have one night in the hay, then the rest of my life in jail regretting it. No thanks. Deliver me from good girls. I think I’ll just stick with Leora and her kind.”
“Oh Ty,” Red said, standing, putting her arms round the back of him. “What are you going to do with your life?”
“Notspend anymore time in jail. I thought I’d take the ten thousand and buy some land with it.”
“The money you get for matchmaking Miss Mathison with that man? You’re sure you can do that?”
Ty walked to the window and looked out into the street below. “I admit it’s not easy, not with what Mathison gave me to work with. That man has no…force, I guess you’d call it. He doesn’t even know how to win a girl.”
“Not like you do?”
He looked back at her. “Are you mad at me about something? You seem awfully short tempered.”
Red sat down. “Ty, honey, I’m gettin’ old and you’re the closest thing to a son I’ll ever have. I’d like to see you married and settled down with half a dozen kids. I’d like to think there’s an empty room in your house that’s for me if I ever wanta retire.”
Ty took her in his arms and kissed her forehead. “Wherever I am there’ll always be room for you, but I can’t see me with a wife and kids.”
She pushed away from him. “That’s because you’ve never been in love.”
“Why, an hour ago I was so in love with Leora that—”
“Hush! You know what I mean. Have you ever even asked a girl to a church social? Taken a girl out for a buggy ride and a picnic?”
“Sounds mighty boring to me.”
“Well, itain’t,”she said, glaring at him.
He looked out the window again. “You know, one day Chris and Prescott were singing and it looked like it might be an all right way to pass the time.”
“You have a beautiful singing voice. Why didn’t you join in?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I just don’t fit in with people like them. Hey! You got any pork in this place? I’d love four or five pork chops tonight.”
“We got pork. Ty, are you gonna try to match Chris with that man?”
He took a while to answer, turning back and looking at his drink. “It’s my job.”
“But you’re reluctant?”
“She deserves a lot better than him. She’s got spunk. She liked the rain forest and wasn’t scared to death of the place. She walked around while he huddled beside the fire. And she pulled her weight in work too. He treated me like a servant hired to wait on him but Chris always helped me unpack the mules.” He smiled. “Except for that first night.”
He put the whiskey down. “Oh, hell, she’s not for me.”
