Free The Lover by Genell Dellin

for you?”
    Susanna gritted her teeth. That was the hardestthing about Maynell and Jimbo living as a hired couple in the other end of the dog-trot cabin—Maynell’s scoldings and preachings. But who else would work for her for no money, for only a place to live and food to eat?
    â€œMaynell—”
    â€œThey’re liable to gang up and steal your cattle and leave you lost and alone out there on the prairie somewhere…if they don’t kill you first.”
    To her surprise, Susanna rushed to Eagle Jack’s defense.
    â€œHe’s not that kind of liar, Maynell.”
    Maynell gave the potato in her hand a vicious swipe with the knife. “I wasn’t aware there was more than one kind,” she said.
    â€œWell, he’s more the kind that…I guess you’d say he changes his mind about what he said before.”
    â€œLike what?”
    â€œLike agreeing to my deal, then an hour later trying to back out on taking me up the trail with my cattle.”
    Maynell’s tight mouth turned up at the corners. “Well, he might be forgiven for that,” she said wryly, “depending on what all you did and said in that hour.”
    â€œThanks a lot, May.”
    But Susanna smiled, too, in spite of herself.
    Maynell was irritating beyond belief, but she did have a way of putting things into perspective.Eagle Jack probably had expected to go to the bank, get his money, pay her back for his bail, and talk her into letting him out of the agreement they’d made.
    Well, she had fooled him, hadn’t she?
    â€œI picked the crew,” Susanna said, “at least part of it. We hired three men.”
    â€œI seen ’em ride in,” May said. “Tucker put ’em right to work. And Jimbo, too—he’s buildin’ a fire for the brandin’.”
    â€œWell, that’s good,” Susanna said. “We’re wanting to head out day after tomorrow at the latest.”
    Maynell got up again and brought Susanna a cup of cool water. “Now,” she said, “tell me about that big Indian.”
    Susanna stopped in mid-swallow and stared at her.
    â€œI’m old but I ain’t blind yet,” May said. “I seen that long black hair and that handsome profile from the porch.” She smiled and looked off out the open door as if she could still see him. “Rides like a Comanche, too,” she said, musing to herself. “Always did like a handsome man who could ride.”
    It was true. Eagle Jack was a handsome man. Horseback or not, any woman would turn her head to look at him twice. Or three times.
    â€œHe’s a Cherokee,” Susanna said. “His name is Eagle Jack Sixkiller.”
    â€œPretty name,” Maynell murmured. “Always did like a handsome man with a handsome name.” Then she fixed her steely gaze on Susanna and picked up her knife to get to work again. “Where’d you find him?”
    Susanna told her the story from the minute she’d walked into the Salado Jail to the moment Eagle Jack had ridden away and left her down at the corral. In detail. Maynell, who hardly ever went anywhere, demanded detail in her stories because stories were few and far between. Brushy Creek had few visitors.
    But in this story Maynell especially wanted detail because she—judging him completely on looks, of course—was so taken with Eagle Jack.
    But the main reason Susanna didn’t mind telling every detail was that it gave her a chance to try to figure him out.
    â€œYou see, May, in the jail I instinctively thought that I could trust him, that he was an honorable man. But it wasn’t an hour later that he was saying he wouldn’t take me up the trail and he’s been back and forth on everything ever since.”
    Maynell gave her that narrow-eyed, suspicious look of hers.
    â€œWhat d’you mean by ‘everything’?”
    â€œThen he said he will take me up the trail and that