Texas Tender Read Free

One of the customers handed him the unbroken glass. The spilled beer had already begun to soak into the soft wood of the floor.
    â€œI’m Andy Davis,” the man said to Will. “I own the mercantile here in Dunmore.”
    â€œWill Haskins. Glad to meet you.”
    â€œYou passing through or planning to settle?” Andy asked.
    â€œJust here to do a little business.” Will took a swallow of beer. It wasn’t too bad, but he’d certainly had better.
    â€œDo you mind if I ask you what business that is?”
    Just about anybody else in the Maxwell clan would have minded a lot, but Will figured everybody would soon know what he was doing here.
    â€œI’m on my way to the Double-L ranch to talk to Miss Idalou Ellsworth about buying her bull.”
    Andy grinned broadly. “You better give him straight whiskey,” he said turning to the bartender. “He’s going to need something stronger than beer if he means to tangle with Idalou.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, you can’t find the bull?” Idalou demanded of her brother. “Mr. Haskins is coming to look at him today.”
    â€œI mean I can’t find him,” Carl Ellsworth said. “We should have penned him up.”
    â€œHe can’t impregnate cows locked in a pen.”
    â€œWell, we can’t sell a bull we don’t have.”
    â€œWe own him no matter where he is. We just have to locate him before Mr. Haskins gets here.”
    Idalou was six inches shorter than her brother’seven six feet, but that in no way affected her position as the older of the two and the one responsible for him as well as the ranch. Having the body of a man hadn’t given Carl the emotions or reasoning ability of a man. If it had, he wouldn’t have fallen in love with the only daughter of the man who was determined to destroy them.
    â€œDo you have any suggestions?” Carl demanded angrily.
    â€œRide over to Jordan McGloughlin’s place and tell him to show you where he hid our bull.”
    Carl’s exasperation nearly got the best of him. “I know you don’t like me having anything to do with Mara, but that’s no reason to think her father has our bull.”
    â€œMy thinking Jordan McGloughlin has the bull has nothing to do with you liking Mara, though I’ve got plenty to say on that score.”
    â€œI’ve already heard it,” Carl snapped.
    â€œIt has to do with Jordan doing everything he can to force us to sell this ranch,” Idalou said, ignoring her brother’s comment. “He knows the money from the bull will tide us over for the next two or three years.”
    She had tried to talk her father out of mortgaging everything he owned to buy an expensive bull to upgrade his stock, but her father had decided it was the only way he could compete with the larger ranchers on either side of him, McGloughlin to the east and north and Sonnenberg to the west and south. His plan might have worked if Idalou’s father and mother hadn’t died three years ago.
    â€œI want to keep the ranch as much as you do,” Carl said, “but it doesn’t help to have you accusing Mara’s dad of everything bad that happens.”
    â€œI wouldn’t blame him for trying to buy our ranchif he weren’t so underhanded about it,” Idalou snapped. “I don’t know how you can have anything to do with Mara. She’s likely to turn out just like her father.”
    Carl grabbed his hat and jammed it on his head. “If you weren’t blind when it comes to anybody named McGloughlin, you’d know Mara is the sweetest girl on the face of the earth,” he shouted. “I can’t help it if you were in love with Webb before he went and got himself killed.”
    Idalou bit her tongue to keep from saying something she’d have to apologize for later. “I’ve told you a hundred times I wasn’t in love with