Read Online The Rustler by Linda Lael Miller - Free Book Online

“But you don’t have to worry about them. They’re friendly.”
    â€œGood,” Owen said, with evident relief, as they passed the dining room table—she’d set it for five, since her father was snoring away in his room—and the plates, glasses and silverware sparkled. “I wouldn’t want to get scalped or anything.”
    â€œNobody’s going to scalp you,” Sarah said, with certainty.
    Owen pulled back a chair at the kitchen table and sat while she found a vase for the wild orange poppies he’d apparently picked for her. “Papa says this is the frontier,” he announced.
    Sarah’s spine tightened briefly at the mention of Charles. She hoped Doc Venable would be back from his evening rounds before he or Wyatt Yarbro arrived. “We’re quite civilized, actually,” she said, pumping water into a vase at the sink, dunking the stems of the poppies, and setting the whole shooting match in the center of the table.
    â€œDo you live in this great big house all by yourself?” Owen wanted to know. He was small for his age, Sarah noticed, trying her best not to devour the child with her eyes. His feet swung inches above the floor, but he sat up very straight.
    â€œNo,” Sarah said, taking a chair herself. “My father and I live here together. Isn’t your house much bigger than this one?”
    Owen allowed that it was, then added, “But I’m not there very much. If I’m not at school, I mostly stay with Grandmama. She’s got all sorts of money, but she lives in a town house. That way, she doesn’t need so many servants.”
    â€œDo you like staying at your Grandmama’s town house?” Sarah asked carefully.
    â€œNot much,” Owen said. “You can’t run or make noise or have a dog, because dogs have fleas and they chew things up and make messes.”
    Sarah didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Would you like to have a dog?”
    â€œMore than anything, except maybe a pony,” Owen answered.
    â€œDo you like school?” A thousand other questions still pounded in Sarah’s mind, but it wouldn’t be appropriate to ask them.
    â€œIt’s lonesome,” Owen said. “Especially at Christmas.”
    Sarah stomach clenched, but she allowed none of what she felt to show in her face. “You stay at school over Christmas?”
    â€œMy mother doesn’t like me very much,” Owen confided. “And Grandmama always goes to stay with friends in the south of France when the weather starts getting cold.”
    â€œSurely your mother loves you,” Sarah managed.
    â€œNo,” Owen insisted, shaking his head. “She says I’m a bastard.”
    Sarah closed her eyes briefly, struggling with a tangle of emotions—anger, frustration, sorrow, and the most poignant yearning. So Marjory Langstreet did blame Owen for her husband’s indiscretions, as she’d always feared she might.
    â€œMy brothers aren’t bastards,” Owen went on, taking no apparent notice of Sarah’s reaction.
    â€œDo you get along with them?” she asked, after biting her lower lip for a few moments, lest she say straight out what she thought of Marjory and all the rest of the Langstreets. “Your brothers, I mean?”
    â€œThey’re old,” Owen replied. “Probably as old as you.”
    Sarah chuckled. “My goodness,” she said. “They must be doddering.”
    â€œWhat’s doddering?”
    Just then, her father appeared on the rear stairway leading down into the kitchen, clad in a smoking jacket and the military trousers Sarah had hidden earlier. His feet were bare, and his white hair stood out all around his head. He’d forgotten his spectacles, and he peered at Owen.
    â€œDoddering,” he said, “is what I am. An old fool who can’t get around without somebody to hold him up.”
    â€œPapa,” Sarah