I owe you, but it's a start." He started to walk away.
Ben grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. "That was your daddy's place. You can't do this."
Tyler met Ben's dark gaze with aplomb. "It was your daddy's place, too."
Evie and Daniel stood out of the way, their gazes flying back and forth between the two men, one black and lanky and possessed of a singularly unhandsome face, the other golden and compact and blessed with all God could give a man. Yet there was a resemblance there, if only in the proud way they held themselves and the independence of their thinking.
Ben scowled. "He was maybe my father. My mama wasn't a discriminating woman and your father was a philandering man. But he wasn't Cissie's father. You know that, don't you? And what happened to Cissie weren't any fault of yours."
"I left her, Ben." Tyler shrank into the shadows of the porch, away from the stares of the people he had come to love and respect. "I walked out on her when she needed me. The babe was mine, and the fault was mine. Tell your mama I'm sorry, and I'm trying to be a better man."
Ben swung around to meet Evie's concerned gaze. "He was seventeen years old, Miss Evie. My sister kept after him, followed him everywhere. There ain't a boy that age can resist a willin' woman. Cissie was young, but she knew what she was doin', and she was more than willin'. Tyler was grievin' over his father's death, and she took advantage. She only told him they'd made a baby just afore he left to find his brother. There wasn't nothin' he could have done different if he'd stayed. She would have died birthin' that baby no matter what he done. It ain't any of his fault. Make him understand that, will you?"
Ben tried to hand the sheaf of papers to Evie, but she reached for Tyler instead, curling her fingers around his arm and standing close. "I'll do that, Ben. Will you be going back now?"
Looking slightly embarrassed, Daniel climbed up from the street to join them on the porch. "Me and Ben kind of made an agreement. I told him about my family wanting to put me through college, but I don't want to leave. Ben's taught me a sight more than any college could, and Mr. Averill will teach me all I need to know about the newspaper business. So I thought those fancy lawyers your father hired to take care of your money could write my family's lawyers and have my money sent here. When my leg gets better, Ben can teach me to hunt and ride and fish, just like he taught Tyler. And I can pay him for his services, and he can send the money back to his family." He threw Ben an anxious look. "Unless you've changed your mind now that you own the Ridge?"
With the papers crumpling in his big hand, Ben looked down at him. "Boy, you askin' me to give you grief and get paid for it. Don't see how I can refuse. Besides"—he nodded at Evie and Tyler clinging to each other in the shade of the porch—"them two need lookin' after. They might have got all the looks, but they ain't much in the brains department."
Daniel whooped, bringing the men in the saloon crashing to their feet and running for the door.
Laughing, Evie threw Tyler a mischievous look, grabbed up her skirt, and began running for the church.
Tyler was off like a shot after her.
Not knowing what was going on, the men pouring out of the saloon took off after them.
Chapter 41
Tyler grabbed Evie's waist and swung her against him before she could burst into the church ahead of him. Holding her still, he wiped her face with his handkerchief, removing the dust and perspiration their chase had wrought. "You look beautiful," he murmured.
"There wasn't time to make a proper wedding dress." There wasn't an ounce of regret in her voice.
Tyler looked down at the midnight blue taffeta she had changed into. The cut of the bodice was relatively modest, but Evie filled it so well he had no difficulty imagining what lay beneath the slippery cloth. He had difficulty breathing just watching her trying to catch her breath.
"That one's just fine," he assured her. "More than fine." His hands measured the slender span of her waist above the bustle of her skirt.