They'd been traveling for almost two weeks by the time they got into Littlewood, Texas. It had been the quietest two weeks that the brothers had ever spent together, and Bret was sure that if Bart didn't start talking soon, he was going to lose his mind.
"Do you want to stay here tonight and go into Laredo tomorrow, or do you wanna keep riding?"
Bart shook his head. "Don't care."
"Do you care about anything?" Bret muttered under his breath. He didn't have to worry about Bart answering him because there was nothing that seemed to penetrate the gloom that had settled on his younger brother. That was the result of falling in love with a woman who'd been deserted by her husband a year and a half earlier, only to have him suddenly return just as Bart was on the verge of proposing marriage. Some men might have considered that a heaven-sent reprieve, but Bart had given his heart away and had it stepped on in the process. He still hadn't recovered, although he put on a good face when they were around other people. Alone with Bret, however, he let his true feelings show. And he was devastated.
Bret made the decision to stop in Littlewood and spend the night, and Bart didn't protest. They put their horses up at the livery, and Bart spent almost two hours grooming Noble, his temperamental gelding. The horse didn't complain, mind you; he was glad for the attention. Bret checked them into the hotel and got a room in front; when Bart couldn't sleep at night, he liked to sit in the dark at the front window and watch the street. He'd been doing a lot of that lately.
The older Maverick was determined he was going to get his brother into a different frame of mind, no matter what it took. He had questions about the way things had been left when they departed Natchez, and he wanted some answers. And if talking about it made Bart uncomfortable, maybe it would also help to change his mood. Even if it changed it into one of anger.
Bret got cleaned up and into different clothes before Bart got to the room. "How about some dinner?" he asked brightly once Bart arrived.
"Not hungry," came the expected reply.
"Tough," was the answer. "We're goin' to dinner anyway. And we're gonna talk about Natchez and the way you left things."
Bart didn't answer, just took his gun belt off and put on a clean shirt, then hung the gun over the chair and fished his shoulder holster out of his bag. He slipped that over the shirt and made sure the derringer was loaded, then put his buckskin jacket back on. "Okay," he said, and obediently followed Bret out the door.
"How much longer you gonna be like this?"
Bart looked up at his brother but his expression never changed. "Until I'm not."
"You know she wasn't the right woman for you, don't you?"
"Yep."
"That she still loved her husband?"
"Yep."
"That it worked out the way it was supposed to?"
"Yep."
Bret stopped in the hallway and Bart almost ran into him. "Then what's the problem?"
Bart looked his brother right in the eyes and said only two words. "Althea Taylor."
"It's not the same thing," Bret insisted.
"How is it different?" Bart asked, genuinely confused.
"It's just . . . . . it's just . . . . . oh, I don't know. It just is."
Almost a year ago Bret had been living with recently widowed Althea Taylor, crazy in love with her, when she fell in love with his childhood friend Simon Petry and agreed to marry Simon. Bret had found them . . . . well, he'd found them together, and he left Little Bend, Texas as fast as his legs would carry him. Now Bart had been through an eerily similar situation and expected Bret to understand the emotions that entailed. 'How quickly they forget,' Bart thought as Bret just grimaced at him.
"Look, I know it's painful. It hurts like hell. But you don't talk, you don't eat, you don't sleep, and you're drivin' me crazy tryin' to figure out what to do for you."
"Don't aggravate me," the younger of the two brothers suggested.
"What am I supposed to do, just let you wallow in misery?"
"Yeah, that's it exactly. I'm not ready to talk about it."
"What will you talk about?" Bret prodded as they were seated in the hotel dining room.
"Anything else."
"Alright, did you sell Belle Amour before we left?" Bart had originally intended to sell the parlor house before he could be pulled into the . . . ladies . . . . complicated lives. Too late, as he'd been severely injured the night after winning the brothel in a poker game, and things got worse from there on.
"Nope. I gave it to Emily so she wouldn't have to . . . . keep working there after the baby came." Emily was already with child when Bart won the house and the business itself.
"I thought you were gonna sell it."
Bart shrugged his shoulders. "Didn't have the time, I just wanted to leave as fast as possible. Emily agreed to take the job as manager, and I just signed everything over to her."
'Generous to a fault,' Bret thought, but out loud he said, "Good. At least you don't have to go back there."
"No," Bart answered, and there was a faraway look in his eyes. "I don't have to go back there."
"How much money do you have left?"
"Money? Oh, enough to get into this game. Why? Do you need some?"
They'd spent money in Natchez like they had it, living in a suite at the Chez Natchez and buying new clothes; Bart had even purchased a small house for Emily long before he 'gave' her the business. To say nothing of the expenditures on food and clothing for the ladies at the parlor house. Wasn't that what money was for, to spend it?
"No, no, I don't need any money. I just wanted to make sure you had some left."
They were seated in the dining room and when Bret discovered the nightly special was pot roast and mashed potatoes he ordered two, both with coffee. Bart sat and watched his brother, so determined to force him back to the land of the living, and finally had to smile. Bret saw the change in facial expression and smiled himself. "Bout time you looked happy about something. You've still got me, ya know."
"That's what I'm afraid of," Bart answered.
From across the room a man dressed all in black sat and watched the two brothers interact with each other and wondered, were these the men that the future of the Republic of Texas depended on?