In The Beginning by Gail Daley (top 100 books of all time checklist .TXT) 📕

Dismissed, Bethany shut the door softly on the downstairs room. Her father had posed a solution to their problems she would have liked more time to come to terms with. Unfortunately, her two younger sisters were lying in wait for her in the hall, anxious to discover the outcome of her discussion with their father.

The three girls shared a father, but different mothers and each of them had inherited their mothers looks. Iris was a tall slim blond, with dark green eyes and her mother's patrician beauty. Just now, she looked anxious. Jeanne, the youngest, had inherited her mother's full, red-lipped mouth, statuesque figure and her turquoise eyes. Just now the lush mouth was hard, and her blue snapped furiously.

"Well?" Iris whispered.

"Yes, what did the Doctor say?" demanded Jeanne at the same time.

"Come into the parlor," Bethany gestured to the room across the hall.

Once inside the room Iris’s mother had designated the 'lady's' parlor', she shut the door and sat in one of the overstuffed chairs. She waited until her sisters had taken seats before she answered.

"The paralysis is permanent. The Doctor is sure, but that wasn’t what Papa wanted to talk about."

Iris covered her face with her hands. Jeanne sent her a half-contemptuous look at what she considered an over-reaction. None of the girls had ever been close to their father. He had sent them all east to be raised by his mother after Jeanne’s mother, his last wife, was murdered by raiders. Michel St. Vyr hadn’t had good luck with his wives. All three had died on him, leaving him with daughters and no son to take over for him. When Copper City, where they were living, was taken over by a rival gang faction, he had come east to rescue them but none of them had spent much time here on the ranch since the oldest, Bethany had been twelve years old.

"He must have wanted to talk about the ranch," Iris stated.

"Who is going to take over handling the railroad holdings and running the ranch and the mines?" the practical Jeanne asked. "Us?"

Bethany shrugged. "For the time being Papa is going to continue to run things from his chair—"

"What about the Johnsons? Isn’t he afraid they are going to take advantage? After all, we know one of them shot him from ambush, probably that horrible Abner, even if we can’t prove it."

"Well, Papa has a plan for that. It involves all of us. It is pretty much the same plan he told us about when we first came home—"

"I’ll not be a sacrificial goat! He’s not marrying me off to some old man!" Jeanne exploded.

"If you don’t marry someone how do you expect to live if we lose the ranch and the mine to the Johnsons? Go to work as a cowhand?" Iris asked. "If we returned to Earth, we would have nothing and probably be put in jail for violating the Portal Rights Act. Here at least we have money and land. If we allow it to be taken from us, how will we support ourselves? I mean the railroad practically runs itself and we get some revenue from the shares, but—"

Jeanne jumped to her feet. "I can run the ranch!"

Bethany shook her head. "While I agree that you could do that under ordinary circumstances, that isn’t the case right now. What do you or any of us for that matter, know about fighting a takeover like this? Jeanne, you know as well as I do, that the men won’t obey you if we must fight the Johnsons. No, Papa says we need a warrior to defend the ranch. A male warrior that the men will follow. In fact, he’s already sent for him."

"What about Carlos?" objected Iris. "He would help us."

Bethany shrugged. "He says Carlos has too much to do defending the Lucky Strike and the gold and gemstone claims. Apparently, there is trouble there too."

Jeanne took a deep breath for another blast, but Bethany cut her off. "In any case Jeanne, you aren’t going to be the ‘goat’, I am."

Her sister deflated like a wet pig’s bladder and sank back into her chair. "You? But that isn’t fair to you either—"

"What if he’s horrible?" whispered Iris.

"Papa isn’t forcing me," replied Bethany mildly. "He did say that Alec McCaffey is young with an established investigator business and he has resolved situations like this before, so he will have the experience to take over the fight. If he is good enough, maybe the two of you won’t have to marry to save the ranch and the mines. I do have the right to refuse if we can’t stand each other."

"Honey, we can’t ask you to do this for us," protested Iris faintly.

"That’s right!" Jeanne seconded.

She smiled at them. "Do you know I love you both?" Bethany held out her arms and enfolded them in a tight embrace. "This is the best way. If we want this man to take up our fight, we must offer him something substantial, and to safeguard our ownership of the holdings, he must be bound to us. According to both Gran and Papa, the best way to bind a man to us is through a marriage. Kids, I’m the eldest. This is my job. We all know what happens to women who don’t have money or a way to support themselves. Remember what it was like for the Jones women when that Smith gang in Copper City killed their men?"

Iris shuddered. "The Smith's turned them into whores. I'd rather die."

"I won’t let that happen to you, and I won’t do it myself," Bethany assured them, calm descending on her as she came to terms with her agreement with her father.

"Why does Papa think this man will be better than the Johnsons?" Iris asked.

"He was recommended by your uncle, Iris," Bethany replied.

Jeanne frowned at her. "And if he is worse than Emory Johnson?"

Her sister smiled grimly at her. "Gran has a contingency plan for that. But first