Fool for Love (Montana Romance) by Merry Farmer

to recognize ‘Curtis’ at the bottom, but he needed time to puzzle the rest of it out.
    With a sigh he spread the paper on the railing and put his finger on the first word of the message.  Words never seemed to stand still for him unless he worked to pin them down.
    “Ranch not doing well,” he sounded out the first sentence slowly.  “Herd suffered losses.”  His frown deepened.  It was bad enough to struggle with Curtis’s words, but to have them turn out to be so daggone depressing?  “England deal necessary.  You have no money.  Bankruptcy imminent.”
    Eric dropped his shoulders and muttered, “Hell.”  He’d waited all day for the right time to puzzle through those dang dancing words and they didn’t even tell him anything good.
    He crushed the paper into a ball and launched it out over the deck.  A breeze picked it up and brought it sailing back onto the second-class decks below him.  Someone shouted, “Hey!  We’re not your garbage heap!” as the wad of paper hit them.
    “Hellfire,” Eric muttered and pushed away from the railing.  He should have switched the tickets to second-class after all.
    He shoved his hands in his pockets and stomped back along the deck and the hallway to the first-class dining room, frightening a few society ladies in the process.  The situation infuriated Eric beyond reason.  A man should be able to make his way in the world with hard work and determination.  He’d done nothing but work until his body was tired his whole life and he had nothing to show for it but sweat and failure.  It just didn’t seem right, almost as if something had been working against him the whole time.
    Two steps into the dining room he pushed his bitter thoughts aside and forced himself to smile again.  That smile became as easy as June when his eyes rested on Amelia.  She sat next to Mr. Benton Chase, talking to him as though they were old friends.  The blue of her dress was the perfect frame for her creamy skin.  Broke as he was, he didn’t regret helping Amelia for a hot second.  The barbed wire of Curtis’s telegram untangled, leaving his heart tender.
    “Mr. Chase.”  Eric nodded and lifted his hand to touch the brim of the hat he wasn’t wearing as he approached the table.  “Good to see you’ve kept my lovely wife entertained.”  How he liked the sound of that!  A man with a wife wasn’t a complete failure.
    “She’s a charming woman, Mr. Quinlan.  And I insist you call me Ben.”
    “All right then Ben, only if you call me Eri c.”
    He pulled out the seat beside Amelia and tucked into the fine table.  A menu with fancy writing sat on the plate in front of him.
    “The waiter came while you were gone,” Amelia whispered, leaning close.  “I asked him to come back when you returned.  Oh, here he comes now.”
    Eric swiped open the menu and stared at it.  His gut clenched at the curling, laughing words in front of him.  Regular print was bad enough.  This was impossible.
    “Hell,” he muttered, hoping Amelia hadn’t heard him.  He snuck a peek at her.  She had turned to listen to something Ben was saying.  Eric stole the opportunity to plunk his index finger on one of the chunks of text on the menu.  He squinted as he worked it out.
    “Is there a problem?”  Amelia's soft voice beside him nearly had Eric jumping out of his skin.
    “No, none at all,” Eric replied, unconvincing.
    “It all looks so good, doesn’t it,” she continued, smiling at him.
    “Yeah, it does.”  His temperature soared.  For several reasons.
    “I think I’ll have the crab though,” she added.  Something about her look was as sly as fox.  “Although the chicken in white wine sauce must be delicious as well.  Though knowing you, you’ll probably want to order the roast beef.”
    His heart wasn’t sure if it should sink or float.  Instead it sat heavy in his chest like the useless lump he was.  She knew.
    “What could I get for you this evening,