Cowboy Come Home (29 page)
Authors: Janette Kenny
“You’ve got your hands full with that one,” Mallory said.
“She doesn’t appear to be the troublesome sort to me.”
“Unlike yourself, Mr. Reid Barclay. For all that cultured talk you spout on a whim, I know you’ve got the heart and soul of an Irish rebel.”
“What if I do?” Reid paused at the door and stared at the man who’d watched him go from rebellious boy to respectable rancher.
“Her type won’t give you a roll in the hay and then go her way with a smile on her face. Remember that.”
Reid inclined his head. “I’ll bear that in mind.”
“Will you? You always were a cocky bastard. But then you have the blood of nobles flowing in your veins.”
Mallory, the wily old goat, knew the truth Reid held close to the vest. He was an English nobleman’s by-blow, disowned by his father long before Reid’s mother died giving him life.
“I’m still a bastard, Mallory.” If Kirby Morris hadn’t cut a deal when he had, he’d be a dead one by now.
“Aye, you did ‘em wrong, boyo. They ain’t coming back.”
His mouth stretched into a grim line. He’d given his brothers just cause to hate him, and damned if he knew how to right the terrible wrong he’d caused so long ago.
Guilt was a bitch to live with.
“Perhaps I’ll have the luck of the Irish after all.”
“More likely you’ll have the devil’s time of it,” Mallory said as he splashed whiskey into a shot glass, “when your past charges into your life with guns blazing.”
A possibility Reid hoped to avoid. He stepped out and let the wind blow the rest of Mallory’s dire predictions back inside.
No matter how much he groused about his fate, he’d made the right choice. Never mind it’d been the only one at the time. If his skin felt a mite tight for him at times, so be it.
He was ready to live up to his end of the bargain now. Or had been until he’d hired a fetching house cook that had him thinking of dishes best served warm in bed.
Reid squinted against a punishing sun, searching for Miss Cade. He spotted her easily down the street, thanks to a royal blue cloak snapping in the wind like a bullfighter’s cape. He hadn’t known her hair was the color of whiskey until now.
The back of it was caught up in an intricate weave of sorts and that touch of red glowed in the sun.
Reid headed toward Miss Cade, his blood running thick and hot with need. He had a fondness for fair-haired women.
She tugged the full hood up and ended his ruminations of taking the pins from her hair and running his hands through it. By damn, but the lady was a sparkling gem amid a blanket of white. She’d be living in his house, a constant temptation for him to take what he wanted and damn the consequences.
He paused to let a buckboard churn by, the bed laden with goods and squealing children huddled down in a bed of straw. He knew the whole family worked their behinds off on their ranch due north of his, yet he’d never seen a happier brood.
Simple pleasures.
He’d never known what it was like to have the love of family until he’d lost it. Now there was no getting it back.
Reid caught a glimpse of Adam Tavish plowing through the muck in the street. He, too, seemed arrested by the sight of Miss Cade.
Though the U.S. Marshal swore he was on the trail of the Kincaid gang, Mallory told him that Tavish had been asking an awful lot of questions about Reid. It wasn’t the first time a lawman had inquired about his past.
The fact remained that Reid had left word everywhere, all but begging his brothers to come back to Wyoming. He’d also baited a trap for the man accused of killing Lisa True, letting it be known that Slim was at the Crown Seven as well. But so far the only one sniffing around was the lawman.
As for Ezra Kincaid? He’d likely be watching.
If the old outlaw was out there, he was holed up planning his move. That worried Reid the most.
Truth be, he was relieved Tavish was dead set on stopping the old rustler who surely must be drooling over Reid’s thoroughbreds. But that didn’t mean he wanted to be on close speaking terms with Tavish.
Considering his past, Reid was careful to keep his distance from the local sheriff and the marshal. But with Tavish reaching Miss Cade first and guiding her into the livery, he couldn’t very well do that today.
Ice crunched underfoot as he made his way to the livery. He wrenched open the door, finding Miss Cade and Tavish squared off inside.
He knew the feeling.
Reid gave the livery boy a nod to ready his sleigh.
“I see you’ve met the marshal.” Reid stopped beside Miss Cade, sparing Tavish a dismissing glance but feeling the man’s curious gaze skewer him all the same. Was that annoyance he saw in her eyes?
“Yes, he was just assuring me that this is a quiet, lawful community,” she said.
Tavish favored Miss Cade with his good-ol’-boy smile that didn’t fool Reid one bit. “You never did tell me what brought you to Maverick, Miss Cade.”
She flinched this time, a slight tremor Reid attributed to a case of nerves. Until he got a closer look.
The lady was clearly angry and her ire was directed at the U.S. Marshal. Damn, what had Tavish said to her earlier?
“I’m taking over Mrs. Leach’s role of cook at the Crown Seven Ranch while she’s away,” she said.
Tavish thumbed back his hat, revealing a pair of observant green eyes that no doubt had saved the lawman’s ass on more than one occasion. “Pardon me for saying, ma’am. But most cooks I’ve met tended to sample their fare a bit more than necessary.”
It was the truth, but Reid took umbrage with the way Tavish looked at the lady, like she was a tasty morsel and he was starving. Never mind Reid had done the same earlier. She was his employee, and judging by her tight-lipped expression, she didn’t wish to tarry in Tavish’s company.
“So, where have you worked before, Miss Cade?” Tavish asked, his conversational tone at odds with his shrewd perusal.
A dull flush blossomed on the lady’s cheeks, and the rigid set to her shoulders seemed an odd reaction, in Reid’s estimation. “The Denver Academy for Young Ladies.”
“Do tell?” Tavish’s eyes took on a calculating glint.
“I fear I’d bore you with stories of teaching young ladies to acquire discriminating tastes,” she said over the tinkling of harness bells. “Besides I am sure Mr. Barclay is anxious to be on his way.”
“Another time then. Afternoon, ma’am.” Tavish slid two fingers over his hat brim but stayed rooted to the spot. “Barclay.”
Reid dipped his chin in farewell, then guided Miss Cade to the red sleigh. “You leave your baggage at the depot?”
“Yes. I have a small trunk and a carpetbag.”
A rarity for sure. He’d warrant Cheryl would drag all manner of trunks and valises with her from England.
“After we retrieve your things, we’ll stop at the mercantile. I suggest you select anything you need for yourself or the ranch now.”
“I have everything I require with me.”
“Fair warning, Miss Cade. We won’t be coming into town for a week or more.”
“I’m sure everything I’ll need is at the ranch.”
Reid expected she’d say that. So why did he have the sudden feeling he’d be going hungry this night—and in more ways than one?
And the passion continued with a warm embrace
In a Cowboy’s Arms
...
In a Cowboy’s Arms
...
Colorado sheriff Dade Logan has waited twenty years to reunite with his long lost sister, Daisy. But when she finally turns up, they barely recognize each other. That’s because the beautiful stranger isn’t Daisy, but her childhood friend Maggie, on the run from an impending marriage. Moved by this last link to Daisy, Dade determines to bend any law that stands between him, his sister—and the intriguing Maggie ...
Maggie Sutten will risk anything to escape her fate, though accompanying the broad-shouldered sheriff in his pursuit of Daisy rattles her to the core. But as their search—and desire for one another—escalates, the two provoke a vicious bounty hunter, one who threatens their hopes for a future together ...
Colorado, 1895
It wasn’t yet ten in the morning, and Dade Logan was already bored clean out of his mind. Other than locking the town drunk up every Friday night when he got a snootful, there wasn’t much in the way of law to enforce in Placid, Colorado.
Not that he was anxious for trouble to come to this sleepy town that rested in the valley east of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Nope, he’d been waiting all winter for one person to return, and if she didn’t show up soon he didn’t know what the hell he would do.
The hiss of the locomotive and clang of the rail cars pulling out echoed up the main street of Placid. Two folks had boarded the Denver & Rio Grande, heading east to Pueblo. He hadn’t seen anyone get off.
Maybe she’d arrive on the afternoon train. As the racket from steel wheels on rails grew faint, he heard his name being called out.
“Sheriff Logan! Sheriff Logan!”
Dade smiled. Raymond Tenfeather was pounding down the boardwalk somewhere between the stable and the jail, hollering out his name like he did every day about this time.
When the liveryman’s younger son wasn’t trailing his elder brother Duane around town, he had taken to following Dade on the pretext of helping him look for lawbreakers. Dade had gently explained that wasn’t necessary, but the boy took it on himself to be the town spy. God only knew what Raymond had seen this time.
Dade rocked back in his chair and stacked his crossed boots on the edge of his desk, awaiting the boy’s imminent arrival. As always, his gaze narrowed on the wanted posters tacked on the wall.
Dammit all if the three outlaws staring back at him weren’t smirking. His pa and uncles would find it amusing that Dade had taken an oath to uphold the laws that Clete, Brice, and Seth Logan had been hell-bent on breaking all their lives.
It’d been twenty years since he’d seen any of them, though their wanted posters had haunted him most of his life. There sure as hell wasn’t any love lost between him and his kin.
Yet one question nagged at him right after they pinned a tin star on his chest. If his pa and uncles came to town, could he draw on them?
Part of him said yes. His pa had had no qualms about deserting him and his little sister. Yet when all was said and done, he wasn’t sure he could turn on his blood. Hell, unlike Reid Barclay, he couldn’t have turned on either of his foster brothers either.
“Sheriff Logan!” Raymond burst into the jail, his dark skin glistening with sweat and his scrawny chest heaving from his run. “I saw her.”
“Just who’d you see?” Dade asked.
“The lady you been waiting for,” Raymond said.
“Daisy?” he asked.
The boy nodded. “She got off the train, just like you was hoping she’d do.”
Now how the hell had he missed seeing her?
Dade’s heart took off galloping at the thought that sticking around here had paid off. His missing sister had finally come back like everyone in town said she would.
For the first time in months he visited that dream of buying a nice little farm for them to call home. He could run a few head of cattle. Do a bit of farming. Hell, he could find his brother Trey and bring him into the deal.
It was a damn sight better thing to dwell on than the idea of going back to the Crown Seven and having it out with Reid, the foster brother who’d sold them out when they needed him the most.
First things first. He’d waited twenty years to find his sister. He wasn’t about to waste a second forestalling their reunion.
“Where is she?” he asked, heading for the door as he spoke.
“Mrs. Gant’s boardinghouse,” Raymond said, hot on his heels.
The place where Daisy and her crippled traveling companion had stayed before. Mrs. Gant had told him about their visit to Placid. How Daisy had caught the young sheriff ’s eye. How she’d promised to come back last fall and marry Lester.
But the sheriff was dead, spring was in full bloom, and nobody in town had any idea where Daisy Logan and her lady friend hailed from.
Dade figured she’d heard about Lester’s murder and wasn’t coming back to Placid. He feared he’d lost her again.
“Thanks, Raymond.” Dade flipped the boy a silver dollar and headed out the door.
Long determined strides carried him across the dusty street. He wondered how much Daisy had changed. Would she recognize him? Would she be as glad to be reunited with her family as he was?
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