Authors: Leigh Greenwood
When Love Comes
Leigh Greenwood
LEISURE BOOKS
NEW YORK CITY
“He’s not the one who said it. He’s just come to work for me. He’s going to teach me what I need to know to manage this ranch successfully.”
The fire in Carruthers’s eyes flared hotter. “I don’t want you learning anything from him. I don’t want him anywhere near Cactus Bend. I particularly don’t want him on my land. He’s a stranger, an outsider. For all we know, he could be a murderer.”
“I’m sure he’s not,” Amanda said.
“He
is
a thief,” Carruthers declared. “Your brother said he’s claiming you owe a lot of money, and he’s come to collect it.”
“The debt is a misunderstanding that will soon be cleared up.”
“Only one way to clear up something like that.” The light in Carruthers’s eyes glowed even brighter. “You got to get rid of the problem. For good.”
Broc didn’t like the way things were going. He’d witnessed one case of vigilante justice and had no intention of becoming a victim.
“I advised Mrs. Liscomb to refer the question to her banker or lawyer,” Broc said. “I took myself out of it altogether.”
“It doesn’t look that way to me,” Carruthers said. “It looks like you put yourself right in the middle. Now you’re pushing your way onto my land, no doubt looking for a way to cause more trouble.”
“He’s here because I asked him to be,” Amanda said.
Carruthers ignored her. “In Texas we have a way of dealing with thieves.”
Texas, 1869
Broc Kincaid stood before the spare, somber figure seated behind a plain table in what passed for the sheriff’s office. He didn’t want to look the judge in the eye, but his own stupidity had gotten him into this mess. He wasn’t going to compound his error by adding cowardice to his list of transgressions. Getting arrested for brawling in public was humiliating enough.
“Have you been arrested for something like this before?”
“No, your honor. I’ve always managed to keep my temper under control.”
The judge looked at a sheet of paper in front of him. “If these witnesses’ statements are correct, I’m surprised you didn’t do more than break Felix Yant’s jaw and fracture his arm.”
Broc had tried to ignore the man’s vicious taunts about his face even when Felix had followed him from his hotel to the restaurant to the saloon. Broc had tried to convince himself the man wasn’t worth his attention, but it was the laughter that did it. “I didn’t mean to lose my temper. I apologized to his wife.”
“I understand you paid for the doctor’s bill.”
“Yes, your honor.” The man had two children. They didn’t deserve to suffer because of their father’s cruelty.
The judge sighed. “It goes against the grain to punish you for doing what is essentially a public service.”
“I understand, your honor.”
The judge’s features hinted at a smile. “I’m going to give you a job I expect you’ll dislike even more than spending a couple of nights in the lockup. If you can accomplish it within two weeks, I’ll wipe this case from the records. If not, I’ll have no recourse but to send you to jail.”
Broc pulled his hat brim lower to shade his eyes from the intense glare. It was only midmorning, but the Texas sun was so hot drops of perspiration had begun to trickle down his chest. It made him long for the cool days and evenings he’d spent in Rafe Jerry’s home in California. Though Rafe had encouraged Broc to stay, he knew it was time to return to Texas. He wasn’t sure he was cut out to be a cowboy—it was a long way from his days as an entertainer on Mississippi riverboats—but he was positive he didn’t want to be a farmer like Rafe. Cabbages and artichokes held no fascination for him.
Laveau di Viere, a traitor to the crack regiment they’d all served during the war, had escaped once again, this time after kidnapping Rafe’s half brother and attempting to kill Rafe’s stepmother. The only good thing to come from his latest crimes was that Broc and his friends finally had something any court in the country would accept if they managed to capture him.
When
they captured him. Every time Broc saw the reflection of his ruined face in the mirror, he renewed his vow that Laveau would not continue to escape justice.
Laveau’s latest escape had left Broc in a rotten mood for most of the trip to Texas. Maybe that’s why he’d gotten into the pointless fight with Felix Yant. He knew it was impossible to change the attitude of men like Yant, even by beating their faces in. The best course was to ignore them.
But he’d let his temper flare out of control, and now he was saddled with collecting a debt from a family he’d never seen before. That ought to make him about as popular as fire
ants at a family picnic. It wasn’t a small debt, either. Not many people in Texas had seven hundred dollars. If they did have something worth that much, it was usually difficult to turn into cash.
Virtually impossible in the thirteen days he had to complete his mission.
He couldn’t go to jail. It wasn’t the time he’d be forced to spend behind bars that bothered him. It was the damage it would do to his reputation. All he needed was to add
jailbird
to
scarface
, and his place in life would be fixed forever.
His unhappy ruminations were interrupted by the sight of a bull emerging from a brush-filled creek bed that paralleled the trail at a distance of about fifty yards. The beast was clearly not a range bull but a valuable blooded animal brought to Texas to improve the quality of the owner’s herd. Longhorns were hardy animals, but they didn’t carry much meat. Broc wondered if the owner of the bull knew it had escaped. The animal looked strong, but if it got into a fight with one of the wild-eyed range bulls, it wasn’t likely to survive without injury. He supposed the best thing to do would be to lasso the bull and lead it into town. He’d seen a sign a few miles back telling him a place called Cactus Bend was eleven miles ahead. Surely someone there would know where the bull belonged.
Cactus Bend was also where he was supposed to collect the debt.
Before he had time to uncoil his rope, a young woman and a boy emerged from the streambed. The way the young woman held the rope told Broc she didn’t have much experience handling it. A rope dragged the ground from the boy’s saddle. Maybe the rope that had been on the bull before it escaped. Broc uncoiled his own rope and wheeled his horse to go after the bull. The bull made an attempt to evade Broc’s rope, but it was too slow and Broc’s horse was too fast. The
bull tried to fight the rope, but the harder it fought, the more the rope tightened around its throat. Realizing its mistake, the bull decided to charge the creature that was threatening its freedom.
“Get a rope on him!” Broc shouted to the woman. “I don’t want him to gore my horse or me.”
The next few minutes were some of the most challenging of Broc’s short career as a cowhand. The bull was crafty and mean, but its weight slowed it enough that Broc’s horse was able to avoid its horns. Deciding to fight fire with fire, Broc spurred his horse in a different direction from the bull’s charge, pulling the rope taut and throwing the bull off balance. Before the bull could regain its balance, Broc changed direction. When he changed directions so quickly the bull went to its knees, he shouted to the woman, “Throw the rope before he gets to his feet.” He was relieved when, after three previous failed attempts, the woman’s lasso settled over the bull’s head.
“Let’s hold him between us.” A needless directive, for the woman’s lasso was already looped around her saddle horn. The bull was smart enough to realize fighting was a waste of energy. After bellowing its rage, it snorted twice and pawed the ground before giving up the struggle.
The boy was at Broc’s side almost immediately. “That’s our bull. You can’t steal him.” The boy looked torn between his desire to stop Broc and his fear that this strange man with the terrible face might do something to hurt him.
“My brother is right.” Once she was certain the bull was under control, the young woman also turned her attention to Broc. “We’ve been trying to get a rope on him for the last two hours.”
Broc’s impulse was to turn away to spare the young woman the shock of seeing the disfigured left side of his face, but rather than recoil in horror or disgust, she seemed curious,
even sympathetic. Broc wanted nothing to do with either reaction. He just wanted to forget he was different from everyone else.
“I wasn’t trying to steal your bull,” Broc said. “I got the feeling you weren’t used to handling that rope much.”
The young woman flushed. “Is it that obvious?”
“My sister could have roped that old bull any time she wanted,” the boy said.
“Eddie, there’s no use stretching the truth further than it will go. I just said I’ve been trying to rope him for two hours.”
“You would have roped him fine if he’d stayed in the open,” Eddie said.
“If he’d stood still with his head at just the right angle,” his sister said. “Sorry,” she said, turning to Broc. “Eddie thinks it’s his job to defend me.”
“Somebody’s got to,” the boy said, “ ’cause Gary won’t.”
“He would if I needed it,” the woman said. “Please excuse my bad manners. My name is Amanda, and this is my brother Eddie. My family owns the Lazy T ranch.”
Broc had passed identifying signs of several ranches, but none of them were the Lazy T. If Amanda’s bull made a habit of wandering onto other ranches, it could lead to trouble. Preventing trouble wasn’t his responsibility, but he had nothing against helping a beautiful woman. “I’m Broc Kincaid. I’ll be happy to help you get your bull back home and in his pen.”
“I couldn’t put you to so much trouble.”
“It’s no trouble if your ranch is on the way to Cactus Bend.”
“It’s just outside of town.”
“We used to own a saloon there,” Eddie informed Broc. “My sister sings there.”
Amanda blushed again. “It would be more accurate to say I wait tables.”
“You do sing,” Eddie insisted.
Broc tightened the rope on the bull and clucked to his mount. “You can tell me all about it on the way into town,” he said to Eddie. “I like singing. Do you know what her favorite songs are?”
Given an invitation to talk, Eddie proved himself up to the challenge. Broc didn’t have a chance to get in more than a sentence or two before they reached the lane leading to the Lazy T.
“You really don’t have to come with us,” Amanda said.
“I don’t think your brother is ready to take on a full-grown bull.”
“I am, too,” Eddied declared. “I’ve already done it.”
“Only once,” Amanda said.
Eddie stuck out his jaw. “But I done it.”
“It’s okay,” Broc assured both of them. “I’m planning to spend the night in Cactus Bend.”
“What are you doing here?” Eddie asked.
“Eddie, it’s rude to ask a question like that.”
“Ma’s going to want to know before she lets him inside.”
Broc laughed. “I’m not planning to go inside.”
“You must meet my mother and allow her to thank you,” Amanda said.
“If old man Carruthers had got hold of that bull, we’d never have got him back,” Eddie said.
“You don’t know that,” Amanda said to her brother.
“That’s what Ma said. I heard her.”
“She was just upset. The bull is very valuable.”
“She’s going to be even more upset when
he
comes riding up to the house.” Eddie pointed at Broc. “What happened to your face?”
Amanda gasped and flushed crimson.
“I got shot in the face,” Broc explained.
“That was a mean thing to do. Who done it?”
“Eddie, you can’t ask such questions.”
“I already did.”
“I apologize for my brother,” Amanda said. “He’s too young to understand that there are certain things it’s not polite to mention.”
“I do, too,” Eddie said, indignant. “I know it’s not polite to mention the black hairs on Mrs. Dunn’s lip. And I know it’s not polite to tell anyone that Niall Toby’s thing is so small even the whores won’t have anything to do with him.”
Broc thought Amanda would faint from embarrassment. He knew he shouldn’t laugh, but it was impossible not to be amused.
“I was shot in an ambush during the war,” Broc explained.
Eddie’s eyes widened with excitement. “Did you kill the man who done it?”
“No, but my friend did. He was about to shoot me again.”
“That’s enough, Eddie,” Amanda said in a voice Eddie had obviously heard before.
“My other brother and I are out of the house a lot, which leaves Eddie to look after our mother,” Amanda said to Broc. “She’s something of an invalid. I’m afraid she indulges him too much.”
“Ma says she can’t get along without me.” Clearly Eddie was proud to be so valuable to his mother.
Broc was impressed by the ranch house they were approaching, a rambling, wood-frame dwelling that appeared to have at least six rooms. The wide front porch reminded him of his childhood home in Tennessee. Three other buildings, all of rough-hewn timber, seemed to be a barn, a bunkhouse, and probably a henhouse.
“Nice place you have here,” Broc said.
“It belongs to me, too,” Eddie informed him.
“My father told us he bought it for the family,” Amanda explained.
“Which part do you get?” Broc enjoyed Eddie’s confusion.
“He gets the chickens,” Amanda said. “That’s his job.”
“Chickens are for girls.” Eddie’s disgust with his job was plain to see.
“I gather you don’t have a little sister,” Broc said to Eddie.
“Just Gary and her,” Eddie said, gesturing to Amanda. “Everybody bosses me around.”
“Well, I won’t,” Broc said. “Now let’s get this bull in his pen.”
The pen turned out to be a large pasture. “We can’t afford to let him run loose,” Amanda explained, “so we bring the cows to him. We have a small herd. Without him, we’d have no hope of making the ranch pay.”
“Gary doesn’t want it to pay,” Eddie told Broc. “He wants it to fail so he can spend all his time in the saloon.”
“Mr. Kincaid doesn’t want to hear about our problems,” Amanda told her brother.
“I’m just passing through,” Broc said. “I’ll have no reason to tell anyone there’s dissension in the family.”
“You don’t have to,” Amanda said with a sigh. “Everybody knows it.”
Broc decided it was time to be on his way. “I’d better go,” he said to Amanda. “Be careful when you drive cows into his pasture.”
“That’s Gary’s job,” Eddie informed him.
It wasn’t difficult to put the bull in its pasture. Eddie jumped down to open the gate. Keeping the bull between them, they led it into the pasture. Once Eddie had closed the gate, Broc released the bull, which ambled off as though its escape were a routine part of the day. Dismounted, the three of them leaned against the gate and watched the bull try to excite the interest of a young heifer.
“Is it a lot of work to round up cows for him?” Broc asked Amanda.
“Not really. Our ranch isn’t very big, and we have a creek running through the middle. Since the best grass is near the creek, our cows never wander far.”
“Old man Carruthers’s cows eat our grass,” Eddie informed Broc.
“You know cows are allowed to range free,” Amanda said to her brother.
“Amanda, who is that strange man? What’s he doing here?”
The sound of rustling skirts and footsteps on gravel caused Broc to turn and face an older woman he assumed was Amanda and Eddie’s mother. Her features were those of a woman still shy of her forties, but her demeanor was that of someone much older. She walked with stooped shoulders and leaned on a cane. Her face was devoid of energy or expression. Even her voice sounded thin and frail. Unlike Texas women, who wore simple dresses with only a single undergarment, her gown of rich green was worn over many petticoats. Her adornments included a necklace made of a single strand of dark green beads and a cream-colored lace cap over immaculately groomed hair. She looked like the women Broc remembered seeing before the war. Her reaction to his face was to recoil so violently, she might have lost her balance had she not held a cane. Amanda looked horrified by her mother’s reaction.
