Cowboy Come Home (15 page)
Authors: Janette Kenny
Problem was he couldn’t dally with her now that he knew who she really was. He’d written to Dade, and he suspected he’d head here as soon as he got that letter.
Trey surely didn’t look forward to the battle that would ensue. Didn’t like thinking that Dade might put a bullet in his heart instead of a shotgun in his back.
Yep, the only sure way he could own the land he coveted was to marry Daisy. Might not take more than a few words and sweet loving to get her to agree.
Long as she didn’t know he was marrying her to get his hands on the land, all would be fine. He’d just have to find a way to live with the fact that he’d deceived her. Lied to her.
And damn it all but he just couldn’t do it. Yep, he was a born bastard. He could be a mean sonofabitch when crossed. He’d never had a problem loving a woman and walking away.
Except this was Daisy, and she stirred something inside him that scared the ever-living shit out of him.
Then there was the fact she’d been hurt enough. By thinking he’d abandoned her. By Barton’s death. And now this—seeing her home burned clean to the ground.
Dammit! He wanted the land. Wanted the woman. So why was he dithering over taking both?
Don’t cheat a man, and don’t break a woman’s heart,
Kirby had told them time and again.
Kirby had told them time and again.
Words to live by.
He flicked a glance at Daisy and grimaced, for her emotions were right there for anyone to see. Grief. Defeat. Fear. And sometimes when she looked at him, he caught that glow of warmth and longing before anger distorted it.
She cared for him. Maybe fancied herself in love with him still. Long as she never knew there wasn’t any love in him to give to her or anyone, she wouldn’t get hurt.
But Dade knew his shortcomings.
Trey wouldn’t be able to fool him.
“We’d best head back,” he said, steering her toward their horses.
She nodded, looking around. Looking sad. “I want to visit Daddy’s grave before I leave.”
He nodded and let her lead the way.
They could see for miles, and nothing was stirring, not even a breeze. Her small boots kicked up very little dust, but most of her skirt was covered in West Texas grit all the same.
He could taste the same on his tongue. Feel a fine layer coat his skin.
A man could bake to death out here. He’d come damned close to doing just that.
Because of Daisy. Because of lies and half-truths. Because he’d wanted her. And had taken her.
He’d known the risks and defied them anyway. That was the simple truth.
He could bitch and moan all he wanted. If a randy cowpoke used his daughter, he’d kill the sonofabitch too.
“Daddy told me about the time when Comanches terrorized much of Texas,” she said, her breath coming hard as they started up the knoll. “He was a young boy, living on his family’s homestead outside San Antonio, but he remembered Indians whooping and hollering. He said his daddy and his uncle stood their ground and fired back. How they were afraid that the house would be torched.”
He shaded his eyes and looked over at her and went still, for she looked like those fancy paintings of angels at that moment, with the sun hitting her full in the back and casting a bright aura around her.
“That’s what most of the early settlers faced.”
“I know.” She turned and started back up the slope. “Daddy said that they’d have likely died if the Texas Rangers hadn’t ridden in.”
“There aren’t that many men who can say they survived such,” he said.
“So why did they stay? Why face that risk for a place like this?”
He looked at the baked landscape and smiled. “Reckon they were a bit like me. It was their land that they either had claimed or homesteaded. They fought to make a living. Fought the elements and the Indians and the market that tended to fall more than rise. They were willing to die to hold onto it.”
She stopped again, her back stiff. “I always thought Daddy was the strongest man I ever knew. I didn’t think anything could kill him.”
“Barton was a fighter to the core,” he agreed.
“I always thought so too,” she said. “I thought nothing could make Daddy give up, but that’s what happened after he lost his first family. Hollis told me that when the War of the Rebellion ended, Daddy left Texas and moved to Colorado. Why would he leave his home?”
That was something only Barton could answer. But Trey suspected it had a whole lot to do with what the man had been put through in the army, coupled with the deaths of his wife and son at the Circle 46. That he’d tired of killing and fighting to hold on to what was his. That it looked easier to start over all new.
Trey understood that better than most. He’d lived most of his life on the Crown Seven. It was home, yet it had never been solely his. Never would’ve been, for Kirby had divided what he’d owned between Reid, Dade, and him.
“Sometimes leaving is the best choice a man can make,” he said, thinking back to the day when he and Dade had been accused of rustling. “There’s a big difference between what a man will risk when he’s fighting for his family or his country, and when he’s fighting for what is his and his alone,” he said.
“But the Circle 46 was his.”
“Maybe the title was, but the ghosts of his wife and son were still calling the shots,” he said. “A man will either find something better, something that he can call his own, or find what he’d left was better for him and head back home.”
For him, there was no going back. What he’d had on the Crown Seven was over, and he was content to hold those good memories and move on. To make his own way.
Holding sole title to a ranch was his dream.
She stopped again at the top of the slope, but this time she glanced back, looking down on him, looking far too troubled. “You think that’s why Daddy came back to Texas? Why he bought the JDB?”
“Could be. He made this his home, Daisy,” he said. “From what I knew of him, it was a good decision, for he was a damned happy man here on the JDB.”
She gave a jerky nod, then started walking again.
It wasn’t much farther to the fenced cemetery, but by the time they got there his back was slick with sweat. He felt rivers of it running down his face and neck, felt his hat settle down more with his hair soaked.
The sun was riding high and punished the earth again, as if trying to burn out every blemish, every infraction. He wet dry lips and wished he was somewhere cool. Wished he’d thought to bring a canteen along.
Daisy knelt by Barton’s grave, looking as wilted as the plains that stretched out around her. She was a tiny thing, but bending over a grave made her seem even more small and defenseless.
She picked at the dried brush near the tombstone. “I planted bluebonnets in the spring so his grave wouldn’t look so bleak, but the drought took them.”
“He’d understand, Daisy.”
“I know, but it makes me feel that much more of a failure,” she said. “I couldn’t keep flowers blooming on a grave. How in the hell am I going to run the ranches?”
He sensed her grief, her fear, and remembered the sharp stab of pain that he’d felt once in his life. That’d been when Kirby died.
Though Trey had tried damned hard never to get close to another person, Kirby had breached those defenses. He’d been his pa, and his death had left Trey’s heart bleeding.
“You’ll do what you have to do,” he said.
She made a sound. A muffled snort. A sob maybe. He couldn’t tell with the hot wind buffeting his back.
“I suppose so,” she said and bowed her head.
He reckoned she was praying, but he didn’t understand why. He’d never understood what folks got out of standing over a grave reliving the past. Why the hell did they put themselves through that pain again?
The dead were dead. Best thing to do was move on with life.
That’s what Trey had done when Kirby had died. It’s what he’d done too when Reid betrayed them and he was cast out of the only home he’d ever known.
Until he’d landed here.
“This is an unforgiving land where only the strongest survive,” he said. “Don’t take much muscle and brawn. Just strength of will. You’ve got to want this bad enough to fight for it, for every day there’s a new struggle.”
Daisy didn’t reply as she got to her feet. She swayed a bit and rested her small, gloved hands on the stone.
His eyes narrowed on her, thinking he’d never seen her look so forlorn. He wanted to go to her. Take her in his arms and take her away.
This was her ranch. Her daddy. Her moment of grief. He’d give her a few minutes of privacy.
“We’d best find some shade soon,” he said.
“Yes,” she said, her voice weak.
He walked to the edge of the knoll to wait. He reckoned she’d shed more than a few tears before this was over, and he wasn’t prepared to deal with that emotion.
To the west the plains stretched for miles with not a tree in sight, just a great dun river of land that had baked dry. But if a man stared long enough he saw a sea of inviting water. A mirage. Trick of land and elements that lured many a man to his death.
Yep, this was the kind of weather that separated ranchers into those that had the guts and wherewithal to stick it out and the ones who packed it in and headed back east. He landed square in the first camp even though he didn’t have a dime to spare.
He had guts and the burning desire to have his name on a tract of land. And he had nowhere else to go.
This was his best bet.
He knew it. Had known it those longs months he’d been laid up in El Paso.
The question was, what the hell was he going to do about it?
Damned if he knew. He squinted at the horizon where the burned out remains of the ranch stood. He’d come a long way in miles, but no closer to finding any kind of peace.
Maybe that wasn’t in the cards for him. Maybe fate took pleasure in tormenting a bastard like him, giving him a taste of a normal life before snatching it away. Tempting him to let down his guard around a woman and then showing him just how stupid he’d been to do so.
The only thing a man like him could count on was the land and his own courage. He wanted this land. Wanted this woman.
But down deep he was afraid of getting too close to her again. Afraid of the emotions he struggled to hold at bay. Afraid to trust Dade, Daisy—anyone again.
He’d been betrayed twice by those who’d found a way to slip past his defenses. The next time might be the death of him.
He untied his kerchief and mopped his face, certain he’d sweat every drop of moisture from his body in the time he’d been standing here.
“Come on, Daisy,” he said, turning to face her.
She lifted bleak eyes to his, her smile sad. Then she crumbled in a heap on the grave.
Chapter 13
Fear slammed into his gut like a mule’s kick, driving the air from his lungs. “Daisy!”
He rushed to her and gathered her in his arms, his heart pounding like a smith’s hammer. She was burning hot. Her head lolled back against his shoulder, her lips white, her face florid. Her eyes were glassy.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were getting woozy?” he asked, but she couldn’t answer. “You know better.”
But so did he. He’d suffered heat exhaustion six months back, and it took the longest time to recover from it and his other injuries.
He cradled her in his arms and started back down the knoll, damning himself for letting her stay out here this long, for not taking a good look at her earlier. If anything happened to her ...
That black thought drove a knife through his heart, drawing blood, drawing out the truth he didn’t want to face. He could allow himself to care for her on a safe level as his boss’s daughter. As Dade’s sister.
He could lust after her for the rest of his days and give her all the passion a woman could ever want for. But anything beyond that was shoving him right out there onto thin ice.
With a curse, he blocked those soft thoughts that eroded a man’s will from his head and viewed her like he would any hand who’d suffered heat exhaustion. Get her out of the sun. Cool her down outside and in.
It took forever to walk back to the house. Further still to reach the old adobe hut that had escaped the fire.
The horses were ground tethered to an old hitching post beside the hut and whickered softly at his approach. They were content with the little bit of shade offered by the adobe.
He kicked open the door and pushed inside. The dim interior was a welcome relief after suffering the punishing sun.
He stopped dead in his tracks, eyes narrowed to take in his surroundings. Something scurried in a corner. A mouse, likely.
“Where are we?” she asked, voice halting, eyes closed.
“The old adobe.”
Barton had used the old house to store barrels of grain, but those had been moved to the Circle 46. Nothing was left inside but the beehive fireplace in the corner. Only furniture was a chair made of interlocking cattle horns with the seat covered in cowhide.
He sat her down gently on the chair that was nearly big enough for two. It was certainly large enough for her to rest against the curved bowl made by the horns.
“How can a woman who’s lived her life in West Texas not realize when the sun was getting to her?” he asked, his big fingers fumbling to untie her bonnet.
“Don’t. Know,” she whispered, still not opening her eyes.
Dammit, she was limp as a dishrag. He cupped her shoulders and bent close to her.
“Daisy, look at me.” He waited until her eyelids fluttered open, but the vague look she cast him didn’t ease his mind one damned bit. “I want you to unbutton your bodice so we can cool your body down. You hear me?”
She swallowed. “Okay.”
He removed her bonnet that was covered in dust. Hell, everything was covered in grit.
He hooked the bonnet on a bit of horn tip protruding on the chair back and went outside to fetch the canteens. Both horses lifted their heads. His gelding whickered.
They’d hit the worst part of the day now, and the sun was bearing down on the animals again. He’d hoped to be miles from here by now. Back to where a man could find a few trees and water. Back to being around people so he wasn’t reminded how good it’d felt to be alone with her.
The saddles needed to come off. The horses rubbed down and watered. But he didn’t want to risk taking time for them with Daisy so bad off.
“If she doesn’t respond soon I don’t know what I’ll do,” he told the gelding as he lifted the canteens off the saddle horns.
Exposing her to more sun was too great a risk. Hell, it wouldn’t do either of them any good now. That meant they’d have to stay here, and he had very few provisions.
Bemoaning the fact wouldn’t help a thing. He was as much to blame as her for being in this state, because he’d let her tarry. He’d stood beside her woolgathering and baking like a fresh-made adobe brick.
Now she was the one suffering for them both being fools.
He was back inside in no time. She hadn’t moved. Hadn’t even attempted to undress.
It dawned on him that she didn’t have the strength. He’d have to do it for her.
He set the canteens aside and fumbled to undo the tiny buttons on her bodice, a task he’d had no trouble doing when they’d met in the hayloft. When he’d been anxious to shuck her from her clothes and kiss every silken inch of her. Sink into her and feel that rightness that he’d never felt with another woman. With anyone.
But there was no seduction or lust driving his moves now. Just hope that she’d snap out of this in time.
Her eyelids inched open again, and those big eyes fixed on his. “Sorry.”
“So am I,” he said as he peeled her shirt from her.
Sorry for all he’d put her through. Sorry he couldn’t be the kind of man she deserved.
He tugged off his bandana and snapped the dust from it before he wet it down, using care not to waste their water. He draped it over her fine chemise, and she sucked in air.
“Better?”
“Umm.”
He found a fancy handkerchief in her pocket and did the same with it, then laid it over her forehead. That earned him another sigh, which he took as a good sign. At least she hadn’t passed out, but it’d been close. Too close.
“Take a few sips. No more or you’ll get sick.” He held the canteen to her mouth.
She did as asked. “Tastes good.”
He nodded and eased her back down, acutely aware this was a slow process. He sat back on his haunches and took a long swig of water. It wasn’t cold by any means, but it was wet and eased his parched throat.
Problem was they didn’t have much water. One look at Daisy’s pale face and bleary eyes convinced him she’d need rest and water before she could ride.
They’d have to spend the night here.
“I’m gonna see to the horses,” he said.
She mouthed, “Okay.”
The kerchief he’d laid on her chest was drying, the edges losing the dark color of moisture. He wondered if there was any water to be had in the well now. If he could just get enough for the horses and keep her cool, they could manage with the rest.
As for food, he had a can of beans in his saddlebag. Maybe one of peaches. It’d be pure luck if he could scare up a rabbit to add to it.
Minutes seemed to crawl by as he dragged the saddles from both horses and set them in the shade of the adobe to dry. He slipped inside to check her before seeing if he could find water. Her breathing was even, but her face was still on the red side.
He cursed the way everything had turned out and lead the horses toward the remains of the barn. The wooden corrals had burnt along with everything else, but the old pen where Barton had kept his prize Hereford bull was intact.
The well-strung barbed wire would do well for the horses. That old mesquite standing in the center would provide a bit of shade, even though the tree had dropped most of its leaves in order to survive the drought.
He cracked a smile. The tree was the only one of any size on the JDB, an old spreading native that many ranchers cursed more than a weed. But Barton had kept it to shade his bull, and that old bull had gotten fat off the leaves and bean pods of that tree.
He turned the horses into the pen, then headed over to the well. The handle let out a god-awful screech as he manned it, going slow, hoping to hell something besides dust would fall into the tin pail.
Sweat streamed from him, soaking his shirt and jeans. But the intense sun dried him off almost as quickly.
He was about to give up when the barest stream of water splashed into the pail. It wasn’t dry. But it wasn’t enough to sustain life for long either.
So he went slow, pumping a bit at a time, careful not to spill a drop.
When that pail was full, he carried it into the pen and toward the short trough set up under the tree. Maybe in shade the water wouldn’t evaporate as fast, though he suspected the horses would drink this up.
“Enjoy it,” he said as he filled the trough. “Might be a spell before you get more.
He headed straight back to the well and began the process all over again. It took longer this time to get another pail filled and carried to the adobe.
She’d somehow curled into a corner of the big chair, her head resting against a knot of horns and her legs tucked under her skirt. Her eyes were closed, but then she hadn’t been able to keep them open since she keeled over on Barton’s grave.
“Feel any better?” he asked as he toted the bucket inside and found a crock that would hold the water.
“So tired,” she said, her voice weary.
“That’s to be expected.”
He carried the crock outside and upended it to give the bottom a good pounding. Last thing he wanted to do was dump their precious water into a crock that could just as easily be home to a rattler.
Nothing fell out but dust and the finest bit of chaff off grain.
He took it back inside and carefully poured most of the water into the crock. “This will have to do for cooling you down. Ain’t the cleanest, but you’re covered in grit anyway.”
That earned him a fleeting grin. He returned it, but she didn’t see. Just as well. Her chest was still rising and falling too quickly, and her face was still pink.
He took the dried bandana off her chest and doused it in water. A whiff of her scent rose from the wet cloth, mingling with the smell of his sweat.
It stirred to life the memory that was never far from his mind. Of the two of them back in that hayloft, arms and legs entwined and bodies writhing as one.
Dammit, he shouldn’t be thinking about sex now. But seeing her lying there tempted him to claim what he’d been denied the past six months.
The wet bandana had plastered her chemise to her bosom and rendered it nigh on transparent. Not that he needed to see her naked to remember that the tips of her breasts were the color of a ripe peach. That her nipples would bud under his thumb and forefinger or his tongue.
That her skin smelled of roses and tasted like honey, warm and sweet and smooth.
That despite his desire for revenge and big talk, he was hard with wanting her in his arms again.
“This will be a shock,” he said.
He squeezed a little water from the bandana then plopped it on her chest. She sucked in a sharp breath, her back arching, small hands clamping onto his wrists so hard he knew her nails scored half-moons on his skin.
Just as quickly she relaxed; her hands slipped off his to fall in her lap. “Mmm.”
“Rest.” He doused her handkerchief in the pail, wrung it out, and laid the cool folded cloth back on her forehead. “I’ll be back as soon as I tend to the horses.”
She didn’t reply, but he hadn’t expected her to. He grabbed the pail and headed back out into the blistering heat, unnerved by the new emotions playing hell inside him.
He managed to pump another pail of water before the well played out. Just as well because he was about spent too.
Today seemed a helluva lot hotter to him. He was sweating like hell, but it evaporated long before it could cool him down.
Thank God the adobe was still standing. Otherwise they’d be huddled with the horses under the thin shade of the old mesquite.
After he filled their canteens, he carried the pail into the pen and poured the rest of the water into the small trough. It’d be enough to see the horses through the rest of the day, and what they didn’t use in the adobe would give the animals a drink before they headed out in the morning.
Morning. Damned, they’d have to spend the night together in the adobe. Just the two of them with her half dressed.
“If this ain’t one helluva fix,” he said.
His gelding whickering softly, as if agreeing. Daisy’s mare tossed her head once, as if moving away from the few long bean pods was too damned much to ask.
Trey kicked at the baked ground, cussing roundly that there was little for the horses to eat except leaves and mesquite pods. He hated leaving them here where they could pick up a damned thorn. Hated that he’d tarried too long with Daisy, his thoughts centered on getting his hands on a land title instead of on getting the hell out of here when they could.
Now they’d be obliged to wait until she was fit to ride. He could hope that would be tonight, but he wasn’t going to bet on it.
He squinted at the hazy horizon. Nothing out there. At least nothing he could see. But he knew this land. He knew there were plenty of arroyos and draws a person could hide in. Was Ned out there watching? Had he moved on?
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