Dawn Comes Early (40 page)

“It's not safe, you must go,” she whispered with feverish haste. Seemingly oblivious to the dangers that could befall him, he kissed her soundly on the lips before slipping away into the wretched darkness.

K
ate was shocked when Luke galloped up on his horse. He was the last person she expected to see—wanted to see. She had stepped outside to get some fresh air before facing Miss Walker and all those legal papers. Already the banker had arrived to serve as witness, along with a man she guessed was Miss Walker's lawyer.

Luke dismounted, wrapped the reins around a hitching post, and strode up to her like a soldier marching to war. He looked serious, but no less handsome, and her stomach fluttered nervously even as she protested his presence. She had nothing more to say to him.

“W-What are you doing here?” she stammered. Hadn't she made her position clear?

He pushed his leather hat back, a strand of brown hair sweeping across his forehead. “Michael said you were about to sign papers forbidding you to marry.”

Hearing the words from him made them sound so final. Her breath caught in her throat but she managed to nod.

“Why?” He frowned. “Why would you do such a thing? Why would you throw away your life like that?” He moved closer and she backed away.

“I'm not throwing away my life. I love it here.” And she'd worked hard to get to this point. “And one day this will all be mine.”

He continued to advance and she moved back, matching him step by step in an odd sort of dance. “You still didn't answer my question. Why would you do such a thing?”

He backed her all the way to the side of the barn, allowing her no room to escape, and panic gushed inside. “I told you.”

He stopped inches away from her. “I've heard a lot of dumb things in my life, but this has got to be the dumbest.”

“It's not dumb.” She lifted her chin in defiance. “Running a ranch is an honorable profession.”

“So is teaching or writing.” In a quieter voice he added, “So is marriage.”

Her stomach clenched tight. “Marriage?”

He shrugged. “Most women want to get married. Why don't you?”

“Why is that any of your concern?” she asked. “Will you tell me that?”

He looked genuinely puzzled. “I just hate to see someone throw their life away on a piece of land.”

“This is not just a piece of land. It's the history of a family and I'll be part of it. I'll be helping to create a legacy.”

He studied her. “I can't believe you would settle for so little.”

Little?
Her temper snapped. “You know nothing about me or what I want.”

“I know you're a writer,” he said.

“The last book I wrote was banned. Did you know that? Banned!”

“So you decided to become a rancher and sign some stupid pact not to get married?” He scratched his head. “That don't make a lick of sense.”

“It doesn't have to make sense. It's what I want to do.”

A muscle quivered at his jaw. “Why, Kate? Tell me why.” He grabbed her by the arm and she pulled away.

“Don't touch me. You're . . . you're just like the others. I thought you were different but you're not.” Lashing out at him was the only way she knew to make him leave her alone. “You're cruel and hurtful and—”

He stepped back as if she'd slapped him. “What have I done to make you think such a thing?”

“At the dance. The fight with old man Parker.”

A sheepish expression crept across his face. He placed his hands at his waist. “I feel bad about that. Parker and my uncle started to argue . . .” He shook his head. “When it comes to protecting family, I don't always see straight.”

She bit her lip. “You were protecting your uncle?”

“It was what you might call a misunderstandin'. I just wanted to keep Parker from sharpenin' his horns on my uncle. I can fight and shoot a gun with the best of them, but most of the time I'm as harmless as a bee in butter. What happened at the dance . . .” He shrugged. “You can't hold that against me.”

Defenses weakening, she tightened her hands into fists by her sides. “It's not just the dance.” For some reason it seemed necessary to make him understand why the ranch was the only life she wanted, held the only future she could trust.

“My father left when I was five and after that, every man walked out on my mama and me.”

“I'm not your pa,” he said, as if a simple statement would set everything right. “I'm not those other men.”

She took a sharp intake of air. She wanted so much to believe him. She wanted to believe in goodness and kindness and love everlasting, but how could she? The only real happiness she'd ever known had been here on the ranch. She could now ride a horse almost as well as the cowpokes and had grown to love the desert's stark beauty. There was no place else she would rather live. So why did Luke always make her question her own motives and desires?

“Goldilocks!”

She glanced at the ranch house. Ruckus beckoned from the verandah and Kate fought for resolve. Land was her future. It offered her permanence, and that was something she'd never known. Marriage offered no such security, and neither did Luke.

She gazed at his handsome face and could hardly breathe. He was like other men, he was. She had to believe that, because to believe otherwise could put her future in jeopardy.

“I've got to go.” She turned to leave, but Luke caught her by the wrist, his fingers pressed firmly into her flesh. She lifted her gaze to his beseeching eyes and she felt her last bit of control slip away.

“I'm asking you . . . pleading with you not to sign those papers.”

“Goldilocks!”

She couldn't speak, couldn't think. She was pulled in two different directions. Luke could never give her the security she needed, so why did she feel tempted by him? Had he not stepped back at that moment, his face grim, she might have altogether caved in—and that would have been a terrible mistake.

“Kate, the truth is . . . I have a hankering for you.”

“A . . . hankering?”

He frowned. “I guess there's no choice but to spell it out. I love you, Kate Tenney, and I plumb don't know how to say it any clearer than that.”

She shook her head and backed away from him. His words were like a slap in the face. Love was not what she wanted to hear.
Love isn't gentle. Love isn't kind
.
Love isn't lasting
. He held out his hand and she backed away more.

“If you turn away now, that will be the end, I swear.”

“I'm sorry,” she whispered. Hurt glittered in his eyes, but nothing could be done about that. He'd soon forget her. Maybe by tomorrow or sometime next week. That's how men were. Here today, gone tomorrow.

“Kate?”

Hand on her hat, she turned and ran. She was one signature away from a bright and happy future. It was what she wanted. It was what she'd hoped for and prayed for and worked for these past few months. So why did it feel like she was running away?

Chapter 34

E
verything in order?” Eleanor asked.

She sat behind her desk peering through her spectacles at her lawyer, Jesse Barker. Her doctor insisted she wear them for close work, but they were more trouble than they were worth. She pulled the glasses off and tossed them aside.

Barker stuck his quizzing glass in his right eye and riffled through the document in his hand. “Yes. All she has to do is sign on the dotted line.”

Her lawyer's ill-chosen plaid suit and dated handlebar mustache hid a brilliant legal mind, and Eleanor trusted him implicitly with her affairs. He had an office in Tombstone between Tough Nut and Allen Streets and claimed to try more cases in the town's many saloons than the stately courthouse.

“I think you're making a big mistake,” Robert said. “Turning this property over to a woman who can barely stay in a saddle makes no sense.” Robert leaned against the wall, arms crossed in front, handsome as ever.

“O.T. and Ruckus say she has potential,” Eleanor said. Both men did, however, express reservations regarding Kate's tendency to daydream. A problem, indeed. Working with cattle demanded one's full and undivided attention. But the girl had tenacity, and Eleanor was convinced that proper training would overcome her less desirable traits.

“Actually, she reminds me a little of myself.”

The truth was—and she hadn't even admitted this to Robert—she was tired. Tired of fighting. Tired of trying to stay ahead of the competition. Ever since Geronimo's surrender nine years earlier, an alarming influx of settlers had flocked to the area. Cattle ranches had popped up like grass in the rain. Some were small and some, like the Three C Company with its thirty thousand heads of cattle, enormous. All infringing on the Last Chance financially and physically, using up precious resources.

What the Last Chance needed was young blood to carry it into the next century. Eleanor needed someone to bounce ideas off and do the heavy lifting, under her watchful eye, of course. She needed someone with the tenacity of a desert flower, willing to fight the battles, meet the challenges, and stay progressive. Someone with the imagination of a writer. Oh yes. She needed Kate.

“There will never be anyone like you,” Robert said.

“I had to learn and she'll learn too.”

“You could sell this property and be set for life,” he persisted.

She regarded him from beneath raised eyebrows. “And then what?”

“You could travel. You live in Arizona Territory and you've never even seen the Grand Canyon.”

She laughed. “At my age I try to avoid anything that resembles a hole in the ground.”

“Ah, but there's always Paris,” he said, his eyes aglow with teasing lights.

Eleanor grimaced. “Robert, you have no sense of posterity. My mother started this ranch and she made me promise to pass it on to my children.” Her gaze dropped to the drawer where she kept a daguerreotype of her long-deceased daughter. “Unfortunately, that was not meant to be. Miss Tenney is the next best thing.”

“You have a brother. Surely he has a family? Wouldn't it make more sense to leave the ranch to one of your nieces or nephews? I know a Pinkerton detective who would be happy to track down your family.”

Eleanor planted the palms of both hands on her forehead. “Stop right there. I have no desire to see my brother
or
his family.” Stephen was just as much a ne'er-do-well as their father, and she had no intention of tracking him down after all these years. “I have my heiress.”

Robert scoffed. “Since you insist Miss Tenney not marry, who will inherit the ranch from her?”

She pointed to the papers in her lawyer's hand. “It's all written out. She will do what I have done. She will find a suitable candidate as her replacement.”

“There may not be a ranch by then,” he said.

“Nonsense. People will always eat beef. It's in their blood.”

“Yes, but even the Babbitts have diversified.”

Eleanor rolled her eyes. The so-called cattle barons of northern Arizona had invested in mercantile stores, of all things. “That's because they don't know what they're doing. Anyone foolish enough to run sheep and cattle on the same spread has no business calling himself a rancher.”

“Maybe not, but even you have to admit the cattle business is on the decline. The railroad has made cattle drives obsolete. Now everyone thinks he's a rancher. Too much competition has lowered the prices. I don't need to tell you this.”

“Yes, it is harder today.” The depression of '93 hadn't helped. “But I've survived worse times.”

It made her head swim just to think about it. The Last Chance had survived the hardest of times, but that was only because she went after business with no thought of politics or popular opinion. She sold to both the Union and Confederate armies, even though others condemned her and called her a traitor.