Mail Order Cowboy (Harlequin American Romance) (2 page)

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Authors: Pamela BAUER

BOOK: Mail Order Cowboy (Harlequin American Romance)
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Jeremy’s face wore the same look of concern. “So far so good,” he told her a few minutes later, his nose pressed against the pane. When another bolt of lightning split the sky, Gabby pulled him away.
“You know what your mother said about being near the window when there’s lightning,” she warned.
Jeremy backed away slowly. “That’s weird,” he said as he continued to stare outside but at a safe distance from the glass. “There’s all sorts of lightning, but there’s no thunder.”
“We can’t hear it because we’re inside.”
“But look at all that lightning! What if Outlaw got struck!”
Gabby drew Jeremy into the circle of her arms. “That dog’s too smart to be outside in the rain. I’m sure he’s in one of the sheds,” she said in a soothing tone.
“I hope so. It would be awful to be stuck outside in this stuff.”
Gabby was worried, too, but not about Outlaw. She could picture a man carrying a suitcase getting drenched by the rain. She could only hope the bus had been delayed.
For several minutes they watched in silence as the rain and lightning continued.
As soon as it stopped, Jeremy made a bee-line for the door.
“Where are you going?” Gabby called after him.
“To find Outlaw.”
Gabby thought about going with him, but worried that Alfred Dumler might try to call. It was probably better that she wait at the house.
That didn’t prevent her from anxiously pacing back and forth between kitchen window and back door, squinting as she stared out at the drive leading to the county road. A call to the bus company confirmed her suspicions—the bus was running behind schedule. However, it had already passed through Stanleyville, which meant Mr. Dumler would have arrived by now were he coming.
Gabby hung up the phone with a sigh. Maybe it wasn’t going to be easy after all. If she couldn’t find a husband for Hannah in the personal ads, where would she look next?
 
JEREMY HAD BEEN through the bam, the two pole sheds, even the chicken coop, but there was no sign of Outlaw. He had searched nearly every inch of the homestead without any luck. There was only one place left to look.
The Nelson forty, which was next to the highway.
Fear forced its way into his chest causing his heartbeat to accelerate. Jeremy rode his bike down the dirt road with urgency. He didn’t want to believe that Outlaw could be lying on the asphalt hurt—or worse yet, dead.
He said a quick prayer and pedaled faster.
He was halfway down the dirt road when he heard the faint sound of barking. The closer he got to the highway, the stronger the barking became. A smile spread across Jeremy’s face. It was Outlaw. He’d recognize that bark anywhere.
Jeremy jumped off his bike. “Outlaw. Here, boy!” He whistled through his teeth, but the dog didn’t come to him, though he continued to bark.
Again Jeremy called to him. Finally, the part collie, part St. Bernard came running out of a small grove of trees. He stopped about midway, barked, then turned around and ran back to the trees.
Jeremy followed him, running through tall grass. It was an area of the farm that hadn’t been cleared for planting and was called the Nelson forty because it was forty acres of land his great-grandfather had purchased from a man named Nelson. It was too hilly for irrigation, so thick brush and gnarly old trees—many of them dead—were left to grow wild. Jeremy had wanted to build a tree house in one of the old oaks, but his mother had nixed the idea. His grandfather had said it was because it was the only place on the farm ever to be hit by lightning—a memory firmly planted in his mother’s mind.
Outlaw continued to bark and jump around excitedly. As Jeremy drew closer, he saw that the oak tree he would have used for a tree house had been struck by lightning. A huge limb had been ripped away from the trunk, leaving the tree split in two.
Then later he saw why Outlaw was barking. A man lay on the ground beneath the oak.
The branch that had been torn off rested directly above his head. The man’s position made it look as if he had fallen off the tree when the limb had split away. His arms were raised over his head, his legs spread apart, almost as if he were making a snow angel, Jeremy thought. Cautiously, he moved closer to him.
“Mister, are you all right?”
There was no sound except for Outlaw’s barking.
“Outlaw, shut up!” After a couple of whines of protest, the dog finally quit barking.
Jeremy knelt down beside the man and leaned over him. His clothes were dusty and awfully wrinkled. Everything was brown—his shirt, his vest, even his jeans, which were tucked inside black boots that came nearly to his knees. His dark hair was littered with debris—mainly straw and leaves—and dirt streaked his sunburned face.
“How do you suppose he got so dirty?” Jeremy asked Outlaw in a near whisper.
The dog whimpered and sniffed the inert man.
“Stop that,” Jeremy scolded him, throwing his arm in the front of the dog and effectively pushing him out of the way. “Don’t get so close to him. Mister, can you hear me?” Again Jeremy spoke, but the man showed no reaction. Not the thick, dark brows framing closed eyes, nor the slightly crooked nose, nor the thick bushy mustache, trimming lips that looked dry and cracked from the sun.
“Do you think he’s dead?” Jeremy asked Outlaw in a small voice.
Outlaw barked.
“He’s not,” Jeremy protested. “Or at least I don’t think he is.” He really didn’t know for sure, but he didn’t want to contemplate the possibility that there was a dead man beside him. It was too spooky.
Still, he needed to know for sure. “Go ahead, boy. Say hello to him.” This time Jeremy urged the dog forward. The collie sniffed around the man’s form, but didn’t lick his face—which is what Jeremy hoped he would do.
“I guess if you won’t touch him, I’m going to have to,” Jeremy told Outlaw with a grimace.
The question was, where? There were only three places with exposed flesh—his face, his neck and his hands. Somehow it didn’t seem right to mess with his face. And his neck... well, that had an ugly bruise on it in the shape of an upside down V. He couldn’t touch a sore on another person’s body. That left only his hands.
Both were curled tightly into fists. Warily, Jeremy reached for the left one. His fingers hung in the air over the knuckles for several seconds before they finally made contact. As his skin met the stranger’s, a tingling sensation prickled Jeremy’s fingertips, traveling up his arm and throughout his body. Startled by the sensation, he jumped backward.
“He must have been struck by lightning. He’s giving off shocks!” Jeremy told Outlaw who had withdrawn as far away as his master. Jeremy glanced once more at the broken tree, then hopped on his bike and pedaled as fast as he could back to the house, Outlaw racing alongside of him. By the time they reached the porch, they were both winded.
“Gabby, there’s a dead man in the Nelson forty! He must have been hit by lightning cuz he’s dead, and when I touched him it felt like electricity was running through my whole body!” Jeremy said in a rush, his eyes wide, his face flushed.
Gabby felt her heart race. “Jeremy, slow down and repeat yourself. You’re talking too fast. Now tell me what’s wrong,” she instructed, not wanting to believe she could have heard him correctly.
“I told you. There’s a dead man in the Nelson forty!” He recounted how he had found the man while looking for Outlaw.
Gabby felt her knees go weak. “Oh, my,” she cried out, then sank down onto the wooden porch swing. “Oh, this can’t be. It just can’t be. He can’t be dead!”
“He looks dead,” Jeremy assured her.
Gabby pulled a lace-trimmed handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed at her brow. A dead man in the Nelson forty was bad enough, but a dead man who had answered an ad and was coming to visit Hannah was horrible. A live mail-order groom was going to be difficult enough to explain to Hannah, but a dead one? Gabby fanned her cheeks with her handkerchief. “I need a glass of water. Go quickly!” she panted.
Jeremy did as he was instructed. Gabby took a sip, then splattered a few drops on her wrists. After regaining her composure, she stood and said, “We’d better take a look at him.”
“It’s a long walk,” Jeremy warned her.
“I’ll make it.” Normally Gabby wouldn’t even consider walking to the Nelson forty, but she needed to get to Alfred Dumler—if it was Alfred Dumler—before Hannah returned. She followed Jeremy out the back door and down the dirt road.
Through the tall grass they trekked, Jeremy with the exuberance of a child running ahead of her. By the time Gabby caught up with him in the Nelson forty, he was slowly spinning around.
Short of breath, Gabby asked, “How much farther is it?”
“He’s not here!” Jeremy circled the oak in disbelief. “He was right here beneath this big branch.” His foot kicked at the limb that had fallen off the tree.
Gabby felt an enormous sense of relief. At least Alfred Dumler wasn’t dead. It might not have even been the mail-order groom Jeremy saw. “Maybe it was someone taking a nap...you know, a hitchhiker.”
“He looked dead.”
“Thank goodness he wasn’t.” Gabby put her arm around her nephew’s shoulder. “Come. Let’s go get the mail, then we’ll go back to the house, and I’ll make you some lemonade.”
They walked back down the road until they came to the big gray mailbox resting on a wooden post. Gabby reached inside and pulled out the stack of envelopes. Before she had a chance to look at them, Jeremy shouted, “Look. There he is!”
Gabby looked up and saw a strange man, who was obviously disoriented. He staggered as he walked, moving first in one direction, then another. Even from a distance Gabby could see that he looked like a transient. Before she could warn Jeremy not to go after him, he and Outlaw were already running in his direction. Gabby had no choice but to follow.
The man stopped moving when he saw the pair of them coming toward him. Gabby tried to connect the scruffy-looking man with the clean-cut farmer in the photograph in her lock box. She was about to dismiss the possibility that it could be Alfred Dumler when the man called out, “Hannah?”
“Gabby, he knows my mom’s name!” Jeremy said in a fearful voice.
Gabby’s heart beat in her throat. Slowly she approached the man. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m looking for Hannah....” Before he could say another word, the stranger passed out in a heap at their feet.
“Oh, my!” Gabby declared in horror, dropping the small pile of mail. “It is him!”
Chapter Two
J
eremy automatically stooped to pick up the mail, which the wind was threatening to scatter in several different directions. “You know him?” He looked at his aunt quizzically as he handed her what he thought was all of the mail. Unnoticed by either of them was a thin white envelope that had lodged itself between two stalks of corn.
“I might.” She wrung her hands together as she stared at his unshaven face. “I’m not sure. It’s hard to tell if he’s the man in the picture.”
“What picture?”
Gabby didn’t answer. “He did ask for your mother, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Then it must be him.”
“Who?”
“Alfred Dumler. Although he’s not at all what I expected.” She studied the unconscious man, pressing a finger to her lips as she contemplated what she should do now that he had actually arrived.
“How come he’s dressed so weird?” Jeremy wanted to know.
It was a question Gabby wanted answered, too. Although the photo of Mr. Dumler had been creased, making it difficult to see his face, she could tell that he was a clean-cut young man. It was one of the reasons she had agreed to his visit. He had
looked
trustworthy. Now that he was here, she could see she may have made a serious error in judgment.
His clothes were wrinkled, his hair unruly and his jaw unshaven. And he was dirty. Why, he looked like a bum! How dare he mislead her into thinking he was suitable husband material! Gabby would have liked to boot his dirty butt right back on the bus and send him back to Nebraska.
Two things stopped her. One was the fact that he was obviously not able to get back on the bus, and the other . was her stubbornness. She refused to believe that she could have been wrong about her choice for Hannah’s mail-order groom.
Gabby studied his sunburned face. He did have a straight nose—well, almost straight—which in Gabby’s opinion meant he was a good decision maker. That small bump halfway down indicated he worked hard. As a nose reader, Gabby was the best, and this guy’s proboscis told her he had good qualities. The tattered clothes could simply mean he had been down on his luck.
The longer Gabby stared at the man’s face, the less offensive it became. In fact, she began to find it attractive—despite the grime and the beard stubble. It had a mustache, a good, strong chin and a mouth that even in repose said “I get my way.” Gabby figured he probably, wouldn’t put up with any crap from anyone. Not even Hannah, who Gabby knew liked to give men crap.
“Maybe we should call 911,” Jeremy suggested, but Gabby quickly dismissed the idea. She didn’t need anyone in town finding out what she had done. She hadn’t even told Hannah, who would raise a holy fit if the residents of Stanleyville knew about the plan before she did.
“We should get him some water,” Gabby said anxiously. “If he’s been walking in the sun, he’s probably suffering from heat exhaustion.”
“I think he was hit by lightning,” Jeremy contended.
Gabby shook her head. “Uh-uh. Look at his clothes. If he had been caught in the storm they’d be all wet.”
“Not if he stood under a tree.” Jeremy lowered his voice as he said, “He’s got marks on his throat.”
It was then that Gabby saw the deep red bruise ringing his neck. Could Jeremy be right? “Run back to the house and get some water,” she ordered the boy.
While he was gone, Gabby was careful not to get too close to the man. Even if he was Alfred Dumler, a man whose references she had checked carefully, she knew it would be wise to keep a safe distance. After all, she was alone.
She grimaced as she thought of what Hannah would say if she were to see him now. It was going to be hard enough to convince her she needed a groom, but this one? Gabby shuddered. What on earth could have happened to Mr. Dumler?
It was with a sigh of relief that she watched Jeremy come riding toward her on his bike, Outlaw at his side.
“Here. I put ice in it.” He handed Gabby a red plastic water bottle with a built-in straw.
Gabby pulled her handkerchief from her pocket and bent down over the man. She poured a little water onto the handkerchief and dabbed gently at his sunburned face. Next, she drizzled water across his cracked lips. “Jeremy, boy, I think he’s coming to.”
 
WOOD OPENED HIS EYES expecting to find a mob of angry men swarming him. Instead, an elderly woman and a young boy stood over him, looking at him with the same strange curiosity he knew must be on his face.
“What happened?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
“You fainted,” the old woman answered. “Too much sun, I guess.”
Behind the wire-framed glasses, blue eyes revealed a gentle spirit. Was she the one who had saved him from the lynch mob? Her voice sounded familiar, similar to the old woman who had ministered to him just before he had hung, yet she was obviously not the crone. Still, when she brushed gnarled fingers over his brow, he had the sensation that she had done so before.
He raised himself on his elbows and tried to survey the land around him, but a sharp pain in his neck had him squeezing his eyes shut. Carefully, he turned, looking for any signs of rifle-toting men on horseback, but he saw none. Only fields of tall corn...and these two oddly dressed people.
“Did you save my life?” he asked, wincing. His throat felt as if he had swallowed a torch.
The old woman and the young boy exchanged glances. “Jeremy found you in the Nelson forty. We thought maybe you had heatstroke...you know, from walking with your suitcase and all. By the way, where is your suitcase?”
Heatstroke? Suitcase? Why would he have been walking when he had a horse? Didn’t she realize that her neighbors had tried to hang him?
“You look confused. Don’t worry. That’s what too much sun does to a person.”
“It’s hot,” Wood rasped.
She chuckled. “No one expects Minnesota to be this hot in September. I remember back in 1940 when it hit ninetytwo degrees on the fourteenth of September. It was my cousin Eileen’s wedding.” She shook her head wistfully. “She chose September thinking it would be cool.”
Had she said
1940?
He frowned. She must have said
1840,
which would mean her family had been among the original settlers in this area.
Again he surveyed his surroundings. What had happened to the Nelson Homestead? The log house where he had stayed, the corral where they kept their horses, the open prairie for grazing? They were nowhere in sight.
His hands weren’t tied, and there was no rope around his neck. Wood thought the horse had slipped out from beneath him and that he had tumbled to the ground. Maybe he hadn’t fallen to the ground but ridden away on the horse. Yet how could that have happened unless someone had slipped the noose from his neck and untied his hands?
“Did you get hit by lightning?” the boy asked.
Wood wondered if that’s what had happened to him. Could it be that a bolt of lightning had saved his life? The last thing he could recall was a bright flash of light.
“I reckon I might have been,” Wood answered cautiously. “The truth is, I can’t remember.”
“You are Alfred Dumler, aren’t you?” the gray-haired woman asked.
Wood wanted to tell them that his name was James Woodson Harris, but thought better of it. He wasn’t sure who these people were, but it would do him no good to reveal his name—especially not if he was still wanted for murder. They obviously knew the Nelsons—she said they had found him in the Nelson forty. What “the forty” was he had no idea, but he wasn’t going to inquire, either. It was because of George Nelson that he had nearly been hanged.
The thought of how close he had come to death caused him to shudder. No, he couldn’t let anyone know that he was Wood Harris, the man falsely accused of killing this old woman’s neighbors. Before he could answer her question, she shot him another one.
“Maybe you should tell us why you’re in our cornfield?”
“I don’t know how I got here, ma’am,” he answered honestly.
“What
do
you remember?” she asked.
“I was looking for Hannah. She’s—” he paused, rawness in his throat again making it difficult to speak.
The old lady smiled. “I know who Hannah is. It’s okay, Alfred. You don’t need to explain. We’ve been expecting you.”
“You have?”
“Sure. Everything’s a little confused, that’s all. You poor man,” the old woman crooned in sympathy. She offered him the plastic water bottle. “Here. Take a sip. It’ll do you good.”
He took the bottle from her, staring at it for several moments before tipping it upward. It was unlike any container he had seen. When he saw water trickle through the narrow tube protruding from its top, he held it over his open mouth. The liquid did little to ease the burning in his throat.
“Is that better?” she asked solicitously.
He nodded, then sank back, feeling as weak as a foal.
“Maybe we should call for help,” the boy said.
“No,” Wood croaked, not wanting to run into any men from the vigilante group that had tried to lynch him. “No help.”
“We need to get you out of this sun,” the old lady stated. “If you think you’re able to walk, we’ll take you back to the house.”
“Whose house?” Suspicion tightened his whole body.
“Ours. It’s not far up the road. Do you think you can make it?”
Wood squinted as he glanced all around and saw nothing but cornstalks.
“Is this your corn?” He looked at the old woman inquisitively.
It was the boy who answered. “Yup. We got soybeans, too.”
“Soybeans?”
“Don’tcha know what they are?” The boy looked at him askance.
Wood could only shake his head in ignorance.
“You’ve probably just forgotten that, too. Come, let’s get you out of the sun,” Gabby said to Wood, then waved an arm at the boy saying, “Jeremy, help him up.”
Wood could see that the lad was reluctant to touch him. “I expect I can do it myself.” He rose slowly, wobbling as he stood.
The woman steadied him with a hand on his arm. “Don’t try to talk. There’ll be plenty of time for that later.” To the boy she said, “Jeremy, take his other arm. By the way, I’m Gabby Davis and this is Jeremy. I’m the one who gave you directions the other night when you called.”
Wood had no idea what she was talking about. It was obvious she had him confused with this Dumler guy, but he didn’t dare correct her. Better that she mistake him for another man than recognize him as an accused murderer. Until he knew why he was in the middle of a cornfield instead of hanging from a tree on George Nelson’s ranch, he needed to be wary of everyone. All that mattered was that he was alive and would stay that way no matter what name he had to use.
“I wonder if you got off at the bus stop in Stanleyville, rather than the one at the junction of County Roads 13 and 47,” Gabby remarked as they walked.
“Bus stop?” He shook his head in confusion. Why did she talk about things of which he had no knowledge?
It was possible that she was a bit simpleminded, considering her clothing. Wood was no authority on fashion, but one thing he knew for certain—women didn’t show their legs beneath their skirts. This woman had hemmed her dress to just below her knees. Not only did she expose flesh on her legs, but her arms were bare, too, and on her feet were the strangest looking shoes he had ever seen. Her toes stuck out a hole in the front.
From the way the boy was dressed, Wood could tell he belonged with her. His clothes looked as if they had been passed down from an older brother, baggy and loose, and like Gabby, he wore a shirt with no sleeves. Even stranger was that on one section of the shirt was a big check mark with the words Just Do It.
Do what? Wood wondered.
As they walked, Wood kept an eye out for any signs of the angry mob who wanted him dead. There were none. Not a sound of turmoil anywhere. Just a sea of com. He wondered how many people worked this farm, that they could plant so many seeds. The thought that the man who had slipped the noose around his neck could own the land filled him with apprehension.
“Who planted all of this, ma’am?” he whispered, gesturing with his arm to the cultivated fields around him.
“Barry helped Hannah with most of it,” Gabby answered. “He’s a young man who works part-time in the spring and fall.”
“Hannah’s here?” Wood could hardly believe his ears. When he had left Missouri, he had been confident he would find his younger sister and bring her home. But after several weeks of searching, his hope had dwindled.
Little did he know that his search would nearly cost him his life. George Nelson had said there had been a young woman named Hannah traveling with an outlaw suspected of being a member of the Jesse James gang. Only a few days ago they had stolen two horses from his ranch. Wood had gone back to get firsthand information from George Nelson and his wife. Only by the time he arrived, the farmer and his wife were dead. Nothing Wood had said in his own defense could convince the posse he hadn’t killed the couple.

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