Now and Forever (9 page)

“We’re ready, Parson Ruskins.” That wasn’t exactly a promise to leave his knife and fork behind when Tucker went on shepherding duty, but for now his leg would slow him down.

So, with him still sitting on the rock, his leg awkwardly extended, he turned them to face the parson.

Shannon looked at the parson, who’d somehow managed a shotgun wedding, even without a shotgun, then scanned her fur-clad wedding guests, all making up grand stories even as they stood there witnessing the rather bland truth. She noticed Sunrise looking skeptically at Tucker, a man she loved like a son.

Then Bailey came up. Shannon glanced sideways at her scowling big sister, who’d just suggested killing the groom. Possibly the worst maid of honor of all time.

It was not the wedding of a girl’s dreams, but it could have been worse. Pa could have been here.

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today . . .”

Honestly they were gathered here today because it was the nearest place they could meet after Shannon and Tucker crawled out of a hole in the ground.

The parson made short work of the vows. He was a practical man and no doubt expected all the guests to make up their own wedding anyway, even the groom most likely.

Shannon decided then and there she’d do the same. She
made up a bouquet of flowers and a smiling bridesmaid and a white dress for herself—or at least a pair of clean britches. And sure as certain she made up long, hot baths all around.

The truth wasn’t something she was overly interested in remembering.

W
hat’re you doin’ here?” Gage Coulter dragged his Stetson off his head and mopped his brow with the back of his wrist.

It was August, and even in the highlands of the Rockies it was mighty hot.

“I’m tending Shannon’s sheep.” Kylie Masterson stepped out of the house owned by Shannon, a nester on Gage’s C Bar Ranch.

“Where’s your brother?”

Kylie’s husband stepped out of the cabin right behind his wife. Aaron Masterson was a decent man, and when he’d married Kylie, that’d gotten the little woman off her homestead, which gave Gage the chance to buy it and secure it as part of his own spread.

But Masterson was a thorn in Coulter’s flesh. As land agent for the area, he kept signing up homesteaders who were grabbing claims all over Coulter’s ranch. And with the short, busy summer season keeping Coulter running,
he hadn’t had time to find them and get rid of them. If he left them through the winter, they’d be dug in and all the harder to drive out.

Coulter wasn’t a man to break the law, so he wouldn’t run a man off a legal holding, yet he could do a powerful job of pushing when he had to. And Shannon Wilde was next in line to be pushed. There were those who weren’t as honest as him. Shannon might do business with him or she might find herself facing a world of trouble with some of the less-decent landholders in the area. Rance Boyle came to mind.

One of the reasons Coulter had come over here was because of a run-in he’d just had with Boyle. The man was always trying to push cattle onto Coulter range. If he wasn’t afraid of stepping on the toes of a big rancher like Gage, he sure wouldn’t worry about a little homesteader like Shannon Wilde.

This trouble was Coulter’s own fault. He’d let himself get comfortable this far out. He hadn’t seen the homesteading rush coming. Not in this rugged wilderness. It’d just never occurred to him anyone would be stupid enough to try to homestead in such a harsh place.

Now he was scrambling to buy up the rangeland he’d figured for his, but some important water holes had been claimed.

One of them was the pond on the claim Kylie Wilde had settled on. Gage had that back. Another was the river that ran through Shannon Wilde’s property. This stretch right here was the only place with good shoreline where cattle could drink. The river was a dependable water source, and
he needed it mighty soon, as they were near the height of a long, dry summer.

Shannon Wilde had to go.

So where was he?

Masterson exchanged a long look with Kylie.

Gage, who considered himself a noticing kind of man, noticed that she looked about as worried as a woman could be. “What’s wrong?”

“Shannon is missing.” Kylie twisted her hands together, and Aaron reached down to catch one of them and hold on, comforting her. It made Gage’s belly hurt just a little. He’d thought about chasing after the pretty woman when he’d first laid eyes on her. But it hadn’t taken him long to see her heart was already fixed on Masterson, and Coulter wasn’t a man to poach.

Now he watched the two of them, joined together against a troubled world, and he knew the lack in his own life.

“What happened to him?”

Kylie might as well have been a little porcupine the way she bristled. “Do you want this homestead, Mr. Coulter? Is that why you ask? If Shannon is . . . is . . .” She covered her mouth with one hand and turned to bury her face in Masterson’s chest.

Masterson glared at Gage as if he were solely to blame for his wife’s distress.

“Now, Mrs. Masterson, I don’t want any harm to come to your brother. I want my land back, but not through your brother’s misfortune.”

“It’s not your land, Coulter.” Masterson glared over his wife’s head.

Gage didn’t see it that way, but this wasn’t the time for that argument. “I want it, but I’ll get it honest-like. I came to have it out with your brother just like I did with you. You can’t say I did a wrong thing to you.”

Kylie turned and jammed her pretty little fists on her hips. Gage looked at those fists and those hips, but made a point of not looking too long. Masterson would only put up with so much.

“It was my property. Just as this is Shannon’s property. And I will thank you to get off it.”

Gage tugged at his Stetson’s brim. “Is there anything I can do to help? There must be a search on for him. Can I join in? Can I send my men out?”

“Sunrise is hunting. Tucker went missing at the same time,” Aaron said.

“Tucker? Tucker’s missing? Nothing gets the best of him.”

“Not even falling into the Slaughter River?”

“No!” Gage knew the reputation of the Slaughter. It hit like a blow. Tucker was the next thing to a legend. The folks in and around Aspen Ridge feared him, a few didn’t even believe he existed, though he’d shown himself in town during the trouble with Kylie’s homestead and dispelled the myth that he was a ghost.

Gage hired him when he could find him, yet there was never a question of who was the boss. Tucker worked for Gage when a job required his skills, and while he worked, no one told Tucker how to go about his job. And that included the man paying him.

Gage respected him more than most any man alive. More
than that, he genuinely liked him. He didn’t give much thought to friends, but hearing of Tucker’s almost certain death twisted Gage’s gut. He realized now that it was too late, that Matt Tucker was his best friend.

They had a gruff, almost adversarial relationship mainly because Gage liked to give orders and Tucker delighted in not taking them. But after all he’d left behind when he’d been as good as driven out of Texas, a good friend was something he should have counted as precious.

Gage felt the first wave of grief.

Hoofbeats sounded behind them, and they all turned. A group making slow progress rode toward the cabin.

Kylie gasped. “Shannon!” She tore down the porch steps and raced for the group of five, even though they were still a ways off.

Masterson trotted after her. Gage saw the beaming smile on his face.

It matched his own, because Tucker was one of the riders.

The group waved at Kylie and picked up speed. Gage could tell the moment they noticed him.

One of the riders, a skinny youngster with close-cropped blond hair, drew up his mustang so suddenly it reared.

The youngster leaned close to a dark-haired woman, and the two spoke. Gage’s eyes were eagle sharp. Both of them glanced at him, and he suspected they were discussing him. They were far enough away that Gage couldn’t hear, but he knew who the youngster was. He’d come very close to meeting Kylie’s family before, at Kylie’s house. He’d caught a shadowy outline and been told there were
two brothers, and both had refused to come out of Kylie’s house. Gage had dealt with Kylie and Sunrise.

The outline had been of the blond youngster.

Tucker was so filthy it was a wonder Gage could recognize him. He might not have if it wasn’t for that grulla mustang. Coulter knew that horse. Everyone knew Tucker’s horse. A half-tamed mare with a coat such a shining gray it was nearly silver, with a black mane and tail. It was said she stayed with Tucker because she wanted to, and no one else could ride her except for maybe Sunrise. The mustang would abide her when Tucker went for one of his long hikes, but no one else. Gage knew about those long hikes, because he hired Tucker from time to time and would’ve liked to do it more. He knew just how hard it was to find the elusive mountain man.

Sunrise rode with the group.

Neville Bassett too, whom Gage had seen only a couple of times before. He was a friend of Aaron’s from back east. The dark-haired woman Gage had never seen before, who also was coated in something black, though she had washed her face and Tucker had not. The woman was riding far too close to Tucker. And Tucker couldn’t keep his eyes off her.

Kylie had yelled “Shannon.” So who was Shannon? The dark-haired woman had smiled and waved. She had to be Shannon, that or the blonde. But since Shannon and Tucker had been missing, it stood to reason the woman in a similar state of filth as Tucker was Shannon.

But wasn’t Shannon, the owner of this claim, supposed to be Kylie’s
brother
?

Coulter rode toward the group, planning to get some answers, even if he had to knock some heads together.

“What’s
he
doing here?” Bailey hissed at Shannon.

Shannon and Bailey both looked at Coulter. Saw him looking straight at them and looked away. Shannon suspected he noticed every move. He seemed like the type.

“Probably here to drive me off my homestead.” Shannon knew she should be more worried, but honestly she had so much to be worried about, fretting about Gage Coulter was barely on the list.

“Well, now that you’re married, Tucker owns this homestead. You understand that, right?”

Shannon pursed her lips. “I didn’t really know that until just now. I mean, I knew it, but I hadn’t thought about it. I’ve been busy thinking of other things.”

Now she had even more to worry about.

Far more important was hoping Tucker understood about her wanting to wait before he was given the rights of a husband. He’d said yes, but he’d had an unusual gleam in his eye that made her think of being held in his arms while they slept and being pulled close to be kissed.

Being held was wonderful and so rare in her life. In fact, she longed for the warmth of sleeping close to him tonight and every night. But she didn’t want him to misunderstand that and take it as a sign she would allow husbandly rights.

Though in fairness, her ma had died young, so she had no one to explain things to her. She honestly had no idea what husbandly rights were exactly. Though as a woman
who was familiar with animals and nature, she admitted to having a fair idea.

Shaking that from her mind, she realized she was looking at Tucker, who was looking right back at her with that same unusual gleam. She hoped his leg wasn’t paining him overly.

And were there some clean clothes for the sooty man? Did he even own a change of clothes or was sewing him a new outfit her first duty as a wife? Because she didn’t know how to wash buckskin, and that was what his filthy clothes were made of.

Tearing her eyes away from his, she looked around her homestead and saw no sign of her sheep. A lot of people might not make it of high importance, but Shannon kept fretting about how well Kylie had tended her sheep. Had the wolves eaten them all? And if any were left, was her new husband going to start right in roasting them?

And, oh, dear Lord God in heaven, she had a husband.

Sometimes minutes would go by during which she completely forgot that fact. Then it would sneak up on her—what it really meant—like it had right now. And it’d just slap her in the face.

Yep, Gage Coulter stopping by to steal her land was way down on the list. She had no intention of letting him have the homestead, but she was just now realizing she no longer had any power over that. She hoped Tucker didn’t just sign it away.

But Tucker had said he intended to stay with her. He’d promised. So that sounded like a man who wanted the land she was on. On the other hand, she knew Tucker was
friends with Coulter and had worked for him in the past. It was hard to predict what Tucker would do.

Even with Tucker’s solid support, Shannon was sure Coulter could make an almighty nuisance of himself, so she’d probably have plenty of chances to worry about him.

“I don’t want him to see me,” Bailey whispered.

Shannon had forgotten what Bailey was talking about. “Who?”

“Coulter.” Bailey sounded disgusted, like her problems were the only ones in the world.

Shannon almost snorted.

“You know I don’t want anyone to figure out I’m a woman.”

Shannon opened her mouth to remind her stubborn big sister that all those men at the wedding already knew—had figured it out with one glance. Tucker knew. Sunrise of course knew. Aaron knew. Nev knew.

Honestly, wasn’t Coulter about the last person in the area who didn’t know? She didn’t tell Bailey that, because Bailey reined her horse around and rode for home.

Seconds later, Kylie reached Shannon, crying and laughing. Shannon forgot her worries, hopped off her horse and, when Kylie would have hugged her, caught her little sister by both shoulders.

“You are going to be smeared with black soot if you hug me.” Shannon smiled. “But I’m fine. We survived.”

“I’ll wash later.” Kylie knocked Shannon’s hands aside and hugged her fiercely. “I’m so glad you’re all right.”

Aaron came up beside Kylie. “Glad you made it home, little sister. We were mighty afraid for you when we saw
where you’d fallen and heard the reputation of that stretch of water.”

Coulter rode up seconds later. “What happened, Tucker?”

Tucker and Sunrise told the tale. Tucker embellished it—a nicer word than lying.

When they reached the part where she was Kylie’s sister and she’d married Tucker, Coulter gave her a sharp look. “Sister? I thought Kylie had two brothers. In fact, I know I was told she had a brother named Shannon.”

Shannon didn’t bother trying to bluff. She figured Coulter for a smart man. “I’ve been living as a man here, wearing britches. With the name Shannon I could get away with it. I liked the independence of being thought a man. But I’m Kylie’s sister. Tucker’s known for a while.”