The Lone Rancher (19 page)

She preceded him out of the door to ride home for supper, as she had promised Butler. Quin watched the seductive sway of her curvaceous hips and sighed in defeat. He was crazy about Boston. He admired her spirit, her intellect and her keen wit. Not to mention her mesmerizing green eyes and enticing body that aroused him to the extreme. He also liked that she stood up to him, for him. She was a challenge he loved to face.

He wondered how much more she'd have to
like
him for her to move back to his big, lonely, quiet house and bring her adopted family with her.

She'd have to
love
him, he decided. Considering her mistrust of men and their ulterior motives, he doubted
she'd allow herself to care that much for him or any other man.

Didn't it figure that of all the women who were eager to share his name and his fortune, he desired a woman who didn't want to marry him, even if he got down on bended knee and begged?

He'd laugh at the irony but it just wasn't that damn funny.

A
drianna's gaze narrowed in annoyance when she saw Ezra Fields, carrying an unlit torch, scuttle from Quin's bunkhouse after dark. He dashed around the corner like the rat he was. Beside her, Cahill muttered a creative string of obscenities when Ezra skulked into the barn. He returned a few minutes later, leading the strawberry roan that had disappeared from the pasture shortly after supper.

“What do you suppose tonight's excursion entails?” she murmured as she and Quin sat atop their horses, watching Ezra's discreet departure from 4C headquarters.

“He isn't carrying a can of kerosene,” Quin whispered back. “My guess is our cattle will go missing tonight.”

Adrianna reined behind the calving shed when Ezra glanced every which way to make sure no one saw him leave the premises. As expected, he lit the torch,
then headed for the adjoining gate between the 4C and Mc Knight Ranch.

“Bastards,” Quin growled when Chester Purvis, riding the brown horse with white stockings, appeared in the moonlight. He also lit a torch as he approached. “Here.” Cahill handed Adrianna his spare Colt .45 but she shook her head.

“I have one of my own.”

“I hope you know how to use it, Boston, and I hope you won't have to. It's not too late for you to go home.”

“And let you have all the fun? Why do you think I came to Texas? It's not to sit at home in the parlor and crochet doilies.”

“Well, don't get shot,” he cautioned. “You won't have any fun if you're bleeding all over yourself.”

“Your concern is touching,” she mocked lightly. “I get all quivery inside, thinking how much you care.”

He mumbled something under his breath, then took off, following the tree-lined stream that eventually became Triple Creek—the main water source for her ranch and his.

Adrianna swore softly when she saw Ches grab fence cutters from his saddlebag. Methodically, he clipped the wires as if he'd done it countless times—and chances were, he had. The two rustlers trotted off to sort out a dozen head of Cahill steers, then sent them through the opening in the fence. Then they herded a dozen longhorns that Adrianna planned to send up the trail to Dodge City in a few weeks.

She nudged Buckshot, determined to catch the thieves red-handed but Cahill grabbed her reins, bringing the gray gelding to an abrupt halt.

“Not yet. Let's see if anyone else is involved and where they're taking the cattle for safekeeping.”

Adrianna chastised herself for jumping the gun. Quin was right. They needed to know if a third cowboy was waiting at another site to herd the cattle away from the two ranches or if they would pen them in a makeshift corral.

A half-hour later, the two rustlers veered toward an isolated, dead-end ravine on McKnight property. Adrianna glanced around but she didn't see another rider waiting to join Chester and Ezra.

“Well, I'll be damned,” Cahill muttered sourly.

Adrianna glanced in the direction he pointed to see the men ride up to a rock ledge halfway up the hill. They picked up a note, then divided up the money waiting for them.

“What the devil is going on?” Adrianna murmured as the men pocketed the money, then rode downhill.

“Stay here, Boston,” he whispered. “If gunfire breaks out and you start shooting, try not to hit me.”

She waited in a grove of trees east of the ravine, despite the urge to join Cahill while he confronted those low-down, double-crossing rustlers who pretended loyalty to the 4C and McKnight Ranch. But she supposed Cahill was right. She was the element of surprise—if he needed reinforcements. But he had better not get himself shot, either, or she'd never forgive him!

With both pistols drawn, Cahill made his presence known to the thieves. When they tried to grab their pistols, Cahill growled threateningly. “Toss 'em in the dirt.
Now
.”

Ezra defied him and went for his weapon but Cahill
shot his gun hand, then hit the cartwheeling pistol in midair, making it dance sideways before it hit the ground.

“Try it again, Ez, and I'll take you in, jackknifed over your saddle. Your choice.”

Adrianna decided right there and then that Cahill had gone easy on her during their previous confrontations. The man possessed amazing shooting skills and he could sound unnervingly vicious and deadly when he felt the need. In the scant moonlight and flickering torchlight, she could see Ez's and Chester's Adam's apples bobbing apprehensively.

Good, she thought, they deserved to be scared half to death after all the rotten things they had done.

When Chester tossed aside his weapon, Cahill pointed at the torches. “Drop those in the dirt.” When they did as ordered, he called out to her—without taking his eyes off his captives. “There's a rope in my saddlebags, Boston. Let's tie them up and retrieve their discarded weapons.”

Both men jerked up their heads when Adrianna appeared from the shadows of the trees. She didn't display her pistol or the dagger she kept tucked in her boot for desperate occasions. Those weapons were her aces in the hole.

Without a word, she reached into the leather pouches to retrieve ropes, noting the extensive length of each. She wondered if Cahill had planned it that way.

“It's a long walk in the dark but the fresh air will do you both good,” Cahill remarked.

She approached the men on horseback, then demanded, “Get down, and do it carefully. Just so you know, I voted
to shoot you both and be done with it, but Cahill decided to let you live…
if
you behaved.” She tossed Cahill a quick glance. “I still vote to shoot 'em dead and bury 'em with their boots on. Either that or use the ropes to hang 'em high. I haven't attended a lynching yet. This will be my first.”

“We'll see how it goes, Boston. For now, tie their wrists, then wrap the rope around their waists…in case I feel the need to drag them behind the horses until they tell us what we want to know.”

Their Adam's apples bobbed again and she could see the whites of their eyes in the moonlight. Clearly, they didn't put the threat past Cahill. “I've heard of the tactic, but I've never seen it,” she commented offhandedly as she wrapped Ezra's wrists—thrice—then encircled his hips with rope. “Is it true that you can drag a man's skin off his bones when his horse is racing at full gallop?”

“It is,” Cahill confirmed grimly. “I've seen it happen accidentally during cattle drives. A cowboy can fall off and get his foot stuck in the stirrup. He can be pretty torn up by the time you stop his horse and prop him upright.”

Ezra and Chester glanced uneasily at each other while Adrianna bound Chester in a similar fashion, then tied the ropes to the pommels of their saddles. When she swatted both horses on the rumps, the men gasped, then stumbled forward in an attempt to maintain their balance.

Adrianna stepped up behind Ezra to fish into the back pocket of his breeches. She retrieved the note and the money. Then she confiscated Chester's money on her way to pluck up the discarded pistols. There wasn't
enough light to read the note so she tucked it, and the money, in the pocket of her jacket before she mounted Buckshot.

“Now then,” Cahill said ominously, “whose idea was it to torch Boston's house?”

“We don't know,” Chester muttered as he jogged to keep up with his trotting horse.

Cahill didn't give them a second warning, just eased up to swat both horses, forcing the captives into a dead run to keep up. When Ezra tripped and fell, he yelped while his horse dragged him across the rocky, uneven terrain.

“Who is giving you orders?” Cahill snarled.

“We don't know. God's truth!” Chester howled, then stumbled and bumped along, his chin bouncing on the ground.

Adrianna watched unsympathetically as the rustlers skidded across the ground. They were a long way from having their hides peeled off but to hear the cowardly bastards wail and yelp you'd swear they had been skinned alive.

“Let's try this again,” Cahill barked harshly. “Who is paying you to rustle cattle, cut fences and set fires?”

“We don't know, I tell you!” Ches shrieked as he tried—and failed—to bolt to his feet.

“The same person who killed one of your partners at Phantom Springs and set me up to take the blame for murder?” Cahill snarled.

“What? Hell, no!” Ezra panted. “We don't know nothing about that. We were paid to steal cattle, set fires and keep you and Miz McKnight at odds and that's all!”

Cahill growled like an enraged grizzly, then sent the horses into a faster clip.
“Who…hired…you?”
he demanded.

“We don't know, I swear,” Ezra gasped as his horse dragged him across the ground. “Somebody left notes and money in our trunks and told us to contact each other over a year ago. Now we receive our instructions and payments at the rock ledge.”

“Why did you kill your partners? What do you know about Ruby and Earl's wagon wreck?” Adrianna interrogated sharply.

“Nothing!” Chester railed, then yelped in pain. “We had nothing to do with that. Just rustling and fires.”

“How long have these men been cowhands?” she asked Cahill.

“About two years, give or take,” he replied.

“Long enough to be involved in the wagon wreck at Ghost Canyon,” she decided.

“
What? No!
I told you we don't know nothing about that,” Ches denied frantically. “Nobody said nothing to us about a wagon accident. I
swear
.”

Quin was beginning to believe the men. Which was even more troubling. It suggested that whoever was stealing from 4C and McKnight Ranch, as well as others in the area, were not necessarily involved in the robbery plot and wagon wreck that had claimed his parents' lives.

Damn it to hell! He might never know the truth. He couldn't locate or identify the three men who rode off that night from Phantom Springs, even when Burnett and Dog helped him follow the outlaws' tracks.

Well, at least one thing went right tonight,
he mused
as he halted the two horses and allowed his captives to mount up. Boston had gone along without suffering a scratch. That was a gigantic relief.

He glanced at her, watching moonbeams bathe her elegant features in light and shadows. He couldn't imagine why any man wouldn't appreciate her fiery spirit and courage, rather than seeing her as a meal ticket that could make his life comfortable.

There was so much more to Boston than her wealth and outer beauty. She had a strong sense of self and she was teeming with irrepressible intelligence. She knew who she was and what she wanted, as he did. He couldn't fault her for that.

“Something wrong, Cahill?”

He snapped to attention when she caught him staring at her. “No. Just thinking.” But he didn't tell her about what.

“Me, too,” she said pensively. “Should we take these two men to jail or lock them in the smokehouse for the night?”

“I've seen more of Marshal Hobbs than I care to recently,” Quin mumbled. “These two men can spend the night in the shack, nursing their wounds. Tomorrow is soon enough to haul them to town and press charges.”

An hour later, Quin had the captives bound and tied in the shack. When he exited to lock the door, Boston was waiting for him. The reins to her horse dangled from her fingertips.

“I suppose Butler and Company are fretting about where you are,” he remarked as they walked uphill to the house.

“No, I told them I'd be gone awhile and you would be assisting me in solving the mystery about the rustling.”

“Yeah?” He smiled wryly. “But Butler fusses over you. How long before he sends out a search party?”

Boston returned his grin. “I have a couple of hours to spare,” she assured him.

Quin took the reins and tethered both horses near the front door. The moment he shut the door behind them he scooped Boston off the floor and headed up the steps. She didn't object when he took her to the master suite—and showed her how grateful he was for her help in capturing Ezra and Chester….

 

“Well? Did your evening adventure come to a satisfying conclusion, Addie K.?”

Adrianna glanced up the staircase in her home to see Butler looking as casual as she'd ever seen him. His white shirt hung outside his black breeches and he was in his stocking feet. She didn't tell him that her evening had come to a fiery, explosive encounter in Cahill's bed. That was intimate and private information she wasn't about to share with anyone. Besides, Butler was referring to her attempt to track down the rustlers and arsonists.

“Yes, as a matter of fact,” she confided as she climbed the steps. “One of my cowhands and one of Cahill's has been plotting against us and we intercepted a note with orders to set a fire at one of Cahill's line shacks this week.”

“Did you haul the scoundrels to jail?” Butler asked hopefully.

“No, they are spending the night in Cahill's smokehouse, awaiting transport to jail in the morning.”

“Good.” Butler breathed an audible sigh of relief, then sidestepped to let Adrianna pass. “Now that we have that settled and out of the way, the marshal can interrogate the perpetrators concerning their roles in the Phantom Springs murder…and Beatrice and I want to get married this weekend,” he said in the same breath.

Adrianna didn't correct his assumption that she and Cahill had established a connection between the rustlers and the recent murder. She didn't want to spoil his grand announcement.

“That's wonderful!” she enthused. “I'll plan a par—”

“No,” Butler cut in. “We prefer a private ceremony without fanfare to begin our new life together in Texas.”

“I'm giving you and Bea full use of this house,” she said generously.

His hazel eyes nearly popped out of his head. “That is too kind, Addie K. Besides, where will you and Elda live?”