Western Spring Weddings

by Lynna Banning

  “You mean the part about not owning my own land?”

  In the doorway, Johnson straightened, alert to the underlying tension in the room. He rested his hand lightly on his gun handle.

  “Taxes hadn’t been paid in three years,” Rawlins said. “I paid them.”

  “Stole the place, you mean. And you know why I couldn’t get them paid.”

  He nodded again. “Your incarceration was mentioned in the newspaper. I had my eye on that property a long time, Coulter. Has a nice little stream running through it down from the mountain this time of year.”

  “I noticed your cattle were enjoying it.”

  “Hasn’t been grazed in years. There is a nice thick carpet.”

  Of course it hadn’t been grazed. After his father’s death by the cougar, Gabe’s mother had had to slowly sell off the stock to make ends meet. Few would do business with a Kumeyaay woman and her kid. He blew out a breath, unused to having to ask for anything and not liking that he was going to now. He’d best keep calm. “What will it take to get it back?”

  Rawlins tilted his head. “Who says I’m interested in selling?”

  “I do.”

  An amused glint entered the man’s gaze. “I admire your gumption, but that won’t matter in a court of law.”

  “Having been my father’s best friend at one time and considering what a decent man you are, I hoped we might be able to work something out.” Both he and Rawlins knew Gabe didn’t consider him decent about anything.

  “Is that a threat?”

  Threatening anybody would land Gabe right back in jail. He wasn’t so stupid as to not realize that. He looked down at his scruffy boots and took a deep breath. The man’s relationship with his father was his only trump card. “Look. I know my dad beat you to that parcel of land way back when you were both starting out, and it has always stuck in your craw. I also know about the water rights during the big drought. Pa would have never withheld water...but his word wasn’t good enough for you. You had to hire a lawyer that ran us into the dirt with legal fees. Now you’ve gone and swiped that land out from under me while I was locked up.”

  It didn’t faze Rawlins. “Gerald Coulter would expect his son to stay out of jail in the first place. Somebody had to pay the taxes while you were gone. If it wasn’t me, then it would have been somebody else. And like I said—I’ve had my eye on that property.”

  Gabe felt the old rage start to bubble up inside him. His hands curled into fists. “You had your eyes and your hands on a lot more than that.” The urge to strike the man nearly overwhelmed him. But he’d learned a few humbling lessons in prison. Punching Rawlins wouldn’t help his cause and right now it was the land he wanted. With considerable effort he swallowed what pride he had and told himself he’d deal with Rawlins’s history with his ma later. It wouldn’t help to bring it up now.

  “I want that land back. It belongs in my family. My folks are buried there.”

  Rawlins gave him a hard look. “Yes, they are.”

  A sinking sensation tumbled in his gut. “You buried Ma?”

  “Somebody had to.”

  It should have been him, and it tore him up inside that he hadn’t been with her when she needed him at the last. He wouldn’t let Rawlins know that. It nearly choked him to say it, but he was grateful for that bit of respect Rawlins had shown his mother. “Thank you. I’ll pay you for the land. Pay off the taxes and then some.”

  “You have the money?”

  “No. But I’ll bet I am still the best horse trainer in the territory. I’ll find work and pay you for it.”

  “That will take you years.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  Rawlins stood, walked behind his desk and stared at a framed picture sitting there. A troubled expression crossed his face. “Perhaps it is time...” He flipped the picture face down. “Your father was the best horse trainer I’ve ever known. Did he teach you?”

  Surprised, Gabe met his eyes. “Yes.”

  The man studied him. “Room and board only?”

  Was the man actually considering taking him on? He hadn’t come here to ask for a job. He figured he’d hire out to any other rancher in the valley, but not Rawlins. As he waited, the oddest sensation stretched his chest—like a screw backing out and slowly loosening its tight grip on two pieces of wood.

  “I’ll give you a try. Johnson will introduce you to the other men.” Rawlins nodded to his foreman and then strode from the room.

  It was decided so fast that Gabe was left dazed. He would be working for the largest and richest ranch in the area. He would have a roof over his head and food in his stomach, but could he tolerate it, knowing what he knew about Rawlins? Rawlins took what he wanted. Always. First he took Gabe’s mother in a vulnerable moment—after his father’s death. Then he took Riley away from him and sent her back east. And now Rawlins had the land and he hadn’t said a word about giving it up.

  What the heck was Gabe doing? Was he being as gullible—as weak—as his own mother?

  He refused to consider that. He wouldn’t let Rawlins play him as he’d played her. He was smarter than that.

  Whatever had loosened momentarily in his chest tightened back up. No one would get the better of him—especially not Rawlins. He would bide his time and somehow get his ranch back and then be done with Rawlins in his life for good.

  Chapter Two

  Two months later

  Six horses pummeled the road with their hooves, the dirt clods and dust flying high into the warm spring air as they pulled the Wells Fargo coach the last leg of Riley Rawlins’s journey. She stared through the window at the passing parade of oak trees, granite boulders and grasslands that butted up against the foothills, surprised that after fourteen years of exile she recognized any of the countryside at all. Farther on loomed the mountains of the Cuyamaca range jutting up against a clear azure sky.

  Once this place had been as familiar as the back of her hand. Memories of her life here rose up and threatened to choke her. Determinedly, she blocked them out. The past had to stay in the past. This was to be a new start for her and her son.

  Yet her stomach knotted with anxiety at what lay ahead. She glanced at her son who sat across from her on the opposite seat. Brody was taller than her now, with moody gray-green eyes and a bronze complexion that reminded her daily of his beginnings. He sat in sullen silence, gazing out the window, unhappy at being pulled away from all that was familiar—his friends and her mother’s side of the family back in Philadelphia.

  She’d been only two years older than he when she had boarded the train to leave her father’s ranch and travel east. Unknown to her on that trip, she carried a stowaway. When she arrived at her grandparents’ home in Pennsylvania and had missed her monthly a second time, she began to suspect there was more to her upset stomach. Brody was coming full circle back to his beginnings although he didn’t know it.

  During the first few days of their journey on the Kansas Pacific, Riley had seen a spark of excitement in her son’s eyes as he badgered the engineer about the mechanics of the train. He was enthralled from the initial whistle blast to the grinding of gears that forced the massive beast into motion. He had thrilled at the escalating speed that had them racing like a bullet over the prairie. Watching him, hope had grown in Riley that she was making the right choice in dragging him away from all he knew.

  Brody needed a man’s guidance...a healthy dose of discipline and responsibility meted out with wisdom, and she was counting on her father to supply it. With her long hours away from home at the watch factory, she simply couldn’t keep track of him well enough. He was out of control. Belligerent, angry and withdrawn, he’d begun avoiding chores and avoiding the home she’d made for them both. The deciding moment had been when a police officer returned him to the house late one night and said he’d been ca
ught with a member of the city’s west-side gang. Fear for him—for his future—had swept over her as she finally faced that she was not just losing control of him, but losing him completely. That realization had finally broken through the stubbornness that had kept her from returning to the ranch and to her father. Brody was more important than any hurt feelings she might harbor...or any pride.

  Although he had wanted to sit outside with the driver on the stagecoach, she had insisted he ride inside with her, unsure at the time if it was to bolster him or to bolster her for the impending meeting with her father. She grasped her hands together to still them in her lap, her palms clammy. How would her father be toward her? How would he react to seeing Brody for the first time? Would he accept him as a Rawlins, or would he ignore him as the grandson born on the other side of the blanket? The next hour would tell. That is...if he met them at the Nuevo station at all.

  At least she wouldn’t have to deal with Gabe Coulter. Brody’s father knew nothing of his son—not even that he existed. The last she’d heard, he was in a prison far to the north. Fear of running into him had kept her from returning to the area for years. Learning that he was locked away had cinched her decision that it was at long last time to come home.

  Brody had the same volatile temper she remembered in Gabe. Her son reminded her of winter...and of a house all boarded up to keep the heat in, but that heat just kept building and building. If something wasn’t opened...a chimney flue, a window, a door...sooner or later the house would burst with the pressure. Brody was closed up so tight that he wasn’t seeing the beautiful spring flowers along the roadside or noticing that their scent floated delicately on the breeze. He didn’t appreciate that this was a new beginning, a new start for the both of them. All he saw, staring out the window, was what he had left behind.

  She sighed. It was spring...a time for hope...a time for renewal. All he had to do was open his eyes.

  The coach rounded a rocky bend in the road and the village of Nuevo came into view. If she remembered correctly, the station and pen with fresh horses stood on the south side of the dusty town. From his seat overhead the driver called out announcing the place. The stagecoach slowed and finally pulled to a stop in front of the change station.

  The dirt yard was empty; however, a buckboard sat off under the shade of a juniper tree. Perhaps that was her ride. The caw of a Steller’s jay broke the silence of the afternoon. A lean, broad-shouldered man stepped through the station door and out into the sunlight. She recognized him and froze. Scuffed boots, brown canvas pants, a cotton shirt with rolled-up sleeves, a green bandanna at his neck and the darkest brown eyes Riley had ever seen under a tan felt hat. Gabe Coulter.

  Her breath whooshed from her like a deflating balloon. What was he doing here? When had he been released from prison? She stared at him, captivated and at the same time annoyed that after all these years he had grown more handsome. His collar-length black hair framed a face chiseled and sharp with angles, his nose straight as always, his jaw firm and square. The only thing not hard on the man was his lips...and they looked exactly as she remembered...enticing and kissable.

  Abruptly, she pulled away from the window, hoping that he would walk away and never know she was there. Her heart raced. He still packed quite a presence. She swallowed, angry with herself for feeling anything at all. No amount of time was sufficient to make her forget what he’d done. She would never forgive him.

  The driver placed the box step and swung open the door. “All out! Nuevo!”

  She didn’t move.

  “Aren’t we going, Ma?” Brody watched her.

  She took a steadying breath. Perhaps it was silly to be nervous about running into Gabe after all this time. Hadn’t she just been telling herself to leave the past in the past? This was a test of her resolve. That’s all. Nothing more.

  She tugged down on the hem of her shirtwaist and then straightened her straw bonnet. Ready. She stepped through the doorway and onto the box the driver had set for disembarking passengers. The bright sunlight blinded her. She wobbled slightly, her legs unused to activity and stiff after riding for four hours.

  A strong hand grasped her upper arm, steadying her. The grip hardened to steel. “Riley? Riley Rawlins?”

  His voice was richer, deeper, than she remembered, and he sounded astonished. Careful to keep all of her colliding thoughts contained and squashed deep inside, she looked up and met his eyes. “Hello, Gabe,” she said with cool reserve.

  Then she stepped down to the ground and promptly stumbled.

  He grabbed hold with his other hand and steadied her. Both grips were tight bands on her upper arms. He stared at her with unveiled shock in his eyes. “You are the company that Rawlins is expecting?”

  She stiffened. “I am.”

  He let go immediately. “Then I guess I’m here to fetch you.”

  Her pulse raced. Her entire body felt on edge, as though half of her wanted to bolt one way and the other half run another. “You are working for my father now?”

  “Started not too long ago.”

  With their exchange of letters, her father had known for over a month that she was coming home and yet he had hired Gabe? It didn’t seem possible. Years ago when he discovered they were involved in something more than friendship, Father had been dead set against them being near each other. He also knew how upset she’d been when Gabe had deserted her. Was this his own brand of retribution he was forcing on her?

  She squared her shoulders, resigned that this “new beginning” had taken a decided turn for the worst. “Very well.” It wasn’t the most gracious of responses, but at the moment it mirrored how she felt.

  His eyes narrowed as he took a closer look at her.

  It was as if he was reaching back through the years and trying to read what had happened to her since then...and perhaps wishing she would return to where she had come from. Heat mounted on her cheeks under his scrutiny.

  “Ma.”

  She startled at her son’s voice behind her and turned to him. “Brody, this is Mister Coulter...a ranch hand of your grandfather’s.”

  Gabe’s brow raised at the last, just the slightest bit, but he turned and watched Brody disembark. If Brody’s size...nearly five feet six inches...surprised him, not a muscle moved on his handsome face. When her son lifted his sullen gaze, all Gabe did was thrust out his hand.

  Her son hesitated but then grasped Gabe’s hand in a firm shake.

  “Brody,” Gabe said, as if testing his name and committing it to memory. His shake slowed and he glanced at Riley with a question lighting his eyes. Then he let go. “I’ll get your bags transferred to the wagon.”

  “I can do it,” Brody said, his voice challenging. He scrambled to the top of the coach and tossed down their traveling cases with enough force Riley worried they might break open. It didn’t seem to faze Gabe as he caught them. What was her son trying to prove? When he had climbed back down and Gabe had left them to carry two of the cases to the wagon, she took Brody aside. “What was that all about?”

  “I don’t like the way he looked at us—at you.”

  It wasn’t the first time her son had acted protective of her, but it had been a long time since he had even cared—more than a year.

  “I hope you are a bit friendlier upon meeting your grandfather.” She also hoped her father was a bit friendlier than Gabe had been. Then squaring her shoulders, she braced herself for the long ride to the ranch and followed her son to the buckboard.

  * * *

  Gabe’s entire body was shaking on the inside when he settled the luggage in the wagon bed. Riley was back—and with a son! Just the thought of her with another man made Gabe knot up inside, stupidly jealous of something that had happened years ago. He hadn’t expected her to stay unhitched. She was too beautiful to stay single for long. He darted a look at her as she walked toward the
wagon. Still slender, still with that long, wavy, honey-colored hair—although it was up in a knot under her hat. He’d never forgotten her eyes—gray-green with long dark lashes. They’d haunted him for as long as he could remember.

  He helped her onto the wagon seat, irritated that his hands tingled when he let loose of her. Brody gave him a penetrating look before climbing up beside her. It wasn’t hard to decipher the stare. Gabe had felt possessive often enough with his own mother whenever Rawlins had come slinking around. The boy didn’t have a thing to worry about. As much as he had once loved Riley, he had learned his lesson there. He was just the hired help in her family’s opinion and nowhere near good enough for her.

  “I need to pick up a few things before we leave town,” she said in the slightly husky voice he remembered. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to stop at the dry-goods store.”

  She sounded hesitant...more than he would expect from a Rawlins. And she didn’t look right at him.

  He walked around to the other side of the buckboard, took his seat, flicked the reins and turned the wagon around, heading the two horses to the main road. He pulled up in front of the store and wrapped the reins around the brake lever, and then he stood, ready to jump down and help her descend.

  “No. Please,” she said quickly. “I can manage. I will only be a minute.”

  He sat back down, wondering if maybe she knew of his recent prison address and didn’t want his help because of that. It would be one more strike against him in her eyes. He leaned back on the wagon seat while she climbed down on her own. Her son did not assist her, but jumped to the ground and sauntered into the store ahead of her like he owned the place.

  He couldn’t get over the fact that it was Riley he’d been instructed to collect at the station. Rawlins wouldn’t know that Johnson had ordered him. The man would probably be hot as Hades if he found out. Last time Rawlins had caught Gabe with Riley, he had pushed a shotgun in his face and said he wasn’t good enough for his daughter. He could only hope Rawlins never found out about this. After eight weeks, Gabe was slowly starting to fit in with the rest of the ranch hands. He didn’t want to mess it up. It felt good to be working again.