A Love Defying The Odds (Historical Western Romance)

by Cassidy Hanton

  “Yes, Sheriff. I was getting to that part,” Lucy continued, trying to sound confident despite the rattling in her nerves. “Upon his face, there were several deep scars, almost as though he’d been cut through a good many times.”

  “Scars?” the sheriff demanded, his pencil snapping in two from the pressure of his fist. “On his face?”

  “Yes, Sheriff. That’s what I said. He had a strange assortment of scars.”

  “You mean, a few of ‘em? Not just one but a few?” he asked, and Lucy nodded.

  Sheriff Cooper turned to a rough table behind him and dug through some of the papers that were scattered there. Finally, he came up with the one he sought, then turned to face Lucy and Matthew.

  “You mean, like this man?” He thrust a wanted flyer towards them, and Lucy recoiled.

  “Yes, just exactly like that! See, there are several deep scars.” She pointed to the drawing while tracing another finger down her own smooth cheek.

  “And you’re certain this is the man you saw?” the sheriff demanded, still in disbelief.

  Lucy took the flyer to study it more closely, but nodded right away. “Yes, Sheriff. That’s who I saw in town the day Mr. Miller found me, and then I saw him again at his uncle’s cabin. The first time I might have had trouble remembering him, our meeting was so brief. But at the cabin, I’m sad to say I had an eternity to stare at him in fear.”

  The sheriff dropped the poster on his desk and leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes and covering his head with his arms. “Miss Jones, you’re telling me that twice now you’ve laid eyes on the most wanted outlaw in the entire western territory, and you didn’t know it?”

  “Why would Miss Jones know the names and likenesses of wanted criminals, Sheriff Cooper?” Matthew asked, growing more irate.

  “I ‘spose she wouldn’t,” the sheriff agreed wearily before turning to frown out the window at the town outside, “but my job would have been a whole heap easier if she had. The last thing this town needs is the likes of Granger Greer in its midst. We might as well save some time and start digging the graves now.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The ride back to the ranch was solemn, both Lucy and Matthew sitting in comfortable yet fearful silence. Lucy had the suspicion that the sheriff hadn’t believed her, at least not at first, and still wondered if she had a hand in the appearance of this outlaw.

  That’s nonsense, she thought bitterly. All he has to do is speak to anyone in Shortcrag, not that there are many people left to speak up for me. But Mrs. Mayhew, the Aid Society, anyone… they could all tell him I have no part in this.

  Fortunately, the paper announcing a wanted criminal may have saved her. After all, she’d been the one to describe the notorious man even before seeing the poster. That had certainly changed the sheriff’s tune.

  Lucy broke the silence. “When you talked about the good news and the bad of the cattle prices… what did you mean by that?”

  Matthew stared straight ahead and continued to drive on, and Lucy thought not to press the matter. He must not want to speak of it, she decided. He surprised her by answering, though.

  “I suppose that a man shouldn’t keep secrets from his wife,” he started out by saying, “so I should make it a good habit to speak to you of these things, right?”

  Lucy only smiled shyly, so he continued, “My uncle recently went up north to negotiate the price of our cattle before we head out on the cattle drive. My word! I forgot to tell you about the cattle drive! But that’s no matter, we have time to talk about that.” He smiled reassuringly then said, “He returned home with very bad news, I’m afraid. The price of cattle has bottomed out to where I wondered if we wouldn’t be better off just hanging onto all the herd and waiting it out ‘til next year. But if I don’t sell any, I won’t have enough to even pay my men, let alone make any improvements or bring in new breeds.”

  “Is it really that serious?” she asked. “Surely there are things we can all do to pitch in, to help pay off any notes or bring in some money.”

  Matthew smiled gratefully. “That’s mighty nice of you, but it’ll turn out all right. I just knew something wasn’t right about Uncle John’s figures, so I checked it out at the land office to be sure.”

  “So your uncle wasn’t correct?” she asked timidly. Matthew shook his head. “Do you think he meant to deceive you?”

  “What? No! Uncle John would never do something like that. He just made a mistake, that’s all! What would make you even think such a thing?”

  She almost didn’t answer, so surprised by Matthew’s rebuke—gentle though it may have been—that she worried she might anger him further. Still, she was more afraid of keeping silent than troubling him and risking his ire.

  “It’s only that… I’ve noticed some things, things that perhaps only an outsider might see.” She paused, but Matthew didn’t argue so she took it as a sign to speak up. “It’s not only that it was your uncle’s cabin where that man took me. But each time something bad has happened, your uncle has been away somewhere. Have you noticed it? Even the injury that prevented you from meeting me at the coach, you told me he was away at the time.”

  “Yes? He does a great deal of important work at the ranch,” Matthew explained, and Lucy noted the defensive tone in his voice.

  “And now you’ve said yourself that he was wrong in his numbers. Tell me, what would you have done if you hadn’t found out the true price of cattle?”

  “I don’t know, I’d thought about holding off on selling them this year. I’d have had to borrow money from the bank or sold some of the land to cover my bills, but it would have worked out all right,” he said, realization slowly creeping into his voice.

  “So only on the word your uncle gave you, you might have taken on a serious debt or lost some of your ranch?” Lucy asked softly, trying to help Matthew understand. “I truly don’t know him, Matthew. I only meant to suggest what I’ve seen and experienced for myself. That’s all.”

  Matthew waited, but finally he shook his head. “It can’t be. This is just a lot of things that happened all around the same time. Uncle John has been like a father to me these past few years, and no one has worked harder to make this ranch prosper than he has.”

  “What do you think we might do if the sheriff cannot find this Mr. Greer?” Lucy asked, changing the subject before she could upset him any further.

  “I don’t rightly know, I suppose,” Matthew replied, his words thoughtful. Lucy could see that he was turning his thoughts round and round in his head, making sense of it all. “But I know this much, I’ll do whatever I have to do if that man comes around. Mark my words.”

  His answer was both reassuring and alarming. It warmed her heart to finally have people in her life, to have others who would look after her when she herself had had to be so strong for so many years. But now that she’d met the real Matthew Miller, Lucy’s blood turned cold when she thought of him having to protect her.

  “Matthew, I was thinking,” she began in a low voice filled with emotion, “are you sure I should stay here in Tuckerrise?”

  He turned to look at her suddenly, and Lucy knew he wasn’t understanding why she might ask. His voice broke slightly when he asked, “Is it… do you want to leave?”

  “Oh no! Not at all!” she insisted, clutching his arm and looking up at him. “I want to stay more than anything. I want… I want you more than anything. But ever since I came here, I’ve put everyone in danger. I promise you, I don’t know who this man is or why he’s determined to upset me so. But the prospect of any of you being in harm’s way is unthinkable. I will go back home and live off of Mrs. Mayhew’s good graces before I let anyone be hurt on my account.”

  Matthew tenderly placed an arm around Lucy’s shoulders and smiled. “If that’s the only reason you’re thinking of leaving, well, I’m afraid I have to turn into a scoundrel and refuse to let you go!”

  Lucy laughed, knowing his words were hollow threats. “You? A scoundrel? Y
ou’ll have to work harder at your lessons, you must not know what that word means! You could never be such a horrible man as a scoundrel.”

  “Even if I turned out to be like that awful Frank and made you stay against your will?” he teased.

  “My only will is to be with you,” Lucy answered, turning serious. “But I cannot think on what could happen if the sheriff doesn’t find Mr. Greer.”

  “I’ll worry about outlaws,” Matthew promised her. “You just worry about being happy here.”

  They rode the rest of the way to the ranch in comfortable quiet, and despite her worries, Lucy was content. The land around them was beautiful and the open spaces came alive with creatures moving off from the intrusion of the wagon’s wheels. Off in the distance, she spotted some of Matthew’s herd ambling slowly without a care in the world.

  “What good fortune we’d all have to be as simple-minded as one of them,” Matthew said when he saw Lucy watching the herd. “Not a worry other than finding another bite of fresh, green grass or a drink from the river!”

  “I never thought the day would come when I’d be envious of a cow!” Lucy agreed, laughing. “But I’ve decided all we can do is trust the sheriff. When he’s apprehended Mr. Greer, we’ll be as peaceful as the herd. I have to believe it!”

  Lucy waited near the door to the barn as Matthew unhitched the horses. When he led them into the barn, she followed this time, finally putting aside her discomfort at being alone there with him in order to help tend to the animals.

  No sooner had he smiled and handed her a brush to groom them than he held a finger to his lips, his eyes wide with worry. Matthew pointed over his shoulder towards the sound of two men talking.

  “Don’t you go threatening me, John. You don’t know who you’re dealing with,” a stranger’s voice said.

  “I know good and well who you are and what you’re capable of, that’s why I brought you out here! You had one simple job, and you went and ruined that. Now I don’t know what I’m supposed to do!” Uncle John shouted back.

  Matthew and Lucy exchanged a glance, and at the sound of the footsteps coming closer, Matthew grabbed Lucy and pushed her into one of the empty horse stalls.

  “Stay hidden!” he urged in a whisper. “No matter what happens!”

  “Where are you going?” she asked, her voice shaking with fear and the effort of keeping quiet.

  Instead of answering, Matthew only pressed a finger to his lips again and crouched down behind the half-door of the stall, straining to hear more of the conversation.

  As the men came closer, Lucy clapped a hand over her mouth to hold back a cry. The deep scars were clear on the man’s face even in the darkened barn, even from where she hid. Feeling as though she might faint, Lucy pressed herself flat against the wall and slid down low.

  “I couldn’t very well show my face in Tuckerrise, too many folks already knew I was a wanted man,” Greer argued. “I had to get someone to take my place, and that idiot Frank Fisher was the best I could find.”

  “He was the only one greedy enough and dumb enough to double-cross that brat Miller,” John said, seething. “All the rest of these yahoos out here think he hung the moon just because he pays ‘em good and practically has a barn dance every day!”

  “I’m no one to judge,” Greer began with a derisive laugh, “but how can you hate yer own flesh and blood the way you hate Matthew Miller?”

  Matthew looked back at Lucy briefly, but she shook her head. Please don’t let him leave! she thought, sending up a silent prayer for both of them. She held her breath when the two men walked past the stall, stopping on the other side of the long hallway that ran through the barn.

  “Why? If you knew the whole story, you’d know why,” John said before spitting angrily on the ground. “His pa came out here with some money he’d managed to scrape together over the years and bought this ranch. It wasn’t this size back then, though, only ‘bout half. That man worked himself into the grave to make something of it, but when I fell on hard times, you know what he did? He offered to make me a cowhand. Me! His own brother!”

  “Heck, it’s more than I woulda done for any of my kin,” Greer said, scoffing. “You too good to work a ranch or something?”

  “I’m his own brother! I came out here to strike up a mine, but the gold vein was false. All the talk of gold was just that… talk. I lost everything I had, and all I needed was a bit of money to start fresh. Instead, Jacob split off a bit of his land and signed it over to me.”

  “Well then, he done right by you! You coulda sold your bit of property if you hated bein’ out here so much!”

  “Don’t you think I tried?” John argued, kicking the low wall with the toe of his boot. “That bastard wrote up the deed in such a way that it could never be sold. If I didn’t build up my ranch, it automatically went back to his heirs, if he ever had any. If I didn’t have anyone to inherit, it also went back to his brats.”

  “And you got back at him by never getting’ you a wife, never havin’ any young’uns?” Greer said. He laughed until a rattling cough shook his shoulders, then added, “You sure showed him! He’s dead, his wife and son have more money than the president, and you got nothing but a ramshackle cabin and an empty barn!”

  “You knock that off right now, I don’t need the likes of you calling out my mistakes! At least I’m not a wanted felon!”

  “Not yet, but you’re gonna be if you see this through,” Greer reminded him. “I’ve got no qualms about killin’ a man, but you’d better know that the one who pays the gold to do it gets his head in the noose right alongside the one who pulled the trigger.”

  It was quiet for a moment as the two men pondered their plan. Lucy looked to Matthew, finally understanding that it was not she who was the target for a known outlaw.

  It was Matthew.

  “If you’d just done like I told you in the first place, there wouldn’t have to be no dead kin,” John said quietly. “All you had to do was run him off so he’d never even look back.”

  “And I done told you, yer plan was doomed from the beginning. ‘Sides, I don’t know any man who’d give up his entire ranch just for bein’ jilted by no woman.” Greer rolled his eyes at the thought, but John defended it.

  “You don’t know him the way I do. Between that and all the other trouble I’ve been able to stir up out here lately, that shoulda done the job,” John argued. “But I’ve lived as long as I plan to being under someone else’s heel. I’ve worked this ranch for near going on forty years, and I aim to have what’s mine.”

  “You coulda just married the Widow Miller,” Greer said, his suggestive leer coloring his tone. “She’s a mighty fine lookin’ woman still. I wouldn’t mind havin’ some time alone with her myself.”

  Matthew’s fists balled and Lucy managed to catch his eye. She shook her head violently, pleading with him not to respond. He finally let out a slow, quiet breath and nodded.

  “I tried that too,” John said, his tone only slightly softer. “Sweet-talked her every chance I got, helped her out with the property and the ranch business, but she’s more stubborn than any plow mule about that dead husband. She never did get over losing him, and in her grief, she wouldn’t look at me as anything but his brother.”

  “Never said nothin’ about sweet-talkin’ anybody,” Greer muttered. “You take her as yer wife, and there’s nothin’ she can say about it. This whole property becomes yours.”

  “I told you, that brat was in the way! By the time Jacob finally died from all that poison, I was just about ready to give up. Then his mama claimed the kid was old enough to come into his inheritance!” John shouted. “I shoulda just shot him in the back and been done with it years before!”

  “You had yer chance plenty a times. Me? I just want that girl. She’s important to me, even if you don’t get why.” Nelson kicked the wooden wall he leaned against in a nervous way, and it made Lucy’s skin crawl.

  “A man your age goin’ after a young girl like that? Oug
ht to be ashamed!” John said with a contemptuous laugh.

  “That’s not the way I mean!” Greer shot back, cocking back an arm as though he meant to hit John but thought better of it.

  Seeing the look on Matthew’s face, Lucy crawled to him and grabbed his arm. The news that his father had been murdered was more than any man should tolerate, especially at the hands of his family, and she feared he might do something rash. Now to hear that an outlaw was interested in her was too much to bear.

  Instead, Matthew closed his eyes and let his rage fade somewhat before jerking his head towards the door.

  “Their backs are turned. We have to get out of here or they’ll kill us both,” he whispered in her ear. Lucy nodded, and Matthew took her hand. “Stay down low, but hold your skirt so you don’t fall.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six