The Cowboy’s Bride Collection: 9 Historical Romances Form on Old West Ranches
Page 38
“Ma is marrying Mr. Trey,” Abby squealed.
Ella slowed her steps, a satisfied smile pulling at her lips. “That’s the best news I’ve heard in a long time.”
Trey set Abby down and pulled Sadie back into his arms. He gazed down at her, love pouring from his eyes. “You’re the best surprise I’ve ever had, Sadie Hunter.”
“I think the surprise is mine.” Sadie’s heart had filled to overflowing. She hadn’t known such joy since she first became a Christian.
Trey smiled then lowered his head, claiming her lips.
“Yahoo!” Abby hollered as she danced around them.
Sadie melded into Trey’s arms, so thankful God had given her a man who loved her and one who’d be a wonderful father for her girls.
Bestselling author Vickie McDonough grew up wanting to marry a rancher, but instead married a computer geek who is scared of horses. She now lives out her dreams in her fictional stories about ranchers, cowboys, lawmen, and others living in the Old West. Vickie is the award-winning author of forty published books and novellas. Her novels include the fun and feisty Texas Boardinghouse Brides series, and her Land Rush Dreams series.
Vickie has been married forty years to Robert. They have four grown sons, one of whom is married, and a precocious nine-year-old granddaughter. When she’s not writing, Vickie enjoys reading, antiquing, watching movies, and traveling. To learn more about Vickie’s books or to sign up for her newsletter, visit her website: www.vickiemcdonough.com.
THE WRANGLER’S WOMAN
By Davalynn Spencer
Chapter 1
Ford Junction, Colorado
1881
Corra Jameson’s feet tingled. She paused midstroke in her sweeping and looked toward the open front door. A growing vibration worked its way into the soles of her shoes, and teardrop crystals on the hallway lamp trembled. She leaned the broom against the kitchen table and went to investigate.
Like a wasp buzzing down the hall, her niece flew by and out the screen door. Hard on the girl’s heels, Corra yanked her back from the narrow yard fronting Main Street—now a bellowing river of cattle.
Horns clacked together and dust churned, coating Corra’s lips. Two young outriders, one on either side, flanked the mass. Corra pressed Alicia against her skirts, the girl’s excitement pulsing beneath her hands.
“I saw them coming from my window upstairs.” Quite an event for an eight-year-old. Not much happened in Ford Junction, other than the arrival of trains, stages, and wagons for church socials. Certainly not a cattle drive through the heart of town—if a small store, depot, and boardinghouse could be called a town.
But Corra’s pulse beat as rapidly as the girl’s. She’d never seen the like, though tales of wild cowboys and life in the West were half the reason she’d come to Colorado. The other half propped up the porch upon which she stood—Baxter’s Boardinghouse. The only meal and bed at this juncture of the Denver and Rio Grande and the Texas Creek stage road.
She tightened her grip on Alicia’s shoulders and craned her neck for sight of the end. A dirty red dog and a third cowboy followed the herd. From the back of his dark horse, he appeared to command the whole procession, eyes roving over the cattle, flitting from side to side until they locked with Corra’s. She could not look away.
Everything about him, from his dirt-colored clothes to his piercing gaze, matched the pictures in her mind, painted there by dime novels and newspaper stories. He passed not ten feet from her and nodded, touching his hat brim. She watched until the last cow’s tail flicked around the bend in the road and only the dust remained, stirring around the flurry in her heart.
“You’re hurting me.” Alicia’s small hands pried open Corra’s fingers.
“I’m sorry, Ali. I didn’t realize I was squeezing so hard. But you nearly ran into the path of that herd.”
Alicia looked up with a scolding frown. “I am not a baby. I would have stopped at the edge of the road.”
Corra wiped the grit from her mouth, ruing the extra housecleaning needed now after that bovine parade. Why had she not gone inside and shut the door?
Holding the screen for Alicia, she knew exactly why she hadn’t gone indoors. Her imagination had latched as tightly to the passing cowboy as her fingers on her niece’s shoulders.
Josiah Hanacker kept a proud eye on Jess and Joe as they skirted the herd through town. They didn’t crowd or rush the cattle, just kept them from straying down side streets. Few folks were out—the reason he’d come through so early. Those who were watched from the boardwalks and porches like the woman at the boardinghouse. Wasn’t Letty Baxter reining in the yellow-haired girl. The woman’s bold gaze held longer than most. She tracked along with him until he had to look away to see where he was going.
Jess and Joe turned the herd south at Texas Creek, and in five more miles they’d be home. Lord willing, Pop would be waiting for them and not hurt or too stoved up. Josiah snorted. Stubborn ol’ coot refused to move to town. Said he’d die in his rocker on the front porch looking out over the ranch. Josiah drew his neckerchief up against the dust, and a smile pulled his dry lips. Were it not for his father’s grit, they wouldn’t have a ranch at all. He touched his heels to Duck’s flanks and loped ahead to Joe, who slumped in the saddle, dangerously close to tumbling into the herd.
“Joe!” His throat pinched from disuse. “Sit up, boy. We’re nearly home.”
The lad jerked, goosing his mount. Guilty blue eyes shone like chunks of sky in his grimy face, and he gathered his horse. Josiah chuckled and slapped him on the shoulder.
“You’re a hand, Joe. Don’t know how I would’ve made the trip from Texas without you riding flank.”
Pride shoved the boy’s shoulders higher, all serious and manly in his twelve-year-old skin. Josiah nudged Duck ahead. He’d been a dozen years himself when he’d ridden his first trail drive.
He pulled up alongside Jess. “When we get to the big rock that juts into the creek, fall back.”
A silent nod.
“They’ll spread out across the valley.” Josiah leaned forward and looked under the too-big hat. Jess nodded again and let go a full grin. “It’ll be good to be home, Pa.”
“You did a fine job, Jess. A real hand.”
Two hours later, Duck drew his ears forward. Sniffed familiar fields and the clear water creek that bent behind the ranch house. Josiah wet his lips and cut a whistle, and his children fell back. The lead steer caught wind of freedom, trotted toward the pasture, and the rest of the herd followed. Short ten by Josiah’s tally. Not bad for one man and two young’uns. He pulled his hat off and waved it in a circle. Joe wheeled his horse and made tracks for the ranch house, hollering like a Comanche. Jess followed, yanked off the floppy hat, and set her braids to flying.
At the house, they bolted from their horses and bounded up the porch steps to their grandfather’s crippled embrace. The old man’s laughter rang across the yard and set Rusty to barking and romping. The commotion was enough to wake the dead. A tight band cinched Josiah’s chest as he watched the shadowed door. Trail dust graveled his eyes and he blinked away the sting, tethered Duck at the corral, and joined his family.
Hosea Hanacker reached for Josiah’s hand with both of his. A little more bent than when they left in early spring, but not in spirit. “How many head?” Dark eyes sparkled, and his whiskered jaw tugged to one side, a constant reminder of the palsy.
“Near all one-fifty.” Josiah turned to his children. “See to the horses, then turn them out with the cattle.”
“Yes, Pa.” As close as twins in voice and deed, though a year apart, Jess and Joe bounded off the porch with Rusty yapping after them. Josiah squatted near the rocker.
“Lost ten by my count. Not bad for that many miles and being shorthanded.”
“Short, I’d say. But just in the stirrups. Looks like those two young’uns did fair to middlin’ for their part.”
Josiah dangled his hat from his hands. Shoved his hair back. “T
hat they did. I’m proud of them.”
“The bull ain’t far, just up a gulch with a few old steers. Soon as he gets wind of the new heifers, he’ll come home.” Two gnarled hands gripped the rocker arms and Pop pushed upright. “Figured you’d be hungry and put a stew on. Got biscuits, too.”
Josiah had a mind to carry a soap cake down to the creek and let cold mountain water wash the dust from his skin, the miles from his bones. But he’d wait. He’d go later and visit Maisie. Tell her what good hands her children were. How sorely he missed her. In the cool of the evening he’d go, when the breeze ruffled through the aspen leaves and whispered over her grave.
Chapter 2
Oh!” Corra jerked her hand back and stuck the offended finger in her mouth. A red line swelled along a break at the quick, and she plopped down on the freshly scrubbed step. Taking the half-torn nail between her teeth, she yanked. Better to be done with it than snag it on everything she touched. She spit the white crescent into the pail. Keeping a boardinghouse was no dainty task, though her sister seemed to manage quite well. In the two months she’d been at the boardinghouse, Corra felt she wasn’t really needed for anything other than easing Letty’s conscience over leaving her spinster sister behind.
When Letty’s husband, Robert, packed up his Cincinnati dental practice and moved his family west, he’d chosen Ford Junction of all places. Hardly a place at all, but purchasing the boardinghouse had turned out to be their saving grace. Robert had taken a back upstairs bedroom for his office and left the larger front rooms for boarders—boarders who would tsk and shake their heads were they to climb the staircase before Corra finished.
She squeezed out the rag and started on the next step, lifting the burgundy carpet runner with care. Fine grit covered everything, like the memory of a dusty cowboy covered all reasonable thought. A leather-gloved hand touching a hat brim over gold-green eyes sent tremors through her middle for the hundredth time. She shook her head and scooted down the stairs with her bucket and rag. Already the water was dirty.
Hefting the pail and her daydreams, she carried the cloudy water through the delicious smell of fresh bread and out the back door to pour into the lilies. She left the pail by the door then went to the oven and removed three browned loaves to cool on racks.
“You’ve been at it again, haven’t you?” Letty swept into the kitchen with her quick smile and gave Corra a hug. “I’ll be as fat as a sow with all your baking. Two dried-apple pies this morning, and now bread?”
Corra scooted the cooling racks from the edge of the counter. “You will never be fat. But you might have a full house to feed, depending on how many train passengers stay the night. I’m sure it won’t go to waste.”
“Corra, sit and have some coffee with me. You’re putting me to shame. Usually by now you’re reading in the parlor.”
Alicia hopped down the stairs and bounced into the kitchen, her blond curls springing off her shoulders like golden coils. “I know why.”
Uneasiness climbed Corra’s spine as she eyed the little tattletale.
Smiling sweetly, the child sidled next to her mother just beyond Corra’s reach. “One of those cowboys tipped his hat to her this morning.”
Letty turned her daughter to face her and wrapped an errant curl around a finger. Her fine brows arched with an unspoken question.
Corra retreated to the cupboard for two cups. She filled them with coffee, set one before her sister, and took the seat across the table. Stirring sugar into her own cup, she envied the speed at which the sweet crystals dissolved. Oh, to disappear with such ease. A cautious glance assured her that Letty was waiting for a full account.
Corra quickly summarized the three riders and their dust-swirling cattle. Letty shook her head with a sad line to her mouth.
“That was Josiah Hanacker and his two children. A rancher up Texas Creek. The canyon cuts south to the Wet Mountain Valley, and the stage road runs right through his property. He was real regular in church, even living so far out, before his wife passed two years ago, poor man.” Letty rolled her lips and wagged her head again, a sure sign of sympathy. “He’s raising those children alone, with his crippled father’s help.” She caught Corra’s eye. “If you can call that help.”
After the brief break, Corra spent the remainder of the morning contriving details around Letty’s explanation. A keen-eyed widower raising two boys alone on a ranch in the mountains sounded like the perfect scenario for the novels tucked securely beneath her unmentionables. Her paper beaus, Letty called them. Though Corra knew her sister meant no ill in the teasing, it stung. Corra’s suitors had always come under cover of book bindings and daydreams. They still did.
Fidgety with nervous energy, she left for the mercantile to check the mail.
Not that she received mail. With Mother gone now, who would write? Only newspapers she’d ordered from the East and an occasional magazine came her way. But she needed to get out of the house, far from the images swirling in her head of a range-riding cowboy and his motherless sons. The bell clanked as she stepped inside Hobson’s store, and the owner greeted her from atop his ladder perched against high shelving.
“Be with you in a moment.”
“Take your time, please. I just came for the mail.”
Mr. Hobson reached too far and the ladder tipped then settled back. Corra gasped and covered her mouth. If the portly man fell and broke his teeth, her brother-in-law could help him. But what if he broke an arm? Or his neck?
Hobson shuttled down the ladder and puffed out a hard breath.
“Mr. Hobson, you gave me a fright! What if you had fallen?”
He chuckled and his apron pulled against his stomach. “Gave myself a fright, too, Miss Corra.” He stepped around the counter and hurried across the store to the mail slots. “I do believe you have something here. Came on yesterday’s stage, if I recall correctly.”
Good. Something to keep her thoughts in line. Hobson handed her several fliers for Robert’s dental office, two envelopes for Letty, and the latest Harper’s Magazine. “Thank you, Mr. Hobson.”
“Can I help you with anything else today? Coffee? Dry goods?”
“Thank you, no. But I do have a favor to ask.”
He perked up. “And what might that be?”
“Please don’t climb that ladder unless you have someone to hold it for you.”
His round eyes blinked, and he stared a moment before puffing out a laugh. “Don’t think that brother-in-law of yours could fix me up if I cracked my head?”
She shuddered. “I don’t know if he could or not. But I would appreciate not having to find out.”
Corra bid the man good day and considered the Harper’s cover as she reached for the doorknob. The cold metal turned on its own and pushed hard against her hand.
Chapter 3
Josiah stopped on the threshold and stared. The woman who’d watched him from the Baxters’ front porch the day before stared back. Without blinking. Without moving.
He cleared his throat. “Beg pardon, ma’am.” He took a pace to his left and she moved to her right. Then they bobbed in the opposite direction. All they needed was a fiddle player and they’d be dancing. His pulse two-stepped.
She scooted back, mail and a magazine against her waist.
A long stride landed him indoors, and he removed his hat. “Name’s Josiah Hanacker, ma’am. Mighty fine… day, isn’t it?”
She looked as if he’d said a blizzard was coming on. “Indeed. It is.” Then she walked out the door leaving a firm but gentle “Good day” in her wake.
Josiah watched her cross the street. She didn’t look back. Just walked up the boardinghouse steps and went inside. His chest deflated with unexpected disappointment. Shoving his hair back, he plopped his hat on and closed the door.
“Got a letter here for you, Josiah.” Hobson pulled mail from his honeycomb of slots behind the counter. “All the way from Missouri. Came about a month ago.”
Josiah took the small envelope, no
t surprised, since Pop didn’t leave the ranch anymore. A vise gripped his heart when he caught the return address. He slid the letter inside his vest and pulled out a small paper.
“That was Letty Baxter’s sister you just, uh, met. Corra Jameson.” Hobson reached for Josiah’s list. “Been here since midspring, helping out at the boardinghouse.” He held Josiah’s note the length of his arm, tipped his chin up, and squinted. “Said she was worried about me falling off the ladder.”
“Looks like you need spectacles, Hobson.”
The man huffed. “I see good as ever. Maybe it’s your chicken scribble that’s giving me fits.” He went to the back of the store and returned with a wooden crate that he set on the counter. “Saw you come through yesterday. Nice herd of longhorns.”
Josiah picked up a liniment tin and rolled the woman’s name around in his head. Corra. It suited her, with her dark eyes and willowy build. Not that he took notice of a woman’s build lately. But she had a way about her that gave him the need to pause and think about breathing. He pulled in a lungful and looked around the store. Nothing caught his fancy, so he hefted a bag of flour and set it on the counter next to the crate while Hobson filled a paper sack with Arbuckles.
“Never been married, I hear.”
Leaving most of what money he had on the counter, Josiah eyed the storekeep. A real busybody, but a fairly reliable source.
The man jerked his head toward the street. “Miss Jameson, that is.”
“That so.” Josiah picked up the flour and a sack of dried beans. Hobson followed him out with the crate, and with one more trip, Josiah loaded the remaining supplies in the buckboard.
“Be back come fall.” He gathered the reins and clucked Rena into the street, cutting his eyes to the boardinghouse as he drove by. When he reached the wide spot where Texas Creek fanned out in a sandbar at the river, he pulled off the road and set the brake. Dread hammered his temples as he unfolded the letter from Maisie’s sister, Beatrice. In a few lines of her tight and perfect script, his fears were realized. She was coming in September to check on the “babies,” as she called them. He snorted at her choice of words.