“Twenty and they’re all armed. A salty-lookin’ bunch.”
No overlook was good enough for the four of them to kill twenty hardened men.
“Now what?” Dugger asked.
They rode along while Cord pondered. Wait for more cousins? It didn’t suit Cord to attack directly even if he had Lady Gray’s men outnumbered. But he sure as shootin’ wasn’t coming straight at her where the Cooter clan was so short on men. Attacking head-on wasn’t Cord’s way anyhow. He preferred to have the odds in his favor. The cousins seemed to come in two or three at a time. They’d be awhile collecting twenty men.
And that’s when a sight greeted Cord’s eyes.
“Look at them cows.” Fergus spoke first.
“They’re beauties.” Cord stared at the heavily muscled animals. “That bull is the biggest I’ve ever seen.
A huge, shining black bull stood to one side of the herd, back a ways as if standing guard. His head lifted, and he looked straight at Cord with the arrogance of the biggest, meanest critter on the land. A beast who had never met an animal to best him. The sun shone down on that bull, and his coat gleamed like a black jewel set down in the middle of the mountains.
“I’ve heard there’s a rancher in these parts, Tom Linscott who breeds black cattle and horses like the one leading the group with Lady Gray,” Fergus said. “Reckon that’s Linscott?”
“Seems likely.” Sweet satisfaction lightened Cord’s dark thoughts. “What if there was a stampede? Any rancher would take his cowhands after the runaway cattle, ‘specially if he thought they were being rustled. That’d leave Lady Gray to us.”
Of course they’d have to split up. He’d send J.D. and Dugger to run off those cattle with as much noise as they could muster while he and Fergus finished things for the Cooters with that witch woman.
Cord would have preferred to scout out the land, learn who he was dealing with, figure out all the back trails in the area, and pick the best route to run off the cattle. But there wasn’t time for any of that.
“Don’t figure on getting away with the herd.” He caught J.D.’s eye and knew the fool wanted those cattle. Well, let him try for ’em, but Cord doubted they could sell those black beauties anywhere without Linscott finding out about it. “Just get ’em moving. Make sure those cowhands are after you, and then cut and run, get back on the trail Lady Gray is following, and try to catch up with Fergus and me and back us in the fight.”
“I wouldn’t mind me a few beeves to sell, Cord.” Dugger was always the first one to complain. “There ain’t much money in chasing after that woman.” And he had a rare knack for saying the absolute truth, right when it irritated Cord the most.
“If this lot is as salty as you say it is, you decide if you want to try and get away with that herd with them on your trail.”
Dugger’s stubborn chin weakened fast.
“Tom Linscott looks to me like a knowing man. We don’t want him or his cowhands on our back trail, Dugger.” J.D. gave his halfwit brother a slap on the back. “We’ll just stampede the herd and circle around.”
J.D. was the only one of them who had gotten a good look at Linscott and his cowhands. Whatever he’d seen must have really scared him.
If Cord could have gotten his hands on Granddaddy, he’d have shaken the old man until he changed his mind about Cooters sticking together. But for now, Cord didn’t see as he had much choice. “Give Fergus and me some time to get in position; then start the stampede.”
Seven
Tom should give his horse a breather.
Not that the black stallion seemed to get tired, but he was carrying double. Triple if he counted Jarrod in the backpack … and Tom didn’t count the little guy. And the trail was a hard one. Still, Tom felt so pushed to get home it was almost like an itch in his shoulder blades. The kind of itch that made a man look around for men aiming their guns.
Tom’s eyes slid over his prized herd of Angus. Before long there’d not be a cow left on Tom’s place that wasn’t shining black. He kept this herd close to his cabin mostly just to be able to enjoy looking at them every day. His eyes paused on the massive black bull that was the kingpin of his herd. He’d added bulls, bought ’em, and raised a bunch.
Not one single one of those black cows had a rifle aimed at him or Mandy, though, and his shoulder blades still itched. Most likely, thanks to his soon-to-be wife, he’d be having that feeling pretty much all the time—maybe for the rest of his life.
“Wade,” Tom barked at his brother-in-law and realized that he’d started to get used to Wade. The man let Abby push him around, and that galled Tom. But then Abby was a feisty little woman. She pushed Tom around most of the time, too. Tom just put up more of a fight. Wade seemed to like taking orders from his wife.
Wade galloped up, and Tom asked, “Did you send word to Red that we’d be in town?”
“Yep, and it’s Saturday, so I expect he’ll be close to hand.” Wade carried Angela in his arms. The four-year-old was fussing, and when she got this close to Mandy, she started hollering in earnest.
“Good, go in and get him. Bring him out to my ranch.” Tom caught Mandy’s arms as she reached for her child. “I need to ask you something before we take Angie back.”
Wade hesitated, giving Mandy a chance to decide whether to go along with Tom’s orders.
“Give her to Mark.” Mandy looked around for that blasted Mark Reeves, which stuck in Tom’s craw. “He’s got a lot of little brothers. He can keep her happy for a few minutes.”
Wade tugged on his hat brim and turned his horse back toward his wife, probably to get her permission before he rode off.
Tom was too slow and didn’t get a chance to sneer at Wade. He looked back with regret to see Wade hand the little girl off to Reeves. What was that kid doing riding alongside Abby as if he was a friend of the family? And now he got to take one of the young’uns?
“I can’t believe how nice it is to see Mark.” Mandy stretched her neck to see around Tom and stare at that young whelp.
“How do you know him?” Tom had meant to ask right away, but he’d let Mandy finish her crying first and then gone to kissing her witless, and he’d forgotten about snatching her out of his cowpoke’s arms.
“We grew up together in Texas. He was my mortal enemy in school. Always in trouble. I had to practically run that school single-handed for years while every teacher tried to make Mark and his brothers behave.”
“So you hated him then?”
“Couldn’t stand him, nor any of his brothers.”
“Then why were you sitting in his lap?”
With a wobbling smile that Tom was terribly afraid would bring on a new bout of tears, Mandy said, “It made me homesick is all. Reminded me of Ma and Pa. I wish I could see my mother.” Her lip quivered as she stared at Mark, now holding her daughter and teasing a smile out her.
Tom had to fight down the urge to stop the tears with a kiss. It would be no hardship. Although at the rate his woman shed tears, if Tom didn’t think of some other way to put a stop to all the crying, he might end up kissing her almost constantly for the rest of his life. Tom shifted restlessly in his saddle as he enjoyed the thought of being saddled for life with that sweet chore.
Wade took off galloping toward Divide, and with a suppressed grin, Tom figured out exactly how to distract Mandy from a new bout of tears. “Wade is going for the preacher so we can get hitched before nightfall.”
“What?” Mandy’s head snapped around so she was only looking at Tom. There was plenty more yelling to come, and that was why Tom hadn’t wanted Angela in Mandy’s lap.
“That’s more like it.” He had her undivided attention now.
“I am not going to marry you.”
That troublemaking Reeves kid came riding up just as Mandy made that announcement. Tom had seen the kid’s eyes, and he’d seen the young man make a quickly aborted move for his gun. Mark wanted to protect Mandy. Tom respected that. At the same time it made Tom want to plant a fi
st in the youngster’s face.
The kid was a good cowhand, but he was given to dumb stunts and reckless behavior that had brought Tom right to the brink of sending him down the trail a few times. Tom had held off, though. The kid knew cattle, and he was a worker. The nonsense always came during his spare time.
Tom had been a stubborn kid, too, refusing to come west with his family, staying behind in the East, hoping to win the favors of a foolish young girl. Tom’s selfish decision back then had left his family to die and Abby to be raised by the Flathead Indians. Regret over that still saddled Tom with guilt, so he had a little bit of patience with young men and their nonsense.
He’d given Mark Reeves a chance. Most young men grew up. But now Reeves saw a lady in need of rescue. Saving Mandy would appeal to him.
Tom sullenly admitted it appealed to him, too.
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, Mandy.” Mark had Angela in his arms.
“Mama, pick me up!” Angela fussed and reached across the space between the horses.
“Reeves, drop back. We’re talking and we don’t want the young’un to hear.” Tom didn’t want Mark to hear either, but yelling at the whippersnapper wasn’t a smart thing to do when Tom was trying to lure Mandy into a wedding. Well, trick her into it was more like it. Threaten her into it. Bully her into it. Yeah, he wanted Reeves to drop back bad.
Punching Reeves in the mouth wasn’t a great idea. But Tom didn’t rule it out completely.
“No, I’m not dropping back.” Reeves squared his shoulders and looked Tom right in the eye. Tom had to give the kid credit. He knew Reeves was as good as begging to be fired.
“Mandy …” Tom looked down at the bundle of cranky woman in his arms. Her eyes were only for her fussing daughter.
“What?”
“Tell Reeves it’s all right.”
“I think I should see to Angela. She might—”
“Not yet,” Tom cut her off. “Tell him we need to talk.”
Mandy arched one blond brow at him in a way so threatening Tom felt a little curl of fear. Surprisingly, the fear was a pleasant, tingly feeling. He was fully prepared to be scared to death by his wife for as long as they both shall live.
And Tom intended for that to be a very long time.
“And tell him you aren’t one to be pushed into doing anything you don’t want to do.” That part was true enough, which was why Tom was going to have to push real hard.
Tom took a second to wonder why he couldn’t have chosen a more easygoing woman. Then he thought of Abby and that wicked knife. Belle Tanner Harden and her long line of dead husbands. The West didn’t breed too many easygoing women, and that was as it should be. The strong survived out here.
“So, if I don’t shoo him off then I’m a coward?” She sounded so sweet. “Is that what you’re saying?”
Tom almost smiled at the gently asked question. He already knew Mandy well enough to suspect he was about one wrong word away from being assaulted. Looking at Mark, he said, “Drop back.”
“No.” A stubborn look on Mark’s face impressed Tom at the same time it made him want to punch the young pup. “Mandy needs to know she’s got a choice. I don’t know what’s going on, but Mandy is one of the toughest women I’ve ever known. She was already that in grade school.”
Looking down at his sweet almost-wife, Tom said, “Really?”
Mandy nodded with a dangerous kind of smirk.
“And if something has upset her to the point she’ll hug up against me—who she’s never been able to stand—and cry—which I’ve never once in my life seen her do—then it’s not fair to push her into any decision right now.”
That struck Tom as being wise, sensible, and fair. But this was no time for nonsense of that sort. He needed to crush Mark Reeves like a bug. Tom decided to appeal to Mark, man-toman. “If I don’t next thing to force her to marry me when she’s overwhelmed with all that’s going on—”
“What is going on?” Mark interrupted.
Ignoring him, Tom went on, trying to make the little pup see reason. “Mandy wants to marry me something fierce.”
“I do not.”
Tom resisted the urge to gag his woman. “But she’s got a lot of trouble on her back trail. She’s got a band of outlaws looking for revenge for something her idiot of a dead husband did, and they’ve been after her for a long time.”
“I never said I wanted to marry you something fierce, you big dumb ox.” Mandy jabbed Tom right in the chest with a finger that was almost as sharp as Abby’s knife.
“And anyone who gets close to Mandy comes under the guns of the pack of coyotes who are hunting her.” He glared down at her. “Don’t they?”
“That is the absolute truth. That’s why I can’t marry you.”
“And that’s the only reason you won’t marry me, right?” Tom forgot Mark and focused completely on Mandy.
“That’s right.” Mandy slapped her hand over her mouth. From behind her fingers she said, “No, that’s not right. I don’t want to marry you for a whole lot of reasons.”
Tom looked at Mark and arched a brow.
Mark’s belligerent expression had eased and his focus had shifted from confronting Tom to understanding why Mandy was saying no—and being on Tom’s side. Mark saw clearly that Mandy wasn’t trusting Tom to protect. An insult to all men.
“I helped deliver Jarrod.” Tom jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at the little boy he carried on his back.
Mandy lifted her hand off her own mouth to slap it over Tom’s. “Don’t tell him that.”
“Are you calling me a liar? Did I help or not?” Tom noticed Mark Reeves’s eyes grow wide. To deliver a baby, a man that was neither Mandy’s husband nor her doctor, was shocking. There were few people in the world who could imagine something that intimate passing between an unmarried man and woman.
Mark looked at the baby. “You’ve got to marry him then,
Mandy. If your pa gets wind of this, he’ll come up here and kill Tom before those outlaws get within a hundred miles.”
“He’s welcome to try,” Tom snarled. “But I’ll bet your pa will side with me and help me drag you in front of a preacher.”
“It’s not like that.” Mandy’s eyes narrowed and threatened certain death.
“It’s exactly like that.” Tom looked at Angela, glad he’d carried her and coached her most of yesterday. “You remember me, don’t you, sweetheart?”
“Papa!” Angela’s little fingers quit reaching for her ma and stretched toward Tom.
“Are you—I mean—no, you’re not really—you can’t be the older children’s—pa—too?”
From close behind them, Catherine squealed from where she sat on Abby’s lap. “Papa!”
The little angel was copying her big sister. Tom hadn’t gotten a turn with Catherine. He intended to have plenty of time with all three of his children.
Jarrod said, “Papa,” and bounced against Tom’s back, waving his arms. “Papa, Papa.” The little boy yelled it every time he bounced. Tom had noticed Jarrod calling the horse papa and his supper and his toes, but no sense pointing that out to Mark right now.
“All three of them? And you’re not married?”
“Tom Linscott!” Mandy made a fist. It was cute. As long as he watched her Winchester, he thought he could take her. “You stinking—”
“I’m your pa, aren’t I, Angie?” Tom thought this was going nicely. He reached over and tickled the little girl under her plump chin.
“I love you, Pa.” Angie giggled.
A few more seconds of this, and Mark would pull out a shotgun and force the marriage. And that was good because Tom figured it might take both of them.
“We need to get your pa married to your ma right quick, don’t you think?” Tom asked Angie, while shifting his grip subtly on Mandy to keep her from getting to her shooting iron, always handily strapped on her back. And it was blasted uncomfortable carrying her with that thing.
“
Papa,” Jarrod hollered, getting into the spirit of the thing.
Abby rode up beside them, scowling. “These are your children, and you’ve never seen fit to bring the woman home?”
Lucky for Tom no one knew much about Mandy’s life. She’d managed to get those who knew her to leave her alone. And to everyone else, she was a legend. Some even doubted she existed up on that mountain. He held a legend right in his lap.
“Mandy McClellen, is this true?” Mark had changed sides fast.
Tom smiled down at Mandy.
Who swung a fist straight at Tom’s nose.
Tom grabbed her fist in his bare hand and pretty much had her pinned down. “For you to say no shames you and labels me for a coward who would leave you up there alone because I didn’t want to face your enemies.”
Turning to Mark, Tom gave him a man-to-man look.
Mark jerked his chin.
Angela screamed, “Papa!” and reached for Tom again.
“You have no honor, Thomas Linscott.” Mandy tugged at her captured fist.
Tom had a firm hold, though.
“What enemies?” Mark asked.
Tom ignored the youngster. “Say you’ll marry me. Restore my honor.” Tom didn’t smile. This was too serious. If he couldn’t marry her with her cooperation, he’d use underhanded means and cheer her up later. “Whatever you say doesn’t make one speck of difference. You’re marrying me. That’s that. You know we’re meant for each other. Say yes, Mandy honey. Say you’ll marry me.”
She lay there, fuming, her arms pinned, her gun out of reach, her fist enclosed in his big hand.
Angie yelled, “I want Papa.”
And the toughest woman Tom had ever known crumbled right before his eyes. Tears brimmed in those confounded, always-leaking eyes. She whispered, “Yes.”
Before she could say more and muck it all up, Tom kissed her quiet. He raised his head and realized they were getting close to the Double L.
He looked at Mark Reeves, who didn’t seem pleased. Like maybe he was torn between drawing on Tom to rescue his old friend Mandy … and drawing on Mandy and taking part in a shotgun wedding to restore the honor of his boss.
Sophie's Daughters Trilogy Page 67
