Her Convenient Cowboy

by Lacy Williams

  What?

  He’d been counting on several weeks of warm fires from that wood, counting on having time to chop more before the winter storms prevented him from getting outside.

  Anger boiled, along with a good dose of worry. Someone was squatting here. He was almost sure of it now.

  His pa had good relationships with all the neighboring ranchers. Davy couldn’t see anyone they knew doing such a thing.

  Maybe it was a criminal, hiding out from the law in the remote cabin.

  He tightened his hand around the stock of his rifle. Fat, wet snowflakes darkened his calf-length leather coat. Whoever was inside his cabin was in for a rough day. This was his family’s property and he aimed to protect it. Those cattle were his and Ricky’s future.

  He banged the butt of his rifle against the wall behind him. “Halloo, the house!” he shouted, so he could be sure they’d hear him over the rising wind. “You’re trespassing and I’m armed.”

  He thought he heard some movement from inside the cabin, but couldn’t be sure over the howling wind. He moved closer to the door until only inches separated his shoulder from the opening. A gust of wind knocked into his hat and he clapped it down on his brow. Cold and irritated at the intrusion, he was ready to get this over with.

  If someone had needed shelter and was in the cabin for a legitimate purpose, they would’ve opened up by now.

  He tapped the portal with the barrel of his rifle. Not a little fear made his voice rough as he shouted, “C’mon out and face me like a man, you varmint.”

  There was definite rustling and movement inside now. But no voice called out to assuage his suspicions.

  He thumped the butt of his rifle against the door, knowing how loud it must sound, reverberating through the little cabin. But he needed their fear on his side. If he seemed weak, they might just decide to shoot him and get him outta the way.

  “Open the door,” he ordered, heart pounding in his ears with the implied violence of the entire situation.

  The door cracked open, the interior of the cabin shadowed and dark. He couldn’t make out anything in there and winged a quick prayer upward that there wasn’t someone inside who wanted to shoot him. He raised his rifle to his shoulder.

  A pale hand appeared on the edge of the door. A small hand.

  “I—I’m armed, too,” came a quivering voice. A female voice.

  His breath caught in his chest, a little painful in the cold air. Was this some kind of trick? Who was she?

  “Open the door all the way. Who’s in there with you?” he demanded.

  There was no answer. And she didn’t swing the door open as he’d asked. He was cold and tired and frustrated that things weren’t as he’d expected.

  So he did something stupid, something he hoped he wouldn’t regret.

  “I’m coming in,” he said. He’d lowered his rifle some as he shoved the door with his shoulder.

  Snowflakes swirled around his ankles and she fell back. With the door open, gray light spilled in. There was a single candle lit on the crude table he’d crafted, and its flame danced and cast wavering shadows on the wall as the wind blew in.

  There was enough light to see that no one else occupied the cabin.

  No one except the slight girl who’d fallen back at his entrance. The very pretty woman who was obviously pregnant.

  He only had time to notice a pert nose and her trembling mouth and that she was young before his focus was drawn to the Derringer in her trembling hand. Pointed right at him.

  * * *

  She’d been discovered.

  Heart thrumming loudly in her ears, Rose Evans held the Derringer in trembling hands, her back against the rough log wall.

  She had known her time would run out. That whoever had built this cabin and stocked it so well would come and lay claim to it. And probably not be very happy that she’d used up their woodpile and eaten nearly every canned good they’d left on the shelves.

  But with her husband dead and buried nearby and winter coming on, out in the wilds of Wyoming with no horse and no idea where she might find help, she’d had no choice but to remain in the cabin. It provided a modicum of safety. She was out of the elements.

  But as her food supplies and the woodpile had dwindled, she, a city girl with no idea how to replace them out here in the wilds, had begun to think of it as her prison. She’d tried to forage, but realized she had no idea which plants were safe to eat. Most were already gone for the winter anyway.

  The appearance of this snow-covered stranger felt both like a reprieve from a slow death of starvation and a sentence for her guilt.

  She’d known it was wrong to take and use what wasn’t hers. But she’d had no choice. Just as she’d had no choices since her papa had died and she’d married Jamie.

  And with her body heavy with child, her choices became even more hopeless. How would she care for a baby with no home and only the clothes on her back?

  Those worries fell away and her world narrowed to the end of the small gun she held and the pounding of the pulse in her temples.

  No doubt this stranger would be angry that his stores had been depleted. But she wouldn’t let him hurt her. If she put on a brave face, perhaps he would leave her alone. Just leave. It was a wild hope, but at the moment it was all she had.

  Be brave. But she couldn’t stop her hand from shaking.

  The man’s tall, broad form filled the doorway, his long coat and Stetson making him seem impossibly large. Wind blew snow inside past him, chilling her as the last of the warmth leaked out of the open cabin door.

  Then he did something she never would have expected. He set down his gun, leaned it against the wall and put both hands palm out in front of his body, as if he was surrendering. To her.

  “I ain’t gonna shoot you,” he said, and his voice had gone much quieter than the shouts he’d sent through the walls. Varmint, he’d called her through the closed door.

  He’d put down his gun. It put her in a position of power, didn’t it?

  A small white dog rushed into the room, past the stranger’s legs. It approached her, sniffing at her skirts until she shifted her shoe, not truly kicking at it but attempting to get it to move away.

  Hysteria bubbled up inside her, threatening to make her either laugh or cry, she didn’t know which. Or maybe that was just part of carrying a baby. She’d not been prepared for the abrupt swings in her emotions. Neither had her husband. Or maybe he just hadn’t cared.

  “G-go away,” she said, when she wanted to say, Please help me. The command would’ve been stronger if her voice hadn’t trembled over the words.

  His lips parted in a sigh. He took off his Stetson and gloves and brushed a large, work-roughened hand through the front of his flame-red hair. Somehow, framed against the slate-gray sky, it made his hair seem even brighter. The flash of surprising color reminded her of the bright red bird she’d seen on the windowsill earlier, before the storm had hit, and she dropped her guard for the briefest moment.

  Her arm fell, and the shawl that she’d had wrapped around her, both for warmth and to hide her condition, slipped. She tried to straighten it.

  Too late.

  His eyes fell to her distended belly beneath the ill-fitting gray dress. His mouth tightened, lines bracketing the slim lips putting her in mind of Jamie when he’d been angry or frustrated at her.

  She firmed her hand on the gun. Fear made her voice emerge too high. “P-please. Leave.”

  He turned his head and briefly looked out the open door, then shook his head. One hand still held his hat against his thigh.

  “Sorry, miss,” he said apologetically. “It’s storming too bad, and I’m coming inside.”

  He stepped farther into the cabin, shrinking the already-small space with his presence. He shut the door, and
the gray light that had come in from outside extinguished with the sharp snap of wood against the door frame. The lone candle sputtered but didn’t go out.

  With very little light coming in the window thanks to the overcast skies and snowfall outside, it made the enclosed space with its tiny kitchen counter, black serviceable stove and top and bottom bunks in the corner even more ominous.

  “You want to put that down?” he asked mildly, gesturing to the gun she still had pointed at him. He hadn’t moved into the room any farther than necessary to get the door closed, but her heart still rattled in her chest.

  “No,” she said, and was gratified to find her voice a mite stronger this time.

  The baby kicked, a hard thump against her ribs, as if to argue with her. Surely she was imagining the timing of the babe’s movement.

  He nodded. “All right, if it makes you feel safer. I doubt you’d hit me anyway with the way your hand’s shaking so bad. And a little thing like that ain’t going to kill me anyway.”

  She didn’t know whether that was true or not. She’d never shot a gun in her life. She’d only found it among Jamie’s things after his untimely death.

  “Where’s your man?” the cowboy asked, his eyes roaming the interior of the cabin as if to find Jamie there.

  She cringed a little when his breath hitched as he saw the shelves bare of their bounty. Was he angry?

  “He’s dead and buried beneath a big pine tree behind the cabin.” She jerked her head roughly in the direction she meant. Maybe she shouldn’t have admitted it, shouldn’t have told him there was no one around to rescue her if he had nefarious intentions.

  His brows crunched together. “How long?”

  “Couple of weeks.” Long enough for her to deplete the food. They’d only meant to stay a few days in the cabin. She hadn’t wanted to stay at all, had wanted to go on to the town he’d promised was only a few hours on.

  “How come you didn’t come looking for help? My pa’s place is down the mountain. There’s neighbors in all directions.”

  “No horse,” she mumbled. Something had scared it, making it bolt and causing Jamie’s untimely death. Was it wrong that a small part of her was relieved to be free of the husband who was nothing like he’d pretended to be during their courtship?

  Her arm was starting to shake even worse, weak from days of inactivity and tired from holding the gun trained on him.

  His brows crunched again, as if she wasn’t making any sense.

  “And I’m not from around here,” she said with a defiant hike of her chin. “I’m from St. Louis. How am I to know that there’s more than this...wilderness all around?”

  Chapter Two

  Davy didn’t know what to make of the young woman. Something wasn’t adding up in her story. She didn’t look strong enough to bury a man, not in her condition. Even in the shadowed room in the low light of the single candle he could see she looked fragile. And beautiful.

  And why wasn’t there a horse? Why hadn’t he or his brothers noticed something amiss at the cabin when they’d pushed the cattle up to the mountain meadow days ago? Had he been that distracted by worries over Ricky?

  His head ached—probably a combination of the prolonged cold and her confusing story.

  “I’m Davy White. My pa owns this land and this cabin,” he said. He couldn’t decide whether the best thing to do was put her at ease or just take over. He could easily overpower her and get that gun out of her hand. He doubted she even knew how to shoot it.

  But the babe she carried changed everything. He’d seen her rounded belly and the desperation behind her eyes suddenly made sense. Something low and ugly had coiled in his belly at the thought of her out here alone.

  But that didn’t mean he was happy about having a gun trained on him. Or that the cord of wood he’d chopped was gone. And all the canned goods. That made things difficult. His ma had a pantry full of canned jars at the homestead, but the family was counting on most of those to get them through the winter months.

  And what was he supposed to do with a pregnant young woman? Her pixie features and small stature made her look not a day over sixteen, but she had to be older than that, didn’t she?

  He had a job to do, and her presence was an unnecessary complication.

  She didn’t respond to his introduction and so he pushed, gently, “What’s your name? How old are you? How did you get out here?”

  “Rose. My name is Rose. And I don’t think it’s necessary for you to know my age. I’m old enough to be married, old enough to...”

  He thought she might say bear a child, but she took a quick breath and the hand that wasn’t holding the gun on him went to her stomach. He’d been around enough pregnant women between his ma and his sisters-in-law that he knew there were a lot of pangs and uncomfortable feelings that didn’t necessarily mean something was wrong.

  “How’d you get out here if you don’t have a horse?” he pushed, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “We had a horse. It threw him—Jamie wasn’t a very good rider. He landed wrong and by the time I’d run to him, he was gone. The horse ran off, and I didn’t try to get it back.”

  She said the words by rote, as if she had no feelings about what had happened whatsoever, but he knew she must be hiding them. She couldn’t have witnessed something like that and not been affected.

  A shiver wracked him, and his eyes went to the stove in the corner. The door hung open, revealing white ashes and no glowing red coals. The fire was out.

  After being out in the storm, he really wanted—needed—the warmth of a crackling fire. It was cool in the room. Why hadn’t she lit it?

  Then he remembered the empty woodpile outside. “You outta wood for the fire?” he asked, but he didn’t expect an answer. Didn’t need one to see it was true.

  He expelled his breath, the noise loud in the stillness of the cabin. He didn’t need this trouble, not now.

  “Look, I’m gonna be wintering in this cabin. You can’t stay here. It ain’t fit for having a baby, that’s for sure.”

  Her lips tensed, going white around the edges, but she didn’t argue with him.

  “Where are your people?”

  “There’s no one,” she said stiffly.

  He found that hard to believe. She had no family, no friends to turn to?

  “I’m sure my family will help you.” Because his compassionate pa wouldn’t do any less. “But I can’t take you back down there until this storm dies out. If we got lost out in that—” he pointed to the window where it was just a wall of white “—we’d freeze to death.”

  He’d have to take the trip anyway on the next mild day, because she’d used all the canned goods. He still had his side of beef, but it paid to be prepared, because you never knew what the weather was going to do.

  More complications.

  “I’m going to put up my horses and see if I can’t scare up some firewood so we don’t freeze to death in here,” he told her.

  He didn’t wait for an answer, just shoved his hat back on his head, buttoned his coat and banged out into the blustery wind. The storm was more violent than when he’d arrived at the cabin. The wind tossed snow pellets and swirling white flakes that echoed the chaos inside him. What was he supposed to do now?

  He didn’t want to deal with his surprise guest. A pregnant woman out here?

  He’d assigned himself a job, wintering the cattle he’d purchased for himself and Ricky.

  Not being a nursemaid.

  He knocked the dog back inside when it tried to follow. After the brief reprieve of being in the cabin, the wind bit his cheeks and the snow burned until his exposed skin felt raw. Even his eyes watered.

  But he took the time to tuck the horses in the lean-to. His animals had to be cared for even if he couldn’t yet care for hi
mself. He untied his saddlebags and the bundles from his packhorse. Before he took them to the cabin he scoured the lean-to. The space was big enough for three horses to fit comfortably, was intended to be a combination barn and store-all. And there wasn’t a stitch of wood inside it.

  He bit back his anger as he stomped into the cabin—trying to stomp some feeling back into his feet—and dumped the stiff-frozen saddlebags in one corner of the small space.

  Rose had abandoned the Derringer. It lay on the table in plain sight. She watched him warily from a chair behind the table, close enough to make herself feel safe?

  He went back out, wishing the fire was already going. How could she be so stupid as to let the fire go out? Without a fire she would freeze to death.

  He grabbed the ax from the lean-to. It had been leaning next to a shovel with fresh dirt still clinging to its spade. He tried not to think about what that meant.

  Before he started chopping, he took a detour, keeping himself carefully oriented by counting his steps and using the trees like points on a map. He found the grave beneath the pine, just like she’d said. Surprise held him immobile for a few brief moments, staring at the mound of ground higher than everything else around it, covered with snow-dusted stones she must’ve drug from...where?

  How had she done all that digging in her condition? It wasn’t right.

  He didn’t completely trust her, but it didn’t sit right with him that a woman alone had had to perform such a task.

  But there were no answers here, just drifting snow.

  He found a felled tree not far into the woods and set to work scraping away the drifted snow and some ice at its roots. Then he began chopping it into manageable pieces.

  Each thud of the ax chopping into the tree was muted by the snow falling through the woods.

  After being in the below-freezing temperatures all morning with no real reprieve—the cabin had been cool, not warm—even his exertions didn’t serve to keep him from quickly becoming more numb.