Wish Upon a Cowboy

by Maureen Child

  Fear, heavy and dark, clutched at his throat. She looked so small. So defenseless, surrounded by thousands of pounds of cattle on the verge of stampede.

  Lightning flashed and in the brief stab of light he saw her face, pale beneath the coat she held up over her as protection from the rain.

  "Go back, Hannah," he muttered as thunder smashed overhead and one of the steers nearest him lowed wildly, its eyes rolling over white.

  And then it happened.

  He'd been expecting it, but even so, as the restless, spooked animals turned and started moving. Jonas felt his heart stop.

  His gaze locked on Hannah. Even through the rain, he could see her turning one way and then the other, dodging horns and hooves. And they hadn't even started running yet.

  She'd never make it.

  Panic shot through his veins. Terror grabbed him hard and squeezed his lungs until he couldn't draw a breath. She was going to die right in front of him and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. Helplessness roared through his body, threatening to strangle him as the scene continued to unfold in front of him.

  In another minute, the cattle would be running blindly across anything in their path. Nothing would stop them. He'd seen them crash over chuckwagons, splintering the wood into piles of shavings and the men riding them into nothing more than scraps of tattered clothing.

  Even if his horse could maneuver through a herd without being brought down by slashing horns, he wouldn't reach her in time to keep her small body being crushed and ground into the mud.

  Visions he couldn't stop flooded his mind. Memories of his first cattle drive and the stampede that had killed two of the outriders. There hadn't been enough left of the men to bury.

  He tasted fear at the back of his throat.

  Hannah…

  Instantly, images of the last two weeks rushed through his mind, one after the other. Once more, he saw her charm the neighboring ranchers and mother his cowhands. He heard her muttering her half-baked attempts at spell-casting and saw her standing at the stove, smiling a welcome to him as he entered the kitchen.

  He'd never be able to walk through that room again without seeing her.

  "Jesus," he muttered, and the wind snatched the word from his throat and tossed into the rumbling roar of a herd on the move. Again lightning flashed, and once more thunder rolled around him. Hundreds of cattle lowed plaintively, sounding like lost souls on their way, to hell.

  "Jonas!"

  Somehow, he heard her. He felt her fear. Tasted her terror as completely as his own.

  "Don't you die, damn it," he muttered desperately.

  His mind reached out blindly, wildly, groping for something, anything that might help him. And in that instant, somewhere in the back of his mind, a flicker of instinctive knowledge took root.

  A day ago—hell, an hour ago—he would have laughed at the notion. Now he didn't question it. Instead he snatched at it, like a drowning man at a thrown rope. Out of options, out of hope, he put his trust in Hannah's beliefs. In the kernel of truth blossoming in his heart.

  He had no other choice.

  Dropping the reins, he sat up straight in the saddle, threw his hands high and wide, tipped his face to the howling wind, and yelled, "NO!" with every ounce of his strength.

  Instantly, an awesome rush of energy poured into his body, like pumped well water into a jug. His body jerked with the impact as it filled him, flooding every vein, every inch of him until he felt as though he might explode from the force of it.

  In that split second, Jonas felt everything around him as he never had before. The wind. The rain. Even the lightning flickering now against the edges of the cloud tossed sky felt different. Stronger. Sharper.

  As if he could feel the heartbeat of the world deep within him. Ancient knowledge tugged at the corners of his mind. Memories long dead flickered into life and sputtered out again like candles guttering in pools of molten wax.

  Anger and panic faded, and around him, as if cut off by a heavenly hand, the storm died. A faint, rain-scented breeze and the sting of air burned by lightning were the only reminders of its wrath.

  The cattle calmed, their frenzied movements quieting. The danger was over.

  "Jonas!"

  Still shaken, he shifted his gaze to the woman whose presence had changed everything in his life. As he watched, unbelieving, the milling cattle slowly parted, creating a wide, unobstructed path between him and Hannah.

  She walked toward him and even from a distance he saw the smile curving her lips. As she drew closer, the last of the storm clouds scuttled out of sight, leaving a trail of starlight to lead her to him.

  From the corner of his eye, Jonas spotted Stretch Jones riding hard in his direction. He ignored the cowboy, focusing instead on Hannah's face and the terrifying realizations still roiling inside him.

  He gathered up his horse's reins and held them tightly in a fisted left hand. Hannah stopped alongside him, lifting her gaze to his. In her eyes, he read respect admiration… and a hint of ‘I told you so.' His stomach clenched.

  "Are you all right?" he asked, his voice raw and harsher than he'd planned.

  "Yes, thanks to you," she said and laid one hand on his leg.

  He knew that. He knew what he'd done. He just didn't know how he'd done it. But for the moment, it was enough to know she was safe.

  Drawing in a long, shuddering breath, Jonas reached out a hand to her and she took it, folding her fingers around his. He pulled her up behind him on the horse and gritted his teeth when she wrapped her arms around his waist and snuggled in close to him.

  "You must believe now," she whispered. "You are the Mackenzie."

  "I don't know what I believe, Hannah."

  "Jonas, you can't turn your back on who and what you are," she argued, as he'd known she would.

  "I can do whatever the hell I want to," he muttered and nodded at Stretch as the other man pulled his horse to a rearing stop. "I'm the Mackenzie, remember?" he finished in a whisper meant for her ears alone.

  "You two all right, boss?" Stretch asked, ripping his hat off and shaking the excess rainwater off against his thigh.

  "We're fine," Jonas told him and turned his horse toward the house.

  "Damnedest thing I ever seen," Stretch crowed. "I always did say you had the devil's own luck."

  "The devil has nothing to do with it," Hannah said, "it was—"

  "Pure dumb luck," Jonas said, cutting her off and shooting her a look over his shoulder. All he needed was for his men to hear Hannah's wild tales of witchcraft and warlocks. Hell, folks here were superstitious about black cats and spilled milk. Couldn't she see how they'd react to talk of witches? "It's over now anyway, so can we quit talking about it?"

  "Quit talkin'?" Stretch echoed on a short bark of laughter. "Hell, I ain't even started talkin' about it. Wait'll the boys hear about this!"

  Perfect, Jonas thought. Now everyone within a hundred miles would hear the tale and there'd be no chance of his putting this behind him—where, at the moment, he desperately wanted it to be.

  "Did you see that?" another cowboy called as he rode up to join them.

  Jonas's jaw tightened enough so that he thought the bone might snap. In the distance, thunder rumbled again and he cursed the thought of yet more rain.

  "Son," Stretch told him, "I seen it and I still don't believe it."

  Neither did Jonas.

  If he accepted what Hannah was saying, believed in what he just did, then he also had to accept that his whole life had been a lie.

  Lies told to him by a man he'd always considered a father. And if he couldn't trust Elias, what did he have left?

  Inhaling sharply, he jabbed his horse's sides with his heels. Whether he wanted to or not, he had to ask that old man some questions—and hope he could live with the answers.

  "I'm taking Hannah back to the house," he said. "You two keep an eye on the herd."

  Stretch laughed again. "Hell, boss, I'm fixin' to watch 'em
every blasted minute. Who knows what they'll do next!"

  "Oh, for God's sake…"

  "Mackenzie," Hannah said softly, and something inside him tightened up again.

  "What?" His horse jumped into a slow trot away from the cattle and the two befuddled cowboys.

  "Not talking about it won't change anything."

  "Maybe not," he said, fixing his gaze on the lamplight glimmering in the darkness ahead. "But I'm gonna try."

  Even as he said it, though, he knew he didn't mean it. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, something changed for him tonight. Something had reached him and torn his familiar little world apart.

  And he needed to know why.

  * * *

  Creekford

  Something had changed. Somewhere, a corner had been rounded. A difference made.

  Blake Wolcott scowled and tried to put a mental finger on what it was. But the feeling was too elusive to be pinned down further than the certain knowledge that a shift in power had happened—and that it would affect him.

  He shook off the odd sensation and stared into the fire blazing on the hearth. His gaze blurred and in the heart of the flames he saw Hannah's face. And Eudora's. Smiling. Laughing.

  At him.

  His gaze narrowed. His teeth ground together in frustrated fury. His fingers tightened on the small glass of excellent brandy he held, just before he hurled the delicate crystal tumbler into the fireplace. Flames leaped at the alcohol, licking at the brick hearth. The soft tinkle of broken glass was lost in his muttered curse as he shoved himself up from the chair to pace the elegantly furnished room.

  Urgency nipped at his heels. Impatience rattled his soul. But Blake kept moving because it helped him think. He desperately needed to think clearly. Now, more than ever. Frustration shimmered all around him and small decorative objects trembled on their shelves as he passed.

  "This is their fault," he muttered and stopped dead in front of the fireplace again. Curling his fingers around the mantel's edge, he stared into the gilt-edged mirror facing him. Meeting his reflected gaze, he saw what he'd always seen.

  A powerful man, destined for greatness.

  A man too big for the English village that had bred him. A man on the verge of snatching up the reins to more power than he'd ever known before.

  "And I'll be damned in hell before I'll let those women cheat me out of my rightful place." His voice rumbled into the room, and behind him a small porcelain vase toppled from its perch and landed with a thud on the carpet.

  He paid it no mind.

  Turning abruptly, he crossed the floor to the front window and stared through a filmy white cloud of lace curtains at his town.

  Time was passing, and along with it his hold on the Guild members. He saw it daily. They no longer feared him as thoroughly as they had before. With Hannah and then Eudora escaping him, his power over the lesser witches was fading.

  "But they're not gone," he told himself. "Not really."

  The man he had following Eudora was an idiot, but bright enough to know that his life depended on keeping up with the older woman and reporting to Blake when she finally—damn her for stalling and playing games with him—joined Hannah.

  Once he knew where the women were, he'd go to them and resolve this entire situation with a brief, but very legal, wedding.

  And when he was joined to the last of the Lowells, he told himself, staring hard at a farmer rolling into town atop a hay wagon, his victory would be complete.

  Blake lifted one hand, snapped his fingers, and smiled when the neatly bound stacks of golden straw erupted into flames. The farmer screamed and fell from the high bench seat, his clothes afire. Witches and warlocks from all over town ran to help the man and Blake smiled again, sure they'd all understood his little reminder of just who was in charge here.

  Chapter Twelve

  At the house, Jonas reached back, took hold of Hannah's arm, and swung her down from the saddle in one easy motion. He avoided looking into her eyes, because he didn't want to see that shine of admiration for him again.

  He felt as though he were straddling a barbed-wire fence and the slightest movement either way could do him a hell of a lot of damage. Already turning the horse's head toward the barn, he said simply, "Tell Elias I need to talk to him."

  She grabbed at the reins, forcing him to either stop or drag her along behind the horse. He stopped.

  "Don't you think you and I should have a talk first?"

  "No." Steeling himself, he looked down into starlit green eyes and felt the wicked punch of desire anyway. Despite the turmoil in his mind and heart, despite not knowing anymore who—and what—he was, he wanted her. Sighing, he leaned both hands on the saddle horn. "Before we talk. I need some answers to questions I can only ask Elias."

  "But Jonas," she said, and her eyes glimmered with the emotions she kept too close to the surface, "what happened tonight had to convince you. You have to know now that what I've been saying all along is true."

  His insides tightened. Warlock. The word shimmered through him, stirring long-dead memories. Deliberately he fought them down. He wasn't ready yet. For them. Or for her.

  "All I know," he said, squeezing the words past the knot in his throat, "is that you were luckier than you had a right to expect tonight. You could have been killed because you trusted in your supposed 'powers' to keep you safe."

  He turned the horse's head again, pleased when she released the reins. As he headed for the barn, though, her voice, carried on the wind, reached him. "It was you I trusted to keep me safe, Mackenzie."

  Jonas shuddered as her words stabbed at him, tearing at an old wound, leaving it open and bleeding again as it had when it was fresh. Long ago, someone else had trusted him to keep her safe. He'd failed her.

  And she died. As surely as the man he'd been this morning had died a few minutes ago on a muddy field.

  * * *

  Elias walked slowly into the shadowy darkness of the barn, like a man taking the five short steps up the gallows to his own hanging. For twenty-five years, he'd known this day would come. Despite his efforts and the promise made to a dying man, he'd known the truth couldn't be kept from Jonas forever. A man would become what nature and fate intended him to become.

  And nothing on earth could stop it.

  Sounds, soft and familiar, led him to the stall at the end of the narrow aisle. Squinting into the darkness, he saw Jonas standing beside his black stallion, rubbing sweat from its back with a soft towel. The horse whickered as Elias drew near, but the man caring for it didn't turn, and something inside the older man broke.

  Nothing would be the same after this night, he told himself and braced for the confrontation he'd been dreading.

  Tension rippled between them. The air fairly sizzled with it. Still Elias held his peace, wanting to give the other man the chance to speak first.

  "Tell me," Jonas finally asked, his voice hushed. "Is Hannah lying?"

  There it was. Flat out and in the open at last. Elias drew an unsteady breath and realized that as hard as this was, there was almost a sense of relief accompanying it.

  Sighing, he pulled off his still-rain-damp hat and studied the brim through troubled eyes. "Always figured you'd have to know someday," he said softly. "But I got to say, I never did look forward to the tellin' you."

  "Damn it," Jonas muttered, not turning around, "just say it. Is she lying?"

  "No."

  One word, and years of trust and affection dissolved like sugar in strong coffee.

  Jonas's chin hit his chest. Then he slowly turned around, fixing his gaze on the man who'd raised him. The man who'd taught him how to hunt and fish. To survive in the mountains. The man who'd been with him when Jonas's world had crashed down around him ten years ago.

  The man who'd taught him that honesty and honor were the only truly important things in life.

  He looked into gray eyes staring worriedly from beneath drawn-down, bushy gray brows and said the only thing he could. "Hor
seshit."

  "You asked me." Elias said, squaring his slumped shoulders and lifting his chin. "I'm tellin' ya."

  "You're as crazy as she is," Jonas muttered. Then, remembering what had just happened, he added. "Hell, we're all crazy as coots."

  "I ain't never had a crazy day in my life and you damn well know it," Elias snapped.

  "Until now." From a distance, the low rumble of thunder seemed to keep pace with the rising tide of fresh anger rolling inside him. "You're tryin' to tell me I'm a witch?"

  "Warlock," Elias corrected. "Least, that's the word your pa used."

  "My pa." A father he couldn't remember had him to be a warlock. Well, hell, who said he hadn't been crazy as well? He tossed the towel across the stall wall and shoved both hands through his hair, tugging at it and welcoming the pain. Maybe now he'd wake up from whatever nightmare he'd landed in.

  "Your folks made me promise—"

  "To raise me," Jonas interrupted, throwing his hand, wide. "I know."

  "You don't know half what you should."

  "And why's that?" His voice slashed at the still air and even the horse beside him shifted uneasily in its stall. Grumbling quietly, Jonas left the small enclosure and set the latch on the gate door behind him. "Why is it that I know next to nothing about my parents? Who I am?"

  "Because that's the way they wanted it."

  Jonas took a half step backward and narrowed his gaze on the old man watching him. "They wanted me to forget them?"

  Christ. The whole damn world had gone loco.

  Elias took a step closer and stopped at the look on Jonas's face. "It's time you heard it all," he said and started talking, words pouring from him in a tumble. "Your folks told me they'd got my name from friend of theirs. Never did tell me who, exactly," he muttered, shaking his head. "Anyhow, I agreed to lead 'em west. They were good folks," Elias said. "You should know that."

  Jonas nodded.

  The older man rubbed the back of his neck and went on. "We didn't have no trouble at all for weeks. Then one day I took you with me to do some hunting." He smiled wistfully as his gaze locked on a past he seemed lost in. Then his smile died as he said, "When we go back to camp, it was over. Indians had hit 'em hard and fast. Mercifully, your ma was already gone."