A Cowboy Christmas

by Janette Kenny

  Hubert frowned, worry etched on his aged face as well. “That’s unfortunate, sir.”

  “Will it be difficult to find another buyer?” she asked as she fetched the tureen from the cupboard.

  “Hard to say.” Reid hunkered forward and curved his hands around his coffee cup. “There are plenty who want them, but few who’ll pay what they’re worth.”

  “Do you have to sell now?” she asked.

  He snorted. “I do if I want to buy out Erston.”

  So that was it. Reid needed the money off the thoroughbreds to purchase Erston’s shares.

  “Perhaps the lads will arrive after all,” Hubert said.

  A fleeting bleakness darkened Reid’s eyes, the emotion so filled with angst that her heart ached for him. “I have to be ready in case they don’t.”

  She turned back to the range and the task of pouring the noodle mixture into the tureen. No wonder he was guarding the horses. They represented his freedom from Burl Erston.

  Before she finished, the back door banged open and harried footsteps came their way. She looked up just as a cowboy stormed into the kitchen. The wild look in his eyes made her blood run cold.

  “Trouble, boss,” the cowboy said. “One of the men spotted three armed riders headed toward Pearce’s sheep ranch.”

  “Oh, dear,” Hubert said, and wilted in his chair.

  “How long ago?” Reid asked, slamming his empty cup down.

  “Reckon ten minutes,” the cowboy said.

  “Not much I can do except get in the middle of trouble.”

  “You need to get over there just the same,” he said. “Neal said Miss Morris set off toward Pearce’s farm a good twenty minutes ago.”

  “She what?” Reid asked, the surprise in his voice mirroring Ellie’s shock.

  When in the world had the lady left the house? And then it dawned on her. When she’d put the lid on the skillet, she’d thought she’d heard the front door open.

  Hubert had denied hearing a thing. But his hangdog expression made her suspect that wasn’t the case at all.

  “You knew she left,” Ellie said to Hubert.

  He nodded, clearly miserable over the truth. “Miss Morris begged me to have a sleigh readied for her. She expressed grave worry over Mr. Pearce and his family.”

  “So you helped her,” Reid said.

  Hubert said, “I didn’t see the harm in her traveling over while her guardian was away.”

  Reid shoved to his feet and headed to his office. “All right, Shane. Who’s with her?”

  “Nobody,” the cowboy said. “Neal readied the sleigh for her like Hubert asked. When he looked up, she’d gotten in it and took off.”

  “Saddle Kaw, round up a couple of hands and be ready to ride in five.”

  “Will do, boss,” he said, and raced from the house.

  Chapter 14

  Reid stormed back in his office, unlocked his gun cabinet and strapped on the pair of six-shooters he’d hoped he’d never have to use again. He grabbed his Winchester, shoved cartridges in his pocket and stormed toward the door.

  Ellie stood in the parlor doorway, worry etching lines around her expressive eyes. “What do you want me to do?”

  Kiss him like there was no tomorrow. Give him something sweet to savor on his tongue as he rode into God-knew-what kind of trouble.

  “Hope to hell I get there in time,” he said.

  She reached out and grabbed his arm, and the strength of her grip gave him the support he needed right now. Why in the hell couldn’t she be the woman he was to marry?

  The idea slammed into him and sent his senses reeling. He didn’t have the luxury to pine for someone he couldn’t have, for following where his desire led would hurt both women in the end.

  “Be careful,” she said, her voice breathy like he’d imagined it would be after she came in his arms.

  Reid nodded and jammed his hat on, shoving thoughts of Ellie Jo Cade aside as he trudged out the door. Now more than ever he needed a clear head.

  By the time he reached the corral, Shane was tightening the girth on Kaw’s saddle. Four other hands sat their mounts, ready to ride.

  Though Reid held no love for sheepherders, he couldn’t let Cheryl ride into what would likely be a lynching or worse. He just hoped they’d get there in time to stop trouble from rearing its ugly head.

  Shane unhooked the stirrup from the saddle horn at the same time Reid reached Kaw and released the paint’s lead line with a snap. The big gelding tossed his head, nostrils flared.

  Reid swung into the saddle. “Let’s ride.”

  He leaned forward and let the powerful gelding find his balance and speed on the snow. Seconds ticked by like hours, each one more agonizing than the next, making the five-mile ride feel like twenty.

  As Pearce’s sheep ranch came into view, Reid hoped Cheryl’s insistence on visiting the sheepherder wouldn’t be the death of all of them.

  Reid spotted the trio of gunmen ringing a sleigh that was surely his. Beside it stood a man he’d bet was Pearce. All of them looked up as Reid and his men rode up to them.

  He stared at the cowpoke he’d shared more than a few drinks with at Mallory’s Roost. “What brings you out this way, Jonah?”

  The cowpoke shifted uneasily in the saddle. “Heard some fool set up a sheep farm here.”

  “Yep. This here fool is a long-time friend of the woman I aim to marry.” Reid nodded to the wide-eyed woman in the sleigh and the man standing protectively at her side.

  “Didn’t know you was fixing to get harnessed to a woman,” Jonah said, and gained snickers and grunts from the two men with him.

  “Now you do.” He smiled at Cheryl and was relieved when she smiled back, albeit a troubled one. “Cheryl is Kirby’s daughter. You remember Kirby, don’t you?”

  “Kirby Morris?” one of the men asked.

  Reid inclined his head. “One and the same.”

  “Shit.” The two men with Jonah shared a look, then turned and rode off.

  “Believe I’ll follow them a spell,” Shane said, and put action to words.

  Jonah turned pale, and Reid reckoned he knew why. Truth was, there were few cowboys who didn’t recall Kirby with respect, partly because he’d given most a hand on the Crown when they needed it, or tossed them a dollar or two at Mallory’s Roost.

  Generous to a fault pretty much defined Kirby Morris.

  “Hell, yes, I remember him,” Jonah said, and looked straight at Cheryl. “Your pa was a right fine man.”

  She blinked, no doubt having trouble believing that, since he’d given his only child to his cousin to raise and hadn’t bothered to contact her once during her life. “I am beginning to realize there was more to him than I’d realized.”

  Jonah dipped his chin and faced Reid again. “I’ll pass the word on.”

  “Much obliged,” Reid said.

  The cabin door opened and Pearce’s little boy ran outside with the older woman on his heels, trying to catch him. “Papa!”

  Pearce shielded his son behind him, looking torn between leaving Cheryl’s side and returning his son to the cabin.

  Jonah stared at the group for a long moment before he dipped his chin again. “Merry Christmas to you all,” he said, then reined his mount and started down the road.

  Reid heeled Kaw and started after him. “Jonah!”

  The cowpoke reined up in a spray of white powder. “Afraid you’d want to know more.”

  “Damned right I do.” Reid crossed his wrists over the saddle horn and leaned forward. “Why’d you come here?”

  “A man paid me to pay this sheep farm a visit, and not a friendly one.”

  “Who?”

  “Don’t know his name, but he paid well,” Jonah said.

  “Describe him.”

  Jonah did in exacting detail. Burl Erston.

  “I ain’t giving him his money back,” Jonah said.

  “Don’t expect you to.”

  The cowpoke’s brow creased with d
eep furrows. “You’d best bear in mind that if the job don’t get done, he’ll hire someone else to do it.”

  That was a given, but he saw no need to show his hand. “Just what did he tell you to do?”

  “Kill anyone I found here.” Jonah shifted in the saddle again, the creak of leather loud in the frigid tension that bounced between them. “I don’t kill women and children.”

  He glanced back at the ranch and the young boy Pearce was now holding. Hell, Erston was lower than he’d thought.

  “If I can hang on, I’ll be needing hands in the spring,” Reid said.

  “I’ll be back then.” Jonah reined his horse around and rode off.

  Reid sat there for long moments, all alone, determined to dam up the river of rage coursing through him before he returned to Cheryl and her sheepherder.

  First she crawls into his bed in the middle of the night, and then she takes off alone to visit her damned sheep breeder. Why hadn’t she told him?

  Why would she?

  If she and Pearce were as close as he suspected, she wouldn’t want him anywhere near them. He headed toward the pair, reminded that shouting and such wouldn’t solve a thing. Never mind that was the one thing he longed to do.

  “I am indebted to you,” Pearce said.

  “Damned right you are. Those men were hired to barbeque your sheep on the hoof, and anyone else on this farm.”

  That brought Cheryl out of cowering in the sleigh. “Surely you’re exaggerating.”

  “Nope. They were paid to turn this farm into a cemetery.”

  “Burl,” she said, her teeth clattering from the cold—or cold reality.

  Reid nodded, seeing no sense in lying to either of them. In fact, it was time they had a talk.

  Pearce paled. “If what you say is true, then why did those men abort their plan when you arrived?”

  Reid allowed a half smile. “They hold a lot more respect for Kirby Morris than they do for Burl Erston.”

  Pearce nodded, but deep concern clouded his eyes. “Will they return?”

  Reid gave that a moment’s thought as he swung from the saddle and landed on the packed snow. “They shouldn’t, but you can’t be sure in these parts. Watch yourself.”

  Pearce flicked a glance at the woman in the sleigh. “I shall be very careful with everything and everyone I hold dear.”

  Cheryl flushed, and not a pretty blush either. Nope, it bordered on the embarrassed kind tangled up with guilt. And hell, was that whisker burn on her face?

  Reid’s narrowed gaze honed in on Pearce again. The fair-haired sheepherder needed a shave.

  “What’s been going on here?” Reid asked.

  Cheryl seemed to wilt in the sleigh. “Burl discovered that Kenton was living nearby.”

  Reid shook his head, knowing there was more to it than that. “He told you that?”

  “Last night, he threatened to harm Kenton if I didn’t do as he bid.” She sent him a look that pleaded for discretion.

  Mighty obvious she didn’t want him telling Pearce what she’d done last night. Did Cheryl think he was too blind to see she had an interest in Pearce?

  Hell, if she wanted to pussyfoot around the truth in front of Pearce, then by all means he’d let her do it. But once they were alone, he wanted to know the whole damned story.

  “Mr. Barclay deserves the truth,” Pearce said at last. “Please, let’s all go in the house and talk.”

  “All right.” Reid extended a hand to Cheryl, aware he was forcing her to choose between him and Pearce.

  She fidgeted with her hands and turned that ungodly shade of red again as she looked from one to the other. Finally, she reached out and rested a hand on Reid’s forearm with all the caution one would afford a pit viper.

  He didn’t need higher learning to realize his intended dreaded touching him. So why the hell had she crawled in the sack with him last night? If Erston hadn’t barged in, how long would she have lain beside him like a log?

  The answer was clear as the blue sky stretching as far as the eye could see. All night. Erston had blackmailed her to go to his room, but she couldn’t force herself to take it any further.

  The second her feet touched the ground, she extracted herself from Reid. He wasn’t jealous. No, he’d have to feel more for Cheryl than brotherly concern before that emotion came to life in him.

  But his pride was sorely tweaked for landing in this fix neither of them wanted. The problem was, he could see no way out for either of them.

  While Pearce and his son escorted Cheryl toward the cabin with all the propriety a man could afford a lady, Reid secured Kaw’s line to the back of the sleigh. He took a moment to admire the high plains he’d come to love.

  Untamed. Endless. Rugged and unforgiving.

  He could live out his days here. But did he want it bad enough to marry a woman who didn’t give two hoops in hell about him?

  He pushed away from the sleigh and trailed them, mulling over the rash idea forming in his head. A flash of light from the grove of cottonwoods snared his attention.

  His gut clenched as he realized he was about to relive a nightmare. He’d seen a similar warning flash off a rifle some months back and hadn’t reacted as fast as he should, earning him a bitching headache and a scar aside his temple for his trouble.

  Panic shot up through Reid like a thermometer lying in the hot noonday sun. Had one of the gunnysackers riding with Jonah returned to take another try at Pearce or his woolies?

  Reid sought out the sheepherder who was walking shoulder to shoulder with Cheryl. Out in the open. An easy target.

  “Get down!”

  Reid sprinted toward the pair as a rifle shot exploded from that hill. He shoved her so hard he knocked her off her feet.

  The sheepherder swore and knelt to help her just as a bolt of fire sliced a trough aside Reid’s head. He’d been shot.

  “Sonofabitch!”

  He sieved air through his teeth and fought against the hot wave of black rolling his way, staring at Cheryl and Pearce through a blizzard of white dots, knowing he’d soon lose his hold on consciousness.

  “Oh, my God! No!” she shrieked.

  The same thought crossed Reid’s mind as the wave crashed over him and sent him tumbling into sweet oblivion.

  Ellie dumped the dust from the Bissell just as the sleigh topped the rise. Ever since Reid had ridden out her stomach had been tied in knots.

  So she’d done everything she could to keep busy. The lone shot that had echoed on and on frayed her nerves. That’s when she’d given up sweeping the rugs before she wore a path in them.

  She shielded her eyes to get a better look. Reid’s paint gelding was tied to the back of the sleigh, trailing along at a good clip.

  Two people sat inside. Their faces were shadowed, but Ellie knew Reid and Cheryl were in the sleigh. Reid was bringing her home—

  No, Cheryl was driving the buggy.

  Hope I get there in time, he’d said.

  She tore her gaze from Reid to the two men riding behind the sleigh, one holding a rifle as if expecting trouble. Or more of it?

  A sick dread washed over Ellie as the sleigh slid past the house and headed for the outbuildings. Reid was slumped beside Cheryl with a bloody cloth tied around his head, looking more dead than alive.

  The carpet sweeper fell from her cold hands. She clutched her coat close around her and trudged through the snow, her heart thundering like stampeding mustangs.

  “Boss has been shot,” Shane shouted as the sleigh rocked to a stop before the cook shack.

  And Ellie’s heart nearly stopped beating right then and there. She choked back tears and curses a lady should never let fall or never utter and ran harder.

  By the time she came abreast of the sleigh, she was breathless and terrified what she’d find. Cheryl sat like a stone on the seat, eyes too wide and face too pale.

  “What happened?” Ellie asked.

  Cheryl blinked back tears. “Reid was shot protecting me and Mr. P
earce.”

  “Let’s get him inside so Moss can stitch him up,” a man said.

  Her gaze flicked to Moss. The old man leaned against the door to his cook shack, wiping his hands on his dirty apron, eyes alert.

  “How bad is it?” Moss asked.

  “Barely a scratch,” Reid said, his gruff voice the sweetest sound Ellie had heard this day.

  “His head is bleeding horribly,” Cheryl said, scrambling from the sleigh with Pearce’s aid.

  Moss nodded. “Head wounds do that.”

  “It isn’t that bad,” Reid said.

  Ellie pushed forward, wanting to see for herself. Wanting to assure herself that he’d be all right.

  “Bring him inside, boys,” Moss said.

  Shane and Booth shouldered Reid inside, proving to Ellie that it was worse than Reid claimed if it took two men to help him walk. Cheryl and Pearce moved to the doorway of the shack and stopped, succeeding in blocking the way.

  “What happened?” Ellie asked Cheryl.

  “It was all so dreadful. Those armed men came first, but Reid diverted them.” Cheryl shook her head, looking close to tears. “Or so we thought.”

  Ellie gasped, thinking of the trouble Reid had alluded to before—the trouble that’d been pinned on her pa. “Rustlers?”

  Cheryl shook her head, seeming at a loss to explain. “I don’t know.”

  “Likely it was gunnysackers,” one of the cowboys said, and several others grumbled agreement.

  Of course. Ellie had heard of such deadly clashes between the cattlemen and sheepherders when she reached Maverick. But she sensed there was more to it than that.

  Cheryl looked guilty.

  “Exactly what happened?” Ellie asked.

  Pearce looked away, the picture of guilt.

  Cheryl sighed long and hard, then recounted what had happened before the shot rang out. “One moment we were talking and the next Reid was shoving me from harm’s way. I’m quite sure he saved Mr. Pearce’s life.”

  “How fortunate for Mr. Pearce.”

  “Exactly.”

  Cheryl stared at the sheepherder, her features momentarily registering relief, gratitude, and adoration before she stiffened, as if realizing she’d shown her true feelings. The woman wasn’t putting on a show of dramatics.