“Do you have those plates?”
“I’ll get them.” She stretched her body upward and tried to tame her hair. Tyler stood, drawing her attention and making her gasp. It was Tyler, but it wasn’t Tyler. He caught her stare and ran a hand over his jaw.
“Tired of looking scruffy. Meant to do it last night.”
The line of tan skin beneath where his hat rested on his head grew pale again along the newly shaven jaw and chin. But the clean-shaven face peeled years away. Despite the strange coloring of his skin, Tyler was a handsome man. His lips full. A cleft in his chin. Square jaw. She gasped air, not realizing she’d been holding it as she perused his new look. “You—you look. . .” Handsome was the word she almost spit out, but she clamped down and finished with an awkward, “younger.”
“How old did you think I was?”
Renee glanced away, heat creeping into her cheeks. “Late twenties. Early thirties.” She hugged herself, remembering, against her will, how he had held her in his arms and what protection and comfort truly felt like. She’d had too few of the latter in her life, and a gun was generally her protection. “Let me go get those plates.”
His chuckle caught her attention. “I’ll get them while you finish waking up.”
She watched him lift down the plates then turn, catching her eye, his expression serious. Sober. She didn’t know what to think about him or about the feelings he stirred. Was it wrong for her to enjoy the comfort he so freely had given during a moment of crisis? She didn’t think so. He had saved her life.
His eyes slid away from her gaze, and he picked up a paper-wrapped piece of meat. “The bear left us with a few good things.”
This surprised her. “How long have you been up?”
His grin went huge. “Longer than you.”
“If you’ll show me how, I’ll try and do the cooking.”
“Your mama never taught you?”
His casual assumption rattled something deep down. “She died when I was eight.”
“I’m sorry.”
There it was. Simple comfort. His tone conveyed a deep empathy. She stared out at the herd, moving now in the cold gray of morning light. Peaceful. Quiet.
“ ‘The Lord is my Shepherd.’ ” Her heart raced at the voice, and she thought for a moment that God Himself was speaking to her. Tyler, his face turned toward the grazing sheep, too, continued, as if reading her thoughts. But she recognized the words of someone else entirely. “ ‘I shall not want.’ ”
He didn’t continue, and in the stillness Renee heard her mother’s voice; she’d often quoted that psalm late in the evening. Her father had been there, too, listening as she read, a tender smile lighting his eyes as he would pull her closer to him. Renee hadn’t recalled those nighttime Bible readings in years.
As a child she had accepted the words because they were read by the mother she loved so much. When had she begun to doubt? She knew the answer. Her mother’s death. The change in her father had been jarring. He began to shuffle her and Thomas off to neighbors when he had a cattle drive. She hated every minute of being away from him, plied from his side for reasons she didn’t understand and had stopped trying to figure out long ago. How she wished for someone to take care of her with the same tenderness with which Tyler cared for his sheep.
“You’re their shepherd.”
He rubbed his jaw, as if he couldn’t quite get enough of the smooth feel of his skin. “I suppose I am.”
She made a face. “You didn’t know?”
“I don’t think about it much. I do what needs to be done to keep them content.”
“You are a religious man, then?”
❧
The way Renee said it gave him pause. Did he read the Bible? Yes, but he read other books, too. Did that make him religious? Caring for the sheep had begun as a job. He realized now that it was a calling, one he’d been ill equipped to take on at first, but something he had grown into. That first month he’d resented the position, resigned to being alone because it was his safeguard against those who would seek him out.
“I began to see the sheep for what they were. Helpless, dependent animals who needed care and attention.” His throat closed over the words, and he dipped his head beneath Renee’s gaze. Waxing poetic about sheep seemed silly.
“You mean you enjoyed bossing them.”
He wanted to laugh, but she hit too close to the truth. Though bossing wouldn’t have been the word he would have used, it would have appeared that way to anyone watching him at the beginning of his training. “Bossing doesn’t have anything to do with it. You lead sheep, you don’t beat them. I found it was less about me and my needs and more about responsibility than anything else. Like I said, you just do what needs done because it needs doing.” He paused to gather his thoughts. “Some sheep aren’t easily led. They get it in their head to bolt off every chance.”
Renee moved beside him back to the camp, her silence weighing on him, until, finally: “I guess there are a lot of us like that.”
He didn’t respond. He understood the deeper meaning of her words all too well. For a second, he considered sharing his story. It would prove to her how far he’d come, or at least, how far he felt like he’d come since his wild youth.
In camp, Renee picked up the heavy iron skillet and sliced some of the meat into the pan. Her hands worked in jerky motions. To his eye she seemed upset, but he refused to pry. Could be she was thinking of her brother or missing her folks. Lord knew even though he was a grown man, he still missed his ma and pa.
“What now?”
Her question startled him, and when he met her gaze, her expression seemed more relaxed. He nodded toward a small sack. “Flapjacks. I’ll show you how.”
Days settled into a familiar rhythm. Renee’s cooking did nothing to aid his digestion, but she was learning and he refused to criticize. Besides, he’d eaten worse many times. The task of herding the sheep up the mountain to summer camp became easier now that he had help, and he enjoyed showing Renee the right way to work with sheep; all the lessons he had learned along the way. At least most of them. At night he would set the small fires and return to camp to whatever Renee had cooked up. She hadn’t said much over the last few days, and he hadn’t prodded. With days beginning at three in the morning, conversation became a luxury neither indulged in, too tired at night to find words.
But he enjoyed watching her work, and the gentle hand she had with the sheep was rewarded by their trust in her. Where once they had run when they saw her coming, now they calmed and skirted around her, vying for attention.
The last leg of the journey led through patches of dense sagebrush on a narrow ledge. Getting the sheep through would be the challenge it was every year. That night he made a point of opening a conversation, lonely with the silence between them and needing to outline his plan for the next day.
“You’ve been quiet.”
Renee’s spoonful of stew didn’t make it to her mouth. She set the spoon down. “I didn’t think you were much for talking.”
He shrugged. “Guess silence has become second nature to me.”
“Is the camptender going to arrive soon?”
The question pierced him. So she was only biding her time. He’d thought she might be coming to enjoy tending the sheep, maybe even enjoying. . . What? A silent man incapable of reading a woman’s heart and mind? Irritated, he snapped, “He’ll get here!”
Renee’s eyes flashed. She bit her lip and looked away. “My father. . .”
Whatever she’d been about to say was lost. The strength of her emotion was evident in the way her jaw worked and her lips tightened. She angled her face away from him, toward the night sky. The campfire danced along her cheek and neck but left her eyes in shadow.
“He’ll be looking for you.”
“No.” Her shoulders sagged and she pulled her knees to her chest and rocked. “He probably hates me.”
To his ears the words were raw with emotion. “Not as much as you hate yours
elf.”
She was shaking her head, and he heard the tears in her voice. “With Thomas gone he’d have no one. . . .” She shrugged. “It was to be an adventure. I’d gone to town and seen the poster and thought it would be fun to search for the outlaws. Thomas didn’t want to go.”
It was the perfect time to ask, yet Tyler didn’t know if he was ready for the answer. Still, there were outlaws by the dozen. Gunslingers who thought themselves fast and wanted quick money. But he had to know for sure.
“What was the name on that poster?”
She tilted her head at him. “Name?”
“Of the men after you. The gang.”
“The Loust Gang.”
Tyler’s focus narrowed as he replayed what she’d just said. The Loust Gang. He swallowed, but his mouth remained dry. “They were in Cheyenne.” And he had hoped they would stay there or go back to South Dakota. Why trail him after all this time?
He was aware of Renee’s silence, of the strange expression on her face as he pushed himself vertical. Stumbling to the edge of camp, he darted out into the blackness of the night and welcomed the cold darkness. Muscles in his shoulders bunched and placed an automatic pressure in his head, stab-bing behind his eyes.
eighteen
Renee followed Tyler’s path out of camp but stopped just inside the circle of firelight. Through the haze of her tears she hadn’t been able to make out his expression, but his surprised, “They were in Cheyenne,” begged to be explained.
She returned to the fire and cleaned up the mess, rinsing the plates in a pail of water. With nothing left to do, she rolled out her bedding and lay down. She’d so wanted to share with him about Thomas. Her little brother. It made her throat ache to remember. For days she had agonized over how to get home to explain to her father. Until a week ago when she realized returning to her father would only rain down more of his anger on her head. Somehow she had hoped the camptender might never show up, that she could wander the hillsides and work beside Tyler forever. Safe in his silence.
He’d been nudging along her education in sheepherding. Opening her eyes to the colors of the sky and what cloud formations portended. Then there was the sheep and how he would run his hands through their wool to check for bugs or cuts when they’d landed in thorns. He encouraged her to do the same, and she came away disgusted by the natural oils from the sheep’s wool that coated her hands. She learned the reason behind some of the lambs not having tails or missing an ear—born in the dead of winter and incurring frostbite.
She’d begun to understand the logic behind herding sheep into the mountains where the air was cooler during the hot summer months. Words hadn’t been exchanged much, but what conversations they did share were meaningful learning experiences.
It culminated in her need to understand what Tyler meant when he said he’d learned from the sheep. She thought she might be starting to understand what he meant. Every time he took charge of a small lamb, carrying it on his shoulders back to its mama. Or the times when he guided an animal away from a dangerous patch. Even the patience he had shown when one of the sheep had lain down in a hollow and rolled onto its back. She had wanted to laugh at the flailing animal, but Tyler had been serious about the work of rolling it back to its feet. He stroked along its back and sides for long, patient minutes until the sheep’s feet could hold its weight again.
His ways with the animals touched a deeper spot within her. One that ached for the same gentleness she saw him lavish on the sheep. It rolled questions about the man through her mind. She wanted to ask about his past and the wild days he had alluded to, but she never mustered the courage, and with the early mornings, sleep had become a precious commodity.
Renee must have dozed, for the next time she opened her eyes it was to see Tyler across the hot coals of the dying fire.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you.”
She elbowed herself to a sitting position. “I was worried about you.”
He caught and held her gaze, eyes searching hers, before he looked away. “No need.”
“What happened? Why did you leave like that?”
Tyler’s right arm rested across his bent knee, the other leg straight out in front of him. He looked, in that moment, weary beyond his years. He scrubbed a hand down his face then raked his fingers through his hair. “Might be best for you to get some sleep.”
He was putting her off. “I want to know, Tyler.” If she expected more hesitation, she didn’t get it.
“I used to run with the Loust Gang.”
She gasped. “You were an outlaw?”
“Might be the less you know the better.”
Renee weighed what he was implying against her need to understand. This gentle man who cared for sheep as if they were his own precious children had been an outlaw? She searched his face, admitting to herself what had tickled her senses for days now. She was drawn to Tyler Sperry in a way she’d never been drawn to the gangly cowhands on her father’s ranch. She’d always felt their respect for her to be nothing more than a thin veneer. They were not men she would count on in times of trouble. More than that, none of them twisted her heart quite like the russet-haired man across from her now. Without putting a name on the emotion she was feeling, Renee crossed the distance that separated them and sat beside Tyler. “I need to know.”
❧
Tyler told her then about his mother’s struggle to survive raising two restless young boys. When she’d remarried, he’d left home, anxious to experience all the things he knew his mother would frown on.
“I fell into the gang because I wanted quick money. They sent me on odd jobs at first; I guess to test my loyalty to them, or to ensure that my heart was just as black as theirs. We stayed in the hills of South Dakota, robbing miners of their placer gold. It made us money but not much, and the others got bolder. I could tell they weren’t satisfied with seed money. Especially Marv.”
He glanced at Renee and saw the light of recognition in her eyes. “The leader of the gang,” she noted.
“Rand?” he said, testing her.
“The one who kept watch over me.” She smiled. “Until you came along.”
Lolly, Dirk, Lance. They’d been his friends at one time, until. . . “Marv started planning a big raid. I didn’t want to do it. The Homestake was shipping to Cheyenne, and the money promised to be more than we’d ever done before. It was a big risk because Marv had never done something like that before. He sent me and Dirk in to scout the route to Cheyenne and scope the town. Took us about a month. Got to know the people. Pretended we were new hires. Even had a name of a rancher far enough out that no one would question if we said we worked for him.” He pulled in an unsteady breath. Raoul Billings was the man’s name. Never did meet the real man.
“But. . .something happened.”
He jerked a glance her way, amazed at her perception. Him, a man who prided himself on not showing his emotion or feelings. At some point this woman had learned to read him. “I started having doubts about it all—the life, the robbing. Tried not to let on much since Dirk was with me, but then I met Anna.”
“Ah. Was she pretty?”
He caught the glint of amused humor in her eyes, relieved, somehow, that she hadn’t taken on in a jealous rage. Jealous? Of him? He dismissed the thought. There wasn’t anything between them. He exhaled. “Yeah. She was pretty. Good hearted. I thought maybe I’d go straight then. Get a job as a ranch hand and court her.”
He shifted his position to relieve the ache in his bent knee. “But it was time to head back to camp and give our report. I don’t know what happened then, how Marv found out about Anna. I decided I’d ride on the job and make like I was going to go in then head out of town.”
He’d been so mixed up inside. He had wanted nothing more than to break off before they hit town, but it would have meant a bullet in the back, and his desire to see Anna had squelched the idea. He’d have to play his hand quietly, quickly.
“I don’t know if Marv knew I was up
to something or not, but I was never left alone. Never got the chance to make an escape.” He let his head fall back. The stars shone bright and he reached a hand upward, pretending to grab at them. Embarrassed at his foolishness, he chuckled and shot a glance at Renee.
She laughed, too, her head dipping backward, the glorious spread of her hair falling nearly to the ground. “They’re bright tonight. I’ve often wondered what it would be like to hold one in my hand. Thomas and I used to—”
Her voice broke and Tyler watched her struggle for composure. He knotted his hands together over his upraised knee to keep them still. How he wished he could turn back the hands of time for both of them. He clenched his teeth. Mistakes were often hard to live with, but mistakes brought on by one’s own bad choice were gut-deep impossible.
They sat in silence for a long time before she spoke.
“So you went through with the robbery?”
He cleared his throat, the cobwebs of silence making his throat dry and his voice raspy. He cast back over those days, sharing with Renee as much as he could.
Among the gang, he’d felt just like the prisoner he was. Even though none of them acknowledged they were watching his every move, he knew Marv had warned them to keep a close eye on him. He didn’t dare try to get a message to Anna through Dirk. Friend or not, Dirk was as much outlaw as the rest.
The day of the proposed robbery broke hot and grew hotter with every hour. Marv ordered him to ride into town with Dirk one final time before they hit the bank at noon.
“It’ll give them the feel that you’re just one of them. Then, once you’ve bought some supplies at the store, mount up and leave. We’ll meet you on the north end of town and ride in together.”
He’d thought it might provide his opportunity to break free. With only Dirk on the trail beside him he could pull out and make a run north or east, to get lost in the Basin or the Big Horns.
Dirk made easy talk along the trail, and Tyler let down his guard. Maybe his friend would let him go. But something deep down told him not to trust the man. As they rode, he noticed Dirk always rode in back and a little off to the side of him. He had told himself he was thinking too much.
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