A Feisty Gracious Bride For the Rancher: A Christian Historical Romance Novel (Lawson Legacy Book 1)

by Chloe Carley

  Gideon rallied came to her rescue. “Let me go get Shawn and Pa. Probably better get Sara Jane as well, and we can discuss this all together. I’ll be right back.”

  Gideon left and Riley gave Pearl a sheepish look. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you …”

  “Child, if you are about to apologize for your brother, don’t. You are only responsible for your own actions, not those of a man who most likely knew exactly what he was doing the first time he acted like an outlaw.”

  “Roy is ten years older than me.”

  “See, there you go. He knew he was taking a risk. Supper smells wonderful. I wish Sara Jane would take some advice and focus on at least learning to cook. How that child will ever find a husband …”

  “Isn’t your worry to shoulder,” the woman in question commented as she entered the kitchen. “I could learn to cook, but I’d much rather be out riding a horse or herding cattle.” Sara Jane walked over to Riley. “I heard you might feel more at home in a pair of trousers?”

  “Oh, yes!” Riley couldn’t contain her enthusiasm. She gave Pearl an apologetic look, “Sorry, but I hate dresses and skirts.”

  Sara Jane laughed. “That makes two of us. Ma, we’ll be right back.”

  “Oh, but the pies …” Riley pulled back on the arm Sara Jane had just claimed.

  “I’ll keep an eye on them. Seems the least I can do since you did all of the work. I’ll finish up the bread as well. Go with Sara Jane. Might as well be comfortable for the discussion coming.”

  Riley gave one last concerned look at the mess in the kitchen and the pies baking in the oven, but the promise of trousers was too much to pass up.

  She looked at Sara Jane, and the two of them shared a smile. Riley wanted to be honest and upfront with Gideon’s family, especially since they’d shown her so much kindness. She only hoped they wouldn’t think badly of her once they learned about her brother’s actions.

  Chapter 13

  Gideon stood next to the large fireplace in the corner of the great room.

  The walls had been covered with large pieces of flat rock that had been collected from the river basin during the winter months, and then a mixture of mud and sand had been placed between them to keep them in place. The heat from the fireplace warmed the rocks and then in turn, warmed the entire main floor of the house.

  It was a design created by his grandfather and one that the Lawsons continued to use in every cabin they added to the ranch.

  The floorboards were smooth from repeated cleaning and daily sweeping.

  Large rag rugs had been weaved and sewn together by his ma, and they provided a warm place for one’s feet while sitting on a bench, a chair, or one of the many rockers scattered in a semi-circle around the room. The wood shutters were open today, letting in the fragrant autumn air, and Gideon knew it wouldn’t be long before they would be closed up tight for the winter months and sealed to keep the cold air out.

  He heard the sound of a female voice and turned to watch Riley walk hesitantly into the room. He indicated a chair next to him. The rest of the family was gathered, all except for Sara Jane.

  Riley looked much more comfortable in an old pair of his trousers.

  He recognized them as such because they still had the patch at the knee, although it fell to Riley’s shin, where he’d torn them climbing over a large boulder when he was ten. She was also wearing a button-down shirt that he guessed had belonged to Shawn at one time.

  He took his time looking her over, but beneath his lashes as he didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that he found her very intriguing.

  Gideon leaned over and murmured for her ears alone, “More comfortable now, aren’t you?”

  Gideon watched Riley blush. He thought she might try to prevaricate her decision since the rest of his family was nearby, but she didn’t hesitate to answer honestly, and he gave her a smile of approval. “Yes. I know some women like wearing skirts and dresses, but I find them a nuisance.”

  “See, Ma, it looks like Sara Jane’s not the only female who thinks that way,” Shawn murmured.

  “Remind me to thank Sara Jane for helping Riley out. Unfortunately, all of her belongings are either still in El Paso, Texas or on their way back to St. Louis on the train.”

  “Texas? Is that where you came from, child?” Pearl asked.

  “Well, not originally, but just before coming here that’s where I was. In fact, that’s actually what brought me this direction.”

  “We’ll get to all of that, but first, I need to tell you about my life the last few years.”

  Gideon gave his family a brief summary of his life as an outlaw. He’d started from the beginning, telling them about hunting down the bad guys and bringing them to justice.

  When he’d started to tell the next part of his story, he’d had to look away from the tears in his ma’s eyes. He could tell she was disappointed in him, and he forced himself not to look at his pa.

  He didn’t think he could finish telling his tale if he had to see his pa looking at him with the same disappointment.

  “So, all of this time you’ve been robbing people, instead of just coming home where you knew you wouldn’t have to break the law to survive?” Shawn asked, no compassion whatsoever in his voice.

  “Shawn!” His ma came to his defense. “Your brother made decisions about his life while he was at the lowest point a man can be. Gideon left here with dreams in his head and thoughts of making the world a better place. He was nursing a broken heart, something thankfully you haven’t experienced yet. I imagine he felt like a failure when he couldn’t find honest work, isn’t that right, son?”

  “Ma, I had honest work when I left here. Apprehending those criminals felt good and people were so appreciative. But when I couldn’t find any other legitimate work, I didn’t know exactly what to do.”

  “You should have come home,” his brother stated with a hardness in his voice that Gideon didn’t remember being there before he left.

  “You’re probably right, but I kept thinking that things would turn around, and then I got pulled into my friend’s criminal actions, and … well, the rest is history.”

  Ma nodded at him, and Gideon felt slightly better knowing that he had at least one person willing to give him a second chance. She looked around the room and stated in a challenging voice, “I don’t know that anyone in a similar situation would have been willing to come home with their hat in their hands and their tail between their legs.”

  “I know I wouldn’t have turned to a life of crime …” Shawn muttered.

  “No, son. You don’t.” Now it was his pa’s turned to speak and Gideon raised his head, shocked to hear his father speaking up for him. “When you sink so low, and you had such great plans … it does something to a man. It takes away the part of your soul that keeps you trudging forward and doing the right thing, even when it seems pointless.”

  Gideon’s heart was near to bursting with gratefulness. He felt humbled by his parents’ willing acceptance of his past and that he’d finally realized the error of his ways and come home. “Thank you.” His voice was thick with emotion. Riley was sitting next to him, and she reached over and placed a hand on his forearm.

  He glanced at her and covered her hand with one of his own. He’d half expected to see her looking at him with disgust after hearing how he’d lived his life these past few years. If not because he’d been a thief, then because he’d been responsible for the death of his friends. Instead, he saw understanding and sadness. Not for anyone but him.

  “You can’t feel guilty for your friends’ deaths, Gideon,” she whispered.

  “Yes, I can. I was the unofficial leader and I made the choice to stick around. I should have stopped everything months earlier, but I was afraid Hobbs would try to lead Finn and Lou on his own and he was too much of a hothead to lead even himself.”

  “See, that’s what I mean. Your friend Hobbs was destined to meet his Maker sooner than later, by the life he led before you even
met him.”

  On an intellectual level, Gideon knew Riley was right, but that didn’t dispel the guilt he still felt. “Thank you for that.” He looked at his brother and stated, “Shawn, I know you don’t think there’s any justification for what I’ve done, and while I agree, I only pray and hope that you never find yourself in a similar situation. I hope you continue to make better decisions than I did.”

  “Son, what matters now is that you made the right decision and came home. All of the rest … well, that will all settle out over time. It seems we have a more pressing situation right here at home that needs all of our attention.”

  “What did I miss?” Sara Jane asked, waltzing into the great room and looking around.

  “I think the question that bears asking is, where have you been?” James Lawson asked his youngest child.

  “Jace and I were out in the south pasture looking at a calf that got scratched up last night. He came and got me while Riley was changing clothes.” She nodded with a bright smile in Riley’s direction. “Glad everything fits.” She turned back to address the others. “Jace put riders out with the herd after seeing those cat tracks and it tried to take an animal last night. They were able to scare it off and thought maybe they had wounded it, but we couldn’t find a blood trail.”

  Gideon shook his head. “Not many young women I’ve ever met who could talk about following a blood trail and possibly running across an angry mountain lion and not be terrified.”

  “I’m no simpering female. Don’t you forget that,” Sara Jane told him with a note of challenge in her voice. “I can still outshoot you.”

  “I don’t know that I would make that challenge now, sis. It seems our dear brother has been doing nothing but wielding his gun since leaving home.”

  “Shawn, that’s not fair to your brother. Sara Jane, I don’t want you tracking that cat. Leave it to Carl and Jace to handle. A wounded cat is very unpredictable, and you’d be no match for it.”

  “I wasn’t planning to wrestle with it, Pa,” Sara Jane whined.

  “Still, you leave tracking that cat to the men.”

  “Fine. So, it seems I missed a lot. Spill it.” She looked at Gideon.

  “I’ll fill you in later, sis. Right now, Riley needs our help. Her brother is the leader of the most violent outlaw group Texas has seen in recent years. He and his men are ruthless, not just stealing and pillaging whatever they can, but leaving behind them a path of destruction that includes burning entire settlements to the ground.”

  Sara Jane plopped down in a vacant chair. “We are definitely going to talk after this.”

  Pearl shook her head at her daughter and softened her voice. “Riley, dear, tell us about your brother.”

  Gideon nodded at his ma, thankful that she was willing to offer a virtual stranger her support during such a trying time. He patted Riley’s hand where it still lay on his forearm and murmured, “Start wherever you like.”

  Riley nodded and started at the beginning, with the death of her parents. She described the bank man showing up and demanding payment for the note her father had borrowed. Without her parents around to manage things, all of the ranch hands had left shortly after they’d been laid to rest, leaving Riley to juggle the chores and the livestock on her own.

  “I started selling everything; I didn’t really feel like I had a choice.”

  “Your brother should have come home to help you,” Sara Jane told her. “My brothers would have done so.”

  “That’s right, short stuff. We would have, but Roy had his reasons.”

  “Yes, he was probably running from the hangman,” Riley said morosely. “I really thought he was just too busy with his ranch to come home. I thought I could start again in Texas with him. Now I realize I should have stayed in Missouri.”

  “Riley, I know the circumstances that brought you here weren’t ideal, but I want you to know that no matter what happens with your brother, you have a place right here with us,” Pearl said. “I believe everything happens for a reason and you coming here right now, so soon after Gideon came back home, well, I can’t help but think that God planned this all out just so.”

  “Thank you.” Tears pricked Riley’s eyes. “I haven’t really felt like I had any place where I could belong for so long …”

  “Don’t start crying or Ma will join you and we won’t make any progress on making a plan,” Gideon warned her.

  Riley nodded and recounted all what she’d overheard. “I tried telling the sheriff, but he wouldn’t listen. No one would.”

  “That’s because they want to continue living in their safe little world.”

  “The women I met, Jasmine and Polly, one of them knew my brother. They said it was going to be really bad for the town if Roy and his gang weren’t stopped.”

  “Jasmine and Polly?’ Shawn questioned. “I don’t think I’ve met any women in town with those names.”

  “They live at the who—” Riley cut her words off as she looked at Gideon for help. She bit her bottom lip as she tried to decide if she should continue explaining. Gideon came to her rescue and she breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Riley ran into two of the women from the brothel in town while she was trying to warn folks. She didn’t realize who they were, and it turned out that one of them had actually known her brother about a year ago.”

  Gideon eyed his brother, daring him to speak the disparaging words he knew he wanted to say. Yes, it wasn’t common practice for Godly, Christian women to have anything to do with the women who traded their favors for coins.

  Gideon had frankly never quite understood that stance, as they were obvious sinners who needed to know about the love of God, and yet, no one wanted to talk to them so how were they to learn about God at all?

  Realizing his thoughts were starting to scatter, he waited until his brother’s shoulders sagged and his words faded away and then he continued. Where were we in the discussion? Oh …

  Gideon nodded. “Riley’s brother, well, he’s not known for showing mercy. About a year ago we were robbing a stagecoach and didn’t realize that her brother and his gang had also targeted the stagecoach. We stopped them first and were ready to let the driver and passengers go, when Riley’s brother showed up and started shooting everyone in sight.”

  He gave Riley a sympathetic look when she gasped. “I’m sorry, Riley, but that’s the truth. My men were already headed back up into the trees. When the shooting started, I turned back to see if I could help get any of the passengers to safety, but your brother and his gang rode straight in, shooting everyone they could. Your brother killed the driver and shot a pregnant woman in the back while I was trying to lift her up on my horse to get her away from the danger. She died right there in my arms.”

  Gideon blew out a breath, seeing that he had everyone’s attention. That had been a horrible day and he clenched a fist as turbulent emotions threatened to steal his focus. He hated to continue but he did so. Everyone needed to know just how ruthless the Johnston gang was. “Your brother would have shot me if I hadn’t drawn my own weapon and pointed it directly in his face. It took everything I had not to shoot him where he sat on his horse. I had the draw on him, and he knew it.”

  “What happened?” Riley asked, tears wetting her cheeks as they fell. Gideon’s heart broke at the sorrow and hopelessness filling her eyes. He wanted to save her this grief, but there just wasn’t any way to do so.

  “He put down his gun and told me to go and round up my men. He warned me that if he ever saw me again, he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot me in the back. The look in his eyes … it was like looking into the face of a dead man.”