by Lori Wick
Kyle’s smile was huge. “Well, it’s either ask you or tell you.”
Again Shasta laughed.“I thought you said you were happy alone.”
Kyle laid his forehead against hers. “I’ve been praying for weeks that you’d forgotten all about that.”
Shasta’s eyes now took on a moment of pain. “I couldn’t think of anything else. That was why I was leaving.”
Kyle’s huge hand cupped her cheek, and he kissed her again.
“I’ve waited a very long time for you, Shasta, and I didn’t even know I was looking. I thought you wanted to return to Australia, or I’d have never let you go.”
Shasta stared at him for a long time. He shifted her in his arms, and she remembered his cast.
“You’re not really in shape to walk down the aisle right now, are you?”
“Six weeks.”
Shasta’s brows rose. “Is that what the doctor says?”
“He said eight, but if you’ll marry me when this cast is off, I’ll make it six.”
Shasta smiled complacently.
“You didn’t say where you wanted to be married.”
The lovely petite blonde cocked her head to the side.“I think we should marry here and honeymoon in Australia. What do you think?”
“I think that there couldn’t be a happier man on either continent.”
With that, Shasta kissed him.
A Note from Lori: I have no idea if anyone on the northern California coastline actually has roundup, but this story was so fun in my mind that I didn’t care if I had the facts correct. Jenner, Bodega Bay, Goat Rock, Occidental, Schoolhouse Beach, and many more beaches and towns are places I love to visit. My father drove a propane truck for more than 27 years, and this was his route for much of that time. For that reason, along with the fact that my memories of these places are sweet, I needed to put a special couple like Kyle and Shasta on the coast where I spent so much time growing up.
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Every Little Thing About You
Enjoy this special selection from Every Little Thing About You, the first book in Lori Wick’s Yellow Rose Trilogy.
Prologue
September 1881
Austin, Texas
THE MIDAFTERNOON SUN beat down unmercifully as the cowboy, a Texas Ranger, rode into town. Heat waves shimmered on the horizon, and the blowing dust caused the horse’s eyes to squint as Slater Rawlings tethered the dark roan animal to the hitching post. Other than seeing that the horse could reach the water trough, Slater gave little heed to Arrow’s comfort. For weeks the rider had been working on the courage to tell his boss about his decision, and now it was time to do the job. It was a relief to arrive at the Austin office and walk in the door.
“Why can’t you do both, Slate?” Marty Bracewell asked one of his best rangers just 15 minutes later. “Why does this faith thing mean you have to leave?”
“It’s not my faith—just as it is, Brace,” the younger man tried to explain. “And it’s not the job itself. It’s the travel. I’m tired of tracking and being out on the trail. I want to settle in someplace for the winter, possibly longer.” What Slater Rawlings didn’t try to explain was the need to get to church on Sundays—the ache inside of him for fellowship. Brace, whose life was the Rangers, would never have understood.
“You’ll be back,” Brace said with confidence, the desk chair creaking as he leaned back with ease. “It’s in your blood, just like it’s in Dakota’s. You’ll be back.”
Slater didn’t even reply. He stood, lifting his hat to his head.
“Take care, Brace.”
“I’ll do that. You do the same. I want you coming back fit.”
Not only did Slater not reply to this, he didn’t even look back as he placed his badge on the desk. With a hand to the doorknob, he quietly let himself out. Just moments later he was back astride Arrow and headed out of town. With a thought of how cool the hills would be, he headed west.
One
October 1881
Shotgun, Texas
FRIDAY AFTERNOONS WERE normally quiet. Saturday nights were a little more rambunctious, but most days and evenings in Shotgun were peaceful. It was for this reason that Liberty Drake was surprised to be needed. Being called out of the sheriff’s office to one of the saloons was the last thing she expected, but Shotgun had laws about carrying firearms into the saloons or after sunset, so she had a job to do. She strapped on her holster and followed Jep, the saloon owner’s 11-year-old son, down the street. The boy ran, but Liberty walked, not apathetic, but not certain she needed to be out of breath when she arrived.
And indeed, things were quiet when she pushed through the swinging doors of the Brass Spittoon. Jep’s father, Gordie, nodded his head to a table in the corner. Liberty took in three men. Two were daytime regulars, but the blond was a stranger. There wasn’t even a drink in front of him, but Liberty had no choice.
“Excuse me,” Liberty began politely, waiting for the man to look at her. “I need you to surrender your firearm to me. Shotgun has outlawed firearms in the saloons and after dark.”
Slater looked up at the woman beside him. She was dressed in baggy men’s clothes, which did nothing to hide her gender, and he could only stare. Was that really a sheriff’s badge on her vest? His hesitation cost him. With a move so fast and smooth that Slater blinked, the woman’s gun cleared leather as swiftly as she lifted his own gun from the holster at his hip.
“You’ll need to come with me, sir,” Liberty said calmly.
“What?” Slater returned, finally uttering his first word.
Liberty gestured with the gun and moved so he could stand. “This way, please,” she ordered congenially but watching every move as he slowly rose. One of the other men handed saddlebags to Liberty, and after she’d thanked him and draped them over her arm, she moved Slater again with the motion of her gun.
As though he’d been frozen from the cold, Slater moved very slowly as he walked through the saloon. At the table he had stopped just short of reaching for his pocket to show his Ranger’s badge when he remembered it wasn’t there. He also remembered what such a move would look like. He didn’t want to run the risk of having this woman shoot him. She had cleared leather very smoothly, but that didn’t mean she could shoot straight. Barely managing to keep his amazement concealed, he walked ahead of her and out onto the street. He made the mistake of turning to her as soon as he was outside and felt cold steel press into his ribs.
“Just turn back around,” she said evenly, “and lead the way straight up the walk.”
Now seething inside, Slater turned and obeyed. He didn’t know when he’d been so angry. At six foot, he was not a huge man, but this small woman with the badge, clearly too full of herself, had him at her mercy. With a prayer for calm that was slow in coming, Slater did as he was told. They hadn’t walked for a minute when she spoke.
“In here,” she directed, and Slater, already aware of the location, went through the door of the sheriff’s office. He heard the door shut behind him and turned.
“Empty your pockets onto the desk, please,” Liberty ordered, all business, as she put the saddlebags out of reach on the floor. “Nice and slow will do fine.”
Slater did so without ever taking his eyes from her, which meant he couldn’t miss the way she watched him in return. She was calm; he had to give her that. As he looked into her eyes, he knew with a bone-chilling certainty that she would shoot if she felt she had to.
“Now your boots,” she instructed.
Slater hesitated and heard the gun cock.
“All right,” he said smoothly. “I’ll just tell you, though, I do have a knife in my boot. I won’t use it—I just wa
nted you to know.”
“Put the knife on the desk,” Liberty said, taking a second to eye the Bowie knife that appeared. Not a heartbeat later her eyes were back on her prisoner, who was removing his boots with slow, measured movements.
“Your belt now,” Liberty said as soon as he stood back to full height. He was a taller man than she liked to deal with, but she didn’t think he was going to threaten her. She couldn’t, however, take any chances.
“Turn around,” was the next order, once all of Slater’s belongings were on the desk. “Head into the cell.”
Slater did so, the feeling of unreality washing over him again. He turned as soon as he was inside and watched as the door was shut and locked. He also watched as Liberty holstered her gun, set his on the desk, and began to speak.
“Dinner comes at 6:00 this evening, and breakfast tomorrow at 7:00. You’re expected to be neat and quiet. Unless you’re wanted for something, the charge to get out is ten dollars.”
“Ten dollars!” Slater growled in outrage. “You can’t be serious.”
Liberty shrugged. “We need a new jail, and this seems like the most obvious way to come up with the money.”
Slater’s mouth fell open. He couldn’t believe what he had just heard. How in the world had he thought this was a nice little town?
“I don’t suppose you have it,” Liberty said now, her voice resigned as she studied him.
“Why would you say that?” Slater was just irritated enough to ask.
Liberty’s brows rose. “You can’t even afford a haircut and a shave.” There was no censure in her voice, only calm reason. Slater swallowed his rage as she turned away. He turned his back on the bars. The cell was standard fare, but he saw what she meant—repairs were needed.
With a sigh that he made no attempt to hide, Slater walked to the bed and collapsed on the straw mattress, which sent up a musty odor. He leaned against the wall and tried to stay calm. Nothing worked. Wrong as it was, he was furious, and for right now he was going to stay that way.
Ten dollars, he thought once again. That’ll be the day.
“How’d it go?” Griffin Drake asked the moment he stepped into the sheriff’s office—his office.
“Just a newcomer in town. He wouldn’t give up his gun.”
Griffin’s eyes went to the cell, where he could see long legs stretched out from the bunk but no body or face.
“Did he give you any trouble?”
“No, but he’s bigger than I like to deal with.”
Griffin smiled. Liberty was always honest.
Brother and sister both heard movement in the cell just then and turned to see the prisoner coming to stand at the bars.
“I’m Griffin Drake,” Liberty’s brother volunteered, “sheriff here in Shotgun. What’s your name?”
“Slater Rawlings,” the prisoner said, his eyes going between them. “You’re the sheriff?”
“Yes.”
“And you want ten dollars from me?”
“Unless you’re wanted, and then no amount will gain your release.”
“How was I supposed to know about guns in the saloon?”
“It’s posted above the bar,” Griffin told him calmly.
“I didn’t go to the bar. I don’t even drink.”
“Then what were you doing in the saloon?”
I can’t spend all my money on the luxury of a hotel room, and there’s no place else to go in this town after you’ve slept out in the woods, Slated thought to himself, but he wasn’t about to admit that to them.
Griffin waited calmly for an answer, but the man turned away. Griffin and Liberty exchanged a glance.
“He doesn’t like you, big brother,” Liberty said, her voice low but her eyes lit with a smile. “He was much nicer for me.”
Griffin smiled back. “Let me guess, Lib. You were holding your gun.”
Liberty laughed a little and stood. “I’d better get home so I can help Mam with dinner.”
“All right,” Griffin said as he walked Liberty outside. “Thanks for your help.” There was no missing the contentment in his voice as he looked up and down the street and even back at the sheriff’s office, not new by any stretch of the imagination.
Liberty said her own goodbyes, thinking not for the first time that her brother was the perfect man to act as sheriff in Shotgun. He loved this town, believed in it, and trusted the people who helped run it.
When Griffin moved back inside to his desk, he saw that his prisoner had returned to stand at the bars.
“Don’t tell me you let your sister walk the streets alone.” Slater’s voice was mildly sarcastic. “It’s getting dark. She might be harmed.”
Griffin did not rise to the bait. On the way to the desk, he said, “Not my sister. She’s the fastest gun in town.”
Slater shook his head in disgust. Was the man a fool? He certainly didn’t look tough enough to be the sheriff. He wasn’t small, but he had the face of a boy—merry eyes, smooth cheeks, and all.
“I don’t suppose you want to tell me if you’re wanted anywhere,” Griffin commented as he lifted a stack of wanted posters and flyers onto the desktop from a drawer. “It might save me some time.”
“I’m not wanted,” Slater said coldly, knowing the lawman would have to check anyway. Slater watched him start on the stack. Twice Griffin rose to hold a picture up to the fading light at the window and then look toward the bars. But he only went back to the desk.
“So tell me,” Griffin began after a good ten minutes. “Why didn’t you just give up your gun?”
Slater sighed. “You wouldn’t believe me.”
“Try me.”
“I was stunned. I honestly didn’t think she could be serious.”
“I believe you,” Griffin said conversationally. “It’s happened before.” This said, Griffin reached for the wallet Slater had been commanded to put on the desk. He could see a few bills without even opening it. “If I don’t find you in this stack, it looks like you could pay your way out of here.”
“Don’t count on it.” Slater’s voice was decidedly cool. “Ten dollars is robbery, and we both know it.”
Griffin shrugged. “The food’s not bad, and it doesn’t get noisy until Saturday night.”
Slater didn’t reply. Neither did Griffin. It would be easier for the sheriff not to have a man locked up, but he would leave it up to him.
The stack was still rather high when Griffin needed to move around a bit. He scooped up Slater’s belongings and took them to the safe in the corner. There wasn’t much inside, but the wallet, knife, timepiece, papers, belt, and saddlebags just about filled it. He then checked the boots for weapons and set them by the bars.
“What time is it?” Slater asked.
“Coming onto 6:00. Supper will be here soon.”
“I can’t say as I’m very hungry.”
“Suit yourself,” Griffin replied in his calm way, and Slater knew a moment of respect. One of the hallmarks of a good Ranger was calmness. Another was politeness, and he knew he’d failed there. But this was so irritating, and at the moment he couldn’t think why God would put him in this place. He had fought the Lord for weeks about leaving the Rangers, and now that he’d talked with Brace, he found himself in jail.
Slater shook his head as he went back to the bunk. He could well imagine Brace’s face if that man could see where he was, not to mention his brother Dakota’s. Slater made himself sit back against the wall before he tried praying again.
“All right, Libby,” Kate Peterson, Liberty’s mother, said as she adjusted the candles on the table and moved the basket full of biscuits. “I think that just about does it. Duffy is carving the meat.”
“I’ll put the gravy in the blue boat just before we sit down.”
“Good. Where are Zach and Laura?”
“You sent them out to wash.”
“Oh, that’s right. Some days I think my head has rolled off my shoulders and I haven’t noticed.”
“It�
��s still there, Mam,” Liberty smilingly told her.
Kate smiled back and said, “I think I’ll have you run a plate of food over to your brother.”
“He’s at the jail with a prisoner.”
“Oh, who did he bring in?”
“I brought him in, and his name is Slater Rawlings.”
Kate was instantly alert. Since Griffin’s deputy had moved across state a month back, Liberty had been filling in. It was not the first time, nor was it an ideal situation, but at times a matter of life and death.
“Everything all right?” Kate asked her daughter.
“Yes. He’s new to town and didn’t know the rules. He hesitated, and I felt I had no choice but to lift his weapon.”
Kate nodded. She didn’t fear Liberty’s being shot—the younger woman was very competent with a firearm—it was more the things men said to her that Kate objected to. No mother wanted vulgar things said to her children, but when the child was a young, unmarried woman, it was all the harder. At times Kate wanted a different life for her daughter, a life without Griffin’s refitted pants or a gun. Kate honestly believed that would be best, but for the moment, this was where God had them.
“I washed,” five-year-old Laura announced as she came to the dining room doorway.
“Thank you, dear. Please tell your father we’re all ready in here.”
“Papa!” Laura dashed from the room on that note, and both women turned as Zach entered. He was a serious six-year-old with a heart of gold.
“Are you washed, Zach?” Liberty asked her young half-brother.
“Yes, but I got my shirt a little wet.”
“It will dry,” Liberty said kindly as she touched his fair head.
“Laura says we’re ready!” Duffy Peterson, one of Shotgun’s doctors and Kate’s second husband, said as he came on the scene just then, a platter of roast pork in his hands. He added it to the table, and in his warm, wonderful way invited everyone to sit down. He then asked them to bow in prayer.
