The enraged cougar hurled toward them—snarling, spitting, and trapping them in a nightmare from which they might never awaken.
God, help me.
Josh grabbed the rifle by the barrel and bounded to his feet, vaguely aware of shouting and the sound of men running. The cougar sprang. Josh swung the rifle with strength multiplied by fear. Crack! The sturdy stock smashed against the animal’s head. It split in two, but it had done its work well. The mountain lion fell to the ground with one claw scraping Tim’s leg. The next moment, a hail of bullets ended the predator’s life.
Josh shook like an aspen leaf in a high wind. “Are you all right?” he choked out.
“I reckon.” Tim struggled to his feet. “Kinda dizzy, though.”
Josh looked down and gasped. Blood seeped through Tim’s torn jeans. “You’re hurt.”
Tim’s grin looked sickly in the moonlight, but he said, “Aw, it’s just a scratch. Thanks to you.”
“And to God.” Matt forced Tim back to the ground, tore open his jeans and examined the wound. “You’ll have a scar, but it looks worse than it really is.” He snatched his bandana from his neck and bound Tim’s leg before turning to Josh and gripping his hand until Josh winced. “It’s a good thing you were here. None of us dared fire after the first shot, for fear of hitting one of you.”
“Don’t give me the credit,” Josh protested. “I’ve never been so scared in my life! If God hadn’t been with us …” The sentence died in his throat.
Matt’s painful grip tightened. “Son, the real test of a man is in taking action when he’s scared to death.”
The words sank into Josh’s heart to be mulled over at a later time. Right now, he was too close to the near-tragedy to concentrate on anything except thanking God for sparing his and Tim’s lives.
twelve
The staccato beat of horses’ hooves the following day and Sarah’s shout, “The men are home,” sent Ellie flying through the ranch house doorway and toward the corral. Tim swayed in Blue’s saddle, obviously in pain. Ellie saw her brother’s torn, blood-stained jeans. Heart pounding, she rushed to him as Seth helped him down from the saddle.
Tim gave her a crooked smile and limped toward her. “Don’t worry, Ellie. I’m fine ‘cept for a love pat from a cougar who won’t be killing any more stock.”
“Thank God!” she burst out, throwing her arms around him.
“Yeah.” Tim’s smile faded, and he dropped one arm over her shoulders. “And Josh.”
“Josh?” Ellie looked past Tim and met the steady gaze fixed on her.
“He saved my life.”
Ellie sagged. “Saved your life!”
“Is there an echo around here?” Tim demanded. “If it hadn’t been for Josh—”
“Time enough for that later,” Matt snapped. “Seth, go to Madera and fetch Doc Brown.”
“Not on your life!” Tim yanked free from Ellie, stumbled up the stairs onto the veranda, and dropped into a chair. “I don’t need a sawbones for this little scratch. Matt already half killed me by drowning my leg with whiskey. Made me smell like a saloon.” He beamed at Solita, who had stepped onto the veranda. “Solita’s a good enough nurse for me. She’ll fix me up.”
“Si, Senor. I will bring bandages and salve.” The diminutive housekeeper’s eyes twinkled. “But no more whiskey.”
Tim grunted. “Good. If I hadn’t had witnesses, you’da thought I’d been on a spree.”
Ellie’s eyes filled. How typical of her brother to make light of being hurt! She clamped her lips and held back a cry of dismay when the bandage came off and exposed the wound. There was no sign of infection, but the jagged gash ran from thigh to knee: far more than a scratch.
Solita carefully examined Tim’s injury. “There is no need for stitches.” She cleansed the wound, plastered salve on its length, and wound it with soft linen cloths. She also ordered Tim to bed for the rest of the day.
To Ellie’s surprise, her brother yawned and mumbled, “Don’t mind if I do. But first, I gotta tell Ellie what Josh did.” He related the moonlight incident in a few short sentences that lost none of the drama, then yawned again and allowed Matt to carry him to bed.
Ellie slipped away. She must find Josh before he left the ranch and headed back to town. She couldn’t let him get away without thanking him for saving Tim. Her heartbeat tripled. The music that had begun in her soul the day of the fiesta swelled into a song of praise. She loved Joshua Stanhope. Could she face him without betraying her feelings? She knew he admired her, but was her love returned? At times, she thought so. So often when they were together, Josh’s steady gaze wrapped around her like a fleecy quilt. His smile settled over her like a rainbow after a storm.
Ellie raised her chin and told her traitorous heart to be still. She hurried outside. Josh stood beside Sultan, ready to mount. Thankful that everyone else had vanished, she ran toward him. “Please wait.”
Josh turned.
Ellie reached him. She clasped her hands together and willed them not to tremble. “Josh, if it hadn’t been for you, I might have lost Tim.” A lump came to her throat. “How can I ever thank you?”
A beautiful light came into Josh’s eyes. It softened the gray to the color of a misty dawn. He took Ellie’s hands in his. “By marrying me.”
Her mouth dropped. Surely she hadn’t heard him right. “By … by …,” she stammered.
“Is there an echo around here?” Josh’s teasing departed. “I know it’s too soon. This is also not the time or place.” He took in a deep breath and slowly released it. “I want you to know I’ve fallen in love with you, Ellie Sterling. You don’t need to say anything now. Just keep this in mind: God willing, someday you’ll be my beloved wife.”
Josh released Ellie’s hands, leaped into the saddle, and sent Sultan into a dead run. When they reached the bend in the road to Madera, he reined in, turned, and waved his sombrero. Then with a yippee-ki-ay worthy of Tim’s best, he rode out of sight.
Ellie fled. Not to her room, where someone might discover her and want to know why she was so distraught, but to her promontory refuge. Her tumultuous heart kept time with the cadence of Calico’s hooves. Josh loved her. He wanted her for his wife!
The words continued to beat in her brain as she reached the boulder on top of the promontory. Unable to contain her joy one moment longer, Ellie sat down, cupped her hands, and shouted into the valley, “Josh loves me!”
Loves me … loves me echoed back to her.
Ellie pressed her hands over her hot cheeks, still unable to believe it. How could a man as important as Joshua Stanhope love her? Yet he’d said, “I’ve fallen in love with you, Ellie Sterling.”
Ellie’s joy evaporated. “How will he feel when I tell him I was Ellie Stoddard for eleven years?” she asked Calico. “It looks like Gus is out of our lives, but Josh needs to know our background. Even if it doesn’t make a difference to him, what about his family? What if the Lord calls Josh back to San Francisco? Would I ever fit in?”
Calico nosed her and stamped a foot as if in sympathy.
Ellie went on. “No one knows how I long to be someone, especially now. I need to be worthy of Josh’s love. I’m past eighteen but all I’ve ever done is help around the ranch and sing in church. Tim and I have been dependent ever since we came here. It’s time for me to do more.” She stared down at the peaceful valley. “All Tim wants now is to ride and rope, but he may change his mind. Matt and Seth will pay for college if that’s what Tim wants, but I wish I could earn money to help. I just don’t know how.”
The mare tossed her head and whinnied.
“I know, girl. It’s time to go.” Ellie mounted. “God, I’d really appreciate it if You’d …” her voice trailed off. She couldn’t express what she wanted God to do, only that she needed Him to do something—anything—to satisfy her yearnings.
When Ellie left the promontory, she had no solution to her knotty problems. A conversation with Tim later that evening, however, brought com
fort. Tim had slept most of the day and was as observant as usual. At Solita’s decree, Ellie brought a supper tray to his room.
Tim wolfed down every morsel, then fixed a stern gaze on her. “You may as well spill whatever’s bothering you.”
“Josh asked me to marry him.” Appalled at blurting out what she’d vowed to keep secret, Ellie covered her face with her hands.
Tim’s fork crashed to his plate. “Great!” He frowned. “So, what’s your problem? I told you Josh was a goner.”
“He’s in love with Ellie Sterling,” she choked out.
Tim groaned. “Don’t tell me you’re still letting Gus spoil your life.” He fell silent for a time, then added with obvious reluctance, “Besides, Josh knows Gus was our pa.”
Ellie stiffened. “I suppose Luther or Amy told him.”
“Naw. I did.” Tim squirmed. “Don’t look like that. It just came out. We were talking about cougars. I said Gus used to tell us the mountain lions would eat us if we weren’t good. Josh looked disgusted and asked who Gus was. I told him, and we started talking about cougars again. Uh”—he squirmed again—“I said for him not to let on he knew ‘cause you don’t like being reminded about Gus.”
Ellie realized her happiness depended on Tim’s answer to a single question. “How did Josh take hearing we were adopted?”
Tim guffawed. “He musta taken it all right or he wouldn’t have asked you to marry him.” He sobered. “Josh is the best thing that ever happened to you besides our coming out here. Get it through your head that you’re good enough for him or anyone.”
For the second time that day, Ellie fled, hugging her brother’s revelation to her heart alongside Josh’s proposal. Yet the thought of not “being someone” remained.
Josh rode away from the Diamond S filled with disgust—not for telling Ellie he loved her, but for stupidly blurting it out next to a horse corral! No woman wanted to receive a proposal under such circumstances.
“It wasn’t all my fault,” Josh confided to Sultan after they rounded the bend in the road and slowed to a comfortable pace. “When Ellie looked up with those crystal blue eyes and asked how she could ever thank me, it just popped out. Know what, old boy? I’m glad she knows, even if I picked a bad time and place. Wonder how long I should wait before asking her to answer?”
The question brought him out of the clouds and back to earth. “I can’t even consider it until after my six months here are up and I know where I’ll be.” Josh shook his head. “Luther and his hangers-on are against me because I won’t confine my ministry to the members. According to Tim, Amy is all that’s standing in the way of my being fired. What will she think when she finds out I’m in love with Ellie?”
Sultan snorted.
Josh’s spirits rose. “My sentiments exactly!” He began to whistle and rode the rest of the way to the parsonage, watching rose-tinted clouds in the west, his mind filled with rosy dreams of a future with Ellianna Sterling.
thirteen
The early September storm that slam-banged in from the Pacific Ocean paled in comparison with the fury in Charles Stanhope’s face. He waved the special delivery letter that had just been delivered to him in the library. Edward had never seen his father so angry. Or heard him roar like the flames up the fireplace chimney.
“Letitia Stanhope, how dare you hire a private investigator to spy on our son?”
A wave of red mounted to her carefully styled blond hair. “You needn’t shout. I did it for Joshua’s sake.”
Josh? Edward sagged with relief.
His mother held out her hand. “The letter’s for me, is it not? Why did you open it?”
“I’ve been expecting to hear from our shipping office in San Diego. Thank God I opened the letter and found out what you are up to.”
Curiosity overcame caution. “What does the letter say?” Edward asked.
His father cast him a quelling look but began reading:
“Except for a few malcontents at Christ the Way, Joshua has been well received. He’s called ‘Preacher Josh,’ and people of all ages sing his praises, notably the young women who flock around him. Even in the short time he’s been here, church attendance has grown substantially—especially among the ranch hands. It doesn’t set well with the church chairman, but Joshua insists he must seek out those who are lost.”
Edward wanted to applaud. So, good old Josh was carrying out his mission. Yet a pang went through him. He missed his twin.
His mother obviously cared little for the lost. “Just what I thought,” she snapped. “A bunch of designing females making fools of themselves chasing Joshua. As if he’d ever look at anyone in that cow town.”
“Don’t gloat too soon.” Charles gave her a stern look and resumed reading:
“According to gossip, those who plot to become Mrs. Joshua Stanhope may as well give up. The only girl your son has paid any attention to is a rancher’s daughter. She sings in church and is called the Sierra Songbird. I have to admit, she has a nice voice.”
Mother gave an inelegant snort. “What does an investigator know? She probably sings like a crow. Is that all?”
“Yes. Pay the investigator and dismiss him. I will have no more spying on my son. I trust him, even if you don’t.” He threw the letter into the fire and stalked out.
“He’s my son, too,” Mother flung after him. “Edward, what are we going to do?”
“Go to Madera.”
A look of horror crossed her face. “You must be mad!”
Edward sat bolt upright. The idea grew like dandelions in spring. “Why not? We can find out for ourselves what’s going on, meet this Sierra Songbird and”—his imagination took flight—“if she has any kind of voice, we’ll bring her back with us, give her the finest training possible, and make her the rage of San Francisco. It will get her away from Josh.”
Letitia wrung her hands. “You are mad. As mad as your brother.”
“Not at all.” Edward fitted his fingers together and played his trump card. “When Josh left Bayview Christian, you lost the prestige of being the mother of ‘our fair city’s most up-and-coming minister,’ as the San Francisco Chronicle called Josh.” A gleam in his mother’s eyes showed he’d reached her. She dearly loved the limelight. “There’s one chance in a million that the ugly Madera duckling could turn out to be a swan. As her patron and discoverer, your social status would skyrocket.”
The opposition in Mother’s face gave way to consideration. “Your father won’t hear of it.” Her regretful voice told Edward he’d won.
He stood and stretched. “He’d do anything to help make peace between you and Josh. What’s more effective than our visiting Madera and offering the local songbird a chance to soar?” Edward shrugged. “Who knows? It might even cause Josh to reconsider where he’s supposed to be. Bayview Christian’s still holding his place open, aren’t they?”
‘Yes.” A conspiratorial look passed between mother and son.
Three days later Letitia and Edward ferried to Oakland and boarded the eastbound train.
Josh thrust aside the sermon he’d been working on and headed for the Diamond S. “The only honorable thing to do is confess to Matt,” he told Sultan. The black gelding pricked his ears into the listening attitude Josh knew so well. “How could I take advantage of Ellie when she was distraught over Tim?”
He repeated the question in Matt’s office a short time later. Matt sat behind his desk with Josh standing across from him, feeling like a prisoner before a judge. “Ellie asked me what she could do to thank me for saving Tim.” Sweat crawled up Josh’s back. “I blurted out ‘by marrying me.’”
Matt’s voice cut like a skinning knife. “Did you mean it?”
Josh clenched his fists. “I never meant anything more.”
Matt crossed his arms and tilted his desk chair back until it groaned. “So what’s the problem?”
Josh swallowed, wishing he was anywhere else. “I should have told you how I felt and asked permission to keep comp
any with Ellie before speaking out like that.”
“Did you tell Ellie you love her and ask her how she feels?”
Josh felt himself turn pale. “You sure aren’t making this easy. Not that I deserve anything else.”
“What do you expect?” The chair crashed down on all fours. “A man comes to me, says he told my only daughter she could marry him because he happened to be in the right place at the right time, and—”
The words stung. Josh stepped forward and glared down at Matt. “It’s not like that, Matt. I didn’t ask anything from Ellie except for her to keep in mind that someday, God willing, she’ll be my beloved wife.” He met his friend’s stern blue gaze squarely. “We’ve known each other a little less than three months. I’m twenty-seven. She’s eighteen. I wouldn’t expect her to love me now, although sometimes …” His voice lay down and died.
Mischief replaced the sternness in Matt’s eyes. He got up from behind the desk, wearing a Cheshire-cat grin. One strong hand shot out and gripped Josh’s. “Put her there, Preacher Josh. You may have my daughter’s hand in marriage if you can win her. In the meantime, see that Tim ‘keeps company’ with you two unless you’re in a crowd.” His mirth changed to sadness. “Ellie was the target of vicious gossip as a child. It left scars. There’s at least one two-legged cat in the vicinity who will scratch and squall if she thinks you’re serious about Ellie.”
“I know.” Josh heaved a great sigh. “Tim already warned me that Amy Talbot has been making her intentions known all over town.”
“It figures.” Matt gave Josh a lopsided grin. “One thing. How will that San Francisco family of yours feel about Ellie?”
Josh’s joy evaporated, but he wouldn’t duck Matt’s question. “My father will have reservations only until he meets her, Mother will huff and puff and try to blow my house down but will have to give in. My twin brother, Edward, will—”
“Twin brother! There are two of you?”
The look on Matt’s face proved too much for Josh. He bent double laughing. “That bad, huh?”
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