But no one knew where she was, or that she was in trouble.
With her skirts bunched up around her waist, she kept going. Running, running. Until her foot connected with a rock hidden in the grass and she went flying. This time, when she got up, she felt a sharp pain in her ankle. Unable to move another step without pain, she turned and faced the bull.
Calm yourself, Annora. Look him in the eye. You know animals like you. They always calm down in your presence.
Please, let it work now.
The bull halted, strings of snot hanging from his nostrils, mouth open, panting. She concentrated on slowing her heart rate, calming herself. She smiled.
Her antagonist tossed his big head, flinging snot everywhere. He pawed the ground.
Annora didn't move.
The bull stilled and returned her stare.
Galloping hooves broke the quiet. Annora didn't dare look around to see what thundered toward them. When the bull gave a fierce bellow and charged her again, she turned and did her best to run, grimacing at the pain in her ankle.
Any second, she expected those horns to pierce her body. Instead, an arm wrapped around her and she found herself slung over denim covered thighs straddling a saddle.
"Damn it, woman," Birch shouted at her. "You wishing for death?"
She had no breath to answer.
He and his horse performed some fancy moves, avoiding the bull's horns, then raced toward home.
Annora's stomach and ribs ached from being bounced against the saddle and Birch's muscular legs. Her position limited her view to horse's legs thrashing through grass, sounds to the thud of hooves, and her own labored breathing.
Finally, they slowed. Annora became aware of a large hand splayed over her waist, holding her in place. Mortified by her situation, she closed her eyes and did her best not to cry.
At last, he stopped. "You all right?"
She swallowed and sought strength. "Yes. Is it safe to get down?"
"Yes." The next thing she knew, he was on the ground, his arms around her waist hauling her from the horse. Somehow, he turned her so they were face to face and she slid down his body until her toes touched the ground. "Can you stand?" he asked.
"I-I don't know." She clung to his shoulders, afraid to let go for fear of falling. "My ankle."
Without a word, he swung her into his arms, cradling her against his body. Ten silent minutes later, she saw the house. Not Lissette and Chance's house—the main house. A woman Annora had never seen before stood on the porch. Birch slowed and cursed under his breath, then resumed his stroll.
"Well, well, Birch," the woman said, "what have you there?"
He sat Annora in a rocking chair and straightened. Looking down, she gasped. Her skirts bunched about her hips, exposing her stocking-covered lower limbs. She'd lost a shoe somewhere. Frantic, she pushed the skirt down to cover herself.
The woman laughed.
"What are you doing here, Charlotte?" he asked, hands on his hips, his weight on one leg.
"Why, I came to see you, of course. I drove Papa's new Winton automobile over. Do you like it?"
Glancing around, Annora saw the fancy machine parked nearby. She'd seen automobiles before in the city, but not in Wyoming. Noisy things.
Before Birch could respond to Charlotte's query, the door opened, and Lissette came outside. "Thought I heard... Charlotte. I didn't know you were here. Did you knock?"
"No. I saw Birch coming and waited."
Lissette saw Annora then. "What on earth happened to you? You look a mess. Did you fall?"
She'd fallen several times but never had the chance to say so.
"The little fool went for a walk without knowing where she was going and ran into Atlas," Birch explained.
Atlas? He'd named the beast? Annora chided herself for the thought. She couldn't very well scold others for something she did herself. Atlas had only done what came natural to him. She'd known better than to run. Her flapping skirts acted as a sign waving him on.
The woman, Charlotte, laughed again. "Oh, no. Atlas? You still have that old bull?"
"He's only seven," Birch said, sounding defensive, "and can run like hell. Why don't you go round him up and bring him home?"
"No thanks, darling. I'm sure he'll find his own way. He always does."
Darling? No one had told Annora that Birch had a sweetheart. Had he forgotten that when he signed on for the Ride for a Bride Race?
"Bring Annora inside, Birch," Lissette said, opening the door. "She looks like she's had a terrible time."
Before she could object, he had her in his arms again, angling sideways to carrying her through the doorway into the large sitting room. He laid her on a sofa in front of a cold fireplace before backing away.
"Go see to your guest," Lissette told him. "I'll take care of Annora."
"I'm fine, Lissette," Charlotte said, having followed them inside. "I would like to speak to you, though, Birch."
Annora ignored her. "Don't you need to take lunch to the men at the games?" she asked her cousin.
Lissette blinked at her. "The games? Oh, the competition. That's already been done. It's late afternoon, Annora. Where have you been?"
Late afternoon? "I-I went for a walk. It was so beautiful, I must have gone farther than I realized."
"Where are you from?" Charlotte asked. "Back East?"
The question went ignored.
Lissette picked up a blanket from the back of the sofa and spread it over Annora. "Well, it's a good thing Birch saw you. Did Atlas chase you?"
"Yes, until I fell and hurt my ankle. I had him calmed down. I would have been all right if Birch hadn't come galloping up like the cavalry and spooked the bull again."
Birch, who hadn't moved yet, cursed. "Are you crazy? What do you mean, you had him calmed down? You don't calm down an enraged bull."
"Well, I did." She glared at him. "Couldn't you see him standing motionless when you rode up?"
He frowned.
"Birch, please," Charlotte said. "A few words. Outside?"
"Go on," Lissette said. "You're not needed here."
He scowled but turned and followed Charlotte out onto the broad porch.
"Who on earth is that?" Annora asked.
"Charlotte Angstrom. She's from the next ranch. They grew up together."
"She acted a bit territorial."
Lissette glanced toward the windows where Birch could be seen arguing with Charlotte. "She's been away at finishing school and touring the continent. Charlotte's the woman everyone in the county has always expected him to marry."
CHAPTER SIX
"What are you doing here, Charlotte?"
Prettier than ever, she cocked her head and stared at Birch, smiling. "That's not a very nice greeting after so much time apart."
"Sorry. It's not good timing." If he didn't know her so well, he might enjoy catching up on each other’s lives, but he did know her. Too well. Charlotte Angstrom was beautiful, smart, cunning, and manipulative. The last time he'd seen her, she'd set a trap so that their parents would force him to marry her. Birch had declared his innocence, refused to do their bidding and rode away the next day, never to return. Or so he thought.
Did she know about the demands in Shank's will, that he had to marry soon or lose it all? He hoped not because she'd never leave him alone then. Their families had always wanted them to end up together, and she was all for it. Birch wasn't.
"Where did you go when you left here, Birch?" she asked, taking a step closer.
He tried to back away but found himself flat against the house next to the window. Could Lissette and Annora hear their conversation? To avoid Charlotte, he moved sideways to lean against the railing. "I went back East, ended up in Boston. Went to school and got a law degree."
Her smile spread across her face, a genuine smile for once. "You're a lawyer? Why, Birch, that's wonderful. Are you practicing law here in Sheridan, or running High Plains?"
"I've handled a few cases for fr
iends, but the ranch takes most of my time." He glanced over at the automobile. He would have loved to examine one, even try one out, but not if it belonged to John-B.
She started toward him again. He straightened. "In fact, I'm needed out at the corral right now, getting a bull ready for the ranch competition tomorrow."
"Yes, Papa told me some crazy woman tried to stop the bull riding."
He cleared his throat, glancing toward the window. "She's a greenhorn who didn't know better. I do need to go, Charlotte."
Before he could stop her, she wound her arms around his neck to plant her mouth on his. Familiar flavors, smells, and memories invaded his mind. For a second, he was sixteen again and lying with her in the hayloft behind the barn. She'd had her lips on his then too. But he'd enjoyed it then.
Taking her by the arms, he held her away from him. "We are not going to pick up where we left off, Charlotte."
She laughed. "Where we left off was nowhere. You vanished the day after our parents decreed that we marry."
"I wonder why?" He glanced upward as if expecting to see the reason floating in the air. "Could it be because you tried to trap me, do you suppose?"
Her smile fled, and anger filled her eyes. "We belong together, Birch Struthers. Everyone knows it. You're the only one resisting. Why? What's wrong with me that you'd run off to Boston to avoid becoming my husband?"
"I suspect you know that, and I don't have time to discuss it. Goodbye, Charlotte." He ran down the porch steps and loped across the ranch yard to the barn, hoping Lissette would be smart enough not to let that witch of a woman into the house.
Chance waited for him at the barn door. Behind him, the horses hitched to the buckboard snorted, as if to say It's about time.
"Did she snare you again?" Chance asked.
Birch knew who he meant. "Almost. Why didn't you warn me?"
Holding up his hands, Chance backed away. "Easy now, she already had her arms around you when I arrived."
Birch's anger dissipated. Most of it was aimed at Charlotte anyway, not Chance. He glanced at the house when he heard her fancy automobile roar to life. Relieved by her eminent departure, he leaned against the barn door. "What a nasty surprise. I hope she doesn't know about the Ride for a Bride Race."
"If she doesn't now, she soon will. You know that, so you may as well be prepared." Chance rolled a cigarette, lit it, and handed it to Birch, a habit from their teenage years, something they did when confronted by old memories or new problems. Both, today.
Birch knew Chance had it right. Charlotte would hear about the race and do her best to use it to her advantage. These past six years since he left Sheridan, he'd given her little thought, hoping she'd found someone else to marry and bedevil. He glanced at his foreman and old friend. "You hear much about her while I was gone? You've never mentioned her since I came back."
A cloud of dust followed her as she raced away.
Chance shrugged. "Didn't reckon you'd be interested in hearing that. Her folks packed her off to a finishing school a month after you left. After that, she toured Europe. I think her parents figured the money well spent, keeping her away."
"I wonder if she came home because she heard I’d returned." The team grew restless, stomping their hooves and swishing their tails with unnecessary emphasis.
Chance glanced over at them. "Could be. Wouldn't surprise me none. I have the wagon hitched if the ladies have the food ready to go."
Birch had almost forgotten the reason he'd come back to the ranch from the competition. "Hell, I'd forgotten. Came back to find Annora facing down old Atlas in the west pasture."
"Facing him down?" Chance frowned and tossed aside the cigarette they'd been sharing.
"Yeah. When I first saw her, she was running like the devil was after her."
Laughing, Chance said, "And he was."
"She fell, and I thought sure she'd be flying through the air any second. Instead, she stood up, faced him down and, goshdang it if that bull didn't stop dead in his tracks and stare at her."
"I take it she hurt herself since you carried her into the house."
"Turned her ankle is all. When I arrived, Atlas charged her again. She was hobbling along like a jackrabbit with a sore foot when I reached her."
"Glad it didn't turn out worse."
"Me too. Here come Lissette and Mable with the food."
They hurried over to the wagon, so it looked like they'd been doing something important rather than standing around chewing cud and smoking tobacco.
"You'd best rush this to the men," Mable said, setting a basket in the back of the buckboard. "They'll be starved by now. Likely find them marching up the road to fetch it themselves."
Birch took the second basket from Lissette and said, "She all right?"
"She will be when her ankle heals. Sorry about Charlotte. I didn't know she was here." She darted a questioning look at her husband who shook his head.
"I didn't know either," Mable said, "'til I went looking for Lissette and saw Charlotte lurking on the porch."
"No harm done." Birch set the basket inside the wagon and climbed onto the seat. "Come on, Chance. We'll see you ladies later."
"Watch out for love traps on the road," Lissette quipped as the wagon rolled out of the barn.
Birch cursed.
CHAPTER SEVEN
"No, no, no, Mr. Schmitt.” Annora waved her hands to signal the man to stop slinging his pick at the office wall. "It's way too large. I'll never find a door to fit it."
"You vant hole in vall, and I knock hole in vall," he said in a German accent.
She shook her head, frustrated with her attempts to make the man understand what she wanted. "Very well. As long as the door fits well and is installed before nightfall. I don't want thieves breaking in."
"Ya, ya. I do."
Satisfied she could leave him alone for a time, she left.
After a full week at the Brownell home, Annora had moved into her apartment. Chance had helped to paint and fix up the place. Lissette and Annora made blue calico curtains for the windows and a coverlet for the bed. Even Birch contributed by suggesting Annora raid the High Plains attic for any furniture she could use. She'd selected an old-fashioned but serviceable mahogany settee with wine-colored, velvet upholstery and a matching chair. A bed with a high wooden headboard and a chest of drawers joined the selection.
Since the competition had gotten underway again after more delays due to rain, keeping the men busy, Lissette, Mable, and Beth had insisted on helping to move the furniture out of the attic, into the buckboard, and up the stairs of the apartment. A small dining table with four chairs, a bedside table and end tables for the sitting room purchased from a store in town had been delivered yesterday.
"It should go in front of the fireplace, Mable," Lissette insisted as Annora stepped into the sitting room. "Sofas belong in front of the fireplace."
"That fireplace doesn't work. Better to put the settee in front of the window." Mable waved her arms in the air to demonstrate her words.
Annora inserted herself between the two women. "I like that idea, Mable. I can sit and stare at the mountains to my heart's content."
Lissette grumbled but helped to move the piece.
"Now," Annora said, "how about a break for some coffee and those little sandwiches Mable made?"
Lissette rubbed her stomach. "Good idea. The baby is hungry." The banging continued downstairs, so they had to shout to be heard.
"When is your baby due?" Beth asked.
"Late October." Lissette grinned. "I can't wait. I swear it's lying right on my bladder, so I pay constant visits to the necessary."
"I guess I'll be going through the same thing soon," Beth said with a shy smile.
"Oh, you're expecting too?"
"Around Christmas."
"A Christmas baby. How delightful." Mable passed out more sandwiches. "My first son, Cole, was born December 10."
Annora listened in silence while the others babbled on about giv
ing birth and child care. It pained her to think that she could never experience what these women had unless she married. It wasn't fair.
After their break, Lissette went to make up the bed with sheets and the new blue coverlet she and Annora had sewn.
The banging downstairs had stopped several minutes before.
"I'd better see how Mr. Schmitt is doing with the door." Annora excused herself and ran down to the office, finding it empty. "My lands. Where did that man go?"
Just then, George stuck his head inside. "Is Beth ready to go home yet?"
"I don't know. Why don't you run up and ask? My handyman is missing."
"Oh. That's what was causing all the noise." He studied the hole. "I have a feeling he isn't too sure what he's doing, Annora."
"That's my fear as well. What am I to do? I can't leave it like this." They walked through the crude opening into the yard.
George peered over the fence. "At least, with the fence here, people won't notice the hole as easily. We could hang a tarp over it."
Annora wrung her hands, unsure what to do. "Yes, but what if someone does notice and decides to break in?"
"I know someone who can help. Tell Beth I'll be late picking her up. I'll go fetch the man I have in mind."
"Oh, thank you."
She returned upstairs and smiled at the sight of her apartment with the furniture in place, a coverlet on her bed and friends at the table enjoying themselves. Three more cats and a mongrel three-legged dog had joined her menagerie since the purchase of the lot next door had gone through. Two of the cats had already made themselves comfortable on the new settee. Another sat in the window.
Holding out her arms to encompass the whole apartment, she said, "I love it. Thank you all for helping. I know I'm going to be happy here."
"Personally," Lissette said, "I think it was a waste of time. You'll be living in the ranch house by October."
"Don't even say that," Annora scolded.
"You have to accept the reality eventually. Unless you've decided to get out of the Ride for a Bride Race and not marry Birch."
Ride for a Bride in Wyoming (Rocky Mountain Romances Book 4) Page 6
