by Cora Seton
“Oh, those look good,” Alice said and took a few, too.
“I’m going to need more ketchup.” Lena looked around for a bottle on one of the adjacent tables, then decided she’d ask Christie when the waitress got back.
“Did someone say ketchup?” Sadie asked as she drew near with a pile of boxes in her hand that blocked her face from view. “If there’s ketchup, there’s French fries, and I’m in dire need of French fries.”
She awkwardly shoved her way into the booth, the tower of boxes tilting precipitously. “Let me at ’em,” she said, peeking around the pile.
“I don’t think I’ve ever eaten at a restaurant with all of you before,” Brian said. “We need a bigger booth.”
Lena froze, the burger halfway to her mouth. Her sisters froze, too. She could see Cass’s mouth move—counting—one, two, three, four, five—
“The General!” Jo cried.
Lena saw the moment Brian understood. He dropped his burger on his plate. “Oh, hell. You’re all off the ranch—”
She didn’t wait for him to finish his sentence. She scrambled up on the bench seat, vaulted over the back and across the next booth, and ran for the door, throwing twenties at Christie as she passed.
“Where’s the fire?” Christie called after her.
“No fire,” she called back over her shoulder.
No fire—
But with them all off the ranch—
Who knew what would happen next.
“I can’t get ahold of him,” Logan told Lena a half hour later. She’d scared the crap out of him when she’d careened into the driveway, screeched the truck to a stop by the carriage house and run inside like a tiger was chasing her. It had taken five minutes for him to make sense of what she was trying to say and why she thought the General might be in trouble. By then everyone else had arrived home, too.
“One of us has to be on the ranch—always,” she’d nearly shouted at him. “To keep the General safe. I spoke to him the other day. I don’t understand why you can’t reach him.”
She’d mentioned the superstition before, and he’d noticed the way the women kept tabs on each other almost unconsciously to make sure someone was always at the ranch.
“According to USSOCOM, he’s out of range of communications.”
“What is he doing in the Middle East?” Cass demanded. “He’s not supposed to be in an active war zone these days.”
“Normally he’s not, but men like him are called in for on-the-ground inspections from time to time. Your father isn’t one to shirk his duty.”
“So we don’t know if he’s okay or not.” Alice was pacing the living room in a very un-Alice way. She shut her eyes and concentrated but opened them a moment later. “I can’t see a thing.”
“Let’s all take a breath,” Brian said.
“How did you all manage to leave the ranch at the same time?” Logan asked. It had never happened since he’d been here.
“We were all too focused on getting this wedding off the ground—” Cass didn’t finish her sentence, and he knew she didn’t want to blame anyone.
“What’s done is done,” Connor soothed. “You’re all back here now. Nothing’s happened.”
“You don’t know that!”
All of them stared at this uncharacteristic outburst from Alice. She gave a groan and paced again. “I hate this; why can’t I see anything? It’s been getting worse and worse lately.”
Logan remembered what Lena had told him before—Alice found it difficult to see her own future. Was that future getting too close?
Jack would be here soon.
“If something happened to the General, we would know about it,” Brian said reassuringly. “He might not be reachable, but you can bet he’s able to get word out if necessary.”
Logan didn’t think the sisters were entirely appeased, but there wasn’t much they could do but wait.
“When will he be back in touch?” Hunter asked him.
“Not for another week at least.”
When Lena slipped outside late that night, crossed Sadie’s garden and entered the maze, she wasn’t surprised to find her sisters there before her. When she joined them in front of the stone, she pulled her thick jacket more tightly around her and shivered in the cold. The temperature had dropped steadily all day, and the pinpricks of the stars glittered above her. The stone loomed solid and unknowable, a dark shadow against the sky.
Cass reached a hand out to touch it, but Sadie snatched it back. “I don’t think we should ask.”
“I do,” Jo said. “We need to know.”
“We can’t stop what happens whether we know or not,” Alice put in. “Believe me, I’ve tried plenty of times.”
Lena hated the bitterness in her voice. She knew Alice suffered when her premonitions revealed something bad. “I don’t think we should ask, either,” she said quickly. “But I think—I think we need to make another promise to make up for the one we broke.”
“Like Mom did when Dad left the first time?” Cass asked.
“Exactly like Mom did. She promised she’d always stay on the ranch when the General was gone, and she did. In exchange, the stone kept him safe.”
Sadie made a noise, but Lena kept going. “We’re the ones who blew it; that means we need to make a new promise. A different one.”
“What kind of promise?” Jo asked.
“That we’ll stay for good. That we’ll all live our lives here in Chance Creek, at Two Willows. We’ll make our stand here. We’ll protect this land.”
“But—” Alice began.
“I don’t mean we never get to go anywhere. Trips, vacations, temporary things—those are fine. I mean we pledge that Two Willows will always be our home base. That’s what the land wants, right?” Now that she was marrying Logan, it was an easy promise to make.
Her sisters nodded. Alice last. “Yeah, that’s what it wants,” she echoed.
“Then let’s do it,” Lena urged. “Now, before something happens.”
Cass put her hand on the stone. Jo did, too. Sadie reached out more slowly, but when she laid her palm on the stone, she nodded. “It’s the right thing to do,” she said.
Lena put her hand on it, too, nearly flinching from the cold. “Alice?” Her breath came out in a white puff, and she shivered again. She couldn’t wait to get back inside.
Alice hesitated. “It’s just—my costume job—it could take me away for a while…”
“But not forever,” Cass told her. “Come on, it’s freezing!”
Still Alice held back. “But what if it turns into something—” She shrieked when something swift and white shot past her, dove to touch the ground and flew off again, a tiny mouse in its claws.
Lena’s heart beat hard; she’d never seen an owl take its prey so close before. How could it see such a small creature in the dark like that?
Alice slapped her hand on the stone. “Do it!” she said to Lena. “Make the pledge.”
“Alice?”
Alice cut off Cass’s question. “Say it,” she hissed at Lena.
Lena replaced her hand on the stone. “In exchange for my father’s safety, and for the safety of us all, I pledge that I will spend my life at Two Willows, guarding it and caring for it as best as I can.”
Cass swiftly repeated her words, then Sadie, then Jo. When Alice’s turn came, her voice was shaking, and she ran through the words as quickly as she could.
“I pledge that I will spend my life at Two Willows, guarding it and caring for it as best as I can.” It came out as one long, slurred phrase. “Done,” she said and slapped the stone. “It’s done. I know you heard us.”
“Alice, what’s wrong? Did you see something?” Cass pulled her hand back.
“Of course.” Alice pointed to where the owl had grasped the mouse. “Didn’t you?”
Lena shivered as a chill that shook her frame. “What do you think it meant?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Alice was close to tears.
Lena thought about the way the owl had taken the mouse. Swiftly. Silently. One moment there, the next gone.
She shivered again, thinking about her father.
And hoped against hope he was all right.
Logan couldn’t ignore the sense of something looming on the horizon—something coming at them—after the day Lena and her sisters had all left the ranch at once. He couldn’t say why their silly superstition bugged him, except that with five skittish, spooked women around the place it was easy to catch their anxiety.
He worried less about the General than about the possibility trouble would crop up right here at Two Willows, though. Three times men sent by someone in Tennessee had come after the Reeds. Three times they’d fought them off. Something told him they hadn’t seen the end of those troublemakers.
He found himself up earlier than usual, riding out at sunrise to get the lay of the land when the weather allowed, ranging far and wide on foot when the weather didn’t. He looked for signs that someone was testing the perimeters of the ranch. Probing for weaknesses. So far, he hadn’t seen any, but that didn’t mean he was wrong to be vigilant. When he’d first come to Chance Creek, he’d locked his firearm away in his room. Now he wore it from morning to bedtime most days.
He soon found he wasn’t the only one who was thinking along those lines.
“It’s about time for more trouble, isn’t it?” Connor had put it succinctly.
“It’s been quiet for far too long,” Hunter put in. “I figure it’s due to arrive any day now.”
It comforted Logan to know that he wasn’t the only one with such thoughts on his mind, but at the same time it disconcerted him to know that all the men on the ranch were uneasy. The one person he didn’t mention his concerns to was Lena. She was far too worried about her father. Her relationships with her sisters had grown closer amid their shared fears. He didn’t want to disturb that. He knew Lena would scoff at him and want to take her part in the preparations the men were making to keep a better watch on the ranch, but she was going to be married in two weeks’ time and had plenty on her plate to accomplish. Surely that gave him the right to intercede for her just this once.
In any event, they hardly had to make plans. It turned out that each of the men had been patrolling on his own. Aside from a conversation or two in which they divvied up the times of day and the directions in which they went, there really weren’t any preparations for Lena to take part in.
Which was all his way of justifying himself the day Lena caught him heading out on an early morning ride.
“You’re patrolling. Without me,” she accused without preamble.
He was caught, and he knew it. She knew it, too.
“It’s not just you; it’s Brian, Connor and Hunter, too. What’s going on?”
He finished buckling the strap of the saddle and straightened. “There’s nothing going on—yet. That’s why we didn’t bring you into this; there’s no reason for what we’re doing. We’re just doing it anyway, because trouble seems to come around here pretty regularly.”
Lena scowled. “You’re all in on it—together? And none of you told me?”
“It’s like I said; there’s nothing to tell. But have you noticed whenever one of you decides to get married, shit hits the fan?” He meant it as a joke, but Lena’s frown deepened.
“So, it’s our fault people keep attacking the ranch? And that gives you the right to take over, without even telling me?”
“That’s not what I meant. We both have chores to do. You’ve got the wedding to plan on top of that. I figured you had enough to do.” He reached for her, but she sidestepped him.
“Not one week ago you said you considered me an equal.”
“I do. That doesn’t mean we have to be joined at the hip. I’ve got my work, you’ve got yours.”
“But I’m not trying to hide mine!”
Logan blew out a breath. She was right, but that didn’t stop his frustration from mounting. Just once couldn’t he be the man? He wanted her safe—not out on patrol. He scraped a hand over his jaw. “Look, Alice must be rubbing off on me. I got this sense trouble was coming. Nothing tangible; just a feeling. I started watching out, taking morning rides, looking for signs of trouble—but I haven’t seen a thing. I found out Brian and the other guys were doing it, too. All we did was make sure we weren’t covering the same ground at the same time. This is the kind of thing we do; it’s our job. Do you really have a problem with that?”
“What I have a problem with is men stepping in and making decisions for me without asking.”
Logan shoved his hands in his pockets. “I can’t win this argument, can I?” he snapped. “You’re about to marry me. You have two weeks until your wedding day. Any other woman would be thinking about dresses and flowers and table settings and—” Logan knew he was digging his own grave but couldn’t seem to stop.
“I’m not any other woman. I don’t care what I wear or whether there are flowers at our wedding. It’s just a stupid tradition—”
“Hey, maybe I care about our wedding. Maybe I want it to be something special.” Logan lost his temper. He’d reined in his own instinct to lead for weeks. They all had. Didn’t she see that? “And it’s not just your responsibility to care for this ranch. It’s our responsibility. This land doesn’t just belong to you anymore!”
Lena’s eyes widened before she regained control. “I knew it!” she hissed. “I knew it—you’re just like every man I’ve ever met. All you want to do is take. Take my freedom. Take my home. Steal my land.” She clawed the ring he’d bought her just days ago off her finger and chucked it at him. It bounced off his cheek, and he caught it automatically, his heart sinking.
“None of that’s true, and you know it.” It was her fear talking. And his worry. They should be confronting those fears, not hurling accusations at each other, but he didn’t know how to stop the conversation now that it was started.
“All I know is that I was a fool to trust you. A fool to trust any man. And I’m done. There won’t be any dresses or place settings or guests. There won’t be a wedding. I’m not marrying you. And I want you off my land.”
It was cold in the barn’s loft. Bitterly cold. But there was no way Lena was going back to the house, even if dusk had fallen more than an hour ago, and now it was fully dark. She’d spent a long day doing chores alone, snarling at anyone who dared to come too close. It was too dark to work any longer. She envied Jo, with her snug little private dwelling that Hunter had helped her build next to the main house. She needed a hideaway, too, but she’d be damned if she’d hole up in the attic Logan had fitted out for her.
For one week—one week—she’d allowed herself to get distracted by concerns that were typically feminine. All the questions that needed to be answered for her upcoming nuptials. She’d allowed herself to enjoy it. Had reined in her vigilance, just a little bit, for a few days.
And this is what happened. The General was in danger, and the men had moved seamlessly to take over. Certain they knew better than she did what was good for her. They could have asked. Could have said, “Hey, Lena, would you like us to take this on?” She could have said yes or no. Instead they decided for her.
Men always tried to decide for her.
Was this the kind of life she was going to face? Would she always have to fight for her position here? As much as she hated to admit it, the General did control Two Willows’s deed now that Amelia was gone. He could pass it on to whomever he chose. Sell it off if he felt like it. He could sign the deed over to the men and leave her and her sisters out of it. Community property laws would kick in under a dispute, but that didn’t help in the day-to-day operations. If she fought with Brian, Connor and Hunter, it would cause a rift in the family anyway.
Lena wished she could turn back time a day and go back to the tight-knit conversations about her wedding she’d been having with her sisters. Even with their worry about the General, she’d enjoyed the closeness she’d felt with them. It had
been like being girls again. It had been too long since they’d had the luxury of having fun together that way.
Now it was over. The wedding was off.
She wrapped the horse blanket around herself more tightly and wished she’d stopped to put on more layers before dashing from the house. She’d need to go back and face the rest of them soon anyway, and tell the men to stop interfering.
She’d have to start patrolling herself.
And she didn’t feel like patrolling.
She felt—
She felt like a fool.
Lena sighed and buried her face in her hands. The truth was, she’d gone off half-cocked at Logan’s interference when he was right; all he was doing was trying to help. Years of frustration in her dealings with the General had taught her to mistrust everyone. Now Logan was paying the price.
This past week had shown her she didn’t feel like being in charge of everything anymore. Truth be told, she couldn’t be everywhere at once. If trouble was coming—and Logan was right, it probably was—they’d need to work together to hold it off.
It made sense to have men regularly patrolling the ranch. She should have thought of it herself.
Would have, if she hadn’t been so wrapped up in worry about the General’s safety.
Lena sighed again. It was late, and cold, and if she didn’t retreat to the house soon and apologize to Logan, she’d probably freeze to death. Then there’d never be a wedding. And she wanted a wedding. She loved Logan. And she knew he loved her.
Looking around, she had to admit that her old hideaway paled in comparison to the beautiful attic room Logan had built for her. She would’ve liked to move the old chest, the swords and the musket into the house and display them there. Reminders of her family’s past amid the present she’d been building with Logan.
Regret cut deep inside her. Far deeper than she’d like to admit. She truly loved Logan. Would he still want to marry her if she admitted her mistake? Or had she proved to him she wasn’t worth the effort?
