by April Hill
Claire kept her hands at her sides, resolutely determined not to give him the satisfaction of seeing her rub her backside or cry.
"All right, Mr. Campbell," she said as caustically as she could manage. "You've proven to me that you can beat an unarmed woman half your size into submission, but that's not what you'll be hired for—if I choose to hire you. How well do you handle that fancy weapon you're so protective of?
Campbell drew the revolver from its holster, cocked it and blew a neat row of shingles off the roof of the distant outhouse, shattering the drowsy afternoon stillness in a savage explosion of acrid gunsmoke and flying sawdust. The sound of the shots echoed for a moment or two, and when the billowing dust settled, a final shingle slipped from the shed in the sudden hush, dropping with a soft plunk onto the sun baked clay.
Claire listened to the silence, waiting for her heart to stop pounding and the dust to clear before she spoke.
"You're hired, Mr. Campbell. Now, show me where to start digging our well."
"Nope," he replied. "Forget the well. That's my first order, by the way. And stop callin' me Mr. Campbell. We'll start by putting that gate back up and fixing what fence you've got left on the place. It won't stop a full-out attack, but it might slow down a stray rider or two. It'll depend on how they come at us. Tomorrow we'll go into town and see if we can hire a couple of fellas that Thacker hasn't already scared the pants off. How much money can you put your hands on? If this is a ranch, you're gonna' need cattle."
"I've got cattle," Claire said proudly. "Forty-eight of them, arriving next week at the railhead in Brewster. I bought them from a place called Swan Land and Cattle, in Wyoming. I was told that most of them were sired, or sprung, or whatever you call it, from a large reddish-brown bull named 'Anxious' or 'Anxiety'. Something like that, if I remember the name correctly."
"Anxiety 4?" he asked, in obvious amazement.
"Yes, that was what they called him. Is that good?"
Luke shook his head and chuckled. "Herefords don't come any better. How the blazes can you afford first rate stock like that?"
Claire sighed. "I sold everything I owned, which used to be quite a lot. I sold some railroad stock and a small house I had in Chicago. I sold my furniture, my jewelry, a closet full of dead animals I'd been wearing and wished I hadn't. And I'm afraid I sold my soul, as well. It didn't appear I was going to need it out here. I have exactly one thousand dollars left, which I borrowed using the cattle as collateral. If I don't succeed here, we'll have to eat Mr. Anxiety's beautiful offspring—the ones the bank doesn't take first."
"You'll make it, all right," he said. "Your pasture's good, and the best thing about Herefords is they mature early. With good forage they'll fatten up fast. With breeding stock like you've got, good water and any luck at all, you'll have yourself one hell of a herd in a few years."
"What about Thacker?"
"Old Linus is a whole different can of worms. That's why I want that barbed wire four feet high on the other side of the creek, as fast as we can get it up."
"Fences never stopped him before," Claire observed, "when he drove Grandpa out, and your family before that."
"True enough, but back then, you and I were nothing but scrawny little kids. We're bigger now, and meaner. If you're as tough as your Ma—and I've got a feeling you are..." He chuckled, pointing to the wobbling porch rail, "Linus Thacker will have all he can handle."
"Does that mean you'll be taking orders from me, after all?"
"Nope. It means you'll be falling out of bed every morning and working your pretty tail off until you've learned the ropes. And when you screw it up or don't listen, or just work a little too slow to suit me, or talk back, or cuss me out too often—you'll be getting your backside walloped 'til you can't sit down for supper. You've got no idea at all what you're biting off, Stump, but if I agree to risk my skin and stick around, and if you don't turn tail and run, you're going to end up being the best damned rancher around here—maybe as good as your Grandpa. Maybe even better, if I've got anything to say about it."
Claire sighed. "That's a lovely speech, but if Thacker chooses to, he can put a bullet in your back just as readily he did with Jesus Hernandez."
"Well, I'm harder to kill than most, but if that should happen, I'd be obliged if you'd bury me, say a couple of kind words over my corpse, and then get back to building that fence. If you give up on this place and let Thacker get his hands on Anxiety's kids and grandkids, I swear I'll come back from the grave, find me the stoutest switch between here and hell, and whale the tar out of you. If you and I can't beat Linus Thacker while I'm alive, you'll have to do it with me dead. You understand?"
Claire beamed. "I understand completely, Mr. … Luke, I mean. Now, I already have thirty rolls of barbed wire behind this house, a pile of fence posts as high as the house itself, and a stack of tools that I have absolutely no idea how to use. How do we go about stringing five hundred acres of barbed wire?"
Her grinned at her and nodded toward the house. "First, get out of that corset. The dress, too. I don't want you passing out on me just to get out of a hard day's work—and you already know what'll happen if I hear any backtalk. Until you get some calluses on those dainty hands, you'll want a pair of heavy gloves, too. Oh, and grab yourself a big hat while you're in there. By dark, you'll be wishing you'd never seen me, or this ranch, or a bunch of Hereford cows. Now move your rump. We're burning daylight."
* * *
As Claire walked up the battered steps and into her own house, she wasn't thinking about barbed wire or Hereford bulls, or even about Luke Campbell. She was deep in unwelcome thoughts of John Maitland—the husband she'd left behind in Chicago. The man who'd given her a life of luxury and ease, and from whom she'd fled when the price of that luxurious life became too high to bear.
It wasn't John's wealth that had originally attracted her, though. It was his powerful personality and easy charm—swept off her feet, she'd heard it called. Having been poor most of her life, Claire wasn't accustomed to the level of determination a man like John Maitland could bring to bear on a woman when he wanted something from her. She wasn't prepared for the endless deluge of expensive gifts and flowers, or by being courted at intimate dinners in elegant restaurants, or at the theatre and the opera. Without knowing exactly when she lost her sense of who she really was, Claire had begun to feel flattered by his attention and by his desire to have her as his own. He had finally won her not with money but with the sheer force of his own will.
But when he had her love safely in hand, everything seemed to change. His strength turned to emotional cruelty and his determination to total domination. When she protested and tried to stand up to him, John retaliated. Before long, the emotional cruelty had turned physical, and her life had slipped gradually into a nightmarish cycle of anger and abuse. The years with John were memories Claire wanted desperately to forget, but she hadn't yet put those years behind her. As a result, she had come to regard strong men as threatening, and the motives of all men as suspect.
Lucas Campbell was undeniably attractive, and like John, he was strong and determined—and potentially dangerous. It wasn't the whipping he'd just given her. Claire was no china doll. She had been raised around men of this rough sort long enough to know that what had happened today was basically benign and even well-meant. It had hurt her pride more than anything else—precisely what it was meant to do. "To take her down a peg a peg or two," was the way her grandfather had described it, and though she would never admit it to Luke Campbell, Claire was honest enough with herself to recognize her own part in what had happened. But one thing was certain about Luke Campbell. He was a man who would bear watching.
Table of Contents
Chapter the First
Chapter the Second
Chapter the Third
Chapter the Fourth
Chapter the Fifth
Chapter the Sixth
Chapter the Seventh
Chapter the Eighth
&
nbsp; Chapter the Ninth
Chapter the Tenth
April Hill
Excerpt-Chapter One of Moonchild, by April Hill!
Excerpt-Chapter One of Vengeance Creek by April Hill!
