Now and Forever

by Mary Connealy

  “With almost supernatural strength no woman could possess, and the . . . and the . . .” Rupert paused.

  Peever, the man who’d examined Tucker’s leg, finished the thought. “And the courage of a lioness.”

  The parson looked like he might start growling like a lioness. “You saved him and quite clearly bonded deeply with him.”

  Peever looked off into the distance and rested a hand solemnly on his chest. “And she nursed him with the skilled hands of a ministering angel.”

  “There they were,” Rupert added, “swallowed into the belly of the earth with a wounded man she’d already saved twice, with only the might of her delicate spine . . .”

  “I like that,” Caleb interjected. “That’s real perdy.”

  Rupert went on, “With only the might of her delicate spine and the wits in her pretty little head, she bore his weight as they fought their way out of the deepest, darkest pit.”

  “Actually I walked. I mean, I leaned on her, but it’s not like she carried me over her shoulder or nuthin’.” Tucker scowled, apparently not liking that part of the story.

  Rupert said, “Why, it’s like, together, with love giving them the strength to go on, they found the . . . the . . .” Rupert tapped his foot, clearly lost for words.

  “Grit.”

  “Pluck.”

  “Mettle.”

  “Spunk.”

  Then someone said, “Fortitude.”

  “Yep, that’s it.” Rupert smiled, then regained his serious expression. “Together, over five long days, holding each other close both day and night, they found the fortitude to fight their way straight out of the depths of hell.”

  Caleb inhaled quickly as if awestruck.

  Peever clapped his hands. “That is plum bee-yoot-iful, Rupert.”

  Shannon dragged a hand over her face and groaned.

  “Tucker with his leg broke, held tight in the loving arms of a woman of uncommon spirit.” Caleb had a gleam in his eye, as if he was deliberately making things worse for the pure fun of causing mischief.

  “And then she married him,” Neville said dryly, “a wounded hero who proceeded to eat all her sheep.”

  Shannon remembered Aaron had a chance to shoot Nev and passed it up.

  “And all your help and heroism,” the parson said with none of the grandeur or teasing of the others of this group, “is a wonderful thing that can’t possibly be hushed up. If you don’t marry Tucker, you can expect to bear the reputation, for the rest of your days, of little more than an epically brave soiled dove.”

  Shannon looked at the men gathered around her. A couple of them looked a bit guilty, but their eyes were lively, and some looked through her into the distance as if they were adding more to the tale to entertain men around a campfire. Maybe they liked the part about her being an “epically brave soiled dove.” Maybe no one who heard their stories would need to read between any lines. Maybe these galoots were writing those lines right now, making those five nights into something they most certainly had never been.

  “They might not exactly want to make you out to be such, but a man needs to do his share of the talking.” The parson watched her with narrow eyes.

  “That’s only polite,” Caleb said.

  Rupert shrugged, acknowledging it as though a simple truth. “And sometimes the night is long and the truth is kinda short and boring.”

  Peever said, “Tucker, Slaughter River, and the soiled dove sent by God to save his life.”

  “God wouldn’t make me a soiled dove, now, would He?” Shannon asked through clenched teeth.

  “Five days and nights in the belly of the earth . . . that’s too good to keep quiet. You understand that, right, Tucker?” Caleb said as if apologizing for his part in future storytelling.

  “I can think of a few things to add myself.” Tucker nodded. “We found coal down there to light our way. Coal burns like the lights of Hades.”

  Rupert said, “That goes mighty nice with the notion of you walking out of hell.”

  Peever nodded happily. “It shore enough does.”

  “And last night,” Tucker continued, “I looked up and saw starlight through the roof of a cave where there should have been only solid rock. It was as if the very eye of God winked down at me and guided us to safety.”

  All four mountain men gasped. Shannon wouldn’t have been surprised to see them taking notes. Except of course they probably couldn’t read or write, nor did they own paper or pencil. More than that, if they wrote it down, then they’d be stuck with it. With the story only in their heads, they could add details galore.

  “So . . .” Tucker turned to Shannon and grinned. He’d never washed his face, and his teeth shined like white fire in the darkness of a coal mine. The man was filthy. “You can see we have no choice but to get married.”

  “It’d make a fine ending to the story,” Caleb said, as if that were the most important reason for doing it. The idiot.

  “You could marry him,” Bailey said in a voice just above a growl, “and then we could shove him back over the banks of the Slaughter River on the way home. Reputation saved, problem solved.”

  It was an idea with merit.

  “I’ll perform the ceremony right now. Step just a bit closer to him, Miss Wilde.”

  Sunrise sighed. “You will make a terrible husband, Tucker. Why do this to the girl?”

  That struck Shannon as a mean thing for a ma to say, even a ma that wasn’t really a ma.

  Tucker’s smile faded. “Ma, I’ll be good to Shannon.”

  “You will be good to her when you wander by, I know that. But you will only do such a thing once or twice a year. Perhaps you will come down from the peaks and stay the winter. You were on the way up-country when you ran afoul of that bear.”

  “But I didn’t take my horse, so you know I wasn’t going to stay long.”

  Sunrise snorted. “Will you marry her today and stay until your leg is healed and then go? I have heard you say you’d never marry because you did not want that life for a woman you cared about. Are you saying you will stay with Shannon? Or are you saying you do not care about her? Or are you saying you have changed your mind, and even though you care, you will leave her?”

  It was the longest speech Sunrise had ever given. It told Shannon a lot about the life she’d lived with her now-dead husband, Pierre.

  “And each time you leave, will you leave her with a child to bear by herself, raise by herself, support by herself?” Sunrise turned to the parson. Her words were spoken with complete respect. “Parson Ruskins, you are a good man and you mean well, but there are more ways than one to ruin a woman.” She looked at the men gathered around. “How many of you have wives you never see? Children you do not know and take no part in feeding or caring for? You abandon your families to a hard life. That is nothing to take pride in, yet you are all proud men.”

  The men didn’t meet her eye.

  All but Tucker. His smile was gone, but not his determination. “I’m planning on being a better man to Shannon than Pierre was to you, Ma. I won’t leave her to a lonely life. You have my word.”

  He reached out and took Shannon’s hand and turned her to face him. “Marry me, Shannon. I was heading for the high-up hills because I saw a cap of dark curls on the roof of a house.”

  Shannon knew what he spoke of. Their eyes had met only for a moment. She knew Kylie had told him that the two people he saw, the two people who immediately ducked out of sight and left, were her “brothers,” Shannon and Bailey Wilde.

  But Shannon had felt that connection. “You were leaving because of that?” she asked.

  “I knew what I saw, and I knew how badly I wanted to see you again. And I knew I didn’t want to tie a woman to me. Ma’s right that I don’t want to put a woman through the life I’ve seen her live with Pierre. He was a good man in his way, but he was a poor excuse for a husband and father. I won’t do that to any woman. And because I didn’t want to settle down, I was clearing out. But I kne
w when I woke up in your arms that my fate was sealed. I knew it when you admitted you were Kylie’s sister.” He smiled again. “I knew it before we hit the water.”

  He leaned down and kissed her long and hard. “Marry me, Shannon. I’ll be a good husband to you. You have my solemn vow. I understand what Sunrise worries about. I promise you, I won’t give you reason to be sorry you’ve said yes.”

  She wished he’d go take a good long bath and then ask again, but that wasn’t going to happen. She could stand to take one herself. With a mental shrug, because she felt certain her fate was indeed sealed, she said, “Yes, Tucker. I’ll marry you.”

  He kissed her once more.

  His kiss made her think of something she wanted to make very clear, so she leaned right next to his ear. “We may speak vows now that are forever, but you’ll not have the rights of a husband until we know each other much better than we do now.”

  She straightened so she could see how he reacted.

  The man looked very surprised. And so disappointed she couldn’t help but be a bit flattered. Which didn’t change her mind one whit. Honestly he was the next thing to a complete stranger. What little she knew of the intimacies of marriage were unthinkable anytime soon.

  “Agreed?”

  The man was outright pouting. Then he shrugged. “I suppose.” He sounded glum.

  She patted him on the shoulder. “Let’s get married, and then get you home so you can get cleaned up. And I need to see to my sheep.”

  He flinched, then his eyes narrowed into a considering kind of look. She might even go so far as to call it a hungry kind of look.

  She’d have to watch him like a hawk, especially come mealtime, or he’d start thinning her herd.

  “Wool, Tucker. I’m raising sheep for wool, not meat. I’ve made some good money selling wool.” Truthfully, not all that much money, far less than she’d hoped. But that didn’t matter. Those sheep were her friends, and nobody would be killing and eating them.

  “We’re ready, Parson Ruskins.” That wasn’t exactly a promise to leave his knife and fork behind when Tucker went on shepherding duty, but for now his leg would slow him down.

  So, with him still sitting on the rock, his leg awkwardly extended, he turned them to face the parson.

  Shannon looked at the parson, who’d somehow managed a shotgun wedding, even without a shotgun, then scanned her fur-clad wedding guests, all making up grand stories even as they stood there witnessing the rather bland truth. She noticed Sunrise looking skeptically at Tucker, a man she loved like a son.

  Then Bailey came up. Shannon glanced sideways at her scowling big sister, who’d just suggested killing the groom. Possibly the worst maid of honor of all time.

  It was not the wedding of a girl’s dreams, but it could have been worse. Pa could have been here.

  “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today . . .”

  Honestly they were gathered here today because it was the nearest place they could meet after Shannon and Tucker crawled out of a hole in the ground.

  The parson made short work of the vows. He was a practical man and no doubt expected all the guests to make up their own wedding anyway, even the groom most likely.

  Shannon decided then and there she’d do the same. She made up a bouquet of flowers and a smiling bridesmaid and a white dress for herself—or at least a pair of clean britches. And sure as certain she made up long, hot baths all around.

  The truth wasn’t something she was overly interested in remembering.

  11

  What’re you doin’ here?” Gage Coulter dragged his Stetson off his head and mopped his brow with the back of his wrist.

  It was August, and even in the highlands of the Rockies it was mighty hot.

  “I’m tending Shannon’s sheep.” Kylie Masterson stepped out of the house owned by Shannon, a nester on Gage’s C Bar Ranch.

  “Where’s your brother?”

  Kylie’s husband stepped out of the cabin right behind his wife. Aaron Masterson was a decent man, and when he’d married Kylie, that’d gotten the little woman off her homestead, which gave Gage the chance to buy it and secure it as part of his own spread.

  But Masterson was a thorn in Coulter’s flesh. As land agent for the area, he kept signing up homesteaders who were grabbing claims all over Coulter’s ranch. And with the short, busy summer season keeping Coulter running, he hadn’t had time to find them and get rid of them. If he left them through the winter, they’d be dug in and all the harder to drive out.

  Coulter wasn’t a man to break the law, so he wouldn’t run a man off a legal holding, yet he could do a powerful job of pushing when he had to. And Shannon Wilde was next in line to be pushed. There were those who weren’t as honest as him. Shannon might do business with him or she might find herself facing a world of trouble with some of the less-decent landholders in the area. Rance Boyle came to mind.

  One of the reasons Coulter had come over here was because of a run-in he’d just had with Boyle. The man was always trying to push cattle onto Coulter range. If he wasn’t afraid of stepping on the toes of a big rancher like Gage, he sure wouldn’t worry about a little homesteader like Shannon Wilde.

  This trouble was Coulter’s own fault. He’d let himself get comfortable this far out. He hadn’t seen the homesteading rush coming. Not in this rugged wilderness. It’d just never occurred to him anyone would be stupid enough to try to homestead in such a harsh place.

  Now he was scrambling to buy up the rangeland he’d figured for his, but some important water holes had been claimed.

  One of them was the pond on the claim Kylie Wilde had settled on. Gage had that back. Another was the river that ran through Shannon Wilde’s property. This stretch right here was the only place with good shoreline where cattle could drink. The river was a dependable water source, and he needed it mighty soon, as they were near the height of a long, dry summer.

  Shannon Wilde had to go.

  So where was he?

  Masterson exchanged a long look with Kylie.

  Gage, who considered himself a noticing kind of man, noticed that she looked about as worried as a woman could be. “What’s wrong?”

  “Shannon is missing.” Kylie twisted her hands together, and Aaron reached down to catch one of them and hold on, comforting her. It made Gage’s belly hurt just a little. He’d thought about chasing after the pretty woman when he’d first laid eyes on her. But it hadn’t taken him long to see her heart was already fixed on Masterson, and Coulter wasn’t a man to poach.

  Now he watched the two of them, joined together against a troubled world, and he knew the lack in his own life.

  “What happened to him?”

  Kylie might as well have been a little porcupine the way she bristled. “Do you want this homestead, Mr. Coulter? Is that why you ask? If Shannon is . . . is . . .” She covered her mouth with one hand and turned to bury her face in Masterson’s chest.

  Masterson glared at Gage as if he were solely to blame for his wife’s distress.

  “Now, Mrs. Masterson, I don’t want any harm to come to your brother. I want my land back, but not through your brother’s misfortune.”

  “It’s not your land, Coulter.” Masterson glared over his wife’s head.

  Gage didn’t see it that way, but this wasn’t the time for that argument. “I want it, but I’ll get it honest-like. I came to have it out with your brother just like I did with you. You can’t say I did a wrong thing to you.”

  Kylie turned and jammed her pretty little fists on her hips. Gage looked at those fists and those hips, but made a point of not looking too long. Masterson would only put up with so much.

  “It was my property. Just as this is Shannon’s property. And I will thank you to get off it.”

  Gage tugged at his Stetson’s brim. “Is there anything I can do to help? There must be a search on for him. Can I join in? Can I send my men out?”

  “Sunrise is hunting. Tucker went missing at the same time,” Aaron
said.

  “Tucker? Tucker’s missing? Nothing gets the best of him.”

  “Not even falling into the Slaughter River?”

  “No!” Gage knew the reputation of the Slaughter. It hit like a blow. Tucker was the next thing to a legend. The folks in and around Aspen Ridge feared him, a few didn’t even believe he existed, though he’d shown himself in town during the trouble with Kylie’s homestead and dispelled the myth that he was a ghost.

  Gage hired him when he could find him, yet there was never a question of who was the boss. Tucker worked for Gage when a job required his skills, and while he worked, no one told Tucker how to go about his job. And that included the man paying him.

  Gage respected him more than most any man alive. More than that, he genuinely liked him. He didn’t give much thought to friends, but hearing of Tucker’s almost certain death twisted Gage’s gut. He realized now that it was too late, that Matt Tucker was his best friend.

  They had a gruff, almost adversarial relationship mainly because Gage liked to give orders and Tucker delighted in not taking them. But after all he’d left behind when he’d been as good as driven out of Texas, a good friend was something he should have counted as precious.

  Gage felt the first wave of grief.

  Hoofbeats sounded behind them, and they all turned. A group making slow progress rode toward the cabin.

  Kylie gasped. “Shannon!” She tore down the porch steps and raced for the group of five, even though they were still a ways off.

  Masterson trotted after her. Gage saw the beaming smile on his face.

  It matched his own, because Tucker was one of the riders.

  The group waved at Kylie and picked up speed. Gage could tell the moment they noticed him.

  One of the riders, a skinny youngster with close-cropped blond hair, drew up his mustang so suddenly it reared.

  The youngster leaned close to a dark-haired woman, and the two spoke. Gage’s eyes were eagle sharp. Both of them glanced at him, and he suspected they were discussing him. They were far enough away that Gage couldn’t hear, but he knew who the youngster was. He’d come very close to meeting Kylie’s family before, at Kylie’s house. He’d caught a shadowy outline and been told there were two brothers, and both had refused to come out of Kylie’s house. Gage had dealt with Kylie and Sunrise.