“Where’s the contestant who was to ride this horse—Raleigh Masterson, wasn’t it?” Gilmore asked, his eyes wide. “Why are you riding, Miss Violet?”
The gray horse had just slid to a stop past the finish line and its rider was dismounting.
“R-Raleigh...was shot—w-wounded,” Violet said, facing Mayor Gilmore and panting with the effort to speak, “before the changing place...for the second leg.... Doctor...tending him now.... I took over....” She gulped some air. “You’ve got...t-to go back and see to Allbright.... His horse reared and he fell....”
The other contestant limped stiffly over to them. “Allbright’s all right,” he muttered. “He was just remounting when my horse and I passed him. In fact, there he is now,” he added, pointing a finger. She followed its direction and spotted Allbright, his black horse blowing and winded, crossing the finish line.
Violet waited, wondering what Allbright would say. She was fairly sure the word congratulations would not be among the words he chose.
“Well, Miss Violet,” the mayor began, lifting her hand with his, “looks like you and the pinto are the winners—”
But Allbright was lurching forward, arm raised. “Mayor, Miss Brookfield should be disqualified!” he sputtered.
There was a collective gasp from the onlookers. The mayor raised his eyebrows. “Oh? And why is that, Mr. Allbright?”
“She wasn’t the rider registered for this horse—Masterson was!”
Violet whirled on him. “How dare you?” she snapped, bristling with indignation. “Raleigh would have been riding this horse if you hadn’t had someone hiding in the rocks to try to assassinate him! Fortunately, your henchman wasn’t good enough to do more than hit his shoulder! When Raleigh clearly couldn’t finish the race, I did.” Her heart was sinking, though, sure the mayor would inform her in the next moment that it was indeed against the race regulations for another rider to take over.
“What’s more, it sure isn’t fair that she’s using that—that joke of a saddle on the horse. It gives her an unfair advantage!” Allbright ranted, a vein jumping ominously in his flushed temple.
Mayor Gilmore harrumphed and smoothed his beard before pulling a folded sheaf of papers from an inside pocket of his frock coat. “Mr. Allbright, I’d invite you to have a look at the rules. There’s nothing here against a change of riders in the event of an injury to the original one, nor anything about what sort of saddle is to be used, or not used.” He pulled out his spectacles and perched them on his bulbous nose, flipping the pages.
Violet began to hope.
“In fact, now that you mention it, no mention of a saddle a’tall!” the mayor went on, peering at the document. “Miss Violet could have ridden that paint horse bareback if she’d so chosen.” He chuckled, and the townspeople behind him picked it up, and soon everyone was laughing.
Everyone but Allbright. His face went purple with rage. “But Mayor Gilmore, she’s female!” He roared the last word, as if surely this was the crowning argument.
Mayor Gilmore looked over his spectacles at the enraged Allbright. When he spoke, his voice was quiet. “Again, Mr. Allbright, I see no specification as to the gender of the rider. We in Simpson Creek do not discriminate against the ladies.”
There was a roar of approval from the crowd.
“I’m sure there’s something dealing with unsportsmanlike conduct, though, isn’t there?” piped up the cowboy who’d ridden the gray. “With my own eyes, I saw this fellow trying to whip Miss Violet’s horse—and Miss Violet herself.”
Violet saw Allbright grow rigid.
“Whip? What whip?” He opened both hands, pulled his shirttail out of his pants and made a show of feeling around inside the tops of his boots. “See, no whip. The fellow’s making it up. They’re in cahoots, obviously.”
“I saw you toss it in a patch of prickly pear just before the last bend in the road,” the cowboy retorted. “I’m sure it’ll still be there if I ride back.”
“Unsportsmanlike conduct,” Mayor Gilmore said. “Now that, sir, is contrary to rule number one.”
Violet saw Bishop ride around the bend then, with Nick at his side. Nick rode his own bay, not Blue. The two men loped toward them and dismounted. Violet saw Allbright narrow his eyes as the sheriff stalked toward him with a purposeful glint in his eyes. She ran straight into her brother’s arms.
“Allbright, I’m arresting you as a coconspirator. The charge is the attempted murder of Raleigh Masterson.”
Allbright’s jaw dropped. “Attempted murder? What are you talking about? When?” His eyes bulged—with fear, Violet thought.
“During the first leg of this race.”
The crowd was silent, waiting to hear what Allbright would say.
Allbright gestured wildly around him. “You can’t be serious, Sheriff! Everyone watching this race has seen me riding my horses the whole time!”
“Yes, you have been,” Bishop agreed imperturbably. “But your twin hasn’t been riding. In point of fact, before the race, he climbed up into the rocks at a point between town and the end of Five Mile Hill, armed with a rifle. He was well-hidden by scrub, but he could see the road just fine. He wasn’t counting on the fact that my deputy, Luis Menendez, saw him climbing the hill and waited at its base, out of sight. It was a simple matter to arrest Allen Allbright and put him in cuffs when he descended, for your twin brother was intent on getting away after he shot Masterson.”
He pulled a pair of come-alongs from inside his vest. “Surrender peaceably, Allbright, and you can share twin cells with your brother.”
Allbright wrenched free, and made a frantic attempt to dive into the river to escape, but he was caught again without too much trouble when Prissy Bishop stuck out her leg and tripped him.
Once the laughter died down and Allbright was led away, the mayor cleared his throat. “Well, Miss Violet, it looks like you are indeed the undisputed winner,” Gilmore confirmed. “Congratulations on the acquisition of your ranch.”
There was a burst of applause and more cheers from the crowd.
“Thank you, Mayor,” she said, accepting the gilded key and deed to the land and let them drop into the pocket of her divided skirt. “Nick, where’s Raleigh? Can you take me to him? He’s still going to be all right, isn’t he?”
“Yes, he is. He wanted me to bring him on out here, but he was still a mite pale, so Dr. Walker said nothing doing and took him on into town. He said we could meet him at his office.”
“Thank you, God,” she breathed. She began to feel the heat of the sun on her uncovered head at last. “May I have some water? How is Blue? Did someone walk him back to the ranch—slowly? Will someone bring Lady home, too?” she said, turning her head to see that the Colliers’ Roost cowboy was still walking the mare. “No water till she’s cool, please!”
And then she did the first ladylike thing she had done since coming to Texas and swooned.
Chapter Twenty-One
Raleigh, his shoulder bandaged and his arm in a sling, was leaning against the headboard of the bed in the doctor’s office when he heard a commotion outside. A moment later, Violet burst into the room. She looked lovely and flustered, with golden tendrils escaping from her braid and sun-pinkened skin.
“We won! Oh, Raleigh, we won! I have such a lot to tell you!” she said, rushing over to kiss his cheek, carefully avoiding bumping him as she did so. “Oh, darling, does it hurt very much?” she said, indicating his shoulder.
“A mite—Doc Walker says the collarbone is broken, but it’ll heal,” he said cheerfully, not telling her what else the doctor had said, that if the bullet had struck an inch lower, the artery would have been hit. “But it hurts a lot less now that you’re here. The news of your victory made it to town faster than you did—Shep and Quint came to check on me and let me know, but I wouldn’t let them
tell me the details, ’cause I knew you’d want to. Is...everything all right?” He studied her carefully. Shep and Quint hadn’t looked like there was any bad news mixed with the good, but a fellow could never tell with that pair of yahoos.
She gave a rueful laugh. “I’m afraid I proved what a delicate English flower I am, after all, and fainted, once the shouting was done.”
“You fainted?” Forgetting about his injury, he bolted upright, and his forgetfulness was rewarded with a painful jab from the broken bone. He clenched his teeth against the colorful words he would have once let fly, hoping Violet hadn’t noticed.
But Violet missed nothing. She raised her eyes to Dr. Walker, who was standing with Nick in the doorway. “Doctor, shouldn’t he have some pain medicine?”
“He said he wouldn’t take any till after you came. He wanted to be clearheaded.”
“Don’t think you’re going to distract me, ‘Lady’ Violet,” Raleigh said. “What’s this about you fainting? Sit down,” he directed, pointing to a chair by the bedside.
She told him how she had passed out, and how Nick had made her lie down in the shade for a half hour, drinking water, when all she wanted to do was rush back to Simpson Creek and assure herself he was all right.
“It was so embarrassing!” she cried. “Everyone was hovering and fanning me, and saying I mustn’t sit up.... I felt better within moments, but the mayor and his wife insisted I return in their carriage, and my overprotective brother backed them up.” She winked at Nick. “It was kind of them, of course, but that’s what took so long. Bobby was at the finish line, and he’s taking Lady home by easy stages after she has a bit longer to rest and drink.”
“So you’re all right now? You’re certain?”
She nodded. “Just tired, but I expect that’s normal.”
“And the shouting?”
“Allbright was just objecting to the outcome of the race,” she said, grinning. “He tried to say I should be disqualified because I wasn’t the registered rider for your horse, and because of the English saddle....” She tried unsuccessfully to smother a giggle. “And finally, he objected that I was female! The mayor just calmly handed him the rules and told him there wasn’t a regulation against any of those things.” She chuckled. “He only succeeded in making himself look foolish.”
He studied her beautiful face, thinking that triumph became her.
“Oh, Raleigh, Lady was splendid. I never met a horse with more heart,” she went on. “She just wouldn’t quit, even though Allbright tried to lash at us with a whip. And there was a fallen tree, and she jumped it as if she had wings—”
“Allbright tried to whip you and Lady? I’ll pound him into powder!”
She leaned forward and laid a finger over his lips. “You mustn’t interrupt, or I’ll forget something. Don’t worry, the lash only touched her once, and she seems none the worse for it. And it never touched me.”
He kissed her finger to show his contrition. “Thank God. Go on.”
“He got a little careless with the whip and popped it too close to his own horse, and the black took exception to that rather strenuously. He reared and threw him, but Lady and I kept going and crossed the finish line first. The rider on that gray horse saw it all and reported it, just as Sheriff Bishop came forward and arrested Allbright for being a coconspirator to murder you.”
“Coconspirator?”
“Yes, along with his twin. See, you were right all along, Raleigh. He has a twin named Allen who was hidden in the rocks. His shot hit you in the shoulder. By now they’re sitting in adjoining cells at the jail.”
He breathed a sigh of relief. Violet was safe now, and she had won the race.
“Here,” she said, bringing an ornate gold key from the pocket in her divided skirt and handing it to him. “The key to the ranch. I think it’s just symbolic—I don’t think it’s the actual one.”
“Congratulations, Lady Violet,” he teased. “Looks like you won yourself a ranch.”
“Pshaw, as if I’d know how to run one,” she said, affecting a thick Texas twang that made him laugh. “No, you raced the first leg on Blue—who is also back in the barn by now, enjoying his reward—and I on Lady, but together, we won the race.”
“Just the beginning of things we’ll do together, sweetheart,” he told her, taking her hand with his.
For a moment they just drank deeply of each other’s gaze.
“And now I think I’d better give you that morphine, cowboy,” Dr. Walker said as he stepped forward. “I’m going to want to keep him overnight, Miss Violet, but as long as he’s doing all right in the morning I think he could join you at church.”
She rose, bestowing another kiss on Raleigh’s cheek before she straightened. “Be a good patient, Raleigh, and I’ll see you in the morning. I really don’t think I can wait much longer than that to break the news that we’re going to be married.”
October 5, 1868
They sat in the shade of the live oak grove where Raleigh had once found Violet asleep. His wound had healed cleanly, and though his mending collarbone still gave him occasional stabs of pain and ached in damp weather, he felt almost good as new.
“I finished my novel today,” Violet told him. “I’m torn between submitting it to an English publisher or an American one, but I’ll decide soon, and send it. And you know, I’ve already thought of what I’ll write next—an autobiography of how I met and married a wild Texas cowboy. I’m sure it will start a fashion—Englishwomen will be taking ships in droves, looking for men just like you. Only they won’t find one as good as you.” She kissed his cheek.
“Looks like we’re not the only couple in love,” he said, nodding toward their two mounts. Blue was nuzzling Lady, and the pinto mare responded by lipping the roan’s ear.
“I think he’s growing on her, at last,” Violet commented with a wry twist of her lips.
“It’s about time,” Raleigh said, “since we’d planned to make them the foundation sire and dam for our line of racing quarter horses.”
Violet grinned. “She was only letting him chase her till she caught him—a good strategy for any female,” she said with a wink.
“How are things at the ranch?” he asked.
“It’s good to get away from the pounding of hammers,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I think the new wing will be just ready in time for my brothers’ and families’ arrival. Nick didn’t want them to have to drive back and forth from the hotel in town when they get here. I think Milly’s glad, too, since she’s...ahem!...expecting a child. How’s our house coming along at the Bar VR?” she asked, grinning as she did every time she said the name they’d decided upon for their ranch, for it incorporated both their first names.
“Ready for milady to move in,” he said, “though I imagine there’ll be lots of additions you’ll want to make.”
She stood on tiptoes and kissed him. “Oh, Raleigh, thanks so much for waiting for our wedding until all the rest of my family could arrive from England.”
He smiled easily. “What’s a few months when we’ll have a lifetime?” His eyes lost their focus for a moment. “I wish my mother could have met you. I know she’d have approved.” He brightened again. “Besides, I’m looking forward to meeting your family. Are they all as formidable as Edward?”
She laughed. “No, he’s the scariest. The rest aren’t at all frightening, compared to him. We expect them any minute now, you know.” She didn’t mention the fact that she’d also had a letter from Amelia, Edward’s wife, informing her that Gerald had eloped with the daughter of a prosperous factory owner in the Midlands. It didn’t surprise her, and it wasn’t worth bringing it up, for what Gerald did had long ceased to matter.
“They sent a telegram that their steamship would dock in Houston a week ago, but as you can imagine, two couples with children don’t travel all t
hat fast. Fortunately, everything else is ready for the wedding, and Reverend Chadwick is ready to perform the ceremony whenever we are.”
“I can’t wait till you’re Mrs. Raleigh Masterson.”
“Violet Masterson,” she murmured. “It has a nice sound to it.”
“Well, at least in the interval we’ve had time to do the things a proper courting couple does,” he said, his eyes dancing.
“I don’t imagine you’re referring to attending Andrew and Allen Allbright’s trial,” she said ironically. It had been very satisfying to see the brothers sentenced to Huntsville for conspiracy to murder. Their sentences wouldn’t be too long since they hadn’t succeeded, but Drew would lose his ranch in the interim. The banker had testified that Allbright had been mortgaged to the hilt, and was already behind on his taxes.
“No, I meant things like attending church, barbecues, ice cream socials, kissing in the moonlight....”
“We don’t have to stop that after we’re married, do we? The kissing in the moonlight part, I mean?” she asked him.
“Nope,” he said, grinning in the way that melted her inside. “I’m planning on doing that every night we can see the moon,” he said, kissing her. “And every night we can’t.”
Just then they heard the distant clanging of the bell from the Brookfield ranch house.
“I do believe they’ve arrived,” she said, looking up at him. “Race you to the ranch house!”
They jumped apart and ran to their saddles, laughing.
* * * * *
If you enjoyed this story by Laurie Kingery, be sure to check out the other books this month from
Love Inspired Historical!
Keep reading for an excerpt from The Cowboy's Surprise Bride by Linda Ford.
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Hill Country Cattleman Page 22
