Cowboy Come Home

by Janette Kenny

  That would explain why the men were well armed.

  Still, Trey saw nothing at first glance that indicated Daisy was here until the horses in the far corral shifted. That’s when he spied her mare. She was here.

  He didn’t kid himself into thinking it’d be easy getting her out of here. For one thing his gelding had come up lame. That’d keep him from riding as hard as he would have to do to get out of here.

  The sheer number of guards on the place would make it impossible for him to ease Daisy’s mare and another horse from the remuda. But the heat of the day was on them now, and the Mexicans clung to their midday siestas.

  Trey eased from his hiding place. As much as he’d like to ready the horses first, he couldn’t take the chance of being discovered then. Finding Daisy came first.

  Getting into the house proved easy. Too easy for a place this heavily guarded.

  The quiet scraped over his nerves as he made his way from room to room. He found Jarvis in his study bent over his desk.

  Trey whispered his Colt from its holster and eased up behind the big man. He pressed the gun barrel to his back.

  “Unhook your gun belt with your left hand.”

  Jarvis stiffened, his palms flattening on the map he’d been studying. “How’d you get in here?”

  “Walked right in.” He pressed the gun more firmly in the man’s back. “Your gun belt?”

  The man complied. “What do you want?”

  “Daisy, the woman you took from Texas.”

  “What makes you think she’s here?”

  “Followed the tracks from the Pecos River here. Her mare is in the corral. Now where is she?”

  “Miss Logan is in her room. My sister said the lady took ill after breakfast. She’s been in there resting ever since.”

  “Show me. Real easy. Hands up where I can see them. I’ve been riding hard to get here, and I’m a bit twitchy.”

  Jarvis did as ordered and moved down the cool hallway with a lazy cadence. “Who are you?”

  “Trey March. Her”—he stumbled over a title and finally settled on the one thing he’d agreed to be—“foreman.”

  A rusty laugh rumbled from Jarvis. “I’ll be damned. Never figured she owned land.”

  Jarvis opened the door and stepped inside with Trey on his heels. A slender woman rested on the huge bed, taking her siesta as well.

  He’d expected the room would be locked. That she’d be tied up. But it was obvious that she was free to roam the house.

  “Daisy!” And when she continued snoozing, he raised his voice a bit more. “Daisy, wake up! Time to ride.”

  The woman sat up with a start and blinked at him, then at Jarvis. Not Daisy, but a pretty woman about her size and with hair just a shade darker.

  “Who are you?” Trey asked.

  “Ava Jarvis, Egan’s sister,” she said. “You must be Daisy’s beau.”

  He dipped his chin, still uncomfortable owning up to what he and Daisy shared. Emotions like that had no place here.

  “What the hell are you doing in here?” Jarvis asked the woman. “Where’s Daisy?”

  “With Manuela,” she said and received a string of vile curses from Jarvis.

  It was mighty clear that the women had figured a way to get Daisy out of here. Exactly what Trey aimed to do once he knew where to find her.

  “Mind telling me where that’d be?” Trey asked her.

  “A village in the mountains south of here. Los Azul.” She pressed a hand to her mouth and stared at him wide-eyed. “You must have just crossed paths.”

  “Reckon so.” Though he’d have been tempted in any case to ride back here and have it out with Jarvis for abducting her in the first place.

  “Why’d you do this?” Jarvis asked her. “Why defy me?”

  The young woman slipped off the bed and stood tall before the big man. “Because it was the right thing to do. Because she wanted to go home to him. Now let him go too.”

  Jarvis shook his head, his body coiling as if to strike. “You know that can’t be.”

  In the blink of an eye, Jarvis pulled a Bowie knife from his boot and swung at Trey. The blade scored his leather vest and sliced through his sleeve and skin.

  Trey sieved air between his teeth, his left arm burning like hellfire. But Jarvis was quick with a knife and came at him again.

  The blade hummed by his face, missing his cheek by a breath.

  Trey aimed at the big man and squeezed the trigger, but nothing happened. Fine damned time for his gun to jam!

  A sick sensation washed over him, but he shook it off and circled the big man, knowing he was in for the fight of his life. There’d been a time he was damn good using and evading a blade, but being laid up in El Paso for months had robbed him of a lot of his strength.

  The cut on his arm was bleeding freely, and his fingers were starting to go numb.

  “Stop it!” Ava shouted.

  But her brother ignored her and stalked Trey.

  The world shrank to just the two of them, circling each other like feral cats. His blood roared through his veins and pounded in his head.

  “Just so you know, I don’t give a shit what you do here on your ranch as long as you leave what’s mine alone,” Trey said.

  “You expect me to believe that?”

  Trey snorted. “I ain’t telling you just so I can hear myself talk.”

  A flicker of uncertainty lit the big man’s eyes, but was banked under that cool mask of a killer a moment later. “I can’t take that chance.”

  “Let him go,” Ava said again, a distraction fluttering on the perimeter.

  But though Trey was aware of her, it was clear that her presence here bothered Jarvis more. That was the edge Trey needed.

  “Get out of here, Ava,” Jarvis said.

  “Keep trying to talk sense into him,” Trey told her.

  And she did, throwing up a lecture that’d do a preacher proud. Begging him to think of them as a family. To stop the violence.

  Though Trey didn’t know the particulars, he suspected that Jarvis hadn’t always been bad. He surely cared for his sister. Protected her.

  “It’s not too late to do the right thing,” she said at last. “Please! For me and Cory, let’s live a good, honest life.”

  Jarvis took his eyes off Trey for a split second. That hesitation was all the time Trey needed.

  He brought the butt of his gun down on Jarvis’s knife hand. The big man grappled to hold on to the blade but it clattered to the floor.

  Trey kicked it away and drove his fist into Jarvis’s jaw. It was like driving his hand into granite, but he still managed to stagger the man.

  Not long enough to get the best of him though.

  Jarvis sent a ham-sized fist flying at Trey. Trey ducked, but his left eye still caught the worst of it.

  He shook off the buzzing in his head and swung at Jarvis with both fists clamped together, catching him under his chin. The big man’s head snapped back.

  Jarvis stumbled back to the wall, slamming into it so hard a picture jumped off its hook. His sister gasped, and Trey just hoped to hell she didn’t take a mind to defend her brother.

  But she didn’t move.

  The big man’s arms flailed to the side as he slid down the wall, landing in a heap on the floor. Out cold.

  Pain laced through Trey as he took stock of his own wounds. He could barely see out of his left eye. His left arm was numb.

  “There’s a coil of rope in his office,” Ava said.

  He cut her a look, unsure if he should trust her to fetch it or leave her here to revive her brother. His own ebbing strength decided it for him.

  “Can you get it?”

  She gave a quick nod and dashed out the door. He hoped he could trust her as Daisy must have. Hoped that Daisy was safe in this village he’d have to search for.

  Dammit, a lame horse and now he was bleeding like a stuck hog. But he didn’t have time to tend to his wounds now. It’d have to wait until he’d
ensured that Jarvis wouldn’t come after him. Until he’d put as many miles as he could between himself and this big man sprawled at his feet.

  Ava returned with the rope. “This was all I could find.”

  “It’ll do.”

  He made short work of tying the big man’s hands and feet, the effort taxing what strength he had. Jarvis’s bandana made a fine gag—couldn’t have the man bellowing for help, not with a ranch full of armed men.

  Armed men. Hell, how was he going to steal a horse and get out of here?

  He glanced at Ava, hating the thought going through his head. Using a woman as a shield didn’t set well with him, but that might be his only choice.

  With Jarvis tied up tighter than a tick, he pushed to his feet. Too fast. The room spun, and his vision blurred.

  He grabbed the bedpost to keep from falling on his face.

  “I need to tend that wound,” Ava said. Her hand on his arm was so light he hadn’t even felt it until she gave him a gentle tug. “Please, let me help you to the window where I have good light.”

  The fact that he was edging into being helpless and dependent on this woman bothered him. He’d just tied her brother up. What was to say she wouldn’t finish the job her brother hadn’t been able to?

  “Thank you, ma’am, but I need to get to that village.”

  Her hold on his arm tightened. “You won’t make it to the ranch gate in the shape you’re in. That wound is deep and needs stitches.”

  He sucked in a breath, knowing she was right. Knowing this was out of his hands and into hers.

  Damn! He gave a sharp nod and staggered from bedpost to bedpost with her holding him with strength that surprised him, a hold that said she was sure of what she was doing.

  “You’ve done this before,” he said as she herded him across the distance to the chair by the window.

  “More times than I care to remember.” She saw him settled and walked away. “I’ll get my supplies.”

  He cast a glance at the big man still sleeping like the dead. Did he have any idea of the grief that he caused his sister? Hell, did any man truly realize what he put his woman through?

  Trey sure as hell hadn’t, and that was an admission hard won. He’d been raised mainly around men with the exception of the housekeeper on the Crown Seven. That fine lady had worked in a bordello, so she knew how to deal with rowdy men and boys who thought they were too big for their britches.

  A slow smile tugged at his mouth. That lady didn’t know it, but she was the closest he’d come to having a mother.

  His smile vanished. The woman who had given birth to him hadn’t given a shit if he lived or died.

  Ava returned with a basket that he was sure had been well used over the years. “Have you ever been stitched up before?”

  “More than my share.”

  “Then you know what to expect. You’ve got your choice of taking your shirt off or having me cut the sleeve off so I can get to the wound.” She looked at him, a steady gaze that told him that she knew in this she was in charge. “Seems a waste of clothes to ruin it.”

  “You bully your brother this way?” he asked as he set to undoing the buttons on his shirt.

  She favored him with a quick smile. “Every chance I get.”

  Trey accepted her help getting out of the shirt—at least freeing his wounded arm. He eyed the bottle of whiskey.

  “That rotgut for show or are you going to give me a taste?”

  “If it will keep you still I’ll gladly give you a glass.” She produced one from her pack and poured a generous portion into it. After wetting a cloth in the dark, amber liquor, she passed the glass to him. “You’re going to need this.”

  And with that she laid the whiskey-soaked cloth over the cut on his arm. Fire licked through his blood.

  He bit back the stampede of curses that strained to burst free and downed the amber firewater in two gulps. A new inferno roared through his blood, as fierce and unfettered as a flooded river.

  He tipped his head back against the chair and let the force carry him away. Let the years of pain and longing drown before his eyes.

  As always his thoughts turned to Daisy. Her sweet scent spun a web of rightness around him, trapping him in her silken arms. But the love in her eyes terrified him, threw him back to being a young boy. Unloved. Unwanted.

  He didn’t understand those tender feelings. Didn’t trust them.

  “I hope you understand that my brother believed taking Daisy was his only choice,” she said as she threaded a needle.

  “Everybody has choices,” he said.

  He’d sure made some bad ones of late, but he hoped to change that. Hoped to herd his life in a new direction with Daisy at his side.

  “I suppose so.” She took the cloth from his wound, her brow furrowed in thought. “This will hurt.”

  He nodded, figuring the pain would be minimal compared to the mental hell he’d gone through the past three days tracking Daisy. “How long have you lived here with your brother?”

  “All my life.”

  That earned him a smile that made her look very young and untroubled, but it vanished the moment she started to close the gash in his arm. “I know it’s hard to believe, but there’s good in Egan.”

  “I hope you’re right,” he said between clenched teeth. “But when a man heads down the wrong road, it’s damned hard to do right after that.”

  “I know. Five years ago he wouldn’t have dreamed of causing you or your lady harm.” She finished her last stitch and tied off the ends, then cut the thread. “We came from a good, law-abiding family. I’m glad our folks didn’t live to see what’s become of both of us.”

  It surprised him that she included herself in whatever bad dealings her brother was into. But what did he expect? That she’d turn her brother into the law? See him hanged?

  That would be an impossible choice to make. He couldn’t do that to his foster brothers, even given that Reid had done them wrong.

  “Daisy loves you,” she said, wrapping a white strip of cloth around his arm and tying it off. “I hope you know that. Hope that you feel the same toward her.”

  He frowned, not about to share his feelings with a woman he barely knew. “She’s a good woman and has been through a lot in her short life.”

  “Why is it so hard for a man to say what’s in his heart?”

  He understood loyalty. But love? “A man can’t trust something he can’t see, touch, or taste.”

  Yet all he had to do was close his eyes, and Daisy was right there. He trembled at the memory of her touch. Hungered for the sweet taste of her skin, her kiss.

  He grit his teeth as he shrugged into his shirt and buttoned the front flap. “My horse came up lame. He’ll be fine in time, but he’s useless to me now. I’ll leave him for one of your brother’s horses and take Daisy’s with me as well.”

  “I’ll go with you to the corral and have a man ready them for you,” she said. “He’ll escort you to the gate. From there you’re on your own.”

  “Sounds good.” He got to his feet, the worst of the lightheadedness gone now. “You think you can talk sense into your brother and get him to see that I’m not his enemy?”

  “I can try, but he’s a stubborn cuss.”

  He could be that way at times too. “As far as I’m concerned, your brother did the world a favor by killing Ned Durant. You tell him that. Tell him I’m grateful.”

  She nodded, looking sad and lonely. Made him wonder if Daisy would’ve ended up in a similar fix if her old man had kept her and Dade with him, if they’d grown up thinking wrong was right.

  Ava put her supplies back in the basket. “Siesta is almost over. We’d better get you on a horse before the whole ranch is wide awake and asking for Egan.”

  “Lead the way, ma’am.” The sooner he was on his way, the closer he’d be to finding Daisy.

  He trailed Ava from the house and across ground that was baked hard. The heat of the day had passed its zenith, leaving the r
anch scorched in a blazing, full sun.

  One cowboy lazed in the shade of the barn, his hat pulled low and his boots crossed at the ankles. But before they got close, he shot to his feet with his gun drawn.

  “It’s just me,” Ava said.

  The cowboy hesitated a moment before he holstered his gun. “Who’s he?”

  “An old friend. He was riding close to here when his horse pulled up lame,” she said.

  Trey inclined his head toward the woods. “I left him tied just inside the tree line.”

  “Seems to me an old friend would’ve ridden him on in,” the cowboy said.

  “Wasn’t about to ruin a horse,” Trey said. “Besides, I recalled that riding onto the Lazy 8 unannounced wasn’t the wisest thing to do, and I didn’t want to get shot.”

  The cowboy eyed his bloody shirtsleeve, and Trey read the man’s doubt as clear as day. “Appears you’ve been in a ruckus.”

  “Had a disagreement with a man over a lady.”

  That earned him a nod. “Where’s the boss?”

  “In the house snoozing,” Ava said. “Before siesta, Egan decided to give him a fresh mount and the mare that the woman rode in on in exchange for his lame horse.”

  The cowboy gave him a flash of teeth. “I heard him and brought the gelding in about thirty minutes ago. Men are looking for you, mister.”

  “Call them off,” she said in a voice that rang with authority.

  It was clear the man wasn’t keen on obeying, but he finally gave a reluctant nod. “Your tack is inside the barn. Tell me which horse you got your eye on, and I’ll saddle it for you.”

  “Thanks for the offer but I’ll do it myself.” That way Trey would be assured that this ruffian hadn’t slipped a spider under the saddle.

  He had enough to worry about just trying to ride out without getting a bullet in his back.

  “Please saddle my mare,” Ava said. “I’ll ride with him to the gate.”

  The cowboy didn’t make a move to comply, but a glance at Ava proved she wasn’t backing down either. Trey’s respect for her climbed a bit higher.

  “Yes’m,” the cowboy said at last.

  Trey followed the man as he grabbed a rope and stepped into the corral. Several horses perked up, Daisy’s mare being one of them.