This close he could see the altered brands on most of the horses. One animal stood out among the others, a chestnut stallion with a crooked white star that put him in mind of Caelte, one of Reid’s prize thoroughbreds.
As soon as the horse shifted his rump, he got a good look at the brand. Dammit to hell and back! He set his teeth as an altered version of the brand he’d rode under most of his life glared back at him.
This was Caelte. The old Crown Seven brand had been changed to a Rocking Crown 77. That’d been partly burned out with crossed rods, and the Lazy 8 brand burned close to it.
There were other scars that hadn’t been there before too. Likely a man who didn’t have a strong enough hand to ride him had beaten the stallion once. But he looked well tended to. He looked at home.
Still, Trey bet if he whistled like he used to do to coax this horse to him, Caelte would come trotting right over. He could ride out of here on this stallion now. Hold him for Reid.
Trey’s fingers twitched into fists then relaxed. Doing that would surely bring Egan Jarvis gunning for him just for spite.
Let it go, the voice in his head said. The stallion would do Jarvis more good than Reid now.
He sure as hell didn’t want to bring more trouble down on Daisy. She’d had too much, including what he’d put her through by seducing her when he had no intentions of being honorable.
That was a hard admission to make. It didn’t say much for the man he was, but it was the truth he’d finally owned up to. He wanted her. He’d always want her.
But he wasn’t ready to give her what she wanted. Hell, he didn’t know if he’d ever be ready.
“Fine stallion,” he said at last.
“He is the boss’s favorite,” the cowboy said. “Won him in a card game a year ago.”
Trey cracked a smile. He supposed that could be true, that the outlaw had won the horse fair and square. He damned sure wasn’t going to tweak the man’s pride anymore.
He scanned the rest of the horses in the corral. Most were fine stock.
“That gelding of mine will do fine after he’s rested up. Which one of the hands would want to trade horses?”
The cowboy straightened. “That calico gelding over there in the corner? He’s mine. Raised him from a colt. But around here I have to have eyes like an eagle to keep the Indians up in the mountains from claiming him.”
Trey gave the paint a good, hard look. His lines were smooth, and he was likely younger than the gelding he’d finagled in El Paso weeks ago.
“He’ll do,” he said. “Mind tossing my saddle on him?”
“I’ll have the boy see to it.”
Trey was thankful for that. Though Ava had stitched him up, he’d likely rip something open if he hoisted that much weight.
“Don’t forget to saddle the lady’s mare too,” Ava said. She earned a quick wave and nod from the young man who’d ambled over.
That cowpoke had a shine for Ava, and if Trey wasn’t mistaken, she was returning it. Shy attraction. He’d seen it, but he’d never played that role. Even with Daisy he’d made her come to him. And she had.
“I don’t suppose if I warn you to take it slow and easy that you’ll do it,” Ava said as he cinched his saddle.
He scrubbed a hand over his mouth and smiled. “I want to put as many miles as I can between me and this place.”
She nodded. “I’ll try to talk sense into Egan while he’s tied up. I wish there were more I could do to help you.”
“There is,” he said. “Tell me how to get to this village as fast as possible. Sooner I can collect Daisy, the sooner we can be heading home.”
Home. Just saying it sounded so right. He hadn’t felt that way about a place since he’d left Wyoming.
“I know a shortcut.”
And from there, Ava went into detail so well that he could almost see Los Azul tucked in a mountain valley. By the time she’d finished and he’d committed the route to memory, the cowboy had saddled her horse and Daisy’s mare.
“Much obliged to you for helping Daisy and me,” he said once he gained the saddle.
“Take care of her,” she said as they rode down the lane toward the gate. “You two have something special, if you’ll just open your eyes and your hearts.”
He dipped his chin and rode off, mulling that over. He could give Daisy his name and his protection. But the one thing he wasn’t sure he could give her was his heart. And that was the one thing that she wanted from him.
Chapter 18
Dusk had fallen, and Daisy was still at the mountain village, unsure which way would take her back to Texas. When they’d arrived in the afternoon, she couldn’t beg directions because it was siesta time, and those in the village who’d be of help were dozing while the others were away working.
Manuela had been no help at all, for she only knew her way from the ranch to the village. “You have missed the trail,” she’d said when Daisy intentionally drove past it, hoping this was the route Egan had taken from Texas.
Daisy had gone on, traveling slowly down the narrow road until it widened enough for her to turn around. Even there she stopped and waited, her hopes of intercepting Trey withering under the heat of the sun.
Would this road take her back home? She didn’t know. It’d been too dark for her to pick out landmarks.
Manuela patted her arm. “We go back to the trail now.”
No! She wanted to wait here. She didn’t want to admit that she’d made a mistake leaving the ranch, that she could wait here for the rest of the day and never see Trey.
But it was the truth. After giving the empty road ahead a longing look, Daisy had backtracked to the worn trail that wound into the mountains. Her plan had failed.
“Maybe we should go back to the ranch,” Daisy said.
“No! Señorita Jarvis wants her son to stay here where it is quiet.”
Daisy looked at the small boy tucked between them, and her heart ached for him. Ached for what she’d lost as well. He’d huddled against Manuela all morning.
How different her own life would’ve been if Ned had killed Trey. If she’d given birth to their baby.
She could be living a near-mirror of Ava’s life right now.
It could’ve been her. If she hadn’t lost her baby, she’d have been alone with just Ramona and her hands to help her.
“Señorita,” Manuela had begged. “Por favor, we go now.”
Daisy was torn. “Will someone in the village be able to tell me how to get to Texas?”
“Si, my son Emilio.”
So she’d followed the trail that took her to Los Azul. The sleepy mountain settlement was home to a handful of mixed Mexicans and Indians. She had no idea how far they were from a town of any size.
No idea where the village was situated in New Mexico, though Daisy would swear it was in the middle of nowhere. They hadn’t passed a soul driving here!
For all she knew she could be closer to Colorado and Dade. She was still too close to the Lazy 8 Ranch and Egan Jarvis! Still too far away from Trey March and Texas.
And Manuela’s son wouldn’t return until evening! So she was stuck here.
“You will stay, si?” Manuela asked.
As if she had another choice ... “I will spend the night and leave in the morning.”
The kind lady beamed at her, putting her in the mind of Ramona so much that she did feel at ease here. “I will prepare a bed for you,” Manuela said.
“Gracias.”
Daisy stood in the open doorway and watched the heat of the day pass into a velvet dusk. The setting sun painted the mountains in shades of magenta and crimson and stole the variegated greens from the forest, leaving stands of black shadows to encircle the valley.
The men of the village returned in a cluster. They must all work at a nearby ranch or town. Maybe she could find help there. But without funds, she couldn’t secure train passage. She couldn’t afford a night in a hotel either.
Manuela’s family’s home was warm and welcoming, but de
speration kept Daisy’s nerves tight. Staying here was dangerous.
Egan was sure to come after her once he learned of Ava’s deception. And there was Trey to consider.
He’d never find her here. And if he went to the Lazy 8? She shivered, terrified to think of him confronting Jarvis.
Where are you, Trey?
A man trudged toward the adobe, his shoulders bent and his face haggard. She stepped back as he drew near.
“Hola,” the man said, casting Daisy a questioning look before turning to Manuela.
“Buenas tardes,” Manuela said and embraced the man. “Por favor, you must help Señorita Barton. Señor Jarvis brought her home but his sister sent us here.”
Emilio frowned as if concerned over that news. “How can I help you, señorita?”
“I need to get back to Texas but I don’t know which way to go.”
“To El Paso?” he asked.
She shook her head, bringing to mind as much as she could remember of the place where Ned had died by Jarvis’s hand. “We camped on the river in Texas. Not far from a town. Pecos, I think.”
“You crossed the river there?”
“No, we followed it for miles and miles before going across it.”
“Perhaps it is the old Texas Trail you seek,” Emilio said.
Daisy didn’t have a clue, but if he could direct her to Texas, she was halfway home. “That is probably the one. Tell me precisely which way to go.”
“Si, but I could draw you a map.”
“Gracias!” She’d be less apt to get lost that way. “How long will it take for me to drive there?”
“In the buggy? A day to reach the Pecos River,” he said. “From there, it depends on where in Texas you want to go, señorita.”
“To San Angelo,” she said, hesitant to mention the ranch by name.
He shrugged his narrow shoulders. “I do not know where that is.”
“That’s all right. A map to the Pecos River will be fine.”
She couldn’t have pinpointed San Angelo on a map either, but surely once she reached Pecos, Texas, somebody there could better direct her.
“Come inside. Eat first,” Manuela said.
Daisy did, only because she knew that Emilio was likely hungry after working all day.
They sat down to a simple meal of beans and tortillas. It was hot and warm and filling, yet Daisy felt cold inside.
Where was Trey? How could she possibly think of heading back to Texas without him? What made her think that he’d bothered to look for her?
Doubt and fear roiled within her all that night. She slept fitfully again, troubled by old memories and new fears.
She couldn’t leave without knowing if he’d picked up her trail and gone to the Lazy 8 Ranch.
To be sure, she’d have to go back. She couldn’t leave without knowing if he’d come after her. If he and Egan Jarvis had had a run-in and one or both were dead.
Dawn had just broken the horizon when Emilio hitched the horse to the buggy. She got up as well, exhausted from tossing on the cot and worrying about Trey. She feared what she’d find when she returned to Jarvis’s ranch.
The majority of the men in the village were saddling their horses and mules for their treks to various ranches and towns to work for the day. Yet the accompanying sound was no more than a low hum that wouldn’t have woken the children.
Emilio pressed his crude map into her hands. “This is the best I can do, señorita. It has been over a year since I traveled that way.”
She took a good look at his endeavor and forced a smile. The writing was in Spanish. While she could speak it, she’d never learned to write it. Likely Emilio was the opposite.
“Thank you,” she said and tucked the map in her pocket.
“Going somewhere?” Trey asked, his voice clear and deep and so very close.
She whirled around, startled to find him sitting on a paint horse not ten feet from her, holding a rope to her saddled mare. He’d been to the Lazy 8. Been there and left.
But one look at him told her it hadn’t been easy. His face was battered, and one eye was nearly swollen shut. But what terrified her was that blood stained much of one shirtsleeve.
“Señorita?” Emilio asked, alarm in his voice.
She turned back to the young man and smiled. “It’s all right. He’s a friend. I won’t need the buggy after all.”
Emilio glanced at Trey and back to her. “You will leave with him?”
“Yes.” As soon as possible, she thought, as she turned and walked toward Trey on shaky legs.
He was alive. He’d found her. Everything would be all right.
“Did Jarvis do this to you?” she asked.
He dipped his chin. “I got the better of him, though it wasn’t easy.”
She was glad she hadn’t witnessed that scrape. “Did Ava tell you that I was here?”
“She did,” he said. “I found the village after midnight, too late to look for you then.”
She took the rope from his hands, her fingers lingering a moment on his. “Should we expect company?”
His swollen mouth pulled into a grim line. “I’d bet on it.”
She looped the rope around her mare’s neck, gathered the reins, and gained her saddle without help. She was glad she’d donned her split skirt again. It’d been necessary to wear Ava’s dress when she left the ranch, but she felt more comfortable in her own things.
Now she was glad of that decision. She was grateful too that Manuela had set out food for her to take with her this morning.
She hooked the woven handle of the cloth bag over the saddle horn on the opposite side of the canteen. Food and water, enough for today at least.
“Adios,” she told Emilio, and she gained the same reply.
Trey set a steady pace down the mountain trail, seeming sure which way to go. She was content to follow and get as far from here as possible.
“What happened to your horse?” she asked.
“Came up lame yesterday about ten miles from the Lazy 8. Left him at the ranch in exchange for this one.”
She was glad he’d gotten her mare as well, though she’d have been more relieved if they’d crossed paths yesterday after she’d left the ranch. They could’ve taken the buggy and gone on. Gone home together.
“You found Ned then?”
“Yep. Told Jarvis I thought he did the world a favor.”
“Did Jarvis believe you?”
“Reckon we’ll find out in due time.”
They reached the valley far sooner than it’d taken her to travel this route the first time. Trey set a fast pace and headed across the plains instead of taking the trail that wound south.
She sensed his urgency as their horses ate up the miles in silence. Yet it seemed like an hour passed before they reached a well-traveled road.
Trey never broke stride as he turned them south. Talk was out of the question at this pace, but she didn’t complain. She just stored up the questions eating away at her. And she wondered again what went through the mind of the tall man who’d ridden to her rescue.
Even when they slowed their pace to rest the horses, talk seemed vulgar. She understood his reason for being more guarded out here in the open. Knew he was alert to danger swooping down on them.
But the silence played on her mind, and her future seemed more uncertain than ever before. Part of that was because of seeing how Jarvis had treated his sister.
She wasn’t about to let that happen to her with Dade, though she did want to meet her brother. She wanted to build a closeness with him.
He was likely as hardheaded as Trey. She might side with him because of their close bond. But she was determined to make him understand that she could stand on her own.
First step toward that would be finding Dade and inviting him to visit the ranch. “How far are we from Colorado?”
“Helluva long way. Why?”
“Jarvis said that Dade was a sheriff in a small town there.”
“He sa
y where?”
“No, he was very vague.”
He glanced back at her. “How’d that come up?”
“I told him I was a Logan,” she said. “I thought it’d raise less questions if he knew I was the daughter of an outlaw and not a prominent Texas rancher.”
Not that there’d been anyone left to ransom her to if that had been Jarvis’s intention. But she’d learned the hard way that some men wanted her for the land and the cattle.
Kurt was willing to pay for the land, knowing she was over a barrel in debt with her daddy gone. Ned would have done anything to get his hands on the land, including murder. And what about Trey?
She wanted to believe that she’d won a piece of his heart, but that might not be the case at all. He wanted the ranches too.
He had suggested they marry. Not for love. No, because he felt guilty for taking her innocence when she was the one who’d chosen to give it to him.
She stared at the back of Trey’s hard head and felt her heart break all over again. Before Ned had abducted her, she had thought she’d reached a decision she could live with. She believed that Trey might fall in love with her in time.
Now she wasn’t so sure that would happen. Even if it did, she deserved more than a marriage of convenience.
“Why did you come after me?” she asked.
“What kind of a question is that?”
“A fairly simple one.” If he loved her. Even if he just cared for her.
He shifted in the saddle, and even from this distance she could see his shoulders rack up tight. “I wasn’t going to sit by and let Ned steal my woman.”
“You make me sound like a possession,” she said. “My horse, my woman.”
He reined his mount around and trotted back until they were side by side. “Don’t go getting prickly on me now. I was your first lover, and I aim to be your only one.”
The sheer arrogance of that statement had her seeing red. “Why? Because we’re good in bed? Because I own two ranches and, silly me, I need a strong man to run them?”
His eyes narrowed to slits. “You’ve damned near bankrupted yourself.”
“The drought and Ned were against me,” she said. “And yes, I didn’t know what to do, but I intend to learn.”
Cowboy Come Home Page 23
