Cowboy Come Home

by Janette Kenny

  “That’s it, handed down to her by her ma.” He could’ve sworn pure panic flared in Daisy’s eyes. “Before Pa left us at the orphanage, he pinned that to your dress.”

  Her lower lip quivered as she turned to Mrs. Gant. “I don’t know what to believe.”

  “Well, let’s have a look inside that locket,” Mrs. Gant said, taking the words right out of Dade’s mouth.

  Daisy squirmed, as if nervous over finding the proof of his claim. Finally she unclasped the cameo from her bodice, hesitated a moment, and then handed it to Mrs. Gant.

  “My hands are shaking too badly to search for the clasp,” Daisy said.

  Not so for Mrs. Gant. The lady found and opened it before Daisy finished talking.

  “There’s nothing inside it,” Mrs. Gant said.

  Dade should’ve figured that’d be the case. And did Daisy just let out a sob? Or was that a sigh of relief?

  The older woman closed the broach and pressed it back into Daisy’s hand, then enfolded her in her arms. “There, there. You’ve been through too much, what with just hearing that your beau passed on. And now all this about having a lost brother.”

  “What happened to the photographs?” he asked his sister.

  “I have no idea,” Daisy said. “I didn’t even know this was a locket until just now.”

  He snorted at that. How could she not know?

  Mrs. Gant chastised him with a look that would’ve done a schoolmarm proud. But he wasn’t backing down. Not now.

  “Look at the back of the broach,” he said, then stubbornly waited until she did as he said. “The inscription reads, ‘Be true to yourself.’ The initials TL are struck below it.”

  A frown marred Daisy’s smooth brow. “Who’s TL?”

  “Our mother. Tessa Logan.”

  Her narrow shoulders slumped as she tightened her fingers around the broach in her hand. “That’s it exactly. I guess that means you’re telling the truth.”

  “It does. I’ve been looking for you for years,” he said.

  “Well now you’ve found me.” She didn’t sound particularly happy about it.

  Dade couldn’t fault her for that. He couldn’t even grumble much about her hesitation now.

  They were strangers. She’d lived a life apart from everything she’d known, just like him. She’d obviously lost her heart to Sheriff Emery and had intended to marry him. Or had she?

  “Why didn’t you come back last fall?” he asked.

  “I couldn’t decide if marrying Lester was the right thing to do,” Daisy said, and avoided meeting his eyes. “By the time I knew what I wanted, winter hit and snowed me in.”

  That sounded fine on the surface, for he’d been stranded here as well. She’d gone back to wherever she’d called home, thought things over, and then returned to marry her beau. But Lester was dead, shot down by a young outlaw who was trigger-happy.

  He reckoned it was better it happened now than after they’d married, leaving Daisy a young widow, perhaps with a baby. Yet Daisy didn’t seem all that brokenhearted over Lester’s death. In fact, she appeared more worried than anything.

  “You never did say where you were raised,” Dade said to break the awful silence.

  Daisy fidgeted just enough to make him think she was uncomfortable talking about that. “A mining town west of the divide.”

  “This town have a name?” he asked.

  She looked away. Swallowed. “Burland.”

  He’d heard of it. A couple of men had swindled claims out of many a miner, ending up rich while the rest of the miners went broke. Considering the way she was dressed, he had a feeling she’d been raised in one of the rich households.

  So why marry a poor small town sheriff when she could likely have her pick of gentlemen? Now that Lester Emery was gone, why stay here with a brother she didn’t remember?

  “Will you return to Burland now?” Mrs. Gant asked.

  Daisy’s narrow shoulders went stiff. “There’s nothing left for me there.”

  Mrs. Gant tsked. “Then you should stay right here with your brother. That’ll give you both time to get to know each other again.”

  “Thank you,” Daisy said, her smile as thin as Dade’s waning patience.

  He ground his teeth. She wasn’t sticking around because she wanted to get close to her brother again. Nope, she had nowhere else to go. That wasn’t a kick in the shins but it came damned close.

  His little sister had been a delicate, fragile child who’d clung to him. She’d been unbelievably shy and prone to tears. But the Daisy before him seemed to have developed the grit to take off on her own across the Great Divide.

  She also possessed an alluring womanly charm that called to some need deep inside him. Hell, if he wasn’t her brother he’d have been drawn to her.

  He shook off those disquieting thoughts and focused on the problem at hand. He still didn’t know what type of folks had taken in his sister and raised her.

  Not that it mattered. She had him to protect her now, just like he’d sworn he’d do twenty odd years ago.

  If she’d let him. Right now that didn’t seem too likely.

  Dade blew out a weary breath. For damn sure he had his work cut out for him gaining her trust.

  Maggie Sutten read the determination in Dade Logan’s brown eyes and knew with a sinking heart that she had landed smack dab between a rock and a hard place.

  She’d had no idea that Daisy had a brother. A brother who was waiting here in Placid for her to return. A brother who’d spent years trying to find his sister.

  Heavens to Betsy! Now he believed he’d done just that. Could things get any worse?

  They surely would if Whit Ramsey found her.

  However, for now she’d do well to play along with Dade Logan. That was the best way she could hide from Whit until she decided what to do next.

  Yes, Whit would turn over every rock in Colorado looking for Maggie Sutten. He’d never dream she’d assumed another name and be living with a man.

  And there was the advantage that Dade was a lawman. Though in truth she didn’t think that would stop Whit from taking her.

  A chill passed through her at the thought.

  “Are you cold, dear?” Mrs. Gant asked.

  “Just a case of nerves,” she said. “It’s a lot to take in at once.”

  Dade tucked his hands under his armpits and eyed her, and for an instant she feared he could look clean through her and see she was spinning a mile-long yarn. “You end up with a good family?”

  Painful memories of the first family who’d taken her in threatened to torment her, so she blocked them from her mind and focused on the Nowells instead. “They treated me well enough, though it was clear I was just the companion to their crippled daughter.”

  As soon as the words left her mouth, she realized Mrs. Gant had put two and two together. “I had no idea that Eloisa Reynard was your foster sister.”

  Maggie forced a smile, for nobody here knew that Eloisa was in fact Caroline Nowell, the “Silver King’s” daughter. “We thought of ourselves as best friends.”

  “You were fortunate,” Dade said.

  If only he knew the truth! But that was a secret she had to keep. Just like she had to keep up the pretense of being Daisy Logan.

  “Eloisa was a delight, and that made living there enjoyable,” she said, and that was the honest-to-God truth.

  The hell didn’t come into play until her foster father had to pay up what he owed, and Whit Ramsey refused to honor the agreement of taking Harlan Nowell’s crippled daughter’s hand in marriage.

  According to him, Whit Ramsey wanted Maggie.

  If Whit had been a decent man and courted her, she might have considered his suit. But he was an overbearing snob and a lothario to boot.

  She refused to marry him, but Harlan Nowell informed her she had no choice. She owed him for taking her in.

  Maggie detested Nowell, and she didn’t have much more regard for his wife. But she loved her foster
sister and had hesitated over abandoning her.

  “You can’t marry him,” Caroline had said after the last argument Maggie had had with Harlan Nowell. “Leave. Go far from here and never look back.”

  “I’m afraid what will happen to you,” Maggie had said.

  Caroline had laughed. “I’ll grow old alone. No man wants to get saddled with a cripple.”

  “Never say never.”

  The long winter had proved true Maggie’s suspicions about Whit Ramsey. He came to visit often though he usually ended up secluded in the library with Nowell, but even on those rare occasions when he stayed for supper he paid Caroline no attention at all. In fact, he’d often make some excuse and leave the room when she entered in her wheelchair.

  So Maggie and Caroline planned out what she should do. Which, given the fact she’d told Lester she’d return to Placid, pretty much set the stage.

  In the meantime, she went along with Harlan Nowell’s plans for a big wedding this spring and suffered Whit’s attentions.

  The second the weather cleared and she found a chance, she ran away—ran here to Lester. Even then she’d backtracked and paid a painted lady to use her real name and take the train west. For if Whit got wind that Maggie Sutten was here, he’d come after her.

  “You said there was nothing left for you in Burland,” Dade said, bracing a shoulder against the doorjamb. He gave the impression that he was relaxing and exchanging idle chitchat, but Maggie wasn’t fooled.

  He was fishing.

  “That’s right,” she said, and summoned up a sniffle.

  “What happened to your foster family?” Dade asked.

  “They came down sick with a fever over the winter,” Maggie said, thinking that was the easiest way to keep her lies from getting too tangled. “Father survived it. Mother didn’t.”

  Mrs. Gant made appropriate sounds of distress. “Did dear Eloisa pass over too?”

  “No!” The thought of Caroline dying made Maggie sick, though as it had turned out she’d lost the only friend she’d had anyway. “No, her father sent her east to live with an aunt and receive treatment at a hospital.”

  Another lie, but again it’d divert attention away from Burland, the Nowells, and Whit Ramsey.

  Mrs. Gant embraced her in a smothering hug again, and Maggie was just too weary to resist. “You poor dear, losing most of your foster family and your beau.”

  “It’s been a trial,” she said, and felt tears sting her eyes over Lester’s death.

  She’d genuinely liked him. But on the train ride here she’d finally decided she couldn’t marry a man she didn’t love. Not Lester Emery. And surely not Whit Ramsey.

  “Now then I’m going upstairs and get your old room ready.” Mrs. Gant smiled at them, and Maggie noted the moisture in the older woman’s eyes. “For the first time in years this house will have a real family living in it.”

  Maggie forced a smile and hated that she lied to this kind woman who seemed hungry for family. As for Dade ... Well, if lying sent a person to hell she was halfway there.

  “I’d about given up hope of finding you,” Dade said after Mrs. Gant took herself off, his voice going rough with emotion.

  Maggie squirmed, truly bitten by guilt. “I’m sorry I don’t remember you.”

  Sorry she didn’t know what had happened to Daisy. And sorry that she was going to destroy his dream of a family without any explanation. But she couldn’t keep up this charade.

  She couldn’t get too close to Dade Logan either.

  The man was simply too big and too discerning for her peace of mind. And if she was honest, he stirred feelings in her that were best left sleeping. Feelings a woman would never feel for her brother. Feelings that would surely give her lie away.

  No, she didn’t dare get too close or too comfortable around Dade Logan.

  As much as she wished otherwise, she couldn’t remain here long either. Harlan Nowell would come looking for her, and he might do worse than drag her back to Burland and marry her to Whit Ramsey.

  A chill tripped down her spine at the thought of being sold off like cattle. There had to be a trustworthy man she could confide in, a man who’d help her escape Whit Ramsey for good.

  Her gaze flicked to the tall imposing man beside her. Dade Logan?

  Those clear brown eyes of his had seen a world of trouble. According to Mrs. Gant’s tale, he knew how to use that gun strapped low on his hip.

  Yes, he was the type of man who’d risk his life to save his sister. But she wasn’t his kin. She couldn’t intentionally make him a target for Harlan Nowell’s wrath.

  For a few days she’d be safe here in Mrs. Gant’s boardinghouse. She could plan what to do. After she’d gained Dade Logan’s trust and he let down his guard, she’d make her escape.

  It was the only way. She knew Harlan Nowell was in a bind. He needed her to satisfy a debt, and he’d move heaven and hell to bring her back.

  Or silence her.

  ZEBRA BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2011 by Janette Kenny

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the Publisher and neither the Author nor the Publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  Zebra and the Z logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  ISBN: 978-1-4201-2554-2