Connie and the Cowboy (Outlaw Gold)
Page 1
Connie and the Cowboy
Mildred Colvin
Historical Christian Romance
Connie and the Cowboy
Copyright©2012 by Mildred Colvin
All Rights Reserved
Cover Photo ©Mildred Colvin
Scripture portions are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to events is entirely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means without permission in writing from its author except for brief quotations in printed reviews.
Thank you for respecting the author’s work.
DEDICATION
To my son, Daniel. How open and sensitive your heart is to those you love! I pray you will always center your affections on the One who loves you more than His own life.
I love you! Thank you for your willing support of my writing.
To Vanessa Riley, cover designer above and beyond! Thank you for your friendship and for this great book cover. Connie and Brett also thank you for making their story shine before the book is opened.
Chapter 1
Purgatory, Arkansas, Spring of 1889
Connie set the plate of crisp bacon at the side of the old black iron range to keep warm and reached into the egg basket. Her fingers fumbled, and the first egg landed with a splat against the clean wood floor. She stamped her foot in frustration and shot a glance toward the door leading into the sitting room and her uncle’s bedroom beyond. There was no time for this. More careful now, she took another egg, broke it, and slipped it into the hot grease. Two others followed. Once over easy, and they joined the bacon on the warm plate.
Connie wiped the broken egg from the floor and threw the mess into the slop bucket. If only she could get breakfast on the table and slip away before her uncle got up. But she was still stirring the thick cream gravy when she sensed his tall, muscular presence in the doorway behind her. The soft thud of his boots against the floor sent warning to her nerve endings, and she cringed from what would come next.
His arms slipped around her waist, and his mouth nuzzled the side of her neck. “How about a kiss for your old uncle?”
“Not now, Uncle Everett. I gotta get your breakfast on the table.” With practiced ease, Connie kept her voice from betraying the disgust that twisted her stomach. “You don’t want lumpy gravy, do ya?”
“Mebbe later then.” He bent to kiss the side of her neck, released her, and sat at the table.
Her arm muscles tensed as her fingers inside the oven mitt tightened around the hot iron skillet handle. A fleeting vision of throwing the steaming, bubbling gravy in his face did little to satisfy her longing to remove the man from her life. She didn’t look up as she finished cooking breakfast, but she could feel his hot, feverish eyes on her.
Things hadn’t been the same since Aunt Rose died a few days before Connie’s nineteenth birthday. Maybe if they were real, true blood kin, it’d make a difference. Only that still wouldn’t make her blood kin to Uncle Everett. Her insides squeezed up just from thinkin’ about it all. Three years ago, he’d watched her. Next, there’d been accidental touches. Only how often could he accidentally brush up against her in places he should never be touching? Last week he started saying things that told her he had no intentions of ever letting her go.
“You know I could have any woman in Purgatory, Connie.” He bragged while he waited for his breakfast. “Married or single.”
That was probably true. Every unattached female within calling distance had shown up on his doorstep even before Aunt Rose’s funeral.
Like vultures circlin’ a rotting carcass. If she had her way, she’d tossed ’em all out of the house. Or better yet, she’d slip away and leave ’em to fight over him.
She glanced at her uncle. Despite the belly he got from over indulgence, she supposed he was what most women would call a fine figure of a man. Except for the coldness in his blue eyes.
“But I want you,” he continued as if he were some prize she should treasure. “I reckon I knowed that when you come here three years ago, but you was just a little girl back then. Yer a woman grown now.”
“Aunt Rose’s only been gone two months.” She set his plate on the table in front of him and backed away before he could grab her.
“Yeah.” He laughed. “And she won’t be gettin’ any deader than she is right now. I’d reckon six months mournin’ is a respectable amount of time afore I take me a bride, don’t you?”
A twinge of pity for her aunt hit Connie. The woman had been a cold, unfeeling person, but she’d been married to Sheriff Everett Burns for twenty years. That, in itself, would explain why she’d been so unhappy. No man should talk about his dead wife that way. Even Rose Burns deserved a little respect.
“’Course, I ain’t plannin’ on waitin’ another four months to enjoy myself.” He leered at her as if she agreed with him. She poured a cup of coffee and set it with a soft thud on the heavy oak table, and quickly sidestepped when he reached for her. Yesterday she’d been too slow and ended up on his lap.
He laughed. “Your aunt never cared much for that side of bein’ married, but you will, Connie. It’s bred in ya.”
A sharp knock at the door saved Connie from answering. She reached for the doorknob, glad she didn’t have to endure any more of the sheriff’s unwelcome attention.
The young deputy sheriff, standing on the porch, barged in as soon as Connie opened the door. He hurried to the table where her uncle sat. “Some strangers is ridin’ into town.”
His gaze moved to Connie, and he jerked off his hat. “Mornin’, Miss Connie.”
Something deep in Deputy Deems’ eyes chased a chill down her spine. She turned away to clear the food off the stove before it burned. Although the deputy always acted like a dolt around her uncle, she’d caught him looking at her more than once as if she were a morsel to be swallowed. She avoided him when she could.
He looked back at the sheriff. “I thought you’d want to know.”
Everett Burns sopped up the last of the gravy on his plate with a piece of biscuit and popped it into his mouth before answering. “Far as I know, Deems, it ain’t agin’ the law for strangers to ride into town.”
“No, sir.” The young man swallowed, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “But they’s five of ’em and they’re comin’ from the north. I’d reckon from the looks of ’em, they’ve ridden a ways.”
Burns’s eyes narrowed. “Where’d they go?”
“Blue’s Café. Figure they headed there to eat their breakfast.”
Burns stood and snapped his dangling suspenders into place as he crossed the sitting room and disappeared into his bedroom. A moment later, he came out buckling on a gun belt. Two pearl-handled pistols nestled in the black holsters, one on each hip. A gleaming silver star shone from his brown kid-leather vest. “Reckon it won’t hurt to check ’em out.”
He stopped at the door. “I’ll be back at noon, Connie. We picked Rollie Ames up as a public nuisance last night. I figger he’s sobered up by now and about ready to go on home. I’d surely appreciate it if you’d have his horse ready for him, honey.”
Connie nodded. As the door closed behind her uncle and his deputy, the breath she hadn‘t even known she’d been holding rushed from her lungs. She sagged against the solid oak table. Gathering strength, she turned to take dishes from the table and set them on the sideboard to be washed later. As soon as she was sure the two men had reached the street, she opened the door enough to slip thro
ugh, moved across the porch, and waited behind the post to watch.
An empty lot lay between her uncle’s house and Rains’ Mercantile, which marked the beginning of the single street business district of Purgatory, Arkansas. The jail was next door to the mercantile. Blue’s Café stood across the street from the jail.
From her vantage-point in front of the house, partially hidden by the porch post, Connie watched the sheriff and his skinny, bow-legged deputy cross the wide, dusty street at an angle, heading for Blue’s Café.
Four of the men who had gotten Deems so flustered moved through the café door as she watched. The last one, a tall, slender, young man, secured his saddlebags before turning to follow his friends. He had his right foot on the boardwalk when he hesitated and looked across the street directly at her.
He tipped his hat and nodded. The rising sun glinted burnt orange off his reddish brown hair. She shrank back, her eyes darting to her uncle who was only halfway across the street. He didn’t seem to notice the stranger’s friendly gesture. She glanced back at the young man. He smiled before continuing into the café with the two lawmen not six paces behind him. Even with the quick glance she’d gotten of the first four cowboys, she knew they were up to no good. But what about the fifth man? The young, good-looking one. He didn’t have the appearance of an outlaw. Sure hope he don’t end up like Davis, dead afore his time. Oh well, he wasn’t her concern. She put him from her mind and went back inside her uncle’s house.
~*~
Charles Brett Norris IV stepped through the door into the café, a vision of the little girl across the street still in his mind. Just a mite of a thing, she’d hidden behind that porch post like he’d seen his little sister Luella do many times. She looked about the same age as Luella, too. He hadn’t thought much of his sisters lately. It’d been a long time since he’d seen them and the folks. Maybe too long. A touch of homesickness swept through him, and he crushed it with the experience of long years alone before sweeping his gaze around the crowded cafe.
The four men he’d met that morning just outside town all sat around a table in the back corner of the room. The one they called Fagan motioned for him to join them. Brett’s booted heels clomped on the board floor as he skirted several occupied tables, winding his way across the room.
He pulled a spare chair from a nearby table and squeezed into the space left for him between Fagan, the leader of the group, and a grizzled middle-aged man named Grady. Brett crossed his ankle over his knee, took his hat off and hung it on his toe before noticing the men staring at him.
“How do we know he can be trusted?” The tall, lanky one acted as if Brett weren’t there.
“Simple, Dall,” Fagan leaned his chair back against the wall. His hat sat low on his head, dark hair showing above black eyes hard as stone. “They’s four of us and only one of him. You ain’t plannin’ to double cross your employer, now are you, Norris?”
Brett stared at Fagan, wondering what kind of question that was. He’d left home not long after he turned eighteen, drifting from one job to another, forever looking for the place he belonged. He’d been gone five long years and had nothing to show for all that time. When Fagan approached him with a job offer, he’d fingered the last two coins in his pocket and said he’d listen.
Now he shrugged, not sure what they were driving at. “I never have.”
“See, a man of honor. I like that.” Fagan’s chair came down with a thud on the wood floor. “We got company comin’. Let’s order some breakfast.”
Fagan lifted his hand to summon the plump woman working behind the long bar in front of the kitchen, but the sheriff and his deputy reached the table first. Brett felt pressure on the back of his chair. He looked up and saw the sheriff’s cold blue eyes appraising the men around the table.
The lawman zeroed in on Fagan, his narrowed gaze calculating. “Mornin’. You boys new in town?”
“Yes, sir.” Fagan nodded. “Just rode in.”
“What’s your names?”
Fagan met the sheriff’s questions with a smile, and Brett wondered how any man could smile with such hard eyes. Fagan introduced the others. “This here’s Dall Smith and that’s Grady Malone. The kid there is my son, Billy. Brett Norris is sitting in front of you. I’m Jesse Fagan.”
Each nodded as he was introduced. The sheriff didn’t smile. “Plannin’ on stayin’ a while?”
“Naw, just ridin’ through.” Fagan’s eyes narrowed. “There a problem, sheriff?”
“Guess that there’s up to you fellers.”
The chill of sweat trickled down Brett’s back as the sheriff looked the five men over.
“I run a clean town here.” The big man puffed out his chest. “I’d reckon you boys better be just passin’ through.”
Fagan smiled again, relaxing in his chair. “You got nothin’ to worry about, sheriff. We stopped for breakfast then we’re headin’ down Texas way. Got a job on a big ranch down there waitin’ for us.”
The sheriff nodded. “Make sure you do that. I’ll expect ya to head out soon as you eat your breakfast.” He patted the holster at his side as he turned away. “Some fellers come a-thinkin’ this here town’s wide open. One way or another they leave knowin’ better.”
Brett was glad to see him go.
The woman came then and took their order. While they waited, Fagan turned to Brett. “Talkin’ inside four walls makes a man nervous. We’re settin’ up camp for the night south of town. You comin’ with us?”
Brett looked from Fagan to the others and saw hardened men. Billy was young, still in his teens, but he, too, looked as if he’d seen more of life than any man should.
Seeing the boy, who should be home with his mother, brought memories to Brett of the gentle woman who’d filled his dead mother’s place. She’d married his father when Brett was nine years old, bringing love and a mother’s heart to fill their big, empty house. He could still hear her say, “Be careful who your companions are, Brett. But don’t be harsh in your judgments, either. Get to know people before you decide. Only God can see the heart.”
Brett let his hand rest against his empty pocket. He could sure use the cash money Fagan insinuated would be coming if he took the job. Maybe there was more decency in them than met the eye. Figuring he didn’t have much to lose one way or the other, he nodded. “Yeah, I’ll come.”
“Good. We’ll do a little target practicin’. See how good you are with a gun. Maybe some ropin’ and ridin’. You prove your worth, and I’ll tell ya more about the job.” Fagan leaned back as the woman placed their food on the table. He turned his cold smile on Brett. “Eat up. This meal’s on me.”
Brett’s eyebrows rose. He let Fagan’s remark about target practicing slide as the sweet smell of maple syrup filled his nostrils. There’d be time enough to find out why he needed to be good with a gun. Maybe it had something to do with the job on the ranch in Texas. Now wasn’t the time for worrying, not with his belly-button pushing against his backbone. He’d gone without plenty of meals, but this was the first one, since he left home, that had been given to him. No need to pass up a free breakfast. He grinned and reached for a biscuit. “Thanks.”
~*~
Connie returned to the kitchen to wash dishes, the image of her uncle hot on the heels of that tall, slender young man still on her mind. She had her hands in the sudsy water when she began to laugh. The sheriff had put on a good show for his deputy. Calling her honey and asking her if she’d mind taking care of Rollie Ames’ horse. Playing the part of a loving uncle. No one would ever believe the things he said to her, or how he was always grabbing at her when they were alone.
Him and Maggie, the woman who birthed me, must have been cut from the same piece of cloth, bein’ so sneakin’.
Well, they weren’t the only ones who could play a convincing part. She’d never forget the way Burns had stared at her a little over three years ago when she stepped off the stagecoach. The first thing he’d said was, “How old are you, girl?”
“What’s the matter, girl? I asked you a question. How old are ya?” His voice from the past pulled her back to that time.
Connie looked down at the baggy, drab-brown, Mother Hubbard dress the do-gooder Christian women in Missouri had given her. Thankful, for the first time, she wasn’t wearing the pants and man’s shirt she’d had on when Davis and the rest of the gang were shot down, and that she was small, she shaved three years from her age.
“Almost thirteen,” she whispered.
He frowned. “Huh! Well, I reckon you’ll grow.”
She had grown. At nineteen she was a woman now. Uncle Everett thought she was sixteen and, to his way of thinking, old enough to claim for his own.
How could she get away from his clutches? How could she run from Purgatory without him chasing her down and bringing her back? That was her problem now.
After she finished the dishes, she climbed the steep steps to the low-ceilinged attic where she slept. She made her bed then slipped the long, wide-bladed hunting knife back under her pillow. Burns hadn’t climbed up to her room in the night yet, but sooner or later he would. She’d been ready for him since the night they came home from the funeral. Her knife was sharp as a razor.
Davis would’ve killed the sheriff already, just for grabbing her and hinting he was gonna take her to wife. Sudden tears filled her eyes, and she impatiently brushed them away. The man everyone called Davis couldn’t fight her battles any more. He was gone. Killed up north in Missouri on his last job.