The Irish Westerns Boxed Set

by C. H. Admirand

  “Reilly’s right. Ye can call us ‘Paddy’ for all we care, just don’t call us late for scones.” Flynn flashed his boyish grin her way.

  “You two men are the—”

  ”Dearest?” Flynn added.

  “Most helpful?” Reilly offered.

  “Laziest?” a deep voice suggested.

  “James!” Bridget spun back around, her hand to her heart. Ryan’s brows lowered as his clear blue eyes hardened, focusing on her. “What are you doing up?”

  Bridget didn’t know whether to smack him upside the head for being difficult, or be grateful for his concern. The last few weeks had been the slowest of her life, but she really felt she had turned the corner and was on her way to feeling like her old self again. She’d go so far as to say she felt fully recovered. She’d gained back some of the weight. Besides, even if she hadn’t, she’d go absolutely stir crazy if she sat idle for another day!

  She met his glare with a wry smile and snipped, “It should be obvious. Cooking.”

  The look on the man’s face was telling; he didn’t appreciate or approve of her working, or of her answer.

  “Oh, let the lass alone.” Flynn moved a step closer to her, as if to protect her from the lash of Ryan’s temper. She was touched.

  “Aye, she seems fit enough to me.” Reilly slid behind Flynn.

  Bridget noticed the movement, but didn’t realize what the men intended to do until Reilly reached out and grabbed a hot scone off the tray. He tossed it back and forth between his hands, before breaking it in half and popping part of the scone into his mouth.

  “Heaven!” Reilly declared with his mouth still half full.

  “Bridget, the doctor specifically said—”

  “I know exactly what the doctor said,” Bridget interrupted. Brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes, she met his glare with one of her own. “And I distinctly remember asking you not to bring the doctor here.“

  Ryan opened his mouth to speak, then clamped it shut.

  The way he raked his hands through his hair was the first clue he was upset. The way he closed his eyes and tilted his head up toward the ceiling confirmed it. Probably counting again, she mused.

  ”Well now, lass, Jamie here didn’t exactly bring the doctor here to see you,” Flynn said, moving to stand to the left of Ryan.

  Reilly nodded, moving to stand on the other side of Ryan. “ ’Twas the marshal who needed the bullet pried out of his arm, if ye’ll remember.”

  The way the men flanked Ryan pulled just a bit on her heartstrings. More than one person at the ranch owed considerably more than their last meal to James Ryan. He’d taken each one in, or at least that was part of the story she’d heard. By all rights, she and Mick should be standing on either side of him right now. They owed their lives to him, too.

  But all she seemed to do since she’d gotten out of her sickbed was upset the man. He was forever raking his hands impatiently through his hair and staring up at either the ceiling or the sky. After all he had done for Mick and her, the very last thing she wanted to do was upset him.

  But James simply didn’t understand her need to pay him back. She couldn’t continue to live off his beneficence, now that she was back on her feet. She’d gone down that road before: trusted when it seemed prudent, but in the end she’d placed her trust in the wrong man. Memories bombarded her and her throat tightened. Had she done so again?

  She stole a look at the black-haired Irishman who’d opened up all the need inside of her again. It wasn’t comfortable, and it wasn’t a good idea. She struggled to clamp the lid back down on her emotions and rasped, “Coffee’s ready.”

  Flynn nodded and stepped out the back door to ring the brass bell that hung on the back of the house. Men started arriving immediately, and she wondered if they had been hanging around anticipating the peal of the bell.

  “Do I smell scones?”

  “Is the breakfast ready then?”

  Bridget suppressed her perverse need to walk over to James, wrap her arms around his waist, and lay her head against the strength of his chest, needing to feel the steady beating of his heart. She needed distance in order to tamp down the confusing emotions bubbling up inside her. So much for being able to control my feelings.

  Focusing on serving the meal, she bustled about the kitchen. Setting the platter of crisply fried bacon and eggs in the middle of the long oak table, she checked to see that the freshly churned butter and still-warm bread and scones were there as well, and not on the sideboard.

  Wiping her hands on her apron, she looked at the table filled with smiling faces and was struck by the notion that perhaps at last she and Mick had found a home. Could she risk embracing them as family? No one had made her feel inferior here, even when she’d been too ill to pull her own weight. Instead, they’d made her feel at home and set her son to working about the ranch, doing odd jobs here and there, all the while teaching him the value of hard work and earning his keep. More importantly, they taught Mick he was valued in spite of the fact that he’d known little more than how to muck out a horse stall.

  Torn between the urge to trust and the fear of placing that trust in the wrong hands again, Bridget laid a hand on the top rung of the ladder-back chair. But James was motioning for her to let him help her. He pulled her chair out, waited until she sat, then helped her push it in.

  “Ahh, always the gentleman, our Jamie.” Flynn pointed the tines of his fork at James while he spoke out of the side of his full mouth.

  “He knows how to behave in a lady’s presence,” Reilly agreed, slathering red currant jelly on a scone.

  “So pay attention then, Mick, lad.”

  Bridget’s heart warmed at the not-so-subtle lesson in manners. Her gaze flicked over to where James sat at the other end of the table. Their eyes met, and her heart tumbled in her breast. He was so lovely to look at with his ink-black hair and lake-blue eyes. The planes and angles of his face kept him from being too pretty. But it wasn’t just his good looks and beautifully sculpted mouth that drew her gaze; it was his eyes and the sorrow mixed with the secrets swirling in their blue depths that pulled at her, calling her.

  “But she always makes me sit and eat before it gets cold. She’s never ready to sit—”

  ”Now that you’re older, Mick, you can insist that you will wait for her to sit down before doing so.”

  Bridget’s fork clattered to the floor. Her fingers had gone limp at the suggestion that Mick should wait for her to be seated before eating. They hadn’t eaten any meals together before coming to stay at the Ryan ranch. She’d been afraid Mick would find out the truth: that their money was gone. She tried to insist she wanted him to eat while the food was warm, when in fact, she hadn’t been eating at all. Rather, she was giving her pitiful share of the food to her growing boy. He was always so hungry; he never seemed to notice that she wasn’t eating with him.

  “Are you all right?” Blue eyes level with hers surprised her. She hadn’t heard James move. Yet here he was squatting down beside her chair, lifting her fork.

  “Ye best blow on it, lass,” Flynn offered. “The Murphy brothers didn’t wipe their boots off when they came in from the corral. No tellin’ what they tracked in!”

  “We were in a hurry,” the younger Murphy protested.

  “Aye,” the older one added, “and we caught the sweet scent of cream scones.”

  Grateful for the distraction, Bridget turned away from the intensity of James’s gaze. “Next time,” she gently scolded, “please wipe your feet.”

  Masterson handed Bridget his unused fork, while Brennan, who sat closest to the cutlery drawer, rose to get another.

  She thanked them, watching James retreat to his chair out of the corner of her eye. Why hadn’t she noticed how handsome he was the night she arrived? Probably because you were out of your mind with fever, her slightly rattled brain admonished.

  She scooped up a forkful of egg and began to slowly chew. The yolk was not too hard, not too soft, just the wa
y Michael—her breath caught. It had been a long time since she’d thought of how her husband liked his eggs prepared. She must be more rattled than she thought.

  The men finished eating and were thanking her for the wonderful meal before she’d refocused on where she was and could take another bite. Thank goodness she could cook, and now that she was well on the road to recovery, shouldn’t she be thinking about earning her keep? Now that Maggie had married and moved out, she could see the need for a housekeeper. She ought to discuss the possibility with James.

  “I need to talk to your mother.” James ruffled the hair on her son’s head. “Why don’t you help Reilly over at the barn?”

  “That heap of rotting boards?”

  “Michael Garahan O’Toole!” Bridget could feel her cheeks stain with embarrassment. “You’ll apologize to Mr. Ryan for insulting his barn.”

  Mick’s face flushed as he looked first at her, then at James. “I didn’t mean . . . that is, I—”

  ”Well,” James said with a grin, “it is a bit of a wreck. We’re going to have a barn-raising in a few weeks. Maggie is organizing the townsfolk.” He rubbed his chin. “Convinced them it was the least they could do after the way the town’s founding father tried to swindle the ranch out from under me.”

  “I still think—”

  ”Go on, Mick.” James interrupted him, and nodded toward the back door.

  Bridget wondered what that was all about. Something had her son worried.

  “It will be all right, lad. Go on with you.”

  Mick cast a worried look over his shoulder as he shoved open the back door.

  “This sounds serious.” Keeping busy would help soothe the unease sprinting up and down her spine. She started clearing the table, stacking dirty plates and wiping up crumbs with a dishcloth.

  “It is.” James took her by the arm and led her back to the chair. “I need you to sit down.”

  Her heart thudded in her chest. What now? Her mind raced while worry ate at her stomach. The air in the kitchen seemed to thicken, making it difficult to draw in a breath. “I’m sitting.”

  “Has Mick mentioned how you came to be here at the ranch?” he asked as he sat down across from her.

  Bridget shook her head. “He said that when he met you, you offered to take us in until I regained my strength.” She raised her gaze to meet his. “I’ll never be able to thank you enough. Mick’s so happy.”

  “He didn’t tell you about the cattle?”

  “What cattle?”

  “So you don’t know about Mick’s run-in with the law?”

  Bridget’s head started to tingle. “Mick’s never had trouble with the law before.” The tingling spread, numbing the top of her head down to the tips of her fingers.

  “He asked me not to say anything to you, because he was going to tell you himself.” James scrubbed his hands over his face; then raked them through his hair. “I thought you’d figured it out after that night.”

  Confused, Bridget asked, “What night?”

  James raked his hands through his hair and continued, “When you had the nightmare and were worried about Mick.” He paused, waiting.

  Then she remembered! “You never did tell me why Mick needed to be saved from himself or what he’d been doing.”

  ***

  Ryan stared at Bridget for the longest time. There just wasn’t an easy way to tell the boy’s mother that the light of her life had been caught trying to rustle cattle from the Ryan ranch. He finally decided the truth would be the best approach.

  The truth! His heart clenched and his gut churned. He had never told his mother, or his sister, the truth about why he’d left or why he never went home. He never would.

  “Would you rather hear Mick’s side of the story?” She’d probably understand and forgive Mick. Ryan wondered if once he confessed, he would be forgiven for his lies, or his past transgressions.

  “No.” She didn’t hesitate, “I’d rather hear from you first, then Mick.”

  It was difficult to look into her warm brown eyes and tell her about Mick’s falling in with a bunch of outlaws and trying to rustle cattle. He steadied himself against the growing feeling of unease sliding around inside of him. He had to do it.

  “Just whose cattle did he try to steal?”

  Ryan waited a heartbeat. “Mine.”

  Bridget shot up from her chair as if the rush-bottom seat was on fire. “Your cattle! He tried to steal from you?”

  Ryan nodded and watched the vibrant play of emotions cross her face.

  “Why? Did he say why?”

  “I gather it had to do with the doctor bills you could no longer pay.” Ryan could sense the frustration seeping out from under the desperate hold Bridget had on her emotions, and knew it cost her dearly.

  Slowly, she sat back down, dropping her head into her hands.

  Ryan longed to put his arms around her and draw her close, but he’d been keeping his distance since the night he’d held her in his arms to ward off her nightmare. The night his need to comfort burst into a wildfire of need for more. But he had a feeling the widow O’Toole would not welcome any sympathy from him right about now. He wouldn’t if their positions were reversed.

  “Why on earth did you ever agree to take us in?” she cried. “My son tried to rob you!”

  He shrugged and pushed back from the table. How could he explain why without admitting to his own run-in with the law?

  “I need to understand. Please tell me.”

  Ryan paced in front of the back door. “Mick didn’t look like an outlaw. Besides, he’s still young enough to convince that a life of crime will only lead down a long and tortuous road to perdition, ending up at the wrong end of a long, knotted rope.”

  As you nearly found out.

  Bridget rose and slowly walked over to where he stood. He sensed the change in her before he noticed the way her shoulders slumped and she stared at the floor. Reaching out a hand to her, he waited until she raised her eyes to meet his. She squared her shoulders and his admiration for her doubled. “I don’t have the words to properly thank you for saving Mick’s life.”

  He could feel the furrow forming between his brows; it was so deep, it made his head hurt. “And yours?” he asked.

  “Mick’s more important—”

  ”Oh, I don’t think so.” Ryan’s voice was quiet, but firm. He let his gaze move along the line of her jaw, the curve of her cheek. Hadn’t anyone in this woman’s life valued her, or told her how special she was? “I don’t think so at all.”

  Ryan marveled at the way patches of color stained her cheeks a soft pale peach. Drawn to her, caught up in the sorrow and mystery he glimpsed swirling in the depths of her velvety brown eyes, Ryan knew he was in danger of losing his mind—and possibly his heart. That possibility at this point in his life would be the same as losing his mind. Either way, he could wind up a dead man.

  He had to get away from the dark-haired beauty before he forgot every reason he vowed never to get involved with another woman.

  “I need—that is—I should clean up,” Bridget stammered.

  Ryan allowed himself one last, long lingering look while need hammered in his gut. At least this time, she had more clothes on. A vision in sheer white cotton tangled up his thoughts. What he wanted to say nearly became what he should not say. He sucked in a breath, pulling back from the need, burying it deep. In the end, he gave a quick nod and spun about on his boot heels.

  Once he let the door close behind him and felt the familiar give of the back porch steps under his weight, he felt his self-control return, and his emotions settle to where they needed to be: contained in the tidy little box he kept in the far back corner of his heart.

  Reilly’s warning shout pulled him back to the present and had him sprinting toward the corral at full tilt. When he got to the fence, he realized Reilly had lost control of the stallion he was trying to break to saddle.

  “Hang on!” Ryan shouted. “Don’t let up on the reins, boy-o!�
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  He could see that Reilly had a death grip on the reins, but with a toss of the stallion’s massive head, the man was lifted up in the air. He fell to earth with a hard whump.

  Ryan grabbed the coiled rope off the fence post, slid his hands down to the knot, and began the slow rotating movement that would start the lasso in motion. His wrist picked up momentum, easing into the rhythm, as he slid his other hand down the rope and lifted the lasso over his head. Timing the revolutions, all the while keeping an eye on Reilly, he let the loop fly. It landed around the horse’s neck first try. Ryan pulled hard and hung on. The black beast lifted his head, but couldn’t shake the rope, or Ryan, loose.

  “Reilly?” Ryan drew in a breath, ignoring the burning sensation in his gut. That last cup of coffee hadn’t set right.

  The burly Irishman was down on his hands and knees, but managed to lift his head and answer, “Aye.”

  Ryan watched his friend brace his hands on the ground and slowly push himself to his feet. Certain that Reilly was okay, he called out, “Back up.”

  Keeping his grip firm, he glanced over his shoulder to where Mick had been sitting, only to notice the lad was gone. “Mick?”

  “Coming,” the answering shout sounded from inside the old barn. Mick emerged with another coiled lasso. The boy could think on his feet, Ryan realized with a tinge of pride. “There’s a lad. Think you can toss another loop around this ornery beast’s neck?”

  Mick grinned. “I’ve been practicing some.” In a smooth movement, the lasso flew through the air and landed right where Mick tossed it, around the stallion’s neck.

  Mick pulled the rope. The horse didn’t like it.

  “Loop your end around that fence post over there and tie it tight.”

  As soon as Mick had done what Ryan asked, Ryan placed a hand on the top rail of the fence and vaulted over it. Walking slowly toward the horse, all the while shortening the rope he held into a neat coil, Ryan spoke softly, soothingly, and without breaking stride. “ ’Tis all right now. No one’s goin’ to hurt ye, laddie.”

  Slipping into his native tongue was as natural as breathing. The horse must have sensed something different in Ryan. Listening to the musical Gaelic, the animal quieted down enough to let Ryan stroke the side of his neck. He listened intently as Ryan praised him, telling him how handsome and smart he was.