The Irish Westerns Boxed Set

by C. H. Admirand

  She thought of the way James had gone out of his way to help them and could imagine staying. “Why don’t you go and see what Mr. Flynn is doing over by the grain silo?” Guilt softened the edge in her voice. “I’ll take care of the milking this morning.”

  “But James—Mr. Ryan—said—”

  ”I’m well aware of all that Mr. Ryan has said and done for the last few weeks. You’ve yet to tire of filling me in on his words or his movements.”

  Mick toed the ground with his battered boot.

  Bridget sighed, hating having made her son feel bad. “Go on with you,” she relented.

  The moment Mick looked up at her, she felt her defenses crumbling again. Tears pooled in her eyes, but she frantically blinked them away. Mick always hated when she cried. Swallowing back the tears made her stomach churn. Although it was the right thing to do, leaving the ranch would be the hardest thing she’d had to do since she’d accepted the fact that Michael wasn’t coming back.

  For the first time in a long while someone appreciated the fact that the sheets were clean and the meals hot. Not that her son didn’t notice. Well, all right, if she was honest with herself, Mick only noticed when the food was gone, not how it tasted. To her growing boy, everything tasted fine.

  “But, Ma, Mr. Ryan said—”

  “Hmmm?” For a moment she let herself picture life at the Ryan spread. Should they stay on, waiting for a more permanent offer? The house could use someone to keep it on a regular basis, instead of whenever any of the men had time or whenever they finally noticed the dirt, which they rarely did. Mick’s smiling face and happy laughter filled her heart to bursting. Then another image, one of candlelight caressing broad shoulders and tousled black hair, took hold of her wavering thoughts, urging her to change her mind and stay. But could she live with herself if they stayed on? The guilt of how they’d come to be at the ranch would surely eat away at her heart and her pride.

  One thing was certain: she owed James Ryan a debt for his kindness, for his care, and for his compassion for both Mick and herself. Maybe they could stay on until she’d worked off what she thought she owed him. Keeping house, cooking, and cleaning would free up the ranch hands for other chores. Lord knew there was enough to do on a ranch this size.

  “We’ll talk about it later.”

  Mick paused in the act of swinging his leg and ended up kicking the ground hard enough to churn up a clod of grass and dirt. He grinned, “I’m sorry I yelled at ya, Ma.”

  Watching him sprinting off toward the silo, Bridget sighed and inhaled deeply. The rich scent of fertile earth floated toward her on the faint breeze. Here at last was the one thing a woman could count on in life. The land would always be there. Vacillating between two decisions, unable to settle on one or the other, Bridget opened the kitchen door and placed the basket back in the corner on the floor. On her way past the stove, she lifted the lid on the coffee pot, checking the level inside. James’s men usually stopped in the kitchen for a quick cup if they had a moment to spare between chores.

  Still full.

  It would hold them for the next little while. Smoothing a hand over her hair, tucking in another loose pin, Bridget straightened her apron then headed off to do the milking.

  Chapter Eight

  “So Reilly wasn’t hurt?” Sean asked for the second time.

  Ryan straightened and set aside the post-hole digger. Wiping his hand across his brow, he accepted the canteen the younger Murphy brother handed him. After a long drink of the still-cool water, he nodded. “Just his pride.”

  “Well, that could use a knick or two,” Thomas said with a smile.

  “Now Thomas,” Sean began.

  “You know it’s true,” his older brother interrupted.

  “That’s enough, lads, or we’ll not finish setting the posts in place before Mrs. O’Toole rings the dinner bell.”

  Both brothers let out a long and satisfying sigh. “The widow O’Toole knows her way about the kitchen.”

  “Aye, such a light hand with piecrust and scones.”

  “Keep your minds on the job lads, or I’ll bar you from the table.”

  “You wouldn’t!” Sean gasped.

  “Oh and why wouldn’t he?” Thomas asked, rubbing the edge of his jaw. “The man’s downright mean, when he feels he’s got reason to be.”

  “Well we’ve not given him—”

  ”Keep your tongue behind your teeth and hand me that roll of barbed wire.” Ryan swallowed the chuckle that bubbled up within him. He enjoyed Bridget’s cooking every bit as much as the rest of his men. But it was the way he started craving the sight of her face across the table in the morning, and the slow sweet smiles she generously shared with all of them, that was slowly driving him to distraction. Maybe he should renew his offer for her to share his home.

  Now that he thought about it, she hadn’t said a word about it since the last time he had, some weeks ago. Placing yet another post into another hole, holding it in place while Sean shoveled the dirt in around it, Ryan allowed his thoughts to drift, and he remembered the first time he’d seen the Murphy brothers. They’d been bone-tired, three-day’s hungry, and riding double on a what he’d thought at first look was a small underfed horse. A mule was what the beast turned out to be. He’d offered them jobs and a place to stay, and the brothers were still here, nearly two years later.

  He decided that he definitely needed to make that offer to Bridget again. Everyone else to whom he’d offered his home to had stayed. It stood to reason she would too. Besides, Mick needed a place to test himself, to see if he could handle the hard work. Testing his mettle with outlaws was not the future path a young man should follow.

  “Hold it still,” he heard Murphy grumble.

  He tried, but then started thinking about Mick’s future again. If he had anything to say about it, and he’d like to think he did, Mick would be working alongside the Murphy brothers, Reilly, Flynn, and the rest of his ranch hands.

  “Can ye not straighten it out?”

  Ryan ignored the other man, thinking instead of Bridget. His thoughts wandered back to a vision in white cotton, tossing and turning on the bed in his spare room, her dark hair sweeping across her shoulders and onto the pillow. His gut clenched as need swamped him. He’d gone too long without knowing the comforting touch of soft, smooth hands caressing his tired shoulders and aching back. Too long without feeling the fire burning deep within him, fire that only the right woman would be able to douse, when heat met heat and the twisting flames of passion burned high and bright until they burned themselves out. But ’twas passion that had gotten him arrested in Amarillo.

  “I said, can’t you hold it straighter?” Sean struggled to shovel dirt into the hole, while the post wavered and shifted yet again.

  Startled, Ryan righted the post, but couldn’t keep his thoughts from drifting back to the past, remembering how proud McMaster had been that first time he’d showed them the length and breadth of his land. The man had acres to spare, but had been more than willing to share his good fortune with strangers.

  “I thought you were going to—” Sean began. Ryan looked up and noticed he’d let the post list a bit to the left again. He straightened it and remembered how down on their luck the Murphy brothers had been when they’d shown up. They’d been in need of a place to stay and were hungrier than Bridget must have been when she’d decided to sacrifice her health for the good of her son.

  McMaster would want him to open his heart and home to Bridget and her son, just as Ryan had done for the Murphy brothers, and for Brennan, and Masterson. Why was he so worried about talking to the lass and how she would react to whatever he said? It had been easier to talk to the boy when he’d caught Mick trying to rustle his cattle, and that had been like trying to shoe a fractious horse. Damned difficult.

  “That ought to do it,” Thomas said, taking the snips from Ryan’s limp hand, anchoring the last of the barbed wire into place, and cutting off the ends before handing them back to Ryan.


  Ryan shook his head, still mumbling to himself, “She’s far too sensible to let a little thing like rustling a few cattle bother her. Isn’t she?”

  “Talking to himself again,” Sean said, with a nod in Ryan’s direction.

  “That’s how it all starts,” Thomas added in a low voice.

  But Ryan didn’t hear them. He was too busy trying to decide how to broach the subject of Bridget and Mick staying with his hardheaded guest.

  * * *

  Leaning her head against the warm, coarse hide, Bridget continued to coax milk from the third cow. One more to go, she thought, looking over at the cow patiently waiting her turn to be milked. She wondered if the poor thing was anxious for Bridget to get to it and relieve the pressure of having to carry around too much milk.

  Using the back of her hand, she brushed the hair out of her eyes. A pin slipped free and pinged against the side of the bucket. She ignored it, focusing on her task. Milk continued to squirt into the bucket in a steady stream. Though it had been a while since she’d last done the chore, she’d gotten the rhythm back and managed not to rile the cows. While she worked it soothed her own frazzled feelings. If only she could be certain she was doing the right thing where Mick was concerned.

  But whom could she ask? Her parents had died when she was younger than Mick, and her grandmother not long after she met Michael O’Toole. And what about her mother-in-law? her too-tired brain prompted. A shudder rippled through her as she remembered the last time she’d seen Michael’s mother. The way the woman had stood in the doorway of her fancy Denver home, taffeta skirts quietly rustling with the agitated movements of her hands. Bridget could still remember the way the elder Mrs. O’Toole had frowned down at her and the baby. Shaking her head, she realized there had been no help from that quarter then, and there wouldn’t be any forthcoming now.

  If they stayed at the ranch, Mick would definitely have the best example of how a man should act. James’s ranch hands had the best of intentions, too, she thought with a smile, though they were a bit rougher around the edges than James.

  If she and Mick moved back to town, they’d have to face the rumors and innuendos that always followed a woman alone with a child in tow. They appeared down on their luck, and the townspeople, no matter which town, inevitably wondered why they were alone, never quite believing the truth. And the truth was all Bridget had left of her marriage.

  Millicent Peabody’s pinched face swam behind Bridget’s closed eyes. Her stomach churned. What would she and Sarah Burnbaum have to say about Bridget and Mick living out here on the ranch, with no other woman for miles?

  “Moooo.”

  The plaintive cry had Bridget running her hand gently across the cow’s side, “Sorry,” she soothed, “I didn’t mean to bump you.”

  Rubbing her head where it had connected with the bony part of the cow’s leg reminded Bridget of the importance of keeping her mind on the task at hand. She could worry about the town gossips later. Better still, she could ask James if he’d heard anything. Then she would be able to make a decision.

  Satisfied that she’d resolved the situation to the best of her ability, she bent to retrieve the empty bucket, patted the cow, and settled down to begin milking the last one.

  * * *

  “Why don’t you boys ride on over to the river and see how Masterson and Brennan are getting along, counting the herd?”

  “See you back at supper!” Sean called out.

  “Save us some biscuits!” his brother said on a laugh.

  Ryan turned his horse around and headed back to the ranch. Instead of thinking of questions he needed to ask Flynn about their grain supply, his thoughts kept returning to the lovely chestnut-haired widow who’d begun to make concentrating on his work a full-time chore.

  He wanted to think about keeping Bridget and her son in his life, but could he with the ever-present worry that the law was still on his trail? Did Texas Rangers ever stop looking for murderers?

  But he was innocent!

  Tell that to the hanging judge! Big John’s words still had the power to haunt him.

  Ryan knew in that moment that he’d never be free.

  Chapter Nine

  After checking with Flynn, Ryan rode up to the ranch house, ready for a long, cool drink. The day had started out warm, with temperatures steadily climbing while they dug fence-post holes. After the ride home, he figured it was as hot as his mother promised him hell would be. He remembered she usually imparted sage bits of wisdom about the temperatures of hell when she’d caught him in some desperate act of childhood bravado.

  God, he missed her. He’d just begun to grieve, only learning of her death a few weeks ago when his sister arrived on his doorstep.

  After removing the saddle from his horse and rubbing him down, Ryan strode across the yard toward the well pump, not bothering to go into the kitchen for the water they kept in the bucket there. He worked the pump handle until water gushed out, splashed water on his face and neck, cupping his hands beneath the cool stream, drinking his fill.

  Satisfied with the morning’s work, he headed over to the house, but got no farther than the back porch. Mentally ticking off the chores accomplished, he decided he’d earned a spare moment or two to survey his land. Propping a scarred, dusty boot on the weathered railing, he leaned forward, crossed his arms, and let them rest on his knee. A shorter man would never have been able to find the odd position comfortable, but to the raw-boned Irishman’s six-foot-plus frame, it seemed as natural as breathing.

  His gaze swept across the yard to the corrals and land beyond. One lone white puff of cloud floated by in the endless blue, the color so vivid it hurt his eyes to look up into it. In the distance, part of his cattle herd grazed contentedly. The soft lowing filled him with a sense of peace, while his heart swelled with pride.

  The stakes he’d set in place, marking off where the new barn would be built, stood straight and tall, just waiting for the barn-raising. A dark thought disturbed the satisfaction he felt.

  He had almost lost it all.

  Ryan drew in a deep breath as a hint of honeysuckle blew past his nose. He glanced over to where the vine had latched onto the picket fence by the south side of the house, growing with a stubborn vengeance. The tenacious plant reminded him of his sister.

  He and his men owed Maggie their lives for arriving in time from New York City with proof in her hand that Ryan owned the ranch. A lesser man would not have admitted to nearly giving up hope, but Ryan had traveled down harder roads before. He was more than willing to acknowledge that he had lived with the fear of watching all he and his men had worked for, and spilled blood over, slipping through the tips of his tightly clenched fingers.

  With the help of his sister and her new husband, U.S. Marshal Joshua Turner, they had been able to stop the local land-grabbing banker from taking over Ryan’s ranch and a handful of other ranches as well. The crooked banker would not profit once the railroad spur was laid. If the other ranchers wanted to sell their land so that the railroad had even ground for its roadbed that was their business. At least now the others had a choice. Neither the choice, nor their land, had been taken from them.

  A flash of pale yellow amidst the lush green of the open field and rich browns of the earth caught his eye, distracting him. He looked toward the old barn and swallowed the growl of frustration searing his throat. The dark-haired woman crossing the open expanse of yard, a bucket brimming with milk in each hand, moved into his line of sight.

  Bloody hell, the widow O’Toole was too stubborn to be believed! He stalked over to where she stood. “Where’s Mick?” he ground out, intending to snatch the brimming buckets from her before she hurt herself. “It was his turn to do the milking.”

  Ryan watched as Bridget carefully set the buckets down, then raised a slightly shaking hand to her hair, tucking in a stray pin. Letting his eyes follow the movement, he noticed the knot she seemed so fond of fashioning in her hair slipping from its pins again. To his way
of thinking, a woman ought to wear her hair loose, free to lift in the breeze. A few more gusts of wind, and her hair would be down around her shoulders.

  “Good morning.”

  Her hesitant, slow smile stopped him in his tracks, and had him remembering moonlight illuminating a satin-smooth thigh. Mentally pulling the covers up over her long, lithe legs, as he had that night after she’d arrived at the ranch, helped him control the spurt of need rising up within him. He was painfully aware of her. Lifting his gaze from her tempting rose-tinted lips to her eyes, he noticed the snap of temper simmering in them.

  In the last few weeks, as he became more aware of Bridget as a woman, not just an invalid sleeping in his guest room, he’d noticed the way the hue of her eyes changed from a soft warm brown to deep chocolate whenever she was annoyed.

  Her eyes were darkening by the second.

  Good! They were even. After hours spent digging holes, agonizing over whether or not he could afford to let her distract him, he was working himself up into a lather. “You’re not to do any heavy work until the doctor says you are completely recovered.”

  From the look she leveled at him, he figured the tone of his words didn’t have the effect he’d hoped. The woman dared to stand toe to toe with him, angling her head further back to glare up at him. If looks were any indication, he’d be meeting his maker in about two-minutes, tops. She sure as hell riled easily.

  “I thought we’d settled that point earlier. I’m not sick, Jamie.”

  Her voice had gone soft, triggering a reaction in his brain, not unlike putting flame to a stick of dynamite. Damned if he didn’t enjoy the way she slowly drew out his name, as if she were savoring the sound of it. Mentally, he shook free from the spell her voice cast about him. He’d already thought it through; he couldn’t let another female work her wiles on him. Though intrigued by Bridget, entranced by her face and form, he couldn’t afford to allow himself to go down that road again. The cold reality of the jail cell in Amarillo was a stark reminder of what happened when a man trusted a woman. Too many people depended on him now. He couldn’t throw it all away for a sweet-smelling, warm-hearted, wisp of a woman.