by Lydia Olson
“You lied to me!” Ryan yelled, grabbing her by the arm and dragging her out of the barn. “You’re not –”
He paused when he noticed Wilson’s clothing draped over her arm. His jaw dropped, and he looked Eloise in the eye with a horrified expression. He seemed to realize she’d been lying to him because she was scared of him, but that didn’t seem to be what bothered him.
“What’s that?” he said, pointing at the clothing. “D-did Wilson give you those?”
“You know full well where I found these,” she retorted.
“Do I?” Ryan shoved Eloise backwards and pinned her against the barn. “And where exactly was that? Are you trying to accuse me of something?”
He swatted the clothing out of Eloise’s hands and held her pinned against the barn while he kicked the garments out of her reach. Eloise felt the wind get knocked out of her, and she could hardly breathe.
While Ryan stared off into the distance, thinking of what to do next, Eloise noticed a strong breeze, which caused the buttons of the coat to smolder against the hay on the ground.
Eloise tapped Ryan’s arm, trying to get his attention toward the fire hazard, but he pressed her harder into the barn and ignored her. Instead, she watched, helplessly, as a few hot pieces of hay blew toward the barn door and ignited into a small flame. Eloise felt a fading sensation, as if she were about to pass out, when Ryan finally eased up his hold and Eloise collapsed.
“Why must you overreact to everything?” he accused, holding her steady.
“Fire...” she managed between coughs.
“Yes, we’ve already talked about the fire quite enough, thank you!” he said. “I’ve already told you everything you wanted to know about it, and I’ve told you I was clearing my field. Whatever you think you found, it was all Wilson. He’s trying to turn you against me, don’t you see?”
“Ryan, the barn’s on fire!” Eloise yelled as soon as she got her breath back.
Looking over his shoulder, Ryan saw the beginnings of a fire climbing up the barn door. Rather than rush toward it, he smirked and looked down at Eloise. She tried to fight him away, but he forced one of her arms around his shoulders and held it firm, and then wrapped his other arm around her waist and her free arm so tightly she could hardly move.
Eloise continued to struggle, even trying to hit Ryan’s nose with the back of her head, but he was too tall and much stronger than he looked.
The fire enveloped the entire front of the barn, and Eloise could hear the voices of the men rushing outside. Ryan dragged her past the barn and toward his property, kicking Wilson’s clothes through the flame-filled door of the barn as he passed by.
“Help!” Eloise yelled, squirming in Ryan’s grip. “Henry! John! Somebody, help! He’s gonna hurt me!”
“Hurt you?” Ryan said, tightening his grip. “I’m not hurting you – I'm rescuing you from a fire that you started. It’s a real shame Wilson convinced you to burn down the barn with his clothing in it, just to get rid of the proof and make it look like an accident.
“Good thing I got here in time, though, otherwise, you would’ve succeeded and no one would ever know the difference. You’ve lied enough today, so there’s a good chance that – if you try to say anything about my involvement in this – you won’t be believed over me.”
“Why are you doing this, Ryan?” Eloise cried. “I don’t understand!”
“To get rid of Wilson!” Ryan shrieked. “Since day one, it’s always been Wilson for you! No matter what he did, he was always your favorite! And then, when he left, we finally had something good. But he just had to come back. It’s like he knew I was about to be happy, and he just had to ruin everything!”
“Ryan, I wouldn’t have married you even if Wilson never came back,” she replied. “And I think you always knew that. That’s why you went to Daddy to convince him first.”
“That’s just what Wilson’s convinced you of!” yelled Ryan. “He’s always done this! He comes up with an idea that suits him above everyone else and then convinces you – or some other weak mind - and everyone around you that it was your idea. I’ve been fighting to get rid of the things he’s put into your head since he left ten years ago. And now I have to start all over again!”
“He didn’t put anything in my head that I didn’t want to be there!” Eloise shouted back. “But you, Ryan... you’ve done some horrible things, haven’t you?”
“What are you trying to say?” Ryan scoffed.
For a moment, he paused, allowing Eloise to catch her breath. They were far enough from the barn that no one would hear their conversation over the roar of the fire, but Eloise was at least glad that she was close enough they’d still hear her if she screamed.
“Ryan,” she began, as calmly as she could. “Please, tell me the truth... did you kill the sheriff?”
Ryan looked over his shoulder. He furrowed his brow and breathed deeply, but didn’t seem to know what to say. Ryan had always talked up the value of honesty and integrity. Eloise hoped that his values would at least force him to tell her the truth now, even if it meant she’d have to fight for anyone to believe her when she told them what he said.
“So what if I did?” he asked her. “No one liked him, anyway. Do you know what he was doing with all the land deeds? He was gonna sell them to the highest bidder!”
“What do you mean, ‘all’ the land deeds?” Eloise furrowed her brow.
“He, uh, he had mine too,” Ryan explained. “I didn’t want anyone to know, because I didn’t really know for sure, either. The fake was convincing to someone who’d never seen one before.”
“What do you mean?” she said. “The one you showed Daddy was a fake? You made it up?”
“No, I didn’t make it – he did,” Ryan said. “My parents went into town to buy a deed for our land before it was too late, and he charged them a steep amount and then gave them a fake deed. I went into town to talk to a man of business yesterday, and that’s when I learned it was a fake.
“I was upset, and I was planning to confront the sheriff about it and make him give us the real one. But then, right as I was about to approach him, there was Wilson. He was in my way, again, so I decided to get him out of the way. I took his things to sell to the sheriff, and what did I find?
“Wilson – not the sheriff – had the deeds to both of our ranches! And he hadn’t mentioned it to either of us. There was no justice being done – with Wilson or the sheriff. So, I decided to make justice happen, all on my own. I got rid of the sheriff, and then I got rid of Wilson, or I tried.
“But then, you just had to believe him over me. He had done so much to hurt you, and you just wouldn’t let him go, even if he’d killed someone and stole your land! I didn’t want to kill Wilson yesterday, because then you would just grieve for him – but maybe I should have.”
“But Ryan, you were the one who did all that!” Eloise said. “You’re the one who killed the sheriff, and you were trying to steal my daddy’s land and his daughter, based on a lie!”
“No, it’s not the same thing!” Ryan screamed.
Eloise closed her eyes, fearing he was about to become violent. She prayed in her head that Henry would notice them and see something was wrong, but from the outside, it probably just looked like Ryan was saving her from the fire. Eloise felt Ryan’s grip tighten and his heart rate elevate as he dragged her toward the fence and forced her to sit by a fencepost.
“Now, don’t you move,” he instructed, pointing in her face. “If you move, I’m gonna go back there and show them what you put in that barn. They’re never gonna believe you again after that.”
“My daddy may be mad at me, but he’ll calm down – and he’ll never believe you over his own daughter!” she countered. “I have no reason to lie about something like this. He knows I would never do anything to risk the safety of the men or the animals, and lighting the barn on fire would do just that.”
“No one would ever believe I was capable of something like that, either
,” Ryan added, laughing. “They didn’t ten years ago, and they aren’t going to now. So, one way or another, it’s gonna be your word against mine, and I haven’t done anything to make Dillion question my honor.”
“Ten years ago?” Eloise said, gasping. “You mean... you lit that fire? You lit the fire that killed one of my precious cows? And then you had the nerve to tell me to get over it?”
“It wasn’t supposed to go like that,” admitted Ryan. “I was planning to light a little fire, and then put it out myself as soon as you noticed it. I wanted you to be impressed when I saved your ranch, but you were so distracted by Wilson that you didn’t notice it until it was out of my control.”
“You killed one of my cows in that fire,” Eloise reminded him. “Do you not see how wrong that was?”
“Animals die, Ellie,” he returned. “That’s part of working on a ranch, being able to see a cow die without getting upset. Sure, Dillion lost some money on that one, but it would’ve died sooner or later.”
“So would a person, and you killed the sheriff last night,” Eloise continued. “Is that what this is about? You think you get to decide when a living thing dies? And what about last week’s fire – was that one you, too?”
“I needed a reason,” Ryan began, muttering something under his breath.
“You needed a reason for what?” Eloise pressed, narrowing her eyes.
“I know how your father gets about touchy subjects, and I needed a good reason to talk to him about my proposal to buy his land and marry you,” Ryan explained. “I knew that if he felt his land was at risk, he’d be more willing to hear me out. He just needed to think there were more bandits around than there were.”
“You mean to tell me that this whole time we thought bandits were trying to scare us out of our land, it was all you? Do you know how much time and money you’ve cost my daddy?”
“None of that matters, in the long run,” he pointed out. “I was gonna pay it all back over time, and I planned to make it all worth it for both of us – your family and mine! But don’t you see, Ellie? I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. I did all of this because I... because I love you!”
“This isn’t what love looks like, Ryan,” Eloise told him. “You tried to steal everything from my daddy, and then tried to send an innocent man to hang for murder.”
“I don’t care about Wilson – or your father!” Ryan cried. “I only made that stupid bargain with him because I was trying to prove myself to you. All I cared about was you! That foolish old man didn’t deserve what he had, and I intended to show him that by winning you over.”
“You really were trying to steal everything from Daddy, weren’t you? He’s not gonna be happy when I tell him that!” Eloise yelled, leaping to her feet as quick as she could.
“You’re not gonna tell him!” Ryan warned.
Before Eloise got far, Ryan grabbed her arm and flung her to the ground again. He knelt down beside her, pinning her arms behind her body, and pulled her face toward his. Eloise screamed and struggled, thrashing her head back and forth, but the men were too distracted by the fire to hear her. Ryan continued to try to kiss her, completely ignoring her pleas.
“Ryan, stop!” she sobbed. “Ryan, please stop! You’re hurting me!”
“Is this what it was like to kiss Wilson?” he asked, kissing her on the cheek. “If we’re being honest now, there’s one more thing I ought to tell you – it was me, not someone else, who saw you with him last night. I saw the way he kissed you, and I saw the way you blushed.
“I’d love to see you blush like that again. I’d love to see that same little innocence. Maybe I’ll believe nothing happened between you and Wilson, if you’re willing to prove it to me. Show me that nothing happened.”
“Ryan, why are you doing this?” Eloise cried. “Let me go! Someone, help!”
“Why won’t you kiss me?” Ryan demanded. “Maudie told me you planned to kiss me last night; what’s changed now? You don’t have to be scared. I’m not gonna hurt you.”
Eloise felt as if years of shyness were bleeding out of Ryan all at once, as he revealed the arrogance and insanity that he’d buried under timid insecurity for his entire life.
As much as she wanted to say she was shocked, the longer she thought about it, the more she realized he’d always seemed to be living in a fantasy where no one’s needs mattered but his own.
Now, after giving him the benefit of the doubt for as long as she’d known him, she wished she had pushed him away a long time ago.
She wished she’d ended their friendship the moment he had criticized her for crying when the cow died. Her voice going hoarse from crying for help, Eloise lay helplessly on the ground, praying that someone would hear her cries before Ryan took things any further.
“Wilson,” Eloise whispered under her breath, “please, come find me...”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Eloise closed her eyes and listened to the roaring of the fire, hoping that if she focused on the sound, she wouldn’t feel as frightened by Ryan’s voice in her ear.
He had yet to do anything beyond try to coax her into kissing him, but the weight of his body and the powerlessness she felt was still overwhelming. Suddenly, another sound blended into the roaring of the fire, but this seemed to be much closer to her. As the sound came to a stop, she realized it was horses galloping down the road.
“Help me!” she yelled again, her voice cracking. “Help me, please!”
“Ellie!” Wilson yelled, his voice filled with anguish.
Eloise’s eyes shot open just in time to see Wilson tackle Ryan, grab him by the collar, and shake him aggressively, as if he were trying to knock some sense into him. Wilson and Ryan were screaming in each other’s faces, but Eloise couldn’t make out what they were saying. She felt like she was in some kind of terrible dream.
She blinked several times, then tried looking around her again to make sense of the chaos. A short distance behind where Wilson had come from, Lawson quickly and loosely tied two horses to a fencepost and ran over to Eloise. Falling to his knees, he lifted Eloise off of the ground and looked her over to see if she’d been hurt. He gasped when he looked at her arm.
“Did he do this to you?” he said, pointing at the burn marks.
“N-no...” Eloise assured him. “That was m-my fault... I don’t think he did anything yet...”
“You don’t think he did anything, or he didn’t do anything?” Lawson pressed. “I don’t mean to pressure an answer, but that’s an important distinction in something like this.”
“Uh, well, I may be a bit bruised up, and he knocked the wind out of me pretty good, but he didn’t hurt me the way he hurt the sheriff,” Eloise explained.
In an instant, all the fear and anxiety she’d built up, thinking that no one was coming to help her, poured out of her in the form of sobs.
She thought about those moments since he’d admitted to killing the sheriff, and the fear that he was going to kill her. She thought about how he planned to blame her for everything he’d done, just to force her to marry him against her will.
“There you go, let it all out.” Lawson wrapped his arms around her. “People will tell ya it’s wrong to cry, but if you gotta cry, then you gotta cry. Everything’s gonna be all right, ya hear me?”
While Eloise brushed tears from her eyes, Lawson looked up to where Wilson and Ryan were swinging their fists at each other. Wilson may have been the more muscular of the two, but Ryan was holding his ground.
He’d managed to block several of Wilson’s punches, and weaseled his way out of his hold. The two of them were now standing and facing each other, each trying to knock the other down.
