How to Lasso a Cowboy (17 page)

She closed her eyes, uttered a prayer, then opened them again.

A horseman passed the buggy and rode close to Ornery. He leaned over and his hand caught the harness.

He was going to fall. No one could stop a horse galloping as Ornery was doing. The figure moved from his saddle onto Ornery's back, his hands pulling at the traces.

The buggy slowed and after what seemed like endless moments came to a stop.

She had seen the pinto before. The animal had been at her well just hours earlier.

Its rider looked different. He had washed, changed clothes, shaved. She wouldn't have known him if it hadn't been for the horse.

He turned, one leg resting on Ornery's back as the horse snorted and foam flew from his mouth. Sinclair soothed the hindquarters, and he whispered something soft to the animal. Ornery quieted.

Then the man looked at her. “Are you all right?”

She had to think about that for a moment. Or perhaps she was just too stunned by the change in him.

He'd been a saddle tramp before. Bearded. Unkempt. Dirty. It had been easy to dismiss him. Almost. Her conscience, which had been compromised far too often recently, assaulted her.

Something else did, too. Something just as powerful. She felt as if she had just been hit by lightning.

He was one of the most attractive men she'd ever seen. He'd lost his hat, and his hair, which had looked dark this morning, had obviously been washed. Its bronze color glittered in the sun. Dark blue eyes were piercing in a lean, almost gaunt sun-darkened face. Unlike Delaney's indulgence-swollen face, this man looked honed by pain. The renegade she'd glimpsed earlier was still in the fierce eyes, but a hero had just saved her.

He waited for her answer.

“I think so,” she said, dismayed to hear the tremor in her voice. “Yes, of course I am,” she added, trying to force steel into it. “Thank you,” she said belatedly. “But I really could have stopped Ornery . . .”

A raised eyebrow stopped her words in midsentence. “Ornery?”

“He comes by the name honestly.”

One side of his mouth twitched, though she had the impression he really didn't want her to realize it. In one easy movement, he jumped from the horse onto the ground. Without paying any attention to her, he tied his pinto to the
back of the buggy. He swung up into the driver's seat, forcing her to move.

“My horse needs the rest,” he said shortly. “He's not up to running like that.”

His presence overpowered her. Pure raw masculinity made him appear far larger than he was.

His knee brushed hers and she felt as if she were in the way of a prairie brush fire. Her body reacted in new ways. Hot and greedy, and aching with longing.

His gaze hadn't left her. “You were saying you could have stopped the horse,” he said.

Of course she wouldn't have been able to do that, and he knew it. He wanted her to say it. He wanted her to admit she would probably be dead if he had not assisted her.

Why had he stopped to help someone he obviously regarded as an enemy?

“Thank you,” she said.

He shrugged. “I was coming back to your ranch to fetch my sister. You didn't tell me she was there.” His voice had turned cold and accusing. Despite the heat, a chill ran through her.

There was no sense in denying the obvious. Everyone in town knew she was caring for Marilee Sinclair. “I wasn't sure you were who you said you were. She's had a very bad—”

“The people in town, or what is left of them, will vouch for me,” he said. A muscle moved in his throat.

“Your friends?” she asked.

“My friends wouldn't attack ladies or children. Or old men. I can't speak for yours.”

“What do you mean?”

He shrugged again. That was obviously his gesture of choice.

“Your brother has already attacked—” She stopped. “You don't look anything like him.”

“You've seen him?”

“Only posters,” she said.

“He has my father's dark coloring. I inherited my mother's. Marilee? Is she still a little towhead?”

She nodded. “Gold hair and light blue eyes.”

“Like my brother then. You said he attacked someone? You?”

“I'm not sure who it was. It's just said . . .”

“You believe everything that's said?”

She didn't answer.

“Lady, you and your father are being used,” he said wearily. “You don't belong here. You had no business riding alone out here when so many resent what you and your father represent. It was a damn fool thing to do.”

Her back stiffened. “I thanked you. You can go now.”

His lips curled at the edges but it wasn't a smile. “And if they come back?”

“I have a shotgun with me.”

“You really think you can use it when the buggy is rocking all over the road?”

“I am a very good shot.”

He shook his head in disgust.

“I don't need you,” she said. Then added a bit sheepishly, “Now.”

“We are going back to the ranch,” he replied. “I want to see my sister. I can get Marilee, then you can do whatever in the hell you want to do. I would suggest, though, that you do not travel alone.”

“I'm not going to the ranch,” she said stubbornly. “I am going into town to see—”

“Some of your father's friends? Delaney, for instance?”

He was right on the mark. Not Delaney, but the judge. A friend of Delaney's. About how to keep this man's sister away from him. Her face was hot and she knew it was flooding with color. She suspected he probably knew exactly what she was thinking.

His eyes bored into her. “Lady, after I get my sister, I don't care where in the hell you go.”

“Please,” she said. “Wait. She—Marilee—is fragile.”

“Fragile?”

“She didn't talk for months after your father was . . . after he died. Trini had stayed on the ranch and looked
after her, but even she couldn't get Marilee to talk. She just sat in a chair and rocked.” Elizabeth hesitated, then continued, “Then Trini died and she withdrew even more. But lately, she's been making progress. Until . . .”

He waited, his dark blue eyes wary.

“Until today when she heard the shots again. After you left, I went to her room. She was huddled in a corner, completely terrified.”

Anguish crossed his face and her heartbeat accelerated, pounding harder. Maybe he
would
leave his sister with her. . . .

But he stiffened. “Any court, even a Yankee one, will give her to me,” he said.

She had been going to seek help to try to stop that eventuality. She didn't want to say that. “Why did you help me?”

“I recognized the buggy. It belongs to the Sinclairs,” he said. “I thought Marilee might be inside.”

“You must have seen I was alone before you risked your life.”

“I don't like men who pick on someone weaker,” he said curtly. “The odds were all wrong.”

“And if they had been more even?”

Ignoring the question, he clicked the reins and managed a smooth come-around. Ornery obeyed without so much as a protest. She had never seen the horse respond so readily. She silently thought very bad things about the horse.

She tried one last time. “I really must go into town.”

“Not now. Not until I see my sister. If you hadn't been silent this morning—”

“Your sister feels safe for the first time in months,” she interrupted fiercely, desperately. “Don't take her now. Let her get used to you first,” she pleaded with him.

His gaze studied her for a very long moment. “Sorry, lady. I've waited almost five years to see my family. Your father and friends have taken everything else I have. You aren't going to takes what's remaining of the Sinclairs as well.”

“What . . . where would you take her?”

His eyes were just as cold as before. “It is none of your affair, Miss McGuire.”

All the gratitude she'd felt for her rescue seeped away. She wished the attraction would, as well, but it remained strong and compelling deep inside her.

Did he feel it as well?

Of course not. She was not physically well favored. She knew that. She was taller than most men, with a body not blessed with curves. Her best feature was her eyes, and even they were a curse because they always revealed what she thought.

He, on the other hand . . .

Don't even think about it,
she told herself as he guided Ornery into a trot in the direction of the ranch. He would not find Marilee there.

Should she tell him where she was? What would happen when they reached the ranch and he discovered she wasn't there? She looked at him, at the uncompromising jut of his jaw, the muscle that moved in his throat, the intensity in the line of his body as he so easily asked Ornery to do what the accursed horse wouldn't do for her.

Could she keep Marilee at the Findleys'? But he would learn his sister's location soon enough. There were no secrets in Canaan. The fact that he had already been on his way back to get his sister proved that.

If he really cared about Marilee . . .

One look at the hard, cold visage made her wonder. She could lie with her silence. But her conscience wouldn't let her. No matter his motives, he had probably just saved her life. He had seen that she was alone before he made that dangerous jump. He had risked his life for hers.

“She's not there,” she said.

He turned back to her. “Then where?”

“Promise me first you will give her time to get used to you.”

His right hand tightened around the reins. “What if she wants to go with me?” he asked.

“Then . . . she can go.” The words hurt far more than she'd anticipated.

Only now did she fully realize the loneliness she would feel if she lost the child. “She needs a lot of attention,” she said. “And patience. She saw your father killed,” she said. “And your brother wounded. She's still terrified of riders.” She looked up at him. “She will be terrified of you.”

The muscle in his cheek flexed again. “She would get to know me soon enough.”

“Where would you take her?” She held her breath for the answer.

He didn't answer. He didn't look at her. His face looked as if it were carved from granite. Control was in every movement of his body.

“Mr. Sinclair . . . ?”

His head turned then and he faced her. “It is none of your concern.”

“But it is. I love her and—”

“Love?” he said, arching an eyebrow. “You associate with those who killed her father and benefitted from his death. Damned strange love to my way of thinking.”

The chill in his eyes changed to ice. The more she looked, the less she saw of what she felt Marilee needed: compassion, warmth, gentleness, love. Yet he was her brother.

Conscience warred with her heart and finally won. “She's at the Findley ranch.”

His brows knitted together. “Findley.”

“The ranch eight miles west of us.”

“The Taylors'? Jack's ranch?”

She saw the sudden comprehension in his eyes. “Another profiteer,” he said in his soft, biting manner.

“They are good people.”

He didn't answer. Instead he made a clicking sound. Ornery immediately speeded up.

She clutched the side of the buggy. She didn't want to be bounced against him. She didn't want to feel the same
sparks she'd felt before. He was despicable. He didn't care about his sister. He only cared about using her as part of the war he was still fighting.

The war was over.

She suspected for him another stage was just beginning.

 
TENSION STRETCHED BETWEEN
them like tightly strung wire.