How to Lasso a Cowboy (4 page)

Just after dark he returned to the house. His only comfort lay in the fact that he wouldn't have to face his sisters. They were like chickens, getting up and going to bed with the sun.

He climbed down from his horse in the stillness of the dry barn and smiled, knowing Winnie would have left his supper on the stove warming. After being cold all day, he'd end with a hot meal. He hoped he could stay awake long enough to enjoy it.

The feel of a barn always made him relax. When he'd been a boy with older sisters and a mother forever watching him, the barn had been his hideout. He loved the smell of hay and the way rain tinked against the roof. Air always drifted through the cracks in the walls letting him know he wasn't yet inside and completely safe. The low noises of the animals whispered a welcome. The creaking sounds of the walls made him think the barn itself was an aging giant stretching around him.

The side door thumped against the barn wall. Footsteps, muffled by yards of material, shuffled through the hay toward him.

“Cooper Adams!” Johanna's sharp voice sliced through his peace. “It is about time you got home.”

He removed his hat, letting a spray of water circle him as he turned. “Evening, Johanna. What's wrong?” He'd been
able to read her moods in the tone of her voice for twenty years. “Surely you weren't worried about me.”

“Of course not.” Johanna's features hardened. He'd insulted her by even asking. “You can take care of yourself. It's Winnie. She has disappeared completely. Doesn't have the sense God gave a goat, it seems.”

Cooper's muscles tightened. “What do you mean, disappeared?”

Johanna looked like she was trying to communicate with the cow. “She has simply vanished off the face of this earth. Emma and I have been beside ourselves all afternoon. Lord help us through this trial.”

“Slow down, Johanna.” To his oldest sister everything fell into the category of “trial” or “blessing.” “Just tell me what happened.”

“When last we saw her Winnie was polishing that horrible chair she bought. When we called her an hour later for lunch, she wasn't there.”

Cooper stormed toward the house. Maybe Emma could tell the facts. Johanna, for once, was making no sense. Winnie wasn't a child. She wouldn't just walk off.

“Did she take the wagon?” he said without slowing.

“No,” Johanna shouted over the rain as she matched his stride. “I had your bunkhouse cook, Duly, check. No horse or wagon is missing. If she rode out of here she did so on a pig. Not that she isn't dumb enough to try it. I swear, the older she gets, the more absentminded she becomes. I only pray I live long enough to take care of her. It is my cross to bear in this life.”

Cooper reached the porch, running across the wood without caring that his spurs might be scarring it.

“Winnie's missing.” Emma stated the obvious as he stepped inside. “Gone. Disappeared. Lost.” She paced like a toy wound too tightly, as she waved both arms, twin windmills blowing in circles accenting each word. “She's been acting stranger than usual ever since we got here. Everyone knows she walks for her constitution every day, but never far, never long.”

Cooper tried to calm down his sisters. Johanna saw herself as a martyr and Emma followed suit as second in command. “She couldn't have just evaporated,” he said. “Has she ever done this before?” The thought occurred to him that he didn't see them all that often. Maybe this was something she did on a regular basis.

“No,” Emma answered. “She goes in her room sometimes and reads. And she goes for walks, but never long ones. I've told her fifteen minutes is all she needs of exercise each day to be regular as a clock. That's very important at our age.”

Emma paced in front of the fireplace, putting pieces of an invisible puzzle together. “She must have been reading late last night because her eyes were red this morning. I've told her a hundred times not to read by lamplight or folks will think the color of her eyes is red and not blue.”

“What was the last thing either of you said to her?” Cooper could guess. They said the same things to Winnie and somehow she managed never to listen.

Emma wrinkled up her forehead. “I said she must have had to search long and hard to find a dress as ugly as the one she bought while she was in town with you. I can hardly believe the Debords bought such a pattern.”

“Did that upset her?” Cooper asked.

Emma shook her head. “I don't see why it would. Someone had to tell her, after all. Did you see the thing? The lines were out of date and the material looked like it was faded along one side.”

Johanna stepped in front of Emma like a seasoned tag-teamer ready to take on the cause. “Did Winnie talk to anyone in town yesterday?”

“You think she's been kidnapped?” Emma whispered her fear. “Oh, my. She was taken wearing that terrible dress.” Emma's face paled. “Maybe the Apaches got her. I've heard of such things. They come into the house all silent like and snatch the first woman they see. Take her back to their camp and make her one of their wives.”

Cooper studied Emma carefully, trying to decide if she'd
been dropped on her head once too often as a child. “First, there are no Apaches in these parts and, second, it would take two or maybe three strong braves to
snatch
Winnie. Something tells me she wouldn't go quietly, so we can forget any possibility of her being taken against her will.”

As the women made other guesses, he thought of Woodburn back in town. Winnie
had
left the store saying she planned to say farewell to the man, but when Cooper brought the chair out, she was already sitting in the wagon. Woodburn was strange, always silent, always keeping to himself, but Cooper could not connect him with this trouble. He wasn't even sure his sister had spoken to the man.

“The rain's finally stopped,” Emma announced.

Cooper reached for a dry coat on the rack by the door. “Good, I'll start searching. I'll circle the house, then widen the search. Maybe she just went for a walk like you're always suggesting, Emma, and then decided to hole up somewhere until the rain ended. If so, she'll be home soon.”

“Where would she
hole up?
This land is so flat a grasshopper would have trouble finding a dry spot to hide.” Johanna stood so rigid her back might break if a breeze blew by. “Be logical, Cooper; we already have Winnie making no sense, we don't need you falling prey to a weak mind.”

Cooper had no doubt her anger was directed toward him, for she'd obviously waited for him to come home with the answer and he had disappointed her. The one thing Johanna hated more than trouble was having to deal with it herself.

“Eat before you go.” Emma hurried to the kitchen and brought his meal. “Ten minutes won't matter. You look dead on your feet. While you eat, Johanna and I will search the house and barn again. Maybe we'll find a clue. If she's been kidnapped, surely she won't be deflowered in the few minutes it takes you to eat a bite.”

“Emma, don't even think of such a thing,” Johanna snapped. “Talking about her constitution was bad enough and now this.”

“All right, sister. Maybe our Winnie just went for a walk and got caught up in one of those flash floods Cooper is
always worrying about. If it could wash away a cow, it could drown Winnie. She is probably floating down toward the Gulf by now.”

Cooper raised an eyebrow. “That's right, Emma. Look on the bright side.”

He downed a few bites of his meal while the sisters tried to think of other dire fates that might have happened to “poor Winnie,” as she was now referred to.

When he finished, Cooper headed out to saddle a fresh horse. As he walked from the barn a few minutes later, he thought he heard a wagon.

Cooper waited in the shadows. If trouble was riding in, he would just as soon whoever approached not know he was watching.

The noise grew louder, drifting in the damp breeze. Mixed with the jingle of the harnesses was Winnie's laughter.

Cooper let out a long breath and waited. The buggy pulled into the light shining from the windows. He smiled.

It appeared the Apaches were bringing Winnie back.

 
JOHANNA AND EMMA
were on the porch when Woodburn pulled his rickety old buggy up to the house. Cooper could make out three people crammed into the shadows of the small carriage. He watched from the drizzling darkness as the Yankee climbed down and helped Winnie to the ground.

There was no mistaking Woodburn, even in the dark. Thin as a willow, favoring his right leg, his head bowed as if apologizing for stepping foot onto a man's land without permission. Cooper would have to search hard to find a reason to like the man.

“Thank you, Mr. Woodburn,” Winnie said as he held her arm until she reached the solid first step.

The Yankee didn't seem to hear her as he turned and reached in the boot for a box.

Winnie rushed nervously onto the porch where her sisters stood, openmouthed and staring. “Mr. Woodburn, I'd like you to meet my sisters, Miss Johanna and Miss Emma.”

Johanna recovered first. She folded her hands tightly in front of her and closed her mouth.

The store owner removed his hat and made a slight bow but Winnie gave him no opportunity to speak. “Mr. Woodburn was kind enough to give me a ride home from town. I waited, hoping the rain would stop, but when twilight came, he insisted.”

Emma glared at the strange man, then addressed her youngest sister. “And how did you get
to
town, Winnie?”

Cooper moved closer. He wasn't sure he cared for the Yankee bringing his sister home, but he knew he didn't like the way Emma talked to Winnie, as though she were a child.

“I walked.” Winnie giggled. “And had quite an adventure, I must say.”

Emma planted her fists on her hips. “Everyone knows it's been cloudy and windy all day. Did I forget to mention that before you decided to go for a walk? You could have caught your death and no one would have even known where you'd gone off to. We were worried sick about you.”

Johanna shifted in front of Emma, ending any planned lecture. She lifted her head and stared level into the stranger's eyes. “Please, Mr. Woodburn, won't you come inside?” Her words were far colder than the wet wind. “No matter what the weather, we are grateful you brought our sister home.”

Woodburn hesitated. “It's late. I'll just set her box inside and be on my way.” He tried to pass.

“Nonsense,” Johanna stated with a glance behind her at a still angry Emma. “You'll stay for a cup of coffee, at the very least.” She swept one arm as though opening an invisible door. “Winnie, please get your guest a cup before we send him back out in this damp air.”

Winnie hurried inside. Woodburn had no choice but to trail behind. Southern hospitality would prevail even if it had to be forced on the guest.

Straightening their shoulders, Emma and Johanna followed like silent sergeants-at-arms.

Cooper realized no one noticed him standing in the
shadows, and Johanna must not have seen the third figure curled into the corner of the buggy. It would not have been like his proper sister to leave someone out of an invitation.

He let his spurs jingle as he neared the buggy. He didn't want to frighten Mary.

“Miss Woodburn?” he asked from several feet away. “Would you like to join the others?”

When he didn't go away, or say anything else, Mary finally leaned her head out from behind the tattered leather. “No, Mr. Adams.”

Cooper smiled. At least she answered him. He took another step. “I'm sure the coffee is hot and, knowing my sisters, there are at least two desserts in the pie safe.”

She didn't answer, so he guessed she must be at least thinking about the offer.

“Please”—he lifted his gloved hand to assist her—“we'd be honored to have you stay for a few minutes. After all, you may have saved Winnie's life.”

Mary let her hand rest in his as she gathered her skirts and climbed from the folds of the buggy. “Nothing so heroic, Mr. Adams. She looked exhausted after walking to town. I talked her into staying for a late lunch and resting a while. Otherwise she would have been home before the rain started.”