Not the Marrying Kind (19 page)

Emily, Kat, Benjamin, and Joshua remained
outside. As soon as the door to the house closed, she whirled
around.

“What in God’s green earth were you
thinking, Benjamin?”

Emily came running, a fresh onslaught of
tears pouring from her red-rimmed eyes. “He was protecting me!
Willie called me names. He said I was a spoiled brat and that I
thought too much of myself. He threw dirt at me, and he ripped my
skirts.” She’d had her arms clasped around herself. Now she lowered
them to expose the ugly marks streaking across her new Sunday
dress. Mrs. McIntyre had finished the ruffled, daisy-yellow frock
and delivered it only a few days earlier. The stitching had now
come loose at the waist and one of the wide ribboned sashes had
been nearly torn away. “He ruined it, Kat.” Emily burst into fresh
sobs.

Joshua let go of Benjamin’s arms, then
quickly placed strong hands on the boy’s shoulders and turned him
around. “I understand that you were trying to help, but—”

“The bully deserved it. And when I told the
judge I was sorry, yeah, I meant it, ’cause I’m real sorry I didn’t
break both of his arms as well as his nose. He got off lucky.”

“No, Ben,” said Joshua. “You’re the one who
got off lucky. Like I said, I know you were trying to help, but
fighting isn’t the way to solve anything. And don’t think for a
minute that his threats were idle. I’m surprised he didn’t haul you
off. That’s his son you were beating up.”

“Yeah, but he deserved it,” Benjamin
insisted again. But now his voice quavered a bit. Worry shone in
his amber eyes. He chewed at his lower lip, then looked up at Kat.
“You don’t think he’ll send that marshal out here, do you? I mean,
maybe when he gets to town, he’ll report me. I don’t want to go to
jail.” He scraped the toe of his boot through the dirt. “You won’t
let anybody take me away, will you?”

Kat saw the worry. And she saw the fear.
“Nobody’s going to take you away. Nobody’s going to do you any
harm, Benjamin.”

“But they might send me off to one of those
orphanages,” he cried. “I don’t want to go to one of those places!
I’ve heard how awful they—” Suddenly, he stopped. His tongue worked
at his lip for a minute and he averted his gaze from hers. “Well,
that is, I mean, I
know
how awful those places are, seeing
as how I lived in one. I don’t want to go there. I don’t want to go
back
,” he said, emphasizing the last word. He spun around,
flung himself against Kat and held her tight. “Please, Kat, don’t
let anybody take me. I want to stay here with you.”

“It’s all right, Ben,” she crooned,
instinctively running her hand through his shaggy locks. “Nobody’s
going to take you away. I won’t let anybody take you.”

“Promise, Miss Kat? Promise I can stay here
forever?”

She hesitated, biting her lip. How could she
make such a promise when her own time at the ranch hung in such a
tenuous balance? But he needed reassurance, needed above all to
feel safe and secure, to know that he wouldn’t be left adrift and
on his own ever again. Like every human being, this hurting little
boy needed to know that somebody cared about him.

“As long as there’s a Rocking P Ranch,
Benjamin, you’ll always have a place here. This is your home now.
You belong here.”

He hugged her tight. “I won’t cause any more
trouble, Miss Kat, I promise.”

* * * *

Joshua wished he’d never accepted Kat’s
invitation to Sunday dinner. Of course, he wished he’d never done a
lot of things in his life, but wishing couldn’t change the past. It
always stayed the same, regrets and all.

Not that he actually had cause to regret
anything he’d ever done. Trouble was, good intentions sometimes led
to bad outcomes, just like Benjamin’s noble actions on Emily Sue’s
behalf. The kid meant well, but he’d probably pay hell for it
sooner or later.

Once a man—or even a boy—got tagged as a
trouble-maker, a law-breaker, or any one of a half-dozen other
labels the legal authorities liked to bandy about, he’d find
himself surrounded by suspicions wherever he went. His life would
be lived in the shadows of the doubts people had about him. Joshua
hated to see it happen to Benjamin.

“Come on, Ben, let’s get you back to the
bunkhouse. I’ll help you get cleaned up.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Joshua,” Kat called
out as she turned to go to the house. “Bright and early,
right?”

He stopped and let out a breath. “Bright and
early,” he repeated. He felt Benjamin’s eyes upon him. For a boy of
fourteen, he was mighty observant. Had he caught the fact that
Kat’s question hadn’t been answered? “Come on,” he said to the boy.
“Let’s go.”

But Benjamin didn’t move. “Is everything all
right, Mr. Barron? Between you and Miss Kat, I mean.”

“Sure enough. Everything’s just fine,” he
replied, maybe a bit too quickly. Of course Ben was still a kid,
and although he was observant, he didn’t have experience enough to
understand the nuances behind the spoken words. One of the hardest
lessons to learn in life was that sometimes a man could tell the
truth yet still not mean what he said.

Sort of went right along with that lesson
about good intentions leading to bad outcomes.

Damn, but life sure worked in funny ways at
times. The good Lord must have one hell of a sense of humor. Either
that, or He just liked to see folks suffer.

As Kat hoped, a few slices of Mama’s wheat
bread spread with generous servings of raspberry preserves soon
restored Judge Morse’s good nature. Willie’s, too.

Emily Sue refused to come into the dining
room as long as their guests were present, but Kat returned to the
table, eager to put the incident behind them with a bit of polite
conversation. As she settled into her chair, she listened carefully
to what her father and Judge Morse were discussing. Probably the
weather, or beef prices, or worries about the natives on the
reservations. The usual topics.

She froze when she heard Joshua’s name
mentioned.

“That name’s familiar,” the judge said,
wiping his chin with one of Mama’s good linen napkins. “Can’t
recall where I’ve heard it before.”

“I doubt you’ve heard of him, Judge Morse.
He hasn’t been in the territory long,” Kat informed the man. She
unfolded a napkin and placed it over her lap, then reached for a
slice of bread. She slathered it with rich, creamy butter.

Her father’s face turned blood-red.
“Katherine, don’t be impertinent.”

“I didn’t mean anything by it, Pa,” she
said, caught off guard by her father’s angry response. “I was
merely pointing out that most likely Judge Morse is mistaken, or
well, that is, maybe he’s confused, or—”

“Katherine, that’s enough.” Her father
barked the words across the table. Everyone fell silent.

“Yes, dear,” her mother added, her eyes
silently pleading for her daughter to be on her best behavior.
“We’ve had quite enough trouble for one day, and on a Sunday, no
less.”

Morse pushed his chair away from the table
and clambered to his feet, his bulk making even that simple action
difficult. He leaned his weight on the table for support, nearly
upending it before he managed to get to a standing position. He
motioned for Willie to rise, too. The obese boy had nearly as much
trouble as his father.

The judge nodded. “We’ll be heading out now,
let you folks get back to your usual routine.” He peered at his
son’s face, then reached out to physically inspect the damage the
boy had sustained. “That’s a real shiner there,” he commented,
nodding toward the nasty purple bruises around Willie’s left eye.
“Not sure if Doc Graham can do much for that nose, either, but
we’ll pay a call on him when we get back to Denver. Now, you folks,
take care,” he said turning to Kat’s parents. “We thank you for
your hospitality and for your efforts to ease Willie’s suffering,”
he went on, directing the last remark to Amanda. “I’ve got a bad
feeling about those two. Like father, like son, they say.”

Again, Kat held her breath, wondering if her
own father would speak up. It surprised her that he remained
silent. It wasn’t like him to let even the slightest infraction of
God’s laws slip past unchallenged, and lying was most definitely a
major violation of the spiritual code by which Dirk Phillips lived.
Maybe he hadn’t heard. Or maybe he just didn’t want to stir up more
trouble. Like Mama had said, there’d been enough of that
already.

“I’ll see you out, Judge Morse,” she
offered. The sooner the man left, the sooner she’d feel at ease
again.

“Thank you, Katherine.” He smiled, then
turned back toward her father. “I’ll do a little checking on that
Barron fellow soon as I get back to my office. I swear I’ve heard
that name before.”

* * * *

Kat loved seeing the sun come up each
morning. She’d always been an early riser, eager to step out of the
stuffy rooms of the house to greet each new day. Normally, she
embraced each dawn with a smile.

But on that particular Monday morning, she
wasn’t smiling. Still out of sorts from the events of the previous
day, she stood at the edge of the porch staring off into the
distance, looking for the dark shadow of a horse and rider.

She had a few questions for Joshua Barron.
Questions like why a federal judge might have reason to believe—no,
to insist—that he’d heard his name before. Questions like why
Joshua had clearly wanted to beat a hasty retreat the moment Judge
Morse arrived. And there were other questions, too, that had
nothing to do with Joshua but which weighed heavily on her mind.
She’d replayed things in her mind a time or two, and she kept
getting stuck on some of the things Benjamin had said, things that
didn’t quite fit together in her brain. She couldn’t figure out
exactly what was wrong, though.

Joshua would have the answers.
All
the answers, but where the hell was he?

Bright and early
had come and gone.
He should have arrived at the Rocking P long before now. She lifted
a hand to her brow and scanned the horizon again. No sign of
him.

His failure to show up disappointed her, but
his irresponsibility would not cause her to fall short of her
goals. His absence would not deter her. She’d said all along she
didn’t need Joshua Barron. She didn’t need any man.

As she made her way toward the corral,
Benjamin hurried after her. “What are you doing, Miss Kat? Where’s
Joshua?”

“He’s obviously got something to do this
morning that he considers more important than working for me.” Was
her speech a bit more clipped and curt than usual? If so, Benjamin
made no comment about it.

“Are you planning to ride out without him?”
The boy looked worried. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”

“Good, bad, whatever. I don’t have any
choice, Ben. We’ve still got to bring in the last few head to fill
the contract.” She saddled her horse. Benjamin mimicked her
movements, throwing the old saddle over Paint’s back. When Kat
mounted, Benjamin swung up onto the pony. She squared her shoulders
and turned to him.

“I’m helping you out,” he said with a toothy
grin before she could even ask. “It’s the least I can do. I might
not be as big as Joshua, and I know I’m nowhere near as strong, but
I’ve got grit, Miss Kat. Grit and gumption.”

“Yes, you do.” Pleased by his willingness to
ride with her, Kat jerked her head toward the range. “Let’s go find
those beeves.”

As she rode through the gate, she heard hoof
beats coming from the back of the house. To her shock, her father
had saddled up Boaz—he’d named his horse after the biblical figure
and claimed the name meant swiftness—and was headed their way.

“Pa! What do you think you’re doing?” Kat
wheeled her horse around and trotted back toward the corral.

“Foreman show up?” he asked, looking
about.

“No, but that’s my problem, not yours. You
can’t come riding along with us. You shouldn’t even be on
horseback. If Mama knew—”

“Dirk Phillips! Get yourself back here right
now!”

Mama
did
know. And Mama obviously
didn’t like it any better than Kat. With her long skirts swishing
around her legs and her boots leaving deep indentations in the soft
earth, Amanda stomped across the pasture toward her husband and
daughter.

But Pa wasn’t waiting around for his wife.
As Kat watched in horror, he pressed his knees to his horse’s
flanks and set off toward the range. Swift of foot, indeed.

Benjamin reacted first. Kat followed.

“Pa! Stop it. Come back!”

No use calling his name. Either he couldn’t
hear her or, more likely, he heard her just fine but refused to
listen.

She raced toward Benjamin. “Get around ahead
of him. We’ll try to corner him and make him stop.”

Veering around toward the left, she dug her
heels into her mare’s sides, urging the horse into a reckless
gallop. Pa was slowing down. Between her and Benjamin they should
be able to catch up and stop—

“Pa!” Kat screamed as he dropped the reins
and slumped forward in the saddle.

Benjamin moved in, grabbed the reins and
rode alongside, bringing the horse and its unconscious rider back
toward Kat who stood in the stirrups shouting for help. Thank
goodness her mother had already hitched up the carriage horse and
was headed toward them in the buggy.

Kat slid down and rushed the few yards to
her father’s side, reaching him just as he sagged from the saddle
and hit the ground. She went to work on him at once, loosening his
shirt collar and pressing her hand to his neck.

“Dear God, Kat, is he alive? Is he still
breathing?”

“Yes, but his pulse is weak. Mama, do
something,” she begged.

“Nothing much I can do to help the old fool
other than get him back to the house and put him in his bed. From
there, it’s in the Lord’s hands.”