The Rancher (36 page)

The door banged open and an angry Martha stood in the frame, her apronfolded with a dozen or so eggs.

“Who’s the cutup that locked me in thecoop?” Strands of hair had come loosefrom her bun and her face was smudgedwith dirt.  “If it weren’t for Jack gettin’loose, I’d still be out there.  Jim saw theblasted horse and heard me hollerin’ whenhe passed the pen on his way to thestable.”

“Jack?” Abby whispered and jumped to

her feet.

“Martha,” Clay stood from his chair and walked over to the woman, “are you all right?” He held her arms and

scrunched down and tilted his head to

look at her face.

Clay’s jaw hardened again. “I want toknow who’s doing this, but if you boyshave anything to do with it.” The meaningin his words was unmistakable.  He turnedback to look at Martha, his hands still onher arms.

“I’m  fine,   Clay.”  Martha’s  voicesoftened. ”Really,” she added when itlooked as if Clay would not believe her.

“Why would Cole or his brothers haveanything to do with it?” Abby inquired,confused.

When all those at the table exchangedglances with one another, but avoidedlooking at her, Abby turned to her fatherand as she watched the tender way hemoved his hands up to Martha’s face and

the concern etched deep in his brow, she realized for the first time that he was

sweet on her.

Clay dropped his hands, a worried smile still plaguing his face, and cleared his throat returning to his place at the table.

Martha’s chin lowered nearly to herchest and she brushed past him to thecounter where she unloaded the eggs fromher apron. When she turned back to Clay,her faced was fixed with determination.

“Whoever it was,” Martha spoke withonly the smallest of quivers in her voice, “tied the door shut with this.”  She held upa crumpled black rag, clutched firmly inher hand.

Abby’s   brows   furrowed  together.  There was obviously meaning to the cloth.

She’d found one just like it the other dayin the barn after her run-in with the

rattlesnake.  Her father looked hard at her husband, then at each of his brothers. The friction in the air sizzled.

“Will someone please tell me what’s going on here?” Abby demanded.   Her hands balled into fists on the table.

“Clay.” Cole’s eyes did not move from her father, but held some sort of warning.  And pleading.

Clay adjusted his focus on Abby.  He picked up her hand from the table and nestled it warmly between the two of his.

“I guess it’s time you heard the truth, at least what I know of it.” He spoke softly, as if not to alarm her.

Her apprehension grew faster and more intense the longer he waited.

“What is it, papa?”

“I’ve tried to protect you.   Even arranged for you to go to Denver, where you would be safe.” He looked down at their hands. “But you are even more stubborn than your mother.”

“Safe from what, papa? Does this have anything to do with those men Cole and I spotted on the Johansson’s land?”

Abby searched her father’s eyes.

“Truth is, I’m not sure what or who we’re up against, but we’ll take care of it.  I think maybe you should go and stay with Lily for a few days.”

“That’s not fair, papa.  I can ride and shoot just as well as anybody else and you know it.  Better even. I could help.”

“
That
 
is not the point.  They are not my

only daughter.  Now, that’s the end of it.”

“Now, ya’ll remember.   It is the Sabbath today and church starts at ten.  Whatever yer a plannin’ on doin’ best wait ‘til after services.”  Martha wiped her hands in her apron after setting another plate of biscuits on the table.

All   the   men,   nearly   in   unison responded, “Yes, ma’am.”

“With all due respect, sir,” Cole cleared his throat, “I would rather Abby stay here,” he paused just long enough for Abby to see a flicker of indecision, “with me,” he finished, his eyes now boring into her.

Abby thought her heart was going tolurch indiscriminately from her chest. Shebit down on the edge of her lower lip.  Her eyes roamed the length of him.  Therewas no question in her mind she would be

safe as long as he was with her. The sanctuary she’d found wrapped in the confines of his arms last night flooded back  into  her  memory. Yes,   Cole Redbourne was every inch a protector. And a distraction.  She had to focus.

Clay scratched at his stubbled chin with his knuckles. After a long moment he conceded.  “Okay.”  Then, he turned to Abby, “Don’t you go gettin’ any ideas, young lady. You may be a married woman now, but I’m still your father and I’m telling you to let us handle it.”

Abby   forced   herself   to   smile graciously. She shifted her glance toward Cole.  He picked up his hat from the table and winked at her just before he put it on.

You’re not doing this without me.
 
Her demure smile, still frozen on her lips, hid

the audacious grin that threatened. She turned back toward her bedroom.
 
I’ll just have to go about it a little differently.

“How’s Carson doing this morning?  I’ll bet he can tell us what happened,” Cole   asked,   sarcasm  edging   every syllable.   He tossed aside a large, scorched plank blocking his way into what was left of the barn.

“He was drunk,” Raine said flatly. “I doubt he remembers a thing.” Raine stepped over some fragments of rope and metal. He picked up a shovel head, the handle burned clean off.

“Doc said the Carson boy breathed in a lot of smoke and burned his throat pretty good.” Clay hunched down next to what

was left of a saddle.   “He’s coughin’ somethin’ fierce and has been slippin’ in and out of consciousness, but Doc says he should live.”

Shaking his head, Clay pitched thedamaged riding seat to the outer edge ofthe burnt and falling frame. “That boyought to be mighty grateful to Cole herefor pulling him out of this mess.”

Flags of smoke still rose from thedebris all around them. The sweet aroma

of freshly burned pine mixed with the springy scent of wildflowers brought out by the last few days of rain.  They’d been lucky that, because of the moisture, the damage hadn’t spread to the homestead or the stable.

“I’d still like to know what Carson was

doing in the barn. If he’d started the fire,

wouldn’t he have been long gone before it became ablaze?” Cole looked down at the

bandages wrapped around his forearm, covering the angry blisters he’d gotten from pulling the fool out harm’s way.

He inadvertently thought of Abby.

The way she’d looked in their bedroom last night as she’d pulled a blanket up over him would be forever engraved in his mind.  The thin material of her night shift had concealed little and when one of

her sleeves had fallen off her shoulder and down her arm when she crawled into the

large oak bed, he’d groaned.  The battle between his desire for his new wife and his need to keep her safe had grown particularly fierce within the last twelve hours.

“You can go ask him yourself.  He’s

still asleep in Abby’s old bedroom upstairs.” Clay pointed to a window on the second floor.

“Carson is… ” Cole started, “in Abby’s room?” An iron weight settled at the pit of his stomach.   He recalled Clay telling Caleb this morning to have the kid’s father come to retrieve him, but the idea of having him in Abby’s room irked him.  He kicked at a worn piece of wood that he guessed had been a hitching post and started toward the house.

“ He r
 
old
 
room,”   Clay  reiterated, calling after him.

When  he  passed  Raine,  he  was accosted by the arm.  “You heard Clay, Charcoal.” Raine spun him around. “The man’s throat is burned from the smoke. He

won’t be able to tell you anything, at least

not right now.”

The two men looked hard at each other

until Cole shook Raine’s hand off his arm and he twisted his neck to stretch the

muscles that had tightened so forcefully moments before.

Abby joined them, dressed in her usual ranching attire, but this time her hair was pulled back with a ribbon, the same yellow color as her shirt, tied at her nape.

Cole pulled his eyes off her and addressed the others.   “Has Rafe been able to get anything out of those Spencer boys?”

“They’re still here?” Abby asked incredulously. “Papa. I thought you were gonna let Ben and his brothers go home last night.” She placed her hand on her father’s forearm and looked up at him.

If she didn’t know much about being awoman, she was sure learning fast.

“And let them cause more trouble? Idon’t think so,” Raine chimed in. “It’stime there was a little order in this town.”

“They’ll be all right, Abby,” Clay responded, patting her hand. “Davey took them some of Martha’s cooking to eat before these boys here cart ‘em down to the town jail.”

“Their pa’s gonna be mighty angry.  Besides, without a sheriff in town, what good will it do to lock them up?” Abby protested.   “There’s no one in town who’ll watch them.   I don’t even think those cells have keys anymore.”

“We’ll think of something.”

Raine and Rafe exchanged glances that contained some sort of hidden message.

Both men smirked and by the look on Abby’s face Cole thought she might just upand slug the both of them.

“We know it wasn’t those boys, Abs,” Clay said, putting his hands on his hipsand   looking   around   with   disgust.  “They’re just a bunch of town bulliescausin’ a ruckus. Just like their father.  Always have been. But if they know whostarted that fire, I want to know about it.”

Cole’s eyes traced the once protectivewalls that had been reduced to nothing butblackened frames, open and vulnerable.  Whoever was taunting Clay was playingfor keeps.  Had the bunkhouse or any ofthe other buildings caught fire, the wholeranch could have been lost.   Cole wasmissing something. He could feel it.

“Clay,” Davey yelled, riding into the

quad at a gallop. Jerking hard on the rein’s he pulled his horse to a stop in front of the rubble.   “There’s a fence down on the north pasture and I reckon we’re missing more than a dozen head.”

“Any sign how it happened?”

“Just this.”   Davey handed a small piece of black fabric to Clay.  “It was tied around one of the fence posts.”

Clay slammed his fist into a scorched wall frame and it collapsed instantly.  He kicked an empty milk pail across the length of the barn and shoved a burnt cross beam away from him and onto the ashen floor as he made his way toward the house.   A small cloud of ash floated

upward and then quietly settled back

around the fallen debris.

“Who is doing this?” Clay spat through

gritted teeth.

“You don’t actually think someone burned down the barn on purpose?” Abby looked from one brother’s face to the next

until she landed on her father’s. “Why?”

she asked with a shrug.

At that moment Cole’s head confirmed

what his heart already knew.  Abby had nothing to do with Alaric’s death and neither did her father.   Cole had seen enough loss, enough pain to last him a lifetime, and then some.  Clay and Abby were a part of his family now. These vicious attacks had to stop and he and his brothers had become the best chance anyone had at stopping them.  He hoped finding the culprit behind all the trouble would lead to some answers of his own.

“That’s what we intend to find out,”

Cole assured her.

Abby didn’t look assuaged.  Her jawtightened and her eyelids tapered.  Colehad been told that she wouldn’t take too

kindly to being told to stay out of it, but for her sake, and his, he hoped she would listen.

“Come on, son.  Best be getting’ ready for church.   We can talk to Henry Campbell and Zed Carson in town. We’ll catch them after Sunday services.”  Clay put his hand on Cole’s shoulder and squeezed.

“Carson?” Cole asked, looking to the second level window.

“The boy’s father.  They live just to the south of us. I can introduce you boys after the service and hopefully we can all sit down and figure out our next move.