To Tame a Renegade
Read To Tame a Renegade Online
Authors: Connie Mason
SEDUCTIVE INNOCENCE
“I’m leaving,” Chad said, hardening his heart against Sarah’s helplessness. “I’ve already stayed longer than I intended.”
Chad tried to avoid looking at Sarah but seemed unable to turn his eyes away. Even wrapped in her voluminous nightgown she looked seductive in an innocent sort of way that contradicted everything he’d been told about her. He recalled with clarity her nude body, her womanly curves, and her long, supple legs. She’d felt so damn good in his arms; he could still recall the incredible heat of her lithe body pressed against him. Sweat popped out on his forehead and he felt himself thicken with desire.
Despite his resolve to get the hell out of here while he still could, he. seemed rooted to the spot. “How will you survive without help?” he heard himself ask. Would he never learn to stay out of other people’s business?
T
O
T
AME A
R
ENEGADE
CONNIE
MASON
© 1998, 2011 Connie Mason. All rights reserved.
Dry Gulch, Montana
1880
“D
on’t go!” Pierce pleaded as Chad packed his belongings into his saddlebags. “Things will look better tomorrow.”
Chad gave a bitter laugh. “How can you say that after what we just witnessed? My God, Pierce! Four deaths! Hal deserved what he got but old man Doolittle didn’t”
“Ed Doolittle was a sick old man who hadn’t long to live. You can’t blame yourself for the chain of events that led to his death. I’m more to blame than anyone.”
Chad continued as if Pierce hadn’t spoken. “I know Cora Lee was a liar and completely without morals or conscience, but I understand that she was duped and intimidated by her brother. She can’t be held solely responsible for her actions in this mess. God knows she shouldn’t have died in childbirth. And the child was innocent in all this.”
“Chad, listen to me. All that aside, Ryan needs you here on the ranch.”
“He can manage without me. Don’t you see? I have to get away from Dry Gulch, away from the tragedy. I never wanted to marry. I only did it to save your skin. And look what came of it My life is a shambles. I can’t even trust myself anymore. Don’t try to stop me. Pierce. Neither you nor Ryan would like living with me if I stayed here.”
“When will you come back?”
Chad glanced off into the distance, his expression hard and determined, his eyes bleak. “I don’t know.”
Contents
Carbon, Wyoming
1882
“Y
er mama’s a whore and yer a bastard!” A group of ragtag boys shot out into the dusty street ahead of Chad, their cruel words aimed at the small boy they were chasing.
Chad Delaney had lost count of the number of towns like Carbon he’d passed through during the past two years. You’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. The one distinction between Carbon and any other Wyoming town was that Carbon was the coal production center on the Union Pacific Railroad line. Chad reined his spirited black stallion down the rutted road, noting the vast number of saloons on the main drag. A general store, bank, barber shop, feed store, hardware store, and dressmaker’s shop stretched along either side of the street, interspersed with saloons and dance halls.
Clusters of houses were scattered in haphazard fashion down the side streets, with a church rising against the horizon. On the other side of the tracks running through the north edge of town, Chad saw rows of ramshackle shanties that he assumed housed the coal miners and their families. Coal dust permeated the air and rested upon the buildings and houses like a dirty blanket It collected in Chad’s eyes and he dashed it away.
“Yer mama’s a whore! Yer mama’s a whore!”
Chad was almost upon the boys now. They had caught up with the hapless lad they were chasing and brought him to the dusty ground. Chad watched dispassionately as the larger boys began pummeling him with their fists.
“Where’s yer pa? Why ain’t ya got no last name?”
The boys were getting vicious now and Chad could no longer ignore them. The little fellow taking the beating hadn’t uttered a cry and Chad was impressed with his valiant but futile effort to defend himself. The mother’s sins weren’t the child’s fault, Chad thought Chad may have grown callous, and lost the spark of compassion he’d once possessed in abundance, but he wasn’t completely heartless when it came to children.
Bringing his horse to a halt, Chad leaped from the saddle and one by one began to pull boys off the small lad.
“What do ya think yer doin’, mister?” one of the bigger boys asked. “This ain’t none of yer business.”
“It is now,” Chad said, facing the assortment of boys squarely. “Go on home where you belong. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, picking on someone too young to defend himself.”
“He’s a bastard. He don’t even know who his pa is,” the bigger boy said defensively. “His ma’s a whore.”
“Go on! Get!” Chad said, making as if to reach for his guns.
The outspoken boy’s eyes widened in fear as he glimpsed the pair of walnut-handled single-action Colt .45 Peacemakers riding low on Chad’s hips. Combined with Chad’s forbidding expression, the guns were enough to frighten most grown men.
“Come on,” the boy shouted, motioning to his friends, “I ain’t tangling with no gunman.”
One corner of Chad’s generous mouth angled up into a crooked grin as he watched the boys skedaddle away. Then he turned his attention to the lad sitting on the ground, who appeared dazed and somewhat bruised from the beating he had received. Chad squatted down beside him and lifted him to his feet.
“Are you all right, son?”
Huge blue eyes shiny with tears stared back at Chad. “I’m okay, mister.” He wiped the moisture from his cheeks with a grubby fist, the gesture belying his words. “Most times I run faster than they do.”
“Has this happened before?”
The boy nodded solemnly. “It’s okay, mister, I’m used to it.”
Chad studied the bruises on the boy’s face and arms, deciding they weren’t as bad as they looked. He’d received worse just scrapping with his brothers. He, Pierce, and Ryan had gotten into numerous scrapes during their youth, and their reputation as hellraisers was well earned. But all that was behind him now. His life had taken a turn he hadn’t expected.
“How old are you, son?”
“Five.”
Chad stifled a smile. “That old, are you? What’s your name?”
“Abner.”
“Come on, Abner, I’ll take you home.”
Abner balked, giving his head a vigorous shake. “Mama said I wasn’t to go off with strangers.”
At least his mother did one thing right, Chad thought, wondering who cared for the boy while his mother plied her trade as a whore. He held out his hand. “I’m Chad Delaney. Now we’re no longer strangers.”
Abner stared at Chad’s large hand, and after giving it considerable thought placed his smaller one in it. As Chad’s hand closed around Abner’s tiny one, he felt a twinge in the vicinity of his heart. Chad didn’t know much about small children, had never been around them, in fact, but this brave little boy made him feel things he thought he’d lost that tragic day two years ago when he’d watched an innocent babe die.
“Where do you live, Abner?”
Abner pointed toward the rows of shanties squatting at the edge of town. Whores must not earn much in this town if that’s the best Abner’s mother could afford, Chad thought disparagingly as he eyed the rundown shanties critically.
Chad lifted Abner onto his horse and climbed up behind him. He felt the boy stiffen and guessed at the cause of his fear. “Do you like to ride?” Chad asked conversationally as he aimed his horse toward the poor section of town.
“This is the first time I’ve been on a horse,” Abner said in a shaky voice. “He’s awfully big, mister. What’s his name?”
Chad patted the big gray gelding, his favorite of all the horses bred and raised on the Delaney ranch. “I call him Flint.”
“I never saw you before. What are you doing in town?”
“I’m a bounty hunter,” Chad explained. Abner gave him a puzzled look. “Do you know what that is?”