Something about the way she spoke caused him to lean closer. “Did someone say something like that to you?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Charlotte…”
Bootsteps sounded on the porch outside.
Daniel scooted his chair away from Charlotte’s and stood just as the door opened. A tall, shadowed figure filled the doorway, the sun from behind him darkening his features.
Daniel didn’t need to see the details of the man’s face to recognize the tall, lanky form, the long blond hair falling from the brim of his hat to the middle of his shoulders, or the devil-may-care attitude radiating from the way he stood with his cocked hip.
Daniel’s heart thudded against his chest and his blood turned hot. When he’d asked the rangers to come to Twin Rivers, he’d assumed they’d send someone else. Anyone else. “What are you doing here?”
“What do you think?” Cain Ramos drawled in a voice that sounded as though it had been coated in trail dust. If Daniel hadn’t known that was the natural sound of his childhood friend’s voice, he would have assumed the man needed water.
“You sent word of a rustling ring you suspect of stealing upwards of twenty thousand head of cattle.” Cain came farther inside, bringing himself out of the shadows. With his long, blond hair and the stubble on his chin, the man looked more like an outlaw than a lawman. Two men flanked him on either side, but Daniel barely spared them a glance as Cain pulled a folded piece of paper from the inner pocket of his duster and held it out.
Daniel stared at the familiar letter written in his own hand. A thousand rangers in Texas. How had the rangers managed to send the one man he never wanted to see again? “I sent you that letter a month ago.”
Cain shoved the missive back inside his pocket. “We’ve been north, talking to ranchers in the hill country and plains to trace where all the rustled cattle that passed through here came from.”
“Are you still riding with your father?” Daniel looked around Cain’s shoulder toward the door. “Where is he? I need to speak with the commander.”
Half of Cain’s mouth lifted in the wry, trademark smirk the man had carried with him even as a boy. “My pa’s in the Nueces Strip, at least last I knew. I’m a captain now, and my company answers to me. This is my first lieutenant, Roland Sims, and my second lieutenant, Leighton Peirce.”
Cain was a captain? After he disobeyed his father, Captain Whitelaw’s, command to guard Twin Rivers seven years ago? How could he have been promoted?
Daniel sucked a breath through his nose, though the action did little to calm the blood roaring in his ears. But he needed to settle himself. He hadn’t seen Cain for years. Anything could have happened in that time.
Anything except his father walking again.
“Daniel?” Charlotte placed a hand on his arm. “Are you all right?”
“Dandy,” he answered without looking at her. “Cain, I believe you remember Wes’s younger sister, Charlotte.”
Cain’s eyes widened ever so briefly, then that half-smirk, half smile was back to tilting one side of his mouth. “Little Charlie. Look at you.”
Daniel’s muscles turned to rock.
Cain stepped forward, took Charlotte’s hand, and bent over it. “You grew up on me, darlin’.”
She yanked her hand away before Cain released it.
“Charlotte was just leaving.” Daniel took a step closer to her. “Her pa’s expecting her back at the ranch.”
“Yes. I need to go. It was nice seeing you again, Mr. Ramos.” Her words were polite, but the stiffness in her back and prim tone of her voice said she wasn’t remotely pleased to see Cain either.
“It’s Whitelaw now. Cain Whitelaw.”
Daniel felt his eyebrows rise. That had been Cain’s father’s surname, but Jude Whitelaw had never been willing to let Cain use it since he hadn’t been married to Cain’s ma. Something more than Cain getting promoted must have changed in the years he’d been gone.
“You can call me Cain.” Cain sent Charlotte another half-smile.
“Thank you, Mr.… Cain. But I’m afraid I need to get home.” Head high, she strode toward the door with determined steps that belied the nervous way she acted around most men.
Cain watched her leave, as did the two men who’d entered the office with him. “Figured her pa would have married her off the day she turned eighteen.”
“He didn’t.” The words emerged sharper than Daniel intended.
Cain narrowed his eyes at him, then moved his gaze between the two chairs that were pulled to the same side of the desk. “Reckon not.”
Something about the knowing tone in Cain’s drawl made Daniel’s hands clench into fists.
“What did you learn north of here? How many cattle have been rustled?” He had to find something else to talk about before he ended up punching the wry grin off Cain’s face.
“Too many. I’m guessing closer to thirty thousand head have been stolen, though not all from one spot. A few from here, a few from there, nothing that would cause dire warnings, and usually from big outfits that could stand to lose a thousand head of cattle without going bankrupt.”
Daniel grabbed one of the maps from the bookshelf behind his desk and unrolled it. “What places were cattle stolen?”
Cain stepped forward, his tawny eyes studying the map of Texas and northern Mexico. “Here and here. May have even lost some from as far north as the panhandle. We have a map back at the camp with the exact locations marked. Do you have any idea where the rustlers might be camped? I’m assuming they’re somewhere in Mexico.”
“Here’s where we apprehended them.” Daniel pointed to the spot. “But none of the rustlers we brought back would tell me where their main camp is. I couldn’t even get the name of their boss, besides ‘el jefe.’”
Cain ran a finger over a mountainous trail through the Sierra Madres. “Pierce, Sims, the jailhouse is through that door there. Go question the rustlers, see if you can figure out where the rest of them are while I talk to the sheriff.”
The two men who had been lingering at the edge of the desk turned and started for the jailhouse.
“You want them to question the rustlers I captured?” Daniel hooked a thumb into his gun belt. “They’ll have to go to Huntsville.”
Cain’s head snapped up. “You transported the prisoners?”
“What else was I supposed to do with them?”
“Get them to tell you where the rest of the rustlers are camped.”
Daniel planted his hands on the desk and leaned forward. “They weren’t saying.”
“Then you didn’t question them hard enough.”
“The rustlers’ trials were finished two weeks ago. I wasn’t going to let them sit here and give the rustlers in Mexico the chance to stage a jailbreak. If you wanted to question them, you should have arrived sooner.”
Cain looked over his shoulder at his men. “When we get back to camp, send Jameson and Reinhold to Huntsville. I want the rustlers questioned by rangers.”
Daniel yanked open one of his desk drawers and grabbed the thick stack of papers sitting on the top. “I have the sheriff’s reports and court transcripts right here. You don’t need to send men to Huntsville.”
“Don’t tell me how to command my rangers.”
“Then don’t insult my sheriffing.”
Daniel met Cain’s gaze evenly. They might have stood there all day, one of them on each side of the desk, their eyes narrowed in challenge. But the back door burst open, and a bright shaft of sunlight exploded into the room.
“Daniel, Ma and I are going to visit Mrs. Greyson up by Milton Faver’s place, but first I wanted to drop off some snacks for…”
Anna Mae froze, nearly dropping the kettle of fresh coffee and plate of cookies she held. She let out a squeal, somehow still managing to set the food and coffee down despite the ear-splitting sound.
“Cain Ramos?” She rushed toward him.
Cain opened his arms, catching her just in tim
e to keep her from barreling him over.
“It’s so good to see you!”
“Ah… you, too?” Cain gave her back an awkward pat, his brow furrowed with questions.
Sims and Leighton both nudged each other, then bent their heads, speaking in voices too low to be overheard.
“Anna Mae,” Daniel snapped. Didn’t his sister care who she was hugging? About the things their family had suffered because of Cain’s mistakes?
Evidently not, because she still had her arms wrapped tightly around Cain, her face burrowed in the crook between his arm and chest in a manner that would be improper for anyone, let alone someone with Cain’s history.
Then again, how many times had she hugged Sam or Wes or even Harrison like that? Propriety had never been much of a concern for his sister.
“Anna Mae?” Cain’s brows rose at the same moment Anna Mae pulled away from him.
Daniel could see the smile she gave him, wide, beautiful, sincere. He knew it well—just like he knew the look of male appreciation that filled Cain’s face.
“Tell Ma to be careful riding all the way out to Mrs. Greyson’s.” Daniel took Anna Mae’s upper arm, pulling her a respectable distance from Cain. “Don’t worry about fixing lunch before you go. I’ll scrounge up something for Pa and me.”
“Look at you,” Cain murmured, his eyes traveling down Anna Mae and back up again.
Something tightened in Daniel’s chest. Anna Mae had always attracted the gazes of men, but considering he was town sheriff and their pa was well respected, most men never approached her.
Cain Ramos Whitelaw wasn’t most men.
“You’re all grown up,” Cain drawled.
She tilted her head to the side, paying no attention to the interest that filled not just Cain’s eyes, but the eyes of his two men. “And you look just like I remember. Are you ever going to cut your hair?”
“You’d best get going if you want to make it to the Widow Greyson’s and back in time for supper.” Daniel gave her arm a firm tug.
“Mrs. Greyson. Right.” She turned, headed back to the table, and grabbed the empty coffee kettle in a flurry of movement that he could only describe as typical of his sister. But Cain and his two buffoons kept staring until she turned back around and waved. “Bye. It was nice seeing you again.”
“The pleasure was all mine.” Cain’s voice held a dry, raspy quality.
No, just no. Daniel stepped in front of Anna Mae. If Cain had any designs on his sister, he could forget them here and now.
Daniel stood in that exact spot until the door closed behind her.
“Well, I’ll be.” The tall lieutenant with the blond hair grinned at the other lieutenant. “The captain just let a woman hug him.”
“Stow it, Pierce,” Cain snapped.
Pierce held up his hands. “No reason to get snippy. I’d have let a woman who looks like that hug me, too. And a whole lot more…”
“That’s not the kind of hug it was.” Cain sent the man a scowl. “She’s an old friend, and the sheriff’s sister.”
“Is she married?” Cain’s other lieutenant—Sims, maybe?—asked.
“I said she’s a friend.” Cain gave his lieutenant a glare cold enough to freeze the Rio Grande in the dead of summer. “Leave it at that.”
“I’m just asking respectable-like.” The dark-haired, muscular lieutenant held up his hands.
“No, she’s not married,” Daniel answered. Though at times like this he wished she was.
“Is there something wrong with her?”
Daniel crossed his arms. “Yes, she’s too good for most of the men that traipse through Twin Rivers.”
Sims pulled his hat off his head and clutched it in his hands. “But if we’re going to be here a while, then there’s nothing wrong with me courting her respectable-like, is there?”
“No one will be courting Anna Mae Harding.” Cain slashed his hand through the air. “Knock that thought from your head or I’ll do it for you.”
“Whoo whee!” Pierce let out a whistle. “I think the captain’s sweet on someone.”
Sims squashed his hat back down over his dark hair. “Can you imagine the captain getting hitched?”
“Regular ball and chain, that.”
“I am not sweet on Anna Mae Harding or any other woman.” Cain met Daniel’s gaze. “And I never will be.”
Just like Cain had promised all those years ago, the day the two of them along with Sam, Wes, and Harrison had made their marriage pact. Cain had claimed he’d never need a woman back then, and it didn’t look like he’d changed his mind over the past sixteen years.
Daniel headed back to his desk and bent his head over the map.
“As best as I can figure it, the rustlers have to be camped somewhere in this section here.” Daniel drew a large circle around the spot.
“So you’ve narrowed it down to a two-hundred mile area?” Cain smirked. “Good work, Sheriff.”
Daniel pressed his lips together. If Cain said sheriff that way one more time, he really would use his fist to wipe that smirk off his former friend’s face.
“Sims, Pierce.” Cain jutted his chin toward his lieutenants. “Tell the men not to get too settled in at camp. We’ll leave for Mexico the day after tomorrow.”
Daniel’s head jerked up. “You can’t just up and ride into Mexico.”
But even as he said the words, he knew he was wrong. If Cain was a captain, he had a band of thirty men or better. No one in Mexico outside of the army would be able to thwart them.
Still, it galled. He’d spent a month sitting on the American side of the border, twiddling his thumbs, searching for signs of the rustlers while waiting for them to make their next move. Now Cain would take his men into Mexico, find the hideout, and have the rustlers rounded up in a day or two.
“We’re going into Mexico, all right,” Cain drawled in a voice that somehow seemed both laid-back and determined. “I’ll keep five of my men here to watch the town.”
“We don’t need your men.” The rejection was out before Daniel realized he’d spoke.
Cain quirked an eyebrow and looked around the small office, his gaze pausing on the single desk his deputies shared. “Just how many men do you have working for you?”
“Six.” Including the three volunteers who were helping with the patrols at night.
“And how many of those six men are paid?”
Confound it. Did Cain have to be so smart? “Three.”
“And how many of those three deputies are gone to Huntsville?”
Daniel gritted his teeth. “Two.”
“Like I said, five men will stay.”
“Better to just take them with you if they’re going to abandon us when the rustlers arrive.” Even though he stood in the middle of his office with three other men, dark memories rose up to greet him.
An inky black night seven years ago, the command Cain’s father had given for Cain and five others to stay behind in Twin Rivers while the rest of the rangers and the posse from town rode into Mexico. Cain had been irate that he had to stay behind, and sometime between when Daniel left with the posse and returned later that night, Cain had left his post, leaving the sheriff ripe pickings for the small band of outlaws that had ridden into Twin Rivers. According to Sam, the outlaws had been about to string Daniel’s pa from a noose when Sam happened upon them and started a gunfight.
Instead of losing his life, Pa had lost his leg.
And his ability to sheriff.
“That’s not what happened that night.” Cain’s words filled the room.
Daniel slammed his hand down on the desk. “It is, and my father’s crippled because of it.”
The muscle at the side of his jaw clenched. “Five men will stay. Work with them if you want, or leave them to their own devices, but either way, they’ll guard the town.”
He pivoted on his heel and stalked outside, slamming the door behind him and leaving his lieutenants to open the door again and scramble after him.
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Daniel clamped his back teeth together until his jaw ached. As sheriff, he was duty bound to protect the people of Twin Rivers from outlaws. He would be a fool twice over to deny the town the extra protection five of Cain’s men could offer, even if he wasn’t sure how dependable that protection would be.
But how could he accept help from the man whose negligence had led to his father’s maiming?
9
You’re beautiful, Charlotte.
Charlotte ran the brush through Calypso’s mane of dark black hair, then stroked a hand over the mare’s swollen belly. But though she was enjoying her time with the pregnant mare, she couldn’t quite get Daniel’s words from earlier out of her head.
Maybe I think you look nice every day, even in your split skirt and dusty shirt. Maybe I like how you don’t spend hours gussying yourself up every morning, and I like the way your hair looks when you run Athena into town too fast and stray bits fall by your cheek.
He’d looked so serious as he spoke, as though he truly meant what he’d said.
Calypso snorted, then nosed the pocket where Charlotte kept her sugar cubes.
“Any time now, love.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out two cubes, which the horse chomped with a single bite. “Your foal is going to be beautiful.”
The real kind of beautiful that no one could argue about, not the kind of beautiful that Daniel spoke of when he mentioned her.
Voices filtered in from outside the stable. It sounded as though several men were having a conversation, but the words were too indistinguishable for her to make out. She stroked a hand over the horse’s belly again. She still remembered the first time she’d laid eyes on a full-blooded Arabian. Ares had been for sale at an auction in Houston. Straight off the ship from the Arabian Peninsula, the stallion had been a combination of wild yet regal. His tightly corded muscles had revealed a powerful strength even in the corral, and that strength evidenced itself whenever Wes raced Ares over the desert. He was the fastest horse in the county, and quite possibly the fastest horse in the state.
She’d always taken a rather unhealthy interest in the stables, but until that point, she’d worked at breeding whatever horseflesh her father had on hand. Like any good rancher, he purchased quarter horses, which were great for both herding and driving cattle, but the dry conditions of West Texas could still be harsh on them.
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