The Cattleman's Unsuitable Wife

by Pam Crooks

  Zurina couldn’t move. Couldn’t comprehend what was happening.

  Then, a sudden fear for her father raced through her chest. She threw aside the plate she’d been filling and leaped toward the door. She couldn’t fathom why anyone would want to hurt Gabirel Vasco, or Gorri, and oh, God—

  She landed on the ground without benefit of steps. Seeing her father struggling against the cowboy’s grasp, that the man had his hand upraised, a revolver in his gloved fist, a new round of horror slammed into her.

  “Leave him alone!” she shouted. “Stop!”

  But the butt of the revolver whipped across her father’s jaw, and he hurtled into the dirt. Moaned. And went still.

  Anguish tore through Zurina. She fell to her knees beside him with a sob.

  “I ain’t kin to lamb-lickers,” the cowboy spat.

  She twisted toward him. Fury for what he’d done, and why, shot through her blood.

  “Leave us alone,” she snapped.

  He wore a bandanna high over his face; in the dusk, his sooty eyes shone hard with contempt. The shadows worked against her—she couldn’t get a good look at him, but in all her life, she’d never known anyone so vile, so cold-blooded.

  “Anyone else in that wagon?” he demanded.

  Papa stirred and lifted one knee, as if he tried to get up but couldn’t. He muttered something unintelligible. Zurina didn’t have to hear his words to know what he wanted her to say.

  That she had to do what she could to protect Trey Wells’s woman.

  Yet, what did they owe her? Or him? A cattleman who inspired fear and trepidation in her father? A man who helped himself to untold acres of the massive range while sharing with Gabirel Vasco only a tiny piece of it?

  A match hissed. “I asked you a question, honey. Anyone else in that wagon?”

  She needed all her willpower not to steal a glance at the doorway. Instinct told her Allethaire wouldn’t be standing there anyway, visible in the lantern light. She’d want to remain unseen. Zurina envisioned her cowering, determined to keep Trey Wells, her intended husband, and any of his men from finding out she was there.

  “No,” she grated. “There is no one.”

  The masked cowboy turned toward his accomplice and jerked his chin in silent command. The second man produced a long, strong, ominous stick.

  A club.

  Zurina died a little inside.

  She stood. Slowly. The terror built in her. Cold, cloying. Choking against her heart, her throat, making it hard to breathe. A terror from the very real certainty of what the two cowboys intended to do.

  “Please,” she said. Never before had she begged, but she was prepared to do so now. On her knees if she must. “Please do not do this.”

  As if she’d never spoken, the other man withdrew a revolver from his holster, turned and broke into an easy lope toward the flock. A group of ewes had strayed from the rest, their heads low toward the grass. He leveled his arm, fired, and one dropped. He swung the club against another, and she fell, too.

  Deep and blistering agony seared Zurina, and she screamed in rage. Her sheep. Dear God, her precious sheep, and before she could think to stop herself, before she could comprehend the danger, she began to run toward the distant stranger, compelled by a burgeoning hate for him and her rising desperation to stop the slaughter. To save her dreams and that of her father’s, because without the flock, they had nothing. They had nothing.

  “Stop it! Stop it!” she cried. “Stop!”

  Another gunshot rang out, this time from behind her. From the man who’d assaulted Papa and started this nightmare. In the next instant, glass shattered—the lantern inside the wagon—and she swung back around, just as an explosive whoosh ripped the air.

  Flames leaped from the doorway and shot the darkness with blinding color. Her fingers flew to her mouth in a new wave of horror.

  Allethaire!

  She was still inside, still hiding, and Zurina raced back toward the wagon.

  “Allethaire! Allethaire!” she shouted.

  In his need to get to Allethaire, to help her, Zurina’s father heaved himself to a standing position and staggered toward the doorway. Allethaire appeared in the glow of the flames with her arm flung upward to protect her face, her skirts gathered close to her body.

  “Jump out!” Papa called.

  “Hurry!” Zurina urged, reaching them, fearing the stove could explode, too. “Now, Allethaire!”

  Shrieking, the woman took a flying leap to the ground. Instinctively Zurina held out her arms, half-catching her. The impetus of the jump nearly knocked her to the ground.

  “Allethaire?” Unexpectedly the masked cowboy spoke her name sharply. “Allethaire Gibson?”

  She twisted toward him with a gasp, righting her hat when it went askew. “Yes!”

  “Don’t say anything to him.” Zurina pulled her away from the heat of the flames, her mind racing on how they could save the wagon. Save themselves. And poor Gorri, who she didn’t know was alive or dead.

  “You’re Trey Wells’s woman, ain’t you?”

  “I don’t know you.” Allethaire stood a little straighter, as if she considered it her right to be above him, though his seat on the horse forced her to tilt her head back. “Are you one of his outfit?” she demanded.

  The cowboy urged his horse closer, step by step, stalking Allethaire. Stalking Zurina, too.

  Over the snap of the fiery flames, gunshots popped in the distance. Into the flock. Again and again.

  “Leave us alone,” Zurina said, hating him. Hating the break in her voice, the despair she tried to hide. “Have you not done enough?”

  The bandanna-wrapped face swiveled toward her. “It’ll stop, honey. Just give her to me.”

  Zurina’s step faltered. An ugly, menacing dread flickered inside her. “What?”

  “Allethaire. Hand her over.”

  He was close, so close. Only an arm’s length separated them. He had only to bend down, reach out…

  “What are you talking about?” Allethaire snapped, stopping in midstride in a burst of ill-timed defiance.

  Zurina tugged at her, to keep her moving. Deeper into the dark.

  “’Rina, we must run from him.” Papa’s arm slipped around her shoulders, a feeble attempt at protecting her, urging them all to flee. He spoke in Basque, his voice an unsteady whisper in her ear.

  But Zurina knew he couldn’t protect them. They couldn’t run. Not from the gun. Or the man on the horse. Not from anything. Not anymore.

  It was too late, too late, too late.

  She tasted her father’s fear, for it matched her own. The fear every sheepman endured from the men who despised them. The cattlemen who would always despise them.

  “Might be he’ll do a little bargaining for her,” the cowboy said, his voice soft, amused, eerily muffled through the bandanna.

  “No,” Zurina said. Her arm tightened on Allethaire. Allethaire tightened her grip back. “Leave us alone.”

  “We’ll kill those maggots of yours. Every damned one.” The revolver waved. “You don’t want us to do that, do you?”

  Flames roared higher into the black sky. A sob welled up in Zurina’s throat.

  “’Rina.” Papa’s voice quavered with grief. With uncertainty.

  “You’ll never get away with—with hurting me,” Allethaire said. “Trey, he’ll kill you for this. He’ll—”

  Suddenly the revolver swung to the side, toward Papa and a shot rang out. He grunted, spun and fell to the ground.

  Zurina screamed and whirled toward him; her grasp dropped from Allethaire to reach for her father.

  The cowboy leaned down and snatched Allethaire’s arm with a vicious strength none of them could have foreseen. In one cruel swipe, he backhanded her across the face, caught her as she crumpled and hauled her limp body onto his horse.

  Zurina pivoted in horror, torn from helping her father, torn in knowing she must save Allethaire, but the cowboy spurred his horse away, toward the glow
of the firelight. The horse’s flanks gleamed, and in a single blink, she glimpsed the brand burned into the hide.

  And then, Allethaire was gone.

  Chapter Three

  T rey reined in on the crest of a low ridge, narrowed an eye and contemplated what he saw.

  Sheep scattered along this side of Sun River. Some herdsman had broken range rules and driven his flock onto Wells land. Wasn’t normal how spread out the woollies were, some on their feet, some on the ground. Wasn’t normal how quiet they were, either. Anyone would expect to hear plenty of that damned bleating. Where were the dogs that always guarded them?

  Trey took a slow sip of coffee gone cold and told himself he had worse problems to contemplate.

  “What do you make of it?” Nubby asked, running a frowning glance around him.

  Trey tossed aside the last dregs of coffee, twisted in the saddle and stuffed the tin cup into the leather bag.

  “Not sure,” he said finally, straightening. “But we have to keep moving.”

  He nudged his horse forward. Nubby did the same. Both of them, drawing closer to the sheep.

  “So quiet around here you can just about hear daylight coming,” Nubby said in a hushed tone.

  Trey grunted. The sun had barely cracked over the horizon. They’d only come this way in case Allethaire had gotten lost and decided to follow the river to help find her way.

  But they’d found no sign of her yet. Not a one.

  Trey’s thoughts fell back to yesterday, when he’d ridden into Great Falls and went straight to her hotel, only to learn she hadn’t returned—her empty room proved she hadn’t. A demanding confrontation with the hotel’s staff confirmed her absence, and he’d hurried back to the ranch as fast as hell could scorch a feather, roused Nubby from his bed and set out again.

  If Trey didn’t find her soon, he’d have to round up a posse to help. And no telling what her father was doing. Hell, Paris would likely demand the governor of Montana Territory call up the United States Army and get them involved….

  Trey shook his head at the trouble she’d caused. Had he ever known a more thoughtless female?

  After riding all night and into the dawn, burdened with worry for Allethaire, he didn’t want to deal with the troublesome foreboding he was feeling now. Over a flock of worthless sheep. He had no time for it.

  “Hell, Trey. Look.”

  The cowboy pointed, and Trey’s glance dropped to a lamb sleeping on the ground. The sound of horse hooves tromping over range grass should’ve alerted the young animal they were near.

  But it didn’t.

  The bloated body explained why. So did the blood trickling out of one ear. Trey’s sense of foreboding hiked up a good-sized notch. The lamb was sleeping all right. For good.

  “Been clubbed to death,” Nubby said. “Look how swelled up he is.”

  “They all are.”

  They continued in a slow walk, deeper into the flock, their scrutiny clawing the ground. Ewes and rams littered the grass. The cowboy pointed again. And again.

  “This one’s been shot. So has this one,” he said.

  Trey’s gaze lifted to sweep the range in slow, thorough perusal. In the rising light from dawn, dark crimson stained the thick, wool coats of sheep numbered more than he could fairly count. The heavy silence, eerie from death, hung in the air.

  “It’s a full-fledged massacre,” he muttered.

  In unison, both halted. Nubby didn’t need to say the words Trey knew he was thinking.

  Where was the sheepherder who’d been guarding the flock? Or his dog?

  Were they dead, too?

  Trey detected a faint scent of wood burning, and he searched for a campfire. He failed to find one, but his stare lingered over something black in the distance. Something smoldering.

  Trey’s mind conjectured what that something was, and his foreboding twisted deeper. He reached for his Smith & Wesson, tucked in its holster. Nubby reached for his, too.

  Without speaking, they nudged their mounts forward once again. Toward that blackened shape. Trey kept his stare on the burned-out wagon; Nubby couldn’t seem to keep his off the masses of bloated, slaughtered sheep.

  “Would’ve been time to shear ’em soon,” he said. “They’re full-wooled as can be.”

  Trey had little tolerance for the woollybacks. They were prickly thorns in the hides of every cattleman. They poisoned the range and drank water holes dry, but no stockman—even one who raised sheep—deserved to have his herd wiped out.

  That this one was near ready for market only made the loss worse. Much worse.

  He could hardly fathom what could’ve instigated the violence. Or where the killers might be. If they’d escaped. Or if they were in hiding—watching, waiting, while Trey and Nubby rode closer.

  The uncertainty heightened Trey’s senses, and he braced himself to expect the unexpected. The horses stepped around the four-legged mounds with a careful, ginger tread. Ominous and suffocating, the silence weighed on him, and the closer they drew, the more the air turned heavy with the acrid scent of death, smoke and charred wood.

  Suddenly the hairs on the back of his neck rose. An instinctive warning he’d long ago learned to trust, and his finger moved over the revolver’s trigger. His muscles coiled, one by one. His heart drummed a slow, methodical beat—

  Thwap!

  A bullet hit the ground in front of him, throwing dirt, and his startled horse reared. Teeth clenched against an oath, Trey gripped the reins to keep his seat; his gaze jerked toward the ringing sound of the gunshot while his body readied to feel the burn of a second, better-aimed bullet.

  Movement stirred around the smoldering wagon, and a woman appeared. Trey abruptly drew up. And stared.

  “Damn,” Nubby grated under his breath. “Either she’s a lousy shot or she’s just playing with us.”

  Trey kept his eye on her. She stood with an aging Henry rifle pressed to her shoulder, her sandaled feet spread in a stance that declared she’d shoot whenever she caught the inkling. Her hair flowed long and tangled down one arm, the strands as dark and thick as the crescents of her lashes. Her slim body and olive skin declared her Basque heritage, but it was the haunted look in her fierce expression that moved something deep inside Trey’s chest.

  “Don’t come any closer,” she commanded. “I have two bullets left. One for each of you.”

  Despite the harshness of her words, her voice slid as smooth as warm honey to his ears. He would’ve been intrigued with the way she talked, each word laced with the exotic lilt of her people, if she wasn’t so hell-bent on burning some powder on them.

  “Looks like you had some trouble here, ma’am,” he said carefully, not moving. “What happened?”

  A tremble went through her, so slight he might’ve imagined it. But he didn’t imagine it, and a grudging admiration for her bravado built inside him.

  “Get out of here,” she snapped.

  His eye narrowed. “You can use some help out here.”

  She made a sound of contempt. “Do you think I’m so stupid that I’d believe you?”

  Her response left him scrambling to comprehend why she wouldn’t believe him. Did she think she could manage this carnage? A woman alone? And why would she want to?

  “Someone set out to hurt you,” he said.

  “Go away.” Pain flashed across her features. As if she willed herself to triumph over it, she drew in a deep breath. “Now.”

  “Reckon she’s not feeling hospitable since we got two barrels trained on her,” Nubby muttered under his breath.

  In the distraction of being shot at, by a female no less, Trey had forgotten that little detail, and he immediately sheathed his Smith & Wesson.

  “Put your hands up, Nub,” Trey said, his voice low between them. His guard never wavered from the woman. “She’ll feel better for it.”

  The cowboy obeyed and showed her his palms. “Let’s hope.”

  Her glance jumped between them. If she was relieved by thei
r actions, she didn’t show it.

  “Very good,” she said. The end of the rifle jerked. “Now it’s easy for you to ride away. Both of you, go.”

  “We’re not going anywhere.”

  Trey held her black-eyed glance, and an unexpected zing of awareness slid through his blood. Distracting him. Leaving him feeling slightly off-kilter.

  That she managed to have the effect on him rankled when she was a hair-trigger away from shooting him dead.

  “I’m going to ask you again,” he said in a low voice. “Are you hurt?”

  “No.”

  He conceded she didn’t appear to be. “Anyone else out here with you?”

  For a fraction, the barest of fractions, her gaze wavered. “No.”

  “You’re alone?”

  “Yes.”

  Beside him, Nubby grunted his surprise. Trey admitted skepticism and a growing conviction her quick, curt responses were lies. For all his time living on the Montana range, he’d never heard of a woman herding a flock of sheep on her own.

  He would have.

  “Who did this to you?” he demanded. “To your sheep?”

  This time, her chin hardened, and her eyes flashed with hate. “I don’t know.”

  But she did know. Something. And he’d had enough of her game. He straightened, swung a leg over the cantle and dropped to the ground.

  Introducing themselves would be the first step in getting her to trust them. He intended to peel away her lies to find the truth underneath of what really happened to her sheep.

  He crooked a thumb toward Nubby. “This is Nubby Thomas. He works for me over at the Wells Cattle Company.”

  Her breath hitched. The Henry sagged a few inches.

  “And my name is Trey Wells,” he said.

  She paled. Swayed. “You are…him?”

  He nodded. Once. Considering she had a bad case of trigger itch, he kept close watch on her rifle. “I am.”

  Her lip curled. “Damn you.”

  Then, before he could even think it, she snarled, jerked the gun back up to her shoulder and fired.

  She should have killed the bastard.

  But something compelled Zurina to save his worthless life and give him a scare he wouldn’t forget. She aimed the bullet close.