Aaron had set out early so he wouldn’t miss Coulter. The sun was just rising. Smoke curled out of the bunkhouse. While the mountain mornings could be chilly, it was still too warm to need a fire, so he figured the cowhands were at breakfast.
Chickens pecked at the ground in front of a shed. A sleek hound rushed out to meet him with a bark that Aaron figured wasn’t a sign of meanness; instead, it alerted those around the place.
As if to prove that, the bunkhouse door cracked open, and an old-timer carrying a rifle showed himself very cautiously. Another very deliberately made himself and his Winchester visible from on top of a bluff that rose up behind the barn. Well-trained men.
For a moment Aaron felt such envy he could barely keep riding forward. It reminded him of his home in Virginia. Laid out neatly, well cared for, comfortable and safe.
All gone.
Coulter came to the front door as Aaron dismounted and hitched his horse. The brown dog snuffled at his boots but showed no signs of biting.
“Come in, Masterson. I’m just sitting down to breakfast. It must be important for you to have set out before sunup.”
“It is.” Aaron followed Coulter to the kitchen.
The man had nice furniture. Someone on the place was a fine carpenter. Coulter got a coffee cup and filled it from a pot on the stove. He set it in front of Aaron, then jabbed at the platter on the table that still held a stack of hash-browned potatoes and scrambled eggs. There were biscuits and a bowl of jelly.
“Help yourself. I’ve got plenty. My foreman usually comes in and eats with me, but he had chores that set him on the trail early. Someone came to the kitchen door and told me after I’d started cooking.”
“Who else is in the house?” Surely he had someone keeping the house clean.
“There’s no one else.”
“Good. I want what we speak of to stay between you and me. I want to ask you some questions, and I’m hoping you’ll answer honestly and not tell anyone else what I say.”
Coulter narrowed his glittering eyes, which turned more silver than gray when he was annoyed. “There’s no one to overhear. And I can keep my mouth shut.”
“You’ve got the reputation of a hard man, Coulter. But no one tells me you’re dishonest.” Aaron spoke harshly to jolt a reaction out of the man. “Someone tried to kill Kylie Wilde yesterday and burn down her cabin. You’re the only man I know who wants her gone.”
Those eyes flashed like bitter lightning. “I’ve never hurt a woman. If you’re planning to go around telling folks that lie, you’d better be prepared to face me with guns blazing.”
Watching every flicker on Coulter’s face, Aaron couldn’t find a thing false. “I’m here talking to you, aren’t I? I’m not shooting off my mouth in town, smearing your name. I haven’t done it, and I won’t.”
Coulter grunted and ran a hand through his shaggy brown hair, a man too busy to get himself a haircut. Some of that anger faded, and he took a long pull on his coffee cup. “Tell me what happened.”
Aaron told him exactly how they’d been bushwhacked.
“Flaming arrows, you say? You’re sure it wasn’t Indians? I haven’t had any trouble with the Shoshone, but I’ve heard of those who have farther west.”
“One of them spoke English.”
“What did he say?”
Aaron told him. “He yelled when I winged him. You got any men unaccounted for yesterday in the afternoon? Or anybody with an unexplained bullet wound?”
“There was no one who showed up hurt last night, not here, but I’ve got crews in line shacks flung wide.”
“You said hard things in front of your men about Miss Wilde. Some might think it’d please you to have her run off.”
A tight smile barely turned Coulter’s mouth upward. “I can’t swear to what any man does when he’s not under my eyes, but I know my men. Most of them have been with me awhile, and this doesn’t sound like a one of them. I’ve got a few newer hands, but they’re men I like. I’ll talk to them. Including the ones in the line shacks, though that will take days. I’ll make it clear to ’em there’s to be no trouble where Miss Wilde is concerned.” Slouching back in his chair, he added, “I’ve thought to solve my problems with that little filly in a friendlier way than running her off.”
It was a good thing Aaron’s hands were clasped on his tin coffee cup. It kept him from making a fist and slamming it into Gage Coulter’s mouth.
Those silver eyes calmed back to gray and glinted with sudden humor. Aaron suspected that his reaction hadn’t gone unnoticed.
“What’s your story, Masterson? You don’t look like the type to run a land office.”
The question seemed honest. Aaron came from a wealthy family back East, but one where everyone worked hard to run the farm. Here sat a man from a huge Texas ranch. Both of them had struck out on their own, probably for very different reasons, yet Aaron saw the similarities between him and Gage.
“The war tore through my home in Virginia. Seems like about half the battles were fought right on top of my family’s land.”
Coulter got up to pour more coffee. “Not much left after a war.”
“My folks died, along with my brothers and sisters. They stayed home where it was safe on our farm in the Shenandoah Valley.” A place he loved. A place he could never return to, not if he wanted to live. “I was in the thick of battle and managed to survive.”
Aaron thought of the Wilde sisters. He was struck by a deep curiosity about what they really went through. He longed to ride straight to Kylie and just sit and talk with her for a long old time.
“My ma had family in the Shenandoah Valley,” Coulter said as he sat the coffeepot back on the stove, then returned to his seat. “She’d visited there as a youngster. She said it was the most beautiful stretch of land on God’s green earth. She’d never seen its like again. Texas is beautiful in its own way, but where we ranched, south of Fort Worth, it was a harsh beauty. And out here, the mountains are an awesome wonder, but life gets hard, especially the winters.”
Coulter eased back in his chair and smiled at the memories. “Ma said Shenandoah was lush and green all the time. The trees were thick, and the water poured cold and clean. She talked about it from time to time, especially in the summer when it was so hot in Texas the chickens could’ve laid boiled eggs.”
Aaron could see it all clearly. “It’s still the richest green you’ve ever seen, and the trees are still there and the flowing water.” That beauty, though, was overlaid with newer, crueler memories. “But my family’s gone, our home and buildings burned. The land’s pockmarked from cannon fire. And because the damage done was at the hands of both the North and South, the neighbors turned against each other. Virginia went with the Confederacy, but my family’s sympathies were with the Union. And that’s who I fought for. We never owned slaves and didn’t hold with it, so the Southern sympathizers hated me for fighting for the Union. The Northern sympathizers hated me for every atrocity they could lay at the feet of the war. There was nothing for me there but hatred. When my former commanding officer asked for my help out here, I saw a chance to start over. Once I’m done with this land rush, I’m heading into the mountains. I’ll stake a claim there in some high mountain valley, where my only neighbors will be bighorn sheep.”
The two men sat in silence for a while, finishing their coffee. Aaron saw that Gage was thinking hard about something.
“Are you staking a claim to Miss Wilde?” The question came suddenly, and Aaron suspected Gage was maybe getting him back for Aaron’s earlier accusation about the attack on Kylie.
Aaron had to fight back the urge to say yes and warn Coulter away from her. But considering the woman wanted no part of him, it was a waste of breath. “She doesn’t like it out here. She wants to live in the city. She’s not interested in hitching herself to anyone who’s not aiming for the same thing.”
Gage’s eyes flashed with annoyance. “Why does she want to do a blamed fool thing like that? Who’d live in
the city when they can own a mountain and run fine cattle?”
Aaron smiled at Gage’s response. “She said something about bonnets and she might’ve mentioned some nonsense about tea parties. ‘Civilization,’ she called it.”
With a snort that’d do a bull justice, Coulter said, “Civilization is overrated. I’d rather wrestle riches out of the soil any day. And my ma grew up with all that fuss and said worrying about dresses and bonnets was for foolish, idle women who went through their whole lives without doing a single important thing.”
“Your ma sounds like a wise woman.”
“She could be.” There was something in Coulter’s tone. Affection for his ma, but something else, too. Something darker. Coulter had left Texas, it was said, because of his pa. Now Aaron wondered if his ma might’ve been part of it, too.
“What are we going to do about the men who attacked her?” Aaron’s instinct was to go to her place and stand guard full time. Not at all proper.
“It can’t go on, not where there are decent men to protect her.” Coulter set his coffee cup down with a loud thunk. “Will she let me send some men over to stand guard?”
“Doubt it. She did talk about hiring hands.”
Frowning into the dregs of his cup, Coulter said, “It ain’t right or decent for a woman to live alone. And having hired hands only makes it worse . . . a single woman with men around her like that.”
“She’s planning to hire a housekeeper. A woman. She thinks that’ll make it all tidy and proper.”
Coulter shook his head. “None of them around. I’ve tried to hire one. I even managed it twice. But they both got married. No single woman stays single out here, not for long anyway, and that’ll probably be true of Miss Wilde.”
“She swears she’ll never marry, not here.”
“We’ll see. Though it won’t be me. I’ve little interest in a woman who doesn’t want the life I can give her.”
Aaron felt exactly the same way. Except he’d held Kylie in his arms, and it wasn’t that hard to catch himself imagining how it would be. What he would say to persuade her to come with him into the mountains. Surely she’d change her mind when what she wanted was so frivolous. Tea parties and bonnets? Good grief.
“How about if she hired a married couple?”
“Not many of those around either, and unless she’s different than a lot of homesteaders, she’s got neither the money to pay them nor the space to house them.”
“For now, she’s staying with her si . . . uh, brother, on his homestead.” Aaron almost stumbled over that sentence, and it irritated him because now he was a liar like the whole Wilde family. “She can’t do that for long and not lose her claim, but it’ll be all right until we get things settled.”
It occurred to Aaron that Kylie, and for sure Bailey Wilde, would be mad as a bee-stung longhorn to learn that two men were planning her future.
“I can send a crew to keep an eye out during the day.”
“Won’t the other men know you’ve taken to posting sentries and wonder what’s going on? We’re hoping if we keep this quiet, the men who attacked will let something slip and we’ll be able to track ’em down. So long as no one knows it but us.”
“You have that in mind and still you told me about it, Masterson?”
“I knew we could either trust you or you already knew because you’d been behind the attack. Either way, there wasn’t much risk in telling you.”
Coulter nodded. “I’ve got a man I can trust who won’t be missed from my work crew. I hire him from time to time when I need someone to scout the high-up hills. Matt Tucker’s his name. I’ll be a few days finding him. He’s a mountain man who comes and goes to suit himself, and he may not want the job. But if he says yes, he’ll be the best lookout we could get. He knows the land around here and he keeps his mouth shut, mainly ’cuz he’s an ornery cuss who don’t like talkin’ to nobody.”
“You’ve got time, because I’m going to do my best to keep Kylie with Bailey for a stretch.” Aaron stood, knowing he had work to do. Kylie was okay at Bailey’s for now. So long as she stayed put, Aaron could do homestead visits and ask some questions at the same time.
And that would give Coulter time to hunt up Tucker.
As soon as he could, he’d head to Bailey’s place. He hadn’t been out there, and he needed to inspect it. But there was no doubt in his mind that Bailey had a cabin up and was fulfilling all the promises she’d made when she’d filed for a homestead—except the one she’d made about serving in the Army . . . as a man.
Aaron started for the door.
“We’ll be talking, Masterson.” Coulter walked out with him. “No one’s gonna harm a woman on my land.”
“It’s not your land, Coulter,” Aaron said as he mounted up. “It’s hers. Try and remember that.”
“We’ll see.” Coulter leaned one shoulder against a post that held up his porch roof. He looked casual, yet his pale eyes remained sharp. “Maybe Miss Wilde will get tired of waiting for her city and her tea parties. Maybe I can help her make that decision right soon.”
As Aaron rode away, it struck him that despite assurances that Gage wouldn’t stand by while someone hurt Kylie, his parting statement sounded a lot like a threat.
12
I am not shearing sheep.” Bailey slid on her leather gloves and glared at her sister at the same time.
Kylie didn’t want to help either, but she left the haggling to Bailey and Shannon. She’d had enough to worry about with getting their breakfast ready that morning.
“It won’t take long,” promised Shannon. “I already sheared most of them in the spring, but Mrs. Langley’s offered to buy more wool, and that will give me money enough to get my milk cow. I warned her that the wool is short still. She didn’t seem to care. The woman sounded desperate for more yarn. Her baby’s coming in September, and she’s got to have most things done by then. She said a little one, plus running the diner and four other children, will leave her little time for knitting.”
“Well, I’ve got a bronc to break.” Bailey stood from the table. “I’ve got to move my young longhorn bull to a different pasture. He’s been fighting with an old bull, and one of ’em isn’t gonna survive. I’ve got hay to cut, a fence to mend, and a creek to dam. And I’m hoping to start building a chicken coop.”
Kylie felt dizzy. “I can’t believe you do all those things. All men’s work.”
Bailey rolled her eyes.
Shannon was undeterred. “I’ll come back with you after the noon meal. I’m not a hand with broncs, but I can cut hay and mend fence. If you give me a half day’s work this morning, I’ll give you a half day this afternoon. But I need the cash money from this wool.”
Bailey let out a sigh. “Fine, Shannon, I’ll come. But I’m holding you to the afternoon’s work. I’ll probably have to burn my clothes and make new.”
“The work’s not that rough,” Shannon said.
“But I’ll stink, and that sheep stink doesn’t come out easily.”
Shannon laughed. She was used to the teasing over her precious sheep. “Thank you. You and Kylie are good help. I know you’re not fond of my sheep, but you handle them well.”
They made short work of cleaning up the breakfast dishes and headed out. As usual, Shannon started saddling a horse for Kylie.
“Let Kylie do that herself,” Bailey told her. “She’s got to learn.”
“I know how to saddle a horse. I’m just slow, and Shannon’s in a hurry.”
Shannon smiled. “You’ll get faster as time passes. A person can’t help learning skills she practices. And I am in a hurry. We’ve got three days’ work to do before sunset. We’re going to have to press hard to get to it all.”
They were leaving Bailey’s place when Aaron rode in. Kylie’s heart sped up. She hadn’t seen him in almost a week. She’d stayed with Bailey like a good girl, yet she was tired of being underfoot at her sister’s, even while she was too scared to go home.
He looked h
andsome and strong, and she knew he was an honest, kind man. He was everything a woman could want in a husband. It was a shame she couldn’t have him. For she wasn’t about to spend her life stuck on some mountaintop, not even with such a decent and protective man. Not even if he saddled her horse for her.
“Morning, ladies,” Aaron said while tipping his hat.
Kylie saw both her sisters tense up. They were used to acting like men. Kylie felt sorry for them. Here she sat on her horse, wearing her skirts with her hair pulled back in a neat bun at the base of her neck, and there they were in britches.
Bailey seemed to like it, but Kylie wondered about Shannon. With her maternal love of animals, how could Shannon not be unhappy passing herself off as a man? It had to go against her most basic motherly nature.
“I don’t want to hear you say anything like that again, Masterson. If you get in the habit, you’ll slip.”
Aaron smirked. “Where are you pretty little ladies off to this morning?”
A move to Kylie’s left drew her attention to Shannon, who had a sweet smile on her face that only someone who knew her really well could tell was not sweet but diabolical.
“Why, we ‘pretty little ladies’ are off to do a really hard job, and we could certainly use some help.”
“I’d be glad to help you, Miss Shannon. What is it you need?”
“I reckon I had this coming,” Aaron said to no one in particular.
The ram bleated and charged. He knew the critter wasn’t up to killing him, but that didn’t mean taking one of those small curved horns in the belly wouldn’t hurt.
Tried and True (Wild at Heart Book #1) Page 10