Hazel of Heber Valley (Rocky Mountain Romances Book 5)

by Annette Lyon

  Willie managed to straighten to his full height, a sight that sent chills racing from Hazel’s scalp to her toes and back again.

  “You’re gonna pay, missy,” he snarled, stepping closer.

  She was barely more than an arm’s length away. Too close. Hazel took one more step backward, off the object, then reached down for it with both hands, praying that it was a piece of metal she could use as a weapon, and that it wouldn’t be stuck in the ground or too heavy for her wield. She produced a three-foot metal rod. She looked back up at Willie, who hadn’t noticed it, and likely thought that her bending down was a result of losing her balance.

  Glaring at her, Willie shook his head. “You’d better not put up a fight, or this is gonna get messy. We can do it the easy way—”

  Hazel gripped the metal rod at one end with both hands, suddenly remembering what a baseball bat felt like years ago. She glanced at the rod, then at Willie. With all her might, she swung just as she used to at baseballs, aiming for Willie’s neck — his Adam’s apple. The rod made contact so hard that he stumbled, fell to his knees, and dropped like a stone, face first, onto the ground.

  Hazel couldn’t believe her eyes. Was he pretending, or had she knocked him unconscious? Had she killed him? She watched his chest for just long enough to assure herself that he was still breathing, but kept hold of the rod, clutched in both hands. At any moment, he could get back up, grab her by the feet, and drag her to the ground.

  She would not allow that to happen.

  Prepared to hit another home run if necessary, she took one step backward at a time, watching for any sign of movement from his still form as she increased the distance between them. When she reached the street, she hid the rod in an irrigation ditch, where it was too dark and deep for anyone to find it until morning.

  With all her might, she turned the corner and ran down Main Street toward the center of town, needing to get as far from Willie Cochran as possible.

  I should find Sheriff Thompson, she thought, her lungs protesting the effort. But I need Nathan. I need him now.

  On she ran, focusing on the town square, where she’d be safe. Any time a thought intruded about why she was running, about what had happened — and worst of all, what had almost happened — she pressed herself to go faster.

  Ahead, a male figure materialized. Hazel inhaled sharply and tried to change direction, dodge between houses and get away. Her momentum made her boots skid on gravelly street. In a moment that lasted an instant but felt eternal, she lost her balance and fell, skidding across the street and scraping her arms. She landed on her side. Her forearms were surely a mess — they stung something fierce, as did one knee. Her dress probably had holes and stains that couldn’t be fixed. She didn’t care.

  The figure drew closer. Hazel scrambled to get back up. She had to get to the town square. Get help. Get away from that man. How had Willie gotten in front of her? It didn’t matter how; she just had to run.

  “Hazel!” the man called.

  Not Willie.

  Her heart leapt. “Nathan?” she said quietly, hardly daring to hope. The surge of adrenaline had passed and left her shaky and weak. Her legs trembled beneath her, threatening to collapse. She lowered herself to the ground, dropping to the street with a cry.

  “Hazel!” Nathan’s footsteps quickened. “Oh my goodness, what happened?”

  She couldn’t answer, only breathe, sucking in gasps of air from running almost as intensely as she had after Willie had choked her. Nathan dropped to his knees and took her into his arms. She practically clawed her way into his embrace, needing to feel his arms around her — safe arms, comforting arms. Arms that would never demand or control.

  “How did you know?” Her voice came out so weak that she wasn’t sure he’d hear her.

  “I didn’t.” Nathan’s voice sounded husky with emotion. “That’s why I was mad with worry. After what happened this afternoon, I had to be sure he didn’t try to do anything tonight. I didn’t trust him any farther than—” His voice caught. “Oh, Hazel, what did he do?”

  “Nothing.” She shook her head. “He did nothing.”

  “Hazel.” Nathan held her tight as if he knew she needed him.

  She wrapped her arms around his waist and listened to his heartbeat. Never had anything sounded so wonderful. He didn’t press for details, didn’t insist she speak. They sat on the road with the band playing in the distance. Hazel didn’t know for how long. At length, when she’d caught her breath and didn’t feel so weak, she attempted to explain.

  “He ... tried to do something,” she said carefully, not wanting to show how terrified she’d been, not wanting him to worry. “But he didn’t succeed.”

  “He?” Nathan tensed.

  “He didn’t succeed,” she repeated.

  “Where is he now?”

  She could feel the muscles in his arms and chest tighten as if he wanted to go find Wyatt and finish the fight they’d started earlier. Nathan looked about for her attacker. She put a hand to his cheek; at her touch, he looked down.

  “Where is he?” he asked again, only this time, he sounded more confused than angry.

  “He’s around the corner, lying unconscious in the Johnsons’ yard.” She’d likely have to give a longer explanation another time, perhaps even tomorrow when the bruising became visible on her face and neck. Nathan would want to know how they’d gotten there. But for the moment, the most important part had been spoken: she’d escaped something horrible. The man she’d known as Wyatt had tried to overcome her but failed. Hazel sighed and leaned against Nathan’s chest again. “Is Sheriff Thompson in the square? We should fetch him before Willie wakes up.”

  Nathan leaned back slightly. “Who?”

  “Willie Cochran. You were right. I should have listened to you. I saw the birthmark right before I knocked him out.”

  “Right before you...” His mouth hung open slightly in surprise.

  She lifted one shoulder and let it fall again. “Turns out he underestimated how well a girl can swing.”

  “You are one amazing woman, Hazel Adams.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Nathan could hardly believe how differently Pioneer Day had turned out from what he’d expected. He’d thought he would be doomed to have another miserable holiday, but here he was watching fireworks with Hazel in his arms. Her knees were tucked up and her feet to one side. She leaned back against him, and he encircled her waist.

  An hour ago, he’d been driven to distraction from worry, searching for her all over the town square. He was convinced that Coltrane — rather, Cochran — would try to assault her a second time. He wished he’d been wrong, that Hazel hadn’t endured something so awful. He pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. At least justice would be served, and she was safe from the likes of Cochran.

  From a block away, they could hear Sheriff Thompson’s wagon moving out. He’d arrested Cochran and called up three of his deputies to come along as guards to escort the prisoner to Heber City. Between fireworks, they heard Cochran — bound but not gagged — yelling and cursing, as angry as a hornet.

  “Wasn’t there some reward money for his capture?” Hazel asked.

  “Yep. Two hundred dollars, and it’s all yours.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I made sure Sheriff Thompson knew that you were the one who found the birthmark and incapacitated him.”

  “I suppose.” Hazel sounded thoughtful. Her thumb stroked his arm offhandedly, a gentle touch that felt like a slice of heaven. “But I wouldn’t have known what that birthmark meant or who he really was if it hadn’t been for the article. You were the one who found the sketch in the paper and realized it was him. You ... you even warned me, but I didn’t listen.”

  “What matters is that he’s locked up now,” Nathan said. Good thing the man would be behind bars, too — Nathan couldn’t have promised that if he ever met Cochran again, that he’d live to see another day. “But if you’d like, we can share the reward m
oney.”

  He’d forgotten precisely how good Hazel’s hair smelled. How perfectly she fit into his embrace. How right it felt to have her there. We could share much more than reward money, he thought. And hoped they would, someday. Trying not to hope was a useless effort, of course; he couldn’t help but open himself up to loving her fully once more, which meant that she could reject him again.

  “Nathan?” she said thoughtfully.

  “Hmm?”

  “You were right.”

  He smiled to himself and kissed the crown of her head again. “You already said that.”

  “No, I mean you were right about me.” She sat up, so he opened his arms. As she turned around, he tried not to hold his breath, but it was hard; he felt as if he stood on the edge of a cliff, ready to jump — or be pushed off.

  She took his hands in hers and ran her thumbs up and down his skin. “You were right about everything you said about me. I was afraid. Before.”

  The flicker of hope grew, but he consciously contained it. She could be referring to her last encounter with Cochran. “Before?” he echoed.

  She nodded. A firework boomed behind her, and she looked over her shoulder at it. “Last time we watched these together. I was afraid.” Hazel study their hands, still stroking his with her thumbs. “I could not bear the idea of losing you.”

  “But you ran away.” The statement was more of a question, something she understood.

  “I was afraid of change, and I thought — foolishly thought — that if we could go back to being friends, then nothing would have to change. But if I stayed...” Her voice trailed off.

  Nathan could sense that she needed a moment, so he waited without interrupting and stroked the back of her hands as she had done to his moments before.

  “I wanted to stay.” Hazel’s voice cracked. “I wanted to so much, and that scared me, because in one moment, everything had already changed. I panicked. I ran...” She lifted her face to the sky to gather her emotions, and moonlight glinted off her tears. “And I was so wrong. I am so sorry for hurting you. You’ll never know how sorry.” She sobbed and covered her face with one hand.

  “Hey, it’s all right,” Nathan said, pulling her close. “There’s nothing to forgive.”

  “To think that I was so easily fooled in one day by a total stranger...”

  “He fooled the whole town.”

  “Not you.”

  He stroked her back and chuckled. “I’m pretty sure I would have hated any man who caught your eye no matter who he was.”

  “It’s almost too much to think of what almost happened,” she went on. “And the worst part is that two years ago, I threw away my chance to be with someone good. Someone wonderful. Someone kind and ... someone...” She pulled back to sit up straight again. Her posture seemed to say that she was readying herself to do something difficult.

  Despite himself, he held his breath again.

  “I threw a way the chance to be with someone I love.”

  Nathan started breathing again. “I love you too, Hazel.” He said it as a friend or a brother might. That was surely how she meant it.

  “No,” Hazel said with a firm shake of her head.

  Dread began to pool in his middle again. “What do you mean?”

  “I love you,” she repeated. “I am in love with you. I was a fool to deny it for so long.”

  The flicker of hope roared into a blazing hot bonfire.

  “Nathan, ever since you kissed me under the fireworks, I’ve wanted to k—”

  He completed the thought by pressing his lips to hers. Their lips parted, and for a moment he worried that she hadn’t been about to say what he’d assumed, that he’d forced himself on her in a way that resembled Cochran’s behavior. But she reached behind his head and pulled his face back to hers. She smiled widely before kissing him quite thoroughly. More fireworks burst all around them, befitting the moment. When they parted again, they pressed their foreheads together.

  “Know when I first knew I loved you?” he asked.

  “When?”

  “That day you fell in the mud puddle in Owen’s field.”

  “You’re teasing me. I was a mess — totally covered, head to toe, and—”

  “And you laughed. You were beautiful even when I couldn’t see your face. Your heart and mind and everything about you — all of it is beautiful. Of course, the fact that you’re beautiful of face is a nice treat, of course.”

  She laughed again, which made him feel powerful. If he could make her laugh, he must have some kind of magic.

  “I knew we could grow old together and be happy no matter how ugly I grew with the years,” he told her.

  “Oh, you wouldn’t spoil like milk,” she said with teasing voice.

  “Are you suggesting I might become some kind of expensive cheese instead?”

  “Maybe.” She kissed him briefly. “You certainly taste much better than sour milk.”

  “Shocking,” Nathan said like some uptight minister.

  “What is so shocking?”

  “You just kissed me.”

  “That was the second time,” she pointed out.

  “I guess I lost track.”

  She did kiss him again, and that time it lasted much longer. “I’ll do it again and again, no matter how shocking it is.”

  “I should have known you’d continue your shocking, unladylike behavior. First you knock out an outlaw, and now this.”

  Hazel settled into his embrace with her back to him again. “Oh, that’s not shocking at all.” She waved one hand as if brushing off the idea. “Now there’s my cousin Stella. She was rather shocking. I could always follow her example.”

  “Do I know her?”

  He felt her shake her head. “I’ve never met her or her family. I think she might be a second or third cousin, come to think of it. I forget.”

  “And what did she do that was so shocking?”

  “She dressed like a man,” Hazel said with a tone that suggested utter horror. “And then she ran away with a boxer. I think she ended up in New Mexico.”

  “I wonder if they shared clothes,” Nathan mused. “Maybe that’s why she did it — to cut down on clothing costs.”

  Hazel laughed. “Can you honestly say you wouldn’t be shocked to see a young woman run off, in men’s clothes, with a pugilist? A relation of mine, no less?”

  “You’ll have to try harder to shock me, I’m afraid.” He’d missed this light and easy banter, and now that it had returned, he could enjoy it all day like a tall glass of lemonade, only better.

  “You are incorrigible, Nathan Siddoway.”

  He leaned forward and nuzzled her ear. “Does that mean hopelessly romantic?”

  “I know what I could do that would shock you.”

  Nathan kissed her hairline, and she leaned into his touch. “Oh?” he murmured. “Are you sure it’s more shocking than Cousin Stella’s trousers?” He kissed her temple and brushed her hair back over her shoulder so he could see her profile. She turned her head to look at him over her shoulder, and her smile made his universe light up. He was deliriously happy and hardly able to believe that this was really happening. That he had Hazel in his arms. That she loved him.

  “How about a proposal?” Hazel asked.

  He’d entirely lost the thread of conversation. “To do what?”

  “Nathan, will you marry me?”

  His mouth opened, closed, and opened again. He must have looked like a mute.

  “Shocking enough?” she asked.

  He nodded, still unable to speak.

  “I’m in earnest.” Hazel ran her fingers through his hair. “I’ll do my best to not be so stubborn, and to listen to you when you give advice because it turns out that you’re pretty smart, and you know me well.”

  She did mean it. His heart soared. She kissed his softly and asked again, “Nathan, may I be your wife?”

  “Only if I can be your husband.”

  “I believe that can be arranged,” s
he said dryly, but with a glint of humor in her eyes.

  Rocky Mountain Romances

  Other Titles in the Series

  About the Author

  Annette Lyon is a USA Today bestselling author, a 5-time Best of State medalist for novels and short stories in Utah, and a Whitney Award winner. She’s had success as a professional editor and in newspaper, magazine, and technical writing, but her first love has always been writing fiction. She’s a cum laude graduate from BYU with a degree in English and is the author of over a dozen books, including the Whitney Award-winning Band of Sisters, a chocolate cookbook, and a grammar guide. She is a regular contributor to and the former editor of the Timeless Romance Anthology series. She has received five publication awards from the League of Utah Writers, including the Silver Quill, and she’s one of the four coauthors of the Newport Ladies Book Club series. Annette is represented by Heather Karpas at ICM Partners.

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  Preview of New Mexico Enchantment

  by Savanna Sage

  Chapter 1

  1895—Hugoton, Kansas

  Dusk was late to hang out the wash, too late, really, but nineteen-year-old Stella Brasher had more important things on her mind. Drying laundry overnight seemed a small breach of etiquette compared with trying to keep her father from dying. On top of that, if she’d known about the ogre, she would have arranged her evening differently.