Tin-Stars and Troublemakers Box Set (Four Complete Historical Western Romance Novels in One)

by Rice, Patricia

  "Jack's inquiring at the neighboring ranches. I'm going back out to take another look. I think I know the direction he took. It might be easier to hear him at night."

  "I'll go with you." Lily moved to set the sleepy child down, but Cade crossed the room and caught her shoulder, pinning her to the chair.

  "No. The men have to get some rest if they're to go back out tomorrow. You need to be here in case Jack comes back with some word." He didn't state the usual nonsense about her getting some rest. If the child wasn't found, Cade was quite certain she would never rest again. There was that much pain in her eyes. She had already lost her husband. The fates couldn't be so unkind as to take her only child.

  Cade squeezed her shoulder and Lily stayed where she was. "I'll put Serena to bed in here tonight so you won't wake her when you come back," was her only reply to his gesture.

  Ephraim stepped out of the shadows, for once without a whiskey bottle in his hands. "If you tell me what to do, I'll go with you. You've been out long enough as it is."

  Cade looked at the older man and tried not to see himself in the bloodshot eyes and shaking hands. He hungered for a drink right now. He had planned on taking a bottle with him. The caricature of a man standing before him put an end to that intention. The liquor would fortify him through the night chill, expunge the pain that seeped from Lily to him, but it wouldn't find Roy.

  He shook his head at Ephraim. "The way is treacherous in day. Lily needs you here."

  He turned and walked out, leaving father and daughter to deal with one another.

  "He called you Lily." Ephraim said accusingly.

  "I call him Cade." Lily rose, carrying the child, and headed for the dogtrot that led to her bedroom.

  There wasn't any point in arguing. As Lily walked out, Ephraim went in search of a bottle.

  * * *

  It was late when Cade rode into his father's camp. He'd had longer days, but emotion had a way of draining every ounce of strength until there was nothing left. Somewhere out there was a terrified little boy, lost, possibly injured, and he couldn't find him. Cade wanted to rage at the world. Instead, he sought his father.

  The older man looked at him with sadness when Cade stated his request. "Had you stayed with us, you would know our ways for yourself."

  "You have taught me much, Father, and I am grateful, but even the greatest warriors would have difficulty tracking a little boy without knowing his direction."

  "The buzzards began to gather at sunset. You should have watched for them," he admonished.

  Cade closed his eyes and let that information sink in like an arrow to his heart. He had not looked for the buzzards because he refused to consider that possibility. Emotion was blinding him. He was going to have to find some way of putting Lily and her son in the proper perspective.

  Forcing his fear and anguish back into the box where he kept his feelings hidden, Cade made himself ask, "Where?"

  "The wash. I will send your brothers with you. You may need their help."

  The wash was a treacherous gully carved out by the river and the spring floods. It was sheer bluff, and the sides crumbled at the slightest touch. If anyone could climb in and out of such a place, it would be his younger brothers. Cade didn't argue his father's decision.

  The seventeen-year-old and fourteen-year-old who responded with alacrity to their father's call eyed Cade with suspicion, but promptly gathered their ropes and horses when the orders were given. Sons of the Waco wife Cade's father had taken after Cade's mother ran away, they were full-blooded Apache and had never known any life but this one. Cade knew who they were, but he knew little more than that.

  The search took the rest of the night, and the sun was rising over the horizon before they hauled the unconscious child from the creek bed. Cade had to shoot Roy's suffering mount, but Roy was unaware of even that.

  The two youngsters helped Cade rig a travois to carry Roy, strapping his broken leg to prevent further damage and wrapping him in blankets from their horses. When Cade offered to have them accompany him so they could be appropriately thanked for their rescue, they refused. He watched his half brothers ride off toward their camp, realizing that he could have been just like them had his mother not "rescued" him by returning to San Antonio.

  Lily was out of the door and running toward Cade even though he was barely in sight of the ranch. Her cries brought men stumbling from the bunkhouse into the dawn, still pulling on their pants and wiping their eyes.

  Weeping openly, Lily fell down beside the travois to be certain Roy was alive and to test his head for fever. Then she walked slowly beside him, holding his hand, as Cade dragged the litter toward the house.

  There wasn't anything resembling a doctor within fifty miles, and Roy's leg had already waited too long for there to be time to send for one. After placing Roy in a bed in the main cabin and treating his other wounds, Lily clenched her teeth in contemplation of the broken bone.

  So exhausted he could barely stand while she performed these tasks, Cade still managed to push Lily aside when he read her intent. He met her gaze without speaking, then placed his hands on the child's leg. Cade clenched his teeth and twisted the broken bone into place.

  The boy's anguished screams wrenched something in his soul, and he stared down at his large hands on the boy's small leg with horror. With the child's cries echoing in his ears, Cade held his hands out before him with despair at the pain they inflicted so easily.

  Roy's screams were the first sound the boy had uttered since he had been found. Reacting differently to them than Cade did, Lily gulped back her tears and shoved the shattered Cade back to his chair. She began wrapping Roy's leg between two boards. This was something she had learned to do as a sixteen-year-old bride, and she'd used it more than once since then. Life on the frontier taught a person many things.

  Ephraim handed Cade a bottle of whiskey as he collapsed in the chair after the child's cry died. Cade took a sip, felt it burn all the way to his gullet, then silently returned it to the man. He'd had to do hard things in his life, and he ranked handing that bottle back right up there as one of them, right next to listening to Roy's scream. The pain of that sound twisted around his heart.

  Lily didn't even notice. Finishing the bandage and making certain that her son was sleeping, she led the way outside before asking questions.

  Cade held up his hand to silence her before she could even get started. "I'm going to get some rest. I'll explain later, but you had better be thinking of some way to thank those Indians that your friend Ollie wants to kill."

  He stalked off, leaving Lily choking on her gratitude.

  * * *

  Once inside his cabin and safe from accusing eyes, Cade reached for the bottle of whiskey on the shelf. He would drown these emotions scalding his insides and never be battered by them again. Sipping the liquor, he closed his eyes and let the liquid relief pour through him. When he was back to normal he would have to take the matter of one Lily Porter Brown back into consideration. He had been blinded too long by blue eyes and blond hair. She was a woman like any other, a means to an end. That was all that mattered. The whiskey sliding down his throat concurred.

  Unaware of Cade's turmoil, Lily merely sat at her son's side, offering grateful prayers and waiting for him to wake up. Juanita took Serena, and her father reassured the hands and gave them a day to rest. Lily wiped Roy's brow and nearly cried with joy when he woke later that day and declared he was starving.

  He didn't make an easy patient, but when she was sure that he had recovered from the blow to his head and that his stomach was full and he was on the road to recovery, she gave him a small amount of laudanum to ease the pain, and he drifted off to sleep again.

  It was dark before Lily took the time to go to her room and rest. Cade hadn't returned to the house, so she assumed he was still sleeping. Remembering the look of raw pain in his eyes after Roy's scream, Lily hugged herself and stared out at the stars. Cade was an odd man. He kept too much to himself. B
ut she had seen how much he cared for her son.

  Undressing and climbing into bed, she kept that thought close to her heart. She didn't know why it should matter that Cade cared for Roy, but it gave her comfort. Perhaps being unable to share emotions caused loneliness, and she felt a little less alone knowing Cade cared. It was foolish, perhaps, but she needed whatever comfort she could find this night.

  Lily slept soundly, completely drained by the activities of the last two days. When she woke, it was to a gloriously sunny morning and the sound of her father and her son arguing, their voices carrying through the open door to the dogtrot. She couldn't distinguish the words, but they sounded more like banter than anger, so she didn't hurry.

  They looked up guiltily at her entrance, but Roy waved a biscuit and gestured at his leg. "Granddad says a broken leg will make me grow taller."

  "Why, of course." She stooped to kiss his hair. "Did you think you would stay the same size forever?"

  "I mean taller. Like Cade. He's just fibbing, isn't he?"

  "Well, I suggest we wait until you grow up and see. Does it hurt very much? Shall I give you something to make it hurt less?"

  Roy made a face. "It tastes nasty."

  Ephraim nodded toward the door, indicating he needed to speak with her. Lily made a few more cursory comments and left her son finishing off some of Juanita's peach jam on another biscuit.

  Outside the cabin she confronted her father quizzically. "Is there something wrong?"

  "Jack was at the door earlier. Seems Cade is a bit under the weather. I didn't know what to tell the men to do, so I just sent them out to do whatever they thought best. Will that be enough?"

  Under the weather. She knew what that term meant. Giving her father a furious glance, Lily stalked toward the barn. Under the weather. Damn. If she didn't have time to get drunk, he had his damned nerve doing it.

  She would deal with Cade later. Grabbing the first horse she came to, she saddled it and set out after the men. Two days of holiday were more than she could afford.

  Chapter 12

  With the agenda of the day's work settled, Lily rode back to the ranch to settle a larger problem. She couldn't have a foreman who drank. That was all there was to it. It was a bad influence on the men, and she had a personal abhorrence of it. She had watched her father deteriorate into a helpless old man; she wasn't about to watch Cade.

  Perhaps he had good reason for seeking solace in a bottle. He must have been exhausted physically, and perhaps emotionally. She hadn't seen him drunk since the day she hired him, so she couldn't really say they had a problem. Yet.

  She wanted to excuse him. He had saved Roy's life. That should be sufficient reason to excuse his behavior just this one time. She was certain Cade thought so. That was the way men thought: "If I'm good today, I'm entitled to indulge myself tonight." She had plenty of experience in that kind of thinking.

  But it wouldn't do. It just wouldn't do. Perhaps if she explained it reasonably to him, Cade would understand. She wouldn't get angry. She would be calm and unemotional and perfectly rational. He could get drunk on his own time, but not on hers.

  To her surprise, Cade was already up and saddling his mount when she returned to the yard. He looked like hell, but he was functioning. He was moving slowly as if he ached all over, and his eyes were fixed and grim as he watched her, but he had managed to shave and push his wet hair out of his face. Even looking like hell he made a striking picture of masculinity in his tight denims and straining shirt sleeves.

  "I've given the men their orders. We need to talk, Cade." Lily rode up beside him keeping her gaze fixed on his impassive face.

  "We're going back to thank the people who saved Roy's life," he said. "Take my horse and let me wipe that one down. It should make an appropriate gift." Cade caught her horse's reins but made no attempt to assist Lily in descending.

  Lily opened her mouth to protest, thought better of it, and did as told. She wouldn't have any idea how to go about finding and thanking the Indians who had saved Roy. Cade did. Perhaps she could read him a lecture on the way.

  Later, sitting up on the great gelding that was Cade's, Lily had to wonder what in hell she was doing. She looked back to find Cade riding out of the barn on one of her wilder mounts. The mustang had a vicious temper and no one ever wanted to ride him. If that was the only horse left in the corral, she supposed Cade was doing her a favor by loaning her his horse, but she was skeptical.

  Throwing another look to the empty paddock and the barn behind it, she couldn't immediately see another animal available for her to ride. Losing Roy's horse might be leaving them short. If so, the two he tied behind them as gifts would empty the corral.

  As they set out in the direction of the low-lying pine ridge where Ollie had indicated that the Indians lived, Lily attempted to strike up a conversation.

  "I haven't thanked you yet for saving Roy's life. Will you tell me now how you did it?"

  "I had help."

  Cade's expression was tight and closed as he kicked his horse into a lead position, making it difficult to talk to his back.

  Not to be outdone, Lily caught up with him. There was an entire plain to spread out across. There was no reason she should eat his dust. "Some people have difficulty accepting gratitude. That's understandable, but there's no reason to be rude. If this is what drinking does to you, you ought to give it up."

  Cade gave her a look that could have turned water into stone, but growing angry now, Lily ignored it. "I am not some dumb squaw satisfied with riding behind you and chewing your food for you, so quit treating me like one. You're the one behaving like an ass."

  She was doing it again. She was crawling down his collar and the back of his shirt and getting under his skin. Nobody else ever got close enough to disturb his equilibrium. Only Lily had the unmitigated gall to assume they were equals.

  "I'm not in a mood for talking." Considering what he intended to do with this day, he shouldn't get her dander up too high, but Cade wasn't going to let her work on his, either.

  "Well, fine, then don't."

  With a haughty sniff, the very proper Widow Brown sent her horse—Cade's horse—into a canter, its tail swinging arrogantly, and rode ahead. Both tails swinging arrogantly, Cade mused as he watched her hips sway. It gave him a proper respect for this day's outcome.

  Lily had missed breakfast and the noon meal, and her stomach was growling as they covered the distance to the woods. If Cade had ridden all this way the other night, it was no wonder he had been exhausted. Just as she was about to protest her hunger, Cade rode up beside her and handed her a sandwich from his saddlebag and a gourd of water. Lily gave him a sour look but didn't refuse the offering.

  As they drew closer to the woods, she fought her apprehension. Like any other traveler through frontier country, she had heard all the tales of the savages who hid like ghosts in the grass and trees and leapt out with violent war cries as soon as their prey showed any vulnerability. She knew of families who had been burned out of their homes and unsuspecting strangers who had been caught on the road by Indians on the warpath.

  She had a cautious respect for such violence, but if Cade said these were nonviolent Indians, she would take his word for it. Of course, he hadn't exactly said they were nonviolent, but she had to assume she was safe as long as she was with him. And they had saved Roy's life. That wasn't the sign of a savage. She really wanted to meet these people she had heard of all her life and never seen, except in people like Cade.

  She sent her foreman a surreptitious look. If he was any example of what an Indian was like, she really ought to be frightened. Give him a little war paint, a quiver, and a knife sticking out of his belt and she might be tempted to turn around and run.

  Lily reluctantly fell behind as they traversed a narrow path through the thick belt of forest. The late October sun was already sinking behind the trees, and she glanced uneasily at the lengthening shadows. If she had known the ride would take this long, she would have insis
ted that they wait until morning. She didn't like the idea of being out here after dark.

  But Cade seemed unconcerned as they rode their way up the river and through an intricate meandering of paths toward his goal. When they finally came upon the valley where the Indians were camped, the sun was gone, and Lily could smell the smoke of cookfires wafting up from below.

  As they rode into camp, people eased out of their huts to see. Wary eyes watched from all directions, and Lily grew self-conscious under their inspection. She stopped when Cade stopped, and she didn't flinch when an older woman came up to touch her mount and say, "Cade's."

  Cade swung down and spoke sharply to the woman in her own tongue. She gave him a look that didn't appear in the least intimidated before walking off. Without permission, Cade captured Lily's waist and swung her down from his horse.

  "My father will see us when he is ready. Follow Dove Woman. She will show you where you may rest and eat."

  He pointed at the woman now waiting patiently outside a large thatched hut.

  The woman didn't smile or speak as she followed Lily inside, but Lily still had the feeling that Dove Woman was suppressing some kind of excitement or amusement. Inside, Lily was the center of attention of several young girls. She studied the beds set along the walls, occasionally separated from others by what appeared to be neatly decorated buffalo hides.

  As the woman stirred the fire in the room's center, Lily asked, "Do you speak English?"

  "Small," was the reply.

  It was better than nothing. "Do you know Cade well?"

  The woman hesitated as if puzzling out the question first, then the answer. Finally, she replied, "Mucho hombre."

  Lily had learned enough of Juanita's Spanish to know what that meant. The difference between English and Spanish apparently hadn't occurred to her hostess. "Mucho hombre," indeed.