Teresa Bodwell

by Loving Miranda

  The same coals that kept the branding irons red hot also served to fry up their special delicacy. As far back as Miranda could recall, roundup was the only time that Buck took charge of cooking. He used a big iron skillet over the coals to cook up the prairie oysters for the men.

  Miranda had come along to do the real cooking, but she stayed away from this special ritual. She didn’t want to watch; but more important, the men preferred for the women to stay away. Even Mercy had always managed to find something else to occupy herself with when Buck took out his skillet.

  “O’Neill, you take the first one,” Buck shouted as he stabbed a fork into a hot piece of meat.

  Miranda glanced over at the cowboys. O’Neill had just turned sixteen, and the men had been teasing him all week about his lack of experience with the ladies. They all swore they would provide him with the cure. Once he’d eaten the magical prairie oyster, women would line up to be with him.

  Miranda retreated about fifty yards away to the cook wagon, where she had the makings of a real supper. A hearty beef stew, corn bread, and apple cobbler. For some reason, eating a bull’s private parts never seemed to diminish the cowboys’ appetites. Miranda reckoned their increased manliness simply required more food. She chuckled at the thought.

  What they did with the added masculinity they thought they’d acquired was another matter. Manliness. She’d had enough experience with it to be wary. Some men worked to prove their masculinity, for others it came naturally. A pair of broad shoulders on a lean body shoved into her mind. No question about it—Benjamin Lansing was all man. He didn’t need any special food, or a magical elixir. If his kiss told the half of it, he could please a woman in the way Mercy had described—a shooting star ride. Hell, flying through the sky was pure fantasy— the thrill of Ben’s kisses was very real. Miranda could only imagine what it would be like to have all of him. If he hadn’t found her repulsive, she might well know for certain.

  It was for the best he’d rejected her. She’d given herself to two men. To Harold Pearson, she’d given her heart. He’d left her for another woman. Still reeling from Harold’s rejection, she’d given her body to Lawrence Frimm. Their coupling had always felt awkward to her. She’d tried so damn hard to please him but had never quite managed it. And he’d found ways to punish her for her failings. If she hadn’t felt obligated to marry him, she’d have left him the first time he hit her.

  Her past failures with men should have been enough to warn her away from conjuring up ideas about her and Ben. Even if he’d wanted her, he was leaving Fort Victory as soon as he concluded his business. And then where would she be? Good sense aside, there was something arousing about the idea of a man’s strength directed at pleasing her rather than hurting her.

  She thought back to Ben’s kisses. His probing touch, the strength of his long, solid body against hers, and something else—the warm and inviting way he held her. Tenderness. That was it. A gentle touch that told her all that strength was under control.

  Restraint and power was a potent combination. Even the thought of Ben made her knees go weak. When he’d kissed her in the barn, she’d have landed on her seat if he hadn’t been there holding her up. Despite all her misgivings, she’d wanted more. Had hoped for more. Hell, she’d gone into town and thrown herself into his arms. A sure sign she’d lost her mind entirely.

  She turned back to the men. They’d finished their snack and were back to work. It was time to get the stew started. She pulled out a board and commenced chopping the carrots. Miranda could work the cattle as well as any of the men out there, but she could cook a far sight better than any of the cowboys. She’d had one helluva year away, when all was said and done. But one good thing had come of it. Everyone was glad to have her back in charge of the kitchen. It was mighty nice to be appreciated.

  She glanced back over to the men. A movement coming out of the hills to the west caught her eye—horsemen riding like the devil was chasing them. She called out to Buck, but Thad and Buck were already positioning themselves between the cattle and the approaching horsemen.

  Miranda climbed into the wagon and grabbed the old Sharps rifle a heartbeat before the shooting started. Rustlers! Only they weren’t going after the unbranded cattle. What the hell were they trying to do?

  Another pair of riders came thundering toward Miranda from the south. She turned, aimed, and fired.

  Ben stopped to get his bearings. Mercy had told him it would take around an hour riding directly southwest from the house before he came to the herd. He pulled his watch from his vest pocket and verified that he’d been riding nearly an hour.

  With the sun almost directly overhead, he might have lost his direction, though Mercy had told him to use the C mountain as a landmark. He looked at the mountains ahead and found the peak she’d pointed out to him. It looked almost as if someone had chiseled a C shape out of one side just below the peak.

  He continued riding toward the mountain until he came to a stand of cottonwoods. He thought about going around when the sound of gunfire drew his attention. He rode into the trees, ducking his head to avoid the branches. The full array of autumn-colored leaves offered plenty of cover. Ben drew his pistol and bent low over his horse’s neck, moving toward the popping sounds. It might be prudent to leave the area, but not until he could be certain he was avoiding trouble, rather than riding into it.

  His heart raced as the cacophony of bellowing cows, shouting men, and more gunfire reached his ears. From the relative safety of the trees, he watched across the meadow as a group of riders stormed down the hill toward Thad Buchanan and his men. Before he could decide whether to assist Buchanan, a mass of wild blond hair drew his attention to his right.

  Miranda knelt in a wagon bed, aiming a rifle toward the oncoming horsemen. She wisely held her fire; the attackers were within range, but it would be difficult to distinguish friend from foe in the confusion. Suddenly, another pair of men came charging at Miranda from Ben’s left. Before Ben cleared the trees, Miranda fired off two rounds. She missed the riders, but at least she caused them to veer away from her.

  “Good girl,” Ben mumbled as he urged Lightning forward, intent on giving chase. As he burst into the open, another rider emerged from the trees to his right. The man raised his gun, aiming in Miranda’s direction.

  “Miranda, get down!” a man shouted from behind her.

  A bullet splintered the side of the wagon inches from her head as Miranda dropped flat. Her racing heartbeat stopped for an instant before galloping on. She scrambled to reload the Sharps with shaking fingers as gunfire exploded around her.

  Miranda gripped her weapon and peered above the side of wagon. A riderless horse galloped past her. A few yards away, a lifeless body was sprawled on the ground with a familiar figure leaning over him. Ben?

  Men’s voices carried over the bellowing of the frightened cows. She sucked in a breath as a tall man in a fine dark suit approached the wagon.

  “Miranda?” Ben called. “Are you hurt?”

  She let the rifle slip out of her sweaty hands and stared at Ben’s face. He leaped up and knelt at her side, concern lining his brow. Miranda reminded herself to breathe.

  “I’m all right.” She rose to her knees, looking around at the men trying to calm the cows and horses. “When did you . . . how . . . ?” She looked at the body on the ground and back up at Ben. Her stomach lurched.

  Ben turned away from her toward the body. “He was one of O’Reilly’s men.”

  “Is he . . . ?”

  Ben wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her against his chest. “I had to shoot him. He had a gun aimed at your back.”

  Her eyes squeezed shut and in her mind’s eye she saw men galloping toward her, firing guns, and a deep voice shouting for her to get down. “It was you who warned me?” She looked up at him.

  He nodded and took her hand in his. “You’re cold.”

  “Miranda!” Thad called to her.

  She jerked her hand away from
him. “I’m fine, Mr. Lansing!” she snapped.

  She turned to see Thad bent over O’Neill; the young cowboy lay still on the ground.

  “Damn!” Miranda’s heart pounded as she jumped into the driver’s seat and snapped the reins over the frightened mule. “Ya!” she shouted to get the reluctant beast moving.

  Miranda drove the wagon up the hill as close to the fallen man as she dared. She jumped down and rushed over to him, carrying the bag of supplies she’d assembled in case anyone was injured.

  She knelt next to Thad, who was pressing his kerchief against the cowboy’s shoulder. The wounded man was as pale as a ghost. His eyes were wide with fear, his breath quick and shallow.

  “I can do that.” Miranda knelt next to O’Neill and bent to tend to his wound.

  “Miranda’s gonna take care of you, son.” Thad spoke softly to the young man. “You’re gonna be fine, understand?”

  O’Neill nodded, and Thad walked over to join the other men.

  “Whiskey first, I think.” Ben was there next to her, looking through Miranda’s bag.

  She started to tell him to take his helpful suggestion on back to Boston, but she bit her lip. The man had just saved her life; she felt some obligation to be civil. Besides, another hand would be useful. “Give him a drink,” she said. “Then we’re gonna clean the wound and get this bleedin’ stopped.”

  She kept pressure on the wound, while Ben helped O’Neill drink from the flask.

  “Not too much, son.” Ben’s voice was quiet, but steady. “Won’t help if we make you sick.”

  “Hurts like hell,” the cowboy said through clenched teeth.

  “It’s going to be a lot worse when I use this to clean your wound,” Ben said while Miranda ripped the man’s shirt open to expose the wound. “I’ll tell you what,” he continued, “you keep your eyes on Miranda’s pretty face. That’ll keep your mind occupied.”

  Miranda’s face heated at Ben’s words. “O’Neill’s wounded, he ain’t blind!” she snapped.

  Before Ben could cover his mistake with another lie, Miranda poured whiskey over O’Neill’s wound. The curses the young man shouted made further conversation impossible.

  Miranda clamped her jaw shut tight. When she was finished helping the wounded cowboy, she intended to give Ben a piece of her mind. Pretty face, indeed!

  Ben watched Miranda glaring at Thad. In other circumstances, it might be funny to watch a small woman challenge a man twice her size. He smiled. It was amusing except that Miranda was deadly serious.

  “I don’t need a man guarding me!” She hefted the Sharps rifle. “I know how to use this.”

  Thad crossed his arms over his chest and looked as though he was ready to dig in for a long fight. “I used to think your sister was stubborn,” he said.

  Ben stepped closer. “It seems to me Miranda is right.”

  Thad and Miranda both turned to glare at him.

  “She’s perfectly capable of taking care of herself.” Ben raised a hand to keep Thad from interrupting. “On the other hand, it seems to me that someone should ride along to watch out for young O’Neill.” He pointed at the wagon and was pleased to see Miranda turn her head in that direction. “I could ride along behind and watch him while Miranda drives the wagon.”

  Miranda nodded, and Thad had sense enough to put a hand over his mouth to hide the victorious grin that appeared on his face.

  “We’d best be moving,” Miranda said as she stepped toward the wagon. “It’s gonna be a bumpy ride. With luck we’ll be there before O’Neill wakes up.”

  Thad followed Ben over to his horse. “I want to thank you, Mr. Lansing.”

  “Ben.”

  “Ben. I was too far away to help Miranda when those men came after her. I don’t like to think what might have happened if you hadn’t arrived when you did. . . .”

  Ben glanced at the body of the man who’d been aiming at Miranda’s back. “No need for thanks.”

  “I’m trustin’ you to see her home safe, now.”

  Ben nodded. He watched Miranda bend over O’Neill in the back of the wagon. “You just get O’Reilly and the other bastards who were with him.”

  “Rest assured we will,” Thad said.

  “I’m leavin’ now,” Miranda shouted as she jumped into the driver’s seat of the wagon. “If you’re gonna come with me, you’d best stop jawin’ and get on that ugly beast.”

  Thad grinned as Ben mounted Lightning and set off to follow the wagon.

  “Seems like she’d be more grateful to the man who saved her life,” Thad said.

  Ben shrugged. He was glad he’d been of some help today, but he knew it didn’t make up for his behavior when Miranda came to his room. After what he’d nearly done to her, he certainly didn’t deserve her gratitude.

  Ben watched Jonathan draw two parallel lines in the dirt with the edge of his boot. “Do you think you can shoot the marble from this line to the other line?” Jonathan asked as he dropped three glass marbles from his pocket onto the ground. “I bet I can. Do you want to go first?”

  “You go first, Jonathan,” Ben said. “Show me how it’s done.”

  Ben had offered to watch the boy while Mercy and her father took care of O’Neill. He’d worried he wouldn’t know what to do with a five-year-old child, but so far Jonathan hadn’t run out of ideas. The boy launched the marble with his thumb, and it rolled nearly the entire distance between the lines.

  “Well,” Ben said, “I’m impressed. I doubt I can do so well.”

  “You have to try, Uncle Ben. You won’t succeed if you don’t try.”

  Ben grinned at the boy. Then he leaned over his marble. He tapped it, sending it skidding toward the line, but not nearly as far as Jonathan’s had gone.

  “Hmm.” Jonathan leaned over the marbles, examining their positions carefully. “I reckon you’d better try again.”

  “I believe you’re right.”

  At that moment, Miranda came out of the house and began pacing across the porch, back and forth, until Ben thought he’d grow dizzy watching her.

  “It’s your turn, Uncle Ben.”

  “Right.” Ben made another feeble attempt at shooting the marble, falling far shorter than he had on his first try. “I’ll tell you what,” Ben said, “you keep practicing. I need to talk with your aunt.”

  “I don’t reckon I need as much practice as you do,” the boy called after him as Ben strode toward Miranda.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked as he stepped up on the porch.

  She glared at him, opened her mouth to speak, then shut it again.

  “Is it the boy . . . O’Neill?”

  Miranda shook her head. “Mercy reckons he’ll recover.”

  “That’s good news.”

  “I’m not needed here.” Miranda resumed her pacing. “But Mercy don’t want me goin’ after O’Reilly.”

  “Thad and the others will find him.”

  “The more folks lookin’ the better chance of findin’ that old son of a . . . birch tree.” She shoved her hair back away from her face. “He’s been hidin’ for a year. The sheriff stopped lookin’, figurin’ he must be long gone. We all figured he’d never get justice. Now here he turns up again. If we don’t get the snake before he digs under his rock again, we might not find him at all.”

  “I’m sure you’re right about that, but that doesn’t mean you should—”

  “I’m not afraid.”

  “Maybe you should be.”

  She stepped closer and pressed her palm against him, sending warmth through his chest. “You listen to me, Ben Lansing. I know damn well what you’re up to. You promised Thad to look after me, didn’t you?”

  “I—”

  “You think I’m slow-witted? I know you didn’t come along to watch O’Neill in the back of the wagon. I was just tired of arguing.” She glared up at him. “I know you didn’t want to be saddled with me.” She looked down at the boards under her feet. “Sorry.”

  “Saddled?”
<
br />   “You know what I mean.”

  “I’m glad to have a moment with you. It gives me a chance to apologize . . . for the other day.”

  Miranda walked away from the house, and Ben followed her until they stood near a pair of apple trees. “You ain’t to blame. There’s plenty of folks who find it hard to . . . look at me.”

  Ben squinted at her. “Hard to . . . ?”

  She lifted her chin. Her lips curled up in a smile that held more pain than joy. She touched a finger to her scar. “I pretty much avoid mirrors myself, truth be told.”

  “Miranda.” Ben reached for her, but she turned away.

  “No.” She stepped quickly toward the house. “I know you can’t help the way you were raised. Talkin’ fancy to ladies, sayin’ her face is like a blushing pink rose, or a bright angel. Well, my face ain’t so pretty, and it hurts to hear you lie about it!” She spun around and Ben flinched at the sharp look in her eyes. “I wanted nothin’ so much as to have the earth open up and swallow me when you told O’Neill to look at my face!”

  “Miranda—”

  “No!” She raised a fist, then let it drop to her side. “No more talkin’. You should be out helpin’ find O’Reilly, and so should I.”

  “All right, then, let’s go find him.”

  “What?” She took a step back and stared.

  “Let’s join the hunt,” Ben said. “I have an idea where he might have gone.”

  Miranda raised an eyebrow but didn’t question him further. “I’ll saddle my horse.”

  Chapter 13

  Miranda trailed behind Ben on the steep, narrow path. Her heart was pounding at the thought of finding O’Reilly. If they caught him red-handed with her sister’s cows, the wise thing to do would be to mark their location and head back to find Thad and the others. But there was a part of her that really wanted to get the cows and take them home.

  “Tell me again how you know about this place?” she asked.