Claiming Mariah

by Pam Hillman

  “Slade did what was right by law.”

  “He took everything we owned.”

  “The deed told the tale. We didn’t really own anything. We never did. Slade’s father, and now Slade and Buck, are the rightful owners. You can’t blame him.”

  “I know.”

  “And besides, just as I suspected, that boy’s whipping this ranch into shape. Have you noticed he’s got the hands hopping to and fro repairing the corral and the cook shack and anything else he can find for idle hands to do? He’s no slacker, that one.”

  “I noticed.”

  “You did, did you?” Her grandmother smiled as Mariah helped her into bed. “Did you also notice he’s got a right nice smile and beautiful dark-blue eyes?”

  “Grandma!” Heat rose to Mariah’s cheeks.

  “I see.” Her grandmother chuckled. “So you noticed that as well.” Suddenly she grew serious. “You could do a lot worse than Slade Donovan.”

  “Don’t be getting any ideas.” Mariah pulled a quilt over her grandmother. “I can’t imagine Slade looking twice at me, let alone getting the urge to court me, not with the history between our families.”

  “Well, it was just a thought.” Her grandmother pouted. “But if it’s the Lord’s will, it can be done.”

  “True. But I don’t think bringing Slade Donovan and myself together could possibly be in the Lord’s will.”

  Her grandmother pulled the covers up to her chin, a tiny smile on her face. “You’d be surprised, Mariah. You’d be surprised.”

  Exasperated, Mariah turned down the wick on the lantern, puffed the flame out, and plunged the room into darkness. “Good night, Grandma.”

  Slade rolled out of his bunk at the crack of dawn and reached for the shirt he’d thrown over the back of a chair. It was gone. He couldn’t find his pants either. He hunkered down and looked underneath his bunk.

  Nothing.

  Buck had taken Mrs. Malone up on her offer to wash their clothes.

  He found a faded denim shirt that should have been tossed in the rag bin years ago. The material was so thin it would split right down the middle if he muscled up and bowed his back to a hard task. But it would have to do for now.

  A pair of pants hung on a nail beside Duncan’s bunk. He grabbed them. They were too short, but that couldn’t be helped. Maybe if he hurried, he could get his clothes back before Mrs. Malone and Mariah started on the wash.

  At least he still had his socks. He stomped into his boots and stumbled toward the door.

  The sun peeked over the horizon as he hurried across the barnyard to the porch. Sure enough, a mound of sweat-stained laundry lay in a heap near the door. His clothes were in that pile somewhere. He’d be hanged if he let Mariah Malone see his holey underwear. He squinted through the early light, trying to find the clothes Buck had taken hostage. He spotted one of his shirts.

  Just as he started pawing through the laundry, the door flew open and banged against the side of his head. Caught off-balance, he fell backward, landing solidly on his rear with his and Buck’s dirty clothes spread all around him.

  “Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t realize you were there.”

  He jumped at the sound of Mariah’s voice.

  She bent over, plucking jeans and shirts off him. When she picked up his long johns, he cringed. So much for trying to get his clothes back before she saw them.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” He forced the words through gritted teeth and stood, wanting to slink off like a polecat caught raiding the chicken coop.

  “Let me see.” She frowned at him. “The door hit the side of your head pretty hard.”

  “It’s all right, Mariah. I’m not hurt.” Hands on his hips, he glared into her brown eyes, filled with concern and riveted on his cheek.

  She reached up and touched the side of his face. Her fingers felt like velvet fire on his cheekbone. Her startled gaze met his in the misty haze of early dawn. Then she focused on the tiny grazed spot on his cheek. “It’s okay. Not even bleeding.”

  “Told you,” he grunted, his skin burning more from her touch than the whack from the door. Her lips parted, soft and dewy as rose petals in the half-light. Slade fought the urge to see if her lips tasted as soft as he imagined. He edged closer. Her fingers slid ever so gently down his cheek until they rasped across his unshaven jaw.

  At the sound, she jerked her hand away, blinking like a doe caught in the open, poised to take flight at the slightest noise. “Well, I . . . I guess I’d better get started. Looks like we’re going to have a busy day.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He reached up to tip his hat, and his fingers met air.

  What in the world had happened to his hat?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “HERE.” Mariah handed her grandmother one of Rio’s shirts. “See if you can find a button for this one.”

  “Land sakes, that boy must’ve tangled with a mountain lion.” Her grandmother inspected the shirt, clicking her tongue. “I’ll have to darn a good two inches before I can even sew on a button.”

  They worked in silence, her grandmother sewing, Mariah scrubbing. She swiped her damp forehead, then pushed wayward strands of hair behind her ears. No use trying. She couldn’t escape the sweltering, grueling work of wash day. But the heat didn’t stop her thoughts from returning to her encounter with Slade on the porch. Whatever had made her reach up and touch his face like that?

  His cheekbone had felt strong and solid beneath her fingertips. She’d resisted the temptation to let her fingers linger on his sun-darkened jawline and trace his lips. The very idea that she’d had such a wanton thought shocked her all the way to her toes.

  She turned away, shielding her flushed face from her grandmother, hoping she’d think the blush on her cheeks had to do with the heat and the boiling water instead of the thoughts tumbling around in her head. It wouldn’t do for her to find out about this morning. Not after what she’d said last night. Surely there wasn’t anything to her grandmother’s daydreaming? She’d just been teasing.

  Hadn’t she?

  Surely the Lord couldn’t work that kind of miracle in Slade’s heart. And did she want Him to? Her hands trembled. Even though she hadn’t admitted it to her grandmother, she hadn’t completely forgiven Slade for laying claim to the ranch even if he did have the right. Granted, he’d seen to their well-being when he hadn’t been obliged to. She would give him credit for that consideration.

  But complete forgiveness? No, that would be a long time coming.

  Her grandmother’s blather from last night and this morning’s encounter were pure coincidence. The early morning shadows, his proximity, and the fact that she’d almost knocked him unconscious made her lose her head and think things that were better off forgotten.

  She dropped another soiled shirt into the boiling water. Then she reached for a cake of lye soap and shaved several pieces into the pot. She beat the shirt with a heavy stick, hoping the tedious chore would take her mind off Slade.

  “Let me help you with that,” her grandmother chided from her rocking chair in the shade. “I’m almost done with this shirt.”

  “It’s all right. I can do it.”

  Buck came back from the creek with two more buckets of water. When he reached the shade of the large oak tree where she’d set up her wash pot, she straightened, the pain in her back from being hunched over easing a bit with the movement. “Thank you, Buck.”

  “It’s no trouble.”

  “I appreciate it anyway. It sure has saved me a lot of walking back and forth.”

  The sound of a horse drew her gaze to the road. She waved when she recognized Sally’s pa, John Riker. “Mr. Riker,” she called out. “How are you?”

  “Howdy, Mariah. Mrs. Malone.” His friendly nod included Buck.

  “Howdy.” Buck tipped his hat and sauntered in the direction of the barn.

  Mariah watched him go, wishing he would have stayed. John Riker was one of the kindest men she’d ever met.
He wouldn’t shun Buck, no matter what he looked like.

  “Why don’t you sit a spell, John?” her grandmother offered, motioning to a bench under the tree.

  The leather on his saddle creaked as he dismounted. “Don’t mind if I do. But I can’t stay long. Got a pile of work to do.”

  “How’s your mother?”

  “She don’t get out like she used to, ma’am. She frets about not being able to go to church or visiting. She mentioned you the other day. About how she wished she could see you.”

  “I wish I could see her too.” A wistful smile crossed her face. “I remember how we used to visit regularly. When Mariah and Amanda were small, we’d have quilting bees and barn raisings and share recipes. We’re all too busy, or too old, to visit like we used to.”

  “We’ll make plans to visit her soon.” A feeling of guilt swept over Mariah. Her grandmother hadn’t seen her dear friend in ages, and once they left Wisdom, she’d never see her again. Her grandmother glanced at her, and Mariah knew she was thinking the same thing.

  Mr. Riker nodded. “She’d like that. Is that young man around? The one who’s so good with horses. My bull is down sick, and I was hoping he’d know what to do.”

  “Oh no, the one you got from King Ranch in Texas?”

  “The very one. I’d sure hate to lose that animal.” Mr. Riker slapped his hat against his thigh, and Mariah noticed for the first time the worry that lined his face. The entire community knew he’d paid a handsome price for that bull.

  “That was Buck you saw a few minutes ago.” Mariah dried her hands on her apron. “I’ll see if he can head on over to your place right away.”

  “I’d be obliged. Mrs. Malone, you should ride over with the young feller and visit with Ma while he’s there.”

  Her grandmother nodded. “I just might do that.”

  “I’d better be getting back then. Just tell him to come on out to the barn when he gets there. I sure appreciate this, Mariah.” Mr. Riker jammed his hat on his head, mounted, and urged his horse into a trot back toward home.

  Mariah found Buck in the barn. “Mr. Riker’s bull is sick, and he wants you to come take a look at him.”

  “I don’t know . . .”

  “Riker’s a good, decent sort. And he’s mighty worried about his bull. He’s liable to die if you don’t go see about him.”

  Indecision warred across Buck’s face.

  Mariah put her hand on his arm, forcing him to acknowledge her. His troubled blue gaze bored into hers, looking so much like his brother’s that it hurt. “I know you don’t want to go because of your face, but if you don’t go, and that bull dies, you’ll regret it. I know you will.”

  After a long moment, he nodded. “I’ll get my stuff.”

  “Wonderful. Could you hitch up the wagon? Grandma wants to visit with Mrs. Riker, so she’ll ride along and show you the way.”

  He turned back, a sheepish grin tugging at one corner of his mouth. “You knew all along I’d go, didn’t you?”

  Mariah smiled. “I knew you couldn’t refuse to help a sick animal. It’s just not in you.”

  Red settled in for a long night of cards. He didn’t really care for the game himself, but Emmit did, so Red played.

  His brother ignored him most of the time, which stuck in Red’s craw. But since nobody around these parts knew they were brothers—or even called Emmit by his real name—he’d have to live with it. But what he wouldn’t give to be able to walk away and leave Emmit to his own devices.

  He cashed out early and watched, listening to the talk around the table. His brother fancied himself a card shark, in control of the game, but nobody was ever in charge of cards, unless they cheated. And Red could tell Emmit wasn’t cheating tonight.

  Emmit would laugh and say that playing cards with the ranch hands around Wisdom honed his skills for bigger and better things, and since they were playing for a few dollars, it didn’t matter if he won or lost. His day would come, and when there was a big stake, he’d turn up the heat and win the whole pot.

  None of it made sense, but that was Emmit.

  The spitting image of his old man.

  All these years later, Red couldn’t figure out what his mother had seen in Emmit’s pa. The man had been a gambler, a drifter, and a womanizer until the day he died, but she’d married the smooth talker anyway.

  He eyed Emmit’s fancy getup.

  Yep. Just like his pa.

  Except Emmit’s pa had never skirted on the wrong side of the law as far as Red could tell.

  After supper, Slade shut himself in the office and tried to make sense of the Lazy M ledgers for the second night in a row. A lamp sputtered on the table, and a cup of Mariah’s coffee sat within easy reach.

  Slade jotted numbers on a smudged piece of paper. He didn’t have much schooling, but he knew enough about ranching to keep books, and numbers had always come easy for him. But trying to decipher the Lazy M ledgers made him wonder if he knew as much as he thought he did.

  Seth Malone’s chicken scratch, what little there was of it, made no sense at all. There were very few notations to explain the numbers, and half the time there weren’t even any dates. One page with 1878 scrawled at the top showed a total of two entries for the entire year. At roundup, Malone had tallied the number of cows counted with calves by their sides. He’d entered the number of cattle they’d driven to market. No other notations for the year. No details about income and expenses or profit. Under the circumstances, Slade was glad to have that much to go on. He turned the page, the paper crackling loud in the silence of the office.

  The next two years Malone had kept better records, but it was still like tallying toothpicks. He ran his finger down a column of numbers, spotting a notation where Mariah’s father had bought some lumber at the sawmill and supplies at the mercantile on the same day. Weeks passed with nothing; then he made some more notations during roundup. Slade jotted the figures on his piece of paper, making note of the year. He was pleased at the number of head the ranch ran. More than he’d thought, considering the run-down state of the house, outbuildings, and fences.

  He grunted when he saw a notation for a large sum to a doctor in Philadelphia. With Malone sick, they’d probably used every resource available to see if something could be done for him. That would account for where the money had gone for the last few years.

  He ran his finger down the columns, lingering on the larger sums. One jumped out at him, and he squinted at the scrawled notation on the left. All he could make out was Philadelphia and school. He shook his head in disgust.

  Finishing school cost a lot more than he’d even imagined.

  The handwriting on the next page changed to a neatly flowing script. Mariah’s handwriting, he guessed, since she’d been running the ranch since her father took sick. Her fancy writing was even harder for him to decipher than her father’s printed scrawl, but the numbers she’d written down were the important thing.

  One after the other, day after day, neatly penned transactions marched down the page. She’d methodically put the expenses in one column and the income in another, making it easier to follow. A few small entries showed where she’d sold eggs, butter, and cream at the mercantile. But as was the case for most ranches, there was no cash money to speak of until roundup.

  He flipped several pages and zeroed in on the income for last year’s roundup, anxious to see how the ranch had fared. The dollar amount staring up at him was disappointing.

  Granted, the price of beef had been down the last couple of years, but a niggling in the back of his brain told him the figure was less than it should have been considering the number of head the ranch ran.

  He jotted down the number of cattle tallied during roundup and compared it to the sparse accounts he’d found in her father’s handwriting from the previous years. He frowned, checking his totals again. Had he penciled in the wrong figures? The number of head brought in during roundup had dropped a lot in the last two years.

  No wonder
the Lazy M was in such disrepair.

  A light rap broke his concentration, and he scowled. “Yes?”

  Mariah pushed the door open. “There’s a little coffee left. I’d hate for it to go to waste.”

  Slade held out his cup, and she filled it with the steaming brew. The flickering light from the lantern cast shadows over her face.

  “Your father wasn’t much on record keeping, was he?”

  “No. He always said he kept the numbers in his head.” She gave him a sympathetic look. “The books are a mess, aren’t they? I’ve just about pulled my hair out trying to understand it all.”

  “There’s not much to go on until you started keeping up with things. The last couple of years make a lot more sense.” Slade sat back in the leather chair and took a sip of coffee. “Except for a couple of things.”

  “Like what?”

  “It looks like the ranch has been losing money from just a few months after your father took sick.”

  Indignation washed over Mariah.

  She’d worked hard to keep good records from the moment her father’s health began to fail, documenting every penny that had passed through the Lazy M accounts for the last two years. She plopped the coffeepot on the edge of the desk and crossed her arms.

  “Are you saying I’m incompetent?”

  “No, I’m not saying that. But something has happened.” He leaned forward and tapped the books. “From the number of cows your father recorded at branding time a couple of years ago to the number recorded last year, the ranch lost several hundred head.”

  Mariah leaned closer and peered at the numbers. “That isn’t unheard of.”

  “That’s a big loss without somebody being able to explain it.” He pinned her with a direct look. “Did you ask Harper about it?”

  “Of course. He gave the usual reasons. Drought, poisoned water holes, sickness, snakebites, bogs.” Mariah squirmed, wishing she’d paid more attention to Red’s reasons for the lost cattle, but she’d been at her father’s bedside night and day for months—and had her grandmother and sister to worry about as well. She’d blocked out much of that time and didn’t want to remember.