Cattle Baron's Daughter

by S. Dionne Moore

  “They have a son,” she said.

  Hector bobbed his head. “Knew him when he was a lad. Left when he was a tadpole. Hotheaded. Grieved Martin something awful. Who knows? Might marry his widow myself. She’s some kind of cook, and we could put our land together. That’d give Bowman and Sattler heart trouble for sure.”

  Olivia glanced at Ryan. His mouth was set in a firm line.

  “Mr. Maiden”—Olivia pointed to Ryan—“this is Ryan Laxalt, Martin’s son.”

  Ryan shot her a perturbed look.

  “Well, why didn’t you say so, son? Guess my marrying plans will have to wait then.” Hector bellowed another laugh before his voice quieted a notch. “Sorry about your pa.”

  Olivia nipped the point off the corn bread and steeled herself against the dryness of the morsel and the thought of eating mold. It was all the man had to offer, and she wouldn’t turn her nose up at it for anything.

  She stabbed at the corn bread again and scattered the dry piece to make it look like she’d eaten more than she really had. A quick glance at Hector assured her he wasn’t taking notice. But Ryan’s eyes darted away the second she glanced his direction. He’d been watching her. The most minute tilt of his lips said it all.

  Mischief stirred in her head, and she set her fork aside. “I don’t think I can eat another bite.” All eyes came to her. Giving Ryan her brightest smile, she slid the plate across the table to him. “Finish this up for me, won’t you?”

  ❧

  Olivia breathed in the night air as she waited for Ryan to appear from behind Hector’s cabin. She grinned up at the moon. Her horse shifted its weight, and she ran her fingers beneath its mane and scratched. When she finally heard the outhouse door moan a low creak and Ryan’s boots rustling through the dry grass, she made sure to busy herself looking for something to help her into the saddle. The porch would have to do.

  “I guess you’re mighty proud of yourself.”

  She started at his nearness. Arching a brow, she clapped on the hat he’d let her borrow. It hadn’t settled onto her head for more than a second before he whisked it off. She turned to face him. “Hey!”

  He held it high over his head with one hand and put a finger to his lips with the other. “Unless you want Hector to talk all night, you’d better not let him know we’re still out here. Besides”—he lowered the hat, his smile wide—“it’s getting dark. There’s no need for you to wear this.”

  He nested her hat inside his and tied them behind the saddle before mounting the dun.

  “I suppose we can leave now.” She couldn’t resist the jab.

  “Worst corn bread I’ve ever eaten.”

  “At least you were polite.”

  She led her horse over toward the porch and started around its head when she felt Ryan beside her.

  “Need a hand?”

  “I’ll use the porch.”

  His arm snaked out around her waist, and she was yanked back against him. His hand clamped down across her mouth, and his voice was a hard whisper against her ear. “Someone’s out there.”

  Her heart slammed. His hand fell, but she could feel his tension. He left her in a rush, and she rocked on her feet for want of the support his body had offered. He went into a low crouch and moved forward a fraction. The night air moved in around her. She shivered.

  seventeen

  Ryan heard the noise again and settled his hand against the butt of his gun. Something was going on. He heard Hector’s few calves moving and the sheep bleating, but he could see nothing.

  He ducked around the back corner of the house where he could get a better view and still be in shadow. Glass shattered nearby, and a muffled curse rent the air as the barrel of a shotgun slipped through a back window.

  Hector.

  “Whoever’s out there better get.”

  Flat against the house, Ryan knew Hector couldn’t see him. He sidestepped until he could grab the barrel of the gun. “It’s me,” he whispered. “Ryan Laxalt. Someone’s stirring your cows.”

  Hector’s eyes were bleary, and his hair exploded from his head. “What you still doing here?”

  Ryan put a finger to his lips and jabbed his head toward the door, indicating the man should come outside. He glanced behind him and retraced his steps to the corner of the house. Olivia stood there, his rifle in her hands. Seeing her preparation pleased him.

  “I thought you might need my help. Was that Hector?”

  “He’s coming out. Let’s get back to the horses and take a ride.”

  With Hector leading the way, they followed a worn path along the front section of his land where the new fence had been put up. The calves had calmed. His sheep were quiet.

  Olivia had been silent the entire time. On occasion he would pull the dun in closer to her to gauge how she was doing. Her expression was always alert and intense. “It could have been a wild animal,” she said. A thought that had already occurred to him.

  Darkness was blanketing the hills when they finally left Hector’s farm. Olivia came abreast the dun and smirked at him. “At least he didn’t ask why we didn’t leave right away.”

  “Or offer any more corn bread.”

  He liked the sound of her laughter, muffled as it was in light of the situation, and the way her hair flowed over her shoulders and down her back as she vented her mirth. He couldn’t help but grin, and it felt freeing somehow. He’d become too serious. Perhaps too single-minded.

  “Thinking about your father?”

  Ryan sat up a little straighter.

  “I think about my mother all the time. More now than when I was in Philly. I guess being here makes it more real. I can feel her here.” She gave a little laugh and shrugged. “I’m sure I sound silly.”

  “No. You were sent away. It makes sense that coming back would stir everything up. Maybe you didn’t have time to grieve. And now, God—” He paused. How long had it been since he’d directly referred to the heavenly Father? “God brought you back here for a reason,” he finished, not even sure where such an idea had come from or if he even believed it. Olivia did. All he knew was the squeeze of his conscience made the weight of his past deeds unbearable. It seemed too easy a thing to shift the load to God and be done with it. Too easy for a man who collected money to murder. But only once. He gasped for breath as he saw the face of the man, twisted in pain.

  Ryan looked over at Olivia, trying to forget. Centering his focus on her eased his guilt. Maybe God had a hand in bringing Olivia home to Buffalo. And maybe, just maybe, it was so that their paths could cross.

  ❧

  Olivia decided she liked Ryan without a hat. It made him seem less tough, more little boy. She wondered if he would get embarrassed if she gave voice to that thought or if he’d think her plain crazy. He might even get offended or angry.

  In many ways, Ryan was a mixture of man and boy. Hector’s observation about Ryan as a boy had revealed a crack in his tough-guy facade. Funny how she’d never figured him as some-one quick of temper. Quiet, yes. Even brooding. But angry?

  “God brought you back here, too,” she suggested to his silhouette. His jaw worked for a few seconds before he met her gaze and nodded.

  “I wish I’d come back sooner.”

  “You can’t bring back your father, Ryan. He’s gone.”

  It was there in an instant, the flash of temper. For all her conclusions about him, she could see that Hector had been correct. Yet there was something else, too, and she recognized it because it mirrored what she felt. Grief.

  “My mother needs me.”

  “She’s always needed you.” Even in the short time she had known Josephine, Olivia saw her innate kindness and devotion to others. Now focused on her son. “I’m sure it hurt her terribly when you left. She’s proud of you. You should have seen her smile when she told me you were a Texas Ranger for four years.”

  His quietness said a lot about him, whether he realized it or not. Olivia decided that Ryan’s temper might have been quick once, but matur
ity had helped him learn to turn the anger inward in quiet reflection.

  “Yeah, well, it wasn’t quite like that.”

  She blinked up at him, confused.

  “I worked for a Ranger once. Mentioned it in a letter. They hired me to track a man wanted in Texas and Oklahoma.” His chest heaved. “I found him.”

  “You took him back to Texas?”

  “Naw, he got wind that someone was on his heels. Makes a fella twitchy. He pulled lead on me, and I plugged him.”

  “But. . .”

  “Purely self-defense.” His gaze was searching. “You’re surprised.”

  She said, “I mean, how did your mother think you were a. . . ?”

  He raised a shoulder. “Guess she read in the letter what she wanted to read. I worked for them for a few years doing odd jobs.”

  She mulled what he’d revealed about himself, surprised at his past. Shooting a man seemed such a brutal thing. Savage. When she sneaked a glance at his profile, she wondered how such blatant violence could thrive and what its presence meant for the future of the West. But shooting in self-defense—that had to be honorable and right.

  They rode in silence except for the creak of the saddle, the plod of the horses’ hooves, and the distant howl of a coyote. When they got to the gates of her father’s ranch, she slid to the ground, hoping the walk would stretch her muscles and relieve some of the ache she knew she’d feel in the morning. She slipped the reins over her horse’s head and turned toward Ryan.

  He smiled. “We didn’t get very far.”

  “No, we didn’t. If it hadn’t been for Hector’s corn bread. . .”

  He shrugged. “What can I say? I was trying to be considerate and help a lady out.”

  She burst into laughter. “Your mother told me you had a soft heart under all the ‘crust,’ as she put it.”

  He swung his long leg over the back of his horse and dismounted. “Then I shouldn’t disappoint. I’ll walk with you to the house.”

  “I don’t know. My father. . .”

  “He’ll never see me.”

  She wanted to say no, especially after the earlier incident. “It’s not necessary.”

  He made a face and put a hand over his stomach. “Neither was the corn bread, but I did it anyway.”

  She shook her head and gave up trying to dissuade him. He came near and held out his hand for the horse’s reins. She surrendered them to his warm palm, more aware than she wanted to be of his height, the broadness of his shoulders, and the shadow across his face that hid his gray eyes.

  “We should do this again.”

  He hesitated, and in that second her heart cantered with expectation and the longing to spend more time with this man. To know his heart as she had discovered the heart of his mother.

  His tone came out hard. “Based on what Hector told us, you could be right. Others know another side of my father’s shooting.”

  She released a heavy sigh. His father’s murder. He still believed that her father had pulled the trigger. The only reason Ryan wanted to spend time with her was because she’d offered to help him get to the truth. She must not allow herself to think his motives might extend to anything more.

  eighteen

  Ryan felt himself drawn as if by an undertow toward Olivia Sattler. When her fingers had grazed his, he’d been distracted by the silver light across her cheek. She would fit into his arms quite nicely.

  Madness. All of it. He had scrambled to set his mind on the right track, throwing out some blather about Hector and the possibility that she might be right to assume others could help them find the truth. Of course she was right. He’d become more convinced of that as he’d listened to Hector talk, but he couldn’t help but consider how disappointed she must feel to know that despite Hector’s help, the truth of his words still pointed a finger at her father.

  He could not deny the thunder of his heart as his fingers caressed hers or the churn of softer emotions her closeness brought to the surface.

  He led her horse, his mind clearing now that he wasn’t distracted by the sight of her. An animal hadn’t scared Hector’s sheep; he was sure of it. “I’ll spend the morning over at Hector’s. That way I can satisfy myself by knowing whether it was animal or man out there tonight.”

  “Ryan.” She stopped him with a hand on his arm, but she wasn’t looking at him, and her body was tense.

  A man stepped from the shadow of the barn. “Miss Sattler.”

  “Skinny, you startled me.”

  The foreman nodded his response and almost yanked the reins from Ryan’s hands. The horse jerked back. “Heard you were in town, Laxalt.”

  Olivia’s voice wobbled with uncertainty. “He was just seeing me home.”

  Skinny’s hard, pale eyes raked him. “I’m sure Mr. Sattler will thank you for seeing his girl home. Now get out of here.”

  “I’m here for Olivia. Not for you.”

  “And I told you to get.”

  Olivia filled his vision as she wedged herself between them. “Leave Mr. Laxalt to me, Skinny.”

  Skinny ran a hand over his bare scalp. His hard frown turned his face mean. Without a word, he led the animal away, steel in his eyes. The man had too much sand to let Olivia have the last word on the matter.

  Ryan clamped a hand on her shoulder, spinning her to face him. “Don’t ever do that again.” His words came out hard. Much harder than he’d intended.

  “I think I just saved your hide, and you have the nerve to tell me ‘Don’t ever do that again.’ What? Should I let him blow your head off next time?”

  “He couldn’t draw; he had the horse’s reins in his right hand.”

  “You could just say thank you.”

  It had escalated far beyond what he’d intended. “Thank you.” He clipped the words, sinking beneath the weight of them and the hurt and anger his rebuke had generated.

  She shook his hand from her shoulder and walked away. Ryan felt a coldness at the loss of her presence and a deep shame. He knew she’d meant well, but a man didn’t need a woman to fight his battles for him.

  ❧

  Seething over Ryan’s insolence, Olivia found great satisfaction in slamming the door behind her, even as late as it was.

  “Where have you been?”

  She turned, searching through the darkness of the kitchen in front of her for the source of that voice. Her father moved, a shadow in the darkness. A light flared, and then the chimney of a lamp was lowered. Her father’s face came into view.

  “I was over at Hector Maiden’s.”

  “Alone?”

  “No.”

  “Tom told me he hired you to write for his paper.”

  The shift in subject caught Olivia off guard. If he knew, what did he expect from her? Confirmation seemed absurd. Surely he wouldn’t demand she quit, stay home, and be a good little ranch girl.

  Olivia crossed the room and sat down across from him. His gaze probed hers, questioning. She felt much like the schoolgirl in front of the class, asked a question that she did not know the answer to.

  “I’m sure you’ll do a good job. I’ve some ideas for a few stories.”

  So this is how it was to be. She lifted her chin. “As do I.”

  “I told Tom you would do a good job.”

  She filled her lungs with air and did her best to bite back the surge of anger and the tears that stung. “I’ve been here for weeks, and our first real conversation isn’t anything about how glad you are that I’m home. It’s just about me doing a good job working in town?”

  “Reputation is everything.”

  “It’s nothing if you’re not human.”

  Jay squinted his whiskey-colored eyes, a mirror of her own. His mouth drew into a hard line. “That’s no way to talk to your father.”

  “Is that what you are to me? A father?”

  “Don’t forget who paid for you to be with your aunt all those years.”

  “It wasn’t my choice to go to Philadelphia in the first place.
It was your choice, Father. The choice you made for me.”

  “You were happy.”

  “I was lonely.”

  “You adjusted.”

  Words dissolved on her tongue. She stood to her feet, trying to compose herself before the dam of her emotion burst. “I miss the days when you were a father and not a stranger. But it’s been a long time. Perhaps too long.”

  As soon as she was out of the circle of light, she picked up her pace until she reached the sanctity of her room. There, in the darkness relieved by a ray of moonlight, Olivia sat on the edge of her bed and covered her face. Hot tears squeezed from her eyes in spite of the defiant fists that balled to hold them back. But the dam of her will did not hold. Pulling her knees to her chest, she rocked, wishing for nothing more than a loving hand or a tender touch.

  Oh Mama.

  nineteen

  Ryan tied the dun to the back of the wagon and waited at the side for his mother to appear. When she did, her smile beamed brighter than the light from seven oil lamps. She wanted details of his time with Olivia, so he knew she’d forgive him for spending the morning with Hector Maiden and taking her to town late.

  “So you must tell me when you are going out next.”

  He groaned and thought about how Olivia had stalked away from him the previous evening. “I don’t know. Probably not for a long time.”

  She touched her hand to his as she tamed her skirts with the other and hiked herself into the wagon. “You were a gentleman, I hope.”

  Ryan took his time rounding the wagon. He might as well continue to answer the endless string of questions. If he grew silent, she would only dig deeper, prying open his shell much as he’d seen a sailor do to a clam once. The image made things bearable somehow, and his mother’s stream of speculation and advice over the few miles into town made one thing clear to him: she wanted grandchildren. Lots of them. And she loved him. Love, to her, translated to a life spent with someone. Only there was one problem, and he told her about it as soon as he’d helped her down into the street in front of the general store. “We’re not in love, Mama.”