In the Arms of a Cowboy

by Pam Crooks

  “There they go.” Lance’s eye narrowed as the two men left the penned cattle behind. “Fan out, boys. Surround ‘em. Don’t let Ditson make a run for it when he sees we’re after him.”

  Charlie and Stick paired off in one direction; Red Holmes and Frank Burton sprinted in the other. Lance, with Wayne in tow, took a more direct course and reached the cashier’s office first.

  Ditson looked inordinately pleased with himself. He draped an arm about the Englishman’s stiff shoulders, chattering and cackling as if they were the best of friends. He seemed eager to square the deal with his unsuspecting buyer, and he walked a little faster as they drew closer to the office.

  “Get the price you wanted, Clay?”

  A smile froze on his weasel-like face. Ditson yanked his arm back at the sight of Lance leaning casually against the door. Beads of sweat popped out on his forehead beneath the green cowboy hat’s brim.

  He caught sight of the other Mancuso men moving closer, their feet spread, fists ready.

  He snarled a curse. “What the hell do you want, Harmon?”

  “I want my cattle back.”

  “Your cattle? I ain’t got none of your damn cattle.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Hell, no.”

  “You lying son of a bitch.” Lance shook his head as Ditson persisted with the sham, even with Police Chief Hitchler listening in.

  “The cattle I’m sellin’ to the baron here is my own. Anyone can check the brand and see they are.”

  “That’s right, by Jove,” the Englishman piped up, his bespectacled eyes wide with outrage. “Registered Circle Double Diamond. I saw it myself.” He puffed his chest and assumed a dignified air. “I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake, sir.”

  “No,” Lance said softly. “No mistake.”

  “You got proof I stole your stinkin’ cattle, Harmon?” demanded Ditson.

  “Yeah, I do.”

  The beads on his forehead grew bigger. “What’re you gonna do? Kill them fine animals just to look ‘neath the hide?”

  “Don’t have to.”

  “What, then?” The question rolled off his tongue; he appeared unnerved from Lance’s confidence and the lawman’s stern-jawed presence. “I don’t have to listen to his false accusations, Wayne,” he whined, trying a new tactic. “Charge him with slander against my good name.”

  “He’s got a right to speak his piece, Mr. Ditson, just like you got a right to speak yours.”

  “I’ll give him his proof,” Lance said.

  He stepped forward and gripped a handful of Ditson’s new shirt. A swift shove sent him stumbling back in the direction of the stock pens.

  Grim-faced, everyone followed, including the sputtering Englishman who was all but ignored. Lance climbed over the top railing and jumped into the pen housing the Mancuso Herefords. Walking among the animals, he searched for those he’d marked in Silver Meadow.

  They were there, each of them. Choosing the cow with an oval-shaped white marking around her eye, Lance led her toward the edge of the pen. While everyone watched, he laid his hand along the back of her broad neck and groped along the hide. Within moments, he’d worked free the hidden half-dollar coin.

  Ditson paled.

  The Englishman appeared perplexed.

  Triumphant, Lance held the coin up for everyone to see.

  “Here’s proof,” he said. “I planted these coins when the herd was on our range.”

  “Ain’t good enough.” Ditson scowled. “You coulda planted ‘em anytime, anyplace.”

  Police Chief Hitchler shuffled his feet in the dirt and looked away.

  Lance sensed the arrest sliding through his fingers. In growing desperation, he climbed out of the pen and grabbed a stick from the ground. With brisk strokes, he etched the Rocking M brand into the dirt.

  “See, Wayne? One little running iron, and”--his stick scratched the dirt again--“the Rocking M becomes the Circle Double Diamond.”

  “I believe you, Lance. Honestly, I do.” The police chief sighed heavily. “The coins are damned good proof. And I’d reckon if we’d pull back the hides on every one of them cattle, we’re gonna find your brand on the inside. But the fact is--” He halted and stared sadly into the sky.

  “Is what?” Lance said in a growl, already knowing the answer.

  “Fact is you ain’t gonna get a jury to convict him.”

  Rumbles of disbelief went through his men. A relieved grin inched its way across Ditson’s homely features, and Lance’s fist tightened over the makeshift pencil.

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Them juries are packed with nesters and rustlers, that’s why. They’d all built their spreads and their herds same way as this lowlife is tryin’ to do. They’re gonna be on his side. They’re all against you big cattlemen. They see you as the enemy against the little man.”

  Lance hurled the stick into the distance and swore.

  “It ain’t fair, I know.” Hitchler’s sympathy seemed genuine. “But that’s the way it is. Press charges if you want, but I seen it happen too many times not to know what I’m talking about.”

  Lance’s mouth opened to protest, to voice another plan of action, but the lawman held up a hand.

  “An expensive lawyer ain’t gonna do no good, either,” he declared, taking the very words from Lance’s mouth. “The best-run prosecution ain’t worth a damn if you ain’t got a good jury, and them are nigh impossible to find around here.”

  “Don’t expect me to lie down and play dead on this, Wayne,” Lance said. “I’m not going to let the bastard go about his business and sell Mancuso beef to some prissy-pants foreigner!”

  The Englishman gasped at the insult, but said nothing, the abrupt turn of events evidently too confusing to comprehend.

  “I don’t expect nothin’ of the sort, Lance.” The lawman lifted his hat and scratched his head. “Not much I can do for you, but if you want me to throw him in jail, I will, at least till he posts bond. That’ll give you and your men some time to trail your herd back to their own range. Leastways, you won’t be losing any more money or beef.”

  Lance thought of Snake and his successful attempt to stalk Sonnie, to frighten her. But the Indian wouldn’t stop there. Lance dreaded the lengths he and Ditson would go to in order to hurt her, to get back at him and Vince, to tear down the Mancuso kingdom. How far would they go?

  Not far, he vowed. Not very damn far.

  “All right, Wayne.” Years of friendship and a history of fairness convinced Lance the lawman wasn’t trying to lead him astray. “Throw this stinkin’ piece of shit in a cell and keep him out of my sight.”

  The police chief planted a firm hand around Ditson’s arm and began to pull him away.

  Disdain contorted the rustler’s features. He glared at Lance over his shoulder. “Jail ain’t gonna keep me from gettin’ what I want, Harmon. I’ll be out in no time.”

  His words rang in Lance’s ears as Wayne led him away. He set his hands on his hips and glared at their retreating backs.

  “Ahem. I do believe my apology is in order.” The Englishman’s nasal voice drew Lance’s cool gaze. “I hadn’t the foggiest notion Mr. Ditson wasn’t a legitimate cattleman. If I had, I wouldn’t have tried to buy his bloody cattle. Er, your bloody cattle.”

  “Wasn’t your fault,” he said curtly, giving Ditson one final look before he disappeared from sight.

  “Fine stock, though. You wouldn’t be interested in selling--.”

  “No.”

  “Very well, then.” Straight-backed and formal, and obviously reluctant to test Lance’s patience further, the Englishman dropped the issue without further ado. “Again, sir. My apologies.”

  “Accepted.”

  “Good day.”

  It’d been a damned lousy day, and Lance stubbornly refused to say it was any better than that. He had neither the time nor the desire to engage in conversation with the man, and taking his silence as a wise hint to leave posthaste, the foreigner spu
n on his expensive-looking boot heel and left.

  Frustration registered on his men’s faces, and Lance drew comfort from their loyalty. He removed his hat and raked his hand through his hair.

  “Who wants to drive the herd back to Mancuso range?” he asked grimly.

  Red Holmes and Frank Burton volunteered, and Lance gave them his thanks along with a few last-minute orders. They departed, and with Stick and Charlie at his side, he made his way through the yards back to his sorrel.

  “Can I buy you a beer, boss?” Charlie asked, squeezing Lance’s shoulder in mute compassion.

  “Or two?” Stick offered tentatively.

  “Sounds good, but no.” He thought of the envelope he carried in his pocket and the visit he had had no time to make to the ranch’s attorney. And even more pressing, he had to stop at Gracie’s. “Too much to do before tonight’s meeting. I’ll give you a rain check, though.”

  “Okay.”

  The two cowboys left Lance to himself. Though he knew he had to put Clay Ditson from his mind, Wayne Hitchler’s words troubled him.

  Vince was right. The courts were useless to the Rocking M, and they were on their own in fighting their land and stock losses. With Vince detained at the hospital, Lance had to man the fight alone. He had to change tactics, and, he reluctantly admitted, those tactics would have to include Tom Horn.

  And Sonnie.

  Thinking of her warmed his loins and softened his keen disappointment from Ditson’s failed arrest. He would be with her soon. Anticipation swirled through him, and his steps quickened.

  He spared a glance toward the sun and figured the hour.

  He’d damn well better hurry, or he’d be late.

  Chapter 12

  She was even more beautiful than he remembered.

  Like a delicate Wyoming wildflower kissed by the sun, Sonnie had blossomed into full womanhood, a breathtaking creation of femininity and allure who conquered his heart and sent his blood humming through his veins.

  Her first trip back from the East brought her home for Christmas, but she would stay only a short time. A holiday party filled the Big House, and adoring Mancuso cowboys competed for her smile, her touch. From across the crowded room, Lance riveted his gaze to the fluid, swaying motions of her body as she danced with every man in her father’s outfit.

  Everyone but him.

  It mattered little that she hadn’t noticed him. He took refuge in the sea of Stetsons and masculine faces, content to watch her from afar. He hadn’t even spoken to her. Until now he’d stayed away.

  Yet she drew him. Something beckoned him to her, a persistent, silent call to stand near her, to study and savor her. The strength of his need baffled him. He doubted she’d ever looked him full in the face.

  Her laughter sweetened the air after the music stopped. She turned and, with the grace of an angel, glided toward him. His pulse pounded harder, then harder still, drowning out the voices around him. A rushing sensation erupted inside his head, and he cursed his vulnerability, his weakness, his cowardice.

  Hawthorne did this to him, scourged him with this fear so long ago in that decaying slum tenement. Gradually, so gradually he’d hardly noticed, he’d built an unbreachable wall around his heart. He allowed no woman access. As a man, his power to hurt terrified him. Only by staying away could he prevent the pain.

  She halted at Vince’s elbow instead. Her features radiant, she stroked his cheek and gently led him to the dance floor. She hadn’t once glanced at Lance.

  The roar inside him faded, calmed, disappeared. Shaken by his reaction to her nearness, he stood frozen for long moments.

  Even as she waltzed with her father, she lured Lance in a mute invitation no one else would comprehend. He succumbed to the insatiable thirst and drank in the sight of her, storing the delectable memories inside him to last through the endless months until he would see her again.

  All too soon she would leave the Rocking M, board another train, and make the long, tedious trip back to Boston.

  And he would wait for as long as he must. The knowledge rocked hint almost as much as did the dawning of a strange, new truth.

  Maybe it had taken years. Maybe only seconds. But somehow he’d fallen in love with Sonnie Mancuso.

  * * *

  A late-afternoon breeze swept inward from the second-story window and cooled the air inside the small hotel room. For the hundredth time, Sonnie strode to the door, peered into the hall, and listened for the tread of Lance’s boot step.

  Hearing nothing, seeing nothing, she sighed in disappointment and closed it again. A shiver took her, one fraught with worry.

  Where could he be? She feared Ditson brewed up new trouble for him, and her imagination ran rampant with visions of fistfights and gunfire and puddles of spilled blood.

  God forbid. She closed the window, paced the confines of her room, retraced her steps back and forth around the sturdy, serviceable furniture, and squelched the horrid thoughts. She refused to think of Lance being hurt. He was far too strong and much too smart to fall victim to a weasel of a man like Clay Ditson.

  Then where was he?

  She chewed on her bottom lip and confronted the notion that had persisted in the back of her mind all afternoon.

  He could only be with Gracie.

  The certainty left a leaden lump in the pit of her stomach. Obviously he enjoyed the woman’s company so much that the lateness of the hour escaped him. He took his responsibilities to the Rocking M seriously, that Sonnie knew, but as the minutes ticked away, she couldn’t help but believe Gracie Purcell must be quite a lady to keep him from them.

  She fancied the two together, perhaps sharing a meal in her eatery, conversing quietly, or lingering over a drink. Or did they slip away to someplace private, where Lance would take her in his long, sinewy arms and nuzzle his jaw into her hair, ply her with gentle kisses until passion carried them away?

  A groan of dismay escaped Sonnie’s lips; her gaze darted to the bed positioned against a far wall. She would not think of them in that vein.

  She would not.

  Not when Lance kept his distance and refrained from touching her except in the rarest of circumstances. And she certainly would not think of him kissing Gracie the way he’d kissed her the night he’d slung her over his shoulder and stormed from the bunkhouse.

  No, she couldn’t bear it.

  Suddenly restless, Sonnie paced again. How would she endure the evening with this unfamiliar woman, knowing she held a special place in Lance’s heart? How could she compete with Gracie’s maturity and her years of friendship with him?

  Her pacing halted in front of the dresser mirror. After getting Papa comfortable in his hospital room, Cookie had stayed behind to engage him in a quiet game of checkers. Jake took Sonnie and the mounds of baggage to the Railroad Hotel, and they reserved rooms for her and the other Mancuso men. Thus she had the majority of the afternoon to bathe and dress for the important meeting. Her mouth pursed in a pensive moue, and she studied herself in the glass.

  Had she dressed well enough to compare to Gracie? Her gown, of rose-shaded brocade and mousseline de sole, draped her body to the Parisienne seamstress’s pleasure and Sonnie’s own satisfaction, and a pleated underskirt, featuring embroidered floral bouquets along the right side from waist to hem, brushed her ankles. The square-cut bodice hugged her breasts and plumped them upward to reveal a teasing glimpse of décolletage. Dainty puckered sleeves covered the unsightly scratch on her arm, and as she fluffed them up over the curve of her shoulders, she assured herself that, outwardly at least, she could match Gracie inch for inch.

  A knock sounded on the door, and Sonnie glanced at the dresser’s clock. The hands read exactly seven, the time she was to leave for the Cheyenne Club. Hoping to see Lance on the other side, she hurried to the door and flung it open wide.

  The hotel proprietor’s wife stood patiently in the hall, and Sonnie’s spirits plummeted.

  “Miss Mancuso,” the older woman said. “A M
r. Horn is waiting downstairs. He says he has an appointment with you.”

  “Oh, dear.” Sonnie regretted the gunfighter’s promptness. Evidently being tardy wasn’t included on his list of vices. Regardless, she couldn’t leave not knowing Lance’s whereabouts.

  “I’m afraid I’m not quite ready for Mr. Horn’s company,” she said. “Serve him a drink, won’t you, and make my excuses to him? I’ll try not to be long.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She stepped away, but Sonnie caught her arm. “By the way, could you tell me”--she hesitated--“has Lance Harmon sent word? I’ve been expecting him.”

  “Lance?” She smiled. “He stays with us often. I’m sorry. We’ve heard nothing.”

  After the woman returned downstairs, Sonnie leaned against the closed door and released a frustrated sigh. One by one, the minutes dragged. What if Lance was in his room, after all? She plucked a key from the dresser top and strode from her room to his. With no answer to her knock, she endured a pang of disappointment and went in.

  Earlier she’d taken the liberty of unpacking his bag and removing his suit. After steaming the wrinkles from his black worsted jacket and pants, she had laid them neatly upon the bed, then touched up the starch in his shirt. Afterward, she had ordered a tub of hot water brought up for his private bath.

  The water had long since cooled. Her gown’s brocade train rustled softly against the carpet near the bed. Filled with thoughts of him, she trailed her fingers along the rich woven fabric of his suit jacket.

  She was accustomed to seeing him only in Levi’s and cotton work shirts. Her mind formed a vision of him in the elegant evening wear and sent her heart thumping against her breast.

  He would be . . . devastating.

  The door hinge creaked, and Sonnie turned in expectant surprise. Seeing her in his room, Lance halted, one hand still on the doorknob.

  He looked in good health, no worse the wear for his late return, Sonnie thought in relief. Only a concentrated effort kept her from running across the room and flinging her arms about his neck.

  “Lance! I’ve been worried. Where have you been?” she demanded in a breathless rush.