UNWRAPPING THE RANCHER'S SECRET

by ROBINSON, LAURI

  A growl rolled about in the back of his throat as Morton grasped his arm. He let his glare voice his demand, and when the man let loose, Crofton once again started for the office.

  “What were you doing digging through the rubbish pile?” Morton asked.

  Crofton considered not answering, but then decided now might be the perfect time to get a few answers. “Just satisfying my curiosity,” he said while walking toward the office.

  Just as he suspected, Morton followed.

  “By digging through trash?” Morton asked as he entered the room. “What did you expect to find?”

  Crofton crossed the room to a small table near the fireplace and proceeded to fill a glass with amber liquid from the half-full decanter. He’d bet no one had touched the bottle since Winston died, and that made his hand tingle slightly. After replacing the glass stopper, he lifted the glass and gave a silent salute to his father before he downed the drink in one swallow. As the mellow, rich flavor flowed over his tongue and down his throat, he wished he’d taken the time to savor it.

  “Half the town throws stuff back there,” Bugsley said.

  Setting the glass down, Crofton turned about. “I don’t think so. There were a few empty bottles, but for the most part, it was just scrap lumber from the mill.”

  “We pile it there,” Morton said, glancing toward the liquor table. “Lumber that’s no good except for burning. People are free to collect it as needed for firewood. They tend to throw out whatever else they don’t want back there, too.”

  He’d been at the rubbish pile long enough to learn plenty, but mayhap not long enough to know exactly what Morton was referring to. Another trip might be in order. Letting that settle in his mind, Crofton changed the subject. “You’re aware that Sara and I visited my—our father’s lawyer today.”

  “I heard as much.”

  Or saw. Crofton withheld that thought. “Nice man,” he said, “Ralph Wainwright, and thorough. Nothing got by him. Then again, my father only hired the best.” He grinned while walking toward the desk. “If they weren’t the best when he hired them, he cultivated them into being exactly what he wanted. He knew one man couldn’t do it alone. That he needed followers. Those with the same drive and passion.” Making sure his words were hitting home, he paused before continuing, “The unique thing about Winston Parks was that he knew how to lead. Give a man an inch and he’ll take a mile, but reward him for earning that inch, and he’ll give you a mile.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  Crofton smiled. It meant a lot to him. His father had told him that years ago, and it had stuck with him. He may not have put it into practice as well as his father had, maybe because he hadn’t understood it as well as he did this minute. Even the best employee could become greedy. Want more.

  “Just that my father paid his employees well.” He sat down and leaned back in the chair, placing his hands behind his head. “You worked for Winston, what, twelve, thirteen years?”

  Morton opened his mouth, but then closed it as a devil-may-care-but-I-don’t glint filled his eyes. “You’re worrying about the wrong man.” He took a chair and rested an ankle over the opposite knee.

  A tiny part of Crofton had to admire the man’s audacity. Then again, Winston would never have hired a full-blown idiot. But, he might have accidentally hired a schemer, if the man kept himself hidden well enough, and Morton had plenty of hidden secrets. Crofton pondered that for a moment. Winston would have known that, too. So why had he hired Morton? “Oh?” Crofton asked. “And whom should I be worried about?”

  “Your own hide,” Morton said. “Winston’s son or not, this entire town will soon be out for you. Your father was the king of Royalton, and Sara’s the princess. Think about that. The men in the parlor will see you lynched before the week’s end if she’s permanently injured.”

  Chapter Nine

  Crofton squeezed the wood of the balcony rail beneath his hands. The evidence—if he could call it that—was gone. The entire rubbish pile had been set afire. Morton must have seen to it as soon as he left the house right after the doctor proclaimed Sara would be up and about in no time.

  That had been hours ago. The time had barely ticked by while waiting for the doctor to come down the steps. Right after Bugsley had threatened a lynching, Crofton had escorted him from the office. Leaving Morton in the hall, he’d entered the parlor and started playing host to the men sitting there. Not because he was afraid of what Morton had said, but because he knew it to be true. True royalty or not, Winston had been the king of Royalton, and much like England had Queen Victoria, the town would expect much from Sara. He hadn’t attempted to make friends with the waiting men—if that had been his intention, he’d have offered them some of Winston’s whiskey—nor had he cared if any of them left the house liking him more than when they’d arrived. He’d simply needed something to do.

  Overall, his waiting companions had turned out to be a good bunch of men. Especially Walter Porter. The man sincerely cared about Sara, and was mourning both Winston and Sara’s mother’s deaths as if they’d been family. Walter took pride in the lumber mill, too, lots of it. So did the others. And they were concerned about how Sara would cope with the duties that had fallen upon her slim shoulders.

  Crofton turned toward the door he’d left slightly open when he’d wandered onto her balcony. He was worried. That was a heavy burden for one as small as Sara. She was so unprepared.

  The night air had chilled him, so he reentered her room. A lamp burned beside her bed, the light flickering softly inside the glass chimney. Amelia had left it lit when she’d finally gone to bed an hour or more ago, with specific instructions he was to wake her if Sara so much as whimpered.

  She hadn’t. Not yet anyway, but the doctor had said she would. Said she’d have a whopper of a headache when she awoke the first time from the chloroform he’d used to keep her asleep while he stitched up her side. Thankfully the stick hadn’t damaged anything vital, just some flesh, the doc had said. Crofton was happy to hear that. Carrying her had told him she didn’t have an abundance of extra flesh on any part of her body.

  Her bedroom, like the rest of the house, was large, and the furniture grand. The bed had pillar posts at all four corners, and was situated in the center of the room with tables on both sides. A tall dresser and matching armoire were in one far corner, separated by a dressing screen. A bench with several pillows sat beneath a set of wide windows on the wall overlooking the front of the house, along with a short bookcase. The door to the hallway was on the opposite wall, and in that corner was a round table covered with a tablecloth that matched the two upholstered chairs sitting beside it. The thick quilt that had been covering the bed was now folded neatly over the foot of the bed.

  He frowned slightly, remembering how she’d worried about getting blood on that quilt. It was pale yellow with tiny white stripes. Her mother must have been quite a seamstress, for everything in the room, including the curtains had been sewn from the same material.

  A rustle of the sheet covering Sara made him take a step toward the bed, but the creak of a board beneath his feet had him stop and wait to see if it had been his imagination or not. Hearing a tiny moan, he carefully crossed the room and knelt down beside her bed. His heart hammered inside his chest, and for a moment, he wondered if he’d started to think of her as his sister. There was no other reason for him to care as much about her as he did. More than he’d cared about anyone else in a very long time. He’d had plenty of friends through the years, and had seen them ill and injured, but they’d never pulled at his heart like she did. He’d give all he had to take her place right now. To be the one lying in that bed instead of her.

  She opened one eye and licked her lips before hoarsely whispering, “Do I smell smoke?”

  He’d also come to know her better than he’d known others in a very short amount of t
ime. If he told her no or not to worry, she’d try to sit up and proclaim him wrong, so he went with the truth. “Yes.”

  “What’s burning?”

  Her voice sounded so full of gravel it pained him to hear it. He took the glass of water off the table beside the bed, and holding it near her chin, slid his other hand beneath her head. “Here, take a sip of water.”

  After she did so, and while he set the glass aside she asked, “What’s on fire?”

  Though her voice was stronger, it was far from normal. “Don’t worry,” he answered. “It’s just some brush.”

  “It’s too dry. There hasn’t been any snow yet and it could get away—”

  “It was well guarded and now nothing more than ashes.” Removing his hand from beneath her head, he asked, “How are you feeling?”

  “Awful.” Still lying on her side, she lifted one hand and pressed the heel of her palm against her temple. “It feels like someone is squeezing my head with both hands.”

  “The doctor said that would happen and that you have to sleep it off.” He felt her cheek. She was warm, and he had no idea if that was normal, or if it meant she was feverish—which was what the doc said to watch for. Figuring he’d go fetch Amelia, he first pulled the covers over her shoulder and tucked them near her neck.

  She wrapped her fingers around his. “Thank you.”

  Both of her eyes were open, staring directly into his and he couldn’t have broken the gaze if he’d wanted to. It seemed to pull him right in. “You’re welcome,” he said, his voice almost as gravelly as hers had been.

  “I shouldn’t have followed you today.”

  The flip inside his chest had to have been his heart tumbling. “I shouldn’t have knocked you to the ground.”

  The hint of a smile turned up the corners of her lips. “You didn’t. I fell.”

  She’d been saying that all along. He knew differently. He may not have touched her, but running at her had startled her to the point she’d tripped and fallen. Unable to stop himself, he leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “If you say so.”

  This time when she closed her eyes a tear slipped out from beneath her lashes. “You remind me so much of Winston when you do that.” She sniffled. “You’ve reminded me of him all day. When I was seven, we’d had a terrible ice storm, and I slipped going to the privy and broke my arm. The road was too icy for the horses, or to walk, so Winston carried me down the hill on the trail, and then back up after Dr. Dunlop put a splint on it. The doctor said we should stay at his place, but I wanted to come home.”

  “Of course you did,” Crofton whispered. “Every child wants to be at their home.” He knew that so well. For years he’d dreamed of returning to Ohio, to his home. To his family. Fighting those ghostly memories, he said, “I’ll go get Amelia—maybe she has something that will help you go back to sleep.”

  Her hold on his hand tightened. “No, please don’t leav—bother her. I’ll go back to sleep.” After a deep breath, she let go of his hand. “You should go to bed, too. It must be late.”

  “I’m used to not sleeping.” He had no idea why he’d chosen to tell her that. Not being able to sleep more than an hour or so at a time had been something he’d long ago gotten over. It had started at the first school his mother had sent him to in England, where the headmaster would roam amongst the beds at night. The one time the man had pulled him from his bed, Crofton had broken loose in the hallway and run. Hadn’t stopped until he’d run all the way home. His mother had been very angry, and that had been the first time Thomas Bennett had stood up for him. The compromise had been a new school. There the headmaster hadn’t roamed the rooms at night, but Crofton still hadn’t been able to sleep. Short catnaps had already become a norm.

  “Why?”

  “No reason in particular.” Reaching behind him, he grabbed a leg of the chair Amelia had sat upon most of the evening and pulled it closer to the bed. “You go to sleep now. I’m going to sit right here until you do, or I’ll get Amelia, it’s your choice.”

  Another faint smile briefly tugged at her lips as Sara watched him sit down. “Don’t wake Amelia,” she said. “I’ll go to sleep.”

  “Then close your eyes,” he said, with false sternness.

  She complied, but her smile grew.

  He grinned, too, and then leaned over and blew out the lamp. The moon shining through the windows provided enough light to see if she moved. He briefly considered cracking the door, just enough for the fresh air to cool the room. Despite the lateness of the year, the weather had barely dropped enough to send bugs into hibernation. It wasn’t that way down on his ranch. The bugs lived year-round there, and grew as big as the cattle and bit harder than some snakes. He hadn’t minded. Just took the bugs in stride with all the other things that went along with ranching.

  That—his ranch and life there—almost seemed like a distant past. He’d only been in Royalton a few days, but he should miss his home, shouldn’t he? The people there. It had been his life the past few years. The one thing that he’d taken an interest in.

  Disgust tightened his jaw. Evidently not that much of an interest. He’d completely forgotten to send June a wire to let her know what was happening. Not willing to take those thoughts any deeper, he concluded it was just as well. June would expect more news than he had to share. Morton could very well be the one behind Mel’s death, and if that was true, Sara was in considerable danger. That’s where his mind was. Not on his ranch, Mel or the railroad. The chip on his shoulder had become an anvil.

  This could all have been avoided if he’d been the one to come to Royalton instead of Mel, but he’d been too cowardly.

  Cowardly was right. That’s exactly what he’d been. He hadn’t wanted to face being rejected by his father one more time. Not even for the sake of his ranch, of the ranchers around him. Things would be very different right now if he’d ridden up here months ago, or years. He’d been down in New Mexico two years before moving to Arizona. Two years. But he’d been too stubborn to ride north. He’d even told Mel to let it play out, that eventually the railroad would lay tracks into Arizona. Mel, though, along with June, Gray Hawk and others, had wanted it now, as promised.

  Now. He huffed out a breath. Now his father and Mel were dead, Sara had her side stitched up like a cloth doll, and he’d made a fair few enemies. Namely Bugsley Morton. That issue didn’t bother him. His father’s and Mel’s deaths and Sara’s injury did. As did the fact that he’d changed Sara’s life drastically. If he’d never shown up, she’d have inherited everything. Bugsley would have stepped in and run the mill while she continued to live happily in the home she so sincerely loved. Maybe married one of those poor fools who’d run up the hill asking for her hand.

  He didn’t like that idea. Of her marrying one of those men. That was practically laughable. Those men thought she was some docile little princess they’d be able to control. He knew better. That was what she portrayed with her serene little smile and meek nods, but he saw behind all that. Had on their first encounter, and again when he’d explained Winston’s mathematical notations. She was brave, too. Lord knows what kind of wild critters she could have encountered on her hike down that mountainside.

  Blood daughter or not, she’d inherited some of Winston’s grit. Now that he’d taken time to think about all this, whatever wool Morton had already been trying to pull over her eyes, she’d been onto him. That’s why she was studying those books so hard.

  A smile tugged at his lips and he leaned his head against the back of the chair and closed his eyes. With a bit more knowledge, she’d be a force to be reckoned with—one who might just be more of a match than Morton bargained on. That would be fun to see. Princess Sara turning into Queen Sara overseeing her kingdom.

  When Crofton snapped his eyes open, he was surprised to see sunlight filling the room and Amelia standing over him. Sara was awake
, too, and fluttered the fingers of one hand at him. He blinked away the lingering film of sleep and fading thoughts of kings and queens, before taking a second look at her. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes shining. How the hell could she look so adorable? So healthy? A few hours ago she’d had a foot-long stick poking out of her side.

  Half wondering if he’d dreamt the entire episode, he turned to look at Amelia.

  She tossed a shirt at him. Examining the pristine whiteness, he asked, “How’d you get it...” Stopping, he glanced up. There were no mending stitches on the shirt. His had been cut off Sara.

  “I didn’t,” Amelia said, knowing his thoughts. “It was your father’s. There’s a closet full of his clothes. No sense giving them to someone else when you can wear them. There’s a razor in the water closet you might consider using, and coffee downstairs on the stove.”

  Her tone wasn’t harsh, just serious, as if she wasn’t in the mood for any disputes. That wasn’t new. She’d never been in the mood for disputes.

  “I gotta check Sara’s stitches,” Amelia continued. “If Doc Dunlop shows up before I get downstairs, send him up.”

  In spite of a lingering headache and an extremely sore side, Sara couldn’t stop a smile from forming. Disheveled and sleepy-eyed, Crofton looked even more handsome than when he’d been wearing his ready-made suit. She wasn’t sure why that tickled her fancy, but it did. Could be because she knew he’d finally gotten some sleep. For the longest time, every time she’d opened an eye, he’d been sitting in the chair, staring at the door leading to the balcony. The sorrow on his face had made her insides ache more than her injury—at least in a different way. Her side didn’t ache. It hurt. There most definitely was a difference.