“Yeah.”
Hands on her hips, she faced him. “Don’t you want to correct me on that? Don’t you want to tell me that your plan is to call Hobbs Sutton so he and his deputies can sneak up and catch the rustlers before they get away?”
“I will call the sheriff as soon as I get an alarm. But, Willa, you know how long it would take them to come this far out from town. That’s part of the problem. Sutton can’t post deputies indefinitely, but the only way to catch these thieves is to have someone right here, ready to spring the trap.” Daniel shrugged. “That someone has got to be me.”
“You and Nate? You and at least one other hand? Do you know how dangerous those men are?”
“This isn’t Nate’s ranch. The hands don’t have twenty-four/seven responsibility. And most of them have families, people who care about them. I can’t ask them to risk their lives.”
“You’ll just risk your own.” He’d never heard such deadly cold in her voice, not even that very first day. “And to top it all off, you weren’t going to tell me, were you? You figured you’d just show up at breakfast one morning and announce it? ‘Oh, by the way, I had this neat gadget installed and I caught all the rustlers single-handed last night. Don’t have a scratch on me and they’re all in jail.’ Something like that?”
“Something like that.”
“Damn it, Daniel!” She walked an agitated circle in front of him, then stopped to glare at him again. “You’re going to do whatever you think is best, without consulting me, without giving me a chance to express my opinion or change your mind.”
“I do depend on you, Willa. I couldn’t have gotten through this afternoon without you. But—”
“I could help with this, you know. I’m a damn good shot.”
“You’ve got three children who depend on you to take care of them.”
“You made me depend on you! You led me to believe I could trust you to be here, that I would be safe being with you. And all the time you’re setting up this plot that’s more than likely going to get you killed and leave me grieving again.”
“Willa—”
He reached for her, but she brushed him off. “You do whatever you have to—though I can assure you, no piece of beef is worth the kind of risk you’re prepared to take. But stay away from me, and stay away from my family. We’ve been hurt enough. Just go your own way, and we’ll go ours.”
She jumped into her truck, spraying gravel as she turned around and headed down the hill toward the Blue Moon.
Daniel stood for a long time staring blindly into the darkness. Then he went back into his house, got dressed and spent the rest of the night monitoring his fences from the barn.
NATE ARRIVED FRIDAY MORNING looking pale but steady on his feet. Daniel sent him with three of the hands out to pick up the dead cattle. The first truck got stuck in the mud, as did the second he sent to the rescue. Finally, Nate drove down to Willa’s barn to ask for the loan of a tractor, which pulled the two trucks back to solid ground and dug a hole big enough to bury the two dead cows.
After such a pleasant morning, Daniel wasn’t surprised to see a sheriff’s office vehicle coming up the road in the middle of the afternoon.
He invited the sheriff into the house and handed over a glass of lemonade. “Although I suppose you’d rather go to the barn. I gather Willa called you to report on my monitoring system.”
Sutton emptied the glass in three gulps. “Thanks. Yeah, she called. I told her what you’re doing isn’t against the law as far as I can tell. But I think going after the rustlers on your own is a lousy idea.”
Daniel set his glass on the counter. “But it’s not illegal.”
“No. If you shoot or kill somebody, though, I’ll probably have to arrest you. And the courts can be tricky about self-defense.”
“This is Texas. Don’t I have a right to defend my own property?”
Holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender, the sheriff shook his head. “Ask a lawyer. I’m just telling you what’s been my experience.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
“You be sure you call if you go after them. I’ll arrive in time to pick up the pieces, at least.”
Daniel grinned. “That makes me feel better.”
His monitoring system sounded the alert for the first time on the night of December first. Daniel was alone in the barn, dozing in the chair, when the warning lights started flashing and the buzzer sounded. He jerked awake and nearly fell off the chair before he realized what was going on. A quick look at the diagram on the computer screen showed him the segment of fence being attacked. Grabbing his coat and his holster, Daniel headed for his truck. Tonight, he’d get this problem taken care of once and for all.
Then, maybe, he could see about getting Willa to forgive him.
True to his word, he called the sheriff’s office before he left the barn, to report the theft. Then he drove twenty minutes across the ranch, avoiding huddles of sleeping cattle, getting in and out of the truck for three separate gates. With a quarter of a mile to go, he parked the truck and started out on foot, hoping to avoid any advance warning to the rustlers.
But as he crested the hill that would give him a good view of the fence, Daniel stopped in his tracks. The moon shone like a spotlight in the clear night sky, defining every shape with sharp black lines and illuminating any movement on the landscape.
He didn’t see a single cow between himself and the fence line. No cattle trailer, no ATVs herding animals in that direction. A quiet night on the range stretched to the horizon on every side.
The fence line definitely had been cut—he found the broken wire with ease in the bright light. But when he examined the ground, he felt sure that none of his cattle had been close to this part of the fence since the Thanksgiving rains. On the outside of the fence, he found no tracks at all. Were the rustlers taunting him?
Or had somebody else decided to play games?
THE ARGUMENT BEGAN ON DECEMBER second, as the children brought the boxes holding el nacimiento—the Mercado family’s elaborate nativity scene—down from the second floor storage room.
“You must ask Daniel to the party,” Rosa said in a quiet voice. “How will it look to invite practically the entire county and leave out your closest neighbor?”
Willa handed her one of the vases that usually sat on the table under Jamie’s picture and picked up the other one herself. “I don’t care how it looks. Let’s take these to the kitchen.”
When she returned, Lili was spreading a gold brocade cloth over the table. “Nate will be coming.” She smoothed an imaginary wrinkle. “And all of Daniel’s hands are related to ours in some way or the other. They’ll be here. How can we not have Daniel at the posada, too?”
Willa waited until the children had gone back upstairs for the rest of the boxes. Then she faced her aunts. “Let me make this very clear. I explained what he’s done and told you why I can’t trust him. I will not put my children or myself through more of the kind of pain we’ve endured these past two years. That means I can’t have anything to do with Daniel Trent. You may have your posada with Toby, Susannah, Roberto and me in the house…or him. That’s the only choice.”
She thought the decision should be fairly easy. But over the course of the afternoon, as the family set out the elaborate hand-built stand, the antique figurines and accessories that had been collected over generations, Rosa and Lili continued to make pointed comments.
“You would think he was Lucifer himself.” Rosa sniffed as she placed the traditional figure of the devil in his dark cave on the back corner of the table.
“The holiday is about love,” Lili said simply, as she arranged the angels on the upper levels of the display.
This was Toby’s year to place the oldest and most important pieces on the display—the manger holding the Holy Child, and José and Maria, his parents. When he’d finished, he looked over his shoulder at Willa, his brown eyes solemn. “Didn’t He tell us to forgive?”
Willa heard Robbie
snort. She ignored her older son, and put a hand on Toby’s shoulder. “Yes, He did. But we can forgive someone who hurts us without giving them the opportunity to do so again.”
That comment earned sounds of frustration from both aunts and from Susannah.
“I don’t care what you think,” Willa told the three of them. “Lili, Rosa, if you want to see him that’s your prerogative. As long as it’s not on Blue Moon land. Don’t bring him here. And Susannah and Toby will not be going there.” She knew she didn’t have to tell Robbie. “Is that understood?” The children nodded. The aunts looked mulish.
“Good. Now, what about those tamales I can smell cooking in the kitchen?”
For the next two weeks, they prepared for the party—the aunts always insisted on making all the food themselves while Willa and the children got the house ready. The tradition of the posada recalled the journey of José and Maria to Bethlehem, searching for a place in which the Holy Child could be born. The Mercados had been hosting a posada at the Blue Moon for at least a century…even the year after Jamie’s death, they’d held a quieter version of the annual event. This year, Willa had hoped to enjoy herself thoroughly, dancing and singing the festive songs of the season and introducing Daniel to her family’s customs.
Instead, she would be alone. Again.
On Saturday the fourteenth, the day of the party, she and the kids strung lights in the trees around the house and along the top of the courtyard wall. In the courtyard itself, Toby and Robbie hung piñatas—hollow papier-mâché donkeys filled with candy and small presents—at a variety of heights for children of different ages to bat with a stick until the piñata broke open and treats scattered all around. Susannah set candles and pots of brilliant-red poinsettias on the small tables arranged around the fountain. Willa made sure there were plenty of adult refreshments and that her aunts stopped cooking long enough to don their party dresses.
At six, the family gathered in the courtyard as they always did for the official “lighting ceremony.” Toby and Robbie plugged in the extension cords for the electric lights, while Susannah, Lili, Willa and Rosa lit the candles. Then they all stepped back to admire the effect. Susannah gasped in pleasure.
Toby pumped his fist in the air. “Awesome!”
“Pretty cool,” was Robbie’s assessment.
“Beautiful!” Rosa clapped her hands. “This is the prettiest I think I’ve ever seen it.”
Lili dabbed at her eyes. “Father would have been proud.” She slipped an arm around Willa’s waist. “Jamie, too.”
Willa nodded. “It looks wonderful.” She turned to hug her aunts and then her kids. “You’ve all done a terrific job. Now let’s enjoy the party!”
The guests would start arriving any minute. Her family scattered to their final tasks, leaving her in the cool evening air by herself for a moment. Reluctantly, she looked north, up the road, as if she could see Daniel’s house, two miles away. What was he doing tonight? Had he put her out of his mind? Why couldn’t she do the same?
Out beyond the courtyard wall, a car door slammed and then another. With a heavy heart, Willa turned to greet her friends. Maybe she couldn’t have a good time, but she would make sure that everyone else did.
AS HE SAT IN HIS BARN OFFICE ON Saturday night, Daniel could have sworn he heard music and laughter coming up the hill from the Blue Moon ranch. Not really, of course. Those sounds wouldn’t carry this distance. But he could imagine the house all decked out for the party—a posada, Nate said they called it. Daniel could imagine Willa in that blue dress she’d worn to the Cattlemen’s Ball, with her hair pinned up and her eyes shining brightly as she danced and enjoyed herself.
And here he was, holed up alone in his one-man crusade to…what? Protect his property? Secure justice?
Or was he hoping to prove—to Willa, to himself—that he was equal to the role he’d taken on?
For that, he would need the cooperation of the rustlers. They would need to show up, cut through his fence and steal his cattle so he could catch them in the act. But in the weeks since he’d installed his system, his cattle had stayed where they belonged, which was a victory, of sorts. Except for the false alarms.
Three times in the past two weeks, his fence had been cut. The alarm had sounded and he’d headed out to the site…only to come up short. No cattle missing, no evidence of rustling. He was beginning to feel like a character in a children’s story—The Boy Who Cried Wolf. After Hobbs Sutton had shown up the first two times but the rustlers hadn’t, Daniel had stopped calling. No man liked being shown for a fool in front of his romantic rival.
He had a feeling Rob Mercado was sneaking out at night to torment him. He could probably have proved it if he tried. But the tricks were relatively harmless, although they cost him extra work and some lost sleep. Mostly, he didn’t want to cause Willa more trouble. The boy would get tired of the game when no one reacted.
Which was why, when the alarm went off at midnight, Daniel considered ignoring it. What better cover for a Saturday night prank than the big party going on at the Blue Moon? Rob would figure that his mother wouldn’t miss him with so many people in the house. He could slip out to the barn, saddle Tar and ride off without being seen, then ease back into the crowd an hour later with no one the wiser. Including Daniel.
Then again, maybe this was the rustlers’ golden opportunity. Maybe they figured Daniel was at the party, and they had all night to load cattle and take them away. Maybe they’d be a little careless, thinking they couldn’t get caught.
Prepared for rustlers but expecting another false alarm, Daniel decided to ride Calypso to check out the fence rather than take the truck. The monitor showed the fence break in the pasture closest to the barn, so they’d have an easy trip out. Another bright moon would keep them both safe.
Fifteen minutes later, as he watched men in black clothes use ATVs to drive his cattle toward a hole in the fence, Daniel discarded all thoughts of safety. He counted three of them doing the herding. Add maybe two more at the truck. The odds weren’t great, but he’d succeeded against worse.
About to kick Calypso into action, Daniel realized that he could get plenty of help at Willa’s tonight—Nate and his hands, probably Hobbs Sutton and half the sheriff’s deputies would be at the party. The rustlers had several hours of work ahead of them, herding the cattle through the fence and loading them into the truck. Daniel could bring a posse back with him in plenty of time.
Grinning, he turned his horse and set off at a jog. Willa would get what she wanted—he was playing by her rules. Hell, she could even come along and help them catch the bad guys. She was a better shot than most of the men, anyway.
Riding across the open range, Daniel didn’t see the sixth man on the rustler’s crew, the one they’d posted as lookout. And he didn’t hear the crack of the rifle shot until after the bullet slammed into him from the left rear, knocking him clean out of the saddle.
BY 1:00 A.M., THE POSADA HAD wound down to a few good friends and family enjoying their fruit punch on the front terrace under a brilliant moon.
“Quite a party, Miss Willa.” Nate lifted a cup in salute. “I never seen one like it in all my years on the Blue Moon.”
Willa smiled as she watched him clink his glass with Lili’s, who sat next to him on the wall. “I’m glad you enjoyed yourself.”
“We all did.” Next to her, Hobbs Sutton stretched his long arms wide. He let his hand come to rest on the back of her chair, just behind her shoulder. Not touching, quite. She supposed the dances they’d shared this evening encouraged him to hope for more—especially since Daniel had been so conspicuously absent from the party.
And she’d missed him every second. But why should tonight be different from every day of the past few weeks?
She shook her head slightly, trying to banish him from her thoughts yet again. Susannah and Toby had gone to bed more than an hour ago, worn out by the work and excitement of the day. Across the courtyard, Robbie sat by himself, staring at not
hing she could see. She’d had no trouble with him since…well, since she’d broken off with Daniel. Of course. And the school reports were all positive. For three weeks he’d been a model student, the perfect son. Something would have to give soon, or he’d explode.
The thought made her smile. Hobbs leaned forward. “What are you thinking about?”
“It’s nothing.” She could have shared the joke with Daniel but not with a man she’d known all her life. “I suppose I could start gathering up these dishes—”
As she sat forward, she saw Robbie jerk his head up. In the next second, she caught the sound he’d heard first—the furious pounding of a horse’s hooves galloping down the road. Willa turned and stood up in the same motion, looking northward…toward Daniel’s place. The New Moon Ranch.
“It’s Calypso!” Robbie vaulted the courtyard wall and ran toward the road, arms spread wide, standing directly in the horse’s path. “Whoa, Cal. Whoa, there.”
Eyes wide, nostrils flaring, the horse planted its front hooves and slid to a stop only inches from where Robbie stood. He grabbed the reins, which had been trailing on the ground. It was a miracle Cal hadn’t tripped on them and hurt himself.
“It’s okay,” Robbie crooned to the animal as Willa came up. “You’re all right.” Calypso’s chest was heaving with the effort of his breath. The foam on his legs indicated he’d galloped a fair distance at top speed.
“Did he escape the corral?” Willa voiced what she knew was a futile hope.
Hobbs looked at her from the other side of the horse. “I don’t think so.” He took the reins from Robbie and walked Cal in a circle so she could see his right side.
Daniel’s boot was stuck in the right stirrup.
Willa gasped, and pressed her fist against her lips.
“I’m afraid Daniel was riding,” the sheriff said. “And fell off. He’s out there.” He nodded north, toward Daniel’s land and the Wild Horse Desert. “Somewhere.”
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Nate stepped up. “Let’s go find him!”
Christmas at Blue Moon Ranch Page 17