Mrs. Holden’s eyes widened, her mouth popped open, and her cheeks turned red.
“It was nice talking with you.” Sunny turned and walked away, forcing herself not to make a made dash for the relative safety of her wagon.
From the corner of her eye she saw Gus Atwater wheeling Mayor Baxter straight toward her. She should have run. She didn’t want to talk to anyone else.
“There you are, Sunny.” At a careless flick of Baxter’s wrist, Gus stopped his boss’s wheelchair directly in her path.
Every time she saw the mayor she was amazed at how physically fit a man confined to a wheelchair could look. Of course, he always dressed fashionably. She didn’t remember ever seeing him in anything other than a spotless, tailored suit. He had brown ones, black ones and gray ones, and they always looked new, never soiled or worn. His boots always bore an immaculate shine.
His silver hair, with its few remaining streaks of black, was always neatly combed. Even removing his black bowler, as he was doing now, never left a crease or messed a strand. How did he do that?
The gray side whiskers grew a shade too far down his jaws as far as Sunny was concerned. But they were always neatly trimmed, as was his matching mustache.
None of those things surprised Sunny. Baxter was a businessman and politician. Looking well-groomed was important to his success.
What always amazed her about the man was how someone who had spent every day of the past five years confined to a wheelchair, and most of his days inside his office at the bank, could be so tanned, look so vigorous.
Naturally his arms and shoulders would be strong from propelling himself around when Gus wasn’t available. And she supposed the hour ride from his ranch to town every day, then back again, would account for his tan.
But there was something else…
Just then Baxter twisted around to hand his hat to Gus. The action pulled his pant legs tight across muscular thighs.
Thunderation. Taking care of Ash McCord had her noticing a man’s thighs! Maybe the gossips were right to wonder about her.
But muscular thighs? On a man who hadn’t walked in five years?
Maria. Sunny had a sudden image of Baxter’s housekeeper doing for him what Sunny was doing for Ash. Daily leg exercises and massages. To keep his muscles from shriveling. The vision brought heat to her cheeks.
Baxter smiled at her and waved Gus away.
Common courtesy forced her to speak. “How are you, Mayor Baxter?”
“More importantly, how are you, my dear? I was devastated to learn of your father’s death. So tragic.”
Sunny merely nodded. There was nothing she could say, even if she could have spoken around the lump in her throat. The lump that still rose whenever she thought of her father.
“I feel somewhat responsible, you know,” Mr. Baxter said.
“You?” she said, surprised. “Why?”
“Well after all, it was my bank those men robbed. It was the bank’s money your father and the others were trying to save.”
Despite what her father had said about Ian Baxter both the day before the robbery and as he had lain dying at Doctor Sneed’s, Sunny’s heart softened toward the man in the wheelchair. He felt guilty. She could understand that. Didn’t she feel the same about Ash McCord? She smiled slightly. “No one blames you, Mayor. Surely you know that. And you shouldn’t blame yourself.” Advice was so much easier to give than to take, it seemed.
“Thank you for that, Sunny.” He returned her smile. “This town won’t seem the same without you and your lovely sisters.”
Sunny frowned. “What are you talking about? We’re not going anywhere.”
“Then you’ll be moving into town? How wonderful.”
“We’re not moving to town. Why would you think that?”
“You can’t mean to say you’re staying at the ranch.” He braced himself against the back of his chair, his eyes wide, brows raised. “Why, a young, pretty girl like you can’t run a ranch, Sunny. Surely you know that.”
Without moving, Sunny felt herself pulling away from him. She strove for a pleasant, neutral tone. “I don’t know any such thing. Tom Wilson is our foreman now. Between the two of us, and with the help of the other men, I believe we can manage quite nicely.”
“I’m sorry.” Mayor Baxter seemed to shrink down into his chair. “I’ve obviously offended you, and that was the last thing I wanted. But at the risk of offending you further, I feel obliged to remind you that you can’t stay on the ranch and run it yourself.”
“I don’t see why not.”
“I suppose you don’t. I’m sorry. I had hoped your father had told you before he…well, I’d hoped he’d already told you.”
Truly alarmed now, Sunny asked, “Told me what?”
Baxter nodded toward the people milling around. “Perhaps we should discuss this at a more private time.”
Sunny clenched her fists at her sides. The dirty, low down, rotten snake. What did he think he was trying to pull? “Perhaps you should tell me what you’re talking about right here, right now.”
“I’ve upset you.” He sighed and shook his head. “That’s something else I didn’t want to do.”
I’ll just bet. But she wouldn’t let him know she suspected what he was going to say. “What is it my father should have told me?”
“It’s my fault, really, for letting the situation go for so long.”
“What situation is that?”
“The truth is, Sunny, your father was behind on his mortgage. Way behind. We talked about it—argued, actually—the day of the dance. The day before the robbery.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“Oh,” he said, plainly surprised. “Well, then, you understand I—the bank that is, has no choice but to repossess the ranch and try to recoup its losses.”
“No, I don’t understand.” Sunny rubbed the sudden chill from her arms. “Yes, we’re behind on our payments. So is everyone else, because of the drought for the last two years. But my father made a payment that day, and you agreed to wait on the rest of what he owed you until he sold the cattle at market this spring.”
Baxter lowered his eyes and took a deep breath. When he looked at her again, there was sadness in his eyes. “We have no record of any payment, Sunny.”
“But I know he made it,” she said on the verge of panic. “He gave you nearly every cent he had, the day of the dance. He told me so.”
Baxter frowned. “I wonder. It’s possible he paid one of the tellers, and no one told me. Did he get a receipt?”
Sunny felt her heartbeat slow a little. A mistake. That’s all it was—an oversight by someone at the bank. “I’m not sure. I think he might have mentioned it to me, but I haven’t really thought about it since then.”
“Of course you haven’t, what with worrying about what’s to become of you and your sisters. Now I hear you’ve got that…Asher McCord out at your place.”
The mayor plainly had more he wanted to say on the subject of the man responsible for putting him in a wheelchair for life, but Sunny didn’t give him the chance. “I’m not worried about what will become of myself and my sisters.” Now there was a lie if she’d ever told one. “We have a good home on the ranch, and we plan to stay.”
Sunny didn’t want to hear about bank loans and late payments and losing the ranch. She wanted to gather her sisters and go home. She turned and stomped away from him, away from the merry picnickers.
“Sunny, wait,” Baxter called.
He hadn’t said it kindly—more like an order he expected her to obey—but still, she stopped. It seemed incredibly rude to leave in a snit while the man in the wheelchair couldn’t follow far and obviously had more to say. She turned and waited for him to roll to a halt before her.
What a horrible fate, to be bound to a wheelchair for the rest of his days. She couldn’t begin to imagine how dreadful that would be. He had every right to be bitter and hateful to the world for what had happened to him—for what Ash McCord, t
he man in her father’s bed—had done to him.
Yet she’d never heard Ian Baxter utter an unkind word to anyone. He was without question the most respected man in the county. A natural leader of men, a helpful neighbor, and a generous banker. Except for calling in her father’s loan, that is.
Still, she felt compassion rise within her as he struggled to wheel his chair over the rough, uneven ground.
He, however, was obviously not feeling very compassionate toward her, if the look on his face was any indication. With his thick, musclebound neck and those massive shoulders, built up from years of wheeling himself around, combined with the glare in his dark brown eyes, he looked like an angry bull getting ready to charge.
“I guess you didn’t understand me before, so I’ll have to speak the plain truth, Sunny. And the plain truth is, you can’t stay at the ranch.”
Sunny opened her mouth to speak.
Baxter raised a hand to stop her. “I have an obligation to the bank to recover the loss of your father’s unpaid loan. It’s an obligation I intend to fulfill. If you need some help relocating yourself and your sisters, I’ll see what I can do.”
A tremor of fear raced down Sunny’s spine. He was serious. He really wanted her off the ranch.
“Maybe a personal loan, from me to you.” he suggested. “But unless you can pay off your father’s loan, you’re going to have to be off the ranch by the end of the month.”
His announcement hit her like the cold north wind that had recently swept across the land. The wind, too, had brought ice to her veins. The end of the month was next week!
What was she to do? There was no way she could pay off that loan by next week. He knew that. Why was he doing this to her? Why?
She tried to calm herself and think what her father would do. What he would have her do.
Stall. That was the only thing. And stall she would.
“What if I find the receipt we talked about?” Was that thin, frightened sound really her voice? Thunderation, Sunshine, haven’t you got any more backbone than that? “And you promised to wait until the cattle were sold.”
Baxter shook his head. Now he looked more sad than angry. “If you haven’t found the receipt by now, there probably wasn’t one. And that promise was made to your father because of his experience with cattle ranching. I can’t justify extending the loan to a young girl with no ranching experience. Surely you understand that, Sunny.”
“What I understand,” she said, straightening her shoulders with determination, “is that you’re trying to go back on your word. If there’s a receipt, I’ll find it. If there’s not one, then it just means my father trusted your bank enough to not ask for one. But I know he made that payment. I think you know it too.”
“Now, Sunny—”
“I intend to sell my cattle at market this year just as my father had planned. You’ll get your money from me the same as you would have from him. If that doesn’t suit you, I’m sorry. But my sisters and I are not leaving the ranch. Elections are coming up next fall. How many votes do you think you’ll get for mayor if you put four desperate orphans out in the street?”
This time when she walked off, she ignored his call. As quickly as possible, she gathered her sisters, loaded them into the wagon and left for home.
Her hands shook so hard on the reins, the horses started acting up. It took all her concentration and strength to settle them down.
Once they were settled, their now steady gait pulling the wagon toward home, her mind was free to wander. That’s when the terror set in.
Ian Baxter was trying to throw her and her sisters off their ranch!
How could she possibly take care of her sisters, raise them to womanhood, if they lost the very roof over their heads? They had nowhere to go.
Oh, there was a cousin or two somewhere in Missouri, she thought, and the last she’d heard, her mother’s half-brother lived in Georgia. But those people weren’t family, really. Not family like Sunny had learned it meant.
Members of a family took care of each other, loved each other, and when necessary, sacrificed for each other. Those were the things she had always tried to do for her sisters. The things her mother had taught her.
From her father she’d learned to believe in herself, in her own strengths, and to be true to her own beliefs.
With her father’s death, Sunny was the head of the family. Her sisters’ welfare was her responsibility. The ranch was as much theirs as it was hers, although they didn’t really understand that. But it was their heritage.
With his last breath, her father had asked her to keep the ranch out of Ian Baxter’s hands. He’d even suggested she sell it, if that was the only way to keep Baxter from getting it.
She’d agreed to that. She’d promised.
But now, as her fear subsided and determination once more took hold, she knew she had to do far more than just keep the ranch from Baxter. She had to keep it herself. For her sisters.
She wouldn’t let Mayor Ian Baxter force them to leave. She wouldn’t let him force her to sell. Her family had worked too hard for too many years to lose their home now.
Somehow she had to hold Baxter off, delay him. Then she had to make certain she got enough money from selling her cattle to pay off the loan.
In her mind, she had no choice. She must keep the ranch, therefore, she would keep it.
Come hell, high water, or Mayor Ian Baxter.
But how?
It was nearly dawn the next morning before Sunny was able to answer her own question about how to keep from losing the ranch. It was really quite simple, she decided. She just wouldn’t leave.
The desperate words she’d thrown at Baxter at the church picnic came back to her, and she realized a certain basic truth and reality in them. This fall Ian Baxter would run for mayor. Again. He wasn’t about to do anything to jeopardize his standing in the community.
If he tried to foreclose on the ranch before the election, what could he do if she refused to leave? Send the sheriff?
Sunny clenched her jaws. It would take guns to get her to budge.
She nearly laughed aloud at the thought. Sheriff Jamison was the kindest, nicest man alive. Legal or not, the day he forced the four orphaned Thornton sisters out of their home—at gunpoint, no less—would be the day after the sun set in the east.
And she knew he would even go against the very law he was sworn to uphold to protect her and her sisters.
She smiled. Baxter couldn’t force her out. With his fearful threats put to rest in her mind, Sunny kicked the covers back and rose. She dressed quietly so as not to wake Katy in the next bed, then went to the kitchen, lit the lamp, and tied on her apron.
By the time the sun was full up, she had the girls fed and on their way to school. A few minutes later she took Ash’s breakfast in to him.
He met her cheerful “Good morning” with a suspicious scowl. She ignored it and smiled while setting the tray on the bedside table. “I’ll be right back with your pillows.
When she returned, he had pulled himself up with the rope and was sitting waiting for the pillows. She tucked them behind his back and placed the tray across his lap.
An hour later he still hadn’t said a word to her. It was disconcerting the way he watched every move she made, a puzzled expression on his face.
When she pulled the sheet aside and started massaging lotion into his left leg, she knew she had to say something to get her mind off the way the dark hair on his leg tickled her palms. “You’re awfully quiet today,” she said to him.
“Funny,” he answered. “I thought the same thing about you when you came back from church yesterday. You walked around the rest of the day with a frown on your face. What happened? Preacher make you stand up and tell all your sins?”
Thoughts about church and her conversation afterwards with Ian Baxter flitted once more through her mind. She dismissed them as no longer important and answered Ash’s question by making a face. “Very funny,” she said.
&nbs
p; “What? No sins?”
She laughed and looked up at him, expecting to see a twinkle of mischief in his eyes. But he wasn’t teasing, she realized instantly. He was ridiculing her.
She forced her smile to stay rigidly in place. “I never claimed to be perfect.”
“No? What great sins have you committed? Do you ever tell a lie?”
She paused to pour more lotion into her palm. Something was eating at him, but that was nothing new. He’d been surly for days. Since the day his leg cramped. If he thought he could pick a fight with her today, he was sadly mistaken.
She tossed her braid back over her shoulder and laughed. “Lie? Me? You must be kidding. I tried it once when I was about eight. I was a total failure. My mother asked me what had happened to her little bluebird figurine her grandmother had brought from England long before my mother was born. I told her I saw it fly out the window.”
She laughed, but he didn’t join her. She shrugged. “Anyway, she found a few broken pieces I’d missed when I tried to hide the evidence. Oh, the whipping I got!”
“She whipped you for breaking the bird?”
“Of course not. She whipped me for lying about it. And let me tell you, that was the absolute last time I ever even tried to lie.”
Of course, she’d lied to Ian Baxter yesterday when she said she wasn’t worried, but she wasn’t about to bring up the mayor’s name when Ash was in such a surly mood.
He gave a derisive snort. “That’s your worst sin?”
She chuckled again and moved down below his knee to massage his calf. “Oh, no. I suffer the sin of pride, sometimes I’m arrogant—”
“Not you,” he claimed with mock amazement.
She ignored his sarcasm. “Sometimes I’m stubborn.”
“Those are all terrible sins, that’s for sure.”
“You want me to have terrible sins?”
He snorted and rolled his eyes.
“All right,” she said, working the lotion into his foot. “I’ve bared my soul and told you my sins. What terrible sins are you guilty of?”
The look he gave her froze the smile on her face and the blood in her veins.
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