Anne wrapped her hands around the step railing. “I married him by proxy. I signed the documents three months ago.”
“Then where is he?” Cyrus McCaine demanded. “He was supposed to be here before today if he wanted this ranch. I say he doesn’t want it. I say he doesn’t want you, either.”
Cyrus was fifty-four, rich, and mean-tempered. Anne’s uncle had sold her to him to become his third wife. Cyrus’s first wife was said to have died of a blow to the head she received when she fell from a horse. His second wife had run away and divorced him from the safety of St. Louis. Anne had no intention of becoming the third Mrs. McCaine.
Even though she hadn’t seen Peter since she was seven, Anne remembered him as her only real friend. When it became clear her uncle meant to marry her off to the man willing to pay the most money, Anne had asked Peter to marry her. Marriage to a man she barely remembered was better than being the wife of Cyrus McCaine.
“You can’t force her to marry a second husband,” Dolores said. The ranch housekeeper and cook had tried to protect Anne from her uncle, but Belser held Dolores back.
“She ain’t going to have a second husband,” her uncle growled. “She’s lying, like she always does when she doesn’t want to do something.”
“She’s not lying about signing the papers,” Dolores said. “I saw them.” She tried to break away from Belser, but she couldn’t.
“It’s illegal to force me to commit bigamy,” Anne said. “The sheriff will arrest you if you try.”
“You ain’t got no husband,” her uncle repeated. “If he was going to be here, he’d be here to get this ranch, not because he wanted to marry some—”
Anne let go of the post long enough to slap her uncle. “Don’t say it! Don’t ever say it again. If you do, I swear I’ll kill you!”
Apparently the fury, the pure hatred she felt for him, surprised him so much that he closed his mouth. He didn’t dare hit her in front of so many men. They wouldn’t lift a finger to keep her from being forced to become the wife of a savage old bastard like Cyras, but they wouldn’t put up with his hitting her. Anne didn’t understand that. She’d rather be beaten regularly than have to spend one night under the same roof as Cyrus McCaine, much less in his bed.
Cyrus gave a tug, but Anne had renewed her hold on the post. She was only seventeen and petite, but she was strong.
But not strong enough. Cyrus held her while her uncle pried her fingers loose from the post.
“You wouldn’t do this if the foreman were here,” Dolores said again. “It’s not lawful.”
“We’re the law out here,” Cyrus said, “and what we say goes.”
Anne was all too aware of the truth of that statement. The Wyoming Territory was thinly settled, mostly by powerful men who owned large ranches. They had long ago become accustomed to taking the law into their own hands to deal with rustlers, thieves, and property disputes. It was only one step further to dealing with women.
Anne could see only one end to this struggle, but she intended to fight every step of the way. She still had half an hour. Peter could still arrive, though she’d lost hope he would.
He was supposed to have arrived eleven days ago. When he was a week overdue, she feared he wasn’t coming. She didn’t understand. His letters had promised her he would arrive in time to claim his inheritance. By the time Cyrus and her uncle arrived that morning, she’d given up hope.
Peter had probably decided that running a hardware store, even one that was losing money, had to be easier than running a ranch. He had been her last hope. With her father killed by a grizzly and her mother dead from pneumonia, she was at her Uncle Frank’s mercy. He’d never treated her like a cherished niece, only someone to be ashamed of. From the moment her mother died, he’d thought of nothing but finding her a husband … for a price.
Anne’s father had been Carl Warren’s foreman. The two men had come to Wyoming together, established the ranch together. After her parents’ deaths, Carl had given Anne a home, let her call him “uncle.” She had been safe as long as he lived. He was dead now. If Peter didn’t show up, Belser, Carl’s wife’s nephew, would inherit the ranch. He didn’t like Anne. He wouldn’t care if she were forced to marry Cyrus.
Anne was fighting so hard against the two men pulling at her, she took only the most momentary notice that another man had ridden up. She heard the newcomer talking, but she paid no attention until he dismounted, walked up to her uncle, and hit him so hard in the face that he fell to the ground. Cyrus turned to attack the man, but he was sent sprawling just as quickly.
“My name is Peter Warren,” the man announced. “This woman is my wife. I’ll kill the next man who lays a hand on her.”
When the man had broken Cyrus’s hold on Anne, she stumbled backward, lost her balance, and fell to the ground. She sat there, stunned at Peter’s last-minute arrival, at her miraculous escape. She looked up, but the sun was in her eyes. She could only see the shape of the man who’d rescued her. From her position on the ground, he looked huge and strong, with broad shoulders and powerful thighs. There was nothing of the shy, rather timorous boy she remembered. This was a man in the full powers of his maturity, certain of his own strength, apparently afraid of nothing.
Anne fell head over heels in love with him in an instant.
“Let me help you up,” the man said.
She had to stop thinking of him as the man. He was Peter Warren, her childhood friend and confidant, her husband.
His hand was strong and calloused. He pulled her to her feet in one effortless motion. She didn’t know what kind of work hardware store owners were called on to do in Illinois, but Peter had obviously worked long and hard to have developed into a man such as this.
“Did they hurt you?” he asked.
“N-no.” She couldn’t think straight. Even his voice had changed. It sounded much deeper, more forceful. Of course it would. He was fourteen when she last saw him, twenty-four now. Everything about him had changed. For the better.
She hadn’t realized he was so tall until she found herself staring at the buttons in the middle of his chest. She was used to being told she was a dab of a girl, used to men towering over her, but he was taller than any man present. She didn’t remember Peter being very tall, but she’d been very young when he left.
“Who the hell are you?” Belser demanded. He’d come up without Anne’s being aware of his approach.
“I already told you.”
“You can’t be,” Belser said.
Anne was aware of a sudden hardening of Peter’s gaze, of an abrupt feeling of dangerous tension in the air.
“Why would you say that?” Peter asked
“You don’t look like you’re supposed to,” Belser said.
“How am I supposed to look?” Peter asked.
“Like your father’s picture,” Belser said. “And you don’t act a thing like Uncle Carl said you would.”
“I take after my mother’s side of the family,” Peter said.
“I don’t give a damn who you are or who you favor,” Anne’s uncle said, getting to his feet. “That’s my niece, and she’s marrying Cyrus here.”
“That would be bigamy,” Peter replied succinctly, “and that’s against the law.”
“I want to see some proof she’s married to you,” Cyrus said.
“I don’t have it,” Peter said, directing his gaze back to Belser. “Someone tried to kill me on my way here. They burned my wagon and stole my papers.”
“You’re lying, too,” Cyrus shouted.
“Maybe you’ll believe this.” Peter took off his hat and pushed back his straight, brown hair to disclose a wound that couldn’t have been more than two weeks old.
“Anybody could have shot you,” Belser said.
“True, but that doesn’t change the fact that my death would have enabled you to inherit this ranch.”
“I didn’t shoot you,” Belser said. “I haven’t been off the place in weeks. And I still don’t beli
eve you’re Peter Warren.”
“I am, and I can prove it, but you’ll have to wait until I can write my lawyer.”
“That could take a couple of months,” Cyrus exclaimed.
“Probably.”
“I’ll take charge of my niece until then,” her uncle said.
“Anne is staying right here. And the first man who lays a hand on her will get a bullet in him.”
Pete looked around at the assembled horsemen, who had watched in silence. “What are all these people doing here?” he asked Anne.
“They’re here to see that Belser didn’t take over the ranch until twelve o’clock,” Anne explained.
“Why should they carer?”
“I wanted to make sure Carl’s nephew wasn’t cut out of his chance,” a particularly large and powerful man said.
“And who are you?” Peter demanded.
“Bill Mason. I own the 3-Bar-3. My range runs alongside the Tumbling T.”
“He wants to take over this ranch, too,” Belser said. “He wants to control all of northeastern Wyoming.”
“Not that much,” Mason said. “But I did offer to buy the place after Carl had his accident.”
“You could buy it for a whole lot less after you rustled half our cattle,” Belser said.
Bill Mason’s power and position in the county were unquestioned. Anne supposed that was the reason Belser’s hotheaded accusation evoked little more than a faint, pitying smile.
“Everybody knows rustlers will hit a ranch the moment a bear like Carl is wounded,” Mason said. “That many cows is too much temptation to resist.”
“For you to resist, you mean,” Belser said.
“I don’t need your cows,” Mason replied.
“I think you meant to say my cows,” Peter corrected him. “I promise you, the rustling will stop. Anybody I catch gets hanged on the spot.”
He’d just issued a challenge. Anne didn’t know how Peter had the nerve to do such a thing to these hard men. They’d fought Indians, wild animals, and each other to build their ranches. They didn’t back down from anybody.
But apparently neither did Peter. She continued to be amazed at his transformation.
“Exactly what I would do,” Mason said. “Having a ranch without a strong leader encourages rustlers. That affects all of us.”
The look he directed at Belser contained enough scorn to have abashed a man twice as prideful as Belser. It seemed to just bounce off Belser’s armor of anger and frustration. His face was flushed, and the veins in his neck stood out like taut ropes.
“I’m strong enough to take care of the rustlers,” Belser said.
“They’re still here,” Mason pointed out.
“That’s because I couldn’t do anything until twelve o’clock today,” Belser said.
“Now that Carl’s nephew is here, you don’t have to do anything at all,” Mason said.
“I still don’t believe he’s Peter Warren,” Belser said.
“What you believe doesn’t matter,” Peter said.
“It sure as hell does when I’m the one getting cheated out of this ranch.”
“You never had the ranch,” Peter said. “And if you don’t back down and shut your mouth, I’ll throw you off it.”
Nobody had ever threatened to throw Belser out, not even Carl. Anne expected him to bellow his fury. Much to her surprise, he struggled visibly to get his temper under control.
“We’ll see,” Belser said. “You’re not the only one with a lawyer.”
“I’ll be going,” Bill Mason said. “Let me know if I can do anything to help.”
“I might be calling on you to lend a hand with this rustling,” Peter said.
“Come over any time,” Mason replied. He nodded in the direction of Anne’s uncle and Cyrus “You want me to take them with me?”
“No. I can handle them,” Peter said.
Anne would have felt better if Peter had let Mason take care of her uncle and her prospective bridegroom. She didn’t especially like Mason—he was too rough and unfeeling—but she had complete confidence in his ability to handle her uncle.
At a signal from him, Mason’s men turned and followed him out of the ranch yard.
Peter turned to her uncle. “I’ll send someone into Big Bend tomorrow with a letter for my lawyer. I’ll let you know when I get the marriage papers.”
“I’ll have the sheriff out to you before then,” her uncle threatened. “We don’t allow men to carry off our women.”
“I’m not carrying Anne anywhere. There’s no better place for a man’s wife than at his side.”
Her uncle swore viciously. “She’s not your wife!”
“I say she is. Now unless you want me to knock you down again, you’ll take your friend and get out of here.”
“You’ll hear from me,” Cyrus said. “I’m a powerful man. I—”
Peter pulled his gun and fired into the ground at Cyrus’s feet. Anne jumped, and her hand flew to her mouth to smother a small shriek.
“You’ll be a dead man if you don’t get off my land,” Peter said. “I don’t think a Wyoming jury would find it at all out of the way if I was to kill you for trying to carry off my wife.”
“I wasn’t trying to carry her off.”
Peter turned to Dolores. “Didn’t it look to you like he was trying to carry her off?”
“It certainly did,” Dolores responded vigorously.
“Didn’t it look the same to you?” Peter asked Belser.
Belser hesitated but finally nodded his agreement.
“That’s three of us,” Peter said. “I imagine Mason would back us. That ought to be enough for any judge.”
Anne could tell her uncle knew he had been outma-neuvered.
“I agree with Belser,” he said. “I don’t believe you’re Peter.”
Anne could tell her uncle knew this was a groundless objection. He could see the money he’d hoped to get from Cyrus disappearing, and it made him furious.
“I don’t give a damn who you are,” Cyrus said. “I want that woman.”
Peter turned his gaze on Cyrus, and Anne watched a coldness grow in his expression. “I would say she’s more a girl than a woman,” Peter said. He turned to Anne. “How old are you?”
“Seventeen.”
“Well, that makes you a woman out here.” He turned back to Cyrus. “She’s still much too young for an old lobo like you. Now get off, both of you, while I still have some control over my temper.”
They watched in silence as her uncle and Cyrus mounted up and rode off. Anne could hear them quarreling, threatening each other, but she didn’t care. She was safe. She was married. Peter had returned, and he was more of a man than she’d ever dreamed possible.
“And what’s your place around here?” Peter said, turning to Belser.
“If you were really Carl’s nephew, you’d know.”
“I know what Carl thought,” Peter said. “I want to know what you think.”
Anne knew Belser had counted on having the ranch. He’d been trying to give orders for weeks, telling the men he’d fire them the moment he got control if they didn’t do what he wanted. Only the foreman’s determination had prevented Belser from taking over.
“Carl let me live in the house and eat with him, but I’m just a hand,” Belser finally said.
“I’ll do the same as long as you don’t kick up any dust,” Peter said. “Now I suggest you set about earning your wages.”
Belser looked as though he wanted to say more, but he turned and stomped off toward the corral.
“Tell me what’s going on around here,” Peter said, turning to Anne. “It looks like I’ve landed in one hell of a mess.”
Chapter Two
Pete told himself he was crazy. What chivalrous impulse had caused him to tell everybody he was Peter Warren? For all he knew, they had nothing in common but their first names. Was that the reason he’d decided to pretend to be someone he wasn’t? He’d better clear things up ri
ght away and get the hell out of here.
But he couldn’t do that. He’d trailed the killers to this ranch. It didn’t surprise him it was the Tumbling T. He’d already decided that someone in Peter’s family had killed him. One of Mason’s cowhands had told him what Anne’s uncle was trying to do. Pete had realized that pretending to be Peter would give him reason to stay and an opportunity to search for the killers. They had his money, all the gold he’d managed to mine in his five years in Montana. He wasn’t about to let anybody steal it from him. If they’d moved on, he’d clear things up and go after them.
But he couldn’t just yet. Anne’s uncle would be back in five minutes to force her to marry that dried-up old husk of a man. Belser would get a ranch Pete had already decided he’d committed murder for—or hired someone to commit the murder for him. It went against the grain to let anybody get away with such a cold-blooded swindle.
No, he’d continue as Peter Warren for a little while yet, though there was one small problem. Anne. From the look in her eyes, she adored Peter. Pete didn’t know what he was going to do about that, but he couldn’t take advantage of her. Even if his own conscience would have allowed it, his adopted mother’s teaching wouldn’t. He wouldn’t put it past Isabelle to somehow know what he’d done and come all the way from Texas to hang him out to dry.
Anne was a pretty young woman, exactly the kind to go in for hero worship. He didn’t know if Peter was worthy of her high regard, but Pete had to find some way to tell her gently that he wasn’t Peter. But he couldn’t do that either. She looked the kind who couldn’t tell a lie. Probably couldn’t keep a secret, either.
“Everything will be all right now that you’re here,” Anne said, gazing up at him with big eyes filled with wonder.
Wouldn’t Sean laugh to hear that? Sean had been getting Pete out of trouble ever since they met in the orphanage. It would never occur to Sean that Pete could take care of himself. Most of the time, it hadn’t occurred to Pete, either. He’d just barreled ahead, knowing if he got himself into a situation that required muscle, he could depend on Sean. If it was guns, there was always Luke.
Pete (The Cowboys) Page 2