The Reward

by Beth Williamson

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  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

  2932 Ross Clark Circle, #384

  Dothan, AL 36301

  The Reward

  Copyright © 2006 by Beth Williamson

  Cover by Scott Carpenter

  ISBN: 1-59998-049-5

  www.samhainpublishing.com

  All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: June 2006

  The Reward

  Beth Williamson

  Dedication

  To my mom for always believing in me and for proudly boasting to one and all that her daughter is an author. Thank you for always being there for me.

  Chapter One

  He had lived most of his life in the shadows. Being cloaked in semi-darkness suited him, matched his opinion of the world in general. Very few exceptions ever penetrated the gloom. Most people thought he was an outlaw, and a reward for his capture or death existed for him somewhere. Being thought of as a vicious outlaw had its perks, not the least of which people left him alone in his shadows. However, it also had its drawbacks, and the worst was loneliness. He had always been lonely. He’d ridden alone with no one by his side or at his back since becoming Hermano.

  Dressed in his standard dark clothes and battered brown duster, he stood with his saddlebags slung over his shoulder in the pre-dawn gloom of the kitchen and looked around slowly. He saw echoes of the love, laughter and play that marked the Calhoun family’s house. A house he had no business staying at. Because he couldn’t play, laugh or love. Those luxuries had long since been abandoned. It was time to go.

  He reached into the pocket of his pants and pulled out a folded piece of paper with “Roja” written on it. Roja was Nicky Calhoun, the sister of his heart for four years, ever since she saved him from men who wanted to geld him and leave him for the buzzards. He in turn had helped her hide from the law when she was on the run from false murder charges, until Tyler Calhoun, an extraordinary bounty hunter, had found her and married her.

  He laid the note on the kitchen table, then turned and strode swiftly out the door without a sound. The note sort of explained why he was leaving, but it was cryptic enough she wouldn’t be able to follow him. He headed to the barn to get his horse, Demon, a roan even meaner than he was, and ride the hell out of Wyoming. It was just too frigging cold in this territory. Texas beckoned him back like a grasping mistress.

  He entered the barn and went to Demon’s stall, staying clear of his sharp teeth. He saddled the stallion, careful not to make any noise. He didn’t want anyone to know he was leaving yet. Tyler was just too damned smart and Nicky too nosy by half.

  Living amongst the dregs of humanity for so long had given him the skills to be as quiet as the night. He never wore spurs, or anything shiny or jingly. When he led the horse out of the barn, not even a mouse stirred behind him. He secured his saddlebags on the back of his saddle with his bedroll, then swung up with a small creak of leather.

  He winced at the noise. Damn, he was getting old.

  Hermano turned and headed back into the shadows of his hellish existence.

  ———

  Two days later, Tyler caught up with him. In a small copse of trees, Hermano ate his breakfast of jerky and water in front of a pitifully small fire due to a lack of dry wood in this snowy terrain. Unhappily gnawing on his jerky, he saw the horse approaching. After cursing loudly, he mentally prepared himself to meet the ex-bounty hunter head-on. Hell, he was definitely getting old if it only took two days for him to be tracked. Used to be two years.

  It was colder than a well digger’s ass that morning. If Tyler had been riding all night, he was going to be in a worse mood than usual. His horse churned up the snow as he galloped toward Hermano, great plumes of hot breath shooting from the black horse’s snout with each exhalation. He looked like a demon straight out of hell. Hermano stood and watched him approach, lightly resting his hands on his pistols.

  Tyler was a big man, well over six feet and two hundred pounds, with hair like a crow’s wing and piercing blue eyes that froze lesser men in their tracks. Hermano wasn’t quite as big, but they were similar in build and he had dark hair as well, although his was wavy. His eyes were more black than anything, absent of color.

  No doubt Nicky had coerced Tyler into following. It seemed married life had its compromises, ones that got Tyler’s back up something good. He glared quite convincingly at Hermano as he dismounted from his big, black gelding. Fortunately, his hands were nowhere near the Colts tucked neatly in their holsters. Hermano relaxed his stance and sat back down on the hard rock that served as his seat.

  “Buenos dias, gringo,” he greeted Tyler.

  “Yeah, whatever, Hermano. You know you left tracks a five-year-old child could follow.”

  “Did Roja get my note?”

  Tyler grunted. “Yeah, fat lot of good that did her. She was worried about you. Sent me to find you and give you this.”

  He thrust a pair of saddlebags at him, stuffed, it seemed, with supplies.

  Hermano felt a grin playing around his lips and tried to stop it. He didn’t feel like getting pounded to a pulp today by the mountain of a man several years his junior.

  “Gracias.” He stood and took the saddlebags. Looking inside, he saw biscuits, bread, canned fruit, coffee beans, other trail supplies and even a clean neckerchief. Embarrassingly, he felt a lump forming in his throat. It was the first time in many, many years someone had cared enough to make sure he had what he needed. Plus a little more. So many years since someone loved him, had been worried about him. So long.

  “Your wife is a generous person,” he finally got out. His voice was husky with emotion, dammit.

  Tyler stared at him hard. “Your accent’s gone again, amigo.”

  Hermano stared into the saddlebags and tried to ignore the other man. Ignore the fact he’d made yet another mistake in forgetting his borrowed accent, the second time in a few weeks, in front of him. He was tired of living behind a mask, tired of being someone else.

  Tyler cleared his throat. “Not gonna say anything, huh?”

  Hermano didn’t answer, which was, of course, his answer. When he finally met Tyler’s eyes, he’d made a decision.

  “Tell Roja I said gracias.”

  “I promised her I wouldn’t ask you and I didn’t. Just pointed something out. At least let’s make some coffee and have some chow. My ass is numb from riding so hard to catch you.”

  Hermano nodded. They would have breakfast and then go their separate ways. They were silent as they ate the biscuits stuffed with bacon Nicky had sent and drank the awful coffee Hermano made from the leftover water in his canteen. There wasn’t much they had in common, other than Nicky. Hermano wisely decided not to discuss her with Tyler. He looked pissed off enough as it was.

  “Going south?” Tyler asked as he stood, brushing the snow from the back of his pants.

  “Yup. Going home.” He tossed out the coffee dregs, then wiped out the pot with some snow. After stuffing the pot and cups into his saddlebags, he picked up the blanket to start saddling Demon.

  “You want to tell me where home is, or does she already know?” Tyler pulled out a bag of oats from his saddleba
gs and gave each horse a treat for breakfast.

  “She doesn’t know, but she knows how to reach me.”

  He picked up his saddle off another rock and sidestepped Demon’s nip to put it on his back. He pushed his knee into the stallion’s belly to force him to expel air. Son of a bitch horse tried that trick on him once in a while, and Hermano usually ended up on his head when the saddle slipped. Cinching the saddle, he hooked both sets of saddlebags and his bedroll on the back. He glanced up at Tyler to find him watching with his arms crossed over his chest.

  “What if I need to find you?”

  He stared into Tyler’s blue eyes. They both loved the same woman, shared in their concern for her and her children. There might come a time when Nicky couldn’t, or wouldn’t say, what was in the note. Could he live with the consequences?

  Probably not.

  “Texas. About an hour northeast of Houston, little town named Millerton.”

  Tyler’s eyes narrowed. “I know where it is. I’m from outside Austin myself. You know, it really chaps my ass that we’re both from Texas.”

  Hermano swung up into the saddle. Tyler had not moved. “Do you have a name?”

  He hesitated for a full minute before answering, Demon dancing beneath him. “Malcolm. Malcolm Ross y Zarza.”

  He turned Demon around and rode away before Tyler could pepper him with any more questions. He’d already said too much, more than he’d told anyone in too many years. The cold wind nipped at his face as he galloped.

  He was going home. Going home to find the mother he left behind fifteen years ago. Going home to face Malcolm Ross again. The man he could never be, who he thought he’d never have to be again.

  Malcolm. God, how he hated the sound of that name. It just didn’t fit, like a jacket that was too small and pinched at the shoulders. He had once asked his mother why she had named him Malcolm. With her brogue rolling like a swollen river, she said great kings of Scotland had borne the name Malcolm. He had looked as great as a king when he was born. He stifled a snort at the memory. King, my ass. He was peasant stock through and through.

  Home. More like the seven layers of hell.

  ———

  Tyler stared after the bandito as he rode off into the morning sun. He’d gotten some answers from the elusive man. Surprising ones. Malcolm Ross? Damn, that was a Scottish name. He sure as hell didn’t look Scottish. And the y Zarza was an old-fashioned Spanish custom for bastards. So Malcolm’s Spanish daddy wasn’t married to his Scottish mama. There was a hell of a lot more to this story. Nicky was bound to nag him until he found out more, too. He sighed and looked at his horse.

  “She’s got me wrapped around her little finger. I’ll be in trouble when my daughter starts taking after her mother.”

  He would wire a friend, a U.S. Marshall, in Houston and find out a bit more about Malcolm Ross. And about Zarza.

  ———

  Malcolm Ross had a lot of time to think. Way too much time. He thought about his mother. How wonderful she had been to him growing up. How hard his life would have been without her. That just drove the guilt to new heights, poured salt in the wound, and generally made him feel like the shitty bandito he had become. She would be ashamed of him. That cut even deeper.

  He tried to remember all the other people from the hacienda he grew up on, Rancho Zarza. Like Diego and Lorena, the foreman and the housekeeper who had treated him like a favorite nephew. And Leigh. Oh, how could he have ever forgotten Leigh? She was as much a part of growing up as anything on the ranch.

  A tomboy who was constantly at his side from the time she toddled up on her two feet and started following him. She was three years younger than he, and they had been as tight as ticks on a dog’s ass. Wherever Malcolm went, Leigh was sure to follow. When he’d left at eighteen, she had been a very awkward fifteen. Malcolm remembered giving her a kiss in their tree house—how she’d trembled, then pressed her hands to her lips and looked at him with her bright hazel eyes shining behind her glasses. He’d left her behind, too. Never glanced back. He found himself wondering who she had married and where she lived now. He didn’t suspect she lived at Rancho Zarza, but perhaps if her father was still the blacksmith, and if she’d never married… Impossible. Leigh was tall, but she was strong, healthy and smarter than most men put together. There was no way she wouldn’t be married with a passel of kids at her feet.

  The thought was disturbing in some strange way. He frowned at his bacon as he cooked it over the fire. It was time to stop thinking so much. There were too many memories crowding his brain, so he shut them off. He concentrated on staying alive, staying in the shadows, and reaching Texas in one piece.

  He didn’t want to think about what was or wasn’t there waiting for him.

  Chapter Two

  Leigh Wynne O’Reilly stared at the carcasses of at least a dozen cattle spread around the banks of a small creek on her ranch. She felt the absurd urge to weep. It was another in a long series of mishaps, accidents, and pure bad luck that had plagued her and the ranch for the last two years. Ever since she became a widow. Ever since she told every man in town to keep his dick in his pants and leave her alone. Ever since she thumbed her nose at propriety and took over a ten-thousand-acre cattle ranch. Alone.

  Amidst pressure from the ranch hands, half of whom had walked off the job the day after Sean died, and her neighbors, Leigh stood firm. She was smart, strong and capable of running the goddamn ranch. Too bad if she had tits and a brain. If they couldn’t deal with it, to hell with them.

  But then things began to go wrong. Very wrong. This was just the most recent incident. Obviously someone poisoned the water, intending on killing her cattle. She had about two thousand head and what she figured were three hundred new calves, which were very vulnerable to vicious shit like poisoned water. But it looked like only two of the dead cattle were calves, thank God for small favors.

  The urge to weep passed and her anger rose to the surface.

  “Earl,” she shouted.

  “Boss?” he responded from somewhere behind her.

  “Post a guard here to keep the other cattle away from this creek. Block up both ends and drain it. Then see to burning the carcasses.”

  Her voice was firm, no hint of a waver or indecision.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  His voice was full of quiet resentment, but he did what he was told, even though he was an ornery, spiteful old man. Earl shouted to a few of the other hands, giving them tasks based on her orders. Even if she was a woman, the ranch was still afloat. Barely. With all this crap, including losing two hundred head of cattle to rustlers last month, the boat had a hole in it. She could only bail so fast without sinking further down.

  Leigh tightened her grip on the reins of her Appaloosa gelding, Ghost. He whinnied and sidestepped.

  “Whoa, whoa,” she soothed. “Don’t mind me. I’m just pissed off, boy. It’s been a hell of a Monday.”

  She wheeled the horse around and kneed him into a fast gallop back toward the Circle O.

  For the millionth time, she wished Malcolm were there. For the first fifteen years of her life, she didn’t make a decision without talking to him about it. He had been her best friend, her only friend, her confidant and her first love. When he left so long ago, he took her heart with him. She had no idea where he was, or even if he was alive. She liked to think he got knocked in the head and couldn’t remember where he came from. That way, the hurt of knowing he stayed away for fifteen years wasn’t quite so razor sharp.

  There had not been any more best friends for Leigh. She had been good friends with Sean, but she hadn’t loved him. That was all right, because he hadn’t loved her either. They had been friends, not truly lovers. Still, it had been a good marriage that lasted ten years. He’d taught her everything she knew about ranching. Sean had been twenty-five years older than she. It hadn’t been a conventional relationship by any means. But it had been a comfortable one.

  As she headed across the grassy hi
lls toward home, she tried to set aside her worries for the half an hour it was going to take her. Summer was in full bloom in southeastern Texas. The trees were plump with green leaves, the grass full and thick, the wildflowers blooming, and the steady drone of insects echoed through the land.

  If only death wasn’t stalking her like a shadow. It was clear someone wanted to steal her ranch or wanted her dead. Today, either outcome seemed to be inevitable.

  ———

  Leigh had grown up on a hacienda, Rancho Zarza, daughter of the blacksmith, a widower and absent father. She had practically raised herself, along with the help of Leslie Ross, the cook on the ranch and Malcolm’s mother. Leslie had left shortly after Malcolm’s departure, so Leigh hadn’t seen either Ross in quite some time.

  Her father had been Big Lee. For some unknown reason, perhaps he just couldn’t think of another name, he named her Leigh. So she was Little Leigh and he was Big Lee. And he lived up to his name. Her dad had been a bear of a man with a huge chest, arms like tree trunks and hands the size of dinner plates. Little Leigh wasn’t very little herself. Just shy of six feet tall, she towered over most men. It was something that came in handy as a female ranch owner who just hit thirty.

  But it had been torture to be so tall as a child. Teased unmercifully by Damasco Zarza, the heir to the ranch and Malcolm’s half-brother, Leigh used to hunch her shoulders over and try to look smaller. To make matters worse, she had to start wearing glasses when she was six. There wasn’t much feminine about her until she grew breasts at the age of sixteen. And then of course, they were big by anybody’s standards. As if she hadn’t endured enough with people staring at her because of her height or her glasses or her plain features, now she had something else for men to ogle.

  She was a mishmash of features from her mother and father. Her mother had been tiny but had a big bosom. She died giving birth to Leigh, so her daughter’s entire life had been shaped by men. Men outnumbered women ten to one on any ranch, and Rancho Zarza was no exception. That experience gave her the skills and the sheer orneriness to step where most women wouldn’t dare. She wasn’t most women and she stepped wherever the hell she wanted to.