“Malcolm!”
Leigh shouting his name was enough to stop his meanderings. But then he realized she wasn’t calling him, she was calling little Malcolm.
She scrambled off the bench and went to the door of the bunkhouse to greet the boy. He was dressed the same as when he’d first met him, down to the dirty feet and no shoes. His bright eyes devoured all the people seated around the bunkhouse. When he got to Tyler, Malcolm saw some apprehension flicker, but the boy looked at everyone in turn. Weighing them, making his own judgments. Clearly a smart boy.
Leigh reached his side and put her arm around his shoulder.
“What are you doing here?”
“I come to see him,” the boy answered, pointing one grubby finger at Malcolm.
Leigh turned surprised eyes on him. Her surprise became something else entirely when she saw the look in his eye.
“Vaya aqui, hijo,” he called to the boy.
He screwed up his face and said, “I told you I don’t know no Spanish.” Although he did approach Malcolm, pulling a piece of paper out of his pocket.
“Diego gave me this. And told me to take one of the horses. I didn’t like it too much. Don’t want to be no horse thief or nothing.” The boy looked affronted to be even thinking such a thing.
Malcolm took the paper and unfolded it. One glance at Leigh’s face told him he’d better read it out loud.
“I have sent Malcolm as you asked. They are coming tonight after the moon sets. I will try to help you if I can. Protect Leigh for us,” he read. When the last line of the letter came into focus, the paper fell from his hands and fluttered to the ground.
His vision began to gray around the edges as his stomach danced and jigged, trying to expel his dinner with a vengeance.
Leigh ran to his side and bent to pick up the paper. He vaguely noted she actually gasped when she read it.
“Oh, Malcolm, I’m so sorry.”
She sat beside him on the bench and wrapped her arms around him. The others in the room quickly disappeared. He heard little Malcolm protesting loudly as Nicky practically shoved him out the door. Then they were alone.
And he finally took a breath. Which was more like a sob. His papa was dead. After so long he’d made peace with him, only to have him snatched away. There was so much more he had wanted to say, so much more he had wanted to hear.
A surge of red hot rage poured through him, displacing the shock and grief.
“Why the hell did I come back here?” he snarled. “To find my family? Hah! What’s left of it has already tried to kill me. And now this. What am I still doing here? I hate this place.”
He grabbed the end of the table and twisted it, spilling all the plates, cups, forks and knives to the floor with a loud clatter of tin.
It wasn’t enough. He started upturning the benches, the chairs, then the beds, throwing everything in front of him. It wasn’t enough. He wanted to hurt something. To hurt someone. Goddammit! It wasn’t enough.
His hands clenched into fists, he turned and found someone.
Chapter Nineteen
Leigh should have been frightened by the hatred in Malcolm’s black eyes. They glittered with anger so bright, she was surprised she hadn’t caught on fire yet. He looked like he wanted to kill someone and she was in the direct line of his gaze. His hands clenched and unclenched and he was breathing hard. His chest heaved with each breath. He resembled a bull getting ready to charge.
And when he did, he moved so fast she barely had time between blinks and she was in his grasp. Gripping her shoulders painfully and staring in her eyes.
What she saw in those black orbs was all of the pain, the immense mountain of agony, that lived inside this man. The anger was a shield; the little boy who had suffered so much all his life was hiding behind it. So much pain. An ocean full of it.
Leigh didn’t fight him off. She didn’t protest. She just looked into his eyes and willed him to see she wasn’t trying to hurt him. She was trying to help him. By loving him. By not causing him any more pain through rejection, humiliation and neglect.
“Little Leigh?” His voice sounded unsure and wavery, like he’d just woken up from a long nap and was disoriented.
“I’m here. I was always here. And I will always be here.”
The murderous tension in his shoulders began to ease and the pressure on her arms did the same. The look of hatred and venom in his eyes was replaced with what she expected. Mind-numbing, soul-stealing grief.
“I love you, Mal. I never stopped.”
He released her arms and pulled Leigh to him tightly. She held on, crooning comforting nonsense to him.
“It’s okay. I loved Alex, too. We can cry like babies together.”
For a long while, they stood there, hanging on to each other, absorbing the strength from each other. Grieving for a man they had both loved.
———
When Malcolm and Leigh walked outside the bunkhouse, the group gathered around the door was grim-faced and determined. Time was short—they had less than twelve hours to get ready. The battle was about to begin.
Tyler was the first to speak. “This is your show. Do you have a plan?”
He looked back and forth between Malcolm and Leigh like he couldn’t decide who to ask or who would answer.
Leigh immediately liked the dangerous-looking man. She already liked his wife. Nicky’s gaze never left hers.
“I do. I’ll try to lay it out for you. And I have to say,” she grabbed Malcolm’s hand and threaded her fingers through his, “thank you to the Malloys and Calhouns for coming and helping me and the Circle O. I know you came because of Malcolm, because he’s family, but he’s my family, too. So, I guess that means you are my brothers and sister.”
Malcolm squeezed her hand. “Sí, gracias to Roja and her band of able brothers. And to the bounty hunter I now call mi amigo.”
Tyler inclined his head to Malcolm and Leigh. His cold blue eyes never changed expression, but she could tell he was pleased by their words. Especially Malcolm’s.
“Together there are eighteen of us to cover ten thousand acres and about seven hundred and fifty head of cattle. On a good day that would be impossible. So what we need to do is move the cattle to a place we can guard them and us. There is a valley up in the northwest corner that will fit all of them. There’s only one way in and one way out.”
She paused to take a deep breath, grateful to see heads nodding as she laid out her plan.
“They’re also going to go for the house and the crew. We’ll need to split up. Twelve with the cattle and six here.”
She pointed at her drovers. “The nine of you go with three of the Malloys and start rounding up the cattle. Most of them are in the west pasture.”
They all nodded and turned to head for the barn. The Malloy brothers had a brief conference and Brett, Trevor and Ethan followed the drovers.
“Make sure you bring supplies for at least two or three days. We’ll send a rider when it’s over.”
“And plenty of ammunition,” Malcolm added.
The six left were Leigh, Malcolm, Nicky, Tyler, Jack and Ray.
“Hey, how come you didn’t count me?”
Leigh turned to look at little Malcolm. He wore a mutinous expression.
“You’ve got the most important job, hijo.”
Little Malcolm turned his distrustful eyes on Malcolm. “Don’t call me son. I told you I don’t speak no Spanish.”
She fought hard not to grin, as did all the other adults. Except Malcolm. He squatted down to look the boy in the eye.
“Your job is to go back to Rancho Zarza and tell Diego we are ready. You will do this for Leigh, no?”
The boy’s chest puffed up with pride as he squared his shoulders. “Yup, I can do that. Leigh is my friend. I would do anythin’ for her.”
“Bueno. Leigh is my friend too. I would not ask someone to help her who did not love her. Comprende?”
The boy nodded. “Yeah, I got it.”
When Malcolm rose to his full height, Leigh barely resisted the urge to run over and plant one on his lips. Lord, she loved that man.
“What do you want us to do?” Nicky asked.
“We can start by boarding up the windows and leaving rifle holes to shoot those varmints when they come calling. Andy and I stacked the boards in the back of the barn a few days ago,” Leigh said.
She and Nicky headed for the barn, followed by Ray and Jack.
“I gotta ride back now?” little Malcolm asked in a whine.
“No, you can stay a little while, but you must be back home before dark,” Malcolm said firmly.
The boy grumbled under his breath and followed the rest of them to the barn with one last baleful look at Malcolm.
———
Tyler was staring at Malcolm. Malcolm stared right back.
“Were you going to paint my picture?” Malcolm asked.
Tyler raised one eyebrow.
“You’re staring, gringo,” Malcolm snapped.
One corner of Tyler’s mouth lifted. “You’re not the same man who left my ranch three months ago. You’re looking at Leigh like she’s a prize-winning peach pie, and at that boy like you want to hug him, for Chrissake. Hermano seems to be gone.”
Was it true? Had he finally and completely emerged from the shadows he’d been living in for so long?
He definitely loved Leigh. And he wanted to love little Malcolm. It didn’t seem his own father did. A life with them, here on the Circle O, provided the boy’s mother came to live here, too. It was almost too much to wish for.
“Nothing to say?”
For the first time he could remember, he smiled at Tyler—a genuine smile without his usual sarcasm or cynicism. “No, I was thinking I agreed with you.”
He was glad to see a bit of surprise on the bounty hunter’s face.
“Maybe we will have a miracle today.”
Malcolm grimaced as he thought about what faced them. “We’re going to need one.”
“How many men will he bring?”
Malcolm shrugged. “Fifty, perhaps sixty. He has a small army at Rancho Zarza, but some of them are, I mean, were loyal to Alejandro.” His voice broke a bit on his father’s name, but he swallowed and continued. “I also have a man on the inside. He’s the one who sent the boy.”
Tyler nodded. “Good. Can we count on your friend to help?”
“He will try. I’m sure Diego will ride with them. He will do what he can to stop them.”
Eighteen against fifty were shitty odds, but it’s all they had. Perhaps the cattle would survive, but the remaining six people at the Circle O were not likely to see the dawn.
———
As Leigh nailed the last board into place on the window upstairs in her bedroom, she glanced longingly at the bed and wished for one last time with Malcolm. She wanted to believe they would survive the night, but doubts kept creeping in like unwanted visitors, crowding her brain and refusing to leave.
“Done?” came Nicky’s voice. Leigh turned to look at the other woman. Nicky stood in the doorway with a hammer in hand.
“That was the last one. Little Malcolm is downstairs counting the shells and bullets, dividing them into equal piles. Smart little sucker. Reminds me a bit of my Noah.”
Nicky had talked at length about her adopted fifteen-year-old son, Noah, and her twins who were only three months old. Leigh’s stomach got jittery thinking about being a mother, but her heart longingly listened to the pride and love in Nicky’s voice.
“He’s a good boy. No credit to his father though,” Leigh said, although it was an understatement.
“Who’s his father?”
Leigh grimaced. “Damasco. Malcolm seems to think he created the boy just to taunt him. His mother is the cook.”
Nicky’s green eyes hardened. “If he did that, then he deserves whatever he gets when he arrives. Bastard. What kind of sick mind would do that to a child?”
Leigh walked toward Nicky, scooping up the extra nail bucket and boards from the floor.
“Good question. I think it’s more his mother’s doing. Isabella is a grade-A bitch. Colder than a well digger’s ass on a January morning.”
Nicky snorted with laughter. “You and I are going to be good friends, I can tell.”
For as long as we’re alive.
Leigh didn’t voice the traitorous thought, but she couldn’t help thinking it. She would do her best to make sure her new friend survived to return to her babies and adopted son. Family was more important than anything. She knew that now. It didn’t matter if she survived because little Malcolm had his mother to raise him. But a family needed to stay together, to love and laugh, to just live.
———
Isabella reviewed the plans with Damasco. She made him repeat them over and over until she was sure he would not forget. She loved her son more than anything, but he was not the sharpest tack in the box. This had to be perfect. It had to look like outlaws attacked the Circle O and the Rancho Zarza hands rode to help. A few sacrifices were necessary, like that sneaky Diego, but the end result was what was important.
As long as Leigh O’Reilly and that bastardo Malcolm were dead, all of the land, and all the money that came with it, would be theirs. Tonight would be their crowning glory. Tomorrow would be the coronation ball.
Chapter Twenty
Little Malcolm came running up the stairs.
“Miz Leigh, there’s some crazy woman downstairs yelling at me. She messed up my count and grabbed me by my collar and shook me like a dog.”
Leigh had an idea of who it was. Mrs. Hanson. That crotchety old woman could scare the fleas off a dog. Leigh followed the boy back down the stairs, knowing this was probably going to be the last time she fought with Mrs. Hanson. Once she put her hands on the boy, she had sealed her fate in Leigh’s mind.
“I cain’t believe that filthy boy was counting bullets in my kitchen. In all my born days, I never saw such a thing.”
Mrs. Hanson’s voice was like nails on slate. When Leigh rounded the corner, she was surprised, yet relieved, to see the older woman had her bags packed.
“There you are,” she shouted when she spotted Leigh. “That little hooligan was in here with bullets all over the table. I know him. He’s that dirty stable boy from Rancho Zarza. What is he—”
“Take your bag and get the hell off my land, lady.”
Mrs. Hanson’s mouth gaped open, the folds in her chin waggling along with her head.
“How dare you?”
Leigh set down the boards and started swinging the bucket of nails. “Oh, I dare a lot. You have about five seconds to do what I told you to do.”
“I’ve got a better job. I’m going to replace that awful Lorena at Rancho Zarza. You just watch me.”
“Four seconds.” She swung the pail harder, her gaze never leaving Mrs. Hanson’s eyes.
“You just try and get along without me.”
“Three.”
She scrambled to grab her bag, but it was too heavy and she dropped it. A tinkling crash inside the bag echoed across the room. Leigh reached for the bag. Mrs. Hanson made a snatch for it at the same time but Leigh moved faster.
“Two.”
“Hey, that’s mine. Give it back.”
Leigh took the bag and threw it out the open door. It landed on the ground with a dusty thud, the tinkling sound following. No doubt the old witch had stolen half of the silver in the house. Leigh didn’t care. She just wanted her gone.
“Why, you!”
Mrs. Hanson raised her arm with her reticule, intending on hitting Leigh with it. A strong brown hand stopped her.
“Get out, bruja. Before you make me regret letting you live.”
Mrs. Hanson harrumphed loudly then stomped out the door, down the stairs to her bag. She half-carried, half-dragged it to a waiting curricle parked near the house. A young man hopped down, picked up the bag, he
aved it in the back, and jumped into the driver’s seat. With one last venomous look, she climbed into the curricle. In a moment, they were off, headed in the direction of town.
“Do you think she’s really going to replace Lorena?” came little Malcolm’s voice. “‘Cause I really like her. Maybe she could come here? With my mama?”
“Maybe, Malcolm. We’ll have to see what happens, okay?”
Leigh’s response was something he’d apparently heard before.
“Why do grown-ups always say that? It don’t make no sense.”
He sat himself at the kitchen table and crossed his arms, looking for a moment exactly like the man for whom he was named. Nicky plopped in the chair across from him and started counting the bullets.
“Do you think she was telling the truth? About Lorena?” Leigh whispered to Malcolm.
His hot breath fanned across her cheek. “I paid the driver twenty dollars to drive her all the way to Houston. She won’t be getting to Rancho Zarza anytime soon.”
Leigh almost laughed. “Thank you. I would hate to think that woman could hurt Lorena.”
“I love Lorena too. I would never let anyone harm her.”
She felt a bit better, but also wondered how she had let a vicious woman like Mrs. Hanson stay beneath her roof for so long. More than likely another spy for the Zarzas. Her own self-respect was flagging.
“Malcolm, you need to go home now. It will be dark in a couple of hours. Can you saddle your horse yourself?”
He snorted and rolled his eyes. “I cain’t believe you’d ask me that, Miz Leigh. How many times have I saddled your horse?”
The boy was right. Her brains were like overcooked eggs right now.
“Sorry, you’re right. I guess I was thinking like a girl for a minute.”
He nodded, obviously agreeing with her assessment. “Yup, I see that happen now and then to you. Luckily it don’t happen too much.”
“Home. Now.”
He stood slowly, dragging his feet, reluctant to leave.
The Reward Page 16