The Cowboy's Honor

by Amy Sandas

  He lit a lantern that hung from a nail on the wall and sat at his desk to pull out one of the ranch’s financial ledgers.

  When he got too wound up in his thoughts, going through the books always settled him down. Decades worth of ranch business were captured in the many ledgers that had been started by his granddad when he’d first decided to raise cattle nearly thirty years ago. Almost everything in those books was noted in his granddad’s neat and even hand: the price of feed for the horses, lumber, tack, and other equipment; cattle prices; even the price of sheep for a short stint when Augie Lawton had considered diversifying his herd.

  In only one of those books was there a section filled out by Dean’s father. It spanned just a couple years prior to his unexpected death. Matthew Lawton’s handwriting was a far cry from his father’s regulated script. Bold and slanted, it was nearly unreadable. But Dean had learned how to make it out easily enough.

  Then everything returned to Augie’s hand. The old man didn’t give up the ledgers again until his fingers became too weak to grip the pencil. Only then did he allow Dean to take over the task. That was more than five years ago now.

  It stunned him how quickly time passed when its pages could be flipped through with a flick of a finger.

  Dean reached the pages that spanned the spring of ’79. The information was faithfully recorded. No detail was missed. There was no shocking rise or fall in the prices, no significant change in the numbers plugged into those pages.

  It didn’t tell the whole story.

  Regret flowed dark and heavy through Dean at the sight of those even rows of descriptions and currency listings that he himself had entered. Perfect rows. Even script. Just as Augie had taught him. Just as the ranch deserved.

  Dean slammed the book shut and stood in a rush that scraped his chair back over the wooden floor. The sound was jarring after the steady silence that had been interrupted only by the sound of turning pages.

  He stalked over to a narrow cabinet in the corner and took out a bottle of bourbon and a glass, bringing both back to the desk. As he poured the liquor, he couldn’t help but think of the woman sleeping in his house right now. The house he’d remodeled for nearly two years to ready the place for a different woman who would never come to live there.

  Lifting his glass, he tipped the whole of its contents down his throat.

  Chapter Eight

  Courtney woke the next morning in a frightful mood.

  Despite her utter exhaustion and the fact that her bed had been far more comfortable than other accommodations she’d experienced since leaving Boston, she had barely slept a wink.

  She would have thought nighttime in such a secluded, isolated area would have been silent. It was far from it. The quiet had been punctuated by the hooting calls of night-hunting owls, the incessant rustle of crickets, and the distant sound of horses in the barn. Sounds that had Courtney’s eyes popping open every time she heard something new and unexpected.

  But it was not just the unfamiliar sounds that had kept her alert through the night.

  The bedroom itself was lovely, if she were honest with herself, containing a large brass bed covered in what appeared to be a hand-stitched quilt made of various patterns in pale green, yellow, and peach.

  But the door had no lock.

  Courtney had shoved a little white-painted wooden chair under the handle, hoping it would keep any unwanted visitors at bay. Not that she truly expected anyone to intrude upon her privacy, but just the thought of being in the house alone with that man had her insides spinning into a mini-riot.

  The night before, with her hunger still satisfied from the meal Jimena had provided for her before her bath, Courtney had been content to stay in the little bedroom while the others ate downstairs. From her window, which overlooked the barn and the pasture beyond, she had seen the brother drive up in a wagon just as the sun was setting. Seated beside him was a young woman dressed in a way similar to Jimena, with thick black hair in a braid that was wound around her head like a crown. The beautiful woman, likely Jimena’s daughter, was very obviously with child, which explained the sedate pace of the wagon.

  Though it had grown dark by the time supper ended, there was enough moonlight to see the couple leaving again, accompanied by Jimena. Courtney was disturbed by the older woman’s departure. Having Jimena nearby had been the only thing to help ease some of her discomfort.

  As she had sat watching the others drive away, she’d heard the sound of booted steps making their way up the stairs. The steps stopped some way down the hall, followed by the distinct sound of a door opening and closing again.

  Courtney had spent her entire life surrounded by servants and family and friends. Yet she found herself alone in a house with a strange and bad-tempered man, in the middle of the Montana plains, with no lock on her door. She had never felt more vulnerable.

  To say she spent a night filled with anxiety and uncertainty would have been an understatement.

  When the waking sun started to shift the darkness into lovely shades of gold and she came to another realization—her windows faced the east—she gave up on sleeping altogether. With a heavy sigh, she rose from the comfortable bed, still wearing the borrowed blouse and skirt. A small wooden bench sat before the windows, and Courtney took a seat. Bringing her feet up, she tucked her skirts around her legs and wrapped her arms around her bent knees. She turned her gaze out the window, over the barn and pastureland, as the sun slowly crept over the horizon.

  Courtney had always been a city girl. She loved the hustle and excitement, the culture and society of Boston, and she always enjoyed her family’s annual shopping trip to New York City. But she couldn’t deny that the scene spreading beyond her window was beautiful—in a quaint, pastoral sort of way.

  The sleepy yet elegant stretch of dawn first gilded the tips of a small copse of trees that spread to the north, then lit across the roof of the barn before finally spreading through the morning mist to glisten across the endless expanse of grass and reflect on the surface of a river that wound casually through the southern stretch of her view.

  Horses grazed in the distant pasture, and she thought she could see the gable of a little house over a gentle rise in the landscape. She wondered if that was where the brother and Jimena’s daughter had their home.

  Courtney wasn’t sure how long she sat there as the sun brightened the strange and unfamiliar world around her, but at some point during her quiet observance of morning’s arrival, the ugly mood she had woken up with shifted into a sense of hope. Soon, the odd events of yesterday would be resolved and she would be on her own again, independent and free to take another step in her new life. Her current circumstances were nothing more than a momentary setback, a brief bump in the road that spread before her.

  As her usual optimism settled back into place, she noted the cheerful appearance of Jimena, in another brightly colored skirt and blouse, coming over the rise, driving the little wagon.

  Courtney released a breath, feeling some relief in having the other woman nearby again.

  Her relief was short-lived, however, as at nearly the same moment, a door opened down the hall and booted steps sounded on the wooden floor. Courtney tensed, half expecting the cowboy to come to her door.

  He didn’t, and her heart rate slowly returned to normal as she heard his steps receding down the stairs and then out the front door.

  He would be taking her back to town today. Back to the judge to have the marriage certificate torn into a thousand pieces. She was still stunned by the idea that a man would simply marry a woman right off the train, even if he didn’t intend to stay married to her. That she was the bride was even harder to fathom. It just didn’t seem real. And it wasn’t really. Soon it would be just a distant memory. One that she and Alexandra would laugh about once she reached Helena.

  A soft knock on the door brought her out of her uneasy reverie and
to her feet.

  It was Jimena, carrying her wedding gown and all the layers of her underclothes, cleaned and pressed. She must have stayed up half the night laundering the fine clothing.

  The shorter woman swept into the bedroom and began laying the items out on the bed, a litany of Spanish flowing from her lips. Jimena, apparently, was a morning person.

  Thankfully, Courtney was not expected to respond to the woman’s one-sided conversation. After she removed her borrowed clothes, Jimena tossed undergarments over Courtney’s head and expertly cinched her back into her corset, then buttoned up the long row of buttons on the back of her gown, which amazingly was not nearly as badly ruined as Courtney had expected.

  Once Courtney was dressed, Jimena nudged her toward the chair and stepped behind her to unravel the braid that had gotten messy during the night. Courtney tried to tell the woman a few times during the process that she could manage to do a few things for herself, but Jimena waved off her words with a smile and continued at the task.

  Courtney wondered if the kind woman was aware of the strange circumstances that had brought Courtney here. The prior evening in the kitchen, she had gotten the sense that the woman believed her to be a true bride. Did Jimena now understand the truth?

  Embarrassment burned in Courtney’s cheeks, which managed to spark a bit of her temper. She had nothing to be embarrassed about, except maybe that she hadn’t realized a stranger might marry her off the street. It was Dean Lawton who had behaved dishonorably.

  But she highly doubted that the man had any experience with such a vulnerable emotion as embarrassment.

  “Terminé. Estás preciosa.” Jimena stepped back and clapped her hands. “Mira,” she said as she turned Courtney toward an oval mirror on the wall.

  Courtney stiffened.

  The white gown looked nearly as good as new, and her hair had been beautifully dressed in a thick chignon at the back of her head. The coiffure was accented with braids and twists rather than flowers, but even without any of her grandmother’s pearls, the effect was startling.

  She looked like a bride. Again.

  “¿No te gusta?”

  Courtney turned quickly to Jimena. “It’s beautiful,” she assured the older woman with a smile, though she doubted she sounded very convincing. “You have managed a miracle. Gracias.”

  Jimena nodded and smiled then gestured toward the door. “El jefe estará esperando.”

  El jefe.

  Jimena had used that phrase yesterday as well. Courtney realized it more likely translated to boss rather than chief as she had first believed. Jimena was obviously referring to Lawton.

  He was probably as impatient as she was to see this marriage annulled.

  And she was going to have to make the long drive back to town with the insufferable man. She closed her eyes for a moment, recalling the derision and arrogance in his fine-honed features, the light of annoyance in his eyes.

  She could not wait to be free of him.

  Now back in her fine clothes, she felt a return of her usual confidence. Lifting her head and drawing as deep a breath as the corset would allow, she left the corner bedroom and walked at a sedate pace down the stairs. Before Courtney stepped outside, Jimena, who had followed her to the front door, stopped her to give her a quick but warm embrace.

  Though awkward with such an emotional display, Courtney appreciated the gesture nonetheless, and she smiled as she thanked the woman again.

  Then she turned and stepped out onto the covered porch.

  The wagon was pulled up in front of the house, and Dean Lawton stood beside it with his thumbs hooked through the belt loops of his denims and his cowboy hat tipped low over his eyes to block the swiftly rising sun. Despite the casual way he leaned back against the wagon with his legs crossed at the ankles, his impatience rolled off him in waves.

  Courtney paused before descending from the porch, forcing him to lift his chin to look up at her. When he did, she stiffened at the sudden swirling sensation inside her.

  The man looked terribly handsome in the light of a fresh morning, despite the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he squinted against the sun’s slanted rays.

  Or maybe because of it.

  He cast a brief but sweeping glance at the return of her wedding gown before the corner of his mouth tilted in a way that had nothing to do with amusement and he gave a curt nod toward the wagon. “Let’s get this over with.”

  “Gladly,” Courtney replied, then descended the three steps to the ground and approached the wagon. She paused to grasp her skirts in one hand, but when she looked for Dean to offer a hand to assist her up into the wagon, he wasn’t beside her.

  A second later, he grasped her waist from behind and lifted her from the ground until her feet made contact with the step board on the side of the wagon.

  Goodness! Courtney barely caught her breath before he released her to take long strides around the wagon to the other side, where he leapt up to take the driver’s seat.

  As the wagon jostled and swayed, Courtney quickly took her seat, grasping the side of the wagon to keep her balance.

  With a flick of reins and a low murmured word, he set the horses and wagon in motion.

  The drive into town was horrendous.

  No conversation.

  No pleasantries.

  All Courtney could do was watch the scenery pass by. It was beautiful, but she couldn’t enjoy it when she was more uncomfortable than she had ever been in her life. Mainly because she could feel the tension in the man seated beside her. The cowboy was like a tightly wound spool of wire that at any second could burst into spinning.

  She kept waiting for him to say something—anything, really—but he never did.

  And she certainly wasn’t about to.

  It wasn’t until they reached the edge of town that he finally spoke. “After seeing Judge Wilkerson, I’ll get you a room at the boardinghouse and ask around town for anyone heading in the direction you’re going. There’s likely to be someone around willing to get you the rest of the way to your destination.”

  Courtney looked askance at the man beside her. His tone was stiff, and his words had a sense of reluctance about them. Like he regretted having to do even that much for her.

  “No, thank you. I will manage on my own,” she replied.

  He slid a glance in her direction. She saw the doubt in his eyes and clenched her teeth with irritation. “If you say so,” he said.

  Drawing the wagon to a stop in front of the judge’s office, he wasted no time jumping to the ground and coming around to her side, where he stopped and reached for her waist again.

  Why on earth couldn’t he just offer his hand like a gentleman?

  Her breath caught as she flew from the wagon to the ground. She grasped his shoulders to steady herself against the swiftness of the maneuver.

  Likely noticing her imbalance, he kept his hands on her for a couple moments after her feet hit the ground, making her breath catch for an entirely different reason.

  Standing there between the wagon and his tall, lean, male body, Courtney experienced a rush of heat that blasted from her toes up through her center to her face. His large hands were wrapped almost completely around her waist, his strong thumbs pressing firmly to her belly while his broad shoulders were close enough to block her view of anything else, leaving only him. On her swiftly drawn breath, she detected the scent of fresh hay and warm male as her gaze found the pulse thrumming at the side of his throat.

  Her mouth going dry, she tipped her head back to look at his face. His expression was all hard lines and enticing shadows, except for his eyes. Even topped by the slash of his heavy brows, his eyes held a silvery light. He was an odd mixture of impatience and pride, mystery and enticement, especially when he looked at her as he was now.

  Did he ever smile? A real, genuine smile?
<
br />   She blinked.

  She shouldn’t care. She didn’t care.

  His handsomeness was stirring her brain. She could certainly appreciate an attractive man. It didn’t change the fact that she also thought him insufferably ill-mannered.

  She dropped her hands from his shoulders, and he stepped back, releasing her. “You do not need to do that every time,” she chided stiffly. “Offering your hand is perfectly acceptable and would see the job done just as well.”

  “With all that flounce and fluff?” he asked with a dubious glance at the draped layers of her gown and the extended train of her skirt. “I doubt it. You’d be more likely to end up with a mouth full of dirt.”

  Then he turned away and started toward the judge’s office, leaving Courtney to follow behind him.

  She gave a huff. No manners at all.

  Sweeping her “flounce and fluff” out of her way, she followed him with as much dignity as she could manage, since she’d finally noticed that several people in town had stopped to watch her and the cowboy’s odd confrontation.

  She could only hope no one knew their purpose for getting to town so early.

  They stepped into the small office building to find the same gangly, young clerk sitting at the desk in the front room. “Judge Wilkerson in yet?” Lawton asked without preamble.

  The clerk glanced curiously at Courtney as she stepped around from behind Lawton to stand at his side. She made sure at least five inches separated them, but she was not about to cower behind his shoulder. She wanted to see this done as much as he did.

  “Uh, he came in just a bit ago. I’ll see if he’s free.”

  They waited in silence as the clerk sidled out from behind his desk to disappear into the room beyond. A minute later, the young man returned and gave a gesture for them to follow. “He’s on a tight schedule today, so it’ll need to be quick.”