Explaining Herself Page 10

  "Isn't that nice of Mr. Laramie, Kitty-kat? You can sit on Blackie while we're saddling the other horses."

  Kitty's hopeful expectation when she nodded and lifted her arms unsettled him. She wanted him to . . . ?

  He slid his gaze briefly toward Victoria, but she was still beaming at him—a reaction that ruffled him in even more pleasant and unexpected ways. So he took a breath, gritted his teeth against the pain in his side and shoulder, and lifted Kitty Garrison up into Blackie's saddle. Her yellow calico dress rode up to her knobby, white-stockinged knees, showing high-buttoned shoes that came nowhere near the stirrups. She grabbed the saddle horn, then graced him with a smile surprisingly like her older sister's.

  Suddenly, she was pretty too.

  "What do you say, Kitty?" prompted Victoria—and Laramie caught his breath. How many years had it been since he'd heard someone ask that?

  What do you say to the nice storekeeper, Julie? Ross, what do you say to your brother?

  "Ross?" Victoria's use of his Christian name, his Anglicized name, startled him further. "I mean—Mr. Laramie?" She glanced toward Kitty to make sure the girl was distracted by the horse. "Are you all right?"

  He looked over his shoulder at the two-story ranch house, with its porch and its blue shutters and its flower beds. A swing hung from a tree in the yard. A small, single gravestone stood amid another bed of flowers under an elm, some distance from the house but clearly in view.

  This was how a family lived. Little girls. Home. High-buttoned shoes. What do you say, Kitty ?

  It wasn't his world, the world of rustlers and killers, and that hurt.

  "You're welcome," he said to Kitty's polite thank-you, and led Blackie the rest of the way to the stables. He felt unbalanced, out of place, a blight on their world. It bothered him enough that he did not try to find the words to ask Victoria any of the questions still haunting him.

  Knowing her, she would tell him anyhow.

  Chapter Ten

  It was a beautiful August day for a ride into the thickly wooded foothills of the Bighorn Mountains, and Victoria could not be more pleased by the company.

  She'd feared Ross was avoiding her after last week, especially since she'd made it clear that they mustn't indulge in similar behavior unless he were actually calling on her, like a respectable man would. He'd disappointed her by not offering to call. But he was here now, and he'd been kind to Kitty this morning.

  And watching him ride was its own kind of joy. He sat his horse as if born to it, and although he wore pointed Spanish spurs, she did not see him touch his horse with them once.

  "So Papa, Mr. Laramie," she said, to make conversation. "If you were rustlers, where would you hide?"

  She'd expected Papa's doubtful look—her literal father did not play the "if game very well. She'd forgotten how fearfully Kitty might react.

  "They aren't hiding here, are they?" the girl asked from her secure seat in front of Papa, as if bad men would step out from behind the next copse of pines, bandannas pulled over their faces and pistols smoking in their hands.

  Then again, to judge from the revolver on Ross's hip, and rifles holstered on both his and Papa's saddles—as well as the way Ross stiffened at her question—maybe they might.

  "No," assured Papa, narrowing his eyes in warning.

  "No, puss, not here," Victoria assured her. "We use this path too often. Right, Mr. Laramie?"

  His gaze, when he slanted it toward her, smoldered with an upset she couldn't even guess. It took her a long moment to realize that Papa, too, was waiting his answer.

  "Maybe to the north," Ross offered finally, so softly that they almost didn't hear him over their horses' slow hoofbeats. "There's arroyos, box canyons."

  "Been rustlers there before," noted Papa, returning his attention to the path in front of him.

  All Ross said was "I've heard."

  Victoria, however, sat up straighter in her sidesaddle, "/haven't. When were there rustlers up here?"

  Papa ignored her to bend closer to Kitty's ear, whisper something, and point. Kitty's face lit up at the sight of the rabbit he'd spotted for her. He was good at ignoring Vic.

  But the way Ross was still staring at Papa's back, eyes narrowed, intrigued her. Something else to find out.

  "A family outfit," Ross finally offered, low and bitter—he must really dislike rustlers. "Immigrants, yes?"

  "Yep," said Papa.

  Kitty said, "Families rustle together?"

  It surprised Victoria too, though maybe it shouldn't. Families worked together in so many other businesses—even crime, like the Roberts brothers who were still at large after the train holdup. Why not rustling?

  "Jest the menfolk," Papa assured them.

  Ross asked, "Were there women?" If she hadn't spent as much time with him already, maybe Victoria wouldn't have noticed the odd note in his voice. But she did, and the undercurrents of his question drew her like a fly to blackberry cobbler.

  Papa glanced back at him, unreadable. "Not rus-tlin'."

  The silence that followed lasted for some time. And Victoria knew they weren't close to telling her everything.

  Just watching Victoria Garrison ride, primly sidesaddle, was enough to remind Laramie how ill-qualified he was to court one of the rancher's daughters. If he needed further proof, he got it at the horse ranch Collier Pembroke was building with Victoria's older sister, Laurel.

  The homestead wasn't terribly imposing at first. Their footpath joined into a wider track, not large enough to be called a road, and over the entrance hung a sign announcing "The Lorelei Ranch." But that title was burned into a wooden board and hung between two lodgepole pines. Nothing fancy.

  When the original homestead came into view—a rough corral of split logs, a lean-to for riding horses, a small claim shack with tar paper tacked around it— Laramie thought he could do better than that.

  But then they rode around another copse of pines and into a finer reality. At least four corrals were nestled among the trees, so new that the end of the log rails hadn't fully weathered. A long, formal stables was painted to match a new, two-story house. It had glass windows, a shingled roof, white wood siding not yet stained by rain or winter, and blue—no, purple shutters.

  "It's so beautiful!" declared Kitty happily, so he guessed it was new to the family as well.

  "They only built it this June, after rounding up the wild horses," explained Victoria, which relieved him. She'd been awfully quiet for the second half of the ride. "It's a mail-order house; it came in pieces, and a whole bunch of us got together and built it in just one weekend."

  They reined to a stop by the original homestead's corral, and Laramie knew that, even mail order, he could never build such a house. Somehow, that bothered him.

  "Laurel and Collier married last November," Victoria continued, dismounting from her gelding's sidesaddle before anybody could offer assistance. "At first Laurel wanted a cattle ranch, but then they decided to raise—"

  The bugle of a horse—unmistakably a stallion—interrupted her, and everyone looked uphill. Sure enough, a paint mustang paced his corral, clearly watching the new arrivals. As if to show off, he lifted backward onto his rear legs, pawing the air, trumpeting again.

  A blond man stood in the corral as well, some distance from the beast, and raised a coiled rope in slow greeting.

  Jacob Garrison growled something under his breath.

  "He's not that close to it," defended Victoria, waving back. As if there was such a thing as being a safe distance from a stallion, much less what looked like a wild stallion.

  Laramie glanced at her, annoyed by her innocence, noticed Garrison doing the same thing, and looked away.

  A second figure strode toward them from the stables. She wore a man's hat and a man's shirt over a split skirt, and she resembled Victoria, maybe older. Her face wasn't as round, and she had straighter hair. "Hi, Papa!" exclaimed Laurel Pembroke. "Kitty-kat, come here! Hi, Vic!"

  It took longer for Colli
er Pembroke to safely skirt the stallion, duck through the extra-high rails of the fence, then hike down from its more isolated corral. Victoria easily filled the time. After hugging her sister, she introduced Laramie to Mrs. Pembroke. She told about helping her sister homestead in the tar-paper cabin the previous summer. Mrs. Pembroke explained that they were breeding thoroughbreds with mustangs, for polo ponies. Then Victoria explained how they'd captured not just the bandit stallion, off in the high corral, but his band of almost thirty horses, most of which they'd sold for extra funds.

  "Nobody will buy the stallion," Laurel Pembroke explained, taking her story back from her younger sister. Laramie saw her gaze settle on his gunbelt, though she said nothing of it. "So Cole's trying to gentle him."

  Garrison snorted.

  "If anybody can, it's Collier," insisted Mrs. Pembroke. "We can still, well, alter him if we have to, but Collier thinks it would be kinder to put him down than do that. So we'll try this first."

  In his years of ranch work, Laramie had castrated more bull calves and yearling colts than he could count, much less remember. It was a necessity of raising livestock, no more, no less. But those animals were usually young.

  He again glanced uphill toward the stallion, magnificent despite its mustang size, and he thought, Collier's right.

  "Kill him?" exclaimed Kitty. Laramie wasn't sure the child even knew what "altering" meant; it unsettled him that her sisters did. But she clearly understood "put down." "Why don't you just let him go again, if nobody wants him?"

  Garrison snorted again. This was clearly a topic of some contention between him and the Pembrokes.

  "Because mustangs have a price on their head," explained Victoria patiently. "There's a reward for them, like outlaws. You know how the jail has Wanted posters that offer money for bad men, dead or alive?"

  Eyes wide, Kitty shook her head.

  "Oh." Victoria winced toward her father in an apology that did nothing to dispel his glare. "Well, there are. Since they're bad, like train robbers, a cash reward is offered to the person who brings them in. And there's a reward for the bandit stallion too, but only if he's dead."

  Laramie wondered how many of his old companions had just such prices on their heads, and he liked the Pembrokes for not killing the mustang stallion for the bounty.

  Kitty asked, "Is he a bad horse, then?"

  "Yep," said Garrison firmly.

  "No," protested Laurel, scowling at her father. "But I guess he is a thief, because if he's loose he'll just steal other people's mares again. He doesn't understand that they don't belong to him. It's his nature."

  Garrison stared at her. "Don't make him good."

  The Englisher, a remarkably good-looking man, arrived with handshakes and hugs. He sounded pleasantly like Laramie's old boss from the WS Ranch when he spoke. The family sent Kitty off to the stables to see the foals, so that they could discuss the rustling without frightening her, and headed for the fine new house.

  But Laramie glanced uphill again, to where the stallion watched them, and he thought the Pembrokes were making a mistake trying to tame a wild creature like that.

  Jacob Garrison was right. Whether a critter was bad from its upbringing, or its lack of understanding, or its nature, didn't matter.

  Bad was bad.

  Victoria had loved homesteading with her older sister, living by themselves, chopping wood and patching leaks and even shooting rattlesnakes on their own. It had been the first time in their lives they couldn't just call for Papa—not quickly, anyhow—when things went wrong. She'd felt frightened, and excited, and capable, and ... and free.

  Then she got her job at the newspaper. Laurel married up with Lord Collier. And it all seemed over. Now Laurel was leading her guests into her sparsely furnished front parlor and asking if anybody wanted lemonade. Laurel the cowboy. Laurel the homesteader. Worse, when Papa said that would be fine, Laurel said, "Come and give me a hand, Vic?"

  It wasn't that hot a ride. The refusal had almost reached Vic's lips before her confused gaze glanced by Ross Laramie again. He still stood uncomfortably in the front foyer, as if unsure he qualified for the parlor, hip-shot and head down. His boots were awfully dusty. Back when he'd lifted Kitty onto his horse this morning, Vic had noticed the briefest wince, so she knew he was still hurting from whatever had been bandaged two weeks ago. And he'd ridden all this way without complaint.

  Suddenly, she wanted him to have lemonade. So she spoke to the men instead of Laurel. "Don't say anything important."

  The men looked innocent—except Collier, who subtly caught his wife's hand as she passed, trailing their palms off to their fingers and then letting go.

  When he noticed Vic noticing, Collier raised his eyebrows in seeming innocence, even while Laurel vanished into the kitchen. The Pembrokes loved each other; that much Vic knew.

  Maybe there were other ways to prove one's independence than to live alone, at that.

  As soon as they were alone, Laurel said, "So tell me."

  Normally her family wasn't so curious. "About... ?"

  "About my new skirt; what do you think about?" Laurel made a face since, of all Vic's sisters, she was the least likely to want to talk about clothes. "Tell me what's going on? Why'd Papa bring a pistolero up here?"

  As if Ross were simply some hired gunman!

  "Well, it is a daring skirt," teased Victoria, picking up a pitcher to fill with water. It was daring—practically like wearing dungarees, but with a great deal more fabric. Dungarees disguised as a skirt. "Collier doesn't mind?"

  "Collier ordered it for me." Laurel went to the pantry, then started rolling lemons across the floor at Vic. "Talk!"

  Laughing, Vic stopped as many lemons as she could with her feet, kicking several gently back at her sister before she began to press them, one at a time, beneath her boot so Laurel could squeeze more juice. "He's not a pistolero."

  "Well, he's better armed than a cowboy."

  "His name is Ross Laramie, and he's a range detective. Papa hired him to catch rustlers."

  Laurel paused in squeezing lemons. "Rustlers?"

  "Not just that." Victoria fetched the sugar. "Mr. Laramie thinks they're hiding in the foothills, and Papa seems to agree. That's why we've come—to warn you and Collier not to bother anybody who might seem suspicious."

  "Not bother them? Some low-down, stinking cow thieves sneaking around my foothills, and I shouldn't bother them?"

  While Laurel spooned in sugar, Vic fetched the cut-glass tumblers the Pembrokes had bought for their fancy guests from England a month before. "I may be wrong, but I doubt Papa will like that reaction. How about Collier?"

  Laurel scowled at her, but stirred the lemonade. "He'll tell me to stay out of their way too, darn it. But the British are extra civilized, don't you know."

  "Then you ought to think up a different response," suggested Vic, lifting the tray of glasses.

  Picking up the pitcher, Laurel paused by the door from the kitchen. "What is it you always say?"

  "I understand." The beautiful thing about that response was that it didn't promise not to do anything, just that she comprehended why she perhaps oughtn't.

  Laurel nodded. "Maybe, since I'm not you, I can try that."

  All three men, even Ross, rose at their entrance. Collier took Victoria's tray to set on a low table, but he spoke to Laurel. "Hullo, dearest. Your father and Mr. Laramie were just explaining a rather disturbing situation."

  Vic knew they would discuss important things—although she had to wonder whether her closemouthed father or the closemouthed range detective had done most of the talking.

  Collier was doing the talking now, explaining what Victoria already knew. She liked listening to his British accent. Normally, as pretty as Collier was, she liked watching him, too, but this morning she found her attention sliding appreciatively back to Ross. He's taller than Collier, she thought loyally, noticing how his shiny black hair caught the sunlight in silver highlights through the parlor window. He's mo
re . . . more . . .

  The word escaped her for almost a full minute, during which time she sank into a ladder-back chair and accepted a full tumbler from Laurel. Ross was different, perhaps even more attractive, though in subtler ways. She could feel the difference of him across her skin and deep inside her; she just couldn't quite label it. It had something to do with his dark, deep-set eyes and his serious mouth, with his angled face and his sculpted hands and the revolver still slung dangerously off his hip. His difference felt. . . sharp. Fierce, even. Controlled—always controlled.

  She tried not to blush. Almost always.

  Intensity, she realized. That's what he had that the polite, shiny Lord Collier Pembroke did not. Ross Laramie was the most intense man she'd ever met, and she liked that.

  He seemed downright startled in his chair when Laurel handed him a glass of lemonade, then he nodded nervous thanks. His gaze slid over to Victoria, then quickly away.

  She liked him very much.

  "So we have been requested," finished Collier, "to stay out of these men's way—should we actually come upon them—and allow the law to handle the matter."

  "The law?" Laurel sat rather abruptly on her settee, beside her husband. "Papa, you can't mean Ward!"

  Ross seemed to deliberately avoid Vic's gaze. He looked down, took a sip of the lemonade. After a pause, he drank more—several swallows—and she felt glad he liked it.

  "Sheriff," noted Papa pointedly, meaning that if the man held the post of sheriff, he deserved some respect. Just like President McKinley demanded their respect simply as the leader of the nation, even if he was a Republican.

  "You hired an outside man," noted Laurel, about Ross.

  "He works for me," warned Papa. True outside men generally weren't forthcoming about who hired them.

  "A range detective, then. You're not sitting back and letting the law handle it."

  Papa sat straighter. "My cows. "

  "He does have a point, dearest," interrupted Collier, before this could escalate into another of Laurel and Papa's arguments. "If the scoundrels were stealing horses, then perhaps we could hunt them down like vermin, eh?"