Rachel forced her legs to move—a feat which took more will than she’d wished.

She walked to the open barn doors and stared unseeing into the yard beyond. She needed distance. She couldn’t think with him up close. He was like a strange poison that flooded her bloodstream and invaded her mind.

It was ridiculous, this unwarranted response to him. She didn’t know this man from Adam. He had barged into her life, a stranger she knew nothing about, bringing the worst news possible, and yet … yet he was the only lifeline she had at the moment.

Wasn’t that just her luck?

AUTHOR NOTE

I’ve always been a sucker for a good redemption story. There’s a strange kind of appeal in taking a damaged character (or in this case two!) and giving him a second chance to shine. Caleb and Rachel did not disappoint me in this regard. It was great fun putting these two through the wringer and seeing them come out the other side.

SALVATION IN THE RANCHER’S ARMS began its life as my first NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) book, and remains one of my favourites. I hope you’ll enjoy reading about Caleb and Rachel’s journey as much as I enjoyed writing about it.

Salvation in the Rancher’s Arms
Kelly Boyce

www.millsandboon.co.uk

KELLY BOYCE can’t remember a time when she wasn’t writing stories. In 2002 she joined the RWA and Romance Writers of Atlantic Canada. Shortly thereafter she was one of the featured writers in a documentary about the romance-writing industry entitled Who’s Afraid of Happy Endings?

A life-long Nova Scotian, she lives near the Atlantic Ocean with her husband and a clownish golden retriever with a stubborn streak a mile wide.

This is Kelly Boyce’s amazing debut novel for Mills & Boon® Historical Romance!

Dedication

In memory of my grandfather, Malcolm Lavers—a great man and a true hero.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

AUTHOR NOTE

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Copyright

Chapter One

Colorado Territory, 1876

Salvation Falls was like a hundred other towns Caleb Beckett had ridden into over the years, with its faded storefronts and hopeful name, likely conjured up by settlers who had great things in mind, only to be disappointed by the harsh realities of life.

People mixed and mingled on the streets and planked sidewalks as the buckboard he rode jostled over the ruts in the dirt road. A few stopped to glance up at him. He could feel the shift in the air the further into town he went. It was subtle at first, but soon grew to a deep murmur that buzzed like a hive of angry bees.

He guessed that could happen when a stranger arrived in town with a coffin loaded in the back of his buckboard.

Caleb’s eyes scanned the storefront signs. They were all the same. Mercantile, hardware, footwear, sundries and saloons. He knew from experience that down near the end of the road he’d find a livery and the butcher, probably a blacksmith or two. It never changed.

He’d spent time in a town just like this, and drifted into even more after leaving it. And if there was one thing he’d noticed, as he moved on from one to the next, it was the similarity of it all. People all wanting the same thing: a decent place to call home, somewhere to belong, a sense of control over their destinies.

He had wanted that once, too. But he’d learned his lesson on that account.

The sheriff’s office loomed ahead on the corner where a side street intersected the main road. It wasn’t the smartest of choices. Left the jail too exposed, in his opinion. But he would keep his own counsel. It was none of his affair. He had other business here. Business he planned on concluding quickly before moving on. The body in the coffin behind him did not alter this plan in any way.

It simply added a few complications that needed to be dealt with first.

He touched a hand to his chest. Beneath his sheepskin, in the pocket of his wool jacket, a piece of paper crinkled under the pressure.

He never should have played the hand. He should have listened when his gut told him to get up and walk away from the table when the desperation in Robert Sutter’s eyes hit a fevered pitch.

But he hadn’t.

The price was always hefty when he ignored his instincts. He had the scars to prove it. Both inside and out.

“Whoa.” Caleb pulled back on the reins, squinting as the late afternoon sun poked over one of the low buildings and hit him square in the eye. He tipped the brim of his felt hat forward to block the blinding light.

He stopped the buckboard in front of the sheriff’s office. He set the brake and jumped down, his muscles protesting after endless hours in the seat. He’d driven straight from Laramie without stopping. He wanted this business over and done with.

Jasper nickered. His horse hadn’t much liked being hitched to the back of the wagon for the trip, replaced by a sturdy draft, but Caleb hadn’t wanted to tire the paint. He needed him fresh and ready for when he left town.

Caleb left the coffin where it was and, ignoring the stares of those who had stopped to gawk, walked into the sheriff’s office.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the sudden dimness.

“Do somethin’ for you?”

Caleb blinked and shifted, moving his exposed back away from the open door. Slowly the shadows took shape. The sheriff sat behind a scarred desk, his feet propped up on top and a newspaper in his lap. The tin badge designating his position held a dull sheen in the pale light. Caleb judged the man’s age to be close to his own thirty years, though he lacked the hard-bitten look Caleb saw every time he looked in a mirror.

“Afternoon,” he said. Flicking the brim of his hat back with one finger, he took in his surroundings. The small office held a desk and chair. In front of the desk were two more straight-backed chairs. A potbellied stove took up the center of the wall he had his back to and it radiated heat, the crisp scent of burning wood almost enough to overpower the smell of leather, bacon and sweat. “I got a body for you.”

The sheriff folded the newspaper and unfolded his long limbs. His feet hit the wood floor with a thud. “Come again?”

From the man’s reaction, Caleb guessed they didn’t get a lot of dead bodies showing up unannounced in Salvation Falls. He hooked a thumb in the direction of the door. He could see a crowd gathering outside. The sheriff noticed, too, and took a few steps forward to peer over Caleb’s shoulder. The sun caught his hair, turning the black almost blue. Sharp, dark eyes slid in Caleb’s direction.

“Whose body you got in there?”

“Man by the name of Robert Sutter.”

Shock registered in the sheriff’s expression, a swift tightening travelling down his body like a bolt of lightning, straightening his posture. “Sutter?”

“Man was in Laramie, playing cards.” Caleb hesitated, unsure of how much to tell the sheriff. He decided the bare minimum would suffice for now. “Got himself shot.”

“Man.” The sheriff’s hand rubbed at his clean-shaven jaw until the tightness in his expression eased and filled with worry and uncertainty. “You came straight here?”

“Three days’ ride.” Caleb hesitated again. “Body oughta be buried straight off.” The sun had beaten down on him for the duration of the journey, and while April high up in Colorado Territory was a far cry from warm, he didn’t guess it did much good to a body stuffed in a pine box.

The sheriff nodded, his attention riveted to the buckboard outside. “I’ll send for his wife.”

Wife.

Caleb’s stomach churned. How had Sutter referred to her? A pants-wearing, mealy-mouthed ball buster.

Great.

He didn’t imagine she would be happy to receive the news he had to give. His hand absently brushed against his hip. It almost made him wish he still wore his guns. Almost.

“Might be Rachel can’t get here till morning. Their spread is a couple hours’ ride out. Be dark by the time someone gets there and breaks it to her.” The sheriff rubbed at his stomach, as if the idea of delivering the news that her husband had died in a card game threatened to dislodge his dinner. “You best hole up for the night,” he continued. “Mrs. Sutter might have some questions she needs answered. Better if you were here to accommodate her. Might make it easier.”

Caleb nodded. He doubted anything he had to say would improve the situation. In fact, just the opposite. But he had to speak to the woman either way. “Hotel?”

“Klein’s is the most decent. Pagget’s is the least expensive.” The sheriff’s hand waved in one direction then the other, the rest of him remained focused on the dead body in the buckboard. He seemed unduly affected by the man’s death.

“Sutter kin to you?”

The man snapped back to attention. “What? No.” He shook his head. “I knew him since we were boys, is all. And Rachel.”

“Expect she’ll be upset.”

The sheriff glanced from the buckboard back to Caleb, his expression unreadable. “I guess any woman would be.”

Despite his words, something in the man’s tone told Caleb not to expect a bucket of tears when the new widow came to town.

“If you could point me in the direction of the undertaker.”

The sheriff walked to the door and plucked his hat off the peg next to it, jamming it onto his dark hair. “I’ll ride down with you.” He turned before stepping over the threshold into the waiting crowd. “What were you doing in Laramie, anyway?”

Caleb pulled the brim of his hat down to shield his eyes, even though the sun had now dipped low enough to no longer be a bother. “Just passin’ through.”

* * *

Rachel Sutter gripped the edge of the wagon, partly to keep her behind from bouncing out of the seat and partly to keep her hands from shaking, as the large black woman known as Freedom Jones drove hell-bent for leather toward town.

“Slow down, Free.” She almost added that Robert wasn’t going anywhere, but managed to bite back the last bit, swallowing her anger. A tough pill, at best, and one that left a chalky residue as it went down. She could not believe it.

Robert was dead.

Killed.

The sheriff had delivered the news himself, arriving shortly after supper and pulling her outside where the boys couldn’t hear their conversation. The minute Hunter Donovan arrived on her doorstep, Rachel knew it was bad news. Dread filled the empty space inside her and made itself at home.

Breaking the news to the boys hadn’t been easy. She did her best to reassure them everything would be fine, but after they had turned in for the night, her numbness gave way, making room for fear to creep in. Curling up on the empty cot in the kitchen where Robert had preferred to sleep, she rocked back and forth with her head buried in her knees. The tears came of their own volition, angering her.

She had cried enough tears during the beginning of their marriage, back when she still believed she could make it work if she tried hard enough. But nothing she did had made a difference.

Robert wasn’t interested in her.

He’d had ambitions for her land, but his ambitions for their marriage became a well of empty promises.

Once again, it fell to her to pick up the pieces. But this time, there would be no reprieve. This time, Robert wasn’t coming back with yet another scheme for riches or promises of recouping all they had lost.

Rachel shook off her memories of last night and glanced behind her at Ethan and Brody. Both were dressed in their Sunday best, though it was only Tuesday. Brody, at nearly fifteen, had taken another growth spurt. The hem and cuffs of his suit betrayed the evidence that she had let them out as far as they could go. She’d have to get him a new one, but their credit at the haberdashery was overextended as it was.

“Maybe you could wear one of Robert’s,” she’d suggested. But the idea had been met with stony silence. In the past year, her brother had turned sullen and moody. The sudden distance between them pained her, but nothing she tried had bridged it.

“You warm enough, Ethan?” The little boy’s small body was pressed against Brody’s, seeking either warmth or comfort, maybe both.

“Yes, ma’am,” he whispered.

Freedom pulled back on the reins and cast a glance in Rachel’s direction. “It’ll be jus’ fine, Miss Rachel. Ain’t nothin’ you can’t handle. You jus’ remember, those boys—” she jerked her head back toward Brody and Ethan “—they be countin’ on you.”

Rachel nodded. “I’m fine, Free. Just get us into town.” She would have driven them herself, but Freedom had insisted. She didn’t have the energy to argue with the woman, who had been with her since Rachel was Brody’s age, coming to help out when Rachel’s mother fell ill.

She’d been a godsend, then and now.

“Hunter says the reverend is making all the arrangements,” Rachel said, peering out over the jagged landscape. In the distance, the rising sun hit the mountains, turning their peaks a golden pink. The early April air still held the bitter nip of winter here in the small valley. Pockets of snowfall had yet to melt away in some spots, but the promise of spring filled the air with the rich scent of wet earth.

“Yes, I ’spect everyone in town has heard the word.” Nothing stayed secret in Salvation Falls for long. No doubt by the time Hunter had reached her doorstep with the news, most of the townspeople already knew.

“When we get there, take the boys directly to the church,” Rachel continued. “Reverend Pearce will be waiting for them. I’ll walk to Doc Merrick’s from there.”

The rushed burial couldn’t be helped. Three days had passed since Robert was killed. They had to get him in the ground without delay. Rachel understood. She welcomed it. It would keep her busy, keep her focused. Wouldn’t allow her time to stop and think and worry and fret.

If she kept moving, she’d be fine.

* * *

A strange sense that she was living someone else’s life crawled over Rachel as she walked down the pathway away from the white clapboard church. The structure shone like a beacon in the morning sun, but she turned her back on it once Freedom had taken the boys inside. Rachel had stopped at the bottom of the steps, refusing to go in. She wasn’t on good terms with God today.

The cool spring air cut through her thin shawl. She was used to wearing her heavy coat lined with buffalo hide, but it didn’t seem appropriate attire for burying one’s husband.

Not that Robert had proven to be much of a husband.

She stopped midstride and took a deep breath. That wasn’t fair. No, it was fair. It just wasn’t right. The man was dead. Best let the bad memories and disappointment die with him. It wasn’t going to do her any good hanging on to them.

Hunter had had little information to give her about how Robert had managed to get himself killed buying cattle in Laramie, but Rachel had her suspicions. And she suspected that, when she spoke to the man who had brought her husband’s body home, they would be confirmed.

Doc Merrick met her at the door to his office. Merrick wasn’t a real doctor, at least, not the kind who fixed broken bones and ailing stomachs. Dr. Bolger managed that end of things. Merrick yanked teeth and helped prepare bodies for burial. He might have been a regular doc at one point, but if he was, it was well before Rachel could remember. Either way, she was glad for him. It meant one less thing for her to do. And she’d seen enough death in her life, so she was happy for Merrick’s abilities.

“Got Bobby all set, Rachel,” he said, taking a deep draw on his corncob pipe. The sweet, pungent smoke wafted around them. “Can’t tell you how sorry I am ’bout this. Sad day to be burying a man this young.”

Rachel nodded, following Merrick inside to the cramped little room. Small glass bottles lined the shelves against the wall, and oddly shaped instruments, whose purpose she didn’t want to think about, hung on hooks near the table. A lump rose in her throat and grew to the size of one of the crab apples growing on the tree next to the barn.

“Sheriff Donovan brought over a suit for ’im.” Merrick nodded at the closed pine box coffin sitting atop the sturdy table. The pale wood stood out in the dim confines of the office. Light struggled in through the dirt-encrusted window, adding a weak glow to the room.

“I’ll be sure to thank him,” she said. No doubt Hunter had given Doc the one suit he possessed straight out of his own closet. She shouldn’t be surprised. Hunter and Robert had been friends since they were young boys. They may have had a falling-out years before, but Hunter wasn’t the kind of man to hold a grudge past death.

Rachel touched the edge of the pine, letting her fingers trail over the smooth surface. The estrangement had been her fault. Both men had paid court and she’d chosen Robert. She wondered how different her life would have been had she made a different choice all those years ago. Funny how she had known both men most of her life, yet the man she buried today was more of a stranger to her now than on the day they’d married.

Maybe she had never really known him at all. It was a sad thought.

“Can you open it?”

Merrick started. “Open—oh, Rachel, you don’t want to do that. It’s been three days, and...well...” He shook his head, the bushy white hair bobbing with the movement.

“I know,” she said. She knew what happened to a body after death. “But I need to see.”

Merrick hesitated but Rachel fixed him with a hard stare until he relented.

“Here.” He handed her a stark white handkerchief.

Rachel took a deep breath, the scent of formaldehyde and whatever else the Merrick kept in those bottles, stung her nostrils. She placed the handkerchief over her mouth and nose, and gave him a nod.

It took Merrick a minute or two to pry loose the nails and slide the top toward him, revealing the body within from the chest up. Rachel took a step forward and peered down into Robert’s face.

Except it wasn’t Robert’s face.

At least, not the one she remembered. Robert had had a sense of animation to him, whether he had been angry or excited or somewhere in between. This man, this face, was still and gray, the eyes and cheeks already sinking into the hollows in the bone. Even his pale blond hair appeared stiff and lifeless, darker even, as though the sun’s reflection had slipped beneath a cloud leaving it cast in shadow. The body in the box was not Robert. It was an empty shell he’d once filled.

“The sheriff said he was shot.” There was no evidence of a bullet wound.

“One to the chest. Straight through the heart. Probably died instantly. Guessin’ it would have taken a man handy with a gun to manage such a thing.”

Rachel bit down, forcing the lump in her throat back. At least he hadn’t been shot in the gut. Whatever their differences, she would have hated to know Robert had suffered. She closed her eyes and nodded once again, waiting until Merrick hammered the lid back into place before reopening her eyes.

“I’ll bring him up to the church,” Merrick said. “Reverend said the service would start at ten. I’ll have him there before people start arrivin’.”

“Thank you,” Rachel whispered. Something hollow filled her chest. Sorrow? Regret?

She let out a long breath and straightened her shoulders. She had no time for either.

“The boys and I will be staying at the Pagget tonight. You can send the bill over there.” She turned and left the undertaker’s office. She’d figure out how she’d pay it tomorrow.

Today, she had a husband to bury.

Chapter Two

Caleb stood against the side wall of the church, closer to the front than he wanted to be. It gave him too clear a view of Rachel Sutter. The new widow sat flanked on either side by two boys. One he guessed was around fifteen, too old to be her son. The other he doubted was more than six or seven. Neither bore any resemblance to her or Robert Sutter.

The church was packed to capacity. It seemed everyone in town had come to pay their respects despite the short notice. Several men lined the walls with him. A few cast glances his way, though none addressed him directly. Just as well. He didn’t plan on staying longer than necessary, and the fewer people who remembered his face, the better.

The reverend stood at the front of the church, the pine box to his right. He cleared his throat, signaling he was ready to start the service.

It was easier to think of it as a pine box. Nothing special. Not something containing a body or a man or a life that used to be.

But try as he might, Caleb couldn’t erase the image of Sutter’s face when the bullet slammed into his chest. There had been an instant, a split second when the shock registered on Sutter’s face and he knew he was going to die. Caleb had seen that look on a man’s face before, but it still sent a chill straight to his core.

Sutter was dead before his body hit the filth encrusted floor of the Broken Deuce Saloon.

Caleb wished he’d never sat down at the card table. Never witnessed the man’s death. Never ridden into Laramie at all.

The reverend’s voice droned on. “Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation, and thy gentleness hath made me great...”

Caleb recognized the passage. It was from the book of Samuel. His grandfather had spent many nights twisting its words to suit his ends. Caleb gave his head a gentle shake. How many years would need to pass before he could bury those memories?

He closed his eyes and tried to control his breathing, letting the wall take most of his weight. He wasn’t sure why he’d come here today. He hadn’t been inside a church for so long it was a wonder he hadn’t burst into flames the moment he passed through its double oak doors. He didn’t know Sutter outside the brief hours before he’d died and hadn’t particularly liked what he had known. He didn’t know the man’s family or the people in this town. He could have ridden in, handed over the body and disappeared into the sunset.

Except he still had business to attend to. And some things a man couldn’t walk away from, no matter how much he wanted to.

His attention drifted away from the reverend and rested on the widow. Dressed in black, she wore a small matching hat perched forward on the top of her head. Her hair, a deep mahogany, was twisted into a simple knot at the nape of her neck, but whatever held it in place seemed destined to give in to its weight. Strands had worked their way free and curled down her narrow back.

She stared straight ahead at some point over the reverend’s shoulder, away from the pine box containing her husband. Her stoic expression never altered. Caleb tilted his head to one side and studied her, surprised to find her beautiful, though certainly not delicate. Bold, graceful lines and dark, almond-shaped eyes shaded by the short veil of her hat held a man’s gaze captive, but it was the wealth of inner strength that radiated from her strict posture and the way she hugged the young boy to her that he thought would endure in the mind long after.

To hear Sutter tell it, his wife didn’t possess a single redeeming quality to make a man look twice. Given what a pompous loudmouth the man had been, Caleb should have known his opinion wasn’t worth a lick.

She turned, as if sensing his attention. Caleb froze, unprepared for the potency of her dark eyes catching his. For several seconds, he forgot to breathe. Forgot not to stare. Forgot his reasons for being here.

Then, as quickly as her gaze had found him, it slid away. The effect of it, however, lingered like a shadow and he couldn’t shake the sense that she hadn’t looked at him, but into him. As if in those few brief seconds she had plunged inside the darkest recesses of his heart and taken a good look around.

A shiver crept up his spine and nestled at the base of his neck, making the hair prickle and stand on end.

That’s destiny tapping you on the shoulder, his mother used to say.

Caleb shrugged. He was not interested in destiny today. He wanted to take care of business and be on his way. More so now than ever.

“Heard he told her some cockamamie story about goin’ to Laramie to buy cattle.”

Caleb’s ears perked up. The man next to him stood half a head taller than his own six feet but couldn’t have weighed enough to matter soaking wet. He’d addressed the man beside him, who stood out of Caleb’s sight.

“Geez, Styles. Ain’t no way he could afford to be buyin’ more cattle in Laramie or anywhere else. ’Course, with Kirkpatrick breathin’ down his neck, guess you can’t blame the man for trying. Wouldn’t have done no good. Kirkpatrick’s bought up all of Bobby’s gambling debts. Jus’ a matter of time before he stops waitin’ on gettin’ paid back.”

Styles shrugged his bony shoulders. “Probably jus’ as well he got ’imself shot, then. Save Rachel the trouble when she finds out jus’ how much he owes.”

Caleb furrowed his brow. It sounded like Sutter had dug a deep hole and was about to drag his whole family down into it with him.

“Ain’t that the truth,” the other man said. “Still, cain’t say I’m surprised much. Bobby always was a gambler. Like my pappy always said, a man is what his past was.”

A woman in the pew next to them turned around and shushed the men. Both straightened and mumbled their apologies, but their words resonated through Caleb.

A man is what his past was.

The thought filled him with a deep sense of desolation. If that were true, there was no hope for him.

* * *

Rachel sat through the service focusing on what needed to be done rather than the words spoken by Reverend Pearce. If she listened, she would fall apart. Reality would settle in, take root and grow like a weed until it choked out everything else. She had to keep her mind on the future, not on the past or what might have been or all the things she’d done wrong. It couldn’t be changed now.

She had to think of the boys. They needed stability, a place to call home, a future to look forward to. Someday, a part of the ranch would be their legacy. Maybe all of it, given that she had no children of her own.

A prickling sensation tickled the hairs at the back of her neck, pulling her away from her ruminations. She turned to her left and scanned the faces of the congregation who had come to pay their respects. Her gaze swept the line of men standing along the wall and settled onto the stranger next to Jeremiah Styles.

He leaned against the wall, and though his manner appeared casual, Rachel sensed a predatory air about him, as if his posture was nothing more than a ruse. His sharp gaze spoke of a man well aware of his surroundings and any threats it might present. Lean and broad shouldered, he maintained an air of readiness, like a mountain cat about to strike. A frisson of unease tangled itself around her.

His gaze bored into hers, steady and unwavering. There was something in those eyes. Something hungry. Desperate. Haunted. It was like looking in a mirror.

Rachel’s breath caught and she turned back to face the front. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and forced her heart to slow.

She knew who he was. Strangers were easy to pick out in a town where so few passed through. He was the man who’d brought Robert’s body back from Laramie.

He was the one who would tell her the truth about what had happened.

After the ceremony, they convened to the graveyard and lowered Robert’s casket into the newly thawed earth. Rachel took a handful of dirt and dropped it into the gaping hole. It fell with a heavy thud onto the coffin. She didn’t think she’d ever heard a more lonely sound.

“In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to the Almighty God our brother Robert Charles Sutter, and we commit his body to the ground. Earth to earth...”

Next to her, Ethan gripped her hand and squeezed, pressing his face into her arm.

“...ashes to ashes...”

Rachel’s stomach twisted. How had it come to this?

“...dust to dust...”

Eight years ago she had been full of hope. She pulled in her lip and took a deep breath, blinking back tears she refused to let fall. She would not break down. She would not give in.

“...the Lord bless him and keep him, the Lord make his face to shine upon him...”

This was it. It was over.

“...and be gracious unto him and give him peace. Amen.”

It was done.

“Amen,” the congregation chanted back in subdued tones.

Robert was gone.

And all he’d left behind was questions.

Rachel searched the crowd for the stranger. She needed to understand, needed answers, and he was the only man who could give them to her.

She found him lingering in the shade of the gnarled oak growing in the far corner of the graveyard. He hadn’t joined the graveside service, but instead hung back near the road, away from the crowd. His hat, pulled low over his eyes, kept his expression hidden in shadow, but in her mind’s eye she could see the clear outline of his chiseled features. The deep-set eyes and wind-burned cheekbones. The firm set of the mouth against a few days’ growth of beard.

He was a handsome man, though not conventionally so. But something about his essence grabbed your attention and held it. This was a man who would be hard to forget, yet she sensed from the way he held back from the others and kept his face half hidden, being forgotten was exactly what he preferred.

Her thoughts were interrupted as the townspeople began filing past her, issuing platitudes and condolences. One by one, Rachel answered with the appropriate, “Thank you....I appreciate it....” And finally, most emphatically, “...no, we’ll be fine.”

The words had a strange, hypnotic effect, even if she didn’t believe them. Standing not too far away on the small crest of the hill, Freedom waited. Rachel sent the boys to her, giving Ethan one last hug before Brody led him away. She watched their retreating backs. What would they do now? The winter had been hard on them, but Robert had promised they had enough funds to replenish their cattle herd at the spring auction in Laramie.

Like a fool she had believed him.

The corner of her eye caught a motion coming toward her. A wall of black wove through the crowd with the determination of the Grim Reaper.

Shamus Kirkpatrick.

Her jaw tightened. Did the man have no compassion?

She could not deal with Shamus, today of all days. No doubt he would come to her dripping of sympathy with all the sincerity of a snake-oil salesman, sizing her up to find her weak spot before going in for the kill.

She had to get away, but panic paralyzed her limbs. The congregation had moved from the grave site to the courtyard in front of the church, leaving her alone.

“Come with me.”

The voice was low and husky, and hot breath tickled her ear. A hand gripped her elbow from behind with firm pressure. The sudden intimacy shocked her, causing her to stumble as she was maneuvered away from Robert’s graveside. She glanced up into the chiseled features of the stranger. Up close, the details of his face were even more captivating than from a distance. Tiny lines creased the edges of his eyes, and his full mouth pulled itself into a severe line. There was no give or softness to be found anywhere. He was all harsh angles and rugged maleness. It overpowered her senses, and she let him pull her along without protest.

He led her away from Shamus, down the hill toward the church, his hand solid and firm where it gripped her arm. It had been a long time since a man had touched her. Warmth spread through her and she cursed her body’s weakness. So much like her mother.

She gritted her teeth against the thought and found her voice. “Where are you taking me? The boys—”

“Boys are fine,” he said, casting a quick glance behind them to where Ethan and Brody stood with Freedom.

So close, his eyes were even more potent, neither brown nor green but a mottled shade of both, and set above a pair of razor-sharp cheekbones burned by the elements. Poking out from beneath his hat, thick brown hair curled up at the ends and whiskers, tinted red where the sunlight touched them, prickled his jaw.

“You’re the man who brought Robert home.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She waited for more as he directed her around Mrs. Lyngate and her brood of eight children, but the man was silent as a church on Monday morning. She struggled to keep up with his swift gait, gathering her skirts in her free hand.

“Do you mind telling me what my husband was doing in Laramie that got him shot?”

His gaze drifted over her, making her tremble, as if he had reached out and brushed his fingertips against her bare skin. The sensation left her unsettled.

“Maybe that question is best answered at another time. I’ll be at the Pagget this evening. Seven o’clock.”

Before she could respond, the stranger propelled her into the crowd in the courtyard and the pressure on her arm disappeared, leaving her staring at the broad expanse of his retreating back. Another round of platitudes began. Rachel accepted the condolences, realizing he had left her safely ensconced in the bosom of the mourners where Shamus wouldn’t dare accost her.

But Shamus waited, standing near the outskirts of the crowd. His pale blue eyes pierced her. Then he smiled, all arrogance, before turning and leaving. She had avoided him today, but it was a temporary reprieve.

She wasn’t as blind as the townspeople believed. She knew all about Robert’s gambling debts. Shamus made sure of it. She also knew that, if he decided to call in the markers, she would have no way of paying them back save to sell him her land.

And Shamus Kirkpatrick was not the type of man to let a little thing like Robert’s death keep him from taking it.

* * *

Caleb sat in the dining room of the Pagget Hotel wishing he had picked another location for his meeting with Mrs. Sutter. He’d chosen it out of convenience, since he was staying there, but the tired-looking décor and even more tired-looking waitress made him rethink his decision. The place had a faded and worn-out feel to it, as though its heyday had come and gone years before.

For himself, he couldn’t have cared less. A campfire and can of beans were all he needed, but a lady like Mrs. Sutter deserved nicer surroundings. And given the news he was about to deliver, a comfortable setting was the least he could provide. But it was too late now.

He motioned for the waitress to refill his cup of coffee, hoping this one would taste better than the sludge served earlier. The dark liquid she poured into the chipped mug reeked of tree bark scorched in the fire. He’d seen warmed tar with a more appetizing consistency.

Mrs. Sutter appeared at the threshold separating the small dining room from the main lobby, her hands clasped tightly at her waist. An air of vulnerability lingered around her as she stood on the precipice as if trying to decide whether to continue on or retreat. The urge to protect her against what he needed to do surged up, and he struggled to stuff it down as Mrs. Sutter dropped her hands to her sides, straightened her narrow shoulders and stepped forward.

Caleb stood as she approached his table.

“Evenin’, ma’am.” He nodded, then remembered his manners at the last minute and rounded the table to pull out her chair. She was already half seated by the time he reached her. Apparently Mrs. Sutter didn’t stand on ceremony.

“Thank you for meeting me, Mr.—” She stopped. Confusion marred the clean lines of her face. Again, he was struck by her simple beauty. She shook her head and folded her hands primly in her lap. “I’m sorry. I don’t know your name.”

He hesitated. He’d had used many over the years. But for some reason he didn’t want to lie to her. He didn’t delve into why.

“Beckett,” he said. “Caleb Beckett.”

She smiled, a small, halting expression lost in the dark depths of her eyes. “Mr. Beckett.”

The name sounded foreign. Like returning home after years away and finding the landscape had changed shape. Yet, when she said it, her tone and the small hint of a smile made him remember the boy he used to be. For a brief moment, a sense of belonging enveloped him.

He quickly shook it off and returned to his seat across from her. “Would you like something to eat?” A pale cast marred her skin. The shock of the past twenty-four hours had exacted a toll, he suspected, despite her outwardly calm demeanor.

“No. Thank you. I appreciate you taking the time to meet with me.” She pursed her lips and two narrow lines formed between her brows. He curled his hand into a fist to keep from reaching over and smoothing them out. She didn’t deserve to be put through this worry and distress.

“You’re welcome, ma’am.” Although he had little choice. They had business to discuss and the sooner he got it done, the sooner he could leave.

Mrs. Sutter let out a slow breath, her shoulders slumping on the exhale. “I am hoping you can give me some answers.”

“Answers?” He stared down into his coffee cup and turned the mug around in his hands. This was the part he had dreaded.

“Do you know why my husband was in Laramie? He told me he was purchasing cattle at the auction, but...”

But purchasing cattle didn’t get a man shot in the chest and stuffed in a pine box.

Her gaze did not waver; even without looking at her, he could feel it on him. Despite Sutter’s unflattering description of his wife, Caleb found her straightforward manner appealing. He found her appealing, a fact that disturbed what little peace he had. He chose his words with care.

“Could be he did attend the auction.”

“But that’s not where you met him.” She lifted her chin. “I would prefer if you would be honest with me, Mr. Beckett. Do not feel you need to spare my sensibilities or protect me from the truth. I’m quite capable of handling it, whatever it is.”

He didn’t doubt it for a second. Rachel Sutter didn’t strike him as the type to shirk from the storms life threw her way.

“I met your husband at the Broken Deuce. There’s a poker game held there every year during the auction. A lot of money can change hands. Fortunes won or lost at the turn of a card.”

“And my husband,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Was he—?”

Caleb nodded. “He played at my table, ma’am.”

A muscle in her jaw twitched. “Did he win?”

He could tell from the way she stared down at the table with a hard set to her mouth she already knew the answer. Caleb didn’t bother to sugarcoat it for her. He doubted she would appreciate being pandered to on top of everything else.

“No, ma’am.”

A bitter laugh shot out of her as her head dropped back. She stared at the ceiling for a moment before letting out a long breath and recapturing his gaze. “No. Of course he didn’t.” She licked her lips, the motion mesmerizing him for a moment, shooting heat to parts he tried not to think about.

She had plump, full lips. Again he was struck by the contrast between the vision sitting before him and the wife Sutter had described. Had the man been blind as well as stupid?

“I’m sorry, ma’am.”

She waved off his apology. “How did he get himself shot?”

Caleb rubbed at a stain on the tablecloth and debated glossing over what had happened. No woman should have to hear the details of this. But she had asked him not to hold back, and he figured he owed her that much. “Your husband got upset when the game turned against him. He accused a man of cheating. I think by then he had lost so much, maybe he figured he had nothing left to lose. He made a move to draw his gun, but...”

He peered across the table at her. She stared at the spot on the tablecloth he had been rubbing with his finger. When he stopped speaking, she filled in what he left unsaid, her voice quiet. Beaten.

“I take it whoever he planned on shooting was a faster draw.”

Caleb nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Who?”

“Beg pardon?”

“Do you know the name of the man who shot my husband?”

He debated lying. Nothing good could come of this. But, she had asked him for the truth and again, he felt compelled to give it. “A man by the name of Sinjin Drake.”

“What happened to him?”

Caleb arched an eyebrow. “Drake?”

“Yes. Did they...did they hang him?” Her bottom lip quivered, the first breach in the stone wall she had built around her emotions. She pulled the errant lip into her mouth catching it with her teeth.

“No. They said the shooting was self-defense.”

“Was it?”

Caleb shrugged, wishing she would let it go. It did her no good to hear this. And it did him no good to tell it.

She stood abruptly, the chair scraping against the hardwood floor. Caleb rose to his feet.

“I thank you for your time, Mr. Beckett. For bringing my husband’s body home—” her hands fisted together in front of her until he could see the white of her knuckles “—and for telling me the truth.”

He said nothing.

“Will you be staying in town long?”

He wasn’t sure why she asked. Politeness perhaps. Although she had risen to leave, she now seemed uncertain of where to go or what to do.

“Unlikely.”

She gave a curt nod. “Well then...I should—”

“There’s another matter I need to speak to you about.”

Confusion flitted across her features. “Another matter?” Then it cleared and realization dawned in her eyes. “Oh. Oh, of course. You wish payment for—” She let out a small laugh and pressed her fingertips to her forehead. “How stupid of me.”

“No, ma’am. I don’t expect payment.” He wished she would sit down. She was looking paler by the minute and what he had to tell her was not going to improve matters. “Please.” He motioned to the chair.

She waved him off. “If you don’t expect payment, then forgive me, but I see nothing else we would have to discuss.”

Lord help him, but there was no easy way to do this other than telling her straight out. He reached inside his jacket and pulled out the folded papers. He set them on the table and slid them toward her.

* * *

Rachel stared down at the folded papers, her heart pounding. She reached out a tentative hand and picked them up, unfolding them with deliberate slowness. The words swam before her eyes and a strange buzzing rang in her ears. This wasn’t happening.

It couldn’t be.

“He put your land up as collateral.”

Except it was.

“It appears I’m the new owner of the Circle S ranch.”

The room swayed and tipped and swerved.

“Ma’am?”

Mr. Beckett sounded far away. She tried to find him, but it was hard to keep her eyes focused. She couldn’t catch her breath. Why couldn’t she catch her breath? Blackness encroached at the corners of her eyes and her legs turned weightless.

“Ma’am?”

Something scraped loudly across the floor. A blur passed before her eyes before something solid enveloped her.

Then there was nothing.

Chapter Three

Caleb shoved the table out of his way. The coffee cup crashed to the floor, rendering the chip in the rim redundant as pieces scattered across the hardwood. He caught Mrs. Sutter under the arms and hauled her against his chest, but the impact was not enough to revive her.

“Aw, hell.”

He scooped her into his arms and headed for the lobby, ignoring the gaping stares of the waitress and the sorry excuse for a chef who lumbered out from the kitchen, a stunned expression on his face and a dripping ladle in his hand.

Caleb took it all in with one sweeping motion, sizing up the situation and ruling both of them out as able to offer assistance. The pimply faced boy behind the front desk, with his wide-eyed expression, didn’t fit the bill either.

What was he supposed to do now? It served him right. He had watched her growing paler, noticed the way she wavered. He’d offered her food, such as it was here, and tried to get her to sit down. When she didn’t, he should have stopped. She’d been through enough today. His news could have waited. He could have waited.

“Sir! Sir!” The boy jumped out from behind the counter and ran up the stairs behind Caleb, slipping in front of him as he reached the first floor landing.

“Out of my way,” Caleb snarled. He was in no mood to be polite. This day—heck, this week—had gone from bad, to worse, to downright catastrophic. “You want to make yourself useful go get the doc and send him to my room.”

“Your room? Wouldn’t...uh...” The boy had yet to clear out of his way and the way he was fidgeting back and forth raked across Caleb’s taut nerves.

He bit the words out. “Wouldn’t I what?”

The boy’s eyes widened and he flattened his back against the wall. “Her room is over there,” he said with a jerk of his head pointing in the opposite direction to where Caleb was heading.

“Her room?”

“Y-Yes, sir. Mrs. Sutter and the boys. They’re in room 205. T-To your right.”

Caleb blinked. He hadn’t realized Mrs. Sutter was staying at the same hotel. He wasn’t sure why her being here made him uncomfortable. Part of him didn’t like the idea of her in such squalid surroundings. The other part...well, the other part didn’t like it, was all.

He turned toward room 205. “Open the door,” he ordered.

The boy obeyed without argument. “I’ll go get the doc,” he said, then disappeared, his clumsy footsteps echoing down the hallway.

Caleb walked to the narrow bed in the center of the room and placed Mrs. Sutter in the middle of it, settling her limp body against the horse-hair mattress. He was surprised by how light she was curled in his arms and how reluctant he was to let her go. He sat on the edge of the bed and tapped her cheek with his hand.

“Mrs. Sutter?” Her skin was smooth and soft beneath his calloused palm. “Mrs. Sutter?”

A sudden movement caught the corner of his eye. Caleb spun away from the bed, his hand instinctively reaching for his gun but coming up empty.

The young boy he’d seen in the church stood frozen in place next to a cot pushed against the far wall. Wide gray eyes stared up at Caleb.

When he spoke, the boy’s voice barely made it to a whisper. “Is she dead?”

Caleb shook his head, willing his heartbeat to return to normal. “Just a faintin’ spell.”

To her credit, Mrs. Sutter stirred, adding credence to his words. The boy relaxed, and for the first time Caleb noticed the raggedy toy in his arms. A dirty old rabbit sewn together out of canvas. The kid clung to it as if it were a lifeline.

“She’ll be fine,” he added. “It’s been a rough day, burying your pa and all.”

“Mr. Sutter weren’t my pa.” The boy pulled the rabbit up under his nose and hugged it tighter.

Caleb absorbed the information but couldn’t make sense out of it. Maybe the widow had been widowed before Sutter.

Mrs. Sutter stirred again, and the young boy crawled out of the chair and drew closer to the bed. A tentative hand reached out and touched hers, little fingers curling inside her palm. “She doesn’t get sick. She said she don’t have time for it.”

Caleb nodded. Sutter had been dead wrong about his wife. In the few short hours Caleb had known her, she’d proven herself capable of withstanding tragedy and facing ugly truths. This was a woman who knew the harsh realities of life. A sense of reluctant kinship filled him. He knew what it was like to have your life destroyed.

He pulled a rickety chair out from a corner, lowering his aching body into it. It had been a long few days.

“You got a name, son?”

“Ethan.”

Caleb nodded and scanned the room. “Where’s the other boy?”

Ethan crawled up onto the bed and laid his head down on the pillow next to Mrs. Sutter. It bothered Caleb how motionless she was. He didn’t have much experience with fainting, but he found it worrisome she still hadn’t woken. He watched her expressionless face. Beneath the black wool dress, the gentle swell of her small breasts rose and fell. Relief made him breathe easier.

A minute had passed since he’d asked his last question. The boy, Ethan, stared at him over the top of the rabbit’s head. He tried again.

“Where’s your brother?”

“Brody ain’t my brother, he’s hers.” A small finger released its hold on the rabbit and pointed at Mrs. Sutter. Another mystery solved.

“Where is Mrs. Sutter’s brother, then?” Caleb knew when someone was evading a question, and this boy was doing a brilliant job of dancing around its edges.

Silence.

“Son?”

The boy’s gaze met Caleb’s then slid away. Unease itched at the back of Caleb’s neck and he rubbed at the spot. He did not want to get involved with these people any more than he already was.

“Ethan, tell me where he is.”

“Brody told me not to. He made me promise.”

Caleb pursed his lips. If Brody made this kid promise not to give up his whereabouts it was a sure sign he was up to no good. He glanced at Mrs. Sutter. She’d been through enough today without someone else adding to her misery.

He leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees. “Ethan, if your ma was awake right now—”

“She ain’t my ma. My ma’s dead.”

Caleb hung his head. This was one convoluted family tree. He straightened and took a breath. “If Mrs. Sutter was awake right now, what would she ask you to do?”

Ethan hesitated then scowled. “Tell the truth.”

Caleb raised an eyebrow at the boy and waited. After a minute of ruminating, Ethan let out a frustrated huff then lowered the rabbit from his mouth, as if that’s what kept the secret in.

“Brody said he was gonna go to the Seahorse Saloon to win some money to pay off Mr. Kirkpatrick.”

Caleb cursed under his breath. Great.

The pimply faced boy from the lobby arrived with the doctor. Caleb explained what had happened—well, at least the fainting part. He kept what had led up to it to himself. The deed was no one else’s business, at least until he determined what he planned to do about it.

All the way back from the funeral, Caleb had mulled over his prospects, none of which left him satisfied. His original plan of signing it over and walking away had been knocked about good with the insertion of Kirkpatrick. If what he’d heard was correct, signing over the deed to Mrs. Sutter would only result in her losing the property to Kirkpatrick in payment of her dead husband’s debts.

He rubbed a hand over his face and took one last look down at the woman unconscious on the bed. When had this become so complicated?

Caleb left Mrs. Sutter in the doctor’s capable hands and slipped out of the room.

It seemed he had to go collect a boy from a saloon.

It was easy enough to find, as the Pagget was at the same end of town. Caleb followed the sound of the tinny piano. There were three saloons in all. The Seahorse had a faded sign hanging from the second-floor balcony. The slight breeze made its hinges creak as it swayed back and forth. Caleb pushed through the swinging doors where the stench of watered-down whiskey, sweat and cheap perfume rose up and assaulted his nostrils. Desperation permeated the sawdust strewn about the floor and soaked into every crack in the wall.

He hated places like this. They brought a man to his lowest then dug the hole a little deeper. The patrons here wouldn’t think twice about letting a kid buy his way into a game. Hell, they’d probably encourage it, seeing him as an easy mark.

Brody wasn’t hard to find. The room was small, the crowd sparse. One back table had a game going. A few others were occupied by solitary drinkers who looked as though they’d taken root in their seats with no intention of leaving any time soon.

The boy was facing away from the door. Dumb move. A man should never leave himself exposed in such a manner, especially in a place like this. Fastest way to take one in the back. A motley crew of men flanked the edges of the table. They paid scant attention to him, save for one old-timer who glanced up long enough to down a shot of whiskey before pouring another and returning to the game.

The pot in the center of the table was meager by most standards, but he guessed the high stakes games didn’t happen in a place like this. The Seahorse appeared to cater to the dregs, picking up whatever the other two saloons had cast out.

Caleb sauntered up to the table and stood at the boy’s shoulder. It didn’t take long for the kid to glance up as the game came to a stop.

“You lookin’ to git in?” the old-timer asked, his voice thin and reedy. What few teeth he had left were nothing more than tobacco-stained stumps.

Caleb gave his head a slow shake. “Come to take the boy home.”

Brody stiffened and threw Caleb a hostile glare before turning back to the cards. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere. I got me a game here and—”

Caleb’s hand came down firm and heavy on the boy’s scrawny shoulder. “The game’s over.”

Showing more balls—or stupidity—than most men, Brody tried to shrug his hand off, but Caleb held firm.

“I don’t know you, and I sure as shootin’ ain’t leavin’ here with you, mister.”

Caleb applied more pressure, gripping the ill-fitting wool coat with his fingers. Brody flinched beneath his hold. “Your sister is ill and needs you,” Caleb said in a low voice.

The boy’s stiff posture registered his shock. Caleb didn’t hesitate. He hooked his foot around the leg of the chair and pulled it back, hauling Brody to his feet in one swift movement. The boy grabbed what few coins were in front of him. It went against Caleb’s instinct to get involved like this, but responsibility for Mrs. Sutter’s current predicament weighed on him. He might be a lot of things, but he wasn’t the type of man who shrugged off his honor when it became inconvenient. Much as he would have liked to.

“Gentlemen, if you’ll excuse us.” He tipped his hat to the men sitting down. No one made a move to stop him.

He led Brody through the saloon, pushing him past the swinging doors and dragging him down the steps. Once they hit the street, the boy turned surly again and yanked his arm from Caleb’s hold.

“Get your hands off me! I was winning. You had no right!”

“You were losing,” Caleb told him. “You think for one second the pair of twos you were holding would stand up against the set of jacks the old timer had ready to play? You think every man at that table wasn’t markin’ you to take a fall?”

“I knew what I was doing.” But the telltale surprise widening his eyes told Caleb different. The bravado was all for show. The kid didn’t have a clue he was being played.

Caleb shook his head. “You don’t know nothin’, kid. You’re so wet behind the ears you might as well have just had a bath in the creek. You don’t think your sister’s got enough to worry about without you gallivanting around acting the fool?”

“We need the money. I’m the man of the family now. It’s my responsibility to watch out for us.”

“There’s better ways to put bread on the table—” Caleb stepped down off the sidewalk, his boots landing in a pile of muck and horse dung. “Aw, crud!”

“It ain’t about bread, mister.” Brody rounded on Caleb while he stomped the dung from his boot. “Maybe my sister believes Robert was in Laramie buying cattle, but I know better. He went to gamble and he lost. It ain’t the first time he’s done it, either.”

“I’m guessin’ it’s the first time he got himself shot dead.” Caleb stepped around the kid and kept walking, heading across the street. He could feel the rain coming. The moisture sank deep into his bones. He didn’t care to be out in it, even if it meant sleeping at the Pagget, a lousy excuse for a hotel. At least the rooms were big enough so that he didn’t feel the walls closing in on him. He’d pass the night under a dry roof and worry about everything else tomorrow.

Brody caught up with him. “We owe money. And if we don’t pay it we’re gonna lose everything. Kirkpatrick bought up Robert’s gambling debts and he was pressing him to pay off the markers or sign over our land for payment. Why do you think Robert went to Laramie? Figured he could make a big strike at the tables and come back and save the day. Instead he got himself shot.”

“And you think you can walk into some hole of a saloon and make all your problems go away?”

“Ain’t none of your business!”

“You got that right.” He didn’t want to hear anything else about their problems. He had enough of his own. All he wanted was to go back to his room and sleep this day off. Although having to face Widow Sutter again tomorrow to iron out the news he had dropped on her tonight didn’t bode well for things improving any time soon.

“And my sister ain’t ill. She don’t get ill. Says she doesn’t—”

“—have the time. So I’ve heard. But she passed out cold in front of me, so I guess she found a few spare minutes.”

Brody stopped, the last of his bravado falling away. “You ain’t foolin’?”

“You ever say anything other than ain’t?” Caleb shot the kid a glare and kept walking. Let him figure it out on his own whether he wanted to follow or not. He’d done his part. He got the kid out of the game before he lost money the family didn’t have. He was done with it. He’d deal with the rest tomorrow. Maybe between now and then he’d be hit with some brilliant epiphany showing him a quick way out of this mess that wouldn’t stress his conscience.

Brody hurried to keep up. “Is she okay?”

Fear edged the boy’s voice, erasing his earlier anger. “Doc came over. I suspect she’s fine. Shock and exhaustion, is all.”

At least he hoped it was nothing more. It sure would be a terrible thing if she were to find herself in the family way now, with no husband to provide for her. His honor might have dictated that he drag her fool brother out of a saloon, but it didn’t extend so far that he’d be taking on the responsibility for a dead man’s family by offering up marriage.

He wasn’t anybody’s idea of a good husband.

He wasn’t anybody’s idea of a good man.

When they reached the hotel, Brody bolted up the stairs ahead of him and ran down the hall, bursting into Room 205, letting the door slam against the wall. Caleb followed at a slower pace, feeling every last one of his thirty years. The life he’d been living all these years was starting to catch up with him. Sooner or later the time would come when he’d have to stop drifting and start thinking about settling somewhere.

But now was not the time.

And Salvation Falls wasn’t the place.

Chapter Four

Rachel cracked open her lids. Warm sunlight pierced her eyes and sent a sharp shooting pain straight through her brain. She bit down on her back teeth to keep from cursing. She sensed Ethan hovering nearby.

“Rachel?”

The mattress depressed and his small body crawled onto the bed. She moved her arm and let him nestle into her side.

“I’m all right, sweetheart. Don’t fret. It was a bad day, is all.” Dr. Bolger had come by and given her the once-over and announced the same thing. She’d decided not to contradict him. She didn’t know how many people Caleb Beckett had spoken to since arriving in Salvation Falls, but it only took one person to spread the word. The news that she and her family were homeless and penniless would travel like wildfire.

Then what? Would they expect her to behave as her mother had, bartering herself to make life easier? The idea made bile burn at the back of her throat. It would be a cold day in July before she ever stooped that low, prostituting herself in such a way. And to what end? Her mother’s actions had done nothing more than make their situation worse, wrecking her father and destroying their family beyond repair. Were the pretty baubles she’d earned worth that?

Rachel pulled her mind away from the dark memories. She was not her mother. Every decision she made, every action she took was painstakingly made to ensure that.

But what could she do now to improve her perilous situation? Her land, the land her father had left her, belonged to a man she didn’t know. Who knew what he would decide to do with it? She’d had no time to ask and he’d given no indication.

The man possessed an enigmatic edge and an even more dangerous touch. Through the haze of last night, the memory of her body pressed against his survived in her memory. The touch of his hand against her face had almost been enough to rouse her from the darkness she’d fallen into.

None of which answered the critical question: What would happen to her family now? The ranch hands—Len, Stump and Everett—could find work on another spread. No doubt Shamus would take them on if Mr. Beckett didn’t see fit to. Maybe she could even convince Shamus to hang on to Foster, though he had grown too old to do more than load up the chuck wagon and be a general nuisance.

And Freedom. Well, no doubt she’d pack it in and follow Rachel wherever she went with the boys. Question was, where would they go? She didn’t have a cent to call her own without the land. She had no family left to turn to. She owed money all over town, and even if the stores were willing to float her for a little while longer out of respect for her current situation, they wouldn’t do it forever. Eventually she’d have to pay the piper.

But how?

There were few ways a woman could make an income in this town and, short of marrying, fewer still were respectable. Her mother had taught her that.

“Can we go home?”

Rachel hugged Ethan tighter and kissed his tawny hair. “Sure, sweetheart. I have some business to take care of first and then we’ll go home.”

Unless Caleb Beckett had other ideas on the matter.

Rachel looked across the room to the chair where Brody still slept. He’d come rushing into the room a few minutes after she’d come to. She didn’t know where he’d been and he hadn’t offered up the information. She would deal with him later.

“Where’d the man go?”

Rachel pulled her attention away from Brody’s quietly snoring form. “What man?”

“The man that brung you upstairs when you fainted. He was nice. I liked him.”

“Brought me upstairs,” she corrected. “And you like everybody.” The poor boy had spent the first four years of his life in a brothel. By the time Rachel took him in, he’d been starved for male influence.

“Is he comin’ back?”

“I’m not sure where Mr. Beckett is, Ethan. I expect he’s going about his business.” Or her business.

Resentment toward her situation and the man who had turned her life upside down boiled in her veins. She pushed it away. She needed to conserve her energy for what was to come.

“He told me you weren’t bad sick.” Ethan smiled up at her with an innocence she didn’t remember possessing at his age. “He was right, too. You’re all better now, right?”

She hugged him close. “I’m all better now.”

At least for the moment.

* * *

“Mr. Beckett? A moment of your time?” On the planked sidewalk outside of his office, Sheriff Donovan stood, hands on his hips. The fact that he used Caleb’s name, the one he’d given to Mrs. Sutter, made him wary.

He halted and looked toward the livery at the end of the street. The day was just getting started and the sun had barely had time to creep up from the horizon. What was the sheriff doing up so early? Did he sleep in his office?

“I won’t keep you long,” the sheriff promised, as if sensing Caleb’s hesitation.

Caleb scowled. He didn’t know what the sheriff wanted and he didn’t like walking into things blind. It made his stomach work itself into knots and raised his guard. But he guessed there was no avoiding the conversation. Donovan struck him as the determined type. Letting out a sigh, he stepped out of the street and up onto the dryer sidewalk. It had rained overnight and the streets had turned to muck.

The sheriff motioned to his office and Caleb followed. Probably better to not have this conversation outside, even though only a few souls had started milling about. Inside, warmth radiated from the potbellied stove, hitting him full force. The sheriff went over to it and stirred at a pot of beans and bacon.

Caleb hadn’t eaten since sunrise the day before. With all the commotion of yesterday, he’d simply not had the time to find a decent meal and Mrs. Beckett’s fainting kept him from his supper. The scent of the bacon made the knots in his stomach twist tighter. Hunger gnawed at his backbone.

Sheriff Donovan scooped a helping onto his plate. “You hungry?” He didn’t sound enamored of the prospect of sharing his breakfast.

Caleb lied and shook his head. He wasn’t sure breaking bread with a lawman would start his day off on the right foot, and given the run of bad luck he’d had of late, he didn’t want to do anything to keep the string going.

The sheriff appeared relieved. He walked back to his scarred oak desk and dropped down into the chair behind it, motioning for Caleb to take an empty seat in front. Then he reached inside his desk drawer and produced a basket covered with a checkered napkin. Beneath it, the comforting smell of freshly baked biscuits rose up and assaulted Caleb’s senses.

Donovan shrugged. “Minnie from the bakery brings these over every mornin’, but if I leave them out my deputy makes short work of them. You sure you don’t want one?”

Caleb shook his head, clenching his back teeth. He wondered what the penalty was for knocking a sheriff out cold and stealing his meal. “You want something in particular?”

Donovan tucked the cloth napkin into his collar and glanced across the desk. “Got your name off the hotel register,” he said, explaining how he knew Caleb’s name. “Signed it yourself, so I take it you can read and write?”

“You takin’ a survey?”

The sheriff shrugged and spoke around a mouthful of beans. “I find it a bit curious, is all. Not many drifters can.”

“What makes you so sure I’m a drifter?”

Donovan glanced up from plate. “Got that look about you.”

“That a fact?” Caleb couldn’t fault the sheriff for his powers of observation, though they hardly told the whole story. But looking at the surface of a man rarely did. Most of what he was lived deeper than that, hiding out in the places people couldn’t see.

“I believe so. But given you can read and write, I’m guessin’ there’s more to you than meets the eye.”

“Glad to have satisfied your curiosity.” Caleb’s grandfather had made sure he could read and write. He wanted his grandson to be able to recite verbatim every passage in the Bible pertaining to sin and damnation. All these years later, and Caleb was still trying to scour the words from his mind. He pushed his chair back. “If that’s all...?”

The sheriff held out a hand and motioned for him to stay put. “Not quite. You’ll forgive me, Mr. Beckett, but it isn’t every day we get a stranger riding into town with a body in the back of his buckboard. Rachel’s important to us. We want to make sure there’s nothing we need to worry about.”

We. As if the town as a collective had decided to take her under their wing, and he as the outsider was considered a threat. But where were these people when Sutter was gambling his family out of house and home? Where were they when Kirkpatrick started pressuring Sutter in the hopes of getting his land?

The threat to Rachel didn’t come from an outsider like him, it came from the inside.

“Do we need to worry?” the sheriff asked outright.

Caleb gave his head a slow shake, his eyes never leaving the sheriff, who returned the silent perusal, his beans and bacon forgotten.

“Then I expect you’re on your way out of town, Mr. Beckett?”

“Currently I’m on my way to the end of the street. Beyond that, I can’t say it’s anyone’s business but my own where I go or when I get there.”

The hard look on the sheriff’s face indicated he was not satisfied with the answer, but the man’s satisfaction, or lack thereof, was the least of Caleb’s concerns this morning.

“What were you doing in Laramie, Mr. Beckett?”

Caution invaded Caleb’s veins.

“Just passing through,” he said, searching the sheriff’s face for clues as to what the man was fishing for.

“How’d it be you came to bring Robert’s body home?”

“I was there when he was killed.” He kept his tone even, gave nothing more away.

“Who killed him?”

“Man by the name of Sinjin Drake.”

Something in the lawman’s face altered. “Sinjin Drake?”

“You know him?”

“By reputation only. Not a lawman north of Tucson who doesn’t, I expect. Man’s said to be one of the fastest draws in the west with a body count to prove it.”

“That so?”

“Did you meet the man?”

“We sat at the same table. Can’t say we shared much conversation.”

“Did they arrest him?”

“Drake? No. The law said it was self-defense. Sutter went for his gun.”

The sheriff’s gaze sharpened. “His guns weren’t on the body.”

“I said he went for his guns. I didn’t say he was wearing them at the time.”

Shock registered on Sheriff Donovan’s face. “What do you mean he wasn’t wearing them?”

“A man needed at least fifty dollars to sit at the table. Word was Sutter sold everything but the clothes on his back to raise the capital.”

“And Drake shot him anyway?”

Caleb didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. Robert Sutter had come home in the back of a wagon with a hole through his heart. That was all the confirmation needed as far as he was concerned.

“We done here?”

“For now.”

Caleb headed for the door but the sheriff’s voice stopped him cold.

“You won’t mind if I wire out to Laramie and verify your story?”

Every fiber in Caleb’s body stilled. He glanced at the sheriff out of the corner of his eye. “Don’t matter none to me.”

Chances were he’d be nothing more than a fading memory in the minds of Salvation Falls residents by the time the sheriff got news back from Laramie. And that suited him just fine.

* * *

After Rachel managed to get the boys fed and Freedom tracked down, she arranged to send them back home in the wagon. She’d get back on her own after she conducted her business with Mr. Beckett and figured out where things stood. She would need the time to formulate a plan, determine what to do.

Did the man plan on kicking them off their land—his land, now? A sick sense of displacement filled her, followed by burning frustration. Her entire world had been pulled out from under her and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it.

Rachel took a deep breath and smoothed a hand over her skirt. She still wore her widow’s weeds, but she didn’t plan on making it a habit. She didn’t have time to dye her meager wardrobe black to mourn a man who didn’t deserve her tears.

She made her way down Main Street. When she’d inquired about Mr. Beckett this morning, Cletus at the front desk told her he’d left for the livery thirty minutes earlier. She picked up her skirts and hurried her steps. The last thing she needed was him showing up at the ranch ahead of her, announcing his ownership before she had a chance to explain it to her family herself.

She needed to talk to him, to settle this thing. She couldn’t live in a sickening limbo land wondering what would happen. She had to keeping moving. If she stopped...

Well, if she stopped everything would catch up with her and she’d end up passing out again from the weight of it all.

Her skin burned anew with the humiliation of succumbing to such weakness, a luxury she could not afford. Muriel, the waitress who’d brought her breakfast, had told her Mr. Beckett moved with lightning speed, shoving the table out of the way to get to her before she hit the floor.

The woman all but swooned retelling the story, as if it were some romantic tale from a dime novel and not the most embarrassing thing to happen to Rachel since...well, since she didn’t know when. Last night’s debacle left her mortified. One minute she was standing to leave and the next...

The next she was swooped up in a pair of strong arms.

The memory came unbidden. She tried to remember specifics, but the entire episode was hazy, save for the sensations his touch had conjured. The strong arms carrying her, the solid chest where she’d rested her head. The rapid beat of his heart as he rushed her upstairs. And the gentle way he had laid her upon the mattress, his palm touching her cheek. She’d tried to answer him when he called her name, but she’d been too weak to respond.

She shook her head. No doubt her state of mind tainted the truth. She sincerely doubted a man like Caleb Beckett could be considered a romantic hero in any way, shape or form. He had the edge of an outlaw rather than a shining knight.

Not that Rachel believed in shining knights. She had disabused herself of their existence a long time ago.

Taking a deep breath, she straightened her shoulders and marched into the livery.

She stopped inside the door, letting her eyes adjust to the dim light. The scent of hay, horses and manure mingled in the air around her, but she had spent too much time in her own barn to pay it much heed.

She found Mr. Beckett brushing long strokes down his horse’s back in one of the stalls. The horse, a beautiful paint, nipped playfully at the brim of his hat. He chuckled and spoke in low tones. She couldn’t make out the words, but the sound surprised her, drew her in. She stood silently for a moment and watched. He’d removed his sheepskin jacket and tossed it over the edge of the stall door. His broad back shifted with each stroke of the brush, mesmerizing her. There was a fluidity to his movements, and while one hand brushed in a rhythmic pattern, the other rested on the animal’s neck, petting it. The horse nickered in response to the sound of its owner’s voice.

The unguarded moment surprised her. She had expected to arrive to find him glaring down at her, arms crossed, impatience stamped into every ruggedly handsome feature while he counted the hours before he could toss them off the ranch. This hint of good humor threw her.

Then again, who wouldn’t be in good humor after the boon of winning a prime piece of land through no more effort than the turn of a card?

The muscles in her neck tightened.

“You gonna stand there all day?”

She jumped. “I...I...how did you know I was here?”

He peered over his shoulder. Whiskers shadowed his square jaw. The brim of his hat hid his eyes, and still she could feel the force of his gaze through every inch of her body. There was something about this man. Something beyond the rugged face and strong body. He had a presence, commanding and vibrant. No doubt she could have walked into a room blindfolded and known instantly if he occupied the same space. The awareness irritated her.

“I could sense you there.”

Rachel swallowed. A shivery tremor swept through her veins as his answer echoed her own thoughts.

She fought to get her voice out without trembling. “I wanted to talk to you. About last night.”

“Figured.” He rested an arm on the short stable wall and stared at her. Hot liquid poured through her veins from the strength of his full attention.

She gripped her hands in front of her and forced her spine straight, ignoring the strain on her muscles. He was not going to make this easy. “I guess I owe you some thanks for catching me when I—” She couldn’t say the word, couldn’t admit to the weakness.

“Fainted?”

She squinted into the dimness. Was he smiling? His mouth quickly resettled into an unreadable line and she wondered if it had just been a trick of the light.

“Yes, I suppose. Thank you.”

“Not necessary.”

“Well...either way.” She shifted on her feet. “I think we need to speak about the deed to my land. Am I to understand you now believe you own it?”

He didn’t answer right away. He made one last stroke down the paint’s neck and walked out the back, rounding the stalls and coming up behind her. She spun on her heel to face him, surprised to find him so close. Her body’s response to his nearness hit her square in the stomach and she took a quick step back.

There was a hard-bitten practicality about the man. It showed in the efficiency of his movements and the economy of words he used to convey an opinion. But his eyes held something different, something softer that gave him a sense of humanity. She wondered what his story was. Had he always been this way? Or, like her, had life hammered away until the person he became was far different than the one he had started out as? Perhaps she could talk reason with him, convince him to—

“No believing about it,” he said. “Your husband put the deed in to meet the raised stakes. I won the hand.”

So much for reason.

“A-And that’s legal?” Could she contest it? There had to be a law to prevent people from doing something as colossally idiotic as throwing away every last acre they owned on a stupid card game!

“Yes, ma’am. It’s legal.”

And, even if it wasn’t, by the time the circuit court judge made his way to town for her to plead her case, Mr. Beckett could have parceled off sections of land, sold them to the highest bidder and been long gone.

Her heart sank into her worn leather boots, taking her hopes with it. She stared at Mr. Beckett’s chest, absorbing what he told her. The tiny red checks on his shirt had faded until the color barely existed and one buttonhole was empty, the frayed remains of thread poking through the hole.

Caleb Beckett owned her land. She had lost everything. The room swayed around her.

“No, you don’t.” He reached out and closed the gap between them, placing a hand on either elbow to hold her steady. “None of that, now.”

His voice reached deep inside of her. She closed her eyes, fighting the uncomfortable ache his touch created and allowed herself one brief moment of respite where someone else took the burden and she did nothing more than hang on.

She opened her eyes and stared at his chest again. “You’re missing a button,” she whispered.

“Beg pardon?”

“On your shirt. You’re missing a button.” This was what she noticed. Her entire world was collapsing around her and all she could think about was how his shirt was missing a button. She must be losing her mind.

He let go of one arm and reached for the front of his shirt, pulling it out far enough to see the damage. His forearm brushed against her breast and her body tightened involuntarily. He didn’t apologize. The touch was so brief and light perhaps he hadn’t even noticed. But she had. An unexpected jolt shot from her breasts to the tips of her toes, hitting every place in between.

“Guess I’m not much of a seamstress.”

She nodded and pulled away, walking farther into the livery to put space between them. It was hard to breathe when he stood close. She almost preferred passing out over the strange commotion his nearness created. It made no sense. She didn’t know this man, this stranger, yet she responded to him like a common harlot.

Like her mother.

She threw off the thought and held her ground. She could not afford to weaken. “If it isn’t too much to trouble you with, Mr. Beckett, perhaps you could tell me just what it is you plan to do now that you own my land.”

* * *

Caleb mulled the question over in his mind, trying to clear the storm that touching her had stirred. His shoulder still held the phantom imprint of where her head had rested the night before when he’d carried her to her room. His arms still bore her weight.

What were his plans?

All night he’d lain awake wrestling with the question. It had seemed cut-and-dried as he rode out of Laramie toward Salvation Falls. He would sign the deed back to Sutter’s family and leave. As much as having a place to call home appealed to him, he knew that kind of life was not meant for him. He had learned his lesson on that account the hard way.

But watching Mrs. Sutter hold herself together while her life fell apart, threw him off balance, a sensation he didn’t much care for. Sutter had left his family in a bad way financially, then gone and got shot before he could make reparation. But it was obvious his wife had carried the burden of his ineptitude for far longer than the few days Sutter had been dead, and it had worn her down until she teetered on a sharp edge.

The easy thing would be to give her back the land as planned. Easy, but wrong.

From everything he’d learned so far, that would accomplish nothing more than throwing her from the pan to land in the fire. This Shamus Kirkpatrick had a bead on her land and the means to demand it as payment for debts owed. From the glimpse Caleb had of the man at the funeral, Kirkpatrick didn’t strike him as the type who would back off when his quarry was in a weakened state.

If Caleb signed the deed over to her, he would be leaving her at Kirkpatrick’s mercy.

It made him wish he’d handed the deed over to the sheriff upon his arrival in town and kept on riding. Then, he wouldn’t know the particulars and wouldn’t be bogged down by this unwanted sense of responsibility.

But nothing about this godforsaken situation was straightforward. He was halfway up the creek and his paddle was still sitting on the shore. If he was smart, he’d jump out and swim to it. But like a fool, he was letting the current take him farther upstream.

“Guess maybe I’d like to see the ranch.”

Tension tightened her rose-tinted lips and robbed her cheeks of color. Her dark eyes grew starker in contrast. “Yes...of course.”

“We could ride out this morning. If you feel up to it,” he added. Last thing he needed was her fainting again, tumbling to the hard ground and injuring herself. He didn’t need to add anything more to his already full conscience.

“I will require transportation. I sent Freedom and the boys on ahead with the wagon.”

“I have mine. We can take that. I can pick you up at the hotel in an hour.”

She nodded absently, wandering over to the stall. Jasper greeted her with a bob of his head before nestling his muzzle into her outstretched hand.

“It’s a beautiful horse.” She stroked the bridge of his nose. Jasper nickered in response, arching his neck. The horse was a world-class Romeo. Next thing, he’d be rolling over in his stall and expecting her to scratch his belly.

“I won him in a card game,” Caleb said, without thinking.

She stopped mid-stroke. “Of course you did.”

Her hand dropped away and she stepped away from Jasper. The horse glared in Caleb’s direction, holding him responsible. He couldn’t fault the horse, he supposed. Mrs. Sutter was a beautiful woman, a strange mix of resilience and vulnerability that made a man want to—

He stopped the thought there. He would not be falling into that trap again. Marianne had taught him where that kind of thinking got a man. His business with Mrs. Sutter was just that—business. He’d do well to keep that in mind and not let himself waver while he figured a way to get them both out of this mess.

“I will be ready to leave in an hour,” she said, brushing past him without a second glance.

Caleb closed his eyes, his resolve shaken by the sweet scent of violets left drifting in the air after she passed.

What had he gotten himself into?

Chapter Five

Caleb had never been to this part of the country before, and as they rode out of town toward the mountain range rising against the sky, he was staggered by the beauty that surrounded him. Tree-lined horizons with purple peaks stretched heavenward, while endless meadows of determined wild flowers poked their heads out of the raw earth anxious to erupt into full bloom.

They followed a winding creek, the sound of the gurgling water a balm to his battered soul. For a few blissful seconds Caleb closed his eyes and allowed himself to breathe deeply, taking in the fresh air and the feel of wide open spaces and peace.

A man could die happy here.

Why Sutter, who’d had everything a man could ask for, had gambled it all away baffled Caleb. A man like that didn’t deserve a good woman like the one sitting next to him. Then again, neither did Caleb.

Man is born to trouble. And you most of all.

Caleb opened his eyes, his grandfather’s words lingering in the air around him. It galled him to admit the old man had been right.

As much as the land called to him, staying would lead to problems he couldn’t fix. He might hold the title to the Circle S ranch, but it didn’t belong to him.

It’d be best all round if he got himself gone.

Out of the corner of his eye he caught Mrs. Sutter looking at him. He gritted his teeth. He’d let his guard drop.

She watched him as if she were searching for something in particular. Caleb resurrected his defenses. There was nothing there she needed to see, nothing that would give her any ease.

Mrs. Sutter turned her attention back to the rutted road and pointed to her right when they reached a divide. “This way.”

He steered the buckboard, shifting the reins in his hands. He tilted his head in the direction they hadn’t taken. “Where’s that lead?”

“Shamus Kirkpatrick’s land.”

Kirkpatrick. He guessed the man would be in for a bit of a shock when he realized his plans for getting the land had been undercut. Caleb considered the outstanding debt owed Kirkpatrick by the widow. Likely he could pay it if she’d let him. He’d accumulated a fair bit of savings between winnings in card games and odd jobs as he traveled from town to town. With no home of his own and no one to spend it on, he’d socked money away and let it grow. He may as well put it to good use. Maybe the good turn would help atone for past sins, balance the ledger slightly.

“I understand Kirkpatrick was pressing you to sell him your land to pay off debts,” Caleb said, venturing into territory the firm set of her mouth told him she didn’t want to tread. The scowl did nothing to detract from her beauty.

“Where did you hear that?”

Caleb shrugged and adjusted the reins in his hand. “People talk.”

“Does no one in this town know how to mind their own business?”

“Might be they’re concerned.”

“Could be they need to pay more attention to their own affairs and less to mine.” Her voice turned hard, but underneath he recognized a current of shame. She had a lot of pride, likely it was the only thing keeping her going right now.

“Planned how you’re gonna pay that?”

She turned to face him, her dark eyes smoldering with unspent anger. “My only source of income was my land, Mr. Beckett. Without it I’m left with nothing and no means to pay anyone anything.”

“Will Kirkpatrick forgive the debts?”

The muscle near her jaw twitched. “Shamus is not a man to relinquish what he’s owed.”

Shamus. Her use of his given name made Caleb wonder how close their relationship was. “Then he’ll want his money.”

“He’ll want something,” she whispered, her composure slipping enough to reveal what that something would be.

A cold, animalistic anger clenched its sharp claws around Caleb’s chest. Would Kirkpatrick expect her to pay off her debt with her body? The very thought rankled him in a way he couldn’t shake. She deserved better than that.

“I could pay the debt—”

“You’ve done quite enough already, thank you. I don’t want or need your charity.”

The unspoken truth hung heavy in the air. She may not want it, but they both knew she needed it.

“Do you have family?”

“Just the boys. Robert’s parents passed away several years back.”

“And your own people?”

Her features tightened. “Dead as well.”

Just his luck. Rachel Sutter had no one to turn to.

Save for him.

The weight of obligation settled on his shoulders like a yoke.

They rode in silence. Caleb tried not to think about the woman sitting beside him or how things were about to change for the both of them, whether they liked it or not, thanks to one man’s greed and desperation. There had been no reason for Sutter to put his ranch up that day, but the fool wouldn’t listen to reason. Now, here they were, trying to sort through the consequences. The buckboard crested a hill and in the distance he could see a small home. So small Caleb wondered how everyone fit inside. It must have made for some cramped quarters.

Over to his right, a short distance away, were a few more outbuildings placed in what could only be described as a haphazard manner that made little sense. It was as if no forethought was put into where things should go. He noted a barn, two tiny cabins, one close to the house, the other closer to the barn, and a larger cabin further up the rise. As they drew closer, he picked out a chicken coop, a corral and a freshly tilled garden. Closer to the house, a gnarled oak crept upward toward the midday sky, the first hint of buds dotting its branches. Come summer, with the leaves in full bloom, it would cast a welcome shade across the narrow porch lining the front of the house.

Despite the odd configuration of buildings, it was a pretty spot. Homey.

He didn’t belong here.

Next to him, Mrs. Sutter stiffened, the movement bringing her leg against his. A shock of sensation shot through him. He bit down on the sudden rush of unwanted desire. He should have taken care of that in Laramie, but Caleb had never developed a taste for whores. And he hadn’t the time to find himself a lonely widow.

Until now.

But this widow was strictly off limits.

“Company?” He nudged his chin in the direction of the black horse tethered next to the porch. Something told him his day was about to become even more complicated.

Mrs. Sutter spoke through gritted teeth. “Shamus Kirkpatrick.”

It said a lot about the man that he had the audacity to show up the day after she’d buried her husband.

“I could ask him to leave if you—”

She cut him off, a frantic edge to her voice. “Don’t say anything about the deed. Please. The boys don’t know yet, and I need time to figure out how to tell them. I know this isn’t any of your concern but...” She sent him a pleading look. “Please.”

He stared at her a moment, an unwanted need to protect her welling inside of him. He knew he would regret getting involved, but he couldn’t tell her no. Not when she was looking at him with those soulful dark eyes and one of her hands rested on his arm, a fact he was pretty sure she was completely unaware of.

“Reckon I could do that.”

Mrs. Sutter glanced down at her hand and snatched it back, curling the fingers into her palm and resting it against her belly, holding it in place as if she were afraid it might reach out voluntarily and touch him again.

“Thank you.”

Caleb nodded and pulled up on the reins, irritated with his reaction. The absence of her touch was far too noticeable. When they reached the house, he set the brake and jumped down from the buckboard, patting Jasper’s rump as he passed behind him. He’d kept Jasper tied to the back of the wagon for the ride up, letting the draft horse he’d purchased in Laramie do the work of pulling them. By the time he reached Mrs. Sutter, she was about to jump down. He reached up and grabbed her around the waist, lifting her to the ground.

“I don’t need—” She didn’t have time to finish her reprimand before her feet hit the ground.

“Nothin’ wrong with a man helpin’ a lady down.”

She glared at him. It disturbed him how much he enjoyed it. So much so, he let his hands linger at the curve of her narrow waist. Once again he was struck by how small she was. One stiff mountain wind and she’d all but blow away. Yet he had no doubt her deeply rooted resilience would beat back the wind until it regretted ever making the attempt.

Her hands curled into fists on his shoulders. Mere inches separated their bodies, and God help him but he liked the feel of her in his hands. He watched her swallow, avoiding his gaze.

“You can take your horse down to the barn and stable him there.”

“Think I’ll come inside first.”

Her hands pushed at his shoulders and she slipped out of his grip, stumbling slightly before catching herself.

“That isn’t necessary.”

“I think it is.” He wasn’t about to let her face Kirkpatrick alone. The man would be less inclined to browbeat her for the money if Caleb was there, and if Kirkpatrick tried, Caleb would put a stop to it. His hand brushed his hip. He wondered how long it would be before he got used to not finding his Colt strapped there.

She inched away from him and started toward the porch, keeping her voice low. “I appreciate your silence on the matter of the deed until I figure things out, but my business with Kirkpatrick doesn’t concern you.”

Caleb shrugged and caught up with her on the step. “My house. My concern.”

“Mr. Beckett—” But whatever admonishment she meant to deliver was lost as he opened the door and motioned her inside with a sweep of his hand. She shot him a glare as she marched past.

He walked in behind her and turned his back away from the door. The house had a strange unfinished feel to it, as if whoever built it had given up partway through. The front room served as kitchen, dining room and sitting area with little room left over to maneuver. It held a cookstove, a kitchen table large enough to sit eight and a narrow cot that rested against the far wall. A door next to the cookstove exposed a narrow hallway he assumed led to a bedroom. The whole setup gave the house a cramped feel and he itched to set it right.

The large black woman he’d seen at Sutter’s funeral stood, arms crossed, near the counter, her expression angry and apologetic all at once.

Kirkpatrick set his coffee cup down with slow deliberation and rose from his seat to greet them, as if it were his kitchen they had walked into. Tall and broad, dressed all in black, he made an imposing figure. Caleb guessed him to be closing in on fifty, given the lines around his eyes and the threads of gray marring his coal-black hair. Though his smile was congenial, his eyes held the cold flatness of a snake’s.

Kirkpatrick ignored him, addressing Mrs. Sutter. “Rachel.”

Caleb didn’t much care for the familiarity the two shared. Instinct told him their relationship went beyond just being neighbors, and the notion disturbed him for reasons he chose not to explore too closely.

Mrs. Sutter acknowledged Kirkpatrick with a short nod before conducting the introductions. “This is Shamus Kirkpatrick. Mr. Beckett is the one who brought Robert home.”

Kirkpatrick nodded in his direction. “Much obliged,” he said, as if Caleb had done him a favor, then turned back to Mrs. Sutter. “We should talk.”

“The woman just buried her husband, Mr. Kirkpatrick. I’m sure whatever business you have can wait a few days.”

Mrs. Sutter’s back went rigid. He guessed the widow wasn’t used to having someone speak up on her behalf.

Kirkpatrick’s pale eyes met his gaze. “Won’t take but a minute.”

“It can wait,” Caleb repeated, more firmly this time. He would deal with her umbrage later.

Kirkpatrick fell silent and tension smothered the air in the room. He turned to Mrs. Sutter and smiled. The gesture held no warmth. “Got yourself a new protector, do you now, Rachel? You certainly wasted no time. But, then again, neither did your mama.”

Her swift intake of breath, as if the words had inflicted a deep wound, were all Caleb needed to end the conversation.

“You’ll be leaving now.” He walked in front of Mrs. Sutter to get to the door, blocking her from Kirkpatrick with his body. He didn’t know what that reference to her mother had meant, but he wasn’t about to stand around and let the man land another verbal strike. With one swift shove the door flew open. “I’ll see you out.”

He followed Kirkpatrick, leaning his hip against the porch railing to ensure the man had no intention of lingering. Kirkpatrick untied his horse from the hitching post and swung up into the saddle, settling himself before looking down at Caleb. “You’d best not get yourself involved in this, Beckett.”

Caleb raised an eyebrow at the threat.

“I guess I’ll be the judge of what I should and shouldn’t get myself involved in.” Not that he had much of a choice. Like it or not, he was involved.

He’d grown careless. Ignored his instincts that Mrs. Sutter was a danger he would do better to avoid. But his reaction to her had hit him unaware and now, in the span of a day, he had become entangled in her life.

Worst of all, he could not become quickly untangled without leaving her and her family at the mercy of this villain.

And that, he realized, watching Kirkpatrick ride off in the direction of his own land, was something he could not do.

* * *

Rachel dropped hard into the chair vacated by Kirkpatrick, her head collapsing into her hands. Part of her hated the way Caleb Beckett had stepped in and taken over. Another part of her was secretly relieved. Shamus’s barb about her mother had turned her tongue to lead. Usually his references to her mother were veiled, subversive, and made when only the two of them could hear, his little way of letting her know he had not forgotten. Today he had brought their secret into the open, with a stranger standing in the room. Humiliation had raced through her veins and stolen her voice.

“We’re in trouble, Free,” she whispered into the still silence of the room.

“’Cause of the debt?”

Rachel pushed herself to her feet and walked to the door, looking through the screen. Mr. Beckett was halfway to the barn with the buggy, but she didn’t expect he’d linger there for long. He still hadn’t told her his intentions and not knowing made a restless nest of eels roil in her belly. She placed a hand against it, hoping they would settle, but it did no good.

“He owns the land.”

She heard Freedom approach her. The older woman’s arms wrapped around her protectively. “Kirkpatrick don’t own anything, baby girl. We’ll figure a way out of this. You been tendin’ this land since you was Brody’s age, and ain’t no one goin’ to take that from you.”

Rachel shook her head, the reality of her situation pounding into her with each heartbeat. “Someone already has. Robert put our land up for collateral in a card game. He lost it to another man.”

Freedom’s head turned, following Rachel’s gaze toward the barn.

“Mr. Beckett?”

Rachel nodded.

“Oh, baby girl. What we gonna do now?” Freedom’s arms tightened around her, and Rachel was glad for their support.

“I don’t know, Free. Like you said, we’ll figure out something.” But what that something was, she couldn’t say. She was plum out of ideas. “I guess I best go talk to Mr. Beckett and try to figure this mess out.”

Rachel extricated herself from Freedom’s motherly embrace to head in the direction of the barn and an uncertain future.

Chapter Six

Rachel found Mr. Beckett in the barn pulling his saddlebags off the wall of the stall where he’d settled the paint he called Jasper. The draft horse was in the next stall over, munching on oats. Mr. Beckett slung the saddlebags over his shoulder and glanced at her when she walked in. At least this time she didn’t embarrass herself by dawdling in the doorway watching him like a love-struck schoolgirl. Still, the effect of his presence had not diminished. If anything, it grew each time she saw him. The man had the annoying ability to muddle her thinking, and she didn’t like it one bit. Right now, she needed all her wits about her.

“You come all the way down here to scold me for kickin’ that mudsill out of your house?”

Rachel was certain she detected a sparkle in his eye, but it must have been her overtired mind imagining things. Mr. Beckett did not strike her as the sparkling type. She pursed her lips and took in a deep breath, letting it out slowly in the hope it would lessen the sway the low cadence of his voice had over her. It did little good. She cursed her body’s weakness, wrestling with the fear Kirkpatrick was right—she was just like her mama.

“I came here to determine what your intentions are.”

“My intentions?” One eyebrow arched and disappeared beneath the low brim of his hat.

Rachel lifted her chin, determined to keep a businesslike manner. “Mr. Beckett, you own my land. I have the boys, Freedom, my hands, and they all need considering. I need to make arrangements as to where they are going to go and how they are going to live. If it doesn’t tax you overly much, perhaps you could let me know how much time I have to accomplish that before you send us packing.”

“And yourself?”

“I beg your pardon?”

Mr. Beckett let his saddlebags slide down his arm to the floor. She wondered what kind of life a man led where he could contain all his worldly possessions within the confines of two saddlebags and a bedroll strapped to the back of his horse.

“You’ve listed everyone under the sun and how you have to make arrangements for them. Where do you fit on that inventory of bodies?”

He shifted his weight and leaned against Jasper’s stall, looping an arm over the low wall and crossing his feet at the ankles. His lean form was relaxed, yet she couldn’t shake the impression that it could change in a heartbeat.

“Well...I...” Her gaze searched the corners of the barn as if the correct answer was hidden amongst the bales of hay and bridles. She didn’t have time to think of herself, she had a family and they came first. “What does it matter to you?”

He shrugged, his steady gaze unnerving her. “Suppose it doesn’t.”

“Then perhaps you could answer my original question with respect to your intentions.”

“I have no intention of running you or your family off your land.”

“It isn’t my land anymore, Mr. Beckett.” The words caught in her throat. She swallowed, determined not to break down in front of this man. Fainting was bad enough, but to cry? She wouldn’t have it.

“Caleb,” he said. “Since it appears we’re going to be spending plenty of time with each other for the current duration, I see no point standin’ on ceremony.”

She bristled at the notion. It made her nervous. Already the short time she’d spent in his company had left her twisted in knots that had nothing to do with losing her land. The more distance she could keep between them, the better. But that would be hard to do if he planned on settling in for a while.

“I think for the sense of propriety it would be best if we kept our relationship more...formal. And how much time will you give us?”

“And I’ll call you Rachel,” he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. “Propriety don’t mean a hill of beans when there’s no one around to judge how proper you’re being.”

“Mr. Beckett—”

“Caleb.”

She gritted her teeth. The man was as irritating as he was handsome. It was a shame one didn’t cancel out the other.

“Unless you’re worried callin’ me by my given name might make you like your mama. Is that it?”

Rachel sucked in a mouthful of air but still couldn’t breathe. Mr. Beckett’s suggestion rendered her lungs useless. “What do you know about my mama?”

Had someone in town said something? Rachel had hoped the rumors about her mother’s behavior would have died long ago when they buried her. Rachel had done everything within her ability to live a proper and respectable life, to erase the tarnish her mother’s actions had put on their family. Living with a gambler and cheat did little to aid her, but it did not stop her from trying. Had the attempt been wasted effort?

“Don’t know more than what Kirkpatrick said to you, but it seemed to hit a nerve so I’m putting two and two together.”

Relief swept through her. She glared at him, resenting the ease with which he leaned there, not a care in the world. And why would he care? He wasn’t the one who had lost everything. Everything she had lost, he had gained.