LOOKING FOR PEACE, FINDING…TROUBLE

Colt Wesson Travers is headed for a life of tranquility in Texas. Here, he’ll finally escape the obligations demanded by his notorious outlaw family.

But when he meets his stubborn lodger, Holly Jane Munroe, his illusions of peace are shattered. Colt is thrown right into the middle of two feuding families intent on winning Holly Jane’s hand…and her grandfather’s land! He quickly realizes that life with delicious Holly Jane is going to be anything but quiet….

For the life of her, she could not look away from the sparkling liquid sluicing over his naked back.

He resembled Poseidon rising from the sea, but a thousand times more appealing in the flesh than on the printed page.

The wind came up all at once. Colt’s skin pebbled with the chill as he stepped out of the pool. She squeezed her eyes shut and buried her face in her arms.

She’d had no idea that she had it in her to be so rude.

Drops of water pattered on her hiding place. She heard one smack a leaf over her head…she felt one hit her scalp.

“Like to join me?” Colt’s voice crooned.

She opened her eyes to see ten toes wriggling in the dirt in front of the bush.

She looked up, inch by inch. A respectable woman would have fled from the scene when she first saw him, not continued to ogle him.

And now she’d been caught.

AUTHOR NOTE

I would like to tell you how much it means to me that you, in your busy life, have chosen to set aside a bit of time to escape into the world of Holly Jane and her protector Colt Wesson.

In this book we travel back in time to a place called Friendship Springs—but, reader beware: friendship has fallen by the wayside in this town.

This tale deals with a pair of feuding families, lovers dodging the crossfire, and the young people of both families who defy their elders in an attempt to bring peace to a town that has been long torn apart by hatred.

Thank you for coming with me on Holly Jane’s and Colt Wesson’s pursuit of love and a peaceful place to live.

I hope their story leaves you smiling.

Best wishes and happy reading!

Rebel Outlaw

Carol Arens

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my youngest child, Aileen Mary, because when I thought life could not get any sweeter the doctor placed you in my arms.

While in the third grade CAROL ARENS had a teacher who noted that she ought to spend less time daydreaming and looking out of the window and more time on her sums. Today, Carol spends as little time on sums as possible. Daydreaming plots and characters is still far more interesting to her.

As a young girl she read books by the dozen. She dreamed that one day she would write a book of her own. A few years later Carol set her sights on a new dream. She wanted to be the mother of four children. She was blessed with a son, then three daughters. While raising them she never forgot her goal of becoming a writer. When her last child went to high school she purchased a big old clunky word processor and began to type out a story.

She joined Romance Writers of America, where she metgenerous authors who taught her the craft of writing a romance novel. With the knowledge she gained she sold her first book and saw her life-long dream come true.

Today, Carol lives with her real-life hero husband, Rick, in Southern California, where she was born and raised. She feels blessed to be doing what she loves, with all her children and a growing number of perfect and delightful grandchildren living only a few miles from her front door.

When she is not writing, reading or playing with her grandchildren, Carol loves making trips to the local nursery. She delights in scanning the rows of flowers, envisaging which pretty plants will best brighten her garden.

She enjoys hearing from readers, and invites you to contact her at carolsarens@yahoo.com

Previous novels by the same author:

RENEGADE MOST WANTED

REBEL WITH A CAUSE

A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE

(part of Christmas Cowboy Kisses anthology) REBEL WITH A HEART

Did you know that some of these novels are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

Contents

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 One

“You’re an insult to the Travers name, Colt Wesson.” Colt watched his cousin’s hand flex then reach for the gun in his well-worn holster. “A low-down burr in the crotch of your pappy’s pants.”

He figured Cyrus wouldn’t actually shoot him any more than Colt would draw his knife from the sheath slung across his back and slice his cousin’s tongue in half.

Still, the threat deserved a response, so he reached over his shoulder and fingered the hilt of the long Arkansas Toothpick.

The last hot breath of summer settled upon the ranch. Dust covered everything from the rotting boards of the front porch to a saddle dangling over the corral fence. Even the flies spinning about manure piles seemed coated with it.

In the twelve years since he’d walked away from his boyhood home, nothing had changed. Colt glanced about the run-down buildings that made up the Broken Brand. Today, just as they had throughout his childhood, derelict-looking relatives lounged on the bunkhouse porch rolling and smoking cigarettes. They yawned, stretched and ignored the chores that would make the ranch a fit place to live.

“Pappy Travers ain’t even moldering yet and you’re lighting out again.” Cyrus took a long step forward and glared up into Colt’s face. “T’ain’t right for you to cast aside family obligation.”

He hadn’t cast aside family obligation. If he had, he’d have brought the law with him to oust out this gang of thieves. Seeing his pappy properly buried was the only thing that had brought him home...that and the old ladies.

“You take the job of head outlaw,” Colt told his cousin, returning the glare. “I don’t want it.”

Great-aunt Tillie was sitting in the buckboard only a few feet from where the two cousins faced off. “Colt never was the outlaw you are,” she called now. “It’s you your Uncle Travers would pick to lead the family.”

“Poor little Colt was such a good boy, not a bit like his daddy,” his grandmother’s voice twittered, birdlike, from her perch beside Aunt Tillie on the wagon bench.

“All due respect, Old Aunties,” Cyrus said to them. “Colt Wesson’s got a blood obligation to lead us in crime. It’s been so since Grandpappy Travers’s day.”

Colt Wesson had cut his baby teeth on the bitter taste of blood obligation. He’d have accepted that obligation if it hadn’t involved robbing innocent folks of what they had worked hard to earn.

“My only obligation is to take Aunt Tillie and my grandmother away from here.”

Hot wind blew a hank of hair into his eyes. He turned, then lifted his foot to step onto the buckboard.

A hand grabbed his collar, dragging him backward. From the corner of his vision he saw uncles and cousins leap off the porch and run toward the brewing fight.

Colt reached behind him, grabbed Cyrus’s collar then bent over at the waist. His cousin flipped, landing in the dirt with a grunt.

Quicker than Colt could step away, Cyrus tripped him with a boot hook to the back of the knee.

He and his cousin rolled about in the dirt, toward the barn then the house. They exchanged a mouthful of cusswords before they each felt the crack of a cane on their backsides.

Aunt Tillie, having climbed down from her seat on the wagon, stood over them, poking the stick that she had never really needed for walking, in Cyrus’s belly, then Colt’s.

The two men broke apart, sitting on their rumps in the dirt like shamefaced children. Great-aunt Tillie had always been the peacemaker between brothers and cousins. Although she was now elderly, and they were grown men, it didn’t make a difference.

“Cyrus,” she said with a frown, “you will apologize to your cousin.”

“Shouldn’t have jumped you from behind,” he mumbled. “Still doesn’t change the fact that you ought to snatch a bride and bring her home, just the way it’s always been done. Time you took your rightful place and made your pappy proud for once.”

The last thing he intended to do was make the man who had named him after firearms proud.

Colt stood up warily. Cyrus did the same. They might have gone at each other again had Aunt Tillie’s cane not been swinging.

“Colt,” Great-aunt Tillie said, “you will apologize to your cousin for throwing him on the ground.”

“I’m sorry for that, Cyrus.” He wasn’t, not a bit. His cousin would have been insulted had he reacted peacefully. But since Aunt Tillie set great store by a handshake, he stuck out his fist. “Just so you know, if the day comes that I do take a wife, I won’t need to kidnap her...and I won’t bring her here.”

“Colty, dear,” his grandmother said with a chuckle and a smile, “a lady does want a bit of romance. I was all aflutter when Grandpappy Travers tossed me across his saddle.”

The real story was that she nearly shot him through the heart. But Colt wouldn’t point that out to Grannie Rose, since she was fairly glowing with the inaccurate memory.

To his knowledge, the only woman to come willingly to the Broken Brand had been Great-aunt Tillie. She’d charged the ranch in the dead of night with a six-shooter blazing, intending to bring her sister home. The trouble was, by then Rose had fallen in love with Grandpappy.

Great-aunt Tillie had stayed on ever since, watching over Rose and teaching each new generation of children to read. For an ignorant outlaw gang, the Traverses were well-read.

“Come on.” He took his trim, straight-backed great-aunt by the elbow. “It’s time to go.”

“It was time fifty-six years ago,” she stated with a glare at the assembled Traverses. “Whichever one of you that takes over better make sure the children don’t run wild. Make them learn their letters.”

Colt lifted Aunt Tillie onto the buckboard seat even though she could have climbed up on her own. Seventy-six years looked easy on her.

He climbed up after her, picked up the reins then clicked to the horses.

He drove a slow circle about the yard while Aunt Tillie scowled at one and all and Grannie Rose blew kisses.

Colt hoped he was doing the right thing by taking the women from the only home they had known for most of their lives, but, damn it...the place was barely fit for pigs.

“You’ll rue the day, Colt Wesson!” he heard Cyrus call out behind him. “A man can’t set aside his kin!”

* * *

Holly Jane Munroe sat at a lace-covered table and stared out the window of her shop, The Sweet Treat. Balancing a knife in her fingers, she whirled a curlicue on the top of the cake she was frosting without even having to look at it.

She sighed and wished that Billy Folsom wasn’t standing in front of the bank, staring back at her. He twirled his hat in his fingers, brushed a strand of curly hair from his forehead then tugged the tips of his heavy black mustache.

With an inhalation big enough to be noticeable from across the road, he stepped off the boardwalk. The poor fellow looked nervous; clearly buying a sweet treat was not the first thought on his mind.

There was nothing to be done about it, then, but to hurry behind the counter, setting row upon row of cookies, chocolates and pies between them.

And smile—she owed her swain that much, since he likely didn’t want to be ringing the tinkling bell over her front door any more than she wanted him to be.

“Good afternoon, Billy.” She hoped the smile would conceal her feeling that the sooner he was gone the better.

Billy was handsome...he was young. At twenty-one years old he was only two years her junior. The Folsoms had sent far worse her way over the past few months.

“Miss Holly Jane,” he stated with a nod of his head. He wiped his damp brow with his sleeve. “I’ve come to... Well, that is, I’m here to—”

Billy crushed his hat in both of his fists. He inhaled a huge lungful of air.

“Will you marry me, Holly Jane?”

“I’m sorry, Billy, but no.” It was hard to miss the relief that darted across his expression. “Please tell your grandfather that I have no intention of marrying anyone. Besides, what do you expect Lettie Coulter would have to say about that?”

Lettie and Billy had been sweet on each other since fourth grade.

“Thank you for the turndown, Holly Jane.” He crammed his mangled hat on his head, grinning. “Pa’s going to be put out some...again.”

“Take this with you.” Holly Jane handed him the cake she had just frosted. “That might sweeten him up some.”

“Might, but only for a while.” Billy stretched across the counter and kissed her cheek. “Be careful, Holly Jane. I spotted a Broadhower two blocks away.”

“I’ll be safe enough. You might want to go out my back door, though.”

“Much obliged.”

Billy glanced out the front window then hurried out the back door.

Holly Jane watched him trot down the path that passed through the oak grove behind the shop. With fall a week old, the leaves had begun to show some color. This evening, she hoped the walk home would be pretty enough to wipe her mind clean of troubles.

And thinking of trouble, it had been avoided by only seconds. The instant that she closed the back door on Billy, Henry Broadhower stormed in, red-faced and breathing hard.

“Good day, Henry.” Henry was close to thirty years old and already beginning to lose his hair. His round belly rose and fell with his breathing. “I said no to Billy, if that’s what’s got you riled.”

“Would have got me riled, but looks like you’ve got some common sense, for a frilly girl.”

She smiled at him because it was the easiest way to deal with the man. “What’s wrong with a frilly girl? Sugar and spice makes for a more pleasant town, don’t you whink.”

“Having no Folsoms in it would make it a better place.”

“Say what you came to, Henry,” she said with a sigh. In her opinion the town would be better off without a Folsom or a Broadhower to spread animosity. Their feud had caused tension for as long as she could remember.

“I’d be pleased if you’d become my wife, Miss Holly Jane.”

“I’m sorry, Henry, but no.” Even a frilly girl set her hopes higher than marrying to settle a feud.

When the color began to rise in his face once more, she plucked a cake from the case, apples and cream by heavens, and set it in his hands.

“Give your family my regards,” she said, walking to the front door. Henry passed through it, slump-shouldered and grumbling.

Mercy me! She plucked a square of chocolate from a display dish and popped it in her mouth. It melted over her tongue, sweet and smooth.

If the day presented one more proposal, she wouldn’t make a single dollar.

* * *

“My word, isn’t this a lovely town?” Sitting beside Colt on the buggy bench, Aunt Tillie patted his knee. “I believe this will be the home I’ve dreamed of all my life. See how the trees are begging to turn for the fall. I truly missed trees back at the Broken Brand.”

His great-aunt was right. The green hill country of Texas looked like heaven compared to the desolate badlands of Nebraska.

“Friendship Springs,” Grannie Rose read the sign announcing the name of the town. “I reckon it’s full of friendly folks, don’t you?”

Many of them would be friendly, but Colt knew that there was a feud dividing two of the old-time families and he was landing himself right in the middle of it.

“Hell, Grannie Rose,” he said, “we’ll be happy as three butterflies in a meadow.”

“Colt Travers, what have I told you about that language?” Aunt Tillie swatted his hand where the reins lay lightly in his fingers.

“Don’t use it.” He winked at her and earned a frown, but it wasn’t genuine. His great-aunt had doted on him from the moment he bawled his first lungful of air.

He’d try and be more careful with his language, but he’d worked the railroad for eleven years, dealing with rough men and stubborn locomotives, and his manners had turned coarse. The only thing guaranteed to bring on foul language quicker than a Travers relative was a damn, stubborn steam engine fighting his efforts to repair it.

Today, all that was behind him. He’d bought himself a ranch, sight unseen, just outside Friendship Springs. The seller had been a stranger who had become a friend over dinner and a beer. He never doubted the old man when he said the ranch looked like it had slipped through a hole in paradise and landed in Texas. It would provide wide green pastures for his horses and a snug home for the old ladies.

He wouldn’t let the fact that his ranch was bordered by the two feuding families—the Folsoms to the west and the Broadhowers to the south—bother him. He’d grown up with trouble most of his life.

“Lordy, will you look at that?” Aunt Tillie exclaimed, pointing toward Town Square.

Town Square was not a square but a circle with a clear bubbling spring at its center. It looked to be a gathering place, since it had benches and flowerpots all about. Pleasant-looking stores surrounded the square. He’d make sure to bring Grannie Rose and Aunt Tillie back here for some shopping and visiting with friendly folks. That’s not something they had done in the past, being shut away at the Broken Brand most of their lives.

“There’s a shop that says The Sweet Treat,” Grannie Rose exclaimed, nearly trembling with excitement. “It’s been an age since I had a sweet treat that I didn’t make for myself and a dozen others.”

“Past time you did, then, Grannie,” Colt answered. A sweet treat sounded just the thing before he settled the women into the hotel for the evening. They could set off for the ranch in the morning, fresh and rested.

Had it only been him traveling, he’d have been settled at the ranch weeks ago, but the old women had required a gentler pace.

Three doors down from the sweet shop he drew the buggy horses up sharp when a rolling ruckus broke out in front of them.

Two men lunged at each other, poking with balled-up fists and kicking at each other’s tender spot. Neither of the fools knew how to fight. They were just as likely to drown in the spring as to do the other in.

“Hand me my cane, Colt,” Aunt Tillie ordered after the men careened into a flowerpot and sent the orange mums flying.

“Let them be. It’s none of our concern... Besides the fools will give it up before anyone’s taken hard damage.”

One man got the better of his enemy and pinned him to the ground. The fellow on top balled his fist, aimed for the grounded man’s nose. Too bad for him that the combatant on the bottom turned his head. The balled fist slammed into dirt as hard as a rock.

A holler of pain shot about Friendship Spring’s spring.

“Ain’t no yellow-bellied, low-moraled Folsom going to wed Holly Jane,” one of them shouted.

“Any Broadhower puts a ring on her finger’s going to feel my bullet in his back!”

Colt grunted in disgust. With talk of a gun, things had taken a dangerous turn. Any rattlehead could kill from a distance.

Now, with the mention of Miss Holly Jane, things had suddenly become his business.

The only reason William Munroe had sold him the ranch was to keep his granddaughter from falling prey to the feud between the families. Had he left the land to the spinster, she would have become a pawn in the Folsoms’ and the Broadhowers’ lust for her property.

Through that prime ground flowed the river that fed water to the Folsom spread on the west and the Broadhower spread on the south.

Whoever controlled the water controlled their enemy.

Apparently, old William Munroe had been rightly worried about his granddaughter.

This was as good a time as any to set matters right. Colt drew his long, double-bladed knife from the sheath slung across his back. He let the weight of the Arkansas Toothpick balance across his palm, while he chose his target.

Since Broadhower stood up, he was it.

Colt watched the man’s boot twitch. If he didn’t get out of the way, Folsom would be caught between the boot and the back of a bench. It looked like Broadhower meant to crush a rib or two.

Colt threw the knife. The hiss of cold, sharp steel cut the air, barely disturbing the fair afternoon.

Broadhower gasped when he found his pant leg suddenly pinned to the bench.

Colt jumped from the buggy and strode slowly toward Broadhower, who glanced ogle-eyed at him, then the knife.

Colt plucked the blade from the bench, yanking it from his pant leg.

He glared at Broadhower, then at Folsom. “From now on, Saphead...and you, Featherbrain, Miss Munroe is off-limits.”

“Says who?” Folsom and Broadhower spoke together.

“Says the new owner of the Munroe place.”

In the face of a shocked expression and a furious one, Colt climbed back into the buggy and settled between the ladies.

“You boys have a nice day.” He flashed them a smug grin that was sure to make them steam.

“Why, will you look at that?” Grannie craned her neck to look behind as he led the team toward the bakery. “There’s mashed cake spread all over town square.”

* * *

Colt watched Grannie Rose’s grin crinkle while she sighed over each and every sweet treat in the display case. The three-week trip from the Broken Brand to Friendship Springs had been worth it for this moment alone.

Grannie’s mind wasn’t as clear as it had once been. Now and then she saw things that weren’t there. Still and all, she was his grandmother, and he meant to see that she enjoyed every year that she had left.

“I’ll take one of everything, except those chocolate hearts,” Grannie announced, and clapped her hands. “I’ll take two of those.”

“You’ll take two sweets and one chocolate heart,” Aunt Tillie said in the tone that she used on contrary toddlers.

Looked like his spoiling of Grannie might have to be done on the sly.

“Oh, Tillie, you need to loosen your corset strings on occasion.” Grannie nudged her sister in the ribs.

At that moment the curtain to the back room rustled and a young woman stepped through. For half a second he was stunned by her resemblance to a heavenly angel.

“Good afternoon,” she said, gazing at him with eyes as rich a brown as the fancy chocolates piled on the plate between them. “How can I help you?”

With a sugar sweet kiss was the first thought to pop into his mind, but clearly, this was not the kind of woman that a man casually canoodled.

“I’ll have one of everything,” Grannie Rose declared. “Except for the hearts, I’ll have three of those...and so will my sister.”

“Make yourself sick then, but don’t think I’ll be up all night caring for you,” Aunt Tillie huffed.

The woman smiled at Grannie, then Aunt Tillie. Hell if she didn’t look as sweet as the pastries covering the counter.

“May I make a suggestion?” she asked.

“Anything that will keep my sister from the sin of gluttony.”

“I’ll take your suggestion, dearie,” Grannie said. “As long as it comes with four hearts of chocolate.”

“As a matter of fact, it comes with a plateful of them to share among you. I guarantee no one will become sick from it.”

Colt tried not to stare at her, but the woman was damned pretty. He’d seen a pink rose once that was a match to the blush in her cheeks.

“As long as it’s not the whole contents of the display case, we’ll take it,” Aunt Tillie said.

“Just have a seat at the table over there by the window. Won’t take but a minute to prepare.”

Fresh is what best described her...fresh and luminous. He’d never seen a luminous woman before, but just to prove his thought, when she walked through a beam of afternoon sunshine streaking through a window on her way to the back room, her blond hair turned gold, like the light was inside it.

He didn’t realize that he had been staring calf-eyed at the curtain until Aunt Tillie asked if he was ailing.

He shook his head. “Just a mite wearied from the trip.”

“She’s a very pretty young lady.” Grannie studied him with a look. She arched a fine gray brow. “In fact, Colt Wesson, I believe she is the one for you.”

Aunt Tillie rolled her eyes and shrugged.

“Grannie, she’s not my kind of woman at all. I’m partial to the earthy kind.”

Once again Aunt Tillie rolled her eyes. This time she sighed out loud.

That’s right, earthy with a whiff of sin about them.

Hell, he wasn’t her kind of man. She would require a gentleman.

It threw him off a bit when, a few moments later, the angel emerged from the back room and a surge of desire rocked him to his dusty boots.

She glided toward them with a tray balanced on her palm set with daintily painted teacups and a plate of chocolates. The scent of cinnamon, mint and cloves rose from the delicate china.

“There’s a dash of everything in the tea, and it won’t do a bit of harm to ladylike figures,” she said, placing the teacups on the lace tablecloth then setting the plate of chocolates in the middle.

Grannie Rose caught her hand before she walked away. “You are a lovely girl. Not married, I hope.”

“No, ma’am.” Colt didn’t miss the shadow that passed over her soft brown eyes.

Grannie winked at him.

He was in for it now. Once Grannie Rose had a notion about something it was difficult to dissuade her from it.

Next trip to The Sweet Treat, he’d wait outside. He’d take a peek or two through the window, but what man wouldn’t?

“There’s a pig nibbling on my boot toe,” Grannie Rose announced.

“Really, Rose,” Aunt Tillie whispered. “Don’t insult the proprietor by saying such a ridiculous thing.”

“But there is a pig, a small one, but a pig, nonetheless, and it’s nipping my footwear.”

Colt glanced at the lovely shop owner to see if the lady meant to kick them out over Grannie’s words. Her cheeks were flushed...turning redder by the second.

“Apologize, Rose!” Aunt Tillie had turned nearly as red as the angel, who swished her yellow skirt rounding the pastry counter.

“Look for yourself, then.” Grannie lifted the table lace.

“Lulu!” The angel dashed forward.

By damn, it was a pig! A pig with a pink ribbon tied through a slot in its ear. It was hard to know what surprised him more, the presence of the pig or that he had failed to notice it under the table. But Grannie was right. It was a very little pig.

The angel rushed for the pig; the pig dashed from under the table snagging the lace tablecloth around its foot.

Tea and chocolate went sailing, while fragile cups hit the floor and shattered. He caught a blue one and saved it.

He and the old ladies jumped up and backed away from the table a heartbeat before the pig ran into the leg and knocked it over with a smash and clatter.

Aunt Tillie laughed out loud. The animal squealed while the angel dashed here and there in pursuit of it.

The pig collided with Colt’s shin then skidded across the floor in a mess of hot tea and melting chocolate. He lunged for it with one hand because he gripped the surviving teacup in the other. The smooth round belly of the creature passed through his grip like it had been buttered. It spun in a circle on short legs then made a dash between Colt’s feet.

“Lulu!” the angel screeched.

She ran forward, stepped in a square of slick chocolate then slipped, sliding belly first...between his legs.

By now Aunt Tillie was laughing so hard that she began to wheeze.

By a bit of good luck, the pig tangled itself in Grannie’s skirt. Colt grabbed it by the scruff while the angel slowly rose to her feet.

She wouldn’t know it, glowering at the animal like she was, but her belly was streaked in chocolate. Even better, chocolate rings circled each of her breasts, revealing that they were plump...womanly.

“Here’s your bacon.” He stuffed the squealing, wriggling creature under her arm then handed her the blue teacup.

“Blast it, Lulu,” she muttered, then looked up with a furious blush staining her cheeks. “I beg your pardon, sir...ladies. Please do come another day for tea and chocolate...on the house naturally.”

She spun about then disappeared behind the curtain, the piglet’s tail twitching with the scolding it was getting.

“I do have to say, Colt,” Aunt Tillie managed to say while attempting to bring her laughter under control, “the girl is a bit earthy.”

“I knew she was the one for you the moment I saw her, Colty.”

“Hell,” he grumbled, and his aunt didn’t even bother to frown.

Chapter Two

“I should have let the butcher keep you,” Holly Jane grumbled at the pig, who grunted at a weed growing near the back door of The Sweet Treat. “You’d have made a fine sandwich.”

She locked the door then glanced about. So far, not a single suitor was visible on the path through the woods that led home.

That, at least, was a blessing. With the sun dipping behind the treetops, she didn’t need another delay. She would be late getting back to the ranch as it was.

What with broken china scattered about and chocolate-tea goop to be scrubbed from the floor, it was well past the time that she liked to be home.

“You, Miss Pigling, will help me feed the chickens since they’ll be cackling up a storm by time we get to the barn.”

Holly Jane walked the path toward home taking deep breaths of autumn-scented air. Late-afternoon sunshine shot through tree branches and cast long shadows behind her and Lulu. Leaves twisted in the breeze, looking like molten gold and then red sparks.

She loved her life here. When she had discovered, at the reading of his will, that Granddaddy had sold her inheritance, she had cried for a week. Between missing the man who had been everything to her and wondering how she would get by without the ranch she had planted her roots in, she thought she might never quit weeping.

Overhead, a crow cawed, flapping its wings toward the west and the coming sunset.

Given a choice, Holly Jane would be snuggled in a cozy chair beside the fireplace when darkness came. Since she didn’t have the choice, she would make another one. She would enjoy the beauty of the evening as it faded from light to dusk then full dark.

Coming out of the woods just now, she watched the sun slip behind the trees growing on the western edge of the ranch. The great orange glow peeked between a line of cedar and cottonwood, with elm and maple tossed in.

It would be dark by the time she reached the house, but a fat full moon rose behind her to light the way. Stars began to blink and twinkle. A raccoon rustled out of the brush and waddled up to Lulu.

“Good evening, Mayberry.”

Lulu oinked and the pair of them toddled behind Holly Jane toward the ranch house...the home she couldn’t even think of leaving.

Blame it, she wouldn’t leave. She had vowed that, to herself if to no one else.

Grandfather, in his wisdom...or confusion...hadn’t sold the entire ranch to the stranger. He had left her a perfect circle of land a hundred yards in diameter and only a short distance from the house.

Smack in the middle of the circle of land was her carousel, the gift Granddaddy had given her when she was five years old.

Why hadn’t he left her the house, as well? What could it have hurt to do that? These questions had plagued her like hounds on a scent.

Her grandfather had meant well, the lawyer had explained that day when her tears wouldn’t stop. Granddaddy’s intention had been to keep her from falling prey to the Folsoms and the Broadhowers, who would do anything to get the Munroe land.

“The new owner has agreed to watch over you, Holly Jane,” the lawyer had explained. “Your granddaddy only wanted to keep you safe.”

Holly Jane stepped onto the bridge that crossed the narrow river that Granddaddy had named Neighborly Creek. She sighed so deep that it must have alarmed Mayberry. The racoon stood on her back legs with her paws scratching the air.

“Can’t think of what got into Granddaddy. I don’t need a stranger looking after me. Haven’t I been watching after him and me since Grandma passed?”

Lulu oinked then trotted over the bridge. Holly Jane hurried after her. The chickens were probably pecking each other by now.

Two hours later, Holly Jane sat down on an overstuffed chair beside the fireplace with a cup of hot cocoa warming her palms.

The house looked like it had been shaken about in a jug then the contents dropped like gambling dice to lie where they landed.

Until Granddaddy’s passing, she had kept these rooms swept and in order. She’d put flowers in vases on the dining room table. She’d let fresh air waft in through open widows, carrying the scent of summer blossoms through the house.

But summer was gone and so was Granddaddy. And the stranger was on his way. As much as it hurt to turn the house she loved into a tumbleweed, she did not want the new owner to see it at its best. If she could prevent him from falling in love with the place, it would be easier for him to sell it back to her.

After a while, she couldn’t bear the unkempt look of the rooms so she went outside.

Her carousel glowed dully in the moonlight. She hugged her robe around her white nightgown, went down the steps and walked over newly deeded Travers land to her own inherited circle.

She stepped upon the carousel platform. It creaked, showing its age. She ran her hand over the peeling red paint of a horse’s rump.

There had been a day when the carousel still worked—before the steam engine that powered it quit—that she would ride for hours on end. Even the children from town would come to the ranch on Sunday afternoons. As hard as it was to believe, for those hours, the Folsom children and the Broadhower children forgot the feud between their parents and played peacefully together.

Holly Jane climbed onto the back of her favorite wooden horse. She glanced at the sky. An owl beat silently against the dark, its pale wings bright against the canopy of stars. It screeched and a mouse exploring the platform dashed between the boards to safety.

Years had gone by since those days; the carousel had broken and faded. The children had grown up to hate each other.

“I understand why you sold the ranch, Granddaddy,” she whispered to miles of shadowed land, quiet except for the scurrying night creatures.

And she forgave him. She only hoped that from wherever he was, he could see that she had avoided becoming a Mrs. to a Broadhower or a Folsom and she’d done it all on her own.

When she did become a Mrs., it would be because she was madly and completely head over heels in love with some handsome man who was brave, tender and devoted all at once.

To her knowledge, that man did not exist in Friendship Springs. From what she had seen of men, he might not exist at all.

Holly Jane gripped the carousel pole and leaned her cheek against it.

Then again, he may have passed through this afternoon, and thanks to Lulu, seen her at her very worst. She had cursed, blame it, right in front of him and the old ladies.

Oh well, chances are he was only passing through. But he was handsome...so handsome that it was hard to put him out of her mind.

He had sandy, brown-blond hair that grew past the collar of his flannel shirt and the shadow of a beard. It could be that he might have forgotten to shave...or maybe he was beginning to grow it out.

A body wouldn’t think she’d had time to notice his eyes, but lordy, they were blue and they flickered mischief. She didn’t know him well enough...she didn’t know him at all, really...to know this to be true, but she’d lay a bet on it.

And honestly, the pair of dimples flashing in his stubble-roughened cheeks when he had handed her Lulu and called her bacon had nearly made her fall again.

As far as handsome went in her requirement of a husband, the stranger was all that and more.

Still, there was brave, tender and devoted to be considered. Chances are he was devoted, having taken his valuable time to bring a pair of old women to tea.

Whether he would be brave and tender in a marriage, she had no way of knowing. He might be married already. She ought to quit daydreaming and recognize that.

And aside from everything else, there was one more quality she would require of a mate. He would have to be a good kisser. Over the years she had imagined kisses of all kinds. Tender, wild, demanding and sweet as sugar.

There was one thing she did know about the stranger. Fate would never give her the opportunity to discover what mysteries those expressive lips might hold.

* * *

It was nearly dawn and Holly Jane hadn’t managed to capture a wink of sleep. There was something wrong with her bed and she knew just what it was.

It was no longer her bed. After years of snuggling into its downy sweetness, it was now the property of one Colt Travers. Every feather of her mattress and each neatly fluffed bow on her quilt belonged to him.

She threw back the covers and sat up. She set her bare feet on the cool floorboards and shivered for a moment.

“Get off my robe, Lulu.” She poked the pig with her toe, then picked up her robe and put it on.

Thoughts of a stranger coming into her home were unsettling. He’d walk about the rooms that she loved without knowing that Grandma had set pies in the kitchen window to cool, that Granddaddy smoked a pipe while he sat on the step of the front porch. He wouldn’t know that her mama walked out the front door with a sideshow barker while Holly Jane slept upstairs and that she had never come back. He wouldn’t know that the photo on the mantel was of her father and that he had died in a fire before she was born.

To Holly Jane, the stranger would feel the same as a thief. He’d invade her home and take everything familiar. He’d replace it with his own belongings and leave her bereft.

Colt Travers would do that, if she let him.

“Come on, Lulu, wouldn’t you like to nibble something in the parlor?”

The rooster crowed in the barn. Soon another day would begin and there was still no sign of the new owner. No doubt he was taking his own good time, not caring that her stomach ached with the suspense of waiting for the unknown.

She gathered courage coming down the stairs, by reminding herself that she wasn’t helpless. She had her weapons, although she hated to use them.

Her first stop was the dining room. A vase of dried-out flowers sat in the middle of the table. She tipped them over, broke a brittle stem and then wiped up a smear of water with the hem of her robe. She didn’t want to do permanent damage to the table. It would be hers again one day if the new owner didn’t sell it and put something repulsive in its place.

She ripped a cushion on the divan that was worn and needed replacing anyway. She scattered a handful of stuffing about the floor, which delighted Lulu to no end. The petite pig snorted at it and pushed it about with her snout.

After half an hour, the ruination of the house was satisfactory and she became weary. Just one more thing would make it a work of art.

“Come along, Lulu,” she called and walked into the kitchen.

She picked up a cookie from a plate that she had left on the table more than a week ago. It had aged to dry, crumbly perfection.

Holly Jane closed her fist about it and scattered crumbs of cinnamon and nutmeg over the table. She sprinkled some on the floor. The crumbs on the floor didn’t last because of Lulu.

Next, she went to the pantry and took out a bag of flour.

“All right, Lulu, give it your best.” She scattered the flour on the countertop and the stove. Then she tossed a handful in the air and let it land where it would.

“Almost perfect,” she muttered then dumped the rest of the bag on the floor.

Lulu squealed then rolled in it. She was a strange little creature. Most pigs enjoyed a roll in the mud. Not so her little friend—she liked wearing pretty bows in her ear and eating sweets.

“Go on now,” she said to the pig. “Trot about the house. Leave prints wherever you can.”

Lulu squinted small piggy eyes at her and lifted her flour-smeared snout.

“I won’t get angry. I promise.”

Lulu paddled into the parlor, happily grunting.

At last, fatigue weighted every muscle of Holly Jane’s body. She climbed the staircase toward the bed that used to be hers, thankful that this was Sunday. The Sweet Treat would be closed, and she would be able to sleep past sunup.

She fell into bed with flour caking her toes, smudging her nose and frosting her hair, but she was too weary to worry about it. She might sleep through Lulu’s demand for breakfast, and the little pig could be as persistent as an itch.

* * *

“Did you remember the parasol, Colt?” Grannie Rose asked while Colt lifted her onto the wagon seat. “And my blue satin dancing slippers?”

“Tucked away between your bloomers and your new straw bonnet.” At least the parasol was. The dancing slippers had gone to dust thirty years before.

Colt climbed up and settled between his grannie and his great-aunt. He felt the solid weight of the bench beneath him and inhaled the scent of new lumber.

He’d purchased the spanking new wagon after the old ladies had been tucked into the hotel, each with a glass of wine.

Excitement over seeing his new spread had kept him awake all night, so he’d risen before dawn to load the few belongings that had come with them from the Broken Brand and the trinkets that the ladies had taken a fancy to along the way.

They wouldn’t need much in the way of home goods since the ranch house had come with all the furnishings. He’d buy everything new for the barn, though. He meant to pamper the horses he would be breeding like they were kin...maybe not his own, but someone’s.

Ever since he’d been a kid he’d dreamed of having land where the strong beautiful creatures would run and frolic. Horses weren’t like cattle that were raised for the slaughterhouse. His animals would go for farming, pulling buggies, or the high-spirited ones might even go for racing.

Horses might have been what convinced William Munroe to sell him the land. He’d said that his granddaughter would be knee-deep in pleasure over it.

Evidently, Holly Jane had some sort of kinship with critters.

“Let’s get going, Colt,” Aunt Tillie said, nudging him in the ribs. “Woolgathering won’t get us to our new home.”

“Poor little Holly Jane must be frightened out there all by herself,” Grannie Rose said.

“She ain’t little, Grannie.” For some reason, Grannie thought Holly Jane was a child, even though he’d told her that she wasn’t, time and again. “She’s a spinster lady.”

“Is she?” Grannie frowned then brightened. “She ought to get on fine with Tillie, then.”

He hoped so. The care of three females, one not related, might be a challenge. He couldn’t imagine that the spinster would be grateful to see him, even though he was there to stand between her and the fool, feuding families.

The ride from town to the ranch was short. Only fifteen minutes by wagon...five, he figured, on horseback.

While the old ladies chatted, he watched the scenery pass and thought of William Munroe.

It had been nothing short of Providence, the pair of them meeting and becoming friends in so short a time.

The old man had been away from home on personal business having to do with his health, and was trying to get home but the locomotive of the train he had been traveling on had gone sour in a town called Presley Wells. Colt had been called to repair it. It had taken a few days and lodging was scarce. Colt and the old man shared a room and the stories of their lives.

All at once, the woods ended and the ranch came into view.

“Oh my, Colt,” Aunt Tillie said. “This is beautiful. Just what you dreamed of.”

It took some self-control not to leap from the bench and shout. In his mind he saw his horses running free with their tails and manes flying behind them.

“I’d like a ride on that carousel.” Grannie clapped her hands, her smile beaming.

“Really, Rose you know there’s no carousel way out here.”

A crow circled overhead, cawing.

“I may be losing my mind, Tillie, but you’ve lost your eyesight.”

“There is a carousel, Aunt Tillie.” Colt pointed to the spot where the faded machine sat a few hundred yards from the house.

The small plot of ground that held the carousel was Holly Jane’s land.

He wondered if she was bitter at the loss of the ranch. He hoped not. Could be, she felt freed of a burden.

At any rate, he hoped that the woman, likely getting past her prime and giving up on hope of a husband, would fit in well with Grannie Rose and Aunt Tillie. As part of the land deal, he’d agreed to let Holly Jane live in the house and to watch over her.

They crossed the bridge over the pretty, clear flowing river called Neighborly Creek. In a few more minutes he drew the horses to a halt in front of the house.

“Welcome home, ladies,” Colt said, wondering if either of them had noticed the hitch in his voice.

The place welcomed him before he ever walked in the front door. The porch wrapped all the way around the house so that a body could stand on it facing east and see the sunrise in the morning then sit on a chair facing west and watch the sun go down behind the grove of trees at the western edge of the property.

Thanks, old man, Colt thought, and hoped William knew how sorry he was for the circumstances that made Colt the new owner.

He helped Grannie and Aunt Tillie from the wagon. With a hand under each of their arms he escorted them to their new front door.

Comparing this home to the one they had left behind was like comparing a fistful of spring flowers to a tumbleweed.

He reached for the doorknob.

“I believe it’s only right for us to knock,” Aunt Tillie said. “Miss Holly Jane might take a fright to see strangers walking into her house.”

He sincerely hoped he wasn’t inheriting a frail and skittish female. Heaven help him, he could almost see her now, a pinch-faced old biddy too shy to find a man...and looking dried-out as straw.

But he’d given his word to watch out for her, and he would. He’d care for her the same as he would Grannie Rose or Aunt Tillie.

He knocked on the door, not too loud, in case the poor woman was the nervous kind.

No answer. He knocked again, louder. With still no answer, he opened the door.

The three of them stepped inside.

“Oh, my word,” Aunt Tillie whispered. “It looks like a whirly wind passed through.”

“I do hope the poor little dear hasn’t been carried off by a Folsom,” Grannie said, her voice cracking in alarm.

“Or a Broadhower.” Aunt Tillie touched her throat with a delicate age-spotted hand.

He’d place his bet on the former lady of the house being none too pleased to give it up. Chances are she wasn’t waiting with a tea-and-scone welcome.

Colt led the way through the dining room, where dried-out posies lay scattered on the table, then to the kitchen, where it looked like a pastry explosion had occurred.

Small human footprints tracked through a dusting of flour on the floor, along with some four-legged prints that looked suspiciously piglike.

It couldn’t be, but how many times had he seen an oinker indoors? Only once, and that was yesterday.

He left the kitchen and made a right for the stairs with the old ladies close behind him. There was a heavy feeling in his gut that his charge might not be the retiring violet he had imagined.

She might be temptation dressed in an angel’s guise.

He opened the first closed door he came to.

Hell and damn. Curled smack in the middle of the bed was a miniature pig flicking its ear so that the pink bow tied in it looked like a waving hankie. Curled up about the pig was yesterday’s angel covered in the proof of her crime and not a whole lot else.

Flour dusted her cheeks and dappled her hair. One hand lay against the pillow, dainty fingers curled, the other under her pink cheek. Her lips puckered in her sleep, looking soft and moist.

“I told you she was the one, Colt.” Grannie Rose bent over the bed, peering at Miss Holly Jane. “If she wasn’t, she wouldn’t look so at home in your bed.”

Chapter Three

“The reason she looks at home is because she is.” Holly Jane heard a man’s voice say, the tone so rich it made her imagine melted caramel.

She snuggled more deeply into her dream, trying to savor the sound. It was a shame that she couldn’t see him, but he had popped into the dream without warning. His voice was a welcome change from the stubborn suitor she was trying to send on his way...and something burning in the oven at the kitchen of The Sweet Treat.

No wonder it was burning if she had been so careless as to return home without taking whatever was baking out of the oven. Just then the dream fog cleared from her brain. Nothing was burning. She was home in her bed.

She sighed deeply, snuggling into the pillow and wishing she might return to the dream. She would face the stubborn suitor and the ruined baked goods in order to hear that other manly voice one more time.

“Wake up, Mischief Muffin.”

Her eyes popped open before her vision cleared. Peering down at her was the blurred face of the man she had spun castle’s in the air about last night. The man whose voice had trespassed into her dream.

The man that Lulu had humiliated her in front of!

He gazed down at her with a grin and eyes bluer than any she had ever seen...and a pair of dimples that very clearly knew what deviltry was all about.

Disturbingly, her first reaction to him was not “What are you doing in my bedroom?” or “Get off my property!” but “I think I’m in love.”

Which was impossible, because one didn’t fall in love willy-nilly with a stranger bending over one’s bed. One would screech and scratch until he ran away.

“You always sleep with a pig, Bo Peep?”

Suddenly, her senses snapped back into place.

“I never sleep with—” The weight of the bed shifted near her belly. “Lulu!”

She pushed at Lulu’s rump. Hopping off the bed with a grunt, she hit the floor in a puff of flour.

Holly Jane sat up, grabbed her robe from the spindle of the headboard then yanked her arms though the sleeves. She stood up.

Being a good head taller than she was, the man stared down at her. He was trouble for sure, with a gaze that threatened devilment even more than the dimples did.

What was he doing here? And the pair of elderly women with him? He couldn’t be... Oh, please don’t let him be—

She shivered, but only because the floorboards were cold under her bare feet.

“Come along, sister,” a woman said. This was Grannie Rose, she recalled from yesterday afternoon’s disaster. “Let’s let the lovebirds get acquainted.”

“They aren’t lovebirds, Rose.” The tall, slender woman led the shorter, rounder woman by the elbow. “By the looks of the house she’s not well pleased to have any of us here.”

And who would be pleased to be awoken from a sweet and spicy dream by trespassers...or so she desperately hoped.

“I’m sure that’s not true, sister.” Rose glanced back at her with a smile. “Miss Munroe is nearly kin.”

The ladies walked out of the room.

The man stood too close, looking down with his dimples flaring and his lips... Well, she had to look away from them. Even though he remained silent, the creases at the corners of his eyes crinkled with laughter.

The chill in her toes shot goose bumps up her legs.

“Pleasure to meet you, Holly Jane.”

The man, who she had by now decided could only be Mr. Colt Wesson Travers, tipped his head then backed out of the bedroom, clearly enjoying the fact that he had come upon her vulnerable and in her bed, wearing her nightgown—and sleeping with a pig to go with it.

Without warning, he winked, spun about on his boot heel and followed his elderly relatives down the stairs.

She had not by any means fallen instantly in love with this stranger! Just the opposite, she disliked him with a righteous intensity. He was arrogant...cocky...and much too handsome for anyone’s good.

And he owned the ranch that should have been hers!

* * *

Half an hour later, Holly Jane stood at the top of the stairs, yanking the bow of her apron and listening to the murmur of voices drifting up the stairs.

The scent of fried potatoes drifted up as well, but she did her best to ignore it. One would think that the aroma would make her want to retch, being that a stranger was using her kitchen, but it only made her stomach growl.

With a sigh, she straightened her spine, the one in her back and the one in her soul. She descended the stairs determined to present the new owners with a smile. She would pass through the kitchen as quickly as possible on her way to her own circle of property, where she would make herself a cozy place to live.

No doubt that’s what Granddaddy would have expected of her...a smile and a friendly greeting.

Blame it, her cheeks blushed like flames when she stepped into the kitchen and saw the three of them gathered about the dining table.

She’d like to blame the darn pig for it all, but it hadn’t been Lulu’s idea to ruin the house.

“Good morning,” she said, and since they hadn’t really been introduced and she could be anyone, she added. “I’m Holly Jane Munroe. Welcome home.”

“Good morning, dear,” the shorter woman said, her smile as agreeable as sunrise after a cold night. “I’m Grannie Rose, and this is my sister, Aunt Tillie. Our young man is my grandson, Colt Wesson.”

“A pleasure,” she said, nodding at each of the people sitting at the table because it was the polite thing to do and she was a polite person. “I’ll be out of your way in a heartbeat.”

“But we’ve saved you a chair,” Grannie Rose said, sliding it away from the table for her to sit down.

“And a plate of food.” Aunt Tillie pushed it toward the place they had saved for her.

“You must be hungry,” Colt Travers said with a wink. “Working late...making the place ready.”

“Colt Wesson, mind your manners.” Aunt Tillie shot her nephew a frown.

“Please do eat with us, dear.” Grannie Rose patted the chair seat. “You did a remarkable job on the house. I couldn’t have sabotaged it better myself.”

With her humiliation complete, Holly Jane felt her jaw drop open. It only took a second or two to recall her dignity, though. She straightened her shoulders and dug deep for the sunny smile she was noted for.

“Ordinarily, it’s a lovely home,” she said, then glanced about one more time, holding on to the vision of the curtains hanging at the kitchen window. Grandma had crocheted them only a month before the arthritis in her fingers became debilitating. She gazed at the table that Granddaddy had built with his own hands. If only she could sit at it one more time.

Since she just couldn’t, she said the only thing to be said. “I hope you find joy here. I’ll have my belongings out by noon.”

Tears burned her eyes. She dashed out the kitchen door before anyone might notice them.

Daylight, warm and fresh with autumn, greeted her, but she would have to wait to savor it. As it was, she would barely make it to the carousel before she bawled her heart out.

Lulu, roused from her morning nap, waddled out from under the porch and followed on short pink legs.

Halfway to the carousel, she heard the chickens raising a fuss in the barn.

Blame it. She was late feeding them. Changing direction, she strode toward the barn, wiping her eyes with her apron.

She stopped and went suddenly still. The chickens were no longer hers. It wasn’t her responsibility to feed them. If Mr. Colt Travers wanted his livestock fed he should have been here at dawn to do it.

Had the hens been merely livestock, she would have turned and gone back, left him to do his chore.

She probably shouldn’t have, but over the years she had given every hen and rooster a name. She could hear Henrietta cackling with pride at the egg she must have just laid. And her sister Matilda was brooding a batch of eggs. The chicks were due to hatch in a week.

Holly Jane continued toward the barn. Once she knew that Colt Travers was competent in caring for the flock, she would allow him to take care of them.

All at once a sickening thought hit her like a blow to the belly. She stared at the house, watching through the window while three distant figures ate their breakfast.

What if the Travers family was partial to chicken and dumplings? What if their favorite Sunday dinner was fried chicken?

Today was Sunday!

She hurried to the barn trying to decide what to do. Feed the chickens, yes, but what then? Set them free to become prey to hawks? Keep them in their safe little yard where Colt Travers might make dinner of them?

For now she’d watch to see what the man had in mind. He would have to pass through her land to get to the barn, or take a very long way around. She’d know if he were up to no good.

After she fed the chickens, she turned her attention to the task at hand...creating her new home. Over the past few weeks she had been collecting things to fabricate a shelter under the dome of the carousel. She had an oilcloth tarp to keep out the wind and rain, a big bundle of blankets to fashion a bed of, and two lanterns.

Last week, knowing that the new owners were on the way, she had dragged a big trunk down from the attic and stuffed it with corsets, petticoats, skirts and blouses, aprons and gowns.

Only a few of her personal belongings remained in the house. She ought to leave them there, spare herself the pain and humiliation of going back inside, but they were some of her favorites.

Since there was no help for her situation but to move on with life, Holly Jane picked up a hammer and a big square nail. She began to tack her tarp to the carousal poles.

As a child, she had begged Granddaddy to let her live on the carousel. Well, here she was, her dream fulfilled at last. Without a doubt, her grandfather was somewhere in the Great Beyond having a good belly laugh with Grandma.

* * *

Frowning, Colt stood on the front porch watching Holly Jane trying to hammer a tarp to the carousel.

There were some things that needed setting straight, and he’d begin with breakfast.

The old man hadn’t sold him the ranch with the expectation that his granddaughter would go hungry.

From the looks of things, she also planned to go cold. The temperature might be pleasant right now with the sun all warm and fuzzy, but once it set the night would turn blistering cold in a hurry.

He trotted down the steps with her breakfast plate, watching while she struggled with a hammer that was too heavy and a nail that was too big.

What did that little speck of a girl think she was going to do, live on the carousel?

That didn’t fit with the vow he had made to her granddaddy. He was to care for the spinster...it was written in black and white right on the contract, as legal and binding as all the rest of it. Even if it weren’t a legal obligation, he had given his word. He and William had shaken hands on it.

While it was clear that Holly Jane wasn’t the dried prune that her grandfather had hinted at, he meant to live up to their agreement...and he meant to do it in the house.

He watched her struggle while he crossed the yard. One time she nearly had the tarp tacked up, but the wood was hard and the hammerhead slipped. The nail went flying.

The odd little pig scurried after it, her beribboned ear flapping.

“Don’t you eat that, Lulu!” Holly Jane rucked up her skirt and hurried down the short ladder she had been standing on.

“I never should have sneaked you out of the butcher’s shed!” Holly Jane was so intent on chasing Lulu that she didn’t even notice him coming toward her.

The pair of them wove in and out of wooden horses, fancy carved benches, a lion and an elephant.

Before he knew it, Colt was no longer frowning. Watching the pig’s flapping bow and the woman’s bouncing yellow skirt would turn the sourest day sweet.

But that’s what Holly Jane specialized in, he reckoned, sugar and spice. He couldn’t deny that watching the curvy figure of his charge romping about was a treat. He didn’t even have to visit her shop in town to enjoy a sweet treat.

Too soon the chase ended and Holly Jane shot her pig a triumphant grin. She held the nail high with her delicate-looking fingers gripping it tight.

She climbed the short ladder, swinging yellow skirt and hammer in hand, clearly believing she would nail the tarp to the pole. Too bad the hammer was still too heavy and the nail too large.

The ladder began to wobble. Holly Jane dropped the hammer but held the tarp in place with her fingers.

He reached for the knife slung across his back and drew it from its sheath. He hoped Aunt Tillie was watching so she’d know how many uses his weapon had. She’d harped on him time and again to remove it at home. The trouble was, a man never knew when he might need its services.

Like right now.

Colt let the knife fly and watched with satisfaction as the blade pinned the tarp to the pole. And hell...there was even more satisfaction hearing Miss Sunbeam give a little screech.

She hopped off the ladder and glared at him.

“You could have cut my hand off!”

“Once we’re better acquainted you’ll know the blade was as good as a mile away.”

He walked past her, picked up the hammer and plucked the nail from her fingers. Reaching over her head, he tacked the tarp to the pole with one blow then plucked his knife from the wood.

She tried to hide it, but Miss Holly Jane didn’t seem pleased with his help. That was something she’d have to get used to since he was legally bound to provide it.

“We’re neighbors and nothing more,” she said. “I don’t reckon I’ll see all the things you can do with your blade.”

The plate of food wobbled in his hand. While she blinked at him in virtuous innocence, he imagined all sorts of provocative images involving “his blade.”

He was fairly certain that William Munroe had not meant for him to seduce his granddaughter. Damn far from it... He was supposed to protect her from the advances of greedy suitors.

“Eat your breakfast, Holly Jane.” He set the plate on the floor of the carousel.

She speared a glance at the cold food then at him. She plunked down on the creaky boards and set the plate in her lap. He sat down beside her.

“Look,” he said, watching her nibble a biscuit, “I know you don’t want us here. It must have been tough to find out your grandpappy had sold the place out from under you.”

“I’ll admit, I cried for a solid week.” She looked at him with eyes the color of whiskey stirred in cocoa. “But you should know that I plan to buy it back from you as soon as I can.”

“I ain’t sellin’, Sunshine.” He was sorry that her dream had died with her grandfather, but his had only begun. “But you’ve got a home here as long as you want it.”

“I have a carousel for a home. You, Mr. Travers, are a guest on my front porch.”

“There’s things worse than a carousel to inherit.” A family of criminals, for one. “All that your grandfather wanted was for you to be safe. He knew the Folsoms and the Broadhowers would be after you, so he sold the land to me. Your circle of land being smack in the center of my ranch, guarantees that.”

“I believe that we need to set down some neighborly rules.” Holly Jane put down her plate after eating only the biscuit. “I need to pass through your land to go to town. You need to pass through my land to get to the barn. We should agree to allow that.”

“I appreciate that. You walk freely over my land and I’ll walk freely over yours.”

“Not freely, but to and from. I’ll keep to myself and you keep to yourself.”

“Grannie Rose and Aunt Tillie have their hearts set on mothering you.” She wanted that. He saw the need cross her expression like a ripple on water. “Come back to the house, Holly Jane.”

“I’ll stay on my own land, thank you very much.”

She stood up, clearly dismissing him and his invitation.

“We’re knee-deep in October. It’ll be cold as hell tonight.”

“Don’t worry. Granddaddy built your house to be snug and warm.”

She turned her back on him. Hell and damn... Nothing he said to the woman would make any difference.

She picked up her hammer and another nail.

He wouldn’t help her this time. When she got cold enough she’d come inside.

* * *

At midnight, Holly Jane wrapped the tarp about her body and watched smoke rise from the chimney of the house. The imagined warmth inside made her shiver even more.

The wind had begun to howl at sundown and picked up velocity ever since. Lulu had felt no shame in squealing outside the kitchen door until Grannie Rose let her in.

The little traitor had gone inside gleefully and was, no doubt, warm and coddled by now. At least the raccoon, Mayberry, hadn’t deserted her. The sweet creature sat beside her, no doubt wondering what the foolish human was doing sitting out after dark in the cold.

Defying Granddaddy’s wishes is what.

Colt Travers might believe that her grandfather had sold him the ranch to protect her from the Broadhowers and the Folsoms, but she knew better.

She had been raised by the man and knew him like she knew herself. Colt Travers was not here to protect her from this or that groom... He was here to be the groom.

Granddaddy was a thorough man. He would want her to be protected by a husband, not a neighbor. That’s why he had left her the carousel, so that she would be surrounded by Mr. Travers...nowhere to run...nowhere to hide.

In the moonlight, Holly Jane watched the wind rip the leaves off the trees, whip them about in the air then tumble them on across the earth. Her ribs fairly ached with shivering and, she had to admit, rebellion.

She had never been disobedient to her grandfather during his lifetime, but he knew her as well as she knew him and she was taking a stand.

Colt Wesson Travers was the embodiment of the man she told her grandparents that she would marry. As a dreamy adolescent, she had described him in vivid detail on a daily basis. Granddaddy would have recognized him as easily as she had.

Had she ever guessed that a man existed who fit her fantasy description to a letter, and that Granddaddy would find him and sell him her land, she would have kept her mouth shut.

Oh, but the wind had a bite. She yanked the tarp over her head and squeezed her eyes tight. No matter what happened she was not going to go into that house.

Granddaddy was not going to reach out from beyond the sky and force her to wed.

If she could dodge the Folsoms and duck the Broadhowers, she could elude her neighbor, as well.

And what Granddaddy had failed to take into account was that Colt Travers did not appear to be the marrying kind. He was bad-mannered, bold, certainly not a gallant man like the one of her dreams. He was clearly used to having his way and—

All of a sudden her behind lifted off the carousel and Colt carried her, wrapped up in the tarp. She twisted, trying to wriggle out of the arms that banded her, but they only held on tighter, pressing her against his very solid chest.

It would be a lie to say that this chest was not an exact fulfillment of her dream lover’s chest, but she pushed away from it anyway.

A deep, rumbling laugh vibrated her fingertips.

“Time to come home, Snowflake.”

Chapter Four

Buried in the tarp, all Holly Jane saw was a dark blur of rough canvas, but she knew the instant Colt Travers hauled her across the threshold and into the parlor. Heat from the large fireplace replaced frigid, howling wind. Flames snapped and fizzled in the hearth. With all her strength, she kicked her feet and flailed her arms, trying to escape the folds tucked all about her.

“Let me go!” She jabbed her elbow into his ribs, but she might as well have slammed it into a log wall.

The infernal man laughed, blame him. His deep rumble tickled her body where it pressed against his chest.

She felt the jerky rise and fall of her weight as he mounted the stairs...two at a time, it felt like.

She heard his boot kick a door then the door slam against the wall. She winced, but it was his house, after all.

She felt herself falling. Her backside hit the mattress of her bed.

“You, Colt Travers, are a brute,” she sputtered, digging her way out of the tarp.

“It’s the Travers way.” He cocked his head and smiled down at her. Not only did he appear to find her situation amusing, he clearly enjoyed the physical power he had over her.

“You can’t keep me here... It’s kidnapping.”

“That’s the Travers way, too.”

She freed herself from the tarp then leaped off the bed.

“Stand aside, I’m going home.” When he didn’t, she made to go around him, but he stepped left and blocked her way.

“You are home.”

It felt like home...smelled like it, too, but— “Not anymore. I’m not.”

“I’m inviting you politely to stay.” He filled the doorway with his big, invasive body then leaned against the jamb.

“I’m declining.” She stepped close to him and hoped he noticed the spit and determination in her glare. She would not spend a night in a house that felt like home but with other people living in it. “Kindly move out of my way.”

He shook his head. Collar-length hair, brown and sun streaked, dipped across his forehead. It brushed his cheek, obscuring one of his dimples.

“I reckon your grandfather would have a thing or two to tell me on judgment day if I let you freeze to death.”

“I’m leaving.” She lifted her chin, clamped her jaw tight and prayed that she looked firm...resolute. “If you try and stop me, I’ll scream.”

“Have it your way.”

All of a sudden he lunged at her, scooped her up and dumped her back on the bed. Before she could let out a screech, he’d climbed in beside her and wrapped her tight in his embrace.

“If you scream, you’ll scandalize Grannie Rose and Aunt Tillie.” He arched his brows. His eyes conveyed a searing blue challenge.

He was a devil, and no doubt about it. His thigh crossed her hip. He hugged her bosom close to his chest with his big open hand pressing the small of her back. Heat and temptation curled about her in a sinuous wave, brushing her hair, her belly and twining down her legs.

“I’ll bake you a cake if you get out of my bed.” She offered her proven weapon, but he shook his head.

“Got all the sweets I want right here.” He touched a lock of her hair and gently pulled it. It twisted about his finger, gleaming in the soft lamplight. She’d yank it free but she was stuck.

“I’ve got a deal for you to think about,” he murmured, and let her hair go slack on his finger. “You promise to sleep in the house and I’ll get out of your bed.”

She could refuse... But did that mean he’d stay here all night making her feel... Never mind that.

He was the devil, all right, and charming enough to whisk the bloomers right off her if she weren’t careful.

“If it means that much to you, I’ll stay.” She made sure her voice sounded good and grudging.

He eased out of the bed and took the warmth with him.

“But only this one night,” she clarified.

“Guess that means I’ll meet you here in bed tomorrow night and every other one you try and spend outside.”

“You ought to be locked up. You’re just a crime short of being a criminal.”

For whatever reason, her insult made him laugh and mention the Travers way again. He kept on laughing, too. She listened to the disturbing timbre of his voice while he walked down the hall then descended the stairs.

A gust of wind hit the window, shook it like a fist. She snuggled into her pillow grateful to be in her bed with her blankets over her. What made her think that she could survive outside with the cold weather coming on?

Pride in all its foolishness, she reckoned. Still, she wasn’t ready to let go of it entirely. Self-respect counted for something.

That meant in order to save face she’d have to act out some sort of objection to remaining in the house. She only hoped the price was not beginning each night in bed with Colt Travers.

“How great a folly is it to lie to one’s own self?” she asked the wise old owl who circled the night sky beyond the window.

* * *

A couple of things had kept Colt from getting more than a few moments of sleep last night.

He walked across the yard in the predawn listening to the crunch of his boots cut the crisp, quiet morning. He thought about those two things.

One of them was the barn, big and red in the distance setting on top of the rise of a gentle green slope. It had been a long time since animals had lived in it. William had sold off the stock when he became ill.

Colt had been sorry as hell to learn of his friend’s passing. But because of William’s eagerness for him to have the place, he didn’t feel guilty for taking it over.

They had discussed his plans for the horses on those quiet nights they had shared by the fire. If folks could reach down from eternity, he figured William was walking beside him, as excited as he was for the revival of the ranch.

Too bad he couldn’t tell him that a dozen horses, the parents of many to come, were waiting for him at a ranch only a day’s ride away. He would bring them home in plenty of time to settle in before the first snowfall of the year.

He only had a week to get the barn ready for them. It would be a challenge, but one he had never really hoped to have. If it hadn’t been for William, he would still be sweating for the railroad with only the next payday to look forward to.

A side door of the barn opened then closed. The second reason he hadn’t slept last night was now stepping out into the dim light of dawn.

Holly Jane lifted her face to the morning breeze. Her chest rose and fell with the deep breath she took.

Because of her, he hadn’t wanted to doze. Each time he closed his eyes he dreamed of her plush little body wriggling in his arms and the sweet brown gaze of a virgin blinking at him with her first stirring of sexual interest. He’d been around women often enough to know when this was the case.

The trouble was, his interest had stirred right back. He’d bet the farm that William hadn’t intended him to seduce his granddaughter.

Apparently, Holly Jane hadn’t noticed him walking toward the barn. She reached down and patted Lulu on the head, then turned and took the path that led to the bridge, then the lane that went to Friendship Springs.

It took some effort not to laugh and alert her of his presence, but hell and damn, the pig wore a bow of the same blue dotted fabric as Holly Jane’s dress. The bow bounced in the piggy ear in time with the sway of Holly Jane’s skirt.

Since Holly Jane didn’t see him watching, he looked his fill. She wore her hair loose this morning; it shivered over her back, catching the first rays of sunshine.

A raccoon rustled out of the bushes and waddled up to her. She patted its head. Then the pig touched noses with the critter.

“What the hell, Bo Peep?” he murmured. He’d never seen anything like that.

He shook his head. Maybe when the time came, he wouldn’t have to go through the sweat of rounding up his herd, he’d just ask Holly Jane to give them a whistle.

He swung the big barn door open wide then stepped inside. Sparkling dust motes chased each other in the dawn light that began to peek through the wood slats.

Five stalls lined one wall, and he would add two more to the wall opposite. He meant to have his mares deliver in the safety of the barn rather than on the open land.

A flock of fat hens pecked at seed in a dim corner. Holly Jane must have fed them before she went to work at The Sweet Treat.

Smack in the center of the flock was Sunday dinner. He could nearly taste the crunch of a fried wing right now.

With more work to be done than time to do it, Colt set himself to the task of making the barn his own.

In no time, it seemed, Aunt Tillie came by to bring him the noon meal.

He sat beside her on a bale of hay and gobbled down a hunk of bread with blueberry jam spread all over it.

“How’s Grannie Rose this morning?” he mumbled around the bite of crust.

“Mind your manners, boy.” Aunt Tillie slapped his wrist.

He grinned at her and winked. He didn’t ordinarily eat with his mouth full of food, but his aunt needed someone to fuss over.

“Considering she saw an alligator in the flower garden this morning, she’s doing well.”

“Is she getting worse, do you think?” It hurt, watching his grandmother’s mind falter.

“Sometimes, maybe. Other times she’s as sharp as the both of us combined. She still understands when I tell her that the unreasonable things she sees are in her mind...and the main thing is, Colt, she’s happy.”

“What about you? Will you be happy here?”

She didn’t speak for a minute. She sighed then smiled at him.

“Thank you for bringing us here. It’s paradise compared to the viper pit you took us out of.”

“Too bad Holly Jane had to lose the place for us to get it.” He did feel bad about that.

“Your grandmother heard you last night when she got out of bed to use the chamber pot,” Aunt Tillie arched a brow at him. “Once you marry the child, she’ll feel at home again.”

“I ain’t getting roped and tied,” he said between bites of an apple. “Especially to Little Bo Peep.”

“Bo Peep, is it? You seem defensive, Colt. You always call people names when you want some distance... Rose said you kidnapped her according to the Travers way... You said those very words.”

“It was late, and she wasn’t kidnapped. I just brought her in from the cold so her granddaddy won’t haunt me.”

His aunt laughed. She stood, kissed the top of his dusty hair and walked out of the barn.

He wasn’t comfortable with the way she kept on laughing all the way out into the warm afternoon.

He set to work, rucking out stalls and repairing broken boards. Working up a good sweat ought to get his mind off matchmaking old ladies and back where it belonged, ankle-deep in straw and dried-out manure.

* * *

It had been six days since the Travers family had taken over Holly Jane’s home and, she had to admit, the world had not ended. In some ways life had improved.

For instance, because Colt had spread the word that the ranch belonged to him, she was able to sit beside the spring in Town Square without a single suitor pressing his suit.

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