Kitabı oku: «A Rancher's Vow»

Chapter One

The dog’s eyes no longer held suspicion when they gazed at him, but still she remained curled on the floor, shoulder wedged against the passenger seat, as Reed Quarrels pulled his truck onto the washboard dirt road that signaled the start of Curly-Q land.

He soon stopped, hopped out and swung open the metal pipe-and-wire gate to his past.

The dog limped along behind him and stopped to sniff around a twisted cypress. Reed didn’t rush her. Who knew how long she’d been starving and sick and wounded. He didn’t mind giving her a few minutes of privacy.

Fetching a jug of water from the back of the truck, Reed poured himself a cup. He took a long swallow and looked out over the New Mexican land he hadn’t seen in more than a year and which, a lifetime ago, he had mistakenly assumed would be his to run. He’d smartened up more than a dozen years ago, though, and had gone his own way.

Worn cedar and barbed-wire fences surrounded yellowing grasses. A handful of mostly white-faced cattle grazed nearby, and there were more, he knew, in the canyon below. Nearly sixty thousand acres of rich, volcanic-based grasslands as far as the eye could see were broken down into manageable, gated pastures. Reed swept his gaze over the high desert country—almost seven thousand feet—across the long-deserted mining area in the foothills, to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in the distance.

Closer—only a few feet away—the dog was staring at him expectantly. Reed refilled the cup and, hunkering down to her level, held it out. Her pointed nose dipped into the water, but her gaze never left his face.

“You trust me a little, huh?” he murmured.

In answer, her tail moved slightly, an imitation of a real wag.

“Poor girl.” He stared at her ragged, infected ear and only hoped she would trust him enough to let him take care of it later. He hadn’t tried touching her yet. “You’ve had a rough time, haven’t you? But your luck just changed. You can count on me to take care of things.”

Despite the hamburger he’d bought her earlier, the dog had a hungry look that he figured would stay with her a spell. So he fetched a piece of jerky from his jeans jacket. She practically swallowed it whole.

“That’ll have to do you for a little while. Shouldn’t eat too much all at once anyhow. You’d be sick.”

He rose and moved toward the pickup. The dog jumped in ahead of him and settled back on the floor. She’d ridden there all the way from the truck stop where he’d found her. Not that she’d come to him right off—she’d been terrified and he’d had to wait her out—the reason he’d missed his own brother’s wedding. Well, the ceremony, anyway, the celebration was undoubtedly just starting.

Or was the dog an excuse?

If not the dog, would he have found another reason to delay his homecoming?

Not because of Chance, though…

Reed moved the pickup to the other side of the fence, got out, closed the gate and clambered back behind the wheel, a ritual to be repeated all over the large ranch.

Howard Siles had summoned him in person. Pa’s lawyer had located all three of the Quarrels boys—each the sole fruit of one of Emmett Quarrels’s three disastrous marriages. The lawyer had given Reed the good news-bad news that had cut past his reluctance to bring him home.

The Curly-Q had been turned into a family corporation because Emmett Quarrels was dying.

Pa dying…

Reed could hardly believe it. The old man was too ornery to die.

But Chance was back. And Bart. Reed had called the ranch and had talked to his older half brother the week before only to learn that life on the spread wasn’t rosy. Lots of bad-luck incidents, as Pa liked to call them, one after the other, and the Curly-Q was broke, the mortgage in arrears.

Bart hadn’t elaborated, but Reed was uneasy, nevertheless. A sense of doom which he tried shaking away, hung over his head. The old feelings were crowding him, nothing more. He needn’t allow his imagination to run away with him over a couple of accidents.

So why didn’t he feel more relaxed?

The pickup lumbered past the scale house where cattle on the way to market would be weighed before being shipped off to auction. No cows or calves in the corral now, Reed noted. He hoped the calves hadn’t all been sold off. Beef prices were too damn low. They’d undoubtedly get more per pound in the spring, and the calves would be yearlings and weigh a lot more, as well. They were lucky that the heart of the protected canyon was prime grazing land, even in winter.

Reaching the piñon and ponderosa pine–limned rimrock, the road dotted with dark green cedar, rusting scrub oak and grayish juniper bush, Reed started the descent into the canyon cut by Silverado Creek, which twisted and turned and rushed across the Curly-Q. The vehicle dipped and bounced its way down hairpin curves, while red dust swirled around him.

The buildings spread out below, and beyond them, people spread out like a colony of ants. The wedding celebration was in progress.

As if nothing were wrong…

Things were wrong or he and his brothers wouldn’t have been summoned home, and Reed knew in his gut that the wrong went beyond Pa’s illness. If things didn’t come together right quick, the Curly-Q would be a thing of the past. But Bart was a lawman at heart, and Chance had been content alternating between day work and rodeoing for years. He was the only one who’d ranched all his life.

Now that Pa was incapacitated, Reed figured that without him, the spread would fast go back to desert. Or become part of another ranch. Or be divided and built on—another fancy housing development like that Land of Enchantment Acres he’d seen on the other side of Silver Springs. Ripe pickings for foreigners, he thought. Those southern Californians would move right in.

The Curly-Q needed him.

Pa needed him.

Reed wondered if the old man had figured that out, at last.

HEARING ANOTHER VEHICLE pull up beyond the ranch house, Alcina Dale turned away from Chance and Pru’s daughter only for a moment. Chance’s twelve-year-old niece, Lainey, had insisted on taking posed photographs of the happy couple before the party began in earnest, and Alcina had volunteered to watch the bride and groom’s little redheaded daughter.

And now she was watching for the man who hadn’t shown for his own brother’s wedding, she realized, chastising her foolish self and quickly returning her attention where it belonged.

Unfortunately, those few seconds of inattention had been more than enough time for the two-year-old to get herself into mischief. The toddler had headed straight to the nearby table that groaned with food for the wedding supper. She was now rocking on tiptoe and reaching both hands high over her head.

“Hope, honey, no!” Alcina cried as the toddler got her fingers on a platter piled with barbecued ribs.

She made a dive for the child as the platter wobbled and a couple of ribs slid off the mound and onto Hope. One slab zapped straight down the front of Alcina’s yellow dress that she’d bought to wear as Pru’s bridesmaid. Unhurt, Hope shrieked with laughter and lunged for her honorary aunt.

Alcina made her second mistake when she hauled the saucy little girl up into her arms.

“What am I going to do with you?” she asked, even as Hope laughed again, touching Alcina’s face and hair with sticky fingers.

“Maybe we should dunk the little hoyden in the horse trough and be done with it.”

This came from a laughing Felice Cuma. The housekeeper set another platter on the table—homemade enchiladas with green sauce. Felice had cooked her heart out for the wedding supper—fried chicken, pork tamales, posole, mashed potatoes, beans and more. She’d been the one to insist it be held here on the ranch so she could do for Chance, who was as much a son to her as if she’d given birth to him. Alcina knew Chance felt the same sort of love for Felice, who’d raised him after his biological mother had abandoned him.

Felice shook her head as she retrieved the fallen ribs. “Well, the dogs will get a treat,” she muttered, carrying the dust-covered meat away from the table and toward the stables where they’d been locked out of the way.

The wedding celebration was being held in the freshly mowed pasture directly behind the sprawling ranch house. A band was setting up by the portable dance floor across the way—once the music got going, everyone would no doubt dance until dark. Not much in the way of entertainment in these parts, Alcina thought, so she was certain the good citizens of Silver Springs would take advantage where they could.

Tables and chairs had been laid out, many under the cottonwoods, but at the moment, most of the hundred or so guests were milling about, getting drinks and talking up a storm. Luckily, the weather was with them. Though it was late November, the sky was a brilliant blue and the afternoon had warmed nearly to seventy.

Alcina was thinking that Chance and Pru couldn’t have asked for a more perfect wedding day, when she glanced up into a familiar set of brown eyes that warmed her from the inside.

“Reed,” she choked out, the breath catching in her throat, and she realized the vehicle she’d heard had been his.

She took a good long look at him. He was wearing creased tan trousers, polished snakeskin boots and a dress shirt buttoned to the throat and held there by a string tie with a jasper catch. He’d filled out some, but he wasn’t an imposing man, not like Bart or Chance. Still, he had his own brand of appeal.

“Alcina Dale. It’s been a long time,” Reed said, the quiet certainty of his voice that she remembered so well thrilling her after all these years.

He removed his pale gray Stetson to reveal neatly combed brown hair. Alcina’s mouth went dry. He still reminded her of a young Robert Redford—maybe not as pretty, but modestly handsome in his own right. He had that same dignity as Redford. That same quiet self-assurance.

But as he gave her situation with Hope a once-over, his dignity cracked and he ineffectually tried to smother his laughter with a cough.

Putting an embarrassed Alcina immediately on the defensive.

She’d thought about this moment for a long, long time, ever since she’d returned to Silver Springs. She’d imagined the moment she would come face-to-face with her first infatuation, a man who, as history had proved, would only see her as his older brother’s high-school friend.

She hadn’t imagined that she would be holding twenty-some pounds of wiggling trouble in her arms, that her dress would be streaked with sauce, that her hair and face would be as sticky as a mischievous little girl’s hands.

Chagrined, she stiffly said, “It has been a while.” More than a dozen years. “Obviously, there was nothing here for you before.”

Reed’s smile evaporated and Alcina realized he might have taken her wrong. She’d meant herself—that he wouldn’t have come back because of her. Instead, she feared, her words had come out sounding like a criticism of his motives, his father being near death’s door and all.

Reed set his hat back in place. “I think I’d better tend to my family…and let you tend to yours.”

“Family?” she echoed, even as Hope wrenched around in her arms and squealed to be let down. “You mean Hope…oh, no, she’s not mine. This is your brother’s child, Reed. Chance and Pru’s. She’s your niece. Hope, honey, say hello to your uncle Reed.”

Alcina couldn’t help herself. The devil made her do it. She offered the sticky child to the middle Quarrels brother. Reed hesitated only a second before taking her. He certainly didn’t seem squeamish about having a child in his arms, Alcina realized.

The two studied each other for a moment. Hope’s expression became as intent as her uncle’s, and Alcina was struck by a resemblance she hadn’t expected to see.

And for a moment, her stomach fluttered as she imagined Reed holding his own child. Their child.

Nonsense!

She was a little old to have kids. At thirty-seven, her biological clock had almost run out of time. Besides, she had her status as the town spinster to uphold…even if the designation wasn’t exactly accurate.

“So you’re Hope,” Reed said. “I’ve heard about you.”

The little girl seemed as mesmerized by his smooth-whiskey voice as she was, Alcina thought. She clenched her jaw and told herself to stop salivating.

Reed Quarrels had never been attracted to her. He’d preferred spunky little tomboys who sat a horse well and knew all about beeves.

Suddenly shy, Hope turned her face away from Reed’s and shrieked, “M’ma!”

“Mama’s coming, sweetheart!”

Alcina noted that Pru and Chance were headed straight for them, other members of the Quarrels family following—Emmett, and Bart and his kids, Lainey and Daniel. A regular family reunion.

One to which she didn’t belong.

Knowing when she wasn’t needed, Alcina backed off unnoticed as Reed was surrounded. She headed for the house and a bathroom where she could clean up. Josie Walker, the Curly-Q wrangler and Bart’s woman, was coming outside, carrying a big basket of corn bread.

Eyes widening, she asked, “What happened to you?”

“Hope.”

“Ah-h.” Josie nodded in understanding and looked past her. “So what’s the big commotion? Is that who I think it is?”

“It’s Reed.”

“I’m so glad. Bart said he’d show.”

Alcina didn’t miss the inflection in Josie’s voice at Bart’s name—the woman was love struck. They would already be married if it weren’t for his kids, who were still getting over their mother’s tragic death the year before. Alcina admired the couple’s patience. Josie and Bart were doing the right thing, giving the kids time to get used to the relationship.

Josie gave her a pointed look. “So, Reed’s back—why are you hightailing it in the opposite direction?”

Pru had a big mouth, Alcina thought. It was one thing when her best friend teased her about her schoolgirl infatuation. Another when she got other people into the act…though to be fair, Josie was the only one Pru had told. As far as Alcina knew, anyway.

“I said hello,” Alcina said, voice stiff.

“Uh-oh. Doesn’t sound like it went well.”

“With Reed, it never does.”

“We’ll have to work on that.”

“Josie, don’t try to play matchmaker,” Alcina pleaded. “And if Pru comes up with any bright ideas about getting Reed and me together, I would appreciate your discouraging her.”

“Oh, come on—”

“I’m serious. You have enough on your plate to take care of, anyway,” Alcina said.

Things were working out so well between Josie and Bart’s kids that Alcina figured it wouldn’t be much longer before the couple made their relationship official.

“Let me give you some advice,” Josie said. “Real love doesn’t come around that often. And neither does a good man, as I very well know. So if you want Reed and you get a shot at him, take it. If you don’t, you’ll always wonder what might have been.”

Josie had a point when it came to the good man part. But, as to her getting a shot at Reed…

The man barely knew she existed.

REUNITED WITH HIS FAMILY, Reed kept taking in Pa with disbelief. Emmett Quarrels was smaller than Reed remembered—they were about the same height now—and he’d lost weight in the past year. The shock of white hair and faded blue eyes were nothing new, but the sunken cheeks and sagging skin were, and they made him look older than his seventy years.

“I knew you wouldn’t let me down, Son.” Pa’s declaration was followed by a dry cough that set Reed on edge.

“Hey, I thought this was my wedding,” Chance complained.

“Don’t be getting on your high horse here, Boy,” Pa said. “You know what I mean.”

If Chance was angry, he wasn’t showing it. He and Pru were beaming in their happiness.

“I meant to be at the church,” Reed told them both apologetically. “I really did. But there was something I had to take care of at the last minute on the Evergreen, so I started off late, and then I ran into a problem on the road.”

“You’re here now, Reed,” Pru said. “That’s all that counts, right, sweetheart?”

Chance flashed his teeth in a sincere-looking smile. “You bet, darlin’, that’s good enough for me.”

The brothers threw their arms around each other in a manly hug. Reed was relieved that Chance accepted his regrets without questioning him about his actual situation.

“Congratulations, Chance. Do I get to kiss the bride now?”

“Only if you keep it short and sweet.”

“Pru, welcome to the family,” Reed said, hugging her and giving her a quick kiss. “Finally.”

Which was all he would say on the matter. Considering their daughter was nearly two years old, it was about time his brother made an honest woman of Pru.

“Good to see you, Reed,” Bart said, slapping him on the back. “And it’ll be good working together again.”

Together? Or would he be working for Bart?

Another thing that ate at Reed, though he kept that to himself, as well.

A few minutes of catch-up and his niece Lainey was agitating for photographs of the three brothers together.

“Better be careful,” Reed’s sixteen-year-old nephew Daniel warned them. “Lainey thinks she’s an artist. She might make you do some weird stuff.”

“You’re the weirdo,” Lainey told her brother.

Reed grinned. The siblings reminded him of Chance and Bart when they’d been kids.

As Lainey painstakingly photographed them in several different poses, Reed’s attention wandered a bit. He kept musing on Alcina’s whereabouts.

Always the proper lady with every hair in place, she’d shown him a new side of herself today. A side that had intrigued him. He’d remembered her as being prissy—actually, she’d gotten a little prissy earlier when he’d laughed at her. She’d been so natural with Hope, though, not worrying about her own finery. Seeing her like that had roused his curiosity.

“Uncle Reed, you’re not paying attention!” Lainey complained. “You’ve got to smile.”

Reed did his best to please her.

One more photograph and Chance said, “Okay, that’s it for now, Lainey. We’d best get to the grub quick, before all those old bachelor cowboys who are normally deprived of good home-cooking get in line for seconds. Then we’ll starve to death.”

Having noted the huge quantity of food laid out, Reed thought that was a gross exaggeration. And, even though the brothers were the last to reach the buffet table, none of them would go hungry.

Undoubtedly Chance was anxious to get back to his new bride and daughter, and Reed could hardly blame him.

He admitted to a bit of healthy jealousy as he watched Chance rejoin Pru and kiss her as if they’d been apart for years instead of mere minutes. Somehow that kind of love had never come his way. Working six or seven days a week as he usually did, Reed doubted that he would ever have time to look for it, either. Maybe he was destined to be another old bachelor cowboy.

The band started up as he filled his plate with Felice’s finest. Reed dipped his head in time to the music. He looked over to the dance floor as Pru and Chance stepped up, followed by two other couples. So much for his brother’s appetite, Reed thought, grinning to himself.

His plate in hand, Reed was leaving the buffet, when he felt as if he was being watched. The short hairs at the back of his neck shot to attention. Warily, he turned to meet the gaze of a burly man with pale eyes and a white buzz cut. Then Reed realized the man was standing behind the makeshift bar. It was only the bartender, for pity’s sake.

The man waved him over with one hand, lifted an empty glass with the other.

Feeling foolish, Reed complied.

“You must be brother number three. Hugh Ruskin—I tend bar over at the Silver Slipper.”

Ruskin held out a hand heavy with expensive rings that Reed wouldn’t expect to see on a bartender. He gave the man a quick shake.

“Reed Quarrels. That old saloon is still going, huh?”

“A man’s got to have a place to quench his thirst, even in a small town like Silver Springs,” Ruskin said. “So what’s your pleasure?”

“Whatever’s on tap will do.”

Ruskin filled a mug. “I hear you’ve been working up in Colorado, running the show on some spread ten times the size of this one.”

“For the past few years,” Reed agreed, wondering why he should be the focus of town gossip. “Though someone exaggerated the size of the Evergreen.”

“Still, when you’re used to running a major operation like that one…”

Ruskin was peering at him closely as if waiting for him to spill his guts. Say how unhappy he was to be back or something. Reed figured the bartender got some kick out of keeping his finger on the pulse of the town, having juicy tidbits to spread around to his patrons.

Could the man really know about his hesitancy at returning? About the problematic dynamics between him and Bart? Or was he just fishing?

Not about to fuel any gossip, Reed picked up his mug and sipped the head off the beer. “You know what they say…nothing like home.”

Something flashed through the other man’s pale eyes. Something that unsettled Reed.

And the bartender’s thumbs-up sign and his “Gotcha there, my friend,” seemed a little forced.

Wondering about Hugh Ruskin—where he came from, what he was doing tending bar in a backwater town like Silver Springs—Reed saluted him with the beer and left the bar. Uneasy still, he made a mental note to ask Bart or Chance about the bartender later.

In the meantime, he quickly scanned the crowd until he spotted Alcina, who was sitting at the end of a table under a couple of big cottonwoods. Her long fingers with perfectly manicured nails were worrying the stem of a wineglass as if she was distracted. The plate before her was half-empty and pushed far enough in front of her to indicate she’d finished eating.

Her golden-blond hair was pulled up into a French twist, but fine wisps curled at her temples and down her long, elegant neck, which was circled by a single strand of pearls. He’d bet they were real, too. Her finely cut profile was free of the barbecue sauce that had decorated it earlier. A lovely woman, indeed, Reed thought appreciatively, not having seen her the last time he’d come home for a visit. The seat next to her was vacant.