Do Not Forsake Me (43 page)

Jake grinned. “Can't blame you there, Son.”

“Yeah, well, don't you tease Katie about it. You know how easily she gets embarrassed.”

“That's why teasing her is so much fun.”

“I mean it, Pa. I know you.”

“I'll try my best to be good.” Jake kept Randy close as he watched Cole and Pepper rifle through the pockets and saddlebags of the dead men. “How in hell did you know there might be trouble?” he asked Lloyd.

“That courier from Denver, Jason Hale, saw them from Echo Ridge. He was on his way to us with some news, and he knew we wouldn't likely be herding cattle to Denver this early in the season. When we heard there might be rustlers out here, we rode half the night trying to catch up with them, or with you—whichever came first. I was hoping you'd miss them all together, but no such luck.”

“Hale never comes out in the middle of the week like this,” Jake commented. He kept an arm around Randy as he took another drag on his cigarette. “What did he want?”

Lloyd seemed hesitant. He sighed before answering. “It's not exactly good news. Jeff Trubridge wired us about something he thought we should know right away. Trouble is, Jason gave the note to Evie and it upset her. Brian is home now, though, so she'll be all right. He always knows how to reassure her.”

Jake came instantly alert and Randy felt a sick alarm as the both faced Lloyd. “What's wrong?” Jake asked.

“Lloyd, is Evie okay?” Randy pressed. “She's going to have another baby and shouldn't get upset.”

“
Baby?
Sis is pregnant again?”

“Yes, though don't let on that you know. She's going to tell us at Sunday dinner. I already told your father to act surprised.”

“What the hell is wrong?” Jake asked, raising his voice more. “Why is Evie upset?”

Lloyd rubbed at his eyes. “Shit. I didn't know she was pregnant again. That just makes things worse.”

“Makes
what
worse?” Jake asked.

Lloyd pulled the note from his pocket and handed it to Jake, then looked at his mother. “Mike Holt is out of prison—won some kind of appeal. He'll come after me as sure as the sun shines every day.” He turned to Jake then. “The past just keeps on rearing its ugly head, doesn't it?”

Jake closed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair. “Thanks to me.”

“I didn't mean it that way, Pa. This one is my fault too, for shooting Holt's brother in the back. But after what happened to Evie—”

Randy saw it then—that little flame of Jake Harkner that lived in her son. The dark, vengeful side. She always hated seeing it because Lloyd was raised in love. He never knew the horrific childhood his father grew up with, and he was far more forgiving than Jake, but he had the ability to wreak revenge if warranted, the ability to shoot a man with no regrets if that man dared to harm one of his own.

“I just don't want that man to suddenly show his face to Evie,” Lloyd told Jake. “I don't think she could handle it if she saw even one of those men again.”

“We should have killed every last one of them when we had the chance,” Jake stewed.

“We couldn't just execute the ones left alive, Pa, much as we would have liked to. But you would have ended up back in prison, and Evie would have never lived that down. We couldn't let her see her father and brother deliberately murder those men. And maybe she was able to forgive them, but having to face any of them again…who knows what that would do to her? If she's having another baby, that's a damn good sign her and Brian's marriage is healed. I'm just trying to figure out if we should discuss this with her or just leave it alone and hope the bastard doesn't show up.”

“I'll decide when the time is right to talk to her about it,” Randy told them. “She might even bring it up herself.”

“Let me talk to Brian first,” Jake told her.

“Katie will be none too happy about this either,” Lloyd told them. “This will scare her to death after all that happened back in Guthrie. I left her in the barn and took off without even explaining anything, but she'll find out before I get back and she'll be upset.”

“You probably should have stayed with her and let the other men come out here,” Jake told him.

“When my parents could both be in trouble?” He tried to make light of the situation as he gave his mother a teasing grin. “I figured I'd better try to keep this old man from getting himself into more trouble. Sometimes I'm the only one who can do that.”

Jake scowled at him. “I could make you sorry for calling me an old man, but I wouldn't want to mess up that pretty face for Katie.”

Lloyd grinned. “That'll be the day.”

Jake held his gaze, the look in his eyes softening. “It'll be okay, Son. We have good men working for us. We just have to be extra alert for a while. For all we know, Holt will want to stay out of trouble and he won't show up at all.”

“Yeah, and fish don't need water. Stay here with Mom,” he told Jake. “The other men and I will get these men buried. You go wielding a shovel and you'll start that cut bleeding all over again.”

“Be sure to save all their belongings. We'll have one of the men take them to Denver and report this.” He saw the worry in Lloyd's eyes at the remark. Lloyd and pretty much everyone else in the family always feared something could happen to land Jake back in prison. “I was in the right, Lloyd. Cattle thieves are the same as horse thieves. If I hadn't shot them, they would have been hanged. There won't be any trouble over this.”

Lloyd nodded. “I know. It's just—”

“The name. I know.”

Lloyd smiled sadly. “I'm glad we found you and Mom okay. I sure as hell know this was something you could handle, Pa, but there's always that little worry that something could go wrong this time, and I didn't like thinking Mom could be left out here alone.”

“So, you came back because of
her
, not me”

“Of course I did. I knew damn well you'd be okay on your own.” Lloyd grinned and Jake couldn't help his own smile then.

“Well, you did right,” he told his son. “Let's get these men buried and get home. There's a lot of rounding up and branding to do.” Jake called out to the other men, “Any of you recognize any of those men? Did you find something with their names on it?”

“Got names off of five of them,” Cole answered, “but I don't know any of them. Pepper doesn't either.”

Jake watched Cole Decker limp over to his horse. He had an old leg wound from the war, and that was all Jake knew about his background. Cole was of slender build but strong as a horse, and he tended to drink too much, but he was a happy drinker, not a mean one, so that was okay with Jake. He suspected some pretty shady doings in the man's past, not much different from Jake himself, but he knew by a man's eyes if he could be trusted, and Cole could be trusted.
All
his men could be trusted, or he wouldn't allow them anywhere near his family.

He turned and pulled Randy close again. “Okay, woman, you're right. I don't just love you. I
adore
you.
I
worship
you.” He hugged her even tighter. “And I'm glad as hell you're all right.”

“I will accept those words,” she answered, her face buried into his sheepskin jacket. She breathed deeply of his familiar scent, then looked up at him. “Let's go home to the grandchildren. Suddenly I want very much to see them and get back to a normal routine. It helps me handle things like this.”

Jake leaned down to kiss her. Randy thought how few women could have a moment like this with their husbands while surrounded by six men he'd just shot dead. She hugged him tighter. “Oh, Jake, don't let go for a while.”

“I never let go of you, even when we aren't together.” Jake watched the other men start digging graves closer to the trees. “I suppose you'll want to pray over those no-goods,” he told Randy.

“It's the right thing to do.”

“If it was up to me, I'd strip them down and leave them for the buzzards.”

Randy laughed through her tears, needing the relief from the tense drama of what had just happened. His remark was so typical of Jake Harkner. “Oh, Jake, God is going to have a time with you when you get to heaven,” she teased, her ears still ringing from the boom of her husband's guns.

“Yeah, well, I think he and I will have a whole lot to talk about. Let's just hope that conversation takes place a good ten or twenty years from now.”

Randy hugged him tighter, unable to begin to imagine life without this man. Always there was the worry that the next gunfight would be his last. “I love you, Jake.”

He sighed, rocking her slightly in his arms. “We'll go back to that cabin again before summer is out. I promise.”

“Can we stay even longer next time?”

“Sure we can.”

“Jake, I'm scared for Lloyd.”

“Nothing will happen to Lloyd or anybody else in this family. I won't let it.”

That's what worries me even more
. Randy looked up at him, felt his lips on hers in an oh-so familiar kiss.

But even now she had a sick feeling this was just the beginning of new troubles for the Harkner family.

Read on for an excerpt from Anna Schmidt's

Last Chance Cowboys:
The Drifter

From the author…

As with every book I write, the story came first and then came the realization of the true meaning of that story. With the Last Chance Cowboys, every story is about how life changes in unexpected ways and at the most inconvenient times—usually just at the time we think everything is going so well! In the first story, Floridian Chet Hunter is
The Drifter
—a man who has traveled across the country headed for California and a little peace. And while he's riding those lonely, dusty trails toward what he does not yet know is his destiny, Maria Porterfield is thrust into the role of “head of family” when her father dies and her older brother takes off for greener pastures. Their worlds collide when Chet rides up to the Porterfield ranch seeking only a meal and a chance to rest his horse. The connection is immediate and confusing for both Maria and Chet. And when Chet agrees to stay on—“for a while”—what each of them thought was their future shifts…in such a good way!

In my life, I've had to face a number of those unexpected and inconvenient changes—as have you, dear reader. My own battle with uterine cancer and the death of my beloved a few years ago casting me into a world and life I could not have imagined and felt ill-prepared to face are just two of my life-changing moments. What I know for sure is that change comes for a reason, and in the end, change will either make us stronger (and perhaps better people) or it will destroy us and any chance we might have at a different sort of peace and happiness. May all your challenges be small ones and may you—like Maria—fall madly in love with
The Drifter
…

Chet had gotten next to no sleep and his eyes were bleary, making it hard to focus. He could see that it was raining in the distance—probably at the Porterfield ranch, but he was miles from there and the sky was clear. The dust that the wind was whipping up kept him from seeing more than a foot in front of his horse's nose, and the fact was that the missing cows were almost the same color as the landscape. According to Bunker's best guess, a steer and two calves were still missing. Bunker and the other hands seemed willing to accept the losses as normal, apparently satisfied that they had rounded up most of the herd and the damage was not too great. But Chet didn't like leaving even one animal behind. Not knowing their fate ate at him.

Cracker scouted ahead, then ran back, tail wagging. She knew the drill but not the territory and she was being extra cautious. After an hour with no luck, Chet turned away from the river and the terrain changed from parched grassland to barren dry rock formations that jutted up out of the land as if they'd exploded. Chet thought he heard something and Cracker turned and sniffed the air to their left.

There it was again. The bleating cry told Chet this was one of the calves and he gently kneed his horse's sides, at the same time signaling Cracker to approach with caution. They wound their way around an outcropping of jagged rocks and there stood the calf—none the worse for his adventure but obviously scared and confused. Chet loosed his rope from the back of his saddle and dismounted.

“Hey there, young man,” he said, keeping his voice low and soft and forming his noose as he approached. The calf backed away and let out another loud bleat for help. “Your mama's probably back at the ranch by now. How 'bout we go find her?” He swung the rope once and let it fall right over the calf's head and neck. The calf startled and turned to run, but Cracker was right there. Chet hung on, planting his boot heels in the dirt. “Whoa there, my little friend.”

It took less than five minutes for him to gain control of the calf and mount up again to continue the search. He doubted that the steer would go along as easily…if he even found it.

Another hour, then two. The sun had reached its peak and Chet drained the last of his water. He hadn't bothered to refill it before turning away from the river. In fact, he'd not filled it last night before turning in—distracted by the way the day had gone. He'd been more concentrated on brushing down his horse and ridding Cracker of the dust and dirt of their journey. Then he'd washed up and put on a clean shirt, thinking all the time about how he might best approach Maria Porterfield, who seemed—in spite of her gender and the fact that she couldn't be more than twenty, if that—to be in charge of the ranch.

He had to figure out the right way to speak to her so she might offer him a job. From the minute he stumbled across the fenced land of the Tipton Brothers Company, he'd begun to have his doubts about working for that outfit. He tended to be a live-and-let-live kind of guy. Judging by all that barbed wire, those who ran Tipton Brothers liked being in control. There would be a lot of rules and probably not much pay. Men who owned big companies like that could be pretty tightfisted when it came to sharing the profits. If he could work at a smaller spread like the Porterfield ranch, that would probably be a better fit.

Eduardo had come to the barn while Chet was washing up. Chet hadn't been fooled for one minute when the Mexican babbled on about needing to stay out there for the night. Something about a coyote coming after the chickens. Truth was that he was glad for the company. Eduardo seemed inclined to talk and that suited Chet just fine. It had been Eduardo who had advised him to wait until morning before trying to talk to “Miss Maria.”

“She's been having a pretty hard time of it these last few months. My Juanita says she hasn't even grieved properly for her papa.”

Over the course of the evening, he'd learned all about Mr. Porterfield's tragic death, the fact that the eldest son had taken his inheritance out in cash and headed east, and the details of how the ranch's foreman had just that morning quit and left with three of the ranch's most experienced hands. What he hadn't been able to get Eduardo to talk about was the women of the house—especially the fair-haired beauty the men called
Miss Maria
in a tone that bordered on reverence. As he rode on searching for the other missing animals, he realized that as much as he wanted to find out what had happened to those strays, he wanted more than anything to return them to
Miss Maria
. He wondered if that might even make her smile. She struck him as someone who did not smile nearly enough.

* * *

It was late afternoon when Maria saw Roger Turnbull's mustang gallop into the courtyard. He slid from the saddle and ran toward her as if he had just discovered that the house was on fire and he was needed to rescue its occupants.

“Maria, are you all right? Is everyone all right?”

It occurred to Maria that there had been a time before her father died that he would never have been so familiar—Miss Maria, yes. Just Maria? Certainly not.

As she had feared, the rain had come and gone and done about as much good as someone spitting on a patch of dirt and hoping grass would grow. The ground was so hard packed that the rain had simply run off the surface. But at least when she'd gone to wash clothes, she'd been thankful to see that the stream that ran through their property had risen some. She continued to hang clothes on the line that stretched across the yard while she spoke to Roger around a wooden clothespin she held between her teeth—a clothespin that would bear the mark of those teeth. The minute she had seen him galloping up to the gate, she had bitten down hard.

“We are fine.”

Roger tipped his hat back and surveyed the area. “How many did we lose?”

His proprietary tone was her breaking point. “We? We! You left yesterday if you recall, taking three of my men with you. Why do you care how many of the herd I lost?”

“Now, Maria, just calm down. I am here now and…”

Just then Maria became aware of a ruckus near the corral.

“Well, will you look at that?” she heard Bunker bellow, followed by whistles and cheers from the other men.

“Who the devil is that?” Roger growled as he watched the drifter ride up to the corral leading a calf and a steer with another smaller calf draped across the saddle in front of him.

Maria slowly removed the clothespin from her mouth. With her eyes riveted on Chet Hunter as he and the other men carried the wounded calf out of the heat and into the barn, she started walking away from Roger.

“Maria? Who is that?” he demanded as he caught up to her, matching her stride for stride.

She smiled and said, “That is our new foreman.”

Roger let out a derisive laugh. “That cowboy? How do you know him?”

“I don't, but as you can see, he appears to have already earned the respect of the men. Where the others were satisfied with a loss of three animals—as you would have been; as you taught them to be—he did not give up. So in answer to your question about how many we lost? The answer is apparently not one single animal.” Maria turned and strode away.

By the time she reached the barn, she heard Bunker saying, “I have to hand it to you, Florida, you did one fine job saving this little guy.”

“Thank you for that, but could we get one thing straight? My name is either Chet or Hunter.”

The circle of men froze. No one—not even Turnbull—crossed Bunker. But then Bunker let out a laugh and clapped the drifter on the back. “Got it,” he said. “Tell you what. How about you teach me and the other boys here a little something about the way you use that whip and we'll count you as one of us?”

Someone spotted Maria and nudged Bunker and the men fell silent as they whipped off their hats in a gesture of respect. Maria was well aware that while their deference was partly because she was their boss, more likely it was born of habit. Hired help had a long and unbreakable tradition of showing special respect for their boss's female family members. They might court the daughter of a neighboring rancher, but she knew that not a man among them would think of showing that kind of interest in either her or Amanda.
No man except Roger
, she thought. But then Roger did not consider himself one of the men. She walked directly to the drifter and looked up at him.

“Mr. Hunter, I would like to thank you. You certainly did not need to go out of your way to find these strays, but I am truly grateful that you did.”

“You're welcome, ma'am.”

He ducked his head, and with all the shadows in the barn, she could not see if Amanda's assessment of his eyes was correct. “I wonder if I might speak to you after you've finished here,” she added.

“I expect these men know a good deal more than I do about how to save this little guy, ma'am.” With his hat he gestured toward the doors and waited for her to lead the way. The problem was that Roger was between them and the door, observing every move she made—as usual. So she turned in the opposite direction, moving deeper into the shadows. The drifter hesitated, then followed her, and thankfully the rest of the men turned their attention back to the injured calf, discussing treatments and whether or not the little guy would make it.

“I believe you mentioned that you are looking for work, Mr. Hunter?”

He was still holding his hat, and he cocked his head to one side as he looked down at her. “You don't call the others ‘mister.' Why me?”

Rattled by his sudden switch in topic, Maria felt her cheeks flush and was glad for the protection of the shadows. From the corner of her eye she saw that Roger had moved closer and was now standing on the edge of the circle of men, pretending to give his advice on the calf, but Maria was not fooled. She decided to ignore the stranger's question and get to the point.

“I would like to offer you the position of foreman for the Clear Springs Ranch, Mister…Chet.”

“You're offering me work?”

“I am offering you the position of
foreman
.”

He leaned against a stall and crossed his arms over his chest. “And if I say I don't want to be your foreman, what then?”

“Why would you turn me down?”

The late afternoon sun was coming in through gaps in the rafters and the light settled on his face. He grinned, and the way that smile relaxed his features made her look away. Amanda was right—sparkling eyes or not, this was one good-looking cowboy.

“Because, Miss Porterfield, I don't want to be the boss of these men. Besides, they know what they need to do. They are all good at their jobs from what I've seen.”

“But they need direction.”

He uncrossed his arms and ran a hand through his thick hair. “Well now, from what I've been hearing, miss, that would be your job. You are in charge since your father died, right?” He glanced back toward the men—toward Roger. “On the other hand, maybe that guy has realized his mistake in leaving. Looks to me like he's gotten right back into that saddle.”

He had a point. Roger was ordering the men around, raising his voice when they didn't react with the speed he expected. “Excuse me a moment, Chet.” She headed back to where Roger stood over the calf. The other hands had scattered to do his bidding. “Exactly what do you think you're doing, Mr. Turnbull?”

“Taking charge. Looks to me like somebody needs to.” This last he aimed directly at Chet.

“I am in charge,” she said quietly. Behind her, she heard Chet clear his throat and had the oddest feeling that he was offering his support—or perhaps his admiration. Either way, that gave her the strength she needed to stand her ground. In spite of her uncertainty about how she was going to keep this place that had been her father's legacy from going bankrupt like so many other small neighboring ranches already had, she would not back down.

Roger cupped her cheek, and behind her she heard the drifter take a step in their direction. “Just go, Roger,” she said, lowering her voice so the others would not hear. Then she stepped away from him, breaking the contact. “You made your choice. Now please just go,” she repeated and walked past him and out into the yard. She hoped that neither man was aware that her knees were shaking so badly that walking was a new adventure.

* * *

She was quite a woman, this Maria Porterfield, Chet thought as he watched her walk across the yard and resume the task of hanging the wash. First she had stood up to him and then the guy who seemed to think his job as foreman carried with it certain side benefits when it came to his former boss's daughter. Now that the boss's daughter was in charge, that probably didn't sit well with a man like Turnbull. From what Chet had observed, this was a man who was used to having his way.

Turnbull was watching
him
now, sizing him up. Neither man moved. Neither man blinked. It was a contest to see who would speak first. As far as Chet was concerned, it was not worth his time to play this game. He was tired and hungry. He jammed his hat in place and walked past Turnbull, nodding once before continuing on his way. Once he reached the yard, he wondered if he ought not to just keep on walking.

His horse's reins were looped over the corral fence and Cracker was waiting as always for him to make a decision about what they would do next. That dog was the closest thing he had to a best friend, someone he could talk to and trust. Whatever decision he made, he had to do right by her. He had pretty much decided that whether he stayed or went, Cracker deserved her dinner and the horse could use a good brushing. He led the animal to one side of the stable. Some time later he was just finishing the grooming when he turned to find Maria clutching a bundle of laundry she'd evidently collected from the clothesline. The setting sun was behind him, and he knew she was having trouble seeing him clearly.