Read Steel Heart (Historical Western Romance) (Longren Family series #2, Chloe and Matthew's story) Online

Authors: Amelia Rose

Steel Heart (Historical Western Romance) (Longren Family series #2, Chloe and Matthew's story) (14 page)

So after Henry and David each shot 12 rounds, splattering glass and making the cans jump and wobble and at least a third of the time shooting up the dirt around the targets, they grinned at me.

"Oh, not my turn yet," I said. "Age before beauty."

Matthew, at least, smiled at that. Targets were set. The boys had scrupulously unloaded before holstering their pistols and now lounged against cottonwoods, watching.

Matthew was good. He was very good. He shattered six bottles and caught five of the six cans and, briefly, he was himself again, insolently challenging me to do better.

I took the Colt from him, loaded, took a breath, checked where the boys were standing, narrowed my focus—and shattered all six bottles and hit all six cans.

David and Henry were young enough, and only just, to celebrate the strangeness of being bested by a girl. They circled us as we walked back, chattering, asking questions, had I ever fired any other gun? Did I want to try theirs? Had my father taught me or was that all from Matthew? And if so, could Matthew teach them?

"Why not ask Chloe?" Matthew asked. "She's the one who beat you."

"But she's a
girl
." But they were laughing. And Matthew was smiling. So it had been a good afternoon.

It lasted until evening. When Matthew came to supper, he was brooding and silent again.

After five days on the ranch, Matthew and I rode into the town of Alturas and stopped at the train station. The master there asked Matthew excited questions about the storm, as if sorry he'd missed the adventure, then sent telegraphs to Reno asking when Matthew should schedule his return. The answer came back that as soon as he returned, they'd be ready for him to go out again.

"Shall I send a reply?" the station master asked.

Matthew considered and finally nodded. "Tell them I'll let them know as soon as I'm ready to take a train back to Reno."

He said very little on the ride back to the ranch.

Later that same afternoon, I went out for some fresh air before preparations for evening meal could begin. I was avoiding Matthew's mother, afraid she'd ask me if I'd talked to him about the accident. Maybe she was right, maybe she wasn't, but it needed to be up to me and now I was confused. I was afraid if I addressed Matthew directly and told him I thought he'd been responsible for keeping everyone onboard safe and done everything right, he'd take it the other way around—that he'd think, if I said it, it was only because my own doubts about what he'd done preyed on my mind.

Walking out toward the barn where the horses were stabled, I heard voices and corrected my direction to avoid them. The ranch was constantly busy; there were always people around. I was looking forward to getting home, even if it meant taking a train, and better still to take a train than to let what we did together become something I feared.

The day was mild, cold but sunny with the sun still up. When I reached the stable, I stood leaning against the structure, letting a couple of the horses nose at me and the sun sink into my back, warming me. I stood in the lee of the barn, closer to the fenced pasture than to the outbuildings I had passed on my way in, hidden from the house and most angles of approach simply because I was standing farther away.

So, they didn't see me as they came close, Mr. Longren clicking for the horses to come into the stable and Matthew with him. They were already in the middle of a discussion, which sounded appropriate to me, as Mr. Longren said, "Always were damned stubborn."

"I appreciate your concern," Matthew said, dryly.

"Well, don't," his father said. "Why you feel a need to mull over every little detail I don't know. You know what happened. You told me what happened. The inspector told you there wasn't a damned thing you could have done differently."

'I didn't ask to talk about it," Matthew said.

"You didn't ask to talk about it?"

"You said I'm mulling it over. Seems to me you're doing the mulling."

"Are you naturally this way or did something happen to you on that train?" His father sounded half amused, half angry.

"You're making a joke about it?" Matthew's voice wavered uncertainly.

"Well, you're certainly not," his father said. Exasperation seemed to be winning. "Son, what is it you need to hear?
You did everything right
. What's keeping you here on the ranch, where you once said you'd die before you stayed?"

Matthew, unseen, kicked something. I jumped a little. I couldn't see him, but I was sure it was Matt doing the kicking.

"Well?" his father demanded.

I heard Matthew's steps on the gravel in the yard, circling as he must have turned to face his father from wherever he'd gone to kick things. "What if I don't next time? What then? What if it happens again? What if I freeze? What if I'm too scared to act?"

There was silence then for a beat of my heart.
Answer him
, I pleaded. Then Matthew's father said, "You didn't this time, did you?"

Matthew didn't answer.

"Matthew Longren, the one thing no one has ever accused you of is indecision or inaction."

Matthew made a sound of assent.

"People have accused you of a good many other things, though."

Matthew made a sound like a short laugh. "We don't really need to cover those, do we?"

"Pigheadedness," his father said. "Did that pretty little wife of yours tell you you'd done everything you could?"

Matthew sounded stubborn as ever. "She
loves me
," he said, as if it were some failing of mine that made me untrustworthy.

"Seems to," his father agreed. "Doesn't make her completely stupid."

"Much appreciated."

"Son, everyone but you has cleared you of any wrong action. You saved the lives of the people on the train. You say there wasn't anything else you could have done, and so what? You did it, didn't you? They're alive, you're alive, she's alive, and the chances of getting caught in something like that again?"

"Lousy?" Matthew asked, his voice softening.

"Not a bet I'd want to take at The Faro Queen." From the sound of it, he slapped Matthew on the back. "Speaking of which, seems t'me that Hutch's about to become a daddy. Don't you need to get back in that direction and complicate things for him?"

They were headed my way, ambling. I stayed where I was, enjoying the sunlight, waiting to let them find me.

"Maggie's Hutch's concern," Matthew said as they came around the stable. "This one's mine."

"Take her home, then, Matthew. All's well." He clapped his son on the back and nodded to me, his hat shading eyes that seemed to be smiling.

I waited until he was out of sight, then slid into the circle of Matthew's arms, looking up at him. "Ready to go home for a little while?" I asked. Reno sounded promising. We could make some runs to Virginia City, see Maggie, tease Annie, visit Sarah and Kitty, Isabel and my folks.

"Let's find a train," Matthew Longren said.

The End

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