Stacey Kayne – Maverick Wild (страница 2)
He liked how she did that, recognized him from his brother with nothing but a glance. His own father couldn’t tell him from his twin and was never home long enough to have reason to. He was going to miss her something awful. Knowing there’d be no one to check on her after one of her mother’s temper tantrums felt like a kick in the gut.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I was until now,” she said, her voice escalating. “
“Shhh!” he and Tuck said together.
“Do you want us to get whooped again?” Tucker ground out. “We’re already torn up.”
Cora Mae clamped her lips tight, but that didn’t keep her lower lip from trembling. “You can’t go without me.”
Chance stared in horror as fat tears rolled from her eyes and leaked down her pale cheeks. He’d never seen Cora Mae cry—though she often had reason. He dropped his gaze to his boots, not wanting to see it now.
“Damnation,” Tucker muttered. “I can’t handle no more crying females. You’re the one who’s always yammering on with her through all hours of the night.” He nudged Chance’s arm. “You explain it to her.” He mounted his horse and started toward the woods.
It was just like Tucker to stick him with the hard stuff!
“Chance.” Cora Mae took a step toward him. “
“If we were going anywhere else, I’d—”
“I’m not afraid to go.”
He knew she wasn’t. When she was away from her mother, Cora Mae had a fearlessness to be marveled at. They hadn’t accepted having a girl along for their late-night adventures without putting her through her paces. Cora Mae didn’t back down from a dare and had tackled every challenge he and Tuck had put before her. She’d turned out to be more fun to have around than a new puppy. But this was different. They were going to war.
“We’re not taking a ride down to the creek, Cora Mae. The soldiers would never let you stay.”
Sniffling, she wiped at her damp cheeks. “What am I to do without you?”
He hated this. What was he supposed to tell her? That it would be all right? He wouldn’t wish her mother on a Yank! He wanted to do more, to be able to protect her. But he
Sullen brown eyes held his gaze. She tilted her head, the way she did when she was trying to make up her mind. “Promise?”
“Soon as we can,” he said with a nod.
Tucker whistled softly, and Chance took a step back.
“I got to go.”
“
“Cora Mae, I can’t—”
“So you won’t forget,” she said, the catch in her voice stopping his protest.
Heck, even if she weren’t his stepsister, he couldn’t forget a girl with bright orange hair and the biggest brown eyes he’d ever seen. “That’s not likely.”
She stepped back and drew a jagged breath. Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears he could tell she was trying hard to hold back. “Be careful.”
“You, too.” He swung into the saddle and started toward the thicket of trees before she had him covered in ribbons.
Not about to let Tucker catch him with a pink bow on his chest, Chance tugged the thing from his shirt. He rubbed the silken fabric between his fingers then shoved it deep into his pant pocket. Feeling Cora Mae’s gaze on him as surely as the cold breeze whispering across the back of his neck, he spurred Star into a gallop.
No wonder his father never looked back—he didn’t have to.
As Chance rode into the darkness of the woods, all he could see was the image of Cora Mae standing in moonlight, her somber brown eyes silently pleading for him to take her with him.
Chapter One
One hand clutching her valise, the other flattened atop her ivory bonnet to prevent the biting wind from snatching it away, Cora Mae Tindale charged through the dusty, pitted road of Slippery Gulch. Horses and wagons clamored through the small strip separating the parallel rows of buildings. She leaped onto the crowded boardwalk. Folks swarmed like bees as the stagecoach driver continued to toss parcels and crates down from the stagecoach that had brought her this far.
Cora drew her carpetbag of dusty traveling clothes against her aching ribs and forged her way through. Her corset pinched beneath the straining fabric of the yellow gown her mother had starved her into just one agonizing month ago. Lord, what she’d give for a full breath. She hadn’t inherited her mother’s petite build, but the raving woman wouldn’t relent.
There was nothing to be done for it now. This was the nicest dress she’d managed to stuff into her trunk. She couldn’t arrive at the Morgan Ranch appearing a vagabond in need of charity.
Keeping her gaze on the livery just a few shops down, she quickened her pace. Beyond the noise and bustle of the crowded strip, tiny canvas-topped homes spotted the uneven grasses. Miles of rolling hills rippled into the distance like great green waves. Farther out, snowcapped mountains spiked up into the clear blue.
Cora’s heart constricted painfully. The imposing view made it all too clear that this settlement was nothing but a tiny speck in a vast expanse of hills and sky. She’d heard Wyoming Territory was largely unsettled, but hadn’t imagined Tucker and Chance would have built their ranch so far out into sheer wilderness.
She wouldn’t be discouraged. She’d waited so long to see them again, though these were not the circumstances she had envisioned.
An instant burn of tears stung her eyes at the thought. The eight years she had spent at the textile mill had truly been a kindness. She’d been such a fool to believe her mother had summoned her home because she had missed her. Had she even suspected—
“Miss Tindale?”
Alarmed by the foul scent of bourbon on the breath so close to her ear, Cora swung around.
A tall cowboy shifted his hat over curly black hair. “Name’s Wyatt McNealy. I hear you’re headed to the Morgan Ranch and are, uh,
Cora took one look at Wyatt McNealy’s smug grin and winking eye and knew she’d crawl the twenty miles to the Morgan Ranch before she’d travel in the company of a man carrying the stench of alcohol.
“You are mistaken, Mr. McNealy. I am not in need of any services.”
“Spud tells me you’re headed out to the Morgan place. I happen to be traveling in that direction. No sense in you having to struggle with a cart across such rugged ground.”
Cora squared her shoulders. “I appreciate your concern, but I’m quite capable of handling a horse and cart. After traveling for weeks without altercation, I’m sure I can manage another twenty miles.” She attempted to move past him. “Good day.”
He sidestepped, blocking her way.
Fear nettled beneath her skin. Her fingers tightened around the handle of her carpetbag, preparing to knock him out of her way. Her other hand curled into a fist, just as her stepbrothers had taught her.
“You kin to the Morgans?”
“We’re a kin of sorts,” she said, hoping Chance and Tucker still thought of her as such.
“Well then.” His fingers closed around her elbow. “I know they’d want me to make sure you reached their homestead safe and sound.”
Cora wrenched her arm from his grasp.
“
The dark figure seemed a giant, well over six feet and covered in dried mud. He turned toward his companion standing in the road. Wyatt started to rise. The giant tossed something at him, knocking him back down with a loud clunk.
A dead foal caked in mud pinned him to the boardwalk. Cora clamped her hand over her gaping mouth.
Wyatt groaned and shoved against the weight.
“I’ll be sending you a bill for that foal and any others should they die from the stress you put them through. You better pray they make it, Wyatt.”
Wyatt shifted. Cora saw his hand going for the hilt of his gun. Before she could shout a warning, a younger man stepped forward and pointed his rifle at Wyatt’s head.
“The kid’s known to have an itchy trigger finger,” said the muddy rogue. “I’d hold real still if I were you.”
Her pulse thundering in her ears, Cora glanced beyond the giant pillar of dirt and his young accomplice, toward the spectators gathered at a safe distance. Most watched with mild interest, while others continued on about their business.
Where was the sheriff?
The beastly rogue moved closer. Cora pressed her back against the rough wood of the building, holding her breath as his filthy trousers brushed across her yellow skirt.
He knelt beside Wyatt. “You got anything to say for what you did?”
“I didn’t do—” Wyatt’s whimpered words ended in a squeal as the man grabbed his boot and wrenched it up.