High Country Bride

What if the men were dangerous? Aiden drew his horse to a stop and considered. He was out in the open now. Too late to retreat. Trouble like this had occurred early last year, and a ranch hand had been shot and left for dead by squatters. They’d never been caught. Thankfully, the hired man had survived.

Aiden would rather deal with dangerous wildlife anyday than a pack of armed criminals.

Then he saw something in the dust by the right rear wagon wheel. He leaned forward in the saddle, squinted a bit and realized it was a small, crudely carved wooden horse—a child’s toy. A child’s toy? Not what he’d figured on finding here in a squatter’s camp. Then he heard a rustle, and a puff of dust rose from beneath the wagon.

He lowered the hammer and the rifle. “Is your pa around?”

A round face peered between the spokes of the wheel. “Nah. He rode away to heaven.”

Aiden studied the wide brown eyes and dark hair sticking straight up, recognizing the child. The widow’s kid who had lived on the neighboring ranch for a spell. Probably another sad story, he figured as he dismounted. He was learning that life was full of sad stories. Even though he’d lost his heart long ago, and there was nothing but an empty hole where it had been, he steeled himself. He didn’t want to feel a thing, and he knew this situation was going to be full of sadness. “Your ma then?”

“She said not to talk to nobody. Shh, Daisy.” There was more rustling and the boy drew back.

To his surprise, a little girl with white-blond hair held back with a bright pink ribbon crawled out from beneath the wagon bed. She brushed the dust off her skirt primly. “Ma didn’t say I couldn’t talk to nobody.”

Aiden couldn’t rightly say that he wasn’t affected by that cute little girl. Such a wee thing, not much to her at all, and living out of a covered wagon. The little boy crawled out, too, looking annoyed with his younger sister. He drew himself up tall—he couldn’t be more than seven or eight years old—and scolded his sister for not minding.

They hadn’t been living here long, Aiden decided as he glanced around. Everything was neat and tidy, and a woman’s presence might explain the swept dirt. While he didn’t have the best opinion of most women, he’d learned even the worst of them liked to dust and sweep with a vengeance.

The little boy was shaking his finger at his sister. “Ma said to stay hid. You oughtn’t to be talking to strangers.”

“Are you a stranger?” The little girl gazed past her brother and straight into Aiden’s eyes.

He choked a little, feeling a gnawing of something in his chest. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like feelings. Life was too hard for them. A smart man didn’t give in to them. He set his jaw tight and answered between clenched teeth. “Your brother is right. You ought to mind him.”

“Oh.” The little girl wilted like a new seedling in a late freeze. “Do you know where Ma is?”

“No. She’s not here? Did she go off and leave you?” There it was. Fury. It roared through him unbidden and with a power that he hadn’t felt since—

“Excuse me.” A woman’s voice carried like a gunshot on the wind. “Step away from my children.”

He did as she asked, so as not to startle her. But as he pivoted on his boot heel to face her, he steeled himself a tad more. He still wasn’t prepared for what he saw. Exhaustion was a mask obscuring her young face. Her dress was clean and proper and pressed, and her soft blond hair braided casually in one long tail that fell over her shoulder. The air of her, the feel that hung over her like a cloud, was pure hardship.

His emotions weren’t ironclad enough, because he felt the tug of pity. And more. The fury remained, digging deep. “This is my land, ma’am. You can’t go leaving your children alone here.”

“I didn’t leave them alone. I was down at the creek.”

As she strode to the crest of the rise, he could clearly see the two five-gallon buckets she carried, one in each hand. She was a tiny thing, and water was heavy. He was striding toward her before he realized he was moving at all.

There was fear in her eyes—fear of him, he realized, as he yanked the first bucket out of her hand. She drew back fiercely, sloshing water over the rim and onto her faded skirts, clutching the remaining bucket’s handle with a death grip.

“Give me the water.” He tucked his rifle against his forearm and held out his free hand.

Her eyes widened at the sight of his rifle, pointed downward at an angle toward the grass.

Women. He ought to have remembered what they were like, having once been married. He did his best to keep his annoyance out of his voice. “I use my rifle for defense, nothing more, ma’am. Now, give me the bucket.”

She swallowed visibly, as if she were about to hand over a potful of money. He had frightened her more than he’d realized.

Shame filled him and he took care when he lifted the heavy bucket from her small hand. He cleared his throat, not at all sure how to say what he had meant to say. Talking had never been his strong suit. He hefted the heavy water buckets and lugged them toward the camp, where both little children watched him wide-eyed. Anyone could see they were well-behaved, that their ma was doing a good job raising them up.

“Where you want these?” He glanced over his shoulder, but the woman seemed frozen in place on the rise. Mrs. Nelson looked like a sensible sort. Her pink calico dress might be faded, but it was simple and clean, void of frippery.

She came across as a decent lady down on her luck. And she was staring at him with fear on her face. Not the terrified sort of run-and-hide fear. No, the fear he saw on her delicate features was the kind that made him even angrier. The kind that spoke of ill-treatment.

“Where do you want me to put the water?” he repeated in as clear of a voice as he could manage.

Mrs. Nelson visibly swallowed. “Under the tailgate.”

Without a word he turned and marched angrily on, his boots clumping against the hard-packed earth. He hauled the buckets to the back of the wagon and dropped them with a small puff of dust. When he straightened, he realized both children had followed him, single file, and were staring up at him with dust-smudged faces. Mrs. Nelson’s skirts snapped as she hurried to stand between him and the young ones.

That only made him madder. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ll not have you using that tone in front of my children.” Her dainty chin came up, and she was all protective fire, though the old, worn fear was still there.

He hated that fear. It was all he could do to keep his tone low and his voice calm. “This being my land, ma’am, I’ll use whatever tone suits me. Now, answer my question.”

That chin lifted another notch before she turned to speak to her little ones. “You two go on and wash up for supper, while I speak to Mr. McKaslin.”

They nodded and politely went straight to it. The little boy fetched a bar of lye soap and a worn but clean towel from the back of the wagon, and took charge of seeing to the hands and face washing of his little sister.

With the children busy, Aiden followed Mrs. Nelson out into the grass. She turned to face him with her arms crossed over her chest and her spine straight. “We had no place to go, Mr. McKaslin.”

“You have family.”

“Family? I have no one and you know it.” She held herself very still. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll get my children into the wagon and we’ll be off your property by sundown. That is what you want, isn’t it?”

“You just said you have no place to go.”

“And a man like you cares?” She heard the heartlessness in her own voice and stopped, took a breath and a moment to compose herself. She might be homeless, but she had her dignity. “I cannot reimburse you for our stay on your land. I am sorry for that.”

“Sorry?” A muscle worked in his granite jaw. He repeated the word as if he’d bitten into something sour. “Sorry?”

“There’s no need to be so angry.” She took a step back and drew in a gulp of air. “We hardly did any harm.”

“Any harm?”

“We wore away some of your grass, and the horses grazed on the bunchgrass, but it wasn’t as if you were using—”

“This is unacceptable.” A vein throbbed out at his temple. “You’ve been living here for how long?”

“Since Mr. Wessox found us camped out at the edge of his farm on the other side of the creek.” She curled her hands into fists, keeping her chin set and her tone even. This was not the first irate man she’d ever had to manage.

“How long?” Tendons stood out in his muscled, sun-browned neck.

“We were only there a few weeks.” She felt very small. “We’ve been on your land for a little longer.”

“And you have no family?” A tick started in the corded muscles of his jaw.