The Horseman

“I mean, I’ll keep watch as long as you’re out here.” He cleared his throat, trying to sound gruff, because he was a fearless rugged man, raised in the wilderness, half Nez Percé and a warrior.

She picked up her feed pail and brushed a lock of gold behind her ear, looking up at him through her thick lashes. “Then I guess I should apologize for being angry at you. I saw the gun and thought the worst. I’m sorry.”

She lifted her face, and in the soft daylight he could see plain as day the faint impression of a bruise on her far cheekbone the size of a man’s fist. The wind ruffled her hair and a thick shank of hair fell forward, hiding the mark.

Rage came to life in his chest. Hot and hard, like a kerosene fire until it threatened to burn out of control. His jaw clamped tight. His hands fisted. If the man she’d been married to was here right now, Dillon would be glad to teach him a lesson.

“I should be getting back.” She turned, avoiding his gaze, letting him know she wasn’t interested.

She walked away into the veil of falling snow. He couldn’t stand it, the way she was leaving like that.

“The deer must like you,” he called out, and grimaced. If he kept this up, she’d simply run away from him and his terrible attempts to talk with her. “I mean, it’s rare for them to come up to a person.”

Katelyn glanced over her shoulder, considered him, but kept walking.

“My grandfather could do that. Deer would approach him.”

Why did he keep trying to talk to her? Katelyn wondered. She kept walking, limping, because the pain was still with her. She felt the horseman’s eyes on her back like a touch.

“He had a way with animals.”

Had he taken a sparking to her? Katelyn turned toward him at the same moment he shrugged one big, snow-lined shoulder, and a row of snow tumbled off that broad perch to startle his horse. The mustang sidestepped, startling the rider.

“Whoa, boy.” Instead of sounding irritated or angry, the wrangler’s voice rumbled low and as warm as buttered rum. He stroked his sizable hand down the gelding’s neck, a gentle gesture for so powerful a man.

Katelyn shivered, wondering if his touch was as tender as it looked. But she knew there were no heroes made of honor and strength and tenderness in this cold, hard world.

Dillon Hennessey might be strong and seemingly kind and a little awkward when it came to speaking to a woman, but he was still a man and, like the cougar prowling these prairies, he would strike when he wished. He was more ruthless at heart. It was simply his nature.

Or was it? Every time she glanced over her shoulder, there was the outline of the man on his proud mustang, waiting on the crest of the rise, watching as the storm droned on, the rifle at his shoulder, ready but not threatening.

A protective warrior who remained steadfast and vigilant as she ambled carefully through the deepening snow.

Katelyn may not have had much time with the deer, but a quandary had been solved. At least she knew more about Dillon Hennessey. Remembering how he’d stammered and looked lost, that giant mountain of a man, made her smile.

She lifted the latch to the front gate. She was home, for now. When she turned to wave a thank-you to him, she saw only snow and wind and prairie.

The horseman had gone.

His image remained throughout the day and into the evening as twilight came early. After a slow bleeding of the sun, and the gray shadows had wrung all the light from the sky, darkness descended. Katelyn kept to her room with a single candle lit. She took supper on a tray but could not eat. She hadn’t been hungry in so long.

There was so much to consider, so much to think about. Fear nibbled at the corners of her courage, and she eased out of the chair in the corner and lifted the rug at the foot of the bed. There, beneath the floorboard she’d loosened, was her future. She unwrapped the cloth bundle carefully, cradling it in her hand. Even in the faint light from a single candle, the diamonds flashed and sparkled. The cold, multifaceted gemstones were framed in the gold of a necklace and two rings, gifts from her wealthy husband to his beloved wife.

Or, that’s what he told others at the dinner parties where he pretended to others that he was a fine, loving husband. And she could not tell the truth.

She hated every one of those stones. The wedding ring, the anniversary ring, the necklace he’d given her when she first learned she was pregnant and could be carrying his son.

Tears flooded her eyes and she willed them not to fall. The diamonds blurred into a rainbow glitter of pure, white light as she covered the jewelry, secured it well and tucked it back into its dark safe hiding place. As much as she hated the gems, they would buy her future. She planned to sell each piece and take pleasure in the knowledge that Brett couldn’t touch her, that she didn’t need him.

She didn’t need anyone.

She would make a new life. Alone. The way she wanted it to be.

“Katelyn?” Her stepfather’s voice on the other side of the door sounded harsh.

She dropped the edge of the fringed rug and stood, pain shooting through her as the door hinges whispered open, but it wasn’t fast enough. Cal Willman stood in the doorway, his cold eyes narrowed, his mouth pursed in thought. Or in calculation.

How much had he seen? She would have to find another hiding place, just in case. Her stepfather was the kind of man who took what he wanted. He was a big man, imposing, taller than the horseman, but all brute, and she shivered. She felt small and vulnerable, and she hated feeling so ill. Another week to recover and she would be gone, slipping off into the night as if she’d never been. She never need see him again.

“Is there some good reason for bursting in on me?” she said quietly.

“This is my house.”

“That may be, but you have no right entering my bedroom without knocking first.”

“My name is on the deed. I will go wherever I wish.”

“Yes, but my father built this house with his own hands. I watched him lay every board and hammer every nail.” Her father had been a good man, at least he’d been good to her, and thinking of him brought up a faint memory, as it always did, of a tall, brawny man with a broad-rimmed hat shading his face as he worked in the sun, talking with her while he’d built their home. She’d been five. “Is Mother unwell?”

“Your mother has not been well since you knocked on our door and collapsed on the parlor floor. It wasn’t as if we could take you back. I saw you walking around today. If you’re well enough to walk in the field and try your wiles with one of my hired men, you’re strong enough to get the hell out of this house.”

“You think I want another man after all I’ve been through?”

“Isn’t that what all you women want? A man to pay for every little thing?” The muscles in his jaw jumped and bunched beneath his smooth-shaven skin. “If it’s a man you want, I will find you one.”

“I have no need for a husband.”

“And I have no need for you. Understand this. If you bring more shame to my family name, I will make you regret the day you crawled back to this house. Do you understand me?”

“It’s not my shameful behavior you need to be concerned with.” She spoke quietly but with steel. She’d not be bullied in the house her father built.

Cal’s hard blue eyes iced over, like a pond in winter. Hands fists, feet braced, jaw tensed so tight he could break teeth, a cold anger took him over. “I’ll not be judged in my own house, missy. Remember that, or you will be out on your backside faster than you’ll know what hit you.”

She wasn’t welcome here. How could she be? She was in the middle of their constant fighting. She was a sore reminder of the family name being soiled.

“This shocking scandal has cost me half the business at the bank. How will you make it up to me, I wonder?”

He’d figured out she had something to hide. Something of value. The brief flicker of satisfaction at his severe mouth told her to beware.

He’d demanded whatever money she had on her when she arrived, broken and homeless. She’d lied about the jewels, carefully hidden in her smallest skirt pocket.

She’d find a better hiding place than the floorboard, that was for sure. Those three pieces of jewelry might not be worth thousands, but they were valuable enough to buy her the chance to start a new existence somewhere else now that she was regaining her strength.

Cal stormed from the room. The candle’s flame flickered in the wake of the slamming door, and snuffed out.

She stood in darkness, lost, so very lost. Outside the window, the first glow of star shine misted on the frozen sheen of snow. The silvered light drew her toward the frosty panes. There was the horseman, sitting tall in his saddle, one hand on the saddle horn, holding the reins, the other resting on his thigh. He was a formidable shadow against the velvet-black sky and glittering gray meadows, like all that was good in the world.

He’s a man, Katelyn. Don’t be fooled by appearances. All men are the same within.