The Rancher's Bride

Her eyes were full of moisture. She blinked them several times as she looked at the paper in her hands. Harlan suddenly felt like a bastard, although he didn’t know why. When he’d loaned Tomas Murdock money, he’d done it to help the older man, not jeopardize his ranch or his family.

“I’m not a loan shark.”

With slow, jerky movements, Rose refolded the paper and lay it on the table a few inches from Harlan Hamilton’s tough, tanned fingers. “That’s obvious. The payment has been overdue for some time now and you haven’t notified or billed us. Why?”

Harlan wasn’t really sure why. It wasn’t as if he was set for money. Since the drought had hit, he could use the thousands he’d lent Tomas. Even in the cooler season of the year, the Flying H needed water wells drilled. But he’d been loathe to collect the debt.

“I knew Tomas had died. And I figured you and your sisters had plenty on your minds as it was.”

Rose never had had a high opinion of men, and over the past few months since she’d learned of her daddy’s infidelities, she’d lost even more respect for the male gender. To think that this man had considered her and her family’s grief before himself was hard for Rose to digest.

“I must tell you…at the present, there’s no way we could find the money to pay you back. Even if we sold the last head of cattle we had, we couldn’t come up with what our father borrowed from you.”

She was telling the truth. Harlan could see that plainly. He could also see that Rose Murdock was not a frivolous woman. She was plainspoken and no-nonsense. What surprised him about her admission was that the Bar M could be that drained of funds.

Harlan had lived here for seven years. His neighbors to the west owned the largest ranch in the county, perhaps one of the largest in the whole state of New Mexico. They raised good cattle and even better horses. They had plenty of rich grazing land along the Hondo river and several skilled cowboys to take care of it all. But what she’d just said about repaying the loan and the fact that she’d been line riding herself told Harlan things had changed drastically on the Bar M.

The whole idea was hard for Harlan to absorb, but not nearly as hard, he figured, as it was for Rose Murdock. “I’m not worried about you paying me back right now.”

Nerves clenched her stomach like a vice. “You should be.”

“I need water more than I need money.”

He took off his battered straw hat and ran a hand through his hair. It was the color of sable and just as shiny. Worn a bit longer than the current fashion, the dark strands fell haphazardly across his forehead and curled around his ears and neck. The front of his shirt was soiled and a large patch of sweat had soaked through the gray material in the middle of his chest. Rose thought he looked a bit like she’d imagined the cowhands did who worked this land when it was still a wild, dangerous territory. Rough, tough and just a little reckless.

“I can’t understand you,” she said. “You have the power right there—” she pointed at the piece of paper “—to take the Bar M. It could legally be yours now if you wanted to push the issue.”

He frowned at her. “I don’t want to take your home away from you.”

Suddenly it was all too much for Rose. Pressing the heel of her hand against her forehead, she closed her eyes and let out a long, weary sigh.

“I came over here,” she said, “to ask you about a simple cut in the fence. Instead, I learn that the Bar M owes you several thousand dollars!” Opening her eyes, she turned her gaze to his face. “You could have at least warned us about this!”

She sounded both accusing and defeated. Harlan wanted to comfort her somehow but realized there wasn’t much he could do. He couldn’t tell her to simply forget the loan, that he would dissolve her father’s debt. The money had been a big part of Harlan’s savings. He’d worked, scrimped and sacrificed for years to obtain that much money. He couldn’t afford to give it away, no matter how bad he felt for this woman.

Draining half his tea, he ran his hand through his hair again, then got to his feet and moved to the other side of the room. He’d never had a woman in his kitchen before. His wife had died before he and Emily had moved to New Mexico. The sight of Rose Murdock sitting at the table with her hat hanging against her back, her light red hair curling wildly about her face and her small breasts jutting against her denim shirt was more than a little distracting for him.

“I’m sure this was the last thing you expected or wanted to hear,” he said, moving over to the sink filled with dirty dishes. “And I wish like hell your father had never borrowed the money in the first place.”

“But he did,” Rose said quietly. She looked over at him as he turned on the tap and squirted soap over the mound of plates and glasses. “How soon will you need a payment?”

“It isn’t necessary to discuss the money part of it now. I’d rather talk about water.”

This man literally had the Bar M in his hands if he wanted it, yet he chose not to move in for the kill. Rose couldn’t believe he was being so bighearted. What was he doing, waiting like a hawk for his prey to weaken?

“How can we help you?”

His back turned to Rose, he said, “You can open up part of your land to me.”

Chapter Two (#ulink_7f0a770b-4721-54f7-a7c0-f61e4369f5a0)

Of the three Murdock sisters, Rose had always been the quiet, levelheaded one. She was sweet tempered and rarely ever showed an outward display of emotion. But the shock of Harlan’s words shot her to her feet. “Open our land to you?”

Harlan glanced over his shoulder. Her breasts were heaving and her hands were fluttering helplessly at her sides. He could see she was struggling not to be upset, but the flash in her gray eyes and the quaver in her voice told him she was losing the battle to hold on to her emotions.

“Back in east Texas my friends told me I was crazy to move out here on the New Mexico desert But I’ve come to love this place and I don’t want to lose it, or my cattle.” He turned and leveled his dark eyes on her. “I expect you’d rather let me use a pasture with water than meet the stipulations of your daddy’s loan.”

Something about this rancher made Rose forget to keep her distance. With a boldness that was completely foreign to her nature, she marched over to within a step of him.

“Are you threatening me? Is that what this is all about?”

Suddenly there was a comical twist of frustration on his face. “Look, Rose, if I’d wanted to take your home away from you I could have done it legally several months ago! I’m not a vulture. I’m just a man trying to make a living. All I’m asking for is a little help from the Bar M. And under the circumstances, I don’t think that’s asking too much.”

Of course he had every right to ask for water. In fact, Rose knew she should be down on her knees thanking God that Harlan Hamilton wasn’t demanding more. Still, the idea of opening the ranch to someone else was like inviting a stranger into her bedroom. The Bar M had been Murdock land for more than forty years. No one had so much as leased a foot of it, or even walked across it. Each section of pasture was like a room in the ranch house. She didn’t want interlopers in her home.

With a surrendering shake of her head, Rose said, “No, you’re not asking too much. But I must tell you I’m in the same situation you are, Harlan. What bit of grass I have left is burning and I need it for my own cattle.”

Harlan wasn’t a man to take advantage of anyone who happened to be down on their luck, and that included a beautiful woman. But at the moment he was having tough luck of his own.

“I can understand that. But I need water wells drilled and pumps installed. Doing that takes lots of money. Money that I loaned to Tomas,” Harlan replied. “I have no intention of going into debt, and I’m not going to sell my cattle. If it makes you feel any better, you can count the use of your water as the first payment on the loan.”

Rose was backed into a corner with no way out. She had no choice but to let him have what he asked for and hope and pray his wants would stop there.

Squaring her shoulders, she jammed her hat back on her head, then tugged the brim down on her forehead. “I’m not a difficult woman, Harlan, nor am I foolish. I’ll meet you tomorrow at the boundary fence and we’ll decide what to do with your cattle and mine. Now I should be heading home before dark catches me.”

She turned to go. Harlan immediately called her back.

“If you galloped all the way back to the Bar M you couldn’t beat the dark. I’ll take you.”

“My horse—”

“The stock trailer is already hooked onto the truck. It won’t be any problem to take you both home.”

If it wasn’t for Pie stepping on a sidewinder in the dark, she would have insisted on riding back alone. She didn’t want to climb into a vehicle with this man. In fact, if she didn’t get away from him soon, she was certain she’d never be able to breathe properly again.

“Very well,” she conceded.

Harlan walked over to an open doorway leading to other parts of the house. “Emily?”

A few moments passed before the teenager appeared in the doorway. “You wanted me?” she asked her father.

Harlan introduced his daughter to Rose, then added, “I’m going to drive Miss Murdock back home. Would you like to come with us?”

The girl threw a suspicious glance at Rose. “No.”

Harlan sighed. “You haven’t been off the place for several days. It would do you good to get out of the house, Emily.”

Having been a schoolteacher the past five years had taught Rose many things about children. She knew that underneath petulance was usually a need for attention or love. As for Emily, there was a sad, depressed look about the girl that tugged at Rose’s heart.