Authors: Janette Kenny
Cowboy Come Home (20 page)
That was it. They shared a bond that only they understood. That sparked another memory of her being on a train, clasping hands with another girl. Was her name Maggie? Yes! She was sure of it, just as sure as the name Dade had felt right to her.
“How did you end up with Egan?” Ava asked, popping the fleeting memory that had come close to forming this time.
Daisy blew out a shaky breath. “It’s a long story.”
“We’ve got time.”
And so she told Ava a shortened version of waking early. Of her decision to visit her daddy’s grave and of Ned surprising her. The rest was a blur of fear and agony rolled together.
Ava didn’t comment about her brother’s actions. Didn’t bat an eye that he’d killed a man.
“I wish that I could have visited my man’s grave,” Ava said. “But he died outside of Cimarron and was buried there.”
“He’s gone, Ava,” Jarvis said, startling them both. “Best thing you can do is put it from your mind and move on.”
He pulled back the chair at the head of the table and sat. Daisy found it difficult to look away from him. Gone was the growth of black whiskers that had made him look like a desperado.
Clean-shaven and wearing a suit coat and trousers, he looked every inch the gentleman rancher. He’d even donned a bolo tie fashioned with silver bobs and a large turquoise set in silver.
“He’d still be here if you hadn’t hired on as detective cowboys for that big outfit. And for what? You didn’t even get paid in the end.”
“Enough, Ava,” Egan said. “Miss Daisy doesn’t need to know every detail of our lives. However, now that you’ve apprised her on your personal life, perhaps she’d be good enough to tell us about herself. Starting with her real name.”
He was right. It was only fair that she divulge that.
“I was raised in an orphanage,” she said.
“What happened to your kin?” Ava asked.
She thought back to the story Trey had told her. It still seemed as if it had happened to someone else.
“After my mother and her baby died in childbirth, my father couldn’t care for me and my brother, so he took us to the orphanage.” Daisy worried her hands and frowned, Trey’s rendition casting a window on her own failed memory of the big brick building that always seemed cold.
“The Guardian Angel’s Orphan Asylum. That’s where my brother and I got separated,” she said.
“Never heard of it before,” Egan said.
She looked at him, expecting to see doubt instead of interest. “It’s in Pennsylvania, not far from our home in Kentucky.”
That explanation tumbled out, surprising her. Could it be true? Had she remembered more about her past?
Maybe that was the shack she sometimes saw herself huddled in, scared and crying.
“Were you one of the children sent west on the orphan train?” Egan asked, his knowledge of such another surprise.
“Yes.”
She pressed her fingertips to her temples, trying to focus on that memory. If only she was alone ...
“What was your birth name?” Egan asked.
“Logan,” she said, trying to hold on to that old memory.
To her surprise, Ava’s gesture of friendship had jogged that memory buried deep in her. She remembered Maggie. Remembered their girlhood vow that when they each held their own hands tight together when they were alone, it was like holding onto a friend.
Whatever happened to her? Had Maggie ever thought of her? Or had she forgotten Daisy?
The cook bustled into the dining room with platters laden with food. Yet Egan continued to stare at her.
“That brother of yours in Texas?” Egan asked.
She shook her head, feeling sad that her life continued to be a series of upsets. That she’d been removed from the one she loved again.
“I haven’t seen Dade since I was six or seven.” And sadly she still couldn’t bring his face to mind.
Egan pushed back in his chair, a dark scowl drifting over his features. “Dade Logan. I’ve heard of him. Crossed paths with your father and his gang once.”
She wasn’t surprised, since he was in that deadly brotherhood of outlaws as well. But she kept that opinion to herself. Insulting him would get her nowhere.
“What do you know of Dade?”
He commenced filling his plate, saying nothing. Ignoring her, she thought. He’d found out what he wanted to know and nothing else mattered to him.
“Heard he’s the sheriff up in a little town in Colorado.”
“Is that far from here?” she asked, hoping her curiosity came off as just that instead of an attempt at judging which distance was shorter—returning to Texas and Trey or running to her brother for help.
He rocked back in his chair and stared at her—looked through her, really. “It’s a good day’s ride from here over rugged country.”
“Where is here?” she asked, wanting him to pinpoint it, to give her an idea where she was at.
His mouth pulled into an amused smile. Even his dark eyes gleamed.
“New Mexico, Miss Logan,” he said. “You don’t know about your real father, then?”
“I’ve been told he’s an outlaw,” she said. “I’ve no interest in the man.”
He bobbed his head. “Just as well. A bounty hunter rounded up his gang a while back. Clete Logan got away, but not for long.”
So her real father was dead. She went still, waiting a moment for some emotion to touch her. But she couldn’t feel anything for him, not even pity.
Her only living blood kin was Dade, and he was a stranger.
“Must you be so callous?” Ava said, breaking the tense silence. “Daisy has suffered enough without you adding to her woes.”
“Life is full of suffering,” he said. “You ought to know that.”
Ava glared at her brother, clearly at odds with him. Would she have had to deal with something similar if she’d not been separated from Dade?
“Daisy recently lost the father who raised her. She’s been ailing too,” she added, sliding Daisy a knowing look.
He turned to Daisy. “What’s wrong with you?”
She was not about to tell this man that she’d lost her baby. She wasn’t going to tell him anything of her personal life, for he’d be the type to use it against her.
But Ava seemed intent on standing on her own soapbox of discontent. “She’s pining away for the man she was taken from. He’ll be looking for her, Egan. Mark my words he won’t give up on her.”
“Shit! Is that the truth?”
Daisy nodded, her eyes watering and her throat thick with emotion. “I was with my beau when Ned Durant abducted me.”
“You have to let her go,” Ava said.
Egan shook his head. “Can’t risk it. She knows too much.”
“I’ll never tell a soul,” Daisy vowed. “Please, let me go home.”
But the rigid set of his jaw told her he wasn’t about to relent.
“What will you do when he tracks her here?” Ava asked. “Shoot him? Is that what our lives have come down to?”
“Would you rather see me hang?” Egan asked her. “Would you want your son taken from you because the law decided you were an outlaw as well?”
“No,” Ava said, then more softly, “I’d never do anything to harm you or Cory.”
Nor would Daisy want her to. But the helplessness of her situation sparked anger deep inside her.
She’d always been the one put upon. Taken from her home, her family, from her loved ones. Shuffled amongst strangers who looked her over like an item the storekeeper would put on sale. Something to get rid of, that had outlived its time. Something—someone that nobody else wanted.
They’d even taken her memory so her past was a dark fog that she couldn’t see through.
A black cloud of doom shrouded her when she thought of Trey losing his life trying to rescue her. She’d sooner get shot herself escaping than witness his murder.
Which would likely be the case, because it wouldn’t be easy to escape this prison.
“What you do away from the ranch is one thing,” Ava said, her voice surprisingly strong. “But I don’t want Cory seeing bloodshed. I don’t want him knowing what you do.”
A ruddy flush streaked across Egan’s cheeks. “You move into town and people will ask questions.”
“Then I’ll take Manuela and go to her village.”
“You would choose to live in squalor because you want to coddle your son?”
“I’m protecting him from men like you. As for squalor, they live honestly, Egan.”
“Fine. I’ll have the buggy hitched in the morning. When it’s over, I’ll send a man to the village.”
“Thank you,” Ava said, her features emotionless.
Daisy wanted to protest, but there was no use. She didn’t even blame Ava for wanting to get her child out of here. Didn’t fault her for not wanting to see her brother kill a man and maybe a woman as well.
If Trey was dead, killed because of her, she didn’t know if she could go on.
With Ava leaving the ranch, it would be twice as hard for her to escape. That left her one choice. She’d have to risk it tonight and hope she found Trey before he tracked her here.
Daisy sat in her room in the dark, waiting for the house to go silent. Even when the lights were all out and Ava and Egan had taken to their rooms, she continued her vigil by the window.
She couldn’t make a mistake now. She had to leave soon, before Trey tracked her here. Before he walked into certain death.
The first rumble of Egan’s snoring brought a smile to her face. He was finally asleep. She could slip out the window and disappear into the night. But before she could make a move, her door opened, and a slender, shadowy figure slipped inside.
Ava. If she’d come a moment later, she’d have discovered Daisy gone.
“We have to talk,” Ava said in a voice barely above a whisper.
“Is something wrong?” she asked, keeping her voice pitched low as well.
“Yes, my brother’s way of thinking,” Ava said. “Tomorrow morning, you’ll leave with my son and Manuela. Her family’s village is south of here up in the mountains. But once you get to the village, you are free to head to Texas and your home.”
The plan sounded like a godsend with one exception. “Everyone on the ranch will know it’s me instead of you leaving.”
“No, they won’t. My buggy will be waiting outside with one of the younger Mexicans tending it. Manuela will take Cory and get in, and you’ll take my place.” Ava grabbed her upper arms. “You do know how to drive a buggy?”
“Yes, that’s no problem.” It could work. She could get out of here with relative ease. “Manuela knows the way?”
Ava nodded. “She’ll guide you. All you have to do is drive the buggy.”
The troubled snoring next door ceased, and both women went silent. Time seemed to stand still before Egan resumed the discordant snoring.
“I’ve packed a valise with the outfit you had on when you arrived and a few items to make do until you get back to your home.”
Daisy took Ava’s hands in hers. “Thank you for doing this. Your brother will be furious when he discovers what you’ve done.”
“That he will, but I won’t feel as if I betrayed a friendship. You’ll be safe and with your man soon.”
And right back to trying to decide what to do. Marry him on his terms or walk away.
“As soon as Egan leaves in the morning, I’ll hurry in here so we can exchange clothes. All right?”
Daisy nodded. “Yes, I’ll do exactly as you say.”
Chapter 17
Trey crouched on the rocky bluff overlooking the Lazy 8 and studied the layout of the ranch. The first tracks had petered out on him, and he had ended up on a ranch in the next county.
When he’d told the old rancher he was tracking a good half dozen men who’d taken a woman, the man had told him about this place tucked back here in this valley. Warned him to be careful too if he decided to pay the owner a visit.
According to him, Egan Jarvis wasn’t at all sociable. The place was well guarded. Too guarded for a run of the mill cattle operation.
The ranch was a fine spread, but the mix of beeves was a sure sign that the owner wasn’t choosy about what breed he ran. Or maybe it was because he acquired them by less than legal means.
That would explain why the men were well armed.
Still, Trey saw nothing at first glance that indicated Daisy was here until the horses in the far corral shifted. That’s when he spied her mare. She was here.
He didn’t kid himself into thinking it’d be easy getting her out of here. For one thing his gelding had come up lame. That’d keep him from riding as hard as he would have to do to get out of here.
The sheer number of guards on the place would make it impossible for him to ease Daisy’s mare and another horse from the remuda. But the heat of the day was on them now, and the Mexicans clung to their midday siestas.
Trey eased from his hiding place. As much as he’d like to ready the horses first, he couldn’t take the chance of being discovered then. Finding Daisy came first.
Getting into the house proved easy. Too easy for a place this heavily guarded.
The quiet scraped over his nerves as he made his way from room to room. He found Jarvis in his study bent over his desk.
Trey whispered his Colt from its holster and eased up behind the big man. He pressed the gun barrel to his back.
“Unhook your gun belt with your left hand.”
Jarvis stiffened, his palms flattening on the map he’d been studying. “How’d you get in here?”
“Walked right in.” He pressed the gun more firmly in the man’s back. “Your gun belt?”
The man complied. “What do you want?”
“Daisy, the woman you took from Texas.”
“What makes you think she’s here?”
“Followed the tracks from the Pecos River here. Her mare is in the corral. Now where is she?”
“Miss Logan is in her room. My sister said the lady took ill after breakfast. She’s been in there resting ever since.”
“Show me. Real easy. Hands up where I can see them. I’ve been riding hard to get here, and I’m a bit twitchy.”
Jarvis did as ordered and moved down the cool hallway with a lazy cadence. “Who are you?”
“Trey March. Her”—he stumbled over a title and finally settled on the one thing he’d agreed to be—“foreman.”
A rusty laugh rumbled from Jarvis. “I’ll be damned. Never figured she owned land.”
Jarvis opened the door and stepped inside with Trey on his heels. A slender woman rested on the huge bed, taking her siesta as well.
He’d expected the room would be locked. That she’d be tied up. But it was obvious that she was free to roam the house.
“Daisy!” And when she continued snoozing, he raised his voice a bit more. “Daisy, wake up! Time to ride.”
The woman sat up with a start and blinked at him, then at Jarvis. Not Daisy, but a pretty woman about her size and with hair just a shade darker.
“Who are you?” Trey asked.
“Ava Jarvis, Egan’s sister,” she said. “You must be Daisy’s beau.”
He dipped his chin, still uncomfortable owning up to what he and Daisy shared. Emotions like that had no place here.
“What the hell are you doing in here?” Jarvis asked the woman. “Where’s Daisy?”
“With Manuela,” she said and received a string of vile curses from Jarvis.
It was mighty clear that the women had figured a way to get Daisy out of here. Exactly what Trey aimed to do once he knew where to find her.
“Mind telling me where that’d be?” Trey asked her.
“A village in the mountains south of here. Los Azul.” She pressed a hand to her mouth and stared at him wide-eyed. “You must have just crossed paths.”
“Reckon so.” Though he’d have been tempted in any case to ride back here and have it out with Jarvis for abducting her in the first place.
“Why’d you do this?” Jarvis asked her. “Why defy me?”
The young woman slipped off the bed and stood tall before the big man. “Because it was the right thing to do. Because she wanted to go home to him. Now let him go too.”
Jarvis shook his head, his body coiling as if to strike. “You know that can’t be.”
In the blink of an eye, Jarvis pulled a Bowie knife from his boot and swung at Trey. The blade scored his leather vest and sliced through his sleeve and skin.
Trey sieved air between his teeth, his left arm burning like hellfire. But Jarvis was quick with a knife and came at him again.
The blade hummed by his face, missing his cheek by a breath.
Trey aimed at the big man and squeezed the trigger, but nothing happened. Fine damned time for his gun to jam!
A sick sensation washed over him, but he shook it off and circled the big man, knowing he was in for the fight of his life. There’d been a time he was damn good using and evading a blade, but being laid up in El Paso for months had robbed him of a lot of his strength.
The cut on his arm was bleeding freely, and his fingers were starting to go numb.
“Stop it!” Ava shouted.
But her brother ignored her and stalked Trey.
The world shrank to just the two of them, circling each other like feral cats. His blood roared through his veins and pounded in his head.
“Just so you know, I don’t give a shit what you do here on your ranch as long as you leave what’s mine alone,” Trey said.
“You expect me to believe that?”
Trey snorted. “I ain’t telling you just so I can hear myself talk.”
A flicker of uncertainty lit the big man’s eyes, but was banked under that cool mask of a killer a moment later. “I can’t take that chance.”
“Let him go,” Ava said again, a distraction fluttering on the perimeter.
But though Trey was aware of her, it was clear that her presence here bothered Jarvis more. That was the edge Trey needed.
“Get out of here, Ava,” Jarvis said.
“Keep trying to talk sense into him,” Trey told her.
And she did, throwing up a lecture that’d do a preacher proud. Begging him to think of them as a family. To stop the violence.
Though Trey didn’t know the particulars, he suspected that Jarvis hadn’t always been bad. He surely cared for his sister. Protected her.
“It’s not too late to do the right thing,” she said at last. “Please! For me and Cory, let’s live a good, honest life.”
Jarvis took his eyes off Trey for a split second. That hesitation was all the time Trey needed.
He brought the butt of his gun down on Jarvis’s knife hand. The big man grappled to hold on to the blade but it clattered to the floor.
Trey kicked it away and drove his fist into Jarvis’s jaw. It was like driving his hand into granite, but he still managed to stagger the man.
Not long enough to get the best of him though.
Jarvis sent a ham-sized fist flying at Trey. Trey ducked, but his left eye still caught the worst of it.
He shook off the buzzing in his head and swung at Jarvis with both fists clamped together, catching him under his chin. The big man’s head snapped back.
Jarvis stumbled back to the wall, slamming into it so hard a picture jumped off its hook. His sister gasped, and Trey just hoped to hell she didn’t take a mind to defend her brother.
But she didn’t move.
The big man’s arms flailed to the side as he slid down the wall, landing in a heap on the floor. Out cold.
Pain laced through Trey as he took stock of his own wounds. He could barely see out of his left eye. His left arm was numb.
“There’s a coil of rope in his office,” Ava said.
He cut her a look, unsure if he should trust her to fetch it or leave her here to revive her brother. His own ebbing strength decided it for him.
“Can you get it?”
She gave a quick nod and dashed out the door. He hoped he could trust her as Daisy must have. Hoped that Daisy was safe in this village he’d have to search for.
Dammit, a lame horse and now he was bleeding like a stuck hog. But he didn’t have time to tend to his wounds now. It’d have to wait until he’d ensured that Jarvis wouldn’t come after him. Until he’d put as many miles as he could between himself and this big man sprawled at his feet.
Ava returned with the rope. “This was all I could find.”
“It’ll do.”
He made short work of tying the big man’s hands and feet, the effort taxing what strength he had. Jarvis’s bandana made a fine gag—couldn’t have the man bellowing for help, not with a ranch full of armed men.
Armed men. Hell, how was he going to steal a horse and get out of here?
He glanced at Ava, hating the thought going through his head. Using a woman as a shield didn’t set well with him, but that might be his only choice.
With Jarvis tied up tighter than a tick, he pushed to his feet. Too fast. The room spun, and his vision blurred.
He grabbed the bedpost to keep from falling on his face.
“I need to tend that wound,” Ava said. Her hand on his arm was so light he hadn’t even felt it until she gave him a gentle tug. “Please, let me help you to the window where I have good light.”
The fact that he was edging into being helpless and dependent on this woman bothered him. He’d just tied her brother up. What was to say she wouldn’t finish the job her brother hadn’t been able to?
“Thank you, ma’am, but I need to get to that village.”
Her hold on his arm tightened. “You won’t make it to the ranch gate in the shape you’re in. That wound is deep and needs stitches.”
He sucked in a breath, knowing she was right. Knowing this was out of his hands and into hers.
Damn! He gave a sharp nod and staggered from bedpost to bedpost with her holding him with strength that surprised him, a hold that said she was sure of what she was doing.
“You’ve done this before,” he said as she herded him across the distance to the chair by the window.
“More times than I care to remember.” She saw him settled and walked away. “I’ll get my supplies.”
He cast a glance at the big man still sleeping like the dead. Did he have any idea of the grief that he caused his sister? Hell, did any man truly realize what he put his woman through?
Trey sure as hell hadn’t, and that was an admission hard won. He’d been raised mainly around men with the exception of the housekeeper on the Crown Seven. That fine lady had worked in a bordello, so she knew how to deal with rowdy men and boys who thought they were too big for their britches.
A slow smile tugged at his mouth. That lady didn’t know it, but she was the closest he’d come to having a mother.
His smile vanished. The woman who had given birth to him hadn’t given a shit if he lived or died.
Ava returned with a basket that he was sure had been well used over the years. “Have you ever been stitched up before?”
“More than my share.”
“Then you know what to expect. You’ve got your choice of taking your shirt off or having me cut the sleeve off so I can get to the wound.” She looked at him, a steady gaze that told him that she knew in this she was in charge. “Seems a waste of clothes to ruin it.”
“You bully your brother this way?” he asked as he set to undoing the buttons on his shirt.
She favored him with a quick smile. “Every chance I get.”
Trey accepted her help getting out of the shirt—at least freeing his wounded arm. He eyed the bottle of whiskey.
“That rotgut for show or are you going to give me a taste?”
“If it will keep you still I’ll gladly give you a glass.” She produced one from her pack and poured a generous portion into it. After wetting a cloth in the dark, amber liquor, she passed the glass to him. “You’re going to need this.”
And with that she laid the whiskey-soaked cloth over the cut on his arm. Fire licked through his blood.
He bit back the stampede of curses that strained to burst free and downed the amber firewater in two gulps. A new inferno roared through his blood, as fierce and unfettered as a flooded river.
He tipped his head back against the chair and let the force carry him away. Let the years of pain and longing drown before his eyes.
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