Here Comes the Bride Page 18
She’d told them she meant to return to the boardinghouse. Now she did just that. But when she reached the side street that the building was on, she kept going, circling around until she was once more behind the livery. The muddy ground was covered with horse tracks, far too many to make sense of until she saw one perfect impression.
In Nebraska, Tamsin had paid a smith to fit both animals with special shoes, studded to give them better footing on rocky ground. This print wasn’t large enough to belong to Dancer. It had to be Fancy’s trail. And where the mare went, the stud followed. Someone might have been tough enough to get him out of the barn, but they couldn’t stop him from going after his mate—not without killing him.
Tamsin took a deep breath and started down the road. Her belongings were heavy, but she had no intentions of leaving them behind. Once she got Fancy and Dancer back, she’d put Sweetwater behind her.
Tamsin guessed that she’d been walking for more than an hour when she reached the wooden gate with an oxbow suspended overhead. A large letter S, not upright but turned on its back, was burned into the weathered wood. Beneath the brand were the words SAMUEL STEELE, LAZY S.
Not certain of what she would find or what she would do if these people did have her missing animals, she backtracked a few hundred yards and hid her saddlebags in the bushes just off the road.
She was halfway up the lane to the sprawling log ranch house when a grizzled cowboy loped toward her on a black-and-white horse.
The man pulled in his mount, touching the brim of his slouch hat with a forefinger in greeting, but he didn’t smile. What she could see of his hair was sandy, streaked with gray. One cheek was covered with a purple birthmark. It was not a face to inspire confidence.
“You must be lost, woman. This here’s private property. You’re trespassin’.” He reined the piebald around so that they blocked her way. She noticed that the raw-boned gelding had one blue eye ringed in white, a feature she’d found linked to a nasty disposition in horses.
“Are you Mr. Steele?” she demanded with more courage than she felt. “I’ve important business with him.”
The cowboy scowled. “He expectin’ you?”
“Not exactly, but if you tell him that Mrs. MacGreggor is here, I know he’ll see me.”
“Nobody but Injuns and sodbusters walks out here, lady.” The horse bared his yellow teeth and chewed at the bit.
Tamsin caught the animal’s bridle by the headstall and ran an exploring hand over his neck. “Easy, easy boy,” she crooned. “There’s an infection here,” she said, glancing up at the rider. “It may be a splinter of wood or a thorn. You can feel the heat around the swelling. You’d best cut it out before it becomes serious.”
The cowboy’s eyes widened questioningly. “You think that’s what it is? I figured it for a bee sting.”
She shook her head and scratched under the piebald’s chin. The horse blew noisily through his lips but then visibly calmed under her touch. “I know horses.” She glanced toward the house. “I really need to talk with Mr. Steele.”
He shrugged. “Guess he can’t do no more than run you off Ma’am,” he added respectfully. She let go of the bridle. He tapped the horse’s rump with the end of the reins and continued on down the rutted lane.
Tamsin hadn’t gone another hundred feet before she heard the screaming whinny and the thud of iron-shod hooves against a barn wall. Dancer! She would recognize his angry bellow anywhere. And if her stallion was there, Fancy must be with him.
Tamsin broke into a run, but as she neared the stables, she saw several men repairing a railing on the corral. One turned to stare at her, and she slowed to a dignified walk.
“Hey!” the cowboy shouted.
She ignored him and turned toward the house. A black gelding, hitched to a piano-box buggy with yellow wheels, stood near the front porch. The animal’s sides where the mare went, the stud followed. Someone might have been tough enough to get him out of the barn, but they couldn’t stop him from going after his mate—not without killing him.
Tamsin took a deep breath and started down the road. Her belongings were heavy, but she had no intentions of leaving them behind. Once she got Fancy and Dancer back, she’d put Sweetwater behind her.
Tamsin guessed that she’d been walking for more than an hour when she reached the wooden gate with an oxbow suspended overhead. A large letter S, not upright but turned on its back, was burned into the weathered wood. Beneath the brand were the words SAMUEL STEELE, LAZY S.
Not certain of what she would find or what she would do if these people did have her missing animals, she backtracked a few hundred yards and hid her saddlebags in the bushes just off the road.
She was halfway up the lane to the sprawling log ranch house when a grizzled cowboy loped toward her on a black-and-white horse.
The man pulled in his mount, touching the brim of his slouch hat with a forefinger in greeting, but he didn’t smile. What she could see of his hair was sandy, streaked with gray. One cheek was covered with a purple birthmark. It was not a face to inspire confidence.
“You must be lost, woman. This here’s private property. You’re trespassin’.” He reined the piebald around so that they blocked her way. She noticed that the raw-boned gelding had one blue eye ringed in white, a feature she’d found linked to a nasty disposition in horses.
“Are you Mr. Steele?” she demanded with more courage than she felt. “I’ve important business with him.” were streaked with sweat, and foam dripped from his mouth.
Tamsin circled the horse and carriage, stepped over a sleeping cat, and climbed the steps to the front porch. The door stood open. From inside came the sound of a man’s swearing.
“It’s not what you think, Sam,” a woman pleaded. “Henry—”
“Henry’s my brother and you’re my wife! You’ve been whoring with him behind my back!”
Tamsin heard a second man’s voice, an older man. “I warn you, Sam. It isn’t like that. Don’t do anything you’ll regret!”
A woman’s scream was followed by the crack of a gunshot. Glass shattered and the woman began to sob. “No! No! No!”
Tamsin stood motionless, not sure if she should go inside or turn and run. Then the three burst through the door onto the porch.
The woman, a petite blonde in her mid-thirties, bore the imprint of a man’s hand across her cheek. Her eyes were swollen with tears, and her elaborately coiffured hair was disheveled. She clung to the arm of a muscular man with shoulder-length brown hair and a drooping mustache.
“Sam, please,” she begged. “It’s not true.”
Cursing, he backhanded his wife and drove a clenched fist into the belly of the man Tamsin supposed must be Henry.
The blow rocked the middle-aged gentleman in white shirt and waistcoat, and he doubled up, clutching his stomach. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
“Get the hell off my place, Henry! If I ever lay eyes on you again, I’ll blow you to hell! ”
Henry staggered back and steadied himself against a porch post. “Come with me, Sarah,” he urged. “It’s over. You don’t need to stay with him anymore.”
“I warn you, I’ll kill you.” Sam’s face darkened with rage. “I’ll kill the both of—”
“Not if I kill you first!” Henry flung back.
Then, for the first time, Sam caught sight of Tamsin. “Who are you?” he demanded. “What the hell are you doing on my spread?”
She blanched. “I’m Tamsin MacGreggor,” she managed. “And I’ve come for my horses. A mare and a stallion, thoroughbreds, stolen last night from the livery in Sweetwater.”
“You’re out of your mind,” Sam grated.
“Am I?” she dared. “Let’s take a look in your barn.”
Henry wiped the blood from his chin and stared at Tamsin. She caught a whiff of hair lotion from his too black, obviously dyed hair.
“I’ve got two thoroughbreds in my stable,” Sam admitted. “Bought and paid for from a dealer yesterday. I don’t know
who the hell you are, woman, or what your game is. But if you’re calling me a horse thief, you belong in a madhouse.”
“No! They’re mine,” Tamsin insisted. “I bred them both, back in Tennessee. I—”
“Get the hell off the Lazy S,” Sam ordered. “Broom! Willy!”
The two cowboys, who’d been mending the fence, came on the run. A third man in a farrier’s apron followed, still carrying his hammer. “Yeah, boss?” the first man said.
“See these two off my land,” Sam ordered. “If they come back, you’re fired.”
“The judge, too?” The tall cowboy who had spoken first looked uncertain.
Sam nodded. “You heard me, Broom.” Sam seized his wife by the shoulders and pushed her roughly back inside the house.
“Keep your hands off her,” Henry said.
“She’s mine, brother. I’ll do with her as I please.”
Tamsin turned toward Henry. “If you’re a judge, you’ve got to help me.”
He scowled at her. “I’d advise you to get back where you came from. Accusing a man like Sam of stealing can get you in more trouble than you can imagine.”
The man Sam had called Broom held up his hands. “I’m havin’ no part of this, boss. You want Judge Henry throwed out of here, you do it yerself.”
“Damn you, Broom,” Sam snapped. “You can get off the Lazy S as well.”
The tall cowboy’s weathered tan flushed beet-red. “You can’t do that, Mr. Steele. I worked for your father since you were both mites. Who else is gonna hire me with my gimpy leg?”
“You heard me,” the rancher replied. “You haven’t been worth your keep in years. Get the hell off this spread.”
“Not without my pay,” Broom said. “I’m owed—”
“You’re owed shit. You don’t follow my orders, you’re fired!” Sam advanced on Tamsin with a clenched fist. “I warned you to git off the Lazy S, woman.”
She took a step backward. “I’m going.”
Broom took a swing at Sam, and the rancher hit him hard in the face. The cowboy got in a weak punch to Sam’s chest, but the younger man’s return blow caught him full on the nose. Blood spurted as Broom went down on one knee. Sam followed up with a vicious kick to the midsection.
Broom groaned and sank to the ground. “You bastard,” he managed. “I’ll get you for this,”
Sam kicked him once more before glancing at the second cowhand and the man with the hammer. Swiftly, they moved toward Henry.
Swearing, the judge retreated to his buggy. “You’ll regret this, Sam,” he warned. “I’ll be back, and we’ll settle this for once and all.”
Tamsin touched Henry’s arm. “I’m on foot,” she said. “Could you at least give me a ride back to town?”
He scowled at her. “Get back the same way you got here.” The judge slapped his lines over the horse’s rump and drove away without looking back.
Sam gave Tamsin a shove. “Get moving,” he warned.
She winced as she heard Dancer’s angry whinny from the barn. “I’m going,” she repeated. But I’ll be back, too, she vowed silently. You can count on it.
Read on for an excerpt from Katie Rose’s
A Case for Romance
1
The World’s Second Consulting Detective
Colorado, April 1, 1894
“Excuse my rudeness,” said Sherlock Holmes. “You broke the thread of my thoughts, but perhaps it is as well. So you actually were not able to see that that man was a sergeant of marines?”
“No, indeed,” Dr. Watson said.
“It was easier to know it than to explain why I know it. If you were asked to prove that two and two made four, you might find some difficulty, and yet you are quite sure of the fact. Even across the street I could see a great blue anchor tattooed on the back of the fellow’s hand. That smacked of the sea. He had a military carriage, however, and regulation side whiskers. There we have the marine. He was a man with some amount of self-importance and a certain air of command. You must have observed the way in which he held his head and swung his cane. A steady, respectable, middle-aged man, too, on the face of him—all facts which led me to believe that he had been a sergeant.”
“Wonderful!” I ejaculated.
“Commonplace,” said Holmes.
Emily Potter closed the dog-eared copy of the Strand amid the rumbling of the stagecoach, and sank back into the seat with a smile of satisfaction. Along with Holmes, she, too, had figured out the mystery long before everyone else, but it was enjoyable just watching the story play itself out. Her reading glasses slid down her nose, and she pushed them back into place, ignoring the odd glances she received from the other stagecoach passengers. Besides herself, there were two women, a businessman, a cowboy who smelled suspiciously of whiskey, and a preacher. Although it couldn’t possibly matter, Emily noticed that the preacher was undeniably handsome, with piercing blue eyes and indecently long lashes. He seemed preoccupied with the landscape that whizzed by the coach window. Putting the book aside, she felt the familiar surge of disappointment that the tale was over Emily sighed. She hated that her active mind no longer had anything to occupy it. Like her great-aunt Esther, who painted nudes and was admittedly the family eccentric, Emily simply marched to a different tune than most women. Give her a puzzle, a problem, the most intricate enigma or most obscure crime, and she was in her element. From her earliest memories, she had been obsessed with mysteries, devouring them like candy as she helped her mother in the millinery business. While other girls shopped, went to dances, called on each other and gossiped, Emily read every kind of mystery she could find. She knew all of Poe, memorized Doyle, despised Gaboriau, and adored Vidocq. When that wasn’t enough, she alarmed her mother by voraciously following the daily papers, marking the local murders in ink and poring over the details of each case. She often gave the police information about the crimes, even though they dismissed her help with fatherly smiles. Yet Emily never doubted that she would one day convince them of her methods and win their respect.
But Emily had just turned sixteen when her mother died, and thereafter she had less free time to track the activities of the criminal element. The millinery shop was still successful, so Emily continued the business, propping her beloved books between hats and feeding her habit secondhand. The books almost sufficed, but were never really enough. She longed to be like Holmes, to awaken her counterpart in the middle of the night and whisper, “Come, Watson, come! The game is afoot!”
A rustle came from the bag on the floor of the stagecoach, disturbing her thoughts. Reaching down, Emily’s glasses slid to the tip of her sharp nose as she scooped inside the bag to pull out a black-and-white cat. Dr. Watson mewed contentedly, although he was tangled up in laces and yarn, thread, and artificial cherries.
“Silly cat.” Emily smiled fondly, disentangling the feline. Fascinated with the mess, the cat swiped at the dangling threads, ignoring his mistress’s attempts to remove them. Much of the millinery business was easily transportable, everything fitting neatly into her bag, but trimmings didn’t necessarily mix well with a cat. Yet Emily wouldn’t dream of going anywhere without her precious feline.
Glancing up, she saw the preacher watching her again. He turned his face away, but not before a strange little flutter began inside of her. Emily frowned. This man of God had the strangest effect on her! Surely he was just as bored as everyone else, and only looking at her to pass the time. Satisfied with this logical explanation, she placed the now string-free kitten in her lap and forced her thoughts back to the reason for her trip.
If anyone had told her a year ago that she would be making this journey out West, orphaned and un-chaperoned, she would have examined them with her magnifying lens in disbelief. But she couldn’t have known then that after her mother quietly passed away, she would feel a wretched loneliness. Nor could she have guessed that several years later, the death of her long-lost father would leave her with a house in Colorado with a mystery attached. Excitement co
ursed through her as she fished the attorney’s letter out of her bag. This was a good time to refresh herself of the facts. Shaking aside the millinery materials, she opened the missive and scanned it once more.
It grieves me to inform you that your father has passed away. He has bequeathed all of his property and holdings to you, his daughter, in the hope of making reparation for his neglect of you in life.
Emily’s nose wrinkled. She really hadn’t known her father. He’d left when she was very young, to make his fortune in the West. Unlike her mother, a romantic who’d always clung to the hope that he’d come back for her, Emily had been quite sure they would never see him again. So while his final parting stirred some small emotion inside her, it wasn’t nearly as heart wrenching as it might have been. She continued reading.
He left you a property, a house on the outskirts of Denver. It is a handsome place, white clapboard with majestic columns, much like the old plantation homes. It has ten rooms, five fireplaces, and a parlor. The house is also fitted with indoor plumbing, something your father installed himself.
However, I strongly suggest that you liquidate the estate. The West’ is no place for a woman on her own, especially a gentlewoman like yourself. I can put the house up for sale, although you won’t get one-tenth of what it’s worth. Shangri-La, as your father called it, is not an attractive property due to its reputation. In addition to its original purpose, which is unmentionable to decent folk, your father met his unfortunate end there, along with his female companion, Rosie. Rumors that the place is haunted abound, and no one in town will go near the house. With your permission, then, I’ll list the property. Perhaps I can find an out-of-towner, who doesn’t know about the murders… .
But Emily had never granted that permission. Ewert Smith, the lawyer, was astonished when she wrote back stating that she intended to occupy the house. Emily refolded the letter and put it back in her valise. She couldn’t pass up this opportunity. She would investigate the crime, find out exactly how her father and his companion were killed, who had done the deed, and why. Even if she hadn’t known him as a daughter should, didn’t she owe him that much? A nervous tremor went through her as she thought of the danger involved since the murderer was still at large, but she dismissed it quickly. Holmes never let such considerations stop him. Looking down at her sleeve, she touched the place where the black band circled her arm beneath her coat, in memory of the great sleuth. Now that Sherlock Holmes’s creator had brought about the demise of the world’s first consulting detective, she was determined to become the second.