Bronwyn Williams - Beckett's Birthright

She was obviously not going to be reasonable.

“My fault. What the devil are you talking about? You’re the one who insists on riding that hell-bred snorter!”

“He is not a—a snorter! Whatever that means.”

They were pratically shouting, kneeling no more than six inches apart on the red, sun-baked clay. “He’s sure as hell no mount for a lady.”

“I’m no…”

The rebuttal went unfinished. The glittery look of defeat in her eyes stole the fire right out of his next charge. “Lilah? Don’t say that. Don’t even think it, because it’s not true.”

Face flaming anew, she opened her mouth, then closed it. Eli didn’t know what came over him—later he might ascribe it to sunstroke.

He yanked her into his arms and helped himself to her succulent pink mouth before she could let fly with another barrage….

Longshadow’s Woman

“This is a perfect example of western romance writing at its very best…an exciting and satisfying read.”

—Romance Reviews Today

The Paper Marriage

“From first page to last, this is the way romance should be.”

—Old Book Barn Gazette

“Creating multi-dimensional characters in a warm-hearted story, Ms. Williams draws you into the heart of her tale.”

—Romantic Times

#631 GIFTS OF THE SEASON

Miranda Jarrett/Lyn Stone/Anne Gracie

#632 RAFFERTY’S BRIDE

Mary Burton

#634 THE DUMONT BRIDE

Terri Brisbin

Beckett’s Birthright

Bronwyn Williams

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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White Witch #3

Dandelion #23

Stormwalker #47

Gideon’s Fall #67

The Mariner’s Bride #99

*The Paper Marriage #524

Longshadow’s Woman #553

The Mail-Order Brides #589

†Beckett’s Birthright #633

To Gilbert Stevens Burrus, for all the love and laughter we shared too briefly.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Orange County, NC

1899

He was tired. Tired of moving on, tired of following false leads, tired of asking the same old questions in town after town, saloon after saloon, gambling den after gambling den. More often than not, he would lead up to it in a roundabout way. “Next round’s on me, fellows. Lady Luck was with me last night. Oh, and by the way—” Here he’d offer a conspiratorial smile. “If you happen to see a gentleman with a streak of white hair to the left of a center part, don’t be too quick to get into a game with him, he’ll be out for revenge.”

As often as not, it did the trick. Someone would remember seeing a man who fit the description. A few even recalled a name—Chips. Deuce. John Smith. Nothing a man could put much stock in. After a few more casual questions, Chandler would be off again.

Another town, another game, another lead.

But God, it grew old. Sometimes to his shame, he was tempted to let go. To take root and start building himself a brand-new future, with no ties to the past.

The Bar J wouldn’t be a bad place to settle. It was a long way from Crow Fly, out in the Oklahoma Territory, but maybe that was good. There was nothing back there for him—nothing but an old barn and a few thousand acres of barren land. By now, the squatters would have moved in.

“Good luck,” he bade them under his breath. He stood and stretched, breathing deeply of the soft spring air. Removing his worn black Stetson, he rubbed his scalp vigorously, leaving his thick straw-colored hair standing on end. Replacing the hat, he stood at the office window and watched a couple of hired hands pitch horseshoes. They were supposed to be replacing the hinges on the paddock gate, but what the hell. It was spring.

He had half a mind to join them. How long had it been since he’d taken time out for something as unproductive as a game of horseshoes? The last time he could recall taking a full day off for purely pleasurable reasons had been when he’d ridden three miles out of town to take Abbie on a picnic at a riverside park.

Ironic, he mused, that after nearly two years of following the man who had kidnapped his fiancée, a woman he barely even knew, he’d ended up back in the East again, only a few hundred miles from where he’d left his best friend, his true love…and his fortune.

The mental image of a small, dark-haired woman tugged at the edges of his mind. Before it could fully take shape, the door behind him burst open.

“You ready to check out the new men, boss?”

Reluctantly, Elias Chandler reined in his wandering mind and nodded. “I don’t suppose one of them has a streak of white over his left eyebrow?” When he’d hired on as manager of the Bar J nearly seven months ago, he’d let it be known that he was looking to catch up with a gambler with a polecat streak. The general assumption was that it had to do with a gambling debt.

“No, sir, that they don’t. Sorry.” Shem, the old man he’d replaced as manager, still liked to keep his hand in by working a couple of hours each day.

“Send ’em in, then. One at a time. How many showed up?”

“Four. Three of ’em might do, but t’other one’s no good.”

Eli didn’t ask why, he merely nodded. There was little Shem didn’t know about men and ranching after working for Burke Jackson’s Bar J for nearly forty-five years. Here in the East it was called a cattle farm. In the West, it would be called a ranch.

The interviews took up less than an hour. Once the usual questions were asked and answered, Eli managed to slip in a few random remarks, skillfully framed so as to elicit the particular information he sought. After tracking a man halfway across the country, often following leads so thin a shadow would pass through them, he’d learned not to pass up any opportunity to garner information.

Today that information wasn’t to be found, but because they were shorthanded, he ended up hiring three of the men and sending the fourth man on his way.

Shem was waiting outside the office when the last man emerged. “I’ll show you fellers where you can stow your gear.”

It would be up to Streak, a gaunt giant of a man with a quiet voice and a gentle heart, to decide which men could be trusted to work cattle and which ones would be assigned other tasks. When Shem had been promoted to manager, Streak had replaced him as herd boss. What both men didn’t know about cattle wasn’t worth knowing.

“Jackson ain’t lookin’ too good,” Shem confided later that evening as the three men headed for the cook-shack.

“You implying he ever looked good?” Eli asked. Both Streak and Eli deliberately shortened their steps so that the older man could keep pace.