Stacy Henrie - Lady Outlaw

He realized she’d misunderstood the motivation behind his question when her cheeks flamed red.

“That’s not what I—”

“I said I would,” she interjected. “It’s going to take another set of hands to make this place what I want, what my father wanted.” She climbed to her feet and threw him a haughty look. “I can afford to pay you when our agreement is up. Just as I promised. And I’ll pay you for every month you stay after that.”

“Then I’m not a mail-order cowboy anymore?” he teased, hoping to defuse her anger.

She scowled at him, but only for another few seconds, before she laughed. “I’ll admit you’ve done well.”

Will approached them carrying a calf, its ankles tied. “I think she’s the last one.”

“Caleb and I’ll finish up,” she said. “Why don’t you go get some drinking water from the creek?”

Nodding, Will transferred the calf into Caleb’s arms and headed off into the brush with one of the buckets.

As Caleb wrestled to keep the calf still, Jennie crouched beside the fire and pulled out the white-hot branding iron. When they were finished, Caleb let the calf go and stood to stretch his sore back. “You’re good with that iron.”

“I should be.” She dropped the branding iron into a nearby bucket. The hot metal sizzled against the water inside. “My mother hated this part of ranching, but I found it fascinating. I was always getting in the way during branding season until my father finally agreed to teach me what to do. I’ve been branding cattle since I was twelve.”

“Where’s your mother now?”

Jennie eyed him with suspicion. “Why do you want to know?”

Caleb shrugged, unsure why the simple question had struck a wrong chord in her. “Just wondered, since she’s not around.”

Frowning, Jennie picked up a cloth and wiped off her knife. “My mother passed away two years before my father did. She wasn’t living with us, though. She went to live with her sister when I was thirteen and Will was six.”

The casualness of her words didn’t disguise the pain Caleb heard behind them. He sat down on the ground and stretched out his legs, thinking of how to redeem himself. He hadn’t meant to dredge up hurtful memories. Sometimes they were best left buried in the past.

“I’m sorry.”

She stared off into the distance, the knife and cloth motionless in her hands. “You didn’t know.”

“That must’ve been tough.”

“The next few years were difficult.” She finished cleaning her knife and set it aside. “This is the point when you tell me it was all for the best. She couldn’t care for us. She was obviously ill in mind and body. We were better off without her.”

“Why would I say that?”

“Because that’s what people said after she left.” Jennie sat on the bare ground and wrapped her arms around her knees like a frightened child. Her vulnerability made Caleb want to put his arm along her stiff shoulders, but he didn’t. She was his boss, after all.

“Maybe that’s why my father stopped going to church,” she said. “He couldn’t stand people’s feigned sympathy.” Her eyes, dark with anguish, met his. “I couldn’t stand it, either.”

The urge to comfort her grew stronger, so he busied himself with opening the saddlebag that held their supper things. He unloaded the jerky, bread and dried fruit that Grandma Jones had packed for them. They’d stay tonight on the open range and return to the ranch tomorrow, once they’d doctored the few cows that needed it.

“I felt like that before,” he finally said.

“What?” She spun her head around and blinked at him as if she’d forgotten his presence.

“There was a time I felt alone and angry, and couldn’t stand it when people tried to sympathize.”

“Why?”

Caleb took a long breath, steeling himself against the rush of memories. “It was right after my fiancée, Liza, died.”

“Your fiancée?” Jennie brought her hand to her mouth. “What happened?”

“She...um...came down this way on the stage to visit her aunt, about a month before our wedding.” He regarded a group of trees in the distance, embarrassed to see the pity he imagined he’d find on Jennie’s face. It had been more than a year since he’d last recounted the story, but the pain felt as fresh as ever as the words spilled from him. “There was...an accident with the stage, and she was killed instantly.”

“I’m so sorry.” She set her hand on his sleeve for a moment. “That must have been devastating.”

“We attended the same church congregation with our families. I tried going a few times after Liza’s death, but I couldn’t take the pity I saw reflected in everyone’s eyes, how they’d stop their whispered conversations when I came close. I quit going to any kind of church for a long time.” He tore his gaze from the landscape back to hers, hoping to make his next point understood. “About a year ago, after making peace with God, I finally realized those people who knew Liza weren’t being cruel or unkind on purpose. The real reason I’d quit going to church back then had nothing to with them, and everything to do with me.”

With a shake of her head, Jennie scrambled to her feet. “You make it sound so easy, but it’s not. You don’t know what they said about my mother, the horrible rumors that they spread. Not that the truth was much better. Do you know she only wrote me once in those five years before we got the telegram about her death? Once.”

Caleb couldn’t fault her entirely for her reaction; he’d been stubborn about giving up his past hurts, too. “What’d your mother say in her letter?”

“I don’t know.” Her cheeks flushed red. “I never read it.” She stalked away from him, calling over her shoulder, “I’m going to see what’s keeping Will.”

Breaking off a chunk of bread from the loaf at his side, Caleb opted to appease his growling stomach while he waited for Jennie and Will to return. He ripped off a smaller piece of bread and popped it into his mouth. He didn’t regret telling Jennie about Liza, despite the sadness it still stirred inside him. Rather than pitying him, she’d shown sympathy. At least before she’d gotten mad and left.

Caleb ate another bite of bread as he thought over what Jennie had told him. He was honored she would share as much as she had about her own past, but it concerned him, too. He’d grown comfortable with only having to be responsible for himself, and he didn’t like the idea of having people dependent on him again. It left too much potential for disappointment, and loss. Life was a whole lot simpler on his own.

Chapter Six

Caleb crept through the grayish mist of the nightmare, the voices of the two stage robbers arguing somewhere unseen ahead of him. He felt none of the anticipation he had that fateful day a year and a half ago when he’d discovered the final two members of the gang who’d robbed Liza’s stage were together again. In the dream he felt only dread at what he knew was coming.

He moved toward the cabin and peered through the dirty window. The two men hunkered around the small fire, their weapons neglected on the nearby table. Brandishing his revolvers Caleb slipped silently to the door. He paused, the hatred he felt for these men thrumming as hard as his heartbeat. Lifting his boot, he kicked in the door and rushed inside.

“You’re both under arrest!”

One of the men scrambled up and tossed his chair at Caleb. Caleb leaped out of the way but the split-second distraction allowed the man to lunge through the back window with a horrific crash of glass. Caleb fired a shot, hitting the man in the foot, but he still escaped.

“Get down on the floor,” Caleb barked at the other bandit.