Kelly Boyce - Salvation in the Rancher's Arms

She gripped her hands in front of her and forced her spine straight, ignoring the strain on her muscles. He was not going to make this easy. “I guess I owe you some thanks for catching me when I—” She couldn’t say the word, couldn’t admit to the weakness.

“Fainted?”

She squinted into the dimness. Was he smiling? His mouth quickly resettled into an unreadable line and she wondered if it had just been a trick of the light.

“Yes, I suppose. Thank you.”

“Not necessary.”

“Well...either way.” She shifted on her feet. “I think we need to speak about the deed to my land. Am I to understand you now believe you own it?”

He didn’t answer right away. He made one last stroke down the paint’s neck and walked out the back, rounding the stalls and coming up behind her. She spun on her heel to face him, surprised to find him so close. Her body’s response to his nearness hit her square in the stomach and she took a quick step back.

There was a hard-bitten practicality about the man. It showed in the efficiency of his movements and the economy of words he used to convey an opinion. But his eyes held something different, something softer that gave him a sense of humanity. She wondered what his story was. Had he always been this way? Or, like her, had life hammered away until the person he became was far different than the one he had started out as? Perhaps she could talk reason with him, convince him to—

“No believing about it,” he said. “Your husband put the deed in to meet the raised stakes. I won the hand.”

So much for reason.

“A-And that’s legal?” Could she contest it? There had to be a law to prevent people from doing something as colossally idiotic as throwing away every last acre they owned on a stupid card game!

“Yes, ma’am. It’s legal.”

And, even if it wasn’t, by the time the circuit court judge made his way to town for her to plead her case, Mr. Beckett could have parceled off sections of land, sold them to the highest bidder and been long gone.

Her heart sank into her worn leather boots, taking her hopes with it. She stared at Mr. Beckett’s chest, absorbing what he told her. The tiny red checks on his shirt had faded until the color barely existed and one buttonhole was empty, the frayed remains of thread poking through the hole.

Caleb Beckett owned her land. She had lost everything. The room swayed around her.

“No, you don’t.” He reached out and closed the gap between them, placing a hand on either elbow to hold her steady. “None of that, now.”

His voice reached deep inside of her. She closed her eyes, fighting the uncomfortable ache his touch created and allowed herself one brief moment of respite where someone else took the burden and she did nothing more than hang on.

She opened her eyes and stared at his chest again. “You’re missing a button,” she whispered.

“Beg pardon?”

“On your shirt. You’re missing a button.” This was what she noticed. Her entire world was collapsing around her and all she could think about was how his shirt was missing a button. She must be losing her mind.

He let go of one arm and reached for the front of his shirt, pulling it out far enough to see the damage. His forearm brushed against her breast and her body tightened involuntarily. He didn’t apologize. The touch was so brief and light perhaps he hadn’t even noticed. But she had. An unexpected jolt shot from her breasts to the tips of her toes, hitting every place in between.

“Guess I’m not much of a seamstress.”

She nodded and pulled away, walking farther into the livery to put space between them. It was hard to breathe when he stood close. She almost preferred passing out over the strange commotion his nearness created. It made no sense. She didn’t know this man, this stranger, yet she responded to him like a common harlot.

Like her mother.

She threw off the thought and held her ground. She could not afford to weaken. “If it isn’t too much to trouble you with, Mr. Beckett, perhaps you could tell me just what it is you plan to do now that you own my land.”

* * *

Caleb mulled the question over in his mind, trying to clear the storm that touching her had stirred. His shoulder still held the phantom imprint of where her head had rested the night before when he’d carried her to her room. His arms still bore her weight.

What were his plans?

All night he’d lain awake wrestling with the question. It had seemed cut-and-dried as he rode out of Laramie toward Salvation Falls. He would sign the deed back to Sutter’s family and leave. As much as having a place to call home appealed to him, he knew that kind of life was not meant for him. He had learned his lesson on that account the hard way.

But watching Mrs. Sutter hold herself together while her life fell apart, threw him off balance, a sensation he didn’t much care for. Sutter had left his family in a bad way financially, then gone and got shot before he could make reparation. But it was obvious his wife had carried the burden of his ineptitude for far longer than the few days Sutter had been dead, and it had worn her down until she teetered on a sharp edge.

The easy thing would be to give her back the land as planned. Easy, but wrong.

From everything he’d learned so far, that would accomplish nothing more than throwing her from the pan to land in the fire. This Shamus Kirkpatrick had a bead on her land and the means to demand it as payment for debts owed. From the glimpse Caleb had of the man at the funeral, Kirkpatrick didn’t strike him as the type who would back off when his quarry was in a weakened state.

If Caleb signed the deed over to her, he would be leaving her at Kirkpatrick’s mercy.

It made him wish he’d handed the deed over to the sheriff upon his arrival in town and kept on riding. Then, he wouldn’t know the particulars and wouldn’t be bogged down by this unwanted sense of responsibility.

But nothing about this godforsaken situation was straightforward. He was halfway up the creek and his paddle was still sitting on the shore. If he was smart, he’d jump out and swim to it. But like a fool, he was letting the current take him farther upstream.

“Guess maybe I’d like to see the ranch.”

Tension tightened her rose-tinted lips and robbed her cheeks of color. Her dark eyes grew starker in contrast. “Yes...of course.”

“We could ride out this morning. If you feel up to it,” he added. Last thing he needed was her fainting again, tumbling to the hard ground and injuring herself. He didn’t need to add anything more to his already full conscience.

“I will require transportation. I sent Freedom and the boys on ahead with the wagon.”

“I have mine. We can take that. I can pick you up at the hotel in an hour.”

She nodded absently, wandering over to the stall. Jasper greeted her with a bob of his head before nestling his muzzle into her outstretched hand.

“It’s a beautiful horse.” She stroked the bridge of his nose. Jasper nickered in response, arching his neck. The horse was a world-class Romeo. Next thing, he’d be rolling over in his stall and expecting her to scratch his belly.

“I won him in a card game,” Caleb said, without thinking.

She stopped mid-stroke. “Of course you did.”

Her hand dropped away and she stepped away from Jasper. The horse glared in Caleb’s direction, holding him responsible. He couldn’t fault the horse, he supposed. Mrs. Sutter was a beautiful woman, a strange mix of resilience and vulnerability that made a man want to—

He stopped the thought there. He would not be falling into that trap again. Marianne had taught him where that kind of thinking got a man. His business with Mrs. Sutter was just that—business. He’d do well to keep that in mind and not let himself waver while he figured a way to get them both out of this mess.