Nicole Foster - Hallie's Hero

“Because I’m now the proud owner of one.”

Hallie barely stopped herself from laughing in his face. “Pardon me, Mr. Dakota, but you don’t look anything like the kind of man who belongs on a ranch.”

“I won’t ask you where you think I do belong—I have a good imagination. But I plan on settling down and becoming a good citizen.” Jack winked at her, laughing when she stared at him as if he was crazy. “I just bought what your friendly banker called one of the finest pieces of land in the territory. Eden’s Canyon.”

“You…” Stunned, Hallie could only gape at him. It couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t be.

“The bartender at the Silver Snake heard I was looking for some land and told me it was for sale, and that it was a pretty fair piece of property. It seemed like a good gamble so now it’s mine.”

Jack eyed her for a moment. The look on her face worried him. For the first time since he’d set foot in Paradise, he started to have second thoughts about how quickly he’d decided to try his luck at ranching rather than the dice table.

He couldn’t blame Hallie Ryan for thinking he’d spent too much time in the desert sun. He’d surprised himself. But he had one very good reason for staying in this town, and because of that, he’d made up his mind to make this ranching business pay.

No matter what it took.

“Is there a problem, Miss Ryan?” he asked at last, when it looked as if she’d stand there for the rest of the day, staring at him as if he’d announced he’d come to town to turn the church into a house of wicked women and whiskey.

“A problem?” Hallie found her voice as the truth of what he’d told her finally hit and hit hard. “Oh, yes, there’s a problem, Mr. Dakota. A big problem.”

“Are you going to share it with me, or do I have to guess?”

“They should never have sold you Eden’s Canyon. That land is mine.”

All at once Jack’s easiness slid away, leaving him tense. He straightened and slapped his hat back on. “I don’t like to disagree with a lady—” the slight emphasis he put on “lady” made Hallie flinch inside “—but I’ve got the deed to prove it isn’t.”

“Eden’s Canyon has been Ryan land for nearly forty years. I would have bought it back if Ben hadn’t taken my money to put in your pocket!”

Hallie could have bitten her tongue off the moment the words left her mouth. She hadn’t meant to tell Jack Dakota anything about herself. But the shock and anger of losing Eden’s Canyon to him, of all people, left her too furious to think straight.

“I’ll buy it back from you,” she said through gritted teeth. She thrust out the wad of notes he’d given her. “I have more than half the money now. I’ll get the rest soon.”

Jack ignored the money. “I’m not selling.”

“You don’t know the first thing about running a ranch! You’ll lose everything before a year’s over.”

“I wouldn’t bet your last dollar on that, Miss Hallie,” he said, smiling tightly.

“What I’d bet is that you’ve never stuck with anything longer than a week,” Hallie said. Desperation began to spark the first twinges of panic in her. She couldn’t lose Eden’s Canyon. Especially not like this. Oh, Pa, how could you have done this? “Why would you even want to try?”

“One very good reason.” Gesturing to the porch of the saloon, he called over to one of the saloon girls. “It’s okay, Kitty, it’s over. He can come out now.”

The girl leaned inside the door, beckoning with her hand until a fair-haired boy, about seven or eight years old, came out onto the porch. He stood by one of the posts, looking at Jack and Hallie with a mixture of curiosity and defiance.

“He’s why I’m here,” Jack said.

Hallie’s face puckered in confusion. “Ethan Harper? What would you have to do with Ethan?”

“He’s my son.”

“Your—that’s impossible. You couldn’t be—I mean, when…how?”

“I do put the cards down once in a while, darlin’. And as to how, I’d demonstrate but I don’t think you want to give the boys at the Silver Snake another spectacle.”

Hallie flushed and opened her mouth to snap back at him, but Jack took a step closer so she could feel the heat of him. She faltered and stepped backward, uneasy with the expression in his eyes, which made her wonder if she’d misjudged his determination to suddenly become a rancher.

“Paradise is where Ethan’s grown up, so Paradise is where he stays,” Jack said. He looked straight at her. “And Eden’s Canyon is mine and it’s going to stay mine. Like it or not.”

Hallie stood by the window in the front room of the ranch house, her hands fisted at her sides, and forced herself to look at the stretch of fine grazing land beyond the knobby wooden corral fences. The brilliant sunshine hurt her eyes, but at least it distracted her from thinking about Ben and what his latest escapade had cost her.

Outside her window, grasses knee-high and thick rolled in green, gold and brown over the flat plains of the Rillito Valley. On either side of the valley, the mountains, painted in reds and browns, jutted up in crags and peaks, guarding the rich grassland. Her grandfather had left behind a dirt farm in Missouri to stake his claim on this piece of wild Arizona territory. He’d built the sprawling cedar-and-adobe house near the river, started breeding Mexican cattle and made a modest fortune before Paradise was even a thought.

Hallie couldn’t imagine living anywhere but here, or doing anything but ranching. She was good at it, if nothing else. She would never be the pretty, graceful, quiet kind of woman that men courted with their Sunday-best manners and sweet talk. But she told herself she didn’t care. She didn’t need nice ways and soft words to break a wild mustang or round up a herd of cattle.

She did, however, need Eden’s Canyon.

A timid knock at the door turned Hallie from the window. The girl who poked her head into the room was not much younger than Ben, with smooth pale hair and round blue eyes that dominated her thin face. Hallie had given Serenity Trent a haven and a job at Eden’s Canyon more than two years ago, and only regretted that the girl still crept around as if she expected someone to holler at her just for being in the room.

Hallie motioned her inside. “What is it, Serenity? What’s wrong?”

Chewing at her lower lip, Serenity glanced over her shoulder. “It’s—”

“Jack Dakota. Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he said, winking at Serenity as he pushed the door wide and walked inside as if he had a right to be there. “Miss Hal knows Ethan and me.”

Serenity, her face bright red, appeared ready to crawl under the rug. Ethan hung back, his face set in a sullen scowl as he clutched a ragged carpetbag close to his side. Only Jack smiled at Hallie, taking the whole mess in stride as if it were of no more consequence than an afternoon picnic. She ground her teeth together, feeling the itch to string him up the first opportunity she got.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“Moving into my house.”

“It is not your house.”

“I thought we’d settled this.”

“We didn’t settle anything!”

“Well, the bank and I did,” Jack said. Becoming slightly annoyed at her stubborn refusal to face the truth, he held the deed papers in front of her nose. “These look familiar?” He pulled the papers back when she made to snatch them away. “I didn’t want to leave Ethan at the saloon any longer, and I didn’t fancy staying in town after my little misunderstanding with Redeye. So I’m here, to stay, at my house.”

They glared at each other before Serenity interrupted the charged silence by touching Ethan on the shoulder. “I’ve got some gingerbread in the kitchen. Would you like some?” She gave him a gentle prod in the right direction, and after a glance at Jack, Ethan left with her.