Susan Amarillas - Scanlin's Law

A young stable hand of about fifteen hurried to meet him. “I’ll put him away for you, sir,” he said, his sandy hair falling across his left eye. He shoved it back.

“No thanks. I always take care of my horse.” Spotting an empty stall, he asked, “This one okay?”

“Fine. Help yourself to whatever you want. Oats is there—” he pointed, “—and water’s over there. I’ll be in the back, working on some harness. You need anything, sing out.”

“Will do.”

With that, the boy turned and ambled away.

Luke stretched, trying to ease the tension out of tired muscles and joints. He shrugged off his slicker and tossed it over the gate.

It had been a hell of a day, and it wasn’t over yet, he thought as he unsaddled his horse and hefted the saddle over the partition. The stirrup banged into the wood, and he actually checked to see if he’d scratched it.

“Hell of a place to keep a horse,” he muttered.

Becky was waiting for him up at the house. He was stalling for time. He picked up a curry brush and set to work, but all the while he kept thinking about her.

It wasn’t the first time. Now there was an understatement. Since the day he’d ridden out all those years ago, hardly a day, or night, had passed when he didn’t think about her or dream about her or curse himself for leaving her. For a while there, he’d tried to convince himself she was just another woman, nothing more and nothing less than the others he had known.

It didn’t work. Knowing other women didn’t work. Nothing worked. It was always Becky.

Becky of the luminous want-to-drown-in-them eyes. Becky of the throaty voice that brushed his skin and his nerves like warm velvet. Vivid memories merged with lush fantasies, and all of them had to do with her naked in his arms.

He stopped dead, letting the sudden desire wash over him, enjoying the feeling.

Yeah, Scanlin, you’ve got it bad. There’s a name for “it,” you know.

Lust. That was it. Lust.

Sure, Scanlin. Sure.

His mouth pulled down in a frown. He went back to work, making long downward strokes with the brush. The horse shivered and sidestepped.

“Hold still, will ya?” Luke snapped, and ducked under the horse’s neck to rub down the other side.

Being with Becky was getting more complicated by the minute. First off, he’d never figured on her having a child. Second, he’d never figured on her son being in trouble. And no way had he counted on the sudden intense feelings, the fierce need to comfort her, the drive to protect her, and the desire—oh, Lord, the desire that heated and swirled in him every time she got within ten feet of him.

He stilled, remembering her today. She’d been so proud, so controlled, this morning. Most women—hell, most men—would have fallen apart under the strain of a missing child.

She hadn’t. She was strong, and he admired her strength. It was tough enough raising a child these days. Raising a child alone, a son, without a father to help her—that must be real tough.

The lady had courage.

But did she have enough courage to hear what he had to tell her?

He could tell her he hadn’t found the boy, apologize, then turn it over to the local authorities again. He’d be out from under.

Scared, Scanlin? Gonna run out on her again?

Jaw clenched, he curled his hands into fists. He was here, and he was staying. She needed him. This was his chance to convince her. This was his chance to assuage some of his guilt.

You looking for absolution, Scanlin?

Perhaps.

Or perhaps forgiveness had nothing to do with why he was staying.

Thirty minutes later, he knew he couldn’t stall any longer. He swung his worn saddlebags over his left shoulder. Slicker, bedroll and rifle clutched in his other hand, he headed for the house—and Becky.

His boots made watery puddles in the grass. The last of the rain dripped from the corners of the house. A blackbird, perched on the edge of the roof, watched his progress intently.

The evening air was as fresh and clean as it can be only after a rain, and it looked as though a fog bank was building over the bay. The street in front of the house was quiet, and as he rounded the corner he saw a light go on in the parlor.

Okay, Scanlin, what are you going to tell her?

Dragging in a couple of gulps of air, he reviewed the possibilities in his mind. Regrettably, there weren’t many.

If kids wandered off, they were usually found within a couple of hours, playing somewhere they weren’t supposed to be or with someone they weren’t suppose to be with. Becky had said they’d checked. There was one more possibility. The boy could be dead—accidentally or not. That would explain why there’d been no trace of him.

That very unpleasant thought didn’t sit well. Seeing a dead child—gunned down in a cross fire, killed in a Comanche raid—that was one thing he never got used to.

Besides, this was a city. Gunfights and Indian raids were pretty remote, especially in this neighborhood. He glanced at the mansion. In his work, he knew people did things like this only for money or revenge. He discounted revenge. For the life of him, he couldn’t imagine Rebecca doing anything so terrible that someone would want to take it out on her son.

His brows drew down thoughtfully. That left money. The lady certainly appeared to have more than enough of that, and there was always someone who figured he was entitled to a share—without doing any work for it, of course.

It was a hell of a thing to have to tell someone, someone special, that her only child had been kidnapped. He’d rather face down all four of the Daltons than have to do this.

Maybe someone else found him.

After two days? Sure. And maybe cows could fly.

He clenched his jaw so hard the pain radiated down his neck. Well, there was nothing for it but to go in there.

Inside the entryway, he hung his water-stained hat and damp slicker on the hall tree. Water puddled on the polished plank floor, and he would have cleaned it up, but where the hell would a person find a cleaning rag around this place? He tossed his saddlebags down with a thud—caused by his spare .45—and dropped his bedroll and rifle right beside them. He’d take them upstairs later.

The house was quiet, still and lifeless. Any fleeting hope that someone else had found the boy disappeared in the funereal silence.

He saw Rebecca step through the double doorway of the dining room. Her hair was down, all golden silk, tied back at her neck with a blue ribbon in a way that made her look young, that made him remember her that way.

She’d changed into dry clothes since he’d left. She was wearing a high-necked long-sleeved blouse that was pale blue, with enough starch to effectively hide the gentle swell of her breasts, and at least a hundred tiny buttons that would take a man an hour to get undone. Her skirt was straight and black, and it drew flat across her belly, provocatively outlining her hips in a way that Luke couldn’t help appreciating.

She was head-turning beautiful, even in this tragic time.

She didn’t speak, just stared at him with those haunting blue eyes of hers. The ones he’d seen every night in his dreams—only then they’d been filled with excitement and passion. Now they were filled with so much sadness he had to look away from the intensity of it.

He tried to say something, something encouraging, something promising. God, he wished he had come home with the boy. He saw her straighten, as though bracing for a blow, and he delivered it with the barest shake of his head.

For a full ten seconds, she stood there motionless, and he wondered if perhaps she needed him to tell her.

“I—” The words wouldn’t come.

His hands drew up in a fist against the rage that filled him, that made his breathing a little harsh and his muscles tense. At that moment, he felt the loss as surely as if it were his child, and, without thinking, he crossed to her.