Mail Order Cowboy (Love Inspired Historical) (15 page)

S
he found Nick up on the hill with the four new cowboys. Driving the wagon up the narrow track to the top, Milly was amazed to see they'd already laid out a perimeter for the stone fort and had gathered a pile of rocks of various sizes as high as her shoulder. Right now they were taking a break in the shade formed by an outcropping of limestone, passing around a couple of canteens of water.

“This is amazing!” she marveled, forgetting for a moment her encounter with Dayton.

Nick grinned up at her. “It's a good start, isn't it? I think it's getting too hot to do more today, but if we can use the wagon, it'll be easier to gather up the rocks the next time we can work on it.”

“Sarah just asked me to tell you dinner's ready. She didn't figure you could hear the bell up here. You can ride down in the wagon bed.”

While the four brothers went ahead to the pump to wash up, Nick helped her unhitch the horses and turn them out in the corral. She used the moments alone with him to tell him what Dayton had said.

Nick's blue eyes blazed with fury by the time she finished the account. His hands clenched into fists just as hers had. “The blackguard! I believe I'll pay him a call this afternoon and make him pay for his blasted cheek! Texas doesn't allow dueling, does it?”

“No…” she said, though she knew there were lawless towns farther west where quarrels were commonly settled with guns.

“Pity. I'll have to settle for giving him a proper drubbing, then.”

She put up a hand. “No, you mustn't do that. Don't you see, it'll only make things worse. Then he'd have to retaliate. As it is, no one with any sense will believe his nasty insinuations. Anyone who would doesn't have the brains God gave a goose.”

Her words caused his lips to curve into a half smile. “I'm so sorry, Milly. I never meant for what I did to help to cause you any embarrassment. I…I suppose it
could
look like…” He reddened. “Like an inappropriate gift.”

“Only to the evil-minded. Just ignore Dayton and his sort,” she pleaded. “We won't need to do more business with him anytime soon. I
do
want to thank you for what you did, Nick—for paying off the balance,” she said. “It was more than generous of you.”

“You're welcome,” he said. His eyes retained some of their storminess. He gave a deep sigh. “I wanted to be an anonymous benefactor. Blast the man!”

Then Milly caught sight of Sarah beckoning from the side porch. “I think we're holding up dinner. We'd better go wash. But not a word about what Dayton said, please, Nick. I don't want to upset Sarah, too.” She would tell
Sarah later about the way Mr. Wallace and Mr. Patterson had acted toward her, though, in case Sarah went into town and was treated likewise.

“Very well, if you'll promise not to tell her about my paying off the lumber bill—at least in front of me. I didn't do it to be thanked, you see.”

She stared up at him, hardly able to believe how unselfishly
good
he was.

Over the meal, she told Sarah and the others about her idea of selling ready-made dresses at the mercantile.

“What a great idea, Milly,” Sarah praised. “I've heard lots of ladies at church wish they had your skill with a needle and your eye for decorative touches.”

“I'll start on them right after the shirts I'm going to make for you men,” she said, then told them about the denim she'd purchased for that purpose.

“Is it Christmas?” Micah wondered out loud. “Sure looks like summer out there to me, but I ain't never had new clothes 'less it was Christmas.” Everyone chuckled.

Sarah's eyes had gone thoughtful. “I wonder if I could interest Mr. Patterson in selling my pies, too? What do you think, Milly?”

“I don't see why not,” Milly replied. “Maybe the hotel restaurant would buy them, too.”

Nick raised his glass of cold tea. “I'd like to propose a toast,” he said. “To the Matthews sisters—entrepreneurs extraordinaire!”

 

“That was delicious!” Milly said, putting down her knife and fork after taking the last bite of tender roast beef. “Sarah's a great cook, but it's nice to eat supper
elsewhere for a change…especially when I'm with only you.”

Nick studied her across the restaurant table. Milly Matthews looked delicious tonight, too, in an entirely different sort of way. She wore a dress of some rose-colored silky fabric and a lacy shawl around her shoulders. She'd put her hair up, allowing him to appreciate the graceful length of her neck. A cross pendant dangled from a simple, delicate gold chain. A faint hint of rosewater wafted from her skin, a more appealing scent than any of the exotic musky perfumes he'd ever smelled in India.

He wanted to kiss her tonight. Surely the sparkle in her eyes ever since they'd left the ranch together indicated that she wouldn't take that amiss? He'd head out of town on the road back to the ranch, then stop the wagon and kiss her.

“Would you folks care for dessert?” the waiter asked, breaking into his thoughts.

“Oh, no, I couldn't…” Milly murmured.

“That's a shame, ma'am, 'cause the cook made a Boston cream pie that looks absolutely delightful.”

Milly groaned. “It's tempting…”

“The lady will have a piece. And we'd like coffee,” Nick said. The waiter had been perfect, there when he was needed, friendly without being obsequious, a distinct contrast to the hotel proprietor, who'd pretended not to hear when Milly had called “Good evening” to him as they'd walked through the lobby toward the restaurant. Apparently he'd heard about the ranch's new employees, too.

“Mmm, you really must try this,” Milly said, holding
a forkful out to him after the waiter had come and gone again.

It was sweet, but not nearly as sweet as looking into those mercurial green-gold eyes and watching her rosebud lips open involuntarily as she fed him the morsel of pie. Did she know how irresistible she was?

“Nick…” Milly began, as if she had something on her mind.

“Yes?” he murmured, unable and unwilling to remove his gaze from her eyes and mouth.

“Nick, what is ‘Ambika'?”

He couldn't have been any more astonished if Milly had asked why he'd been called Mad Nick.

“How…how do you know that name?” he asked, when he could find his voice.

Something in his face must have told her the word had unpleasant memories attached to it, for she said, “So it's not a
what,
it's a
who?
I'm sorry…it's just that you called that name, over and over again, when you were delirious with fever. I wrote it down—at least, the way it sounded to me…I'm sure I misspelled it—so I could ask you about it some time. I—I was just curious, that's all. You don't have to tell me if you'd rather not.”

Of course he'd rather not. He'd rather the name had never intruded into this romantic dinner. Her eyes, which had reflected the candle's dancing light, were anxious now. Troubled.

He could lie, he knew. Make up some innocuous story about Ambika, say she was the colonel's children's
amah,
or something like that. The real Ambika would remain thousands of miles and oceans away.

But he couldn't lie to this woman he had begun to
love. He was planning to kiss her tonight and perhaps even begin to talk about their wedding.

He could answer her questions, tell her the truth…just not all the truth.

“Ambika was the youngest daughter of the maharajah—the prince, that is—of the Bombay area.”

“And you knew her? You were friends?”

“We were acquainted, yes. Though one could hardly say a princess could be a friend of a lowly British captain. Her father was allied with the major general, and so the rajah often brought his family to joint social events.”
Please, Milly, leave it at that.

“Was she…very beautiful?”

Beautiful didn't begin to describe Ambika's sultry, sloe-eyed appearance.

He shrugged, as if Ambika's looks had held no importance to him. “I suppose you could say so, yes. A lot of the lads in my company fancied themselves in love with her.”

“What about you?” Her changeable hazel eyes were merely curious, not probing or accusatory, yet he knew the truth could wreck their growing feelings for one another. And he could not do that.

He laughed. “I? Well…I was taken with her for a time, I suppose…she was pleasant to look at and all that…and enjoyed talking to young officers…. But I never for a moment thought…that is to say, she was a princess, destined for an arranged marriage with some rajah somewhere, whoever her father decided he needed an alliance with…” He shrugged, trying to imply that's all there was to it, an infatuation that was soon over.

“You called out her name, Nick. Several times.”

As much as he willed himself to, he could not continue to look Milly in the eye. He shrugged again. “I dream of India, sometimes…and of people I knew there. The dreams I have when the malaria fevers come… Milly, they're weird, outlandish. I suppose I was remembering her…but last night I dreamed of the major general,” he said, as if Ambika was just another person his dreams dredged up from his soldiering time. “It was the oddest thing,” he said with a chuckle that sounded forced even to him. “In my dream, he was working alongside Elijah, Isaiah, Caleb and Micah, building the fort on the hill…”

Just as he'd hoped, she was distracted. “Yes, dreams can be strange—”

“As I live and breathe, it's Mad Nick Brookfield!” said a voice coming from across the room where an archway separated the hotel lobby from the restaurant.

It couldn't be.

Nick looked up, praying he had imagined the voice calling his name, a voice he'd thought never to hear again.

Of course he had not imagined it. Captain Blakely Harvey stood in the entranceway, transfixed, a smile curving beneath his bushy mustache. As their eyes met, Harvey started forward, eyes alight, extending a hand. “It
is
you, isn't it?”

Nick wished the man would suddenly be miraculously transported to the steppes of Russia, but when it didn't happen, there was nothing for it but to rise and greet him.

“Harvey, whatever are you doing here?” he asked. Harvey wasn't in uniform.

“I could ask you the same,” the other man retorted. “And in fact I will. I came to Texas to visit my dear uncle the ambassador. I expected to see you there, naturally. But when I arrived, you were nowhere in evidence. I asked the old man about it, only to learn you had never taken up your post in Austin, but had instead sent him some crazy message about visiting the countryside before you settled down to your duty. And now I understand why,” he said, his gaze sliding in an oily fashion over Milly. “In fact, your rusticating in this dusty little town makes perfect sense now.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Nick saw Milly dart a glance at him. Doubtless she was wondering why he didn't have the good manners to introduce them.

“Fair lady, I will introduce myself since Nick apparently isn't about to,” the other man said, giving a low bow. “I am Blakely Harvey, late of Her Majesty's Bombay Light Cavalry, just as Nick is.”

Milly darted an uncertain glance at Nick, then looked up at Harvey. “I'm Milly Matthews, sir. How…how nice that you've come to visit Nick. You two must have many memories in common.”

“Don't we, indeed?” Harvey said with a chuckle. “I look forward to reminiscing with him while I'm here.”

Nick had had enough of this charade. He stood. “Miss Matthews and I were just leaving, Harvey. And you may as well tell your uncle I will not be assuming my post, and I apologize for not writing him to that effect sooner. Now that you know that, you may as well leave Simpson Creek.”

Harvey's eyes dueled with his for a long moment.
“Leave this delightful hamlet on the same day I've arrived? My dear boy, how inhospitable of you! Why, you must know I've gone to no end of discomfort to reach here, taking the stage as far as I could before hiring a hack—though the miserable bony thing that conveyed me the rest of the way here could hardly be called such, or even horseflesh,” he said. “No, I'm afraid I will need to rusticate myself for a few days, to recover from the journey. Surely there's some amusement to be had in this charming little town, perhaps other beautiful ladies to meet, Nick, old boy?”

“There's hard work ‘to be had' here, but since you were always averse to that, I know you'd be too bored to remain,” Nick said, taking a step forward so that there were only inches between them. The other man was shorter, so Nick had to look down to lock eyes with Harvey, but he did so now. The other man looked away first.

“And if you're really fortunate,” Nick went on, “you might meet up with our neighboring Comanches. Their hospitality rivals even that of the Punjabis,” he added, referring to the fierce tribesmen of the region northeast of Bombay. “Good evening, Harvey. Nice seeing you again.”

M
illy held her tongue until the wagon passed the last house in town; then, as if she could hold back her curiosity no more, she broke the uncomfortable silence.

“Nick, why were you so unfriendly to that man? You two were in the army together. I mean, I suppose he
was
a little forward toward me, but…” Her voice trailed off.

He said nothing, trying to figure out what to tell her without telling her too much, until at last she sighed and ventured, “You don't have to tell me. It's none of my business.”

He didn't want Milly,
his Milly,
transformed into this timid woman. “I'm sorry,” he said at last. “Blakely Harvey and I were never friends. He's a double-dealing scoundrel and a womanizer, and I didn't like him even breathing the same air as you. I only hope he'll take the hint and depart in the morning.” He didn't really think he could be so lucky, though.

“I…I see…” she murmured. “May I ask why he called you Mad Nick?”

He stared between the horse's ears ahead of him,
wondering what to tell her. There was no way he could answer her question with complete honesty—he'd rather be struck dead by a bolt of lightning, here and now.

“Oh, I suppose it was because I was a ‘neck-or-nothing' rider when I was a griff—a newcomer to India—and because I'd take any dare, risk any gamble, both on campaign and during the silly games we played to stave off boredom…” That much was true, but it wasn't the madness that had finally made the nickname irredeemably his.

“Oh. I could tell you didn't like it, when he called you that.”

That, my lovely Milly, is the understatement of the century.
He could hear the puzzlement in her voice. Perhaps she thought he wasn't a good sport, that he was overreacting to good-natured teasing. He'd a thousand times rather she think that than know the truth.

“Well, we needn't speak of him again,” she said, as if that settled the matter completely. “It certainly was a delicious supper, Nick. I had no idea the cook at the hotel could produce a meal like that. Thank you for taking me.”

She was trying, Nick thought, but there was no way to bring back the light, intimate atmosphere that had been present at their table in the restaurant, when Nick had been thinking of kissing her tonight. He knew the time wasn't right now. Seeing Harvey, with his smirk, appear out of his nightmares had poisoned the air too much.

There would be other nights, he thought. He loved Milly no less now that he did before Harvey had mate
rialized at the hotel, and he wanted a future with her just as much as ever. Maybe more.

He could see the hill in front of the ranch as a hulking shape in the distance.

“I'll have to be careful not to go on too much about that roast beef in front of Sarah,” Milly mused aloud, clearly trying to fill the silence, “or she might think I don't appreciate her cooking… Nick, was that a gunshot? There…there it is again! And do you smell smoke?”

Then there was a volley of gunfire, and the wind brought the smell of smoke unmistakably to their nostrils.

The horse had been ambling along at a slow trot, but now he started and whinnied in alarm, even as Nick reached back and grabbed the rifle that was kept in the wagon. He flapped the reins over the horse's rump to hasten him along. “Get on there!”

“Oh, dear God…” Milly cried, clutching him as the horse lurched into a gallop. “It must be Comanches again! Sarah! Nick, hurry! If they've hurt her…”

It was fortunate the road was level, for the horse slowed his pace only slightly as they careened around the bend.

Nick saw several things at once—horses with riders disappearing around the next curve in the road, Josh and Bobby, illuminated by flames forming a ring around the trees, firing at the riders, while Sarah, a shawl clutched around her, screamed from the porch.

And he saw the ring of fire around the trees, and the four new hands, who had formed a bucket brigade from the pump to the circle of fire.

Nick tossed the reins to Milly, then jumped down
from the wagon, and ran into the barn to where the shovel was kept. The fire wasn't high, but it had been a typical hot, dry summer, and in moments the fire could spread and engulf the grass, and then the trees. In a minute he was back, frantically beating at the fire with the shovel and digging at the loose dusty ground and throwing dirt on it, while the other men threw buckets of water. Josh and Bobby had given up firing at the departed riders and appeared at his side, carrying buckets, which they'd filled with the loose dirt they'd scooped up in the corral.

Between them, they subdued the fire in a few minutes. Milly came out to join them, Sarah at her side, each of them clutching lanterns, and silently they all assessed the damage.

The grass inside the ring was singed, as were some of the lower leaves on the trees, but blessedly, the trees had not caught on fire, nor had the fire spread to the house nearby.

“Who was it?” Milly demanded. “Not Comanches.”

“No,” Josh agreed. “Them fellas wore white hoods over their faces. I was sleepin' sound, but Isaiah was on watch and heard 'em ride up. They were real organized, Miss Milly, 'cause one a them threw a rock inta a window of th' house, while the others poured somethin' out of a jug in a ring 'round them trees and then set the torches they were carryin' to it. We snatched up our guns, and while that fire was flamin' up, they ran their horses round the bunkhouse, yippin' like wild Injuns while we shot at 'em. 'Bout the time you drove up, they must've had enough, 'cause they took off.”

Nick hadn't noticed the damaged window, but now he looked up and saw it was the parlor window that had been broken.

“Here's the rock,” Sarah said, producing it from a pocket in her wrapper. “And the message that was tied onto it,” she added, handing a crumpled piece of paper to Nick.

Milly held up the lantern so they could read the scrawled message:

SAN SABA COUNTY FOR WHITES ONLY! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

“What's it say, Miss Milly?” asked Elijah. “We…we never had any book learnin'.”

Milly's eyes were full of unshed tears as she faced the oldest Brown brother. “I—I don't want to say such awful words. This is the work of that Circle. I guess a circle of fire is some kind of symbol.”

Elijah's voice was respectful but insistent. “I reckon we better know the whole truth, ma'am.”

Her voice shaking, her body visibly trembling, she read the ugly message as Sarah came to stand by her side. Nick put his arm around Milly.

The four brothers eyed one another, their faces both alarmed and angry.

Milly and Sarah exchanged glances full of silent understanding. “I…I'll understand if you want to leave, and we'll find a way to pay you something for what you've done so far, Elijah. But if you're willing, we want you to stay. Papa didn't raise us to bow down to bullies.”

“Especially bullies who won't even show their faces,” Sarah added, and both women turned to Elijah.

“You're runnin' a risk, Miss Milly, Miss Sarah,” he said, his face sober. “But I reckon you know that. We could keep runnin', but before long we have to make a stand, I figure, 'cause we got a right to exist and earn an honest livin'. As long as you're willing, it might as well be here.”

“We are. I only wish we'd have been a little quicker getting home,” Milly said. “I'd like to have pulled that hood right off that coward Bill Waters.”

Sarah shuddered. “I'm just thankful you got home when you did, so Nick was able to help put out the fire before it did any real damage to the pecan trees. Thank God the wind was out of the west so the house didn't catch.”

“We're blessed,” Milly agreed. “Thank You, Lord.”

“Amen,” chorused the four brothers.

Nick added a prayer of thankfulness in his heart, combined with a request for continued protection.

“Yes. And thank you, Isaiah, for being on watch,” Sarah said, and he nodded.

“Should I ride back to town for the constable—I mean, the sheriff?” Nick asked. He thought he might also pay a late visit to Blakely Harvey. No doubt he was staying at the hotel. Perhaps he could be a little more persuasive about the benefits of Harvey leaving Simpson Creek early next morning.

“Not tonight,” Milly said with a sigh. “There's nothing he could do tonight, anyway. We can leave a little early in the morning for church and pay him a visit—if you think it's even safe to leave the ranch, Nick.”

But Josh answered before he could. “I reckon it'll be safe enough here—bullies like to strike in the dark, not
in broad daylight. We'll stay and guard it. Don't be too surprised if Sheriff Poteet don't get all het up about the fire, though. He 'n' Waters've been amigos for years.”

Nick saw Milly's eyes widen with dismay and felt an aching sympathy for her. First the Comanches, and now the two sisters faced not only social disapproval but the threat of violence because they had dared to employ four ex-slaves. Surely the shoulders he now held an arm around were too fragile to handle all this! He wanted to take her away from all this, to some place where these threats could never reach.

“No one on this ranch should go anywhere—on the ranch or off it—alone,” he said instead. On a Texas ranch, it probably went without saying that no one should go anywhere without being armed.

 

“Sounds like liquored-up cowboys jest out indulgin' in tomfoolery,” the sheriff drawled the next day, when they stopped in to see him on the way to church.

Milly felt a spark of irritation at his casual dismissal. “Drunken cowboys don't ride around with hoods over their faces, carrying torches,” she retorted. “Would you have called it tomfoolery if the wind had shifted and our house had caught fire? As it is, we nearly lost our pecan trees and had to put out a grass fire.”

“But the house didn't catch fire,” Sheriff Poteet said in that same maddeningly condescending tone, as if she'd been silly to bring up the possibility.

Nick had been a solid presence at her back since she entered the sheriff's office. Now he touched her shoulder lightly and stepped forward. “Any further such ‘tomfoolery' will be met with appropriate force, Sheriff.
The Matthews ranch will be defended. If you hear of anyone who was involved in last night's incident, Mr. Poteet, perhaps you ought to warn them of that.”

Milly saw the sheriff's eyes narrow in his weathered face as his gaze shifted to Nick. “Ain't you takin' a bit much on yourself, Brookfield? Last I heard, you were jest workin' for Miss Milly and Miss Sarah.”

“I can assure you, Mr. Brookfield speaks for me in this matter, Sheriff,” Milly said.

Poteet ignored her. “Miss Milly and Miss Sarah have brought some of this on themselves, and that's a fact.”

“Indeed, sir?” There was a wealth of contempt in the two icy words Nick uttered.

“Yep, they surely have. You're a foreigner, and I don't expect you t'understand these things, but no one approves of those shiftless beggars she's given shelter to. I'd say those fellows in the hoods were only expressing the feelings of the community.”

“Those shiftless beggars, as you call them, were honest men looking for work,” Milly said. “I was in need of help on the ranch. My problem and theirs were solved when I gave them jobs. Now it remains to be seen if you're going to do
your
job, Sheriff, which is to uphold the law.”

Poteet leaned forward, his small eyes cold in his middle-aged face. “Your papa must be rollin' in his grave t' hear you talkin' like a blue-belly Yankee.”

The injustice of his remark took away her breath and left a seething anger in its place, so much so that she didn't dare speak. Didn't the Bible say in the book of Romans that Christians should be subject to the higher
powers, and render them respect? But how could she respect a lawman who wouldn't uphold the law?

Nick stepped forward. “This conversation is over. If you won't be responsible for the safety of the Matthews ladies and their ranch and its other inhabitants, I will be.”