Tried and True (Wild at Heart Book #1) (3 page)

A
aron managed to stay away for a full day and a half. Now he rode for the Wilde homestead while daydreaming about Kylie’s hair. He wished he’d stayed long enough last time for it to dry fully so that he knew every curl.

He’d seen enough to know it was streaked light and framed those vivid hazel eyes. It would accent her tanned skin and that one perfect dimple.

He’d seen a lot of beauty since moving to the edge of the frontier. The aspen that grew straight up the sides of the mountains. Pine forests so elegant they looked like a painting. He’d seen bighorn sheep leaping with impossible grace, and mountain grandeur that struck him to the heart.

But Kylie Wilde topped them all. He’d saved her from falling.

Saved her.

Aaron the Hero had rescued the Damsel in Distress. He couldn’t wipe the smile off his face.

If her brother Kyle spent a lot of time out hunting, then
it stood to reason Kylie was often home alone. So maybe she needed help lifting something heavy or scaring off a cranky badger or patching the roof some more.

She definitely needed help with that.

Maybe she’d need to be rescued again, and there he’d be.

He’d left late enough that Kyle was probably home, but just in case, he urged his gelding faster. Kylie’s pretty face was enough to make any man hurry.

The scent of pine made every breath a reason to enjoy life. It was beautiful in its way and helped him to ignore the deep pain of leaving his beloved Shenandoah Valley.

When he thought of Shenandoah now, he only remembered the ruins, the burned-down houses and barns, the missing livestock.

His family dead. All of them dead.

How had that memory come to him here, on his way to see Kylie? He kicked his horse from a trot to a gallop and bent low over the black’s neck, riding recklessly on the narrow path so it would take all his attention.

For a stretch, Aaron clung to the huge gelding, one of the few thoroughbreds big enough to carry a man Aaron’s size. That was why he’d taken it to war with him, and why it was still alive. Everything left behind was dead.

Aaron’s fingers sunk deep in the shining black mane that flowed like silk. They streaked through the forest in a breeze created by a man running away from his memories. Aaron and his horse coming through the war unscratched, while his family stayed behind, left in their graves.

He raced along the twisting path, not wide enough for a wagon but well worn from horse hooves, and at last found himself at Kylie’s house.

The trail he rode on opened up on her small clearing, coming in from the west. He hadn’t had much time to look at it last time. In the heavy rain he’d seen Kylie dangling from the roof and raced forward to save her. After that, he’d been unable to look at anything else but her.

Today he could enjoy the pond he’d barely noticed before. It spread out on the south side of the cabin and reflected the green trees and the blue sky. There was a cascade of water pouring out of a rock with a constant rippling splash. It collected in the little rock basin, the water clear and clean. The cabin stood beside it, a small structure which didn’t look large enough for Kylie and her brother to occupy. But Aaron knew that was often the case with these homestead cabins. The first buildings were modest to the point of being barely livable.

Though the building was small, it was well constructed and well tended—with the exception maybe of the roof. There was a porch with slender saplings forming graceful spindles that appeared to circle the whole cabin. Two rockers were on the south side, where a body could sit and look out at the pond.

The rockers swayed gently in the cool, early evening breeze. A pot of red flowers bobbed between them. There was a stretch about twenty feet long between the cabin and the shoreline. Someone—Aaron would wager it was Kylie—had created a rock garden full of native wildflowers and pretty stones to fill the gap. It made him want to sit on that porch and rest his eyes on the rocks and listen to the rippling music of falling water.

It was the kind of home that beckoned to a man.

Aaron had ridden in from the west with the setting sun.
The clearing was cast in deep shadows. A set of three steps led up to a front door centered between two open windows, their curtains fluttering back and forth. They were glass, which was rare out here. Not many took the time for curtains or glass, nor did they waste time making rocks into something beautiful.

He dismounted, hitched his horse, and jogged up the steps a little too eagerly. He knocked on the door, but there was only silence. No one was home.

The way Aaron’s spirits plummeted told him just how eager he was to see Kylie. He walked around to the south side of the porch, facing the water, and sat on the rocker. He relaxed into the seat, noticing how intricately it’d been made. Wilde was a top-notch carpenter. And he’d poured a lot of time and talent into this homestead and garden. Odd because most around here gave their houses a lick and a promise and set to building barns and corrals, attending to their livelihood before their comfort.

Aaron had visited enough homesteads to see a clear priority repeated over and over, even when there were women and children present.

The porch was so comfortable, the scene so charming, and the summer evening so pleasant, Aaron let the moments tick by in pure pleasure. He didn’t consider for a single moment giving up on the missing Kyle—or his sister. He would contentedly sleep right here in this chair if need be.

And then, as the dusk settled in, to his right, the same direction Aaron had come from, a shadow separated from the trees. Aaron stood and watched the shadow form into a man. He was carrying a long gun. A Sharps repeating rifle, if Aaron wasn’t mistaken. Aaron didn’t make a move for
his Colt, always close at hand. Instead, he watched very carefully. The man showed no inclination toward taking aim, and it stood to reason that a man hunting would be armed.

“Hello, are you Kyle?” Aaron made sure he sounded friendly.

“I am,” the young newcomer replied in a voice that sounded almost falsely coarse. Then Wilde stepped closer, and there was no way to deny he was Kylie Wilde’s brother. The resemblance was so strong, Aaron was struck hard by it.

Wilde had on a wide-brimmed felt hat, pulled down over his eyes. Aaron saw the man was dirty, no doubt from a long day of hunting. Smudges showed on his face and his clothes. He was much broader in the shoulders and an inch or two taller than Kylie, but under all the dirt he had a face almost too pretty to be male. He bore a strong resemblance to his sister.

Wilde stepped up onto the porch, nodded at Aaron without raising his hat brim, then adjusted the rocker unnecessarily before he sat himself down on the other rocker, which was now a good five feet away.

“My sister said you needed to check on the building. Well, you can see it’s done.” Wilde fell silent. Rocking, his face tilted down, the hat covered him nearly to his mouth. Add the shadow cast by the setting sun, and Aaron wasn’t sure if his first reaction about the young man’s resemblance to Kylie was accurate.

“Need anything else? It’s been a long day and I’m worn clean out.” It was also clear that Wilde wasn’t prepared to be nearly as friendly as his sister, and he wasn’t going to invite Aaron in or shake hands or even remove that hat.

“Your sister said you spent time at Vicksburg. I did too. I had a hankering to talk to someone who’d seen some of the war.”

“The war’s a memory best left behind.” Wilde fell silent again.

Aaron realized the kid wasn’t going to say any more. Usually men out here in the West were a little more welcoming. Aaron hadn’t been here long, had only come to the area a month ago, but he’d visited a lot of homesteads, and most homesteaders were lonely and eager to sit a spell and talk to a visitor. Of course maybe Wilde was just naturally quiet, or maybe his sister was enough company for any man.

“Your sister lives here with you, then?”

Wilde tensed in a way that sharpened Aaron’s attention. Something was definitely wrong with the kid. He’d written his age down as twenty-two. And he’d served two years and been mustered out in the spring of sixty-five. Aaron did some quick math and decided Wilde had probably lied about his age. A lot of sixteen-year-olds enlisted in the Army. Two years of fighting, starting at sixteen, and a year since he’d gotten out and headed west meant the youngster was only nineteen years old. He needed to be twenty-one to file on a homestead.

“Uh, yep.”

Aaron wasn’t a real stickler for that rule. If a man said he was an adult and did the work of an adult, then Aaron wasn’t about to make him prove his age. No way to do that anyhow. A baby didn’t have a birth record most of the time. Aaron sure as certain didn’t haul a document around with details on it.

But if the kid had lied about his age, it might explain why he didn’t like a land agent dropping by to palaver.

Which left Aaron frustrated because he didn’t even care about Wilde, or his age, or even his unfriendly manner. He really came out here to visit with Kylie again. That young lady was the prettiest thing he’d seen in a month of Sundays. She was mighty friendly, too. Unlike her brother.

“Where is she tonight?”

The kid gathered himself in a strange way, almost like he was pretending to relax, and Aaron had the strangest feeling that whatever Wilde said next was going to be a lie. Aaron had studied men in the war and considered himself a good judge of truth and lies.

“My two brothers and my pa all homesteaded out here.” Wilde’s voice wavered strangely. Aaron looked at him closer, trying to see past the shadows cast by his hat and the porch roof. “Kylie is at my brother Shannon’s house for the night. She’s a big help to us all, and we all welcome her.”

Shannon Wilde, another name Aaron had seen on his list. Bailey Wilde was there too, along with Cudgel Wilde. And their homesteads were in a neat row, situated so that they blocked the trail to some fertile canyon land and claimed this fine watering hole. The Wildes were savvy homesteaders. With their 160-acre claims, counting that canyon land, they controlled thousands of acres of prime water and grass.

“So Kylie said you were at the Siege of Vicksburg, is that right?”

Wilde leaned forward, clenched his hands, still tucked into gloves, between his splayed knees and looked at the porch floor. “I was there.” He glanced up, then turned
right back toward the floor. “I spent time behind enemy lines, gathering intelligence.”

“You mean you were a spy? Kylie spoke of something like that.”

“Kylie’s got a big mouth.” The statement sounded loaded with sarcasm. Aaron’s eyes narrowed. What kind of man spoke so disrespectfully of his sister? It was easy to study Wilde, since he was doing his best not to look at Aaron.

He’d been a skilled army officer and considered himself a good land agent. He put all his skills together and had a suspicion. Standing, he said, “Well, I’ll be going, then.”

Wilde didn’t rise.

Aaron closed the space between them and thrust his hand out, offering to shake Wilde’s. A stretch of seconds went on far too long, and finally a gloved hand came out and took Aaron’s hand. With a single jerk, Aaron dragged the youngster up and whipped that stupid hat off.

Honey-brown curls streaked with yellow tumbled down around Kylie Wilde’s falsely padded shoulders.

She squeaked and looked up at him, her starburst eyes wide with fear.

I
 . . . I can explain.” Kylie had no idea how she was going to explain.

“No need. I think I see things more than clear.” Aaron’s eyes flashed with contempt. “You’re using your brother’s identity to claim a homestead, using the service exemptions to get out of doing your five years. That’s fraud, Miss Wilde. A woman is free to homestead on her own; you’re just lying about your time in the Army to get out of two of those years. You can go to prison for that.”

“P-prison?” Kylie tugged against his iron grip, but it didn’t give at all.

“And you can certainly get thrown off this land and be barred from ever homesteading again. Does your brother know that his years of danger and sacrifice are being stolen and used by his lazy, dishonest little sister? Is he in on it or are you cheating him too, on top of cheating your country?”

“Let go of me.” She jerked her hand free of his, leaving her glove behind.

Her hands were so obviously feminine, she’d had to keep them covered with the buckskin gloves.

“Did you know that besides being a land agent, I also have authority from the government to make an arrest? I
don’
t
have to let go of you.” He threw her abandoned glove down on her porch floor and grabbed her wrist.

Kylie froze at the word
arrest
.

“In fact, I can arrest you right now and haul you off to jail.”

His jaw tightened, and his grip on her wrist hurt. He leaned down until their noses almost touched. “Is your brother even alive, Miss Wilde? Or did he die fighting to preserve the Union, and now, like a vulture, you’re profiting from his death?”

“Stop right there.” That last part was just too much. “I
did
have a brother, who died in that awful war. Everything I’ve done for the last five years has been because of Jimmy. I will not let you stand there and accuse me of profiting from his death.” She no longer wanted to escape. Instead, she was tempted to blacken his eyes.

“Jimmy? You said his name was Kyle. You said he was at Vicksburg. You said he was a spy.”

“My brother’s name
is
Jimmy, you idiot.
I’m
Kyle!”

Aaron jerked his face away from hers. “You’re Kyle? What?”

“And I was at Vicksburg, fighting with the Ninth.”

“But women can’t . . . don’t . . .”

“Women
can
and
do
, Mr. Masterson. I’m living proof that there were women serving right there alongside the
men. I faced all the danger I was called to face, and I earned that service exemption.” Her voice grated until it could have ground glass.

Aaron’s face was a picture as he lost the last of his anger. She could see his mind working, sorting through the surprises of the last few minutes. “And you couldn’t have the exemption because you’re a woman.”

“You tell me who’s being cheated. I say
I’m
being cheated out of what I rightfully earned.”

“But women can’t earn the exemption. They aren’t allowed to enlist.”

“Well, I
did
enlist. I used my own name too. I never told a single lie. I dressed as a man, but no one ever asked me if I was one.”

“Didn’t you have a physical?”

Kylie’s snort was purely rude. “The physical was a man looking at me. He said my name, saw me standing upright, and waved me through.”

Nodding, Aaron said, “I remember mine. That’s how it was.”

“I served my country honorably and I will not let . . .” Her voice broke, and then she steadied it. “When my brother died, we . . . I went to fight in his place. He believed in this country enough to give his life to preserve it. And I could do no less.” Of course, she’d have never considered fighting, even with her grief over Jimmy’s death, if Pa hadn’t goaded her into taking up arms.

The prying land agent shook his head just briefly as if trying to shed water, then stepped back and sank into the chair he’d abandoned. Kylie had hoped he’d storm off and leave her. She wanted him to go away. But if he did, he’d go
straight to Aspen Ridge and disallow her claim. So maybe she didn’t want him to go away just yet.

Not sure what she wanted, Kylie sank into her chair, much like Aaron had.

Whether he’d decided to hear her out, or he was stunned by her revelations to a point that he needed to sit down, at least she still had a chance. She might not be able to save herself, but maybe she could save Shannon and Bailey.

“I say I have a right to that Homestead Service Exemption.”

Aaron held up a hand at her. “Just be quiet for a minute.”

“I enlisted in the Army and served two full years.”

Aaron glared at her. “Will you give me a minute to think?”

She glared right back. “I ended up as an aide to one officer or another. I made a point of moving around every chance I got, hoping they wouldn’t realize I was a woman.”

“I said be quiet!” Aaron snapped. “If you’re trying to convince me to go along with this fraud, let me try and figure out how I can do it.”

Since that sounded far more hopeful than Kylie had expected, she clapped her mouth shut.

A furious light flashed in Aaron’s eyes. “I just don’t believe it.”

“You don’t believe I served? You think I’m lying?”

“Why wouldn’t I? You are lying and have been all along. ‘I never told a single lie’ is a pile of horse dung, and you know it. If I say I believe you fought in the war, then all that proves is that every man who looked at you for more than ten seconds and didn’t realize you were a woman
must have the intelligence of swamp moss and the eyesight of a bat.”

“Most of the men I worked for were too busy to pay me much mind.”

“Whether it’s true or not, you have no record of what you’ve done in the war. None that will stand up to scrutiny, because there is no war service available to women. But I know how to solve this.”

Kylie’s heart lifted. “You do?”

Aaron nodded. “It’s not that hard. Women are allowed to homestead. With two pen strokes I can mark you as a woman and strike through the service exemption. It’ll take you five years but—”

“No!” Kylie made a fist and was so tempted to throw it, she wondered if she’d lived disguised as a man for too long. Women didn’t go around punching people.

“Why not? You’ll be here just the same, working your land.”

“No I won’t!” Kylie’s temper exploded. She flung her arms wide and almost smacked Aaron in the face, which would have suited her just fine. “I will be gone. Long! Gone! Completely and forever gone from this stupid homestead. I’ll be living back East in a civilized city, wearing pretty dresses and not having to fight for every bite of food I eat. I hate it here!”

“It isn’t that long,” Aaron yelled right back. “You can put in two additional years. That’s what an honest, decent person would do.”

Oh, she really was going to punch him. “Stop saying I’m not honest and decent.”

He leaned toward her. “Well, I don’t know about decency.
Walking around in those britches isn’t what I’d call decent. But you can’t even pretend like you’re honest. Now settle down and be reasonable about how we can solve this. I’m offering to bend the rules mighty hard to help you keep this land.”

“You aren’t allowing me to use my years of service. How is that helping?”

“It ignores the fact that your claim is fraudulent, which keeps you from getting tossed off your land and forbidden from homesteading anywhere else in the whole United States of America. Not to mention it’ll give you the excuse you need to cast aside those shameful britches. I think that’s a mighty big help.”

“I told you—”

A rumble sounded from the dusky woods, the sound of hooves . . . a lot of them.

Aaron jumped up, and Kylie did the same. He heard tree limbs snapping, a shout. He whirled to face the trail he’d ridden in on, shoved Kylie behind him, and drew his Colt in a single motion.

Kylie pressed close to his back. She must’ve been standing on her tiptoes and peeking over his shoulder, because she said in his ear, “What is it?”

Aaron almost forgot those rumbling hooves, as Kylie Wilde’s warm breath on his ear was a powerful distraction.

Only almost.

He’d learned to be a mighty cautious man in the war, and his skills had only sharpened since he’d set out across the
continent. He’d never carried a gun back home in Virginia. Now he never went out of his boardinghouse unarmed.

Another shout.

“A lot of western men, even evil ones, will treat a woman decent. But if they see you wearing trousers, they might think you’re no better than you ought to be.”

“I’ll put my hair up under my hat again and just be Kyle,” she whispered, and Aaron almost turned around to drag her into his arms.

“That’s a half-witted idea if ever I heard one. It would take an idiot, and a blind one at that, to believe for more than a few minutes that you’re a man.” A whip cracked from the forest, followed by a man shouting words Aaron couldn’t make out.

“I tricked the entire Union Army for two years.”

Another shout was closer still.

“Get inside. Get a dress on. And wash your face!” He could see now that she’d deliberately smeared dirt on her face as part of her disguise.

Yet another shout sounded so close, Aaron knew whoever was coming would be here in a matter of seconds. “A dress just might save your life.”

Aaron had commanded men in the war, and apparently Kylie had been commanded, because she snapped to it.

The door clicked shut behind him. He spotted Kylie’s Sharps rifle leaning against the porch railing and grabbed it. The cold, heavy iron felt good in his hand.

A desert-brown longhorn steer burst from the edge of the woods into the clearing. It bawled as it charged for the pond beside the house, trampling over Kylie’s rocks and flowers. A second longhorn was right behind it, then five
more, then too many to count, all crashing and kicking up their heels as they raced toward the water. Dust kicked up until Aaron was breathing in grit. The mooing and thudding of hooves were deafening in the choking dust.

Through the haze he saw the rock garden and flowers destroyed under the pounding hooves. A bull veered straight for Aaron, deflected from getting a drink by the charging mass of cattle. The bull looked to be coming up the steps, through Aaron and into the cabin. At the last second it whirled toward the water, bellowing and shoving smaller cattle aside. Spring calves frolicked among the older animals, kicking up their heels, turning the rush to water into playtime. The cattle crowded together in the narrow space between the cabin and the pond. One of them kicked and smashed a stretch of the south porch railing.

A cow shoved against the porch by the herd, leapt up onto it, and faced Aaron. She pawed the wooden floor with her front hooves and lowered her head to present a stretch of sharp horns. For a tense moment Aaron wondered if the cow, which probably weighed a thousand pounds, would charge him. Then the red-and-white beast turned as if remembering the water and jumped through a hole in the railing, taking another chunk out. She disappeared into the herd. They all had a big C branded on their rumps.

A rider trotted into the clearing, saw him, and pulled his brown thoroughbred to a halt so suddenly it reared. Even in the dimness of the evening, it was the work of seconds to take the newcomer’s measure. No doubt this was the man in charge. Though Aaron had never seen him before, he’d been in Aspen Ridge about ten minutes before he’d heard of him.

Gage Coulter, owner of the C Bar Ranch.

Riding the shining stallion he’d brought with him from Texas. It was said he was a man who’d moved here because Texas wasn’t big enough for both him and his pa. He owned five thousand acres and controlled fifty thousand more, and from the coldly stunned look on Coulter’s face, it was more than clear that he thought he controlled this pond, too.

Coulter dragged his broad-brimmed hat off his head. His overly long brown hair matched his horse so perfectly they seemed to be a pair. Coulter rode straight for the porch while longhorns spread out along the edge of the pond. The first cattle to the water were shoved in with a loud splash that sounded beneath the hooves that near shook the ground.

Others waded in on their own. The bawling eased as the drinking began. The blue water turned to mud.

Coulter’s eyes jumped from Aaron to the cabin to the barn and back to Aaron. “What’s going on here?” he asked.

The words cracked like a whip, but somehow Aaron was tempted to smile. He had a feeling it was a rare thing for Coulter, one of the biggest cattle barons in the state, to be taken by surprise.

Aaron didn’t know the land all that well yet—he was new to the area still—but he’d bet that pond was a mighty dependable watering hole, and one Coulter used regularly. Especially at the height of summer.

As the cattle trampled all the things that had made this tidy homestead so pretty, Aaron lost the urge to smile.

It was clear the man had no idea that someone had homesteaded this little corner of his territory. Aaron holstered his Colt and switched the Sharps to his right hand. Coulter
might be a powerful man, even a tyrant, but he was no killer. There was trouble here, yet it wouldn’t come to shooting.