The Stranger

‘Dancing isn’t all that hard. I could teach you the basics.’

‘You mean here? Now?’ Laura asked.

‘Why not?’

Caleb swept her into his arms. The hand that caught the small of her back was firm and strong. He held her close, following the subtle cues of her legs and body until he felt sure enough to take the lead.

Laura could feel the light brush of his arousal through her skirt, and the sweet, wet burning of her own response. She closed her eyes as his lips brushed her hairline and nuzzled her forehead. They stood holding each other, both of them trembling in the darkness.

His mouth skimmed hers. She responded hungrily, her body arching upwards to press against his. He lifted her off her feet and she hung suspended against him.

Abruptly he groaned. ‘Laura, you need to go back to the dance now.’

‘Why?’

‘Because if you stay out here I won’t be held responsible for what I do to you.’

Elizabeth Lane has lived and travelled in many parts of the world, including Europe, Latin America and the Far East, but her heart remains in the American West, where she was born and raised. Her idea of heaven is hiking a mountain trail on a clear autumn day. She also enjoys music, animals and dancing. You can learn more about Elizabeth by visiting her website at www.elizabethlaneauthor.com

Previous novels by this author:

ANGELS IN THE SNOW (in Stay for Christmas anthology)

HER DEAREST ENEMY

THE STRANGER

Elizabeth Lane

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Author Note

As a descendant of pioneers who settled the American West, I live in awe of the women who survived frontier life. The thought of how it must have been for them, facing danger, illness and unthinkable hardship every day for the sake of their families, fills me with admiration and gratitude.

Most amazing of all were the women who survived alone, raising children, ploughing fields, herding livestock, planting and harvesting—women who had to be teachers, doctors, farmers, even warriors when danger threatened their loved ones.

Having been a single mother myself, I know that even with a good job and modern conveniences raising a family alone can be tough, sometimes heartbreaking. This book is my tribute to all of you, single and married, who give of yourselves to make a better world for your children, and for children everywhere. Enjoy.

For my sister, my friends,

and strong women everywhere.

Prologue

New Mexico Territory, May, 1876

Caleb McCurdy saw the girl as he rode through the ranch gate with his two brothers. She was standing outside the modest adobe house, her arms reaching up to hang a pair of faded long johns over a sagging clothesline. Her figure, clad in a blue gingham frock beneath a spotless white apron, was small and neat. The loose ends of a yellow ribbon fluttered from her taffy-hued curls.

She looked to be about seventeen—Caleb’s own age. The sight of her after the long desert crossing was like a drink of sweet, cool water.

“Quit your gawkin’, boy,” Caleb’s eldest brother, Noah, growled. “Pretty thing like that, hangin’ up a man’s underwear, I’d wager she’s already taken.”

“What the hell!” Caleb’s second brother, Zeke, grinned and licked his chapped lips. “Ain’t no law against a fellow fillin’his eyes is there? Lawse, what a little sweetheart! Gets me hard just lookin’ at her!”

Caleb shot him a look of disgust. Their father had always claimed Zeke was born crazy. As a child Zeke had enjoyed tormenting small animals. Then he’d hit his teens and discovered women.

“Shut up, Zeke,” Caleb muttered. “What if she hears you talkin’ like that?”

Zeke’s only reply was a derisive snort.

The girl had seen them. Clothespins dropped to the dust as they pulled their mounts to a halt. She hesitated, gazing at the trio with wide, startled eyes like a doe about to bolt.

“Howdy, ma’am.” Noah touched the brim of his grease-stained Stetson. “Didn’t mean to spook you. My brothers and me, we come all the way from Texas, and it’s been a long, dusty ride. We was hopin’ you’d be kind enough to let us water our horses and fill our canteens. Then we’ll be on our way.”

She gazed uncertainly at the three riders. Caleb knew she didn’t like what she saw. They looked like filthy saddle tramps, which they pretty much were. Noah was slit-eyed and lantern-jawed, with a scruffy beard that had been gray for as long as Caleb could remember. Zeke had pockmarked skin, prominent yellowish eyes and full red lips that curved in a humorless smile.

When the girl’s gray eyes found him, Caleb knew that she saw little more than a shadow, dark and wiry and silent beneath his low-brimmed hat—a gangly youth who looked more like his Comanche mother than he did like his fully white half brothers. She gave him the barest glance before she spoke.

“Wait here, please.” Her throaty voice carried an ill-hidden note of anxiety. “I’ll go and get my husband.”

Zeke chuckled as she fled around the corner of the house. “What a little honey,” he murmured. “Lawse, what I wouldn’t give for a go at what’s under them petticoats!”

“That’s enough, Zeke.” Noah shifted in the saddle, pulling his long jacket over the hefty Colt .45 that hung at his hip. “Last thing we need out here is you makin’trouble with the squatters. You can damn well keep your pants buttoned till we pull off that big job and get to California. After that, you can hump all the women you want!”

Caleb glanced from one man to the other. He’d known all along that his brothers were wild. Still, he’d been elated when they’d agreed to let him tag along to California after their father’s death. For a boy who’d never been out of the county where he was born, the trip had loomed as a great adventure.

So far, however, the journey had been disappointing. The endless days in the saddle, eating dust and listening to Zeke and Noah snap at each other, were beginning to wear on him. And what was this talk about pulling a job? Something didn’t sound right, Caleb thought. Maybe it was time he thought about cutting off on his own.

But now that both his parents were dead, Noah and Zeke were all the family he had. How could he just ride off and leave them? Blood had to count for something, didn’t it?

Caleb’s thoughts dissolved as the girl came back around the corner of the house. With her was a tall young man with fair hair, blue eyes and a long-barreled Winchester rifle in his hands. To Caleb he looked like a hero from the cover of a dime novel.

He took a moment to look the three riders up and down before he smiled and lowered the gun. “Mark Shafton,” he said. “And this is my wife, Laura. You’re welcome to the water, gentlemen. In fact, we’d be pleased to have you stay for a meal. Laura makes a right tasty pot of bean stew, and today she’s cooked enough for an army.”

The young wife kept her face lowered. Her fingertips pressed her husband’s arm in what Caleb guessed to be a silent plea to get rid of the strangers. But Mark Shafton paid her no attention. The man was either a saint or a fool, maybe both. The smell of seasoned beans that drifted from the house made Caleb’s mouth water, but he couldn’t help hoping—for pretty Laura’s sake—that Noah would decline the offer.

“That’s right hospitable of you, Mr. Shafton.” Noah swung wearily out of the saddle. “We been hankerin’ for a home-cooked meal ever since we left Texas. I’m Luke Johnson, and these are my brothers Sam and Will.”

Caleb shrank into his jacket as the two shook hands. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard Noah give false names. Clearly he meant to cover their tracks. But why? That was the question that chewed on Caleb’s nerves.

Maybe after they left this place he’d confront his brothers and demand to know what was going on. After all, he was practically a man now. He had a right to know.

“You can water your horses at the trough over there,” Mark Shafton said. “By the time you’ve washed up at the pump and filled your canteens, dinner should be on the table.”

“I’ll get more butter out of the springhouse and set some extra places.” Laura darted off like a little hummingbird—so beautiful, Caleb thought. Just looking at her gave him pleasure, like the sight of a cactus in bloom or the deepening glow of a sunset.

Inside, the sparsely furnished house was well kept and cheerful. Strings of garlic and Mexican chiles hung from the open rafters of the whitewashed kitchen. Sprouting herbs in little pots lined the windowsills. The plain plank table had been scrubbed and oiled till it glistened. In its center, a small pottery vase held fresh yellow buttercups and blue columbines.

Laura ladled the beans into bowls from the big iron pot on the stove, then joined the four men at the table. She sat directly across from Caleb, her eyes focused on her food. Caleb watched the careful motion of her spoon as it traveled from the bowl to her pretty rosebud mouth. She took tiny bites, as if she were only pretending to eat.

“We came west last fall, right after we were married,” Mark Shafton was saying. “My wife had inherited a little money back in St. Louis, and I invested it in this prime land. We’ve got five hundred acres, with a good stream running down from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. You may have noticed the dam I built—I’m right proud of it. It channels water through the springhouse, just a few steps from the back door, so Laura doesn’t have far to walk. That’s important these days.” His eyes lingered on his pretty wife. A smile tugged at one corner of his chiseled mouth.

“Well, you’d best keep a sharp eye out for floods,” Noah muttered around a mouthful of beans. “Strikes me that a big storm could bring enough water down that channel to do some real damage.”

“So I was told.” Mark Shafton buttered a piece of crusty bread. “But when I build something, I build it to last, so I’m not greatly worried. In a few years I plan to have one of the finest cattle ranches in the territory.” He leaned back in his chair and regarded the visitors with a smile. “That’s enough about us. Tell me about your trip, gentlemen. I always enjoy talking with travelers. A man can learn a lot about the country that way.”

While his brothers chatted with Mark Shafton, Caleb stole glances at Laura. Once she looked up, and her dove-gray eyes met his before they flashed downward. After that he was more careful. He loved watching her, but she was already ill at ease. He had no desire to worsen her discomfort.

All too soon, the meal was over. Noah rose from his chair, stifled a belch and announced that it was time to leave. “We’re right grateful for your hospitality, ma’am,” he said, lifting his Stetson from the back of the chair. “It’s been a long spell since we had such tasty vittles.”

He strode outside, followed by Mark Shafton, with Zeke trailing behind. Laura had risen and was gathering up the bowl of butter and the pitcher of milk to take to the springhouse.

“Can—Can I carry that for you?” Caleb’s voice squeaked, forcing him to clear his throat before he could finish the question.

She shook her head. “You’d better catch up with your brothers, Will. You don’t want them leaving you behind.”

The name threw him for an instant. Then he remembered it was the one Noah had given him. She had actually remembered it. As for being left behind by his brothers, there was nothing he’d like better, Caleb thought. Maybe the Shaftons would hire him to stay on and help with the ranch. He was a good worker and there was nothing he didn’t know about horses and cattle.

But Caleb knew better than to dream. When Noah and Zeke rode out the ranch gate, he would be riding with them, and he would never see Laura again.

As Laura hurried out the back door with the butter and milk, he turned away and headed outside. Noah was standing by the horses, talking to Mark Shafton. Zeke was nowhere to be seen.

As he walked toward the corral, Caleb felt a sudden, embarrassing urge, likely brought on by having eaten so many beans. “Beg your pardon, Mr. Shafton, but would you mind if I used your privy?” he asked.

“Go ahead,” the young man replied. “It’s out in the trees, past the springhouse. But you might have to wait for your brother. He went that way a minute ago.”

Caleb found the privy empty, with no sign of Zeke. He did his business and was bending to wash his hands in the creek when he heard voices coming from behind the closed door of the springhouse.

“Just hold still, girlie, while I get a hand under them petticoats.” Zeke’s voice was rough and ugly. “Behave yourself, now, and you’ll be fine. Hell, you might even enjoy it.”

“Please don’t…” Caleb could barely make out Laura’s strained whisper. “Please, I’m going to have a baby.You might hurt—” Her words ended in a gasp.

Caleb pounded against the wooden door. “Zeke! You crazy fool, let her go!” he shouted.

The door resisted as if it might be latched or braced. Frantic, Caleb backed off and flung his full weight against the rough-sawn planks. This time the door gave way so suddenly that he hurtled through the opening and crashed full force against the opposite wall. Something snapped in his shoulder. Dizzy with pain, he careened backward to crumple on the earthen floor.

His eyes caught the flash of a blade in a dark corner of the springhouse. Zeke, he realized, was holding his big Bowie knife against Laura’s throat with one hand while the other hand fumbled beneath her skirt. Dazed and hurting, Caleb scrambled to his knees. His left arm dangled uselessly at his side.

“Get out of here, you stinkin’ little half-breed,” Zeke snarled. “And don’t you go runnin’ to Noah, or I’ll carve you up like a—”

His words ended in a shriek as Laura sank her teeth into his forearm. “You hellcat!” he howled. “I’ll show you—”

They were grappling now, the blade catching glints of the light from the open doorway. Caleb flung himself toward them but he was weak with shock and pain. A kick from Zeke’s heavy boot sent him crashing back against the wall.

Laura screamed like a wounded animal. Caleb’s stomach contracted as he saw the crimson slash where the knife had cut her face from temple to chin, barely missing her eye. He lunged forward, only to stumble into the shadow cast by the tall figure in the doorway.

“You…bastards!” Mark Shafton’s hands gripped the rifle. His voice cracked with fury. “Is this how you repay decent people? By God Almighty, I’ll kill you both!”

Laura had twisted free. She reeled against Caleb as her husband raised his rifle and aimed it at Zeke’s chest. Shafton’s finger was tightening on the trigger when an ear-shattering report rang out from behind him. He dropped the rifle, crumpled forward onto the ground and lay still. A dark red bloodstain began to spread across the back of his clean chambray shirt. Laura fell across his body, wailing like a child.

In the doorway, Noah lowered his smoking pistol. His face was a mask of icy rage. “Get to the horses, damn you!” he snapped at Zeke. “You, too, boy, unless you want to watch me kill a woman!”

“No!” Caleb staggered to his feet and planted himself in front of his brother. “Let her alone! Haven’t we done enough to these people?”

Noah shook his head. “Show some sense, you young fool. If we leave her alive she’ll go straight to the law. We’ll have a posse on our trail before nightfall.”

“She’s going to have a baby,” Caleb said. “If you want to kill them both, you’ll have to shoot me first!”

Noah swore and spat in the dirt. “Damnfool boy! All right, come on, then. We’ll lock her in the springhouse and make tracks. By the time she gets out we’ll be long gone.”

“No. I’m staying here.”

“In a mule’s ass you are!”

“She’s hurt and needs help. I can keep her quiet long enough for you to get a head start and—”

Caleb gasped as he glimpsed Noah’s raised arm. Then the butt of the pistol cracked against his skull and the world crashed into blackness.

It was the last thing he would remember about that day.

Chapter One

July 1881

On the crest of a long ridge, where the eastern slope of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains fell to high desert, Caleb McCurdy paused to rest his horse. Below him a sea of summer-gold grama grass, dotted with clumps of sage and juniper, rippled over the foothills. Willow and cottonwood formed a winding ribbon of green along the creek that meandered into the valley. If he followed that ribbon, Caleb knew it would lead him to an adobe ranch house with sheds and a corral out front and a springhouse just beyond the back door.

He had never wanted to come here again. But the memory of the place had haunted him for the five years he’d spent in Yuma Territorial Prison. Now that he was free, Caleb knew he had to return and face what had happened here. He had to find out what had become of Laura.

His being arrested had nothing to do with the crime against the Shaftons. It was later that same spring that his brothers had gone into a Tombstone bank and left him outside to watch the horses. By the time Caleb had realized there was a robbery in progress the deputy was already snapping the handcuffs around his wrists. Zeke and Noah had made their getaway out the back of the bank. That was the last he’d seen of them.

Caleb had been tried as an accessory and sentenced to six years behind bars. The torrid Arizona nights had given him plenty of time to ponder his mistakes. Staying with Noah and Zeke had been his worst choice. They were family, he’d rationalized at the time. Besides, it wasn’t as if Noah had killed Mark Shafton in cold blood. Noah had fired to save his brothers. As for Zeke, he couldn’t help being the creature he was. For all his flaws, he, too, was blood kin.

Caleb’s fist tightened around the saddle horn. Lord, what a fool he’d been, tagging along with his brothers like a puppy trotting after a pair of wolves. He should have known his trust would lead him straight down the road to hell.

If the tragedy at the Shafton Ranch had cracked the shell of Caleb’s innocence, the weeks that followed had shattered it. Liquor, gambling, women—he’d sampled them all. He would have done anything to blot out the sight of Laura’s bloodied face and the sound of her screams.

His brothers had roared their approval and declared him a man. Then they’d staked him out like bait in front of that Tombstone bank to draw the lawmen while they got away with the loot.

Good behavior had gotten him out of prison a year early. But the hot hell of Yuma had toughened, aged and embittered him. He was twenty-two years old. He felt fifty.

Nudging the sturdy bay to a walk, he wound his way down the brushy slope. The day he’d walked out of prison, he’d taken work with a road-building crew that hired ex-convicts. Two months of backbreaking labor had earned him enough to buy a horse, a beat-up saddle, a gun and knife, a blanket and a change of clothes. With twenty dollars in his pocket, he’d headed east, toward New Mexico and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Now, on this day of blinding beauty, the long ride was coming to an end.

The afternoon sky was a searing turquoise blue. Where the horse walked, clouds of white butterflies floated out of the grass. A red-tailed hawk circled against the sun.

Caleb’s throat tightened as he watched it. How many days like this had he missed, locked away in that sweltering heap of rock and adobe where the cells were ovens and the earth was hot enough to blister bare skin? How many days without fresh air, clean water and decent human companionship?

Annoyed with himself, he shoved the question aside. Self-pity was a waste. Rotten luck was a fact of life, and he’d long since learned not to whine when he got whipped. Besides, Caleb reminded himself, his time in prison hadn’t all been wasted. He’d made one friend there, a dying man who’d helped him turn his life around. If his beaten soul held a glimmer of hope and truth, he owed it to Ebenezer Stokes.

Maybe that was why he’d come back here. For Ebenezer—and for Laura.

Without willing it, he began to whistle a soulful melody—a song whose words had long since burned themselves into his brain.

Eyes like the morning star, cheeks like the rose.

Laura was a pretty girl, everybody knows.

Weep, oh, you little rains, wail, winds, wail…

Those cursed lyrics hadn’t left him alone in five long years. They had tormented his days and nights, conjuring up the image of Laura as he’d last seen her, slumped over her husband’s body with blood streaming down the side of her face. Maybe after today that image would finally begin to fade.

Stopping at the creek, he watered his horse, splashed his face and slicked back his sweaty hair. The place he’d known as the Shafton Ranch couldn’t be more than a couple of miles downstream, he calculated. What would he find there? Strangers, most likely. Noah had sworn that he’d left Laura alive. But even if that were true, Caleb couldn’t imagine her remaining alone on the ranch. The best he could hope for was that she’d sold out and moved on, and that someone would know where she’d gone.

If the worst had happened, maybe he could at least beg forgiveness at her grave.

The creek was overgrown with brush and willows. Moving back into the open, he followed the tangled border out of the foothills and onto the grassy flatland. His gut clenched as he spotted the ranch in the distance. The memories that swept over him were so black and bitter that he was tempted to turn the horse and gallop off in a different direction. Setting his teeth, he forced himself to keep moving ahead.

He could see the gate now, and the corral where he and his brothers had tied their mounts while they ate the meal Laura had prepared. Mark Shafton’s dam was still intact, as was the springhouse, spared over the years from the danger of flooding. But the whole place had a forlorn look to it. The windmill was missing two slats and the corral gate hung crooked on one broken hinge. Two dun horses and a milk cow drowsed in the corral.

The small adobe house was closed and quiet. The only sign of human life about the place was the batch of washing that fluttered from the clothesline in the side yard. Caleb rode in through the gate, dismounted and looped the bay’s reins over the corral fence. He could see now that the clothes on the line consisted of little shirts and overalls, stockings, underwear and nightgowns. He could see the swing hanging from the limb of the big cottonwood that shaded the springhouse. Caleb didn’t want to think about the springhouse and what had happened there. But the idea of children living here, running and playing in the bright sunlight gave a small lift to his spirits.

Taking a deep breath, he strode up the path, crossed the shaded porch and rapped lightly on the door.

“Go into your bedroom, Robbie,” Laura whispered to her son. “Latch the door. Don’t open it until I knock three times and say the password.”

Robbie, who’d been headed outside to play, obeyed without question. He knew better than to argue with his mother when a stranger came to the house.

Laura waited until she heard the metallic click of the latch. Only then did she take the double-barreled shotgun from its rack above the bookshelf and thumb back both hammers.

The rap on the door came again, more insistently this time. Laura’s heart, already racing, broke into a gallop. “Who’s there?” she called.