Wyoming Widow

The wagon had stopped. Morgan slowed the mare to a walk as he approached, aware of the eyes that watched him intently from beneath the brim of the dusty felt hat.

“Don’t come any farther, mister.” The voice was small and throaty. A young voice. Just a boy, Morgan surmised, and the youngster was probably scared out of his wits.

But never mind, it was the contents of the wagon that concerned Morgan most. He edged closer, steeling his emotions against the sight of his brother’s remains.

“I’m warning you, mister.” The words held a gritty edge. “I’ve got a Colt .45. It’s loaded and pointed straight at your heart.”

Morgan reined in the mare, wondering if there was anything behind the threat. The only sign of a weapon was a bulge beneath the outsized denim jacket. Probably nothing—but this was no time to be wrong, especially since he himself was unarmed.

“I won’t hurt you, boy,” he said quietly. “I just want to see what you’ve got in the back of that wagon.”

“I’ve got nothing worth stealing, if that’s what you’re after.” The youthful voice shook slightly. “Now get out of my way before I drill you like a grub-thieving possum!”

Morgan’s lips tightened in a grim smile. “Big words from such a little man,” he said, calling the youth’s bluff. “Why don’t you climb down from that wagon and show me how tough you really are?”

Silence.

“Then let me see that pistol you’re so keen on using,” Morgan demanded.

The huddled figure sat like a small, defiant lump of stone. Morgan felt the tension easing out of his body. But the dread remained like a cold knot in the pit of his stomach. If Ryan’s body was in the back of the wagon, he had to face that reality and to deal with whatever came next.

“All right, we’re going to play this my way,” he said. “Tell me who you are and what you’re doing on Tolliver land.”

“This…is Tolliver land?” The husky voice carried a note of incredulity. “You work for the Tollivers?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes.”

Morgan took advantage of the stranger’s surprise to nudge the mare closer to the wagon. His heart leaped with relief as he glanced over the side and saw nothing but a tattered bedroll, a moth-eaten carpetbag and the water barrel he’d noticed earlier. His worst fears had not come to pass, thank God. But something strange was going on, and the young whelp in the wagon had some explaining to do.

“I’ve answered your question,” Morgan said irritably. “Now you can damned well answer mine and tell me what you’re doing here.”

“I…” The youth seemed suddenly tongue-tied. Something about the small figure suddenly struck Morgan as odd—the set of the shoulders, the downcast face beneath the floppy old hat, the air of vulnerability that touched a long-buried chord of tenderness in him—a tenderness he swiftly masked.

“What the hell’s the matter with you, boy?” he snapped. “You didn’t come all this way for nothing! Stand up! Let me have a look at you!”

For the space of a breath there was silence. Then slowly the mysterious figure rose. Now, beneath the hat brim, Morgan could see the lower part of the beardless face—the narrow but firm chin, the full, disturbingly sensual mouth. The baggy denim duster hung like a tent on the slight body, hiding everything except for lower down, near the waist, where it was stretched tight, almost as if—

Morgan’s jaw dropped. “What the devil—”

He had no time to say more as the stranger swayed for an instant, then, with a little moan, toppled headlong over the side of the wagon.

Reacting instinctively, Morgan grabbed for the falling body and managed to catch it beneath the arms. The sudden dead weight almost pulled him off his mount, but the mare, trained as a cow pony, leaned outward to compensate until he was able to balance the burden across his knees.

Only then did he have time to look down.

For a long moment he simply stared, cursing under his breath as his eyes took in the wild, impossibly red mop of curls that had spilled free of the old hat; the pale, heart-shaped face with its almost childlike features; the tiny freckles that sprinkled the porcelain skin like cinnamon specks on fresh cream.

Small and limp, she lay in his arms. Her eyelids, fringed with thick taffy-colored lashes, were tightly closed. What color would those eyes be? Morgan found himself wondering. Sky-blue? Green and sly like a bobcat’s. He had known a number of redheaded women in his youth. No two had been the same.

He knew what he would see when he forced his eyes lower—his arms had already felt the ripe weight of her swollen body. How far along was she? Seven months? Eight? Lord, she looked so young, so helpless, more child than woman. What in blazes was she doing out here alone? How far had she come, and—an even more pressing question—why had she come?

She moaned, rooting against his chest like a young animal seeking comfort. Morgan willed himself to ignore the swelling heat in the depths of his body. The woman appeared to be suffering from too much sun, compounded by her delicate condition. He needed to get her to the house and get some water into her. Any questions would have to wait until she’d had time to recover.

He paused an instant longer, weighing the wisdom of putting her back in the wagon to move her. No, he resolved swiftly, it would be faster to take her like this, on his own mount. He could send a couple of the hands out for the wagon and the mule.

Gripping the mare with his knees, Morgan shifted the young woman’s body in his arms to balance her weight for the ride to the house. Her head fell back, lolling over his arm, revealing the small gold locket that nestled in the creamy hollow of her throat.

Driven by a strange impulse, Morgan lifted his free hand and brushed the gleaming heart with the tip of his index finger. The catch must have been weak or broken, because the halves of the locket parted at his touch, falling open to form two miniature hearts where there had been one.

In the section that bore the ring and chain, carefully cut and glued into place, was a miniature portrait. He bent closer to see it, painfully aware of the young woman in his arms, the warm, musky scent of her filling his nostrils, teasing his senses.

Was the man framed in the little gold heart the father of her child? Did she expect him to be here at the ranch, one of the cowhands, maybe? The fact that she wore no wedding ring suggested that, whoever he was, the bastard had done her wrong. Maybe a shotgun wedding was in order.

Morgan’s eyes narrowed, squinting in an effort to focus the tiny heart-shaped image. Then the truth hit him with the force of a gut punch. The breath exploded from his lungs as he recognized the blurred but familiar face.

Ryan’s face.

Cassandra stirred and opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was an expanse of whitewashed ceiling crossed by dark wooden beams. As her senses began to clear, she became aware that she was lying on her back, fully clothed except for her boots, hat and duster. A soft pillow cradled her head and a cool, wet cloth lay across her brow.

What had happened to her? Cassandra struggled to collect her thoughts but her heat-fogged brain refused to obey her will. Her mind contained nothing but the echoing creak of wagon wheels, the plodding of weary hooves, the blinding glare of the sun—and the dim awareness, now, of silence and cool shadow. Her limbs felt weightless, oddly detached from her body, with no power to move.

Was this how it felt to be dead?

As she lay staring into whiteness, something twitched below her taut navel. She felt a flutter then a resounding thump. Cassandra’s eyes opened wide in wonder and relief. Her baby was moving. She was alive. They were both alive.

Her hands moved to her swollen belly, palms feeling the precious motion. As her memory began to clear, her thoughts flashed to that awful moment when she’d stood over her landlord’s body, her heart pounding in helpless terror. She remembered the frantic rush to leave town, to be gone before someone opened the shack and set the law on her trail.

Her mind swept backward now, over days beneath the vast, open sky, over nights huddled in terror beneath the creaky old wagon she’d bought and paid for with her grandfather’s fiddle…back to that point of decision when she’d abandoned every principle by which she’d ever lived.

This is for you, my sweet one, she thought, cradling the bulge of her unborn child between her hands. The danger, the deceit, all of it. All for you…

“You’ve got some tall explaining to do, lady.”

The masculine voice, so deep it was almost a growl, caused Cassandra’s pulse to jerk as if she’d been dropped in her sleep. When she turned her head in the direction of the voice, she saw the man sitting a scant pace from the bed, his rangy body overflowing the wooden rocker where he sat. His eyes were the color and hardness of cast iron, his hair as black as an Indian’s. His grim, aloof face might have been handsome had it contained a modicum of warmth or humor. It did not.

She remembered him now—sitting bareback, like a warrior, on his buckskin horse, dust swirling around him as he blocked her way, demanding to know her business. She had not liked his manner then. She liked it no better now.

“What have you done with my rig?” she demanded, struggling to sit up.

“First you drink. Then we talk.” He rose to his feet, picked up a tall pewter mug from the table beside the bed and tilted the rim to her mouth. The water inside was clean and cold, and Cassandra was bone-dry. Seizing the mug, she tipped it upward, gulping frantically as she spilled water into her parched throat.

“Whoa, there.” He clasped her wrist, forcing her to lower the mug. “Take it slow, or you’ll make yourself sick. Do you understand?” When she nodded, he released her and eased back into the chair.

Cassandra wiped her mouth with the back of her free hand. Her eyes glanced furtively around the small room. Its whitewashed walls were bare except for a tanned, painted buckskin hanging opposite the closed door. The only other furnishings were a washstand with a china pitcher and basin, a small side table next to the bed and the leather-backed rocker where the stranger sat, watching her every move. She emptied the mug in measured sips, then placed it on the side table.

“I asked you about my rig,” she said.

“Your wagon broke an axle on the way in.” His voice was brittle and strangely cold. “What’s left of it is still in the road, waiting to be chopped up and hauled to the woodshed for kindling. As for that bag of bones you call a mule he’s in the corral stuffing his belly with hay and oats—probably eaten more than he’s worth already.”

Cassandra masked a surge of relief. She had grown attached to the surly old mule, her sole companion for the past six days. And even the news about the wagon was good. It lessened the chance that this self-appointed guardian of the Tolliver Ranch would simply show her the road and send her back the way she’d come.

“I suppose I should thank you,” she said cautiously.

“You can thank me by answering my questions.”

“Which you have yet to ask me,” Cassandra retorted. “For that matter, you haven’t even introduced yourself. Do you work for the Tollivers?”

His eyes regarded her coldly. “Ryan didn’t tell you about his family?”

Cassandra felt her heart drop. He was trying to trap her already, this grim, raw-edged man who had “enemy” written all over him. If she allowed him to outmaneuver her, she might just as well be back in Laramie fending off Seamus Hawkins.

Only then did it hit her that he had mentioned Ryan—speaking as if he already knew the story she’d planned to tell. Dear heaven, how could that be? Had he read her mind, or—

Her hand crept to her throat, fingers groping for the locket with Jake’s picture inside.

“Are you looking for this?”

She saw the locket, then, dangling from his clenched fist. His narrowed eyes cut into her like flints. It would be difficult to lie to such a man, Cassandra thought. But that was exactly what she planned to do—had to do for the sake of her child.

“Give me my locket,” she said. “You had no right to take it from me.”

“I have the right to know what’s going on here,” he retorted. “When was the last time you saw my brother?”

“Your brother?” She blinked dazedly at the looming figure.

“I’ll wager you don’t even know my name. Do you?” he challenged her.

Cassandra shook her head, mentally cursing herself for having missed this vital scrap of information.

“It’s Morgan. Morgan Tolliver,” he snarled. “Now answer my question. When did you see him last?”

“In—in Cheyenne—last November.” Cassandra stammered out the half-truth she’d gleaned from a clerk at the Union Pacific Hotel, who recalled that Ryan had paid him a generous tip to carry his bags to the depot, where he’d boarded the train for Cheyenne. Now, too late, she realized she should have tried to learn more about the Tolliver family. The newspaper article had mentioned nothing about a brother, only a father. And this forbidding man, with his black hair and mahogany skin, bore no resemblance to the laughing, golden-eyed Ryan.

Cassandra’s heart sank lower. What else had she failed to learn? How could she cover herself long enough to play the single trump she held?

“Ryan didn’t talk much about his family,” she said, feeling the ugly weight as she crossed deeper into falsehood. “I…had the feeling there were things he didn’t want me to know. But nothing would have made any difference. I was in love. And so was he—or so I thought at the time.” Cassandra lowered her eyes artfully, writhing with self-disgust. “I fear your brother took advantage of me, Mr. Tolliver. He left Cheyenne without even saying goodbye, and I never heard from him again.”

The man’s expressive mouth scowled. His obsidian gaze never left her as he reached into his deerskin vest and drew out the battered newspaper page that Cassandra had kept in the pocket of her canvas duster. Slowly he unfolded it, taking his time before he thrust it toward her.

“So you saw this and decided to pay us a visit, did you, Miss—”

“Riley,” she said, giving her maiden name. “Cassandra Riley. And yes, that’s what happened. I don’t know if Ryan’s alive or dead, but I thought it right that this child be born here, among his family. Besides—” she cast him what she hoped was a poignant glance “—I had nowhere else to go.”

“Very touching.” His mouth twitched contemptuously. “Let me give you my own version of your story, Miss Riley. My brother liked his women, all right, but he liked them ripe and experienced, with no hidden snares. He would never have taken advantage of someone like…you.”

“But he—”

“Let me finish. I don’t believe you even knew my brother—at least not well enough to be carrying his child. Under circumstances that are none of my concern, you found yourself with child, saw the newspaper story and decided to take advantage of a grieving family.” His dark eyes probed her soul, searching out the lies, the deceit.

“What about the locket?” Cassandra protested. “You saw the picture yourself.”

“A photograph glued into a piece of cheap jewelry doesn’t prove a thing,” he snapped. “Tell me I’m wrong. I dare you.”

Cassandra forced herself to meet those accusing eyes. Ryan Tolliver’s brother had seen through her subterfuge. He had her dead to rights. Maybe if she confessed now he would let her stay. Surely a large ranch like this could use one more cook, laundress or housekeeper.

But no—his pitiless gaze told her she had already carried her gamble too far. If she told this man the truth, he would put her on the road himself, or, worse, have her arrested for fraud. She had no choice except to continue the dangerous game, no choice except to play the one trump card that remained to her.

Cassandra dropped her gaze to her where her hands lay clasped protectively over the roundness of her belly. Slowly, deliberately, she gathered her resolve. When she looked up again, her eyes were clear, and when she spoke, her voice was as calm as a frozen lake.

“Ryan had a scar,” she said, “a jagged white scar, running like a streak of lightning up the inside of his left thigh. He came by it, as I recall, at the age of fourteen when he was gored by a bull elk he’d wounded with his first rifle.”

Silence hung leaden in the small room as Morgan Tolliver rose to his feet and stood over Cassandra’s bed. His wind-burnished features might as well have been chiseled from stone. But even he could not mask the emotions that flickered in those anthracite eyes.

Had she reached him? Had the information she’d taken precious time to buy from Yvette, the youngest and prettiest of Flossie’s girls, been worth the price of her grandmother’s garnet earrings? Cassandra’s future, and the future of her child, hung on the outcome of the next few seconds.

Scarcely daring to breathe, she watched his face and waited.

Chapter Three

Her eyes were the color of violets in a spring meadow. Gazing down into their too-innocent depths, Morgan had to force himself to believe this child-woman was lying. Damnation, she had to be lying! It wasn’t like Ryan to get mixed up with such a creature. He’d preferred his women ripe and voluptuous. Cassandra Riley was all eyes and freckles and wild red hair, with barely enough body to contain the child she carried. Even if they’d been acquainted in Cheyenne, Morgan couldn’t imagine his brother would have given her a second glance.

Unless, against all odds, Ryan had fallen in love with her…

But no, even that didn’t make sense. Ryan had a wild streak, but he was decent at heart. If he’d cared for the girl, he would never have run out on her.

She was lying through her pretty little teeth. That’s all there was to it.

But how in blazes, then, did she know about the scar?

“What else do you know about Ryan?” he asked, his voice emerging rough and raw from the tightness of his throat.

“That he was kind and gentle and loved to laugh,” she replied softly. “He never knew about the baby. If he had, things might be different now.”

Morgan felt his jaw muscles tighten as her meaning sank home. If Ryan had known about the baby, maybe he’d have married the poor girl. Maybe he’d have brought her back to the ranch and settled down instead of signing up for that God-cursed government survey expedition.

But this line of thinking was crazy. He was staggering along the edge of believing her, and he couldn’t afford to let himself step over the line. She was a fraud, plain and simple. He’d known it from the moment he set eyes on her.

But what if he was wrong?

What if this conniving little waif was carrying Ryan’s child—the last, best hope that Jacob Tolliver’s line would continue?

Morgan scowled down at the girl, weighing the elements of what he knew. Jacob had always wanted grandsons. When Morgan’s own brief marriage had soured and ended, the old man had shifted his hopes to Ryan. Now those hopes were fading, and Jacob’s life was fading with them. If Ryan failed to return, Morgan feared his father would die of grief.

Unless, woven amid the gloom, some bright thread of promise could be found.

Jacob had not been told about the locket. The old man knew only that a young woman in a broken-down wagon had wandered onto the ranch, alone, pregnant and in desperate need of help. Morgan dared not risk revealing the rest of the story. Not, at least, until he knew the truth of it.

“I’m not asking for charity, mind you.” Her small but determined voice broke into his thoughts. “I’m a hard worker, and I intend to earn every cent of my keep.”

“And how do you plan to do that?” Morgan’s gaze flickered downward to the swollen belly beneath the baggy plaid shirt, thinking that there hardly seemed enough of her to carry so much bulk.

“I can cook and wash with the best of them,” she declared. “And while I’m resting up after the baby comes, I can always darn stockings and mend whatever else needs it. I’m a fair hand with a needle and thread.” Her eyes moved to the front of his shirt. “That includes sewing on…buttons.”

Morgan glanced down at his chest. He bit back a twitch at the corner of his mouth as he noticed the loose button, dangling by a single thread, halfway down his shirt.

“Did you happen to rescue my carpetbag from the wagon?” she asked. “I packed my sewing basket inside. Fetch it for me, and I’ll give you a demonstration.”

“Your demonstration can wait.” Morgan edged backward, determined not to give the redheaded charlatan an opening, but she had already spotted her battered valise in the corner where he had dropped it.

“There it is. If you wouldn’t mind—”

“Shouldn’t you be resting?”

“I’m not an invalid,” she said. “In any case I can’t imagine that using my fingers will put too much strain on my delicate condition. Now, are you going to bring me that carpetbag and cooperate, or do I have to tie you to the bed and sew on that button by force?”

The mental picture her words painted was so ludicrous that Morgan could not suppress a smile. “All right,” he sighed, reaching for the carpetbag. “You win this round. But I’m not finished with you, Miss Cassandra Riley. Not by a long shot.”

“I’m sure you’re not.” She caught the bag as he tossed it, her small, freckled hands as deft as a boy’s. “Now, please be kind enough to take off your shirt.”

Cassandra’s trembling fingers closed on the sewing basket, where it lay crammed in a corner of the hastily packed carpetbag. She struggled to avert her eyes as Morgan Tolliver slipped off his deerskin vest, laid it over the back of the chair, then began to unbutton his sun-bleached cotton work shirt. She had seen her share of half-clad men—Jake, of course, and a few hotel guests who’d startled her to flight when she’d come to clean what she thought was a vacant room. But this man’s bearing was so aloof, his body so lithe and sinewy that she could not resist watching him. He lured her gaze like a cougar slipping out of its own pelt.

Most men she knew wore long johns even in summer. But Morgan Tolliver was bare beneath the shirt, his muscles stretching lean and taut beneath golden mahogany skin. The rose-brown dots of his nipples caught glints of light as he tugged the shirttail free from the waistband of his worn denim pants, stripped the shirt from his arms and tossed it on the bed. A leather pouch the size of a baby’s shoe dangled from a thong around his neck. When he moved, light glinted on the delicate beading and quillwork that adorned the outside.

His eyes watched her every move as she opened the sewing basket, selected a spool of brown thread and snipped off enough length to sew on the button. Willing herself to ignore his open scrutiny, she found a needle and held it up so the light would fall on its eye. Her hands shook as she tried to force the thread through the tiny hole. Her sun-dazzled eyes began to water, blurring her sight as she wet the cut end to a point and tried again and again.

“Here.” His callused fingers brushed hers as he took the needle from her hands and threaded it deftly. “You look like you could use some sleep. I can sew on the button myself.”

“No.” Cassandra snatched the shirt close to her body, as if challenging him to take it from her. “I’ll do it. It’s become a matter of principle. Give me that needle.”

“Principle!” He dropped the threaded needle into her outstretched hand, then lowered himself into the rocker. His savage eyes seemed to burn through her, all the way to her deceptive little heart.

Cassandra knotted the thread and positioned the button, forcing her fingers to perform the familiar task. “I must say, you’re nothing like Ryan,” she said.

“Ryan’s my half brother,” he replied. “My mother was the daughter of a Shoshone medicine man. Ryan’s mother was a pretty blond schoolteacher our father brought home from Saint Louis. She died nine years later, trying to give Ryan a baby sister. Women don’t seem to last long out here. Not white women at least.”