A Rancher's Vow

“Let me give you some advice,” Josie said. “Real love doesn’t come around that often. And neither does a good man, as I very well know. So if you want Reed and you get a shot at him, take it. If you don’t, you’ll always wonder what might have been.”

Josie had a point when it came to the good man part. But, as to her getting a shot at Reed…

The man barely knew she existed.

REUNITED WITH HIS FAMILY, Reed kept taking in Pa with disbelief. Emmett Quarrels was smaller than Reed remembered—they were about the same height now—and he’d lost weight in the past year. The shock of white hair and faded blue eyes were nothing new, but the sunken cheeks and sagging skin were, and they made him look older than his seventy years.

“I knew you wouldn’t let me down, Son.” Pa’s declaration was followed by a dry cough that set Reed on edge.

“Hey, I thought this was my wedding,” Chance complained.

“Don’t be getting on your high horse here, Boy,” Pa said. “You know what I mean.”

If Chance was angry, he wasn’t showing it. He and Pru were beaming in their happiness.

“I meant to be at the church,” Reed told them both apologetically. “I really did. But there was something I had to take care of at the last minute on the Evergreen, so I started off late, and then I ran into a problem on the road.”

“You’re here now, Reed,” Pru said. “That’s all that counts, right, sweetheart?”

Chance flashed his teeth in a sincere-looking smile. “You bet, darlin’, that’s good enough for me.”

The brothers threw their arms around each other in a manly hug. Reed was relieved that Chance accepted his regrets without questioning him about his actual situation.

“Congratulations, Chance. Do I get to kiss the bride now?”

“Only if you keep it short and sweet.”

“Pru, welcome to the family,” Reed said, hugging her and giving her a quick kiss. “Finally.”

Which was all he would say on the matter. Considering their daughter was nearly two years old, it was about time his brother made an honest woman of Pru.

“Good to see you, Reed,” Bart said, slapping him on the back. “And it’ll be good working together again.”

Together? Or would he be working for Bart?

Another thing that ate at Reed, though he kept that to himself, as well.

A few minutes of catch-up and his niece Lainey was agitating for photographs of the three brothers together.

“Better be careful,” Reed’s sixteen-year-old nephew Daniel warned them. “Lainey thinks she’s an artist. She might make you do some weird stuff.”

“You’re the weirdo,” Lainey told her brother.

Reed grinned. The siblings reminded him of Chance and Bart when they’d been kids.

As Lainey painstakingly photographed them in several different poses, Reed’s attention wandered a bit. He kept musing on Alcina’s whereabouts.

Always the proper lady with every hair in place, she’d shown him a new side of herself today. A side that had intrigued him. He’d remembered her as being prissy—actually, she’d gotten a little prissy earlier when he’d laughed at her. She’d been so natural with Hope, though, not worrying about her own finery. Seeing her like that had roused his curiosity.

“Uncle Reed, you’re not paying attention!” Lainey complained. “You’ve got to smile.”

Reed did his best to please her.

One more photograph and Chance said, “Okay, that’s it for now, Lainey. We’d best get to the grub quick, before all those old bachelor cowboys who are normally deprived of good home-cooking get in line for seconds. Then we’ll starve to death.”

Having noted the huge quantity of food laid out, Reed thought that was a gross exaggeration. And, even though the brothers were the last to reach the buffet table, none of them would go hungry.

Undoubtedly Chance was anxious to get back to his new bride and daughter, and Reed could hardly blame him.

He admitted to a bit of healthy jealousy as he watched Chance rejoin Pru and kiss her as if they’d been apart for years instead of mere minutes. Somehow that kind of love had never come his way. Working six or seven days a week as he usually did, Reed doubted that he would ever have time to look for it, either. Maybe he was destined to be another old bachelor cowboy.

The band started up as he filled his plate with Felice’s finest. Reed dipped his head in time to the music. He looked over to the dance floor as Pru and Chance stepped up, followed by two other couples. So much for his brother’s appetite, Reed thought, grinning to himself.

His plate in hand, Reed was leaving the buffet, when he felt as if he was being watched. The short hairs at the back of his neck shot to attention. Warily, he turned to meet the gaze of a burly man with pale eyes and a white buzz cut. Then Reed realized the man was standing behind the makeshift bar. It was only the bartender, for pity’s sake.

The man waved him over with one hand, lifted an empty glass with the other.

Feeling foolish, Reed complied.

“You must be brother number three. Hugh Ruskin—I tend bar over at the Silver Slipper.”

Ruskin held out a hand heavy with expensive rings that Reed wouldn’t expect to see on a bartender. He gave the man a quick shake.

“Reed Quarrels. That old saloon is still going, huh?”

“A man’s got to have a place to quench his thirst, even in a small town like Silver Springs,” Ruskin said. “So what’s your pleasure?”

“Whatever’s on tap will do.”

Ruskin filled a mug. “I hear you’ve been working up in Colorado, running the show on some spread ten times the size of this one.”

“For the past few years,” Reed agreed, wondering why he should be the focus of town gossip. “Though someone exaggerated the size of the Evergreen.”

“Still, when you’re used to running a major operation like that one…”

Ruskin was peering at him closely as if waiting for him to spill his guts. Say how unhappy he was to be back or something. Reed figured the bartender got some kick out of keeping his finger on the pulse of the town, having juicy tidbits to spread around to his patrons.

Could the man really know about his hesitancy at returning? About the problematic dynamics between him and Bart? Or was he just fishing?

Not about to fuel any gossip, Reed picked up his mug and sipped the head off the beer. “You know what they say…nothing like home.”

Something flashed through the other man’s pale eyes. Something that unsettled Reed.

And the bartender’s thumbs-up sign and his “Gotcha there, my friend,” seemed a little forced.

Wondering about Hugh Ruskin—where he came from, what he was doing tending bar in a backwater town like Silver Springs—Reed saluted him with the beer and left the bar. Uneasy still, he made a mental note to ask Bart or Chance about the bartender later.

In the meantime, he quickly scanned the crowd until he spotted Alcina, who was sitting at the end of a table under a couple of big cottonwoods. Her long fingers with perfectly manicured nails were worrying the stem of a wineglass as if she was distracted. The plate before her was half-empty and pushed far enough in front of her to indicate she’d finished eating.

Her golden-blond hair was pulled up into a French twist, but fine wisps curled at her temples and down her long, elegant neck, which was circled by a single strand of pearls. He’d bet they were real, too. Her finely cut profile was free of the barbecue sauce that had decorated it earlier. A lovely woman, indeed, Reed thought appreciatively, not having seen her the last time he’d come home for a visit. The seat next to her was vacant.

He hesitated, mulled over the advisability of the notion that struck him, and in the end, headed for her table.

Listening to Reba Gantry, the flamboyant owner of Reba’s Café, who was waving around a half-empty whiskey glass—she could drink nearly as much as a man and often did—Alcina didn’t even notice his approach until he asked, “Mind if I join you?”

She started, her gray eyes widening on him for a moment. Recovering quickly, she indicated the empty chair. “It’s your spread.”

“Only by default.” He set down his plate and mug and slid into the vacant seat, where he got a better look at her finery. “You cleaned up real nice, but it looks like Hope ruined your party dress for good.”

She shrugged. “It’s not the end of the world.”

“Some women would think so.”

“Good thing I’m not some women.”

Good thing, Reed agreed, digging into Felice’s homemade enchilada, Alcina interesting him even more than before. He realized how little he knew about her even though they’d grown up in the same town. Then, he hadn’t been interested in an older woman—to a teenage boy, three years difference in age had been a whole generation. Now three years was nothing.

“We missed you at the church,” Reba said, taking a swig of whiskey and holding it in her mouth for a moment.

“Something came up,” he said vaguely, swallowing a mouthful of posole. “Mighty fine duds there.”

He admired the café owner’s ability to pull off wearing such an eye-popping rose-trimmed purple dress. Then, as he remembered, Reba had always had a natural flair for the dramatic.

“You’re looking fine yourself, honey,” Reba said. “It’s real good to see you again.” She indicated the big man who sat next to her. “I’d like to introduce you to my dear friend, Cesar Cardona.”

“Howdy,” Reed said.

Cardona looked to be in his late forties, a quantity of silver lightening his thick dark hair and full mustache. Wearing a black suit, the short jacket trimmed with silver braid and silver and turquoise conchos, he was definitely Reba’s male counterpart, Reed thought with amusement.

But Reed’s enjoyment faded when the café owner said, “Cesar is bringing new life and jobs to the area around Silver Springs. He’s a land developer—”

“Let me guess,” Reed cut in, giving the newcomer a piercing stare. “Land of Enchantment Acres.”

Cardona’s teeth flashed white against his sun-warmed skin. “So you’ve heard of us.” The meatiness of the hand he reached across the table was softened by a heavily jeweled watchband.

Taking it, though reluctantly, Reed realized the raw power of the big man. “Saw the sign driving in. I can hardly believe Gonzalez sold. His family owned that land for nearly two hundred years.”

“That land kept Luis Gonzalez poor.”

“I guess it depends on your definition of poor,” Reed argued. “Being land-rich in God’s country in this part of New Mexico goes a long way to making up for the things a man can’t afford to buy himself.”

Cardona shrugged and spread his hands. “Well, now Luis can buy whatever he wants.”

“I wonder what that might be,” Reed muttered, stabbing his fork into the mashed potatoes.

While Gonzalez’s spread had been small—little more than four thousand acres—ranching was the only life the man had ever known and he was barely fifty. What would he do with his days for the next twenty years? Reed himself couldn’t imagine working at anything but ranching, which occupied his whole being. When he got busy, he might not even get into town for weeks and never once miss it.

As if she sensed his rising tension over the matter, Alcina veered the discussion in a slightly different direction. “Are the new properties selling well, Cesar?”

“Like hotcakes,” the developer said, grinning. ‘I can’t get the houses built fast enough.”

Suddenly losing his appetite, Reed asked, “So we’re in for how many new people in the area?”

“I sold off nearly half the acreage to the VM Ranch, so there’ll only be about twenty new families—people who have always wanted a real piece of the West for themselves. I’m not raping the land if that’s what you’re worried about. I’m keeping properties at a minimum of a hundred acres.”

“Sounds sensible,” Alcina said. “And good for Silver Springs.”

Gut tightening, Reed didn’t say anything.

Luis Gonzalez would never have sold an acre to Vernon Martell, a virtual newcomer to Silver Springs. The Hispanic ranchers in the area were tight-knit and didn’t sell their land to Anglos. Martell had gotten around that through Cardona, whose only loyalty obviously was to the almighty dollar.

“Actually, I’m already looking around for another spread,” Cardona went on. “Got to plan ahead.”

Reed didn’t like the way the man was looking around at the Curly-Q, as if he was already viewing it as a commodity and planning on subdividing it next.

“The Curly-Q’s not for sale,” he said quietly but firmly. “So don’t go getting any ideas about this place.”

Reed was dead serious, but Cardona laughed.

“Everything’s for sale, my friend. You merely gotta figure out the right incentive to get what you want.”

As far as Reed was concerned, that ended the conversation.

Reba put a beringed hand on her escort’s shoulder. “Cesar, honey, I sure am in the mood for a dance.”

Cardona immediately got to his feet and helped her out of her chair. “I’d never say no to holding you in my arms.”

Reba swayed a little as if the drinking had caught up to her. Then she shook herself straight and headed for the dance floor.

They’d barely left the table when Alcina spoke up, her tone indignant. “I’m surprised at you, Reed Quarrels. You never used to be so rude!”

Chapter Two

Startled, Reed stared at Alcina. “What’s rude about speaking my mind?”

It was something he usually avoided. He didn’t know what had gotten into him.

Yes, he did, Reed admitted.

Truth be told, his whole way of life was being threatened by men like Cardona. Ranches all over the West were being sold off and carved up into smaller properties. Peoples’ lifelong dreams were being stolen away from them, and with the economy so poor for those that lived off the land, there didn’t seem to be a way to stop it.

A man practically had to have another job to support his ranch habit. Or his wife did.

“The area needs new blood,” Alcina said, “or Silver Springs will die.”

“It is dead. Has been for years. It’s a ghost town, but certain people don’t want to let it go.”

“Which includes your father,” she reminded him. “Emmett wants to see it come back. So do I.”

So did he, for that matter, not that he would admit it now.

“I heard you opened yourself a business,” he said, instead, “inviting people who don’t belong here to come this way.”

“You mean tourists?” she asked, a sudden chill in her tone. “What’s wrong with letting people from other parts of the country see how beautiful this area is…and my making a living off their interest.”

“Because then they get too interested and want to move right in on our territory.”

“Well, good for them. And good for us. Time doesn’t stand still, Reed, no matter how much you might want it to. Things change. Businesses change. People change—”

“Including you?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Just that I’m surprised you came back to Silver Springs at all,” Reed admitted. “Why did you? I figured you fit right in on the East Coast with your mother’s people.”

Emotions washed through her face so quickly he imagined he might have upset her.

“Are you saying I don’t fit in here?” she demanded.

“Do you?”

“Not everyone has to be a rancher or a rancher’s wife to love the high-desert country. Silver Springs used to rely on the silver mine, but it dried up years ago and so did the town. And so did anything resembling a life for me here.”

Alcina was working up a head of steam as she spoke. Reed couldn’t help but be mesmerized by her heightened color and the way her features so quickly became animated, making her appear even more beautiful.

“But there is hope, Reed,” she went on hotly, “and that hope is new blood and new ideas. So what if my way of being able to live here meant turning our old home into a bed-and-breakfast? It was that or drive into Taos or some other town that’s at least solvent to make a living. Then I would be commuting again and…oh, never mind.”

Alcina shoved herself from the table and rose. Reed hadn’t meant to insult her into leaving, but he figured she was through listening, for the moment, anyway. Besides, he’d said too much as it was. Normally, he kept his nose out of other people’s business and his opinions to himself where they belonged.

If he had, she might not be stalking away from him in disgust, her patrician nose in the air.

More than anything, Reed craved peace in his life, no doubt a reaction to his fractious childhood. He’d grown up in a household where his father and two brothers had constantly warred with each other. Reed had vowed he never would live like that again.

So why was he finding the outspoken woman so attractive? Reed wondered.

He forced himself to remain seated rather than follow her. He could use a woman in his life, true, but he could do without Alcina Dale.

Disgusted at how his supper conversation had turned sour, Reed tried to muster his appetite in vain. Half of the food he’d piled on his plate would be wasted.

Then he remembered the dog.

After throwing away the bones and scraping away some of the spicier stuff, he was satisfied that the leftovers would do. He found an empty bowl, filled it with water, then headed back toward his truck.

On the way, he spotted Pa near the house, deep in conversation with Vernon Martell, whom he’d met on his last visit home. The man was alone, his wife being an invalid who rarely got out. Reed meant to say howdy.

The neighboring rancher was a hearty man, tall and broad-shouldered, not trim, but not heart-attack material, either. In his mid-forties, he wore his light brown hair short, and his equally light brown eyes peered through fashionable titanium-framed bifocals. He was plain dressed—at least compared to Cardona—but he appeared equally well-heeled from the looks of his custom boots, chamois sports coat and heavy diamond-studded gold cuff links that said a lot about his healthy bank account.

Drawing closer, he heard Martell say, “I’m in the market to expand the VM.”

“You already did with that land you got from that developer fella.”

The tone of the conversation stopped Reed in his tracks.

Vernon Martell was new to the area, so to speak, having lived in these parts little more than a year. Denizens of the community were considered in terms of generations, or at least decades, rather than in months or years. Besides which, Martell had picked up a ranch that had folded under economic stress dirt cheap—a foreclosure—and that didn’t win any popularity contests. Neither would his buying a chunk of Luis Gonzalez’s land.

“That was a start,” Martell agreed, “but I’m not finished.”

Instinct made Reed stay where he was, a few yards behind the men. Wanting to hear what they had to say, he chose not to interrupt.

“You must’ve had a better year than the Curly-Q.” Emmett Quarrels narrowed his gaze on his neighbor. “What did you have in mind?”

“Your southernmost pastures—they adjoin the land that belonged to Gonzalez.”

“So what’s your point?”

“That we could both come out ahead,” Martell said magnanimously. “Me with a little more land, you with enough money so that you don’t lose the rest.”

“I’m not losin’ nothing.”

“That’s not the word going around. Word is that Tucker Dale is ready to foreclose—”

“Gossip is fodder for old women with nothing better to do!” Emmett snapped, cutting him off.

Reed could hardly believe it. Tucker Dale, Alcina’s father and Pa’s longtime former business partner, threatening Pa with ruin.

Martell persisted. “So the rumors aren’t true?”

“It’s none of your business. Unless…you wouldn’t know anything about the bad-luck incidents plaguing the Curly-Q lately?”

“Are you accusing me of something?”

Pa seemed to be mulling that over, Reed realized, after which he choked out, “All I’m saying is that I expect you should mind your own spread and keep your nose out of mine!”

With that, Pa stomped off. Martell stared after him for a moment before turning and coming face-to-face with Reed. Their gazes locked. The other rancher was the first to look away. He waved to some invisible acquaintance and stalked off in the other direction.

Leaving Reed uneasier than ever. He’d known the Curly-Q was in trouble from his talk with Bart. But the seriousness of the situation suddenly hit him hard.

His gut told him that he’d walked back into a worse hornet’s nest than he’d left more than a decade ago.

“EVERYTHING IS SET for your honeymoon night,” Alcina told Pru when they met directly outside the ranch house, where she’d gone to regroup after her cross words with Reed.

“This is so great of you, so special.” Pru pushed the red curls from her freckled face, gave Alcina a big hug.

“Special for a special friend,” Alcina said.

She’d decked out the best suite at her bed-and-breakfast—the Springs—with dozens of candles, special scented bubble bath for the Jacuzzi and rose petals strewn across the spread. She’d also left a bottle of champagne set in a big bucket of ice next to the bed. Hopefully, it would still be cold when the newlyweds arrived—a lot of hours had passed, and it was already dusk.

“The spare key is in the cactus pot to the right of the front door,” she reminded Pru. “Don’t let Chance get bit,” she joked as if she meant the cactus, “unless you do the biting, of course.”

Laughing, Pru said, “A little privacy right now sounds like the best wedding present in the world.”

Newlyweds living with the bride’s family until other arrangements could be made wouldn’t be easy on any of them, Alcina knew, and they were saving their honeymoon for the National Rodeo Finals to be held in Las Vegas, Nevada, in two weeks. She was happy to do this for Pru and Chance. She only wished she could let them have the bed-and-breakfast to themselves all night, but there was no place in town for her to bunk in, and Josie couldn’t really stay with Bart because of his kids. At least no other guests were checked in—not that Alcina couldn’t use more business.

“You’ll have several hours alone, anyway, so you can get as wild as you want,” Alcina teased. “Josie and I will give you fair warning when we come in—we’ll make lots of noise.”

Pru’s eyebrows arched as she said, “Maybe if you’re lucky, that’ll be really, really late.”

“How late do you want me to be?”

“As late as a certain Quarrels brother will keep you happily occupied.”

Knowing what Pru was getting at, Alcina felt her grin fade. “You’re dreaming.” Thinking of the argument she’d had with Reed earlier, she said, “I’m the last woman Reed Quarrels would want to keep out late.”

“I don’t know. He was looking pretty interested.”

“Was being the operative word. And then I opened my big mouth.” Alcina sighed and wondered if she should have listened to his opinions and held her own, something she’d never gotten used to doing. “No man likes to hear a woman rant while he’s held captive like a pinned butterfly.”

“Hmm, sounds pretty darn interesting if you ask me.” Coming up from behind them, Chance slipped an arm around his new wife’s waist. “Making exotic plans for the evening, are you, Miss Prudence?”

Pru blushed and smacked him in the chest with the flat of her hand.

“Want to play rough, huh?” He grinned and arched one eyebrow. “How about we—”

“Enough already!” Alcina said with a laugh. “Too much information. I don’t need any more details. And I think the two of you had better get out of here so you can be alone before you embarrass everyone.”

Chance grinned. “Sounds like a plan.”

“Not until we observe the formalities,” Pru countered.

The formalities being the cake cutting and garter and bouquet throws, Alcina knew.

But first Pru wanted to freshen up. And Chance followed her inside the house, meaning the formalities wouldn’t commence for some time yet.

Alcina started off, intending on rejoining the party, when she realized that she’d be on the sidelines watching couples dance. Forget that, she chose to take herself for some solitary exercise instead.