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Overview
A terrifying encounter with a band of desperados left
when a tall, dark stranger came knocking on her door,she greeted him with a rifle—cocked and loaded.
Every instinct told her to turn Caleb McCurdy away—
his hard body hid a warm heart that melted all her fearsexcept she needed a man's help. Soon Laura discovered
away. But the dark places in Caleb's past would dividethem, unless Laura could learn a tough lessonabout forgiveness.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781426803277 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Harlequin |
| Publication date: | 10/10/2023 |
| Series: | Harlequin Historical Series , #856 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 304 |
| Sales rank: | 427,862 |
| File size: | 515 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
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 torridArizona 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 beatup 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 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.
"Caleb McCurdy's the name. I didn't mean to scare you, ma'am. Just wanted to ask a question or two, then, if you want me to leave, I'll be on my way."
McCurdy. Laura groped for some memory of the name and came up empty. There was something familiar about the voice that filtered through the heavy wooden door, but without a face to go with it…
Bracing the gun stock against her hip, she opened the door a few cautious inches. "What do you want?" she demanded.
The man who filled the narrow opening was tall and lean, with straight, black hair and a battered face. A closer look revealed jutting cheekbones, obsidian eyes and skin that was burnished to the hue and texture of saddle leather. He was dressed for the trail in unfaded clothes that looked recently bought, but what struck Laura at once was his expression. He was staring at her as if he'd seen a ghost.
His throat moved. Then he closed his mouth tightly, as if he'd thought the better of what he'd been about to say. For an instant his gaze lingered on the ugly scar that zigzagged down the left side of her face. Then he averted his eyes, as most people did when they met her.
Laura jabbed the shotgun's twin barrels toward him. "Well, then, speak your piece, Mr. McCurdy, or be on your way. Strangers aren't welcome around here."
Caleb filled his eyes with her defiant face. Lord, she hadn't recognized him. Otherwise, by now, he'd have a belly full of buckshot. After what had happened five years ago, he could understand why she greeted callers with a gun. She was likely terrified. What he couldn't understand was why she'd stayed in a place with so many tragic memories. Surely she had kinfolk back east who would have welcomed her home.
Her large gray eyes studied him cautiously. It made sense, now, that she wouldn't know him. His real name would mean nothing to her. And he was no longer the bashful teenager who'd adored her across the kitchen table. Five years had put height and muscle on him, and prison had altered his features. A fight with the prison bully had broken his nose. An accident with falling rocks had split his lip and laid a puckered scar across his left eyebrow. Even his eyes had long since lost their look of innocence.
Laura had changed, too. The knife wound on her face had healed badly, leaving a jagged white streak from her temple to the corner of her mouth. Her hair was pulled harshly back and twisted into a tight knot. But it was her dove-colored eyes that struck him to the heart. They were an animal's eyes, wounded and mistrustful.
They had done this to her, he and his brothers. And Caleb knew that, in his own blundering way, he was as much to blame as Zeke and Noah. He had tried to rescue her and failed. Worse, his interference had opened the way to Mark Shafton's death.
"I'm waiting," she said. "You've got ten seconds to tell me what you want before I blast you off my porch!"
Caleb scrambled for words, saying the first thing that came to mind. "Your corral gate needs mending. I'll do it in exchange for a meal."
She hesitated, her eyes coming to rest on the pistol that hung at his hip. Impulsively, he unfastened the gun belt and held it toward her. "Take this for safekeeping if you're worried about me," he said. "Believe me, I'd never hurt you or take anything I hadn't earned."
She recoiled slightly, more from him than from the pistol, Caleb suspected. "Lay the gun on the porch," she said. "You'll find some tools in the shed.
When you finish mending the gate, your food and your weapon will be waiting on the front step. You can take them and go."
Caleb nodded and turned away, aching for her. Even with the scar, Laura was a beautiful woman. With the ranch as a dowry, she could have had dozens of suitors fighting for her hand. But fear, it seemed, had made her a recluse. He could not imagine such a woman letting any man near her.
The fluttering clothes on the line caught his eye again. He remembered now that she'd told Zeke she was pregnant. Her child would be a little more than four years old, a boy, judging from the pint-sized shirts and overalls. Laura would have her hands full, raising a son alone.
Was there any way he could help her? Not likely, Caleb told himself as he walked toward the shed. He'd be a fool to stay within shotgun range for long. A look, a word, anything could trigger Laura's memory and her finger. Worse, if she recognized him and sent word to the sheriff, he could end up in prison again, this time as an accessory to murder.
And if he did stay, what could he do for her? Tell her lies? Hurt her again? Caleb sighed as he unlatched the door of the toolshed. He had learned all he'd set out to learn. Laura's life was far from perfect, but she was surviving as best she could. The wisest thing he could do now was ride away and leave her alone. And he would—as soon as he mended the corral gate.
* * *
Laura peered past the frame of the window, watching as the man named McCurdy rehung the sagging gate. He moved with a quiet sureness, one shoulder bracing the timbers while he hammered the nail that held the iron hinge in place. She had tried to do the job herself a few weeks ago but had lacked the strength to hold up the heavy gate while she worked with her hands. Caleb McCurdy made the task look easy.
Her fingers brushed the scar that trailed like spilled tallow down the side of her face. Who was Caleb McCurdy, she wondered, and why had he come this way? Laura was curious, but starting a conversation would only encourage him to stay longer. She'd agreed to his offer out of the necessity to get the gate repaired. But all she really wanted was to be left alone.
He was well spoken and decently dressed. But aside from that he was a rough-looking sort with the face of a brawler. There was no telling what a man like that might do to a helpless woman with a child. Until he was out of sight, she would be wise to watch his every move.
"Who's that man, Mama?" Laura had let Robbie out of his room a few minutes earlier. Now he was standing on tiptoe beside her, peering over the sill.
a meal. At least this one's willing to work for it.""Can I go outside and swing now?" the boy asked. "You said I could if I cleaned up my room."
