LITMIR.BIZ

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of the rearing horse.

      It was enough to dump her on her rear, extracting a loud yelp as her tailbone felt like it crashed through her throat. The wind was knocked cleanly out of her.

      Cookie led the still panicked horse out of the way, and Garret barreled down on her, grabbed her shoulder and lifted her into a sitting position. “Have you gone mad, woman? You could have killed someone comin’ in like that.” His narrowed eyes widened and his jaw clenched. “What has happened?

      She tried to drag a breath into drowning lungs, but couldn’t. Then fear for Roy spurred the winded words out. “Roy…hurt bad.”

      “Burke, ride for the doc,” Garret said. “Cookie, you’re with me.” He didn’t wait for the men or make sure his orders were followed. “Stay here,” he barked at her, jumped on Buck and tore off for Roy’s homestead, whipping her horse on both flanks with the reins.

      He was going to kill her horse, was her last thought before everything went black.

      * * * *

      “Dadburned woman!” Garrett growled as he kicked the buckskin gelding again, to no improved speed. Maggie Flemming had brought in a nearly spent horse for him to get back to Roy’s place on. He’d tried to convince Roy to sell the blasted nag years ago, but the old man had refused. “Keepin’ him for sentimental reasons,” Roy had said. Damn fool. In this country, riding nags was a deathwish.

      Hoofbeats thundered behind him. Cookie, catching up quickly on a fresh horse. A newfangled wave of annoyance with the woman rushed through him. At the helm of his frustration was the sheer amount of times he had thought about her since meeting her the day before. Her fair skin, bright green eyes, dark hair, and freckles had served quite the contrast when she stood next to Roy with his dark, leathery skin. She would have been a right pretty woman if it weren’t for the ridiculous full skirts and the snooty little hat she was wearing. That, and she stood like she had a fence post for a spine. She looked like she was going to a damned ball in the middle of the Texas desert.

      That woman was responsible for whatever had happened. Roy knew better than to have a high falutin’ lady out in the wilderness, and now he was paying for it. Well-bred women didn’t belong out on a struggling cattle ranch in the middle of nowhere.

      Was she a mail order bride?

      He shook his head against the thought. Roy wasn’t the type. If the old man had lost his mind and gotten hitched, some stupid mistake by that city slickin’ lady would surely bring him around again.

      By the time the house came into view in the distance, his worry had convinced him that Roy had probably only cut his finger or some other such injury common in the daily life they led. The small amount of blood had probably sent the skittish woman into a tither. Roy was likely sitting up in his house with a bandage on his pinkie drinking moonshine, and they’d laugh together about the dramatic tendencies of city folk.

      Then he came upon Roy, lying in the dirt of his front acreage, barely moving and soaking the earth beneath him with his blood. Garrett cursed and jumped off the horse before the panting creature had even stopped moving. Cookie was right behind him, pulling quickly gathered medical supplies from the saddle bags of his own horse. By the amount of blood and the paleness of Roy’s skin, the bandages would be of no use.

      “Roy. Roy, you still with me?” he asked the old man. The man who had acted as a father for him when his had failed.

      “Garrett,” Roy breathed with a pained smile. “I thought you wouldn’t get here in time. I’ve been holding on.”

      “C’mon, old man. Save your strength.” He leaned closer to block Roy’s view of his stomach.

      “I’ve already seen it.”

      Garrett took Roy’s trembling hand. “It’s not so bad,” he said as he shook his head slowly in denial of a fate that, by the grim look on his face, Roy had already accepted.

      “Listen to me. Listen!” Roy demanded hoarsely. “The woman you met. Maggie.”

      “I don’t care about that woman—”

      “Please, Garrett. The woman is Margaret.”

      “Your daughter, Margaret?”

      Roy nodded. “I want you to marry her.”

      Maybe he’d heard him wrong, or maybe they were both in shock. His shaking hand was slick with warm blood from the man who’d taken care of him during the darkest parts of his childhood. The man who’d written him every week he was away at school. And now Roy wanted to tether him to the girl who’d hurt him the most? His old friend wouldn’t ask if he was in his right mind. “No. You ain’t thinking straight. You don’t know what you are asking.”

      “I do. It’s gotta be you, Shaw. I don’t trust no one else to take care of my girl but you.”

      “Look, Cookie’s here. Stop talkin’ and he’ll get to work on you and you’ll be okay.”

      “Stop,” Roy said as he put a hand up in Cookie’s direction. “Cookie, tell the boy I won’t live past what I got to say.”

      Cookie shook his head at Garrett.

      “I don’t have time,” Roy said weakly. “Marry her. It’s my last request. Say it.”

      “Roy—”

      “Say it!” Roy commanded, gripping Garrett’s hand with what little strength remained.

      Resignation dragged him under the waves of anguish that threatened to drown him. “I swear it. I’ll marry your girl and see her taken care of.”

      “Boy, if you let her, she’ll be good for you,” Roy whispered. His last breath was just a soft sigh as he passed. His dark eyes remained open and focused on him, like he was beseeching him, even after death.

      He sat back in the dirt as Cookie covered Roy’s eyes with his hand and whispered the lyrics to a prayer or song that didn’t quite reach him. There, in the dusty rays of sunlight, lay the shell of the best man he’d ever known.

      * * * *

      Maggie came to, and for the briefest of moments couldn’t remember her name. Above her were the exposed wooden beams of an unexpected ceiling, and as she sought pockets of coolness under the sheets with her arms, the bedding rustled in an unfamiliar way. The pillow smelled crisp and masculine. She was in Garret’s bed.

      Her heartbeat tripped into a furious pace. She had never been in a man’s bed before, and the thought of those blue eyes and firm physique had her thoughts turned in a shocking direction. Were his strong arms as hard and unforgiving as they looked? Maybe they’d soften if he put them around her. Had he ever lain in that bed and thought of her those many years?

      “Miss?” a man asked in a deep voice.

      Heat flushed her cheeks. She wasn’t alone.

      “Miss, my name is Brian Burke. People around here call me Burke. I work for Mr. Shaw. Do you need anything?”

      Maggie sat up and shook her head to rid it of the last remnants of an unsettling dream she couldn’t quite remember. Burke was a thin man with light brown hair and a darker, short beard, and sat in a chair in the corner of the room, his hat hanging from his knee. His dark eyes were worried with a genuine concern for her well-being. The sympathy in his gaze, so like... Roy. “Is Roy all right? Did Mr. Shaw find him?”

      “I can’t say, miss—”

      “Maggie,” she finished for him.

      “Maggie. They ain’t back yet. I’d say that means they found him, though.” He gave her a small smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “If you need anything, you let me know. I’ll be out front loading the wagon. Just holler.” Burke put his hat on, leaving her to wallow in her fears.

      The room was small and the walls unadorned. A washbasin stood under a wood framed mirror and a straight razor lay waiting

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