“If I were you,” the rancher said, green gaze boring into Hank’s, “I’d keep a close eye on the spread. Where one rustler steps out, another may think to step in. There may be more than rattlers hiding in those hills, and Nancy Bennett is going to need protection from them.”
That kind of protection was normally the job for a lawman or a husband. He was no lawman. And Jeb Fuller had the whole county to watch over. He couldn’t focus all his efforts on the Windy Diamond.
So did Hank dare think of himself as a husband?
He’d tried before. His father, in his usual proud way, had picked out the girl. For once, Hank hadn’t been willing to argue. Mary Ellen Wannacre had been downright beautiful, with hair brighter than sunshine and eyes the color of bluebonnets. With her on his arm, he’d felt like the man his father was always goading him to be—powerful, confident. Every fellow in Waco had been green with envy. He’d allowed himself to fall in love.
But in the end, he’d come in second best. She’d chosen to marry his friend Adam Turner, who at least had had the decency to stammer out an apology. Hank couldn’t blame either of them. He’d never managed to measure up to his father’s expectations. It didn’t come as a surprise he didn’t measure up to hers.
It had taken him five years to begin to meet his own.
Was he willing to set those aside for someone else’s, to keep Nancy Bennett and her baby safe?
“It can be overwhelming, can’t it?” Lula May said as she took a seat in Nancy’s parlor. The two brown horsehair-covered chairs still sat at precise angles in front of the stone fireplace, as if waiting for Lucas to come through the door. Nancy sank onto the one opposite her friend and focused on the red-and-blue diamond shapes woven into the rug on the plank floor.
“Yes,” she admitted. “And I can’t help thinking I might have spared everyone this pain if I’d just recognized what Lucas was doing.”
Lula May raised her chin. “That’s enough of such talk. Why, I’d known Lucas longer than you had, and I had no idea what he was doing. I didn’t even know he was from Alabama, raised near where I grew up, until recently. And Edmund had no idea either, for all the two worked side by side during roundups.”
Nancy managed a smile for her friend’s sake. “Edmund, is it?”
The prettiest pink blossomed in Lula May’s cheeks. “He asked me to marry him.”
Nancy reached out and took her hands. “Oh, Lula May, I’m so happy for you! You deserve a fine fellow like Edmund McKay.”
They talked of weddings and babies and other things that lifted her spirits as they waited for the men to rejoin them. When he heard the news, Hank went out of his way to tease Lula May and Edmund about their upcoming nuptials, but his smile seemed strained, as if he expected trouble. Surely her friends were no danger. What was wrong?
He stood on the porch as she waved goodbye to them, and she could feel the tension in his lean body.
“What is it, Hank?” she asked. “Did Mr. McKay tell you something I should know?”
He flinched as if she’d poked a sore spot. “Not exactly. I should get back to work. We can talk more later.” Shoving his hat on his head, he strode off toward the barn.
She didn’t call for him to stay this time. Much as she needed to learn, she’d hardly help the ranch succeed by keeping him continually from his job.
What she could do, she realized, was deal with the bank. Returning to the house, she wrote a letter requesting more time and stating the steps she was taking to ensure the ranch earned enough profit to pay back every penny Lucas had borrowed, with interest. She could only hope that would be sufficient, for now.
The next week, she spent as much time as she could out on the range, taking the team to keep up with her boys. She’d driven her mother’s small buggy back in Missouri, but the clattering wagon took a little getting used to. And she didn’t stay out past noon, when the sun was beating down hot enough to fry her lunch on the limestone reaches that ringed the ranch.
But the six hours away from the house opened her eyes. Sitting on the porch, even tending the garden behind the house, she’d never realized the terrain surrounding the ranch was so rough. The house, barn and corral were on flat ground near Hop Toad Springs, but even a half mile away the land began crumbling like a paper crushed in a fist. Limestone reaches thrust up; streams cut draws and canyons. And everything was covered in tall grass and dotted with clumps of short oak trees and cottonwoods.
She also learned that while the cattle roamed free over the wild and windswept acres, there was always something that needed tending. If Kettle Creek was running low, the whole herd had to be driven closer to the house to Hop Toad Springs, which drew from groundwater and never failed. Fences encircling their land had be to constantly patrolled and mended, or the cattle would wander too far afield. And Hank and her other boys kept a close eye on the herd to protect the cattle from predators, four-footed and two-footed.
The last gave her pause.
“You mean there are others out stealing cattle?” she asked Hank as he sat astride his horse next to the wagon. They were about a mile away from the house, resting under the shade of a copse of trees, the oak leaves chattering in a rising breeze that brought the scent of dry dust and clean water.
“Always those who want more than their share, ma’am,” he answered, gaze roaming the area as if he expected an outlaw to leap out from behind a bush.
She could believe that Lucas had turned to rustling from greed. He’d always seemed to want more than what he had. From what she could see, he’d certainly owned more than most people. Hadn’t that been sufficient?
Hadn’t she and their baby been sufficient?
“Look there,” Hank said, pointing to where a longhorn was ambling out of the shade. “See that white circle high on her shoulder? That’s our Rosebud, fairest of them all.”
Nancy raised her brows. “You name the cattle?”
He winked at her. “Only the special ones. Miss Rosebud, they tell me, has never failed to calve since she was old enough to bear.”
Sure enough, a calf, nearly grown now, trotted after its mother. A dozen more cows plodded in her wake.
“You get Miss Rosebud on your side,” Hank said, “and the rest of them will follow you anywhere. Upkins says it’s on account of the way she swings her tail all sassy like.”
Nancy smothered a laugh, and he had the good sense to color. “I didn’t mean anything by that, ma’am,” he hastened to assure her.
“I didn’t think you did,” Nancy replied. But she couldn’t help smiling at the idea that her brash and bold boys gave their favorite cattle pet names.
She tried not to interfere with their activities, but she could tell by their terse answers to her questions, their sidelong glances, that she made them nervous. Like Lucas, they seemed to prefer her safely inside the house. But how was she to learn if she didn’t come out?
Evenings were better. She’d take some fruit or a piece of pie to the porch to wait for her boys to come riding in. Mr. Upkins and Billy always tipped their hats as they passed before dismounting to lead their horses into the barn. One or the other would embolden himself to come closer, ask her about her day, make some comment about the ranch. But they always scurried back to the barn as if concerned they were being too forward.
She made sure Hank didn’t escape so easily. She’d call to him before he could take his horse into the barn, and he’d usually hand the reins to one of the others before joining her on the porch. His boots would be covered with dust, his shirt telling of hard work, yet he always managed a smile.
She’d hand him