Western Romance Collection: Rugged Cowboys Part 23

But the Sheriff hadn't even come out to look into it. Hadn't sent a deputy around. After a month, she'd decided a better investment would be to buy herself a repeating rifle and keep it in the bedroom. If things went real wrong, she'd at least be able to defend herself. The money mattered, but she wasn't going to let things get out of focus.

"What do you suggest, then?"

She sighed and finally turned. She hoped he couldn't see where she'd been crying last night. She hadn't been able to avoid seeing it in her eyes when she finally woke up this morning. But then, she'd never been kind to herself in regard to her looks. Perhaps she was overestimating it.

Then again, maybe she wasn't.

She thought the answer that she knew he wouldn't want to hear. Get used to it, because there's not much to be done. Then she looked at the way he wore that gun on his hip, like it was made to be there, and she thought, not much, but there is something.

"I don't know," she answered instead.

"You know anything about who's behind it?"

"I don't."

"Then I guess I'll have to have the Sheriff look into it. You might think he won't look into it, but I can't go taking the law into my own hands, can I?"

She supposed he couldn't. But as she watched him walk back out the door, she didn't like the feeling she was getting that it didn't much matter whether or not he went. It would just be one more log on the fire, and if the Sheriff had been ignoring it all these years, it could only mean one thing.

The only reason he wasn't finding those men was because he wasn't looking for them.

She didn't like what that meant for Glen's chances, and she didn't like what it meant for his safety if he tried to push the matter.

Ten.

Glen Riley mopped the sweat away from his forehead for the third time since he had left the ranch. It was only an hour's ride, and he could have taken it in less time if he wanted to push the horse.

Scouting had taught him to take his time, and gambling had only reinforced the habit, so he let the horse off easy. No rush, no hurry, and no reason to panic. The Sheriff's office would still be there if he took an extra fifteen minutes. After all, he didn't need to spook anyone.

Catherine hadn't struck him as a foolish woman, but she also seemed like the sort of no-nonsense person who sometimes jumps to conclusions in their hurry to get to the point. More than likely, she had just gotten the wrong impression from the Sheriff, and she'd left before he had a chance to follow up. After all, he reasoned, as he pushed the door to the Sheriff's Office open, who would elect a Sheriff who didn't do his job?

Catherine's hands were already hurting from the dishes. She closed her eyes and tried to force her hands to loosen up. She didn't need to be rubbing so hard, but the reality was that he was getting to her, and as much as Catherine didn't like it one d.a.m.n bit, she couldn't deny it.

He'd find out soon enough what it was like, but what made it that much worse was knowing, herself, what she'd gone through since he had shown up. Barely a moment's rest. When she closed her eyes, all she could see were the chisel-cut lines of his face and the strong arms, the toned body that looked like he hadn't gone a single day without using every part of his body.

Grant would learn in his own time how little going to see Sheriff Barnes would do him. That much was sure. But he couldn't know what she was thinking about while he was doing it. She'd be humiliated, and what's more, what little reputation she had after Billy was done with her would be ruined.

She could deal with the looks of consternation, with the heavy atmosphere in town. She'd dealt with it since not long after they moved into town, and she would have to keep on dealing with it.

She set the dish aside, polished to a bright shine from rubbing it twice as long as it needed. She forced herself to keep going, gritted her teeth and focused on what she was doing. She needed a distraction, and by G.o.d she was going to have it-whether her thoughts wanted to play along or not.

The house would be spic and span by the time he got back, and if that didn't put the sin that had consumed her thoughts out of her head... well, she'd figure that out if it came to that. She hoped it wouldn't.

Glen tapped his fingers on the Sheriff's desk in frustration, but he wasn't going to cause a fuss. After all, he had a crime to report. But a man who needed to eat, needed to eat. So Glen waited for him. After all, he reminded himself: the man was the duly-appointed Sheriff of Carbon County.

He didn't look like much, but Glen had met plenty of incompetent men, folks who barely knew how to wipe their a.s.s without help, and he didn't seem like that. He was fit and trim, but no more than most. When Glen had walked in, he'd taken a hard look at the gun hanging at his hip before deciding not to discuss it.

Glen, in turn, had loosened the belt as he came in and let it lie on the ground beside him. Only polite, he supposed, and if he needed it-he wouldn't-then it was still within fairly easy reach. Just not right at hand. If it helped the man to be at ease, well, Glen was about to ask him a favor so he certainly wasn't going to press it.

He watched the man pour a cup of coffee from a pitcher, noted that the Sheriff didn't offer him any, and then leaned back as the Sheriff walked over, sliding sideways into his seat.

"Mister Riley. Nice to meet you. New in the area?"

"Bill Howell sold me his ranch, and I came to start working on getting myself settled."

"Excellent!" Glen could see how the man had gotten where he was. He was a likable sort of man, and gave off an air of being genuine. The truth was that the man could care less what his story was, Glen decided. He might have not even known Bill, which was a little odd but nothing too out of the ordinary.

A Sheriff in a county this large, there must be five or ten thousand people living in his area. The folks in the city, sure. But outside that, maybe he didn't know much. Just vaguely-remembered faces, and a knack for looking unsurprised.

"Thank you, sir, it's a mighty fine county you've got."

Sheriff Barnes gave a wide, toothy grin. "We aim to keep it that way, sir. Now, what can I do for you?"

"Well," Glen began, licking the salty sweat away from his lips, "I didn't bring too big a herd, but I couldn't help noticing a few missing here and there."

"I'm sure they just ran off," the Sheriff offered. "Have a look 'round, and you'll be sure to find them."

"That's what concerns me, Sheriff. I don't think that's the case. In fact, I know it not to be. The fence is in fine condition, and I had a full herd last night. Yet, today, I'm three short."

The Sheriff leaned back in his chair, scratching his blonde hair. "Well, that's a funny story, I'll admit. Do you have any idea who it might be?"

"Well, on account of I just got into town, I can't say I do, sir."

"Well, that's a shame." Barnes stood up and reached out a hand. "I hope your luck turns around. We'll try to look into it, but without much to go on, I don't think there's much hope of my deputies turnin' anything up. I'll be in touch. The Howell ranch, you said?"

"That's right. Thanks for your time, Sheriff."

"Please. Call me Jim," he said. The same toothy smile. Glen knew the type. He had to revise his opinion of Jim Barnes.

He might not know every rancher living out on the frontier, but he knew Bill Howell. Sheriff Barnes was a gambler if Glen had ever known one. He couldn't say for sure where the lies were, but he knew one thing as the absolute truth.

Glen shouldn't expect too much in terms of investigating. Whatever was going on, he knew, he wasn't going to like what he found, and Jim Barnes was going to be right at the middle of it.

Catherine watched out the window, scrubbing the gla.s.s to get it as clean as she could hope for. It was the last big job, and with Ada and the twins napping for who knew how much longer, she was in a hurry to get it done. But she was watching outside, as well.

Any minute, that cowboy was going to ride up, and she was going to have to go through the tangle of her feelings again. Part of her wanted to get away from it, to figure out a way to avoid thinking about it.

But another part of her, a big part, was waiting for the first glance she could get of the man riding over the hill. She rubbed the gla.s.s harder and tried not to think about it.

Eleven.

Glen didn't need to hear Catherine say she told him that the trip would end up being useful. It wasn't helpful and he didn't much appreciate it, either. But that didn't mean she wasn't going to say it, and it didn't mean he didn't deserve it.

So instead he fought to keep his back straight as he started to close in on the ranch. After all, there was plenty to be worried about, with how things had gone, but there was plenty he could do about it.

After all, he was smart, and he was capable of keeping a close watch on the cattle. If he knew they were being stolen, it wouldn't be too hard to call on the only good skill the Army had ever taught him.

Tracking was useful in and of itself, but it was dispensable when you were out scouting ahead, alone or with only a partner for days at a time.

Now it would be useful again. Get a sense which way they headed, and then use good old-fashioned investigation to figure out where they were being taken. Go to the places that people got rid of cows they didn't want any more, and see if anything had been sold lately.

Well, that sounded good, at least. It wasn't exactly lost on him that he didn't know where many of those places were. It was something he would need to have in the back of his mind when he was running a ranch, no doubt, and especially when it was still as small as his would be when this mess was all cleared up.

That was where he would need help, in having connections to the local area and making sure that he knew where he should be checking. He couldn't get that kind of information, not without looking like he was, well, investigating.

But, if he was lucky, he knew someone who had it already.

Catherine watched out the window, pretending she didn't know what she was looking for. It could have been for anything, she reasoned. It didn't have to be that she was waiting for him to come into view.

When he did, though, all deniability went out the window. Her heart jumped into her throat. Did he have anyone else with him? Maybe the Sheriff had only ignored her because she was a woman, living out there alone on the range. She'd be more likely attacked than robbed. Since she still had what little purity that Billy had left her, it didn't matter a whole lot, right?

But as she searched the skyline, trying to make out through the haze whether there was one figure or two, she was disappointed to see that it was Glen, riding in alone. He didn't look as disappointed as she had expected. Perhaps there was news.

Then again, perhaps her expectations were off. He was a poker player before this, and apparently a good one. A man like that would hide his reactions like it was as natural as breathing.

She let out a long breath and got busy. No time to watch him come in. She had to-she realized with a jolt that she didn't have to do much, after all. She was pretty much satisfied with the state of the house. She looked across it. Hadn't been this put together since she bought the place with Billy.

That it looked alright now was a blessing by itself. It had always been a house that was in use, rather than looking pretty. When Billy walked out, she kept it going as best she could for a few days, but then it had all gone out the window.

The twins took priority, then Ada, then the herd, and the house... by the time the house came around, she didn't have much energy to take care of it. It was all she could do to keep the place from falling down.

But letting herself fall back into cleaning as a way to get her mind off Glen Riley had proven a very effective motivator. Now the place looked about ready to have a magazine from back east come by and take pictures.

She had just settled into the sofa when she heard a knock come at the door, and already knowing who it was, she got up to let Glen in.

"Good afternoon," she offered, stepping back and letting him inside. "How did the trip into town go?"

He pinched his lips. "It could have gone better, ma'am. Could have gone much better."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Well, he says he won't investigate it. Says he doesn't know who is doing it, and he won't look into it too much."

"He said all that?"

"He said enough."

"So, what, then?"

"Then I investigate for him. It won't be too much work, I don't think. I can manage that much, and when I bring him the evidence myself, he can't help but act on it. He's the duly-appointed Sheriff of Carbon County, after all."

"So, what. You think he's just not doing it because he doesn't have a deputy to go investigate for him?"

"How big you figure this county is? The way I figure it, he might only have three or four. Probably most of the crime is in Rawlins, then beyond that maybe he has two men to spare to go out roaming. Maybe they're all out, or maybe they're waiting on something that they think is coming. Whatever it is, if I investigate myself, then they'll have to agree to make a few arrests."

"Why don't you just go offer to work as his deputy?"

Catherine knew that Glen was a gambler, and she'd seen him not react to things before. Then again, she'd seen some pretty strong reactions from him. What she saw now was him trying to pretend he wasn't reacting, but he didn't succeed like he usually did.

Normally, it was impossible to tell, except that she knew he'd have a thought about it. Now he stiffened half an instant, then tried to relax back into the position he'd been in before without letting her see.

But she did see, and whatever it was that he didn't like about the idea, it was pretty pretty strong.

"I've got the calves to worry about," he said after a while. A weak excuse, she knew. If she was managing with a thousand head, a thousand and fifty wouldn't exactly ruin her. Her cattle were doing just fine... even if they could have been doing better.

"So why are you telling me all this?"

"Well, there are two reasons. First, because it might be dangerous. After all, we're following a few men who have stolen, what, a dozen cattle at least? That we know of?"

More than that, Catherine thought. She nodded.

"So it could be I get caught. I don't plan on it, and I'm pretty good at staying out of people's way, but I don't want to take any risks with it, and I don't want it so n.o.body knows where I'll be."

"And the other?"

"I'm not going to be able to go too far with just followin' 'em, you know? Eventually, I'm gonna have to find my way to someplace they would get rid of the steers. They ain't likely to keep 'em, after all, not with the brands and earmarks showin' that they's stolen."

"I'm not sure what you're saying."

"Well, the problem is, that's not something I know too much about. I would need someone to show me where to go to research that kinda thing, and that's where you come in."

Twelve.

Glen rubbed the tiredness out of his eyes. He couldn't sleep yet. Night guard was hardly a position he wanted to play. Then again, doing the right thing always meant doing something he didn't want to do. He wouldn't regret it in the end, if it meant that he caught the people responsible for stealing Catherine's cattle.

He realized after a moment that he had considered her things before he had considered his own, and wondered at that for a moment. But there wasn't much worrying to be done. After all, he did what he had to do, and that was that. Whether it was for himself, or for her, didn't much matter.

What mattered was that it needed doing, and he was going to be the one to do it. At first he didn't know if he was seeing anything. He couldn't afford any lights. Nothing that would let someone on the outside know that he was there. He'd been trying hard to still his breathing, still his movements, pressed back into a haystack.

Just more inky blackness in the black night, too dark to see anything, and never still for an instant. There was always something out there, something that was moving and trying to survive. The fact that he was only looking for one very specific thing, trying to do something very different, meant that he was relying on his eyes and relying on the fact that if he didn't catch them today, then it was only a matter of time.