The old buckboard wagon, pulled by the obedient roans hitched to it, clattered over the rutted grooves of the trail that connected the Thorne land with the Lawless boundary. Above it, the winter sun bathed the dun-colored hills and browning tallgrass in its weak morning light.
Glancing at the huge and steadily rising sun, Biddy huddled in her cloak and threaded the reins through her fingers. Then, dividing her attention between the horses’ plodding pace and Louise Thorne at her side, Biddy said, “’Tis sorry I am to be dragging ye out in this cold. But ’tis glad I am ye would come with me this morning. I’m near to being out of me mind with worry for Glory. I only hope she survived the night, what with the truth of that journal staring her in the face.”
Louise Thorne reached over to squeeze Biddy’s cloak-covered arm. “Now, don’t you fret none, Biddy. You did the right thing staying overnight with me. You couldn’t see your way home in the dark, and Glory’s smart enough to figure out that you’d stay. Besides, what with Ben and the boys being out with the cattle, and me all alone, I was glad for the company.”
“It was nice, wasn’t it—just the two of us?” Biddy was quiet a moment, but then added, “I’m hoping yer menfolk get them cattle back onto Lawless land before Mr. Rankin finds them gone. There’d be no end to the troubles.”
Louise shook her head, disturbing the trailing bonnet ribbons tied under her chin. “Don’t I know it. You’re right, too—about them trackers you spoke of last night. Because someone’s taking pains to make us Thornes look like rustlers of Lawless cattle. I’d bet the same man who tried to hurt Glory is behind this—and wantin’ us all at each other’s throats. It makes sense. I swear, I told Ben no good would come of all them meetings about the danged Lawlesses—”
Biddy cut her gaze over to Louise, saw her wide-eyed, guilty stare, and encouraged, “Go on. ’Tis all right.”
“I’m sorry, Biddy.” Louise slumped with her words. “Sometimes I forget.”
Biddy pursed her lips. “’Tis easy to do. But still, yer menfolk are going to miss ye. And they’ll not be happy with where ye are.”
Louise waved that away with a brush of her hand. “They don’t tell me what to do. Besides, it’ll do ’em good to fend for themselves a day or two. If we don’t pass ’em on the way to your place, they’ll see my note when they ride in. I’m not worried about them.”
Biddy nodded and smiled, spared her friend a glance. “Yer a good woman, Louise Thorne. A fine and loyal friend.”
Louise brushed that away, too, with a hoot of laughter. “I just do what I have to, Biddy, what I feel in my heart. And don’t forget, my firstborn is tied up in all this, too. I’m thinking of him.”
Biddy adjusted the reins in her hands and forced a light note into her voice. “Ye know, he and Glory have been … alone now this past night.”
She didn’t have to say more. Louise shifted about on the buckboard seat, her weight rocking it. “I know. I reckon Riley, being the man he is … that he and Glory, umm, know each other by now. You suppose?”
“That I do.” Biddy was silent for a moment, as she considered the implications of Glory and Riley’s aloneness, but then she said, “I’m only hoping that me Glory hasn’t figured out yet that she’s Beatrice Parker. We should have known—all of us—that the truth would come out. But I never thought it would be like this. Or at this time, when we’re still so raw from the murders and all. Mark me words, Louise—all these happenings are for one and the same reason.”
A serious expression rode Louise Thorne’s broad features. “You think so? J. C. and Catherine being gunned down? The unrest over the land? That attack on Glory? The cattle showing up on our land? How could they all be related? That’s a big stretch, Biddy.”
Biddy firmed her lips. “I just know what I feel. But worryin’ me most right now is this journal showing up after all these years. Poor Jacey. She had no choice but to pass it along. And now … poor Glory.”
Louise put a work-roughened hand to her lips. Her frown dipped her eyebrows low over her nose. She lowered her hand to say, “I swear if this don’t beat all. At least Glory’s not alone. Riley wouldn’t let the first thing happen to her. Why, that tracker, if he’s still about, would have to kill him to get to her.”
“Aye, and well I know that,” Biddy agreed. “But the troubles I mean are of the soul. When that child learns she’s not a Lawless at all … well, I…” Biddy’s voice trailed off with her mounting sense of impending doom.
“Biddy, you listen to me,” came Louise’s strong, kind voice. “No matter what happens, no matter what Glory learns, Riley is right there with her. He loves her, and he’ll see her through.”
Biddy nodded, blinking back sudden tears. “Yer right, of course. But with everything against them, I only hope that their love is enough. For us all.”
Louise stared at her a moment and then pulled a hanky out of her coat pocket and dabbed at her own eyes. “Look what you’ve done. Now I’ve gone to blubberin’ like a baby—”
“Louise,” Biddy cried, cutting off her friend’s words. “Look over there. Two riders comin’ this way—and fast, as if the devil himself is on their tails. I’m not likin’ the looks of this.”
While Biddy managed the horses, Louise straightened up and looked in the direction she’d indicated. Louise didn’t say anything, but she wadded up her hanky and fumbled in both pockets. Biddy eyed her efforts and asked, “What are ye looking for?”
Louise turned her serious, brown-eyed gaze Biddy’s way. “I forgot my pistol. You got a gun on you or in this wagon?”
Biddy’s heart picked up its thumping pace. She gaped at the looming riders, heard their horses’ hooves pounding the ground, and then shook her bonneted head at Louise. “No. I left in such a hurry yesterday that I never gave it a second thought. Oh, dear Lord, I’m only hopin’ that whoever they are, they’re friendly.”
Louise shook her head. “I don’t think so. They just pulled their guns.”
Biddy frowned, joined her friend in staring at the menacing presence of the horses aiming straight for them, like arrows shot out of a bow. Like bullets speeding toward their targets. “Hold on. I’ll try to outrun them.”
With that, she snapped the long reins over the broad backs of the roans hitched to the Lawless buckboard. “Hiyah! Git up with ye.”
* * *
Why, it’s nearly lunchtime. Where did the morning go, Glory marveled as she stretched like a lazy cat and eyed the mantel clock. Dressed still in her chemise and morning gown, and seated cross-legged on the leather couch in the great room, she grinned as she turned her attention to watching the play of muscles across Riley’s back. Clad only in his combination suit and denims, he crouched in front of the huge fireplace, working at rekindling the blaze—the one in the grate—that he’d started a few hours ago before breakfast.
As she watched every movement of his with the keen intensity only a lover can muster, Glory reflected over the changes in herself. When Riley’d arrived last evening, she’d been a lost and crying little girl, absolutely torn up about her true identity. A sudden clutching in the pit of her stomach told her she still hadn’t dealt fully with that knowledge. But look at me now, she rushed on. I’m sitting here all calm and collected, like the lady of the house with her man home for the day.
That thought made her cock her head wonderingly at Riley’s back. She’d slept all night with this man. Well, not all night. Not slept, anyway. A guilty grin tugged at her lips as she bit at her bottom one. But still, did that explain the person she was today? Maybe. Glory shied away from that hesitation to say it was so, settling instead for acknowledging that she now knew every inch of Riley Eugene Thorne. Every finely honed and muscled, masculine inch.
She shook her head in appreciation of all that he was, from his thick and wavy black hair, down that broad back of his, to his narrow hips and long legs. A sigh escaped her. Papa’d kill him, if he was here, for having slept with me.
The errant thought jerked Glory upright, causing a sharp rustling sound of her skin across the soft leather of the couch. Riley pivoted to face her, his own face aglow with reflected firelight. “What is it?”
Glory shook her head, smiled. “Nothing. I was just … I was … Nothing.”
Riley’s neutral expression bled into a frown. He studied her face, nodded his head. “All right.” But continued to stare at her. And to wait for her to explain, she just knew it.
“I just—” The words spurted out of her on a guilty thrust. She swallowed, shrugged her shoulders, looked down to consider her fingers knotted together and resting on her lap. She then glanced up at Riley, saw he hadn’t moved … or let her off the hook. Every line in his body said he was waiting. Glory took a deep breath and decided to try again. “I was just thinking that if … Papa was here, he’d kill you for having … slept with me.”
Wide-eyed with her own words, she looked away from his unblinking brown-eyed gaze, looked down again at her fingers. But even so, and as if she could read his mind and know his thoughts, Glory knew he waited to hear what she thought about that. And so, she sought Riley’s eyes, and admitted, “I wouldn’t let him. He’d have to go through me to get to you.”
Riley stared a moment longer, as if unwilling to proceed through time until he’d absorbed her words, until he’d clarified for himself this underlying shift in allegiance, this new willingness of hers to fight for him, for what she felt for him. After a moment, he grinned broadly, showing white and even teeth as he chuckled and looked away from her.
Glory’s mouth opened with happy surprise. She’d embarrassed him. What a revelation. That he—so big and capable and strong—could be undone by simple words from her. There it was again—that heady feeling of power that she’d sensed last night with their lovemaking. And again this morning.
Feeling suddenly warm all over, and knowing it had nothing to do with the fire in the grate, but more with the man in front of it, Glory soaked up Riley’s presence. This perfect moment between them couldn’t last, she knew, but lost in its exquisiteness, she gave herself over to enjoying it to the fullest. As if he felt something of the same, Riley ran a big, square hand through that black hair of his, and stared at his feet, telling them, “I’d never ask you to take a bullet for me. And I’m glad it won’t have to come to that.”
There it was. All that was and remained between them. It couldn’t come to that, to her throwing herself between Riley and her father, because Papa was … gone. Both Papa and … her father. Two different men, but each one responsible for her life, for her being here to think and to feel these things. And both denied to her by murderers’ foul deeds. Glory sucked in a deep breath through her pinched nostrils. And stared at Riley.
Bracing his palms across his knees for support, he stretched up to his full height and grinned. “But I appreciate the thought,” he added.
Just seeing him smile banished her sad thoughts. Glory chuckled and held a hand out to him. Riley took a step toward her, but that was as far as he got. Because a fierce pounding on the front door shattered the cocoon of quiet surrounding them. And jerked her and Riley’s attention in that direction.
Shocked into rigid reaction, Glory stared at the door and then twisted to see Riley. She caught his reflexive motion, the putting of a hand to his hip, only to realize that it was devoid of gun and holster. He jerked his attention back to her. “That doesn’t sound like anything but trouble.”
Despite the fear that chased across her nerve endings and goose-bumped her skin, Glory began scooting off the couch. “I’d better get it before they break the door down. It’s probably Smiley or some of the hands.” Standing now, she looked Riley up and down, seeing him as half-dressed and not belonging here. At least, according to the Lawless hands. “Maybe you’d better go upstairs.”
Riley stared at her a moment, then shifted as he apparently took her meaning. “No. If it’s your hands, they already know I’m in here. I rode right past two of them last night at the gate. And the others will have seen Pride in the barn by now.”
In her mind’s eye, Glory again saw Riley leaving her briefly last night to stable his gray gelding. Only now, though, did she appreciate what her men’s reaction, in the morning light, to that horse would be. “That’s exactly what I mean. They know you’re in here.”
Riley stilled, stared at her, looked somehow diminished by her wanting him to hide. Ashamed of herself, Glory looked away from his face. Only moments ago, she’d as much as told him she’d fight Papa for him, but now, when faced with the reality of that conviction, she was asking him to hide. No wonder he looked at her with all the disdain that Skeeter did his supper plate. Clutching handfuls of her morning gown, Glory said, “I’m sorry, Riley. I didn’t mean—”
The front door was kicked. Gasping, Glory spun to face it, saw the lock splintering in its wood casing, saw the door give some, heard men yelling. Riley stalked past her—weaponless but jaw seriously clenched—and put a shoulder to the door, forcing it back in its jamb as he worked the tortured lock and then jerked the door open. As if the suction surrounding the opening of the door drew them inside, Ben Thorne and his four other sons poured into the room.
Right behind them were Heck Thompson and Pops Medley. Heck sought her gaze. “We tried to stop them, Miz Glory, but it was either shoot them or—”
“It’s okay,” Glory cut in, raising a hand to stop the man’s tirade before he could bring them all to gunfire.
Heck clutched his long rifle with both hands, his knuckles white around the weapon. “You want me to get Mr. Rankin?”
Her heart knocking against her ribs, Glory eyed the Thorne men. Armed to the teeth and looking grim yet haggard, as if they’d ridden all night, they eyed her right back. Determined to show no fear, she angled her chin up and shook her head. “No. I’m sure there’s no need.”
Her words had the desired effect. The Thornes relaxed their stances and turned from her to focus on Riley.
* * *
“Pa, what are you doing here?” Riley looked from his father, to his brothers ranged behind the old man, and then back at Ben. And watched his white-haired father search the room with his disapproving gaze.
Finally, he settled his black-eyed seriousness on his oldest son. “Where’s your ma, boy?”
Riley’s gut tightened. “Ma? I don’t know. I haven’t been home since I rode out with you to sort the cattle days ago. I came straight here yesterday after sending Biddy on to our place. You saw me do that.” Then, even though he knew the answer, he had to ask. “She’s not at home?”
Ben raised an eyebrow, ducked his chin. “Would I step foot on Lawless dirt if your mother was at home?”
Riley heard Glory’s gasping intake of breath. And knew in his heart that trouble had found them. Had found them all. He forced air past his constricted lungs and said, “Give me a minute. I’ll get dressed and—”
An abrupt gesture from Henry caught Riley’s attention, cut off his words. “I told you, Pa, that he’d be here playin’ house with a Lawless while his own mother was bein’ kidnapped. And probably by someone in her employ.” He stabbed a finger in Glory’s direction.
His hands already curling into fists, Riley took a step toward his younger brother. “If Ma’s missing, Glory had nothing to do with it, Henry. What the hell makes you think—?”
Ben caught Riley by the arm, stopping him. “Look at this.” From out of his coat’s deep pocket he pulled a black-velvet bonnet that Riley recognized as his mother’s favorite, the one she wore when visiting. Only now it was crumpled and torn. “We found it on the way here. Run over by wagon wheels. On Lawless land.” Before Riley could do more than frown over that, his father reached into his coat pocket again and produced a slip of paper. “And this. Yer ma wrote it. I found it at the house. It says she and Miss Biddy was coming here.”
Riley took the note, stared at his mother’s familiar handwriting. In the time it took him to read her words—no more than a few seconds—a thousand details tore through his mind. Among them … when had the note been written? When did Ma and Biddy leave home? Where were they now? Had there been an accident with the wagon? Were they alive? Had they met up with strangers? Or with someone they already knew? Why hadn’t Pa and his brothers seen any other evidence of them, like the wagon, the horses? That they hadn’t meant someone was holding them, most likely against their will. But who? And why?
Realizing that these same fears drove his family, only they’d had more hours than he’d had seconds to burn with these questions and to worry, Riley forgave all, forgave their pounding and kicking on the door, their abrupt entry, Henry’s accusing Glory. He put aside all else except finding the two women. Handing the note back to his father, he said, “I won’t be but two minutes.”
When his father nodded his consent to wait, Riley turned, sought Glory, and saw she hadn’t moved from in front of the couch. Her white-knuckled hands were fisted around the delicate fabric of her morning gown. Her stare was the wide-eyed one of shock … too much shock in one lifetime. Sure he could read her mind, that she believed she’d now lost Biddy—the last of her loved ones, Riley ignored his family’s disapproving presence and went to her.
Taking her by her arms, holding her close, he looked down into her scared and pinched little face, so heart-wrenchingly beautiful and, right now, so pale. “She’s fine, Glory. Whoever did this didn’t mean her or my mother any harm. Or Pa and my brothers would have … found them. And the wagon. I’ll bet there’s some simple explanation for all this. Like they ended up at the Sutfields’ or the Nettlesons’ place.”
But Glory shook her head and spoke just above a whisper, as if she didn’t want his family to hear her. “No, Riley. It’s the tracker. I just know it is.”
Confusion knit Riley’s brow. “Tracker? What are you talking about?”
“In their letters—Hannah’s and Jacey’s. Someone in Arizona hired some men to track us down. I don’t know why. But I think he’s the one who attacked me on the verandah. Oh, dear God, Riley, if he has Biddy and your—”
Riley’s grip on her tightened with his reaction to her words. “Why in the hell didn’t you tell me about this sooner? Never mind—just listen to me. We’ll find them, no matter who has them, and they’ll be fine.”
Glory’s chin quivered. “You don’t believe that at all, do you? Don’t lie to me, Riley.”
Riley looked down at her, heard the shifting of weight amongst the men ranged behind him, felt the outside cold air blowing on the grate’s fire, and exhaled. “No, I don’t believe that at all. But I do know we’ll find them. And we’ll find that tracker. Or whoever’s responsible. And he’ll pay.”
Riley saw her sudden grimace, felt her flinch, and realized he’d tightened his grip until it must be painful on her slender arms. He instantly relaxed his hold and hugged her to him, over the surprised sniffs and intakes of breath coming from the other men in the room—Lawless hands and Thornes alike. “I want you to stay put and lock the doors until I get back. And keep a gun on you at all times.”
Glory pulled back, flattened her palms on his chest. Her upturned face, especially her eyes, took on the sheen of guilty panic. “Could this have anything to do with”—she cut her gaze over to his family and then looked back up at him—“me not being … who I thought I was? Riley, what if it is the tracker? And he’s using Biddy and your mother to draw me out? I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to them because of me.”
Her words seemed to grip his chest as surely as her hands did, so painful was the sudden lurch of his heartbeat. Behind him, he heard the further stirrings and mutterings of his family, but again he ignored them for Glory. “Listen to me. Even if that’s his plan—or their plan—it won’t work. Because we know about it. And we’ll get Biddy and my mother back, I swear it to you. Glory, look in my eyes and tell me you believe me.”
As Glory stared up at him, her mouth thinned into a straight line, her grass-green eyes lit with a fierce light from within. “Look at me, Riley, and tell me you believe that.”
All around them was quiet, as if Glory’s words had brought a pause in individual heartbeats, had forced the evil plottings of others out into the open. As well as between him and Glory—to forge their new bond, to forge their new trust. To test their love. And that being the case, what could he say? What promises could he make? Riley smoothed his hands down her arms, captured her small, cold hands, and squeezed them, saying, “I can’t.”
He then turned away, heading for the stairs.
* * *
For long moments after Riley’s footsteps on the stairs no longer echoed dully in the great room, Glory stared quietly at the Thorne men over by the still-open front door. She wished Riley would hurry up, and for more than one reason. It was bad enough she was in her night clothes. It was bad enough they were men and she was a lone woman. It was bad enough they were enemies.
But it was worse that they all knew what she and Riley had been doing … together. But even beyond that, she wanted them all gone because she fully intended to search for Biddy and Louise herself. Because whoever had them wanted her. She knew that as surely as she knew her real name was Beatrice Parker. She hoped this tracker was ready for her. Because she was coming. Alone. She’d not endanger any other lives—Riley’s chief among them—for what she knew in her gut was her trouble. And hers alone.
As the Thornes formed a cluster and spoke together in quiet tones, in essence ignoring her and excluding her in her own home, Glory realized that here it was—her chance to keep her part of the blood oath with her sisters. A frown captured her features, but firmed into a grimace. Yes. My sisters—no matter the difference in our blood. Having thought it, she paused to mentally poke and prod at that truth with the sharpened stick of please-let-it-be, and realized what she felt was just that—the truth. She was a Lawless.
A sudden warmth spread through Glory and freed her heart, but weakened her knees. She locked them, forcing herself to remain stiffly aloof, and explored this new feeling inside her. She’d been raised as a sister to Hannah and Jacey, and she would remain one. The three of them had vowed they wouldn’t rest until the murderers were found and were made to pay with their lives. Like Hannah and Jacey, she hadn’t been here to help Mama and Papa and Old Pete that awful September day. But she was here in November to help Biddy. And nothing and no one was going to stop her.
But she’d learned her lesson the other night when she’d pitched such a fit with Riley to join the search for her attacker. She knew better than to do that again. No one was locking her in her room. This time, she’d say nothing of her intentions, wait for Riley and his family to ride out, and then she’d get dressed—
“I’m … sorry for yer recent losses, Miss Glory.”
Glory jerked back to the moment. Ben Thorne’s voice had broken the weighty silence in the room. Not sure she’d heard him correctly, she sought the other men’s reactions. Judging by the surprised expressions on all their faces as they too stared at the older man, she knew she was right—she’d just lived long enough to hear Ben Thorne express his condolences to her, a Lawless. She narrowed her eyes. Did he know she wasn’t really a Lawless?
Ben made a half gesture, cleared his throat, and added, “I mean yer folks an’ all. I didn’t hold no warm feelin’s for yer pa. You know that. And I can’t say I didn’t wish him harm a time or two myself. But I didn’t—we didn’t”—he nodded to indicate his sons—“there weren’t no Thornes responsible. I’m just real sorry. And especially for Old Pete and yer ma.”
Glory clamped her teeth together against the mixed message in Ben Thorne’s words. Knowing how he felt about Papa, knowing how he’d stirred up the other ranchers since the murders, the last thing she needed or wanted right now was this man’s pity. But he was Riley’s father, after all, and she loved Riley. So, fisting and unfisting her hands, she made ready to thank him for his … kind words.
But apparently Ben wasn’t done. He thinned his lips together and ducked his head, twisting the crushed bonnet he held in his hands. Momentarily, he looked back up at her and exhaled heavily. “I just felt I needed to say that.”
Seeing the pinched expression on the man’s face, his worried fondling of his wife’s hat, and despite her own wariness of him, Glory’s chest tightened with locked-away fears. She and this man could very soon have a shared loss to grieve … if their search for Biddy and Mrs. Thorne ended badly. So, keeping her steadily blurring vision centered on Riley’s father, Glory relented, softened. “Thank you, Mr. Thorne. I appreciate that. I’ll pass along your condolences to Hannah and Jacey when they come home.”
He gave a nodding jerk of his head and made a vague but benign gesture toward her, as if to say he recognized the peace offering she extended. He rushed on with, “Have you heard from yer … sisters?”
He knows. From just the way he hesitated before he said “sisters,” Glory knew he knew that she was sister to no one. She also knew that what this man chose to do with that knowledge could determine the course of the rest of her life. But binding him, just as it did her, was his love for Riley. How ironic that the truth of her birth could align her with Papa’s enemy. And make them both somehow responsible for the other one’s happiness. With all that crowding her consciousness, Glory still managed to nod and to get her words out. “Yes I’ve heard from them. I’ve gotten letters.”
Ben Thorne nodded his big, white-haired head, scrubbed a finger under his nose. “I hope they’re doin’ fine.”
Do you? It was a mean thought, she knew, but this sharing of … pleasantries with Ben Thorne was still new to her. “They are.”
Ben nodded, cut his gaze away from her, half turned to his sons, exchanged a look with them that she couldn’t see, and then fell quiet. Thus, they all waited. Until the cold air swirling about her feet and legs reminded her that the door was open and her armed men were standing behind the Thornes. “Heck, you and Pops can go on back to your posts. But first tell Mr. Rankin what’s happened and send him to me.”
She waited. But Heck and Pops stayed where they were—stayed staunchly, loyally where they were. Glory bit the inside of her cheek to keep from grinning at their blatant behavior. When she felt more in control of her facial muscles, she assured them, “I’ll be fine here with the Thornes.”
She looked to the Thorne men for confirmation of her trust, saw Ben nod, and then focused again on her hired hands. Seeing Heck’s mouth opening, no doubt to protest, Glory spoke with command in her voice. “Close the door after you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Heck grumbled as he jerked his thumb to indicate for Pops to precede him outside. “But I don’t like it none,” was the man’s parting comment. He closed the door just shy of a slam.
In the resounding silence, Glory raised an eyebrow at the congregated Thornes, hoping she’d just conveyed to them, by sending her men away, that she wasn’t afraid of them. Not when she was fully dressed and armed—like a few days ago at their place. And not now—alone, in her nightclothes, and weaponless. But, oh, she wished Riley would hurry up.
Just when the silence in the crowded room stretched out with her last nerve, Riley’s hurrying footsteps upstairs in the hallway turned a grateful Glory in that direction. Within seconds, he clambered down the steps, crossed the room and, leaning over her, encircled her waist with one incredibly strong arm as he pulled her to his chest and kissed her. When he pulled back, Glory gasped, put her fingers to her mouth, and stared up at him.
Riley’s expression revealed he knew exactly what he was doing. Holding her gaze, his black eyes lit with determination, he whispered, “They need to get used to that sight.” Then he released her and turned to his family, leaving Glory openmouthed and watching him cross the room with long-legged strides, his saddle coat billowing in his wake.
Shouldering through his family’s midst, angling his Stetson on his head, and every bit in charge as his father and brothers stepped aside for him, he said, “I want go back over the ground where you found Ma’s bonnet. From there, we’ll search the surrounding hills and fan out from there. I’ll just saddle my horse, and then we’ll ride.”
In a slightly dazed silence, brought on by his claiming her publicly, Glory watched him go. And bided her time. And plotted out her own search for the two women.