A Rancher Of Convenience. Regina Scott

Chapter One

      Windy Diamond Ranch,

      Little Horn, Texas, July 1895

      She was a widow.

      Nancy Bennett shook her head as she stood on the wide front porch, looking out at the ranch her husband had built. Across the dusty ground in front of the house, a horse corral clung to a weathered, single-story barn. Beyond them, scrub oak and cottonwood dotted windblown grass where longhorns roamed, content.

      She could not find such contentment. One hand clutched the letter that could spell the end of her dream. The other hand rested on her belly where it was just beginning to swell inside her black skirts.

      She and Lucas had been married only ten months. She was still learning how to be a wife, hadn’t yet accustomed herself to the idea that she would one day be a mother. Now Lucas was dead, killed because he had rustled from their friends and neighbors. And her whole world had been upended like a tumbleweed turning in the wind.

      Sherriff Fuller had tried to be kind when he’d brought her the news two weeks ago. She’d been pressing the pedal of the wrought iron sewing machine Lucas had ordered for her, finishing the seam on a new shirt for him, when she’d heard the sound of a horse coming in fast.

      Such antics would have been so like Lucas, particularly since he’d bought that paint from her friend Lula May Barlow. Having been raised on a prosperous horse ranch in Alabama, Lucas liked fast horses, fine clothes. She’d never understood why he’d advertised for a mail-order bride, or why he’d chosen her. Perhaps he hadn’t been satisfied with his options here in Little Horn. Lucas, she’d learned, wasn’t satisfied with much.

      Still, she’d risen to go greet him, like the dutiful wife she had tried so hard to be. She’d known everything was exactly the way he liked it—stew simmering on the stove with just the right amount of rosemary to spice it, parlor swept clean of the dust he perpetually brought in on his expensive tooled-leather boots and horsehair-covered chairs at precise angles facing each other in front of the limestone fireplace. She’d taken a peek at herself in the brass-framed mirror near the front door to make sure her long brown hair was carefully bound up at the top of her head with tendrils framing her oval face. She’d even pinched color into her cheeks, which had recently been far too pale, according to him. Surely there was nothing to set him on edge this time.

      Smile pasted firmly on her face, she’d opened the door and stepped out on the porch. But instead of her husband, Jeb Fuller was climbing the steps.

      The sheriff immediately removed his broad-brimmed hat and ducked his head in respect. The damp dark blond hair across his brow told as much of the warm summer air as his hard ride.

      “Mrs. Bennett, ma’am,” he said, voice low. “I’m sorry to bring you bad news. Your husband was shot.”

      Nancy felt as if the solid planks of the porch were bucking like one of Lucas’s feisty horses. She must have swayed on her feet, because the sheriff’s arm reached out to steady her as he drew level with her.

      “Where?” she asked, panic and fear tangling inside her. “When? How bad is it? Please would you take me to him?”

      “I’m afraid it’s not so simple, ma’am,” he drawled, brown eyes sad. “Your husband was caught with other men’s cattle in his possession, and when he was confronted, he drew down on his neighbors. He was stopped before he could harm anyone.”

      Nancy stared at him, mouth drier than the Texas plains. “Stopped? You mean he’s dead?”

      The sheriff nodded. “I’m afraid so. I took the liberty of having the body sent to Mr. Agen, the undertaker.”

      She choked, the breakfast she’d shared with Lucas threatening to claw its way back up her throat. “It must be some kind of mistake. Lucas would never steal. He already has a ranch full of cattle.”

      “And we’ll need to have your hands round them up,” the sheriff said. “Just to make sure there aren’t others that should be sent back to their rightful owners.”

      “No,” Nancy said. As his brows jerked up, she took a shuddering step back from him. “No. Lucas can’t be dead. He can’t be a thief. He’s my husband!”

      Sheriff Fuller ducked his head again. “Yes, ma’am. And I expect I’ll need to ask you some questions about where he was on certain occasions, so we’ll know if he had any accomplices.”

      Accomplices? She’d swallowed hard. Surely none of their hands had helped Lucas steal. Did the sheriff think she’d helped? She hadn’t even known!

      But she should have.

      The look on Sheriff Fuller’s face and the voice crying in her heart both said the same thing. She was Lucas Bennett’s wife. She woke with him in the morning, fed him, kept his house and garden and went to church services and civic functions on his arm. She’d thought him overly exacting, yes, moody certainly, especially in the last few months. But how could she have missed downright evil? Was she no judge of character? Had she lost the sense God had given her?

      What kind of wife knew so little about the man she’d married?

      Ever since, she hadn’t been able to face the townsfolk of Little Horn, staying in the shelter of the house and relying on her husband’s foreman, Hank Snowden, to return Lucas’s body and arrange the burial on a hill behind the house. Her friend Lula May had spent the first night with her, but Nancy had only felt guilty taking the widowed rancher away from her family. Nancy hadn’t bothered to alert anyone to the ceremony, certain that few would want to attend after what Lucas had done. As it was, only her boys had stood by her side while Preacher Stillwater had read over Lucas’s grave.

      How Lucas had laughed when she called his hands her boys.

      “They’re grown men more used to steers than civilized society,” he’d told her. “I wouldn’t get attached.”

      At first, she’d believed him. When she’d moved to the dry Texas Hill Country from the lush Ozark woods, everything had seemed so big, so vast. The massive cattle and the laconic men who tended them gave her a shiver. She’d stayed safely in the house, to Lucas’s encouragement and approval.

      But as his warmth cooled, his approval had become impossible to earn, and she’d gradually realized something about the three men who lived in the bunkroom at the back of the barn. They might be rough, but they treated her better than her husband did.

      Isaiah Upkins was the veteran, his short-cropped hair iron gray, his blue eyes pale, as if the color had leached after years of watching cattle in the sun. Billy Jenks was the youngest, with hair as red as the nose he habitually burned despite her admonition to wear the broad-brimmed hat she’d urged Lucas to buy for him. She wasn’t sure Billy was even eighteen yet. He seemed to be trying to shave, if the plaster sticking to his chin on occasion was any indication.

      Then there was Hank Snowden. Raven haired and blue eyed, he had all of Billy’s boyish energy and little of Mr. Upkins’s pessimism. She knew by the times she’d seen Mr. Snowden with her husband that Lucas had come to rely on him. Lucas had even appointed the cowboy their representative in the Lone Star Cowboy League, a cattle association that had started in the area.

      But the three hands seemed all alone in the world. She knew that feeling. So, she baked them cakes on their birthdays and special occasions. They brought her wildflowers for the table, eggs from prairie chickens. She nursed them with honey and mustard plasters when they were ailing. They sang songs outside her window when she was worn out from weeping.

      Now none of them knew what to do with her, and she didn’t know how to direct them. Lucas had never explained his business. She had no idea how to run a ranch. But she was trying.

      Then the letter had come, and once again her world threatened to upend. This time she refused to sway, refused to hide, refused to give up. She could not lose this ranch. And she needed