Wyoming Widow. Elizabeth Lane

of scrawniness, with a rag-doll mop of cherry-colored curls and freckles that popped out at the barest touch of sunlight on her skin. Worse, she’d never known the right words to say to a man—words that would make him puff up his chest and feel like a hero. She was as blunt and honest as the grandmother who’d raised her, and if more vinegar than honey fell from her tongue, so be it. Pretense was not in her nature.

      Maybe that was the reason Jake hadn’t treated her better. When he wanted to, he could be sweet and tender. But sometimes, especially when he’d been drinking, he could be downright mean. Cassandra had hoped the baby would change things. But on the very night she’d planned to share her news, Jake Logan had died. He had died with his pants down in a tawdry upstairs room, never knowing he was to be a father.

      Deep in her body Cassandra felt a little flutter kick, then a shifting motion as her baby turned and stretched in its warm, secret world. Wonder flooded her heart as she smoothed the apron over the growing bulge, feeling for the tiny life that pulsed and stirred beneath her hands. Soon she would have a child, a sweet baby all her own to love and care for. Heaven willing, she would never be alone again.

      But what could she offer this child? A safe home with food on the table? The closeness and joy of a family? A secure future with the promise of a fine education?

      Cassandra choked back a whimper of despair. She had nothing to offer her baby except love. To provide the rest, she would sacrifice anything—her own pride, her own life.

      But even in her desperation, she could not imagine carrying out the wild scheme that had lodged in her mind. To take advantage of a grieving family would compromise everything she knew to be right and good. She would never be able to look at her own reflection in the mirror without a spasm of self-loathing.

      No, it was out of the question.

      All the same, the story of Ryan Tolliver’s disappearance was intriguing. Cassandra could not resist wanting to know more.

      The newspaper article lay on the table, begging to be read. Strangely agitated, she rummaged for another match and lit the candle she’d been hoarding. The story took up just two printed columns. She would only need a few minutes of precious light to read it.

      Placing the candle where its light would fall on the open page, she finished making the tea. Then, cradling the chipped white cup between her hands, she sank onto a wooden box and began to read.

      The room was a blanket of darkness around her, the tea warm and comforting in her belly. By the time she reached the second column of the news article the print had begun to blur. Cassandra’s eyelids drooped lower and lower. She had been up since dawn looking for work, and she was tired. So very tired…

      Startled, she jerked awake. The candle had guttered to half its original length. She had dozed off, Cassandra realized groggily. What time was it? What had awakened her?

      As she leaned forward to blow out the candle, plunging the room into full darkness, she heard the low metallic click of a key sliding into a lock.

      Instantly wide-awake, she sprang to brace the door. It crashed open, knocking her to one side as Seamus Hawkins lurched across the threshold.

      “Awright, girlie.” His voice was slurred, and his body stank of cheap whiskey. “I’m back t’ finish what we started. No need t’ fight me, now. You’ll start likin’ it once I git it ’twixt them sweet little legs o’ yours.”

      Cassandra had been thrown back against the wall. As he stumbled toward her, she groped for a weapon, anything she could use to defend herself.

      Her hand closed on an iron bootjack with a weighted base—a silly extravagance, she’d called it when Jake had brought it home, as if a man couldn’t pull off his boots with his own two hands. It was heavy and solid, but not long enough to keep Seamus at a distance. Her best chance lay in keeping away from him until she could reach the door and flee into the night.

      Hoping to confuse him, she picked up a tin cup from the counter and tossed it across the room. It clattered in the darkness, bouncing against a table leg and onto the floor. Distracted, Seamus swung toward the sound, allowing Cassandra a split second to change her position. Not that it made any difference. He still stood between her and the door.

      She shrank into a shadowed corner of the tiny cabin. The mica panes on the door of the stove glowed like little red eyes, giving the darkness a hellish cast. And it would be hell if he caught her. Being raped was unspeakable enough, but if he should hurt her baby, her darling…

      Cassandra’s grip tightened on the bootjack. She could hear the rasp of breath in her throat—the breath of a hunted, desperate animal.

      Seamus must have heard it, too, for he suddenly turned, blocking the light of the stove as he lumbered straight toward her. “I got you cornered now, you little hellcat!” he wheezed. “Now, I won’t mind if you put up a fuss. A good rasslin’ match gits me as hard as a—”

      Cassandra flung the bootjack at his head with all her strength. It glanced off his forehead, doing only superficial damage, but the blow was enough to throw him off balance. As he reeled backward, out of control, one foot landed on the tin cup that had rolled to the middle of the floor. For a split second his legs splayed wildly. His arms flailed like berserk windmills. With a shriek, he pitched backward.

      Cassandra heard the awful crunch of bone as the back of his head struck a corner of the iron stove. Then Seamus Hawkins crashed to the floor and lay still.

      Chapter Two

      Morgan Tolliver stood on the porch of the sprawling log-and-stone ranch house. His raven eyes, a legacy from his Shoshone mother, narrowed as they studied the afternoon sky.

      Virga. That’s what they called the phantom rain that hung below the clouds, vaporizing in the heat before the drops could reach the ground. His eyes could see rain, his nostrils could even smell it. But he knew this ghost rain would do nothing for the sun-parched land. There would be no relief today from the searing drought that had turned the rich Wyoming grass to straw and the water holes to dust wallows.

      Even the reservoir, which, two months ago had been filled with runoff from the spring snow melt, was getting perilously low. Once the water was gone, there’d be no way to irrigate the new hayfields he’d planted to keep the cattle fed over the next winter.

      Everything, it seemed, had gone bad since the news of Ryan’s disappearance. Morgan’s long brown hands tightened on the porch rail as he thought of his spirited young half brother—laughing, reckless Ryan, the darling of the ranch and the apple of their aging father’s eye. During his growing-up years, the boy had dogged Morgan’s footsteps like an adoring puppy. It was Morgan who had taught him to swim and wrestle, Morgan who had put him on his first pony and helped him rope his first calf. Now Ryan had vanished, and it was as if his loss had sucked the life out of the earth itself.

      Why in God’s name did it have to be Ryan? Morgan asked himself for perhaps the hundredth time. Why not me instead?

      He was turning to go back inside when a faint plume of dust on the far horizon caught his eye. Someone—or something—was moving along the road, toiling its way toward the house.

      Morgan’s heart contracted as he watched the dust materialize into a dark shape that looked more like a wagon than a single rider. Could it be someone with news about Ryan—or Ryan himself? Or would it turn out to be nothing more than a wandering stranger in need of a meal and a bed?

      “Who is it? Can you tell?” His father had come out onto the porch, his chair rolling across the planks on silent wheels. Jacob Tolliver had aged in the three weeks since word of Ryan’s disappearance had reached the ranch. His face was drawn, his hands and voice unsteady. He spent his days seated at the tall parlor windows, watching the empty road with his field glass, which he now thrust into Morgan’s hand. “Your eyes are sharper than mine. Take a look. Tell me what you see.”

      Morgan raised the glass to his eye and trained the lens on the road. He could make it out now—a weather-beaten buckboard