The Rustler. Linda Miller Lael

me do the talking. I’ll say you’re busy. All you have to do is sit at your desk, with your papers—if they insist on greeting you personally, I’ll be careful to call them by name so you know what to—”

      “Sarah.” Ephriam looked pained.

      “Papa, you know you forget.”

      Just then, the street door opened with a crash, and Thomas burst in. Plump, with a constellation of smallpox scars spilling down one side of his face, he seemed on the verge of panic.

      “Sarah!” he gasped, from the threshold, one fleshy hand pressed to his chest. “It’s him—the man in the photograph you showed me—”

      Sarah’s knees turned to water. “No,” she said, leaning against her father for a moment. “He couldn’t possibly have—”

      “It’s him,” Thomas repeated.

      “Calm down,” Sarah said hastily. “Remember your asthma.”

      Thomas struggled to a wooden chair, in front of the window, and sat there sucking in air like a trout on a creek bank. “S-Sarah, wh-what are we going to d-do—?”

      “What,” Ephriam interjected, suddenly forceful, “is happening?”

      Even in her agitation, Sarah felt a stab of sorrow, because she knew her father wouldn’t be his old self for more than a few minutes. When the inevitable fog rolled in, shrouding his mind again, she’d miss him more keenly than ever.

      “You’re going to take Papa home,” she told Thomas, who had begun a moderate recovery—of sorts. He wasn’t sweating quite as much as he had been when he rushed in, and his breathing had slowed to a slight rasp. “Go out the back way, and stay off Main Street.”

      Gamely, Thomas got to his feet again. Lumbered toward them.

      When he took Ephriam’s arm, though, the old man pulled free. “Unhand me,” he said. “This is an outrage!”

      Sarah’s mind was racing wildly through a series of possibilities, all of which were disastrous, but she’d had a lot of experience dealing with imminent disaster, and she rose to the occasion.

      “Papa,” she said, “poor Thomas is feeling very ill. It’s his asthma, you know. If you don’t get him to Doc Venable, quickly, he could—” she paused, laid a hand to her bosom, fingers splayed, and widened her eyes “—perish!”

      “Great Scot,” Ephriam boomed, taking Thomas by one arm and dragging him toward the front door, and the busy street outside, “the man needs medical attention! There’s not a moment to spare!”

      Thomas cast a pitiable glance back at Sarah.

      She closed her eyes, offered a hopeless prayer that Charles Elliott Langstreet the Third would get lost between the depot and the bank, and waited for the Apocalypse.

      By the time Charles actually arrived, she was quite composed, at least outwardly, though faintly queasy and probably pale. She might have gotten through the preliminary encounter by claiming she was fighting off a case of the grippe, but as it turned out, Charles didn’t come alone.

      He’d brought Owen with him.

      Sarah’s heart lurched, caught itself like a running deer about to tumble down a steep hill. Perched on a stool behind the counter, in Thomas’s usual place, a ledger open before her, she nearly swooned.

      Owen.

      Ten years old now, blond like his imperious father, but with his grandfather’s clear, guileless blue eyes.

      The floor seemed to tilt beneath the legs of Sarah’s stool. She gripped the edge of the counter to steady herself.

      Charles smiled, enjoying her shock. He was handsome as an archangel, sophisticated and cruel, the cherished—and only—son of a wealthy family. And he owned a thirty percent interest in the Stockman’s Bank.

      Owen studied her curiously. “Are you my aunt Sarah?” he asked.

      Tears burned in Sarah’s eyes. She managed a nod, but did not trust herself to speak. If she did, she would babble and blither, and scare the child to death.

      “Surprised?” Charles asked smoothly, still watching Sarah closely, his chiseled patrician lips taking on a sly curve.

      “We came all the way from Philadelphia on a train,” Owen said, wide-eyed over the adventure. “I was supposed to spend the summer at school, but they sent me packing for putting a stupid girl down the laundry chute.”

      Sarah blinked, found her voice. “Was she hurt?” she croaked, horrified.

      “No,” Owen said, straightening his small shoulders. He was wearing a tweed coat and short pants, and he seemed to be sweltering. “She did the same thing to Mrs. Steenwilder’s cat, so I showed her how it felt.”

      “The girl is fine,” Charles said. “And so is the cook’s cat.”

      “We’re going to stay at the hotel,” Owen said. “Papa and me. I get to have my own room.”

      “Why don’t you go over there right now and make sure the man we hired at the depot takes proper care of our bags?” Charles asked the little boy.

      Owen nodded solemnly and left.

      Sarah’s heart tripped after him—she had to drag it back. Corral it in her chest, where it pounded in protest.

      “Why did you bring him?” she asked.

      “I couldn’t leave the boy with Marjory,” Charles answered. “She despises him.”

      Sarah squeezed her eyes shut, certain she would swoon.

      “You must have known I’d come, Sarah. Someday.”

      She opened her eyes again, stared at him in revulsion and no little fear. He’d moved while she wasn’t looking—come to stand just on the other side of the counter.

      “If only because of the bank,” he went on softly, reaching out to caress her cheek. “After all, I have a sizable investment to look after.”

      Sarah recoiled, but she still needed the stool to support her. “You’ve been receiving dividends every six months, as agreed,” she said coldly. “I know, because I made out the drafts myself.”

      Charles frowned elegantly. His voice was as smooth as cream, and laced with poison. “Strange that you’d do that—given that Ephriam holds the controlling interest in this enterprise, not you.”

      “It’s not strange at all,” Sarah said, but she was quivering on the inside. “Papa is very busy. He has a lot of other responsibilities.”

      “All the more reason to offer my assistance,” Charles replied. He paused, studied her pensively. “Still beautiful,” he said. A smile quickened in his eyes, played on his mouth. “You’d like to run me off with a shotgun, wouldn’t you, Sarah?” he crooned. “But that would never do. Because when I leave, I’ll be taking our son with me.”

      CHAPTER THREE

      SAM O’BALLIVAN MUST HAVE BEEN an important man, Wyatt concluded, because they held the departing train for him. He arrived driving a wagon, with a boy and a baby and a pretty woman aboard, a string of horses traveling alongside, led by a couple of ranch hands. While all the baggage and mounts were loaded into railroad cars, Lark and Sam’s wife chattered like a couple of magpies on a clothesline.

      Rowdy made the introductions, and Sam and Wyatt shook hands, standing there beside the tracks, the locomotive still pumping gusts of white steam. Sam was a big man, clear-eyed and broad-shouldered, with an air of authority about him. He not only owned the biggest ranch within miles of Stone Creek, he was an Arizona Ranger, which was the main reason he and Rowdy had been summoned to Haven.

      “I hear you’re a fair hand with horses and cattle,” Sam said, in his deep, quiet voice.