Family on the Range. Jessica Nelson

neighbor, though she’d been unwilling. Only the presence of a fresh batch of puppies had seemed to mollify her.

      “I’m sure she’ll be fine. Seemed happy enough with those pups.”

      “You heard anything on your shooter?” James dodged a shrub growing in the middle of the road.

      The movement jolted Lou, sending an arcing pain through his shoulder. He winced, waiting for it to subside. “Nah. They think he’s related somehow to that speakeasy we busted.” Enforcing prohibition laws didn’t necessarily fall into the bureau’s jurisdiction, but they’d found some creative loopholes to catch criminals. Whatever it took to capture the bad guys, Lou was for it.

      They didn’t make any more small talk the rest of the way. A sick feeling persisted in Lou’s stomach. As they drove into Burns, he felt a new resolve take hold. They hadn’t found Mary on the way, which meant she should still be in town.

      He was going to chew her out good.

      Feeling grim, he shuffled behind James, a crutch under his good side’s arm and James on the bad side, supporting him. They entered the police station. James’s gait was stiff, and Lou was ready to punch something.

      The feeling worsened when he saw Mary sitting on the bench. With her hair pulled back, neat and clean, and her profile strong, she looked neither worried nor scared, but serene.

      A burst of adrenaline exploded inside Lou, rushing through his body with the power of a locomotive. He growled.

      She startled, turning to face them, surprise plastered all over her face. Her mouth made an oval shape, and then she broke into a smile.

      Heat shot through him, anger and fear melding into an emotion so powerful he could barely hold himself to where he stood. Yet he resisted, forcing a calm he didn’t feel, holding back when he wanted to yell and stomp the way Josie had when he’d taken away the cookies she’d filched yesterday morning.

      Mary must’ve sensed his mood because she stood slowly, casting a look to James before meeting Lou’s eyes.

      “You’re angry,” she stated, and the sound of her smooth voice flavored by exotic syllables only heightened his turmoil. “I can explain.”

      “Get in the car.”

      Her features changed, becoming impassive. “Thank you for coming to get me.”

      He jerked his head to the door and watched as she glided past, head high, shoulders straight. She hadn’t learned that posture from her mother, or from Julia, Trevor’s mom. No, that walk was all Mary. Proud, graceful, aloof... Another growl erupted.

      “Let’s go,” he said.

      She made it to the car before they did. They found her in the back, staring blankly out the side window and not meeting their eyes. Once they’d cranked his tin lizzie and hit the road, Lou still found it hard to speak. He knew from past experience that yelling at Mary solved nothing.

      Not that he liked to yell, but when she stared up at him with those deep brown eyes, passive and quiet, it stirred him up, made him itch to get her to respond to him, not to ignore him the way she did others.

      * * *

      “What happened, Mary?” James interrupted the horrible silence that had filled the car since they’d picked her up. She could feel tension radiating off Lou and it scared her stiff.

      She swallowed hard, afraid to speak, afraid Lou might explode.

      He’d never, ever lifted a hand toward her, not even during their most volatile argument years ago when she’d asked to let her mother come live with them. Intellectually, she knew he wouldn’t hurt her.

      But emotionally... Sometimes she dreamed of the men who’d visited her mother. Sometimes she woke from nightmares, drenched in sweat, trying to rid her mind of the paralyzing fear that overtook her.

      “Speak yer mind. I’ll boot this shot-up agent out of the car if he yells, okay?” James cast a crooked smile back at her. She attempted to lift her lips, though the pit of her stomach ached.

      She glanced at the back of Lou’s head, marveling at the blondness of his hair, how it had grown too long and remained straight and fine. Not like her own thick locks. She’d inherited the Paiute ebony color but Irish curl. At least that was what her mother had always said.

      She frowned. No one had seen Rose. It was as though she’d just disappeared. Kind of how the man with the violet eyes did when the police chief interrupted them on their walk toward town. Her eyes fluttered closed for a moment as another wave of relief swept through her.

      “Mary girl, are you okay?”

      She opened them and looked at James. “There was an assault in Burns.”

      The car jerked. “What did you say?”

      Confident she could keep her voice steady despite the unrest raging inside, she nodded. “I was leading my mare out of town when I heard scuffling. A tethered stallion nearby was restless, so I brought the mare to the other side of the street. Two men in an alley were arguing—”

      “You should have rode out of there,” Lou interrupted. His voice was gravelly and raw, completely unlike the talkative man she’d come to know through the years. Somehow this gunshot wound had changed him, and she wasn’t sure why.

      “I didn’t want to alert them to my presence,” she responded defensively.

      “You did the right thing,” said James.

      His backup emboldened her. “As I tried to hurry past, there was a sharp sound, not a gunshot, but something striking a hard object. The horse startled and ran off on me. You should train them better,” she couldn’t help saying pointedly to Lou.

      “So, that’s it?” James asked. “Why didn’t you borrow a horse and get on yer way? We’ve worried over you, Mary girl.”

      She felt a flash of remorse, followed by unexpected warmth. Though she’d been housekeeper for these two men for twelve years, they’d all kept to themselves, minding their own business while maintaining an unspoken loyalty to each other. Since Josie had come, things had changed. The girl, or perhaps the familial situation, had tempered loyalty into a new bond, something stronger.

      “You shouldn’t have worried,” she answered. “Once the sheriff stepped out to speak with me, all was well.”

      “What happened with the scuffle you heard?”

      The grate of Lou’s tone surprised her, but he was an agent, trained to pick up on minute details. She had been foolish to think she might hide anything from him.

      Still, she hesitated to tell him for fear of what he might do.

      “Girl, you’d best spit it out.” James waggled his eyebrows at her, perhaps trying to induce a smile.

      But violence did not inspire smiles. Heart heavy, she looked at her clasped hands, debating whether to snag the lumpy-looking blanket on the floor to cover their coldness. “There was a man in the alley,” she finally said. The memory of that thud shuddered through her and she pressed her fingers more tightly together. “Beaten.”

      “Is he dead?” asked Lou.

      “The physician is not sure he’ll make it.”

      “Who found the man?”

      “Not me. But I pointed the way.”

      “You just walked into the sheriff’s office and told him a man was in an alley beaten to a pulp.”

      Irritated by Lou’s casual, almost sardonic tone, Mary frowned. This was the part she did not wish to share. She glanced out the window, at the rising mountains in the distance and the land she called home. “After the mare bolted, I walked toward the interior of Burns, hoping to catch Miss Alma to ask for a ride to Horn’s spread.” Their neighbor lived only miles away. “But as I walked, footsteps sounded behind me.