A Cowboy Worth Claiming

After a few moments, he turned to her. “I’m no expert or anything, but that boat didn’t look all too sturdy. Went down pretty fast. And clearly, you can’t swim.”

She snapped her eyes at him. “I can swim… I just got tangled up in my skirts.”

“Yeah? That’s not how I saw it.” He plucked a thin blade of grass from a small patch growing nearby. The girl was acting as if he’d done her a disservice by saving her life.

“I wish you hadn’t come along. I needed those dolls. I would have found them.”

What in tarnation? The ungrateful girl didn’t appreciate what he’d done for her. She’d interrupted his peaceful time at the lake with her screams and she didn’t have the good grace to utter a thank-you when he came to her rescue.

“You would’ve drowned looking for them, your swimming abilities being such as they are.”

She sent a look of dire misery toward the water. Then she spun her head his way. Fire snapped in her eyes. “I was coming up for air, then going back down again. I didn’t need your help. Now, my dolls are gone! And we’re going to lose the ranch…” Elizabeth’s voice trailed off in despair.

Things with her must be mighty grim, he thought. She’d risked her life for those damn dolls. He didn’t quite understand how her dolls would save a ranch. His knowledge of ranching was obviously lacking. Then it hit him. Elizabeth…could she be Lizzie? The same Lizzie that Edward Mitchell had written to him about?

He dug into his shirt pocket and unfolded the square parchment, reading the letter his older friend had written.

I’m asking a favor of you, boy. I wouldn’t ask if I had any other choice. Need some help pretty quick. It’s not for me, but for my granddaughter, Lizzie. Come to Red Ridge if you can and I’ll explain.

Edward Mitchell

He stared at her. “You’re Lizzie Mitchell?”

She whipped her head toward him. “How’d you know that?”

He pursed his lips, amused at the coincidence. “I’m Chance Worth. Your grandfather sent for me.”

She jumped up with more vigor than he thought she could muster, being that she’d just nearly drowned, regardless of her claims otherwise. Her dark curly hair was plastered to her head, her face dull as his old scratchy blanket, her body covered throat to ankles with stuck-on wet clothes. Only things that glistened, bright as the lake that almost took her life, were her startled blue eyes. “You’re Chance Worth?”

“Yeah, Lizzie, you heard me right.”

She folded her arms across her middle, jutted out her chin and hoisted her head like Queen Elizabeth of England. “Well, I won’t do it. Grandpa’s got no right sending for you! I refuse to marry you. And that’s final!”

* * *

“I told you I could walk home.” Lizzie kept her chin high and her body stiff. She sat upon this sorrel named Joyful, sharing the saddle with the stranger. His arm was wrapped around her middle and she tried not to think about how if she leaned back ever so, she’d be flush against his big body.

“I should make you,” he said. “Serve you right for taking that good-for-nothing boat across the lake.”

For all her bold talk, Lizzie probably would drop of exhaustion if the cowboy did make her walk back home. The spill in the lake robbed her energy and losing her dolls had destroyed her spirit. She was bone tired, but wouldn’t give the cowboy the satisfaction of that bit of knowledge. “You could leave me here right now and turn around. Tend to your business.”

“I’m tending to my business. Told you that once already, Lizzie.”

“It’s Elizabeth.” Her spine stiffened at the childlike name that everyone including her grandfather insisted upon calling her. Grandpa was forgetful lately, so she couldn’t fault him, but that didn’t explain why everyone else in Red Ridge saw fit to address her in that manner.

Chance Worth may have pulled her out of the water today but that didn’t give him the right to insult her. After she’d jumped up, declaring she’d not marry him, he’d given her a long narrow-eyed look, then burst out laughing. He might’ve busted a gut with all the cheer he’d spread over the quiet lake at the very notion.

It was the reason Grandpa sent him that letter. Had to be. Her gramps had told her the tale of the orphan boy whose life he saved and how the boy had clung on, fighting for his life, refusing to give up the one thing he had left of value. The robbers would have beaten him to death if her grandfather hadn’t been riding the back roads in Channing and heard the confrontation. Chance Worth owed her grandpa his life.

Good Lord, she thought, squeezing her eyes closed. Had that been the trade-off, he’d repay his debt by marrying her?

For the past year, her grandfather had been matchmaking, inviting every eligible young man in the territory to the ranch. Not that she’d gotten a single proposal. And that’s how it would stay. Still, she smarted from the stranger’s outright amusement when she’d refused to marry him.

Your grandfather’s got more sense than that. The man’s declaration after his laughter had died down made her stomach knot.

Lizzie wasn’t a beauty. She wasn’t graceful or poised like the other females in town. She wasn’t buxom or curvy. She looked younger than her eighteen years. She knew that she’d rightly die a spinster one day, but that didn’t give the stranger call to rub her nose in it. Embarrass and offend her.

Hurt her.

She had a mind to retaliate with harsh words, but she’d gotten an eyeful of the cowboy, stripped naked from the waist up, after he’d pulled her out of the lake. She couldn’t say that his jaw was chiseled a little too deep. Or his shoulders were spread a little too broad. Or the muscles that bulged on his arms were too darn big. If Lizzie was one thing, she was honest. Her rescuer with deep brown eyes and golden skin was about as perfect as one man had a right to be.

And thinking him perfect after the insult he’d bestowed upon her just made her angry.

“How is Edward?” he asked, his voice soft against her ear.

A tingle trailed down her neck. She willed it to stop and concentrated on the question. Her body’s response to this man annoyed her. “He’s struggling some, but we’ll make do. We always do.”

“Struggling?” he asked.

“Some.”

“You care to elaborate.”

“Isn’t your business, is it, Mr. Worth?”

“Hmm, if I had to guess, I’d say having a stubborn, sass-mouthed granddaughter would make just about any man struggle.”

She spun around so fast, her damp hair whipped at her cheekbones. “That’s not fair! You don’t know what we’ve been through. Cattle rustlers, drought that starved our herd two years ago, disease that came later. We’ve worked hard to keep the ranch from drying up, to keep food on the table and clothes on our backs. My grandpa would throw you off his property, hearing you speak that way to me.”

His lips twitched. “That so?”

She glared into mud-brown eyes lit with amusement. He wasn’t really perfect after all, she decided.

“Turn around, before you fall off.” His voice firm, he scolded her like a child. He wasn’t that much older than her. Couldn’t be more than ten years that separated them.

“I’m not going to fall off. I’ve been riding since before I could walk. I could outride any of the boys in town. And I—”

He clucked his tongue and the sorrel took off in a fast trot. Lizzie bounced up and her world tilted to the left. She began falling at an angle, her body hinged sideways. She was on a collision course with a prickly blade of saguaro cactus before a big hand pulled her upright to safety. Chance set both hands firm on her shoulders and turned her to face forward on the saddle.

“You did that on purpose.” She bristled.

He slowed Joyful to an easy gait. “You got a vivid imagination, Lizzie.”

“Elizabeth.”

“I think I liked you better in the lake.”

“When you thought I was drowning?”