The Countess and the Cowboy

Hesitating, she glanced toward Clint.

“Do it,” he growled.

Her free hand caught the veil’s lace edge and swept it back.

Clint had resolved not to gape at the woman, but he couldn’t help himself. He’d expected a grim widow approaching middle age. But the countess couldn’t have been much past thirty. Raven hair framed a porcelain face with classic features. Her full, almost sensual mouth was accented by a tiny mole at one corner. When she glanced toward him, the eyes that met his were a startling shade of blue, framed by dark-winged brows and lush black lashes.

Clint bit back a curse. The countess was, without doubt, the most stunning woman he’d ever seen.

Not that her beauty mattered to him either way. He wasn’t looking for a woman, especially not one going to live in the enemy camp. Everything she saw and heard today would go straight back to her brother-in-law, Roderick Hanford. And Hanford was no fool. If he managed to piece things together and realized that Clint recognized the men responsible for nearly shooting up the man’s sister-in-law, they’d all be in trouble.

“The strongbox ain’t here,” Gideon announced. “I looked everyplace, even underneath.”

“Damnation!” Newt spat a stream of tobacco into the dust.

“I’d say you’ve been fooled, boys.” Clint spoke calmly. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll swing those ponies around and head for the tall timber.”

Gideon was back in the saddle. Half turning his horse, he glanced at his brother. “Let’s go,” he said.

But Newt was building to an explosion. Clint knew the signs—the twitching eyes, the shaking hands. The boy could be unpredictable when he was out of control, and the law could be here any minute.

Newt’s pistol quivered in his hand. “We come this far. We ain’t leavin’ empty-handed.”

Clint struggled to curb his anxiety. There was only one thing left to do, and the countess wasn’t going to like it. He fished in his pocket and came up with the ruby ring. “This will make it worth your trouble. Take it and get the hell out of here.”

The countess gasped as Newt leaned down and snatched the ring. Clint exhaled as the two would-be stage robbers wheeled their mounts, spurred them to a gallop and thundered over the crest of a nearby hill. They were safe for now. But those young hooligans had put his whole operation at risk. When he saw them again, he was going to give them Jesse, and he wouldn’t let up till he had some solid answers about who had told them such a damn fool story, and why they’d been thick enough to believe it.

Right now he had other problems—not the least of them a riled woman who wanted a piece of his hide.

“How could you?” The countess’s eyes blazed blue fire. She looked as if she wanted to fly at him and claw his face to bloody ribbons. “First you take my ring so it won’t get stolen! Then you give it to the thieves! That ring was in my late husband’s family for generations. It was all I had left of him! Now it’s gone!”

As she glared up at him, Clint saw tears brimming in her azure eyes. He forced himself to turn aside. Pity for Hanford’s sister-in-law, who probably had more money than all the county’s poor ranch families combined, was an emotion he could ill afford.

“Look at me!” She caught his sleeve. “Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?”

Clint hardened his gaze. “I did what I had to, lady. Would you rather have been shot, or maybe raped? Would you rather they’d hurt someone else?”

“Of course not. But if you think I’m going to let those robbers ride off with my most precious possession you’re sorely mistaken. I’m holding you responsible, Mr. Lonigan. And if I don’t get that ring back, my brother-in-law, Mr. Hanford, has the power to make you pay!”

The mention of Roderick Hanford triggered a surge of bitter fury. Clint fought it back. “Fine,” he snapped, “but that will have to wait. For now, stop caterwauling and make yourself useful. You can look after Mrs. Simpkins while I check the guard and help the driver replace that broken wheel.”

Without waiting for her response, he turned his back on her and strode toward the front of the stage.

* * *

Seething, Eve watched him walk away. It wasn’t so much his argument that had offended her—on the contrary, it made sense that something had been needed to mollify the robbers. But his manner was insufferable. She was the widow of a nobleman, but he’d spoken to her as if she were a backward child. In England, no commoner would have dared address her with such insolence.

True, she was no longer in England. Everyone was a commoner here. But some were more common than others, and rudeness was rudeness. Mr. Lonigan was clearly no gentleman. For all she knew, he could be in league with the pair who’d held up the coach. He’d certainly appeared to know them. Perhaps he’d planned all along to give them her ring.

The ring was a devastating loss. But for the time being, there was nothing she could do to recover it, so Eve tried not to think about it. Instead, she guided Mrs. Simpkins to a nearby flat boulder, then hurried back to the stage for parasols, her reticule and a canteen of water. The sun was blistering, and there was no shade to be found.

“Are you all right?” Eve raised the woman’s parasol and pressed the canteen to her lips.

“I will be.” Mrs. Simpkins took several dainty swallows and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “My stars, what a fright! I’m so sorry about your ring, my dear.”

The familiar term was oddly comforting, even coming from a stranger. Eve let it pass. “Did you recognize those two robbers, Mrs. Simpkins?” she asked.

The woman shook her graying head. “One of the voices might have sounded familiar, but I can’t be certain. Given the state I was in, I wouldn’t have recognized my own children.”

“And do you know that wretched Mr. Lonigan?” Eve glanced toward the stage, where Lonigan was wrapping the guard’s wounded arm with a red bandanna.

“I know him, but not well. He’s got a small ranch north of Lodgepole. Paid cash for the land, I hear tell. He was widowed two years ago, but I never did meet his wife. They kept to themselves and she didn’t come into town. Not even for church. I’ve heard rumors of a scandalous past, but nothing I can tell you for sure. Mercy, but it’s hot!”

“Here, this should help.” Eve reached into her reticule, withdrew a black lace fan and snapped it open. Mrs. Simpkins accepted it with a grateful sigh.

“My, but this is lovely!” she exclaimed.

“Then it’s yours. Keep it as a remembrance.” Eve would have no need for it soon. She had long since resolved to set her mourning aside at the journey’s end. She’d agreed to marry Arthur Townsend, Sixth Earl of Manderfield, after he’d offered to pay off her father’s debts. Arthur had been a kindly man, and he’d treated her like a queen; but he’d been more than twice her age. She’d liked and respected him, but they certainly had not been in love. Three years prior to his death a stroke had left him an invalid. Eve had cared for him faithfully until the end—when his son, Albert, had stepped in, taken over the estate and cast her out like a common strumpet. But never mind. The past was behind her now. She was ready to make a new start.

And in such a wild place! Her gaze swept upward to the mountains, so tall and rugged that they seemed to pierce the sky. Even under the August sun, their rocky peaks bore glistening patches of snow. Below the timberline, forests of dark green pine carpeted the slopes, giving way to the green-gold of aspens and the grassy hills that fed thousands of white-faced Hereford cattle, the wealth of this untamed land.

From the train Eve had seen buffalo herds and wide-eyed pronghorn antelope that could outrace the wind. And she’d heard tales of the predators that prowled the forest shadows—wolves, bears and the fierce golden cat of many names: puma, cougar, catamount, panther, mountain lion.

But she’d come to believe that the most savage creatures in the untamed frontier of this country were the men. It was as if the fight for survival had beaten all the civility out of them. They were like snarling beasts, jumpy and alert, ready to reach for a weapon at the slightest provocation. When they met they sized each other up like bristling hounds, measuring size and speed, testing their power.

Foolish posturing, that’s all it was.

Her gaze returned to Lonigan. He’d finished tending to the wounded guard and was helping lift the stage off its broken wheel, raising the axle inch by inch while the aging driver braced it up with rocks. It was hard work. His leather vest and holstered pistol lay in the grass at the roadside. His shirt was dripping with sweat. The faded fabric clung like a second skin to his muscular body—not an unpleasant sight, Eve conceded. His eyes, she now recalled, were like sharp gray flint, deepening in hue around their black centers. If he were to submit to a bath, a barber and a suit of decent clothes, he could be quite attractive. Yet maybe it was better that he stayed as he was. His appearance now made no effort to hide the harshness of his true nature.

Lonigan was no different from other men she’d observed. At best, he was arrogant and ill-mannered. Short of that, he could be a thief or at least a friend of thieves. Worse, if anything, he was Irish. She would do nothing to rile him for now. Until their journey ended, she was uncomfortably at his mercy. However, once the stage reached Lodgepole and she was safely ensconced with her sister’s family, she would turn the matter of the ring over to Roderick and have nothing more to do with him.

* * *

With the spare wheel in place, the stage lumbered the last few miles toward Lodgepole. Clint had given the wounded guard his seat inside. Riding shotgun with the driver, he scanned the brushy hills. At any minute, he’d expected to see Sheriff Harv Womack and his deputies come galloping into sight, but it hadn’t happened. Maybe the rumor about the cash shipment hadn’t been a trap, after all. Or maybe Clint was just jumping at shadows. The truth might have to wait till he caught up with Newt and Gideon.

“Did you have any plans to carry cash?” he asked the driver. “I’m just wondering where those two galoots got the idea there’d be a strongbox.”

The driver spat a stream of tobacco off the side of the stage. “Not from me. If I’d been carryin’ a strongbox, I would’ve had a second guard up here. Lucky for us nobody got hurt worse’n that hen scratch on Zeke’s arm.”

“Are you planning to report the holdup?”

He shook his head. “I’ll let the sheriff know if I see him—or you can tell him yourself if you want to. But it’s not worth takin’ time to file a report. We’re runnin’ late as it is. And them two kids didn’t strike me as hardened criminals. I don’t expect they’ll bother us again.”

Clint’s fears eased some, but Newt and Gideon weren’t out of the woods yet. Damn it, he should’ve asked somebody to ride herd on those boys. They’d earned the right to be part of his operation—a handful of small ranchers who’d banded together to protect each other and their neighbors from the cattle barons who wanted their land. But the brothers were always pushing the limits. If they got themselves caught thieving and were scared enough to name names to avoid a noose, all hell could break loose.

The young fools were well-known and easy to recognize. Now four people besides Clint had seen them holding up the stage. The driver and guard were from Casper. They could describe the robbers but didn’t likely know them. Mrs. Simpkins knew the brothers, but she’d been frightened out of her wits. Clint could only hope she hadn’t guessed who they were. At least she hadn’t shown any signs of recognizing them. As for the countess...

The image of that Madonna-like face glimmered like a phantom in his mind. Yes, she was the dangerous one. She’d lost a priceless heirloom and she was determined to get it back at any cost. Worse, she’d have the ear of Roderick Hanford, the most powerful and ruthless rancher in the county.