How To Lasso A Cowboy

“And now she’s wounded herself.” His voice was a whisper. He was barely aware of saying the words. They hurt too much.

His need to return home had been the only thing that had saved him after watching his brothers die. Fury replaced that need when he’d discovered his father dead, his brother gone, and his sister missing.

That coursing anger had been barely controlled as he suffered through the time it took for a bath and shave. He knew they were necessary-otherwise he’d realized he would frighten anyone, especially a young child who had no clear memory of him.

He had nursed his anger as he had traveled down the road back to the ranch. He had felt it building to a crescendo inside. And then he had heard the shots and the yells…

He had immediately recognized the rebel cry. Abe had said that lawlessness was rampant. The federal authorities blamed the chaos on the Texans who were returning from the war. They were being accused of raiding ranches, stealing cattle, and even of murder. One of those being blamed was his brother Dillon.

But when he saw the woman in the buggy, he knew that Dillon was not among the masked men. Seth hadn’t seen him in almost ?ve years but he remembered his brother as the softhearted member of the family. He might attack McGuire but never a lone woman.

Nor could he imagine any of his boyhood friends doing so.

And there was the matter of the rebel cry. That would surely bring the army. Why would anyone be so foolish as to advertise a lost cause?

Unless someone was trying to shift blame.

The thought came quickly to his mind. Abe had hinted that someone else was behind the lawlessness.

He wished he had seen more of her attackers, but they had been masked in addition to wearing hats that covered the color of their hair. Their horses had included two bays, a sorrel, and a chestnut. He ?led the information in his mind.

After riding in silence for a long time, he looked at his companion. “I don’t know your name.”

“Elizabeth. Sarah Elizabeth McGuire.” The woman’s shy smile transformed the plain, blunt face with the upturned nose. It came alive, as did her eyes, and an unwanted, unbidden jolt of lust rocked him.

He tried to dismiss it. It was only because he hadn’t been close to a woman in years, not since the early years of the war when young of?cers had been eagerly sought guests in southern homes. But then came months of marching, of bitter battles, of land laid to waste. And ?nally imprisonment where he either froze in the winter or suffered hot humid summers, both with too little food and too much sickness.

Seth told himself she was the enemy. She and her father had taken something not theirs without a thought for those who had lived and died for the acres.

“You said she was fragile. How fragile?”

“She has nightmares. She’s terri?ed of strangers. Especially men in uniform.”

He wanted to say he wasn’t a stranger, but he knew he would be to his sister. She’d just started toddling when he last saw her.

He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. His hands tightened around the reins. He knew the anguish he’d felt in seeing his brothers die. He couldn’t even imagine how his sister had felt when her father-their father- was killed in front of her.

“Were you there?”

“No. We came… not long after. A…friend told us there was good land to be had.”

“Delaney?”

She stared at him. “How…?”

“News travels fast. A lot of people are unhappy with your ‘friend.’ ”

“It wasn’t him,” she said defensively. “And he’s not my friend.”

“Your father’s friend, then.”

“The property was going to be sold,” she said. “Someone would have bought it.”

He couldn’t really argue with that. The ranches and farms had been sold for the taxes, a fraction of what the properties were worth. Still, he couldn’t resist a comment. “He had to know what was happening, that it was little more than theft.”

Her face ?ushed and her lips ?rmed into a tight line.

Only a small twinge of guilt bit at him. She was at least complicit with the theft of his family’s land. “How did Marilee come to live with you?” he asked, hungry to know more.

“There didn’t seem to be anyone else.”

He turned and looked at her. Really looked at her.

There didn’t seem to be anyone else.

The words were worse than the thrust of a sword would have been. He should have been there. God knew his family needed him more than a lost cause had.

“And my brother? Dillon?” He already knew from Abe but he wanted her to tell him.

“I have never seen him,” she said. “I just know he’s an outlaw.”

“I understand he was trying to defend my father,” he said.

She didn’t say anything.

“You didn’t tell Marilee about me today?”

“I wasn’t sure you were who you said you were. Everyone said you were dead.”

“Wishful thinking?”

She ?ushed. “You had not returned when the others did, and you looked…”

“Like I hadn’t had a bath in weeks,” he said. “I hadn’t. I was in a Yankee prison since May of last year. I caught some fever-I was in a hospital another month after my release. Then I had to make my way mostly on foot, stopping occasionally to try to earn enough money for food. It didn’t matter. I was coming home.”

The last words were bitter. Biting.

“And now?” she asked softly.

“I plan to claim what’s mine,” he said, “and ?nd out who killed my father. God help anyone who gets in the way.”

He turned down the road leading to what used to be the Taylor ranch, the home of his best friend, Jack. He too had disappeared in the maelstrom of war.

Two children were playing with a puppy at the front of the house. They looked up as the buggy approached. One was a darkhaired boy, the other a pretty girl with golden hair and blue eyes. She looked at the carriage, then saw him and ran for the front door.

His heart dropped at his sister’s obvious panic.

“You are a stranger to her,” the McGuire woman said.

He remembered what he had told her. He wouldn’t take his sister by force. But could he really leave her with a man who had stolen his family’s land, an opportunist? A thief, to his way of thinking.

He stopped the buggy and stepped down. It was automatic to him that he go around to the other side and help her step down. He grasped her ?ngers and heat raced through him.

The startled look on her face told him she’d experienced the same unwanted current.

Nothing could be more foolish. He intended to get her off his land. He would take his sister and ?nd his brother and right all the wrongs. She had no place in that picture.

“I’ll be back,” she said. “Stay here.” She walked rapidly to the adobe ranch house before he could object.

He wanted to go after her, but Elizabeth’s words lingered in his mind. She is fragile. As much as he wanted Marilee, he couldn’t bear causing her more pain.

And he had promised. Not promised exactly but agreed to be patient.

He would get everything. His sister. His family’s land. His brother’s freedom.

No matter the cost.

ELIZABETH found Marilee in the kitchen and stooped to give her a hug.

“It’s all right, sweetpea,” she said. “The man with me… he’s your brother.”

She shook her head. “Not Dillon.”

“Another brother. You heard your father talk about Seth?”

Marilee looked up with wide eyes. “Seth is dead. Father said so.”

“He didn’t die.”