How To Lasso A Cowboy

“Then why has he been gone?”

“He couldn’t come back until now. He was hurt.”

“Hurt?”

“Sick,” Elizabeth said. “But now he is home and he wants to see you.” She couldn’t bear to say the words, He wants to take you. Marilee shivered in her arms. “Is he the man who came this morning?”

Elizabeth suddenly realized that Marilee must have seen more than she had relayed.

“Yes. He didn’t know you were there. I should have told him but I didn’t. I wasn’t sure…”

“Did he come to get me?”

“I think he would like to meet you and maybe…”

“I don’t want to leave you. I don’t like him. He looked… scary.”

“He looked tired and hungry. He had traveled a very long way to see you.”

It was a lie. Seth Sinclair had looked scary. He still looked scary. Cold. Angry.

Dangerous.

But Marilee had stiffened. She looked ready to ?ee. Fear shone in her eyes. “I don’t want to go out.”

“I’ll be with you.”

“No! Please don’t make me go away.” Marilee’s eyes widened and Elizabeth saw in them the ragged, dirty ?gure the child had seen earlier.

She also saw in her mind’s eye the pain she had seen in Seth Sinclair’s eyes just minutes earlier. He had lost everything. She felt at least partly responsible.

He had unquestionably saved her life. At the risk of his own. That realization had taken hold.

Despite his claim that he thought Marilee might be in the buggy, he’d been close enough to see the child was not in the buggy before he leaned over to grasp the reins.

Would he just take his sister, regardless of the harm he might cause her?

Miriam Findley walked in the room, her eyes questioning.

“Seth Sinclair is with me,” Elizabeth explained. She couldn’t say any more, not with Marilee listening. She couldn’t let her hear about the terrifying ride and the masked outlaws. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to tell Miriam.

“Sinclair?” Miriam’s eyes widened.

“One of the sons who went to war,” she said. Then she realized he hadn’t said anything about his brothers. She knew there had been four.

“Dear God,” Miriam said. “Another one.”

Elizabeth gave her a warning look, then looked down at Marilee.

Miriam didn’t take the hint. “I suppose he’s as vicious as his brother. Why on earth did you bring him here?”

“Marilee is his sister.”

“I don’t want him on our property.”

“He hasn’t done anything.”

“You know Dillon Sinclair is responsible for the rustling and murdering going on. How could you have anything to do with-”

“I don’t know anything of the kind,” she said, knowing Marilee was hearing every word. She found herself defending a man she’d so easily condemned just hours before.

She took Marilee’s hand. “We have to go.”

Marilee pulled back. “I don’t-”

“I won’t let him take you, sweetpea,” she said, “but we have to get home. Papa will be frantic with worry.”

If he was even home yet.

Seth Sinclair obviously wasn’t welcome here, and she wasn’t going to go out and tell him he had to leave without seeing his sister. Not after…

She knew she shouldn’t have given the promise to Marilee. It was a promise she was physically unable to enforce. She could not keep him from taking his own ?esh and blood. She could only rely on his sense of decency and love for a sister.

If she was wrong…

Delaney would help her if she asked him. He would make sure Marilee stayed with her. But at what price? He had been courting her in a leisurely fashion, obviously sure that his suit would be accepted. He was important, and she wasn’t. She was certainly not the most attractive woman around. She had, in fact, no idea why he troubled himself, but her father had asked her to be pleasant to him, and she had.

But unlike her father, she had never trusted Delaney. Her ?esh crawled when she was in his company.

Choose Delaney or the man who had just saved her life?

It wasn’t that simple. Her father had realized his life’s dream. And so had she. She’d always loved children but never thought she would have any of her own. Marilee had been a gift.

She brought joy and purpose to Elizabeth’s life as nothing else had.

She knelt down. “He’s your brother, sweetpea. I don’t think he will make you do anything you don’t want to do.”

Marilee looked at her with trust that had been so hard to earn. And nodded.

Elizabeth took her hand and they left the house together. They walked out to the buggy where Seth Sinclair stood. When they reached him, he knelt so his eyes met Marilee’s.

“Hello,” he said in a voice so soft Elizabeth felt an ache inside. He did love his sister. It was so obvious in the way he tried to dispel fear.

“Hello,” Marilee said, then pressed her face against Elizabeth’s skirts.

Elizabeth looked down. Seth Sinclair’s face was a study in pain. He so obviously wanted to take Marilee in his arms and the struggle between doing so and exercising patience was obvious in the rigidity of his body.

“You are very pretty,” he said. “You look like our mother.”

Marilee turned then. “I never knew my mother.”

It was one of the longest sentences Elizabeth had yet heard from her.

Seth Sinclair’s hard face seemed to dissolve.She saw tears in the edges of his eyes, something she had not expected.

“I know,” he said. “But I remember you. You were no larger than a tadpole when I left. And you were the prettiest little tadpole I ever saw.”

Marilee screwed up her face. “Tadpoles aren’t pretty.”

“I think it all depends on what you consider is pretty,” he said. “I like tadpoles.”

Elizabeth was enchanted by the conversation, by the sincerity of his voice even through the utter nonsense of what was being said. She knew charm. Her father was charming. She had learned the shallowness of charm. Too often it masked emptiness.

This was not charm. This was a raw naked hunger to reach his sister. The ache inside her deepened.

He didn’t try to force Marilee to accept him. That surprised her. He obviously respected her hesitancy, her fear. And despite her obvious fascination with him, Marilee clung to Elizabeth.

Seth held his hand out. Such a small gesture but Marilee cringed and hid behind Elizabeth’s skirt.

He stood and the expression on his face drove straight into her heart. It was pure agony.

She had never known that kind of pain. She hoped she never would.

He tried again. “Would you like to know more about your mother?”

Marilee glanced up. Nodded.

“I can come tomorrow and tell you a story about her.”

Marilee looked uncertain.

“Think about it,” he said.

He stood and whispered in Elizabeth McGuire’s ear, “I want to see her often.” His voice was rough with emotion.

She nodded, too grateful to say anything more. Marilee would be hers for a few more days. Days, or weeks. Perhaps even months. She would cherish the time, however short.