Three

Spring 1877

In the year following the shooting, Houston threw himself into work with a vengeance, trying to forget Becky and her stinging betrayal. His heart was nothing more than a piece of raw meat that had been stomped and left in the hot sun to wither. He knew he’d let himself descend into darkness, but it was there he found solace…and escape.

Though he tried to resist, he lost the battle, and most nights found him hugging a bottle of whiskey. He turned a blind eye to the looks Stoker, Sam, and sometimes Luke gave him when he briefly swung by. When they said anything, he snapped that he was doing his best.

On a Monday morning in May, Houston pored over the books in the office of Lone Star headquarters and frowned at the figures. The tally didn’t make sense. They were four thousand dollars down from where they had been last week. Sure, the ranch had been in trouble for a while, but the steady decline had turned into a free fall off a cliff.

And if he didn’t know why, he didn’t know how to stop it.

Long-term trouble was coming from the size of their ever-increasing herd and not enough grazing land, even with four hundred eighty thousand acres. Though they’d had a little rain, this year had brought a drought, and the cattle were starving. A ranch in North Texas was always between hay and grass anyway, never flush with either. Simply the hard truth. The only solution for the cattle surge that would bring a little relief was taking two thousand head or more up the Great Western Trail to Dodge City. He’d already given the hands the order to start rounding them up and branding them. He hadn’t told Stoker yet. Didn’t want an argument.

Having almost a hundred employees to pay didn’t help. In addition to the cowboys, they had to support and look after the new schoolteacher, Doc Jenkins, and Jim Wheeler, who operated the telegraph. They also went halves on stocking merchandise for the mercantile, but the store owner kept nearly all the profits.

Houston rubbed his bleary eyes and glanced up as his father entered. His pa didn’t appear in any better shape than Houston. His pale-green eyes were bloodshot and his clothes had been slept in, if he’d slept at all. Stoker Legend gave a deep sigh and slumped into the leather chair opposite the desk.

The ladies around the ranch would say Stoker Legend was a handsome man for fifty-eight years old. Only a smattering of silver streaked his dark hair and he didn’t have an ounce of fat on his tall frame. Stoker was a man who’d lived hard and carved out the famous Lone Star spread from nothing. He’d cut his teeth on men who’d tried to take his land, and had made plenty of enemies along the way. Not that he gave a damn about any of that. Today, he looked exhausted.

Stoker sighed again.

“Something bothering you, Pa?”

“Had poker games all weekend, but last night’s lasted until dawn.”

Houston chuckled. “Pa, everyone in the whole blame state knows about your poker games. They’re legendary. That must be why you look like you’ve been dragged behind a horse. I take it there was a good bit of drinking involved?”

“Can’t play cards without it, son. The two just go together.” Stoker ran a finger along the edge of the desk. “I won a few. Lost a few. There’s something I’ve got to tell you, son.”

“Start at the beginning and let it fly,” Houston advised. “That’s what you’d tell me.”

Stoker rose and stared out the window. “It’s about… Perhaps I can shed some light on the problem with those books you’ve been studying.”

Houston’s stomach clenched. This sounded worse than losing a couple of hands of poker with friends. “The ranch is in a pretty tight bind right now, but tell me how much you lost and we’ll cover it. I take it that’s where the huge deficit in the books went.”

They couldn’t take many more losses like that. How many times was Stoker going to wager his life’s work away?

“It is.” Stoker gave a curt nod. “But that’s only a small corner of the problem. The truth is…the ranch has been cut in half. Yours, Sam’s, and Luke’s—your legacies have shrunk considerably.”

Everything inside Houston stilled: his heart, his breathing, his ability to swallow. He couldn’t stop anger from flaring. “What do you mean cut in half? What have you done, Pa?”

“It’s gone.”

“What’s gone? Are you talking about land, money, or what?” Houston slammed the receipts register closed. He dreaded telling his brothers their father had finally lost it all.

“You know how I have a standing poker game every Saturday night.”

For Stoker to repeat himself meant he couldn’t even bear to say the words.

“Quit stalling, Pa. Yes, for as long as I can recall, you, Max Golden, and Kern Smith have cut loose on Saturday nights. You lost half the ranch to them?” That might not be so bad. They were longtime friends. Maybe Houston could persuade them to let the wager go for a drunken mistake and they’d all have a good laugh. After all, they were reasonable men. Kern’s wife once came to ask that Stoker return money they needed for ranch expenses.

“Not exactly.” Stoker looked away. “We had another rancher join us. New to the area. Name’s Till Boone. He bought the spread adjoining ours to the south that’s lain idle for thirty years. Till now owns two hundred forty thousand acres of our ranch where it adjoins his.”

“Damn it, Pa! That’s where all the grass is. What were you thinking?”

Stoker plowed his fingers through his thick hair. “I had a little too much bourbon.”

“Pa, you promised to slow down.”

His father whirled and leaned over the desk, pointing his finger. “I don’t need a lecture from you. I will when you will. The main thing is that we can fix this.”

“How? I’ve never known you not to honor all your debts, even the ones made when you were soused. I can’t believe this.” He didn’t see a way in hell of keeping the ranch together. None whatsoever. What was he going to tell Sam? Or Luke, who’d just started to feel a part of the family?

Fire flashed from Stoker’s bloodshot eyes. “There’s only one way and it’ll be up to you. I need you in on this, Houston.”

Fury crawled up Houston’s spine. “So I’m supposed to fix the mess you’ve made?”

“You’re the only one who can, son.”

“Stop talking in riddles, Pa, and get on with it.” Houston could barely contain his fury. He didn’t like having hard feelings for his father, but for Stoker to expect him to fix a stupid blunder like this stretched their relationship to the breaking point.

“Till Boone’s daughter needs a husband. Boone said if you’ll marry his Lara, he’ll forgive my foolish wager. And we can keep the land.”

“What? This is your idea of fixing things?” Houston exploded in a single word: “NO!” He leaped to his feet so fast it sent his chair toppling. “You’re crazy to even think I’d consider this.”

Houston couldn’t marry again. He hadn’t slept a full night since his first disastrous wedding and only whiskey could silence his demons. He carried festering wounds that hadn’t even begun to scab over, and to ask him to marry another would throw him right back into that pit with no way to crawl out. He hadn’t been able to trust Becky and he’d known her forever. How could he bind himself to a perfect stranger and not expect more of the same?

“Boone gave us twenty-four hours to think about it.” Stoker crossed the space to him and laid a hand on his shoulder. “I know it’s asking a lot.”

“Hell yeah, it’s asking a lot. How about asking me to give up the rest of my life? Asking me to live with a stranger, sleep in the same bed, pretend to care for someone sitting across from me at the supper table? The answer is no. And all that aside, I leave on the cattle drive in three weeks. I don’t have time to deal with this.” Houston shrugged out from under Stoker’s hand. He strode for the door, putting some distance between them before he hauled off and hit his father.

“There’s more.” Stoker’s words stopped him in his tracks.

With narrowed eyes, Houston whirled. “How much worse can it be? What else is Boone wanting? The marriage license signed in blood? Tacking my hide to the barn door? What?”

“His daughter, Lara, has a child. A little girl. In return for giving us back the land, Boone is asking you to give her child a name and raise the girl as your daughter.”

The air left Houston in a big whoosh. This was like Becky all over again. She had needed a name for her child. Was he never to be anything more than a tool for someone to use for their own ends? What about his wants? His longings?

Becky had wanted to foist Ernie Newman’s child off on him. He wondered if he would’ve known, if he’d have seen the man’s resemblance in the babe. Would it have mattered? he wondered. He’d loved Becky so fully and completely. If she’d survived, would he have forgiven her and have a child he loved as his own even now?

And what of this girl’s innocent babe?

Houston’s brother Luke came to mind. He’d been raised a bastard child and it had turned him into an outlaw. People had called him the devil’s spawn. What would the slurs do to an innocent girl? Could Houston live with people calling her and her baby all manner of names, looking down on them, when he could have done something about it?

“How old is the child?” Houston asked quietly.

“A babe…not quite a year.”

Houston met Stoker’s green gaze. “The child’s father is dead?”

“He will be when Boone finds the bastard. He forced himself on Lara. The babe needs a real father. She can never know the truth of her birth.”

Damn! Stoker had him over a barrel, and he knew it. First there was the land, and then this. And Houston would be the bastard of the year if he didn’t help a woman in trouble.

“Boone needs an answer quick, Houston.”

Everyone needed something and right away. What about his need for a heart that wasn’t scarred and pitted? “You’ll have your answer in the morning. Until then, leave me be.”

Houston had lots of thinking to do and a hefty decision to make.

All Lara Boone needed was his name. He could do that much. Couldn’t he?

No one said he had to love her. Or sleep beside her. Or share secrets with her.

Besides, what else did he have to look forward to in his life? Pretending he cared, pretending pain didn’t rip through him every time he breathed—pretending he lived.

* * *

Dawn rose on Tuesday with a whisper and Houston had not once closed his eyes. A fist gripped his heart as he got to his feet on the bluff overlooking the mighty Red. Stone-cold sober, he’d spent the night gazing up at the star-studded sky. There, alone, he’d made up his mind about what he had to do.

For years he’d envied Sam, who lived his life as he wanted. Houston had resented him for always riding off to chase adventure as a Texas Ranger. For always leaving big brother with the obligation to run the ranch and try to corral Stoker.

Just once, Houston wanted to see what it was like to wake up to snow-covered mountain peaks. Just once he wanted to taste the salty ocean air. And just once he wanted to get on a ship and sail to some faraway place.

When he was a boy, he’d entertained notions of riding the Butterfield Overland Mail stage all the way to the California gold fields. He’d wanted to pan for gold and put his feet in the Pacific Ocean.

But after his mother died and Stoker took to drink and gambling, Houston had been forced to quash those dreams of adventure. Because he was the oldest. Because Sam had washed his hands of the ranch. Because someone had to stay behind. That someone was Houston.

Hell!

Others’ wishes always seemed more important than his.

When would it be his turn? Would it ever?

* * *

The Lone Star was beginning to wake up when he reined in at the corral.

As he dismounted, the day’s brand-new rays bounced off the huge bronze star that hung next to the headquarters, suspended by heavy chains between two poles.

“I should’ve slept under that blasted star,” Houston muttered. A local legend said a man would learn his true worth if he slept under the Texas star. Of course, no one knew for sure what that meant, exactly. The “Texas star” could refer to the bronze one, the ones overhead, or to the Lone Star Ranch itself. Sam had talked about sleeping on the ground beneath this bronze star to see if that would help him, but then he’d found his worth deep in the depths of Sierra’s blue eyes.

Maybe one day Houston would find his worth and know the man he was. If he lived long enough.

As he strolled toward headquarters for breakfast, two ranch hands hoisted the Texas flag up the tall pole that stood at a corner of the two-story, white-stone house. He stopped for a moment to watch the breeze unfurl the fabric, the banner that sported one large star. His chest swelled with pride. Stoker told him that he’d lost his father and every one of his brothers in the Texas War of Independence. They, plus thousands of other men, had died so Houston, Sam, and Luke could live free.

Even though he yearned to see other places in the world for a spell, he had no desire to live out all his days anywhere but here. This was his home, his roots. He loved this wild state and the land where he’d been born and lived his whole life. He’d do anything to keep the ranch in one piece.

Even take a wife sight unseen.

With long strides, Houston entered the house and went straight to the kitchen. Stoker silently glanced up. His father’s eyes held the question that his tongue would not ask.

Houston gave him a curt nod and poured a cup of coffee from the granite pot sitting on the table. “I’ve made my decision, Pa. But before I tell you, I want to say that this is the last damn time I’m bailing you out of anything.”

Stoker’s face flushed as he snapped, “I’m not a boy in knee britches. I’m your father, dammit.”

“Then act like one,” Houston snapped back, and took his seat. He lifted his cup for a sip of hot brew. It warmed the outside but did nothing to melt the layer of ice inside his chest. “I don’t intend to have this conversation ever again.”

Silence spun between them as fragile as a piece of handblown glass.

Finally, Houston spoke. “I’ll marry Lara Boone and give her baby daughter my name. I’ll raise her as a Legend.” He paused then added, “But only if you put this ranch in all our names, and sign over the land you wagered to me and my brothers.”

Stoker’s face darkened. “Those are your terms?”

“They are. I don’t think they’re unreasonable.”

His father studied his coffee cup for a minute. “I’ll agree—if you tell no one, and I’m still the boss.”

“Deal. I’ll put aside my life for Lara Boone.” Houston finished his coffee and set down the cup. “If anyone ever speaks ill of her child, they’ll answer to my fists.”

“And to mine,” Stoker said firmly, slamming his hand down on the table, jarring the coffeepot. “One thing I won’t abide is someone being mean and spiteful to a child. I know I’ve hurt Luke real bad, and damn, that tears into me. If I’d known he was my son, I’d have claimed him in a heartbeat. I can only imagine the names people called him. But they’re not going to do that to Lara’s child if I have anything to say about it.”

At least they were in agreement on this. But the hot words Houston had spoken sat on his tongue like a sour persimmon. To have to fix another one of his father’s careless mistakes stuck in his craw. In Houston’s almost thirty years, he’d never once had his father apologize for anything. And Stoker sure didn’t look like he was going to start now.

Releasing a loud sigh of frustration, Houston rose and sauntered toward the door. “You’ll let Boone know?” he asked without turning.

“I’ll send a message,” Stoker replied.

“The sooner I get this over with the better.”

“Son?”

Houston still didn’t look at his father. “Yes, Pa?”

“Thank you.” Stoker’s voice cracked, leaving the words hanging in the air.

“I’m not doing this for you. Even with the ranch split in half, we could recover, given enough years. I’m doing this for a woman and her child who don’t deserve the rotten deal they got.”

“All the same, I’m sorry I put you between a rock and a hard place.” Stoker let out a long sigh. “I miss your mother. She had a way of keeping me in line.” He seemed lost in a memory. “She made me toe the mark more than once. That’s what a good wife does. I hope you can find it in your heart to give Lara Boone a chance.”

Without answering, Houston went to arrange for a preacher. The ceremony would likely take place by the weekend.

What did Lara think of this hurried wedding? Was she happy? As shocked as he had been? It would be nice to meet his bride beforehand. He wished he could talk to her, or even see what she looked like. Was she pretty? A blond, brunette, or redhead? Short, tall, slender, or rotund? Did it even matter?

Fury so strong it made him tremble swept through him. Even though he had no answers to his questions, he already knew he’d protect her and her daughter with his life. Any decent man would, and one thing Houston could hold onto was that he was a decent man. And if he ever crossed paths with the man who’d raped her, he’d kill him without blinking an eye and feed his rotten carcass to the coyotes.