The 12 Brides of Summer Novella Collection #2 Read online

  A Bride Rides Herd

  Mary Connealy

  Chapter 1

  Montanta

  July 23, 1894

  Matt heard the scream and whirled in his saddle.

  A fast-moving creek barreled down the mountainside, and the scream came from that direction. Another scream, louder, higher up, from someone else.

  Matt vaulted from his gelding and sprinted toward that water.

  He cleared the heavy stand of ponderosa pines in time to hear another scream and see someone drowning, swept along by the current at breathtaking speed.

  The creek was narrow, but it plunged down a mountainside. So did whoever was drowning.

  Matt saw a spot just ahead littered with stones. Bran-ches snarled up, damming the creek and making it deeper without slowing it down.

  Whoever had fallen in would be smashed to bits on this barrier, and if they somehow got swept past it, there was a waterfall a few dozen yards ahead.

  He leaped up on the boulder closest to the bank and slipped. His boots weren’t made for rock climbing.

  There was no time to shed them.

  “Grab my hand!”

  The youngster, because Matt saw now it was a child careening down the rapids, turned to look at him then went under. Matt assumed this wasn’t deep water, how could it be when it was rushing downhill, but it was deep enough for a child to submerge. He caught himself holding his own breath as if he’d gone under. He stepped across the stones, picking his way.

  Ready.

  He’d have one chance to grab this child, a girl, he saw long blond braids, and then he’d never see her again.

  Heart pounding, Matt dropped to his knees and extended his arms to the limit. The child raced toward him. A tree just upstream of the rocks bent low enough. . . Matt was going to lose sight of the little one for a few crucial seconds right before he had to make his grab.

  Then the child vanished behind the branches.

  Matt braced himself to not let go and not get swept off the rocks.

  The tree suddenly bowed until the branch looked ready to snap. Then it whipped up and the child went flying into the air, kicked her legs hard, and swung to the shore, landing neatly.

  Another scream. A second child.

  Now Matt barely had time to gather his thoughts and get ready when the tree bowed again, snapped up, and another little girl went sailing upward, swung, and landed right where the first had.

  Matt sprang to his feet as the two laughed hysterically.

  One, slightly smaller than the other, said, “Let’s go again!”

  His knees almost buckled, and he jumped across the rocks to get out of the water. He didn’t want to finish this off by falling in.

  Then he really saw them.

  White-blond hair, skinny, wild—Matt had a gut-wrenching suspicion. “Are you by any chance named Reeves?”

  The two spun to look at him, ready to run, he thought. Good self-preservation instincts. To stop them he said, “I’m your Uncle Matt. Mark Reeves is my brother.”

  The older child edged back, but her eyes were full of fascination. “We’ve got lots of uncles. You aren’t one of them.”

  Imagining them running upstream and casting themselves into the water again, Matt said, “I haven’t ever been to visit before. Can you take me to your pa and ma?”

  “Nope.” The older one seemed to do the talking for both. Matt had heard about Mark’s three daughters.

  “You’re Annie, right?” Matt said. That earned their full attention. He then turned to the littler girl. “And you’re Susie.”

  Both girls’ eyes went round with amazement. “You know our names?”

  “Sure I do. Mark, your pa, writes home about you a lot.” Well, about once per child and those letters came from his wife, Emma. “And I know you’ve got a little baby sister named Lilly. Let’s go home.”

  He had to get them away from this wild stretch of water and tell Mark what he’d caught his children doing. Even as he trembled in fear he thought of all the crazy stunts he and his brothers, including Mark—especially Mark—had gotten up to over the years.

  But that was different, they were boys.

  Little girls were supposed to stay to the house and be quiet and sweet. Like his ma.

  “We’ll take you to our house, but we can’t take you to Pa.” Annie reached out and took his hand. She looked to be about six, though Matt knew nothing of girls and could only guess. Susie took Matt’s other hand. The sweetest, softest hands he’s ever felt. Matt realized right then that he loved his little nieces with his whole heart.

  “I have to bring my horse.” He tugged on their hands, and they came along happily. Susie even skipped a few steps. Matt couldn’t stop himself from smiling.

  They were beautiful little girls. He’d never met Mark’s wife, Emma, but she must be a pretty thing.

  They found Matt’s horse, grazing where he’d ground hitched it, and Annie ran forward to grab the reins, then led the horse back to Matt and took his hand again.

  They headed off in the direction Matt had planned to ride.

  “What do you mean you can’t take me to your pa?” It hit him that maybe something had happened. Matt had been roving for a long time. For all he knew his brother could be long dead and buried.

  “He’s on a cattle drive.”

  Matt’s panic ended before it had fully begun. “So we’ll go see your ma then.”

  “Nope.” Annie gave him a look like he was stupid, but if her ma and pa were both gone then—

  “Annie! Susie, where are you?” A voice that sounded like a woman being gnawed on by wolves cut through the clear mountain air.

  “That’s Aunt Betsy. She screams a lot.” Annie shrugged one shoulder as if to say her aunt’s ways were a complete mystery.

  “It sounds like she’s worried about you.” As well she should be. “I’d better answer her,” Matt said quietly then he shouted, “They’re over here.”

  Pounding footsteps came at him through the dense woods. Aunt Betsy sounded like she weighed three hundred pounds.

  Then a beautiful woman with hair and eyes so dark she couldn’t possibly be related to these girls, charged into view. Not three hundred pounds. Not. Even. Close. She had a white-haired baby on her slender hip, and the tyke was clinging for dear life.

  She skidded to a stop when she saw Matt, and, faster than a man could blink, she drew a gun, cocked it, and said in a dark, dangerous voice, “Get away from those children.”

  Matt raised his hands, stunned at the dead serious look in Aunt Betsy’s sparking black eyes. Trouble was, the girls had a firm grip. When he raised his hands, they clung and he lifted them right off the ground. They started squealing, and the fire in Aunt Betsy’s eyes seemed to take their glee for alarm.

  Quick before she pulled the trigger, he said, “I’m Mark’s brother, come to visit. I found the girls, and they were showing me the way home. You must be Aunt Betsy.”

  Betsy kept her gun level and cocked. “You have the look of your brother, I’ll give you that.”

  Matt had the impression that Betsy was inclined to shoot first and sort things out later—which Matt conceded spoke well of her protective instincts. But that didn’t mean he wanted to be full of bullet holes out of respect for her vigilance.

  “He knew our names, Aunt Betsy,” Annie-the-Talker said. “Even Lilly’s.”

  Then Matt remembered the tone of pure panic in Aunt Betsy’s voice and the speed at which she’d come running. He knew something that would distract her. “I found them riding the creek down the mountainside. Looks like they�
��re old hands at it.”

  Those black eyes went so wide with fear, Matt could see white all the way around her dark pupils.

  “Girls, I told you to stay out of that creek.” Her eyes, formerly trained on him, now looked at the soaking wet girls. “Your ma and pa told you clear as day it was dangerous.” Betsy lowered the gun, looking mighty defeated.

  Matt suspected that if she was in charge of these two, and with a baby on her hip besides, well. . .after knowing his nieces for around ten minutes, he felt some sympathy for pretty Aunt Betsy.

  “Let’s go back to the house, girls.” It looked like his life was out of jeopardy from poor Aunt Betsy, but he wanted to be farther from that rushing, rocky creek.

  Betsy’s lip quivered and she nodded, shoving her gun into a pocket in her skirt that looked like it’d been sewn for just that purpose, as the gun fit perfectly. She came toward him, her shoulders slumped.

  Lilly, who looked too young to walk, bounced on Betsy’s hip and giggled then reached out her arms to Matt and said, “Papa.”

  Matt had been holding babies since before he was even close to old enough. He saw the launch coming, and Betsy must be an old hand, too, because she didn’t let Lilly hurl herself to the ground.

  Matt took the baby without dropping his horse’s reins, and earned a grin with four teeth. Nine months old at the most. “Howdy, Lilly. I’m your Uncle Matt.” He tickled her under her chin.

  Betsy took Susie’s hand and tried to take Annie’s. The older girl dodged and caught hold of Matt’s arm. He quit tickling and let himself be guided through woods so dense no sunlight reached the ground. There was no trail Matt could see, but the girls seemed familiar with the woods, pretty surprising when this was an area forbidden to them.

  Well, Ma had done her share of “forbidding” with Matt and his brothers. And she’d had poor luck earning their obedience—though he wasn’t sure she ever realized it.

  The woods thinned out and Matt saw the house and was surprised by his pang of envy.

  Chapter 2

  Betsy saw the house and was all too familiar with the pang of terror.

  Emma was going to kill her if she came home and found both girls had died or run off or been kidnapped by roving outlaws. Oh, there were a hundred ways to come to grief in the West. And that was if you were careful. These girls didn’t show one speck of caution. . .which meant there were a thousand ways to die.

  “Nice house,” Matt said, sounding almost reverent. Polite, too, and smart enough. His horse looked like it was well cared for. He wore a gun as if he knew how to use it.

  Betsy decided then and there to do some kidnapping herself. Matt Reeves wasn’t going anywhere until his brother came home.

  “I’ll have the noon meal ready in an hour, Matt. Turn your horse into the corral and come on in.”

  She wondered if she should pick her moment and hide his horse or depend on her feminine wiles to get him to stay.

  Not that she had any feminine wiles. Ma hadn’t been of much use when it came to teaching such things. Belle Harden was more the type to advise her daughters on how to run men off. Betsy was a hand at it, and she had Pa and Ma to help. . .even when she didn’t want help.

  And that’s how she’d ended up a near spinster. Eighteen years old and not a beau to be found.

  She was too busy most of the time to care, but a girl had a few daydreams.

  “I’ll be right in.” Matt, the gullible fool, handed Lilly over. The baby screamed and cried and threw herself at Matt.

  Well, Betsy had been handling babies from her first memory, so Lilly didn’t manage to cast herself onto the ground, but it was a near thing.

  Susie escaped while Betsy wrestled Lilly. Then Matt plucked the baby out of her arms, Susie took Annie’s hand, and the four of them. . .five counting the horse, left Betsy behind.

  She started to yell warnings to Matt but figured any-thing she warned him of would just give the girls inspiration.

  She was abandoning those girls to a stranger, and she dreaded it. Not because of danger to the girls. Nope. She was purely afraid Matt was going to come to his senses and run off.

  Heading for the house to make the best meal she could manage, she wondered just what the man was made of. Those girls would soon reveal his every weakness.

  Matt snatched Annie out from under the restless hooves of his horse just as Susie climbed to the top of the pen that held a snorting, pawing, mama longhorn.

  Faster than he ever had in his life, Matt stripped the leather from his horse, with a baby in his arms, then went to turn his gelding loose in a stall that stank of dirty straw.

  What was going on here? Who was tending this barn?

  He shooed the horse out into the corral, while juggling all three girls. Doing the minimum while saving the girls’ lives at every turn, he was an hour getting to the most basic chores.

  More attention should be paid to the barn, and the stalls needed forking and his horse needed hay. Then he thought of pitching some of the lush hay filling the mow in Mark’s barn down for his horse, and imagined taking all three girls up there. He ran for the house with them before he lost one permanently. Betsy could watch them while he did chores.

  He shoved them inside, thinking to slam the door and run. Then he smelled sizzling steaks.

  His favorite.

  “Dinner’s ready.” Betsy was just about the most beautiful girl Matt had ever seen. Not that he’d seen many girls. Not that many wandering in the mountains, and that’s where Matt had been for the last few years.

  But she was the prettiest, bar none. And while he was at it, staring at that thick curling black hair and those big shining eyes and her tempting pink lips, he decided she was the most beautiful woman ever, including all the ones he’d never seen.

  There couldn’t be one more beautiful.

  Maybe her lips were tempting because she was talking about food and he was just plain starving. Especially starving for a meal cooked by a woman’s hand.

  He’d eaten a lot of roasted rabbit, quail, and trout. It was tasty, but some variety was tempting indeed.

  He should go back out and clean out that stall and turn his horse into it and water and hay him, then hit the trail and give Mark a week or two to come home.

  She pulled lightly browned biscuits out of a cast-iron oven and moved a halfway-to-done pie to the center.

  Pie and biscuits.

  Matt wasn’t going anywhere. He was as surely caught as one of those trout he’d eaten.

  It was every man for himself. His gelding was going to have to survive on its own.

  He’d brought the girls back alive.

  She admitted to being surprised.

  Well, that wasn’t exactly true. She’d expected the man to keep the girls alive or she’d have never let him leave with them. That he’d stayed away so long and managed to get the saddle and bridle off his horse and get the critter turned out to pasture and kept the girls alive.

  That was the impressive part.

  No notion if the man was any good with ranch chores beyond turning his horse loose, but the barn wasn’t on fire and that was good enough for Betsy. She had to admit her standards had dropped through the floor since about four days ago when Mark’s last hired man had quit and left her to run the place alone. The nasty, selfish varmint.

  Mark had left four behind. One had quit because Susie dropped his boots in the water trough. A second had taken to the trail after Annie accidentally let the bull loose, which knocked over the outhouse while he was in it, wearing nothing but long red underwear and those, down around his ankles.

  Betsy hadn’t seen it, but the final hired man had told her, laughing until he cried.

  Then Lilly had wet clean through her diaper while toddling a bit too close to the last cowpoke’s lunch pail. He’d grabbed a handful of mane and lit out for California.

  Wimps.

  Now she had another man in her clutches. She smiled and fluttered her eyelashes. She’d seen her ma give her pa
a similar look, and usually Belle got what she wanted when she did it. Of course Ma wasn’t pretending, she really did look at Silas in a way that warmed Betsy’s heart and made her curious about love.

  Now, Betsy had to fake it, but she tried to make it look natural and Matt came on in, sniffing the air. Paying the fluttering lashes no mind but apparently fascinated by the smell of a baking pie.

  Fine enough. Betsy would use anything that worked.

  “The steaks are ready to take off the fire. I’ve got fried potatoes ready, and the pie will come out of the oven about the time we’re done eating.” She fluttered again, just for practice. It was the first meal she’d cooked since she’d taken over. They’d been living on biscuits and milk, and sometimes jerky and water. The family on the trail drive were eating better than she was.

  Matt happened to look at her right at that moment. He quit sniffing. He gave her a smile that was like the August sun coming out after a January blizzard. The man must love pie.

  Annie picked that moment to jump on a chair and climb onto the table. Matt snatched her just as she prepared to fall face-first onto the platter of hot biscuits.

  He made a quick move that settled Lilly in a high chair, then grabbed Susie as she stumbled and tripped right toward the burning hot stove.

  “Emma is going to be so sorry she left these little imps with me when she comes home and finds them all maimed.” Betsy’s lower lip trembled. She hadn’t cried a tear in her life until this week.

  “Where are the hands?” Matt sat Susie at the table, and as the four-year-old started to stand, Matt slapped a biscuit in her hands and said, “Sit still, or I’m taking that back.”

  Susie stayed in place.

  Hah! As if that would last.

  “I want a biscuit, too!” Annie yowled. Both girls tallied unequal treatment more closely than a miner watches his gold.

  “Sit up to the table then.” Matt set a biscuit in front of another chair, broke a third one up and put it in front of Lilly as Annie clambered into her chair, and the room went silent.

  He looked back at Betsy, who felt her lashes flutter without giving it one thought.