Isobel assessed the bearded, brawny trail boss. Did she really need his protection? Probably. Her father had been murdered despite his armed guard.
Could she delay marrying Don Guillermo? Certainly. Her fiancé had never even responded to her letter of intent to journey to America.
Retrieving the stolen land-grant titles was her primary goal. More than anything, she ached to possess those rich pastures on which to graze cattle of her own.
“Very well, Mr. Buchanan,” she declared. “If you will protect me while I search for my father’s killer and recover my family’s stolen land, I shall marry you and prove to Mr. Chisum that you are very settled. And I shall be your witness in the law courts.”
“Then I reckon we’ve got a deal.”
Dick Brewer spoke up. “Stay at my place tonight, Noah, and head for Chisum’s ranch in the morning. We’ve got to get Tunstall’s body to Lincoln, and we can see the others safely into town.”
The two conferred a moment before Dr. Ealy cleared his throat. Accustomed to unexpected weddings, funerals and the like, he had agreed to perform the ceremony and wanted to get on with it.
Isobel barely heard his words. Instead she stared down at the pointed toes of her red boots. What had she done? Minutes ago she had been planning to marry Don Guillermo of Santa Fe. Now this leather-clad cowboy who owned nothing but his horse and gun would be her husband.
The ceremony ended, and Susan presented her friend with a bundle of folded garments. “Not much of a wedding gift, Isobel. But wear them, please. Those killers will recognize you right away if you stay as you are.”
As the shaken group set off down the moonlit trail in one party, Noah explained to Isobel the situation in Lincoln Town.
Jimmie Dolan had profited from his store and vast acreage by keeping the small landowners financially strapped, until the young Englishman John Tunstall had moved to the area. On the advice of his business partner, Alexander McSween, Tunstall had started his own store and ranch.
Dr. Ealy added that he, along with his wife, two young daughters and Susan Gates, had been summoned to Lincoln by McSween. “It looks as if we’re already in McSween’s war,” he observed, “and we haven’t even arrived in Lincoln.”
“Just keep quiet about tonight’s business,” Noah instructed the group. “We’ll do the same.”
As Isobel watched her companions head north in the darkness, she and Noah turned their horses east. Less than an hour later, they arrived at an old cabin with a sagging front porch. With some trepidation, she followed this man who was no more than a stranger up the steps.
Without speaking, he lit two oil lamps and began to build a fire. She watched him work, appraising biceps that bunched as he placed logs on crackling kindling, brown fingers that set an iron pot he had filled with water on a hook above the blaze. Broad back. Shaggy brown hair and beard. Muddy boots. Leather chaps. Such a common man, this Noah Buchanan.
“Like to wash up?” He asked the question so abruptly that she took a step backward.
He dusted his hands on his thighs before pushing open a door and carrying her bag into a small bedroom. She followed, surveying with some dismay the narrow iron bed, the washstand with its chipped white crockery, the window fitted with paper. Noah filled a cracked bowl with heated water, then shut the door behind him.
Isobel walked to the door and listened to him whistling in the other room. Dare she trust the man? She slid her revolver from her bag and set it on a table near the tub. With another glance at the door, she changed into a nightgown. Then she removed her comb, dipped her hands into the water and finally began to relax.
Curling onto the narrow bed, she sighed deeply. But as sleep crept over her, a movement rippled behind her eyelids. Horses cantering up a trail. Men shouting. Gunshots.
Noah sat on a three-legged stool before the fire and warmed his hands. A second pot of water had begun to steam. The woman in the next room would be asleep by now. No matter how hotheaded, she must be exhausted.
He smiled and shook his head as he filled a large basin with hot water and set to shaving his whiskers off with Dick Brewer’s straight razor.
Good old Dick. As Tunstall’s foreman, he was bound to get into the thick of the trouble. Noah peered into a mirror hung by the iron cookstove. If Dick got hurt, he couldn’t stand by, no matter what he’d promised the señorita.
Of course, the way she’d acted today, he’d probably have trouble keeping her out of it.
He dipped his head into a second bowl of fresh water and scrubbed his scalp. She was crazy to come after her father’s killer all by herself. Of course he was just as loco to have married her. John Chisum would take some fancy convincing to swallow that one.
Trail dust was getting a little old. Noah looked forward to settling down and fixing up his own cabin. Then he could really begin to make his dreams come true.
He stared for a long time at the flames, thinking of the small packet he had brought in his saddlebag from Arizona, filled with pens and ink bottles. Soon he would start to put down the thoughts he had been having for years. Stories about trail rides, roundups, cowboys. Images and memories he didn’t want to forget.
The thought of writing sent him searching Dick’s cabin for paper. Maybe he would start right now—the tale of the señorita and the Dolan gang. He wished he had a blank notebook with him, but they were back at his cabin.
Dick never kept paper. He searched the first room and hesitated at the bedroom door, then knocked. When he got no answer, he wondered if the woman had left. He leaned closer, peered into the room, caught his breath.
She lay curled on the bed, asleep. A fan of dark lashes rested on each pale cheek. Her chin was tucked against her arm. Long, golden hair draped around her shoulders and down her side.
Noah took a hesitant step toward the bed. She wore a silky white gown but her feet were bare. He was staring at her slender ankles when she turned. A soft moan escaped her lips as she lifted her head.
Rising up on one elbow, she whispered, “¿Mamá? ¿Dónde está?”
She lifted her hand to her eyes.
“Who…who are you?” Her voice was husky in the night air.
“I’m Noah Buchanan,” he answered. “I’m your husband.”
Chapter Two
“Noah Buchanan?” With a gasp, Isobel scrambled out of bed. What on earth was the vaquero doing in her room?
“That blanket,” she ordered, pointing. “Now!”
As he fetched a faded homespun coverlet from a nearby chair, she sorted through images of this so-called protector. Shaggy black beard, dusty denims, travel-worn leather.
Outlined in lamplight, his strong, clean jaw was squared with tension. His hair shone a damp blue-black.
“You look different, señor,” she said, glancing at her pistol on the table.
“I shaved.” His blue eyes sparkled as they flicked down to her ankles.
Before he could speak again, she snatched the gun and leveled it at his heart. “Take your hungry eyes away from me!” she commanded, cocking the gun for emphasis. “Stand back, Buchanan.”
“Whoa, now.” He held up his hands. “I didn’t mean any harm. I was looking for paper.”
“Paper? Why paper?”
He didn’t answer. “Why paper?” Her fingers tensed on the pistol handle.
“I wanted to write.” Swifter than the strike of a rattlesnake, his hand shot out and knocked the pistol from her grip. A blast of flame and smoke erupted from the barrel. The hanging glass lamp shattered. The gun clattered across the wooden floor. As the light died,