Christmas for Ransom Read online

  Table of Contents

  Christmas for Ransom

  Copyright

  Praise for Tanya Hanson

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Epilogue

  A word about the author...

  Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  Christmas for Ransom

  by

  Tanya Hanson

  Lawmen and Outlaws

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Christmas for Ransom

  COPYRIGHT © 2012 by Tanya Hanson

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Cover Art by Debbie Taylor

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Cactus Rose Edition, 2012

  Digital ISBN 978-1-61217-446-4

  Lawmen and Outlaws Series

  Published in the United States of America

  Praise for Tanya Hanson

  MARRYING MINDA

  First Place, Central Ohio Fiction Writers

  “Ignite the Flame Contest”

  And

  First Place, San Antonio Romance Authors

  “Merritt Magic Moment” Contest

  ~*~

  MARRYING MATTIE

  Best Book 2010 nominee, Love Western Romance

  ~*~

  “I chose to read Book One (MARRYING MINDA) before reading this offering and I’m glad I did. It is not absolutely necessary, but it does flow so well into this book. I love Ms. Hanson’s writing style. She has a way of telling a story that keeps me spellbound. I could not stop turning the pages. There were multi-level incidents which kept the storyline escalating to the depths of my emotions. I felt as if I was involved in the trauma the main characters faced. The ‘bad guy’ was so easy to dislike.”

  ~The Romance Studio (5 Stars)

  Dedication

  To my children, Matt and Christi.

  You two are the best thing I’ve ever done.

  Chapter One

  Damnation. Roasted wild turkey and apple pie. He held his breath, not because he was a thief rustling horseflesh right under a rancher’s nose but against the delicious scents. Hell. Thanksgiving dinner.

  Through the dining room window of the Stony Brook Ranch house, he squinted at wranglers and ’hands slicked up as fine as Sunday, holding fancy silverware like sticks of dynamite ready to explode. He rubbed his grumbling belly to shut it up. The window was open just a half-inch, but vigilance was a mighty good habit.

  A female in blue, likely young from the slim straight set of her shoulders, sat at the big table with her back to him. In the lamplight, hair of a healthy brown gleamed across her back in waves that brought to mind another woman from way back when. His groin tightened in recollection, but he shoved away any inkling of desire. He had a job to do.

  Besides which, it had been his idea to hit up the ranches of Potter County smack dab while folks distracted themselves with their holiday feasts. But when the old woman at the head of the table caught his eye, he started like he’d just seen a lawman.

  Hunger and lust disappeared like dew in the desert. The old lady passing beans brought to mind another woman, and his heart slammed against his ribs. His own gram-maw. She’d raised him from knee-high on up, and he’d given her two promises on her deathbed the year he’d turned thirteen.

  But a dozen years later, he’d yet to keep even one of them. Live a righteous life and learn to read. Hell, thieving horses alongside the Ahab Perkins gang had given him both family and revenue all these years since, and a man had better learning to do than books. Still…his heart pounded again. A deathbed vow was a mighty powerful thing.

  Well, tonight wasn’t time to search whatever was left of his soul. The old lady in his eyeshot riding herd over Thanksgiving dinner possessed the finest horseflesh for a hundred miles, and his fingers itched to get his hands doing what they did best: steal ’em.

  Inching back to the corral, he wooed five cutting horses like he wooed a woman, with sugar and sweet talk, and they followed willing and quiet. The plodding workhorses he left alone, same as he did a half dozen frisky mustangs stabled by the bunkhouse, reckoning them too feisty to steal without a ruckus. He met up with Rolly Gitts outside the stand of locust trees past the barn.

  “Hey, Canyon,” Gitts said in the notorious Perkins whisper, so quiet even a man with good ears felt deaf. “I don’t got a good feeling. The stallion’s a handful enough. Let’s go with what we got.” He stamped his feet and blew on his fingers. “Sure is getting damn cold.”

  “Ought to get yourself some gloves,” Canyon said, not caring much. He ciphered how many years had passed since any living folk had used his real name. Jack Ransom. Seven? Eight? Ahab himself had christened him “Canyon” after he’d safely unwound the gang trapped in a gorge with a posse snorting at their heels. And at that moment, Gram-maw’s dear little grandson, the light in her eye, had been laid to rest for good.

  Canyon couldn’t say he admired the way his life had gone but right now, he had a job to do, a job he did right well.

  “Nope. The best’s in the barn. We’re here to get those mares.” He considered Gitts for a second. Although the kid was acting yellow, he wasn’t green. He’d been riding with the gang six months or more.

  “Canyon…”

  “If you’ve gone skittish, why, you just take these”—Canyon held out the string of geldings—”and start up the trail back to camp. I’ll follow behind you with the rest.”

  “The latch is stuck,” Gitts said in a whine.

  Impatient, Canyon shoved at him. “Git, now. The wind’s coming south. Folks in the house won’t hear a thing over it.”

  By now, dusk had fallen good and deep, but nighttime never discomposed Canyon. By day he had the eyes of a hawk; by night, those of an owl. And when he couldn’t see, he could smell shapes, touch shadows, and sense outsiders. His talents made him every inch an outlaw. He rubbed goose grease on the latch and hinges holding the barn door tight and slipped inside, all quiet and easy. He closed the door, for a gust clanging it shut might alert the household. Wouldn’t take but another flash to open it even with the remuda behind him. Inside the barn was dark as midnight, so his night eyes set to working hard. Hard-nosed as he was, Canyon grunted with pleasure at the sight of the legendary Stony Brook Morgans.

  “Hell, ain’t you pretty. Sure be a damn shame to paint stars and socks on you.” He slapped a flank, gentlelike. “But disguise is the only way to get some poor fool rancher down the road to buy you up.” His fingers caressed the rump, searching for a brand. He grunted again. Hell, it would be easy to alter that one.

  Sugar lumps worked the first magic, carrots and apples did the rest. The last mare whickered happily and nuzzled his neck as he brought her from the stall.

  “Come on, gal. Ya’ll be taken care of. All of you. Got my word.” He finished stringing the six together. A sudden smell of flowers reached his nose. Some fan
cy alfalfa, he guessed. Something only the rich had coin to buy.

  Just as sudden, a gray square of dusk peeked from the open barn door, and a sliver of cold air dug into his shoulders. He stiffened, his hand over his gun. Shame as well as fear flooded him. He’d let somebody slip in while he’d distracted himself admiring the horses. And it wasn’t Gitts—no rank smell came in ahead of him.

  From the other corner, he saw it descend, the tail end of a pitchfork.

  “Sonofabitchandthensome!” He growled out in a shout.

  Arm raised to protect his face, the rough oak handle crashed against his wrist just as his leg rose to dislocate the cowpoke’s ballsack. Instead, his knee found itself lodged into the intruder’s gut. The resulting gasp was terrible. A small cowpoke, Canyon realized, and relaxed. Nobody who’d bring him down. A new kind of stamina flooded his veins. A healthy kick tossed the cowpoke into the straw.

  For another flash, Canyon hoped the cowpoke wasn’t dead. Killing had been the one sin yet to be laid at his feet. As the cowpoke rose, groggy but determined, Canyon caught his breath and smashed the cowpoke in the side of the head, enough to knock him out but not end his life. Satisfied with his handiwork, Canyon grabbed the string of horses, mounted Nitro, and hightailed it to Ahab, hidden quite rightly in the gullies at Criminal Creek.

  ****

  Eliza’s belly expelled her Thanksgiving dinner in the straw of Oneida’s empty stall. As lantern light flickered throughout the barn, it danced sickeningly inside her head. To stop the dizziness, she clamped her eyelids shut and held on to her skull for dear life.

  “Eliza, what on earth are you doing in a man’s garb? Where’s your new blue dress?” Clearly her grandmother’s displeasure had displaced any worry, and Eliza shook her head in disappointment, then wished she hadn’t when her world spun wildly. Granny went on, “I thought you’d gone to the parlor. Instead of the piano, I hear horses running off.”

  “Miz Willows,” one of the wranglers spoke hesitantly. “We need Doc Pritchard. And the law. But…”

  As Eliza dared a peek through slits, the matriarch of Stony Brook glared at the wrangler. “Yes, Jethro, I know. So get on it. Go get them.”

  “Can’t, ma’am.”

  “What do you mean, you can’t?” Granny’s eyebrows rose in a dangerous expression that Eliza knew never boded well.

  “Well, I mean, we can. But all’s left behind are the dobbins. Too slow. And the broncs. They’re new. Not quite saddle broke yet.” Then he looked away, rubbing his hands against his thighs. “All your good horses got stole, ma’am.”

  “All my mares?” Granny’s words came out in three harsh breaths as her gaze flew about the barn.

  Eliza’s dander rose along with more bile. How dare that scoundrel take what wasn’t his? And right under their noses to boot.

  On Thanksgiving!

  Jethro nodded. “And the horses from the corral. And…”

  “And my stallion.” Granny choked out the word.

  Eliza read her pain. The Stony Brook made its money breeding longhorn with Hereford but had gone famous for preserving the line of Morgans Granny had brought west from Vermont. Granny loved the horses like her own kids.

  With a head shake, Granny pointed to a scruff-bearded ’hand and ordered in a strong voice, “If you can’t find something to ride, then set off on foot, Tubby. It can’t be but nine miles to town. And you, Jethro.” She pointed again, twice. “You, Job. Help me get my girl into the house.”

  Eliza melted at the sudden soft tone of Granny’s words, the soft hand touching her forehead. Until nerves wracked her spine like fleas on a summer dog. Horses stolen, herself attacked. Her belly threatened a heave again, but she gulped it down.

  Jethro and his younger brother Job each took one end of her and headed toward the house. The cold air woke her up some, but the jouncing made her head throb even more. She groaned more from the sudden reality of what had happened than the dreadful pain. At the sound, Granny’s face whitened in the light.

  “Eliza, dear. Take care…”

  Dark memories began to emerge. “A man. Stealing the horses…” Eliza managed to whisper.

  “Can you remember what happened?” Jethro asked as he gently backed up the steps into the kitchen.

  “I’m not sure,” Eliza whispered, hating her weakness as the men dumped her gently but inelegantly on the horsehair settee in the parlor. Her proper grandmother would never allow the lowly ranch hands upstairs.

  “Questions can wait. I don’t want to weaken her condition.” Granny tossed a blanket she’d crocheted across Eliza’s shoulders along with more orders. “Now, Eliza, you rest here until your head clears. I don’t want you to sleep just yet. If you sleep too soon, I fear you might never wake up.”

  Eliza gulped at the thought, but Job prompted her now.

  “How’d they look, Miz Eliza? How many?” He chewed the long whiskers covering his lip. “Might be Perkins and his crew. Heard talk in the saloon they’d been seen at Ragtown.”

  She tried to wrack her aching brain into memory. “It was so dark. I…I saw somebody pilfering Oneida and grabbed the nearest thing…” The pitchfork.

  “More than one?” Job persisted.

  Eliza shook her head and wished she hadn’t. Pain swam in a swirl behind her eyes. “I don’t think so. He knocked my breath from me with his knee and pounded me out cold with his fist. That’s all I recall.”

  Granny pounded the air with her left fist while her right hand stroked Eliza’s bruised face. “That horrible creature. You’ll recuperate here at the ranch. You’ll stay inside until this heals. A lady can’t be seen this way. Although I suppose I could cut some of the veiling from my weeds for your bonnet. It could swag over your cheek and hide…”

  “What kind of man punches a girl?” Job asked in horror.

  “Likely he didn’t know what she was,” Jethro replied. “Dressed in a man’s duds like she is. She ain’t that small, neither.”

  He meant no disrespect, Eliza knew. She was tall for a female and her late father, middle-size, making them about the same height. The clothes she wore now were his. And Granny nagged again.

  “Why are you dressed like that?”

  “I wanted an evening ride.”

  “I thought you…” Granny’s lips pursed, prim. “I thought you excused yourself from the table to play the parlor piano.”

  “I never said it. You assumed. Besides, I knew you’d disapprove.”

  “You’re completely right, girl. In the dark? In the cold? And without proper riding gear and side saddle.”

  “The moon will rise soon.” Atop her pain, Eliza groaned anew. It was the same old argument. Granny had raised her and wanted better for her only heir. Fancy schools in New England had tried to make Eliza into a lady, with Granny hoping and praying for marriage into a rich and proper Eastern family. That Eliza had returned to her beloved Texas with a teaching certificate and no ring on her finger had been nothing less than a declaration of war.

  At least the school at Pleasure Stakes was some fifty miles away, making visits possible but infrequent. There Eliza had freedom, a horse of her own. A split skirt, no side saddle. There she could ride astride with folks too busy with their own kids and livestock to care. And she earned enough money to be beholden to no one.

  Still, Stony Brook was home, her father’s legacy, and she’d die for it. Getting their horses back was a priority.

  “I ride well as any man, Granny,” she said in the tone she used to discipline misbehaving pupils. “I know you don’t approve of me, but it’s an argument we will never resolve. And I know I’ll feel just fine in the morning. I’m going to join the hunt for the monster who stole our horses.”

  Jethro nodded eagerly. “I know we can find some good horseflesh at the livery in Frying Pan and make chase.”

  “Whatever are you talking about, Eliza?” As if her knees had worn out, Granny sank suddenly into a wing chair nearby. “You won’t join any manhunt. You’ll recline here a
t home and heal those wounds. Hunting down horse thieves is a job for the Rangers. Not a girl. I forbid it.”

  Eliza came to quick life at the challenge. Although pain ripped her chest, she sat tall. “I’m no girl, Granny. I’m a woman grown. It’s time you accepted it. And as such, I’ll be getting to Frying Pan in the morning. With Jethro and the rest. You and I don’t see eye to eye on most things, but I want the best for Stony Brook, same as you. There’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

  She tightened her fists as she remembered one last detail. “Why, I heard his voice. He cussed at me. I’ll remember it until Doomsday. I’ll spot him soon as he opens his mouth.”

  Chapter Two

  “I have lost my touch,” Canyon moaned into his flask. Although it wasn’t quite suppertime, he had it almost empty already. The whiskey and campfire tried to warm his bones. December was colder than last time around, making his wrist throb with pain these three weeks since he’d tangled with the pitchfork. Hell, light snow had fallen this morning. Hadn’t lasted but an hour, but none of that was the worst of his mess. His instincts were all shot to hell, a very bad circumstance for a horse thief.

  “There was somebody in the shadows, Gitts. At Stony Brook. I should have known. I should have felt something.”

  “Bound to happen, Canyon. Sooner or later. But you leveled him,” Gitts encouraged with a burp. “You did good.”

  Crazy. Just then the flowery scent from the barn flashed in his nose again even over the burning brush and his unbathed comrade.

  But that wasn’t all. He couldn’t get the old lady out of his head, not for one single minute. Such remorse had never distressed him before. Not ever. He’d downright taken from her something he shouldn’t, and it wracked him deep down. Had never mattered before, not one single time, but he couldn’t keep his own gram-maw out of his head. Promise me you’ll live a righteous life, Jacky.

  Night after night, trying to sleep, he heard the words. Heard them in the hoof beats of his horse.

  Sonofabitch. Riled, he tossed a rock a hundred feet or more into the twilight. Hell, he’d never been able to imagine himself pulling wheat from hardscrabble soil or wrangling longhorns or worse, tying himself down with a wife and young’uns. All things that defined a righteous life in his gram-maw’s world. But her words in his head wouldn’t shut up.