you.”
“Because, you ninny, you had to be gone for three years. It would have been three years in June. But now, one month shy of freedom, you’ve put it about town that you’ve moved here. That means when you decide to go off again, the waiting period starts all over. Three more years of my life gone to a man who cares only for himself and his precious pride. Once again you’ve stepped in with a unilateral decision to destroy my future.”
“Unilateral? Me? It was you who went ahead, like a spoiled princess, and plunked down the coin to buy the land you wanted. Have you ever done an honest day’s work? Do you understand how hard others have had to labor for what you were handed?”
Helena’s blood pounded in her head and drained from her face. She’d be damned if she’d tell him just how much hard work on Shamrock had cost her. She wouldn’t go there. She couldn’t. But she was sick to death of him tarring her and her father with the same brush as the man who’d all but forced Brendan into the mines. Her father had been an honorable man. “Handed? My father took a chance and invested a minor inheritance in all the right places. Handed? That man meant the world to me! He was all I had after my mother died. Oh, you’re so right. All I had to do to get my hands on his money was watch as he was gunned down in the street, then be left alone in the world with Franklin Gowery as a guardian. I earned every cent of what I inherited in the tears I shed that day and every day since. Go away, Brendan. I’ll take my chances with the renegades. They’ll just kill me. Not cut out my heart and leave me alive and bleeding.”
“Helena, I’m—”
“You’re nothing to me. Do you hear? Get off my land. You don’t want it. You don’t want me. And I sure as hell don’t want you around reminding me of the mess I made of my life because I believed you loved me as much as I once loved you.” This time she made it inside and slammed the door. But her home offered no solace and never had.
She was done.
She’d put Shamrock up for sale and go back East. And she’d never love another man. Men just dragged you from hotel to hotel, with only adults to fill your life, then left you alone in the world with not a friend to your name. Or else claimed they loved you, only to toss that love back in your face.
Helena sank to the floor and, instead of howling out her pain, stuffed the ends of her shawl in her mouth to muffle her cries. Tears poured down her face. Oh, she was done with him this time.
Done!
* * *
Brendan watched the door slam. Jaysus, the woman knew how to hurt him. He nearly took the one step up onto the porch to follow, but turned away and grabbed Harry’s reins instead, heading for the bunkhouse. Nothing would come of trying to talk to her now. But he wasn’t leaving. Not with the carnage he’d seen at Belleza. Whoever the animals were, he was going to find them and see them hanged. Every last mother’s son of them.
He rode to the barn to get Harry settled before heading over to the bunkhouse to find out if there was even room for him there. As he dismounted, he looked farther up the ranch road and saw Sean Mallory, Shamrock’s foreman, step out of the cottage he shared with his wife and children. Winchester in hand, Mallory stood staring his way. Brendan ground-tied Harry and walked to the cottage.
“Kane,” the foreman said as he approached. “What brings you around?” He didn’t sound welcoming. Loyal, Brendan thought. That was good. Helena was in good hands, as he’d heard.
“Belleza was hit. Twelve dead, Alejandro Varga included. His wife and daughter were in town, thank the good Lord. The wives of the shepherds weren’t as lucky.”
Mallory winced and glanced back at the cottage. “I wondered when they’d move on to one of the bigger spreads. We saw Quinn ride through with a posse. Why?”
“We tracked them across Shamrock’s northern boundary. I know you don’t run the cattle up there, for the most part. Got any idea who else might know that?”
“It isn’t a closely guarded secret, if that’s what you mean. But no Comanche would know it unless they’ve been watching us for years.”
Brendan paused and frowned. No one was supposed to know he was hunting anyone other than a band of renegades. He and Ryan Quinn had decided to keep their suspicions to themselves, even though it really ate at his gut. Brendan hated that everyone was so damned willing to believe ill of the Comanche. True, the tribe deserved the reputation, but they’d gone down in defeat and were buttoned up on the reservation. Yet all the men conducting these raids had needed to do was scalp their first victims, and everyone ignored all the inconsistencies marking these attacks as other than the work of the tribe.
By going along with the popular view, Brendan and the sheriff hoped they’d lure the ones responsible into making a mistake born of overconfidence. Brendan knew Quinn was new to being a lawman, but he was doing a passable job and was in no way stupid enough to spread their plan about.
So who had let the cat out of the bag about white men being suspect? “What makes you think it’s not Comanche?” Brendan asked carefully, eying Helena’s foreman with suspicion.
“You know my brother-in-law is foreman at the Rocking R,” Mallory said. “He told me their fence was downed and they’ve lost a few head over the cliff edge up where the R and Shamrock meet up with the canyon that separates both spreads from Avery’s Bar A. There were also tracks across that back edge of the spread that disappeared into the canyon. So I went looking up there. Our fences were downed, too. And there were tracks from shod horses. Now there’s been another attack and there’re more tracks. Can’t be a coincidence. I think the fences being downed is supposed to discourage both spreads from running cattle up there. Less chance of our men spotting something odd.
“If you add the tracks to Avery being the only one who’s bought land off those who were raided, he’s looking mighty guilty.”
Dammit. Brendan didn’t want loose tongues tipping off the bastard. “He’s not the only one who tried. Alejandro Varga offered several times to buy Adara. The last time was the day after it was raided.”
“But now Don Alejandro’s dead,” Mallory said, shifting the Winchester to lean it on his shoulder. “As far as I’m concerned that puts Avery at the top of the list. He hates sheep and now all the sheep ranchers are gone. I sure as hell know Varga’s son will sell off what’s left of his father’s flock.”
If Mallory’s suspicions were this well thought out, Brendan figured he’d better confide in him. He stooped to pick up a stick, then walked to the edge of the cottage porch and sat. He quickly sketched a crude map in the dirt. Mallory bent down on one knee, his gaze intent.
“The raids look random,” Brendan said, “unless ya plot it out from a bird’s-eye view. Then it makes sense.”
“So far Avery’s come off lookin’ like a real saint, savin’ the poor, desperate and terrified from complete ruin.” Mallory nodded.
Brendan drew in the dust as he spoke. “And in the meantime, he’s picked off targets here, here and there. He tried to get hold of the Harkens’ place here,” he said, and drew an F on another square he’d drawn. “But he failed, thanks to Joshua Wheaton and Alex Reynolds protecting young Billy’s interests. Avery offered for the Oliver place, too, but all he got was the sharp side of that young lady’s tongue.”
Another F, for failed attempt, joined the first, but that property was in the opposite end of the county. “Then
