Last Chance Cowboys Read online

  Javier studied him hard for a long moment. They were both flushed, their fists clenched, their bodies poised for a fight. Javier was the first to step away. He stared down at the ground, waiting for his breathing to calm, then looked up at Trey. “You falling for that sheepherder’s woman, my friend?” His tone was sympathetic.

  Trey pulled off his hat and ran his fingers through his sweat-slicked hair. “She’s an innocent in this fight, and I just don’t want to see anybody else get hurt, Javier. There’s got to be a way we can work this out. They aren’t going away—and neither are we.”

  “We were here first,” Javier said, his voice petulant.

  Trey allowed himself a wry smile. “Technically, the Indians were here first, and look what we did to them. After that, it was the Spaniards—your ancestors. And they raised sheep, my friend, long before cattlemen showed up.”

  The two of them leaned on the corral fence and gazed out into the black night for a long moment. “This isn’t just about sheep versus cattle, Javier. The truth is things are changing—everything about the life our parents knew is different. Every year, another new town springs up or spreads out. We either learn to live with that or we spend the rest of our time on this earth fighting against progress that’ll surely beat us in the end.”

  “So what’s your plan?” Javier asked.

  Trey shrugged. “Don’t have one. Just the notion that we need to make this more about how we’re gonna live in peace and less about needin’ to be right.”

  “Let me ask you something, Trey. If that woman and her boy weren’t part of this, would that change the way you look at it?”

  “I hope not, but yeah, maybe.”

  Javier pushed away from the split-rail fence. “Got to give you one thing—she’s awfully pretty, and from what I saw of her at the church social, she’s not afraid to stand her ground. She’s got conviction. You need somebody like that, Trey. Too bad she’s on the wrong side of things.”

  Trey bristled. “Need someone like her? Is that how you see me? As a man who needs somebody to speak for him because I’m too weak to do it myself?”

  “You’re strong in ways I’ll never be able to understand, Trey. But you’ve got this way of thinking that everybody’s as good as you are. Few are. Most folks are a blend of good and bad. Nell Stokes appears to know that.”

  “I know that.”

  Javier shook his head. “Trouble is you have this idea you can change those other folks to come around to your way of seeing things.”

  “It’s called hope,” Trey argued.

  “It’s called impossible.” Javier glanced back at a couple of the other cowboys coming out of the bunkhouse, stretching and yawning. “We got the night shift,” he said as he pulled on his hat.

  Trey turned to the other hands. “You boys head on out. I need Javier here to help me.”

  “With what?” Javier’s eyebrows lifted with suspicion.

  “Come morning, we’re gonna pay a call on Henry Galway and see if we can work something out, a council or something to start decidin’ what’s fair. And then you are going to apologize to Mrs. Stokes for scaring the bejesus out of her and her son. But before we do any of that, we’re gonna head for the Stokes place and see if we can repair any of the damage done there before she and her boy get home. Get some rest, Javier. We leave at daybreak.”

  * * *

  But next morning when they reached the Stokes place, they were greeted by four men, each carrying a double-barreled shotgun. Trey recognized Henry Galway and Nell’s nephews. He assumed the other man must be her late husband’s cousin.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, raising two fingers to the brim of his hat by way of greeting. He noticed the burned-out chicken coop and the remains of the small fires that had been set close to the barn.

  “Nell, get out here,” Galway shouted without taking his eyes off Trey and Javier.

  She came to the door and waited.

  “You recognize either of these men?”

  Trey watched as she slowly walked across the yard. She looked first at him and then for a longer moment at Javier. Trey noticed how Javier ducked his head and pulled his hat lower over his eyes.

  “I do,” Nell said, and all four men raised the guns an inch higher and took half a step forward.

  “That man is Doc Addie’s brother-in-law, and both of them were at the church social I attended last Friday. You know who he is, Henry. Our families sit across the aisle from each other in church.” To Trey’s amazement, she walked directly to Javier and held out her hand. “I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced, sir. I am Nell Stokes, and you are?”

  Trey saw how Javier’s hand shook as he returned her greeting and mumbled his name.

  She turned around but did not move away from them, positioning herself in such a way that if anyone fired his weapon, she might be the victim. “Gentlemen, I believe you know my half brother, Henry Galway. This is my late husband’s cousin, Ernest Stokes.”

  “Go in the house, Sister,” Henry growled, ignoring her attempt at civility.

  “Not until you put down those guns,” she replied and continued to stand her ground.

  “Nell.” The man called Ernest simply stated her name, but Trey heard the warning in his tone.

  She ignored him. “Was there something you needed to discuss with me, Mr. Porterfield?”

  “For God’s sake, Nell,” her brother hissed.

  “I’ll thank you not to take our Lord’s name in vain, Henry, and furthermore, I would remind you that this is still my land and home. Therefore, I assume that whatever business these gentlemen have here, it is with me, not you.” She turned her back on her relatives and looked up at Trey. “If you had second thoughts about the need to keep watch over my property, Mr. Porterfield, I appreciate that. But my brother made good time and made sure it was safe for me to come home. As you can plainly see, everything is under control.”

  She might be speaking to him, but Trey was well aware her little lecture was really directed at her brother.

  “Holy…” Trey heard Javier mutter under his breath and knew he was impressed.

  “Just wanted to be sure everything was quiet and see if we might be able to help repair some of the damage,” Trey replied. “Glad to see you have all the protection you might need.”

  “More than enough,” she said. “But thank you for coming.”

  Trey turned his attention back to the four men. Henry and Ernest had lowered their guns, but the two younger men kept theirs at the ready. “Mr. Galway, I’m glad we had this chance to meet. I was wondering if perhaps you might organize a few of the sheep ranchers to become part of a council with me and some of the other cattle ranchers.”

  “And just why would I do that?”

  Trey removed his hat so the man could see his face clearly. “Because, sir, your brother-in-law has been killed, and if things continue on that kind of a path, there’s bound to be more bloodshed.”

  Ernest raised his gun again. “You threatenin’ us, mister?”

  “He’s trying to find a way to peace,” Nell said before Trey could respond. “Now lower your guns and keep them lowered.”

  Henry Galway studied Trey closely. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said after a long moment had passed in silence.

  Trey noticed that Henry’s sons and Ernest looked at Henry as if the man had gone loco.

  “Good. I’ll set up a time and place and—”

  “I’ll set the time and place,” Henry replied. “You worry about getting your kind to go along with this meeting.”

  “Fair enough,” Trey replied as he pulled his hat back on.

  “Neutral territory,” Javier insisted, and Henry nodded. “And we bring Reverend Moore just to make sure things are fair.”

  “Agreed,” Henry said.

  Nell started back toward the house, but pa
used after passing her brother and the others. “Thank you for your concern, Mr. Porterfield. Good day to you both.”

  “Ma’am.” Trey and Javier spoke in unison as they watched her enter the house.

  Her brother and the others seemed less impressed. “Just so we understand each other, Porterfield,” Henry said, “my sister don’t need you checking in on her property—or her.”

  “Half sister,” Trey couldn’t resist saying. Knowing he was on the verge of undoing the little progress he’d managed to make, he nodded to Javier, and the two of them rode away.

  * * *

  Henry wasted no time making his feelings about the whole encounter clear. He stormed into the house, followed by Ernest. “If you ever do something like that again, Nell, I swear I will make you regret the day you crossed me.”

  Nell marked the passage in her Bible she’d been pretending to read, set it aside, and looked up at him. “Do not threaten me, Henry.” She stood and brushed past both men. She opened the front door. “You should get home. You’ve left Lottie there on her own, and you know how she worries.”

  “That cowboy has got to you, woman,” Ernest grumbled. “His fancy talk and all has you thinking maybe you can do better than the likes of me.”

  Nell felt a bubble of laughter rising in her chest at the sheer lunacy of that statement. She swallowed hard to keep it at bay and faced Ernest. She wanted to say, I could set my sights on just about any man in the territory and do better than the likes of you, Ernest Stokes. But all she said was, “Good day, Ernest.”

  “Ernest stays,” Henry grumbled.

  “No. He doesn’t. And if I have to explain why to either of you, then I am in more danger from members of my own family than I ever was from those renegade cowboys. Now go home.” She fixed her eyes on her half brother’s weathered face until both men moved past her and out the door.

  “I’ll have Ira stay the night,” Henry said softly.

  “Thank you. Give Lottie my love.” She closed the door and, a few minutes later, saw both men and Spud walk up the trail and over the rise. She lifted the lace curtain and saw Ira feeding her burro and his father’s horse near the corral.

  The day passed as she and Ira cleaned up the aftermath of the attacks, ate a silent supper together with Joshua, and then mumbled their good nights. As she walked through the house extinguishing the lamps, she saw a lantern burning dimly in the barn and knew Ira had bedded down there for the night. She thought of going out and telling him to come inside where he could sleep in one of the extra bedrooms, but if trouble did come, he would be more likely to hear it if he was out there. She banked the fire in the kitchen stove and headed up the stairs.

  For once, Joshua was sleeping soundly. He was curled onto his side, the blankets thrown back.

  She covered Joshua and ran her fingers lightly through his hair before crossing the hall to the room she and Calvin had shared, to the double bed where they had once whispered their dreams and hopes for the future to each other. The bed that Calvin had abandoned in those last months of their marriage. Calvin had shown little interest in their son once he realized Joshua was not likely to develop into the strong boy he needed to take over the sheep ranch one day. Instead, Calvin had pushed her to produce more babies, and after she had miscarried three times, Calvin seemed to have given up. The last few months before he’d been killed had been hard ones for their marriage. They barely spoke. She was preoccupied with Joshua, and Calvin spent more time than usual out in the field or barn, coming to bed after she had already lain down for the night. The bed where she had lain awake these last several nights, listening for the trouble that seemed destined to come.

  She sat on the side of the bed, the wire springs creaking under her weight. She unlaced her shoes and removed them, then walked to the window, taking down her hair and brushing through the strands with her fingers. Outside, a nearly full moon cast a stream of light from the house onto the trail that led away from the ranch, the trail Trey Porterfield had followed to rescue her. Just after the raids, she had been too terrified to register details. But now as she stood at the window in the moonlight, it all came back to her.

  The strength of his arms enfolding her.

  The warmth that emanated from his body as he held her close and consoled her.

  The ease with which he had carried her into the house.

  The way she curled into him so naturally as he rode with her to Henry’s ranch.

  The steady beat of his heart against her cheek during the ride.

  The way his large hands practically encircled her waist when he lifted her down from the horse.

  The way his chuckle rumbled deep in his chest and his eyes crinkled with interest and concern.

  The scent of him—pine soap mingling with the worn leather of his vest and the unique fragrance of his skin.

  She ran her fingers over her throat and cheeks and thought of his hands, those long fingers that had combed through the tangles of her hair. She lifted her hair and inclined her head as if to receive his touch, his kiss on her neck. A shudder of desire coursed through her body like a waterfall freed from winter’s grip, and she instinctively stiffened to hold on to it.

  How long had it been?

  Too long.

  Never.

  Never like this.

  * * *

  “You don’t really think Galway will show up for this meeting, do you?” Javier said the following day as he and Trey rode slowly across the Porterfield land, checking for more vandalism.

  “Why wouldn’t he want to end this as much as I do—as we do?”

  “Because they think they can beat us, starve out our cattle and poison the water with that stuff that oozes from them woolies’ split hooves.”

  “That’s a myth, Javier. Don’t go believing everything Pete Collins tells you.” Trey had heard it before, the story that the gelatin secreted from the hooves of the sheep poisoned the water and grass so cattle would refuse to drink or graze. The truth was that while the strange scent stopped the cattle momentarily, in time, they ate or drank anyway with no harm. But he also knew this was a debate he would not win. “Nell Stokes recognized you, didn’t she?”

  “I guess. She saw me at the church social.”

  Trey clenched his fists, determined to hold his temper. “She saw you at her ranch as well. You and Collins and his men.” It was not a question, and Javier’s refusal to comment told him he was right. “Collins is going to end up shot one of these days. I’d just as soon you not be in the line of fire when it happens.”

  “We just thought to scare her a little. Just thought if we could run her off, then maybe—”

  “That ranch is all she and the boy have left in the world, Javier. Would you put them out with nothin’?”

  “Things got out of hand,” Javier admitted. “The others wouldn’t hear reason, so I left.”

  “Not soon enough,” Trey muttered. Neither man spoke for the rest of the ride back to the Porterfield ranch.

  They reached the corral and dismounted, and Trey could only hope he had given Javier something to think about. “Come on up to the house for your supper,” he said. Turning his back on Javier wouldn’t help his oldest friend find his way from all this needless violence and hatred. “Your ma claims it’s been too long since you sat down with her and your pa instead of with the other hands.”

  “I’ll just see to the horses first.”

  Trey nodded and hefted his saddle to rest on the split-log fence.

  “She’s something, that Stokes woman,” Javier said. “The way she stood there facing down her own brother.”

  Trey heard a grudging hint of respect in his friend’s words and smiled. “Yep. She’s quite a lady.”

  As usual, Trey couldn’t seem to stop thinking about Nell, long after he’d had his supper, checked on the herd, said good night to Juanita, and gone to the libr
ary where he opened his sketchbook. He drew a man and a woman on a horse, all the while reliving the rescue of Nell Stokes. There had been something so right about the way she had rested her head against his chest, her breath coming in even little puffs, her fist curled against the base of his throat. And before that, there had been the rage he’d felt on her behalf when he saw her collapse in tears in the dirt, energy spent, fear draining whatever strength she might have left.

  As he worked, he thought about Javier admitting he had been party to the raids. He knew if this were Addie who had been terrorized, Jess would have beat the living daylights out of Javier, friend or not. But that was not Trey’s way. The months he had spent sketching the wonders of Yellowstone had strengthened his natural bent toward finding the way to harmony—in nature and in life. Javier was his lifelong friend, as close to being a second brother as one could be without actual blood. Trey would no more strike Javier than he would Jess.

  But the way his friend had changed worried him—worried Juanita and Eduardo as well—and this twisting of the man he’d always seen as a brother was something Trey could not stand by and let happen. He thought about the way Javier had spoken with admiration for Nell. Maybe he was finally coming around. The thing about Javier was that the other cowboys respected him. Maybe asking Javier to go with him as his foreman and a man who held influence over other cowhands for the meeting with the sheep ranchers would turn his friend away from Pete Collins and back to the man Trey knew him to be.

  He had no intention of trying to recruit other ranchers at this point. He couldn’t think of a single one he might persuade to attend such a meeting. Once he’d had a chance to talk calmly with Henry Galway and whoever he brought along, then he would have the information he needed to talk to his fellow cattlemen.

  As he continued to work on the sketch, Trey smiled, imagining how grateful Nell Stokes would be if he could work something out so that the two factions could live in peace. It occurred to him she might even be inspired to give him a kiss, or at the very least, she might wrap her arms around his neck and hold him close. Of course, that led to the more carnal thoughts of lying with her. And just when he thought he’d settled his worries enough to finally get some sleep, he realized he had something else on his mind—his body entwined with hers, their appetite for each other insatiable.