Chapter Thirty-Five
Caleb held the deed in his hands while smoke drifted across the yard, forcing himself to study the page as though the words mattered more than the gun beneath Amy’s jaw.
Creed remained close enough to seize the papers if Caleb moved too quickly, while Dray watched with growing impatience and kept Amy trapped against him.
The barn groaned behind them as another section of the loft collapsed, sending sparks through the darkness. Men shouted near the western wall, and Caleb caught Russ’s voice directing the bucket line, though the thick smoke hid most of the yard from view.
Caleb lowered his gaze toward the final paragraph and let the silence stretch, hoping Dray would mistake caution for surrender. Amy’s hand remained beneath the edge of Dray’s coat, and the steady focus in her eyes told Caleb she was waiting for the opening he was trying to create.
“You’ve included the house,” Caleb said, though he had already read enough to understand that Dray intended to take every part of the ranch.
The man shifted his grip around Amy, drawing her more firmly against him. “The house stands on the property.”
“My wife’s belongings aren’t part of the deed.”
Dray’s mouth flattened into a displeased line. “You’re discussing furniture while your barn burns.”
“I’m discussing what remains after you finish stealing the land.”
Creed moved closer, clearly tired of standing between them with the folder open in his hands.
His gaze kept returning to the flames as they spread beyond the section of barn already burning, and unease tightened his face.
Caleb followed the look and understood; Creed might have started the fire, but even he could no longer be certain where it would stop.
Dray pressed the barrel of the gun harder beneath Amy’s jaw. “Your concern should remain on what happens if you refuse.” Amy drew a careful breath, and Caleb saw her fingers shift beneath Dray’s coat. He needed Dray to be looking at him when she moved.
Caleb turned another page and frowned as if he had found a troubling clause. “This says the transfer takes effect immediately.”
“It does.”
He let his gaze linger on it. “With the circuit judge arriving tomorrow? You expect me to believe a transfer made the night before he gets here won’t draw questions?”
Calvin Dray’s eyes narrowed. “The judge has no authority over an agreement willingly signed.”
Caleb almost looked toward the revolver beneath Amy’s jaw. Instead, he kept his attention on the deed, letting Dray believe the legality of the agreement had become his concern. “Willingly may be difficult to prove once Boone hears how you obtained it.”
Dray’s patience began to crack, along with his expression, though his voice remained controlled. “Sheriff Boone will hear that you accepted payment after the fire made the ranch impossible to maintain.”
Caleb looked toward Amy, allowing fear to show because Dray expected it. Amy’s face remained steady. He folded the deed once more, buying another hairsbreadth of time. “You expect me to believe Creed can burn the house while every hand on the ranch is outside?”
The man glanced toward his boss, then Caleb, insult sharpening his hardened expression. “I don’t need long.”
The answer gave Caleb more than he’d expected. Creed must have had men nearby, or he believed the confusion around the fire would protect him from anyone who tried to intervene. Caleb shifted his weight as though exhaustion had begun to overwhelm him. “Then give me the pen.”
Dray’s eyes brightened with satisfaction.
Creed reached into his coat and removed a fountain pen, extending it toward Caleb.
The movement drew him within arm’s reach, though Caleb refused the temptation to strike.
Any attack on Creed would give Dray time to fire, and Amy remained too close to the weapon.
Caleb took the pen and lowered the deed against the folder Creed held. His pulse beat hard and fast as he searched Amy’s face for any sign that she was ready. Her heel lifted slightly from the ground.
Caleb bent over the page.
“Sign,” Dray ordered impatiently.
Caleb placed the pen against the paper but kept his hand still, slowly lifting his head. “Jonah should have lived long enough to see you lose.”
The satisfaction left Dray’s face, replaced with irritation. “Jonah lost long before he died.”
Caleb pressed harder. Keeping Dray angry meant keeping his attention away from Amy. “Funny. He successfully kept my name on the deed for six years while you were trying to get your hands on this land. Doesn’t sound much like losing.”
Dray’s jaw tightened. “He only delayed the inevitable.”
“Long enough for me to come back.” Caleb tilted his head, considering Calvin Dray. “That must bother you.”
Anger broke through Dray’s polished restraint. “Your signature, Whitaker!”
Caleb kept his gaze fixed on Caleb, giving Amy the opening she needed.
“Sign!” Dray repeated, louder now as the fire roared behind him.
At that moment, Amy drove her heel down against Dray’s foot and twisted with enough force to wrench her body sideways. At the same instant, she shoved both hands against his gun arm, using the one inside his coat to tangle the fabric around it.
The revolver fired.
The shot tore through the smoke and struck the barn wall, firing splinters near Creed. He dropped the folder and recoiled while Amy tried to run. Dray caught her shoulder and struck her across the face with the butt of the revolver.
Caleb reached him before Amy hit the ground. He drove his shoulder into Dray and knocked him away from her, sending the revolver into the dirt. Dray stumbled backward, but remained upright, and Caleb hit him across the jaw with enough force to turn his head.
“Amy, run!” Caleb shouted.
She crawled away from them as Hollis Creed lunged for the fallen gun. Russ appeared through the smoke and struck the man with a shovel before he could reach it. Creed staggered, then swung at him, and the two men disappeared from Caleb’s view as the smoke obscured them.
Dray charged.
Caleb braced himself and caught the blow against his shoulder, then drove him backward toward the side of the barn.
The man fought with more strength than Caleb expected, grabbing Caleb’s coat and striking him near the mouth before trying to throw him into the burning wall.
Heat scorched Caleb’s back as he twisted free.
He seized Dray by the lapels and drove him into the dirt, but he rolled before Caleb could pin him.
They staggered up together, and Dray swung again, his polished control gone as rage distorted his face. Caleb blocked the blow and struck him beneath the ribs, then followed with another hit that sent him staggering.
Calvin Dray had placed a gun beneath Amy’s jaw. He had ruined Caleb’s name and forced Jonah into silence. He had spent years tearing apart the life two young men built. Every memory fed the fury driving Caleb forward.
Dray caught Caleb across the cheek, and pain flashed through him, though it barely slowed him. Caleb seized the man’s coat and drove him into the ground, landing above him while Dray fought beneath his weight.
“You should have stayed gone,” Dray gasped as he tried to shield his face.
Caleb struck him again, and his words blurred beneath the roar of the fire. Caleb saw Amy held at gunpoint and Jonah dying before forgiveness could reach him, while every year of disgrace returned with crushing force.
Caleb hit Calvin Dray until the man’s resistance weakened.
Dray’s hands loosened, then fell away from Caleb’s coat, yet Caleb continued because stopping felt impossible.
The rage had lived inside him for too long, surviving every mile he’d traveled after leaving Copper Bend, and every night he’d imagined Jonah choosing silence without regret.
Now the real perpetrator lay beneath him, and Caleb wanted the man to feel the full weight of everything he had destroyed.
A ranch hand caught Caleb’s shoulder, but he threw it off without really looking.
“Caleb.” Amy’s voice reached him through the smoke. He raised his fist again. “Caleb, look at me.”
The fear in her voice cut through the fury. Caleb froze, his arm suspended above Calvin Dray, his breath coming harshly. Dray lay motionless beneath him, his face bruised and bloodied, his body slack against the dirt.
Caleb turned. Amy stood several feet away with one hand pressed against her cheek. Her dress was streaked with soot, and fear remained clear in her eyes, though she had refused to stay down. She was looking at Caleb as though she barely recognized the man kneeling before her.
That realization struck harder than Calvin’s blows.
He did not want to become a monster in her eyes.
Caleb lowered his arm. His hands trembled as he pushed himself upright, and for several breaths, he couldn’t move away from the man at his feet.
Rage still urged him to finish what he had begun, but Amy’s voice held him more firmly than anger ever could.
Russ emerged through the smoke with Hollis Creed bent forward beneath his grip. One ranch hand secured Creed’s arms behind his body while another collected the revolver from the dirt. “Dray’s finished,” Russ said, his voice rough from smoke. “Leave him for Boone.”
Caleb looked down at him. Blood ran from his split lip and darkened the dirt beneath his cheek, while one eye was already swelling beneath the bruises spreading across his face. He lay where Caleb had left him, his expensive coat ground into the ash and mud.
The sight of his own bloody knuckles made Caleb’s stomach tighten. Another few blows might have carried him past a line he could never have taken back. The sight brought him no relief, though it did end the hold that fury had kept on him.
Amy swayed when she tried to step forward, so Caleb gathered her into his arms before she could fall, holding her with enough care to make his hands shake harder.
Amy pressed herself against him and gripped the back of his coat tightly.
Caleb lowered his face into her hair and struggled to breathe through the smoke and terror.
“I thought I had lost you,” he said, his voice rough from smoke and emotion.
“You didn’t.” Her voice trembled, but the certainty within it steadied him.
Caleb drew back enough to examine the mark forming across her cheek. “He struck you.”
“But I’m still here.”
The simple answer stopped the anger from rising again. Caleb touched Amy’s face carefully, then pulled her close as the barn smoldered behind them and the men continued fighting the remaining flames.
Russ called for someone to ride for Sheriff Boone, while Creed struggled beneath the ranch hands’ grip and Dray remained still in the dirt. Caleb barely heard them.
Amy was alive in his arms, and the ranch still stood beyond the burning barn.
Calvin Dray had tried to force the same choice upon him that he had forced upon Jonah, yet fear hadn’t taken everything this time.
The life Jonah had protected and the home Amy had created had survived the night with them.