Chapter 15
CHAPTER 15
Cally raced Finn up the riverbank toward the house, the loud rush of the tumbling river having drowned out the arrival of the newcomers. Only a chance glance toward the front porch, an involuntary glance, one that sought out her prince, showed her someone had arrived.
“What’s happened?” she called out, breathing fast as she skirted the front flower garden, headed for the porch, Finn at her side.
He was a good friend that way. They both knew he could run faster, but he never did, always keepin’ at her side, just the way she never rode faster than him, unless they were in a race.
Bart was sprinting over from the barn. Two of the ranch hands came along behind him at a slower pace, leading Bart’s palomino stallion Zeus and another horse, a handsome bay named Ares, for Max—they’d been planning a ride around the ranch, Max wanting to see what the land looked like in this century, so’s that he could restore the Crown of the West Ranch in his century back as close to that when he went home.
The news the newcomers had brought must be bad, because none of them got off their horses.
“Prince Hugo’s men tried to kidnap two-year-old Jeremiah Fielding,” Doc said, reaching down to accept a glass of lemonade from Flora, who’d hurried outside with a tray.
His silver star badge glinting in the sun, Sheriff Sam—straight backed and angry—looked like a thundercloud, ready to boom, and strike with danger.
Roy took a long swallow from his glass. “Good thing we were out this way with a posse to stop his men from building a fence across a section of the Madden land.”
“ More ?” Max said, having come down the porch steps, Cally stopping at his side. Dressed in his cowboying clothes, he looked more like himself, his hair tousled, not slicked back, the funny puff in his cheeks gone. He spoke in his normal voice, not his butler one, and Finn gave him a quick, puzzled glance. “Hugo’s done all that just today ?”
“He’s one of those men who’ll do whatever he wants,” Bart said as his boots pounded up the steps for the front door, Bart passing Ma as she came outside with a silver tray stacked with sandwiches, followed by a sleepy-looking Livie, “and won’t think twice about harming someone to get his own way.”
Max’s expression turned resigned as Bart went inside, and Cally figured he’d heard such things before about his ancestor. But it was one thing to hear about long-ago history, and another to have a terrible bad relative staring you in the face.
“The man’s a horror show,” Max said, and Cally wondered what that was.
“How is Jeremiah?” Livie asked Doc, Doc and the others eating the sandwiches hungrily. Livie had looked sleepy from her nap when she’d first come out, but she’d sharpened up her thoughts real fast when she heard the riders’ news.
“Physically, he’s fine,” Doc said between bites of ham and cheese, his round face damp with sweat. “Just a bit skittish, and unwilling to be parted with his wooden toy rifle.” Beside Cally, Max’s body stiffened, anger crossing his face. “Marilee is keeping him close.”
“We rode up just as Prince Hugo’s men were trying to snatch him,” Roy said. “Thank you, Flora.” A beef sandwich in one hand, he handed her his empty glass as Bart stepped back outside, this time with his guns—two pistols in his gun belt, his Winchester rifle gripped in his hand. “Some of the men from our posse are escorting the family here for safekeeping, if you don’t mind, Bart.”
“They’re always welcome,” Bart said and gave Livie a swift kiss, Livie gripping his sleeve for a long moment before he strode down the porch steps to Zeus. “You know that.”
“Seein’ as how you have guests from out of town…” Roy said.
“Nonsense,” Ma said. “Kit and Sally have plenty of room.”
“We weren’t sure,” Doc said, “what with Robert’s wife and children already staying with them.”
“Sally will be glad for the company. If it gets too crowded, our other guests” —the suitors, she meant— “are leaving tomorrow, and the two families can move into the guest cabin.” The kind expression Cally knew so well filled her ma’s face. “I imagine Matthew and Marilee are distressed over what nearly happened to their son.”
“More like ready to kill,” Sheriff Sam said. “Those henchmen of Prince Hugo’s came right up to the back of their house and tried to snatch Jeremiah from the back porch.”
Cally’s heart clenched.
Bart mounted Zeus.
“I’m goin’ with you,” Cally said and turned for the porch steps. “As soon as I get my rifle.”
“ No ,” Max said, along with everyone else around the porch, but the voice that carried the day was Mrs. James’s.
“Calliope Victoria James,” she told her daughter as she ascended the porch steps and set her empty silver tray on the picnic table, “you have five young men here at the ranch for the express purpose of spending time with you. You will stay here and be present at afternoon tea.”
Standing at the foot of the steps, Miss Calliope looked up at her mother, her pretty face turning mutinous.
“And I shall keep you company,” Max said, looping his arm in Miss Calliope’s, knowing the lawmen wouldn’t want him to come along.
But he was wrong.
“I’d like your opinion of your…countryman, Max,” Creede said, with a swift glance at Finn, who had turned on his heel and was running for the barn. With his dust-filmed chaps and leather vest, blue plaid shirt, cowboy hat, and silver star, Creede was every inch the Old West lawman. “About what you think he’s trying to gain by today’s actions, and everything else he’s done since he’s come here.”
Max gaped at the man. The legendary Sheriff Sam Creede wanted his help? “Low profile, remember?” Max said.
“You don’t have to go within sight of him,” Creede said and drained the last of his lemonade. “But I would like you to come along and hear firsthand from the other ranchers what he’s been doing.”
“A powwow of sorts?” Max said.
“Yes,” Creede said, his voice like steel. “Exactly that.”
Elation raced through Max’s chest. He was going to ride in a posse with Sam Creede.
Visions of the adventures of the legendary sheriff—scenes, really, from the TV series, which faithfully followed the old books Max had devoured as a child—rushed through his head, Livia sending him an amused glance, as if she was reading his thoughts.
Finn rode back fast toward the porch on his buckskin horse from the barn. “Beggin’ your pardon, Mrs. James,” the young man said to Miss Calliope’s mother, his young face grave. “But I reckon Sheriff Sam and his posse could use another gun.”
“ No guns ,” Max said, that existential panic hitting him again.
“Only if necessary,” Creede said, not reassuring Max at all.
“Of course, Finn,” Mrs. James said from the porch. “We’ll expect you back with Bart and Max.”
With words of thanks to Mrs. James and Mrs. Zandt, the men already on horseback started back down the drive, moving fast, Finn following.
Bart, astride his palomino stallion, gave Max a pointed look and jerked a nod toward the bay horse, which one of the ranch hands, Nick, still held, the horse—with a sleek black mane and tail, and black stockings—an upgrade from the perfectly acceptable sorrel he’d ridden yesterday.
Pressing his cowboy hat more firmly on his head, and hoping it wouldn’t fly off as he rode away—no one else seemed to be wearing the chinstraps that came with the hats—Max unlooped his arm from Miss Calliope’s. He would prove his worth to be a part of that posse. He would find a sane, non-lethal way to remove his ancestor Hugo from the countryside.
He would protect Miss Calliope from Hugo’s depredations.
Before he could step away, Miss Calliope caught his green sleeve, thwarted ambition still mulish in her blue eyes, but her pretty mouth seemed, he was sure, trying not to grin, and he knew she’d guessed what had put the alacrity in his step. “You be careful out there, prince,” she told him, the grin finally breaking free.
“Wish me luck,” he said, grinning back, feeling like a character in the Creede TV show, heading out after dangerous villains. Riding the wave of elation, he grasped her by her slim shoulders and kissed her.