The Lone Rancher

Chapter Twelve

Quin tossed, turned and cursed because he couldn’t fall asleep. He knew it didn’t have a damn thing to do with the long nap he’d had after he’d been released from jail.

She was leaving. The words took hold of his thoughts and twisted his heart out of shape. The only enjoyment he’d experienced the past two years was being with Boston. She’d touched off emotions he’d placed in cold storage after his traitorous family had walked out on him. Boston’s quick wit and courage impressed him. She brightened his life and touched his soul. Not to mention that she set his body on fire in the heat of passion.

And she was leaving.

Scowling, Quin rolled off the bed in the master suite and stared out the window. He considered traipsing downstairs to pour himself a drink, but he knew that wouldn’t appease him. What he wanted was sleeping in his former bedroom.

Admitting defeat, he wrapped a towel around his naked hips and headed for the door. He tiptoed down the hall to let himself into Boston’s room. He inwardly groaned when a shaft of moonlight slanted across the bed, illuminating her curly dark hair and enchanting face.

“Cahill? Are you all right? Is your head hurting again?”

“No, just the rest of me,” he murmured as he eased the door shut, locked it behind him, then went to stand over her.

“Is there something I can do to make you feel better?”

“Yes, you can give me you,” he whispered as he eased down on the edge of the bed.

Her soft snicker turned his heart wrong side out. The touch of her hand on his bare chest made him burn with feverish desire in the space of a breath. And when she levered herself up to press her lush lips to his, Quin drowned in the heady sensations she never failed to arouse in him.

“I’m gonna miss you like crazy, Boston,” he rumbled as he discarded the towel and stretched out beside her.

“But I’m here now,” she whispered throatily. “We have tonight.”

Yes, they did, Quin mused as he tunneled his hand beneath her silky nightgown. “One of Rosa’s creations?” he mumbled against her parted lips.

“Of course. One of a kind.”

“I’d like it even better if you weren’t wearing it,” he insisted as he drew the shimmering fabric over her head and tossed it in the same direction as the towel. “You look best wearing nothing but me….”

When he lowered his head to blaze a path of kisses down the slender curve of her throat to the beaded peaks of her breasts, she moaned softly. Quin loved that sound. He enjoyed pleasuring her and he ached to have her want him to the same mindless extreme that he wanted her.

When he teased her nipples with thumb and forefinger, he heard her breath catch and felt her body melt against him. A coil of heat scorched him as she brought his mouth back to hers. Her arms came around his neck and she kissed him as if the world was ending and they had only one breath left.

Quin swore his eyes had rolled back in his head and he was on the brink of passing out when her adventurous fingertips moved hither and yon, investigating the various textures of his flesh. He held his breath when her caresses descended across his belly, then stroked him from base to tip.

He lost the ability to breathe or think. He could do nothing more than feel the intense pleasure building with each unhurried caress of her hand. Pulsating awareness pelted him as she eased him onto his back, then hovered above him.

When she smiled down at him, her cedar-tree-green eyes sparkling in the shaft of moonlight, he marveled at her incredible beauty. He tried to conjure up the face of any other woman who compared to Boston’s striking beauty and irrepressible spirit. No one came to mind. She mystified him. Knowing she wanted nothing more from him than another night of splendor they could provide for each other tormented him. He, who had been too busy managing the 4C alone, wanted Boston to need him to the same degree that he’d come to need her….

His thoughts fizzled out when her curly hair glided over his laboring chest like a provocative caress. She skimmed her warm mouth over the length of his hard shaft and he groaned in unholy torment. When she took him into her mouth and measured him with her tongue and teeth Quin swore she was going to kill him with pleasure—and he wasn’t going to protest.

His lungs practically collapsed when he tried to drag in a shaky breath. His heart hammered hard enough in his chest to crack ribs. She shattered his self-control and made him a willing slave to each lingering touch of her hands and lips—and he loved every minute of it.

Quin swore she had dragged him to the crumbling edge and he was on the verge of a mindless fall into rapturous oblivion. But then she pulled him back to seduce him again—one intimate kiss and caress at a time—and he moaned achingly.

It was unsettling to have one’s emotions strung out like laundry on a clothesline for someone else to see. But Boston laid his body and soul bare and he suddenly didn’t care about anything except being with her….

Indescribable sensations sizzled through him and a wild burst of pleasure crashed over him like a wave, towing him into an undercurrent of passion so wide and deep he couldn’t find his way back to the surface.

“Enough,” he croaked, surprised he could speak at all. “You’re killing me, Boston. I need you…now.”

She raised her head where she lay between his legs and smiled impishly. “You don’t need me enough yet, Cahill.”

When she glided her hands up and down his throbbing length, then nibbled at him again, Quin swore he was going to explode. He couldn’t endure another moment of this intense pleasure without shattering in a million pieces. He rolled sideways, taking Boston to her back. Only then could he drag in a restorative breath and grasp the flying reins of his self-restraint.

“You are going to pay for that, vixen,” he promised wickedly. “We’ll see when enough is enough….”

Adrianna sorely wished she hadn’t tormented Quin with erotic seduction because he turned it back upon her. Yet, she had been fascinated by the power she seemed to hold over him. She delighted in the husky sounds of his pleasure and savored the feel of his masculine body tensing, then melting, beneath her intimate touch.

Her thoughts scattered like ashes in a storm when Quin worked his way down her body one inch at a time. Each kiss, each caress, was an aphrodisiac that left her head spinning like a windmill and her body quivering with inexpressible sensations that burned her alive. Even when she swore she couldn’t survive another moment of the fiery pleasure, her body cried out for more of the soul-shattering ecstasy bursting inside her.

Then he pressed his mouth against her in the most intimate of kisses and tasted her desire for him. Spasms of passion uncoiled inside her, consuming her very being. Desperate, she grabbed Quin by the hair and pulled him upward. She wrapped her hand around his rigid length and guided him exactly to her. Then she looked up to see those mercury-colored eyes shimmering in the moonlight and she knew she was gazing into the face of the man she loved. She must love him because the feeling of his powerful body surging into hers made her feel whole, alive and content.

He angled his ruffled head to kiss her as he plunged deeper and Adrianna knew he had taken her body, heart and soul into his possession….

And she was going to leave him in the morning and pretend tonight was only about lust because that’s the way Quin Cahill wanted it. The 4C came first and foremost and he indulged in passionate trysts when it was convenient.

“Adrianna—” Her name tumbled off his tongue in a husky drawl and she arched helplessly against him, giving all she was and demanding all he had to give.

He shuddered against her and she clamped her arms around his shoulders and her legs around his muscled hips. She held on tightly because her world was tumbling helter-skelter in incredible sensations. Pleasure burst inside her like fireworks on the Fourth of July and she nearly passed out from the overwhelming pleasure of it all.

Adrianna held him close until they could breathe normally again. She thought their first night together had been nothing short of phenomenal but tonight defied description. She wondered what it would be like to make love with him for the rest of her life….

When he pressed a gentle kiss to her cheek, then eased down beside her, she tossed aside her whimsical thoughts and snuggled up beside him. She knew he’d be gone by first light to keep up appearances in the household.

At least she had the rest of the night. Adrianna didn’t care how much—or how little—sleep she got because she could catch up during the lonely nights ahead. With that in mind, she kissed Quin and let go of every inhibition. She showed him without words that she was helplessly, madly in love with him….



The next morning Quin was sitting at the dining table, sampling Elda’s special-brewed coffee, when Boston ambled into the room. He wanted to draw her down on his lap and hold her possessively. Unfortunately, Elda whizzed through the door, carrying a stack of pancakes and bacon that made his mouth water. When she set the plates on the table, then turned away, Quin reached out impulsively to give Boston a pat on the derriere when she walked by.

She arched a brow and looked down at him, surprised.

No more surprised by that display than I am, thought Quin. He wasn’t one for affectionate gestures, but with Boston, it was different. He was different….

And she was leaving him…. Gawd, he hated the thought.

“Did you sleep well, Boston?” he asked teasingly.

She peered at him over the rim of her coffee cup. “Well enough, I suppose.” Her green eyes sparkled with playful mischief. “I don’t recall that much about last night. I must have been tired after the long, hectic day.”

He pulled a face and she snickered impishly. “How did you sleep, Cahill?”

“Not well. I woke up several times.” He stared meaningfully at her while she hid her grin behind her cup.

“Really? What kept you up?”

She knew perfectly well that she had kept him up in every way imaginable. Not that he was complaining, mind you. She could disturb him every night the rest of his life if she were so inclined. Last night was the best night without sleep he’d ever had. He wanted to tell her so but Butler entered the room to cast him a frown and a knowing stare. Quin returned it full force. Butler couldn’t lecture him without sounding like a hypocrite.

“I’m still planning on moving our belongings home this morning, but not until after we canvass Phantom Springs with Lucas and Dog,” Boston informed Butler.

Butler’s hazel eyes widened in surprise, then he resumed his expressionless stare. The man was a master at it. “We will be packed and ready, Addie K.” He glanced at Quin. “I will need to remove several items from your safe before I go.”

Quin nodded agreeably, then settled down to eat with his new family—who would be gone by noon. Aw, hell! He would be greeted again by deafening silence and he’d rattle around the oversize house like a ghost looking for his lost soul. Maybe he could borrow Dog for a companion, he mused.

After all, Lucas had a wife and Quin had none.

If that didn’t work, he supposed he could try to lure Bea and Butler away since they were a matched set. Let Boston see how she liked being alone all the blessed time.

The sudden rap at the door brought Quin to his feet. He rounded the corner to the foyer to see Lucas Burnett, dressed in black as usual, and Dog standing on the stoop.

“Too early?” Burnett asked.

“Not if you want a stack of melt-in-your-mouth pancakes.”

Burnett grinned in anticipation. “I hear Elda is a gourmet cook. I suppose I should see for myself.”

Dog followed Burnett inside and Quin looked at Dog and said, “What? No bow tie this morning?”

“Not while he’s working,” Burnett replied, straight-faced.

Quin reached down to pat the oversize animal. “I’ll trade Dog for flapjacks and a dozen head of my best longhorns.”

“No deal,” said Burnett.

“Boston is leaving and I’m stuck with my own company.”

Burnett shot Quin a pensive glance on his way through the door. Quin glanced down to note the wolf dog had plopped down in the opening to the dining room, as if he owned the place. He rested his oversize head on his oversize paws.

“There, you see? Dog has made himself at home already.”

“The answer is still no. Get your own wife and dog,” Burnett said. “I’m not sharing either one.”

Quin sighed in frustration and resumed his seat at the table. “Thanks for nothing, Burnett.”

“I’m here to track and scout, Cahill. That’s all the help you get,” he said, then grinned before he dived into the tasty pancakes.



Amazed and impressed, Adrianna watched Lucas and Quin move methodically around the site where the dead man had collapsed. They expanded the perimeters, looking for footprints and evidence of the three outlaws that had been at the scene.

Lucas squatted down on his haunches, his midnight-black eyes focused on the set of horse prints that were barely visible in the loose rock. “Someone wiped the area clean,” he concluded. “Except for this overlooked partial print.”

“The same way the wagon wreck site might have been wiped clean, so as not to arouse suspicion,” Quin murmured contemplatively. He picked up a broken branch that was thick with leaves. “This is likely the makeshift broom they used.”

When Dog appeared on the rocky ledge above, and then barked, the threesome hiked uphill to see another boot print they had overlooked.

“I wonder if this thug was the gang’s lookout,” Quin mused aloud. “He had the best view of the area from here.”

Lucas nodded his raven head. “He was probably the sharpshooter, in case you caused more trouble than anticipated.”

Adrianna shivered, unnerved by the possibility that Cahill might have been gunned down if he had been able to identify his assailant.

“We’ll follow the sparse tracks to see if all three lead to town or to a nearby ranch,” Lucas suggested as he sidestepped downhill. “These outlaws are holed up somewhere.”

Adrianna pulled the watch from her pocket to check the time. “Blast it, I need to leave. I promised to be back before noon.”

She glanced at Quin, whose closed, controlled expression revealed none of his feelings. Adrianna tried her best to mimic his expression. “Thank you for helping us, Lucas,” she said when he halted beside her. She pushed up on tiptoe to press a kiss to his bronzed cheek.

“You’re welcome, but we’re a long way from identifying or locating these outlaws,” Lucas reminded her.

“If we can prove Cahill was a victim, not the shooter, we will be moving in the right direction.” She zigzagged around the boulders to reach her horse. “Cahill doesn’t look good in jail. The iron bars clash with his complexion.”

Leaving both men chuckling, she trotted Buckshot through the trees and across the meadow to reach the house. As expected, Bea, Butler and Elda waited beside the loaded buggy. Butler had already tossed Adrianna’s carpetbag beneath the seat and he was ready to roll.

“Find anything useful?” Butler asked as he boosted Bea and Elda onto the two-seated carriage.

“Afraid we didn’t find much,” Adrianna grumbled. “Lucas and Cahill are trying to pick up a trail leading away from the site, but most of the area was brushed clean.”

“Confounded thugs were thorough,” Bea muttered as she settled her calico skirts around her. “Who would have thought you could expect exceptional housecleaning skills from a band of murdering thieves?”

Adrianna thought about that for a long moment. The more she contemplated, the more she believed the men involved in the murder had also been on hand to remove evidence and tracks from the wagon wreck that killed Quin’s parents. There were several similarities. Maybe this wasn’t just a devious attempt to extort money from Cahill as she first thought.

She frowned, befuddled. So why had the bandits decided to extort money and bring up incriminating information two years after the fact? Or had one gang member taken it upon himself to contact Cahill. Maybe his cohorts discovered his plot to make extra money for himself and disposed of him.

Adrianna scowled, frustrated with the chaos Cahill faced. She wanted answers, just as Cahill did. Someone around here had to know something. At least one of the three other men had to have seen what happened to the dead man. And what, if anything, had the dead man known about the wagon wreck? Adrianna wanted Quin to know the truth. It wouldn’t bring back his parents and he might not be able to reconcile with Bowie, Chance and Leanna, but still…

Her thoughts scattered as the carriage passed the small pasture north of the 4C bunkhouse. Adrianna snapped to attention. She recognized the second horse—the strawberry roan—tied to the hitching post the night she borrowed the brown gelding with three white stockings to follow Cahill to Phantom Springs.

“Go ahead without me,” she instructed her companions as she reined Buckshot north. “There’s something I need to check before I meet you at home.”

Butler eyed her apprehensively. “This isn’t going to turn out like the Phantom Springs incident, is it?”

She flashed her best smile. “No, don’t fret. I’ll be home in time for supper.”

“You’d better be,” Butler said, then gave her a look that said, Or else…

The dear man was more protective of her than her own father!

When the threesome drove away, Adrianna trotted her dapple-gray gelding to the bunkhouse where only one horse waited at the hitching post.

“Yoo-hoo!” she called out as she poked her head around the partially opened door.

The red-haired, freckle-faced cowboy—who looked to be three or four years older—smiled a greeting as he stuffed clothing into a dingy canvas knapsack. “Can I help you, Miz McKnight?”

Adrianna strode forward to extend her hand. “We haven’t met formally but I’ve seen you around the 4C.”

“I’m Otha Hadley,” the bowlegged cowboy introduced.

“Are you leaving the ranch and looking for another job?” she asked curiously.

“No, ma’am. I’m getting married this weekend.” His smile was so wide it affected every feature of his face. “Cahill told me if Zoe Daniels accepted my proposal I could rent the abandoned cabin on the north range and fix it up in my spare time. I’m just moving up there to spiffy it up and keep watch on 4C cattle.”

“Congratulations, Otha.” She discreetly surveyed the bunkhouse lined with beds that had wooden trunks for footboards. “That was generous of Cahill.”

“Yes, ma’am. He’s always been fair and good to me.”

Adrianna sincerely hoped she hadn’t misjudged the cowboy. So much was going on around here that she still wasn’t sure whom she could trust. “I was wondering if you could tell me which ranch hand favors that strawberry roan gelding I noticed in your corral.”

Otha set aside his knapsack and strode to the window. “That’s Ezra Fields’s main mount,” he reported, then frowned. “Why’d you ask?”

Adrianna shrugged nonchalantly. “I saw it somewhere that seemed out of place.” She watched Otha intently as he shifted uneasily, then returned to his bunk to gather his clothes.

“Something’s wrong. What is it?” she demanded as she followed on his heels. “If you are as loyal to Cahill as you say you are, then I need to know what’s troubling you, Otha. Cahill was set up for murder. I want to know who is responsible.”

Otha avoided her direct stare and neatly folded his well-patched shirt. “Well, I don’t like to speak ill of folks, even ones who speak ill of others.”

“Speak ill of whom? Cahill?” she questioned, confused.

He paused from his chore to glance at the door to make sure no one was listening. “No, Ezra is always in Cahill’s ear, speaking ill of you. He seems suspicious of everything you do and makes everything out to be bad. ’Course, no one was happy when Rock went to work for you, but Ezra keeps talking about how you are stealing cattle and setting prairie fires to undermine 4C.”

Adrianna’s eyes widened in surprise. So that’s why Cahill had been so wary, just as she had been wary of him because…Chester Purvis had been casting aspersions about Cahill to her and Chester mentioned that supposed curse every other day.

Blast it, were those two cowboys from opposite sides of the adjoining fence in cahoots? Had they been involved in the extortion scheme that ended in murder? Had they set the fire that destroyed the new addition to her house?

“You okay, Miz McKnight?” the red-haired cowboy asked.

“I’m not sure.” She glanced around the bunkhouse. “Which bunk does Ezra Fields use?”

Otha shifted uneasily. “We got a pact about not messing with another man’s stuff,” he said, but he pointed left.

“You didn’t see this,” she insisted as she made a beeline for the bunk by the door—and more specifically the trunk at the end of the bed.

She halted to lock the door, then pulled a few banknotes from the pocket of her breeches. “Consider this a wedding gift, not a bribe for silence, Otha. I need your cooperation.”

He nodded somberly and refused the money, until she crammed it in his knapsack. Then she lurched around to open Ezra’s trunk. The faint whiff of kerosene rose from the rolled-up garments. Anger roiled inside her as she dug to the bottom of the trunk to pluck up a pair of stained breeches.

No doubt, Ezra Fields had slopped kerosene on his clothes while starting a fire—the fire that torched her new addition. She also had the sneaking suspicion that her employee, Chester Purvis, was the one who favored the brown horse with white stockings that she had commandeered. She presumed Ches had helped Ezra ignite the fire.

A thorough inspection of Ezra’s trunk didn’t turn up Cahill’s stolen money from Phantom Springs, but it confirmed her suspicions about Ezra’s lack of loyalty. Adrianna silently fumed, certain the double-crossing cowboys were likely involved in rustling as well as arson. She wouldn’t be surprised to learn they were involved in murder, as well.

Adrianna rolled up the kerosene-splattered breeches and headed for the door. “Not one word about this, Otha,” she ordered, staring him down like a gunfighter at twenty paces.

“No, ma’am,” he promised.

She unlocked the door, then studied the freckle-faced, bowlegged cowboy for a long intense moment. She decided she could trust him. He had too much at stake—like a good-paying job and a rented cabin to begin his married life.

Adrianna hurried outside to tuck the breeches in her saddlebag before passersby noticed. Then she hightailed it to her own bunkhouse to confirm her suspicions about Chester Purvis. He had tried to keep her at odds with Cahill and had to be involved in this devious scheme, she predicted angrily. But he wasn’t going to get away with it!



Quin blew out an agitated breath when the set of tracks he and Burnett had followed for an hour disappeared into the trampled dust and dozens of other tracks on the road leading to and from Ca-Cross.

“Wild-goose chase,” Burnett mumbled, voicing Quin’s disgruntled thoughts aloud.

“No way of telling if the outlaws met up later or took their cuts of the money and split up until things cooled down,” Quin muttered. “Worse, I don’t have a description of those ruffians.”

“Sorry Dog and I weren’t more help.” Burnett reined his Appaloosa gelding named Drizzle toward town. “Let me know if something turns up and we’ll work the case together.”

Quin watched his friend and Dog trot off, then he reversed direction to head home…to an empty house and deafening silence. The discouraging thought did nothing to improve his glum mood. He’d hit a dead end trying to exonerate himself. He still didn’t know if his parents’ deaths were a hapless accident or the result of a robbery gone bad.

And Boston had gone home… Damn it, he missed her already.

Despite the past few rotten days, his mood improved when he reached headquarters an hour later to see Boston’s favorite horse tethered near his front door. Nothing would make him happier than to have her show up with an excuse to spend another night.

When he sailed through the door, she was waiting in the foyer. Impulsively, he picked her up off the floor and kissed the breath out of her.

“Mmm…I’m glad to see you, too, Cahill,” she whispered as she hooked her legs around his hips, then offered him a kiss as hungry and urgent as the one he’d planted on her lips. Then she unwrapped her legs and put her feet on the floor. “But we have a problem.”

“Seems like we’ve had a lot of those lately. Are you referring to one specifically or all of them collectively?”

He frowned warily when she retrieved a gunnysack sitting beside the coatrack near the door. She reached inside to display two pairs of breeches that smelled like kerosene.

“Where’d you find those?” he muttered, outraged. “They sure as hell aren’t mine. You know I didn’t—”

“I know,” she cut in quickly. “One pair belongs to your man Ezra Fields. I had Otha point out his trunk so I could check his gear. By the way, that was a nice thing you did for Otha, letting him rent the cabin so he and his intended bride would have a place to call home.”

“Yes, well, I didn’t know if his sweetheart at the dance hall was toying with him to get him to buy her gifts or if she was sincere. I’m glad she cares about Otha.” He waited a beat, then said, “What about Ezra and kerosene?”

“I remembered seeing two horses at your bunkhouse and I borrowed one to follow you to Phantom Springs,” she reminded him. “I thought it strange when I realized one horse belonged at 4C and the other saddle horse came from my ranch.”

Quin jerked up his head and frowned. “It isn’t Rocky, is it? Damn him!”

“No, it’s Chester Purvis. I found a pair of stained breeches in his trunk, too.”

Quin swore foully. “So they are working together.”

“They have been badmouthing each of us to keep our personal feud alive, as well as spreading speculations about that ridiculous curse,” she replied. “I’m willing to bet they are involved in rustling and extortion, as well.”

“Damn it to hell!” Quin roared.

“I think we should shoot them and be done with them,” Boston said vindictively. “It makes me furious when I recall how much frustration they have caused by stealing our cattle, talking behind our backs and setting fires.”

Quin grabbed the second pair of breeches and stuffed them in the gunnysack. “I think I’ll save the shooting until later. I’ll be waiting to see if those sneaky bastards join up after dark to swipe more cattle. I still haven’t found the dozen calves stolen this week.”

“I’m going with you,” she volunteered.

“No, you are not,” he said vehemently.

Quin knew the moment the words were out of his mouth that he’d wasted his breath. Boston flashed that fiery green glower he recognized at a glance. It offended her when he spouted orders. Every damn time. You’d think he’d have learned by now.

Her perfectly arched brow elevated to a challenging angle. “This involves me, my scorched house and my turncoat cowhand. I’m going. You are welcome to come with me.”

“Thanks,” he said caustically. “I was about to suggest the same thing myself.”

She smirked, then winked. “You’re learning, Cahill. You’re not as bad as I first thought. In fact, I’m actually beginning to like you.”

She preceded him out of the door to ride home for supper, as she had promised Butler. Quin watched the seductive sway of her curvaceous hips and sighed in defeat. He was crazy about Boston. He admired her spirit, her intellect and her keen wit. Not to mention her mesmerizing green eyes and enticing body that aroused him to the extreme. He also liked that she stood up to him, for him. She was a challenge he loved to face.

He wondered how much more she’d have to like him for her to move back to his big, lonely, quiet house and bring her adopted family with her.

She’d have to love him, he decided. Considering her mistrust of men and their ulterior motives, he doubted she’d allow herself to care that much for him or any other man.

Didn’t it figure that of all the women who were eager to share his name and his fortune, he desired a woman who didn’t want to marry him, even if he got down on bended knee and begged?

He’d laugh at the irony but it just wasn’t that damn funny.