Lassoed by the Would-Be Rancher
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Melinda Curtis
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HarlequinPrologue
WHEN FRANNY BOUCHARD was ten, there were three things she loved completely.
Sunny, her horse, who was the best cutting horse her father had ever trained, plus the most beautiful creature on the planet.
Kyle Clark, who was two years older than she was and had come over to her family’s ranch the previous spring to help move cattle from the winter grazing pastures to the ranch proper. She’d beat him at the county-fair roping competition, and he’d bought her and his sister, Emily, ice cream to celebrate. He hadn’t cared that he’d been beaten by a girl. Franny was going to marry that boy one day.
And stories. Franny loved stories. Scary stories, stories about aliens, westerns, Nancy Drew mysteries. Whatever books she could get her hands on, she read. And when she’d been allowed to go on her first cattle drive, she’d been ecstatic to learn that at night the adults sat around the campfire and told tales.
One particular night, Gertie Clark had promised to tell a story about Merciless Mike Moody, who was Second Chance, Idaho’s very own bandit.
Franny shrugged deeper into her jacket, shivering more from excitement than the high mountain cold. Dinner had been eaten. Horses taken care of. The cattle were mostly quiet. The Clarks and the Bouchards gathered around the large fire beneath a blanket of bright stars.
“Granny Gertie.” Emily sat next to Franny on a log. “Do we have to hear about Merciless Mike again?” She turned to Franny, rolling her eyes. “She tells that one all the time at home.”
“But I never get to hear it,” Franny said quickly. Well, except for the few times she’d spent the night at Emily’s house. But that wasn’t the same as hearing a story of the Old West while camping out on the high plains.
“It’s got to be Merciless Mike.” Gertie sat in her husband’s lap. She may have been a grandmother, but she wasn’t shy about public displays of affection. “You can’t come out along the stage route and not talk about the brassiest bandit in the Idaho Territory.”
“You can talk all you want,” Franny’s father said, giving Franny a stern look. “Just remember it’s a myth.”
Gertie and Percy laughed. Those two laughed a lot.
And then Gertie got down to business, turning to Kyle and the two girls. “Some say Mike Moody grew up back east, a dandy of sorts. Others, like me, believe he was raised on a farm outside of Boise, dirt-poor and envious of anyone better off than he was.” Gertie’s shoulder-length gray hair gleamed silvery red in the firelight. “When Mike was about Kyle’s age, his parents decided he’d had enough schooling and told him he’d be working the farmstead full-time.”
Franny spared a glance to her father, who was drinking a beer and staring into the fire. As an only child, she’d been told the Silver Spur would be hers one day. Some days she felt as if her father expected her to take over the ranch sooner rather than later. Just this morning, he’d made her rope strays instead of letting her horse Sunny funnel them back to the herd. Last week she’d had to go along with her dad while he mended fences, which would have been fine if he was a talker or a storyteller, like Gertie Clark.
“And then Mike got in over his head and pulled the trigger.” While Franny’s thoughts had wandered, Gertie’s tale had progressed from Mike leaving the farm to him becoming an outlaw. “And he ran to this valley. Made himself a hideout in the mountains, where he could see the law, a passing stage or pony-express rider.”
“A smart man would’ve changed his name,” Franny’s dad grumbled, pulling the brim of his sensible straw hat low.
Percy grinned. His white hair was as long as Gertie’s and looked like a waterfall beneath his tall black cowboy hat. “Being good at one thing doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be smart in all things.”
“Tell that to your millionaire Monroe friend,” Franny’s father grumbled. “Mark my words. Harlan Monroe will do something he regrets someday.”
“He already has.” For once, Percy was dead serious.
“The cattle-drive campfire is for storytelling, not kibitzing.” Gertie got up and went to sit next to the kids on the log. “There’s something to be said for admitting who you are to the world, be it with your name or your actions.” She pulled in a deep breath and shook herself, as if needing to shake off the bad. “Where was I? Oh, yes... They said Merciless Mike had one of the fastest horses in the Idaho Territory. He’d hold up the stage or rob a poor unsuspecting settler on their way out west and be gone before they drew bead on him with a rifle.”
“That’s fast,” Kyle whispered.
“Sunny is that fast,” Franny whispered back to him across Emily. It wasn’t exactly the truth. Sunny was sure-footed when it came to outmaneuvering cattle, but not fast on the straightaway.
Emily and Kyle laughed, but didn’t argue.
And neither did Gertie. “But ol’ Mike got cocky. He didn’t get discouraged from robbing the stage when they added more protection or when he knew there was a posse traveling through the area in the hopes of catching him. He pressed his luck instead and robbed one stage too many as the good guys were closing in.”
“I like this part.” Kyle tipped back his straw cowboy hat.
Emily snickered. “Only because our great-great-great-something grandfather got stabbed when Merciless Mike’s horse threw a shoe.”
“Can I tell the part about Old Jeb Clark?” Gertie asked her grandchildren. “Without interruption?”
“Yes, Granny,” the children said, including Franny.
“Fine.” Gertie nodded and tossed her silvery red hair. “Merciless Mike’s horse threw a shoe in the chase. So, he crept into town and asked the blacksmith—”
“Old Jeb,” Emily said.
“—to shoe his horse quickly. But Old Jeb was busy, and he knew who Mike was, so he stalled.”
“And then they got into it.” Kyle grinned.
“They got into a fight and Old Jeb was stabbed.” Gertie leaned in close, as if this was the most important part. “Which would have meant the end of the Clarks in Second Chance if not for having a doctor in town.”
“Or if the posse hadn’t ridden up before Merciless Mike could finish him off.” Kyle grinned again. He could be a little bit bloodthirsty.
“Pfft.” Gertie shook a finger at Kyle. “When you have grandkids, you can tell the story any way you want, young man.” But she said it with a smile. “The posse came thundering into town, just like Kyle said. They picked up his trail heading into the mountains. And then—” she spread her thin arms wide, pressing the kids back as if bringing them out of harm’s way “—there was an earthquake.”
Franny shivered. She’d never felt the earth move.
“Boulders tumbled down the mountain from high above. Boulders the size of bulls.” Gertie’s eyes widened and her voice dropped to a whisper barely heard above the crackle of the fire. “Those stones knocked over trees and bounced off other boulders on their way downhill. Their collisions sounded louder than gunshots. And when the shaking and the rolling stopped, a riderless horse raced past the posse toward town. It was Merciless Mike’s horse. They found what was left of the bandit beneath a boulder. But they never found the gold he’d stolen.”
“Because it’s a myth,” Franny’s dad grumbled.
Gertie and Percy just laughed.
