Circle Star Read online

Pete’s narrow face cracked into a grin. “You gonna ride into town in that getup?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “A bloody riot,” he said. “Them pants is tight to bursting.”

  Heat flared up to her cheeks. “That’s not intentional. I’ll get a bigger pair in Cedar City.” She looked down at her denim-covered legs. “This is just to make a point.”

  “And the point is?”

  “The point is that I mean business,” she said firmly. “And you can’t wear a gun belt with a dress.”

  Pete shook his head. “You father will turn in his grave.”

  “The exercise will do him good.”

  She’d forgotten how Pete laughed, throwing his head back and making a wheezing sound, like a hyena. Susanna averted her face to wipe away a tear in her corner of her eye.

  God, it felt good to be home.

  ****

  In the library, Susanna made a show of propping her boots on the big mahogany desk, legs crossed at the ankles, just like her father used to do.

  “Pete,” she asked. “How would you like to own Circle Star?”

  The foreman jerked upright in the oak chair. “Eh?”

  “Don’t play dumb—you must know about my father’s will?”

  Pete’s expression grew cautious. “As much as I would like to marry you, Miss Susanna, I’m not Connor McGregor.”

  Susanna pursed her mouth. “So my father did tell you about the conditions in his will?” She paused as the answer to a question she had yet to ask dawned upon her. “That’s why you had him buried in Cedar City—you didn’t want his final resting place on the ranch in case it might be sold?”

  The foreman replied with an uncomfortable shrug. “It’s no good out here for a woman alone.”

  “I’m not alone. I have you.” Susanna pulled her feet off the desk and leaned across the scarred leather blotter. “Connor’s gone. He’s been gone for thirteen years. We won’t find him. Circle Star is going to be sold in a public auction. I want you to bid for it.”

  Pete sent her a puzzled frown. “I don’t have that kind of money.”

  “That’s just it,” Susanna explained, her words tumbling out. “You don’t need to have any money. I’ll lend it to you. The same money that I get from selling the ranch.” She gestured, moving her hands between them. “You bid for the ranch. The money would come to me as payment for your purchase of the ranch. I’ll give that same money back to you as a loan. The whole transaction is on paper, although I’ll need to find enough cash to pay for the costs. There’ll be auctioneer’s fees and such.”

  Pete rubbed his long nose, still looking puzzled, so Susanna pulled out a notepad and took him through it slowly, drawing a diagram to show how the money would change hands on paper but not in reality.

  “You sure are smart,” Pete said. “Making all that money out of nothing.”

  “Pete,” she scolded him. “It’s not money out of nothing. It’s the value of the ranch. You’ll be the legal owner, but you’ll owe back to me what the ranch is worth.”

  The foreman shook his head. “Why don’t you just sell out and go back to Philadelphia? It’s a hard life out here for a single woman.”

  Susanna lowered her gaze to the notepad in front of her. “I should have found a way to end the fighting between my parents and come back sooner. I always missed the ranch and my father. Now he’s dead, and there’s nothing I can do to show my love for him, apart from protecting his legacy. Protecting Circle Star.”

  “What about your mother?” Pete asked. “You’ll miss her.”

  Susanna raised her eyes and gave the foreman a solemn look. She had decided not to tell anyone that she also needed the ranch to provide for her mother from the income it generated. It would weaken her position if people knew.

  “I’m a grown woman of twenty-six. It’s time I had my own life. It’s not easy back East either, getting to my age and being unmarried. The ranch will give me a position in the community, a purpose in life. In Philadelphia, I’d just be another aging spinster looking for an acceptable way to occupy my days.” She lifted her shoulders and let them fall again in a gesture that dismissed the prospect. “My mother can always come and visit.”

  Pete gave a hesitant nod. “All right. I’ll bid for you. What happens then? Will you buy the ranch back from me?”

  Susanna doodled on the page. “Might be better not to. As you said, it’s not easy for a woman alone. We could keep Circle Star in your name until you die, and then you could leave it to me in your will. Maybe by then, times will have changed.”

  Pete chuckled. “Or you might have found yourself a husband.”

  The pen struck against the paper. “Don’t count on that.”

  After Pete was gone, Susanna remained at the desk, staring at diagram on the notepad in front of her. She had assumed Pete would understand why she didn’t expect to marry, but he had not, any more than her mother had understood all those times when Susanna had refused to marry one of the men who had proposed to her.

  She wanted a husband who could make her feel like Connor had when he’d kissed her by the river, but none of her suitors ever had. Connor was the only man to have stirred her emotions, but he had ridden into the desert thirteen years ago, full of hate for her.

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  Chapter Two

  The denim pants chafed Susanna’s legs as she rode with Pete Jackson into Cedar City the following morning. She was sitting astride on Santiago, the big bay stallion that had been her father’s mount. Her courage faltered as they reached the busy streets. Women whispered and men ogled. Her cheeks burned with a heat so fierce her eyes watered. Perhaps the daring outfit wasn’t such a good idea after all. It was something Claire would do, but Claire had the audacity to carry it off.

  They dismounted outside the timber building that housed the newspaper and the barbershop, and the lawyer’s offices on the floor above. Leaving the horses tethered to the hitching post by the wooden sidewalk, they went inside and climbed up the narrow stairs.

  Catterill was free to see them at once. Susanna exhaled a sigh of relief. Her fallback plan had been to wait in the saloon, where she was going to order a shot of whiskey. Not that she would drink any of it, but hard liquor went with the image she was trying to create.

  Someone who knew what they wanted and how to get it.

  Down in the street, she’d caught a glimpse of her reflection in the barber’s plate glass window, and had been left wondering if her strategy was working. Over her denim pants and shirtwaist blouse, she wore a short wool coat several sizes too large. Her hair hung in a long braid down her back. Fast riding tended to pull hairpins loose, and the strong sun required a hat which didn’t sit well over an upsweep.

  An elderly assistant wearing wire rimmed glasses ushered them through an outer office into a room lined with bookcases. Susanna’s nerves stretched, even tauter than they had been during the dusty ride. She’d never visited Catterill’s office before. When she was a child, the rare times they’d met the lawyer had come out to Circle Star.

  After a few words of polite greeting, she settled into a seat facing a desk empty of papers. Her gaze drifted over the leather blotter and two bottles of ink, one red, one blue. She took a deep breath of the air filled with cigar smoke and launched into an explanation of her plan.

  The lawyer showed no enthusiasm.

  “Do you understand what I’m proposing?” Susanna pressed, hiding her unease behind a brusque tone.

  “I understand.” Catterill pointed at the closed door between his private office and the room where his clerk worked. He lowered his voice. “There’s a problem.”

  “A problem?” Pete Jackson grunted. He’d remained standing next to her, and now Susanna flicked a grateful glance up at him. She’d asked the foreman to accompany her, but had not expected him to contribute to the discussion.

  “Do you know Burt Hartman?” the lawyer asked. Leaning closer, he spoke in the confidential tone of a man sharing secret
s. “The owner of Deep Valley ranch?”

  “Deep Valley?” Susanna’s brows furrowed. “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “That’s the old De Santis place,” Pete put in. “They sold out a year or two back, to a stranger from up north. Some robber baron, with interests in railroads and silver mines, at least that’s what folks around here think.”

  “What does he have to do with Circle Star?” Susanna asked.

  “The lands are adjoining,” Catterill pointed out.

  “I know who my neighbors are,” Susanna said curtly, and instantly regretted the impatient outburst.

  The lawyer cleared his throat. “The word is he wants Circle Star.”

  Susanna forced a smile and made an effort to speak calmly. “It doesn’t matter. Pete will bid more. He can outbid anyone else. It’s only a paper transaction.”

  “The word is Burt Hartman wants no other bidders,” Catterill said.

  “What?” Susanna jerked up in the rickety seat. “Is he threatening people?”

  Catterill didn’t reply. The silence grew sinister as it wore on.

  “This can’t be true,” Susanna said finally. “Does the sheriff know?”

  “The sheriff is in Hartman’s pay,” Pete said. “And that’s a fact.”

  “This is barbaric.” Susanna stared at the lawyer, fighting to keep her voice steady. “Are you telling me that Pete’s life will be in danger if he bids for Circle Star?”

  Catterill spread his hands in a gesture of ignorance and shrugged. “The word is that Hartman wants the ranch, and he wants it cheap.”

  The stuffy, stifling hot room seemed to close in around Susanna as her mind raced ahead and saw her future unfold. If Circle Star were sold for a pittance, there would be little money to invest. The income wouldn’t be enough for her and her mother to live on. They would have to sell the house in Philadelphia and live on the proceeds until the funds ran out, and then they would be forced to seek whatever employment they could find.

  “Surely, something can be done to stop Hartman?” she ventured.

  Again, it was Pete who supplied the answer. “The last two who tried are lying six feet deep in the ground.”

  “I see.” Susanna rose to her feet, holding on to the shreds of her courage.

  Catterill spoke in a formal tone. “I’m sorry I can’t be of assistance.”

  She gave the lawyer a brief nod, but this time didn’t offer her hand. “Thank you for your time,” she said tersely. “No doubt you’ll send me a bill.” She jerked her head for Pete to follow and walked out, heading for the stairs.

  “It don’t matter none to me,” Pete said when they were down in the street, squinting in the bright sunlight. “I’ll bid for you.”

  “No,” Susanna said flatly.

  “Why not?” Peter squared his lean shoulders. “I’m not scared.”

  “But I am.” She laid a hand on his arm, seeking support as much as offering it. “I need you alive. I’m getting to understand what my father meant when he said the Arizona Territory is not a suitable place for a woman on her own.”

  Pete shook his arm free from her grip and turned to release the horses. “What do you need me alive for, if you’ve lost Circle Star?”

  “I haven’t lost the ranch yet,” Susanna pointed out as she climbed into the saddle. “We have three months before the auction.”

  Pete mounted and held his blue roan steady beside her bay stallion. “What can we do in three months that’s going to change anything?”

  “We can find Connor McGregor,” Susanna told him. Then she kicked Santiago into a canter and thundered out of town, her long braid flying behind her.

  ****

  Susanna decided not to wait.

  Not to sleep on it.

  Not to weigh up the risks and benefits.

  She’d just do it. Listen to her heart, and do it.

  Unlike her childhood, when the men ate together at a long table set out in the barn behind the stables, they now ate in three shifts in the kitchen. Carmen had told her it simplified the task of serving the meals. Susanna agreed, but she also accepted that the practice had turned the kitchen into a cantina only one step up from a saloon.

  She waited for the first shift to gather, and then she sent for the rest of the men. It took ten minutes to round up all thirty. Her pulse skittered as she stood beneath the canopy over the kitchen door and waited. By the time all the ranch hands had arrived and stood milling restlessly in the slanting evening sun, she felt sick with nerves.

  Some of the cowboys gave her covert looks. A few leered openly at her daring outfit. Taking a deep breath, Susanna stepped forward. When she spoke, she raised her voice to carry to around the yard. It was fortunate that her voice rang deep and resonant. A shrill voice would have ruined the impact of her appeal.

  “I’m not going to ask you if you think that my father, Christian Talbot, was a good boss, because I know he was.” Susanna paused to let the words sink in. “Not many of you know me, but those who do, know that I’m my father’s daughter.”

  She searched the crowd to locate the two old timers that Pete Jackson had told her were still on the ranch. “Jake. Walt.” She nodded at each grizzled man in turn. Both touched the brim of their hats and remained silent, waiting for her to continue.

  “I’m sure you’ve already heard that it is my intention to run Circle Star.” A hush of surprise rose from the crowd, telling her the rumor had yet to spread. She let a wry note creep into her voice. “My father believed a woman can’t run a ranch alone.”

  A few of the men grinned and nodded, and she heard a ripple of muttered agreement. Susanna felt herself relax. At least they were listening to her, rather than looking bored, although she suspected it was out of curiosity rather than out of respect.

  “A woman can’t run a ranch alone.” Now, her voice conveyed a flat tone of acceptance. “That’s why my father left the ranch jointly to me and Connor McGregor, whom he regarded as the son he never had.”

  She had planned what to say, going over the words while she waited for the last stragglers to arrive. Now her mind went blank, the carefully crafted phrases forgotten. Her eyes scanned the sea of expectant faces as she delivered the plain facts.

  “Thirteen years ago, Connor McGregor rode out of Circle Star. He’s never been seen or heard from since. We have three months to find him. Otherwise the ranch will be sold. The intended buyer is Burt Hartman of Deep Valley.”

  Voices erupted around her. Burt Hartman might not be a bad boss, but he was an outsider, a city slicker, not a born rancher, and that was enough to alienate him. Susanna knew that no one at Circle Star would want to see the two properties joined.

  She raised her arms to request silence and waited until the men gave her their full attention once more. “I’m asking for your help. I want half of you on the road, searching. The other half will stay at Circle Star. That means extra work with no extra pay. I can afford the expenses for the men on the road, but nothing more.”

  She stepped aside and let Pete Jackson take over. The system of eating in shifts fell apart as none of the men wanted to move into the kitchen. They went inside to help themselves to food and ate standing in the yard, balancing the tin plates in their hands, engrossed in a heated debate over what was the best way to find someone lost.

  Susanna noticed a cluster of men casting furtive glances in her direction. One of them separated from the rest and edged up to Pete Jackson. Despite straining her ears, she couldn’t catch the conversation. The foreman nodded, and then he ambled over to her.

  “The men would like to know why McGregor left. I told them your father never found out. Do you have anything you’d like to add?”

  Susanna wrung her hands together, grateful that she hadn’t been to the kitchen yet and didn’t have a plate to hold. The buzz of voices died down, and the men turned to watch her. She held her head high as she faced them.

  “I never told my father.” He voice cracked a little, and she paused to draw a b
reath. “Connor left because we argued. If you find him, tell him he has inherited a share in Circle Star. Also tell him that I’m asking…no…that I’m begging him to come back.”

  All at once, the strain of the last few days became too much. Susanna spun on her heels and fled inside, through the kitchen, up the stairs, into the sanctuary of her bedroom. Leaning against the closed door, she wiped away a tear that trickled down her cheek.

  Fighting for Circle Star might require more courage than she possessed. In Philadelphia, she’d had little else but music and dancing and dresses and parties to worry about. Now her father was dead, and the responsibility for the ranch and everyone it supported rested on her shoulders.

  And Connor! Susanna stifled a muffled sob. For thirteen years she’d carried her guilty secret, and now she accepted that part of the reason why she had chosen to remain with her mother was because she hadn’t been able to bear the thought of coming back to Circle Star with Connor gone.

  Shaking with fatigue and tension, Susanna toppled down on the bed and fell into an exhausted sleep, fully clad, the muddy boots still on her feet.

  ****

  The following morning, Susanna knew she was pale and drawn but she held her emotions under control as she sat behind the big desk in the library with Pete Jackson at her side. A dozen ranch hands stood lined up by the doorway, dressed in long dusters, ready to ride out.

  “Garrett and Murphy. North to Phoenix,” Pete called out.

  Spurs clinked as the two men shuffled forward, clutching their hats in their hands. Susanna counted out the money and handed it over. She wondered if the men were baring their heads in her house on her account, or if even the roughest of them possessed enough good manners to always remove their hats indoors.

  “Ramirez and Morgan. East to El Paso.”

  The pile of silver and gold on the table continued to shrink.

  Absently, Susanna tapped her pencil on the pad where she had jotted a list of things to do. The problem was that all the ranch hands wanted to go on the road. It made sense. Roaming around, checking out whorehouses and saloons was like a vacation for them, at her expense. It certainly offered a break from the routine of ranch work.