Garrick Vain had been waiting eight months for a woman he had never touched.
That fact bothered him more than he cared to admit.
On a bright September afternoon in Wyoming, he stood beneath the narrow shade of the Ridgeway depot roof while the westbound locomotive groaned to a stop in a cloud of coal smoke and dust. Garrick was thirty-four, broad through the shoulders, weathered by sun and winter, and far more comfortable judging cattle than wondering whether a woman would recognize him from a photograph taken three years earlier.
Inside his coat pocket rested the last letter Beatrice Hail had sent.
He had read it so many times the fold had begun to tear.
Beatrice knew what kind of life waited at Vain Hollow. She knew there were no theaters, no polished drawing rooms, and no servants beyond May Dow, who would have laughed herself breathless if anyone called her a servant.
Beatrice had written that she wanted usefulness instead of luxury.
That mattered to Garrick.
For eight months they had exchanged letters.
At first they had been practical.
Weather.
Land.
Food.
The expectations of marriage.
Then Beatrice began writing about horses.
She wrote that fear and stubbornness were often confused. She wrote that a frightened animal could obey and still never trust the hand holding the reins.
Garrick had spent half a night rereading one line.
Submission can be forced. Trust has to be given.
That was when he began waiting for her letters instead of merely answering them.
The train doors opened.
Passengers descended.
An elderly couple.
A salesman carrying two leather cases.
A mother with three tired children.
Then a woman stepped onto the platform holding a single brown suitcase.
Garrick straightened.
She was not Beatrice.
The woman was perhaps twenty-eight, with thick auburn hair pinned loosely beneath a traveling hat and green eyes that moved across the platform with alert intelligence. Her blue-green dress was too carefully repaired to be fashionable, though she carried herself as though she had forgotten anyone might judge it.
Her gaze found Garrick.
She walked directly toward him.
“You’re Garrick Vain?”
His stomach tightened.
“I am.”
“My name is Eloin Hartley.”
He waited.
Her fingers closed around the handle of her suitcase.
“I’m Beatrice Hail’s cousin.”
Garrick’s expression changed.
Eloin saw it and seemed to hate what she had to say next.
“I’m not the bride you sent for.”
The station noise became strangely distant.
“Where is Beatrice?”
Eloin drew a sealed envelope from her coat.
“She died six weeks ago.”
Garrick said nothing.
The words reached him intellectually before they reached anywhere else.
Died.
Beatrice.
Six weeks.
He looked at the envelope.
Then back at Eloin.
“What happened?”
“Fever. It came quickly. The doctor believed she might recover, but by the fourth day…”
Eloin swallowed.
“She knew she wouldn’t.”
Garrick took the envelope carefully.
“She asked you to bring this?”
“Yes.”
“You came all the way to Wyoming for a letter?”
Eloin’s mouth tightened.
“She asked me to put it in your hand myself.”
Before Garrick could answer, a tremendous crash exploded from the livestock yard.
A wooden gate burst outward.
Someone shouted.
Then Nightfire came around the end of the freight car at a dead run.
The black stallion was twelve hundred pounds of terror and muscle. His mane snapped behind him while his iron shoes struck sparks from the edge of the platform.
Passengers screamed.
A crate overturned.
A station handler threw himself behind a water barrel.
Garrick’s grief vanished beneath instinct.
He dropped Beatrice’s letter into his coat and grabbed the rope from his saddle.
“Clear the platform!”
Nightfire skidded.
Reared.
His front hooves cut through empty air.
Garrick started toward him.
“Don’t.”
The voice was quiet.
He turned.
Eloin was walking past him.
“Miss Hartley.”
She continued forward.
“Stop.”
Nightfire came down hard enough to shake the boards.
Eloin did not run.
She stopped fifteen feet away and shifted sideways.
Garrick immediately noticed what she was doing.
She made herself smaller.
Nonthreatening.
Her hands stayed low and empty.
She did not stare into the stallion’s eyes.
Instead, she watched his shoulders, ears, breathing, and hindquarters.
Nightfire snorted.
Eloin murmured something Garrick could not hear.
The stallion’s right ear flicked.
No one moved.
One minute became three.
Three became five.
Eloin took a single step.
Waited.
Another.
Nightfire pawed the dirt.
Garrick had broken horses since he was fifteen. He understood pressure and release, timing, dominance, patience.
But this was different.
Eloin seemed less interested in controlling Nightfire than in convincing the animal there was nothing he needed to survive.
Finally, Nightfire lowered his head.
Eloin lifted her palm.
The stallion stretched his neck.
His muzzle touched her skin.
Only then did Garrick breathe normally again.
One of the handlers stared at her.
“How did you know?”
Eloin continued watching Nightfire.
“He wasn’t trying to hurt anyone.”
“He nearly killed me.”
“He was trying to find somewhere safe.”
She moved her fingers gently along the stallion’s jaw.
Then stopped.
Garrick saw the change immediately.
“What?”
Eloin leaned closer.
Fresh cuts marked both corners of Nightfire’s mouth.
Her expression hardened.
“Someone used a severe bit on him.”
Garrick stepped closer.
“What?”
“A cruel one. Recently.”
“That horse was examined when I bought him.”
“When?”
“Six weeks ago.”
“These cuts are newer.”
Garrick touched Nightfire’s halter.
The stallion flinched.
Anger rose inside him.
Nightfire had been purchased to rebuild Vain Hollow’s breeding program after three years of losses had nearly crippled the ranch.
Broken fences.
Sick cattle.
Miscarrying mares.
Buyers canceling contracts.
One breeding barn fire that had somehow started without lightning.
Garrick had blamed everything separately.
Bad weather.
Bad luck.
His own failures.
Now Eloin looked at the stallion’s injured mouth and asked, “Who’s been handling him?”
“Several men.”
“People you trust?”
“I thought so.”
Eloin finally released Nightfire.
“I need lodging until Thursday.”
“Thursday?”
“The eastbound train.”
Garrick looked toward the town.
“The hotel closed in February.”
“I’ll find somewhere.”
“My ranch has a spare room.”
“I wasn’t asking you for one.”
“I know.”
Something softened briefly in her face.
Forty minutes later they were traveling toward Vain Hollow.
Eloin sat in the wagon bed despite Garrick offering the seat beside him.
He did not argue.
They crossed miles of tawny grass beneath an enormous blue sky.
After a long silence, Eloin asked, “Who had access to Nightfire?”
Garrick named his foreman, Silas Boone, two ranch hands, the traveling farrier, and himself.
“And your other horses?”
“Twenty-three.”
“Problems?”
He hesitated.
“Some.”
“What kind?”
“Open gates. Illness. Injuries.”
“Recently?”
“Three years.”
Eloin stared across the country.
“Three years is a long run of bad luck.”
He looked at her.
“I didn’t call it luck.”
“But you haven’t called it sabotage either.”
“No.”
“What changed three years ago?”
Garrick thought.
Then his jaw tightened.
“Rufus Calder began trying to buy my northern acreage.”
“What’s on it?”
“Spring-fed meadow.”
Eloin turned toward him.
“Reliable water?”
“Yes.”
Her expression became thoughtful.
Vain Hollow appeared after the next ridge.
The ranch house stood beneath cottonwoods. Beyond it were the stable, breeding barn, hay sheds, bunkhouse, corrals, and the northern meadow glowing green where surrounding grass had already begun fading toward autumn gold.
Eloin noticed it instantly.
“That stays green through winter?”
“Usually.”
“Then I understand why someone might want it.”
At the house, May Dow came outside with flour on her hands.
She stared at Eloin.
Then at Garrick.
Then at the train trunk that did not exist.
“Where’s the bride?”
Garrick’s voice lowered.
“Beatrice died.”
May’s face changed completely.
“Oh.”
“This is her cousin, Eloin Hartley.”
May looked at Eloin.
“You delicate?”
“No.”
“Good. Delicate people are exhausting.”
Eloin almost smiled.
She carried her own suitcase upstairs.
Less than ten minutes later, she came down again and headed toward the stable.
Garrick followed.
“You traveled four days.”
“I sat for most of them.”
“You should rest.”
“Nightfire can’t.”
She entered the stall.
The black stallion gave a low rumble.
Garrick watched, unsettled by how quickly the animal recognized her.
“I can help while I’m here,” Eloin said.
“You came to deliver a letter.”
“I delivered it.”
“And Thursday?”
“I leave.”
That should have settled something.
Instead it disturbed him.
Garrick returned to the house and finally opened Beatrice’s letter.
Her handwriting was faint.
Dear Garrick,
If Eloin has placed this in your hand, then I have broken the first promise I intended to keep with you.
He sat at the kitchen table.
Beatrice apologized.
She spoke of death without self-pity.
Then came the truth.
There is something you deserve to know.
The passages you liked most were not entirely mine.
Garrick frowned.
Eloin helped me answer your first letters because I knew almost nothing about horses. When you wrote back with such interest, she continued. Eventually I would begin a letter and discover that half the thoughts were hers.
His eyes moved faster.
The words about trust were Eloin’s.
Garrick stared at the page.
So were the ones about loneliness not always meaning a person wants noise.
He remembered answering that sentence after midnight.
I should have told you sooner.
Then the final paragraph.
Do not punish her for my cowardice. She never tried to steal anything from me. If anything, I stole her words because she believed no one would care to hear them.
Be kind to her.
She has never been in a place where being strange was considered useful.
Outside, Nightfire gave a low rumble.
Garrick folded the letter.
Then unfolded it again.
He poured two coffees.
When he reached the stable, Eloin was cleaning the stallion’s mouth with warm water.
He handed her a cup.
“When did you start writing my letters?”
Her hands stopped.
The silence told him everything.
“The parts about horses?”
“From the beginning.”
“And the others?”
“Later.”
“Why?”
Eloin stared at Nightfire.
“Because I had things to say.”
She swallowed.
“And your letters gave them somewhere to go.”
Garrick should have been angry.
Perhaps tomorrow he would be.
At that moment, all he could see was the woman who had crossed half the country because she promised a dying cousin she would deliver the truth.
Then Eloin knelt near the stable wall.
“Garrick.”
Her tone changed.
He moved beside her.
A thin line of pale grain dust crossed the floor.
It disappeared beneath the feed-room door.
Eloin looked at the padlock.
Fresh scratches surrounded the metal.
She reached for Garrick’s wrist before he touched it.
“Don’t.”
“Why?”
“Because whoever did this might expect someone to open it.”
A faint sound came from inside.
Garrick’s hand moved toward his revolver.
Eloin’s eyes remained on the door.
“Someone was here.”
Then the latch moved.
From the other side.
And Garrick suddenly understood that whatever had been happening to Vain Hollow was no longer a series of accidents.
Someone wanted his ranch.
And they were still close enough to hear him breathing.
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