It was a shame. A darned shame.
The fire had been recent. Weeks ago, not months. Countless hoofprints still marred the scorched earth where raiders had encircled the home.
They’d trampled the vegetable garden. Further from the house, the hog pen stood empty as did the pastures.
Mr. Dunne had always kept a few head of cattle and the nicest horses Will had ever seen. He’d imported them from Kentucky. Prime thoroughbreds with fine lines, far differentcreatures than the small, tough, cattle horses most East Texans rode.
Gone now. All gone. Everything.
The fields lay fallow. The barn and bunkhouse remained, their whitewash fading and peeling in the bright spring sunlight.
Will dismounted and led the mules over to the water trough. Tired as they were, he just ground hitched them, knowing they would appreciate the water and the shade of the scorched cottonwood.
He stood there for a moment, staring at the place, hoping the Dunnes were okay and wondering how in the world he was going to find Mama, let alone Rose.
Studying the ground, he noticed footprints coming and going over the marks left by the raiders.
He followed these away from the devastation toward the bunkhouse, a glimmer of hope coming to life within him.
Ten feet from the structure, he remembered his manners and called, “Hello, the bunkhouse!”
There was no response. He waited a long time.
A cat wandered out of the barn and flopped down on the gravel to watch him.
Will repeated his call, but still no one answered.
Satisfied that he was alone, he walked forward and opened the door, hoping he might see some sign of whoever had been walking around here lately.
But as soon as he opened the door, he froze in place, his guts turning to ice water.
Two feet away, a double-barreled shotgun was pointed at his face.
CHAPTER 5
The person holding the shotgun was the fiercest-looking, most striking woman he’d ever seen. Framed in locks of thick, deep red hair, her green eyes flashed dangerously, telling him she was ready to pull the trigger and end his life.
And yet he was so mesmerized, so stunned by her beauty, that he felt no fear.
Even her snarl, with its perfect white teeth, was alluring.
Suddenly, that snarl lifted into a smile, and the woman lowered the shotgun. “Will!”
“Yes,” he said and stared at her. There was something familiar about her face. Those eyes…
“Why, don’t you even remember me, Will? It’s me, Maggie.”
“Maggie?” he mumbled dumbly. He couldn’t help it. How could this lovely woman be Rose’s irritating little friend, Maggie Dunne?
Why, when he’d left for the war, Maggie had been a bright-eyed tomboy with a wild streak wider than the Red River, always pestering Will while he was trying to work and getting his sister into a heap of trouble.
“If you don’t remember me, Will Bentley,” Maggie said—and it was Maggie; he saw that now, saw it in her eyes and the angles of her changed face, saw that she had matured into a woman of unmatched beauty—frowning at him, “I’m going to go ahead and shoot you after all.”
“Don’t shoot,” he said, smiling at her joke. “I remember you, Maggie. It’s just you… grew up. I didn’t recognize you was all. You look different.”
She put her hands on her hips. “You haven’t seen me for six years, Will. Did you think I still had pigtails in my hair and frogs in my pockets?”
Then she rushed forward and wrapped her arms around him and kissed his cheek, and he put his arms around her and was surprised to realize he was uncomfortably and involuntarily attracted to this gorgeous young woman who had always before been his little sister’s troublesome shadow, a pint-sized pain in the neck with fire in her eyes and laughter in her heart.
