When he told her they wouldn’t lose the ranch, he meant it. And he would tell her again and again if she needed to hear it. He would do everything in his power to keep this family here—and his job on this land. Including suggesting to the girls that they might sell something to raise the last of the money.
“Thank you for the idea, Mr. King.”
He dragged his eyes away to Dot, who was looking up at him. “It was merely a thought. You and your sister made it happen.”
She smiled at him before turning to answer a question from her mother. When Mitchell looked back up, Miss Cummings still watched him, her head tilted just so and her eyes full of questions.
Mitchell didn’t attempt to answer any of them. Instead, he sat back and relished the feel of her eyes on him.
He couldn’t have her, not if he wanted to remain here. But that rational thought seemed to fly to the edges of his mind when she looked at him.
Treading on the edge of danger was what he’d always been good at, after all.
#####
The water finder arrivedwith just the right amount of cacophony. Birds flew from the drooping trees, and everyone on the ranch streamed to the yard in front of the house when it came in on the wagon.
Hart Chapman, who Mitchell had heard plenty about but hadn’t yet met, jumped down from one wagon, while his partner, Ambrose Young, drove the machine to the middle of the yard. The men introduced themselves as Miss Cummings’s sister and little Dot peered at the machine, all three dogs winding around their legs.
After shaking hands with both Chapman and Young, Mitchell stepped back with George and Arlen while Mrs. Thomas retreated to the porch to watch. He glanced out to the road. Miss Cummings would be sad to miss this.
“I wish Lara and Hannah were back,” Arlen said, shaking the dust from his hat as he put Mitchell’s thoughts into words.
“They should be soon,” Mitchell replied. It didn’t occur to him that he should have kept that to himself until Arlen glanced at him with a questioning raise to his brow. “Considering they left so early.”
It must have been enough, because Arlen looked away, back to the water finder that the men were now preparing to drive to the rear of the house where a line of underground water was suspected to be, given the maps that had been drawn up after the first few findings of water.
In truth, Mitchell seemed to be aware of Miss Cummings’s whereabouts all the time. Instead of listening to the sensible part of himself that said to leave well enough alone with her, he found himself even more aware of her actions, her words, and, of course, each and every time she looked at him.
The wagon with the water finder trundled around the house, and they trailed after it, no one wanting to miss the first drilling into the ground.
Just as he rounded the corner of the house, Mitchell heard thunder. He paused.
No, that wasn’t thunder.
It was hoofbeats.
And whoever it was, they were coming fast.
“Arlen.” The man turned when Mitchell said his name. Mitchell pointed at the road, where dust was beginning to form not too far off.
“I’ll see what this is,” Arlen called back to George and the men with the wagons. “You go on and get started.” Arlen glanced at Mitchell, who nodded. If this was trouble, he wasn’t sending the man in by himself.
They strode away from the group, back toward the front of the house as the hoofbeats and the dust cloud grew closer. Mrs. Thomas stood from her seat on the porch, her hand shading her eyes.
“It’s Hannah,” she said after a moment.
And just then, the dust cleared enough to show a girl flying up to the gate on a horse.
Mitchell’s shoulders sagged as he relaxed the hand he’d instinctively placed over the revolver at his side. Trouble wasn’t at their door.
But something had made the girl come galloping back home. And—he looked past where she drew up at the gate—without Miss Cummings.
“She’s alone,” he said to Arlen. A hundred different scenarios flooded his mind. Miss Cummings, thrown from her horse and gravely injured. Set upon by men with ill intentions. Lost somewhere in town.
“Hannah!” Arlen ran to the open gate where Hannah hadn’t yet dismounted. Mitchell raced to catch up to him.
“What happened? Are you hurt? Where’s Lara?” Arlen flung the questions at his daughter one after the other as he reached up to help her dismount.
