The Rancher Read Online Free

she didn’t know how to reach
    him, to make him understand that she
    couldn’t bear to leave him or the ranch.
    They had just purchased a new herd ofcattle and a few more prize horses fromsomeone down in Texas.  The last thing onher mind had been getting married.  Sheturned back to Chester and continued
    brushing his mane.
    “I heard about the incident with a rattler
    this morning.” The brusqueness in his

    voice hurt, but Abby was determined to appear unaffected.
    “Yep.”
    “They said you got it in one shot.”
    Was that pride in his voice?
    “It was close range.”  Abby shrugged her shoulders to brush off the possible compliment.   She was grateful her back faced her father.  She didn’t want him to
    see that she was pleased by his words.
    Silence.
    “What is this?” Clay demanded, pulling the black knapsack from her back pocket.
    She spun around, but almost wished she hadn’t.   The pride she’d sensed in her father just moments ago had transformed into anger, even fear.   She’d almost forgotten about the rag.  Clay held it up to her face.  She didn’t take her eyes off his,

    but pursed her lips and shrugged.
    His eyes turned hard and distant. “Where did you get this?” The material all but disappeared in his balled fists.
    “I found it,” Abby’s head pulled backward.  She blinked hard at his sudden abruptness, “under the straw, here in Chester’s stall.  I thought maybe one of the hand—“
    “The stage leaves at three o’clock on Friday,” her father interrupted. “Be on it.” He turned away from her, nodded to Lily on his way out the door and strode with determined step toward the bunkhouse.
    He paused and glanced back over his shoulder.  “The new foreman will be here
    on Saturday morning to help with the new stallion.  Feed the horse and brush him, but don’t ride or start working with him,

    ya hear?”   Without waiting for her response he turned and picked up his stride.
    Lily’s face had a look of pity, mixed with sad surrender.
    Abby’s mind raced. “I still have twodays to find a husband,” she shouted afterhim and then nodded to Lily.
    Clay stopped, still as stone, his headfixed forward.
    “I don’t know what’s going on withyou, Papa, but I’m gonna win our littlewager and find myself a husband.”
    He started walking away again, the firstfew steps slow, then much faster.
    “This horse.   The new herd.  And a
    place of my own.” Her voice got louder with each phrase. “On the ranch!” she practically screamed at her father’s

    retreating form.
    Abby’s short fingernails bit into the flesh of her hands and she stomped her feet, her body shaking all over.
    Lily stepped in front of her, blocking Clay   McCallister’s   back   from   his daughter’s view. “What do we need to do?”

    Chapter Two

    Two Weeks Earlier, Kansas
    “You can’t go on livin’ like this, Cole.”
    Raine threw his leg over the saddle of his bay roan and dismounted.
    Cole looked past his eldest brother and squinted his eyes at the horizon.
    “Marty,” he called out to a gangly cowpoke sloshing a cup of water down his throat, “looks like there’s a fence down on the property border over on the north side.”  Cole flicked his chin toward the far end of the pasture.
    The dark-headed flank rider lowered the tin ladle from his cracking lips and

    wiped his newly wet mouth with the back
    of his hand.
    “Take a couple of men over there and get it up before we lose half this herd to the Marcusen’s.”   Cole removed his
    rawhide gloves, tight from sweat, and hit them against his hand.
    “Sure thing, Boss,” Marty responded before escaping into the small group of men who had just returned from the drive.
    The air had not yet settled from the dust of thousands of steer and horse hooves trampling over the dirt road and onto the
    green  pastures   of  Redbourne   land.   Another   successful