McCabe's Pride Read online

  McCabe's Pride

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Part Two

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  McCabe’s Pride

  Gayle Eden

  Copyright © 2007-2013 Gayle Eden (reissue 2013)

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written consent of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  The right of Gayle Eden to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Published by Air Castle Books at Smashwords

  Smashwords Edition

  Chapter One

  Part One

  “That sonofbitch has some nerve riding into town in broad daylight.” T.J. Waters leaned down from where he had his shoulder against the brace post outside the PineFlatts Saloon, and spat.

  “That sonofabitch—is a McCabe,” Mr. Hoffman murmured, amused, wiping his glasses on his apron. He was taking a break from tending bar to get some air. “They’ve got no shortage of nerve.”

  T.J. grunted. His eyes followed the dust-coated horseman, lean and sun baked, hat pulled down, and duster tucked back, to show the well-worn grip of his colt. Rumor had been floating around that Finn McCabe’s oldest son, Lucas, was headed back this way to attend his Ma’s funeral. Since the man had rode out nearly five years ago after drinking half the saloon dry, busting up the place, and killing a man in a dawn shootout, it took some balls to ride back in before sundown.

  There weren’t a handful of people who missed having one less McCabe to deal with. The old man was hard enough to be civil to, but considering his ranch, along with the Landry outfit, kept the place on the map during the years the Calvary was crawling over the west, they swallowed most of what they thought of him.

  “Looks like he was just going to the livery, for a fresh horse.” Hoffman fit his wire rims on, hooking them behind his ears, and then smoothed his center parted, pomaded hair. “The one he came in on looks about like the man himself, lean and weary.”

  They watched the rider pass by again, his duster rolled up and tied behind the saddle. Each was afforded a profile glance at the twenty-nine year old Lucas. Dressed in all black, if dusty, and sun baked a swarthy hue. The long and lean build of him wasn’t much like Finn, his old man, who was brawny and strong as a bull.

  That whipcord sinew on Lucas, brought to mind to both men that he had been reputed to be both an outlaw and a lawman—whichever you tended to believe, after he had lit out of PineFlatts. Also, unlike Finn, and the brother Morgan, who had straight black hair—Finn’s now threaded with silver; Lucas’s had waves that grew overlong. As if, he had been on the trail a long time.

  Still, a man had to admire the way a McCabe sat a horse. Rode as natural as most men walked.

  The sun was lowering and the man was almost out of sight. T.J. uttered, “Always wondered what set him off the night he lit out. I’ll bet anything it was the old man. Finn McCabe is carved out of sheer rock— never did understand how he wed that Croft heiress…”

  “I wasn’t around in those days,” Hoffman said dryly. “Shame though, anytime a family has troubles that split them up that long.”

  Turning to saunter back into the saloon T.J. muttered, “Family hell. The only thing that made Finn McCabe look like a family man was that well-bred wife of his. Now that she’s gone, it’s just a matter of time before all hell breaks loose. You mark my words, that Lucas and his Pa will butt heads and the town will do the payin.”

  Hoffman didn’t nod to that as he lit a cheroot. He stood there watching other townsfolk going about their evening business, nodding to the good Christian ladies who glared at him—tight lipped, from their equally tight bonnets, because he served the devil’s brew and consorted with whores.

  He smiled behind the cigar. His mind though was a bit more open than T.J’s was. T.J. had a beef against Finn, like many of the men McCabe had denied hire or kicked off his place, In T.J.’s case it had to do with that showed-up-out-of nowhere-daughter, Jordan. Now there was a story folks would pay to know, but one that Hoffman wasn’t telling. TJ, like the township, repeated something about the girl’s birth that Finn heard about.

  In any case, he knew a bit more than T.J. did about things. It happened that Finn’s wife’s brother; Alex Croft had rolled in on the stage, rather quietly last month. There were all sorts of telegrams and such flying back and forth between Morgan—who was twenty-five to Lucas’s twenty-nine. The lone wolf brother had been down Texas way, since their Ma, Mrs. Andrea, took sick.

  Yep, it would be interesting to see what played out, all right, but he wouldn’t bet on a saloon fight and shoot out as the climax. That Croft family had money, holdings, and businesses. The wife Finn had taken, holding half, and her brother the other. The McCabe’s ran neck and neck with the Landry’s in rich land and cattle, horses. Unless she’d left it to one of her sons, able to do so legally, it would be her brother, Alex, who’d take over that end of the moneybox.

  Tossing out the cheroot as the sun vanished; Hoffman went inside the noisy saloon. T.J. had spread the word. Every patron inside was talking about the prodigal’s return—and the death of Finn’s wife. The whores were more interested in Lucas.

  South Creek Ranch (The Landry Spread)

  “Did you hear the news?” Seventeen-year-old Corey Landry came through the parlor, her spurred boots tracking up the newly polished floor.

  “What news? And, could you at least wipe your feet, Corey. I’ve worked all day on these floors.” Her sister Rose pushed back a strand of strawberry hair, fallen from the combs. Her dove gray eyes pleaded rather than scolded, because Rose didn’t seem to have a forceful bone in her body. She was the Landry daughter referred to as the shy and gentle one. Preferring to do house chores and read—as opposed to the rebel and tomboyish, Corey—who was a year younger.

  Corey had been their father, Frank’s, shadow; thus, she acted and took on all the traits Frank Landry called tough and “necessary” for a cowhand. She even cut her curly oak brown hair short, and never, ever, would have worn the dresses Rose preferred.

  Maturing early, having taken after her Mother, Sara’s, full figure, Rose privately had reasons when she began to hide inside the house and avoid people—men in particular. Over the years, she didn’t mind that folks called her shy and quiet. She would rather not deal with leering and whispers. According to girls in their small town school—she was fat.

  “About Lucas McCabe, the outlaw son of old Finn. Rode back into town, as pretty as you please.” Corey flopped down in a leather chair her father had favored, ignoring Rose’s frown. Her autumn eyes were slightly narrowed. “He better not come here causing trouble.”

  “Or what? You’ll shoot him.” Rose snorted and shook her head, going over to dust one of the tables. “There’s nothing at all surprising about him coming back. His mamma died. All you know about the man is what happened in town five years ago. All that talk about his gun slinging, is just talk.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I don’t and neither do you.” Rose turned to regard her, taking in her sister’s
too snug trousers and blue chambray shirt, the boots and spurs. “We’ll be obliged to attend the funeral. I hope you will have more respect than to go dressed like that.”

  “I’ll dust my boots off.” Corey jumped up restlessly and quipped. Then she went over and tucked a strand of Rose’s hair back. “I’ll clean the floor up later.”

  “Never mind.”

  “No. I wasn’t thinking. I was actually coming in, to find Mamma.”

  “She’s out in the garden.” Rose let her settle the comb, mentally shaking her head that they could be so close in age, and yet so different. Corey was slim and angular, in that handsome way. Their oldest sister, Falon, who was twenty-eight, was a half-sister—by Frank’s first wife. Their mother was thirty-eight this year. Even Falon was tall and handsome too, with long straight sorrel brown hair and those dove eyes. Rose had gotten both Sara’s figure but Frank’s eyes, and yet none of her mother’s proud poise to carry it all with confidence.

  “You need to get outside more. You’re too pale,” Corey said as she turned to go back out.

  “You’re too brown. And I do go out, I walk every evening.”

  Grinning, Corey looked over her shoulder. “To sit under the shade tree and read sonnets.”

  “That’s more edifying than shoveling horse….”

  “Shit.” Corey laughed and then hurried out the door.

  “Dung.” Rose sighed and went to get the pail and clean up the floor again. Her life was her life, because she got what she got, and all of it too early to feel anything but self-conscious. She liked reading, liked keeping house, and even if she could change bodies with either sister—she wouldn’t pick Corey’s tough tomboy ways.

  Outside, Corey Landry strode around the sprawling ranch house and wrap around porch, finding her mother up on the hill, from the back outbuildings, working in the garden amid the last rays of the sun.

  Sara Landry looked as much at home there, as she did on horseback herding cattle, or in the parlor, greeting guests. Although Corey made a habit out of resisting anything but her own independent opinions, she secretly admired the woman who ran a big spread, raised all of them. Mostly because Frank was a hell of a rancher but not much of a father—as in the nurturing bit. One reason Corey lived on the range and among the cowboys herself, was to be around him, have his attention. If she’d have been like Falon or Rose, he’d never uttered words of approval like he did when she roped, rode and wrangled horses, and learned to brand.

  Corey was shrewd enough by the time she was five to figure out Frank was more than disappointed to have daughter’s instead of sons. She had once heard an argument between him and her mother, over Falon. Apparently her father’s first wife had miscarried several times before she died, and Sara, having herself and Rose, afterwards refused to wear her body out trying for more and working the ranch, raising them too. That had been when her Papa starting staying more on the range during the week—and going to town on Saturday nights.

  “Hand me that basket there,” Sara spotted her and turned, nodding to a weaved basket with big handles. Her skirt was dusty at the hem, her blouse hem filled with late squash.

  Corey held it while her mother dumped them in. Glancing over Sara’s wide brim hat, and seeing her wavy strawberry hair was braided down her back. It was only in the last few years Corey began to realize that her mother wasn’t old.

  Thirty-eight sat well on Sara, even if the sun spattered her with freckles and there were laugh lines around her eyes. Her mother was an active and intelligent woman—she had to be, considering Frank left much of the daily details to her, and all the child rearing, the social things, most anything outside cows and horses. Since his death, Frank having been twenty years Sara’s senior, her mother ran the ranch with the help of the Foreman, Noah Lam, just as well, if not better, than her father had.

  “Heard that Lucas McCabe was back in town,” Corey said taking up the rake and hoe to carry to the shed as she and her mother headed toward the path.

  “Um.” Was all Sara offered, and when they were below, by the rising moonlight, she washed the squash under the hand pump.

  Having put the tools away, Corey walked with her to the back porch and took a seat as her mother did. Sara removed her hat, hung it on a nail, and then pulled up her skirt, to untie the sturdy boots she used in the garden.

  “Rose says we’ll attend the funeral.”

  “Neighborly thing to do,” her mother returned, sitting back, wiggling her toes, and smoothing hair that escaped the braid.

  Grunting, Corey retorted, “Since when are you and Finn McCabe neighborly? I can count on one hand the times you speak to him in town. His sons, yes, even that girl, whoever she belongs to—”

  “Corey,” her mother scolded and turned sharp eyes on her. “That’s no way to talk about Jordan McCabe. She’s never done a thing to you.”

  “I wasn’t talking about her. I just—”

  “You just listen to too much gossip.”

  “Okay. So, I don’t care if the old man, or that Alex Croft, is her daddy. I was saying that you and Finn McCabe—”

  “—Are neighbors. In case you didn’t notice, he attended your father’s funeral. Though, God knows Frank was hell for anyone to contend with.”

  “He wasn’t that bad. No worse than Finn McCabe.”

  “They were both born with heads like rocks,” her mother declared.

  As always, when Sara talked about McCabe, Corey noticed a stiffening, a certain something in her voice. “Well, Papa’s been dead awhile, and you still hardly speak. It’d be hypocritical to attend a f—”

  “— it is considered being respectful,” Sara corrected and drew a scarf out of her pocket, wiping sweat from her nape with it. “I’ve no quarrel with Finn and you’ve no business speculating about Lucas, or the talk about Jordan. That kind of thing comes back to bite you.”

  “Was he a gunslinger, you think?”

  “Who?”

  “Lucas.” Corey sighed, irritated her mother seemed distracted.

  “Maybe, maybe not. A man can be both, gunslinger and lawman in some of the territories. God knows theirs wilder places people settle than here. Whatever he did, it’s none of our business, and his mother just passed.”

  “That’s another thing,” Corey intoned ignoring her mother’s eye rolling. “She never fit that old man—”

  “He’s not old. Finn was younger than your father, Corey. He’s only ten years older than me.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Sara looked out in the dark yard. “We… knew each other when we were younger.” She seemed to shake her head.

  Intrigued, because her mother never mentioned that before, Corey went on, “I was saying that Mrs. Andrea, was a fine lady, rich. I remember seeing her riding in that fancy carriage, using a sidesaddle. She never seemed to fit the rest of them. Not even her sons.”

  “It’s a grand place, the McCabe spread, and much of that, is thanks to her.”

  “Yes, but… you and she, you were neighbors, yet you never went to her teas and such. Not even the shindigs?”

  “I was busy. You know we did well to get to church on Sunday, and go to an occasional barn dance.”

  “Um.” Corey studied her profile. Not— that she would have wanted to dress up and go to fancy teas and things like so many girls her age—But even if Mrs. Andrea wasn’t a working rancher’s wife, her mother was a woman of means and standing in these parts. She would have been right at home with the banker’s wife, and most who made up that social circle.

  She remembered seeing the blond and jasper-eyed, Mrs. Andrea, dressed fine, and always got up in the latest fashions. It seemed odd to think that woman bore the lone wolf Lucas, and even his big and brawny sibling, Morgan.

  “You’re thinking too hard on things that are none of your business.” Her mother stood and reached to tousle her hair. “You need a soak, and we’re going to have to find you a dress.”

  “I’ll stay here and watch the ranch.”
<
br />   “You’re going.” Sara raised her brow. “You’re grown up now, Corey. Seventeen… It’s time you realized you’re a woman.”

  “I know I am. But I’m one who hates dresses.” Corey stood. “You wear trousers all the time.”

  “Yes. But not to a funeral.”

  “Can I wear a split skirt? I just got a new one, mail order?”

  “I’ll consider it.” Her mother opened the door and they walked through. “If—you promise me —you’ll stop listening to gossip, and for Goodness sakes don’t speculate out loud about Jordan. You two are close in age, you could be friends.”

  “Nope. She and Rose, maybe. Not me. I’ll not whisper a word. But I would just as soon hang out with the hands, rather than sip tea and sit in parlors. Whoever she belongs to, she went to a fancy school back east.”

  “You’re hopeless.” Sara put her arm around her in a hug before they parted on the stairs. “But I love you, anyway.”

  Corey grinned. “You too.”

  She watched her mother go above, holding her skirt above her ankles and in her bare feet. She stood there at the mewl post awhile, lost in a muse about the McCabe’s'. Despite what her mother said it was natural when you were a member of the only spread to rival or match that of Finn McCabe, to speculate. She was sure there was talk when her father died—though most of it was pity, because he had no sons to carry on.

  Snorting, Corey rested her chin on her hands that were folded atop the post. She had been devastated by her father’s death, cried, because she’d been the closest to him—if you could call always seeking his approval and attention that. Her sister wept, but maybe in hindsight, that was because he had ignored them for the most part. Her mother… Corey remembered her Mamma being stoic and silent for days afterward.

  She had never given much thought to the intimate relationship of her parents. They were busy, strong in different ways. Now, however, as she thought of the McCabe’s and their odd mix of traits and characteristics, she compared her family. Corey supposed she’d been wrapped up in her own world here on the ranch, and hadn’t given it much thought before.