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Rebel with a Cause
Carol Arens
THE MOST SOUGHTAFTER REBEL IN THE WEST!Bounty hunter Zane Coldridge – infamous, dangerous and revered – does not do distractions. He’s renowned for his nononsense attitude, and criminals fear the day he comes knocking on their door! But when Zane encounters Missy Lenore Devlin his resolve is swiftly tested!This ditzy yet innocently beautiful damsel in distress is on the lookout for adventure, and Zane has that in abundance. Torn between chivalry and keeping his head in the game, Zane pulls Missy onto his horse and promises her a journey – one which neither could have imagined when the sun rose over the prairie that morning!
Hero? He’d grunt out a laugh at that title if there was room in the cramped saddle.
Zane had been called dirty. He’d heard low-down a few times. He’d felt the curses of mothers and sweethearts follow him for days, even weeks, after he’d collected a fee for a loved one.
“I’m a bounty hunter, ma’am.” He’d better set the record straight before the woman got any fancy ideas about him. “Money-hungry cuss is what I’ve been called more often than not.”
He waited to feel her posture stiffen against his belly. Maybe the gentle lady would even slip off Ace’s back and choose to walk rather than share the space with him.
She turned as best she could to peer at his face. Raindrops hit her skin and dotted it with liquid freckles. Her mouth formed the same perfectly amazed circle that he had seen when he had galloped on by her earlier.
He leaned backward in the saddle, ready to dismount and walk the rest of the way to Green Island.
“Truly? A genuine bounty hunter?” Unbelievably, she broke into a grin that might have shot the clouds out of the sky.
About the Author
While in the third grade, CAROL ARENS had a teacher who noted that she ought to spend less time daydreaming and looking out of the window and more time on her sums. Today, Carol spends as little time on sums as possible. Daydreaming about plots and characters is still far more interesting to her.
As a young girl, she read books by the dozen. She dreamed that one day she would write a book of her own. A few years later Carol set her sights on a new dream. She wanted to be the mother of four children. She was blessed with a son, then three daughters. While raising them she never forgot her goal of becoming a writer. When her last child went to high school she purchased a big old clunky word processor and began to type out a story.
She joined Romance Writers of America, where she met generous authors who taught her the craft of writing a romance novel. With the knowledge she gained she sold her first book and saw her life-long dream come true.
Carol lives with her real-life hero husband Rick in Southern California, where she was born and raised. She feels blessed to be doing what she loves, with all her children and a growing number of perfect and delightful grandchildren living only a few miles from her front door.
When she is not writing, reading or playing with her grandchildren, Carol loves making trips to the local nursery. She delights in scanning the rows of flowers, envisaging which pretty plants will best brighten her garden.
She enjoys hearing from readers, and invites you to contact her at carolsarens@yahoo.com
A previous novel by the same author:
RENEGADE MOST WANTED
Did you know that some of these novels are also available as eBooks?Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk
Rebel with a Cause
Carol Arens
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
AUTHOR NOTE
For me, the idea for a book sometimes comes with a single scene in my head. What if such and such happened? What then?
For REBEL WITH A CAUSE the scene came about because of cows eating newly washed clothes on laundry day. According to my great-grandmother, Rachael, this was not a rare occurrence.
While travelling the preaching circuit, she found it necessary to wash the family’s clothing in nearby creeks. This presented her with a dilemma: carry the heavy wet clothes back up the bank, or dry them on the bushes growing beside the creek and risk them being eaten by an errant cow?
Faced with the same choice, my heroine, Missy Devlin, decides to dry her gown on a bush. I hope you enjoy reading about how her life changes because of a hungry cow.
Warm wishes and happy reading.
To my firstborn, John Michael McDonald, who taught me the strength of a mother’s love.
Chapter One
Cedar County, Nebraska, March 30, 1881
Shivering and nearly naked in her damp, lacy underwear, Missy Devlin gazed across a prairie that seemed as big and empty as the universe.
“The Western Adventures of Missy Lenore Devlin and her Intrepid Pup, Muff,” she wrote in her brand-new copybook.
She dipped her pen in the ink bottle, wishing there was a quicker way to write down her story. Life unfolded faster than she could scribble words across a page.
On only her first full day in the west, adventure had come upon her as easily as a cat comes to cream.
Mercy if she hadn’t fallen bottom-first into a stream rescuing her puppy. Now, here she sat, all alone on God’s great prairie in her next-to-nothings waiting for her dress to dry. It was a mishap that would cause any well-bred young lady no end of distress.
Back home, it was well-known that Missy rarely felt distressed. Truly, she could not have daydreamed a better adventure.
She blinked away an image of her older brother’s frown, intent on savoring the hint of sunshine teasing her bare shoulders. Poor Edwin would turn as red as a Boston sunset if he could see across the miles.
Her brother had tried, valiantly, she would have to admit, to do his duty and keep her on a socially proper path, but sadly for Edwin, some things were just beyond a sibling’s control.
A crisp wind whined through the rotten slats of wood that tacked together the abandoned wagon she sat upon. She licked her lips, certain that she tasted the green of a thousand acres of newly sprouted grass.
The pages of her journal rippled over her scandalously and oh-so-delightfully naked knees. She smoothed the paper flat once more and wrote another line.
“As related to her sister, Suzie,” she read out loud.
Writing tales of adventure was what she had been born to do. Tea parties and cotillions were lovely for her friends, but putting words on paper was what made Missy’s heart soar.
With each page that she wrote the world of black-and-white became more real than the wind nipping at her petticoat.
Shrill yapping beside the stream nearly disrupted her burst of creativity.
“Quit that barking, Muff, you’ll frighten Number Nine!” she called without glancing up from the inspired text.
Number Nine, the horse she had rented this morning in Green Island, whinnied as if he agreed. His hooves splashed in the stream where she had tethered him to a nearby bush.
“Don’t make me tie you to the wagon.” With no little effort she closed her mind to Muff’s racket.
If Suzie were here to entertain the pup, Missy would not have lost the descriptive phrase that had flitted across her mind. She would have read it out loud to her sister and they would both have admired it.
Missy’s heart squeezed in a bittersweet knot. She pictured her twin sitting, hour upon hour, on the front porch of their stylish home. In spite of the fact that it was a haven of security, of love, Suzie would be gazing west, wondering about Missy’s great adventures.
The telling would be a joy and a burden. She would have to pick brilliant words so that Suzie could live the adventure as though they traveled side by side, the way they had always planned to do.
Early this morning, while gazing out the window of her hotel in Green Island, she had determined to begin her tale with a description of the crisp spring scene spread before her.
Seen from the upper floor, the Missouri River cut across land that looked like an endless pasture of rolling green. The hills rose in easy swells and then sloped down just as gently. Scattered patches of a late snow glittered and melted in the sunshine.
Pristine beauty is what she had intended to relate, but upon closer inspection, the Great American West was dirtier than she had first thought.
In only seconds, Muff had fallen victim to burrs, rascally things that burrowed into his fur with ferociousness. Suzie would laugh her corset loose if she could see his ragged condition.
“Hush, Muff! I can’t think of a word with all that barking!” Missy glanced toward the stream. A stern glare would silence him. “Oh, mercy me!”
The splashing in the stream had not been Number Nine. It was a giant cow.
Missy set aside her writing and stood up. Old wood creaked and groaned. She wiped her suddenly damp palms on her corset.
Gently bred eastern cattle had smaller, daintier mouths than their wild western cousins. Missy made a mental note of the fact, determined to remember how a piece of meadow grass clung to a glittering glob of spittle oozing out of the cow’s jowls … while it munched in apparent contentment on the bodice of her dress!
Muff snipped at the cow’s hoof. He whirled to yap at the flick and swing of its fat brown tail.
A brass button shaped like a rosebud clicked against the cow’s lower tooth then snapped off and plopped in the grass.
“Adversity holds the seeds of adventure” was a motto Missy lived by, but really, that was one of her favorite gowns.
“Hello, cow,” she crooned, dismayed to witness a red satin bow disappear between the great hairy jaws. She slid by slow inches off the wagon. “Let go of my dress.”
Missy shuffled a step forward. The cow was shorter than she was, but weighed Heaven’s-own-guess more.
So far, the beast seemed to care for nothing beyond the lovely red-and-white cloth being crushed in its mouth. It didn’t even kick at Muff who resembled a snowball-sized fiend, nipping and yapping at the cow’s muddy hooves.
If the creature wasn’t annoyed enough at Muff to silence him with a kick, perhaps it would be safe to walk right up to it.
Chances are it was someone’s large pet, a creature used to being coddled and fed a daily ration of women’s apparel.
With a deep, steadying breath, she left the security of the wagon behind.
“There’s a good brown cow.” She knelt and gripped the hem of her gown in both fists. “I’ll take my dress now.”
A tug on the fabric made no impression on the beast’s dedicated gnawing.
She glanced about. Perhaps help would come trotting over one of the rolling hills.
Drat! Where was a heroic, handsome cowboy when a girl needed him? Surely the plains must be speckled with them. As far as she could see, though, the only movement was the grass bending under the breeze and a building mass of clouds that darkened the afternoon horizon.
She yanked. The cow yanked back, tossing its head. A seam ripped and a snort from the bovine nose sprayed something unpleasant into the air.
Muff snarled. The heifer’s gaze swung sideways at him. One stomp of the cloven hoof and the dog would be done for.
“Come, Muff, come,” she commanded.
Muff charged. Missy let go of the dress. She snagged him by the curl of his tail.
The cow snorted and pawed the ground. It lunged.
Missy ran.
She scrambled onto the wagon with the heat of a deep “Moo” raising the hair on her neck.
“Quiet, Muff.” She clamped her fingers over his muzzle, her breathing quick with the narrow escape. “Hush or I’ll toss you right back down to get stepped on.”
The beast butted the wagon. Three slats of wood splintered under the impact. Missy scrambled for balance and nearly toppled overboard.
Apparently pleased at having the last say, the cow turned and waddled off, dragging the remains of Missy’s dress through the dirt and across the stream.
Perhaps she ought to mount Number Nine and follow the giant until it became bored with her gown and dropped it. The problem would be keeping Muff out of harm’s way.
Missy plunked down on a slat of wood. She huffed out a sigh. Apparently not considering the day lost, Muff attempted to scramble out of her lap. He would, no doubt, pursue the bovine filcher over hill and dale if he had the chance.
Grasping the fringe of grimy fur that had fallen over his eyes, she flipped it back and settled him securely in her lap.
“You’ve lost your pretty blue ribbon, you little scamp. You won’t be able to see a thing now.”
At least he wouldn’t see how the clouds on the horizon seemed to boil and blacken by the second. The sun shining down on the wagon lost its kiss of warmth.
She tried to tug her own ribbon and curls back to the top of her head but they sagged in a steadfast knot halfway down her scalp.
“Adversity does hold the seeds of adventure,” she announced to a crushed flower on the ground. Its remaining petal twisted in the breeze.
It would take a bit of creativity to write this adventure so that Suzie would laugh and Mother not swoon.
Gossip was bound to spread. She knew from some experience that embarrassing stories had an uncanny way of speeding across the miles.
It wouldn’t do for Edwin to hear that Missy had come trotting down the public streets of Green Island wearing nothing but a dirty shift and toting a bramble-infested, purebred Maltese.
No sooner had Muff settled into a quiet, filthy ball on her lap than he growled and scrambled to his paws, stretching to look taller than he was.
“Now what?” She glanced across the prairie, peering through an afternoon being steadily dimmed by the heavy-hung clouds.
A man appeared over the rise of a distant hill, walking. He spotted her and waved his arm.
She had wished for a bold cowboy to ride to her aid and was a good bit disappointed.
The man, breaking into a trot and shouting, “Hello,” looked like a gentleman, with his cravat neatly tied and his polished shoes winking with the last ray of sunshine. His pale cheeks jiggled with his awkward gait.
He might as well have been plucked from her mother’s drawing room.
Zane Coldridge fastened the top button of his coat against the rising wind and tugged his Stetson low on his forehead.
“We’ve nearly got him, boy,” he murmured to his horse.
