A Widowed Rancher Stopped for a Mother and Daughter in the Rain… She Said ‘Stay Back or I’ll Shoot
Chapter 3
Thomas woke before sunrise.
He found Sarah standing outside the house.
The rain had stopped.
Fog lay over the pasture.
She was holding the pistol.
Thomas stopped on the porch.
“You’re leaving.”
“Yes.”
“You need breakfast.”
“We can’t stay.”
“Why?”
She looked toward the eastern road.
“They’ll come.”
“Who?”
“Men who don’t care whether Lucy lives.”
Thomas’s expression hardened.
“What do they want?”
Sarah looked at him.
“They want something my sister had.”
“What?”
“A deed.”
Thomas was silent.
Sarah looked surprised.
“You know what that means?”
“I own a ranch.”
Thomas walked toward the barn.
“You’d be surprised how many men are willing to kill over a piece of paper.”
Sarah followed.
“Anna found something.”
“What?”
“Proof.”
“Proof of what?”
“That several families were cheated out of their land.”
Thomas stopped.
Sarah continued.
“My sister worked for a wealthy merchant named Gideon Mercer.”
Thomas’s face changed.
“I know him.”
“He owns warehouses in three towns.”
“And half the river trade.”
“He wanted my sister to copy some documents.”
Thomas looked at her.
“She refused.”
“She copied them anyway.”
“Why?”
“Because she discovered the documents were false.”
Thomas stared at the eastern road.
Mercer.
The name was familiar.
For years, Thomas had heard farmers complain about land being transferred after debts they never remembered owing.
But nobody had ever produced proof.
Until now.
“What happened to your sister?”
Sarah looked down.
“They found her.”
Thomas said nothing.
“Before she died, she gave me the deed.”
“Where is it?”
Sarah touched her cloak.
Thomas understood.
“That’s why they’re following you.”
“Yes.”
“Then you can’t leave.”
She raised the pistol.
“I told you I don’t trust you.”
“You shouldn’t.”
Sarah frowned.
Thomas pointed toward the mountains.
“You won’t make it ten miles.”
“Why?”
“Because the eastern road is watched.”
Sarah’s face tightened.
“How do you know?”
“I saw two riders before dawn.”
She went still.
Thomas walked toward the barn.
“There’s an old hunting cabin in the northern woods.”
“You’ll take us there?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Thomas stopped.
He looked at Lucy through the window.
“Because someone once needed help and I wasn’t there.”
Sarah studied him.
“What happened?”
“My wife.”
Sarah said nothing.
Thomas continued.
“She died before I could get a doctor.”
His voice was calm.
Too calm.
“I’ve regretted it every day since.”
Sarah lowered the pistol.
Thomas saddled two horses.
Lucy was too young to ride alone.
So Sarah carried her.
Thomas gave Sarah the gentler mare.
They left before the sun rose.
None of them saw the man watching from the ridge.
He held a spyglass.
And when the riders disappeared into the trees, he turned his horse toward town.
“Tell Mercer,” he said.
“They’re heading north.”
