Prologue

Bandera, TX, May 1895

“Gosh,” said Callie Buck, on an exhausted exhale.

She had never learned to swear. Her father, Ian, had been very strict about those kinds of things; he’d told Callie, time and time again, that bad language was a sign of a feeble mind. and that a smart woman like herself could do better than that.

Still, Callie thought it might be nice to have some way to vent her frustrations after another long day on the ranch. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to utter any of the words that she’d heard come from the mouths of the more uncouth men about town. Her father might be gone, but his legacy was far from forgotten.

“Gosh,” she said again. The mild exclamation would have to do.

Callie took another bite of the steak pie she’d prepared for her supper. It was good—almost anything tasted good after a long day of ranch work, the kind of labor that left your muscles aching and your feet heavy—but she’d rushed making it and the crust was a bit lumpy. She couldn’t bring herself to be too fussed about it, however. Cooking just for herself was about expediency, not perfection.

The low-banked fire in Callie’s old iron stove cast a flickering light around the kitchen, keeping the evening’s darkness at bay. Even in her weariness, Callie felt a fondness for the familiar surroundings. Her house might not be large, and the furnishings might be homemade and well-used, but there was family history in the dings and dents of the wooden kitchen table. She traced her finger over one such dent, so old she couldn’t remember its origin.

Callie didn’t mind hard work. She’d been raised with it; had spent her whole life there on the ranch. She loved her land like it was a member of her own family. But with her father gone these past few months…

Callie was starting to recognize that she might love the land as much as her family, but having the land wasn’t like having an actual family. Fields and cattle and horses couldn’t talk back, and they didn’t offer companionship over supper, and they couldn’t ruffle her hair affectionately before she braided it each morning.

Callie was lonely. And that loneliness made the long days seem longer and the hard work seem harder.

Callie took a resolute bite of her supper, steeling her spine as she always did when these grim thoughts started to creep in. She had made a promise to her father, had sworn it over and over again as he lay dying, struck down by a sudden, brutal illness. I’ll take care of the ranch, Pa. Everything will be fine. You don’t have to worry.

And she was taking care of the ranch. Her sadness aside, everything was fine.

And look, Callie told herself. You’re already getting better at managing on your own.

That was true. Even as grief left her feeling like she was drifting, Callie had turned to the demands of being a sole rancher with aplomb. She was getting better—but still, it was hard.

A sound at the door jolted Callie out of reverie. She craned her neck, looking across the ranch house’s living space towards the front door, which was securely bolted. A woman living alone couldn’t be too careful, after all.

The sound had been small, and Callie almost dismissed it, turning back to her dinner. A stray cat, maybe, or some other small animal. There was plenty of wildlife skittering about out in Texas. Even in the more civilized ranching towns, the land had an untamed quality that Callie loved.

She heard the sound again, and something odd about it had her rising to her feet. That had sounded almost like a cry. Callie felt her brow furrow. She knew all the usual sounds of the ranch at night, and this was not one of them. That deviation from the norm caused a little tendril of nerves to creep up inside her. She padded towards the door, silent in her stocking feet, and took down her pa’s shotgun from its place above the door, just in case. Moving quickly, opting for surprise over stealth, Callie threw off the bolt and opened the door, aiming her gun into the darkness.

A resounding wail sounded from Callie’s feet.

She looked down in absolute shock and for the briefest moment, wondered if perhaps all the hard work and loneliness had gotten the best of her, causing her to see things. She blinked slowly, a few times. Then, once she realized that she actually was seeing what she thought she was seeing, Callie once again wished that she had learned how to properly swear.

“Gosh,” she said with feeling.

Because someone had left, packaged neatly on her doorstep, a chubby, wailing bundle of baby.

Callie peered out into the dark. “Hello?” she called. Babies didn’t just appear out of nowhere. Someone had to have left him or her there. It was lunacy, though. You didn’t just leave a baby. Maybe whoever this little one belonged to was hurt? That didn’t quite make sense, either. Wouldn’t an injured person have stayed on the porch?

“Who’s out there?” she called again, making her voice more demanding. She listened intently for a response, but she couldn’t hear anything over the sound of the baby’s continued wailing. Should she pick him up? Or is it a her? As she pondered, the baby worked a little fist out of the bundle of blanket and waved it about angrily, their cries intensifying. The child was in a battered, woven basket, the handle barely hanging on. A worn flannel tucked about the tiny form, its pattern a soft yellow and white check.

“Hello?” Callie shouted once more, a wild tinge to her tone. The babe’s crying was stirring up some sort of instinctual nerves in her. When no response came—not that she wholly expected it to, at that point—Callie let out a shaky breath and propped up her pa’s gun inside the door. She might not know much about babies, but even she knew firearms and infants didn’t mix.

The baby calmed considerably as soon as Callie hefted the tiny body to her shoulder. After a few more hiccupping breaths, the crying stopped entirely. Wide, dark eyes regarded her solemnly and the hand the baby had liberated came to rest, gentle and inquiring, against her cheek.

The night was nearly moonless, the darkness absolute beyond the glowing ring of light from Callie’s open door. With the baby quiet, she listened once more for any sign that someone was out there, but heard nothing.

She looked squarely into that little face and felt a sense of determination wash over her, conquering her anxiety.

“Alright, my little friend,” she told the baby. “Looks like it’s you and me, tonight.”

And she carried the baby inside and firmly shut the door.

Chapter One

1 year later, Bandera, TX, June 1896

“Roy!” Callie exclaimed as she looked over her shoulder, narrowly avoiding dunking one of her braids in her son’s used bathwater. “Don’t you run off, now!”

A gleeful little baby giggle was her only answer and Callie knew if she managed to turn any further—she’d definitely soak herself if she did that, she knew from experience—she would see a tiny baby rear end making its escape.

Callie let out a huff of air and cast her eyes heavenward. “Lord, grant me patience,” she murmured, but she was smiling.

In the year since someone had left baby Roy on her doorstep, making Callie a mother overnight, she had delighted in watching him grow from a helpless wee thing that could barely lift his own head to a smiling, rambunctious boy. Callie hadn’t known much about babies when Roy had first come to her—she knew plenty now—but her best friend Hayley was the eldest of nine children, and her expert eye had estimated the new arrival to be about two months old.

The day after she’d found Roy on her doorstep, she’d dragged him about town, inquiring about his parents. Did anyone know anyone who had—and even a year later, Callie couldn’t help but wince slightly at the silliness of the question—misplaced a baby? But nobody had known anything. Callie carried Roy back to her ranch that first day, feeling resigned.

The second day, when she’d turned up no new information, she had no regrets about spending another day with her adorable, sweet new little friend.

By the third day, Callie had to admit to herself that she was no longer quite so eager to find Roy’s parents. She’d given him his name, intending it as a placeholder—she couldn’t just keep calling him the baby, even just in her mind. He seemed to like it; he had rewarded the name with a broad, gummy smile that melted Callie’s heart.

Those first few weeks had been a haze. Callie had scrambled to care for the babe, finding suitable milk like sheep’s or even their own cow’s milk, since clearly, she couldn’t nurse. Discovering that he could wail loud enough to wake the dead, and adjusting to never sleeping more than two hours at a stretch. In hindsight though, the worst part of those weeks was that she had been falling in love with Roy, even as she was plagued by the fear that his original parents would return for him. The townsfolk had rallied around her, once it became clear that Callie intended to keep the mysterious new arrival. But the demands of their own lives meant that gradually, but steadily, the stream of well-wishers and advice-givers and meal-bearers had lessened to a trickle, then stopped.

In between the chaotic moments, though, were the sweet memories. Callie would dangle items in front of Roy, and he would swipe his chubby, clumsy hands at whatever she showed him, though Callie’s wooden spoon had been his favorite. She had laughed at his adorable cooing, cuddled his warm, dense body and felt her affection blossom into love. Her fears that she wouldn’t be able to care for Roy—she was caring for him, and she was doing it well—transformed into fears that, if his original parents came back, they wouldn’t know how to care for him properly. Would they know that Roy loved to play a game where he stuck out his tongue and Callie returned the gesture? Would they remember that he needed to burp twice at bedtime or he wouldn’t fall asleep?

But as time went on, Callie’s fears faded, replaced with determination. Nobody would be taking Roy from her. He was her baby. Nightly, she sent up thanks to whomever had left him, and to her father, whose influence she felt in her lucky twist of fate.

“Roy!” she called again, putting a tiny note of warning into her voice. Not that she expected he would listen.

“Maaaaaaa,” Roy called back. That was something, at least—she used the sound of his voice to locate him. He’d made it halfway down the hall, already. Goodness, but he was fast now. Recently, Roy had begun taking some tentative steps, walking an unbalanced baby walk that had delighted Callie so much the first time that she’d clapped and shouted, causing Roy to fall back down onto his behind in surprise. He was still much faster on hands and knees, though, and he knew it. It was his preferred mode for making quick escapes.

Right now, for example, he was attempting to evade bedtime or pajamas or both.

“Come here, you little rascal,” she said, scooping him up and kissing him all over. She simply couldn’t resist his chubby little baby cheeks. “It’s time for bed.”

“Noooooo,” Roy whined. His babble was just now starting to form into a few words, and this was one of his favorites. “No no no no.”

“Yes,” said Callie firmly, bundling him into his nightshirt. He put up a token protest, even as one hand came up to rub at his eyes. Children, Callie thought ruefully. Here was her son, fighting his bedtime, when all Callie wanted to do was tumble into her own bed. Sunrise would come early enough and with it, animals to feed, cattle to move, and the garden needed weeding…

There were always a thousand things to do on the ranch, and never enough hours in the day to get them done. Her little one didn’t make it any easier either, Callie thought ruefully, as she scooped him up. He was coming to an age where he always wanted to be “helping” his Mama, typically in ways that made a good bit of extra work for Callie. She couldn’t resist the sweet little look on his face when he “fed” the chickens (outside their pen) or “swept” the floor with his miniature-version broom she’d made for him after he’d taken to smacking the brush on hers with his chubby fists.

No, Roy hadn’t made things easier. But he made them so much better.

“Alright, my darling,” Callie murmured, smoothing Roy’s still-damp hair back from his forehead. He was growing heavier in her arms, even as he continued to mumble sounds of protest that were becoming fainter by the minute. She laid him gently in his bed, tucking the covers around him securely. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

She did not see him in the morning. Instead, she saw him in the dead of night, when Roy woke abruptly with a wail that set Callie’s heart pounding in her chest. It didn’t matter how many times he’d done this—and Lord only knew it had been so many times—Callie’s instinctual response never failed to be an instant concern for her precious boy. Still, the long practice had her waiting a few seconds to see if Roy would settle back in.

He did not, and so Callie dragged herself out of her own warm, comfortable bed to go comfort him. She was near certain he would cut a tooth soon. They had gone through this process before, where Roy would grow fussy and impatient for a few days, chewing on everything in sight. It would pass, she tried to remind herself as she paced with her cranky son in her arms, softly humming a lullaby. She would sleep again—someday.

It took ages, but Callie managed to settle Roy back to sleep, scarcely daring to breathe as she laid him down on his bed. She was just creeping back to her room as quietly as she knew how, when she heard the shout of a man’s voice—a grown man.

Callie’s first thought was that it had better not wake the baby. Then her senses returned. There was a man here. On her ranch. At night. Then she heard the last sound she wanted to hear: a gunshot.

Her heart leaped into her throat, pounding twice as hard as it had been earlier. One shouting voice turned into two, and Callie hurried back into Roy’s room, scooping him with haste.

“Ma?” he asked, a confused, sleepy rumble.

“Shh,” she soothed, trying to make her voice calm, even as her nerves jangled. The voices were growing louder, now, words becoming distinct.

“—just the girl,” one of them was saying, and Callie didn’t know whether to be afraid that these men knew she was the only adult here, or relieved that they didn’t know about Roy. “She won’t be any trouble.” The voice was just outside the window, now. Callie’s mind raced as she attempted to recognize the voice, but she came up empty. She had to fight from squeezing Roy, wanting to pull her baby as close to her as possible with her now-clammy hands.

Callie wished she could argue their point. If she had been alone, maybe she would have put up more resistance; maybe she would have tried to get to Pa’s gun and scare the bandits—for that was what they were, she was now certain—away from her land and livestock. But she wasn’t alone. She had Roy to think about. Roy, whose sleeping mumbling was shifting towards wakefulness. She needed to get them hidden, and fast, before her son woke and made noise.

She crept down the stairs that led to the small upstairs portion of her house. It felt foolish to be heading towards the bandits, but she knew that if they managed to get inside, the bedrooms were the first place they’d look if they intended to do her, or her baby, harm. She avoided the creaky spot on the third stair, glad she knew every inch of the house well enough to navigate, even in the pitch dark.

Silently, aside from Roy’s small noises, which Callie muffled against the front of her nightshirt, she crawled into the larder, tucking them behind a large sack of cornmeal.

Sitting and waiting was almost impossible when everything in her body screamed for her to act, but Callie would do nothing that might compromise Roy’s safety.

There had been rumors circulating recently about a gang of bandits. The old ladies, who always had the latest gossip, though goodness if Callie knew how, had spoken of ranches being robbed by a gang of rough, unknown men. The butcher’s wife insisted that her sister’s husband’s cousin’s neighbor had been struck, but the reports had been vague enough and from far enough away that Callie hadn’t paid them much mind. She regretted that as they hid and waited, heart in her throat. Any information would have been helpful, and she couldn’t remember the tales that she’d heard. Did this group—if it even was the same group—kill people they found? Did they burn houses or barns? Callie felt nearly panicked over the possibility, but forced herself to remain calm. If she got upset, so would Roy.

She struggled to keep her breathing soft and even. Roy, pleased to be sleeping in her arms instead of in his own bed, snuggled happily against her and, much to Callie’s relief, quickly fell back asleep, despite the sounds of the men outside. She, on the other hand, remained strung tight with tension as she heard the voices grow louder and quieter as the men moved around. At one point, she heard shouting and the sharp, outraged whinny of a horse and her heart clenched.

The voices shifted and overlapped, loud, reckless, and overconfident. Beneath the constant thrum of her fear, Callie roiled with the injustice of it. These men had come here and decided they could take whatever they wanted.

And worse, they were right. Because she was a woman, alone except for a baby. And that meant that no matter how competent she was, no matter how hard she worked, she was vulnerable.

Callie clung to her anger.

Eventually, the sounds of voices faded into the usual sounds of night. Even in the larder, she could hear the faint hum of crickets who began to chirp again, now that the disturbance was gone. Still, Callie could not bring herself to stir from her hiding place until the first rays of dawn shone under the crack below the larder door.

She shuffled out from her cramped quarters, knees stiff. The movement roused Roy, who blinked at her sleepily for a few beats before becoming wide awake and excited for the day, in that way that only small children can manage. “Mamamamama,” he said, placing a hand on her cheek.

Callie pressed her nose to the side of his head and breathed in his soapy smell, letting his senseless baby babbling—the normalcy of it—soothe her. She felt jittery, like when she’d had too much of the tarlike coffee her father used to brew. She should be exhausted—she was exhausted—but the nervous energy running through her veins made sleep the last thing on her mind.

Good thing, too. Ranch life—and motherhood—didn’t stop just because of a scare. She needed to check on the ranch, on the animals. She needed to see the extent of the damage. But she couldn’t make herself go outside, not quite yet. She needed to bask in a small moment of gratitude that she and her son were safe, before she dealt with anything else.

“Alright,” she said to Roy. “Let’s get our day started, shall we? Clothes, and then breakfast.” She was pleased when her voice came out only a little shaky. She needed to maintain the appearance of calm for Roy’s sake.

Roy cheerfully banged a wooden toy duck that Callie had inexpertly carved, while she got dressed, pulling her long, dark hair back into braids, then he squirmed impatiently as Callie dressed him, eager to get back to his playtime.

She stuffed her feet into her boots without setting Roy down, a move she’d long ago perfected, tucking the tops inside her practical trousers, which she preferred over the more-proper skirts, when she had a long day of ranch work ahead. She felt a great deal older than her twenty-two years, of late, and that particular morning, she felt older than ever.

She paused for one bracing breath before heading outside.

From her porch, Callie surveyed the damage.

The barn doors hung open, swaying gently in the mild morning breeze. Even from there, Callie could see that the horses were gone—but she’d expected that. She’d heard them, whinnying in protest as unfamiliar hands had led them away from their homes. Her small herd of cattle appeared mostly intact. Likely they’d been too big to move easily. That was a small blessing.

The fence around the chicken coop had been trampled—this felt more like malicious destruction than productive theft, to Callie’s mind—and a few chickens milled about, pecking idly at the new terrain. Unless some of the layers were hiding in the safety of the coop, it looked as though some had been snatched. That also made sense, Callie thought. Grabbing a chicken was easy, but rounding up a whole cluster of chickens in the dark was a far sight more difficult.

Okay, Callie thought, trying to keep the rush of dismay at bay. Okay. She had to think that it was going to be okay, otherwise everything else would start to creep in. How would she get to town without her horses? And if she couldn’t get to town, how would she get supplies to fix the chicken coop? Or to trade? Or…