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As she clile of the creek reached her ears Meetables and chickens she’d raised, and the nighttinant of all was the ravelly voice, his kindness, and his defiant courage at the end of his life She would never stophim
The cabin would be gone Bull Tyler had torched it, with her grandfather’s body inside, to hold off Prescott’s men while they ht and taken to the Rimrock, had been saved
Rose had braced herself for whatever she was about to see But even so, the sight of the tra from the water to the cattle tank, with only a few tilted posts re where a fence had once marked the boundary, almost crushed her heart This had been a beautiful place once, a place she had loved But all that had changed
Near the edge of the clearing, a massive cottonwood trunk lay where the tree had fallen, its li out underneath, here Bull had buried her grandfather’s charred remains No casket No service—perhaps not even a prayer And only a teone
Kneeling beside the spot, Rose laid a hand on the rave “I’oing to make a home in this place—a home you’d be proud of”
She was about to rise and go when a faer She’d seen nothing, heard nothing But all her instincts told her that she wasn’t alone
So her
She froze, one hand thu back the haer instincts If she sensed that soht
She’d seen no one on this side of the creek But the other side was Prescott land—hostile territory ever since the old days, when she’d lived here with her grandfather and Hauns and torches in an attempt to force them off the property
In the end, when he wouldn’t sell, Ham Prescott hirandfather with a rifle Her grandfather had made it back into the cabin but died a short time later That hen Bull and Jasper had shown up, rescued her and her chickens, and set the cabin ablaze to cover their escape
And that hen Bull had found the hidden deed to the property and kept it for himself
Rose could still feel a hidden presence on the far side of the creek Hae now, and Ferg was no different fro her
She kept the pistol cocked, her grip steady and sure If she had to, she would shoot first and ask questions later
CHAPTER THREE
SCREENED BY WILLOWS, TANNER MCCADE WATCHED THE WOMAN ON the far side of the creek Who was she? And what the hell was she doing out here?