Are you sure?
This action might not be possible to undo. Are you sure you want to continue?
Sweet Justice
by Bonnie Hobbs
Ratings:
274 pages4 hours
Summary
Wounded by her fiance's betrayal. Rachel Logan returns to her father's ranch in Arizona Territory determined to live an independent life without a man. Kol Hawk comes home after ten years in a Yuma Prison for attempting to kill Rachel's father. His obsession to find justice for the deaths of a Pima woman and her daughter is blindsided when he finds the old man crippled and no longer the once arrogant rancher he remembers. Rachel's childhood infatuation with Kol is rekindled and he is drawn to her fierce defense of her father. As they come together to discover the truth behind the murders that changed their lives, can they find solace and an abiding love in each other?
Publisher: The Wild Rose PressReleased: Mar 2, 2016ISBN: 9781509205547Format: book
Book Preview
Sweet Justice - Bonnie Hobbs
Inc.
"Papa, look there.
That poor fool must have stepped off by mistake. No one comes here by choice. He doesn’t even have the sense to wear a hat." She grinned, turning to her father. He liked to make sport of newcomers.
The old man’s face had paled to ash, his eyes wide. He never did. Never wore one,
he whispered. He closed his eyes and leaned to his weaker side, staggering one step.
Papa?
Rachel gripped his arm. Who do you mean?
Her father took a wavering breath and squinted toward the train, easing his head up from his rounded shoulders like a tortoise from its shell. Him.
Who, Papa?
Still holding him steady, Rachel swung her gaze back toward the train.
The man had cleared the mist and steam. He strode toward the platform, a worn saddlebag over one shoulder. He paused at the base of the steps and lifted his face, dark eyes glaring out of a sun-browned face, shoulder-long black hair hanging lank in the stillness of the morning. As he mounted the steps, a strange notion took hold of Rachel. Whoever he was, he was walking into her life out of a dream, though a dream she didn’t recall ever having.
She brought her father close behind her. Now the length of the platform stretched between them and the man who just kept coming.
He seems familiar, but…
He’s back,
Matthew Logan’s voice was low. Oh, Lord God, he’s bringing it with him. The trouble, the sorrow…
Praise for Bonnie Hobbs
SWEET JUSTICE was a finalist in the Writers’ League of Texas contest and placed third in last year’s Golden Rose historical category (RCRW).
~*~
One of her short stories won first place in the 2014 Women Writing the West’s LAURA contest.
Sweet Justice
by
Bonnie Hobbs
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Sweet Justice
COPYRIGHT © 2016 by Bonnie Hobbs
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Contact Information: info@thewildrosepress.com
Cover Art by Kim Mendoza
The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
PO Box 708
Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708
Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com
Publishing History
First Cactus Rose Edition, 2016
Print ISBN 978-1-5092-0553-0
Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-0554-7
Published in the United States of America
Dedication
For my father,
and always, for Ray
Chapter One
Arizona Territory, 1890
Rachel Logan took five quick strides across the railway platform, stopping just before her boots toed the edge. She gave a quick shove to her dusty black and battered hat, letting it dangle from the cord that kept it from flying off in a high wind. No worry this morning. The air was as still as a long-held breath. Papa!
she shouted. Jake makes trouble where none should be. If you don’t take him in hand, I shall. He has no business stirring up those fillies. I swear he does it just for sport. Even when he’s trying, he has a heavy-handed way with horses, but this—this mess…
Reaching back toward her father with one hand, Rachel fisted the other, shaking it toward the chaos in the holding pens by the tracks, glaring at her stepbrother.
Rachel stood too far from the pen, powerless to do more than shout. Her three well-schooled fillies reared up, kicked out and squealed, eyes rolling as they worried themselves into a choppy sea of horse-flesh. Jake! Jacob Weaver,
she shouted. Move away!
The man turned to face her, one hand still jerking on the halter of the little sabino colt, its white belly flashing as it twisted itself around. Jake cupped one hand to his ear as if trying to understand her words, though he was clearly only fooling with her. He grinned, shook his head, and shrugged. He began laughing like a simpleton, his hair bristling from below his hat, stiff as dirty straw.
That train,
Rachel said in a hoarse whisper, staring south along the tracks. Where is that train? It should have been here before dawn. Neither Jake nor those animals have the patience to wait so long.
Nor do you, child, so it seems.
Matthew Logan gave a chuckle that twisted into a coughing fit. He cleared his throat and took a shaky breath. Coming in from old Mexico like it does, well, never can know what trouble might be brewing down across that border. Shooting and cutting every which way.
She turned to face him and huffed out a breath. Still, four hours late?
Can’t hurry what don’t care, Rachel.
He raised his cane with his strong right hand, pointing it toward the tracks. Yet whilst you been fussing over it, that train has snuck right up on you.
His chuckle fell apart, ending in another gurgling cough.
Rachel masked worry with a scowl. Yes, I hear it wheezing worse than you. We should have brought that wheeled chair. You can’t stand here all day.
Matthew Logan thrust his head forward, leaning on the cane, back bent, fingers gnarled and knobbed. I don’t need no dang chair,
he muttered.
Then…
The newly built platform still smelled of fresh-sawn pine. You think they’d have built a bench when they—but there, that nail keg. I can roll it over. You can—
Quit fussing. You need to be getting them beasts loaded. You got a buyer waiting up north.
Rachel retreated in the face of his stubborn pride. The train had indeed eased around the bend just south of where they stood and wouldn’t wait long before chugging north to Tucson. For the moment it sat wheezing and shuddering, much like her father.
Jake had settled down and was seeing to business, loading the now jumpy horses, taking on the guise of a responsible man. Engine steam mingled with a low-ground mist rolling off the Santa Cruz river to the west. The sun had risen high enough over the cinnamon-colored Canelo hills to cast shadows. Rachel raised a forearm to her brow, shading against the light. One shadow was on the move.
A tall, lean-shanked man shouldered his way through the mist.
Papa, look there. That poor fool must have stepped off by mistake. No one comes here by choice. He doesn’t even have the sense to wear a hat.
She grinned, turning to her father. He liked to make sport of newcomers.
The old man’s face had paled to ash, his eyes wide. He never did. Never wore one,
he whispered. He closed his eyes and leaned to his weaker side, staggering one step.
Papa?
Rachel gripped his arm. Who do you mean?
Her father took a wavering breath and squinted toward the train, easing his head up from his rounded shoulders like a tortoise from its shell. Him.
Who, Papa?
Still holding him steady, Rachel swung her gaze back toward the train.
The man had cleared the mist and steam. He strode toward the platform, a worn saddlebag over one shoulder. He paused at the base of the steps and lifted his face, dark eyes glaring out of a sun-browned face, shoulder-long black hair hanging lank in the stillness of the morning. As he mounted the steps, a strange notion took hold of Rachel. Whoever he was, he was walking into her life out of a dream, though a dream she didn’t recall ever having.
She brought her father close behind her. Now the length of the platform stretched between them and the man who just kept coming.
He seems familiar, but…
He’s back,
Matthew Logan’s voice was low. Oh, Lord God, he’s bringing it with him. The trouble, the sorrow…
Rachel gripped her father’s forearm. She shook her head slowly, creasing her brow. Who was this man? She caught her breath as recognition stirred. Yes, I remember. Of course I do.
She shot a glance over her shoulder.
Her father nodded. He left soon after you went east. It’ll all get stirred up again. No way out of it.
I don’t know what you mean, Papa. I recall that day, of course, but I only recall him being near when I needed help.
Rachel tried to put some humor in her words. Kept me from a nasty fall off those rocks where I’d climbed for some foolish notion. Angry at the world, I guess. I didn’t want to go east. And I didn’t want to be saved. I cut him with girlish insults: sharp, cruel words.
Rachel tried to laugh, but it came out false. He only gave me a sad smile and strode away.
The man mounted the steps, paused, then crossed the fifteen feet between them. He moved with the same grace as when he was a boy, though today he was a man. And coming straight for her. Today he was not smiling.
Her father jerked away and covered his eyes with a trembling hand. Rachel swung her gaze to him and cocked her head, baffled. Why are you so afraid, Papa? So he left here too. Why does his coming back matter? Where has he been?
I been hoping to God he was gone for good.
It’s Kol, isn’t it, Papa?
she whispered. Kolbjorn Hawk. He’s not a stranger.
We don’t know the man he’s become. Can’t know what he’ll say or do. We just don’t know.
Matthew Logan swiped at his mouth and mumbled, his eyes jumping from place to place until he fixed a glassy stare on the man.
Rachel nudged her father’s arm. Talk to me, Papa.
He tore his gaze from Kol Hawk and set it on Rachel but angled his body away from her, mewling and muttering.
A swell of nameless dread rose in Rachel, something akin to a nightmare where she could run, but not escape. She turned, meaning to set herself like a wall before her father. Though she didn’t understand his terror, anyone showing so much fear needed protection, no matter the reason, fanciful or real. And it could be either, for so many of Matthew Logan’s thoughts ran to fanciful these days.
Rachel smoothed a strand of hair off her face and re-knotted the ribbon that held it, readying herself for whatever might be coming. Yes, she remembered Kolbjorn Hawk, the boy with the strange name and stranger family. She’d adored him when they were children, trailed after him, sneaking glances and hotly denying her feelings when her friend Pilar teased her. Two years older than she, he was never unkind, merely distant. He sometimes spared her a smile. And every time he did it made her glow. Silly child.
She pulled up her hat and set it in place, then tugged it forward over her brow and planted her boots wider. Wayward pieces of straw clung to her skirt. She shook them off and let the heavy denim fall back against her legs, smoothing the skirt over her hips.
All the while she fidgeted, Kolbjorn Hawk moved closer.
Chapter Two
Matthew Logan cleared his throat. He crowded close to Rachel and leaned one trembling shoulder into her back, speaking from behind. Why’d you come back, boy?
His voice spun out of him like fine thread, an old man’s querulous cry barely carrying on the morning air. Not much of a challenge, likely less than he’d intended.
Rachel swallowed down a tangled knot, for her father’s voice had once been so strong, so certain—its deep rolling tones had commanded respect, sometimes fear, depending on who you were and what you’d done to catch his notice. She twisted to glance back over her shoulder. He was swallowing and trying to wet his lips with a rasping tongue. He peered around her body like a frightened child hiding from a stranger, his wide-eyed gaze fixed on Kol Hawk. He raised his voice a notch. You go away now. Go away. You aren’t wanted here.
Hawk stopped three paces from them, glaring at them both out of hard dark eyes glittering like whiskey in a shot glass. He held himself stock-still, poised to what? To leap at them? The notion was absurd.
Rachel took a breath. My father is unwell. He has become blunt in his speech of late and evidently ambushed by uncertainty at your coming. Please forgive him his lapse in manners.
Would civility diffuse what felt like an explosion about to happen? She smiled politely.
Kol Hawk shifted his gaze from her father to her face. His manner lost a little of its savagery. Well, Miss Rachel. I doubt I would’ve known you but for the little chip off that front tooth.
Rachel pressed her lips into a thin line, hiding her teeth. She forgot she had such a flaw, for true gentlemen never spoke of it.
He frowned at her. You came home. I would not have thought that likely.
He narrowed his eyes, peering at her like she was a freakish specimen.
He’d looked at her just like that the last time she saw him, but then he was smiling in the face of her childish outburst. She recalled it clearly. She’d mocked his mother’s old-country accent and her habit of talking to her sheep and dogs like they were people. That day Rachel had been drowning in grief for her mother’s death and angry at being sent back to school in New Orleans, back to her aunt and uncle and their life among the wealthy and socially prominent. Kol Hawk had been the target of that anger. He’d taken it and let it roll right off him.
It’s been a long time, Kol. I recall we parted badly and have sometimes wished I could apologize for my rudeness.
Then be easy in your mind, Miss Rachel. I have given it no thought.
Rachel, hurt and surprised, felt her face flush. She raised her chin higher, meaning to give him a cold retort, but a look of pain roiled behind his flint-eyed glare. Surely not for a ten-year old insult.
He’d always been enigmatic in his ways and serious in his speech, always the outsider, rising as he did from the pairing of a Swedish immigrant woman and a Navajo silversmith from up-country. The family had been left to themselves, though people traded spiteful gossip and made judgments about his mother, a white woman with an Indian, after all.
He seemed much the same now, though the smiling boy was gone. Lines fanned from the corners of his eyes, deeper furrows etched the flesh near his mouth. Straight black hair, worn loose and long, now stirred in a sudden gusting breeze. The sun had baked what she saw of him to a coppery sheen. The rest of him? The thought shamed her into blushing. He smiled and a nearly tender expression took the cruelty from his mouth. Did he see the flush she felt? Was he reading her thoughts?
She had kept her hands clasped behind her, enduring the silence as it drew out and thinned. Her father grasped one of her wrists, his breathing faster and ragged. She pulled away from his grip and brought her hands around to yank off her hat, wondering why, then slapped it against her leg once and shoved it back on, tightening the cord beneath her chin, nearly choking herself. She loosened it.
Kol Hawk tilted his head at her, assessing. Bright yellow hair. Back then, in the early days we refused hats, I recall, all of us. None of us older than ten. You, me, Pilar, and…
His face darkened and he took a breath. And Mosi. Even fat little Jake. No hats, not for us.
He blinked, cocking his head to the other side. But I see you have grown up sensible.
He took a deep breath and the faded calico shirt beneath a worn leather vest pulled tight across his chest before he exhaled.
Only a fool goes bare-headed in the sun,
Rachel said.
Then I imagine we were foolish. I recollect that little yellow-haired girl, hopping here and there, twittering like a sparrow. Then, just ten years old, she was no use to her father and mother, I guess, and they sent her away. My ma tried to explain that to me, but I couldn’t grasp it. Still can’t. Then you came back. Not quite a woman, yet armed with cutting words and using them as weapons.
His gaze roamed across her face, down across her breasts and shoulders, then back up. Again he sent you away. It was on that day you nearly fell from the rocks. You recall? I figured you’d someday grow taller.
He gave a little grunt. But I see you did not.
Should I be flattered you thought of me at all?
He shrugged. Up to you. Later, as it turned out, that day proved to be a big one for all of us.
He grew serious. In all kinds of different ways.
She had forgotten him over the years, forgotten how moonstruck she’d been. He was her first and secret love. Now, seeing him, hearing him, it all came rushing back. She burned beneath the heat of his gaze, feeling the years melt away.
Such empty eyes. She thought of an eagle or a hawk, the raptor that shared his name. He drew his brows together and lifted his chin an inch, looking down on her from his full height. So much taller than she. As he’d said, she hadn’t grown much past five feet since she was fifteen and didn’t like being scrutinized so keenly. She tried to think of some pithy phrase to rattle his composure.
Well, you say you hadn’t counted on my being here,
she said. Why not? It is my home, after all.
As it is mine,
he said.
Yes, well. I don’t know why you left. Gossips say ‘trouble.’ I’ve not listened.
Could be you should have.
Maybe so, since you’ve come back with this strange air of menace.
I mean no harm to you.
Rachel wanted to shout. She swallowed down her exasperation. Then to whom?
Her father suddenly pawed the back of her shirt. Papa? What…
Don’t, Rachel. Don’t talk to him. Don’t…
Kol Hawk leaned slightly to one side. More than ten years past, old man. You’ve never told this girl the story?
He spoke softly, slowly. I believe it’s time you do.
His voice changed, growing razor sharp. When they hauled me off I was lucky to have my full growth and no fear of a fight. Still, I didn’t stay a boy too long in Yuma Prison. All grown up now, by God.
Hawk shook his head slowly, his nostrils flaring, lips curling like he smelled something foul. I have studied on only one question for ten years.
Ain’t got nothing more to say to you boy. Nothing.
I have to know why, why you did it.
He slapped his palm against his chest, over his heart. I will hurt forever until I know. Did you kill them because they were troublesome? Stupid Indian women who would not do what powerful Matthew Logan wanted?
His tone sharpened as he shoved himself closer. They screamed maybe and fought you? You, a busy man, had no time for women who fought. Was that all it was?
His voice swirled around Rachel like a cold stream, and shocked her awake to danger.
The ugly words sickened her. My father…
she started, then gulped a breath and began again. That’s ridiculous. My father would never hurt anyone, certainly not women. I don’t even know who you mean. Papa, tell him, say something. What does he mean?
Hawk only sidestepped, leaning in close to let his words roll over her and toward her father. She was sixteen, old man.
He raised one arm and swept Rachel aside, almost gently, keeping his venomous glare on her father while jerking his chin toward her. Mosi would now be the age of this one here if you hadn’t butchered her.
He closed his eyes and shook his head side to side slowly and only twice, then raised his lids again part way, keeping his eyes hooded. Sixteen. She was six—teen.
He spat out the last word like a bitter herb.
Rachel shook off a growing horror. Mosi? You mean Mosi? I’ve heard that story. She and her mother were living off in that canyon—the raiding Apaches killed them. Why do you…? What madness is this?
Again she wedged herself between him and her father, but it meant she stood uncomfortably close to Hawk. She turned to the side but his fierce breath came down upon her like a scorching wind. It stirred her hair. Rage seeped from him as she stood frozen in that heat, her breath quickening, matching his.
Words now came from him with ease, finding their way above the rage that bore them up and gave them
You've reached the end of this preview. Sign up to read more!
Page 1 of 1