The Jensen Brand Read online

  Directly in their path, a woman was crossing the street with two small children, a boy and a girl, each holding one of the woman’s hands. At the sight of the crazed team barreling toward them, her scream shattered the peaceful morning. She broke into a run, tugging the children with her.

  One hand slipped, though, leaving the little girl crying and frozen in the path of the stampeding horses and the bouncing, rattling wagon.

  Denny and the others had angled toward one of the boardwalks as they left the depot, but they hadn’t gone far when the commotion broke out. She heard the scream, looked toward the center of the street, and saw the little girl standing there while the child’s mother hesitated, unsure what to do.

  Denny didn’t wait. Instinct took over. The high-buttoned shoes she wore under her traveling outfit weren’t really made for running, but that didn’t stop her from lifting her skirt and flashing out into the street. She thought she could grab the little girl and get her out of the path of the runaway team.

  She was only halfway there when somebody tackled her.

  Denny went down hard in the dirt. The impact knocked the breath out of her and left her stunned. All she could do was lift her head and watch as the man who had knocked her down scrambled back to his feet and practically flung himself toward the child. He reached out, plucked the girl from the ground, pulled her against him as he landed on his shoulder and rolled.

  The slashing, iron-shod hooves missed them by inches.

  The team was still stampeding. Although breathless, Denny forced herself to her feet and took a couple quick steps as the wagon rocketed past her. She leaped and caught hold of the tailgate. She thought she heard someone shouting at her, but she ignored it and concentrated on pulling herself up. Finally, she managed to hook a foot over the tailgate.

  That allowed her to lever herself up and over, into the wagon bed. The vehicle was empty. On hands and knees she crawled forward, muttering to herself about how it would have been a lot easier and quicker if she’d been wearing pants. She climbed over the back of the seat, grabbed the reins where they had looped around part of the wagon’s frame, and hauled back on the lines as she braced her feet against the floorboards. “Whoa!” she called to the horses. “Whoa there, you crazy varmints!”

  As the team slowed a crazy thought crossed her mind. What would they have thought of her back in England or on the continent if they could see her now? A tight smile curve her lips as she sawed on the reins and the spooked team finally came to a halt.

  Hearing shouts behind her, she turned on the seat and looked back along the street. Her mother, father, and brother were hurrying toward her, followed by Louis Longmont. Farther up the street, Sheriff Carson was haranguing the two big, sheepish-looking men who had stampeded the wagon team. A few yards from them, a man in a buckskin shirt handed the sobbing little girl to her equally distraught mother while the little boy clung to the woman’s skirts.

  “Denise Nicole!” Sally Jensen cried as she ran up to the wagon. “What in the world were you thinking?”

  “That someone had to get that little girl out of the way of those horses before they trampled her, of course,” Denny answered as she lifted a hand and pushed her hair out of her eyes. That made her aware her hat was gone and her hair had come loose from its pins and fallen around her face and shoulders. She didn’t care about that. A toss of her head got it out of the way.

  “Your father could have—”

  “Denny reacted faster than I did,” Smoke said. “In fact, that was pretty fast for anybody.”

  Denny jumped down from the wagon. “Yes, and I would have gotten there in time if somebody hadn’t interfered with me.” She stalked past her parents and headed for the man who had tackled her.

  “Denise!” Sally said.

  “You’d better let her go, Mother,” Louis advised. “She’s got blood in her eye, and when she looks like that there’s no stopping her.”

  Denny thought she heard her father chuckle at that comment, but she wasn’t sure. Then she was out of earshot and she didn’t care anymore. She was about to confront the man who had come out of nowhere to knock her down. He had just bent over, picked up his hat from the street, and started to swat it against his leg to get some of the dust off it.

  Denny grabbed his shoulder and jerked him around. “Hey! What the hell did you think you were doing?”

  CHAPTER 10

  Rogers’s first instinct when he was grabbed was to reach for his gun, but he controlled the impulse and was glad he did when he saw who was confronting him. He wouldn’t want to throw down on anybody as pretty as the young woman in front of him.

  Her hat had fallen off and her hair had come loose and her neat traveling outfit was rumpled and covered with dust from the street. But her bluish-green eyes flashed with angry fire as her intriguingly curved bosom rose and fell quickly.

  Despite that, his voice was cool as he answered, “You were about to get yourself killed, miss. I figured I’d better stop you.”

  “I was trying to save that little girl!”

  He shrugged. “I figured I could do both of those things. And I did.”

  “You were that sure of yourself, even though a child’s life was at stake?”

  “I reckon.”

  “Then you’re an idiot,” Denny snapped. “I was closer.”

  “I was faster.”

  “Fast enough to stop this?” Her right hand suddenly streaked toward his face as she tried to slap him.

  His left hand shot up and caught her wrist, stopping the blow a couple inches short of his cheek. “Evidently,” he drawled, trying not to smirk . . . but he did a little bit.

  Less than a foot separated their faces, so she couldn’t miss the expression. “Ooooh,” she fumed. “Let go of me!”

  “You promise not to try to slap me again?”

  She glared at him for a second, then said through clenched teeth, “I promise.”

  “Good.” He released her wrist. “I—”

  Her knee came up and slammed into his groin. Pain exploded through his body and doubled him over. As she stepped back, she said coldly, “I didn’t promise not to do that, though.”

  He stumbled over to a nearby hitch rail and leaned on it, grateful it was there. Otherwise he would have crumpled up in the street. Breathing hard from the pain, he managed to lift his head and watch her walk away, stiff-backed with fury.

  Damn, he thought through his pain. If that was Smoke Jensen’s little girl, he didn’t want to clash with any other members of the Jensen family.

  * * *

  “Denise Nicole, you should be ashamed of yourself.”

  “Why? For putting an arrogant son of a—” Denny caught herself. “For putting a scoundrel in his place?”

  “She does that sort of thing,” Louis said dryly.

  Sally blew out an exasperated breath. “I’ve been married to your father for too long to worry that much about propriety when something needs to be done. You acted instinctively and I can’t complain about that. But then you deliberately confronted that man.”

  Denny shook back a stray curl that insisted on getting in her face. “He had it coming.”

  Sally might have continued, but Smoke put a hand on her shoulder and said, “I don’t reckon you’re going to win this argument. We might as well see if the bags are loaded up and head for the ranch.”

  “Yes, I can tell I’ve certainly got my work cut out for me,” Sally said as she looked at her daughter.

  Denny just returned the gaze coolly. As they walked back toward the train station, she asked the group at large, “Who was that fella, anyway?”

  “His name’s Brice Rogers,” Smoke said.

  “I don’t recall seeing him around Big Rock before.”

  “He just drifted in lately, according to Monte. I don’t know anything else about him.”

  “I know he’s pretty cocky. He’s got a mighty high opinion of himself.”

  “He moved fast,” Smoke pointed out.

/>   “Don’t you start going on about that, Pa. He just took everybody by surprise, that’s all.” Denny’s jaw tightened. “It won’t happen again.”

  “It’s entirely possible you’ll never see him again,” Sally pointed out.

  “And that’ll be just fine with me.” Denny glanced over at her brother and saw him smiling. “What are you laughing about?”

  “Not a thing,” Louis said, holding up his hands as if in self-defense. “Not a blessed thing.”

  * * *

  After the excitement in town, the ride out to the Sugarloaf was uneventful. Denny headed for the extra saddle mount Smoke had brought along, but Sally said, “The horse is for Louis. That’s not a sidesaddle, and you’re hardly dressed for riding astride, Denise. I mean, Denny.”

  Denny wouldn’t have had a problem with hiking up her skirts and swinging into the saddle, but she might as well let her mother have her way on this one, she decided. She nodded and climbed onto the seat alongside Sally, who took up the reins and handled the team expertly, reminding Denny that she wasn’t the only female who could do such things.

  It wouldn’t hurt for her to remember that Sally Jensen wasn’t exactly a typical female herself.

  Smoke rode to the left of the wagon, Louis on the right. Louis was a decent rider, even though he had never spent as much time outdoors on the English estate as Denny had.

  Smoke asked, “What do you two intend to do now that you’re home?”

  “They just got here, Smoke,” Sally said. “I don’t think the children have to plan their future right away.”

  “On the contrary,” Louis said, “I have a pretty good idea what I’d like to do. I got well acquainted with the barrister who handles some of Grandfather’s business and legal affairs in England, and that made me think I’d be interested in studying the law.”

  “It sure would be good to know more about such things,” Smoke said. “When your mother and I started the Sugarloaf all those years ago, there wasn’t much law in these parts.”

  “There was the law of the gun,” Denny put in.

  Smoke shrugged. “Most of the time, that’s what it amounted to, all right. But things are different now. There’s real law, and it’s getting to be more important all the time. A man can’t run a business without knowing something about it, and when you get right down to it, that’s what a ranch is—a business.”

  “Yes, but I’m not going to be running the Sugarloaf,” Louis said.

  Denny saw the frown that creased her father’s forehead.

  “You’re not?” Smoke said. “I reckon that’s the way a man’s mind runs. He figures that one of these days his son will take over everything that he’s built . . .”

  “I’m sorry, Father. I don’t think my health will ever be good enough for that. My heart’s stronger now, but I’ll never be able to spend all day in the saddle like you do. Just this ride out to the ranch is going to be taxing enough.”

  “Then we need to stop right now,” Sally said. “Louis, you can get in the wagon and ride the rest of the way.”

  “You should have let me have the horse,” Denny muttered.

  Louis held up a hand. “No, no, I’m fine. I’ll just rest a bit once we get there and it won’t be a problem. I just want to be sure both of you understand that I’m not cut out for running a ranch. A profession like the law will be much more suitable.”

  “He’s smart, that’s for sure,” Denny said. “He could have stayed in England and gone to Oxford.”

  “I didn’t want to go to Oxford. I wanted to come home.” Louis grinned. “And here we are.” He gestured at the mountains and the rugged, tree-covered hills around them. “There’s no more spectacular place in the world than the Sugarloaf. I may not live up to the Jensen legacy, but it’s still home to me.”

  “Don’t ever say you don’t live up to the Jensen legacy,” Smoke told him sharply. “Everybody’s different. You’re not me, but nobody expects you to be. You’re every bit a Jensen, though. No doubt about that in my mind.”

  “Well, I hope I don’t disappoint you, Father. I’ll do my best not to.”

  Smoke grinned. “Actually, there have been times when it would have come in handy to have a lawyer in the family.”

  “You mean when you were accused of being an outlaw?” Denny said.

  “That’s right. Of course, I wasn’t married to your mother yet, so you two weren’t even a twinkle in her eye back then.”

  Sally laughed. “I’m not the one who had a twinkle.”

  “Well, now, that’s not the way I remember it—”

  “You hush, Smoke Jensen.” Sally turned to her daughter. “How about you, Denise . . . Denny? I’ll get used to that sooner or later. Maybe.”

  “You mean what do I plan to do?”

  “That’s right.”

  Denny shook her head. “I haven’t given it that much thought. I’m not like Louis. He plans everything out to the smallest detail. That’s why he’ll be such a good lawyer. I just sort of go along and do whatever strikes me at the time.”

  “I believe you’d make an excellent teacher,” Sally said. “And with the way the population of the West is growing so fast, I’m sure there’ll be more and more schools and a need for more and more teachers.”

  “I don’t know,” Denny said slowly, then glanced at her brother and saw Louis smiling. “You quit smirking over there, Louis Arthur Jensen.”

  “I’m just trying to imagine you in a classroom full of unruly little scamps,” Louis said. “You’d probably take a bullwhip to them to make them behave.”

  “I would not!” Denny made a face. “They wouldn’t let me have a bullwhip in school, anyway.”

  “Well, you don’t have to make up your mind now,” Smoke said. “There’ll be plenty of time for you to figure things out. For now, I remember how much you liked helping out around the ranch when you visited before. I don’t see any reason you can’t do that again for a while.”

  Sally said, “You mean you intend to put her to work as a member of the crew?”

  “I don’t mind taking orders from Pearlie,” Denny said.

  “Pearlie’s not the foreman anymore,” Smoke said. “He’s retired, but he’s still living at the ranch and giving Cal advice. Cal’s the ramrod now.”

  “Fine by me. Give me a pair of trousers and a saddle and a job to do, and I’ll do it.”

  “I’ll see what can be arranged,” Smoke said with a smile. “After you and Louis have your homecoming dinner tonight.”

  “First thing in the morning,” Denny prompted him.

  “First thing,” Smoke agreed.

  Denny nodded and sat back on the seat as the wagon rolled along. Despite what she had just told her parents, she did have a long-term plan, and working with Cal Woods and the other hands fit right into it.

  Louis might not want the job, but one day Denny was going to run the Sugarloaf herself.

  CHAPTER 11

  Cal, Pearlie, and all the hands crowded into the ranch house that evening for the magnificent dinner Sally had prepared. Monte Carson and his wife came from Big Rock, along with Louis Longmont. The long table in the dining room was packed, as well as being heavily laden with food. Sally had left a side of beef roasting slowly over a fire pit behind the house that morning, tended to by Pearlie and Inez Sandoval, the Mexican woman who worked as cook and housekeeper. Smoke figured that Pearlie and Inez would get married eventually, but that didn’t stop them from squabbling over things, such as how best to cook that side of beef and get the rest of the meal ready.

  The first time Smoke had met Pearlie, the older man had been a hired gun working for one of Smoke’s enemies. He had ridden the owlhoot trail and seemed destined for a bad end, like most of that breed. Hard to believe, back then, that he and Smoke Jensen would become fast friends and that Pearlie would spend many years riding for the Sugarloaf brand.

  The Jensen brand, really. Men were drawn to it, and it was powerful enough to turn bad men good and make good men
better.

  And those bad men who wouldn’t put aside their evil ways . . . the Jensen brand had a way of dealing with them, too.

  Smoke wasn’t going to think about any of that, though. He was so glad to have his children home that he wasn’t going to worry about anything else.

  Laughter and good fellowship filled the room as family and friends feasted. After a while, when everyone was sitting back, pleasantly stuffed, Smoke stood. Gradually, the group around the table quieted.

  He lifted his coffee cup. “We’re here to celebrate the homecoming of Louis and Denny, but right now I’d like to drink a toast to the person who made this wonderful evening possible by giving birth to a little boy and girl who grew up to be two of the finest young people you’ll ever know. Here’s to my wife Sally!”

  “To Sally!” the group around the table chorused as they lifted their cups.

  Smoke bent over and kissed the top of Sally’s head. She looked a little embarrassed by the attention.

  Then even more so when Cal put two fingers in his mouth, whistled shrilly, and called, “Speech!”

  “You want me to make a speech?” Sally said. “How often have I done anything like that?”

  “Always a first time for everything, darlin’,” Smoke said with a smile.

  “All right.” She got to her feet and looked around the table, then settled her gaze on Louis and Denny. “I just want to repeat what Smoke said about these two. No mother could ever wish for finer children.”

  “I’m not sure what you were wishing for this morning in Big Rock,” Denny said.

  “Maybe that my beautiful daughter wasn’t quite so impulsive,” Sally said. “But what you did was motivated by a desire to save the life of a child, even at the risk of your own life, so no one can say you shouldn’t have done that. That’s what Jensens do—we try to help. And so do our friends.” Sally beamed at everyone. “To all of our friends . . . thank you for being part of our lives.”