Grace be a Lady (Love & War in Johnson County Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

re-think that. “No, I mean I have a
sister.” The lies were piling up on each other and Grace felt ill. Why had she
said that? She was an only child.
    “Where’s
she at?”
    Closer
than you think. “We parted company in Misery. She couldn’t
find work here.” Even when she told the truth, she was telling a lie.
    “Well,
it’s pretty adventurous of you to come out here on your own. That takes sand.”
Raney’s gaze drifted off to the distant mountains. “Those are the people that
make it out here. Folks with sand.”
    Suddenly,
Grace was curious about her new employer, about the things she wasn’t telling
her. “Ma’am, fifteen hundred acres is a lot of room for a hundred head of
cattle. I don’t mean to pry . . .”
    Raney
chuckled. “The Diamond R used to run three thousand head, and we had sixteen
thousand acres. When my husband died, the men wouldn’t work for a woman.” She
paused, as if recalling the details, then shrugged as if they didn’t matter. “No
men, no ranch. Started selling it off. I’ve had some drifters over the years
help out, but nobody permanent. It’s a size now I can manage on my own if I
have to.”
    “Do
you mind me asking what happened to your husband?”
    “Jake
was out checking fence one day and somebody shot him.”
    Grace
gasped. “I’m sorry.”
    Raney
swallowed, tightened her lips. “Almost three years now.”
    “When
you say somebody . . .?”
    “Never
found out who or why.”
    Grace
couldn’t imagine what it must be like to live with that kind of mystery. She
thought it would drive her crazy. She wanted to ask what Raney had done about
it. Had she pushed the sheriff to investigate? Had she hired a private
investigator? But the set of the older woman’s jaw suggested it wasn’t
something she wished to discuss further.
    Raney
snatched up on the reins, jerking the wagon to a stop. She pointed to a distant
hill. “That’s Bill Lewis’s place.” A dark pillar of smoke drifted on the air.
As they watched, it burned blacker and billowed faster. Raney slapped the reins
across the horses’ rumps and yelled, “Come on, git up!” Skillfully, she turned
the wagon in the middle of the road, pointed them all back the way they had
just come and then whipped the reins again with a thunderous crack. “Yahhh!”
she bellowed and the team took off like they’d been shot out of a cannon. Grace
grabbed hold of the seat and gaped in horror at Raney.
    “Yahhh!”
the woman yelled again, putting the horses into a thunderous gallop. A gust of
wind nearly snatched the hat of Grace’s head. Heart in her throat, she shoved it
back down and held it in place, as if she was capping a barrel of snakes.
    Grace
saw a road coming up on the right and braced herself, somehow sure that was the
track Raney was going to take. The woman whipped the horses hard and steered
them down the dusty little road at full speed. The wagon tipped, slid sideways,
and then whipped back around behind the team. Grace held her breath and clung
desperately to the seat, wondering if she’d come all this way just to die in a
wagon accident.
    Wide
open and hell-bent-for-leather, Raney pushed the team to an astounding speed.
The horses stretched and pounded, their hooves moving so fast they were a blur.
Grace had never experienced such speed, and it terrified her, but the
desperation on her employer’s face told her not to question.
    They
crested a hill and saw a cabin engulfed in flames. Six men had formed two lines
from the water trough to the fire. Working at a fever pitch, the desperate
brigade dipped buckets in the water, passed them on, tossed the water, and passed
the buckets back, over and over. Raney ran the wagon right up to the trough,
skidded the horses to a stop, and leaped from the wagon.
    “You,”
she pointed at Grace as she ran around the front of the horses, “get down and
work this pump.”
    Grace
jumped to the ground, grabbed the handle, and started pumping as if she was on fire.