Salvation's Secrets (The Loflin Legacy Prequel) Read Online Free PDF Page B

couldn’t lay claim to either of those traits
yet he admired Jake simply for being somebody you could depend on
to steer you straight no matter what.
    They rode companionably without the need for
words, each comfortable with the other’s company.
    “You planning on taking out those rustlers
over at the Triple M?” Jake eyed him coolly beneath the shade of
his Stetson.
    “I’m thinking on it, why?”
    Jake shrugged his shoulders. “Just wondering
is all. It’s a hard job for one man.”
    “It’s the way I work – alone.”
    “Yeah, well…suit yourself. I don’t suppose
you’ve considered what Earl’s gonna have to say ‘bout you still gun
slinging, have ya?”
    “Don’t start on me, Jake. Seth’s been riding
me hard already.” Turning away to stare hard at the side of the
road, Charles sighed. “Not much I can do about the trouble I’m in
except keep paying the debt.”
    “If you’d ask Earl, he’d help you. You know
that, right?”
    “Can’t, Jake. I can’t. I’m already beholden’
to him enough. I’ll never be able to repay all he’s done for me as
it is.”
    “Sometimes, it ain’t about repayment, it’s
about gratitude.”
    Charles cut a bemused eye at Jake rather
than ask what the hell the elder cowboy meant. The statement would
be all he’d get out of the ranch foreman. They continued back to
the barn in silence.
    ***
    “You going somewhere?” Maggie beat the bread
dough into submission as she listened to the footsteps headed down
the hall.
    “Yeah, I gotta hot poker game to get in on.
Why?” Hating the defensiveness in his words, Seth made a point of
settling a kiss on the housekeeper’s cheek before he snagged a pear
from the bowl of fruit on the kitchen table. The woman who’d run
Shooter Creek Ranch house singlehandedly for more than eight years
since the death of his maw was a no no-nonsense woman and he loved
her. She’d been the glue holding the family together and shored up
the edges when his world had fallen apart the evening of July
20th,1838. The baby had been still born and Laura Loflin bled to
death following the birth. He didn’t want to think on what happened
in the days following his maw’s death. Earl locked himself in the
room with her body and it took Jake, Maggie, Charlie and Father
Samuel to convince him to bury his wife. Though he’d only been ten
at the time, Seth overheard them. They’d talked of how Earl didn’t
want to see the baby girl’s body. He told them to, “ Get rid of
the thing. ” He’d stood on the hill in the graveyard next to the
newly dug grave of his mother and the smaller grave for his sister.
It seemed cruel not to grieve for her as well as his maw. The tiny
little thing hadn’t deserved the hatred Earl harbored for her. Over
the years, Seth visited the graves from time to time. Wondering
what it might have been like to have a sister, he figured she’d
been blessed to have left the world rather than bear witness to
Earl’s demented nature.
    “You’re my girl, Maggie. Gotta run.”
    “All right, Seth but take care.”
    “You know me, Maggie, always.”
    He breezed past her and out the back door,
only glancing at the garden and chicken coup. A pang of guilt
slapped him back a step when the reminder of where he headed nudged
his conscious. “Don’t go brooding over things. Nothing’s gonna
happen tonight.” Whistling for Sarge, Seth leapt into the saddle
when the bay trotted to the barn door. Already saddled and waiting,
he paused only a minute as his younger brother, Tyron appeared in
the same door. “Did you saddle him all by yourself?”
    Ty nodded with an easy grin on his handsome
face. The young boy’s features resembled his Choctaw mother’s
heritage so much; it proved hard to find any of Earl in Ty’s face.
Seth loved him though and found solace in a younger brother to look
up to him.
    “I’ll bring you back a surprise, all right?
Now, remember, I’m playing cards.” Winking, Seth smiled openly.
Finding it