Page 78 of Short-Straw Bride

Travis grinned. Here he’d torn down gates and disposed of warning signs—things his wife had encouraged him to do—and now she was the one welcoming strangers at gunpoint.

Sadie barked, and for the first time, Travis noticed the dog standing a pace behind Meri. He reached down and stroked her behind her ears. “Sounds like my girls had things well in hand.” The old bird dog barked again in appreciation of his approval.

When he straightened, Meredith’s eyes were scanning the woods beyond the barn. “Do you think the others heard the shots? Jim will want to know about Cassie. We’ll need to strategize, and we don’t have much time.”

“Don’t worry. They’ll come barrelin’ out of those trees any minute.” Especially Jim. The man was already edgier than a new razor. “But for now, I think you better start at the beginning and tell me exactly what Wheeler said.”

“There isn’t that much to tell.” Meredith shivered slightly and rubbed her arms. Her shawl must have slipped off when she left the porch. Funny how she hadn’t noticed the cold until that moment.

Travis shrugged out of his work coat and settled the heavy garment on her shoulders. Tenderness softened his face for a moment as he fidgeted with the collar. But when he finished, the hard lines returned. “What did he say?”

“He said that Roy and Cassie were on their way to my father’s old property along with my aunt and uncle and a handful of guests. Knowing how close Cassie and I are, Roy asked Wheeler to ride ahead and extend a personal invitation to us. For Cassandra’s sake, he asked that we set aside any hard feelings over previous misunderstandings and attend the wedding. It’s supposed to be in the cabin at five o’clock tonight.”

Travis’s eyes widened. “Tonight? That can’t be more than a couple hours from now.”

“I found that pretty suspicious, too.” Meredith pushed her arms through the sleeves of her husband’s coat and crossed them over her belly. “I told Mr. Wheeler that when I saw Cassie yesterday morning, she’d had no intention of wedding Mr. Mitchell. He just smiled and said she’d changed her mind.”

Meredith searched Travis’s face for some clue as to what he was thinking, but his stoic mask gave nothing away. She’d expected outrage or a promise to mount a rescue effort or something. Yet all he did was scowl and stare into the empty space between her and the corral.

“We are going to help her, right?” Meredith tried to claim Travis’s gaze by searching out his eyes. “I know Cass. She’d never willingly marry that man. Roy must be threatening or manipulating her somehow.”

“Of course he’s manipulating,” Travis growled. “And not only your cousin. He’s attempting to manipulate me, as well. Which is why we can’t rush off without thinking things through.”

Travis twisted his neck back toward the woods. Only then did Meredith hear the sound of riders coming in.

“Mitchell needs both our properties to solidify things with his investors,” Travis said, turning back to her. “If we play into his hand, we risk giving him exactly what he wants. We need time to figure out what game he’s playing before we can hope to beat him at it.”

“But—”

“We’ll talk about it more when the boys get here.”

Travis strode away from her to signal his brothers, and Meredith couldn’t help but feel a little abandoned. Her mind insisted that anticipating Roy’s machinations was the wise course, but her heart wanted a take-charge hero ready to ride to the rescue.

Forty-five minutes later, all the Archers stood in the center of the barn, still arguing over the best plan of action.

“What if you’re wrong, Travis? I won’t take that risk.” Jim refused to back down, and Meredith, for one, was glad.

“We don’t even know for sure that Mitchell has her,” Travis insisted. “More likely it’s a ploy to lure us away and leave the ranch open to attack. Only this time, they’ll raze everything, not just the barn. It’s the only hope he has of driving us off the land. Either that or he has an army of men waiting to ambush us at the cabin. Dead men can’t protest an illegal sale, after all.”

Crockett pushed away from the post he’d been slouching against. “You did say Cassie was fine when you left her this morning. Right, Jim? Wheeler arrived barely an hour after you did. Mitchell would’ve had to abduct Cassie and her family, find a minister willing to perform a forced ceremony, and set out for Meredith’s cabin in that same time frame. I find it hard to believe that he could pull that off in under an hour with no advance warning.”

“He could if he had help.” All eyes turned to Meredith. “You forget that Jim saw my aunt leaving the house before he left. She wants this union. She believes it’s her family’s financial salvation. In her eyes, Roy Mitchell is a saint. I imagine she went directly to his office this morning and probably even aided the man in kidnapping her daughter.”

Jim stalked up to Travis and growled in his ear. “If Mitchell had Meredith, you’d go after her. You know you would.”

She could tell by the way the two eyed each other in challenge, that Jim’s statement hadn’t been intended for her ears, but she couldn’t stop herself from hoping it would be persuasive. Cassie was in peril. It was time to send in the cavalry.

Jim finally stepped away and let Travis mull over all that’d been said. The quiet ate away at Meredith, but she held her tongue, praying that the Lord would give her husband the wisdom necessary to make the right decision.

“Before Pa died, he made me swear to protect our family and our land. I won’t leave the ranch unguarded or let the three of you walk into an ambush without proof that Cassie is truly in danger.”

Jim made to protest, but Travis stopped him with a look. And in that moment, something shriveled inside Meredith. The land always came first with Travis. The land and his brothers.

“However,” Travis continued, “I agree that we cannot risk Cassie’s life, either.”

Meredith inhaled a shaky breath. Please, Travis. Please let us help her.

“Therefore, I think the best course of action is to let Jim scout out the cabin. The rest of us will stay here in case Mitchell attacks. One man will be harder to spot, but you’ll also have no one to watch your back.”