Page 49 of In Honor’s Defense

They’d spoken of deeper matters, too. He shared pieces from his childhood. Told her about his mother leaving and his father’s drinking. About working in Mr. Roper’s livery and battling his demons with Matt. She admitted to feeling like a misfit and a burden to her family. Her failure to fit the Baxter mold. She shared her longing to create a family with Nate and the discouragement she did her best to hide when she hit one obstacle after another.

Luke had kept his hands to himself, but the intimacy between him and Damaris just kept growing, like plant shoots undeterred by cobblestones, winding through tiny crevices to sprout green in the midst of a stone street. She was becoming important to him. As important as his Horsemen brethren. Maybe more so. The thought scared him. And tempted him. Tempted him to believe that his future might hold something other than dodging bullets and chasing outlaws. Something that would make growing old a pleasure instead of a liability.

Titan stamped a hoof in impatience, eager to leave the barnyard and stretch his legs.

“I know, buddy. I’m dallyin’ worse than a slug on crutches.” He patted the big sorrel’s neck in apology. “Got a lot on my mind, it seems.” And a serious ache in his body. His side still throbbed from lifting the saddle onto Titan’s back a few minutes ago.

All right. Time to quit pussyfootin’ around and get to business.

Checking his grip on the reins, Luke inhaled a breath, grabbed the horn, and raised his left boot toward the stirrup. Thankful that the rustlers had done him the courtesy of stabbing him in his non-mounting leg, he fit his toe into the stirrup and swung up and over. His side protested the stretching, but it was his right thigh that most concerned him. The constant rubbing that would come with a ride over uneven terrain would test the seams in his hide.

He’d start small. A ride into town and back. He could break up saddle time with a visit to the land office. Ever since Damaris had revealed the existence of a second buyer, he’d wanted to check their records for other properties owned by Harbinger. Maybe he’d find a pattern. Or a clue to what they planned to develop in the area. Either way, he hoped it would provide him with a motive for Douglas Baxter’s murder.

“You’re riding today?”

Damaris’s voice snagged Luke’s attention, jerking his gaze from between his horse’s ears to the woman who had just appeared around the corner of the barn.

She looked lovely. Her simple green calico dress wasn’t anything fancy. In fact, it was probably the simplest dress she owned. Yet of all the dresses he’d seen her wear, he liked this one best. It didn’t carry any drawing room formality or big city airs. It made her seem more approachable. More . . . attainable.

Luke cleared his throat, hoping his hat brim hid his thoughts. “Yep. I’ve been itchin’ to get back in the saddle. Figured I’d ride to town and back. Test out the leg.”

He could read the worry in her eyes, but she didn’t try to talk him out of going. Just walked up to Titan and patted the horse’s shoulder.

“Be gentle with him,” she murmured as she stroked Titan’s dark mane. “And make sure he gets home.”

Home. Luke swallowed. This wasn’t home. It was just a temporary stopover. A place to recover from his injuries and do a bit of good looking out for Nate and Damaris. It was their home, not his.

Yet for the first time in his life, he found himself hankering to have a place where he could hang that word.

Home had been the small clapboard house with the peeling white paint and rotted front steps he’d grown up in. The place where the walls smelled of pipe tobacco, the carpet smelled of spilled whiskey, and the curtains shut out the light and muffled the cries of a young boy who wasn’t always fast enough to dodge his father’s blows.

He’d wanted nothing to do with that home. Or any other.

Until now.

As Damaris tipped her chin up to look at him, Luke recognized the truth staring him in the face. Home wasn’t a place. It was a person. This person. Madisonville, Texas. St. Louis, Missouri. The moon. Location didn’t matter. If Damaris waited for him, it would be home.

But what if he broke that home like his father had? Drove the people he loved away? Maybe not with drink and abuse, but Luke had plenty of other faults to choose from.

A slight pressure against his ankle pulled him from his spiraling cogitations. He looked down to find Damaris’s hand resting against his boot.

“Take care, Luke.” She smiled up at him, cutting through the darkness of his thoughts like a sunbeam through a storm cloud. “Josephine will scold me good if you open one of those wounds again. If you won’t think of yourself while you’re riding, think of me.”

He grinned and tugged his hat brim in salute. “Oh, I’ll be doin’ plenty of thinkin’ about you, ma’am. Don’t you worry.”

Fire flamed in her cheeks. “That’s not what I . . . Get out of here, you.” She swatted his leg.

Luke laughed and nudged Titan into a walk. He waved, enjoying the pink lingering in Damaris’s cheeks before he turned his mount toward the road. At the end of the yard, he clicked his tongue and set Titan into an easy canter, feeling so good that he barely felt his injured thigh at all.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-THREE

The haze of infatuation had worn off by the time he reached the courthouse. Luke bit back a wince as he dismounted and looped Titan’s reins over the hitching post. The leg still held his weight. He’d count that as a win and try to ignore the itchy throbbing of the healing flesh as he entered the large brick building and hunted down the land office.

When the clerk pulled the county records and set them in front of him, Luke immediately regretted not bringing Damaris with him. He could stare down an entire gang of bandits without blinking, but a pile of papers left him craving escape.

After an hour, Luke’s head throbbed worse than his thigh. Sitting at a table in the corner of the small lobby, he pored over documentation for survey reports, mineral rights, grazing fees, and leasing agreements, all carrying more legal mumbo jumbo than he could wade through in a year. He’d found several bills of sale with the Harbinger name attached, but he didn’t understand the survey reports and therefore couldn’t figure out where they were located on the map.