She Was Sold Beside Her Sister, The Cowboy Said “You’ll Both Have A Home With Me”

Chapter 2

He crossed the dust to them as the crowd began to drift, grumbling, back toward the saloons. Up close, he was younger than the voice had suggested — maybe thirty, with a weathered face and hair the dark color of wet bark, curling at his collar. He stopped at the foot of the platform, hat in hand.

“I’m going to cut those ropes,” he said. “Then I’m going to get you both some water. We can talk after, if you like.”

Eliza’s jaw tightened. “And if we don’t like?”

Something moved behind his eyes — not anger. Sorrow, maybe, or a memory. “Then we’ll talk about that, too.”

He climbed the steps with the slow, careful tread of a man who had spooked horses before. The blade of his knife was cool against Eliza’s wrists, and the instant the rope fell away, the blood rushed back into her hands in a hot, aching flood. She almost crumpled. She didn’t. She rubbed her wrists and watched him do the same for Rose, who stared up at him with enormous, red-rimmed eyes.

“My name’s Garrett Maddox,” he said. “I own a cattle ranch twenty miles west of here. The Aurora.”

“A ranch,” Eliza repeated flatly. “What do you want with us, Mr. Maddox?”