Whirlwind Cowboy. Debra Cowan
His gaze traced the slender, taut line of Deborah’s back as she walked away. “And that’s not the worst of it. You need to know that Cosgrove will likely show up here.”
“What? Why?”
Bram explained about the stolen bank money and his belief that Cosgrove would hunt Deborah down for it.
Alarm pinched the woman’s thin features. “If he does that, he could hurt her again!”
“I won’t let that happen.” Bram might intend to use her as bait—that didn’t mean he would let anything happen to her.
He shared his plan to provide protection for Deborah. “I’m headed into Whirlwind to tell Davis Lee everything.”
Hearing hoofbeats, he looked across the prairie, recognizing the roan gelding loping toward them. “That’s Duffy Ingram, one of my hands. I told him to follow me over here. He’ll stand watch until I return tonight.”
“Do you really think that’s necessary?”
“Yes, ma’am. In fact, I’ve arranged for someone to be here around the clock.”
Her eyes widened.
“Duffy will share daytime duties with Amos Fuller, another of my ranch hands. They’ll each take an eight-hour shift and I’ll be here at night.”
“I’ll let the girls know we need to be aware. And armed.”
Bram nodded. One advantage of having a Texas Ranger son was that Jericho had taught all of the Blue women to shoot. And to hit what they aimed for.
Once he had introduced Duffy to Mrs. Blue and left instructions that the ranch hand not let Deborah out of his sight, Bram mounted up. His gaze went to the house, and he hoped she would soon feel at ease.
Now that it was time to go, he didn’t feel right about leaving her. He snorted. What a half-wit. Hadn’t she planned to do that very thing to him?
He had to remember that. Had to remember she was his way to Cosgrove and that’s all she was.
Deborah watched Bram ride away. He didn’t go in the direction they’d come, but instead guided his mount past the house.
She had remembered the place where Bram had proposed. Not the way he had remembered, with details, but when they had paused at the water, she had been overcome by anger followed by a heavy sadness. Then an image, a flash of … something. And a pounding in her head.
His explanation of what had happened there accounted for the suffocating sadness that had rolled over her. That piece of memory had left her half expecting to remember her family. But she didn’t.
As she had stared at them, the realization had hit her like a blow. For a moment she hadn’t been able to breathe. Panic and crushing disappointment slammed her hard enough that she had wanted to lean into his wide chest, let him shelter her from a dark bitter crush of emotion. But she hadn’t.
“Bram’s going into Whirlwind.” Mrs. Blue—her mother—joined the others on the porch and looked at Deborah. “Oh, that’s a nearby town.”
She appreciated the information even though this was something she actually knew. “He told me about Whirlwind.”
“Good.” The other woman smiled softly.
As Bram kneed his horse into a lope, Deborah tore her gaze from his broad shoulders and turned to her family.
Mrs. Blue continued, “He plans to talk to the sheriff and explain what’s going on.”
“Did he tell you about the money?” she asked. “And Cosgrove?”
“Yes.”
“Cosgrove!” Jordan frowned. “What does he have to do with anything?”
“I don’t like him, Deborah,” said the girl with the mouse.
Deborah recalled her name was Marah.
“What money?” Michal asked, pulling her long black hair over her shoulder.
Jordan watched Deborah somberly. Almost warily. “Do you really not remember Bram?”
“No.”
“You’re completely smitten with him.”
Mrs. Blue herded them toward the door. “Let’s go inside. Your sister might like to eat or bathe. And we can talk.”
Sister. Deborah looked at the women around her. All raven haired, all pretty, all showing the same puzzlement that she felt. And she didn’t recognize a single one of them.
Any more than she recognized the man who had asked her to marry him. The man she was supposedly in love with.
Chapter Five
“What do you mean, you found Deborah Blue and forty thousand dollars?” Whirlwind’s sheriff, Davis Lee Holt, shoved a hand through his dark hair, his blue eyes narrowed on Bram.
Bram pointed to the saddlebags he’d brought inside the jailhouse and dumped beside the other man’s scratched oak desk. “Take a look in there.”
Sunlight glittering off his badge, Davis Lee knelt and flipped open one pouch, then the other. He let out a slow whistle. “Forty thousand dollars. This is from the Monaco robbery.”
“Yeah.”
His friend rose. “What’s this about Deborah? I didn’t know she was missing and needed to be found. When you left Whirlwind and headed to Monaco, I thought you were going after Cosgrove.”
“And that’s what I did,” Bram said. “But he isn’t who I found.”
Staring out the window toward the smithy next door, he explained how he had come upon the woman he’d hoped to marry. The woman who didn’t even know who he was!
Davis Lee eased down on the corner of his desk. “Deborah’s note said she was going to Abilene to meet with the school board about her teaching position. How did she end up with Cosgrove?”
“She says she doesn’t know.”
The lawman barked out a laugh. “Then who would?”
“She can’t remember anything or anyone.”
“Not even her family?”
Bram shook his head, lifting a hand to greet Ef Gerard, the black man who owned the smithy. Ef gave a broad smile and returned the greeting.
“Or you either?” Sobering, Davis Lee eyed Bram consideringly.
“That’s right.”
“How can that be?”
“Evidently I’m not all that memorable,” Bram muttered. Which blistered him up good.
“How does someone lose their memory?”
“I have no notion.”
“Have you talked to Annalise?”
“Not yet.” Bram planned to visit the doctor before he left town. Annalise Fine was a lifelong friend who had recently returned from back East. She and Matt Baldwin had reunited after seven years apart.
Bram bet Annalise would never forget the man she claimed to love.
He turned back to the sheriff, bracing one shoulder against the wall beside the window. “Deborah’s hurt, too. She has a cut on her temple, and her face and back are bruised.”
Davis Lee’s jaw firmed. “Did Cosgrove rough her up?”
“Could be. She was with him.”
“Doesn’t sound like it was willingly.”
Bram wanted