Cate Corrals a Cattleman Read online

  Cate Corrals a Cattleman

  A Historical Western Romance

  Brides with Grit Series: Book 6

  Copyright © 2015 by Linda K. Hubalek

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2015956449

  Published by Butterfield Books Inc.

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting this hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Except for the history of Ellsworth, Kansas that has been mentioned in the book, the names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  A clean, sweet historical romance set in 1873.

  Widowed ranch woman Cate Wilerson’s four children are now all married and she’s enjoying being a grandma. But, she’s only in her forties, so she could be married again for many years. Cate’s ready to tie the knot again and she has already picked her groom.

  Cattleman Isaac Connely bought a ring for Cate almost thirty years ago, but Moses Wilerson, a friend to both of them, asked Cate to marry him first. After serving in the Civil War, Isaac followed the Wilersons to Kansas and builds a cattle empire with his inheritance. He respected Cate’s and Moses’ marriage, comforted her through the loss of her husband and remained a friend of the Wilerson family.

  Now he’s ready to propose—with the same ring—but someone from his past appears on his doorstep, dredging up a dark secret making him doubt his worth to be Cate’s husband.

  Can Cate let go of past hurts and help Isaac realize he is not to blame, so he will finally ask her to marry him?

  Dedication

  To farm and ranch women, past and present—thank you for feeding the world.

  To sign up for Linda Hubalek’s mailing list and receive notice of new titles as they are available, click here.

  Prologue

  Late summer 1873

  Clear Creek, Kansas

  “Marshal Wilerson,” Ben Sandall, the depot agent called from the doorway as he opened the door to the Clear Creek jailhouse. Adam Wilerson sat at his desk, visiting with his brother Jacob, who sat across from him in another chair. “I hate to interrupt you, but you need to talk to a young lady over at the depot. She’s asking for someone to take her out to the Cross C Ranch.”

  “See if someone over at Boyle’s Livery can take her out there,” Adam said as he looked at Jacob. “I hadn’t heard Isaac mention he had company coming to visit. Did you, Jacob?” Adam asked.

  “Nope, but it’s been a few days since I’ve been over there,” Jacob answered.

  “She says her uncle is Isaac Connely,” the agent added.

  Adam looked at Jacob. “Did you know Isaac had a niece? I’m fairly positive Marcus is Isaac’s sister’s only child.”

  “That’s not the problem, men—I’d swear on a stack of Bibles she was your sister, Sarah, when she stepped off the train. This young lady is Sarah’s identical twin.”

  Adam met Jacob’s puzzled look, then Jacob’s tanned face turned pale.

  “Ben, could you ask her to wait outside the depot until Adam and I are done talking? Then I’ll escort her to the Cross C,” Jacob asked. As soon as Ben shut the door, Jacob asked Adam, “Quick, where’s your spy glass?”

  “Jacob, you’re going to spy on her from across the street? So someone looks a little like Sarah. What’s the big deal?”

  “Give it to me before she decides to walk over here!”

  Jacob pulled the glass from a desk drawer and handed it to Jacob, who quickly stepped to the window and put the glass to his eye.

  “Oh no,” Jacob said after he looked a few seconds at the young woman now standing in front of the depot. “Except for being maybe a few years younger, she is Sarah’s perfect match!”

  “Gimme that!” Adam snatched the glass from Jacob and looked across the street at the person in question.

  A few seconds later, Adam lowered the glass and looked at his brother. “Holy cow! She and Sarah look more alike than…Sarah looks like us.” He narrowed his eyes as Jacob paced back and forth like a caged animal. The Wilerson brothers, Adam, Jacob and Noah all had light brown hair and hazel eyes. Their sister Sarah, and this woman across the street, both had ebony–black hair and blue eyes.

  “I have a feeling you know something about this young woman that I don’t, so spill it, Jacob.”

  “If I‘m right, this is going to devastate Ma and Sarah.” Jacob grabbed the spy glass from Adam’s hand and looked again. “It just has got to be a mistake, but I’d bet all my money in the Clear Creek Bank it’s true.”

  “What?!”

  “At this point, I think I can break my promise to keep Ma’s secret to myself, because everyone’s going to know soon enough.”

  “Jacob, what in the world are you talking about?”

  “Didn’t Isaac have a stepbrother when we all lived in Illinois?” Their parents were friends with Isaac Connely while growing up together in Illinois. The Wilersons moved to Kansas in 1861, and Isaac settled near them after the Civil War ended.

  “Yeah, I kind of remember when Isaac’s father remarried shortly before we moved here, but Mr. Connely died right after the marriage. And the woman had a grown son about Isaac’s age. But I’ve never heard Isaac mention him since, come to think about it. What do all these questions have to do with the woman who looks like Sarah?”

  “I’m betting Sarah and that person are half–sisters.”

  “You’re nuts! How!?”

  Chapter 1

  Cross C Ranch near Clear Creek, Kansas

  Isaac Connely sat at his desk in his home office, staring at the gold ring he held between his thumb and forefinger. He bought it almost thirty years ago for a special woman, but never had the chance to put it on her finger. He’d almost thrown the ring away a few times, but always tucked it back in its box. She married his best friend instead, never knowing Isaac was about to propose to her, as he had been a day too late.

  He respected Cate’s and Moses’ marriage, was content with their friendship and comforted her through the loss of her husband. Isaac had always been included in the Wilerson family gatherings, both when the children were young and now as they were all adults.

  He looked at the picturesque view outside his office window. Longhorn cattle of various colors dotted the Kansas hills as far as he could see. A huge, native–stone barn, corrals containing horses, and outbuildings edged the open circle of the ranch yard. The ranch hands’ bunkhouse and the foreman’s cabin sat to the east of his two–story, stone house.

  Isaac was pleased with how well the Cross C Ranch prospered from its beginning. Of course, he had the money to build everything he wanted right away after he bought the twelve thousand acres of native grass in central Kansas.

  He and his sister Irene inherited their father’s fortune and Illinois business when their father died in ‘52, leaving them with plenty of money for the rest of their lives.

  Irene married Raymond Brenner and they lived in Maryland near West Point. Their son, Marcus had been living with Isaac on the Cross C Ranch since spring to recover from injuries Marcus, a former Captain in the Plains Cavalry, sustained in a skirmish near Fort Wallace in western Kansas. Like his father, Marcus was educated at West Point and served in the
military until his honorable discharge.

  Isaac invested his cash inheritance while continuing to manage his family’s gun manufacturing business. When the battles between the Yankees and Confederates grew into a full–blown war, gun orders poured in from the Union side, keeping the company working almost around the clock to get the orders shipped and delivered. Isaac thought it was ironic, and sad, his fortune came from the guns used to kill others.

  He knew that first hand, because even though Isaac was at least a decade older than most young soldiers, he was still called to duty. Because of his accuracy with guns, Isaac was a sharpshooter, crawling behind the lines of the Confederate troops to take out the commanding officers. Being one of the most sought–after soldiers to kill, Isaac was wounded and sent home. He recovered and spent the rest of the war manufacturing the rifles and revolvers which helped the Union win the war.

  When Isaac came back from the battlefield, he learned his good friends, the Wilersons, had moved to Kansas to keep their three, young, teenage sons out of the war.

  Once the war was over, he sold the company because of his desire to distance himself from the reminders of war. Wanting to be near his friends again, Isaac decided to invest in the new frontier and become a cattleman. He built a huge house, hoping someday he’d find a loving wife and fill the house with their children. But he’d never met a woman who could hold a candle to the one he bought this ring for so many years ago.

  So Isaac had stayed a bachelor, becoming part of the Clear Creek community, and living near the Wilersons.

  Moses Wilerson died a few years back, but on his deathbed, Moses asked Isaac to watch over his wife, Cate, and their four children. And when Cate was ready, Isaac could wed his first love. Isaac wasn’t surprised Moses knew he still carried a torch for Cate, but she had married Moses instead of him, and Isaac respected her decision.

  Cate’s last child, Sarah, married his nephew, Marcus last week, so Cate felt free to wed again. Isaac knew she was ready and waiting for his proposal. Isaac moved the ring back and forth to catch the light. Here he was, in his forties, gray beginning to show in his brown hair, his weathered face showing deep wrinkles around his blue–gray eyes, and he was about to become a nervous groom. He hoped.

  Of course there were a few stray gray hairs in Cate’s lovely ash–brown hair, too. But her blue eyes sparkled the same as when she was twenty years old.

  He realized the ring he bought for a young woman might not fit on the ring finger of the mature ranch woman, but it was the symbol he wanted her to have. Isaac would buy her a new ring for her to wear and Cate could wear this first ring around her neck on a chain, or keep it in her jewelry box. Whatever Cate wished was fine by him.

  Today he’d get down on one knee and give her the ring he’d been wanting to give her for decades.

  ***

  Cate carefully laid the sleeping infant in the crib with his siblings, hoping Micah didn’t wake up Matthew and Mark. The last month had been a real trial, but the orphaned, triplet, newborns were growing and thriving.

  Her daughter Sarah ran away before walking down the aisle and saying her wedding vows in her aborted wedding to Ethan Paulson a month ago. She rode to the Cross C Ranch to catch the man she really loved—Marcus Brenner, Isaac’s nephew—before he left to return to Fort Wallace. Early last spring Marcus had been injured in a skirmish with the Indians when he was escorting a wagon train through western Kansas. He came to his uncle’s ranch to recover from his injuries. He and Sarah fell in love, but Sarah was promised to another man, so Marcus planned to return to the fort.

  Before they could begin to discuss marriage to one another, they were interrupted by six–year–old Maggie Sullivan. The girl lived with her widowed mother and two younger siblings in a cabin near the ranch house, so she knew Marcus and Sarah. Her mother had fallen and hit her head against the wood–burning stove and was unconscious. Mrs. Sullivan revived long enough so Sarah could help her to bed to deliver her three baby boys. Margaret wrote a letter appointing Sarah and Marcus as guardians of her triplets, plus her three older children. Shortly after the paper was signed, Margaret died from her head injury.

  Isaac offered Sarah and Marcus the ranch home to house their instant family. Cate moved in to help with ‘round the clock care the tiny newborns needed. After a rocky start adjusting to being instant parents, Marcus and Sarah become a solid couple ready to finally marry.

  The week before Marcus and Sarah were married, Marcus returned to Fort Wallace to identify two children who had been taken from a wagon train he had escorted last spring. Because they were orphans, Marcus brought five–year–old Molly and three–year–old Moses home to join their family.

  Also added to their family were three puppies, compliments of Dagmar Hamner of the nearby Bar E Ranch. He thought the pups would be good for the older children to take care of, like Sarah was doing with their three infant brothers. It added chaos to the household, but the puppies made the children happy.

  With Sarah’s marriage, all four of Cate’s children were now married.

  Cate’s oldest son Adam, Clear Creek’s town marshal, married Millie Donovan, an Irish red–haired beauty from Chicago who baked delicious cakes and pies for Clancy’s Café and the Paulson Hotel in town. Mille arrived by train to be neighbor Sam Larson’s mail–order bride, but he died in an accident before she arrived. Adam had read Millie’s letters, which were found in Sam’s house, and looked forward to meeting her, but he was surprised when she arrived with a toddler. Cate thought Adam could use a housekeeper, so Millie and her two–year–old nephew, Tate, moved into the marshal’s home—much against Adam’s wishes. His life was thrown into mayhem with the boy’s antics and Millie’s problems with the law. When Millie moved out of Adam’s home to keep house for Isaac, he wrote Millie a sweet letter asking her to be his mail–order bride and she accepted.

  Millie’s sister, Darcie Robbins, along with her baby, Amelia, followed Millie to Clear Creek to reunite with her boy, Tate, and to get away from her abusive husband. The man followed Darcie to Clear Creek, but was captured and sent back to Chicago to face charges for a previous crime. Currently, Darcie is cooking for the ranch hands at the Bar E Ranch, while the regular cook, Reuben Shepard, is visiting his relatives in New York this summer.

  Cate’s second son Jacob, married Rania Hamner, a six–foot tall blonde, and they live on the original Wilerson ranch. Cate lived there, too, until Sarah needed help with her new family at the Cross C.

  The Hamner family, Swedes who immigrated to Texas a dozen years ago, spent several springs and summers herding longhorns from Texas to the Kansas railyards at Abilene, then later to Ellsworth when it became the main railhead for cattle transport to Chicago. Jacob helped at the Ellsworth rail pens sorting and loading cattle a year ago, so he got to know the Hamner family, and had been looking forward to seeing Rania again this spring. A drover named Sid Narker, violated Rania on their cattle drive to Kansas this year, causing her to be with child. The man followed the family to Ellsworth, and forced Rania to go with him to Denver. Jacob came to Rania’s rescue, they married in May and were now looking forward to the birth of Rania’s baby later this year.

  Third son, Noah, married Rania’s twin, Hilda, and lived a mile from Jacob and Rania. Noah built a sod house and barn on his homestead claim, then returned to Illinois to marry his intended, only she had married someone else. Rather than go home to Kansas, Noah spent a year working out west on ranches. Meanwhile, Hilda, bought Noah’s claim—since it was considered abandoned—with money from winning horse races. When Noah came back, the couple clashed, but ended up working together to build fences, train horses, and fall in love.

  Rania’s and Hilda’s brother, Dagmar, was hired as the foreman at the Bar E Ranch west of the Cross C Ranch. Cora Elison, the daughter of the Boston couple who owned the ranch, took off for Kansas after her fiancé married Cora’s best friend instead of her. Dagmar, a six and a half foot tall blond, and Cora, a five–foot chestnut–haire
d beauty, became best friends and ran the ranch together. When her parents arrived with a groom for Cora because she had four days to marry, or she wouldn’t receive her share of her grandfather’s fortune, Cora convinced Dagmar to marry her so they could use the inherited money to help others in need.

  The Hamner siblings’ parents, Oskar and Annalina, along with their older brother Leif, were trail driving a herd to Kansas now. After the longhorns were delivered to the Ellsworth railyards, they would be permanently settling on Sam Larson’s former place instead of returning to Texas.

  Cate volunteered to move to the Cross C Ranch house, not only to help Sarah with the orphaned children, but because she had a plan for her own future. Her husband Moses died of cancer four years ago, and he urged her to marry again, rather than shut herself off from life.

  She was only in her forties, and ready to marry again. Of course she loved being a grandmother and would always help with her grandchildren, but she was young enough to be married another twenty or thirty years.

  So, living at the Cross C gave her the opportunity to be with Isaac all the time, and one way or another, she’d corral him into marriage. There were a few times when Cate wondered what life would have been like if she had married Isaac instead of Moses. Isaac was her first love during in their school days in Illinois, but Moses proposed to her first.

  Cate accepted Moses’ proposal and they raised four wonderful children. Life wasn’t always fair or easy for them, but they weathered the trying times together.

  Now was her chance to begin the next phase of her life. Cate knew Isaac still had feelings for her, although he hadn’t acted on it yet.