Page 81 of The Outlaw and the Heir

"Well, you sure didn't consult Father on it. So, whose call was it?"

Elizabeth straightened. “Mine, Joseph. And if you're going to speak about me, have the courtesy not to treat me as if I'm not in the room."

Father shifted his stance. “Elizabeth."

"Yes?"

"How positive are you that these men are from Le Garou?"

"They didn't claim it outright, but the look on his face when Samuel brought them up certainly went a long way toward convincing me they are."

Joseph sneered. “We're going on her being convinced?"

"Joseph," my sister said in her sweetest, politest voice. "If you continue to denigrate my ability to think clearly in front of me, I might just be tempted to give you the same treatment I gave to the rat bastard who thought he could lay hands on me. Today is not the day to test my patience."

All three of us stared at her, and I was surprised and a little impressed. Joseph also looked surprised but outraged, and our father looked...thoughtful. Elizabeth had always had a bit of a wild streak and plenty of fire, but she had never turned that on anyone in the family. It seemed either her touch of relative freedom or a near-death brush was enough to bring it out and make her dangerous to anyone who pissed her off.

"In any case," Elizabeth said after the silence had stretched for long enough to become uncomfortable, "we'll need to keep Samuel close while he recovers. There's plenty of room in this house where he'll be?—"

"Absolutely not," Joseph hissed. "It's bad enough that Ambrose has practically stopped treating him like the criminal he is, but we arenotbringing him into the house. He can stay in his quarters."

"Shared quarters that aren't going to be as comfortable and clean as a room here?" Elizabeth scoffed.

"That man is lowlife, trash in a human shape, and just because he did one good…urk…" he managed that much before he found himself slammed against the wall, my forearm shoved against his throat and my face in his.

"That lowlife showed more courage and heart in one day than you have shown in your entire life," I snarled, not caring that his face was changing colors as I held him fiercely. "It's because ofhim that Elizabeth is not only alive but unharmed andhere. It's because of him that we know there's more of those bastards out there. You don't like him? Fine, go back to your books and leave the real business to people who can handle it instead of pissin' and moanin' and tryin' to act like nothing's wrong and that your shit don't stink."

"Get…" he began, but I pressed on his throat.

"No, you've said enough. You've been sayin' enough as far as anyone's concerned for a long time," I told him in a low voice. "And I'm done listenin', hear me? What you're gonna do is shut your mouth and keep it that way, or I'll shut it for you. Shut your damned mouth, Joseph. I don't want one more word out of you."

For the first time in our lives, I saw real fear in Joseph's eyes, fear of me no less. I let him struggle for a moment before I stepped back, knowing not to push it too far. I didn't want to hurt him seriously, but I needed him to realize I was sick and tired of listening to him and that his time to speak was long since over. There were other things to worry about without him throwing his awful comments and bad attitude into the mix.

"He's already being taken to my cabin," I said after turning around. "He can stay there. It's private, it's clean, and I can keep an eye on him bein' that he's my responsibility."

"How...noble," Joseph hissed from behind me. "Finally decided to grow up and?—"

My brother must have thought I’d been simply talking only seconds ago. He immediately realized how serious I was when my fist slammed into his face and sent him crashing to the ground with a hard thump. I saw no point in following through with another blow since the first had him dazed.

"I warned you," I told him, pointing down at him before turning back to my father. "Samuel will stay in my room. And once he's recovered, he and the other two should have the chance to have cabins of their own like some of our men do.They've been doing damn fine work, and they haven't caused any real trouble. We've been working them like men, not criminals, and they've been acting the part, so we're gonna treat them like men, not criminals."

Our father, who hadn't moved except to sit down in his chair, swirled the contents of his glass around while watching me. "And if they take advantage?"

"Then they get thrown back into their locked-up cabins and get treated like criminals again. If they screw up more, we send them back and let the Sheriff sort them out," I said, done with fretting constantly over what we were going to do with these men. "If we keep treatin' them like criminals who can be worked, we might as well just call ourselves slave owners and move on."

"If you treat them like this, any others we take in would need the same treatment."

"And? These three have adjusted well, and maybe we've even given 'em a chance to make somethin' of themselves. Maybe we can do the same for others if they prove they're willing to give it a chance. Otherwise, we throw them back to wherever they come from and let the law deal with 'em as we see fit."

"That simple?"

"No, but this ain't the time to be dealin' with finer points of plannin'. I knew Le Garou were here and causin' trouble, and now we have even more evidence. We need to deal with these animals we know are a threat to our ranch and our family, and then we can figure out what we're going to do about everything else."

I expected my father to shoot me down and casually tear apart everything I’d said, but I didn't care. Samuel was still fighting for his life, and he had got that way out of sacrifice for someone in our family. If being here could provide him with a new path in his life, then it meant there was a chance other people could follow the same path.

"Le Garou," my father muttered, a shadow casting over his face. "There's a name I was hoping would have died out since the last time you said it. Seems there's no getting away from the past, no matter how much you want to."

"I...guess not," I said, taken aback by his lack of criticism.

---