Page 13 of Wyoming Cowboy Undercover

To his credit, and as a result of five decades of faking it, Marshall didn’t show the slightest hint of surprise or anger, even though both were brewing inside him. He tightened his smile. “You know the rules, sweetheart,” he said gently. “We do not bring in guests.”

“We haven’t, in the past,” she said. “Exceptions can always be made.”

“If I allowed this with you, every member of the flock might seek to do the same. We can’t have anarchy, with our gates open wide.”

The flash of disappointment in her eyes was undeniable. As was the glimmer of determination. “You allow exceptions with me whenever you see fit because I’m not like the rest of the flock. I’m a McCoy. Not aStarlight,” she said. A powerful distinction. “He asked for my help, and I was called to bring him here. That inner voice you commanded me never to ignore spoke. I have listened. You can’t ask me to turn him away.”

Was it the voice of a higher power?

Or that of Rocco’s, flowing from poisoned lips into her ear?

“I will reconsider our current timeline,” Marshall said, his voice light, his tone easygoing. “Instead of waiting six weeks, we will open our gates to potential novices,guests, at the next new moon.” That should appease her. What was she thinking, bringing a stranger here so close to the full moon eclipse? Particularly this stranger.

Her blue eyes gleamed with a spark of rebellion that threatened to set him off, but he kept his facade affable. “You don’t care about my calling, do you?” she asked. “Or that I’m trying to help someone in need. I have no place here. Not in the flock. Not as a leader. I’m nothing more than a shiny fixture on your shelf.”

The tighter he clung to her, the more determined she seemed to slip free from his grasp. With each passing year, the restlessness in her continued to grow to the point where he could no longer ignore it. At first, he had tried to pacify her by letting her run their quarterly farmers’ market. Then he put her in charge of the novices.

Still, it wasn’t enough.

The glint for more never left her eyes. So, when she asked to take classes at USD, he’d thought,what could be the harm?

But those classes only poured gasoline on the burning embers of doubt kindling inside her.

“We’ll discuss this privately.” Marshall would find some way to get her to see reason once she was outside this man’s sphere of influence. He was going to be the only one to pull his daughter’s strings. Marshall turned to the cowboy. “Excuse us.”

Rocco cast a questioning glance at Mercy, waiting forherto give him the okay.

His gaze slid back to his daughter. “Have your friend wait in the hall or I will have security escort him there.”

Straightening, Mercy shook her head. “No, you won’t.”

Laughter devoid of humor rolled from his chest. While he found her refusal to back down, and pointedly so, surprising, he didn’t find it the least bit funny. “Give me one good reason why not.”

“Because I need something to change. We’re too insulated and I’m suffocating.” She clasped her hands behind her back, her chin jutting up, making her look every bit the warrior that he had forged, though he never expected her to turn on him. “For seven years, you’ve denied me the right ofpenumbroyage. If you don’t let him stay as a guest where he can learn about the Light and our ways, I’ll claim it before the elders tonight. And leave with him to do what I can to help him out there beyond the walls of the compound.”

Her sharp sword cut deeply.

Marshall clenched his jaw against the bitter taste that flooded his mouth. When she was a teenager, she had grown proficient at guerilla warfare with him, but he had learned to defend against her tactics. It was so rare for Mercy to stand up to him in a full-frontal attack like this that it completely blindsided him.

Turning, he strode to a window and stared out at the darkness.

“What is that?Penumbroyage?” Rocco asked.

Mercy looked at him. “Have you heard of rumspringa?”

“It’s like a rite of passage for Amish teens, where they get to leave their community, live on the outside for a while before deciding to commit to their religion.”

“Penumbroyageis the same for us,” she said. “If you were born here or came in as a child, you can take a year away between the ages of seventeen and twenty-four. My father has insisted that I’ve been needed here to help him. He keeps demanding that I delay it.”

A request. Not a demand.

As Empyrean he couldn’t strip her of the right that he himself created to safeguard the purity of the hearts in his flock. He had stressed to Mercy the importance of her staying as a demonstration of faith. How would it look to their community for her to have doubts about their way? How poorly it would reflect on him as their shepherd if his blood needed distance to see the right path to follow. The stain it would leave, tarnishing his legacy.

Aside from appearances and the shame that would follow if she chose the secular world, he feared far more than a blow to his ego. He would do anything to avoid losing his only daughter.

Absolutely anything.

He never imagined that she would ever claim the right, taking a year away. With no money, no job, no place to stay, most didn’t. The few young people who did leave had family on the outside that they could turn to.

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