A Second Chance For A Redeeming Love (Western Historical Romance) Read online

  Anastasia was born and raised in Texas, and up until now, she had never been this far north, not in all of her years living as a nomadic outlaw. That was why she couldn’t understand it; they were outlaws, and Tim had always been an outlaw in her eyes. This new life seemed so foreign... yet so right.

  She had learned the art of detachment, never staying in one place long enough to settle. Life had always been uprooted for her. Stability was a myth, the sort of luxury that only the wealthy could afford. It would mean that she could lower her barriers, be soft and actually enjoy life.

  Ana had been with Tim almost as long as she had worked in the Madden brothers’ gang, which was why she had found it so hard to believe that he could put so many years of being on the wrong side of the law behind him and live the simple life here.

  Upon joining the gang, much to the dismay of the two youngest Madden brothers, she had chosen Tim as her lover over them. A large part of their bond had been built up on trust—something that she hadn’t realized he would be able to shatter in an instant like glass.

  But it wasn’t just her that he’d betrayed; he’d gone behind the backs of both Leroy and Carl, as well as their older brother Ellis.

  The thought that it was Tim who had set the ambush that got Ellis killed was sickening to Ana; she’d seen her fair share of violence over the years, but they never hurt one another. They were all they had on this side of the law.

  “Like we said on the way here,” Leroy began, dragging Ana out of her daze and allowing her senses to sharpen on her surroundings. His face was set hard as he turned to face her. “Carl and I can’t afford to go down into the town. It’s too risky. Someone might recognize us from the wanted posters. That means it’s up to you to gain Tim’s trust. He wouldn’t trust us again anyway. Just get him to open up and report back what he says.”

  “I don’t see why you’re wasting all your time on this; we have the element of surprise right now, so why can’t we just go down there and demand that he pay up?”

  Tim had run off after their robbery—or rather, he had set the ambush up to kill Ellis and then ridden away with the money safely in hand.

  “You remember how much it hurt when he left you behind?” Carl questioned, leaning forward so that his cold eyes were close to hers, boring into her soul as though he could smell her doubt. Though truthfully nothing smelt as bad as these outlaw men, who hadn’t yet taken advantage of the surrounding lakes to wash in. “Think about how it would have been if he’d just been another member, if you hadn’t had that sort of connection to him. Think about how lonely you would have been in our group. He used your trust and threw it back in all of our faces when he left. We want you to rebuild that trust. It will give our plan more of an impact.”

  Ana couldn’t deny that she was impressed with their thinking. It was definitely an upgrade from their usual one-dimensional cattle robberies. They were going to use Tim’s emotions against him.

  “All right, I’ll do it,” she said with a curt nod, her expression devoid of any emotion other than determination. She was going to do this to get the justice they deserved.

  However, she had always thought that the brothers’ plans were easier said than done, especially when it was Leroy laying out the details. He possessed such an air of nonchalance that it always made her wonder how he’d survived for so many years.

  She tried her hardest to banish any form of shakiness from her voice; the Madden brothers had known her for years and there would be no hiding from them. They knew her better than her father ever had.

  But he only comes back when he needs to lay low from the law, she reminded herself. Her father was more of a burden than any sort of role model.

  Although she had followed in his tracks with this sort of lifestyle, she liked to think that she had always been better at it. She knew for a fact that she was better. Ana never had to exploit anyone by taking advantage of their generosity to hide from the law.

  “I knew that small, skinny guy wouldn’t do us dirty when he tipped us off about somebody who matched our description working on a ranch up here in Wyoming. I tell you, Ana, there’s rats everywhere. Tip the rats well, and they’ll tell you anything.”

  The thought would have been harrowing had Ana not had to endure countless nights on the run, or sleepless days and nights where they weren’t even sure what they were running from.

  The idea of there being eyes and ears everywhere was neither new or interesting. She simply wanted to focus on the task at hand. Her boots crunched the dirt beneath them as she sat impatiently, listening to the triumphant I told you so’s that the brothers were exchanging.

  Carl was proud of his connections—something that Ana had taken note of a long time ago.

  However, she was tired of listening to them, tired of everything, and the fatigue in her muscles allowed her mind to slip back to memories of being with Tim. Three years of her life had been filled with memories of him before he betrayed them, and they were times she knew deep down she would go back to in a heartbeat.

  But that wasn’t possible, so all that filled her now was resentment.

  Tim had been the one she could turn to ever since she had expressed her love for him. The other two men had backed off, especially after Ellis gave them his blessing. So now they were distant, merely her co-workers. She missed the rush of doing what they had always done with her best friend and love by her side. But a large part of her mind considered that man dead.

  The scene in front of her beyond the hill only reiterated this further. That wasn’t the Tim that she remembered. It wasn’t the Tim she’d always dreamed about living with in stability. That was all it had been: a dream.

  “What’re you thinkin’ about”

  Ana looked up, catching Leroy’s eye. She knew that the brothers underestimated her intellect and capability, as they hadn’t revealed the full extent of their plan to her.

  When she got down there, in order to gain his trust, Ana knew that she would have to convince Tim that she had also left the gang.

  However, the truth of the matter was that if it all happened again—if Tim took the money and asked her to join him in leaving—she knew with full certainty that she would have said yes in less than a heartbeat.

  “Just reminding myself why we’re here.” She brushed off his question, pushing her long hair off of her shoulders so that it cascaded down her back. It was usually tied back in a neat braid that would slowly unravel as they rustled cattle or robbed certain establishments, but it was never down in the day. The sun was beginning to heat up the back of her neck, the skin feeling as though it was suffocating under the cluster of hair, but it was necessary. A small detail that would prove to Tim that she really had left.

  “Good, and don’t you go forgettin’ it. That boy killed our brother, stole our money, and broke your heart. You’d best remember the facts.”

  If Tim had asked and she’d gone with him, it would now be these two brothers looking down on her at the ranch, too—a thought that chilled her bones slightly despite the warmth of the sun.

  But he didn’t ask you, she snapped at herself, anger bubbling and rising in a frenzy from her gut. He left you, he never truly cared for you. He hurt you and you’re not going to let him get away with it.

  She remembered when the two younger brothers had first explained the story to her, how reluctant she had been to believe them, how she couldn’t picture her Tim being behind all of it. It had been a successful bank robbery, and the five of them could have still been a successful gang if her Tim hadn’t betrayed them all.

  Anastasia knew that she would have to remain levelheaded about all of this if they were going to get revenge. She was ready to ask him straight out to give the money to them, and the thought of the look on his face when he realized that he had been betrayed—that was what was driving her and keeping her agile.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to forget why we’re here. He hurt us all, but we’ve dealt with much worse than Timothy King in the past
. A little bit of acting will be easy.”

  The brothers smirked at her assertive response. They had always liked it when her voice was hard and her gaze fixed on a target. It was a sort of novelty, as they didn’t know any other women like Ana. The only other outlaws they kept in contact with were men.

  She turned her back on the edge of the hill to look at the sloping landscape they’d travelled across, great chunks of rock rising and falling to form an irregular horizon that jumped up and fell down whenever it felt like it. Spatters of trees mingled in with the rough terrain, forming a blanket of pine needles over the jagged rocks, and some peaks were still dusted with snow despite the blue sky and sun above.

  The sound of running water bounced off the cavernous walls of the surrounding mountains and cliff faces, jumping from surface to surface much like Ana had done as a child after the death of her mother. It seemed that even in her infanthood, permanency had been as much a novelty for her as the idea of a woman that didn’t stay home to cook was to everyone else.

  “Next time he heads into town, you follow, got it? You remember the storyline? You’ve left the gang like he did, and now that you’ve found him, you want to start afresh.”

  Ana nodded her head once, a curt gesture as she turned back to look through the trees, the top of the ranch just visible.

  The part about leaving the gang had been her idea; she felt it would be easier to approach and talk to Tim before enacting any sort of revenge. She needed the closure, though there was a small spark of hope that perhaps he’d had an incredibly good reason for what he did. She just needed to know.

  “Don’t worry, I can do this. I will do this. You remember how the two of us used to be. He’ll trust me.”

  Ana had expected her voice to shake like an old house in a violent storm and was pleasantly surprised by her bullish tone.

  “Good. Then get going and wait for him to walk to town.”

  “One more thing,” Ana said, still not moving from her spot. “We’re just here to get the money back, right?”

  She had only spoken up after seeing the way Leroy’s hand dipped down to the pistol holstered at his hip. She was under no illusion about what the brothers could be like; they didn’t think most of the time, but would simply act on how they felt.

  “Of course. We aren’t going to kill him. I may have to take a swing when we see the no-good sod, but we won’t kill him.”

  “I need your word,” Ana demanded, her eyes narrowing. She didn’t fully believe them yet.

  “You’ve got both our words,” Carl cut in, nodding to his brother seriously. “We promise, no killing Tim, even if he deserves it after everything he’s done to us.”

  “We’re just getting the money back.”

  “You’ve got it,” Leroy said with a curt nod. “And maybe some interest on said money…” he added rather slyly.

  Ana grabbed her nearby bag, which contained a dress she’d stolen from the last town they'd visited.

  Upon hearing about this lead, she'd figured it would be better for her to drop back into Tim’s life whilst conforming to the societal norms around her. They had never been of paramount importance to her while they were on the run, but now she would have to say goodbye to her dark brown gauchos and replace them with a dress that kept her from moving properly.

  "Good luck,” Carl said.

  “I’ll be fine,” Ana reiterated, moving over to a cluster of trees to change.

  Chapter 2

  Down in the valley, Timothy King stood surveying the progress of the ranch around him.

  His strong features couldn’t help but break out into a small smile, which played on his lips like a dance and creased the corners of his almond-shaped eyes even more than if he was naturally squinting from the overhead sun. He knew that he would have to put his hat on soon in order to shade his face. He could feel the heat already breaking a sweat out on his brow and in between the hairs of his beard.

  The brim of his hat was tipped back and cast a long shadow down the side of his toned body, the strength of his forearms shown off by the rolled-up sleeves of his beige shirt.

  He cast his mind back to the disrepair that the ranch had been in when he’d first bought the place around three years ago.

  Since then, he’d worked tirelessly to restore the ranch to a functioning establishment, and filled it with cattle. Upon his first arrival, the dwindling herd had mirrored the state of the ranch itself; the cattle had been underfed and unhealthily kept.

  However now the field was fresh with grass, a carpet of luscious green that spread out in all directions, only interrupted by the old farmhouse. There, some things still needed to be done: The white paint, which had been more of a dull and dusty yellow when Tim bought the place, was peeling off in some areas.

  However, he still held some pride in how the old house stood out from the landscape around it, a striking symbol of his own success as a ranch owner—a life that he never imagined would one day be his.

  The fences all around the compound held well, blocking the growing herd inside of them and keeping others from getting to them easily. The wood had already lightened in the constant stream of sunlight.

  Although Tim was trying his hardest to forget about any memories from before three years ago, he’d used his knowledge of robbing ranches to make his own fences stronger than the standard ones that other ranch owners used.

  He turned to look at the gentleman next to him, white wisps of hair blowing in the gentle breeze. None of the landscape around him would have been possible without the help of his foreman, old man George. Mr.

  Higgins was a good man and had decided to stay on when Tim bought the ranch. Since then, they’d worked together, and it was beginning to look as though they were building something successful.

  The first few springs had been rough on the cattle—and even harder on the corrals, as they weren’t big enough to accommodate the new foals.

  “This is definitely the healthiest growing herd we’ve had to date.” Tim couldn’t hide the smile as he spoke.

  “You ain’t wrong there,” George said.

  The two of them stood surveying the herd, simply drinking in the success that they had grown themselves. Tim thought that it was more satisfying than any successful robbery he’d pulled off whilst in the Madden brothers’ gang.

  Even the name brought a pang of guilt to his heart.

  When he’d first arrived in the small town, he was thankful to learn that the town’s people only knew of the three Madden brothers, not their accomplices. He knew that if George ever found out, it would cause him to leave the ranch for good.

  Tim’s smile was wiped off in an instant as a fresh onslaught of memories rose to the surface of his mind like the mist that rose over the valleys in the morning.

  That was how it always seemed to happen: waves that tumbled over his mind, bringing with them the times that had gone by, the love that he’d lost. He could never think of his old life without thinking about her too.

  He knew that Anastasia must hate him—that the things he did, how he left without her without saying goodbye, were unforgivable. But there was no turning back now. There was still plenty of work to be done on the ranch.

  George had the idea to extend the corrals in time for the next spring season; he hoped that the season of new life would live up to its name and bring them what it promised: an abundance of foals.

  Anastasia still loomed in the back of his mind, a constant thought, a tether to his past life that Tim had come to accept he would never be able to shrug off. Especially after how he treated her, because there was no excuse for that. It was the one gnawing regret, always present in his stomach. Sometimes it became so overpowering that it robbed him of his appetite.