Inventions of the Heart (The Lumber Baron's Daughters Book #2)

Mary Connealy

• Publisher: Bethany House Publishers
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780764239595
• eBook ISBN: 9781493437337

Her heart seeks safety. But will trouble find her even here?

After her sister's marriage, Michelle Stiles is left hiding at Two Harts Ranch with the handsome but stubborn Zane Hart. She's managed to stay one step ahead of her stepfather and his devious plans, but if he finds her, she will no longer be safe.

Zane has problems of his own. Having discovered a gold mine on his property, he must figure out how to harvest it without kicking off a gold rush. Michelle, educated and trained to run her father's business, wants to manage all aspects of the mine, but Zane thinks for a person so smart she can have some misguided ideas. Running the mining operation will be a dangerous job, and he can't risk putting her in harm's way.

But danger finds Michelle anyway when she's suddenly attacked. If they go to the sheriff, they'll reveal her location, but if they do nothing . . . their troubles have only just begun.

CHAPTER
ONE

JULY 1872
TWO HARTS RANCH
DORADA RIO, CALIFORNIA

AT LEAST YOU KNOW YOU CAN TRUST ME.” Michelle Stiles slashed a hand about an inch from Zane Hart’s face.

They sat in his kitchen. His roof over her head. His food in her stomach. And safety thanks to him. Still, the man was so stubborn. She wanted to help, and besides, she was bored, and she knew she could do this job better than anyone else.

Zane slammed both fists down on the table, and his dark blue eyes flashed like summer lightning. “This subject is closed. Don’t you have a husband to find?”

Michelle never should’ve told him about the terms of Papa’s will. He’d been goading her about it ever since. And anyway, he shouldn’t be able to torment her so smugly about her finding a husband after he’d kissed her.

She shoved her dark curls out of her eyes and tried to overpower him with the force of her will. “I don’t need to find a husband right away. Things are better now.”

Zane glared at her, looking remarkably un-overpowered.

She thought of what a terrible job her stepfather, Edgar Beaumont, was doing running Stiles Lumber, the vast company her father had founded and raised her and her sisters to take over.

When Mama married Edgar, their lives had turned ugly. They discovered Edgar’s plot to marry his stepdaughters off to loathsome friends of his and had no choice but to run.

And because he had them virtually held prisoner in the mansion her parents had built on top of a remote mountain, the fastest way to escape had been to ride down a flume in half barrels. They’d survived the reckless escape and found a place to hide on the edge of Zane’s ranch.

And Zane was right about marriage. Each sister inherited her one-third of the company when she turned twenty-five or when she married. Now with Laura married, all Michelle needed to do was round up a husband, and she and Laura could combine their shares of the company and take controlling interest in Stiles Lumber. Jilly could be next to get married, of course, but she seemed overly resistant to the idea, and Michelle couldn’t guess why.

Their company was still in danger from Edgar. But Zane didn’t need to keep bringing it up. The fact that he was right only made it more irritating.

“At least Mama isn’t in danger anymore. And Laura is all safely married and back there with Caleb and Nick to protect her and Mama.” Michelle trembled to think of Edgar’s violent anger toward Mama when he’d found the girls gone.

They’d tried to bring Mama along, but she’d fallen and sprained her ankle, and they had no choice but to abandon her.

Michelle had hated it.

But then they met Zane and his cowhand Nick Ryder, who knew of the Stiles Lumber dynasty and had worked for them last summer.

When Nick heard Mama was in danger, he jumped on his horse and rode off to the rescue.

After that, they found gold near Purgatory, a rough settlement on Zane’s property.

“Let me run the mining operation.” There was no mining operation yet, because when Laura had found the gold and told Zane, all of them had known gold caused trouble.

No one had figured out what to do about a gold strike, so it remained a secret. Michelle wasn’t just offering to run his mining company. She was offering to create the company, work the mine, and count, ship, and sell the gold. She’d figure out security and how to protect the gold. She had no doubt in her mind she could manage it.

She wanted to do it all.

“You’re leaving,” Zane said. “I need someone permanent.”

“Let me do it until I leave. I promise to train my replacement.”

“Michelle, you know you’re going to have trouble keeping men honest. I need someone who’s not going to hesitate when they need to beat the living daylights out of one of my miners.” He glared at her in such a way as to say he doubted she’d manage that.

With some justification.

She couldn’t see herself winning a fistfight with a man half-mad with gold fever.

“That’s the other thing I’ve decided, and it’s part of letting me run things.”

Zane didn’t hammer his fists again. Instead, he laid his face straight down on the table with a sigh that sounded like his whole body was deflating. “What now?”

She stared at the crown of his head. The dark swirl of his hair seemed much happier than he was. “I’ve decided that, for now, we shouldn’t hire miners. You should hire a few trusted men as guards and just let me and Jilly mine your gold. We’ll find out soon enough if it’s a rich vein. If it goes deep, then we can’t handle that much mining. But what if that big chunk of quartz is all there is? Jilly and I can quietly mine the gold. We can transport it back here under armed guard, and word won’t get out that you found it until you’ve sold it and used the money to buy half of California. That’s your goal, right?”

“Don’t act like I’m greedy.” He was speaking straight into the tabletop. “Not when you own a whole mountain covered with trees and live in a mansion that’d make a king blush over the excess of it.”

“You’ve never seen it.” Michelle paused, then shrugged. “It’s huge, though, and beautiful. A king would be lucky to have such a nice house.”

“I’m never going to let you run my gold mine. I’m sure you’d be good at it if you didn’t have to handle a bunch of rough men who probably have gold fever and might be willing to kill you.”

Nodding, Michelle said, “Not too many lumberjacks have any dreams about running off with their pockets full of trees.”

One of her brunette curls swung loose from the bun at the back of her head, and she twisted it in her fingers thoughtfully. “I could handle it, though. I might need a gun. Can I borrow a gun, Zane?”

That lifted his head up at least. She saw him roll his eyes. “You’re admitting it’s a dangerous job. I can’t put you at risk.”

“I’m educated enough to manage. And there’s no way to get the material in here to work on my gas engine.” She gave him a narrow-eyed look. “Is there?”

Zane shook his head. “Forget the engine. We don’t need an engine on a ranch.”

“It’s not for the ranch. It’s for, well, for lots of things. But mainly it can be used in the sawmill my family owns and the trains we’re going to own. And I also have some ideas for improvement on rolling stock.”

“You’re not rolling my cows anywhere.”

Michelle blinked at him. “Um, not stock like livestock. Rolling stock like the rolling cars the train engine pulls. I want to alter them to load logs onto them more easily and make sure they’re strong enough to take the weight. And there are issues with the braking system on a long downhill slope, so I—”

“Stop talking about trains and logs and tell me what you want to manage.”

“Well, your gold mining operation, of course. But honestly, I want to manage everything. The whole world would run better if they put me in charge. Don’t you like the hot water in your back room? In the kitchen? I could turn one of your upstairs rooms into a proper bathing room with a tub, if you’d just get me a—”

“No. The hot water in the house is a wonder, and I thank you kindly for it. But I’m not letting you run my mine.”

“We’re alone for the first time. Let me explain again how my papa raised me to—”

“Zane!” Shad, Zane’s foreman slammed into the kitchen. “Trouble. Come quick.”

Shouting sounded from outside. Screaming.

Zane was on his feet running.

Michelle gritted her teeth. Thwarted again. But as Zane ran for the kitchen door, Michelle got up and ran after. Whoever was shouting really sounded frantic.

Michelle got outside as two horses, galloping as if they were running from wolves, charged into the ranch yard. The first was ridden by a woman with . . . two heads. Michelle squinted. What she was looking at made no sense.

A woman, for sure. Oh, not with two heads, but with a small child in front. Michelle felt better to figure that out despite the madly racing horse.

The woman’s dark hair flew wildly behind her as she screamed for help. The child, with her matching dark hair, wailed like a feral creature.

A man rode just behind her, terrible in his silence.

Michelle stopped feeling better. Too much blood. The woman was bleeding, but the man made the blood on her pale blue dress look like a scratch.

“Annie?” Zane’s shout could’ve shaken a roof down.

The woman, Annie, reined her horse frantically, and it skidded to a stop, almost sat on its haunches to do it, but she brought the horse under control. The man didn’t even react. He leaned down until the saddle horn had to be poking him in the chest. His horse galloped on until it came up on the barn. It whinnied and tossed its head and reared up higher and higher. Michelle thought it’d go over backward.

Zane ran toward Annie. Four men around the place, drawn by the shouting and galloping hooves, rushed for the rearing horse. The man tumbled off the horse as Shad reached the horse’s head, leapt high to catch the bridle, and pulled the horse down with his weight. He led it away so it wouldn’t trample the fallen man. The other three cowhands hurried to the rider.

Michelle pivoted toward the house. Jilly was better at this than she was. Then she remembered Jilly was gone. Laura was gone. That left Michelle, almost certainly more educated about anatomy and medicine than anyone else around the place. Nothing even resembling any practice at doctoring, though.

She spun back for the injured man and saw Zane rushing toward him carrying a little girl, with Annie clinging to his arm.

“Todd!” the woman screamed. She let go of Zane and ran faster.

Michelle sprinted, trying to get there, see what she could do.

The horses were taken into the barn.

The little girl began crying, “Pa, my papa. Pa.” High and wild and terrified, just like her ma. Michelle didn’t blame them.

Annie dropped to her knees beside Todd and tore at his shirt.

Zane, with his hands full of shrieking toddler, wasn’t much help. He looked around and saw Michelle and made one brief move to hand the little girl off.

Michelle dodged around him and knelt by Todd as his wife got his shirt open. He was utterly still.

“A bullet into his stomach,” Michelle noted. The next words to say were he can’t survive this, but Michelle had learned a few things about handling people in tough situations, and she kept her prognosis to herself.

“Let’s get him inside.” She snapped out the order with such command that the two cowhands not busy with the horses picked him up and carried him toward the house.

Michelle helped Annie up. The woman wasn’t steady on her feet, and it looked like she was bleeding from at least two wounds. Her arm was bleeding and one leg, but both seemed to be working fine. She’d live.

Todd . . . It would likely be time wasted. But Michelle had plenty of time, and Annie would need to see someone trying to help.

That’s when it hit her.

Annie and Todd. And the toddler was . . . was . . . Michelle dug deep. Her memory for names was excellent. Caroline. Annie Lane was Zane’s sister. Married to a rancher named Todd Lane. This gutshot man was Zane’s brother-in-law. Their picture was up in Zane’s office. Zane had mentioned their names once.

The men went inside and headed straight toward the stairs.

“No, bring him back. I want him on the kitchen table.” Michelle’s voice, again, got action. She turned to Zane. “I need bandages. Needle and thread, any medical supplies.”

She turned to Shad, who’d come in right behind them, the horses dealt with. “Get me a basin of water.” From the handy boiler she’d installed. But she didn’t say that. “And cloths. The rag bag is—”

“I know where it is.” Shad leapt into action.

Zane stood across the table from Michelle, Todd’s unconscious form between them. Caroline shrieked in his arms.

Michelle pressed two fingers against Todd’s neck and found a steady pulse. Aware of Annie’s fear, Michelle spoke of what she’d found. “A very strong pulse. That’s a good sign.”

Maybe he had a chance, except Michelle only had the most miniscule notion of what to do. She found the bullet wound. The basin of water and a stack of clean rags were there before she could ask again.

Wringing out a wet rag, she wiped the terrible bleeding aside. “Two bullets. He’s been shot twice.”

She looked at Annie. “Zane, get her a chair. She’s been shot twice, too, but I want her to stay close to Todd.”

Annie grabbed her husband’s hand and pulled it to her lips. “Todd, Todd, can you hear me?”

...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Books by Mary Connealy
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
• Chapter 11
• Chapter 12
• Chapter 13
• Chapter 14
• Chapter 15
• Chapter 16
• Chapter 17
• Chapter 18
• Chapter 19
• Chapter 20
• Chapter 21
• Chapter 22
• Chapter 23
• Chapter 24
• Chapter 25
• Chapter 26
• Chapter 27
• About the Author
• Back Ads
• Back Cover