Skye

by Linda Lael Miller

  “Just remember our terms,” Jake snapped. “When I win, you’ll marry me. No heel dragging, no questions asked.”

  Something unreadable flickered in her eyes and was gone. “I remember,” she said almost sadly. Then she perked up again. “Since I intend to come in first, though, I’m not the least bit worried.”

  Jake remained firmly convinced of his own proficiency when it came to horses, but here he was, having to coerce a woman into becoming his bride, and that didn’t set well. In fact, it was downright galling. Even facing financial ruin, he was a better catch than most of the men in town—he was strong and smart, clean and fairly presentable into the bargain, and if all his plans went to hell and he lost everything he had, he knew he could build another fortune, in another place, just by pushing up his sleeves, spitting on his hands, and getting to work. He’d be a good father to his newfound son, and to any subsequent children, and a fine mate as well …

  Just briefly, tossing in the wake of these thoughts, he considered proposing to Skye McQuarry right then and there, just asking her to forget the race and marry him, but all of a sudden, his collar tightened like a noose, cutting off his air, and the pit of his stomach clenched painfully. Women wanted “I love you’s” and promises and all sorts of pretty words, and he was no poet—he’d gone numb inside when he lost Christy. No, it had happened even before that, he realized. Something had withered within him when he saw Amanda for who she truly was, and he’d only kidded himself into believing he loved Christy.

  “Mr. Vigil?” Skye prompted, brow slightly furrowed.

  He realized that he’d left the conversation hanging at some length. She’d said something cocky with regard to their upcoming contest, and furthermore, she looked disappointed that he hadn’t responded in kind. “I was just imagining our wedding night,” he said, though he hadn’t been. Until then, that is. Now his mind was full of Skye—the scent and softness of her hair, the sound of her voice, urging and then pleading and finally sighing, the limber and luminous contours of her body, bared to him in trusting abandon.

  She reddened right up, and her mouth tightened for a moment, and Jake felt jubilation, in addition to the inevitable discomfort such ideas caused.

  “Why wait until Sunday?” she demanded, eyes flashing. “Why don’t we settle this right now? First one to town wins.”

  Jake considered the suggestion, and one word thrummed through his spirit, soul, and body, powerful as a tremor in the ground. Tonight.

  “All right,” he said, amazed that the sound came out whole. He fairly choked on that simple phrase, realizing, as he did, how very much hung in the balance. “Count of three?”

  She aligned the stallion alongside his with such skill that for the length of a heartbeat, he actually considered that she might reach the edge of Primrose Creek proper before he did. “Count of three,” she agreed.

  “One,” Jake said, bracing himself.

  “Two,” Skye continued.

  “Three!” Jake yelled, and took his stallion from a standstill to a gallop in one short leap.

  Skye kept up with him, leaning low over the bay’s neck, and once or twice Jake nearly unseated himself for looking at her instead of the trail ahead. God in heaven, but she was a beautiful sight, as at home on that wild horse as if she were part of him.

  They rushed between copses of trees, birch and aspen but mostly pine, slapped and clawed by lowhanging branches, and came across the Qualtroughs’ land, splashing through the dazzle-bright creek, neck-and-neck. Out of the corner of one eye, Jake caught a glimpse of Bridget and Megan, Christy’s pretty redheaded sister, beaming and clapping their hands together. Plainly, Skye had confided in them about the wager, but there was just no telling whom they were rooting for, Jake thought distractedly. They were an odd bunch, those McQuarrys.

  A two-mile stretch lay ahead, once they’d crossed the water; it was rutted and narrow in places, with steep dropoffs and sharp turns, and Jake was torn. On the one hand, he wanted to win, wanted it more than he’d ever wanted anything before, but he was aware of Skye’s growing recklessness, too, and he was afraid for her. When it came to horses, the woman apparently didn’t have a sensible bone in her body; she rode full-out, hell-bent-for-election, with an absence of fear that astounded him.

  The town came into view, and they thundered toward it, the hooves of the two stallions pounding drumlike on the hard, dry ground. Jake waited until the last possible moment, then spurred his mount into a final burst of speed, and Skye did the same. He crossed the agreed-upon finish line a half-length ahead of her and wheeled the stallion around just in time to see the bay miss a step and send his rider soaring over his head before catching himself.

  Jake watched in horror as Skye rolled endoverend in midair, a process that seemed to take an unaccountably long time, given that no more than a few moments could have passed. Long before he’d jumped from the saddle and run toward her, she landed flat on her back, arms outspread, with a wallop that reverberated through Jake’s own system.

  He knelt beside her, frantic, the stallions forgotten behind him. “Skye!” he called, afraid to touch her and yet barely able to resist the urge to gather her close and hold her against his chest. It wouldn’t do to move her if anything were broken, and given the spill she’d taken, that seemed pretty likely. “Are you hurt?”

  She blinked up at the blue sky, as though trying to remember where she’d seen it before, and then began to breathe again, slowly and carefully. “I don’t—ththink so,” she said. “Just let me lie here a second—till I get my wind back.” She took a few shaky breaths. “I’ve got to stop doing this.”

  He smoothed her hair away from her forehead. There were smudges of dirt on her cheeks, but somehow that only made her prettier. “I’ll help you up when you’re ready,” he said stupidly. He had to say something, after all, and nothing else came to mind.

  She drew in a deep breath, let it out, drew in another. Jake watched, captivated, as her shapely breasts rose and fell with the motion, then realized what a liberty he’d taken and blushed.

  She sighed, though he would have sworn he saw laughter playing hide-and-seek in her eyes, and started to sit up on her own. “I guess you win,” she said with a sort of breezy resignation.

  Jake sat back on his heels. He’d won. Damn if he hadn’t forgotten all about the race for worrying about the prize. “I guess so,” he said, bemused.

  She was scrambling to her feet, and Jake, profoundly disconcerted, scrambled with her. He wasn’t sure he’d been of any help, though, when they stood facing each other there in the dust. Her lower lip trembled, but there was a proud set to her chin.

  “You don’t have to do this,” he heard himself say. Where the hell had that come from? Timber and horse be damned—if he couldn’t bed this woman, and soon, he was going to calcify.

  Her chin rose another notch, and her expression was solemn. She dusted off her trousers without looking away from his face. “A deal,” she said, “is a deal.”

  Jake was at once exultant and scared out of his long-johns. “Right.” He ground out the word. “A deal is a deal.”

  She flushed prettily, and he saw her throat move as she swallowed. “I’d—I’d like to go home first. Talk to my family—wash up a little—put on a dress—”

  “I’ll speak to Judge Ryan,” he said. “Reverend Taylor’s gone to Denver to visit his daughter.”

  She nodded, gathered the bay’s reins into one hand, and climbed into the saddle with an ease Jake couldn’t help admiring. She had courage aplenty, that was for sure, getting back on a horse right after a nasty tumble. “I imagine my sister and cousins will want to be there. Caney, too, of course.”

  “Two o’clock?” he said, lightheaded and a little dazed, without even a hard fall from the saddle for an excuse.

  “Two o’clock,” she confirmed, and he thought he saw just the faintest hint of a smile flash in her eyes before she reined the bay around and started back toward the creek.

  “Yo
u lost that race on purpose!” Megan accused in a delighted whisper as she fastened the row of small buttons at the back of Skye’s best dress, a pale peach organza with lace at the collar and cuffs. She’d sent away for the frock, all the way to Chicago, Illinois, with some of her first earnings from the gold-panning enterprise.

  Skye assessed her image in the looking glass affixed to the wall of Bridget and Trace’s bedroom, holding a fold of skirt in either hand and whirling slowly, once to one side and once to the other. She was a tomboy, had been all her life, but in that delicate dress, she thought, she looked, well, almost pretty. “You told, Megan McQuarry,” she said. “I asked you to hold your tongue, and you told Christy and Bridget about the race.”

  Megan blushed, though not, Skye figured, from any sense of chagrin.

  “Of course she did,” said Christy as she and Bridget entered the room. “We’re your family. We should know these things.”

  “Did you really lose on purpose?” Bridget asked, lowering her voice. She might have been speaking of sacrilege.

  “I most certainly did not,” Skye responded, perhaps a little testily. “Except for once, when Daddy outran me on a Kentucky thoroughbred, I’ve never been beaten in any contest involving horses.”

  Megan’s beautiful green eyes twinkled. “Maybe Jake Vigil is worth a little sacrifice,” she suggested. “He’s ever so handsome, after all, and ever so rich.”

  Indeed, Jake was handsome, but Skye honestly didn’t care whether he had two pennies to clink together in his pants pocket. Before, she’d made him into some kind of hero, straight out of an epic and impossible tale, but now she understood that he was a flesh-and-blood man, understandably wary of women, and she loved him all the more for the person he was. Deep down, she knew that he cared for her, that one day, if she bided her time, he would come to love her truly.

  Besides, he’d crossed the finish line first, hadn’t he?

  “You really love him,” Megan said, beaming. Christy and Bridget nodded, having come, no doubt, to the same conclusion.

  Shyly, Skye nodded again. She felt the heat of nettled pride rise in her cheeks all the same.

  “Does he love you in return?”

  Skye couldn’t lie, not to her family. She and Bridget and their cousins had been brought up together on Granddaddy McQuarry’s farm in Virginia. Whatever their differences, they were kin. “I don’t think so,” she admitted.

  Megan’s expression changed instantly. “Then you mustn’t marry him!”

  “I promised,” Skye replied. Her tone said she meant it, and the look on Megan’s face was one of reluctant understanding.

  Bridget spoke briskly, though it seemed to Skye that her blue eyes were a little bright. “Skye knows her own mind, and she always has. If she thinks she ought to marry Jake Vigil, then she’s probably right.”

  Megan nodded. Bridget was happily married herself, as Christy was, and she probably thought Skye and Jake’s union would turn out the same way. In fact, Bridget’s lack of protest gave Skye hope, for her elder sister was nobody’s fool, and if she’d objected to the idea, she would have said so without hesitation and in no uncertain terms.

  Megan squeezed both Skye’s hands in her own. “Whatever happens,” she said, “I’ll be close by. You know I’d do practically anything to help you.”

  Skye’s eyes burned with tears of affection, and she leaned forward to kiss her cousin’s flawless cheek. “I know,” she affirmed.

  Bridget found a moment to be alone with her sister sometime later when they were about to leave for town. She held the McQuarry Bible in both hands. “I should have told you before—before your wedding day—”

  Skye recalled Christy’s reference to the Begats and frowned. She’d been so busy, so wrought up over the bay stallion and over Jake Vigil, that she’d forgotten. “What is it?”

  “I haven’t told Megan,” Bridget said, by way of an answer.

  Skye opened the Bible and let Bridget point out the reference she wanted her to see. Skye’s face drained of color as the meaning of the inscription dawned upon her. “We’re sisters?” she whispered. “But why didn’t you say something?”

  Bridget looked stern, then guilty, then resigned. “I guess because it’s a scandal, and between our so-called fathers and mothers, this family’s had enough of that.”

  “But why keep news like this from Megan? Christy knows, I know she does.”

  Bridget looked away, then looked resolutely back. “Megan is the most impulsive, the most hot-headed of all of us. It’s Christy’s place to tell her, and she doesn’t think Megan is ready.”

  Skye swallowed hard and looked at the inscription again. Then a sweet, secret peace came over her, and she smiled. “It might be a scandal, but the more I think about it, the less I mind.”

  Bridget smiled. “Me, too,” she said. “Now, let’s go and get you married off, little sister.”

  They took a wagon and a buggy into the town of Primrose Creek, traveling in single file like a gypsy caravan. Skye rode in the buggy with Bridget and Trace, while Caney, Megan, and Christy rattled along in the wagon, Caney at the reins, Megan and Christy in the back, juggling babies and trying to keep an adventurous sixyear-old Noah from pitching over the tailgate onto the hard ground.

  Judge Ryan was waiting with Jake at the marshal’s office, and Zachary was there, too, an amused and mischievous grin dancing in his eyes. Jake’s boy, young Hank, sat on the edge of Zachary’s desk, legs swinging, expression wary. Jake looked nervous enough to come out of his skin at the first sudden move on anybody’s part, and Skye’s heart went out to him; she forgot her own natural trepidation, at least briefly, seeing his.

  Christy kissed her husband lightly, and he took their baby son, Joseph, into his arms with the ease of a man raised in a big family. Then she walked right up to Jake, looked him straight in the eye, and said, “This is right for you, Jake. I know it is.”

  His jaw worked as he stared down at the woman he’d loved, no doubt recalling the day just over a year before when he’d been about to marry her and she’d left him at the altar. He didn’t speak, but he gave a short, brisk nod in acknowledgment.

  Christy stood on tiptoe and planted a brief kiss on his lips, in the same way as and yet quite a different way from before, when she’d kissed Zachary. “Be happy,” she said.

  “Let’s get this shindig rolling,” John Ryan, the circuit judge, said gruffly, clasping a Bible in one agegnarled hand and beckoning both bride and groom with the other. “I’ve got a hanging to tend to, down in Virginia City.”

  Skye felt in that moment as though she were mounting the steps of the gallows herself. She considered dashing for the door, ruled the option out, and took her place in front of the judge. Jake stood uneasily beside her, while Hank gamboled over to take up a manful post at his father’s right hand, visibly proud of his role in the ceremony. Megan stood up for Skye, just as they’d always planned, and when Megan married, Skye would be her matron of honor.

  There, in that crowded little office, amid smiling relatives and fussy babies, with a weeping prisoner looking on from the single jail cell, Jake Vigil and Skye McQuarry were wed. The whole thing was over so fast that Skye felt sure she must have let her mind wander and missed it all. She’d heard herself say “I do,” though, heard Jake do the same.

  It was done, and, for Skye, there was no going back.

  “You go ahead, now, Jake,” Judge Ryan boomed with goodnatured impatience, “and kiss that pretty bride of yours!”

  Jake hesitated, then took Skye’s upturned face between amazingly tender hands, lifted, and brought his mouth down upon hers. It was a brief, light kiss, and yet it set Skye’s very soul atremble. She realized with a thrill of delicious terror that a number of intimate mysteries would soon be revealed to her. Jake had made it plain that if they married, she would be a real wife to him, sharing his bed as well as his life.

  She was still shaken when he released her, and he smiled a sweet, private smile, with only the s
lightest turning-up at one corner of his mouth, and sent new joy surging through her. Yes, she thought. He would come to love her. She would see to it.

  At some point, Jake had slid a ring onto Skye’s finger, and for the first time, she took a moment to look at it. A band set with glittering diamonds winked up at her.

  “It was my mother’s,” Jake said, shy again.

  “It’s beautiful,” Skye replied softly. They might have been alone, for the others seemed far away, visible only through a dense mist.

  “You’re beautiful,” he told her, and took her hand. “Shall we go home now, Mrs. Vigil, or would you rather stay here awhile with your family?”

  He was family now, too, he and Hank, but she didn’t trust herself not to break down and weep for foolish joy if she tried to say so aloud, so she merely nodded again.

  He chuckled, and his hazel eyes were alight. “Which is it?” he prodded gently.

  “Home,” she managed to say. “Let’s go home. But first—first, let me have a word with Hank.”

  Jake nodded, and Skye turned and extended a hand to her stepson. After a moment’s hesitation, he accepted with his own, and she led him to one side of the room, crouching in her dress to look into his face.

  “I’ve had some experience loving little boys,” she said, “and I think you and I will get along just fine. All I need is a chance to prove myself, Hank. Will you give me that?”

  He considered the question solemnly, but she saw hope in his eyes, too, far back and frightened but there. Oh, yes, it was there, all right. “I had one ma go off and leave me. I don’t reckon I need another.”

  “I won’t leave you,” Skye said, and she meant it. “Not willingly.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “If I got the grippe in the middle of the night and called for you, would you come?”

  She blinked once or twice and swallowed. Her voice, when she spoke, was surprisingly even. “Yes,” she said. “You have my word.”

  “Would you make me eat my vegetables all up, even if it made me sick?”