Renegade Bride

by Barbara Ankrum

  "Sorry, mister," Jeremy mumbled. "I didn't mean to—"

  "It's all right, boy. You didn't do much damage," Creed answered with a grin, brushing a smear of dirt from the boy's shoulder.

  "Jeremy! Michael!" came a woman's shrill voice from the walkway behind Creed. Hot on the boys' heels, she gathered Jeremy up under her wings like a prairie hen, then cast a wary look up at Creed. It was a look he'd seen a hundred times before. He'd grown used to it, in fact.

  "Come along boys," the woman went on. "It's time to go home."

  "Oh, Ma..." the older boy complained. "We was just—"

  "Not now, Michael. I swan," she muttered, looking pointedly at Creed, "decent people aren't safe on this street anymore."

  Creed's body tensed as he watched the woman hurry her boys by him—the same way he'd seen mothers hurry their children by tattered beggars in the streets of St. Louis years ago with his father. Creed folded his arms tightly across his chest and tried to ignore the stares he'd drawn from the group of male stage passengers waiting nearby.

  "You buyin' a ticket for yourself, too, mister?" asked the balding clerk behind the barred window. He peered above his spectacles and pointed toward Creed's gelding. "The horse won't cost ya no extra to tow."

  "No," Creed snapped, imagining three days of close confinement with a woman who'd made it clear she despised him. "I'm not buying a ticket."

  With a knowing shrug, the clerk glanced up at the gathering clouds. "Looks like rain. Eh-yup."

  Creed's eyes flicked up toward the darkening sky, then back to the road that led to the fort. He wasn't in the mood for small talk or weather predictions. He wasn't in the mood for much of anything but a good, stiff drink.

  "You're him, ain't you?"

  Creed's glance slid to the clerk. "What?"

  "You're that fellow who gunned down that half-breed up on the levee." A knowing smile brightened the clerk's face. "The whole town's talkin' about it. They say you hit that injun square between the eyes. That true?"

  "Forget it," Creed recommended, turning his attention back to the street.

  "Forget it?" The man chuckled. "Hell, we ain't had so much excitement since they hung Red Yager and George Brown here last January."

  "I said leave it alone."

  "Not that I have anything against gettin' rid of them redskins," the man prattled on. "Mangy bunch of heathens. But just between you an' me, what'd that feller do to get you so riled?"

  Creed shook his head, then leaned closer to the window and gave the clerk a menacing look. He kept his voice low and conspiratorial. "You really want to know?"

  Wide-eyed, the balding man nodded.

  Creed's lips were almost touching the iron bars on the clerk's cage. "I killed him 'cause he was too damned nosey."

  The clerk's Adam's apple bobbed in his throat and his spectacles slipped to the tip of his nose. He pushed them back in place with one shaking finger and forced his attention back to the sheaf of papers on his desk.

  "Mister Devereaux?"

  Creed turned to find Mariah standing beside him on the boardwalk, mud-free and dressed in a fresh, pale blue gown with a white lace collar and cuffs. A delicate white shawl circled her shoulders and fell softly over her shapely breasts, contrasting sharply with her flushed cheeks. One slender eyebrow was arched in annoyance.

  She looked like a schoolmarm or a minister's daughter, he mused darkly. Just Seth's type. Behind her like the rear guard stood Maeve and Jamie O'Hurlehy—arms linked.

  Creed pushed away from the wall. "It's about time."

  Mariah's whiskey-eyes flashed and her lips parted as if she were about to retort. Instead she snapped her teeth together and glared at him. A sudden breeze tugged at a strand of her hair, whipping it across her face.

  Creed nodded toward the stage. "They're nearly loaded."

  "I changed as quickly as I could," Mariah told him, noting that he, too, had changed out of his muddy clothes. He'd traded his bloody buckskin for a clean maroon wool shirt with two ties lacing the deep slash at the neck. It made his eyes look suddenly greener, she thought warily, and his face seem less—

  "Give me your bag," he demanded gruffly, erasing any gentle quality she'd been about to ascribe to him.

  Mariah tightened her grip. Inside was not only the meat and cheese she'd brought to nibble on, but her needlework. Tatting was a skill she'd acquired during long days and nights spent sitting beside her dying grandmother. A sharp pang of nostalgia passed through her. Now, the needlework merely occupied her empty hands and kept her mind distracted from thoughts of Seth. What would she do if she lost him, too, she wondered miserably.

  "I'll keep the bag with me."

  "Not with nine passengers and express packages crammed inside that mud-wagon, you won't. There'll be barely enough room for you." This time he didn't touch her, but waited for her to hand over the small bag.

  Stubbornly, she refused. "But my needlework—"

  Devereaux's eyes met hers with a hard look. "You've a long ride ahead, Miss Parsons. Enjoy the scenery, but if you're expecting a Sunday social, you're bound to be-disappointed. By the time you reach Virginia City, you'll never want to see the inside of one of A.J. Oliver's stagecoaches again."

  She released the tapestry bag in a huff, and angrily tipped her chin up. "I was hardly expecting a social, Mister Devereaux. I'm well aware of the rigors of travel, having just completed a considerable journey from Chicago, if you'll recall. You needn't try to frighten me."

  "You won't need me for that, Miss Parsons," he replied ominously. "Best get your goodbyes said." Without another word, he turned and stepped off the walkway to hand her bag to the driver, who was lashing the leather covering of the boot together.

  Traffic filled the street beyond the stage, with horses and vehicles negotiating the mud gingerly. A freight wagon, pulled by mules, rolled by and the driver shouted obscenities while slapping the traces against the teams' backs.

  Mariah breathed in a lungful of calming air, then turned to Maeve and her husband. The older woman's eyes were misty and her smile stiff. "Goodbye, Maeve," Mariah whispered, giving the woman a hug, already missing her. "Thank you for everything."

  Maeve shushed her with one hand. "If there's ever anything ye need—anything at all, just ask."

  "That goes for me as well, Miss Parsons," Jamie put in. "'Tis glad I was to know my Maeve didn't have to face that trip alone. It's been a pleasure meetin' ye, as brief as it was." He cast a sidelong glance at Creed Devereaux then looked back. "You're sure we can't change yer mind about goin'?"

  Mariah shook her head. "Don't worry about me," she told them, kissing each on the cheek. "Either of you. After all, I'll be traveling with a whole stage full of passengers. What could possibly happen?"

  She wondered at the worried look Maeve and Jamie exchanged, then hugged them goodbye. "Now, I've kept you two long enough," she said, forcing a smile. "I'm sure you have plenty of catching up to do. Go on, both of you, and God bless."

  "I'll write, Mari," Maeve called over her shoulder as Jamie led her back toward the fort.

  "Me, too!" Mariah returned in a tone that was brighter than her mood. She watched them go, a hollow emptiness settling in the pit of her stomach as she turned back toward the stage. She was alone now. Truly alone.

  "All aboard! I got a schedule to keep!" called the grizzled driver as he climbed to his perch at the front of the coach. Beside him an armed guard sat at the ready with a large bore coachgun.

  The male passengers plowed through the fifteen feet of mud separating the stage from the walkway and began boarding. Mariah looked for Devereaux, but he wasn't among them. She found him adjusting the cinch on his blue roan horse nearby. With his back partly to her, she took the opportunity to appraise the man.

  Behind that rough shadow of beard and the deep lines of fatigue written on his face, she guessed he was younger than she'd thought at first—perhaps only six or seven years older than her own twenty. His body was long, lean, and graceful, without
a spare ounce of flesh. The maroon fabric of his shirt pulled against the ridges of muscles along his spine and broad shoulders. His buckskin pants hugged the muscular contours of his legs and were neatly tucked into an expensive-looking pair of brown leather boots. No doubt purchased with blood money, she mused.

  "You'll not be riding in the coach, Mr. Devereaux?" she called out hopefully.

  He glanced back at her and shook his head. "I'll be following along behind."

  Relief swept through her. At least she wouldn't be forced to endure his constant presence on the trip. She'd only have to see him at the swing stations.

  She cast a disgusted look at the quagmire beneath the walkway. Her only pair of boots were already soaked, but she didn't relish the prospect of sitting for hours in a wet, muddy gown. Nevertheless, she started down the steps.

  It wasn't until he was almost in front of her that she heard him approach. She looked up just in time to see Devereaux reach for her and scoop her up into his arms. Fear and mortification rifled through her as he lifted her off the step, wrapping his arms intimately about her.

  "Oh! Mister Devereaux!" Through the fabric of her dress she felt his hand tighten around her thighs as he negotiated a two-inch-deep puddle of water. His face was only a whisper from hers, near enough to catch the starchy scent of lye soap, close enough to be sure he could feel the pounding of her heart against the wall of his chest. It flustered her beyond reason. "Please—I—"

  "Please what?"

  "Put me—"

  In three more steps, he'd deposited her on the retractable step of the red A.J. Oliver Stage. His large hands circled her waist, steadying her for a moment until she'd caught her balance on the canvas cover.

  "You're welcome," came his sarcastic reply.

  "Th-thank you," she managed stiffly, but he was already slogging back through the mud puddle for his horse and she wasn't sure if he'd even heard her. Mariah took a shaky breath and pressed a hand to still her thudding heart.

  The stuffy interior was crammed with men along the three benched seats. Eight pairs of curious eyes turned toward her as she ducked into the opening. She had the urge to deny knowing the man who had just carried her to the threshold as if he owned her. But she kept quiet, deciding denial could only compound her embarrassment.

  Two tufted leather benches lined the front and back walls of the wagon. The third straddled the middle with only leather straps to hold onto for support. The only position open was one of these. She smiled uncomfortably at the men and started for the seat.

  "Allow me, miss." A slender, rather sickly-looking man in his late twenties jumped up, offering his position by the window. "You'll be more comfortable here, where you can lean back." He swept a gallant arm in that direction and maneuvered over the canvas express bags on the floor at their feet.

  "Why, thank you, Mr.—"

  "Lindsey," he said, tipping his bowler. "Albert Lindsey." With his index finger, he pushed at his glasses, shoving them back into place on his narrow nose. "My pleasure, ma'am."

  "Thank you, Mr. Lindsey. That's very generous of you." At least there were a few gentlemen in this godforsaken wilderness, she mused, wedging herself into the fifteen inches of space between the window and the large fellow taking up the center seat. With chagrin, she realized that Devereaux had been right. Needlework would have been difficult if not impossible in such a cramped space.

  The man beside her shifted, glancing down at her with a gray-toothed grin. "How do, ma'am." He tipped off his short-billed cap to reveal a nearly bald head.

  It was then that his rank odor assaulted her. It must have been weeks since the man had been on friendly terms with a tub of water. His unwashed body stank to high heaven, and it occurred to her that Mr. Lindsey might not have been so gallant after all to have offered her this seat.

  As genteelly as possible, she withdrew a lily-of-the-valley-scented lace hanky from inside her sleeve and pressed it against her nose. At least she'd have the breeze once the coach got moving.

  With that thought came the sound of the driver's loud "H-yaw!" The vehicle lurched violently, whipping her head backward against the stiff, tufted leather wall so hard her teeth clacked together.

  The men in the middle fought for balance, too, clinging to the leather straps suspended from the ceiling.

  "He rather means it when he says he has schedules to keep, doesn't he?" Albert Lindsey commented dryly, hanging on to his tether for dear life. The others laughed with good humor, breaking the tension that had kept them all strangers.

  "Are you going far, miss?" Lindsey queried, looking directly at her.

  "Virginia City," she replied, dropping her hanky long enough to be polite.

  "You don't say. That's my destination as well."

  Several others concurred. The young man on the opposite side of the coach, David Conner, and his redheaded cousin, Jeb, were going only as far as Bannack to try their luck at mining. Another man, a well-dressed dandy named Powell, said he was headed for Salt Lake City.

  As the town disappeared behind them, the coach's wheels rattled over the rutted road. The heavily-slung leather thorough-braces kept the discomfort to a minimum as the vehicle assumed the rocking rhythm of a ship.

  "I daresay, mining gold isn't your goal, is it, Miss—?"

  "Parsons," she supplied, foregoing the formality of introduction. "No, Mr. Lindsey. I'm going to meet my fiancé, Seth Travers. He runs a thriving mercantile in Virginia City. Perhaps you've heard of him?"

  "I know Travers," put in a rangy-limbed man seated on the opposite side of the coach. He slipped his cap off and a smile softened the weathered lines on his face. "Name's Nate Cullen, ma'am. Honest as a lookin' glass, Seth is. Sold me my first outfit—on credit, too." With a wink of pride, he added, "Paid him back every cent."

  Her heart tripped in her chest to hear someone who knew Seth speak of him. "Oh... I hope that means you've had luck in the goldfields, Mr. Cullen."

  He tugged at the colorful scarf around his neck. "I ain't complainin' and that's a fact. Some say the mother lode is right in the gulch, ripe for the takin'."

  That comment started a spirited discussion on the prospects in Alder Gulch. Most of those aboard, she learned, were headed for the placer camps of Ram's Horn, Deer Lodge, and Virginia City. All of these settlements fell within a half-mile of each other along Alder Creek, and each claimed its own merits as to the richness of its little strip of creek bed.

  Nate Cullen had been there the longest—one year in all. Of the others, two had done some mining in Bannack and farther west. The rest were green first timers, like her.

  A shiver of apprehension traveled down her spine. Mariah repositioned her hanky and gazed out the window at the passing scenery, turning her thoughts to Seth. Four years was a long time, she mused. Worries that had plagued her since she'd received his final letter last month resurfaced. What if things weren't the same between them? After all, she was not the same young girl he'd left behind in Chicago. She'd grown up.

  Seth, like her late father and grandmother, was always overprotective of her—much like a big brother. Five years older than she, he'd fought her battles for her, from Bobby Barnes snatching apples from her lunch-pail in school to making sure she and her grandmother never wanted for anything while Seth established himself in the West. His love was dependable—something she'd always taken for granted, like the sun coming up or the seasons changing.

  Seth had never felt the need to propose to her. Not down on one knee at any rate, the way she'd always dreamed about. No, their plans for a future together just seemed to happen. She was comfortable with Seth in a way she'd never been with another man. And she loved him. She'd not questioned that then, nor did she now. Seth was her life, and she'd kept herself only for him.

  The countryside passed by in a blur and the thought came again—four years is a long time. What if his feelings for her had changed? Suppose he no longer really wanted her, but had agreed to let her come out of some misguided sense of duty
? After all, he'd known many women, she supposed. Most, undoubtedly, prettier than she. Some, Mariah thought with a pang of jealousy, perhaps even in the biblical sense. The thought sent a flush of heat to her cheeks and she brushed at a loose tendril of cinnamon hair that had escaped her chignon.

  It was then that she caught sight of the bounty hunter riding at an easy lope some thirty feet away from the stage. Something sharp and unexpected turned in her stomach at the sight of him. He was actually handsome in a dangerous sort of way, she realized, with strong, undeniably masculine features. And despite his obvious human failings, he rode as if he were born to it: back straight, yet relaxed, and those long, muscular legs molded around the saddle—

  Beneath the brim of his hat, the bounty hunter glanced up to catch her watching him. He didn't smile, but something in the shift of his posture seemed to mock her.

  Mariah shrunk back in her seat and slammed her eyes shut. She was mortified at the direction her thoughts had taken only moments before. What in the world was wrong with her, looking at him that way? Why, her heart raced as if she'd been running a foot race, for heaven's sake!

  Thankfully, no one seemed to notice the flush that had made her cheeks grow hot. The men in the coach had broken out decks of cards and started games of whist and poker. Mariah pulled the fabric of her gown from her damp skin. Black clouds gathered in the distance—the atmosphere was thick and muggy with the impending storm. The stifling air inside the coach was relieved only by the soothing fragrance of sage that wafted through the open window.

  Turning her cheek against the leather-padded wall, Mariah tried to force her wayward thoughts from the mysterious Creed Devereaux. But it baffled her that Seth could have befriended such a man. Perhaps he had changed more than his letters revealed.

  The stage rocked back and forth like a cradle and slowly, her eyes drifted shut. Exhaustion from the long trip took hold of her. But try as she might to picture Seth's dear face as she fell asleep, it was the dark image of the bounty hunter that plagued Mariah's thoughts like an ill wind.