Bride School: Genevieve (The Brides of Diamond Springs Ranch 1)

by Bella Bowen

  For a minute or two, all he could do was stare.

  Genevieve still cared.

  She frowned at him. “I said, go ahead and take it. I wouldn’t want you to be responsible for burning down your precious bench.”

  He shook his head, trying to ignore his wild thoughts and concentrate on her words. Her guards were all glaring, rifles trained on anyone with the ability to grow a beard.

  Dev gestured to the burn trails in the grass. “I can’t believe you could think me capable of this, Gen. This is my still my ranch. It was my arch you burned.”

  “My ranch, Devlin. Just as it should have been from the beginning.”

  He couldn’t meet her eyes anymore for fear of what he might read there. He’d been showing his hand all day, and it was too important, and everything would be lost—everything—if she knew his secrets.

  “How are my horses?” He cringed, realizing that his attempt at changing the subject had just revealed another weakness to his enemy.

  “I wouldn’t know,” she said with a shrug. “But my horses are thriving, thank you.”

  “There still two mares left to foal—”

  “I know. It’s kind of you to worry over my herds, but I’ve got the right men—I mean women—on the job.”

  “I’d like to check on them, if it’s all the same to you.”

  She laughed. “Oh, Devlin. Such a smooth-tongued devil. But I’m afraid it is not all the same to me. You don’t need to worry about my stock, especially the horses. I have this Comanche woman in charge of all the horses. And you know, she can break a horse without trying to frighten it to death. The Comanche are called Horse People for a very good reason. I’ve seen her work.”

  He was fully aware of the talents of the Comanche people, but it galled him that she’d thought of such a thing. But then again, if she’d been watching him as closely as he suspected, she would have known to prepare...

  If she’d been as aware of him as he had been of her…

  Her horse changed its footing and the smell of fire filled his head again, reminding him he stood, figuratively, on the burial site of Diamond Springs Ranch. Nothing would ever be the same. He knew that as surely as if God Himself had just whispered it into his ear. But if he fought back, with the help of his shrewd-when-sober lawyer, he might at least walk away with his horses. He could prove that those, at least, belonged to him.

  That was, if the wrong weapon didn’t fall into that buckskin covered lap of hers.

  The sheriff arrived as if he smelled trouble in addition to fire. In his dust came Charlie Willot with a buckboard to collect his wife. He told Gen the town hall was coming along nicely. They’d be building the frames for the four walls the following day, and they’d planned a barn-raising of sorts to put it all together come Saturday.

  “If we get the walls covered, don’t be surprised if the preacher don’t come ‘round asking to use the place on Sunday. He’s dancing up and down the streets these days, expecting his congregation to grow. I warned him you wouldn’t be giving loans to expand his church, since there’s not a lot of trading you’ll be doing with him.” Willot laughed, as did his wife.

  “I don’t know,” Devlin said, unable to still his tongue. “Maybe absolution for past sins might have a pretty price. What do you think, Genevieve?”

  She rolled her eyes, but not before he noted a little gasp. But was it her conscience, he’d pricked, or her feelings?

  The Willots left when the conversation turned awkward. Pete stuck around to escort the rest of them back to town, he said. Stoddard stared down the guards, who stared right back, and Devlin hopped into Milton’s borrowed wagon to poke through the trunk while the bench was loaded next to it.

  The deeper he dug, the sicker he felt. After sifting through every layer of belongings for the fourth time, he stood up to find Gen had eased her horse next to the wagon bed. They stood close enough no one would hear what they said. It was their first chance to speak privately for over a decade.

  “They’re not there,” she said quietly and reached behind her.

  He hadn’t noticed the blanket tied on the back of her saddle, but recognized it as she lifted it around her and held it out to him. He found it difficult to inhale while she placed the folded wool into his arms. It was too light. She’d found them!

  “Please,” he whispered. “If you ever cared a whit—”

  “Don’t,” she warned sharply. Then she pulled back on the reins, creating more distance between them.

  He shook his head discreetly, begging her not to leave. He couldn’t help but ask. “Have you...” Have you read them?

  Her horse stopped. “No.” She sighed. “Not yet.”

  One last chance, then! “Gen, I beg you. Don’t.”

  She shook her head, but she didn’t smile. “Maybe I would have obliged, brother. Once, a long time ago, I had mercy.” Her look pierced him through the heart. “But I’m a bit more partial to the Old Testament not the New. Instead of Love thy brother, I’m more of an eye-for-an-eye gal.”

  She turned and headed down the drive. Her horse’s tail swished. Her bottom swayed...

  And Devlin’s heart may as well have been lying across the back of the saddle, bleeding its last few drops of blood.

  Genevieve wanted him to know she’d changed, and that he’d had a hand in creating the new Gen Carnegie.

  Well, he could change too. And it wasn’t going to be pretty.

  She was about to read something she didn’t want to know. So let her. Served her right.

  Then she was going to come looking for him, he was sure of it. And she’d find nothing of the Devlin she thought she knew.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Gen tried to get back to her room, to David’s journals, just as soon as she could. Problem was, she couldn’t.

  The Comanche woman, whose name was so long and so difficult Gen called her Puuku, was waiting for her at the house. One of the mares was having a hard time. She wanted to know, if it came down to it, was she to save the mother or the colt.

  Making such a choice was simply more than Gen could bear at the moment, so she told Puuku, very firmly, that she was to save both. The Indian woman rolled her eyes and walked away, muttering like she did when seducing a horse to see things her way. Gen expected the woman to make the decision, if it became necessary, and that was fine by Gen. She trusted Puuku to make the right choice, not the emotional choice, and if Devlin had a problem with that, Gen would claim she’d made the decision herself.

  She felt raw and weary as she headed into to the barn to get a rundown from the women who filled the foreman roles Diamond Springs.

  At least the meeting went well.

  The women had all found some form of personal space to call their own while they waited for the new housing to be built. They were willing to put up with a bit of rough living for a while if it meant a safe place to live where their hard work was all that was asked of them. Of course, her ranch staff, as she called them, were a different type of woman than those who would come to the ranch for an education. These women were already well-seasoned in the ways of the West. No matter from whence they came, they had been forced out of the drawing rooms and into the fields, into the corrals. Some had never stepped foot in a proper drawing room in the first place.

  There were others still who knew little more than how to shoot a gun, and they’d lived by those guns, hunting animals or men, whatever their survival required.

  Gen didn’t want to judge them, but she’d had to in order to complete her staff. On an all-woman ranch, guards who had a talent for their weapons were fundamental. Poor shots equaled poor guards. Poor guards, no ranch.

  But neither was Diamond Springs a place for murderers. And though some of her staff had killed a man or two, she’d had her investigators find out why. No matter what a judge and jury might say, it was Gen’s judgment that counted now.

  Those investigators, or Crawlers as she called them, were a division of her staff who would never set foot
on the ranch. On her payroll, she maintained the services of four men and four women who worked independently of one another. Very few of them knew about the others. And each of those investigators communicated with her through one of her four lawyers. Two Crawlers to every attorney. One complete set in opposite parts of the country. One handled the West and Southwest. Another in the Southeast. One in the northern states, and her head lawyer in New York City, who also handled her foreign affairs.

  The world was hers. She could do with it as she pleased. And what she pleased was to take back the one thing that had been denied her—her home. She wouldn’t have cared if Devlin would have lost all the cattle, the acres, the money. It was the home she wanted. Complete with cracking paint and roof in need of attention before winter, it was her right to walk through that door.

  Everything was as it should have been after David died. And this time, it was Devlin who was invited to leave and never come back. Not in those words, but she’d delivered the message clearly enough.

  The cook had a list of things she needed for the kitchen. A former slave, Lottie didn’t want to take her order to Anderson’s Mercantile. Puuku offered to take it for her, and everyone enjoyed a good laugh together before the meeting was adjourned. One day, Gen was going to let Puuku deliver a lesson or two to the people of Sage River, but not yet. That town that had allowed her ranch to be taken from her, who had stood by while she was ushered back to Denver City, they weren’t yet primed. They had to need Mrs. Carnegie’s patronage like they needed the air they breathed, and that would take some time.

  None of the staff was having any difficulty with the rules set down for them, but it was early yet on that account as well. She’d have to set some time in her day aside for dealing with misunderstandings that were inevitable in an establishment of women. And by the time the house was completed for the future brides, the staff should already have settled into a comfortable rhythm.

  In a few days’ time, the city hall would be erected, and if the work was impressive enough, the same men would be allowed on the ranch for the real work—housing for the staff and the young women whom her crawlers deemed worthy of the privilege. And after the house was full, the fun would begin. The hounds would be loosed. Business would boom once the wealthy gentlemen of the West were allowed to come and bay at the gates. And the crawlers would have much to keep them busy. The town would grow to accommodate it all, and anyone and everyone involved, on both sides of the matrimonial aisle, would find their perfect companion at Diamond Springs.

  The West would be a happy place, and they would owe that happiness to her.

  Genevieve Zollinger Carnegie.

  David would have had no choice but to approve.

  And even as she thought the words, she knew they weren’t true. He would have found something unworthy of it all. But David was up on the hill, beneath the green ash tree. And he couldn’t say a word.

  All Gen had to do was stop imaging he’d said them.

  ~ ~ ~

  By the time she’d had her supper and gone over all the accounting details Mrs. Willot had told her about, Gen padded off to bed in such a state of fatigue she’d nearly forgotten about the journals. Or at least, she would have forgotten if there was not a lingering smell of Devlin Bloody Zollinger in her bedroom to remind her of their conversation at the gate.

  He’d been mortified to find that his stolen photograph had not been hidden away inside the blanket. Absolutely mortified. And she’d been there to see it. In and of itself, that would have been enough to remind the man that the war would continue, that he would find no one on the ranch to soften for him, especially her.

  She’d tried not to guess what that photograph might have meant to Devlin and had decided to wait and see how he reacted to losing it. But she hadn’t expected indifference. The only thing that had upset him was the fact that she’d found the journals, which meant that she’d been wise not to read too much meaning into the fact that he had possessed something that had been stolen from her home. Perhaps he’d only wanted to remember the face of the only person who knew he was a murderer.

  It was a lucky thing she hadn’t imagined he was in love with her, or that he might have been in love with her all those years David had suspected just that. Also fortuitous was that she’d never allowed herself to conjure any romantic images of Devlin pining away for her, ruing the day he’d run her off.

  Because it seemed that Devlin was simply tucking things away from the prying eyes of others. He’d held onto two of David’s journals for some reason, when her sources had assured her he’d burned every volume.

  But why?

  It was this mystery that brought her awake once more. Just when she thought the day was ended and she could say her prayers and find her rest, she was fully alert.

  There was something in those journals he didn’t want her to see. And he’d brought that nasty man, Stoddard, to bully his way into the house to get them.

  She shook her head and laughed. Devlin Zollinger had a serious problem with underestimating her. But that would change, and she needed to be ready. The old dog was going to catch on. He was going to start anticipating her.

  She’d simply have to jump a few steps ahead, that was all. And hopefully, she already had.

  There was a knock on the door. Gen bid them enter.

  Lottie arrived with a tea tray. “Thought maybe with all this excitement you’d have a hard time of it getting to sleep. Tea or milk or both. It’s all here.”

  “Thank you, Lottie.” Gen slipped off her robe and slid under the covers, then turned up the lamp. “I was just going to do a bit of light reading. Tea is just the thing.”

  A few minutes later, and a page into the first volume of what was clearly not her husband’s journal, she poured hot tea down her knees. Thankfully, the blankets and nightgown protected her from the worst of the heat. But nothing could keep the cup, and then the entire tray from shattering on the floor when she jumped from the bed.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  No rest for the wicked.

  It didn’t matter that he had a room and a bed. It didn’t matter that he was so weary he couldn’t keep his eyes open. And dammit, the whiskey wasn’t working.

  Every time he closed his eyes, he pictured his sister-in-law sitting in her flowery chair, perusing his soul. And whenever he managed to replace that image with something else, like the list of chores that were probably being ignored on his ranch and how much damage might be done before he and his men could get back to work, his thoughts were interrupted by little snippets of memory. Little things he remembered writing in those journals while he was pining away for a woman who could never be his.

  I wonder if she ever thinks of me...

  Has she forgotten that moment we were introduced? Will she have scrubbed it from her memories because it was the source of strain in her marriage? When she lay here, in this bed, did she ever imagine us together... What might have been... How he hated David for the chill in his voice every time he spoke to his wife. How he wished David might have some accident and leave the pair of them together.

  How they would have to leave Diamond Springs and make a new life, where no one would know she was still considered his relation.

  “No!” Humiliation racked his body. “She cannot read them!” Denial after denial made no difference. Always, the picture came back. Genevieve, sitting in that chair...

  Leaving town, just packing up and leaving, seemed the only way out. Her lawyers were on their way. His own was still searching his papers. If Atwood couldn’t find what they needed, that meant his salvation was somewhere in David’s study, lost from him. He’d be ruined in truth.

  The possibility got him off the bed and onto his feet.

  There was no helping it. He was going to have to finish off the bottle if he was to get any sleep. And he didn’t want to look like a corpse when he faced her again. She could never know that thoughts of her tortured him so.

  He shook his head, realizing it didn’t ma
tter what he might look like when the sun came up, because at that very moment, she was learning just how tortured he’d been for the past seventeen years. She was reading all about his torment, his mindless obsession.

  He was simply grateful the new horse venture had kept him for writing anything recently.

  Damn David! If the man had never commended the endless benefits of keeping a journal—the ability to empty one’s worries onto a page instead of keeping them in one’s heart—Dev would have never entertained the idea. Then, at his first show of interest, his brother had reached into his case of empty little blue books and given him a few to get him started. Looking back, Dev wondered if David had been trying to tell him something else that day, if he’d been inviting him to take a peek inside David’s heart, tempting him to open one of his own journals. Daring him to know the truth.

  Dev wondered, for the thousandth time, if David had left that last journal where he might find it and open it. Had David been trying to tell him that he knew Dev was in love with his wife? Had he been baiting Dev to run to Gen and show her?

  But in all those years, Dev had been far too careful to never be alone with the woman. And she’d been wise enough to do the same. When David left the ranch, Dev was careful to leave too. Any excuse to keep far away from temptation. Leave David’s staff with nothing to whisper about, nothing to report.

  So that night he’d stumbled across that journal, he’d at least fallen for the bait enough to open it and read. Then he’d left it exactly where he’d found it. Leaving it for Fate to decide whether or not Gen would find it.

  Then he started making plans to leave. He wasn’t going to live under the same roof with a man who didn’t trust him.

  Dev’s years of vigilance had been for naught.

  His heart broken, he had been tempted to commit the sin for which he’d been condemned, but he didn’t entertain the thought for long. Just because David’s mind was twisted, didn’t mean he and Gen shouldn’t fight back.