Life gives you what you want. But you have to fight for what you need.
The Malloy Family, Book 12
Charlie Chastain is an oddity, and it doesn’t bother her a bit. Her life in Ft. Laramie—hunting game, up to her elbows in carcasses, stitching hide clothing—suits her independent spirit.
So what if she’s not a great beauty like her sisters? No one will force her into society’s mold, much less a dress. But to say she is completely happy would be a lie—and no one understands that better than the only man in her life she trusts. Elijah Sylvester.
Aside from serving as the fort’s resident fix-it man, Eli has spent a lifetime fighting bullies who consider him stupid, a throwaway. He fights his feelings for the woman who makes his heart hammer, but considers him nothing more than a friend.
When Charlie’s restless feet send her off on a new adventure, Eli saddles up so she doesn’t go unprotected. But their trip takes a dangerous turn and suddenly the hunters become the hunted. And by the time Charlie realizes how much Eli means to her, it could be too late.
Warning: Contains a cussing, stubborn, trouser-wearing woman who knows how to use a gun, and a gifted man who knows how to load, prime, and fire up her heart. Could inspire a need to purchase chaps. Hey, we won’t judge.
The Gem
Beth Williamson
Dedication
To those men and women who see beneath the prickly exterior some of us show to the world, to find the beautiful soul who lives beneath. Love transforms us into the beautiful creatures our mates see. True love isn’t blind, it does not see what’s on the outside, but only the heart that beats beneath.
Chapter One
Fort Laramie, Wyoming Territory
May 1858
The surefire way to goad Charlie Chastain into doing something was to forbid her from doing it.
While her two older nephews were out with their father, Mason, and the youngest was napping, Isabelle cornered Charlie. Lured by the promise of fresh cookies, she’d arrived only to find a dress lying on the chair, waiting to attach itself to Charlie’s form. Like a blue snake.
Iz blocked the door, her chin at a stubborn tilt. “I forbid you to leave this house.” Isabelle, the most beautiful of the four Chastain sisters, had striking green eyes and light brown hair. Even after three children, she was stunning to look at. Charlie, on the other hand, had frizzy, kinky hair with every shade of brown and red, and boring hazel eyes. She wasn’t tall or short, she was round in all the female places, but she was also muscular. Not many women were built like her, nor did they do the amount of physical labor she performed daily. Charlie knew she wasn’t attractive and it didn’t bother her a bit.
“You know I could knock you out of the way and leave.” Charlie folded her arms, her temper burbling like a pot on an open fire.
“I just want you to try on the dress. That’s all. See how it fits.” Isabelle’s expression was tight with a forced smile.
“No, hell no.” Charlie glared at Iz. “You tricked me.”
“I didn’t trick you.” Her sister’s cheeks reddened with guilt. “I made cookies, but I wanted to show you this lovely dress I had made for you.” She gestured to the garment. “The ladies would like to get to know you better.”
Charlie wasn’t going to believe that for a minute. “No they don’t. I’m an oddity. A girl that doesn’t act like one. They want to make me into one of them and—” She shuddered. “Marry me off to one of the single men.”
The senior officers at the fort were married, with their wives holding court. The junior officers were mostly unmarried. Not one of them interested her. Hell, no man had ever interested her. Charlie had stopped wondering if she’d ever find that kind of love—the answer was no. Her world was small, the way she liked it. If only she didn’t wonder about what life would be like if she did have a man in her life other than Eli. He didn’t count, since he was her best friend.
Charlie didn’t understand why Isabelle couldn’t just let her be.
“I want to see you happy.” Iz frowned. “Spending all your time up to your elbows in blood can’t be what you want to do for the rest of your life. You should marry Eli.”
“How do you know?” Charlie’s ire grew with every passing moment. “You have your perfect life with your perfect husband and perfect children. You don’t know a damn thing about me. I can’t marry Eli. He’s my best friend, not someone who could be my husband.”
To be truthful, Charlie was to blame for shutting her sisters out. She didn’t want them to know every detail of her life—or sometimes, any details.
Charlie was as wild and untamed as the Wyoming wilderness. She refused to be forced into being the ideal of what the societal rules said she should be. It began on the trip west from New York, when she discovered rough men and their rougher ways. The men who led the wagon train were fascinating and appealing. Charlie had immediately felt a kinship with them.
Then everything had gone to hell and she’d become an orphan, set adrift in the world with only her sisters to ground her. Charlie had fought against the sadness and despair that threatened, the darkness that crept around inside the deepest recesses of her heart. Instead, she found what she could do well.
Hunt.
She didn’t expect it. Not for a girl who spent the first fifteen years of her life in New York. She’d not even seen an elk or bison or bear until she went west with her family. Now that she lived in the Wyoming Territory, those animals and more had become a common sight. Who knew the Chastain sisters would be such crack shots? None of them had held a pistol or rifle until their father made sure they knew how to use one. Western women were as tough as the men. They had to be or they didn’t survive.
Charlie took to hunting like a duck to water. Within a year she had surpassed Isabelle and then everyone else at the fort. She didn’t want to be schooled or sit around doing feminine chores. So she took her skills and put them to good use—hunting, dressing, skinning and selling her catch and the wares made from it.
Now she was one of the most sought-after hunters, taking on one crazy job after another. She had autonomy to do what she wanted, when she wanted. After Eli had helped her build a cabin at the corner of her sister’s house along with a shed for smoking meat, she had her own home, albeit connected to Isabelle’s.
She tried to resist, damn how she tried, but it never failed to chap her ass to be told what to do or not to do. Her older sister Isabelle thought it was her duty to keep Charlie in check and civilized. Isabelle had taught her sister all the niceties ladies needed to know. Sometimes Charlie followed them, but more often she didn’t. Trying to be a lady was a slippery slope she had no desire to navigate, but she tried for Isabelle’s sake. She loved her sister and didn’t want to be a disappointment.
But there were just some things Charlie couldn’t do.
Was there no escape?
Isabelle’s expression turned to one of sadness. “I’m not trying to change you. I thought if you attended this tea with the officers’ wives, you could make some new friends. Perhaps try something different. I just want you to be happy.”
Charlie snatched a cookie from the plate on the table. “I am happy.” With that lie crowding her throat, she turned to leave her sister’s house.
“Please stay. At least until people are due to arrive.” Isabelle sat on the settee and patted the cushion. “Please.”
Charlie crammed the cookie into her mouth and sat down with little grace. She wore trousers, so she sat with her knees open, waiting for Isabelle to scold her.
“Your tactics
aren’t working.” Isabelle raised one brow. “I know you’re a grown woman, but acting like a spoiled child is not the answer to anything.”
“I’m not,” Charlie lied to herself and her sister. It seemed today was the day she couldn’t quite tell the truth.
Charlie had everything she needed. Yet nothing she wanted.
“Did you talk to Eli about your plan?” Isabelle nibbled at a cookie.
Charlie’s heart dropped. “No, and I won’t. It’s none of his business.”
Charlie had a grand scheme in which she planned to leave the fort for good. Nothing was keeping her there except Isabelle and her children. Charlie felt stifled, trapped in a world she never asked for. She was going to set off on her own by the end of the summer. Her mind was made up.
Isabelle shook her head. “I sincerely doubt that. I’ve never seen you so, um, flustered. By anything or anyone. Not since—”
“Stop, I don’t want to talk about this.” Charlie glared, refusing to go down the dark path she had hidden from everyone.
“Just because you don’t want to talk about it doesn’t mean there’s nothing to discuss. You’ve never lived alone or on your own.” Isabelle took her hand. “You never shared what Cam—”
Charlie jumped to her feet, knocking the table over. Cookies, plates and everything Isabelle had set flew across the room. “Shut up, Iz. Just shut up!”
Without another word, she yanked the door open. Her youngest nephew Samuel stood in the bedroom doorway to her right, his hair in a cloud around his head, thumb in his mouth, his eyes wide. She hadn’t meant to scare him, but she couldn’t sit and listen to Isabelle any longer.
Charlie couldn’t be the normal female her sisters wanted her to be. She was abnormal, and that was how she would remain. No matter what happened, she could not change the past, and it shaped her future, crooked as it was.
She had to do something to stop her sister and the women of the fort from marrying her off. Living on her own would do that quite nicely. Now she had to figure out what she would do to survive on her own. She would start by avoiding dresses. Forever.
“Shitshitshitshit!” Eli dropped his hammer into the dirt and shook his hand. Pain radiated up his thumb and arm until even his damn jaw hurt. He’d been distracted by his thoughts, which made him fodder for anyone who was nearby.
“Fixit, you need a real man to show you how to use that thing?” The taunt came from the bunkhouse, a mere ten yards from where he worked on the fence. Worse, he recognized the voice. Sergeant Volner stepped into the sunshine, his bearded face twisted into his usual sneer.
Eli picked up the hammer and squeezed until he felt sick from the pain. That was real, not the stupidity of a soldier like Volner.
“Guess you can grip it, but can you use it?” Volner snorted at his own witticism. Idiot.
Eli had discovered years ago if he ignored the bullies, they lost interest in bothering him. They still called him Fixit, but he likely would never lose that particular moniker. Back when he was a fifteen-year-old boy, he hadn’t known any better. Skinny, clumsy and worse, a stutterer, he lost his temper a thousand times at the name Fixit. It took years before he could hear it without flinching. Regardless of how smart he was, people still saw him as that awkward boy.
Volner took great pleasure in causing others discomfort. Eli wasn’t a skinny, gangly boy anymore, but that didn’t stop fools from picking on him. Eli was also as tall, if not taller, than the sergeant, but Volner carried a weapon and that gave him false courage.
Most days Eli could ignore Volner and his underling Corporal Oxley, but it had been a shitty day. Volner was like a giant vulture, picking at a wounded animal, willing it to die so he could feast. He stood at just over six feet, with wide shoulders and a narrow waist, greasy brown hair and nearly colorless blue eyes. His nose was hooked and his chin pointed, lending more credence to his carrion-eating visage.
Oxley was the opposite, short, round, with wispy blond hair and chocolate-brown eyes that were lost in his chubby cheeks. He followed Volner around like a pet, performing any and all tasks without question, no matter how distasteful to anyone else. Eli had even seen Oxley eat a dead rat raw because Volner told him to. While the sergeant was stupid and annoying, Oxley was more dangerous because he had no inhibitions.
Eli stayed out of their way as much as possible. He had no desire to run afoul of either of them, but today was different. His temper was riled.
“Don’t you have work to do? The government pays you to be a soldier, not a donkey dick.” Eli turned his back and picked up another nail.
The attack, when it came, was expected. Eli needed it. Almost craved it. He ducked as the beefy arm swung. He countered with a hammer swing to the knee. Volner dropped like a stone, squealing and moaning. Oxley jumped on Eli’s back, his sharp wrist digging into Eli’s neck.
Eli swung his upper body forward, throwing the corporal into the dirt with a solid thump. He bared his teeth at Oxley.
“I got work to do. You two stop fussing with me or I’ll tell the captain what you do out behind the trading post.” Eli was invisible much of the time, and people forgot he was around, watching and observing. The soldiers were a mixed lot, some good, some bad, some downright rotten like Oxley and Volner.
“Fixit, you broke my fucking knee!” Volner clutched his leg and shot daggers with his eyes at Eli.
“Nah, it’s just bruised. You’ll live, but you’ll limp.” Eli rubbed his neck and glared at Oxley as the man got to his feet and scrambled away. “Keep your distance. I ain’t gonna play no more with you.”
Eli picked up his hammer from the dirt a second time and waited. Volner growled and lumbered to his feet.
“Dirty fighting, Fixit.”
Eli shrugged. “I give what I get.” It wasn’t the first time, nor would it be the last time, the two soldiers bothered him. Since the soldiers had arrived at the fort, they’d taken it upon themselves to pick a fight with him, trip him, throw food at him; before them, it had been trappers. Eli had endured it for years, but the difference was that now he could fight back. He no longer swallowed his pride or accepted the abuse. Volner and Oxley would learn to leave him be. Eventually.
“What’s going on here?” Captain Hamilton, the current commander of the fort, stepped up with a scowl on his face. He’d only been at Fort Laramie for a mere month and hadn’t taken full command of the soldiers. He was the same type of officer that had come west previously, full of big ideas and the urge to tame the wild country. He hadn’t yet discovered there wasn’t a man alive who could tame the territory.
“A misunderstanding, captain.” Eli stared at Volner, daring him to contradict him.
“Yep, ain’t nothin’.” Volner limped away, his gaze promising retribution. Oxley was right behind him.
Some days Eli wished the soldiers would disappear and not come back. That would leave the fort vulnerable to Indian attack. Even so, it was a tempting wish.
“Mr. Sylvester, when you’re done with this fence, there are repairs required in the officers’ mess.” The captain was a tall, narrow-faced man whose red mustache was wider than his cheeks. He had kind blue eyes, which would not serve him well at the fort. The soldiers he commanded were a mixture of men who were hiding from a crime, their past or their future. It did not bode well for an idealistic officer like Hamilton.
“Yes, sir.” Eli returned to his work and waited for the captain to move on.
He didn’t.
“Mr. Sylvester, I have a question for you.” The captain twisted his mustache between his fingers and his gaze skittered around rather than meet Eli’s.
Eli paused, his hammer above the nail. “I got work to do, sir.”
“Oh, yes, I know that. I have a question about someone you know. Her name is Charlotte Chastain.” Hamilton cleared his throat and resumed twiddling with his facial hair.
The
mention of Charlie’s name made Eli’s hackles stand up. His best friend was an unusual sort of female. She didn’t fit into anyone’s mold and she also cursed more than any man Eli had ever known.
He also loved her with every particle of his being, and she didn’t know it.
“I know Charlie.” Eli kept his response vague, wondering what the captain wanted.
“It’s been suggested to me that Charlotte would be a likely candidate for a wife. I was to meet her today at her sister Mrs. Bennett’s house, but she was unavailable.” Hamilton finally met Eli’s gaze. “I would ask you to introduce us properly if you can.”
Eli wanted to punch him, cause enough damage to the man’s handsome face that Charlie could hardly bear to look at him. Jealousy roared through Eli on a red wave. He swallowed it back although it tasted of sawdust and ashes.
“I would think that is Isabelle’s job. I ain’t the right person to ask.” Eli slammed the nail in place followed by another, then another.
Captain Hamilton still stayed put. What was the man doing? Eli wasn’t about to give Charlie to him as though she were a commodity to be picked up at the mercantile. No one owned her or her future. Eli hazarded a guess that Charlie had deliberately avoided meeting the captain. She didn’t want to be ordered about by anyone, least of all a blue coat.
“I don’t disagree with you, Mr. Sylvester. If you have the opportunity, I would appreciate an introduction.” The man shuffled his feet in the dirt and Eli almost bit through the nail he had in his teeth. “Such as now.”
Eli’s gaze snapped to the left and he spotted Charlie walking toward them. His gut tightened at the sight. He would do anything for her, no matter how big or small. But he would not give her to this soldier.
Damn woman had shit timing. He turned back to his work, refusing to look at her. Eli had trouble resisting her and she damn well knew it.
“Eli, don’t pretend you didn’t see me.” Charlie put her foot up on the railing of the fence, her boot caked with mud.
The Gem: The Malloy Family, Book 12 Page 1
