His Innocent Bride (The Brides of Paradise Ranch (Spicy Version) Book 11)

by Merry Farmer

  “No.” Bebe clutched Hubert’s arm even harder. “You’re going to have to burn this saloon down with me inside it.”

  “Hold on a second.” Sam held up his arms, sending Bebe a scolding look.

  “Yes,” Julia agreed. “You’ll have to burn me down too, because I stand by my friends. Come on, Bebe.” She lifted her chin and glanced from Bebe to Rex. “We’ll go inside, lash ourselves to the bar, and await our inevitable demise.”

  With a sniff of defiance, Bebe held her head high and turned to follow Julia back into the saloon. She pulled Hubert with him, but as he retreated, Hubert sent Sam a pleading look.

  “What kind of trickery is this?” Rex bellowed. “You come back here this instant, Bebe. I will not tolerate this sort of behavior.”

  Rex leapt up onto the boardwalk and shoved past Sam, marching into the saloon.

  “Watch it,” Sam shouted after him.

  He would have followed but for the vicious grins that spread slowly over the faces of Rex’s men.

  “Think we should go ahead and start the fire?” One of them asked.

  “I reckon when this place goes up, you’ll be able to see it from Denver,” another laughed.

  “Sounds like a good idea to me.” Rance straightened from where he’d been brushing at his singed trouser leg and sent Sam a toothy smile. “Seeing as this one’s woman tried to burn me to a crisp.”

  “It was an accident,” Sam grumbled, his muscles tight with danger. “And you aren’t going to burn anything down with Rex inside.”

  One by one, the smiles on the faces of Rex’s ranch hands vanished. Rance’s was the last to go as the truth of the situation took its time to sink in. “Shoot,” he mumbled.

  “We don’t need torches to do what needs to be done,” the first hand who had spoken told the others. “We’ve got insurance.”

  Cold dread spread through Sam’s gut as the others chuckled and extinguished their torches. The street went dark once more, and Sam’s pulse kicked up. The men were moving, but the sudden shift from light to dark made it next to impossible for Sam to see what they were doing. His only smart move was to retreat into the saloon.

  “I won’t go with you, Papa, I won’t!” Bebe was already shouting as Sam crossed through the doorway. “You can’t make me.”

  “I can and I will,” Rex glowered at her. “And believe you me, missy, once we get home, you’re going to spend some serious time locked in your room.”

  “I won’t let that happen.” Hubert stood stalwartly by Bebe’s side, but the stress of the confrontation was vivid in his face.

  “You can’t keep a strangle hold on Bebe forever, Rex.” Sam tried to step into the fray, but Julia rushed forward and caught his arm before he could approach the bar. “She’s not a child anymore.”

  Behind Sam, the rest of Rex’s men poured into the saloon and fanned out. Surrounded them, really. And there was nothing good about the way they all had their hands close to their sides, close to their belts.

  “What the heck happened in here?” one of the ranch hands asked—in the light of the saloon, Sam could make out who each of them were now, and the one who spoke was Frisk, the worst of the lot. Rex hadn’t just brought his employees to retrieve Bebe, he’d brought his toughs. And Trey was out of town.

  The others glanced around at the torn-up stairs, the missing stones from the fireplace, and the ransacked bar. Sam used their moment of distraction to scan behind the bar, racing to figure out if he could reach his hidden revolver in time. But Bebe and Hubert were in the way, and with Julia hanging on him, there was no way he could make a break and get behind the bar.

  “We were searching for the loot,” Bebe answered, her chin raised. “When we find it, Hubert and I will have thousands of dollars to start a new life.”

  “What loot?” Rex darted a nervous glance around the saloon.

  “The loot left by the robbers,” Julia answered.

  “There’s loot in here?” Frisk looked around, his stance loosening.

  “Keep your focus,” Rex barked at him, at all of the men, who now searched the saloon with avarice in their eyes. “Remember what you’re here for.”

  “And what are you here for?” Sam asked, meeting and holding Rex’s gaze.

  “To take my daughter back,” Rex growled. “By whatever means necessary.”

  “Papa, you can’t—”

  Bebe’s protest was cut off as Rex shouted, “Now!”

  In an instant, every one of Rex’s men snapped to attention, drawing guns from their belts. Some of those guns had been hidden, but most had been right there in the holsters the men wore, plain as day. And Sam had barely registered them. He would have kicked himself for being as tame and soft as Rex had accused him of being if the situation weren’t so dire. He’d let his guard down, spent more time worrying about star-crossed young people than the violent threat staring him in the face.

  And the fact was, he would rather have dealt with the domestic drama than the pending gunfight in front of him any day. Hellfire and damnation. Not only was he every bit as domesticated and boring as he dreaded being, he would have chosen to be sound asleep in his boring bed with his boring wife—all right, not so boring wife—wrapped in his arms than facing down the barrels of six guns any day.

  “This has got to stop,” he said, feeling more like a schoolmaster faced with a bunch of disobedient—and deadly—children than the rugged and wild saloonkeeper, used to breaking up fights that he supposedly was.

  “It’ll stop when Bebe is at home, where she should be,” Rex snarled. “Otherwise, tomorrow Haskell will wake up to a horrible scene.” His grim expression took on an unexpected flash of victory. “And you’ve done most of the work for me.” He glanced around at the mess that the saloon had become. “Turns out there were robbers in this saloon. They ransacked the place looking for their loot. And when they didn’t find it, they shot up the place, killing the saloonkeeper, his wife, and their pitiful trash of a friend.”

  Rex’s men pulled back the hammers on their revolvers, sending a round of ominous clicks echoing through the saloon.

  “No!” Julia gasped. She clung to Sam’s arm, trembling with genuine fear that drained the color from her face.

  “I won’t let you hurt her.” Hubert stepped in front of Bebe, shielding her with his body.

  “I have no intention of hurting her.” Rex grinned. “You, on the other hand.” He laughed, long and low. “What a pity that Sheriff Knighton is away on his honeymoon.”

  Having his suspicions confirmed did nothing to make Sam feel better. “He’ll hear about this,” he said. “Don’t think for a moment that the good people of Haskell won’t know exactly what happened here come morning.”

  “Who’s going to tell them?” Rex snorted.

  Bebe opened her mouth to answer, but a deep answer of, “We will,” sounded from the doorway.

  Julia yelped and Sam’s heart dropped into his gut before bouncing clean up out of his throat in relief as Travis Montrose, Solomon Templesmith, Athos Strong, and Gus Cooper burst through the door. All four of the men had their guns drawn.

  “Trey asked me to keep an eye on things,” Travis said, positioning himself along with the others so that Rex’s men were in their sights. “And then I heard a ruckus.”

  “And saw torches in the street,” Solomon added, eyes narrowed at his father-in-law.

  Rex stared back at Solomon with a hatred that surpassed any look he’d ever given Hubert. “As far as I see it,” he growled, “this is the perfect opportunity to exterminate more than one kind of vermin. Boys, shoot to kill!”

  Rex’s men whirled to face Travis, Solomon, and the others. Sam jumped for the bar, reaching as best he could for his own revolver. Another sickening round of clicks filled the air as Travis and the others readied to fire. The air itself crackled, as if death were just seconds away.

  Until Bebe jumped into the middle of the standoff, arms outstretched, shouting, “No!”

  A gunshot s
plit the air.

  Chapter 12

  “Bebe!” Hubert leapt forward, even as Julia screamed and covered her face with her hands. She heard but didn’t see her friend fall. After that, she was too afraid to open her eyes.

  “What did you do to her?” Sam shouted. He left the bar and Julia’s side.

  “I will have the head of whichever one of you fired,” Rex growled.

  “Then you’d better look to Frisk there,” Travis said. “He’s the one with the smoking gun.

  “It was an accident,” pleaded a voice Julia didn’t recognize. “Honest, boss. I didn’t mean to shoot. I didn’t shoot at anything.”

  Julia forced herself to open her eyes, if only to glare at the man who had killed her friend.

  Only Bebe wasn’t dead. She wasn’t even bleeding. Julia let out a strangled yelp of amazement as Sam and Hubert helped Bebe to her feet. She was pale as a ghost and shaking, but she hadn’t been shot. The end of the bar had been nicked, though, and was splintered where the bullet had made impact.

  “He…he missed?” Julia’s breath came in fast, shallow gulps as relief washed through her. She gripped the side of the bar to keep herself from fainting…as Bebe must have fainted when the shot was fired.

  “You better be glad you missed,” Athos Strong, Hubert’s father told the man who had fired. He shifted to glare at Rex. “And you’d better tell the rest of your men to put their guns away.”

  “Or better yet, go home,” a tall, distinguished, colored gentleman said. Julia instantly knew he must be Solomon Templesmith, the man who had married Bebe’s sister.

  “I won’t be ordered around by the likes of you,” Rex barked at Solomon.

  “No? Then hear it from me.” Sam took a step toward Rex. “Go home and let these two young people live the lives they’ve chosen. They’re old enough to make their own decisions.”

  “Balderdash.” Rex refused to back down or to order his men to lower their guns. “Bebe is mine, and she will marry who and how I wish.”

  “Papa, you can’t.” Bebe wept openly now, color returning to her face in messy splotches. “I love Hubert. I’ve always loved Hubert. I will never love anyone else. He’s the only man I want to marry, and you can’t stop me.”

  “I can and I will,” Rex snarled. “You will come home with me now or else.”

  “I won’t let you shoot Hubert, I won’t.”

  Bebe stumbled to stand in front of Hubert, though Julia could see it took more effort than it should have. She took a step forward to support her friend, but Sam grabbed her arm and held her back, shaking his head. Julia would have given him a piece of her mind, except that he nodded to Hubert. As soon as she glanced to Hubert, she could see why.

  Hubert wore an expression so serious that it made the breath catch in Julia’s throat. He’d been staring at the bullet hole in the bar, but at Bebe’s fumbling attempt to shield him, he looked up, blinking.

  “No,” he said, so softly that Julia almost didn’t hear. “No,” he repeated, a little louder. He closed his hands around Bebe’s arms, helping her to stand straighter, but also moving her to the side. “This isn’t right.”

  “Wh-what are you talking about?” Bebe mumbled.

  Behind them, Rex narrowed his eyes. Each one of his men looked on with confused and worried faces, waiting for him to tell them what to do. Some had already lowered their guns, and the others looked inclined to follow suit. Travis and the others shifted uneasily, exchanging looks as though they were asking each other whether it was safe to stand down.

  Hubert stood straighter, staring Bebe in the eye as though no one else were there. “Bebe, I love you more than I ever thought it was possible to love someone who isn’t kin, but this isn’t right.”

  “Yes, it is,” Julia said, though barely loud enough for her friends to hear her. Panic gripped her insides, the foreboding that things were about to take a bad turn.

  Sam stepped back to her side and slid an arm around her waist, but even that didn’t put her heart at ease.

  “I can’t steal you away like a thief in the night,” Hubert said. He took Bebe’s hands, still looking at her and no one else. “I thought I would be content to have you under any circumstances, but I was wrong.”

  “No, you weren’t,” Bebe insisted, her face going pale again, her chest jerking with shallow breaths. “We’re going to run away together. We’re going to start a new life. Together.”

  Hubert shook his head. “Not like this.”

  “But—”

  “Bebe, I love you so much. I want the world for you. I want you to be happy and to have everything you deserve in life.”

  “But you’re what I deserve.” Bebe grew more agitated with every word.

  Julia did too. She clung to Sam, attempting to will the situation to unfold differently.

  “No,” Hubert insisted. “You deserve more than me.”

  “No, I—”

  “Your father is right about some things.”

  “No, he isn’t.”

  Hubert shook his head. “What kind of life would we have, running off to San Francisco without a plan and without any money?”

  “But you do have a plan,” Bebe pleaded. “You’re going to get a job as a newspaper reporter. You’re going to work hard and buy your own newspaper someday. You’re going to be a publishing magnate.”

  A smile as full of regret as it was of love tugged at Hubert’s mouth. “Maybe in ten years or so, but that’s not how things would start out. We’d have to struggle, Bebe. We’d have to live in a single rented room somewhere inexpensive. You’d probably have to get a job too. And what would we do if babies came along?”

  Bebe blushed and looked down. “I wouldn’t mind.”

  “But you would.” Hubert sighed. “You’d mind it a lot when you had to worry about how to feed them. As hard as I plan to work to make something of myself, it’s not going to happen overnight. And…and after tonight, after the struggle we’re having just to get away, I can see that I would be a fool and a blackguard to put you through something like that.”

  “At last,” Rex snorted. “The whelp shows some sense.”

  “You stay out of this!” Bebe shouted, turning to glare at her father. Before Rex could do more than balk and open his mouth to berate her, Bebe spun back to Hubert. “I don’t mind,” she insisted, eyes wide with panic. “I don’t mind any of it. We can be together. I don’t mind being poor or working. I’m sure there are any number of things I could do. I’ve helped my sisters with sewing, I could get a job with a seamstress. I wouldn’t mind as long as I could be with you.”

  “But you would mind,” Hubert said. “Bebe, I love you, but we both have to admit that you’ve become used to a certain standard.”

  “I don’t care about standards.”

  “You do, and you would.” Hubert let her hands go. “I’m going to San Francisco. I’m going to get that job with a newspaper, even if I have to knock on the door of every publisher in town to do it. And I’m going to work my way up to a position where I can provide you with all the things that you need and deserve.” He paused, meeting her eyes with a longing that brought Julia to tears. “But you’re not coming with me.”

  “No!” Bebe burst into tears as well. “I am coming with you, I am.”

  “It won’t work,” Hubert insisted. “You would be miserable, and then you would hate me. And you’d go running home to your father.”

  “I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t,” Bebe insisted. Tears spilled down her face, but to Julia’s eyes, they were angry as much as they were sorrowful. “How can you say such hateful things?” she went on. “I love you, but you’re being so cruel and selfish.”

  “I’m not selfish.” Hubert pleaded with her. “But I’ll admit that it sounds cruel. For now,” he emphasized. “In time, you’ll come to see that I’m right. And I’ll come back for you. I swear that I’ll come back for you, Bebe. When I’m a rich man who can give you everything you deserve.”

  “You’re leaving
me?” Bebe squeaked, blinking rapidly through her tears. Her mouth stayed open until she managed to say, “I can’t believe that after all this, you would just walk out on me.”

  “I have to,” Hubert insisted. “I have to leave so that I can come back.”

  “Well, what if I don’t want you to come back?” Bebe stomped her foot, fists balled at her sides. “What if I hate you? What if I think that you’re just a selfish, wicked, spiteful man who would leave the woman who loves him behind, leave her to the devices of her cruel and heartless father.” She sent a damning glance over her shoulder to Rex. “What would you do then?”

  Hubert sighed, his shoulders dropping. “I’d still leave, Bebe. Because I have to. I have to find my way in the world if we’re ever going to be truly happy together.”

  “If you leave, then don’t bother coming back.” Bebe straightened, wiping tears away from her eyes, and tilting her chin up. “Because I won’t wait for you.”

  Through the misery that lined Hubert’s face, he managed a smile. “You will,” he said so quietly that Julia had to lean in to catch it. “You will because you know that I will always love you.”

  Bebe’s bottom lip trembled in spite of her attempt to look strong. A second later, a squeaking sob escaped from her throat. After that, she dissolved into tears. With a loud sob, she covered her face, turned, and ran. She bumped into her father’s shoulder before bolting out the door and into the dark night.

  Rex glanced from the door to Sam to Hubert, his expression more startled than gloating. But there was enough smugness in it that Julia’s gut burned with hatred for the man.

  “I guess we’re done here,” he said, then nodded to his men.

  In a flash, the intensity of the stand-off dissipated. Rex turned to go without another word, Rance scurrying by his side. The rest of the Bonneville men followed, looking as confused and witless as ever.

  And then silence filled the saloon.

  “I’m sorry,” Hubert said, sounding exhausted and a hundred years old as he turned to Sam and Julia. “I’m sorry to put you through all of that for nothing. But you know this is the way things have to be.”