Her plans to get Jake’s mother to help her post her letters had been postponed by the arrival of Gretta and Heinrich Mueller’s new son. The young couple had stayed at Three Oaks almost a month, giving Gretta time to recover enough to complete their journey to Fredericksburg and allowing Jake and Heinrich time to repair the broken wheel on the Muellers’ wagon.
During that time, Miranda checked daily on Gretta to make sure her stitches were healing and that she didn’t develop an infection. She’d also observed closely as Gretta breastfed her newborn, watching to see how the baby suckled and grew, both curious and fascinated. She’d changed the baby and played with him and watched him sleep, marveling at his tiny fingernails and delicate eyelashes, burping him and listening for the gurgling sounds he made while he slept.
All that experience was going to be very worthwhile. Because Miranda was pretty sure she was pregnant.
In all the excitement of having company, she hadn’t noticed when she’d missed her monthly courses. She was a week late when she finally realized, with some shock, that she had not bled since the night her husband had made her his wife.
Miranda hadn’t immediately assumed she was pregnant. She might simply be excited or anxious. Just … late. Not that she’d ever been late even once during all the years she’d been having her monthly courses. But there was always a first time for everything.
She could only pretend for so long. As the days passed with no sign of her courses, her breasts had become tender, and lately, she felt bilious in the morning.
Miranda still wasn’t absolutely, positively certain she was with child. The only way to know, really, was to wait and see if her courses came after the Muellers left … or whether her body started to increase as the baby grew inside her.
At the orphanage, when Miranda had dreamed of marriage to a handsome prince and imagined living happily ever after, part of that dream had been seeing the look of joy on her husband’s face when she told him she was going to bear his child.
She tried to imagine that delighted look on Jake’s face. She couldn’t. Jake wasn’t going to be happy to hear she was pregnant. In fact, he might even be furious. It was disappointing, to say the least, to be married to a man who was opposed to his wife getting pregnant.
Knowing Jake’s likely reaction dimmed her own joy. She felt resentful, even though she understood the reasons for his attitude. Besides, the situation she found herself in wasn’t entirely her fault. It took two to make a baby, after all. Miranda figured there was no sense telling Jake anything until she was certain herself.
But first things first. She wanted that letter sent to her sisters.
The morning the Muellers left, Miranda waited for Jake to head out onto the range to check on his cattle, then made her preparations for a visit to Bitter Creek. She tucked her precious letter into a pocket of Jake’s Levi’s. She’d considered wearing a skirt for her first visit to Bitter Creek, but she planned to ride horseback and Jake had no sidesaddle. Trousers were far more practical.
Besides, if trousers were good enough for Jake’s mother, they were good enough for her.
Miranda asked Slim to watch the kids while she went for a long walk to get some fresh air, after having been confined to the house for so long with Gretta. She’d debated whether to tell Slim the truth about where she was going, but she knew how he felt about the Blackthornes, and she didn’t want to argue with him.
She did tell Nick where she was going. “I’ll probably be gone till suppertime. You can tell Slim where I am after I’ve gone.”
“Can’t I come along?” Nick asked. “I can ride as well as you now.”
“I need you to stay here, in case Slim needs you.”
“Aw, Miranda. I never get to have any fun.”
It was amazing to Miranda that Nick felt himself entitled to have “fun.” Fun had been no part of their lives at the orphanage. She suddenly felt glad that she’d brought the two boys with her. She promised herself right then and there that she would try to make fun a bigger part of their lives from now on.
She brushed at Nick’s cowlick as he ducked away, and said, “We’ll go on another picnic soon, down by the creek. Maybe Jake will teach you to fish. How would that be?” She could see the idea of fishing appealed to him.
“That sounds great! When can we go?”
“How about Sunday afternoon?”
“I can’t wait to tell Harry. Come back safe!” Nick whispered as he hugged her.
“I will.”
Miranda figured that so long as she stayed on the road, she couldn’t get lost. In addition, she was less likely to run into wildlife on a well-traveled road. She urged her horse to a mile-eating trot, feeling excited at the thought of the adventure ahead of her.
She learned over the next several hours that calling this road “well-traveled” might be a Texan’s idea of a joke. She’d known Jake’s ranch was isolated, but after growing up in a city where one was never alone, there was something eerie about riding half the morning without seeing another living soul. She felt relieved when she reached the turnoff to Bitter Creek.
The sun felt good on her back. Since she was dressed in trousers, she’d worn the flat-crowned Western hat Slim had loaned her a few days after she’d arrived at Three Oaks, rather than one of Priscilla’s bonnets, so she wouldn’t get sunburned. She had to constantly brush at horseflies, and she could feel her shirt getting damp as she perspired in the heat, but otherwise, she was enjoying herself enormously.
Nevertheless, Miranda had heard enough warnings from Jake about the hazards in this wilderness that she kept a constant watch for danger. When she saw the three cowboys on horseback in the distance, she felt concerned but not alarmed. When she realized they were herding cattle, she relaxed. These must be cowhands working for Blackthorne. As such, they should be no threat to her.
Mrs. Swenson had explained to her on the stage that women were revered in the West because they were so scarce. Any man harming a woman could expect to be hunted down and hanged.
When the cowhands changed their direction so they were moving the cattle to cross her path, she decided they were doing so because they wanted to say hello. Perhaps they wanted to meet her, since she was new to the neighborhood. Once she identified herself as Blackthorne’s daughter-in-law, they were sure to be courteous.
She didn’t move any faster or slower to avoid them.
She didn’t feel concern even when the cowboys left their cattle and rode in a group to cut her off on the road.
“Hello, missy,” the cowboy in the middle said. “What are you doing out here all alone?”
“I’m Mrs. Creed,” Miranda said, identifying herself so there could be no mistake who she was.
“Never saw a pretty little filly like you wearin’ trousers,” the cowboy in the middle said. “Those are nice gams you got there, missy.”
“Watch it, Call,” the cowboy on the right said. “She’s a lady.”
Call snorted. “You ever seen a real lady wearin’ trousers? I think maybe she’s some other kind of female.”
“I’m not—”
Miranda had never seen anyone move so fast. Call spurred his mount close, slid an arm around her waist, and yanked her off her horse. He pulled her tight against his chest, leaving her feet dangling off the ground.
She tried to draw breath to scream, but fear had caused all the oxygen to leave her lungs. She was left with her mouth open wide in terror but no sound coming out.
“Hey, Call!” the cowboy on the left said. “Put her down.”
“Ain’t done with her yet,” Call said with a smirk, leaning down to try and kiss her.
Miranda was too frightened to scream, but she reached out with her nails and scratched four bloody furrows down the cowboy’s cheek.
“You bitch!” He dropped the reins and slapped her hard across the face.
The blow left Miranda seeing stars.
“You’re buyin’ yourself a heap of trouble,” one of the cowboys said. “
Lady’s the wife of the boss’s stepson.”
“The boss hates his stepson,” Call said. “He ain’t gonna mind if we play a little bit with Creed’s wife.”
“You’re wrong about that.”
The voice came from behind Miranda. All three cowboys whirled their horses so they could see the intruder, Call holding her tight around the waist as they turned their mounts. Miranda’s eyes went wide when she realized the man who’d objected to her rough treatment was none other than Alexander Blackthorne.
“Put her down easy, Call,” Blackthorne said.
The cowboy slid Miranda down along his horse onto the ground. She stumbled when her knees threatened to buckle but managed to stay on her feet. As she backed away from Call, one of the other two cowboys led her horse over to her.
“Here you go, ma’am. You need any help mounting?”
Miranda didn’t want to be touched by anyone, but her legs felt so boneless she couldn’t lift her foot up to the stirrup.
A moment later Blackthorne was standing by her side. He clasped his hands together and said, “Put your foot here, and I’ll boost you up.”
She did as he instructed and found herself back in the saddle. “Thank you,” she said.
“Wait here a minute, and I’ll give you an escort to the house.”
“I’m fine—”
“Wait here.”
It was an order. She decided to wait.
She wasn’t ready for what happened next. Blackthorne turned and grabbed the cowboy named Call by the front of his shirt and tumbled him from his horse. Once the cowboy’s feet were on the ground, Blackthorne hit him hard with his fist, right on his chin. Call was stocky enough that the punch didn’t knock him down. And stupid enough to swing back at Blackthorne.
The older man ducked the blow and hit Call hard in the solar plexus. Call was bent over double, at which point Blackthorne hit him again in the chin from below, so his head snapped back and he fell down. Miranda thought he was out cold.
“Put him back on his horse and get him out of here,” Blackthorne ordered.
The other two cowboys quickly manhandled Call facedown over his saddle.
“The three of you pick up your wages and be off Bitter Creek before noon. Any of you still around after that will be shot on sight.”
“Me and Lonnie didn’t do nothin’!” one of the cowboys protested, as the two left standing gathered up the reins of their horses, and that of the unconscious man, and stepped back into their saddles.
“That’s right,” Blackthorne said in a harsh voice as he remounted his horse. “You sat there and watched that piece of trash manhandle a woman and did nothing.”
“That’s not fair,” the cowboy named Lonnie said. “How were we supposed to stop him?”
Blackthorne snorted. “Fair? Far as I’m concerned, you all ought to be shot. Matter of fact—”
When Blackthorne reached for the rifle in a boot on his saddle, the two cowboys spurred their horses and galloped away, dragging the third horse and its unconscious burden behind them.
Miranda’s whole body was trembling, and she couldn’t seem to get it to stop. Her teeth were chattering as she said, “Thank you. I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t come along.”
“I do,” he said curtly. “It wouldn’t have been pretty. What the hell are you doing out here all by yourself?”
The cowboy who’d attacked her had pulled several strands of hair out of her braid and the wind was blowing them across her mouth. When she raised her shaking hand to push the blond curl away, she heard Blackthorne say, “Goddamn it, I should have shot those sons of bitches!”
She dropped her hand, which felt as heavy as lead, and stared down at the saddle.
He kneed his horse closer and said, “You’re in shock. Here, drink this.”
She took the silver flask from him with hands that shook and took a sip. The bitter liquid burned her throat and made her cough. She could feel it all the way down to her belly. She was still shaking when she handed the flask back, and now her eyes were watering.
“Come on,” he said. “Follow me.”
He kicked his horse into a canter, and she did the same to her own. The rocking motion of the horse was calming, she discovered, and knowing that she had a protector with her did a great deal to settle her nerves.
She couldn’t believe how close she’d been to her destination. She could have spurred her horse and escaped the cowboys and been at the Bitter Creek ranch house in minutes.
But she hadn’t realized the danger the cowboys presented. She’d thought she was safe. She’d expected civility. She hadn’t been prepared for such unfeeling brutality.
Miranda shivered. She was so very cold. She felt so very dirty. She wanted Jake. “I want to go home,” she said in a small voice.
“Cricket!” Blackthorne yelled as they rode up to the back door of a beautiful two-story mansion. “Come on out here.”
Jake’s mother arrived on the back porch so quickly, Miranda figured she must have been in the kitchen.
“One of the hands assaulted her,” he said.
Miranda wasn’t aware of much that happened after that. Except she distinctly heard Cricket say, “You better go get Jake.”
Jake saw Blackthorne before his stepfather saw him. Jake was in a gully, trying to move a longhorn cow and her calf out of the brush. He considered letting his nemesis ride by without saying anything, but he felt galled by the fact that Blackthorne was riding across Three Oaks as though he already owned it.
Jake spurred his horse up out of the gully and came out in front of the other man’s horse, forcing it backward. “What are you doing on my land?”
“Your wife was attacked by one of my cowhands. She needs you.”
Jake felt like he’d been sucker punched. All the air left his lungs, and he was speechless for a moment. “Is she all right?”
“She’s shaken up pretty bad.” Blackthorne hesitated, then added, “She’s got a bruise on her cheek.”
Jake felt the blood leave his head in a rush and grabbed the horn to keep himself from tilting out of the saddle. He made himself ask, “Is that all?”
“I got there in time to keep anything else from happening.”
“What about the man who attacked her? What happened to him?”
“I sent that mangy cur off with his tail between his legs.”
Jake stared at his stepfather in disbelief. “You let him go? To maybe do the same thing to another woman someday? You didn’t punish him?”
“Are you going to sit there ranting at me, or do you want to go see to your wife?”
Jake didn’t understand Alexander Blackthorne. The Englishman played by a different set of rules than Jake had learned. Blackthorne seemed merciless in business. He was merciless in business. But he didn’t have the strict sense of justice—the willingness to become judge and jury and executioner—that Jake had grown up with in the West.
There were no judges out here and very few lawmen. Once a man was identified as an outlaw—as a rustler or a horse thief or a man who interfered with women—he was killed like the vermin he was. Otherwise, he became a nuisance and a plague on the land.
“You should have shot him on the spot,” Jake muttered as he spurred his horse toward Bitter Creek.
“What was your wife doing on the road to Bitter Creek by herself?” Blackthorne asked as he roweled his mount to ride at Jake’s side.
Jake had no answer. “That isn’t the point. She should have been safe no matter whose land she was on.”
“She gave a good account of herself,” Blackthorne said.
“What do you mean?”
“Scratched up that cowboy like some she-cat.”
“Good for her.” Jake knew from his own experience that his wife gave as good as she got. “You could have sent someone to find me. Why did you come yourself?”
Blackthorne smiled wryly. “My wife sent me. She said I wasn’t to come back without you.”
&
nbsp; “You could have simply brought my wife home.”
“Oh, you don’t know? Your wife has a visitor at Bitter Creek. That was the reason I happened to be out on the road when she was attacked.”
A visitor? That was news to Jake. Had Miranda’s sisters somehow found their way to Texas? “Who is it?”
“Her uncle, Stephen Wentworth. Apparently he was looking for his niece at Three Oaks and took the wrong road and ended up at Bitter Creek. Very coincidental that your wife was on her way to my house today, don’t you think?”
“That’s exactly what it was,” Jake said. “Coincidence. Miranda hasn’t had any communication with her family since she married me.”
“That still doesn’t explain what she was doing on her way to Bitter Creek today.”
“How should I know what got into her head?” Jake said irritably. “When I left the house, she was going to have Slim teach her how to make lye soap.”
Jake also didn’t believe in coincidences. He just couldn’t figure out how Miranda could have communicated with her uncle. Unless she’d planned all along to meet him on a certain date. He realized he didn’t know much about his wife and her family, except that she’d lied to him about how many of them there were.
It was the uncle who’d put them in the orphanage, and left them there.
So what was her uncle doing here in Texas?
“He’s an officious bastard, that uncle of hers,” Blackthorne said. “And rich as avarice, unless I miss my guess.”
Jake wasn’t sure what officious meant, or avarice either, but the contempt in Blackthorne’s voice matched Miranda’s description of her uncle’s unsavory behavior toward his nieces and nephews. “Wonder what he’s doing here.”
Blackthorne eyed Jake cynically. “Parents dead, kids in an orphanage, who gets all the money?”
“Miranda’s father owned a bank, but it burned down.”
“Wentworth let it slip that his brother was the Chicago banker for anyone who is anyone in that town.”
Texas Bride: A Bitter Creek Novel Page 24
