Tyler watched with a frown as the thieves made a hasty departure in the opposite direction. They would have to round up those three one of these days, but it didn't have to be now. Squeezing the arms wrapped around his waist, he set off after the shouting, squabbling men in front of them.
* * *
"I'd be a damned sight better husband for her than you are, Monteigne," Kyle grumbled as he straightened his tie with the use of the mirror over the bar.
"Yeah, and then you'd own three-quarters of the ranch and would probably try to drive me out." Jason spread his long legs across the barroom floor and examined his boot toes. "At least Monteigne won't stay put long enough to cause me any trouble."
"I don't want your damned ranch," Tyler repeated wearily, for the thousandth time this day. "Right now I've got half a saloon, half a damned livery, and half a wife. I don't need half a ranch, too."
The Hardings ignored him. "It would be good to have a woman around the house again," Kyle said. "The place is beginning to look like a derelict barn."
"And we still need a schoolteacher. Monteigne will most likely cart her out of here before the dust settles." Jason bent to polish a speck of dirt on his boots.
Sighing, Tyler slammed a deck of cards on the bar. "All right. High card wins Evie. And the kids. And her father. And Daniel. And hell, why not half the saloon and Starr and the damned livery? I'll just shuck the whole damned place off my heels if I lose."
Kyle stared at him in horror. "The kids? You mean those hellions come with her? They blew up half a damned town, Monteigne! Nobody's going to touch those kids."
"Actually, Daniel did that," a new voice answered laconically.
The men at the bar turned their attention to the black man and the boy studying their cards unobtrusively at a table by the wall. The boy with the crutch leaning on his chair reddened.
"Daniel blew that hole down the middle of the street?" Tyler stopped worrying at the frills of his cuff and stared.
Ben shrugged and discarded a card. "He threw the dynamite. Would have sailed right out into the street and just made a little bang if the bastards hadn't tried to block the door with hay. Then Jose knocked over the lantern, and one thing led to another..." He shrugged again and went back to his game.
Evie chose that moment to sail into the saloon and catch Ben's words. Smiling, she wrapped her arms around Daniel's neck and hugged. "The boys told me everything. He's a hero. He saved them all. And saved the bank, too. The sheriff said Tom and his gang were planning to tunnel into the bank and steal all our money. They would have done it, too, if Daniel hadn't stopped them."
Tyler cleared his throat rather loudly. "I don't suppose I get any credit for keeping Tom tied up at the saloon while Daniel worked his dastardly deeds?"
Magnanimous in her approval, Evie released Daniel—much to his obvious relief—and sailed into Tyler's arms. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she pulled his head down and kissed him soundly. Then she stepped back, crossed her arms, and glared at him. "Why aren't you over at the church? The preacher is waiting."
"Because your stepbrothers here can't decide who gets to be your husband." Tyler threw the Hardings a disgruntled look and straightened the cravat Evie had loosened.
Wide sloe eyes turned an incredulous look in the Hardings' direction.
Kyle stepped back and held out his palms. "Don't look at me. I was just interested in keeping the peace. What would I do with a passel of kids?"
Tyler caught Evie's waist and steered her toward the door. "Besides, she lies and cheats at cards. Better leave her to me."
Evie balked. "I do not cheat at cards, Tyler Monteigne! I don't even know how to play."
Tyler looked down at her calmly. "Yes, you do, too, Evangeline Monteigne. You stood right there and smiled every time Dorset had a bad hand and frowned every time he had a good one. That's cheating."
Evie scowled. "Ben called them kings and queens, but they all looked like knaves to me. They weren't wearing any clothes, Tyler! I didn't like it when those cards showed up."
Tyler stared down at her with dawning understanding, fighting to keep the laughter from boiling up inside of him. Cautiously, he turned to Daniel who was watching this display with an amazing lack of expression.
The boy shrugged at the inquiry in Tyler's eyes. "Nanny wouldn't let us play cards. She said they were the devil's playthings."
"She didn't know they were high cards?" Tyler still couldn't believe he was hearing this right. This whole damned adventure had set out on the assumption that Evie was something she was not. Why did he have such a hard time believing that?
"She doesn't even know what a high card means. But we know what card cheats are. We read about them in..."
"... In a Pecos Martin book." Tyler finished the sentence with him, throwing up his arms in defeat. "I give up. I'm marrying into a family of lunatics." He punched Daniel's shoulder. "The preacher's waiting. You're standing up with me, remember?"
Sheepishly, the boy grasped his crutch and pulled himself up. "I wasn't sure you meant it. I mean, Ben ought to be the one..."
Tyler looked at the black man rising from the other chair. "Ben's the one who ought to be giving me away." Tyler pulled out the sheaf of papers he'd won from Dorsett and shoved them into Ben's hand. "But he's going back to Natchez."
Catching Evie's arm, Tyler began dragging her from the saloon. They only made it as far as the boardwalk outside before Ben caught up with them.
He jerked Tyler backward, shoving the papers in his pocket. "What in hell am I supposed to do with the damned place if you ain't goin' back?"
Tyler pulled his arm free. "Burn it to the ground for all I care. Sharecrop it. Put all your industrious relatives to work. It doesn't make up for your sister or pay what I owe you, but it's a start." He started to walk away.
Ben grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. "That was your daddy's place. You can't do this."
Tyler met Ben's dark gaze with aplomb. "It was your daddy's place, too."
Evie and Daniel stood out of the way, their gazes flying back and forth between the two men, one black and lanky and possessed of a singularly unhandsome face, the other golden and compact and blessed with all God could give a man. Yet there was a resemblance there, if only in the proud way they held themselves and the independence of their thinking.
Ben scowled. "He was maybe my father. My mama wasn't a discriminating woman and your father was a philandering man. But he wasn't Cissie's father. You know that, don't you? And what happened to Cissie weren't any fault of yours."
"I left her, Ben." Tyler shrank into the shadows of the porch, away from the stares of the people he had come to love and respect. "I walked out on her when she needed me. The babe was mine, and the fault was mine. Tell your mama I'm sorry, and I'm trying to be a better man."
Ben swung around to meet Evie's concerned gaze. "He was seventeen years old, Miss Evie. My sister kept after him, followed him everywhere. There ain't a boy that age can resist a willin' woman. Cissie was young, but she knew what she was doin', and she was more than willin'. Tyler was grievin' over his father's death, and she took advantage. She only told him they'd made a baby just afore he left to find his brother. There wasn't nothin' he could have done different if he'd stayed. She would have died birthin' that baby no matter what he done. It ain't any of his fault. Make him understand that, will you?"
Ben tried to hand the sheaf of papers to Evie, but she reached for Tyler instead, curling her fingers around his arm and standing close. "I'll do that, Ben. Will you be going back now?"
Looking slightly embarrassed, Daniel climbed up from the street to join them on the porch. "Me and Ben kind of made an agreement. I told him about my family wanting to put me through college, but I don't want to leave. Ben's taught me a sight more than any college could, and Mr. Averill will teach me all I need to know about the newspaper business. So I thought those fancy lawyers your father hired to take care of your money could write my family's lawyers and h
ave my money sent here. When my leg gets better, Ben can teach me to hunt and ride and fish, just like he taught Tyler. And I can pay him for his services, and he can send the money back to his family." He threw Ben an anxious look. "Unless you've changed your mind now that you own the Ridge?"
With the papers crumpling in his big hand, Ben looked down at him. "Boy, you askin' me to give you grief and get paid for it. Don't see how I can refuse. Besides"—he nodded at Evie and Tyler clinging to each other in the shade of the porch—"them two need lookin' after. They might have got all the looks, but they ain't much in the brains department."
Daniel whooped, bringing the men in the saloon crashing to their feet and running for the door.
Laughing, Evie threw Tyler a mischievous look, grabbed up her skirt, and began running for the church.
Tyler was off like a shot after her.
Not knowing what was going on, the men pouring out of the saloon took off after them.
Chapter 41
Tyler grabbed Evie's waist and swung her against him before she could burst into the church ahead of him. Holding her still, he wiped her face with his handkerchief, removing the dust and perspiration their chase had wrought. "You look beautiful," he murmured.
"There wasn't time to make a proper wedding dress." There wasn't an ounce of regret in her voice.
Tyler looked down at the midnight blue taffeta she had changed into. The cut of the bodice was relatively modest, but Evie filled it so well he had no difficulty imagining what lay beneath the slippery cloth. He had difficulty breathing just watching her trying to catch her breath.
"That one's just fine," he assured her. "More than fine." His hands measured the slender span of her waist above the bustle of her skirt.
By this time, the rest of the wedding party had arrived, gasping and wiping their foreheads and glaring at the main participants.
Jason glowered at the two of them. "What in hell did you do that for? I thought someone was after you."
Donning a magnificent smile, Evie patted his arm. "You'll make a lovely big brother. Thank you."
At the door, James Peyton looked out and harrumphed. "It's about time the lot of you got here. The guests are about to rebel. Have you seen Jose and Manuel?"
Tyler and Evie looked at each other and groaned.
Daniel limped up in time to catch the question. "Don't worry. I know where they are. Let's get this blamed thing done with so everyone knows what in hell to call Evie."
"Daniel!" Evie reprimanded, but Tyler shoved her toward her father before she could launch into a full- scale tirade.
Peyton grabbed her arm and pulled her into the church while the men dashed around to the side door to take their proper places up front.
Evie gasped as she entered the church. In the few hours she had been preparing for her wedding, someone had filled the interior with flowers. Huge baskets of red and white and purple branches covered the altar. Hanging baskets of greenery adorned half the pews. And real red roses covered nearly every available space between, perfuming the air with their rich scents. Her head literally spun as she tried to take it all in.
It was then that a chorus of childish voices filled the front of the room with song, and tears puddled in her eyes.
She clutched her father's arm and was walking down the aisle when Tyler's mellow voice joined the chorus, taking over the harmony. The tears rolled down her cheeks as she approached the altar and saw Tyler standing with a hand on Carmen and Manuel's shoulders while Maria and Jose stood between them, holding hands. It didn't matter what the words to the song were. They could have been singing "Silent Night" for all she cared. What mattered was that Tyler was singing, singing and standing there with the children at the same time, not running away. He had made his peace with his past at last.
He really and truly meant to make this marriage real, even if he'd never said the words she'd once dreamed of hearing. Her smile was watery as Tyler reached out a hand and pulled her toward him, this time in front of a genuine preacher in a real church.
It wasn't exactly a traditional wedding, but nothing they had ever done had been in keeping with tradition. Daniel couldn't locate the ring. Her father had his hands full keeping the two youngest in their seats and quiet while pockets were being turned inside out. Carmen was a little young to be maid of honor, but she helped Daniel locate the missing ring before Tyler could start turning the boys upside down to shake it out of them. And Ben stood off to one side, not quite one of the party or the family, but with them just the same. And when the final words were said, he was there to plant the first kiss on Evie's cheek, much to the shock of their audience.
"You'll have to take care of him from now on," Ben whispered in her ear.
"I'll try." Evie sent her husband a misty look, but Tyler was busy glaring at the Hardings as they came down the aisle with determined looks on their faces.
Ben elbowed Tyler and nodded toward the side door. "My wedding gift to you. Vamoose."
Standing in the center of the aisle, arms crossed over his chest, Ben proceeded to block access to the newly wedded couple. With a whistle and a jerk of his head, four eager young faces leapt from behind him. Maria toddled to Kyle's leg and grabbed his trousers, pleading "Unca Kyle" and tugging for attention. Jose and Manuel grabbed Jason's arms and dragged him toward the front door, chattering about the tunnel and the stolen goods still down there. And Carmen and Daniel politely stood beside Evie's father, greeting the guests as if this were their reception instead of a family blockade so the wedding couple could make their escape.
And as soon as Tyler understood their intent, escape he did.
* * *
Heads turned as the stylish young couple stepped onto the steamboat in Houston. Smiles appeared as it became obvious that the two had eyes for no one but each other. Elbows prodded sides and knowing smirks abounded as the couple ascended to the staterooms, entered one, and closed the door.
Inside the luxuriously appointed cabin, Tyler pulled Evie into his arms and began unfastening her gown. "I'm not letting you out of here until we reach New Orleans," he murmured as his kisses made a path from her ear to the corner of her mouth.
"What will people think?" Evie asked before his mouth could conquer hers, but she really wasn't concerned with the answer. She had been dying to do this for the entire frustrating stagecoach ride. She ran her hands into Tyler's hair as their lips met.
When they finally came up for air again, the rest of her bodice was undone and Tyler's cravat was lying on a chair. Lifting her from the floor, Tyler carried her toward the bed. "People can think what they want. This time, they'll probably be right."
As he bent his head to kiss her, Evie gasped, "Tyler, what about babies?"
Tyler never hesitated, he simply moved from her lips to her cheeks, commenting as he went, "Anytime you want to present me with one is fine with me.''
Evie felt the tingle all the way to her toes at this reply and her arms slipped around her husband's neck. They would make beautiful babies together. But even as she arched into his seductive embrace, more objections rose to mind.
"The children? What about the children? Where will we live?"
Frustrated, Tyler rested on his elbows and gazed down into the beautiful worried eyes of his wife. "Why don't we get all of your questions out of the way right now so I can start this marriage out the way it's meant to be? The children have their uncle and Daniel and Ben. And the Hardings are by way of being stepcousins, and they owe you big time. Once we return, we can live any damn where that you want and take them with us if you wish. I can sell my half of the saloon to Starr and build a house in town. I can buy a herd and raise cattle. We can live on steamboats and travel the river. I don't care. I just want you with me wherever it is."
He saw the doubt and the little niggle of fear in the back of her eyes, and he groaned and wrapped his finger in her hair. "Don't look at me that way, Evie. This is forever this time. You're not walking off and making me live in hell again. I'm s
ticking to your side like a burr. Have you got that?"
Eyes widening in astonishment at the pain in his voice, Evie traced the line of Tyler's lips. "I'm not ever leaving you, Tyler," she whispered. Realizing there were many ways of leaving, and he had suffered all of them, she poured her strength into her words. "Even if I die, I'll not leave you. I'll come back and haunt you. I'll be a ghost at your side forever or until you don't need me anymore. I love you, Tyler, and love never dies. Don't look at me like that, Tyler. I read a book about a ghost once."
His laughter caught like a sob in his throat. Tyler pulled her into his arms and buried his kiss against her throat. "I don't doubt that you have enough spirit to do just that, Evie. But if you don't mind, I want to make love to you for the rest of my life, so don't plan on being a ghost too soon."
He was strangling on words he had never said before but needed to be said now. He didn't know how to get them out. Everyone he had ever loved had died, and he felt jinxed. But Tyler knew what he felt for Evie was way beyond lust, way beyond anything he had ever known as a callow youth. And he had to let her know, had to bind her to him as he had never done before.
With desperation, he asked, "Do any of your books say how to tell someone you love them so much you'd die if they ever went away?"
Evie smothered his cheek in kisses. "I think they said you were supposed to tell them flat out," she answered between pecks.
With a sigh of relief, Tyler whispered, "Flat out," in her ear, before covering her laughing protests with his mouth and drowning them with his kiss.
And down on the main deck, two travel-weary strangers straggled on board carrying their saddles over their shoulders.
"I thought you was planning on catching that varmint using your name, Pecos," one muttered as they headed for the main saloon.
The taller man shrugged his dust-covered shoulders. "I reckon he won't be doin' it again. I got my pleasure seein' that jumped-up lawyer rode out of town. He should have been hung with the rest of them, the way I see it."
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