The Bride Price

by Ginna Gray

  “No! Maggie, stop! Don’t shoot!” Wyatt launched himself through the air in a flying dive. He landed on her with enough force to sink her petite body deep into the mattress and force the air out of her lungs with a loud “Oof!”

  “Are you all right? Are you all right?” Frantic, he scrambled off her. Maggie didn’t move. He snatched the shotgun out of her limp grasp and rolled her over onto her back. In the faint light coming in through the window he could see her face. Her eyes were bugged out so far white showed all around her pupils. She clawed at her chest and her mouth worked but no sound came out. He grasped her shoulders and shook her. “Dammit, Maggie! Speak to me!”

  Air rushed back into her starved lungs with a loud rasp. She sucked in several gasping breaths. Then her eyes focused on Wyatt, and she hauled off and socked him in the chest.

  “Ow!”

  “Speak to you! Speak to you! Sweet Mary and Joseph! How am I suppose to do that when you’ve just collapsed my lungs! What the devil do you mean, jumping on me that way?”

  “I couldn’t let you shoot someone. You want to go to jail? What the hell did you think you were doing?”

  She rose up on both elbows and stuck her face in his. “I was frightening the bejesus out of a couple of punks who were trying to steal my trailer, that’s what I was doing.”

  He hefted the shotgun and shook it. “Where the hell did you get this thing? This is a lethal weapon. Don’t you know how dangerous this is?”

  She looked at the shotgun, then at Wyatt’s fierce expression. She tried to maintain an angry demeanor, but after a moment her mouth began to twitch.

  “I’m serious. You could kill somebody with this thing.”

  “Not with that, I couldn’t,” she sputtered, and collapsed back on the bed in a fit of giggles.

  “Dammit, Maggie, don’t you understa— Stop that laughing. This is not funny.”

  “Oh, ye-yes it...is,” she sputtered. She waved at the gun. “L-look at it. It doesn’t ha-have a tr-trigger...or...or a firing p-pin.”

  Wyatt sat up and snapped on the lamp beside the bed. He examined the gun, scowling. “Good Lord.” Instead of softening, his expression hardened even more. “You confronted criminals with a disabled weapon? Are you batty? What if they’d had weapons, too? You can damn well bet theirs wouldn’t be duds. What if they’d used them on you? Dammit, woman, you could have gotten yourself killed!”

  “Oh, pooh. All I have to do is snap out a few threats and stick the barrel of that shotgun out the window and thieves run like scared rabbits.”

  “You mean this has happened before?”

  “A few times. That’s why I have the alarm system. It’s connected to the trailer and all the windows and doors on the RV. Once I lock up, no one can touch anything without the alarm blasting.”

  “Dear God,” he whispered, staring at her as though she’d taken leave of her senses.

  “Wyatt, there’s no need for you to be concerned.” She placed her hand on his arm and looked at him sincerely. “It’s perfectly safe. Honestly. Anyway, I’ve been looking after myself all of my life, and I’ve never been hurt yet. So please...don’t fret. Okay?”

  He looked down at her hand on his arm. Her delicate fingertips were buried in the dark dusting of short hairs. Slowly his gaze lifted and his eyes held hers. “Maggie.”

  In a heartbeat the atmosphere in the room changed. They became aware of the intimacy of the situation, that they were sitting together on a bed, she in her nightie, Wyatt in only his navy blue cotton briefs. The air suddenly pulsed with sensuality and awareness.

  Wyatt’s gaze dropped to Maggie’s mouth, and her pulse skittered, then began to beat like a jungle drum. He leaned closer. She felt herself sway. Drawn by a pull neither could resist, they angled closer. Wyatt’s head lowered. Maggie’s lifted, and her eyes drifted shut.

  The kiss, when it came, was light at first, a mere touch of flesh upon flesh, a mingling of breaths. Then Wyatt made a low, savage sound, and his arms came around her.

  He lifted her tight against his chest. Maggie gave no thought to resisting. She wrapped her arms around his neck and clutched his hair with both hands as though she would never let go. Locked together, they kissed with desperate hunger, while their hearts pounded and their bodies yearned.

  The sudden pounding on the door had the impact of a pistol shot. They sprang apart like two guilty children.

  “Hey, Irish! You okay in there! Open up, it’s Bullfrog!”

  “Yeah, and Sugar Daddy and Cowboy, too,” another voice hollered.

  “What the—”

  “Guys!” Maggie whooped and sprang off the bed.

  “Maggie, come back,” Wyatt yelled, bolting after her. “Don’t open that d—”

  Before he could stop her she flung the door wide and launched herself from the top step, right into the tattooed arms of a burly ape the size of Hulk Hogan who had a face like a blunt club.

  Beside him stood two other men. The short, wiry one appeared to be in his late twenties, the other guy was bald and pot-bellied and middle-aged. All three brandished tire irons, but the gorilla dropped his to catch Maggie in a bear hug and swing her around. The other two clamored for their turn. Wyatt watched, grinding his teeth, as she was passed from one rough-looking character to the next.

  When the exuberant greetings were finally over, Maggie introduced Wyatt to the three men. “They’re all truck drivers,” she said happily. “We became acquainted over our CB radios during my travels.”

  “Yeah,” Bullfrog concurred. “A lot of truckers look out for Maggie. In fact,” he added proudly, puffing out his chest, “that bullhorn routine Maggie used was my suggestion. The siren woke us up, but the instant I heard it blowing, I knew it was you.”

  “Yeah, I recognized your voice over the bullhorn and bailed outta my rig,” the middle-aged man added. “I bumped into Cowboy and Bullfrog here soon as I hit the ground, and the three of us took out after them thieves.”

  The one called Cowboy laughed and slapped his thigh. “You should’a seen ‘um, Irish. They was quakin’ in their boots, looking down the barrel of that old shotgun. Then, when they seen us a’comin’, waving these tire irons, why they bolted like a couple of rabbits. We chased ‘um, but they hopped in a souped up pickup and hightailed it outta here like their butts was on fire.”

  That brought on a round of laughter and back slapping as the three congratulated one another. “Did you see that skinny one’s face when he looked back at us over his shoulder?” Bullfrog gasped between guffaws. “He was so scared his eyes looked like they was bugged out on stems.”

  “Yeah,” Sugar Daddy gasped. “He looked like he was about to pee in his pants.” The other two men scowled and poked him, and he looked sheepishly at Maggie. “Sorry, Irish.”

  “Maggie and I appreciate your help,” Wyatt interjected. “It was a dicey situation.”

  The three knights of the road sobered and looked Wyatt over. Eyebrows rose when they noticed he wore only his underwear, and they exchanged a look. Almost imperceptibly their stances altered, became wary, braced for trouble. “Who’d you say you were, again?” Bullfrog asked in a semigrowl.

  “Wyatt Sommersby. I’m—”

  “He’s just a friend who came along for the ride,” Maggie inserted quickly.

  “You sure everything’s all right, Irish? I’ve known you for years and in all that time you’ve never traveled with anyone before. Hey, if this dude’s botherin’ you, all you gotta do is say so. We’ll take care of him.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You bet. You just say the word,” the other two said in unison, stepping closer.

  “Now, see here—”

  “No, really, fellas. There’s no problem,” she assured them. “Wyatt simply wanted to experience RV travel and see some of the country, so I said he could come along with me. That’s all. We were both asleep when the alarm went off.”

  While Maggie explained, Sugar Daddy sidled over to the open door and peeked into the
RV. “It does look like he’s sleepin’ in the spare bunk.”

  “Well...in that case, I guess you’re okay,” Bullfrog conceded grudgingly. “You can’t be too careful these days.”

  “I agree,” Wyatt said stiffly. “That’s why I’ve been telling Maggie it isn’t safe for her to travel alone.”

  “Maggie’s safe enough. She’s got hundreds of friends like me ‘n Cowboy and Sugar Daddy. When we know she’s on the road we pass the word, and truckers all over this country keep an eye on her.” His tone and the look in his eyes warned that they would be watching him, too, and not for his safety.

  “I don’t think those dudes will be coming back, but just to be on the safe side, I think we oughta tuck her away behind our rigs,” Cowboy suggested, and his friends agreed.

  Maggie tried to refuse their offer but they wouldn’t hear of it. Her three friends climbed back into their rigs and fired them up, and moments later the three eighteen wheelers formed a tight triangle around the RV.

  Wyatt watched it all with amazement. “I’ve heard of circling the wagons before but this is the first time I’ve actually seen it done,” he said when they were back in the RV.

  “They’re a good bunch of guys. Maybe now you’ll believe me when I say I’m perfectly safe on the road.”

  “I’ll admit, it’s comforting to know you’ve got a whole army of truckers looking out for you, but they won’t always be there when you need them. Especially on the back roads.”

  Maggie threw up her hands. “There’s just no satisfying you.”

  Something flashed in Wyatt’s eyes. Stepping close, he hooked his forefinger under her chin and tipped her face up. A wicked smile slowly curved his mouth. “Oh, I don’t know. I think you could satisfy me just fine.”

  * * *

  Wyatt had not expected to sleep at all, after what had happened, but he fell into an instant slumber the moment his head hit the pillow. He slept so soundly he barely moved—not until dawn when the blast of an air horn jerked him awake.

  “Wha—?” He lurched up and banged his head again. “Aw, hell.” This damned bed was going to give him a concussion. Rubbing the back of his head, he lay back down on his stomach just as another horn blasted, then another. The sounds were accompanied by a deep rumbling and the hiss of air brakes. Wyatt pulled back a corner of the curtain covering the windows that wrapped around the bed and peered out sleepily. One by one, the three truckers pulled away from the RV with a wave goodbye and a blast on the horn.

  It had just occurred to Wyatt to wonder why they were waving, when the RV began to roll out right behind the convoy.

  “Holy—” Wyatt clutched the swaying bed with both hands and cursed roundly. He felt as though he were in a rubber raft in high seas.

  Why the devil was she leaving so early? And why didn’t she wake him?

  Out of sorts, bleary-eyed and still half-asleep, he grimly scooted to the side of the bed and jumped down. The RV bumped out onto the highway and he staggered and had to hold on to the wall. “Dammit, Maggie,” he snarled, snatching open the curtain between the cab and the interior of the RV. “Would you mind telling me just what’s so all-fired important that you have to leave at the crack of dawn?”

  “Oh, hi. Good morning.” She flashed a bright smile over her shoulder. “Sorry. To tell you the truth, I forgot you were up there,” she said with deflating honesty. “I was awake, so there was no reason not to hit the road. You can go on back to sleep if you want to.”

  “Fat chance in that rocking bed,” he mumbled.

  “What?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Well, if you’re not going to sleep I’m going to listen to some music.” She slipped a CD into the player and when Garth Brooks’s deep voice belted out “Friends in Low Places” she bounced along to the rhythm.

  “Oh, hell,” Wyatt growled, heading for the bathroom. “It ought to be against the law to be that bright-eyed and bubbly at this hour.”

  Maggie tooled down the highway with her usual carefree abandon, sending Wyatt staggering and lurching from one side of the vehicle to the other and cursing under his breath. He quickly made the unhappy discovery that performing necessary morning functions in a bathroom that bumped and swayed was next to impossible. It took some doing, but he finally managed to take care of nature’s call and brush his teeth.

  “Help yourself to whatever you can find in the fridge,” Maggie called when he stumbled out of the bathroom.

  Holding on to anything in reach, Wyatt staggered into the tiny kitchen, but when he opened the refrigerator his jaw dropped. Except for a slice of cold pizza, a jar of dill pickles, a few limp stalks of celery, and a half a loaf of bread, it was empty. A quick check of the pantry turned up nothing more than a jar of peanut butter and what proved to be some sort of canned meat. Wyatt looked at the latter with revulsion. He hadn’t even known meat was put into cans.

  Deciding to forego eating until they stopped, he lurched forward to the cab and sat down in the passenger seat. Maggie shot him a curious look.

  “Through eating already?”

  “Hardly. There’s not enough food back there to keep a mouse alive more than a day.”

  “Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

  “Didn’t you have breakfast?”

  “Of course.”

  “What did you eat?”

  “Um, a sandwich, I think.”

  “You think?”

  “Yes, it was definitely a sandwich. I remember now.”

  “You had a sandwich for breakfast? Out of what?”

  “Uh...peanut butter and pickles.”

  “Good God!”

  “What’s wrong with that? It’s food. Actually, it was pretty tasty.”

  Wyatt shuddered. “The combination is hideous, and neither one of those things is something you want to put in your stomach first thing in the morning.”

  Maggie shrugged. “I’m not particular. Besides, I’m not much of a cook, so...”

  “You just eat whatever is there,” he said finishing for her with a look of revulsion.

  “Right. It’s easier that way,” she agreed cheerily.

  “Maybe for you, but my system demands a bit more discretion. Do me a favor. At the next town stop at a grocery store. I’m going to stock up on food.”

  “What for? I wouldn’t know what to do with it.”

  “I do.”

  She shot him a surprised look. “You can cook?”

  “Yes. Nothing fancy, but I manage to turn out a decent meal when I put my mind to it. Don’t look so stunned. I don’t like having live-in help, and I get tired of eating out all the time, so I learned a few kitchen skills. That’s all.”

  “That’s more than I ever managed. Not for lack of Mrs. O’Leary trying to teach me, mind you. I just never could work up much enthusiasm. I’m impressed, Your Nibs. I truly am.”

  “Don’t be, until you’ve tasted my cooking.”

  Maggie laughed. “Ah, well, I’m no judge. To me food is food. If it’s edible and it keeps me alive, that’s pretty much all that matters.”

  They drove along in companionable silence for several miles, until Wyatt noticed her casting glances at him out of the corner of her eye.

  “What?”

  “Oh, nothing. I’m just surprised that you didn’t shave. You strike me as the fastidious type.”

  “I am, but I wasn’t about to get a razor anywhere near my face with this rig lumbering all over the place. I didn’t want to risk cutting my throat. Just washing my face was a major undertaking.” He shot her a wry, sideways glance. “We won’t even discuss how difficult it is to hit a moving target going fifty-five miles an hour.”

  Maggie shot him a puzzled look. “What moving target?”

  “The toilet,” he said dryly.

  She chuckled, even as her cheeks turned a fiery red.

  * * *

  They reached Abilene around noon and agreed that while Maggie filled the RV with gas, Wyatt would buy groceries at the supermarket a
cross the street.

  When he climbed out of the rig, he paused to flex his shoulders and stretch, and for the first time he got a good look at the trailer Maggie was towing, the one she had gone to such lengths to protect.

  “What do you have in there?” he asked, looking it over curiously. It couldn’t be much. The trailer wasn’t very large, barely eight-by-four, and only about five feet high.

  “Just my bike,” she replied, and gave the handle on the gas pump a crank. She stuck the nozzle into the tank and nodded toward the supermarket across the street. “You’d better get going if you’re going grocery shopping. I want to be back on the road within an hour.”

  “Yeah. I guess I’d better,” Wyatt agreed, but he hesitated.

  Maggie grinned. “What’s the matter, afraid I’ll go off and leave you?”

  “The thought has crossed my mind.”

  “Mine, too,” she admitted with a chuckle. “I’ll admit, it’s tempting, but don’t worry, Your Nibs. We made a deal, and I never break my word. I’ll be waiting outside for you over there in the parking lot when you’re done.”

  Wyatt stared into those vivid blue eyes for several seconds, then nodded. “I shouldn’t be very long.”

  “Oh, Wyatt.”

  He stopped on the curb and looked back. “Yeah?”

  “There’s a clothing store over there by the market. While you’re in a shopping mood, you’d better pick up some duds to wear.”

  “Good idea.”

  “Get some jeans, will you. Those dress slacks just don’t cut it.”

  He went to the clothing store first and bought everything from the skin out, plus sneakers and boots. When he’d paid for the purchases he made arrangements to pick them up after he’d finished grocery shopping.

  Forty-five minutes later, pushing a cart piled high with sacks of food, he came out of the grocery store, but there was no sign of Maggie or the RV.

  Chapter Eight

  Wyatt looked everywhere, but Maggie simply wasn’t there. “Dammit to hell,” he muttered, scanning the parking lot.

  Two boys came walking across the parking lot, the heels of their athletic shoes flashing red and blue lights with every bouncing step. Wyatt collared them. “There’s five bucks for each of you if you’ll stay here with this cart for a few minutes while I run across the street.”