Jed shook a long finger at Eden. “You and Sullivan are not married,” he insisted. “I declare this so-called marriage null and void, as of right now.”
“You can’t do that,” Eden insisted with a gentle, understanding smile.
“Oh, yes, I can,” Jed said softly. “If you really want to marry this... this...”
“Mongrel,” Sullivan supplied in a low voice.
Jed snapped his head around to glare in Sullivan’s direction. “Mongrel,” he seethed before turning his full attention to Eden again. “Fine,” he said. “But by God you’re going to do it right. You’re going to get engaged first. You’re going to wait a few weeks, at the very least, to make sure you’re not making a mistake. Then there will be a real wedding, with a fancy dress and a ring. If you want Nate to perform the ceremony, that’s fine, too, but he will, by God, be sober when he does it.”
Eden reached up to lay a small hand on Jed’s face, the gesture one of love and understanding. Sullivan had seen her comfort Teddy and Millie just this way. And him, he realized with a start.
“That’s silly,” she said. “And too late. Sin and I are already married. It’s done, Jedidiah.”
“Sin,” he seethed. “That’s so goddamn precious, if I’d had any breakfast I’d lose it here and now.”
She smiled at her brother and then looked over her shoulder to where Sullivan stood.
His heart sank, heavy in his chest. Damn it, Jed was right. Eden didn’t belong here, and she sure as hell didn’t belong with him. He would’ve known that last night, if she hadn’t had him half out of his mind from playing in the tub. He’d been drunk on Eden, intoxicated by what he wanted, carried away by a touch and a kiss and the promise they offered.
“Your brother’s right,” he said softly. “It happened so fast....”
Her smile faded.
“Maybe you should take some time to think it over,” he said without emotion. “Take some time and be sure we’re not making a mistake.”
“Do you think we made a mistake?” she whispered, heartbreak in her eyes.
No. “I don’t know.”
She looked utterly devastated.
Jed smiled widely. “Null and void,” he said. “And Sullivan,” he added, “if you want to marry my sister again, you’ll damn well come to me and ask for her hand in marriage, properlike.”
Eden stared at him like she expected him to do something, to save her, to tell Jed that she was his wife and there was no going back. She looked at him as if she expected him to be someone he wasn’t, her champion, her partner, the man who loved her.
And he knew then that Jed was right. He would never be the man Eden expected him to be. He left the hotel without saying a word.
* * *
Eden stared at the empty doorway, willing Sin to reappear. He didn’t.
“Look what you’ve done,” she whispered.
“You can’t be married to Sullivan,” Jedidiah said calmly, more in control of his emotions now that Sin was gone.
She twirled around and stomped her foot at him. He actually flinched. “But we’re already married.” She looked to where an amused Nate lounged on the stairway. “Isn’t that right?”
“Legally wed,” he confirmed with a crooked smile.
“So you can’t just... just... make it go away,” she said.
Jedidiah leaned in close and spoke softly. “I think I just did.”
She never lost her temper. Never. But right now she saw red and her blood boiled. “If I lose Sin because of this, I will never forgive you,” she said, surprised to find that she meant it.
At the same time she was furious with her husband for not insisting that Jedidiah couldn’t make their marriage null and void with a snap of his fingers. Deep inside she wondered if Jedidiah might be right about one thing. If Sin had only married her to get her into his bed, if there was nothing else but desire between them, he might never come back. He might be perfectly happy to have their marriage invalidated. He might even be relieved.
“We’ll talk about it later,” Jedidiah said confidently. He gathered his saddlebags and rifle and headed for the stairs.
Eden placed herself at the foot of the stairs and blocked his path.
“After you’ve had a chance to calm down,” Jedidiah added in a condescending tone.
“Where do you think you’re going?” she asked.
“To my room. I live here.”
“Not anymore you don’t,” she said, her chin and her nose high, her spine rigid. “You see, I’m in the process of remodeling my hotel, and I’m afraid there are no rooms available.”
“Your hotel?” Jedidiah asked softly. He looked past her to Nate. “Her hotel?”
Eden glanced over her shoulder to see Nate nod his head once.
“I leave town for less than two months,” Jedidiah said, his voice no longer so calm, “and come home wanting nothing more than a bath and a couple days’ sleep and some of Lydia’s hard-ass cathead biscuits. I expect to find things pretty much the way I left them, but I walk in here and find you messing around with your goddamn husband in your goddamn hotel. How the hell long have you been here?” he thundered, leaning forward as if he could intimidate her.
Eden smiled. It was an effort. “Oh, I’ve been in Rock Creek a little more than a week. And Jedidiah,” she added primly, “don’t swear.”
He shifted uncomfortably on his big feet. “So, when do you think a room might become available?”
She moved her face forward to look her brother right in the eye. He’d always been bigger and older and meaner, so she’d had to learn early on to hold her ground. She held her ground now as she poked him in the chest. “When I get my husband back.”
Chapter 13
The saloon was all but deserted, but then it wasn’t yet noon. Cash was up and drinking his breakfast at the bar, and Sullivan had claimed a seat at a table in the corner. Yvonne was busy cleaning up some of last night’s clutter and watering down certain bottles of whiskey. The calico girls were still asleep, all but Kate, who stood by Cash at the bar and joined him for a silent, liquid breakfast.
Sullivan had come down to earth hard, after a night and a long morning of pretending to be someone he was not. How long had he expected it would last? Eden wanted something he couldn’t give; she wanted a life he couldn’t ever be a part of. She’d been right all along. She’d rather live with people she loved in hell than live alone in paradise, and he... Hell, he’d rather be alone in hell. Life was simpler that way, safer.
If she hadn’t looked at him with those big blue eyes and asked what they would do next if they were married, he never would’ve asked her; he never would’ve thought that maybe... just maybe...
Jed slammed his way through the bat-wing doors and flung his saddlebags to the floor. Jedidiah Rourke was never what one would call a calm man, but he was also rarely frustrated. He was frustrated now.
“She tossed me out. Can you believe it? My own sister, and she tossed me out on my ear.”
Cash lifted his head and stared sleepily at Jed. “You’re back. Have I missed all the fun?”
Jed headed for the table in the corner, where Sullivan sat, and Cash patted Kate on the bottom and told her to get back to bed.
“I can’t believe you’d stoop so low as to marry my little sister.” Fortunately, Jed’s hands were not balled into fists.
“Marry?” Cash asked, leaving the bar to join them. “Sullivan,” he said tersely, “when I suggested that you do whatever was necessary I didn’t mean...” He stared down at Jed and amended his words. “What I mean to say is, you actually married her?” He lowered himself to a chair, seemingly deflated.
The three of them sat at the small round table.
“Nate performed the ceremony,” Jed muttered.
A light of understanding and relief lit Cash’s eyes. “Oh, so it wasn’t a real wedding.” He looked from Jed to Sullivan and back again. “A clever plan, I must admit, but, well, that is a little low.”
“A littl
e low,” Jed barked.
“The wedding was legal,” Sullivan said.
“You are not married to my sister,” Jed seethed. “I won’t allow it.”
Why had he ever expected anything different? The best thing he could do would be to ride out of town today, now, and not look back.
“God forbid that your sister should be married to a mongrel,” he said calmly. “Your nieces and nephews would have Comanche blood, Jed. Your sister would be mother to little Sullivan mongrels who’d call you Uncle Jedidiah.”
Jed lifted his eyes slowly. “Is that what you think? You think I declared the marriage null and void because you’re a half-breed?”
“Isn’t it?”
Jed almost smiled. “No. Hell, no. The truth of the matter is, none of us is good enough for Eden. We’re all mongrels of a sort. Drifters. Hell-raisers. And the idea that you’d light on her like a fly on honey the minute she gets to town is... is... It just ain’t right.”
“This is not entirely Sullivan’s fault,” Cash intervened. “The girl has been leading him around by his pecker from the moment she set her eyes on him.”
Sullivan and Jed both glared at Cash.
“Well, it’s the truth,” he added in his own defense. “He tried to do the noble thing and leave town, but she wrote a threatening note to herself to keep him around. Face it, she tied him up in knots and led him around by his nether regions until she got what she wanted. Married.” He rolled his eyes. “For God’s sake Sullivan, have I taught you nothing about women?”
“Shut up, runt,” Jed said in a low, warning voice.
Cash bristled at the insult, as he always did. At five-foot-eleven he wasn’t exactly a small man, but when the six of them stood together, the gunslinger was the shortest by an inch or so. His narrow build didn’t help the matter any, especially when he stood next to the mountainous Jed Rourke.
“I see no reason for this to get personal,” he said.
When Sullivan and Jed continued to glare at him, their faces growing stonier by the moment, Cash took his leave and headed upstairs.
Sullivan set his eyes on Jed. “You’re right. I never should’ve married her.”
Jed nodded in agreement. “It’s nothing personal, I swear. It’s just that Eden deserves better than... better than anything we can give her. She should lead a sheltered life, be safe, be taken care of. She can’t get that here.” He locked his eyes on Sullivan. “You can’t give it to her.”
“I know.”
Jed ran an impatient hand through his hair. “Somehow we have to get her back to Spring Hill and married to Mayfield or Cooper. I don’t know why she didn’t get married years ago. It ain’t because no one asked, and Seymour Mayfield was perfect for her, absolutely perfect. He’s just a shopkeeper, but his business does real well so he could take good care of her. Eden’s a gentle girl, she needs a... a dandy like Seymour,” he added, almost as if he were apologizing for her. “The first time she sees a critter she doesn’t recognize she’ll probably faint dead away. The first time there’s a dust storm she’ll probably beg to leave for Georgia on the next stage.”
Sullivan didn’t believe Eden was as fragile as Jed seemed to think, but what did he know? He knew very little about the woman he’d called his wife last night. He knew she was beautiful and sweet and tender, and she had a tendency to want to take care of everyone she met. He knew she had a passion that made her heart beat fast and her body open for him. He knew she thought what she felt was love.
“What if there’s a baby?” Sullivan asked softly. He’d been a bastard himself, knew how hard it was to live that way. Even though these circumstances were not the same, he didn’t want his child to be born without his name. He wouldn’t allow it. It was the reason he wouldn’t ride out of town today.
Jed closed one eye as if he couldn’t bear to think of the possibility. “Then I’ll have to kill you.”
They stared at each other for a long while, until Cash came down the stairs with a woman on each arm.
* * *
Jed absentmindedly patted Ethel’s nicely rounded butt as she lowered herself to his knee. He was still in shock over finding Eden in Rock Creek. She was supposed to be in Georgia, safe and sound, not trying to remodel that shit hole of a hotel and marrying—he laid his eyes on Sullivan—a man who could never take proper care of her.
Sullivan’s feet were as itchy as his were, the life he lived just as dangerous. There was nothing good and beautiful in Jed’s life, nothing but Eden. He needed to be able to think of her at home, safe and happy. Married to Sullivan? No.
Jed had been thinking about leaving Rock Creek for good, not coming back at all. If Eden stayed here he’d have to come back now and again, like it or not, and Jed wasn’t sure he wanted to keep calling this place home.
Since Sylvia had married that damn good-for-nothing preacher, the place hadn’t been the same. Sylvia had been a great lover, a widow who didn’t ask too much, at least for a while. Once she’d caught the marrying bug, she’d set her sights on Jed. When he’d made it clear he wasn’t the marrying kind, she’d moved her attentions to Clancy, who she said was stable and honorable and attentive.
Jed hadn’t thought she’d really go through with it. He’d been so sure Sylvia was trying to trick him into marrying her by pretending to be serious about the preacher. He didn’t miss her, though. Not much. There were lots of other pretty women in the world. Sylvia had made her choice: she’d made her bed....
Hell, he didn’t want his thoughts to head in that direction, so he returned his attentions to a morose Sullivan.
Sullivan was a good man. Honest, quiet, a great scout, and a fair shot. He was an outstanding soldier, but he was no more the marrying kind than Jed himself was.
And the half-breed was not going to ruin Eden’s life. Jed wouldn’t allow it.
* * *
The children were at school, and Rico and Nate had left the hotel together a while back. Something to do with their horses, Rico had told her. She’d been so angry, still, that she hadn’t paid as much attention as she should have to what he’d said.
She was alone in the hotel, brooding and preparing lunch, when she found the note. Again it was pinned to the cutting board.
This is your last warning. Get out of town while you still can.
If she hadn’t already been upset about Sin and Jedidiah, she might’ve panicked. But the truth of the matter was, nothing at all had happened after the last note of warning. Perhaps in Texas this sort of thing was considered a joke, just as in Texas a marriage could apparently be set aside on a whim.
Last night and this morning she’d felt so completely and irrevocably married, a part of an unbreakable union, and now... Now she was alone again. Sin had been hers for a short time, and now, impossibly, she felt as if everything she’d known to be true was over.
She snatched up the note and headed out the door and across the street. If she knew Jedidiah and Sin, they were in the saloon at this moment, fighting over her. They each had their own plans for her future, and neither of them had any regard for her own desires. Without her there to intervene, they might have come to blows again. It made her heart lurch to think of the two men she loved most in the world fighting with each other, literally pounding each other with their sizable fists. They were family now. They were like brothers and should treat each other with love and respect. Men! She would never understand them.
Perhaps, if either of them cared for her at all, they could put their differences aside long enough to figure out who was sending these notes.
Laughter rang out as she pushed through the bat-wing doors and entered the saloon.
She wasn’t prepared for the sight that met her eyes. Jedidiah and Sin weren’t fighting; they were sitting together at a table in the corner. Jedidiah was laughing, and so was the blonde on his knee. The brunette on Sin’s knee laughed, too, as she wrapped her arms around his neck. Cash stood nearby, surveying the scene with a smug smile on his demonic face.
> Her heart sank. A scantily clad woman sat on Sin’s lap, and she looked quite comfortable there. She looked as if she’d sat there before. Her husband didn’t look inclined to push the hussy off his lap, though he did, at least, have the decency not to be laughing at the moment.
Sin saw her first, laid his eyes on her in a way so intense she felt it. The expression on his face didn’t change one iota.
With her head high, she walked to the table. “I hate to interrupt,” she said icily, “but it seems I have received another note of warning.” She slapped the note on the table. “If there were a sheriff in Rock Creek I would take it to him, but since there is no lawman in office at the moment, you two will have to do.”
“Eden,” Jedidiah muttered, “you don’t belong in here. This is a saloon.”
“I’m not staying,” she said, giving Sin a quick glance. “I just wanted to hand this message over to... to someone.”
They looked over the note quickly. Cash didn’t glance at it at all, but Sin gently assisted the brunette off his lap and stood. “I’ll walk you back to the hotel and take a look around.”
“Yeah,” Jedidiah said, patting his own companion on the rear end as she left his lap. “I’ll go with you.”
“No, thank you,” Eden said icily. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your fun. Besides,” she added, “I don’t want either of you in my hotel.”
“Eden,” Sin began in a low voice.
“I’m sure there’s a room for you here,” she said calmly, furious for allowing herself to believe that there was something special between her and this man. He might just as well have spent last night with one of the saloon girls. What they’d shared in bed was all he wanted from her, all he’d ever wanted. She’d been a fool to imagine more.
“You’re going to have a big old hotel with no people living in it!” Jedidiah thundered.
“Nate and Rico will be there,” she said calmly. “And Millie and Teddy. Once I have the place fixed up, I hope to attract a better class of clientele.”
“Who are Millie and Teddy?” Jedidiah asked, obviously confused.
Sullivan (The Rock Creek Six Book 2) Page 15
