“At least the rain seems like it’s through,” Greg said, then nodded and added, “Thank you.”
Pete stayed where he was. “You got a plan for that girl of yours?”
Did he? It was hard to tell. All he had to go on was vague suspicion. “I’ve got something,” he said at last.
“Good.” Pete nodded. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”
“Maybe,” Greg frowned, thinking hard, “Maybe if you distract Conrad once we get to the fort. There’s someone else I want to talk to.”
Pete gave him a wondering look from atop his horse, then shrugged. “If you say so, though I can’t imagine you and Miss Howsam have much more you can discuss.”
“It’s not Darcy I want to talk to,” he said.
It wasn’t. It had taken Greg those last three days to come to the conclusion that there was one other person who might be able to influence the situation, one other person who might have been influencing the situation all along.
As soon as they reached the fort and parked their wagons around the edge of the palisade, as soon as he’d taken his pair of oxen to the small stream that ran nearby to let them get a drink, Greg got down to business. He fixed his hat on his head, squared his shoulders, and headed toward the fort.
“Where are you going?” Darcy asked him as he passed Conrad’s wagon. Sure enough, Pete had taken Conrad aside and was walking him around the far end of the fort.
“I need to talk to somebody,” Greg told her.
Darcy bit her lip and gave him a worried look, falling into step with him. “Please, Greg. Please don’t get into another fight with Conrad. You still have a black eye from the first fight.”
Greg slowed his steps and smiled to reassure her. “Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he said. “I’m not going to fight with Conrad. I’m not even going to talk to him.”
“Oh.” Her face brightened and fell. “Who are you talking to, then?”
He grinned, taking her hand and kissing it with a wink. “I’ve got a hunch,” he said. “And if my hunch is right, then I’m sure I’ll be able to set things right.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” he said, feeling the confidence of that answer down to his toes. “I promise you, by the time the sun goes down today, I will have figured out a way to get you out of this deal with Conrad. Then we can be together.”
“We can….” Her eyes went misty and she squeezed his hand as though her life depended on it. “I do love you, Greg. Really and truly.”
“And I love you,” he replied. “More than anything.”
“But won’t you tell me your plan?” she asked. The sweet pleading in her eyes was almost enough to get him to spill everything, but he couldn’t quite do it. There was still a chance his plan would fall on its face, and if it did, he’d be at the end of his rope and likely to do something desperate.
“You’ll see soon enough,” he promised.
With a quick kiss, he let her go and turned to head toward the fort.
“Are you sure I can’t help you?” she called after him.
“Not this time,” he answered with the biggest smile he could manage.
She returned that smile, filling him with light and confidence. This would work. This had to work.
He found who he was looking for, unsurprisingly, in the corner of the fort’s supply depot that served as a makeshift bar when wagons were there stocking up. Bruce leaned against the rough counter, a whiskey glass already in hand and a bottle on the counter beside him. His face was red and his nose like a radish hanging on his face. Greg put on his best smile anyhow, sidling up to the bar beside him.
“Bruce,” he greeted the man by nodding his head.
“What do you want?” Bruce grumbled.
“I’m here to talk business with you,” Greg replied. This had to work. His hunch had to be right.
“What if I don’t want to talk to you?” Bruce looked him up and down, then turned away, downing the liquor in his glass.
He gestured to the bartender and said. “Another glass, but I’ll pay for that bottle.”
Bruce peeked sideways at him. The bartender brought out another glass, looking between the two of them as if he was in for a treat. “That’s a dollar,” he said.
Greg reached into his pocket and took out one of his hard-earned dollars. There were others there, others that he was loathe to part with. They were his future, his land, and his dreams. They were his last chance at happiness. He had the feeling those bills were all about to go away, replaced by a new dream that both frightened and thrilled him.
As soon as the money was handed over, Bruce turned his head to stare at Greg. Then he slid the bottle along the bar to him. Greg poured himself a drink.
“You a California miner too?” Greg asked as casually as he could.
“What of it?” Bruce snapped.
A jolt of victory made Greg’s blood pump harder. He’d been right on that account.
“You and Conrad work together?” he asked on.
“So?” Now Bruce was on the defensive. Another point in Greg’s favor.
“Mining life must be hard,” Greg went on with a shrug, pouring himself a drink.
“You gotta work if you want to strike it rich.” At last, Bruce was opening up to him.
“I’m sure you do. I know all about hard work. I’m about to buy land and start a ranch or a farm myself.” Although whether that would actually happen now was a big question. “I suppose you get to be mighty good friends with the fellows you work with when you’re working that hard.”
Bruce frowned. “Yeah. What of it?”
Greg shrugged. “Some people think that the bonds of matrimony are the closest a man can have, but sometimes I wonder if that’s not wrong. Maybe the bond of friendship is stronger sometimes.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Bruce’s frown darkened to a scowl.
“Suppose a man had his mine, was looking for his gold. Maybe he has a nice patch somewhere, everything just the way he wants. And he has his buddy to share it all with. Times would be good, wouldn’t they?”
Bruce narrowed his eyes. “They would.”
“And it would be a crying shame to bring a woman into the middle of that, wouldn’t it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
But Greg could see that he did. He could see it in the way the color came to Bruce’s face as he reached for the whiskey bottle and poured himself another glass.
Greg leaned closer to Bruce, even though the man stank of whiskey and sweat.
“Come on, Bruce. I know you don’t want Conrad to wreck things by bringing a woman into your patch.”
Bruce clenched his jaw and hunched his shoulders as he cradled his drink. “So?”
“So I don’t want him to take Darcy out to California either. We both want the same thing here.”
There was a long pause. Bruce lifted his glass and drank slowly. He sighed when he smacked it down on the bar.
“There’s plenty of whores in the camps,” Bruce said as if he’d been thinking about it for a long time. “And there’s cooks and washerwomen for hire. I don’t know why Conrad let Duke talk him into sending East for a woman anyhow. The one Duke’s got is a witch and makes his life hell.”
The victory of that statement was so sweet that Greg felt it like cannons blasting in his chest. With Bruce to back him up, he was certain Conrad would change his mind.
“Then it’s time you spoke up,” he said. He needed just a little more of a push, so he said, “Because if you let him take Darcy with you when we all move out tomorrow, she will drive you and pester you, make you bathe every day and take your shoes off before you enter the house.” Bruce was crumbling, he could see it, so he added, “And she’ll make you go to church and leave off drinking, I know it.”
Bruce turned to him, eyes wide in horror. “She wouldn’t.”
“She would,” Greg nodded, grim as the grave. “You’ve seen the way she’s alway
s smiling at everything. That’s the smile of a good woman. Do you really want a good woman on your patch?”
“Hell no,” Bruce said, slamming his hand on the bar. He stood, swaying more than a little with the alcohol he’d already consumed. “I been too soft on Conrad. I gotta stop this!”
Bruce took a few unsteady steps away from the bar, then cleared his throat, pulled himself to stand straighter, and marched out of the supply depot and into the cloudy afternoon. Greg jumped up and rushed after him. His future with Darcy was so close now that he could almost grasp it.
Darcy hung back around the milling crowds in the fort’s main yard. She tried to talk to the women she’d been traveling with these last few weeks, asked about the McTavish family and some of the other snippets of gossip she’d heard. Her eyes stayed firmly on the door to the supply depot, though. She’d seen Greg go in earlier and wondered who he had gone after.
The answer came as soon as Bruce burst out into the yard. He looked as though he could hunt down a wolf and strangle it with his bare hands.
“Conrad,” he bellowed, swaying slightly when he stopped to look around. “Conrad, where are you, you old coot?”
Darcy searched the yard for Conrad herself, but he was nowhere to be found. When she turned back to Bruce, he was staring right at her. He sniffed, wiping his nose on the back of his hand, then spit. He headed right for her. Darcy gasped, turning to look for a way out, but when she saw Greg coming out of the supply depot a few steps behind Bruce, she gathered her courage. If Greg was there, she could face Bruce. She could face anything.
“Where did you put him, you little witch?” Bruce demanded, striding toward her.
Darcy stood straighter at the insult. She would have been worried, but Greg was catching up fast, and he was smiling. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she told Bruce.
“I won’t let him do it,” Bruce said. “I won’t let him mess things up like this.”
“You…won’t?” The hope that soared in her chest was so potent that it made her dizzy.
“It seems that someone else talked Conrad into the idea of sending for a bride from back East,” Greg said as he reached Bruce’s side, just as he stopped in front of Darcy.
“So you can go your way, missy,” Bruce said, jabbing a finger at her.
“What’s going on here?”
All three of them turned to find Conrad striding toward them from the front gate, Pete Evans at his side. Mr. Evans wore a curious look, but it wasn’t a look of surprise.
“I’m not gonna let you do it, Conrad,” Bruce said, marching to meet his friend. “We’re already stuck with one witch at the camp, I won’t let you add another.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Conrad glowered at his friend. He turned that look on Greg and kept walking. “This is your fault, isn’t it?”
“Hold up there, Conrad,” Pete jogged to catch up with him. They all came together in a tense circle in the middle of the yard. “I told you not to talk to Greg anymore.”
“I’ll talk to him if he’s messing with my business,” Conrad snapped.
“If you’re so concerned with business being messed with,” Bruce said, “then why’d you go messing with ours?”
“Huh?” Conrad turned to him, looking like a bull that didn’t know which way was up.
Darcy was just as confused. She sent Greg a questioning look, but he only shook his head and nodded to Conrad and Bruce.
“This whole mail-order bride thing was a terrible idea,” Bruce said. “You can’t stand Duke’s old woman any more than I can.”
“No, but she does cook good,” Conrad answered. “So does this one.” He jerked his thumb at Darcy as if she was a dog standing nearby.
“Yeah, and so does old Cookie. You never complained about his chow before,” Bruce argued.
“Now hold on just a minute,” Conrad crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at his friend. “I paid good money for that one there, and I ain’t never been one to go wasting money.”
“You’re a fool who likes to spend your gold so that people think you’re a big man,” Bruce sneered at him. “Remember that prize heifer you bought last spring?”
Conrad sniffed and shuffled, on the defensive. “That was a good milk cow. A man needs property to show he’s made something of himself.”
“You idiot, I got more milk in me than that cow,” Bruce said. “The poor thing died inside two months. You got snookered, and you know it.”
“I did not!”
“Just like you’re getting snookered now.”
“Hold on just a second there. I paid for this here woman to come out here to be a wife to me. A man’s gotta have a wife to prove that he’s something,” Conrad argued.
Darcy caught her breath as understanding dawned. Conrad didn’t want her at all. He’d taken one look at her back in Ft. Laramie and decided that she wasn’t good enough—not for him, but to impress his friends. Conrad was only interested in impressing his neighbors and making himself look good. And now Greg was acting like he would marry her in spite of his plans. He’d said as much when he promised they could be together. There was a chance she could get out of the whole mess and marry Greg after all, if she could just convince Conrad she’d be more of a burden and an embarrassment than a boon.
Thinking fast, she faked a cough. “Dear me,” she said, raising a hand to her forehead. “I suddenly feel so weak.”
Conrad and Bruce stopped arguing with each other and looked at her with varying degrees of disgust.
“What seems to be the matter?” Greg asked. For a split-second, he was genuinely concerned, but quickly he caught on to what she was attempting. “I mean, oh dear, you poor weak thing.”
He stepped closer to her, and with the slightest of winks, Darcy feigned a swoon, collapsing into his arms.
“Huh?” Conrad sniffed. “I thought you said she was strong, a hard worker.”
“Oh, I am, I am,” Darcy insisted, leaning heavily on Greg. “It’s just… It’s just….” She scrambled for something, for anything that would tip Conrad over the edge. Embarrassment. What would embarrass him the most? “It’s just that the baby has made me so weak.”
“The baby?” Conrad and Bruce said together. They shrank away as if she had said it was the cholera that had made her weak.
“Yes,” Greg said, a little too happily to be completely convincing. “My baby.”
“What?” Again, Conrad and Bruce gasped in unison.
It took everything Darcy had not to break down into giggles. Nothing had been so fun as playacting with Greg for as long as she could remember. Then again, after the other night, it could very well be true. That thought alone filled her with enough joy to continue on with the deception.
“Yes, it’s true,” she said, straightening and putting on a posture of shame. “For I have been keeping scandalous company with Mr. Quinlan here ever since we met.”
“You what?” Conrad barked. “Right under my nose?”
“Yes,” Greg answered. He moved to circle his arm around Darcy, holding her close. “I love her. I love her and have known her in the Biblical sense. And I want to marry her.” He was making a show of things to put an end to Conrad’s designs on her for good, but even through the joking, Darcy knew he was serious.
She turned her face up to him, giving him a smile that came from the very heart of her, and said, “I love you too, Greg. More than anything.”
Playacting or not, Greg returned her smile, then dipped down to kiss her. He may not have needed to do quite such a thorough job of it, but as soon as their lips met, as soon as she circled her arms around him and touched her tongue against his, she couldn’t stop. She kissed him back from the depths of her soul, pouring all of her passion into it without caring who was watching. She loved Greg, and that was all that mattered.
“Well don’t that beat all,” Mr. Evans muttered, and if Darcy wasn’t mistaken, chuckled. “A man would be a complete fool to marry a woman who kissed anoth
er man like that.”
“I ain’t having no squalling baby in my camp,” Bruce snorted. “You marry her and bring another man’s bastard down my way, I’ll up and leave.”
“I don’t want her,” Conrad said, his face screwed up in disgust.
Darcy wanted to shout hurrah. She’d never been so overjoyed to see a man looking at her like she was a worm in all her life. It didn’t matter what Conrad thought of her, what anyone thought of her. Greg loved her. That love was in his eyes and in his kiss.
“But I do want my twenty dollars.” Conrad raised his voice.
All at once, Darcy’s heart thudded back to earth. “Oh. Your twenty dollars.” She was right back where she started, and make no mistake.
“I’ll sue you if I have to,” Conrad went on. “I’ll sue you for breach of contract and demand every cent I gave you and more. You’ll be ruined, and it’ll serve you right for making a fool of me.”
“But can’t you be a little patient?” she pleaded with him. “Give me enough time and I can pay it all back, I swear.”
“I want it now.” Conrad held his ground.
As quickly as everything had fallen into place, it was falling apart. The possibility that she would spend her entire life paying back a man who had made her so miserable hung heavily on her heart.
Greg let out a long sigh. He let her go and reached into his pocket. With a regretful wince, he pulled out a fold of bills.
“Here,” he said, handing it across to Conrad with a resigned look. “It’s twenty dollars, minus the dollar I spent buying a bottle of whiskey for Bruce here. The bottle’s probably still back there if you two want to share it.”
“Greg, that’s the money for your land,” Darcy protested. “What are you going to do without it?”
“I’ll think of something,” Greg said. “We’ll think of something.”
“I can’t let you throw your future away for me,” Darcy protested.
“Sweetheart,” he turned to her, drawing her back into his arms, “without you, I have no future. I see that now. I was far too set in my path. I was a fool for not being able to see outside of that. But what use is land and money if you don’t have love? What kind of a future would I have if you weren’t in it?”
Wild Western Women Ride Again: Western Historical Romance Boxed Set Page 50
