“Enough to marry her?”
He twisted so fast, she faltered back, the blaze of wildfire in his eyes true to his name. “I already told Rachel from the start and now I’m telling you—again. Don’t plan to marry anybody—ever! Rachel knows I care about her and she’s happy just the way we are, so leave it alone.”
“Oh, sure she is,” she returned with enough fire in her eyes to go nose to nose with his, “but only because you haven’t given her any other choice.”
“We need to go.” He stormed toward the horses, and she knew she should let it go. But the image of Rachel’s battered face haunted her mind, and there was no way she could turn her back on one of her own.
“So, you’re basically saying you’d be happy if Sheridan or Shaylee had a relationship like that,” she said, hot on his heels, “is that it?”
“What the devil are you talking about?” He grabbed Minx’s reins and mounted, glaring down at her like she was a snake in his path. “They’re my sisters, for pity’s sake, and I’d kill any man who so much as touched them.”
“And yet,” she said in a voice that tapered off to a whisper, “you refuse the same courtesy to Rachel, disrespecting her like you’d never allow any man to do to Sheridan or Shaylee.”
Never in all the time they’d spent together had she seen Blaze Donovan lose his temper like the day they’d first met at the hospital. But she saw it now in all its blazing glory as he leveled a blunt finger with a look harder than the granite in the mountains behind. “This is none of your blasted business, so I suggest you either drop it or our friendship, Maggie—take your pick.”
She stared up, sorrow suddenly siphoning the anger from her body. “All right, Blaze,” she said quietly, I’ll drop it.” Reaching for Snowflake’s rein, she slipped a boot in the stirrup and climbed into the saddle, shoulders back as she pierced him with a disappointed look, “but at least you gave me a choice.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“Carson City?” Libby’s face suddenly blanched to the color of the white silk shirtwaist tucked into her bustled skirt, her navy jacket making the contrast all the starker.
Finn fitted his hands firmly to her small waist, taking his sweet time in lifting her out of the buckboard. “Yes, ma’am. I told you we were going to dinner on Saturday night, Mrs. McShane, remember?”
When he put her down, she wobbled, and he gladly steadied her with a brace of palms, marveling for the hundredth time what a little mite of a thing she was. Hooking his arm through hers, he proceeded to lead her to the V&T Truckee train to Carson City.
Her blue velvet heels dug into the powdered dirt of the street in front of the station, halting their progress. “Yes, dinner,” she rasped, “but in another city?” Her voice cracked.
Finn squelched a grin. Especially the city where we’d taken our official honeymoon for three glorious days. “Hear tell there’s a new chef from Paris at the Ormsby House Hotel, so I’ve been wanting to go.”
If possible, the woman paled even more, and it was all Finn could do to keep a straight face as he coaxed her toward the train, pert near dragging her all the way.
“Finn, I don’t really think this is a good idea …”
He tugged her forward, chuckling when her heels left grooves in the dust. Dear Lord, if the woman were a mule, she’d be braying! “Sure it is, Libs. It’ll be fun. That’s where we spent our honeymoon, remember?”
No response.
Finn couldn’t fight it any longer—he laughed outright, literally swooping her up in his arms as he boarded the train, which promptly elicited a squeal from her lips. “I even requested the same room,” he said in a nonchalant tone that was anything but. “You know, the one with the double bathtub where we—”
“I remember,” she said in a rush, her voice hoarse and somewhat garbled as he mounted the final step to the passenger car. Wiggling to get down, she suddenly froze as if she just realized the implication of a rented room, her body stiffer than long johns on a wash line in a winter storm. “Wait—y-you r-requested a r-room??”
Jerking free, she vaulted out of his arms in front of the closed vestibule door, teetering on the car’s gangway connection with a hand to her chest. “Of all the low, despicable, sneaky …” She literally gasped for air, all the blood that had deserted her face before now rushing back with a vengeance. “If you think I’m going to sleep with you, Finn McShane, you are sadly mistaken,” she shouted, and it was hard to say which shot more fire—the flash of her eyes or the toss of her auburn hair. She tried to push past to disembark the train.
“Uh, Libs?” Halting her retreat, Finn lowered his voice, giving a sympathetic nod over her shoulder at the porter who now held the car door wide open. “You might want to keep it down.”
She spun around just as the whistle blew, and Finn braced her when she swayed like a drunken miner. A harsh breath escaped her lips while a carload of passengers silently gaped. Eyelids flickering, she fainted dead out as the train began to move, and with a conciliatory smile to those in the car, he quickly scooped her up.
“Ahem.” Someone cleared his throat, and Finn turned to a porter impeccably attired in a crisp blue uniform agleam with gold buttons. Giving a short bow, the porter delivered an awkward smile while two spots of color promptly stained his mustached face. “Welcome back, Director Finn,” he said with a nod of respect, utilizing the title Finn once owned as Director of the V&T Truckee Railroad years ago. “I’ll escort you and the lady to the private coach, sir.”
Carefully sidling past Finn, he led them through the crowded car to the next section, a private parlour car with cherry-wood booths and dark-green tufted velvet seating. An exquisitely carved varnished bar at the back boasted bottles of wine and crystal decanters of whiskey that glimmered along with a crystal chandelier. Green velvet curtains with gold sashes offered a cozy frame for large viewing windows where shafts of sunlight streamed across an Oriental rug. Attired in a starched white uniform with gold buttons, an attendant delivered snifter of brandies to several booths of well-dressed gentlemen and ladies while the porter led Finn to the most private and luxurious parlour seating in the back.
“Thank you, Mason,” Finn said, gently setting Libby down on a plush gold brocade love seat before slipping a five-dollar bill into the man’s hand. Smile warm, Finn slapped the porter on the back. “It’s good to see you again, my friend. Give Alma my love.”
“Will do, sir,” the porter said with a click of his heels, signaling the attendant with an authoritative nod in Finn’s direction on his way back to the passenger car.
Finn turned to attend to Libby, who was just coming to. Eyes groggy, she slowly sat up, and he laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Are you all right? Can I get you something to drink?”
In a wild flutter of lashes, she shot up in panic mode, gaze darting out the window of the moving train before she sank back into the seat with a low groan, head in her hands.
Finn squatted next to the loveseat. “Libby, we’re not spending the night in Carson City, sweetheart,” he said quietly, tone tender. “I requested the room as a courtesy in case you wanted to freshen up after arrival and before departure.”
She peeked out between two fingers. “We’re not spending the night together?”
“No, ma’am,” he said with a hint of a smile. “Not unless, of course, you’d like to …”
She whopped him with her reticule, but he detected the barest thread of humor in her scold despite the dusting of rose in her cheeks. “Finn McShane, you haven’t changed one solitary bit since high school. You are still the same incorrigible tease who always drove me crazy.”
The crinkles of laughter around his eyes softened along with the tenor of his tone, which suddenly faded to husky. “That used to be a good thing,” he said, gaze locked on hers before it flicked to her lips and back, “leastways since that night at the Poppy’s.”
The rose in her face bloomed to crimson while she swiftly focused on the scenery outside. “I imagine Ca
rson City has changed quite a bit since then,” she said, voice breathless as she casually tucked herself as far back in the corner of the loveseat as possible. Fingers shaking, she set the offensive reticule on the seat beside her and clasped her hands on the oval linen-clad table, a sweet scent drifting in the air from a crystal vase of fresh flowers.
“Quite a bit,” he said with a glance at his pocket watch. He moved to his loveseat across the table, gaze connecting with the attendant’s before he settled in with an arm over the back of his chair. “But underneath the modern trappings, it still retains its original charm and appeal.” He paused for effect. “Like you, Libby, for me.”
She turned from the window just as the waiter arrived to take their drink orders. “I’d love a glass of port if you have it,” she said to the man, worry lines bunching her brow as she looked over at Finn. “Is that all right?”
“Certainly.” Finn gave a nod to the waiter. “And I’ll have a cup of coffee, black, please.”
“Very good, sir.” The waiter left, and Finn studied Libby with a curious air. “You didn’t used to drink.”
“Not usually, but I’m hoping it’ll help me to relax.” She nervously buffed her arms as she gazed out the window, the pink in her cheeks kicking up a tad. “Well, not ever, actually, but …” She faced him square-on for the first time all night, those luscious lips edging up. “I’m not sure, but I think the threat of your snoring scared the living daylights out of me if you must know, so I have to do something to settle my nerves.”
He grinned, then nodded his thanks to the attendant when he delivered the wine and coffee. “Really? I thought it might be my singing in the bathtub.”
She laughed, and the sound was a balm to his soul. “Well, that, too.” She took a slow sip of her wine, then leaned back to assess him through shuttered eyes, gaze cautious. “Why are you doing this, Finn? You didn’t make a move for seventeen years and suddenly I’m the love of your life.”
“You’ve always been the love of my life,” he said quietly, forearms on the table as he absently grazed the sides of his cup with his thumbs. “From the day you walked into our high school classroom until this very moment.” He pinned her with a potent look. “I loved you then, Libby, and I love you now, so help me, God. But, just for your information, darlin’”—he lifted the cup to take a slow sip, his eyes burning hot over the rim—“I wrote you dozens of letters, but your father made good and sure you never saw a single one.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“What?” She sat straight up. “I never received any letters!”
“Of course, you didn’t,” Finn said with a hard set of his jaw, his anger at Aiden kindled all over again. “Your father told me recently that he issued strict orders for your aunt to throw them away. Nor would she respond to any of my telegrams except the first one, where she wired that not only didn’t you want to see me again, but that you no longer resided with her.”
Libby’s jaw dropped. “What? I lived with her for a good four months before Vassar hired me on with room and board.”
“Ah, yes, Vassar,” he continued with a dry slant of his mouth. “Yet another ruse by your father to throw me off-track. Apparently he spread the rumor that you were a teacher at The Convent of the Sacred Heart, which by the way, threatened to contact the police if I didn’t stop sending letters for you to their school.”
Mouth hanging open, Libby quickly guzzled some wine before sagging back in her chair, Finn’s revelations obviously stealing the wind from her sails.
“So, you see, Libby, I did try to find you.”
She was silent for several moments as she stared aimlessly into her glass. “But you didn’t come after me,” she whispered, her voice barely audible.
“I did come after you,” he insisted, “even risking my job at the V&T to travel to New York months later, to talk to both your aunt and The Convent of the Sacred Heart, all to no avail.”
She looked up with moisture brimming in her eyes. “But not after I left that day.” Her look of hurt hollowed him out. “You let me walk out that door, Finn, without a single attempt at compromise like you promised before we got married. You let me sob myself to sleep every single night for three days, aching inside that I’d married a man who wanted to control and bully me just like my father, no matter how much you swore you wouldn’t.”
Heat circled his collar, well aware that she was right, despite the fact he hadn’t thought so at the time. “Dash it all, Libby, we were kids, the both of us. Stupid about marriage, stupid about each other.” He reached to take her hand, the taste of regret bitter on his tongue. “And I’ll admit I was angry, darlin’, enough to stay away, hoping you’d come to your senses and come on home.”
Moisture glazed her eyes with the same sorrow that cramped in his chest. “Then it seems we were at cross purposes,” she said quietly, “which makes me very sad.”
He grazed her palm with his thumb. “I know, me too, Libby, sick over all the time that we’ve lost.” He leaned in, hope surging like a rush of adrenalin. “But that doesn’t mean we have to lose our future, darlin’.”
She blinked several times before easing her hand from his, quickly gulping more wine before setting it down with quivering fingers. “I’m heartsick about this too, Finn, more than I can say, but …”—there was a despair in her eyes he’d felt all too often himself after she’d left—“it’s too late for us,” she whispered.
“Why?” His gaze bore into hers with a passion that belonged only to her.
The silence was deafening as she stared into her half-empty glass, her body suddenly trembling along with it.
“Why is it too late?” he asked again, working hard to keep the frustration from his tone.
She idly skimmed a finger along the rim of her glass, avoiding his eyes. “Because I’m engaged.”
“No, Libby, you’re not engaged—you’re married to me.” The tension in his body leaked into his tone.
“Only because of an oversight on my part and my father’s, Finn, nothing more.”
“An oversight on your father’s part, certainly, but I refuse to believe it on yours.” He sat back with arms folded over his chest. “You know what I think? I think you failed to sign those papers on purpose, because you still loved me.”
A heavy sigh parted from her lips as she leaned back to rest her head, brows sloped in sympathy. “Whether that’s true or not doesn’t matter now because I promised Harold I’d marry him and it’s his ring on my finger, Finn, not yours.”
“Do you love him?” he snapped, tempted to rip that stupid ring off her finger and toss it out the blasted window.
Her chin inched up. “As a matter of fact, I do. Harold doesn’t rouse my temper like some people I know.”
“I’ll bet,” Finn said with a hard smile, downright incensed some moron named Harold thought he could claim her for his own. “Nor anything else, I’ll wager.”
Her face whooshed scarlet as she threw back the rest of her wine, glass straight up. Her hand was trembling along with the glass when she set it back down. “I am going to marry Harold, Finn, so if we’re going to be civil to one another the rest of this evening, I suggest you change course immediately.”
Tears brimming, she turned to stare out the window with a stone face, and Finn suddenly remembered just how difficult it had always been to rein in his temper with his wife. But rein it in he would, because he was no longer that immature selfish husband she’d once known, but a man of prayer and patience who thrived on a challenge.
And if ever there were a challenge, her name was Libby McShane.
Blasting out a noisy sigh, he gulped down the rest of his cold coffee, thinking Libby had never been more wrong. There was something he could do about it whether she liked it or not. Signaling the waiter for more coffee, he studied her steely profile with a look just as tenacious, more than willing to “change course.” A slow smile wended its way across his face. Like changing course on his original decision to win back his wife fair
and square.
Without those powerful kisses that had always melted her resolve.
And his.
The waiter returned to refill his cup, and Finn thanked him while he lifted the steaming brew to his lips, hoping to brew a little steam of his own. After all, it had been said that all was fair in love and war, and this was one adage Finn was definitely looking forward to proving true, civil or no. He savored the rich aroma of his coffee as he watched Libby work so hard to ignore him, the thrust of her chin easing his smile into an out-and-out grin. And sweet Song of Solomon, when he did …
It’d be anything but “civil.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Ping!
“Whoo-eee, Clint, I do believe we just taught these girls a valuable lesson in horseshoes,” Jake Sullivan crowed on the front lawn of the Silver Lining Ranch after dinner. He shot Sheridan and Maggie a wink before tipping his Stetson to Aiden and Maeve, who applauded from the front porch while they sipped lemonade in their rockers.
Shaylee lay on her stomach beside them, legs crossed while she tried to keep Frannie and Scout from swiping at her pet tarantula, Annabelle. The smell of cinnamon and apples drifted in the air from pies cooling on the wide split-log railing while Gert and Angus glared nose to nose in a game of stud poker.
Jake hitched his thumbs in the pockets of his blue jeans and attempted a cocky grin that Maggie knew was all for show. As Blaze’s best friend since childhood, sweet Jake Sullivan didn’t have a cocky bone in his body.
Unlike his best friend. One side of Maggie’s mouth hooked as she retrieved the three horseshoes Jake and Clint had neatly looped around the post. God bless his cocky cowboy soul.
“Ha! Is that so?” Hands on the hips of her fringed leather riding skirt, Sheridan sashayed over to stare up at Jake, her petite five-foot-two totally dwarfed by Jake’s brawny six-foot-one. “Set up a chessboard, Sullivan, and we’ll see who gets the applause.”
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