I’ve been rescued. I’m safe.
Hannah realized the second half of that sentence might not be true. At least she hadn’t found herself in a brothel somewhere, in bed with some man. Or lying exposed out on the prairie dying of thirst, her tongue thick and her throat raw. But there was nothing in this room that suggested a woman lived here. Which meant she might yet find herself at the mercy of some coarse stranger.
She caught a glimpse of her badly sunburned arm and realized she was no longer dressed in her sunshine yellow dress with the square neck and short, puffy sleeves. She shoved the rough wool blanket back and discovered her feet were warm because she had on a pair of too-large gray wool socks. She was also wearing a man’s red-and-black plaid flannel shirt that covered her all the way to her knees. But nothing else.
What had happened to her dress and underclothes? More importantly, who had undressed her? Hannah’s thoughts skittered away, unwilling to consider the probable answer to that question.
Mr. McMurtry had bought the frilly party dress for her before they’d left Chicago as a wedding gift. It was the nicest thing she owned. She’d put it on because … She couldn’t imagine why she’d put it on. What kind of party had she planned to attend? And since Mr. McMurtry was dead, with whom? She’d left their wagon … Why had she left it?
She remembered donning a light shawl to protect her from the brutal effects of the scorching sun on her fair skin and walking away from the wagon. She searched her mind to discover what else she knew about why she might have left the wagon, but it was surprisingly blank.
That was frightening.
Hannah didn’t know when she’d lost the shawl, either. All she knew was that she’d had nothing to wrap around herself when the wind began to wail and blow icy cold. She’d stopped and curled up in a ball and pulled her skirt up over her arms and prayed for death to take her quickly so she would no longer suffer.
Something was niggling at the edge of Hannah’s memory, something awful, but she didn’t want to remember it. She focused on the present. On the here and now. Whatever that awful thing was, she could worry about it later.
The door suddenly swung open. Hannah gasped and grabbed for the blanket to cover herself.
A tall, narrow-hipped, broad-shouldered man stood in the doorway. His eyes reminded Hannah of a wolf, silvery gray and piercing and dangerous. He had cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass, a straight nose, and a shadow of beard that was as dark as the black hair that hung over the collar of a plaid wool shirt similar to the one she was wearing.
He didn’t move an inch, and Hannah wondered whether he was stalling until someone else—perhaps his wife, or whatever female had undressed her—arrived. She waited for him to speak, to explain how she’d gotten there, to tell her where she was.
He said nothing, simply stared with eyes that probed deep inside her, searching out the shadows.
Hannah lowered her gaze to shield her thoughts, then shied away from the darkness that loomed. She looked up and met his gaze again seeking solace.
He remained aloof, his jaw and shoulders square, his stance wide, waiting patiently, relentlessly, like a wild animal stalking its prey, for her to make the first move.
Hannah resisted the urge to run. There was no escape with him blocking the door. She could see nothing outside the window except cloudless blue sky, which suggested she was in an upstairs room, so there was no escape through the window.
She looked at the pillow beside her in the large bed, wondering if perhaps he’d spent the night there, but she saw no impression where his head might have been. Perhaps he had a wife who’d taken care of her. Maybe his wife was cooking breakfast in the kitchen right now.
Hannah knew it was wishful thinking, but she didn’t want to consider the possibility that she was alone in the house with this frightening stranger. She looked up at him and said, “I want to thank your wife for taking such good care of me.”
“I’m not married.”
“Oh. Then your sister or mother or—”
“I undressed you,” he said baldly.
Hannah felt herself begin to tremble and lifted her chin to show him she wasn’t afraid. She searched his features and realized they were familiar. She had a faint memory of his face hovering above her, of being held close in a warm embrace. Then she remembered.
“You found me.”
He nodded.
“Where are we?”
“The Double C Ranch.”
That didn’t tell her much more than she’d known before. “Are we near Cheyenne?”
“Cheyenne is sixty-five miles south of here.”
“South?”
He nodded.
Hannah wondered how many miles she’d walked. How close had she been to Cheyenne when—She cut off the dark thought that threatened to make itself known. Instead she asked, “Do you live here alone?”
“My brother and I share the house and the ranch, but he’s not here right now. Which is why I can’t take you to Cheyenne. I need to be here to manage the ranch while he’s gone.”
“So I’m stuck here.”
She saw the smallest hint of a smile before he replied, “I suppose you could say that, ma’am.”
Hannah realized how ungrateful she’d sounded. “I’m sorry. It’s just … We were on the trail for months and months trying to reach Cheyenne.”
“You were traveling with your husband.” He made it a statement.
“Yes. My husband and—” Hannah cut herself off and put a hand to her forehead. It hurt.
“How did you get separated?”
“Mr. McMurtry died of cholera.”
“You told me that. How did you get separated from whoever you were traveling with?”
Hannah frowned. “I don’t remember.” Her brow furrowed as she concentrated, searching for memories that would tell her how she had come to be here. A swirling black hole appeared. It felt like, if she got too close, she’d be sucked down into it, never to be seen again. She wrenched herself away from the menacing blackness and said, “I can’t remember.”
“It’ll come back when you’re ready,” he said.
“Ready for what?” she said anxiously. “What do you know?” Hannah’s chest ached, and her throat had swollen closed, cutting off speech. Something terrible must have happened. If only she could remember!
“I know you need to get some food in that empty stomach of yours.”
“And I need to get dressed.” She shoved the covers aside, slid her stocking feet onto the planked wooden floor, and stood upright. Hannah felt her knees buckle, but before she could fall, strong arms caught her and lifted her. She instinctively grasped the stranger around the neck, surprised at the softness of the hair at his nape.
“You’re weak as a day-old kitten,” he said.
To her surprise, instead of putting her back in bed, he lifted her completely into his arms and headed for the door to the room.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Breakfast’s in the kitchen.”
“Stop! I need to get dressed first.”
He paused at the door but then continued walking. “In what? It’s cold outside. That dress you had on is a summer concoction.”
“You must have something.”
He snorted. “I’ve got Levi’s and wool shirts.”
“Jeans with this shirt will be fine.”
He carried her all the way downstairs, through a hallway that led to the back of the house, and set her in one of the four chairs around a small, square table. Then he eyed her up and down and said, “My brother’s thinner than me. A pair of his Levi’s might work if you roll up the legs. I washed up your underthings.”
Hannah blushed at the thought of this man handling her unmentionables. “Would you get them for me? I want to get dressed.”
“Breakfast first. You need to eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
His lips twisted. “You were half-starved when I found you three days ago. I’ve been pouring a
little soup down your throat, but you need some solid food.”
She stared at him, shocked. “Three days ago? I’ve been here three days?” Hannah could hear the hysteria in her voice. She put her hands to her head, which throbbed with pain.
“What’s the problem?” he asked.
“No no no no no.” There was something she had to remember. Something she had to do. The thought was just beyond her grasp.
“Take it easy, Mrs. McMurtry.”
She turned on him and snarled, “Don’t call me that! I’m not a wife. Not anymore. I was never any good at it. I never wanted to be married. I only did it to save—” Hannah’s head felt like it was going to split in two. There was something she should remember. Something she didn’t want to remember. She could see Mr. McMurtry lying in the wagon, his face pale in death. Now who would be a father to her baby?
Her baby.
“Oh, my God.”
“What’s wrong?”
Hannah closed her eyes and swallowed hard. What an odd thing to remember, when she could recall nothing of the events that had led her to the godforsaken place where she’d been found. How strange that the only things she knew for sure were her name, the fact that she was a widow, the fact that she’d been headed to Cheyenne, and the fact that she was going to be a mother.
Or was she? Had she lost the baby? She instinctively put her hands to her belly under the table. If she’d miscarried, the stranger would have said something, wouldn’t he? She wasn’t about to ask him about something so personal. She wasn’t bleeding, as one of the women on the wagon train had when she’d miscarried, so she must still be pregnant.
“You need to eat to get well,” he said, dishing up a plate full of scrambled eggs and crisp bacon and surprisingly fluffy biscuits and setting it in front of her.
Hannah stared at the food. She wasn’t hungry. But she had to eat for her baby. The dire truth of her situation hit her hard. She had no husband. Her child would have no father. And … And …
Hannah felt tears well in her eyes. Something terrible had happened. Something awful. Something she needed to remember.
Whatever it was, she couldn’t bring it to mind. Worse, the harder she tried to remember, the larger the black hole loomed. She would have to do as the stranger suggested. She would have to wait until she was ready to remember.
Hannah picked up the fork beside the plate and filled it with eggs. She took a bite and chewed and swallowed. When she looked up, the stranger was watching her from a spot near the black, four-top iron stove.
“Will you join me?” she asked.
“I ate when the sun came up, ma’am.”
“Please, sit,” she said, gesturing to the chair across from her.
Clearly reluctantly, he crossed to the table and sat down.
“My name is Hannah,” she said. “I prefer that to ma’am. What shall I call you?”
“Flint.”
“I’m glad to meet you, Flint.” She reached across the table and took the hand he offered. It felt warm and strong. “How can I ever repay you for saving my life?”
He took a deep breath, grasped her hand more firmly, and said, “You can marry me.”
Flint saw the incredulity on Hannah McMurtry’s face. She laughed, a lovely birdlike trill, as she pulled her hand free.
The captivating dimples that had appeared on both cheeks disappeared as she sobered. “I must have misheard,” she said. “Did you ask me to marry you?”
Flint couldn’t believe he’d blurted it out like that. But he didn’t have much time before his brother returned to live here with Emaline. He’d thought a lot about how to approach the beautiful woman in his bed. He’d held out small hope of locating a woman to wed in time to avoid the agony of living here as a single man with the newlywed couple. He’d never dreamed that the woman he found would be so fair.
With her blond curls and sky-blue eyes, Mrs. McMurtry would be barraged by single men, once they discovered she was a widow. It had seemed best not to beat around the bush, to simply say what he wanted.
“Yes, I asked you to marry me.”
She frowned as she asked, “Why?”
“I need a wife.”
“I don’t know you.”
“Most brides don’t know their husbands before they marry them. Not out here anyway. There’s not much time for courting. Every moment of every day is spent doing whatever it takes to survive.”
“I’m a new-made widow.”
“Which means you’re free to marry.”
Her eyes looked troubled. “You need a wife? Or you want one?”
“Same difference.”
“No, it isn’t,” she said.
“We don’t get many eligible women here in the Territory. A man wants a wife to keep him company during the long winter nights. He needs a woman to take care of his house and give him sons to carry on after he’s gone. I could have advertised for a mail-order bride from back East, but …”
“You didn’t want to take a pig in a poke,” she finished for him.
“Exactly.”
“And I fit your scrupulous requirements?” she asked with a brow arched in disdain.
“You must know you’re beautiful. More importantly, you’re young and healthy—or will be, once you’ve recovered. And you’ve been a wife, so you know what’s involved.”
She blushed furiously, and he realized she’d gotten the wrong idea from what he’d said. “I mean, you understand what a husband needs from a wife.”
She put her hands up to cover her cheeks, which had turned a fiery red.
“Hellfire and damnation! I wasn’t talking about sex.”
She stared at him, shocked, and he realized he never should have mentioned that word in mixed company. Or used profanity. Both had been mistakes, but she seemed surprisingly naive for a woman who’d been a wife.
“How long were you married?” he asked.
She hesitated, looked up at him forlornly, and said, “I don’t exactly know.”
He swore under his breath. She was too young to have been married for long. Besides, he didn’t really care about the circumstances of her first marriage. What mattered was that her husband was dead.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said. “But life has to go on. And I need a wife.”
“So you said.”
She didn’t seem impressed by anything he’d offered so far, so he continued, “My brother Ransom is getting married and bringing his wife here to live. You’d have another woman for company if you married me. You wouldn’t be alone at the house during the day, and you’d have someone to share the work.”
He searched her features, hoping for some sign that he was making headway. The embarrassed color had faded from her cheeks, but she had a crease between her finely arched brows that told him she wasn’t interested in buying what he had to sell.
“If women are so scarce, it sounds like I could choose any man I wanted,” she said. “Why should I marry you? What makes you so special?”
He was surprised by the question. He would have thought she’d be grateful to have somewhere to live, someone to care for her. “I own half this ranch. My brother and I run thirteen hundred head of cattle, and we’re about to get the contract to supply beef for the fort.”
“You seem pretty sure of that.”
His lips twisted. “My brother’s fiancée, Miss Emaline Simmons, is the fort commander’s only child.”
Her lips twisted with a cynicism equal to his own. “I see.”
“Besides, we grow the best beef around. We have good water from the Laramie River and plenty of tall needlegrass and bluestem and even more short grasses like blue grama and wheatgrass to fatten our stock. Even so, last year we started growing hay for feed over the winter.”
She still didn’t seem impressed, but he figured that was because she didn’t understand the difficulty of growing quality beef on land more suited to roaming buffalo.
He and Ransom were among the first to grow hay to supplemen
t winter grass for their cattle. They’d hired men to plow and plant. They’d decided the cost was worth it, because the Wyoming winter was so unpredictable. The extra labor and seed had cut into their profit, but they’d figured that more of their cattle would survive the perilous cold, and they’d make back their investment in the long run.
Their gamble had paid off last winter. Most of their neighbors had lost stock that couldn’t forage for grass under the deep drifts of snow. He and Ransom had put out hay for their animals to eat. They’d still lost cattle in the hellacious winter of ’73, because sometimes the weather was too bad even to drop hay, but not as many as everyone else.
“I’m not interested in your ranch,” she said at last. “I’m interested in you. What makes you so special?”
Flint was stumped by the question. His experience with women had barely begun when he’d gone off to war. The only ones he’d known during the war were camp followers. The lack of women in the Territory necessarily meant his relationships with them—even the soiled doves in Denver, and more lately in Cheyenne—had been few and far between.
He smiled ruefully. “I’m not sure what qualities you’re looking for, ma’am. I’m not used to tooting my own horn.”
“It’s Hannah,” she reminded him. “And the usual ones, I expect. Honesty, reliability, kindness, a willingness to compromise—”
“Whoa!” he said, putting up his hands.
She cocked her head like a curious kitten and observed him. “Am I asking too much?”
“No man survives out here long if he’s not honest and reliable. As for kindness and compromise …” He shrugged. “Haven’t had much need for either over the past nine years.”
“Not even with your brother?”
“Ransom has always followed my lead.”
“Your word is law?”
He nodded.
Her face was neutral when she said, “So you’d expect your wife to do as she’s told without argument.”
Flint sensed a trap. He wasn’t sure how to stay out of it without lying. “I’m used to calling the shots,” he said at last.
Wyoming Bride Page 6
