Wyoming Bride

by Joan Johnston

  She was glad! Glad he wouldn’t have the satisfaction of being the one to impregnate her. Glad, glad, glad she was going to bear another man’s child! It was only fair, since he seemed so determined to love another woman.

  Tit for tat. Pain for pain. Hurt for hurt.

  “I asked you if you were pregnant,” he said. “You told me you weren’t.”

  “I …” Hannah almost said she hadn’t known. But the time for lying was over. His arms had dropped from around her waist, so she slid off his lap onto the bed, then looked him in the eye as she admitted, “I lied.”

  “Why?”

  “I was afraid you wouldn’t marry me.”

  He gritted his teeth. But said nothing.

  Which suggested she’d been right on the mark. She felt sick at heart and so angry she could spit. So she told him, “The baby is due the middle of January.”

  He did the math and said, “You were three-and-a-half months along, and you didn’t think to mention it to me?”

  “It was none of your business.”

  “None of my business? I’m going to be the father of McMurtry’s kid, and it’s none of my business?”

  Hannah raised a brow in surprise. So he was still willing to be the child’s father? Even though he wasn’t the one who’d set the seed? Then she replayed what he’d said.

  Flint had called the child “McMurtry’s kid.” Not his. Not hers. Not theirs. McMurtry’s. Hannah felt sick to her stomach again. And sick at heart.

  Then he said, “That explains why you’ve been so tired.”

  She nodded. “It’s not as bad now as it was a month ago.”

  “You should have told me.”

  “Why? What would you have done differently?”

  “I would have taken better care of you,” he said. “I wouldn’t have let you go riding all over the countryside on a wild-goose chase.”

  “You couldn’t have stopped me,” Hannah said.

  “I could. And I will. From now on, you’ll take better care of yourself.”

  “I’m not one of your cowhands that you can order around,” she retorted. “And I can take care of myself.”

  “Which is why you were puking your guts up a minute ago,” he snapped back.

  “I can’t help getting morning sickness.”

  “You can stay in bed until you’re sure you’re not going to be sick. If I’m not mistaken, you were up today at the crack of dawn taking care of Ransom.”

  “Emaline was exhausted, and you were dead to the world. He wanted water.”

  His lips twisted and he said, “From now on, you think of yourself first. I don’t want this pregnancy killing you.”

  Of course not, Hannah thought bitterly. Then you’d be put to the trouble of raising “McMurtry’s kid” on your own.

  “Emaline and I will take care of Ransom,” he continued.

  Hannah seethed. So, while she was cooking and cleaning, Flint was going to be spending his time with Emaline. She felt helpless and hopeless.

  “We should get back,” she said curtly. “You’ll want to congratulate your brother on his wedding.”

  Flint helped her to her feet and said, “We’ll go together. We can share our happy news with them.”

  Hannah stopped. “I think we should keep this to ourselves.”

  Flint snorted. “You’re not going to be able to keep it a secret much longer, Hannah. Might as well get it over with.”

  Hannah realized he was right. “All right. Fine.”

  “Maybe seeing you get through your pregnancy and deliver a healthy child will give Emaline the courage to do the same.”

  Hannah bit her cheek, which was already feeling sore, to keep from screaming. It seemed every syllable out of Flint’s mouth had something to do with Emaline.

  “I give up,” she muttered.

  “What’s that?” Flint asked.

  “Nothing,” Hannah said. “Let’s go wish the newlyweds well.”

  She left the room without looking at Flint again. She would be far better off if she stopped feeling anything for him. Otherwise she was going to be in for a lot of heartbreak. It appeared his gaze was going to remain firmly fixed on his lodestar, even after she was a married woman.

  Hannah was no fool. She’d learned some hard lessons in that Chicago orphanage. Life wasn’t fair. You could give up. Or you could choose to fight. The problem was, where Flint Creed was concerned, Hannah hadn’t yet made up her mind which option she wanted to pursue.

  Emaline waited patiently for Ransom to recover from his wounds. She said nothing about her change of heart, nothing about her willingness to bear him a child. There seemed no reason to broach the subject before he was well enough to do something about it.

  But that hesitation gave her a great deal of time to think. She was troubled by several of the conclusions she reached.

  Emaline remembered how astonished she’d been when Ransom had so readily agreed to marry her without further discussion of her ban on sex. It made her wonder if he’d done the same sort of soul-searching when he’d thought he might die that she had done. Perhaps he’d also decided that being together, no matter what the terms, was more important than anything else.

  That was the conclusion that gave her the most solace.

  She was also forced to admit that his decision to marry her could have been made simply because he hadn’t wanted to risk the dangerous confrontation between Flint and her father that would have resulted if he’d refused.

  Emaline was tormented by her memory of Ransom’s face when he’d spoken his vows. His eyes had looked haunted, his mouth pinched. His voice had sounded brusque.

  At the time, she’d attributed all those things to pain from his injuries. When she appraised his behavior toward her since their wedding, she wasn’t so sure.

  Ransom was as courteous and kind and thoughtful as he had ever been while he was courting her. But a chasm existed between them now that hadn’t been there before their wedding. Emaline had struggled to understand what had put it there and concluded that Ransom had felt himself obliged to marry her. His hand had been forced by her father’s sudden appearance with a preacher in tow.

  She’d responded to that thought with a surge of rancor. If Ransom hadn’t wanted to marry her, he should have said so then and there! Her heart had dropped to her toes, and she’d spent the rest of the day hiding her tears from Hannah. She knew Ransom had loved her once upon a time. But did he still?

  Emaline wanted to ask Ransom for the truth, but she kept putting it off, telling herself it wasn’t fair to confront her husband before he was completely recovered.

  To her dismay, it had taken six weeks before Ransom was on his feet again and another six weeks beyond that before he was well enough to spend an entire day on the range.

  Three months seemed like forever.

  Of course, the longer she delayed, the more uncertain she was about whether she should admit she was willing to consummate their marriage. She desperately wanted a long life with Ransom, and pregnancy would surely cut that life short. So maybe she should let the moment pass. Then she would think of closing that growing chasm between them by making love with her husband and change her mind again.

  It was Ransom’s strange behavior that finally convinced her she had to get off the fence.

  During his recovery they’d slept in the same bed, but Ransom had made no effort—none—to consummate their marriage. To her consternation, the kisses and hugs and touches had also disappeared. The more she delayed, the more worried Emaline became that it was too late.

  Her husband seemed to have fallen out of love with her.

  She was terribly afraid that if she approached Ransom and told him she wanted to make love with him, that she was ready to have his child, he would reject her offer.

  So she said nothing. And he said nothing. And the chasm grew deeper.

  Weeks passed with no change in Ransom’s behavior, until finally, Emaline decided that if Ransom wasn’t going to reach out to her,
she was going to have to seduce her husband. She was frightened, but determined. This morning, she’d made up her mind that, come hail or high water, tonight was the night.

  Thanksgiving was a mere three weeks away. She wanted lovemaking with her husband, and the reconciliation between them she hoped it would cause, to be one of the things for which they could both be truly thankful.

  She might have looked outwardly calm that evening, as she sat on the sofa in the parlor instructing Hannah how to knit booties for her baby, but a herd of wild mustangs was stampeding in her stomach.

  She was half listening as Flint and Ransom sat in wing chairs before a roaring fire arguing over how best to deal with Ashley Patton. Because Flint was needed at the ranch, he’d missed the Laramie County Stock Association meeting the day they voted on Patton’s membership. The blackguard had been unanimously approved.

  Over the past three months, the renegade Sioux had wreaked devastation on the smaller spreads with their brand-new ’73 Winchesters, and Patton had bought out several of the homesteaders at rock-bottom prices. The wealthy rancher was becoming a juggernaut that threatened to swallow everything in the Territory.

  Her father had sent his soldiers out to hunt down the renegade Indians, but they attacked at random and then disappeared. Ransom seemed certain Patton was providing a refuge for the band of Sioux on his ranch and wanted to go hunting for it. Flint had argued that they had enough problems without giving Patton’s gunslinger an excuse to shoot them for rustlers.

  Once Ransom’s life was no longer in danger, Flint had traveled to Cheyenne and hired a new cook and enough cowhands to finish the roundup, but he’d never located the hundred head of missing cattle. When the roundup was done, it turned out another hundred and fifty steers were gone. The army needed twelve hundred beeves on the hoof over the next twelve months. Flint and Ransom didn’t have the cattle necessary to meet the contract.

  It had gone to Ashley Patton.

  “Oh, I messed up again,” Hannah said.

  The frustration in her voice caught Emaline’s attention and she helped Hannah unravel the yarn to undo the mistake. “Take your time,” she said. “You’re doing fine.”

  “I’ll never be as fast or as good as you are.”

  Emaline smiled. “It won’t take you long to catch up to me. You’re already better than I was when I first started.”

  Hannah was resting her arms on her pregnant belly, which protruded from her thin frame beneath a blousy wool dress. Emaline had helped Hannah sew two warm dresses that could be altered as her size increased. They’d already had to take out the seams twice.

  “Oh!” Hannah said. She put her hand to her belly, drawing the cloth down tight, then looked up at Emaline and smiled. “She kicked me.”

  Emaline couldn’t help being intrigued as she watched Hannah’s baby grow inside her. If Hannah had figured correctly, she was now a week shy of being seven months pregnant. She was already huge. Emaline was fascinated when she saw Hannah’s stomach change shape as the baby moved, showing what appeared to be a bulge from a tiny hand or foot. “May I touch?” she asked.

  “Of course.”

  Emaline reached over and tentatively set her hand on Hannah’s belly. And promptly had it kicked. She drew her hand back and laughed. “Oh, my goodness.” She returned her hand to the same spot and waited to see what the baby would do next. It had apparently settled, because she didn’t feel anything more.

  She removed her hand and said, “He must have decided to take a nap.”

  “She,” Hannah corrected.

  Emaline cocked her head and asked, “What makes you so sure it’s a girl, Hannah?”

  Hannah shrugged. “I just know.”

  Emaline thought it was more a case of Hannah wanting a girl and wishing for one. No one could predict the sex of a baby before it was born. “You want a girl?”

  Hannah nodded. “I have two younger brothers. Boys are no fun. With girls you can do their hair and dress them in pretty clothes.”

  “And a girl can become the apple of her father’s eye,” Emaline said. “I certainly was.”

  That is, before she’d embarrassed her father so badly he’d felt it necessary to marry her off. He’d offered to hold a reception for her and Ransom at the fort, once Ransom was fully recovered, but Emaline had declined. She hadn’t wanted to give the gossips anything more to chew on.

  “What does it feel like when the baby moves?” she asked Hannah.

  “In the beginning, it’s sort of like a butterfly’s wings. Lately, she’s been kicking my bladder, so I need to use the chamber pot or make a trip to the necessary.”

  Emaline saw Flint glance over his shoulder at Hannah when she wasn’t looking. He did that a lot lately, which was interesting, because Emaline had also noticed that Hannah had stopped talking to him at the kitchen table. She wondered what had happened between the couple to cause Flint’s wife to give him the silent treatment.

  She didn’t ask, because she didn’t want Hannah asking about her relationship with Ransom. In Emaline’s case, all she did was talk to Ransom, since nothing had been happening between the two of them in bed.

  She missed Ransom’s kisses. She missed the yearning that had been in his eyes before they were wed. She hoped the very special spark that had once existed between them could be relighted, or she was going to be totally humiliated in bed tonight.

  Hannah yawned, and Flint immediately said, “Time for bed, Hannah.”

  She made a face of disgust that Flint couldn’t see and replied without looking at him, “I’m not done knitting.”

  “You need your rest.”

  “I’m comfortable where I am.”

  “Flint is right,” Emaline said, playing peacemaker. “I’ll help you again tomorrow.”

  Hannah glared at Emaline and said, “I know when I’m tired. And I’m not tired!”

  Flint had risen from his chair and crossed to the couch. “The fact that you’re so irritable is proof you’re exhausted.”

  Emaline watched Hannah close her eyes and grit her teeth. She waited for an outburst that never came. Hannah set the knitting in the basket beside her, rose, and pressed her hands to the small of her back.

  “Are you all right?” Flint asked.

  Hannah ignored the question and headed for the stairs. By now, Ransom was also on his feet.

  “I guess we should all get some shut-eye,” he said. “With that early snowfall, Flint and I need to get hay out to the cattle tomorrow.”

  Hannah turned on the three of them, her eyes narrowed, her hands balled into fists at her widened waist, and said, “I wish all of you would stop treating me like an invalid. I’m pregnant, for heaven’s sake! It’s the most natural thing in the world. Women have been having babies for centuries. I’m perfectly fine. Or I would be, if all of you would stop pestering me!”

  Hannah burst into angry tears and turned and tried running up the stairs. Except she stumbled after the third one and fell to one knee. Flint was beside her a moment later to help her up. She slapped his hand away and said, “Leave me the hell alone!”

  Emaline was shocked by the profanity. Apparently, so was Flint, because he stayed where he was as Hannah pulled herself to her feet and stumbled up the stairs alone.

  He glanced once at Ransom, his face troubled, then turned and followed Hannah up the stairs.

  Emaline huffed out a sigh. This wasn’t a very propitious beginning for what she’d hoped would be a romantic evening with her husband. She glanced at Ransom to see how he’d reacted to the turbulent scene between the other couple.

  “Why is she so mad at him?” Ransom asked.

  Emaline shrugged. “I don’t know. Why aren’t you attracted to me anymore?”

  That was not what Emaline had planned to say, and apparently not what Ransom had been expecting, either. Caught off-guard, his stark expression revealed how upset he was by the question.

  “What makes you think I’m not attracted to you?”

  “Y
ou never touch me. You never kiss me. You act as though my father cut your manhood away when he forced you to marry me.”

  That was plain speaking. She was surprised to hear the anger in her voice. She was pretty sure this was not the way to seduce a man. She should act winsome and willing. She shouldn’t be accusing her husband of failing in his duties to his wife. Especially since she was the one who’d set the ground rules he’d been following.

  Emaline blurted, “I want you to make love to me.”

  There. She’d said it. She lifted her chin and stared at Ransom, whose jaw had dropped. “You don’t have to act so surprised.”

  “You said sex was off-limits. You said you were scared of dying,” he accused.

  “I’ve changed my mind.”

  She expected him to stride across the room and take her in his arms and ravish her. He stayed where he was. He looked wary and unsure.

  “What are you saying, Emaline?”

  “I don’t think I could be much plainer. I’m saying I want to make love to you. I want you to make love to me.”

  “Despite the consequences?” he said doubtfully.

  “Because of the consequences.”

  He took a hesitant step toward her, then visibly stopped himself. “So you don’t believe anymore that you’re going to die if you get pregnant?”

  She pursed her lips. Why couldn’t he understand? It was all so very simple. “Yes, I’ll probably die,” she said matter-of-factly. “But I want to make love to you anyway. I don’t want to live my life without having that experience with you. If I can, I want to give you a baby.”

  His brow furrowed. “You believe you’re going to die if you do this, but you want to do it anyway?”

  She nodded.

  He shook his head. “No. Not on your life. Not for all the cows in Texas.”

  Emaline held out her hands in supplication. “Why not? I want you, Ransom. I need you.”

  He looked pained, but he stood his ground. “I’m not going to be responsible for killing you, Emaline.”

  “You won’t.”

  He shot her a disgusted look.

  “I want us to have a baby,” she said.

  “If I believed that, Emaline—that you want both of us to have a baby—I’d have you off your feet and on your back in two seconds flat.”