The Genuine Lady (Heroines on Horseback)

by Sydney Alexander

  “A fight.” Cherry didn’t know what else to say. “Uncle Richard has a gun. I don’t know.”

  “We have guns!” someone shouted exuberantly.

  “They think this is a war,” Patty explained. “So it seems.”

  There was a shout from inside the house, and another shot was fired. Eddie looked up. “Bang!” he exclaimed, more excited than frightened.

  “Bang!” a man shouted, and then they were all running again, in a big flood that broke around Cherry and Patty, leaving the two women to stand in the snow and stare.

  But it was all over before they could get up the steps. The door, which had blown shut behind Cherry, was flung open and Uncle Richard came staggering out, a hand clasped to his arm. Cousin Anne was close behind him, nearly holding him up. “Oh no,” Cherry whispered, but she didn’t move to help. Her legs had taken root in the ground.

  Then behind came the others: the cowboy Dupree, with his gun to Anne’s head. Jared, with his own gun in his hand. Matt, rubbing at his wrists where they had been tied, and squinting up at the weather; no more perturbed about this incident than any other.

  “What’s going on?” the Professor shouted. “We come to help!”

  “You can help us get these folks to the train,” Jared said. “They have a pressing need to get east before this storm stops them here.”

  The men gathered behind the little rag-tag group and they started to file down the street.

  But Cherry stopped them before they could pass. “Uncle Richard?”

  He rolled his head at her and looked at his niece dully. Cherry looked at him and remembered riding to his house for sweets. She remembered laughing at his silly jokes. She remembered when he first called her “Cherry.” And she couldn’t think of a single thing to say to him.

  So she didn’t say anything. She just inclined her head, as a queen might, to dismiss him from her company. And from behind him, Cousin Anne just smiled grimly.

  And Cherry knew that it was over.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  That night the snow really settled in, the wind rattling the windowpanes with every gust. Patty had made Matt cover over the broken pane in the parlor with newspaper and cloth, and she was keeping the parlor door closed to keep out the cold, which meant they all sat around the dining table for a long time after supper was finished, savoring the heat from the stove and making idle chatter. Everyone was a little shaken by the day, but there were stories to be told and endings to be sewn up: Patty described how Big Pete had heckled Hope all the way from Miss Rose’s to the train station, and Wilbur explained how heroic he had been when Richard had put up a fuss about getting into a third-class car on the train and Wilbur himself had shoved the man up the stairs so that the conductor could shut the door.

  But Wilbur was tired, and as he was sharing the nursery with Eddie, Cherry excused herself for a time to put Eddie to bed; he was excited by the day and kept whispering “bang” as he looked out at the swirling snow, but a full belly and a warm brick at his feet were soon enough to put him to sleep for the night. She watched him for a little while, chest rising and falling in soothing rhythm beneath the guttering candle, before she slipped out of the nursery and went back downstairs.

  Jared was alone at the table.

  She blew out the candle and sat down across from him. “Matt and Patty went to bed?” she asked suspiciously. It was awfully early for such a thing.

  “Matt said he was all worn out with being taken hostage.”

  That sounded like something Matt would say. “Nothing ever worries him,” she said wistfully. “It must be a good thing to be Matt.”

  “You worry too much.” Jared grinned at her. “But you’re a woman. You can’t help it.”

  “Oh, is that so? I think I’ve had plenty to worry about in the past year or two. More than most people, I might even say.”

  “Nah, Cherry, don’t flatter yourself. Everybody has to run away from home and be chased down by her crazy relatives that want to steal her child. That’s just normal.”

  She laughed. It felt nice to laugh at her problems, and a little unreal. She wasn’t sure she’d ever done such a thing before. Then she remembered something. “Earlier — there was some woman with them. She ran away when no one was looking. Who was that, do you know?”

  Jared poured himself a cup of tea. “Want some?” She nodded and pushed her cup to him. “That was a nursemaid they’d hired to watch Eddie. Guess they didn’t think two grown adults and a hired cowboy were any match for one tow-headed boy.” He smiled at her, blue eyes sparkling. “I guess they figured he’d be just like his mama.”

  “Oh Jared!” she laughed. “You old flatterer, you!”

  That seemed to make Jared withdraw into himself, somehow. He looked down at his cup for a long moment, and Cherry felt sorry that she’d said the word. Anything that had to do with charm, or love, or desire, would be tainted until they worked out what had happened between them the night before he left, and what had happened between Jared and Hope in the month that had passed. She waited, sipping at her tea. Surely he would have the courage to tell her the truth.

  And what would she do when she knew the truth? Cherry felt a little sick suddenly. Maybe she didn’t want to know after all.

  “Cherry, listen,” Jared began, and she put down her cup so that she would not spill it. She kept her eyes downcast. “You need to know… I was a stupid man, and I’m sorry. I went to Hope to stop her from coming here and upsettin’ you. I should’ve known… I should’ve trusted… I should’ve let her come here and sent her away here in front of you. But I got to thinkin’ I didn’t want you to know I was seein’ her again… I was just so confused. I never thought,” his voice started to crack a little, and she swallowed hard against the lump in her own throat, “I never thought I’d fall in love again, after Hope. And what we had wasn’t even love, it was… it was a kind of love but it wasn’t… aw hell, I don’t know Cherry!”

  He grasped her hands like a drowning man and she dragged her gaze up to met his. His face was racked with guilt and regret. Tears stung at Cherry’s eyes. “I don’t know, Cherry,” he said again. “I just know that what I feel for you is a hundred times more than anything I felt for Hope. What I feel for you…” He swallowed. “I just love you.”

  The tears were streaming down her cheeks now, and her heart was thudding in her chest painfully. Oh Jared, oh Jared, and what was she to do? She loved him and he had abandoned her.

  She loved him and he had come back to her.

  She closed her eyes.

  Jared let go of her hands. She heard the chair scrape as he got up from the table. He’s leaving, she thought, and the tears came faster. She bent her head and let them fall. He’s leaving, and I cannot tell him to stay. If she forgave him, and he should leave her again, she would be worse than a fool. She had come to America because her family had betrayed her. She could not go on having her heart broken and her hopes crushed again and again. She heard his boots on the wooden floor. He was walking around the table.

  And then he was behind her and he was standing so close that she could feel his heat radiating through the back of her spindled chair, and he was leaning down over her and grasping his hands once more, his chest pressed against her back, his mouth at her neck, and he was whispering that he loved her in her ear, begging her forgiveness, and her body responded against her mind’s will. She tilted her head back, exposing her soft white neck to his kisses, and he trailed his lips up her neck, across her cheeks, and finally landed on her own lips, teasing them with a soft sweet kiss, pulling back whenever she grew too bold. She felt her body begin to quiver with desire, the heat between her legs building up like a roaring fire, and she reached up and grabbed his hair with her fists, pulling his mouth hard to hers and kissing him so deeply that he lost his balance and stumbled against the table.

  Cherry went after him, pressing her body close to his while he leaned back on the table, and somehow he found himself halft-sitting on the table a
nd she thought that was a fine idea, because of the way it pressed his hardness up against her. She ground against him, laughing against his mouth when he groaned, and then moaning when his reaching hands crept up through the fabric of her dress and pressed with dangerous precision at the exact twitching, aching, spots where she longed for it the most. The touch of his fingers was intoxicating, and she deepened her kiss, leaning with both hands on the table and pushing him backwards, until, suddenly, his head hit the table and they both realized that he was lying down and she was straddling him.

  Cherry giggled uncertainly. Jared put a finger to her lips. “I would have absolutely no problem taking you on this kitchen table,” he said. “But I reckon Patty would.”

  Cherry nodded, her lips pressed tight to keep her startled laughter from bubbling out. How had this happened?

  “Come on upstairs with me, Cherry,” Jared whispered, and she hopped off him willingly and held out a hand to help him off the table.

  “It’s nicer in bed anyway,” he told her, and she laughed outright that time.

  In the bedroom, door shut and the curtains pulled tight against the cold wind howling outside, she started to undress, working at the buttons of her boots and setting them neatly next to the door. But when she sat down on the bed to take off her stockings, Jared stopped her. “Let me undress you,” he murmured.

  Cherry smiled, a little uncertain. “My stockings aren’t anything special,” she warned him. “I’m afraid I haven’t got any more Parisian silk, and there isn’t a speck of lace.”

  “I’m not looking for silk and lace.”

  “Oh no? According to the wedding modistes at home, that’s exactly what a man wants to find beneath a lady’s dress.”

  Jared knelt down before her and took the hem of her dress in his hands. The thick wool had long since ceased to embarrass her; it was warm and the Dakotas were cold. It was that simple. But she could not help but think once more of how sensual the fabrics of her old life had been, designed not to keep her warm but to entice a man, to warm him.

  “This is home,” Jared said, smiling up at her. “Not there. Don’t think of things that way any more.”

  “Where is home?” She looked around. “Patty’s house?”

  “Silly.” Jared ran a finger up her leg and she could not help but shiver. “You.” And he ran his hand right up her thigh.

  “Jared?” she said as he hovered above her, his weight on his elbows so that he would not be too much for her.

  “Yes,” he breathed huskily.

  “I love you,” she told him, her heart in her words.

  He leaned down and kissed her long and tenderly. “I love you,” he said afterwards. “God! How I love you!”

  “Jared?” she said again.

  “Yes?” he asked a little more warily.

  “I’ll kill you if you try to go off and not tell me where went again.”

  He nodded. “That seems fair.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  The little specks of green were barely visible against the black soil, but Cherry shielded her eyes against the hot sun and looked for them anyway.

  “There!” she pointed, and grabbed Jared’s elbow to get his attention. “And there!”

  He peered in the direction her finger was jabbing. “What?”

  She punched him in the shoulder. “My wheat, Jared Reese, my beautiful wheat is coming up.”

  “You grow wheat, too?” Jared grinned at her while he rubbed at his arm. Cherry had a formidable punch. “My God woman, and here I thought you were just Bradshaw’s most successful horse trainer. How do you manage it all?”

  Cherry laughed, delighted with life itself. “I never stop, that’s how,” she told him. “And I know how to hire good help.” She turned to her left and put a hand on Eli’s strong arm. “You have done a beautiful job on the field.”

  Eli just blushed.

  Cherry reluctantly looked away from her wheat fields and back towards the barn. “I have horses to ride,” she said with a little sigh. “Jared, will you come with me?”

  Jared didn’t have to be asked twice. He picked up the reins that were pooled on the ground in front of Roan, who was standing ground-tied like the good horse he was. “It would be my pleasure, Cherry,” he said earnestly, and when she started for the barn, he was right on her heels.

  It was a better barn now, though still a lean-to. There were six stalls and every one of them had a horse’s bright eyes and pricked ears watching her over the doors as she came closer. Percival was there, and Galahad, but so too were a few new arrivals from Mr. Morrison’s. He was hard at work in town, building the livery stable hard against the lumber-yard, and these four horses were to be the first horses for hire in Bradshaw.

  Cherry put her hand against Remsen’s forehead, covering his bright star with her palm and giving him a scratch beneath his bushy black forelock. The horse closed his eyes in contentment. “I’ll take you out first,” she told the bay gelding. He was short, and stocky, like a cowhorse; Jared had picked him out from a farmer near Opportunity, and Cherry had to admit that he was a perfect horse for hiring out to horsemen of indifferent ability, although she hadn’t been exactly thrilled that Jared was picking out horses for her.

  But he’d only meant to help, and, she had had to admit time and time again, they made a wonderful team.

  Except for when he was distracting her.

  She turned away from Remsen and Jared was right there. Their noses nearly touched. “Oh!” she exclaimed, unable to stop a blush from rising up in her face.

  He smiled.

  “Jared, I have work to do,” she scolded.

  He put his arms around her waist and pulled her close to him. Behind him, his horse put down his head and started to graze.

  Her body warmed at his touch. “Eddie’s inside?” she tried, her voice a little breathless.

  “We’re not inside,” he growled, and brought his lips to hers.

  She sighed into his kiss, letting her body melt against his as he leaned forward, molding her to him. Behind her, she felt Remsen’s questioning lips pulling at her knot of hair, and soon it was spilling down around her cheeks. Even the horses conspired with Jared. She laughed and pushed him off of her in a last burst of strength and will.

  “Aw, honey,” Jared protested, looking crushed. Then he saw her hair tumbling down her back. “What happened? I didn’t do that.”

  “Remsen did that, because he knows I have to ride him,” Cherry laughed, pulling at locks of gilt hair. “Can we not behave ourselves, and save the passion for after dark? I am a busy woman, my love.”

  Jared smiled ruefully and helped pull her hair back into place. “I never thought I’d be married to a working woman,” he said, pretending to pout. “Why aren’t you seeing to my needs, Cherry?”

  Cherry snatched at his collar and pulled him close. She planted a searing kiss on his lips and then shoved him away again. “Jared Reese, husband of mine, I will excuse that if you will go and fetch my saddle for me. I have horses to ride.”

  Jared came back for another kiss and she didn’t push him away, but she smiled when he gave her a condescending pat on the head and went to fetch her heavy saddle from the shanty. These days, the shanty had a storeroom attached, courtesy of Eli’s industry over the winter, where she kept all of the horse’s brushes and tack. And inside, Eli still slept alone. Cherry and Eddie had moved into Jared’s cabin.

  But she still spent every day here, at her claim, on her land. Someday, she thought, looking out at the rippling green grass and the dark seam of black where her wheat was poking up brave heads, someday this would be hers in truth, and then Eddie’s. Their Beechfields, their estate that they had built with their own hands.

  Jared came out of the shanty, pretending to groan under the weight of her beautiful saddle, and she laughed at him. They had had help after all, and she didn’t begrudge Jared one moment of it. They would accomplish it all together.

  He put the saddle down on the ground a
nd went back to the shanty. “One more thing,” he called over his shoulder. “Wait right there.”

  Cherry sighed and tapped her foot on the ground.

  “Close your eyes!” His voice floated out the shanty, all mischief.

  “What? Come on Jared, I have horses to ride!”

  “Are they closed? Not comin’ out ’til they’re closed!”

  “Oh…” she shut her eyes. “All right, hurry up!”

  She heard him come out of the shanty and then his boots were silenced by the thick grass. But she knew when he was near her again: Jared’s presence made her entire body warm and shiver all at once. She felt his hands in her hair, gently loosening her bonnet, and sighed with the pleasure of his touch.

  “Not right now,” he teased, correctly interpreting her sigh. “You have so much work to do, remember?”

  She felt him lift away her bonnet and then something else slid onto the knot of hair on top of her head. “What on earth?”

  Jared laughed. “Open your eyes.”

  She opened them. Before her, Jared stood with her tarnished little hand-mirror, holding it up before her face. “Tell me what you think,” he said with a grin. “I think it suits you.”

  Cherry looked, and laughed, and shook her head. “A Stetson! Oh Jared, it’s perfect!”

  The cowboy hat that sat atop her head was a newer, cleaner version of the battered one that Jared wore. The natural cotton color was several shades lighter than her sun-bleached hair and her slowly-browning skin, and a sight cooler than the bonnet she was used to wearing, but it still shaded her face.

  “Perfect for a lady,” Jared said. “I don’t know why more don’t wear ‘em.”

  “I don’t know what sort of a lady I am anymore,” Cherry chuckled, a little ruefully. “A horse trainer and a homesteader, and now I’m wearing a cowboy hat instead of a bonnet!”

  “A bonnet’s nothin’ but a hat,” Jared insisted stubbornly. “And you, Cherry, will always be a genuine lady, through and through.” He put his arm around her shoulders and spun her around to look at the vista of wheat-field and pasture again. “The Lady of your own domain.”