by Paige Tyler
“I already told you,” she said between clenched teeth. “I’m not going back to New York.”
His brows drew together. “Oh, yes you are. Now, go upstairs and pack your things. There’s a stage that leaves Copper Creek this evening. If we hurry, we can be on it and out of this mud hole of a town in a matter of hours.”
Kayla couldn’t believe his persistence, or his audacity. She had to make William understand that she wasn’t going back to New York with him, and she had to do it quickly, she thought, before Cord came in and found him.
“Abigail?”
Kayla froze at the sound of Cord’s voice. This couldn’t be happening, she told herself. She had worked so hard to make sure that Cord never found out the truth, and now…
“Abigail, who is this man?” Cord asked.
Her heart pounding, she turned to Cord. He had come to stand beside her, and was looking at William warily.
“Well, Kayla?” William demanded. “Are you going to tell him or shall I?”
Cord’s brow furrowed in confusion at her name, and Kayla felt her mouth go dry. She nervously wet her lips, trying to think of what to say, but William spoke before she could do so.
“I’m William Delmont, her fiancé,” he said, straightening his waistcoat and leveling his gaze at Cord.
Cord stared at him in disbelief. “Her what?”
William gave him a smug look. “Her name isn’t Abigail, and she isn’t your mail-order bride,” he said. “Her real name is Kayla Mathison and she ran away, thinking she could renege on her agreement to marry me.”
“I never agreed to marry you!” she spat.
William gave her a cold look. “Well, that’s neither here nor there, because your father agreed, and that’s really all it takes,” he told her, and straightened his waistcoat again. “But regardless, I’ve come to take you home.”
Kayla took a protective step closer to Cord. “I told you, I’m not going.”
Behind his glasses, his eyes narrowed, but before he could browbeat her with anything else, Cord interjected.
“She’s made it clear that she doesn’t want to go with you, Delmont, so I suggest you leave,” he said coldly.
This time, it was William’s turn to stare in disbelief. But he recovered quickly. Lifting his chin, he glared at Kayla. “You’re coming with me, if I have to drag you out of here,” he said.
As he spoke, William made as if to grab her arm, but Cord moved quicker, shoving the other man back with a hand on his chest.
“She’s not going anywhere with you, and if you touch her again, I’ll kill you,” he told William curtly. “Leave. Now.”
For a moment, William simply stared at Cord. “Are you insane?” he asked incredulously. “Didn’t you hear a single word I said? She’s lied to you from the beginning, and you’re not even legally married because of it. I know that you’re just a cowpoke, and obviously slow on the uptake, but I would think that even you could figure this one out.” He drew himself up. “Now, step aside. This woman belongs to me, and I’m taking her with me.”
He made a move to step forward again, but stopped when Cord pulled his pistol halfway out of its holster.
“You’re not from around here, so I’m sure you don’t realize that I could shoot you dead for what you just said, and no one out here would even bat an eye,” Cord told him. “So, leave now, or I’ll send you back to wherever you’re from in a box.”
William’s eyes widened for a moment, and then he looked at Kayla. “Fine,” he said stiffly. “Stay here and play at being his wife, Kayla, but when he throws you out – which he will - I’ll be waiting.”
With that, he smoothed his hair back, straightened his waistcoat yet again, and turned on his heel.
Kayla watched him go, his words ringing in her ears. The house was so silent that she could hear the sound of her own heart beating. Beside her, Cord stood tense and unmoving, and she stole a nervous glance at him.
“So, tell me, Kayla,” he said, his voice hard. “It is Kayla, isn’t it? Or did you give your fiancé a fake name, too?”
She flushed, but didn’t answer.
“Were you ever going to tell me the truth?” he demanded harshly. “Or were you going to let me think you were Abigail for the rest of my life?”
She shook her head, helplessly. “No, I…I tried to tell you, but…” her voice trailed off as tears stung her eyes.
Cord folded his arms across his broad chest and glared down at her. “But what? I’m waiting.”
A tear trickled down her cheek and she wiped at it with her hand. “I know that you’re angry, and you have every right to be. But please just let me explain…”
“Why should I listen to anything you have to say when nothing but lies seem to come out of your mouth?” he scoffed.
She blinked in surprise. “That’s not true!” she protested. How could he possibly think that she had lied about her love for him? “I lied to you, yes, but…”
“Forget it!” he snapped before she could finish. “I don’t want to hear another word out of your mouth.”
Turning on his heel, he walked into the kitchen, heading for the back door. For a moment, Kayla simply stared at his retreating form.
“Cord, wait,” she pleaded. “Where are you going?”
But he didn’t answer, choosing to ignore her instead, and by time she caught up to him, he was already out the door and heading toward the barn.
Kayla stood in the doorway, watching helplessly as he mounted his horse and galloped off. She couldn’t have been more hurt if he had slapped her. She had known Cord would be angry when he finally learned the truth, but she had at least thought that he would listen to her.
Tears stung her eyes, and she let them roll down her cheeks unheeded. Perhaps he just needed to cool off, she thought. When he came back, he would be calmer, she told herself, and they would be able to talk things out.
Chapter Six
Kayla didn’t know how long Cord had been gone. She supposed that it had only been about thirty minutes since he’d ridden off, but to her it felt like it had been days. She had wanted to ride out after him, but she knew that she would never be able to catch up to him, especially when she didn’t even know where he was headed. So, instead she had sat at the table and sobbed.
She had thought that when Cord defended her to William that he had already forgiven her. Or at least been willing to listen to her side of the story. But then when he’d walked out without even giving her a chance to explain, she hadn’t known what to think. She had hoped that their love would be enough.
An urgent knock sounded on the front door then, interrupting her reverie, and her brow furrowed as she wondered who it could be. She hesitated, half-afraid that it might be William coming back to browbeat her again now that Cord had left. But when the knocking came again, more frantically this time, she knew that she couldn’t very well ignore it, regardless of who the caller was.
Getting to her feet, she went into the foyer to open the door. Rachel stood there, her cheeks flushed with color.
“Kayla, thank God,” the other girl exclaimed, rushing past her. “Your fiancé is here, in Copper Creek. Dalton’s bragging all over town, telling everyone that he knew you were lying about being Cord’s mail-order bride, saying that he tracked down your fiancé, and that…” her voice trailed off as she finally noticed Kayla’s tear-streaked face. “He was already here, wasn’t he?”
Kayla nodded miserably. “It was terrible. Cord was furious that I’d been lying to him,” she said quietly. “We had a big fight, and he left. He wouldn’t even let me explain. He just walked out.” She shook her head. “I don’t even know where he went.”
Rachel made an exasperated sound. “He went where all men go when they have a burr up their behind. He went to the saloon to get drunk.”
Why hadn’t she thought of that? Kayla wondered, and then felt her mouth go dry as another thought suddenly occurred to her. “If he runs into Dalton, there’s no telling what he�
�ll do.” She grabbed her reticule from the small table in the foyer and started for the door. “I have to go to the saloon.”
“I’ll go with you,” Rachel announced, hurrying after her.
A few minutes later, they were heading for town in Rachel’s cart. Kayla fidgeted nervously in her seat, her mind imagining all sorts of things. What if Cord had already run into Dalton at the saloon? A fight between the two men was a foregone conclusion, which would only result in Cord getting thrown into jail, or worse, she thought, remembering how the men out west seemed to have a penchant for solving disputes with a pistol. She shuddered at that thought.
By the time she and Rachel got to town, Kayla was a bundle of nerves, and she almost leaped out of the wagon in her haste to get to Cord. She hurried into the saloon with Rachel at her heels, but when she got there, she was dismayed to find that Cord wasn’t among the evening’s crowd. Had he already been there and gone back to the ranch? she wondered. Or had Rachel been wrong about Cord going to the saloon in the first place?
Determined to find out, she went over to the bar. The bartender, a stocky man with graying hair, was cleaning some shot glasses, and he looked up at her approach. He didn’t look surprised to see her, Kayla thought.
“I’m looking for Cord,” she said. “Was he here tonight?”
The bartender regarded her in silence for a moment, but then nodded. “He was here,” the man said. “He was pretty upset, too, but he didn’t want to talk about what was eating him, so I let him be. Dalton Jeffries came over to talk to him about selling his ranch, though, and I’m pretty sure Cord sold it to him.”
Kayla stared at the man, sure she hadn’t heard correctly. “That can’t be,” she said quietly, almost as if she were talking to herself. “Cord loves that ranch; he would never sell it.”
The bartender shrugged. “Only telling you what I heard.” He gestured toward one of the tables with a jerk of his head. “Dalton’s still here if you want to ask him yourself.”
Kayla turned to see Dalton Jeffries sitting at a nearby table. He was playing cards with some men, but if he noticed her and Rachel standing at the bar, he gave no indication. Anger gripped Kayla as she stared at the man who was at the bottom of this whole thing. Clutching her reticule tightly in her hands, she took a step toward his table only to feel Rachel grip her arm.
“What are you doing?” the other girl demanded softly.
Kayla’s gaze never wavered from Dalton. “I’m taking the bartender’s advice,” she said simply. “I’m going to talk to your brother.”
Rachel sighed, but didn’t try to stop her, deciding to follow Kayla over to Dalton Jeffries’ table instead, and Kayla was glad for her friend’s support.
Dalton looked up as they neared the table, and he gave Kayla a mocking grin. “Why, Miss Mathison,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “I’d like to say this is a surprise, but it isn’t, really, especially not in light of the evening’s events.”
Kayla wanted to slap that smug look off his arrogant face, but settled for giving him a contemptuous look instead. “The bartender said that he overheard Cord agree to sell you his ranch,” she said, her voice dripping with disdain. “You must be so pleased with yourself.”
Dalton’s grin widened. “Quite,” he replied. “Holderness sold it to me not an hour ago. Seems he was fed up with his whole life out here, decided to head somewhere else and start over.”
The thought that Cord would not only sell the ranch without even a word to her, but would decide to leave town was so shocking that she almost felt her knees go weak. She was sure that Dalton had been the one to suggest that Cord start over somewhere else, but she bore a lot of the blame, too. She wasn’t sure how long she stood there, but she realized that everyone was staring at her. Her chest hurt and her mind was a total blank. It seemed that for the first time in her life, she had no idea what to do. Tears welled in her eyes and she blinked them back. Swallowing hard, she turned to Rachel.
“What am I supposed to do now?” she asked her friend.
Dalton spoke before Rachel could answer. “Why not sit and play a few hands?” he suggested, gesturing to the deck of cards in front of him. “Unlike Holderness, I don’t see anything wrong with a woman playing cards. And I’m sure the other men would enjoy your company as much as I would.”
Kayla’s first instinct was to tell Dalton Jeffries to go to hell, but then another instinct took over – revenge. She may have destroyed everything with Cord - and there was probably nothing she could do about that - but she could do something about Dalton Jeffries. She would play cards with him, and win every penny she could. What money she could win from him probably wouldn’t amount to much, but her winning it would take him down a peg or two, at least in her own mind.
“As a matter of fact, I think I will,” she said, giving him a fake smile.
Beside her, Rachel’s brow furrowed. “Kayla…”
“I know what I’m doing,” she said in an aside to her friend. Ignoring Rachel’s look of surprise, she pulled out the chair across from Dalton and sat down. She smiled and nodded to the other men at the table, who seemed to be uneasy with the direction their game had suddenly taken. Opening her reticule, she took out the money she’d won from the other poker game she had played and set it on the table in front of her. Along with the money that Abigail Murray had given her, it should be enough to start with.
With a grin, Dalton picked up the deck of cards and began deal. He probably thought that he had her right where he wanted her, Kayla thought, as she picked up her cards. She could almost see the greed on his face. He thought that if he were charming he would end up getting her just like he had Cord’s ranch. But he would be surprised to discover that his charm had no effect on her. And he would be even more surprised when he found out that she was a better poker player than he was.
Unlike when she had played poker at the saloon before, Kayla didn’t waste time drawing Dalton in by pretending that she knew little about the game. She was all business this time, and her aggressiveness immediately put Dalton off balance. She challenged him every time he thought he had a good hand, ignoring his banter and forcing him to meet her raises just to stay in the game. She bluffed a few times, but most of the time, the cards just fell right for her, and she began to take the majority of the hands. She also noticed that the other two men at the table were playing into her hand more often than not, never raising unless she did. They were losing some money, too, but they just seemed to like watching Dalton lose even more. She didn’t win every hand, of course, but she won more than Dalton did, and after a few hands, her stack of money had more than doubled while his had started to dwindle.
He tried to laugh and make light of it as he reached into his wallet for more money, but no one else at the table was laughing, and she could see that Dalton was becoming uncomfortable. Good, she thought. That was just the way she wanted it. She didn’t just want to beat him; she wanted to embarrass him, and a few more good hands would do just that. Cord stood in the front of the shelves at the general store, staring into space. He felt like he’d been punched in the gut, and the whiskey he’d had to drink at the saloon earlier had done nothing to wash away the pain and confusion he was feeling. The realization of what Abigail – Kayla, he corrected himself harshly – had done to him just wouldn’t go away. He had finally given his heart to someone only to find out it had all been a lie.
He still couldn’t believe that she had been lying to him the whole time. But he should have realized it, he told himself. There had been something off about her ever since she had gotten to Copper Creek. He was surprised he hadn’t seen it. Then again, perhaps he hadn’t wanted to, he admitted. He’d been so enthralled with her from the very beginning that he wouldn’t have believed the truth if someone had told him. Hell, at first, he hadn’t even believed it when the bastard claiming to be her fiancé had told him. Until he had seen the look on her face.
Maybe he should have stayed and listened to her explanation, whatever
that was, but he couldn’t. It had just been too much to deal with. If it were just Kayla lying, it would be one thing, but the past twenty-four hours had been more than any man should have to take. The corral holding his cattle in preparation for the drive to Kansas City had been sabotaged sometime last night. Now the whole herd - that had taken weeks to gather up – was scattered to the four winds. It would have taken weeks to get them all back together, and that would have put him late getting into Kansas City. He would have lost hundreds of dollars. Then, on top of that, someone had set fire to one of the feed barns on the northern part of the ranch earlier that day. Finding out that his wife wasn’t the mail-order bride he had paid for was the last straw. Which was why he supposed he had sold his ranch when Dalton Jeffries had approached him in the saloon. It didn’t matter that Jeffries had been behind the corral fences being cut, or the fire at the feed barn, Cord had had enough. And Jeffries had paid him good money, good enough for him to get a new start away from all this pain and frustration. Maybe San Francisco…
“Cord, thank God you’re here!”
Cord turned at the sound of Rachel’s voice to see her hurrying into the general store. She must have been running because she stopped to take a breath before continuing. “Kayla is at the saloon playing cards with Dalton,” she rushed on. “She’s going to get herself into trouble. You have to go stop her.”
Cord felt his stomach knot. His first impulse was to go down to the saloon, drag her out of there, and put her over his knee for disobeying him again, but then he remembered that she was no longer his wife. He clenched his jaw and returned his attention to what he’d been doing. “She and Jeffries are welcome to each other.”
Rachel stared at him in consternation. “You don’t mean that!”
