His High-Stakes Bride

by Martha Hix

  He was holding back on everything.

  Every turn of the train wheels, he did his best to be the gallant student, cognizant of her every whim and need. He ordered a leg of lamb dinner the first night of their journey, and a liveried waiter served it in the Alington railcar, after which Grant took his leave to lodge in a hideously short berth in a public, second-class compartment shared with several snoring, belching, gaseous male travelers. He tried unsuccessfully not to picture Patience in that big, custom-made bed in the Pullman.

  Wes Alington wasn’t a man to flaunt his wealth, but he’d insisted on one deluxe addition—a deluxe crib in which to sleep, complete with a goose-down mattress and pillows, as well as the finest in Egyptian linens for the magnificent lair. What a fine place for a honeymoon!

  In his continuing seduction-of-a-virgin education, Grant relied on his Alabama background. Gentlemen reared on Hatton Mountain kept to the same standards of manners and deportment as their antebellum fathers and grandfathers. Women were treated as ladies, and when a gentleman loved a lady, he worshiped and adored her.

  He would never dream of soiling her good name by doing the deed before marriage.

  Well, of course, he would dream of it.

  He would delve very close to the actual the deed—why not?

  With Patience being young and Grant’s ardor on fire, this courtship had best be quick, he decided. A Mexican marriage might work. It would certainly be quick! If only he could sleep. Rolling and turning, Grant spent the rest of the night feeling sorry for himself. Mostly he wished to be curled up in that big bed, cuddling and stroking his tiny kitten until she purred them both to sleep.

  * * * *

  Often in the course of her short years Patty had ridden trains. Never before in such luxury. This Pullman even seemed to ride smoother than the usual jolts and bumps to tear at the joints and muscles, and less of the usual scrape-and-screech to assault the eardrums. This wasn’t Grant’s private car, of course, but he made her world easier.

  It’s kind of like it was with Chet before he turned on you like a snake. Well, there was no comparing the two men, but in hindsight, she did remember a friendship that she thought would endure long after they parted in El Paso. It was the loss of friendship that hurt much more than his stupid mistake with their money.

  Grant’s ardent attention wasn’t lost on Patty. She noticed how he jumped to take care of her and to look out for her needs and whims, like her papa used to do. But Papa was always going away. She appreciated that Grant called the flatlands home, and he intended to stay put.

  Please, God. Don’t let him turn on me, like Chet did.

  And then there was the tizzy business. Last night, after he’d tucked her in, all prim and proper, she couldn’t go to sleep, so she’d roamed around, looking for something to read. A low cabinet held several books on botany. She knew Grant packed a book of poetry, so she went to his satchel and—boy howdy!—had she gotten an eyeful.

  It was an illustrated book of Asian people, every one of them in different states of tizzies. She wasn’t shocked. In fact, she enjoyed looking at the pictures. They gave her tingles. She wondered how long it would be before Grant mentioned it.

  Oh, good gracious—Grant! Looking at those Asian folks caused her to have fancies about how he would fill her eyes, wearing nothing but an untied silk dressing gown. Did they even make those things big enough for a man his size?

  She recalled Dorinda Kane, the henna-haired lady of the night from Tulsa. Dear Dorinda. When she’d been lucid, she’d talked about wearing “garments of seduction.” The poor thing’s glory days had been no more. Dying of disease, sent to jail by her enemies, she had been determined to die reliving past glory.

  “Always leave something to your husband’s imagination, little tulip,” she’d counseled in their shared jail cell.

  “I don’t have a husband. If I had one, I wouldn’t be here.”

  “Me, either!” Sickly Dorinda, looking decades older than her thirty years, stood up from her cot. She wobbled. She’d been arrested in an Oriental dressing gown, now filthy. She ran her palm down the seat of that gown and tightened the sash. “When we get husbands, we shall be whores in their beds, but ladies on the street.”

  Grant’s whore in the bedroom, his lady in public? That wouldn’t be tough to accomplish, particularly the bedroom part. Surely he hadn’t brought the book along for nothing. She got flushed in the face thinking about some of those pictures, wondering what it would feel like to ape those poses.

  “I promise, Dorinda. I do promise to be a nice girl in public, and naughty as naughty can be in private.”

  “Me, too, little tulip. Me, too.”

  Dorinda died two days later.

  The train suddenly lurched, sending the book of naughty pictures flying to the floor and yanking Patty back to the present. She knew Grant would make an excellent husband. At least he seemed to fit the bill. Did she love him? She had no idea, but if tizzies had anything to do with it, love had her by the hook, line, and sinker.

  Did she want to spend the rest of her life with him? Did she have to make up her mind at this very moment? Probably. He better say something else about getting married, because I have a feeling I’m going to end up a scarlet woman if he doesn’t!

  That evening, after Patience and Grant enjoyed a capon supper, the train made what seemed like its hundredth stop. The couple played gin rummy. Finishing after-dinner refreshments by sconce-light, Grant wore a soft cotton shirt and a pair of tan britches to go along with his usual belt and buckle, with Patty in a blouse and a traveling skirt. She yearned for more kisses. He’d swiped several during the trip. As well, he’d moved his leg against and between hers, more than once. She wondered why he didn’t tickle her inner thigh, like those fellows in the book did with their ladies.

  Maybe I should…? No. I’m not going to make a move on him. I did that once, in his bedroom.

  One man, one woman in a private car, the distaff side trying to ignore her instinct to go with the tizzy? She did as she done since leaving Lubbock. She continued to play cards and make small talk. She recalled her overnight stay at the High Hopes Ranch, where Jewel Craig and her family lived, Jewel’s husband being the maternal uncle of the owner, Sam Kincaid.

  The night of Patty’s visit, the Kincaids came over to Jewel’s newly built stucco home for dinner. They all put her at ease, allaying her church-lady worries, at any rate.

  Now that something seemed to be developing with the relationship between the travelers, she loved it that he not only had family in the Lubbock area, but also that she enjoyed their company. Well, Jewel had scoffed at her Brownie dreams, saying the “heathens in New Mexico will think you’ve stolen their souls if you take their picture with one of those little-kiddy cameras.”

  Stolen their souls? Little-kiddy cameras? Surely not.

  “Jewel Craig is really a good cook,” she commented to Grant, picking up a seven of hearts and nearly peed her step-ins at her luck of the draw. “It was so kind of her to take me in, then to make a delicious dinner and invite your Kincaid kinfolks over, too.”

  “That’s just the way she is. Jewel’s the best cook in Texas. Not to mention being the conscience of the county, but you’ve probably figured that out. She’s a true friend, as long as you’re on her good side. Luckily, she has a very forgiving nature. Are you going to play, or not?”

  Patty drew a king of clubs and got rid of it quickly. “What I’m not understanding is, how come her husband, Charlie, is uncle to Sam Kincaid, but he’s not related to you by blood?”

  His chair was not unlike the one in his home office. He pivoted it to where he could stretch his long legs into the aisle. He crossed one ankle over the other, shoving his thumbs behind his silver-and-gold belt buckle. Everything worth noticing was noticeable, though covered. It probably went along with Dorinda’s “leaving something to the imagination” adv
ice. Her mother had a saying for this person or that. It seemed appropriate for this moment. “You look good enough to eat.” Good heavens, I said that aloud!

  “Do I now?” He was grinning, his gaze slowly cruising up and down Patty’s form. “Same goes for you, darlin’. Same definitely goes for you.”

  This was a moment to get bold, wild, naughty. She couldn’t move a muscle. She couldn’t go through with it. Just didn’t have the nerve. Why? Why not? She couldn’t understand herself!

  “There, there, little kitten.” He gathered himself up to take her hand. “Do rap my knuckles with a ruler when I’m getting ahead of myself with my lessons.”

  She giggled and it felt good. He did make her feel better! “I will, dear student. Now tell me about that family connection, please.”

  “Charlie and Sam’s mother are brother and sister—they’re Craigs. Sam’s father and my father are cousins. They’re Kincaids.”

  “The Craigs sure have a fine new home. But why did they build it on his nephew’s property?”

  “Charlie’s the ranch manager, in charge of the herd.”

  “Okay. Now I see. Your cousin is in charge of the cotton?”

  “Basically. Sam rightly credits his wife with their success. Sam’s from Natchez. He brought the know-how to plant cotton with him. It took Linnea rolling up her sleeves and working like a field hand to bring in the first irrigated crop on the Llano Estacado. Sam and Linnea showed people there’s more than one way to make money on the high, water-parched plains than running cattle: they grow cotton.”

  Grant took a sip from a highball of whiskey and water. “Thanks to Wes Alington loosening the strings on his inherited wealth, the railroad got built to haul cotton to mills, as well as cattle to stockyards. I don’t mean to imply it’s all his doing in Texas, but around Lubbock, the cattle-drive days are over, thanks to my good buddy Alington.”

  He then said, “That’s the way they all like it, out at the High Hopes. No one hands them anything. They each landed in Lubbock County on a wing and a prayer—both Linnea and Jewel were mail-order brides, even, and Sam and Charlie were so keen to leave the Mississippi Delta that Sam bought his ranch, sight unseen. Jewel partnered with the sheriff’s wife to build efficient baking ovens. They’ve all done well.”

  “I’m impressed,” Patty commented, meaning it. I wonder if I could be the one to make a difference in Grant’s future….

  Having experienced abject poverty in recent times, Patty could only hope that she, too, would find success through her endeavors. Starting with Papa, ending with the Brownie. Or is it: Where do you fit in my world, Mr. Grant Kincaid?

  She drew a card, then discarded it quickly. It would have been a big loser to her hand, but hopefully it didn’t represent failure in her personal life, that queen of hearts.

  Her spine pressing to the tufts of the train chair, she sat back…sizing Grant up. He might be a lawyer, born and bred in the South, but he had that same Western look to him from the night they met. He wore it well. “You look a lot like Sam Kincaid.”

  “Think so? Folks around Lubbock remark on our family resemblance, but I don’t see it.”

  “You cousins are both tall, have the same coloring.” She could have added “well put-together.” She decided on, “Your features are much the same, but he’s got a leathery look. Like he’s spent way too much time in the sun. My mama would say you have a ‘refined’ look to you. That’s a compliment, by the way.”

  This Kincaid grinned. “We’re both tall and rangy, but Sam’s more the Scotsman. His family left the Highlands later than mine. My mother’s people have been in America long enough to make us Alabama mutts. Better put, coon dogs.”

  “Why did you leave there? Don’t they need lawyers in Alabama?”

  “Every third son on Hatton Mountain is a lawyer. They need lots of lawyers, and if you want to be paid in chickens or bales of cotton, you’re in the right place.”

  They both chuckled, with her then asking, “What brought you to Texas?”

  “Sam tells everyone I came to get away from tornados. That’s plain lunacy. I’ve heard they’re as bad here as they are back home.” He pulled a card from the stack and studied his hand, frowning. And frowning.

  “You have two choices,” she said in a good-natured manner. “Play or answer my question.”

  “I’m here for the same reason that brings most folks. To beat the odds on where we were before. My odds weren’t all that high on Hatton Mountain or in Tuscumbia. This is a new place with fresh opportunities. I’d heard that Cousin Sam and his uncle were out here, liking it. I figured to give it a try. Never once have I regretted it. I don’t have to fight my jackass older brothers for my piece of heaven. I love Lubbock, and I intend to be buried on Cemetery Hill.”

  If only her father had been a steady, settled man like Grant, how different the Sweet life could have been!

  “You do have a nice home,” was all she could think of to say.

  “It’s just a house. Just a structure in town. I have my eye on a place in the country. Ranch land. With a small house. Allys Allen owns it now. Inherited the place from her people. She’s got music in her blood. Wants to spend her time on the dulcimer, not on ranching, which is understandable. Lucky me! The ranch has a natural spring—an oasis, really—and it’s the start of canyon country. It’s an agreeable place for horses. I see building a good, sturdy barn, as well as a big, sturdy home. I want to bring Morgan walkers in from Alabama.”

  “No cattle?”

  “Nope. Horses and law for me. And Austin.”

  “Austin! What’s Austin to you?”

  “You spent a whole night at the High Hopes and nobody made fun of my Austin ambitions?”

  “No one. It’s up to you to tell me. What about Austin?”

  “My grandfather Lerand was Governor of Alabama. Why shouldn’t I follow in his footsteps in Texas? I intend to be Governor of the Great State of Texas.”

  That was a lot to take in. Never had she known anyone who aspired to such an office. It seemed peculiar to her. Foreign, even. “Don’t you want to get married?”

  The world seemed to stop for a moment as he locked gazes with her. Then he pulled his arresting blues away. After discarding a nine of spades, he announced, “Of course I want to be married. I’ve already put the job to you. Gotta have someone to stay back at the ranch to groom the herd and muck out the barn.”

  “Is that all you want a wife for?”

  He grinned and winked. “Not on your life, darlin’. Not on your life.”

  Well, that was a relief. “I’m knocking for three.”

  He groaned as she laid her cards down, beating him once more at gin rummy.

  “You are too good for me, Sweetness.” He leaned across the table and tickled his finger into her dimple, a habit he’d taken up during the trip. “Are you getting sleepy?”

  “A little.” She wished he’d kiss her. Just put that finger under her chin and tip his lips over hers, and kiss her silly. Since he didn’t, she moistened her lips. These lessons were taking way too long. “I’m tired of card games. I’m tired of this train. I’ll be glad when we reach El Paso.”

  “Now, kitten. No. What if this is our only time together? If your father is waiting there for you, and you leave with him, this could be our last night together.”

  That thought startled her. “Do you think?”

  “We’ll be at the depot by morning.”

  Such mixed feelings. She did yearn to see her father. If he was there. And if he was—to see nothing more of Grant? A terribly hollow feeling went through her.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I… I guess I’ve grown sort of fond of you,” she admitted.

  “Same here.” A smile played across his lean, handsome face, showing a bit of his excellent teeth. “No. I am so much more than merely fond of you. I’ve kno
wn since before we left Lubbock that I need you in my life. What I must have is…for you to want to be there.”

  What about the marriage? Should she blurt out something? Probably best not. I did that the first night, remember? “I have a terrible tizzy for you. Is that a start?”

  “I’ll take it.”

  He stood then, turning and bending toward her. Just as she’d wanted him to, he lifted her chin with the crook of his finger and tilted his head down to hers. His lips, slightly open, touched hers. She met his kiss, and within moments he had drawn her into his arms and was lifting her up and off the ground. Their mouths and tongues mated, darting and tangling.

  And then he was kissing her throat, her neck. “You taste so delicious,” he murmured. “Will you allow me to taste more of you?”

  Was this where he was going to do some of those things from that book? She squirmed. “That would be okay.”

  He carried her to the bed, dimming the lanterns to soft light, and removed her slippers. Rubbing her feet, he said, “You have tiny feet. You are such a tiny girl, I—”

  “I’m not a girl. I am small.” She was thinking about that book. “My bosom isn’t small….”

  “I remember.” He kicked off his boots. Then he stretched out next to her and began to unfasten the buttons of her blouse. When some of her flesh was exposed, he leaned in to give it a kiss. “Mmm, you smell as delicious as you look.”

  It was the fragrance that Mrs. Craig’s niece, Mrs. Linnea Kincaid, had insisted be added to the items Grant purchased for the El Paso trip.

  “Why don’t you see if my bosom tastes delicious?”

  “Patience Sweet!” He reared back like some old preacher. “Have you been fooling me? Are you a tart?”

  “Well, you’re the one who was talking about tastes. And you’re a fine one to ask that, Mr. Grant Kincaid. You, the one with that nekkid book in your satchel! That’s where I got the idea in the first place.”