Hallie buttoned her blouse, tucked it in and gathered her hair into a loose knot.
"She was behaving oddly last night, Clarisse," her father's voice said. "I don't like this."
"Hallie, open this door at once or your father will break it down!"
Hallie faced Cooper. He raised a brow and she nodded. Wedging a shoulder against the armoire, he moved it aside. Hallie turned the key and the door burst open, hitting the wall.
"Hallie! What is this all about? Why, whatever has happened to you?" she asked, taking in her daughter's disheveled appearance and flushed skin. Turning her head slightly, she encountered Cooper's massive form. Seeing his wild unfettered hair, his primitive clothing and the intimidating way he stood with his feet spraddled, she blanched. Her hand flattened on her bosom. "What—who—?"
"What the hell are you doing in my daughter's room?" Samuel asked.
"I can explain," Hallie said.
But before she could, Cooper moved and picked up his rifle leaning against the wall. A startled look crossed Samuel's face and he took a step in front of Clarisse.
Cooper handed him the rifle, butt first, and pointed the barrel at himself. "I'm afraid you'll have to insist I marry your daughter, sir. I've compromised her."
Hallie stared.
Clarisse swooned, and Hallie helped her to the edge of the bed.
Samuel stood with the gun leveled at Cooper's heart. "Is this loaded?"
"It is," Cooper confirmed.
"Is this true, Hallie?" her father asked.
"It's true," Cooper insisted. "I slept with her in my arms every night between the Dakotas and Duluth."
Hallie's skin burned and she sputtered. "It wasn't—"
"Who the hell are you?" her father thundered.
"Cooper DeWitt."
"Shall I kill him?" Samuel asked.
"No!" Hallie left her mother and ran to stand between Cooper and the gun. "You don't need the gun, Father. I want to marry him. I love him."
"What about him?"
Hallie stepped aside and looked at Cooper. "Ask him."
His eyes left Samuel and rested on Hallie. "You don't need the gun. I want Hallie for my wife."
She turned into his arms and held him tight, his heart beating wildly against her cheek.
"I guess that's settled," Samuel said, and rested the rifle over the arms of a chair.
"Whatever is this?"
Hallie turned to her mother and recognized the leather thong between her thumb and forefinger. She met Cooper's eyes. He raised his brows and shrugged and their shoulders shook with laughter.
Epilogue
Hallie stood on Stone Creek's new boardwalk and studied the gold lettering on the window of their new building: Stone Creek Daily News. Hallie Claire DeWitt. Editor-in-Chief. Her father had shipped them the old press he'd stored in a back room for years. Hallie knew how to run it, and Yellow Eagle was learning to set the type. Lowell Heckman, the blacksmith, turned out to be pretty fair at repairs when something needed work.
"Mornin', Mizz DeWitt!"
She turned and waved at the Howards, Wiley's relatives who'd moved to Stone Creek last spring. They entered the trading post. Old Reavis had had to clean the place up, what with the advent of women and families in the territory. And the fact that another family had put up a building and were running him some competition, calling themselves the "mercantile," had been adequate incentive.
Wiley had asked Chumani to marry him, and a wedding was planned for the fall.
"You working or admiring your window?" Cooper sat atop his gelding, a few feet from the boardwalk.
Her heart tripped a little, as it did each time she saw him. "A little of both, I guess."
"Did you forget lessons this morning?"
Three days a week they rode to the reservation and Hallie taught the youngsters. "I didn't forget. Just a little slow these past mornings."
He dismounted and tied the reins to the hitching rail he'd built outside their newspaper office. "Any particular reason for that, do you suppose?"
"Might be." She walked inside the building, and he followed her to the Franklin press. She picked up a paper and. held it so he could read the bold headline.
"DeWitts Expecting First Child," he read aloud. "We're havin' a baby, Hallie?"
"We're having a baby."
An odd expression crossed his features.
"Are you happy?" she asked.
He pulled her into his arms. "Couldn't be happier. And you?"
She nodded against his chest. "If it's a boy, I'll make him buckskins just like yours."
"If it's a girl, she'll be a hellcat," he said. "We'll teach her to ride and hunt. And you can show her how to run the presses."
"Our children can be whatever they want to be, can't they?" she said wistfully.
"That they can."
"That's what the loft is for, isn't it? Our children?"
"Until we have to build a bigger house. Stone Creek Family Builds Mansion," he said.
"Keep trying," she teased. "You'll have to stay up, nights to top my best headline."
Reluctantly agreeing, Cooper glanced at the paper she'd framed and proudly hung on the wall. The headline read, Badlands Bride: She Got Her Story—And Her Man.
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Badlands Bride Page 27
