Mail-Order Marriages

by Jillian Hart

  He’s decided not to love me, she realized, opening her eyes and dashing the tears from them. He means to never love me.

  She swallowed hard, willing back her shattered hopes and dreams and all the love her heart could hold. The ring of pearls and sapphires winked on her left hand, taunting her with the truth. From the first, she’d known how Gabe felt. He had told her exactly what he wanted from their marriage. He’d been quite clear. The comforts a woman brings to a man’s life, he’d said. Three meals a day, a nice home, clean clothes.

  She’d been the foolish one. She had confused necessity with romance and duty with desire, but she’d wanted Gabe’s love. She’d wanted too much. She sniffed, blinking hard enough to drive the tears back where they’d come from.

  This wasn’t Gabe’s fault. It was hers. She had done this to herself. The blame was hers alone. He was out there in the cold rainy night, angry and alone and disappointed in her. Did he think she had betrayed him? What if he’d lost his respect for her?

  Anguish tore a cry from her throat, and she covered her mouth with her left hand, her gold wedding band warm against her skin. She had meant to love him. What if she’d destroyed her chance for happiness? The image of Gabe storming from the room haunted her. If only she could call him back, turn back time and relive the past few moments. What if she’d never been so naive as to blurt out her love for him? Then he would be with her right now, spoiling her with his amazing kisses and showing her all the ways a man could cherish his wife.

  Instead she was alone with the truth, one that she could never have kept hidden, not in the end. Eventually they would have come to this place—torn apart irrevocably because she wanted a real marriage.

  He did not.

  Gabe wasn’t in the best of moods. He’d walked around town last night until the high mountain temperatures had driven him back to Melody’s room. He’d found her asleep, slipped beneath the warm covers without waking her and had lain there, staring up at the ceiling wishing he had made a different choice. But if he’d slept in the office, his coworkers would have known. If he’d chosen the livery stable, then Austin Dermot would have known. He already had a crush on Melody. No way did he want any man thinking the marriage was rocky and she was up for grabs. But he couldn’t be what she wanted.

  He took one last glance at Melody asleep, her riot of golden hair fanning across the snowy pillow slip, her delicate features relaxed, looking so small and vulnerable his emotions flared. Tenderness, caring, something more—something he was reluctant to name—and he battled every emotion down. He hiked his saddlebag onto his shoulder and pulled the door closed quietly, carefully releasing the handle. As he took the stairs, his step the only sound in the sleeping boardinghouse, he shored up his defenses.

  He’d done the right thing walking away last night. It was better than leading her on. He stalked out into the crisp morning. The rain had stopped, but water was puddled everywhere, muddying the roads and making the boardwalk slick. Tobacco smoke carried on the brisk wind. He glanced over his shoulder and saw a stranger turn the corner toward Main. His instincts didn’t stand up and take note, but he was heading that way anyhow, so he picked up his pace. He knew everyone in this town and most folks for fifty miles in any direction. The stranger might be passing through—there was a cheap hotel not far from the boardinghouse. That might explain his presence, Gabe thought, but with what he knew about Melody’s past, he wanted to make sure.

  The instant he rounded the corner, his suspicions eased. Maybe after last night his instincts were off-kilter—or maybe the newcomer meant no trouble. He wasn’t hurrying along looking nervous or furtive but taking his time. The stranger nodded to Mac as the lawman came in sight, then ducked into Letty’s diner.

  “Surprised to see you this time of morning.” Mac called out from the middle of the street. Not a horse was in sight, so he stood there, smirking. “More than that, I’m surprised you have enough starch to be out and about. Shouldn’t you be with your bride?”

  “I’m leaving town, remember? My turn for rounds.” He jammed his hands into his pockets—the wind still had a nip to it—and took one final glance into the diner. The stranger—blond hair, medium build, buffalo coat—was dressed like any rancher in these parts. Nothing seemed amiss, so he joined his buddy in the street. “I don’t like leaving today—”

  “I’m sure Jeremiah will trade with you. He’s still a bachelor.”

  “That’s not fair to him, and besides, I’ll have to go eventually.” He was torn up inside and felt turned upside down, so the time away would do him good.

  “I can’t think your wife would want you to leave her.”

  “Melody is a practical woman.” Most times. “She understands the nature of my work.”

  “All right. I’ll get coffee perking at the office if you want to saddle up.”

  “Do me a favor, will you?” Gabe broke off, heading toward the livery. “My brothers will be keeping an eye on Melody. Can I ask you to do the same?”

  “Count on it, buddy.” Mac waved from the far side of the street. A family man himself—he was married with a little one on the way—he understood.

  At least Melody would be safe. Grateful, Gabe shoved open the barn’s heavy door. His back was to the boardwalk, so he didn’t see the stranger in the buffalo coat poke his head out the diner door or get a glimpse of the .45 at his hip.

  I’ve faced harder days, she thought as she brushed her hair. No one has died. I’ve lost nothing that I didn’t have in the first place. She set down the brush and picked up the comb, studying the pale woman in the mirror. Dark circles bruised the fragile skin beneath her eyes. She’d slept poorly and it showed. Worse, she feared her broken heart did, too. She’d wanted Gabe’s love so much.

  When she’d awoken, he was gone. His things were gone. Except for the slight indentation on her second pillow and the barely mussed covers on his side of the bed, it was as if he’d never been there at all.

  She parted her hair down the middle and divided it into sections. If only she could figure out how best to handle this loveless marriage she’d gotten herself into.

  With dignity, she decided as she began to braid. She would go on in the same way she’d started, intent on building a life with Gabe. She would set up their house, do her best to make a home for him as he’d asked, and work on her cooking skills. She knew she could rely on the women in the family for help.

  At the thought of Mary, Savannah and Clara, a minuscule warmth edged into her, easing a small part of her misery. At least she wasn’t completely alone. She had family, a place to belong and people to love. But it was a tiny comfort. She’d ruined everything with Gabe. He had meant what he said. He wanted a convenient marriage—not just for now, but forever.

  The ring on her finger glinted mockingly. Well, she might never have Gabe’s love, but she had known it from the start. Gabe had been honest, and a loveless relationship was what she’d agreed to. Now it was time to keep her word. Maybe one day Gabe would trust her and consent to touch her again, and she could look forward to children, their babies to love.

  She tied a bit of ribbon at the end of her plait just as a man’s heavy boot steps sounded outside her door. Gabe? Was there any chance he was feeling remorse, too? Or worse, what if he wanted to annul the marriage?

  The glass knob turned. Had she forgotten to lock it when she’d fetched wash water? The door swung open with a bang and a man launched himself through the doorway. Before she could open her mouth to scream, he wrapped his hand around her throat, pulling her roughly against him with the nose of a revolver cold at her temple.

  “You’re about to become a widow,” Derrick, real and not a nightmare, hissed against her ear.

  A widow? Panic scrambled her brain. She couldn’t pull her thoughts together. If she were a widow, then that would mean Gabe was dead.

  “No way would I let that two-bit lawman get what belongs to me.” His hatred beat with each word, his breathing ragged, his entire body quaking. A man
on the edge.

  Think, Melody. She gasped, fighting to draw in breath, willing down the icy fear threatening to take over. At least Gabe wasn’t here. With any luck, he was already out of town. He would be safe. That’s all that mattered.

  “You can h-have the money,” she stammered. “Gabe doesn’t know about it.”

  “It doesn’t work that way, Melody. Control of your inheritance goes to the man who marries you, and it’s a fortune. Do you know how bad I need that money?” His fingers at her throat became bruising and cut off her air.

  “Let. Me. Go.” She rasped the words, the pressure on her throat becoming a tearing pain. She couldn’t breathe.

  “Believe me, I earned your inheritance. Courting you was torture. All the tedious pretending. Do you think I enjoyed it? You were to get so much money, when I don’t stand to inherit a penny. I couldn’t stomach looking at you, and you didn’t even know.” Wrath blasted her with each word, and the gun dug into her temple painfully. “Now it doesn’t matter. I want my money.”

  “Der-rick.” She forced his name out with the last of her breath. Terror. Last time she’d seen his temper, he’d knocked her around and thrown objects at her. This time she knew she wouldn’t be as fortunate to escape.

  “All the time I wasted with you. Those endless trips to the bookstore, sitting hours on the damn porch listening to you go on about this charity and that.” His face contorted with selfish jealousy and rage.

  Her throat burned and her lungs were ready to burst. Her consciousness narrowed to that one need, her body straining to breathe, her eyes watering at the pressure. She grasped his hand with hers, fighting to break his hold.

  “You’re coming with me,” he said, as if from far away. “With him gone, no one back home will know. There will be no one to claim your money but me. We’ll marry and…”

  Gone? The thought of Gabe gunned down horrified her. She had to stop it, do whatever it took to save him. She tore at Derrick’s grip, but her hands weren’t strong enough—she couldn’t win. Spots danced in front of her eyes and she fought it. She had to stay conscious. She had to figure out a way to save Gabe.

  “Now, you’re going to cooperate, aren’t you? If you don’t, I swear I will—”

  A board creaked outside the open door, the sound louder to her than the rush of blood in her ears. Derrick must have heard it, too, because he fell silent. As he spun around to face the threshold, his grip on her throat eased. Something else grabbed his attention. She drew in a lungful of wonderful air, the ringing in her head quieted and she could see a dark figure poised in the doorway, his hands at his sides as if ready to draw, a man of stone.

  Gabe.

  Chapter Nine

  Gabe stared disbelieving at the man using Melody as a shield, his white-knuckled hand at her throat, the other holding a .45 against her head. He read the terror on her face, the concern for him in her eyes and his mind leaped ahead, racing along on a future chain of events that hadn’t happened yet—the gun firing, Melody falling, her life gone.

  Agony ripped through him with more force than a bullet and he drew. Time slowed down, seconds stretched as if each were a lifetime. Siting, exhaling, squeezing the trigger; Gabe didn’t think, he simply acted. The flash as the Colt fired, the bang and recoil that jerked through his arm, his aim true. Surprise warred with the fury on Derrick’s face and he reacted a second too late. The bullet tore into him, the gun tumbled from his hand and Gabe caught Melody in his arms before she hit the floor.

  Never in his life had he been so scared. Blood speckled her, so he caressed the curve of her head with one hand, making sure she was not hurt. The thought drained the life out of him. But his hand came away fine and relief cannoned through him. She was safe. She was unharmed. Gratitude dropped him to his knees and he held her tight and for all he was worth.

  “Oh, G-Gabe.” She choked out his name, burying her face in the hollow of his throat. Her arms wound around his neck tightly; no one had ever held on to him like that.

  No one—ever—had mattered so much. Unbearable tenderness crashed through him, battering the walls around his heart until they fell to pieces and he was helpless. He kissed her forehead, vulnerable as she lifted her face to his.

  “I could have lost you.” He’d been prideful, too sure that being a tough, invincible man was more admirable than a besotted one. “What do you think you were doing, trying to get yourself shot like that?”

  “You’re scolding me?” She sniffled, half laughing, half crying. “He wanted to gun you down. When I saw you standing in the doorway, all I could think was that you were going to be k-killed and I would never see you again.”

  “That’s what I thought, too.” Every instinct he had shouted at him to move away, get some distance between them, get rid of the emotions running rampant like a flash flood and pretend his defenses had never fallen.

  But he’d never thought about what his life would be without Melody. He could see it now. Cold and dull, like a world without color to brighten it, like winter without spring to thaw it. That wasn’t the life he wanted. “All I could think about was how I left things last night. The things I said to you.”

  “You were being honest, that’s all.” She sat up, deftly pushing away from him as if she were the one with the greater strength. “You were right. I need to stick to our agreement. You’ll have the marriage you want, I give you my word. As long as you’re okay. You’re here. You’re alive. I can’t believe you drew so fast. I’ve never seen anything like that.”

  “I’m rumored to be one of the fastest draws in the territory. Guess it came in handy today.” He eased down onto the floor facing her, reaching out to take her left hand in his.

  The ring he’d placed there was a token of his solemn vows and reminded him of how he’d failed her. Melody didn’t deserve a man who couldn’t love her. She deserved a man with the courage to give her everything he had inside him. Sure, that was a scary thought, but he tamped down the panic, left the walls around his heart down and gently kissed her hand.

  “I’m sorry for the things I said.” He’d never meant anything more. “Marriage shouldn’t be a convenient arrangement of duty and obligation, and it’s not what I want, not anymore.”

  “It isn’t?” Hope brightened within her, the woman he treasured beyond imagining.

  “I love you, Melody.” When she smiled, he smiled. When joy filled her, it filled him. Maybe it wasn’t so bad being this vulnerable to the right woman, one he could trust, one he needed with every fiber of his being. “Be my wife, my life, my everything. That’s what I want from this moment forward.”

  “I do, too.”

  Maybe it was his imagination, but she looked even more desirable, her lush soft mouth even more tempting. How could a loving husband resist kissing his precious wife? Gabe cupped her chin in the palm of his hand and kissed her gently.

  Epilogue

  Two years later

  Spring chased the shiver from the wind and Gabe was glad for it as he hiked along the garden path. Lamplight glowed through the windows as if to welcome him home. After a long fortnight on the trail hunting a fugitive, he wanted nothing more than to haul his wife into his arms and hold her until the ache of missing her was gone.

  He stepped onto the porch. Hungry for the first sight of his wife, his gaze searched the windows until he found her in the rocking chair, her hair captured in twin braids. She was wearing a light green calico dress and looking sweet as a May day. The loving smile on her face added luster to her new mother’s radiance as she gazed at the tiny bundle asleep in her arms.

  Love filled him. They had gotten off to a rocky start, but that was his fault alone. From the day the walls around his heart had come down, they had stayed down. After shipping Derrick Spade’s body back to Boston, he’d discovered he’d married not only the most beautiful woman in the world but an heiress, too. If anything would have made him revert to his old self, that would have done it, fearing she would leave him when he turned over cont
rol of her trust to her. But it didn’t. Good thing, too, because she didn’t leave him. She donated her vast inheritance to several charities without regret. She’d explained to him that she already had the greater treasure.

  She was wrong about that. He was the lucky one. She was the greatest treasure of all.

  He opened the door. Warmth from the stove washed over him, the scent of a pot roast in the oven made his mouth water, but Melody’s smile welcoming him was the best part of coming home. He shucked off his coat, laid his saddlebag on the floor and kept his step quiet as he crossed the room.

  “Welcome home,” Melody whispered so as not to wake the baby. “I missed you so much.”

  “Not as much as I’ve missed you.” He went down on his knees beside her, awash with devotion. “Nothing beats being with you. You made pot roast.”

  “I hear it’s your favorite.”

  “You heard right. Deciding to snap you up when I did was the best decision I’ve made to date. Look what I’ve gained.” Trouble twinkled in his eyes.

  “What you’ve gained?” She arched an eyebrow.

  “A wife to cook and clean for me. I left my dirty laundry by the door.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to rephrase that statement?” Happiness bubbled up inside her and it was hard to keep a straight face.

  “Hold on, let me finish.” Wicked, that’s what he was, and he knew it. “I was also going to say that I’m lucky enough to have you for my wife. You are my heart.”

  “And you are mine. I love you, Gabe.”

  “I love you more.” His baritone rang low, layered with adoration and commitment.

  “Lucky me.” She couldn’t get enough of looking at him, of drinking in every detail. She’d longed for him day and night while he’d been gone, aching for the gentleness of his touch and the bliss of his love.