Cricket gasped and instantly silenced her venting when, with a nod of Reverend Stanley’s head, Lash Martin and Tyler Waller leveled their rifles at Heath’s head too.
Cricket looked to Heath with painful desperation. But as his gaze locked with hers, she saw only anger—not fear.
“It’s your choice, Magnolia,” Reverend Stanley said then. “Ranger Thibodaux has agreed to make an honest woman of you. He’ll marry you as I have demanded, and eventually this memory of your lustful, lascivious behavior may be forgotten by the people in this town. But you don’t have to marry this sinner, Magnolia. If this man took you to his bed against your will—”
“What? No! No! Nothin’ was against my will!” Cricket cried. “Because nothin’ happened!”
“Are you with child, Magnolia?” Reverend Stanley asked then.
“No!” Cricket cried, looking to Ada for support.
“Zeke will wring your neck with his bare hands for this, Edgar Stanley!” she threatened.
“Edgar?”
Everyone’s attention turned to the choir seats. There sat Mrs. Stanley—sitting straight as a board, hands folded in her lap as always.
“Edgar…perhaps we should wait and counsel with Zeke,” Mrs. Stanley said timidly. “He is, after all, Cricket’s father.”
“It doesn’t matter who he is, Mrs. Stanley!” Reverend Stanley spat. “What these two sinners have done is an abomination to this town!” He looked back to Cricket. “Either you marry this man, Magnolia…or you’re branded a harlot for the rest of your life, and I’ll see that Heathro Thibodaux is shot for being a besmircher of feminine virtue. The choice is yours. And as I said, Ranger Thibodaux has already confessed the sin and agreed to marry you…so the choice is now in your sinful hands.”
“He did not confess to it, Daddy!” Vilma cried. “He agreed to marry her to keep her from bein’ branded a harlot!”
“I won’t hear your voice again, Vilma,” Reverend Stanley said calmly. Glancing to Vilma, he added, “From this moment on, I have only one child…a son.”
“Oh, Daddy,” Vilma breathed, “that’s the first truth you’ve uttered in a long, long time.”
But Reverend Stanley ignored Vilma—simply stared at Cricket and asked, “Harlot or married woman, Magnolia?”
“Marry him,” Mrs. Maloney said from the open doors behind Cricket and Ada. “Marry Heath, and remove him from danger. Then let your father and the other good men of this town sort it out when they return.”
“B-but…I don’t want Heath to marry me because someone’s forcin’ him to,” Cricket cried.
Ada and Mrs. Maloney exchanged glances. Then Ada sighed and said, “Marry him, Cricket. I truly believe Edgar Stanley will let Wyatt kill him if you don’t.”
Cricket turned back to stare at Edgar Stanley—and it was then she saw more than arrogance and pride in his countenance. It was then that she could see the flecks of egotism, conceit, self-importance, and the determination to control in him.
She didn’t pause any longer but rather hurried up the aisle of the chapel toward Heath. “I’m s-sorry,” she breathed as he stared down at her. His blue eyes were still aflame with seething.
“Come on then, Reverend Stanley,” Heath said, turning to face the self-indulgent preacher. “Make her marry me.”
Cricket glanced to her right—to where Marie and Ann stood embracing Vilma. They each nodded and attempted to smile—offering her what encouragement they could when there were three loaded guns pointed at Heath’s head.
“Dearly beloved,” Reverend Stanley began. He looked out over the chapel as if performing a wedding before an entire congregation. “We are gathered here this day to join this man, Heathro Thibodaux, and this woman, Magnolia Cranford, in bonds of holy matrimony.”
As tears streamed over Cricket’s cheeks, she heard Heathro mumble, “I do,” when asked if he took her to be his wife. She wept even more bitterly when she breathlessly answered, “I do,” when the wicked Reverend Righteous asked if she took Heath to be her husband.
It couldn’t be happening! Surely Heath wasn’t being forced to marry her—at gunpoint?
“Then by virtue of the powers invested in me by God and the state, I now pronounce you man and wife,” Reverend Stanley concluded. Looking to Wyatt, he said, “You may lower your guns, gentlemen. They are man and wife now.”
Cricket trembled as she watched Heath standing firm and tall next to her. He waited until Wyatt, Lash, and Tyler had lowered their rifles.
Then glaring at Reverend Stanley, he asked, “Didn’t you forget somethin’, Edgar?”
“And what would that be, Mr. Thibodaux?” Reverend Stanley asked, sneering with triumph.
“You didn’t tell me whether or not I can kiss the bride,” Heath simply stated.
Reverend Stanley’s eyes narrowed, and he studied Heath for a moment, looking to Cricket and then back to Heath. “Very well,” he relented. “You may kiss the bride.”
“You’re damn right I can,” Heath growled. “And you be sure to tell Zeke Cranford that it was you who gave me permission.”
Cricket gasped as Heath took hold of her arm, turning her to him, pulling her tight against his body, and fairly devouring her with such a sensual, wanton kiss that, even for the despicability of their situation, Cricket’s knees turned softer than the blackberry jam she and Ada had been making.
Heath moaned as he kissed her again—more wantonly—with such salaciousness that even though Cricket knew it was for show, goose bumps began to cover every inch of her flesh.
“Might I remind you that this is my father’s church, Thibodaux?” Wyatt growled.
Heath broke the seal of their lips then, pausing, his blue eyes smoldering with fury as he stared at Cricket a moment.
“It’s God’s church, Wyatt,” Heath growled as he swooped Cricket up into his arms. “Not your father’s.”
“Where are you takin’ her?” Ada asked.
“Well, I’m takin’ her home, Mrs. Cranford,” Heath answered. “It’s our weddin’ night, ain’t it?”
“But she doesn’t even have her shoes on, Heath!” Marie cried.
Heath grinned and glared at Reverend Stanley once more before saying, “Oh, she ain’t gonna be needin’ her shoes tonight, honey.” Then winking at Ann, Marie, and Vilma, Heath carried Cricket with him as he stormed out of the church and into the street.
None too delicately, Heath hoisted Cricket up onto Archie’s hindquarters behind the saddle.
“I’ll send your daddy over as soon as he’s taken care of all this, Cricket,” Ada said, clutching Cricket’s hand as Heath mounted Archie and settled into the saddle.
Mrs. Maloney took her hand then. “Trust him, honey,” she breathed, smiling. “He’s trustworthy, and you know that. So you trust him tonight…whatever happens. Trust him with your heart, my darlin’…with your heart, your soul…and your body.”
Cricket’s eyes widened as the full understanding of what Maymee Maloney was saying struck her. “Ada,” she began in a whisper.
“Hold onto me,” Heath demanded, reaching around behind himself, taking her arms, and pulling them around his waist. “Archie’s angry…so this is gonna be one hell of a ride home!”
Cricket tightened her embrace as Heath shouted, “Ya!” and Archie lurched into a gallop.
Maymee Maloney smiled as she watched Heathro Thibodaux ride like hell out of Pike’s Creek with his new bride. There was a clap of thunder overhead only a moment before a summer downpour began.
“Oh, Maymee!” Ada cried as Marie, Ann, and Vilma wrapped their arms around her and Mrs. Maloney, joining to watch Heathro and Cricket ride away. “They’ll get soaked to the skin in this rain!”
But Maymee Maloney’s smile only broadened. “Oh, I do hope so,” she chuckled. “I certainly do hope so.”
Chapter Twenty
By the time Heath reined in Archie in front of his house, Cricket was drenched and trembling—for even though the summer days and nights were warm, t
he heavy thunderstorms of the high desert were cold.
“Come on,” Heath said, dismounting. Putting his hands at her waist, he lifted Cricket down from Archie’s back. “Are you cold?” he asked, turning his head to one side and spitting rainwater from his mouth.
“A little,” Cricket admitted as her teeth began chattering.
Heath nodded, and Cricket was instantly warmer as he swept her up into the cradle of his powerful arms. Striding with her toward the house, he angrily kicked the door open with one boot and carried her over the threshold into his house.
“Here,” he said, letting her feet drop to the floor and keeping his one arm around her until he was sure she was steady again. “I’ll get a fire goin’ for you before I take Archie to the barn.”
“No, no…that’s all right,” she timidly argued. “I’m fine.” But the scowl he gave her made her bite her lip and promise herself not to attempt to ease anything for him.
She watched as he stormed around the small cabin, gathering what he needed to lay a fire. “This is the back of the house,” he mumbled. He pointed to the hearth and said, “Fireplace.” He pointed to the large, soft-looking bed covered in tattered white quilts on the wall opposite the hearth. “Bed,” he told her unnecessarily. “The kitchen and parlor are that way…and the outhouse is over yonder by the barn.”
Cricket nodded, even though he wasn’t looking at her. She watched as he took a wooden match from a tin on the mantel, hunkered down before the hearth, struck the match, and touched it to the kindling he’d laid there. He blew on the smoldering kindling several times until the fire caught. Then he wordlessly stood, striding to the large wardrobe against one wall.
She watched as he opened the wardrobe doors and began rummaging around inside.
“Here,” Heath said, turning to face her and tossing several articles of clothing onto the bed. “You strip out of them wet clothes and put these on. You’ll catch your death if you don’t. I’ll see to Archie while you’re changin’.”
And without another word, he left by way of the same door he’d kicked in only moments ago.
Standing in the middle of Heathro Thibodaux’s bedroom, soaking wet and shivering with cold, Cricket pinched her own arm to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. Had Heath really been forced to marry her only a short while before? Would Reverend Stanley really have let Wyatt and the others kill him if he hadn’t?
She started to weep again—began to sit on his bed but remembered she was drenched. She didn’t know what to do! She felt more confused than she had when Heck Alford and his band of outlaws had abducted her and the others. At least when she had been in the hands of outlaws, she’d known that survival—fighting to stay alive until help came—was her path. But now—now she only knew that the man she loved so desperately more than life itself had been forced to marry her against his will—that she stood in his house not knowing what to do.
Cricket’s gaze fell to the clothing Heath had strewn over the bed. She was very cold, and she knew he was right that she might fall ill if she didn’t dry off and warm up. She saw a small towel hanging from a hook near the washbasin and pitcher table. Glancing around, she realized there was no dressing screen to ensure her modesty. Thus Cricket surmised that swiftness would be her only ally in that regard.
Seizing the small towel from its hook on the washing table, she began stripping off her clothes. Pantaloons, petticoat, skirt—shirtwaist, corset, camisole. Quickly she dried herself as well as the small towel would allow. Snatching up the clothes from the bed, she frowned—only a pair of men’s underdrawers and a white shirt. Surely Heath didn’t expect her to dress in only a pair of his underdrawers and one of his shirts! However, as the realization washed over her that he couldn’t possibly have anything else to offer her to wear—and as she also realized that these were Heath’s clothes, clothes that he probably wore often, clothes that had clung to his smooth, warm skin—Cricket quite willingly slipped into them.
She laughed a little when she’d finished dressing and caught a vision of herself in the wall mirror opposite the door. She looked exactly like a vagabond—baggy underdrawers barely able to stay at her waist no matter how taut she pulled the drawstring and a shirt that hung down nearly to her knees. Truly she looked ridiculous. And that was the thought that panicked her in that moment.
Heath would return! As soon as he’d tended to Archie, Heath would return and see her looking just like a little ragamuffin! Frantically, Cricket dashed to the wash table, finding a brush there. Pulling the ribbon holding her hair in a long braid, she loosened the full length of her coffee-colored tresses and began brushing it in front of the fire. Her hair was as wet as her clothes had been, and working it to a smooth softness that she was satisfied with was an ordeal.
In fact, Cricket had only just finished brushing her hair when she was startled by the door swinging open—a drenched and dripping Heath stepping into the room.
Heath paused as if astonished—as if he’d forgotten Cricket had come home with him. Slowly he looked her up and down—from head to toe and back again—a deep frown furrowing his brow.
Cricket could tell he was even angrier than when he’d left to care for Archie. She’d thought caring for the horse would surely settle his temper, but he looked more disturbed than he had before.
Heath closed his eyes a moment, removing his hat and wiping the rain from his face and goatee. He silently tried to convince himself that he was only dreaming—that Magnolia wasn’t really standing there dressed only in his underdrawers and Sunday shirt. But when he opened his eyes again to behold the woman he loved standing in his bedroom in his underwear and shirt, he shook his head—reminded himself that she’d been forced to marry him. He knew it wasn’t Cricket’s intention to tempt him—to endeavor to lure him into taking her to his bed. He knew he had to keep his thoughts focused.
But just when Heath thought he’d built up his defenses once more—as he stripped off his rain-soaked shirt and began drying his arms and chest with the damp towel Cricket offered him—she said, “I’m so sorry, Heath.”
The emotion in her voice and the new tears on her cheeks were all the evidence Heath needed to confirm that she thought he was angry with her—not with Reverend Righteous and his idiot son and friends, not with the good men of Pike’s Creek that had ridden off to Lyman that morning to rescue a group of trapped miners, but with her. Cricket thought he was angry with her.
“I’m so, so sorry, Heath,” she wept. “I-I didn’t know what to do. I really thought they might kill you! I-I…”
Cricket paused in her desperate apology when Heath took hold of the waist of his drenched trousers and said, “You might wanna turn around for a minute.”
“Oh!” Cricket breathed, realizing he meant to strip off the rest of his wet clothes.
“And would you toss that other pair of drawers to me?” he asked. “The other pair there on the bed?” he repeated when she didn’t move at first.
“Oh,” she breathed again. Retrieving the other set of underdrawers Heath had tossed from the wardrobe onto his bed, Cricket stretched her arm behind her in offering them to him.
“Thank you,” Heath mumbled, pulling the underdrawers from her hand. A moment later, he said, “You can turn back around now.”
Cricket did turn around then—her breath catching in her throat as she saw him standing there in only his underdrawers.
He was rubbing his hair with the small towel in an effort to dry it. When he’d finished, he tossed the towel into a basket in one corner and looked at her. The rather boyish appearance his tousled hair gave him made Cricket smile.
“What?” Heath asked. He looked at his chest and then down at his underdrawers as if ensuring his modesty. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothin’,” Cricket said, shaking her head. Her amusement vanished as she watched him rake one hand through his wet hair several times to comb it. Once again he stood before her beautifully bare-chested, handsome as the summer days were long, and more intimid
ating than ever.
Remembering that she’d been apologizing to him before he’d begun to strip off his clothes, she repeated, “I’m so sorry, Heath. I’m sure it can all be worked out, and I’m sure that…” Her words were lost as emotion choked. “I feel like I can’t endure your bein’ angry with me. I-I didn’t know what else to do! I know Wyatt Stanley…and he would have shot you the second his father allowed. I-I didn’t know what to do, Heath!”
But when she looked up, it was to see Heath frowning at her—frowning, yes, but with confusion, not anger.
“You think I’m mad at you, Magnolia?” he asked.
Cricket didn’t know what to say. Of course she thought he was mad at her. Certainly he was mad at everyone who had forced him to marry her, but that included her. So of course he would be angry with her too.
“I’m not angry with you, honey,” Heath said, striding to her. Taking her by the shoulders, his frown softened. “I’m mad at myself.”
“What?” she asked, entirely confused—entirely affected by his touch.
“I mean, sure, I’m mad at that little son of…at Wyatt…at Wyatt and his idiot friends,” he began to explain. “And I’m furious to near beatin’ the life outta Reverend Righteous. That man needs a good lickin’…more than one.” He grinned a bit and brushed a stray strand of hair from her cheek. “But most of all, I’m mad at myself.”
“At yourself?” Cricket asked. “Why would you be mad at yourself? For what?”
“For bein’ a coward,” he mumbled.
He dropped his hands from her, and she felt suddenly cold again.
“A coward?” she squeaked. “When have you ever been a coward?”
Heath inhaled a deep breath—exhaled it slowly. Still looking at her, he answered, “I’ve been a coward for almost two weeks. I figured all those…those shenanigans you allowed me to heap on you while was waitin’ for that damn posse that never came…I figured you’d just endured all that from me.” Cricket frowned, and he continued, “We come home, and you seemed so happy to be back with your daddy and Ada. You and Marie, Ann, and Vilma…you all settled right back into doin’ the things you used to do. And I figured…that I didn’t deserve you anyhow.”
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