by Gigi Moore
“Yah! Go! Yah!” Wyatt dug his heels into Gambit’s strong-muscled flanks and the animal galloped down the dirt road toward town like a horse running for The Pony Express.
Gambit was an exquisite black stallion on which he had splurged a few years back but hadn’t had the opportunity to ride in the last several months the way he liked to and the way the horse deserved. Unlike a plow or cart horse, Gambit was sleek, made strictly for speed and pleasure. There’d been no real occasion before now to fulfill the animal’s and his needs, as Wyatt rarely did anything these days for the sheer enjoyment of it. If an activity didn’t involve tending his land and maintaining his home, he didn’t engage in it.
Now he saw no reason not to.
He knew he should have stayed and made his presence known. He should have confronted them, but then what purpose would that have served except to satisfy his masculine sense of self-worth? Not to mention he’d practically pushed Lily into the Indian’s arms by refusing to let her work out in the fields with him like she used to. He had given her more time in the house alone with the Indian whether he wanted to admit it or not.
Wyatt wondered if, subconsciously, he had pushed Lily and Dakota into each other’s path just to see if they would succumb to temptation and the desire brewing between them. Had he been testing them, testing his Lily?
He didn’t want to believe he was that cruel, but what other reason did he have for pushing her away night after night, distancing himself, if not a wicked need to punish her? Or maybe he was punishing himself for not being there when she had needed him most.
If anyone had asked him, he and Lily had both been punished enough.
Which brought Wyatt right back to the other reason he had left after witnessing that kiss.
Lily had never looked more beautiful, more content than she had been when she was in the Indian’s arms. For his part, Dakota had handled her with the gentle reverence that a man would reserve for the woman he treasured and loved.
Despite being Lily’s husband, who was he to stand in the way of that kind of bond, something that seemed so…destined?
Wyatt frowned at the term.
Unlike Lily, he wasn’t very spiritual and only went to church because his mama and papa used to make him go. He didn’t believe in the kind of farfetched, fatalistic hogwash that religious men preached from their pulpits. If he couldn’t see it, touch it, smell it, or hear it, then it wasn’t real to him and didn’t matter none anyway. Except that since Doctor Malloy and his wife Maia and his brother Cade had moved to Elk Creek, he had started to think twice about dreams coming true, happily ever afters, and fairy tales. He had started to believe in a power outside of himself, like magic—the exact thing he associated with what was going on between his wife and the Indian.
How could he compete with something like that?
Wyatt’s heart suddenly balled up tight in his chest with frustration and the pain of his wife’s betrayal. He wanted to believe that Lily still had for him the same tender affection she had shown the Indian. He needed to have faith that his presence still brought her joy and that what they had sown several years ago when they got married could be salvaged.
Could a woman, so sweet and basic like Lily, love two men? More importantly, could he be with a woman who loved two men, even if one of them was him?
Wyatt knew himself and he knew his weaknesses and faults better than anyone. He knew he could be jealous and possessive of Lily. He had been this way even before her attack. The men in town often teased him about his having “that pretty little wife of your’n on a short leash.” He didn’t care how anyone saw his and Lily’s relationship. He just knew that from the moment he had exchanged vows with his intended before Elk Creek’s Justice of the Peace, he considered Lily his to love and protect always. He only cared how she saw their relationship.
It actually surprised him that he’d chosen to leave rather than stay and wring the Indian’s neck for daring to touch what belonged to Wyatt. He supposed part of it was because he knew that Dakota had only gone as far as Lily allowed him and wanted him to. Knowing this had dispelled Wyatt’s initial, natural instinct to claim what was his and crush any challenger for his Lily’s affections.
Wyatt spurred Gambit to move even faster, silently apologizing in advance for pushing the animal to his limits. He needed to get as far away from the source of his rage and confusion as he could, for if he had stayed in that house a moment longer, he might have broken something. He didn’t want to contemplate what that something might have been.
Tarnation, he had done more ruminating in the last hour than he had for most of his life!
Wyatt wasn’t much of a thinker, definitely not scholarly like his wife, though he liked to read and used to enjoy helping her prepare lesson plans for her students. However, he was impulsive and considered himself more of a doer. Lily said he had a mite of a temper. He knew it was true, especially where anyone threatening his marriage was concerned.
He’d gotten better since he’d married Lily. He’d settled down considerably since his footloose and fancy-free bachelor days when he’d only looked forward to being out on the range or going on the trail with like-minded men. He’d settled down thanks to Lily. She was his great equalizer. She balanced him out.
He realized in that instant that he not only wanted her in his life, he needed her. He was willing to keep her, too, in any capacity, on her terms, because if he didn’t follow his heart on this he wouldn’t be able to look himself in the mirror and say he’d done all he could to save their marriage.
Gambit did what he was built for and Wyatt cleared his mind to try and enjoy the rush he felt from a hard ride on a strong horse, the kind he used to get out on the range or during a cattle drive. He just didn’t get the same kind of contentment from tilling the soil that he got from riding Gambit. True, there was nothing like the benefits of months of hard labor when a rich, healthy crop came in harvest time, but it didn’t match riding Gambit.
He had grown up on a farm with a healthy love and respect for the land and animals.
“You take care of your land and your animals and they’ll take care of you.”
Wyatt had always been able to count on his father to say things like this, the right thing at the right time, whether Wyatt asked for advice or not.
He plumb missed his mama and papa, their absence never more apparent than now when he needed someone to talk to about the confusing feelings that were bubbling up inside him and ready to burst free.
Lily would be surprised to know how much he used to confide in his parents since he rarely confided in her. She thought him incapable of confiding in anyone, and thought him silent by nature. For the most part this was true, but he had his moments, just not enough of them with Lily. They’d had so little time together before her attack to learn the ebb and flow of each other’s grown-up personalities, and now he just felt like he was with a plumb stranger most of the times when he was around his wife.
“I’m still your wife, Wyatt. You can confide in me. You can trust me.”
Who did he go to, though, when his confidante was the one he was confused about and having a problem with? It wasn’t that he didn’t want to trust Lily. There were just some things he couldn’t talk to her about, and her obvious desire to bring a stranger, a half-breed savage, into their bedroom was one of them.
Wyatt leaned his body forward, into Gambit’s shoulders, finding the animal’s rhythm and sinking into it with relish. Gambit had already worked up a healthy lather at the front of his body and Wyatt took a deep breath to inhale the horse’s musky scent.
Tarnation, he had missed riding for sheer excitement, the wind against his face and in his hair, him becoming one with a high-performance horse built for speed and endurance.
“I love my husband.”
Wyatt clung to the words as he gripped the reins, telling himself he had not lost her, that they still had a chance. It was the only thing keeping him sane.
He reached Elk Creek les
s than an hour later with no idea what to do with himself or his time now that he had arrived.
It had been so long since he had been in town for anything not to do with the business of running and supplying his farm he was at a loss.
Wyatt steered Gambit through the center of town at a leisurely gait. He admired the dapper men and the elegant ladies clad in the colorful fashion of the day complete with frilly matching hats, handbags, and parasols as they strolled down the sunlit streets.
He shook his head at the fancy exhibitions, lamenting the fact that he and Lily hadn’t found much reason to put on the dog like these fine ladies and gentlemen since she had returned.
He’d love to see Lily strutting her stuff down the streets of Elk Creek, decked out in all the finery that his money could buy. He still believed she deserved the best. She always would.
Wyatt admitted to himself that nothing had changed about his feelings for Lily and the Indian had spoken the gospel when he said she was brave and strong. Lily was both of those and so much more.
If any woman in the world deserved to have two men doting on her, it was Lily.
It was easy to tell himself this, but truly believing it, down deep in his bones, was another story that Wyatt just wasn’t ready to tell.
As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t deny that he liked the effect the Indian had on Lily. Dakota brought out her passion—the good and the bad—and Wyatt liked seeing her happy. Seeing shades of how she used to laugh and smile pleased him. If she could be happy with Dakota, Wyatt had to accept that. He didn’t necessarily like it, but he would do what he had to do to ensure that Lily stayed happy. The question remained, however, could she be happy with both of them? Wyatt wondered because there was no way he would step completely aside without a fight. If Dakota wanted Lily, he’d only get her on Wyatt’s terms. He’d have to share her.
If Lily wants it.
What if she didn’t want both of them? What if she was ready to make a change and move away from Wyatt after her experiences with the Kiowas? What if she saw staying with Wyatt as moving backward? Did she possibly feel more comfortable with Dakota because he was Kiowa and reminded her of a time and place when she had last felt safe? Did she think he could protect her better than Wyatt could?
Tarnation, he had never been so wishy-washy before, torn between laying down the law and exerting his will or letting Lily exert her own.
He counted on the fact that Lily still cared for him. He knew she desired him. He’d felt her nipples hard and tight against his chest the other day. He’d smelled her woman’s musk wafting up to him from her pussy.
Wyatt knew he hadn’t lost her just yet.
“Well, as I live and breathe! If it ain’t that lily-livered sodbuster, Wyatt Baldwin!”
Wyatt pasted a smile on his face before turning to see the owner of the voice. When he set eyes on the tall, green-eyed redhead leaning against a hitching post just outside one of Elk Creek’s saloons, his smile grew genuine.
He’d always had a soft spot for Rusty Carmichael growing up, though it was their wealthier counterpart, Brand Westyn, with whom Wyatt had been best friends.
And speaking of the devil…
“I told Rusty you wouldn’t dare show your face in this town if it wasn’t anything to do with your homestead. But he insisted you looked like you were ready for an evening on the town.” Brand, a tall brunet with dark-brown eyes, strutted from behind Rusty, spitting a gob of tobacco juice at Wyatt’s feet before letting his generous lips spread into a grin.
The three of them used to present a striking sight walking down the street together as teens with their assorted coloring and looks.
Wyatt’s mother called them lady-killers whenever they put on their best bib and tucker before going out on the town. She said the girls in Elk Creek didn’t stand a chance against them. She liked to say they had something to offer for every taste with one of them being blond, another being a redhead, and another being a brunet.
“Yes, siree, you three make a right handsome trio of young men.”
Wyatt smiled at the memory as Brand stopped in front of Gambit.
“Since I don’t see a horse and buggy with you and this sure doesn’t look like your plow or cart horse, I reckon Rusty here might have been right for once. This here animal looks like a coming-to-town-for-sinning critter to me.” Brand rubbed the animal under the chin before smoothing his hand down the back of the horse’s neck and arching a brow at Wyatt. “You’ve been running him hard, Wy. Granted he ain’t no crowbait, but you gotta watch how you work a fine specimen like this. You’re going to want to get one of the town nippers to take care of him and cool him down for you.”
Wyatt’s smile never wavered as he dismounted Gambit and faced his old friend.
After all this time he was used to Brand insinuating that he didn’t know how to properly care for a thoroughbred, when the exact opposite was true. Since Brand’s father, the Avery Westyn, was one of the most well-known, successful cattle barons in these parts, Brand had an inflated sense of his horsemanship and overall skills as a cowboy. He seemed to equate his father’s success as his own.
There was one thing Brand had definitely inherited from his well-liked father. He was one of the most exciting people with whom to spend time, and his amusing, effusive personality had always balanced out his arrogance. Everyone, including himself and Rusty, had always gravitated toward Brand. It wasn’t his father’s money. Brand just had the type of charismatic, easygoing way that made men and women alike want to be around him.
In this respect, he reminded Wyatt of Lily. He was her male counterpart.
Wyatt watched now as Brand whistled through his teeth to summon a nearby street urchin pitching pennies against one of the buildings with a group of slightly older boys.
Seeing an opportunity to supplement his coin, the towheaded little boy skittered over, revealing a gap-toothed smile as he came to a stop before Brand.
Wyatt wondered where the child’s parents were and why they or any parent would leave a child so young unescorted, especially after the incident several months ago when a few of the town’s boys had turned up missing and presumed dead.
The sheriff and his men never had found young Tommy or Aaron, though Isaiah had been found alive and Rance Peyton, the man who had kidnapped him, had turned up dead.
Wyatt couldn’t help thinking if this boy belonged to him and Lily, he’d never let the little nipper out of his sight. He’d be willing to bet that Lily felt the same way, especially seeing as how she acted whenever she laid her gaze on another woman’s child during their trips to town.
She hid her sniffles and tears well and probably thought Wyatt didn’t notice her bittersweet smiles when they encountered a woman with a big belly, but he noticed. He paid attention to a lot more than Lily would ever know.
Though she never had been big on neighboring, mostly because she had been too busy with her teaching and helping him on the farm, she plumb cringed at the idea of it now when Wyatt brought it up. He couldn’t help wondering if her dislike had anything to do with most of the women in the territory having little ones that Lily just couldn’t stand to be around anymore.
Wyatt didn’t know what the reasons were behind her sudden aversion, but he vowed that he would find out, one way or the other.
Brand made a deal with the nipper and flipped him a shiny new coin for his trouble before leading Wyatt and Rusty toward one of the more popular saloons in town.
Wyatt followed, not thinking twice about leaving Gambit with the boy. He knew the kid would find help, if need be, to take care of the animal, as Brand had asked and nothing would happen to his pricey stallion, not if the nipper and his cohorts knew what was good for them. The Westyn name and reputation was known far and wide. No one would dare intentionally cross Brand or do anything to cause him a minute of heartache.
Brand hooked an arm around Wyatt’s neck as they pushed through the swinging doors of Hank’s saloon and Rusty brought up the rear.
Wyatt immediately squinted beneath the ambient light and smothered a cough from the cigar smoke permeating the air.
As the three of them traversed the floor to the bar, the boisterous energy of the room suffused him with a familiar sense of expectation. It was almost enough to make him forget what had driven him to town in the first place.
“What’ll it be, gents?”
“A round of drinks for everyone on me,” Brand said, cheerfully slamming his hand down on the bar top.
A roar of approval rose up from several of the men standing at the bar and several others playing rounds of poker at a few of the tables.
“What’s the occasion?”
“We’re celebrating our amigo here deigning to bend an elbow with the boys.” Brand playfully tightened his hold around Wyatt’s neck and ruffled his hair before letting him go.
“Wyatt? That you?”
“How ya doin’, Hank?”
“Can’t complain.” The older man peered at Wyatt and Wyatt squirmed beneath the power of Hank’s shrewd gaze, suddenly feeling like a little boy who’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “How’s Lily?”
“Right as a trivet.”
“Well now, that’s good to hear.”
“We’ll have some of your best whiskey, Hank,” Brand said.
“Coming up.” Hank reached beneath the bar to retrieve three glasses and lined them up on the bar. He turned for a moment to get a bottle of the saloon’s best from a top shelf before uncapping and pouring a healthy shot into each man’s glass.
Brand lifted his drink, smiling widely. “A toast.”
Wyatt and Rusty both raised their glasses.
“What to?” Rusty asked.
“Our friend’s returning to his senses, of course.”
More like leaving my senses after a few more of these.
Wyatt chuckled and touched his glass to his two friends’ glasses before they all three took a healthy swig of the whiskey.
“Hear, hear.”
Wyatt turned toward the voice behind him to see Doctor Malloy sitting at the bar not too far from them. He wondered if the doctor had just arrived, as he hadn’t noticed him upon their arrival, but then he hadn’t noticed much of anything through the smoke-filled haze of the room.
