“So that’s why you fight me.”
She nodded. “Yes. I want to know who I am before I decide who I’m going to belong to.”
“Too late for that, Maddie. We’re already married.”
“As you said, that can be changed. I know it can be messy and it’s ugly and it ruins a woman’s reputation forever, but it’s not like I have much to hold on to anyway.”
“I won’t give you a goddamn divorce.”
“See? No me. All you.”
“Dammit, Maddie, this is unfair.”
“I know,” she admitted sadly.
“What do you want from me?”
“I want you to go home, to Hell’s Eight, to your gold mine, to wherever.”
“And? Just leave you here?”
She nodded. “Just leave me here. I’ve made a place for myself here. It’s not big, it’s not rich, it involves a lot of work, but it’s mine.”
“Is it Culbart?”
“No! I need to know me before I go with you or go back to Hell’s Eight. When I go there I’m the old Maddie again. Crazy Maddie. Sweet Maddie. Needy Maddie. Helpful Maddie. Did you ever wonder, Caden, why I was so busy helping everybody all the time?”
“No.”
“It was me trying to prove to you that I was worth something. All of you, not just you.” She made a cutting motion with her hand. “You know, I just figured if I made myself indispensible, you wouldn’t throw me away.”
“I didn’t throw you away, Maddie.”
She made another cutting motion with her hand. “I’m not talking about you leaving me here.”
“Just tell me what happened with Frank.”
“This morning?”
“No, at the Fallen C.”
“Nothing really. When they met me on the trail, I told them I was a working girl. It seemed the safest thing. Frank offered me a job.”
“Doing what?”
“Doing what working girls do.”
“Why did he shoot Worthless?”
“Because I didn’t want to go with them, and Worthless tried to save me.”
“Thought it was something like that. So Culbart took you by force.”
“It’s hard to explain, but yes and no.”
“And when you got there, Maddie?”
His fingers were incredibly tender on her cheek. His expression serious but not mean. He was braced, she realized, for the worst.
“He tried to take me to his bed.”
“And?”
“I’m not a working girl anymore, Caden.”
“You fought him?”
“Yes.”
“Did he force you?”
“No. He was appalled.”
“Excuse me?”
“I told you. He felt it was unfair of me to put him in a position of raping me.”
“Son of a bitch. He felt he got a raw deal, huh?”
“I think for a day or two, yes.”
“And then what?”
“We walked around on eggshells. He wouldn’t throw me out because I had nowhere to go. He’d brought me there so he was responsible for my safety. He didn’t have the men to spare to send with me on my way.”
“So what happened?”
“For a while, it was just really uncomfortable and tense in the house. I kept drifting in and out of this world, out of here.”
“And what did he do?”
“Stayed away a lot. He was embarrassed, I think.”
“You think?”
“I don’t know the man that well, Caden, and he has a very gruff exterior without a lot of revelation afterward.”
She slipped her fingers between his shirt collar and his skin.
“Then one day I was so bored, I thought maybe if I baked him something to eat, he’d soften up. So I made cinnamon rolls.”
“Your cure for everything.”
She nodded. “Yeah. It works.”
There was something Caden really needed to know. “Did it work on Culbart?”
“Turns out men are willing to do without sex if they can have good baking.” She laughed.
He laughed, too, and turned her so she straddled his lap, his fingers going to her shirt. She was so naive. “I have news for you, Maddie. I want you first, then your baked goods.”
It was sweet.
“So what put marriage into Culbart’s head?”
“The guilt, I think, worrying that I thought he’d force himself on me.”
“What do you mean?”
“You could have knocked me over with a feather when Frank said we had to get married or he’d kill you.”
“He threatened me?”
She nodded.
“Hell, I thought he threatened you. Why the hell did you go along with it if he threatened me?”
“Because I believed him. He said he wasn’t sending any woman into a situation where she’d be raped.”
“He didn’t think I could rape you if I was married to you?”
“Apparently not. It would be legal then.”
“Strange way of looking at it.”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s the way everybody looks at it, Caden. Except you.”
“Maybe because I never planned on getting married.”
“Maybe.”
He got the fourth, fifth, sixth buttons of her shirt undone. He tugged the string of her camisole and then he pushed both aside, revealing her full breasts, with those pink nipples that made his mouth water.
“So you pretended to be in your pretend place to go through with it?”
“No. I was in and out. But deep inside I just wanted to be married to you, Caden. And that’s why I went through with the ceremony and that’s why I didn’t warn you and that’s why you were right. I did betray you.”
He shoved her dress down her arms, trapping her hands at her sides. She looked pretty like that.
“Thank God.”
“What?”
“I was pissed as hell at the time because of the way our marriage came about, but you notice I never did anything about it. I didn’t keep my distance. I yelled. I raged and I pointed a finger at you a little bit, but I stayed close. Touching you. Sparking you.”
“A little?”
“Okay, a lot.”
He cupped her breasts in his hands, lifting them, stroking his thumb over the nipples, smiling when they rose. She had such pretty breasts. So sensitive. He knew he could make her moan just by pinching the nipple. He did, letting the soft sound stroke along his desire, settle into his cock.
“But the truth is, Maddie...”
“What?”
“I wanted to be married to you, too. So for whatever reason Culbart did what he did, it ended up being a favor.”
“What are you doing?” She sighed with pleasure.
“If you don’t remember, I didn’t do a good enough job last time.”
She shook her head. “Of course I know what you’re doing.”
“Good, then unbutton my pants.”
“This isn’t going to solve anything,” she said, her hands soft on his, making short work of the buttons on his pants before reaching inside and closing like hot velvet around his cock.
He lifted her up and she freed him. He held her feet off the ground.
“Now, pull those skirts up.”
She did. He knew she knew what he wanted when he lowered her, his cock naturally slipping between the slit in her pantaloons. She was wet and hot and it was easy to lower her onto his cock, to feel the silkiness of her pussy close around him as he let her weight settle onto his thighs. To feel that hot shudder slip through her.
He moaned. “Fuck, that’s good, Maddie.”
“Yes.”
He liked that she didn’t argue with him here.
“Now you can continue.”
For about five minutes he might be able to keep it still. He started pinching her nipples. She started rocking on his cock. Her voice was breathless. His wasn’t much better.
“So we married each other be
cause we wanted to.”
“Looks that way to me.”
“But we don’t know each other. I know you, you know you, but neither of us knows who I am.”
“I know who you are, Maddie mine. I’ve known you since the first time our eyes met. Your strength, your spirit, that deep heart you have for loving.”
“Well, I don’t know me and I need to.”
He rocked her up and down slowly. Her head fell back and her nails dug into his chest. He rolled her nipples through his fingers.
“Harder.”
“What do you want harder, my cock or my hands?”
“Both.”
“I think I’ll just work with my hands.” He liked that she was on edge and needy. He pinched her nipples harder, holding the tension until she gasped, drawing them out, letting the weight dangle from the hard tip.
“Such pretty breasts you have. I always noticed them.”
“You noticed?”
“Who wouldn’t?”
That seemed to be the right thing to say. She smiled.
“Offer them to me.”
She slipped her hands beneath and lifted them, stroking her fingers up the sides until her fingers touched his on the nipples. He took his away. She twisted and pinched her nipples.
“That’s it, baby, make them hard for my mouth.”
She did without hesitation. He liked that instant response in her. That willingness to experiment.
“Good girl.” He waited until she had them stretched away from her body before ordering, “Hold it.”
She did, her body tense and quivering, anticipation in her eyes. Holding her gaze, he lowered his head, raking his tongue across one nipple. She moaned and her head fell back. He braced her with his hand between her shoulder blades. She brought her feet up, driving his cock deeper. As his lips closed around her nipple, she rose up on his cock, fucking him in short little jabs in time with his sucking as he nibbled at her breasts.
“Christ, I’m not going to last long, Maddie.” He’d been so long without her. “I need you, honey.”
“I need you, too. Harder.”
“You first.”
She laughed the laugh he’d always wanted to hear from her. Free and wild and happy. “No, you.”
She rose up and down, maintaining the rhythm, making love to him with her eyes, her body, her smile, taking the pleasure he gave and returning it tenfold, with the grind of her hips, the squeezing of her pussy. Fuck, her pussy. So tight and hot, so wet. He thrust up, twisting her nipples between his fingers as his cock slid deep, parting her, stretching her. Son of a bitch.
“Maddie!”
She answered in a high-pitched cry, her body quivering against his. He was close. So close. “Come with me, honey. Come all over my cock, show me how you feel.”
“Yes.”
He drove up again, grabbing her hips and fucking her harder, deeper. Her nails raked down his chest. The pain blended with the pleasure. With a growl he gave her more. Of his cock. Of his passion. His love.
The explosion caught him by surprise, tearing his control from him. Her body convulsed around his, her pussy milking his cock, taking every spurt with greedy acceptance. God, he loved that she always did that, took whatever he gave her as a gift. And there in the midst of his orgasm, he realized what she’d been trying to tell him all along.
“Fuck!”
“Good fuck or bad fuck?” she asked a few minutes later, her arms around his neck, her face buried in his throat, her body still quivering and spasming around his.
“Good for you, bad for me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I finally understood what you’ve been trying to tell me, Maddie.”
“In the middle of making love, you understand?”
“I’m funny that way.”
Digging his fingers into her hair, he tilted her head back, studying her face, memorizing it for the time to come. Leaning down, he kissed her lips, not with passion but with love, because God help him, he did love her, and while it went against everything he believed in, he was going to give her what she needed.
“You pick a hell of a way to tell me to go, honey.”
Resting her cheek on his chest, she sighed. “I didn’t start it.”
“But you sure finished it.”
He ground his hips up into hers. She moaned, he moaned.
She smiled and stroked her fingertips down his cheek. “We both did.”
“As a reward, I’m going to give you what you want.”
The terror in her gaze hurt him, but not nearly as much as the relief.
“What does that mean?”
“Exactly what I said. You want me gone, I’m going to go. But—” he stood “—wrap your legs around my waist.”
She did.
“Not until tomorrow.”
He turned and realized there wasn’t anyplace to go.
“And on one condition.”
“What?”
“You get a bed for those times I come back.”
“I don’t understand.”
He laid her down on the couch, coming down above her, sliding his hardening cock deep into her pussy, watching her eyes close and her expression melt at the pleasure.
“We’re going to do it your way, Maddie. You’re going to stay here and find out who you are, and I’m going to work the mine, but I’m going to come back. Don’t you ever think I won’t. I’m not leaving you. I’m going to come back, not because you’re my wife, but because I need you, plain and simple. And we’ll make love and we’ll talk and we’ll go to socials and we’ll get to know each other, and when you’re ready, you’ll tell me what I want to hear.”
“And what is that?”
“You’ll know it when you say it.”
“I do love you.”
He shook his head. “That’s not what I want to hear.”
“Caden.” He could see her panicking. He caught her hands in his and brought them to his mouth.
“You’re right, Maddie. You need this time to discover who you are, to find out what you want, because truth be told, I don’t want you unless you’re sure, too. But I’m not divorcing you and I’m not abandoning you. We’ll do this like adults.”
“You’re going to live here?”
“I can live anywhere, Maddie. What I can’t do, what I don’t want to do, is live without you.”
She opened her mouth, but he put his finger over her lips. “I don’t want to hear lies, honey. So when you know it, just give me the truth.”
* * *
CADEN WAS AS GOOD AS his word. The next morning, exhausted, her body pleasantly sore from lovemaking, her heart lodged in her throat, Maddie watched Caden leave. He rode out of her life the way he rode in. A confident, powerful man as rugged and wild as the land. A man who loved her. And she’d sent him away. Dear God, maybe she really was crazy. She wanted to run after him and tell him to come back, but there was no going back. No closing the door she’d opened. Not without the knowing. Neither could be satisfied with less. Caden rode out of sight, leaving the street as empty as her heart. At her feet, Precious meowed. Maddie picked her up.
A chill went up her spine. She looked around. There was nothing.
“I truly must be crazy.” So crazy she thought someone was watching her. So crazy she was letting Caden ride away. But as terrified as she was, as desolate as she felt watching Caden ride away, she hadn’t chased after him, and maybe that was more significant than the fear she was feeling now. She clung to the doorjamb.
I won’t abandon you, Maddie.
She hoped he wouldn’t. There was so much she needed to figure out. She wanted it done yesterday, but it seemed determined to come at its own time.
Time.
“Oh, my God.”
She darted back inside to take the first batch of cinnamon rolls out of the oven. Across the street she could see her first line of customers wandering over, some with coffee cups in their hands, getting ready for the first stop in their da
y. The satisfaction she felt replaced some of her panic. And she knew without a doubt she’d made the right decision. They’d made the right decision.
She took the rolls out of the oven and set the tray on the table. Whipping the glaze to a thick, creamy consistency, she drizzled it over them. She needed this. And she needed Caden. Somehow she needed to be good with both. It shouldn’t be this hard, but it was. Fear churned in her stomach. She fought it back with slow, even breaths. She had to figure out what she was afraid of.
* * *
A WEEK LATER A KNOCK at the door caught her by surprise. She wasn’t expecting anyone, especially this late in the evening. She looked up to see a familiar woman standing in the doorway.
“Lucia! What brings you out this late?”
“Bread, what else?” She was dressed in a crisp white shirt and a blue walking dress. In her hand she held a pair of pale blue gloves. With a smile, she motioned to the kitchen. “May I come in?”
“Of course.”
The older woman came in and looked around the kitchen.
“You’re very efficient at what you do,” she said, the appreciation clear in her tone.
“Thank you.”
“We’ll need three more loaves of bread for tomorrow. There’s a fresh crop of miners that came in last night, and without the extra, we’re going to come up short. Can you do that?”
Maddie did a quick calculation. She didn’t owe the cinnamon rolls to the mercantile anymore, so if she didn’t bake those, she could add the bread. There’d be a little less profit, but Lucia was a good customer and she’d given her her first break, her first opportunity.
“Yes, I can do that.”
Lucia turned to leave and then stopped. The way she fiddled with the gloves clearly indicated she had something on her mind. “I saw your man leave.”
Maddie nodded, but didn’t offer anything further. How to explain her situation?
“He goes away often?”
“He will be gone for a while this time.”
“You’ve been fighting.”
It was a statement. Maddie shook her head. “No, it’s just...it’s just something I need.”
The older woman smoothed her hair. She picked up one of the cinnamon buns.
“May I?”
Maddie nodded.
She delicately pinched off a piece and put it to her mouth.
“It’s easy when you’re married to forget things.”
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