Desperate

by Sylvia McDaniel

  “Yeah, but whoever she marries, who’s going to be wearing the pants in the family?”

  “You could be one of those hen-pecked husbands. ‘Yes, dear, whatever you say, dear,’” a man said in his imitation of a woman’s voice.

  A new round of laughter accompanied this statement and tears pricked Meg’s eyes and filled her throat. She would not cry.

  “In bed, I bet she’s colder than a well digger’s ass in Montana. She’d probably want to take the lead. ‘Roll over honey, I’m doing the pushin’.’”

  “Gentleman, the lady looks awfully fine in her britches. If that’s the worst thing her husband has to endure, then I don’t think the job would be that bad. But sometimes her nature is a little bossy. She likes to take control,” Zach’s voice called out. “But in my marriage, I wear the pants, I make the decisions, and I take the lead in the bedroom.”

  “Not with that biddy you wouldn’t.”

  She held her breath, waiting for him to fight for her, to tell these men that she was a good woman who’d been dealt a difficult situation and done the best she could. She kept waiting for him to list her good qualities. She kept waiting and realized he wasn’t going to defend her. The no-good bastard was just going to let these men ridicule her.

  She was bossy? She liked control? What did he expect? When she’d taken over the responsibility of her family, she’d had to change from a child to a woman. Something a twelve-year-old young’un should never have to do. She’d had no choice.

  Meg’s insides tightened, and a rush of fury consumed her, leaving her hair ends almost standing on end. The urge to storm in there and tell everyone he was the biggest damn fool that ever lived had her feet moving, but then she stopped. No…wait.

  Running in there like a frenzied angry woman would complete her humiliation. They would love to see her breakdown in a fit of anger. The whole town would hear of how she’d been stripped of her pride in the bathhouse. There were other ways to extract her revenge.

  She turned and faced the man running to stop her. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking. I can’t go back there. I’ll just wait outside for him.”

  He wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. “Thank you. I didn’t want to have to carry you out.”

  A snide laugh escaped her lips. “That wouldn’t have happened.”

  Opening the door, she walked out and untied the reins of her horse and rode around to the back of the bathhouse where the private tubs were kept. Most men had a drink while they waited for their bath to be prepared and then went to the private areas to soak. She’d be waiting.

  Tying the reins of her horse, she peered beneath the tented area. The man who owned the bathhouse had yet to build a permanent establishment. Laid out on her belly, she crawled under the canvas and spied the big round tin tubs. Yeap, they’d do.

  After returning to her horse, she searched and found the coil of rope in her saddlebags. With a loop and a knot, she tied the rope to her saddle horn and then strung it through her stirrups. She found the smaller thinner rope she kept just for hog tying, grabbed a rag and stuffed them in her pocket. At the edge of the tent, she waited on her belly for Zach, hoping she’d chosen the right room.

  A man came in and poured two buckets of hot water into the tub and then a smaller bucket of cool water. “It’s ready for you, sheriff.”

  He walked into the area; a towel draped around his waist.

  “Thanks, I’m going to rest a bit. If I’m not out in thirty minutes, come wake me,” he instructed the man. “I’ve got plans tonight, and I need to be out of here in less than an hour.”

  “Will do, sir,” he acknowledged.

  Meg smiled. He’d be awake in thirty minutes. As he dropped the towel, she gazed in interest. Not bad. Not bad at all. Her stomach tightened, and her breathing quickened. A nicely built man with a muscled chest, tight stomach, and strong thighs. Too bad the cowboy would never get the opportunity to show her his physique in a marriage bed.

  Zach turned his back, his buttocks a nice firm shape she longed to slap. He sunk down low into the tub. He was too big to sprawl out, but he placed his towel beneath his head and scooted down into the water. He sighed a contented, relaxed sound. Though she was unable to see his eyes, she’d just bet they were closed.

  She loosened the strings on the tie downs on the tent, not wanting to tear up the man’s place of business, and then waited.

  About ten minutes later, the sheriff’s breathing evened out, and she knew he was sleeping. She took out her tools, crawled on her belly into the tent and then came up behind him. With her lasso ready, she jerked his feet up and slipped the rope around his ankles, tightening the slipknot. His eyes flew open in surprise as she wrapped the other end of the rope around his wrists, effectively hog-tying the bastard.

  “What are you doing in here?” he yelled, trying to rise, his brown eyes stunned and questioning. “You tied me up? What are you doing?”

  “Did you tell anyone I’d asked you to marry me?” she asked.

  “No,” he stammered and she knew he lied. “I planned on coming out to your place tonight to ask you to marry me.”

  Yeah, and her chickens were going to lay golden eggs.

  She wrapped the rope around the tub and tied it. “Marry a woman wearing pants? Sure, you were going to ask this bossy, controlling woman to marry you. You like being hen-pecked.”

  “How did you hear?” His eyes widened in disbelief, his forehead drawing together creating a wrinkle above his brows, as he realized she’d heard everything.

  She paused and smiled down at him, then leaned into the tub.

  “Let’s just say the walls have ears.” The shock and surprise on his face was almost gratifying. What if she hadn’t come in here late this afternoon? She would never have known his true feelings.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, seeming to just notice she continued to wrap the rope across the top of the tub.

  “I’m securing you in. Don’t want you to catch cold,” she replied in that happy singsong voice she used when she was so angry she had to cover her tone. “Someone might see your…” She gazed down into the tub, and he pulled his legs together as best he could. “Private parts.”

  “God damn it, Meg.”

  Her chest tightened, and her eyes watered. She shoved the pain of his rejection deep inside, now was not the time to let him see how much he’d hurt her. Now was the time to get her revenge, but why didn’t it feel better? Why wasn’t she enjoying making him suffer? Why did it hurt so much?

  “You don’t want a woman wearing pants.”

  “I didn’t say that. I can’t help if it they were making fun of you, I was trying to defend you.”

  “Oh yeah, and you were doing such an outstanding job.” Peering into his face, she pretended to study him. “Why, I can see the hen pecks from here, you big sissy,” she said, tying the last knot. “Yes, I’m so sure you wanted ‘the job.’”

  “I want to marry you,” he said, almost screaming at her.

  “And I want a man who will defend me, stand up for me, and tell bastards like that to shut the fuck up about my wife. Do you understand? I don’t want a scalawag, lowlife jackeroo for a husband.” Before he could respond, she shoved the rag into his mouth.

  Now she’d no longer have to listen to his empty promises of how he wanted her to marry him. Now, her eyes wouldn’t be tearing up at his assurances of wedding bliss.

  His eyes grew large, and he struggled against the ropes.

  “That’s better. I won’t have to listen to your bullshit.” She checked her knots one more time.

  “This won’t take long, but I wouldn’t move around too much. I’d hate to tear the bottom out of that tub and have your bare ass be dragged along the street. That might hurt a bit,” she said and tied the tent flap up. With a swing of her leg, she climbed onto her horse and gigged him with her heels.

  The horse grunted, but slowly the tub began to move as she dragged it over rocks and grass as it moved
out of the tent.

  Zach was screaming at her through the gag, making, gargled noises, but she ignored him as her horse tugged the tub from the alley, turning and heading toward Main Street. Slow and steady she went, not wanting to hurt Zach, just humiliate him. The way she’d been demeaned in public.

  She pulled the reins to a stop about a block from the saloon, between the bank and the mercantile. From here, she could hear the piano music tinkling, the loud laughter and the singing, but there was very little foot traffic.

  It would be a while before Zach was found, though she knew he’d be located before daylight and the night was warm enough he wouldn’t be in any danger. Only the danger of shame and mortification and she’d suffered that plenty.

  For a moment, her conscience pricked. He’d said he was going to ask her to marry him. Maybe she was acting in haste. Maybe she should have given him a chance to explain. But maybe the bastard was just like every other man in this town and thought less of her because she wore pants.

  “This is the end of the road, fiancé,” she said sarcastically, trying to cover the pain. “I’m sure you’ll soon be found, but your pride might be a little dinged. Tied up, unshucked, and wet in the middle of Main Street. Kind of like how I feel when men say ugly things about these pants I wear. Or they say her ass looks really nice in those trousers. ‘I don’t want a woman who can out shoot, out rope, or out smart me.’ If you wanted a stupid, simple-minded dress-wearing woman, then we were never meant to be together.”

  Untying the rope from her horse, her heart in her throat, she called, “Goodbye, sheriff.”

  Zach started banging against the tub, but Meg spurred the horse and rode away.

  As she left, her heart squeezed painfully, and tears blurred her vision. She would not cry. She would not cry. Any man who didn’t love her for who she was and accept her the way she was didn’t deserve her.

  Life had made her tough. Life continued to show her she couldn’t be meek or mild or weak. Meg had to be strong for her sisters. And now she knew the answer to her decision.

  *

  Meg walked into the house. Annabelle and Ruby sat at the table. They glanced up at her, and she shook her head. The words refused to come out; her pride still smarted, and her heart felt beaten up.

  “Bastard,” Ruby said.

  “Scalawag. Are there no good men left?” Annabelle asked.

  “I don’t think we’ll be seeing any more of Zach,” Meg replied, her heart shattering in a thousand pieces inside her chest. After what she’d done to him, he would never forgive her and yet he’d hurt her, as well.

  “What happened?” Annabelle asked.

  “Let’s just say he’s too tied up at the moment to marry me.”

  “Meg McKenzie, what in the hell did you do?” Ruby asked, her blue eyes shining with laughter. “And everyone wonders where I get my wild side.”

  Meg didn’t feel good about leaving Zach naked on Main Street and had even considered returning and untying him, but she feared the consequences.

  “I overhead Zach making fun of me wearing pants with the other men in town,” the admission was humiliating, and Meg’s chest ached from the need to cry, but she refused. She would not cry.

  Her sisters rose and came over to her. They each hugged her. “I’m so sorry.”

  Meg had to fight to keep tears from falling.

  Ruby held on to her, clasping her against her small frame. “You’re beautiful, Meg, and any man who can’t see that shouldn’t be with my sister.”

  “He doesn’t know what he’s missing.” Annabelle took a step back from her sister. “He didn’t deserve you.”

  “Thanks, but there’s nothing like overhearing a bunch of men talking about how your ass fits nicely in a pair of trousers.” Meg shook her head. With a sigh, she sat down at the table and the others followed.

  They were back to square one. This time they had twelve months to earn enough money to save the farm. But how would they make that next balloon payment?

  “What are we going to do now?” Ruby asked.

  Meg rubbed her hand across her face, her heart wishing so badly for Papa. She longed for his guidance. “I paid the loan on the farm, so we’re good for now, but that’s not going to keep us fed. Next year we’ll have the same problem.”

  Annabelle smiled that knowing way of hers Meg knew meant she had an idea. “I think I have a solution.” Jumping up from the table, she went into her room. A few minutes later, she returned with a stack of wanted posters and laid them on the table. “I think we have to do what Papa did. I think we have to become bounty hunters.”

  “But we’re women,” Ruby said, glancing down at the men. “These guys aren’t exactly attending church every Sunday. How will we find them?”

  “We do what Deke said he and Papa did. We learn where they’re from. Where their family lives. We search them out. Just one of these will pay more than what we earned at our fine jobs that got us nowhere,” Annabelle said.

  “We could get hurt. Papa died chasing a criminal. We could be shot or captured or even worse,” Meg said. “We could die.”

  “We could die plowing,” Ruby said.

  “Or we could pay off the farm,” Annabelle said softly. “Never have to worry about losing it again.”

  Ruby’s eyes widened, and her face glowed with excitement. “And think of the adventures we’ll have. Trapping outlaws and turning them in to the sheriff.”

  “They’re not going to go willingly,” Meg reminded Ruby.

  Ruby smiled, her blue eyes dancing with excitement. “No, but I think we’re strong women who can hold our own against any man.”

  “We can outshoot most men,” Meg said, thinking of what the town men had said about her today in the bathhouse. “Even if we just go for the sly dogs, we could earn a better living than what we’ve been doing.” Who was she kidding? She’d been thinking about this for weeks. She’d been considering and reconsidering if this was a viable option for them to chew over. But did she want to risk her sister’s lives?

  “Once we paid off the bank note, all we’d have to do is raise enough cattle to keep us fed,” Annabelle, the logical one of the three said softly.

  An uneasy silence fell between the women.

  “What about our stock? The garden?” Meg’s main concern was the farm. After everything they’d gone through, she wasn’t ready to lose their farm. “Who’s going to take care of the farm?”

  “Either one of us stays here alone, or we sell the livestock, or we hire someone to look after them while we’re gone,” Annabelle said. “I could stay here or we can hire someone. But we must never hunt alone. We’re a team. We do this together.”

  Meg contemplated her options. This very thought had swirled around in her mind for days. Their father had made a decent living as a bounty hunter. Why couldn’t they? Why couldn’t they catch criminals and turn them in?

  Why couldn’t they pay off the mortgage and put some money in savings and then come back with the dream of farming full time? Maybe they’d find husbands or men they liked while doing this, and maybe they’d get injured and have to quit or maybe they’d make more money than they dreamed of because men were blind to a pretty girl. While Ruby flirted, Meg would be slapping the cuffs on them.

  “I’m in,” Meg said.

  “I’m in,” Ruby said.

  “I’m in,” Annabelle replied. “And here is our first job.”

  Meg got up and poured them each a small sip of the whiskey her father had kept on hand for special occasions. She gave each woman a glass. They raised it up. “To new beginnings where the men are dangerous, the trail is dusty, and the women are deserving. To the bounty hunter sisters—Lipstick and Lead.”

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you for reading Desperate. I hope you enjoyed the lead off story for my brand new western historical romance series, Lipstick and Lead. The next three books are each sister’s story, starting with Meg. Deadly will be out the end of July.

  Lend it. P
lease share this book with a friend. The e-book is lending-enabled.

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  Thanks so much for reading Desperate. For a list of my other romances and a sneak preview of Deadly, please turn the page!

  Yours in Drama, Divas, Bad Boys and Romance

  Sylvia McDaniel

  www.sylviamcdaniel.com

  Deadly

  Chapter One

  Meg McKenzie stood in yet another hotel room, in another dusty frontier town, on the hunt for yet another wayward criminal. She pulled her Baby Dragoon revolver from her holster, spun the cylinder, and checked to make sure a bullet graced every chamber. With a gentle tug she checked the leather case, and then slid the weapon back into the holster, just a fingertip away.

  “The McKenzie sisters are about to strike again,” her sister Ruby said, as she slid her own gun into the hidden sheath-like case neatly tucked beneath her petticoats. Her saloon dress dipped low in the front to the edge of her breasts, the straps completely off her shoulder. She flipped her blonde hair back and checked her image one last time in the mirror. “How many men have we brought to justice?”

  “At least twelve. Seems we’ve spent more time on the road than we have at home,” Meg said, homesickness surging through her like an open wound.

  In the last year, they had learned the bounty hunter trade and continued their father’s legacy. With his death, the girls had been forced to find work in order to save the farm and in a desperate moment had chosen their current path. Meg and Ruby chased wanted criminals, whereas Annabelle ran the business side of their bounty hunting and maintained their family farm. At least until they returned and could join their sister once again. They never intended to make this their lifelong occupation. Just long enough to pay off the mortgage on the farm.