Sagebrush Bride

by Tanya Anne Crosby

“What the hell were you trying to do? Kill us both?”

  “Me?” She snorted inelegantly, squinting her eyes to ward away the pain that shot through her head. Her hand trembled as it moved to her temple in an effort to still the hazy picture her eyes were presenting.

  “You!” she accused. “What were you trying to do? And where do you think you are taking me?” She glared up at him again, still slightly disoriented.

  In the light of day, he seemed different somehow, more Indian maybe. Ominous, definitely. His clothes were the same ones he’d worn last night, except for the wide blue and white bandanna that was bound about his forehead. It seemed to accentuate the length of his hair, the swarthy tone of his skin. Beads of sweat dotted his brow above it.

  That was the difference, she thought dimly. That, and the fact that he was bareheaded besides. It was amazing how that small variation in his apparel changed his entire presence. His hat, his one token of civilization, had obviously tumbled from his head during the fall, because it lay upon the ground not more than three feet from her toes. She eyed it malevolently as she wiggled her foot, then bent her knees cautiously, repeating the ritual for the other foot. Satisfied that nothing was broken below the waist, she tested her arms under his watchful eye, grimacing as a dull pang shot through her shoulder.

  Belatedly her gaze slid across the grassland, taking in the wide open space, the fact that there were no buildings, nothing but early morning skies and open land. The landscape looked a little eerie with the dew still hanging heavily in the air. “Where the hell are we?”

  “Easy, bright eyes, I’m only trying to help.”

  Delving into a pocket, Cutter removed from it a clean bandanna, using it to gently pat the fleck of blood from her lip. She recoiled at his touch, and he gave her a frown for the effort. “We’re on our way to St. Louis,” he informed her, giving her a worried glance. “Don’t you recall anythin’ a’tall?”

  “St. Louis!”

  Forgetting her aches, Elizabeth sprang from the ground, resisting the urge to rub her bruised fanny, because that infuriating little smile tugged at Cutter’s lips, and she had the notion he’d read her thoughts. Nettled, she dropped her hands at her sides.

  Her mind raced, trying to piece together the events that would have brought her to this ungodly predicament, but try as she might, she couldn’t remember anything. She eyed him suspiciously. “St Louis?”

  Like a stubborn weed, his annoying amusement returned and his grin swept into his dark eyes, though he said nothing, only nodded, and Elizabeth bristled.

  Forcing a calming breath, she peered down at the filth that clung to her skirts, taking in the torn hem and her once white blouse, groaning inwardly at the thought of presenting herself in St. Louis this way. She tried again, her nerves fast reaching a breaking point, and said, “I don’t remember.” Her gaze challenged him. “That is to say… I do recall your offer, Mr. McKenzie… but I also recall telling you no thank you. But all right… let’s say I did request your services… It was quite gracious—” she spoke the word with barely contained fury”—of you to accept, but I find I do not need you escorting me, after all. You can take me home now.” His smile deepened, and her anger escalated. “Don’t you understand plain English? I don’t want you taking me to St. Louis! I want you to carry me home this very instant!”

  Cutter shook his head. “We’ve come too far to turn back. Besides, I was countin’ on the dinero,” he said.

  Walking over to pick up his hat, he tapped it against his leg to rid it of the dust and grass seed that clung to it along with the dew.

  Her eyes widened incredulously. “No?”

  “No.”

  “I can’t believe this! You have to take me back!”

  He placed his hat upon his head, adjusting it until it sat comfortably, then made his way toward his horse, which was waiting patiently, nibbling at the high grass only a few feet away. “Izzatso?” he offered without turning.

  Lifting her skirts, Elizabeth marched after him, stopping just before plowing into his back. “Yes, it is!” she declared.

  “And why is that?” He still didn’t bother to turn toward her. Instead, he busied himself with straightening the saddle, tightening the cinches.

  Flustered, she said, “Just because!” She didn’t quite know how to say it. Because you’re a half-breed, Mr. McKenzie? Because there is no way I’ll get my sister’s child with you posing as my husband? Because I feel uncomfortable in your presence? Because you’re an infuriating mule’s ass! Because you’re much too good-looking for my peace of mind? No, that would never do.

  She looked at him crossly, frustrated, not really wishing to hurt his feelings—he was Jo’s brother, after all—but she wasn’t about to let him take her to St. Louis either. How in blue blazes had she managed to get herself so liquored up that she wouldn’t remember hiring him? “Just because,” she snapped again, much more irritated with herself suddenly than she was with him.

  He made some strangled sound. “You’re going to have to come up with a better reason.”

  “Well! I-I don’t have any money to pay you!” she said quickly. “How’s that for a reason?”

  He finally turned to face her. “You don’t plan on reneging on me, do you?” One brow rose in censure.

  “No! Yes—I mean… That is to say, I don’t have any money with me.”

  “Uh-huh.” He returned his attention to the saddle. “You know what Johnny Law does to double-dealers, don’t you?”

  “I-I—”

  “Look, you can pay me when we get back, Miz Bowcock. I’ve got a few dimes we can spend until then.”

  “But I don’t have anything!” Elizabeth protested. “No clothes! Nothing! I can’t go to St. Louis!” Not with you, she added silently.

  “I’ll buy you whatever you need. We’ll just add the cost to what you already owe me,” he offered pleasantly. “How’s that for accommodating?”

  She grated her teeth. “I don’t want a new dress!” she said, resisting the infantile urge to stomp her feet like a wayward child. The man enraged her beyond reason! “And I don’t want you to be accommodating! I just want to go home!” she told him firmly.

  Apparently finished repairing saddle damages, he turned to her with a determined gleam in his eye. “Trouble is, Doc… Jo’s already wired St. Louis to say we’re on our way. They’ll be expecting us. We have to go.” He nodded toward his mount, his jaw set stubbornly. “Now, get on. Let’s cut some dust.”

  He wasn’t going to take her home.

  It took Elizabeth a full minute to recover from that shocking revelation. She opened her mouth to speak, and then shut it again.

  “Jo?” she asked finally.

  “That’s right. Where do you think you got that ring on your finger?”

  At his declaration, Elizabeth glanced down at the simple silver band that now graced her left hand. Her shock was physical. Try as she might, she still couldn’t recall a single thing. Surely she wouldn’t have just up and married the man? She didn’t even know him, for mercy’s sake! She moaned, the sound anguished. “We’re not… we didn’t… good night!”

  The look that passed over her face was anything but complimentary. She looked downright spooked by the thought of actually marrying him, and it struck a raw chord in Cutter. “Don’t go getting yourself all full of prunes, medicine woman. We’re not married, just playing at it,” he said curtly.

  “Full of prunes? Oh! You! How dare you speak to me that way! You have no right!” She lifted her chin, meeting his hard gaze straight on. “If—if you won’t take me home, I’ll—I’ll simply walk! The good Lord didn’t give me two good feet for nothing!” she informed him acidly.

  Cutter merely shrugged.

  Her chest puffed, and Cutter fixed his gaze on her face, trying not to notice the luscious swell of her breasts. Her body was actually trembling with anger, her eyes blazing amber fire. “Just tell me which way to go!”

  She watched as he settled in the saddle,
taking his sweet time before turning to her. And then he smiled. “Don’t you know?” he asked, reaching back casually into his saddlebag. He lifted the unbound flap and slipped his hand within, retrieving a shriveled slice of jerky. Ripping it in half, he slid one dark strip into his mouth, holding it firmly between his teeth as one would a toothpick. The other half, he held in his hand, intending to offer it to Elizabeth.

  Her indignant expression was too much for him. He chuckled. “That way,” he relented, and further obliged her by indicating the correct direction with a brisk wave of the jerky. He was confident in the fact that they were too far for her to cover the distance on foot. As he saw it, she’d grow tired enough to listen to reason before too long. Sore feet had a way of doing that to a body.

  Her expression smug, Elizabeth made a big to-do of brushing off her skirts and hands, as though to rid herself of his presence once and for all. Slapping discreetly at her backside, she then turned haughtily in the opposite direction from that which he had indicated.

  Cutter’s jaw actually dropped a little as he watched her march defiantly in the very direction they were headed. And he almost burst out laughing when he spotted the dusty print of her small hand planted firmly on her left rear, but the laughter died on his lips as he suddenly envisioned himself placing his hand over that print… thought of how her bottom would feel under his palm. Sweeping off his hat with a frustrated gesture, he shook his head, as though to shift his wayward thoughts.

  “You think I’m that gullible, don’t you?” he heard her mutter. “Well, you can think again, Mr. McKenzie!”

  “Well, I’ll be hanged,” he swore softly. And then he chuckled suddenly, amused that the little she-wolf had actually thought he would lie to her. Briefly he contemplated whether he should correct her choice of direction and the answer brought a devilish grin to his lips, because he sure as the dickens wasn’t about to. They’d ridden good’n’ hard this morning, and his horse was ready for a breather. As it was, he’d intended to follow her only as long as it took to change her mind, and then turn around and carry her on to St. Louis.

  This way, there’d be no wasted time.

  Farther along, there was a wide place in the road, just a small town, but one big enough that they might find a place to hang his hat and hitch his horse for the night… and maybe, if they were lucky, secure another mount for Elizabeth. Somehow he wasn’t too keen on the notion of riding double anymore.

  Again, he shook his head and grinned, just thinking of the look of shock she’d wear when they rambled into town.

  Deuced little hellcat!

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Maybe she was too embarrassed to admit she didn’t know which direction he’d pointed out?

  Damned Cutter’s guilt wasn’t gnawing at his gut.

  A frown crossed his features as he tore at the other half of the jerky. He’d tried to give it to her multiple times, but she’d refused him outright. She needed some kind of sustenance, he knew, so he reached back into the saddlebags, withdrawing another cut and stepped up his pace, intending to offer it again, certain the she-wolf was starved by now… hopefully enough to overlook her stubborn female pride. He shook his head.

  Damned females; you couldn’t live with ’em, and you couldn’t shoot ’em.

  He studied her stiff back as she marched. She sure as cuss looked like a woman who thought she knew where she was going; those feet of hers never faltered once.

  Maybe she was just plain contrary, he decided.

  “Sure you don’t want a lift?” he asked, watching with ill-concealed amusement as she irritably swatted the chin-high buffalo grass out of her way. They didn’t have much further to go, but suddenly he couldn’t wait to see her expression when they happened along town.

  “Thanks, but no thanks, Mr. McKenzie—I’ve had quite enough of you, as it is!”

  His shoulders shook with mirth. He’d never understood how a woman could nurse her anger so long. “Cutter,” he asserted, his lips curling faintly.

  “Mr. McKenzie!” Elizabeth shot back through clenched teeth.

  With every hot mile, her temper grew more foul. The morning gray of the sky had turned to a cloudless blue, and the sun shone down without mercy.

  He shook his head in censure, his lips quivering slightly with laughter. “Now, now, Doc, ain’t no call to be so rude. Just thought you might like t’ ride, is all. You’ve been on your feet—” Scanning the puffy blue heavens, he guessed at the time—”oh… a good hour and a half at least.”

  Didn’t she know it!

  Coupled with the fall she’d had, the walk was nearly killing Elizabeth’s poor limbs. Her face flushed with anger as she turned to glare up at him.

  “Mr. McKenzie, why would I get on that horse with you? So you can manhandle me again? Why should I trust you?” she asked without turning.

  Cutter had the good graces to flush.

  Hell, he’d forgotten what she’d awakened to, and felt suddenly like a kid who’d gotten caught with his fingers in the proverbial cookie jar. He scowled, completely at a loss for words. He wasn’t in the habit of squeezing women’s limbs while they slept, but he didn’t know how to tell her so. And he hadn’t touched anything of any importance—not really, just a leg, and an arm or two, he reasoned. He’d just wanted to be sure that she had enough meat on her bones… for the journey. She seemed so scrawny.

  The minutes stretched by as he contemplated how to get around her anger, but any way he looked at it, she had a right to it, and so in the end he decided just to drop the subject. “Suit yourself,” he relented.

  Elizabeth gave him a puzzled frown.

  There had been a long enough stretch of silence between them at this point that she’d somehow managed to forget what they’d been talking about.

  Suit herself?

  What in creation did the man mean by that remark? Suit herself? Nothing about this miserable outing suited her in the least! Had she missed something? She’d been so lost in her own musings that she’d shut him out completely… almost completely. She was only too aware of the fact that he was right behind her, his horse trotting at a snail’s pace. The way that he watched her unnerved the dickens out of her!

  He came alongside her suddenly, leaning forward in the saddle, his forearm resting upon the saddle horn, his smile knowing and crooked as he offered her the almost forgotten slice of jerky. Elizabeth hadn’t realized how hungry she was until he waved it in front of her, but her mouth began to water in anticipation. Still, she eyed the strip of meat as though it were a pit viper he were proffering. Her stomach grumbled in protest when she didn’t immediately reach out to take it, and she glanced up through her lashes, wondering anxiously if he’d heard.

  She found him still smiling—curse him to high heaven and back! Oh, she despised him! Heaven help her, she did! Elizabeth, who had never despised anyone as long as she’d lived—not even her mother for leaving—really and truly despised him!

  Giving him her most lethal scowl, she kept marching, but he seemed completely unaffected by her dismissal, and that made her all the more irate. How dare he be so nonchalant when she was ready to burst with fury!

  Why should she starve herself only to spite him?

  Feeling his presence beside her like a thorn in her side, she turned, snatching the jerky from his still-outstretched hand. Shoving it angrily into her mouth, she ripped a slice from it as though it were his head and she were snapping it off. Rage as she’d never known before spiraled through her, making her vision darken at the edges.

  If he laughed… if he so much as uttered a single inconsiderate, heartless chuckle at her surrender…

  A hundred terrible words lay teetering on the tip of her tongue as she plodded onward, alternately ripping off and chewing her jerky. How she managed to contain them was beyond her, but she did, though her breast filled with mute anger. Had she been a mite bigger, she might have yanked him down from the saddle to meet her fists. As it was, that notion seemed so ridiculous that she mer
ely cursed him under her breath. It wouldn’t be long, she told herself firmly, before she’d be rid of him. And then, as far as she was concerned, she never needed to set eyes on the man again!

  Though why did that notion seem to bother her? It shouldn’t bother her at all! She should be jumping for joy over the prospect… and she would, indeed, the moment she set eyes on Sioux Falls.

  She glanced back over her shoulder, catching his arrogant grin—curse the man! Looking down, she noted, not for the first time, that her poor clothes were covered with grass seed and stained with dirt. Her torn hem dragged the ground behind her. She supposed she looked a sight. Ignoring the “whys” of her caring over that fact, she pondered what people would think of her, dirty as she was and being followed by a grinning idiot to boot?

  Would they think the worst?

  To her consternation, Cutter began to whistle, and though it was a fine, clear tune, it didn’t even begin to improve her mood. Rather, it grated on her nerves.

  Of course they would think the worst!

  The odd tune was familiar, but she couldn’t place it, and it provoked her.

  Desperately she tried to ignore him.

  She couldn’t wait to get home and bathe, and it was that thought with which she consoled herself: a bath… How wonderful it would be to sink into a warm tub of water.

  A great believer in cleanliness, Elizabeth loved her baths and had ordered a tremendous porcelain tub from the catalog, one of the very few luxuries she’d ever afforded herself. There was just something about treating so much infirmity that made one want to soak a lifetime in soap and water. Besides, as much dusty ground as she covered making house calls, a bath was almost always necessary at the end of the day.

  It helped her to forget. Forget that her dear father was no longer around to hum her to sleep at night. For a while, after her mother had gone, she had been afraid of the silence. Not the dark so much, because that in itself was never so terrifying. It was rather soothing, really. Only the silence had terrified her, because in the silence she was alone. So Papa would sit in his own room, one door down, and hum to himself. She’d never asked him to, but he’d done so nonetheless. For her. Because he’d known—to reassure her that he was still there.