Montana Sky: A May Bride (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Cutter's Creek Companion Book 1)

by Kari Trumbo

  Hob had all the advantages. He had friends, knew the terrain, was armed, and had planned in advance. Randolph was out-maneuvered in every way. Worse, he'd allowed May to get tangled in this mess. He should've sent her home as he'd planned.

  The little shack wasn't far, but Randolph's arms still burned from carrying her over the distance. She was so tiny compared to him, and he hadn't wanted to put her over his shoulder like she was some sack of flour, but he needed to lay her down.

  Hob opened the door and Randolph laid her down on the cot along the wall then turned to face Hob, but the door slammed shut and he heard Hob brace the door with something outside. The shack had no windows and the only light was from the little slivers that showed through the chinks.

  He clenched his fists and took a long, deep breath. "Oh, May. What have I gotten us into?"

  #

  May opened her eyes as her stomach roiled and she fought against the sick. Darkness surrounded her and she shrieked, all concern for her ailing belly gone. Where was she? The smell of rotting old canvas and hay assaulted her and she reached out to find something familiar in the gloom.

  "May?" Randolph's voice came from somewhere across the room.

  "Randolph, where are we?" she squeaked. The dark space reminded her of the time her brother had locked her in their mother's traveling trunk and no one had come to rescue her for hours. Her heart raced and she pressed her hands against her eyes, trying to calm herself.

  "We're in an old line shack, north of the river. I'm trying to find a lantern. Just sit tight. I don't want to be tripping over you while I look for what we need. Are you all right?"

  What did he care? She was nothing to him. He didn't even know her. Her last memory of the day was asking him if he was a fool, and if he'd answered, she never heard it.

  "I'm fine. I just want to get out of here. Why are we here? I was ready to believe you about Montague, but now I have to wonder if that was all an act, too. What have you done with him and what have you done with me?" The pounding in her head and throat made talking difficult, but she needed answers and Randolph seemed mighty guilty.

  "Do you think I would lock myself up with you if I'd done something to Montague? He's my boss. As Hob accused, I'm his foreman and I'm here in his place. I will never do that again."

  His words resonated in the small room and she believed him. He'd been dishonest with her, as far as his name, but that’s as far as his dishonesty went. He'd never actually acted like the Montague in her letters. May rolled over and slowly reached out into the darkness. Most people left a lantern beside the bed, it made the most sense. Her hand met the cold glass of the hurricane. She slid her fingers down the length and found a book of flexibles at the base.

  May picked them up and within a few moments a beacon of light shown in the room. She quickly removed the hurricane and lit the lamp.

  "Good thinking." Randolph approached her bed slowly, his large frame towering over her.

  She was wrapped in the blanket from the carriage but she still felt exposed, alone with him in the small dark room. He knelt by her bed and first felt her forehead, then her cheek. Her skin was chilled everywhere, except where his skin met hers.

  "You're not warm anymore. I was worried. When I carried you here, you looked feverish and I didn't know what Hob put in the water to make you sleep. I don't know what he would've done if we'd both taken a drink."

  She'd tasted the water and it had been off, but she hadn't said anything. They had enough to worry about without the water.

  "So, Hob brought us here."

  He shook his head and a ghost of a smile crossed his face. "No, he dragged me here at gun point, and I carried you. He told me to, but either way, I wasn't about to just leave you out on the prairie."

  "Why not?" His words from earlier broke through. Montague, whom she'd trusted, had led her to believe she'd had a chance at a life that wasn't lonely, but it had been a lie. Cade had no reason to care. Why should he?

  "Because that's not who I am. I can't do that." He caressed her cheek once again. She wanted to believe him, to trust him. But he'd lied, too.

  May shoved away from him as she sat up and threw off the blanket. He stood and backed away from her. There had to be a way out of the cabin, she couldn't stay there with him another minute. She couldn’t fight the warring feelings inside her, her pride was angry with him for lying, but her heart begged her to forgive him and see where forgiveness led.

  "Please stop pretending to care. You don't have to anymore, and it cuts me to the very quick. I’m glad I figured out who you were because you never would've told me. You'd have just kept lying until I got on that train, and you didn't have to think about me anymore."

  Though Randolph was big enough to dwarf her in the small cabin, his voice was little more than a whisper. "That's the problem, May. I don't think I'll be able to stop thinking about you. Long after you've left to go back to Cutter's Creek, I'm going to be thinking about you."

  He couldn't mean it. It was too much to ask for, so it couldn't be true. "You say that now, but you'll put me on the train just the same."

  "There's no way I can take you home, May. My boss..." He ran his hand through his blond hair. It had come free of his usual queue and lay long over his broad shoulders.

  There it was. Montague. He'd now managed to ruin everything. Her anger bubbled over, threatening to consume her. "Your boss put us here. Your boss could have prevented this by sending me a letter, saying he'd changed his mind. He could have bothered to step on the train himself and come to Sweetwater Springs, but he didn't. He sent you instead. That man has made a fool of me for the last time."

  Randolph sighed and was to her in two strides He held her shoulders and gazed down into her eyes. "He didn't make a fool of you, May." He pulled her to his hard chest and cradled her there. She didn't want to, it was far too personal and intimate, yet his strength was just what she needed.

  It was well past the supper hour and the room took on a chill. May shivered. Her dress had been a frivolous choice earlier, but a downright foolish one now. It had been fine when they were in the afternoon sun, but in the evening, the low cut wasn't enough to keep her warm. Her exposed shoulders chilled her. Randolph held her tighter against him for a moment and she shivered again, unable to stop.

  "Time to wrap you back up in that blanket." He separated from her and her body shook with the cold. He was so warm and sure.

  Randolph draped the blanket around her shoulders. "Hold that tight around you."

  "But it's the only blanket in this whole place, what about you?"

  He smiled and traced her chin. "Don't worry about me just yet."

  Her body quaked, again, from the tension in her belly. "What if we don't get out of here before nightfall?" Randolph watched her lick her dry lips.

  "We'll keep warm enough. I won't let anything happen to you. Remember, I promised?"

  He had, and she wasn't worried in the slightest about anything—other than him.

  Chapter Nine

  Every inch of the little cabin had a purpose and not one of them was escape. The only way in or out was the door, and he'd done his best to break it clean off the hinges, without success. There was a fireplace, but no kindling or wood. Those were probably outside, since the space was so small.

  At least May had found the lantern and there was enough oil in it to last for another few hours. They'd have to extinguish it at some point, just in case Hob didn't come back the next day. They'd already eaten the meager portion of jerky someone had left the last time the cabin was used, along with the one and only jar of water to wash it down. Night had closed in from what they could tell. No more light shone through the tiny holes in the walls.

  "What if he leaves us here to die?" May had gone from full of energy and spunk, to sullen and worried. He couldn't blame her. He didn't know whose property they were on or if they'd be arrested for trespassing if they were found. And Hob hadn't said when he would return.

  "He won't do th
at. All he needs to do is send a wire to Montague. That should clear things right up. The boss doesn't want land this far away from Ruby, he doesn't even like leaving the spread he's got."

  He could almost laugh at May's little harrumph. Montague hadn't even wanted to leave his land to meet her and she was still sore about it, had every right to be. He wanted her to forget about Montague, but his suit would be quite a bit different. He wasn't a wealthy land owner, never would be. He was a scarred, work-worn cowboy who would be tired every night when he got home from work. Didn't seem quite fair to put himself up as a replacement to what she could've had, if his boss hadn't been such a fool.

  He needed to distract her, make her forget they were trapped, alone, in a little cabin. "May, come over here." He crooked his finger and her brow raised slightly in question.

  "Why do you need me over there?" She swung between heat and wariness with him, but he couldn't blame her, not after their start.

  "Easier to talk with you over here next to me, than way over there." He waited on the cot. Though she stood only a few feet away on the other side of the room, he was cold. This would serve to keep them both warm and he could talk to her, give her something else to think about. Perhaps give him something else to think about...

  She sat next to him on the wooden edge of the cot, flinching as she balanced on the narrow wooden slat, instead of sitting on the canvas with him. He wrapped his arm around her back and tugged her back and against his side. With a swift swing of the blanket, he took the one side of it and wrapped it around his shoulders so they were both cocooned inside its warmth.

  "There, now we can both get warm." Her shoulder was so small pressed up against his side. "Tell me about what made you study to be a lawyer's assistant, and why you don't do that anymore. Working in the Sweet Shoppe is about as far away from secretarial as you can get."

  May ducked her head and tugged her side of the blanket tighter, which pulled her even closer to him, since he had a good grip on his own.

  "Don't have enough blanket? I can fix that." He laughed, and May squealed as he picked her up and deposited her easily on his lap, wrapping the blanket tight around them both. He tucked her close to his chest and she didn't fight him as he'd expected her to.

  "I went to live with my aunt after I finished school because my mama was already gone then. Pa didn't know what to do with a daughter and he was already going a little senile. My aunt welcomed me, but she welcomed the invitations to parties even more. Those had all dried up before she had a new ward to show off. She hadn't been invited in years, but as a chaperone..." May's voice drifted off.

  She'd mentioned that she'd gone to Maine and hadn't found a husband there, either. "Did your aunt steal your beau?" Part of him didn't want to know, didn't want to think of May kissing anyone but him.

  "I never had a beau, but she met a wealthy widower at one of the parties. He made sure he was invited wherever she went so they could continue to see each other. Soon, he was coming to call and she didn't want to have to watch me anymore. He proposed to her, and I wrote an urgent letter home, because I wasn't really welcome after that."

  Poor sweet May, first sent off because she had no place in her own home, then sent away because she had no place in her refuge. And now his boss wanted him to send her away, yet again. He held her close, cherishing her nearness.

  "So, you came home, what happened then?"

  She sighed and after a full minute of silence, he thought she might not speak. "You don't have to answer. I was just curious about you."

  May nestled in closer to him and leaned her head back against his shoulder, the soft tendrils of her hair caressing his neck. Nothing in the whole world felt better, or more right, than sitting there with May.

  "I'd met a lawyer in Maine. He was a part-time teacher at the school where I was taking classes. Mr. Caruso. I was smitten. He was so charismatic…"

  Randolph tried to keep from tensing his body and stopping her story, but he didn't want to hear more. Had this Caruso hurt her, as well?

  "I encouraged him to come back with me to Cutter's Creek, hoping that with a lack of other women to look at, he would finally choose me. He set up practice there and I followed him everywhere, letting him know I would love nothing more than to be Mrs. Caruso."

  May hiccupped, her shoulders quivered, and she shook her head. "I was so foolish."

  Randolph tighten his grip around her and held her.

  "He took me out to the hotel a few times, he invited me up to his room, though nothing ever happened, but he never asked me to be his intended. Then he kissed me one day after work. I was so elated, I expected to feel ... something, but I didn't. Neither did he. I had to leave his employ after that. My brother, Beau, had left for South Dakota, and Pa's health was failing. He died, Caruso left ... and I was alone."

  He knew the rest because the letters had told him of her work at the Sweet Shoppe.

  Her voice was so quiet, he heard her more through his chest than his ears. "Your turn. I know nothing about you."

  There was nothing to tell, not that wouldn't bore her. "We'll get to me later. I want to know more about you." They had all this time, it would be a waste not to use it. "What made you write to Montague?"

  May sighed, her voice already less shaky than a moment before. "Ronda, his cousin, came into the Sweet Shoppe nearly every day. She was such a sanguine woman, but she asked if she might give my address to Montague. I didn't see how it could hurt, since I'd decided I might consider becoming a mail-order bride farther west."

  This, yet again, burned something deep within him. May couldn't be wasted on some stranger who may never appreciate her. "You would really do that, marry a man you'd never met? That you didn’t love?" How could a man ever know for sure a woman was just the right one if he met and married her on the same day?

  "You don't understand, Randolph. I have no family, no real home. I had friends, but all of them are building their lives with their husbands. They feel sorry for me. I was tired of the pity in their eyes ... so I wrote to Montague."

  And his boss had tossed her aside. If not for that boss, he'd marry May that very moment, if he could. But would his boss keep him on if he did? And did his job mean so much that he cared?

  #

  May bit back a yawn. She couldn't sleep. Not here, not with him, tucked so close to him. Not in this little secluded cabin. Her heart raced and she was sure he felt it right through her ribcage, through her stays and many layers, all the way to his rock-hard chest. The same one that carefully held her upright even now. He'd stopped talking, stopped asking her questions she didn't want answer. Though he slept, it was light. Every movement had him shifting, listening, and holding her tighter.

  He'd dodged most of her own questions. Only admitting that he'd worked for Montague since he could tie a saddle knot. He and Montague had a history, and that was far deeper than what he'd shared with her. The thread she been grasping at, holding out hope for, slipped through her fingers with his silence. He was about as interested in her as Montague was.

  Sometime between nodding off for the third or fourth time, she'd decided that when Hob came to get them, she would collect her trunk and use the little remaining funds she had to go back to Maine. Her aunt was still family, and she could find work there. Her aunt would have to take her, because May had no one else. Cutter's Creek didn't employ a lawyer anymore, and her family was gone. There was no reason to stay in Montana, except that she loved it and would miss it. That wasn't reason enough. It held too much hurt and sadness now.

  It was even possible that Caruso had gone right back to doing what he had been. He might miss her. She bit her lip to keep the tears at bay. Who was she kidding? No one missed her. No one even remembered her.

  Randolph shifted slightly. She still sat on his lap, his heavy arm wrapped protectively about her waist. His head lay against the wall. Her own neck would be screaming if she tried to sleep like that. She slid forward and his arm tightened like a vise, pulling her right
back. His eyes flew open and he searched the room.

  "I'm sorry. I was going to get up to put out the lantern. We both fell asleep with it on." It was a lie, a bad one, but after a moment of searching her eyes, he let it pass. May slid out of the comfort of his arms and the warmth of the blanket. She put out the lamp and crossed the room. She would have to feel her way to the far wall, try to curl up on the floor, and attempt to find sleep. If she wrapped her arms under herself, it might be possible.

  May slowly made her way across the room, feeling her way through the blackness. She felt the wall and lowered herself to the cold floor, the squeak of the boards screamed in the silent room.

  "May, what are you doing?" Randolph's voice came, gruff from above her head.

  She didn't want to argue with him, but she was tired of growing closer to a man who wouldn't choose her. Another man who would send her away or leave, just like everyone else. Forgotten.

  "I'm going to get some sleep where we won't keep waking each other up." Her bravado didn't last with the tremor of her voice reverberating off the cold, hard floor.

  "May Rockford, get back up here or I'll come down and get you. You'll freeze. There was frost on the outside of this blanket."

  There was frost under her too, but she hadn't wanted to complain.

  "I'll be just fine down here. I just need to warm back up. It'll only take a minute."

  The cot groaned as Randolph stood and, as he strode across the floor, his boot came within a hair of kicking her, she felt the swish against her skirt.

  "Anyone ever tell you you’re stubborn?" He didn't wait for her to answer as he scooped her up and set her back on the cot, sliding her over against the wall. Then, he climbed onto the cot behind her, covering her with the blanket as he tried to get comfortable.

  She couldn't move, and his arm was so heavy over her stomach that she couldn't breathe. She squirmed and his hand slid over her stomach to her hip.