The Bridegroom

by Linda Lael Miller

  His shirt was ripped on the right side, and the skin beneath was laid open, too, the gash so deep his ribs showed. Reminded him of a deer, dressed out after a hunt.

  He swayed a little on his feet, but there was still no pain.

  “Sweet Jesus,” Rowdy rasped, pressing him back down into his chair. “Ruby!”

  “I’ll fetch a doctor,” Gideon heard Sam say.

  The daylight seemed to solidify into a ball of fire, rushed at him, receded, and rushed at him again.

  “Get him to the back,” Ruby ordered, from somewhere nearby.

  Wyatt and Rowdy must have propped him between them and walked him back to Ruby’s rooms; Gideon was too far gone by then to know for sure. Or to care.

  All he could think about was Lydia.

  He had to get back to Lydia before dark.

  She’d be worried if he didn’t, and he had so much to tell her, and a ring to put on her finger—

  A violent shudder overtook him then. In the next moment, a black void swallowed him whole.

  THE PARTY HAD FINALLY wound down in the late afternoon, and Lydia was helping to gather up the usual debris of celebration, when Owen, who had left shortly before to drive Lark home in the buckboard so she could rest and feed Miranda, came racing up the street again, driving that team as hard as if the flames of hell itself were leaping at the spokes of the back wheels.

  White-faced, he reined in the horses and jumped to the street, and Lydia felt the ground shift under her feet as he came toward her.

  She knew, before he said a word.

  “Gideon?”

  “There’s been a telegram—we’ve got to get to Flagstaff—”

  Helga hurried over, along with Maddie and Sarah. The aunts, mercifully, were already inside, trying to fit leftovers into the icebox.

  Sarah addressed her son firmly. “Owen, what did this telegram say?”

  “Gideon’s been hurt,” Owen said breathlessly. “Pa wired me from Flagstaff, said to bring Lydia right away.”

  Helga slid a supportive arm around Lydia’s waist. “How bad is it?” the older woman asked, because Lydia couldn’t.

  “I don’t know,” Owen answered, beginning to sound panicked. “All Pa said was, Gideon’s been hurt and I ought to fetch Lydia there—”

  “I’ll look after the aunts and Snippet,” Helga said, turning to look into Lydia’s pale face. “Soon as you’re able, you send word back, though.”

  Lydia would have scrambled into that wagon on her own, getting tangled in her skirts and probably tearing out the hem, if Owen hadn’t taken her unceremoniously by the waist and hoisted her into the box.

  In a trice, he was beside her, taking up the reins, turning the team and wagon around. Sarah rushed out into the street and handed up her shawl, saying Lydia might need it. High-country nights could be chilly, even in summer.

  Owen bent, snatched the wrap from his mother’s hands, and gave it to Lydia. And then they were moving again.

  The road to Flagstaff was long, winding and bumpy. A horse could cover the distance in two hours—in a wagon, it took nearly four.

  Lydia barely noticed the jostling discomfort—her heart had fought its way out of her chest and flown ahead to Gideon, and all she wanted to do was catch up with it.

  It was dark when they reached the outskirts of Flagstaff and Owen finally slowed the lathered team. They’d stopped twice along the lonely roadside to rest the horses, in the still-ample light of a waning moon, and during those necessary delays, it had been all Lydia could manage not to race ahead on foot.

  She and Owen had barely spoken during the trip, both of them lost in their own thoughts. When they did, they’d had to shout over the pounding of hooves and the creaking of axles.

  Wyatt’s telegram must have instructed Owen to bring Lydia to Ruby’s Saloon, because that was where he stopped the wagon. Or maybe he simply recognized Sam’s and Rowdy’s and Wyatt’s horses at the hitching rail out front. In any case, he set the brake lever with a hard motion of one foot and leaped to the ground, rounding the tired horses at a sprint.

  Lydia didn’t wait for Owen to help her down; she was already on the plank sidewalk, pushing through the swinging doors of that saloon as though she’d frequented establishments of that sort all her life.

  Rowdy, Wyatt and Sam O’Ballivan had been seated around a table over near the bar, playing cards and sipping whiskey when Lydia burst in. Seeing her, though, they all got to their feet so fast they nearly overturned their chairs.

  “Where is Gideon?” she demanded, advancing on them, looking wildly around the otherwise empty room.

  Rowdy reached out, took her arm. “This way,” he said, nodding to Owen.

  Lydia found Gideon lying in a small room under the eaves, his chest bandaged. His eyes were closed and he was pale as death and there was dried blood in his hair.

  Lydia barely noticed the woman seated at his bedside, holding a basin of water in her lap and bathing Gideon’s face.

  “Ruby,” Rowdy said, “this is Lydia, Gideon’s bride.”

  Ruby stood and set the basin and cloth aside. Lydia noticed nothing about her, beyond her glorious cloud of red hair and the kindly expression in her eyes. “He looks worse than he is, darlin’,” Ruby said quietly. She put an arm around Lydia’s shoulders, guided her to the chair she’d been sitting in herself until moments before.

  Lydia sat down, reached out tentatively to touch Gideon’s arm.

  He didn’t stir, and his flesh felt warm.

  She turned to look at Ruby, all her questions in her eyes.

  “Doc Robinson came right away, Lydia,” Ruby explained, gesturing for Rowdy to leave them, probably because the room was so small. “Doc cleaned the wound and stitched Gideon up—and that hurt him some, you might as well know. He’s got a fever, but it’s low, and Doc said it’ll most likely be gone by morning.”

  “Wh-what happened?” Lydia whispered, taking the cloth from the basin as she spoke, wringing it out, gently dabbing at Gideon’s unmoving face.

  “A man took a knife to him,” Ruby replied, after a brief hesitation. “Here, let me take that basin. I’ll get you some fresh water.”

  Lydia nodded, grateful but distracted. A man took a knife to him. Those words, and the images they brought to mind, made the little room swirl around her, right itself again with a violent jolt.

  Ruby carried the basin out and soon returned, as she’d promised, with cool, clean water. She brought a cup of coffee, too, and Lydia never took a single sip. She’d meant to, but she kept forgetting.

  It must have been around midnight—and that was only a guess because there were no clocks in the room—when Wyatt came in, quietly told her that he and Owen and Sam had to get back to Stone Creek so they could see to things at home, though Rowdy would be staying behind.

  Lydia merely nodded, never looking away from Gideon’s still face.

  She thought his fever might have dropped a little, but she couldn’t be sure.

  Ruby reappeared, sometime after that, with a second cup of coffee, steaming hot and fragrantly fresh. “You ought to have this and then lie down a while, Lydia,” she said softly. “I’ll sit with Gideon, and call you if need be.”

  But Lydia refused to leave. She was tired clean through, but she knew she wouldn’t sleep, or even rest.

  “Won’t you take some supper, then?” Ruby persisted.

  Lydia vaguely remembered supper being offered earlier. She must have refused, though she couldn’t be certain.

  Either way, food was beyond her, but she did take a few swallows of coffee, in hopes of bracing herself up for the long vigil still ahead.

  Dawn was breaking when finally, finally, Gideon opened his eyes. Turning his head, he saw Lydia sitting there, with her hair long-since free of its pins and hanging down over her right shoulder in a single heavy braid.

  With that slight, wicked grin she knew so well, he extended one hand, caught hold of the braid, and tugged at it lightly. Then he gave a hoarse chuck
le and said, “For a moment there, I thought it was the laudanum the doctor gave me last night, making me see things—but you’re really here.”

  Lydia laughed softly, even as tears of utter relief and bone-melting exhaustion scalded her eyes. “I’m really here,” she said. “How do you feel?”

  “Would you believe me if I said I was fine?”

  “No,” Lydia answered.

  He chuckled again, and then winced. “I’ve—been better,” he allowed. “A lot worse, too.”

  Lydia let her gaze rest on the old scar marking his right shoulder. He’d never told her how he’d gotten it, and she’d never asked, but things were different between them now. He hadn’t left Stone Creek—left her—meaning to keep on going.

  “I was shot once,” he said, shifting slightly and then wincing again. “Around the time your aunt came and took you to Phoenix, after your father was killed. I’ll tell you about it sometime, when it doesn’t hurt to talk.”

  Lydia smiled, stroked his hair back from his forehead. “Rest,” she said.

  “I’d rest better if you’d lie here beside me,” he replied. And the look in his eyes was so earnest, and so hopeful, that Lydia did as he asked. Carefully, so she wouldn’t cause him added pain, she lay down on that narrow bed beside her husband, and he slept.

  And, after a while, so did she.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  A FULL WEEK HAD PASSED before Dr. Robinson declared Gideon well enough to travel, even by train, and during that time, Lydia learned a great deal about her husband. It wasn’t that Gideon was suddenly forthcoming—she’d realized by then that intimate confidences simply weren’t in his nature—no, it was Ruby who shed light on the things he’d never troubled himself to mention.

  Ruby told Lydia about Gideon’s little half sister, Rose, how she’d been run down by a wagon one day, chasing a kitten into the street. Only four years old at the time, Rose had been killed instantly. Gideon, then six, had been inconsolable, blaming himself. Winter, spring, summer and fall, Ruby said, he’d gone to Rose’s grave every day, before and after school, and sometimes during.

  One bitterly cold night, with a blizzard coming on, Ruby said, a full two years after Rose’s death, Gideon’s father had gone to look in on the boy and found his bed empty. Jack, as Ruby referred to her late husband, went straight to the cemetery, and sure enough he found Gideon right where he’d known he’d be. Gideon had built a little fire near Rose’s resting place, and he was having the devil’s own time keeping it going in that weather, and when Jack questioned him, he said Rose hadn’t liked the dark, and it was so cold, and he didn’t want his little sister to be scared.

  Remembering, there in the saloon that had been closed for business since Sunday, Ruby’s eyes had filled with tears. “Jack kicked some snow over that fire and hauled Gideon home by the scruff of his neck,” she’d told Lydia. “Once the boy was safe in bed, Jack came and told me what happened, and he broke right down and cried. I’d only seen Jack Payton shed tears once before, and that was when we buried our little Rose.”

  Ruby had said other things, too—things Lydia would always hold gently in the safest part of her heart. How Gideon used to gather wildflowers for her sometimes, when he’d been up to mischief or because Ruby had “the melancholies.” How smart he’d been in school, and how hard he’d tried to keep his marks a secret from the other kids. How he’d eaten a whole bowl of cake batter once when Ruby’s cook left it unattended to go off on some sudden errand, and been so sick afterward that he’d literally turned green.

  Over the course of that week, Rowdy having gone back to Stone Creek as soon as he knew for sure Gideon was out of danger, Lydia and Ruby had taken turns sitting with their increasingly impatient patient, but long about Tuesday afternoon, he’d begun to get downright cranky, so they’d left him to grumble alone, at least for short intervals, and gone off to drink coffee and visit, just the two of them.

  Under any other circumstances, Lydia reflected, watching her husband struggle to put on his new shirt—Ruby had bought it for him, along with a pair of trousers, since his own clothes had been ruined—because he wouldn’t let anybody help him, she might never have gotten to know Ruby—or Gideon—in quite the same way. And she certainly wouldn’t have had the singular experience of living in a saloon for a week, either, keeping company with a former madam.

  Wouldn’t that give the aunts a wicked thrill when she related the tale.

  The thought of their reaction made her smile. “We’re going to be late for the train, if you don’t hurry up,” Lydia told Gideon.

  He sighed in frustration and dropped his hands to his sides. Allowed Lydia to straighten the sleeves, guide his arms into them, and fasten the buttons. When she tilted her head to look up into his face, though, she saw that his eyes were smoldering and that damnable Yarbro grin had found its way back to his mouth.

  It was obvious what Gideon wanted, but the train was leaving in forty-five minutes and they still had to get to the station and buy their tickets.

  “Ruby still in back, tallying up how many cases of whiskey she has on hand?” Gideon asked, his voice a throaty rumble.

  Lydia frowned at him. They had made love, though awkwardly, twice since Gideon had begun to recover—it would have been hard not to, since the bed he’d slept in as a boy was barely wide enough to hold both of them and that made scooting out of his reach impossible—but she’d been embarrassed. Sure that Ruby would hear, and that had been late at night. Now, it was broad daylight, for pity’s sake.

  “Gideon Yarbro,” she said, “you will have to wait until we get home.”

  He ran the backs of his fingers down the side of her cheek. “That long?”

  “That long,” Lydia insisted. But she was wavering.

  Gideon gave a long-suffering sigh.

  Right on time, Ruby appeared in the doorway.

  “I had my buggy hitched up and brought around,” she said, and she must have sensed the crackle in the air because she smiled a wistful, knowing little smile. “I’ll drive you to the station whenever you’re ready.”

  “Have we worn out our welcome, Ruby?” Gideon joked.

  A brief but obvious sadness moved in Ruby’s face. “It’s going to be mighty lonesome around here without the two of you,” she conceded, with some resignation. “But you need to get back home where you belong, and I’ve got a saloon to run, so I’ll thank you to get a move on, Gideon Yarbro. There won’t be another train to Stone Creek until tomorrow, and I don’t think I can put up with you that long.”

  Gideon chuckled, crossed to Ruby, placed his hands on her shoulders, and kissed her forehead.

  “Remember,” he told his stepmother, “you promised to spend Christmas in Stone Creek with us. And I don’t want to hear any excuses when the time comes, either.”

  “I’ll be there,” Ruby said softly. “Though I can just imagine what folks will say when I show up. It’s not as if people don’t know all about me, far and wide.”

  “The only ‘folks’ you need to worry about, Ruby,” Gideon said, “are the Yarbros, and we’ll make you welcome. All of us. That’s a promise.”

  Ruby sniffled once, looked away, looked back at Gideon. “You be careful, now,” she said. “No more damn fool stunts like the last one.”

  “That ‘damn fool stunt,’” Gideon replied, “was part of my job.”

  “Well, you need a different one,” Ruby said, jutting out her chin.

  “I surely do,” Gideon agreed. He’d dictated a letter of resignation as soon as he was able, Lydia taking it down, and Ruby had mailed it off to the owners of the Copper Crown Mine.

  Ruby colored up. “I’ve got a little money put by—”

  “Keep your money,” Gideon told her gently. “I’m not broke yet, Ruby, and if I was, I could always hit Lark up for a loan.”

  That last part, Lydia knew, was just talk. Gideon had a lot of pride, and he probably wouldn’t have accepted Lark’s wedding gift—their house—if he hadn’t needed a pl
ace to put her and the aunts and Helga. She couldn’t imagine him asking Lark, or anyone else, for money.

  “We’ll get by,” Lydia assured Ruby. She’d been going over possibilities in her mind ever since Gideon had decided to give up detective work. There were plenty of rooms in the Porter house, even with the aunts and Helga taking up two of them. If necessary, Lydia had decided, though she had yet to broach the delicate subject with Gideon, they would take in boarders.

  “I’m sure you will,” Ruby said, moving past Gideon to embrace Lydia. “I’ll miss you something fierce.” She choked up a little, and her eyes watered, but she rallied at once. Turning to look at Gideon, she added, “You, on the other hand, laying around wanting somebody to read to you, or bring you soup, or listen to you bellyaching about being stuck in bed—”

  Gideon laughed. “I’ll miss you, too, Ruby,” he said.

  In the distance, the train whistle shrilled. It was time to leave.

  Ruby insisted on driving the buggy and, because the seat was so short from side to side, Lydia had to ride through the middle of Flagstaff sitting on Gideon’s lap. She blushed the whole time; folks kept looking at them, but she could have ignored that. No, it was the rock-hard imprint of Gideon’s manhood burning into her bottom that made Lydia dizzy with achy heat.

  Since they had no baggage to speak of—Lydia had been wearing Ruby’s clothes all week and Gideon, confined to his bed, hadn’t required any until today—all they had to do was purchase tickets, board the train, and find their seats.

  All that came after bidding Ruby farewell, though, and that was the difficult part. Lydia cried, thanking her friend repeatedly, and Ruby finally shushed her and told her to ‘get on that train and go home.’

  “I’ll see you both at Christmas,” Ruby said, in parting.

  THE TRAIN RIDE BACK TO Stone Creek seemed endless to Gideon; he wanted to get home, make sound and thorough love to Lydia in a bed wide enough to hold the both of them without their being stacked like cordwood, and sleep. He’d stopped taking laudanum as soon as he could stand to, and the slash in his right side hurt like hell, since he wasn’t used to sitting up. The stitches itched, too—he’d been tempted, in fact, to take them out himself, and the doctor’s order be damned, but Lydia and Ruby wouldn’t have it.