by Carol Finch
“We’ll need witnesses,” Judge Parker declared as he strode toward the door. “I’ll be right back.”
In openmouthed amazement Hanna stared at her handsome new husband, whose dignified clothes were no more than a civilized veneer concealing the sensual wild man who’d just kissed her senseless.
“That’s what you get for not telling me who you are,” Cale muttered at her. “And damn it, who’d you kill to send a Pinkerton chasing after you?”
“I didn’t kill anyone,” she squeaked. “Honestly.”
Cale’s head was still spinning like a windmill after that mind-boggling, heart-stopping kiss. Furthermore, he couldn’t believe he’d married a shipping heiress. For criminey sake, what could Hanna have been thinking?
He was still scowling at her and trying to recover from his sudden lust attack when James Jensen and his wife trooped in to sign their names on the three copies of the licenses that Hanna requested. She confiscated the documents before the ink had time to dry and tucked them in her reticule. While she graciously thanked the Jensens and the judge for their assistance, Cale towed her toward the door. Now he was going to get answers, and he’d better get the whole truth from Miz Magnolia or she was going to see him at his absolute worst.
“I can see that you’re irritated,” she murmured as he whisked her out the door and practically dragged her toward the nearest alley.
“Irritated?” he said, and snorted. “Lady, you don’t know the half of it! Hanna Malloy, for God’s sake!”
With Skeet at his heels, Cale bustled Hanna down the back alleys, past the buckboard and his saddle horse, which had been returned to the back exit of the hotel, as he’d requested. He half expected the Pinkerton agent to be standing guard at his hotel door. To his vast relief, no one was in sight.
“I think we should leave immediately,” Hanna insisted, staring apprehensively at the stairway. “Once we’re en route, I promise to tell you everything you want to know.”
Cale stared at her long and hard, but he couldn’t work up much contempt for her deception when she gazed pleadingly at him with that colorful bruise on her cheek. Nor with her full breasts all but spilling from that neckline, driving him crazy.
“Fine. We’ll leave.” He barreled through the door to retrieve the buckskin clothes he’d purchased for her. “You’re wearing these. We don’t need more trouble than we already have breathing down our necks, Hanna,” he emphasized resentfully.
Cale tugged off the cravat that had been strangling him for the past hour, then shed his expensive jacket. Hanna opened her mouth to retaliate against his snide tone, but when he hurriedly unbuttoned his shirt and cast it aside, her eyes widened and her jaw dropped again. It dawned on him that she probably wasn’t in the habit of watching a man undress in her presence.
“Oh, pardon me, Princess Malloy. I suppose the wealthy, pampered heiress of Louisiana’s most noted shipping magnate isn’t accustomed to changing clothes with a man in the same room.” He waved his hand toward the adjoining door. “You can change in there, and be quick about it.”
She stared at him for a long silent moment, assuring him that he was definitely the first half-naked man she’d ever seen. For some reason that pleased him immensely, even though he was aggravated with her. Her gaze zeroed in on the bronzed expanse of his chest, then her eyes leaped to his face and she blushed profusely. Hanna took off like a flying carpet, the garments clutched to her bosom.
Cale sighed audibly as he peeled off his breeches, then grabbed his buckskins. He didn’t have the time or inclination to indulge his new wife’s delicate sensibilities at the moment. He was as frustrated as all get-out and impatient to leave town before trouble came knocking on his door. Plus the kiss he’d delivered to Hanna in the judge’s chambers left him smoldering like live coals. He’d been determined to enjoy that kiss, since he’d promised to bypass the usual wedding night that came with marriage. But he really hadn’t expected Hanna to reciprocate so enthusiastically when his mouth came down possessively on hers.
Man, she’d nearly burned him to a crisp when she’d kissed him back. His body was still simmering, and forbidden need played hell with his disposition—which had taken a turn for the worse when he discovered who she was.
He was fastening his assortment of weapons in place when the door to the adjoining room banged open and Hanna stepped into view, looking laughably transformed in baggy clothes that downplayed her feminine assets. There was a pinched expression on her face and a violet fire in her eyes as she walked straight up to him and tilted her chin to meet his gaze.
“I thought you were different,” she said with a huff, startling the hell out of him. “You seemed to like me well enough yesterday and this morning, when I was Sarah Rawlins. But the moment you discovered my identity you changed. I did not. I am exactly the same person I have always been and I’ll thank you to remember that.”
Apparently, she’d recovered her composure while changing clothes and had gathered a full head of steam. He didn’t know why she was so sensitive all of a sudden, but she definitely had a bee in her bonnet. Well, tough, so did he.
“You aren’t the same person anymore,” he retorted. “Now you’re my lawfully wedded wife and you might as well know right off that I’m not a man who appreciates convenient lies and surprises of gigantic proportions.”
His rejoinder seemed to have taken some of the starch out of her, for she said, “Fair enough. I’m sorry I snapped at you, but I’ve spent half my life watching that same astonished reaction from men when they discover my identity. I don’t like it. I have no control over where I come from and I do not want my name to define who I am. Which is exactly why Hanna Elliot is heading out West, where the boundaries of gender and society aren’t so strict and the name Malloy won’t hang over my head like a curse.”
Cale didn’t claim to be a genius, but he was smart enough to realize Hanna was hypersensitive about her heritage. Why? He didn’t know. There was a lot he didn’t know about her—yet.
When a brisk rap sounded on the door, Cale’s hand reflexively dropped to the pistol on his hip. Skeet bounded onto all fours, ears laid back, teeth bared.
“Deputy Marshal Elliot, I’d like a word with you. My name is Richard Sykes and I’m from the Pinkerton Detective Agency.”
Hanna froze to the spot, her alarmed gaze shooting to Cale. He gave her silent instructions to gather the last of her belongings and pitch them out the window. Hanna hurriedly obeyed, then flung her leg over the windowsill.
“C’mon, Elliot, I know you’re in there,” called the impatient voice in the hall.
“Go away. I’m on my honeymoon,” Cale called back as he rolled up his fashionable clothes and stuffed them in his saddlebag.
“That’s what I want to talk to you about. That and your new bride. Her father and fiancé want her back immediately. There will be an extremely generous reward for annulling your marriage and turning Miss Malloy over to me.”
Hanna’s frantic gaze flew to Cale. His expression revealed nothing of his thoughts. He simply motioned her out the window, across the roof and down to the waiting buckboard. Hanna didn’t know if he wanted her to make a fast getaway or simply wanted her out of earshot while he bargained with the detective.
Twisting around, she planted both feet on the roof and then made the crucial mistake of looking over the edge. She clamped a shaky hand on the eave, willing herself to move, but her feet refused to cooperate.
This was a fine time to discover she had a strong aversion to heights. Damnation, what other weaknesses would she discover about herself when she was on a quest to find her strengths and her hidden talents?
Hanna dragged in a fortifying breath and tried to figure out how to contort her quaking body so she could latch on to the beam that supported the narrow roof above the back exit of the hotel. Before she found the nerve to ease over the edge—where a fourteen-foot drop waited—a hand clamped over her mouth.
Curse it! Cale had betrayed her for money!
She twisted sideways, expecting to see the Pinkerton agent. To her everlasting relief, Cale’s grim face hovered above hers. He tossed her satchels and his saddlebags into the buckboard below, then leaned as close to her as her own shadow.
“Wrap yourself around me, Miz Mags. We’ll tackle this together,” he murmured in her ear.
Hanna was so relieved to know he hadn’t betrayed her and that she didn’t have to face her newfound fear alone that she gladly flung her arms around his neck and wrapped her legs around his hips.
A lopsided smile quirked Cale’s lips and one black brow arched as she pressed herself against him like a second skin. “That didn’t take much convincing,” he whispered, amused.
“I just discovered I don’t deal well with excessive heights,” she said, her face buried against his chest. “I’ve never climbed off a roof before.”
“I’d have thought differently, since you’ve been living in the Malloy ivory tower,” he replied smartly. “Fiancé, huh?” He sank down on the edge of the roof to grope for a foothold. “I wondered where you got that fancy wedding dress on such short notice. Left him at the altar, did you?”
“Yes, he was totally unsuitable for me, but I couldn’t convince my father of that…oh, God!
Hanna hung on for dear life when Cale slithered like a snake to ease over the eave and latch on to the supporting beam. Above them an irritated bellow rang out, followed by Skeet’s loud bark. Hanna winced uncomfortably when her back scraped against the sharp edge of the beam and Cale shimmied downward, dragging her along with him.
Then he hooked his arm around her waist, swung her sideways and dropped her in the back of the wagon. Skeet commenced barking viciously when the detective slammed against the door, determined to gain entrance.
In a flash, Cale dropped down beside Hanna, grabbed her by the collar of her shirt and hoisted her onto the seat. He snatched up the reins and snapped them over the horses’ rumps.
Hanna grabbed Cale’s arm to prevent herself from somersaulting into the wagon bed when the team lunged forward into a gallop.
“You can’t leave Skeet,” Hanna insisted as they careened around the corner of the alley at breakneck speed.
“Skeet and I have had to part company before. Several times, in fact. He’s holding the detective at bay. He’ll find us. Here, put on this cap and hunch your shoulders so you don’t look more like a female than you already do,” he ordered.
Hanna pulled the dingy cap down around her ears and slouched in the seat. By the time they reached the river’s edge the ferry, loaded with wagons and horses, was preparing to leave. Despite a startled protest, Cale drove the wagon onto the barge, forcing the other horses and wagons to shift to provide room for the extra vehicle.
“One hurdle down,” Cale remarked as he stepped over the seat to rearrange and secure the last of their belongings. “So, whaddya think, Mags? Having fun yet?”
Oddly enough she was having a grand adventure, and adrenaline was shooting through her like fireworks. She stared across the river toward Indian Territory. Maybe danger was waiting at every turn. Maybe the West wasn’t her long-awaited promised land. But she felt free and alive and anxious to accept the challenges awaiting her.
Life was no longer a tedious string of stuffy soirees, pandering suitors in quest of her inheritance, and parental demands and ultimatums. She was her own woman, with her entire future ahead of her.
Hanna breathed in a gulp of the muggy air that hung above the river and told herself the world had never looked or smelled better. She owed Cale a tremendous debt and she vowed to do whatever she could to keep her end of their bargain.
Her respect for him had increased by leaps and bounds, knowing as she did that he’d turned down a sizable bribe when he refused to hand her over to the Pinkerton agent. She wanted to hug the stuffing out of Cale for delivering her across the river, but she figured she’d raise a few eyebrows, since he’d implied she was to portray a scruffy urchin. She kept her face downcast, refusing to meet anyone’s gaze, while the barge moved toward the dock on the far side of the river.
In a matter of minutes Cale drove off the ferry, and he wasted no time urging the team of horses to a thundering gallop. Hanna held on by her fingernails as the buckboard bounced over the ruts in the road. She knew Cale wanted answers, but he seemed intent on putting a safe distance between them and the detective. She couldn’t fathom how Skeet was going to catch up when Cale was making tracks in such fiendish haste. But knowing the dog was so utterly devoted to Cale, she predicted Skeet would wade through hell or high water—or both—to be reunited with his beloved master.
And so she stopped fretting about the animal and held on while Cale raced over the rugged terrain that was so unlike the delta she’d once called home. They rode for hours over a road so rough that it rattled her teeth, winding deeper into the foothills and dense forest. She expected Cale to call a halt when the sun dipped behind the rising mountains, but he picked his way through the darkness, keeping a relentless pace, remaining on constant alert.
Hanna tried to remain awake, but it had been a physically and emotionally exhausting day. It wore her out just thinking of everything that had happened since she’d awakened this morning. Heavens, she’d never squeezed so much living into so few hours. And to think this was probably standard routine for this bounty hunter who was now her lawfully wedded husband.
On that thought her eyes drifted shut and she slumped against Cale’s sturdy shoulder. It didn’t escape her notice that this was the first time in her life that she had placed her trust in a man—and he hadn’t disappointed her.
Cale winced as he came awake to see the first rays of dawn spilling across the morning sky. He had a crick in his neck and an unidentified weight was bearing down on him, making him stiff and sore. He glanced down to see a mop of blond hair draped over his chest and a slender arm curled around his shoulder.
When Cale had gently laid Hanna on the pallet and stretched out beside her to ward off the damp evening chill, he hadn’t expected her to crawl all over him. It was kind of nice, actually—though, admittedly, a bit uncomfortable.
Carefully, so as not to wake Hanna, he ran his fingers through the platinum tendrils, marveling at their silky texture. His wife. Cale still couldn’t wrap his mind around that astounding concept. Having been raised in one culture and living in another—one that bore more contrasts than similarities—Cale wasn’t sure what he was supposed to feel or how he was supposed to approach this temporary marriage.
He was a man accustomed to operating on analytical logic, reflex and instinct. He’d never allowed emotion to enter the equation. But since he’d met this sometimes amusing and sometimes exasperating Southern belle, a need to protect, as well as unprecedented feelings of possessiveness, had hounded him. He didn’t know how to deal with the tenderness that kept creeping up on him—like now, at this very moment.
This five-foot-nothing female disturbed his routine and distracted his thoughts. She aroused him, and he knew he had to learn to deal with that because consummating this marriage wasn’t part of the bargain. Which was why he intended to set the swiftest pace possible across the territory. He’d be his old self again when they reached Texas, and he could focus his energy and his thoughts on bringing Otis Pryor to justice.
When Hanna squirmed and sighed, her breath whispered against his neck like a lover’s caress. Cale gritted his teeth when his body hardened and another jolt of forbidden hunger ran through him. He needed to get up and get moving, and he was about to do just that when those dusky lashes fluttered and he found himself staring into those beguiling violet eyes. Then she smiled drowsily at him and another bolt of desire shot straight to his loins.
Damn, this woman set off so many unfamiliar emotions and intense sensations inside him that he didn’t know how to deal with them all at once.
“Mornin’,” Hanna drawled huskily.
He couldn’t help but smile back at her. “Mornin’, Magnolia Blossom.”
; She sighed again, nuzzled against his chest, then must’ve realized where she was and who she was sprawled over. Her eyes shot open and she dug the heel of her hand into his solar plexus in her haste to lever herself off him. Her face flooded with color as she shrank back.
“I…” She raked the tangled tresses from her flushed face. “Sorry. I hadn’t realized I was using you for a pillow.”
He shrugged casually, although there was nothing casual about the hungry need hammering at his body. He was still hard and achy, and he figured he was going to have to get used to that condition if he kept constant company with Hanna.
Cale rolled agilely to his feet and turned his back to conceal the noticeable bulge below his waistband. “We need to grab a bite of trail rations and head south,” he said, his discomfort making him abrupt. “We’ll probably have a Pinkerton on our tail. As if we don’t have enough trouble to deal with in this neck of the woods.”
Hanna watched Cale methodically break camp and hitch the team of horses to the wagon. It disturbed her that she’d cuddled up to Cale in sleep like a trusting child. But then, she had begun to trust and rely on him after he’d refused to deliver her to the detective.
Despite Cale’s reputation in society, he was an honorable man. He’d made a bargain with her and it looked as if he intended to keep it. She reminded herself that he was motivated by a driving need to avenge his brother and sister-in-law’s deaths. It wasn’t so much a growing attachment to her, but a need to have her play a role that would gain him access to his enemy’s camp. She’d just have to learn to curb this unexpected fascination for this man who was now her husband.
Furthermore, she owed Cale an explanation. She’d give it, she decided, after she saw to her needs and she and Cale were underway.
“The creek’s that way, through that line of trees to the west,” Cale said, as if he’d read her mind.
Hanna blushed. She’d never spent so much uninterrupted time in male company and had never discussed bodily functions. She’d better get used to that because she and Cale would be living in each other’s pockets for the next month, she reminded herself.
