A Highwayman's Mail Order Bride

by Blythe Carver

  It was as if the presence of a woman had turned his partners stupid—Tom, too, for that matter, as he’d allowed himself to be disarmed. That meant his guard had been down. Damned fool might as well have asked to get shot with his own gun.

  “I’ll be in the tent,” he muttered through clenched teeth, hoping his voice was low enough that she might not hear and protest.

  Travis’s lopsided mouth grew even more so when he snickered, but Jed took care to maintain a serious expression. He would not be in there for pleasurable reasons. He’d never forced himself on a woman and never would, by God.

  His longtime friend and partner should have known him better than that.

  A bolt of lightning zigzagged to the ground, coming from those dark green clouds. He stopped caring whether Travis thought him capable of raping a woman and focused himself on getting them safe.

  It wouldn’t matter who rode out the storm in the tent with her if they never got the chance to set one up.

  Zeke had a hell of a challenge getting his horse to obey commands, and the team was starting to spook a little too much for Jed’s liking. They wanted nothing more than to bolt, which meant his arms and shoulders were taking a beating as he struggled to control them.

  “We gotta stop,” he decided.

  Zeke pointed to a group of boulders away off, and Jed nodded in agreement, taking the team off the road and into the brush. The wagon bounced horribly, but Jed couldn’t look back to be certain the Yankee was safe.

  Until they came to a stop and he set the brake, then turned.

  To find the wagon empty save their supplies.

  “Damn it!” He stood, his head turning this way and that. How long ago had she jumped? For she would not have fallen out. She would have risked her fool neck by jumping.

  How he knew, he couldn’t have said. She seemed the type, was all.

  “Mrs. Furnish!” he shouted, hands cupped around his mouth. “Mrs. Furnish!”

  No answer, not that he expected one. He turned to Zeke. “Set up the tent, get the team unhitched.” He mounted the horse Zeke had only just hobbled.

  “What are you doing?” Travis shouted as Jed rode away.

  Acting like a damned fool, that was what he was doing. Looking for a woman more trouble than she was worth. Just this alone, chasing her down as she risked both their lives, ought to earn him a solid ten thousand dollars.

  Furnish had to know what a godawful pain the woman was, what they would go through to get her to Carson City. He doubted she was a wilting flower at home, blushing and staying silent whenever the menfolk were around.

  Lightning flashed, again, the bolts touching the ground and leaving Jed’s heart racing the same as the horse’s hooves against the ground.

  “Mrs. Furnish!” he called out, his eyes sweeping the area. Damn the woman. Where did she think she was going to go with her hands bound?

  And damn him forever for leaving her a little slack that morning while binding them together. He’d wanted to take it easier on her once he’d gotten a look the chafing the rope had caused. She might have freed herself.

  Thunder cracked the sky wide open, and with it came the rain. The horse reared, his head all but split from the earth-shaking rumble.

  “Mrs. Furnish!” He pulled the brim of his hat lower to block some of the rain from his eyes, but it was little help once the downpour soaked through.

  One more try, and then he’d have to consider his unworthy hide. He pulled in a deep lungful of air and nearly screamed to be heard over the roaring rain. “I can leave you out here in this, or I can take you to shelter! It’s up to you!” Thunder cracked as if he’d planned it so.

  That was when he caught sight of a white calico dress, a sodden bonnet, the figure wearing both bobbing up and down as she ran away from him.

  “Son of a…” He took off after her in spite of the horse’s reluctance to do so. He couldn’t blame it. Maybe the beast was smarter than he was.

  It took little effort to catch up to the woman, running in the rain, her dress soaked through and probably slowing her down. She didn’t wear the hoops women used to wear before the war—sometimes he’d wondered how they managed to make it through the door in those contraptions—so the skirts hung heavy around her, though she gathered them up around her legs.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he shouted once he caught up.

  Sure enough, she had untied the rope, and from the way she limped, she’d had a rough landing from the back of the wagon.

  It served her right.

  “No! No!” She fought like a wildcat as he hauled her up onto the saddle, biting his arm at one point.

  He howled and again nearly struck her for it but held himself back.

  He’d be lucky if he made it out of this alive at the rate she was going, kicking and biting and dragging him further out into a thunderstorm.

  “Do you wanna get yourself fried out here? Or maybe you wanna drown!”

  His horse needed no urging to hurry it the hell away from there.

  “Well, let me tell you somethin’,” he barked into her ear as they rode. “I took you last night, and you’re my responsibility. I’m not gonna let you get your fool self killed out here.”

  “Let me go!” She elbowed him in the stomach and damn near shoved him from the saddle.

  “I will take you with me!” he snarled, his voice sharp enough to make her cringe. That seemed to take the fight out of her and thank God for it. By the time they reached the sight where Zeke and Travis waited, the tent was set up, and the two of them were huddled under the wagon.

  Jed was less kind than he’d been before when he pulled the woman from the saddle and shoved her into the tent with a warning to stay put. He saw to the horse’s relative comfort, wincing whenever thunder rattled the ground.

  After that, there was nothing to do but join her inside.

  He’d asked for this, hadn’t he?

  9

  In spite of the warmth in the air, she shivered hard enough to rattle her teeth. Soaked calico hung all around her, sticking to her skin just the way her hair and bonnet did.

  She’d been less comfortable, though it was difficult to remember when.

  And he would be back for her. No way he’d let her out of his sight ever again. She had ruined any chance of getting away, and all because she hadn’t been able to run fast enough with all that heavy calico in her hands.

  He barged into the tent before she had the chance to do any more thinking. “What are you tryin’ to do? Break your neck? Do you really think we would hurt you? Is it that important to get away?”

  He reminded her of how she used to scold the boys when they got into dangerous mischief.

  There was nothing for her to say at first, as the sight of him took her breath away.

  This was new.

  She’d never had her breath taken away at the sight of a man. Not even the first time she’d laid eyes on John. For all his many faults, he was a good-looking man, tall and broad and dark of hair and eyes.

  But she’d never had this fluttery, breathless feeling before. Like a whole jar full of butterflies was emptied into her stomach and flew around.

  His shirt, a tan color when dry, was soaked through and stuck to him as her dress did to her. Every muscle of his shoulders, his arms, chest, and stomach were as clear as they would’ve been had he taken the thing off. And a life spent riding horses and living outdoors showed on his chiseled body.

  “Didn’t you hear me?” he demanded, ripping off his dripping hat and throwing it to the ground.

  “I did,” she whispered, teeth still chattering, eyes stuck on his now nearly black hair, dripping water onto his shoulders, down his neck. What would it be like to touch his skin the way those droplets did?

  What a disturbing thought!

  He stared at her for a moment, then sighed and swore under his breath. He passed where she sat on the cot one of the other men had set up—the tent was large enough to hold them both comfortably
, hardly smaller than the tarpaper shack in which she’d grown up—and pulled out a blanket to wrap around her shoulders.

  “I didn’t jump out,” she breathed, glaring up at him. “I didn’t. I was bounced out.”

  He stared down at her, his brows drawn together, as though deciding whether or not she meant it.

  She did. If he knew about the child she carried inside, she could have used that as a means to prove her honesty. Never would she have leaped from a moving wagon when it could have meant the child’s life.

  “I fell out,” she insisted. “If my hands had been free, I might have held on. There was no way to do so. I slid out of the back and onto the ground. I even cried out, but you didn’t hear me.”

  He blinked, the lines between his brows relaxing. “Is that true?”

  “It is.” That first moment, hitting the ground. Curled in a ball, every instinct telling her to protect her belly. Whether it had done any good remained to be seen. She’d managed to scramble away, unravel the knot in the ropes with her teeth and run without suffering any cramping, but there was no telling.

  What would happen if she lost the child while she was with these men? She might die, too. They wouldn’t know how to take care of her.

  “Why did you try to run away when I came after you? You must have heard me screaming for you, yet I found you running away.”

  She looked at her shoes, now mud-covered. “I had to try.”

  To her surprise, it sounded like he laughed. When she looked up, he was smiling.

  “I’ll give you that one,” he said as he crouched beside her. “Just do me the favor of never tryin’ that again, all right? I’m pleading with you here, and I don’t plead easily.”

  “I told you, I didn’t try.”

  He sighed with impatience. “Running, I mean. I need you not to run.”

  She looked down again, this time to avoid his eyes. His deep, deep eyes. She’d never seen eyes like them, the color of steel or a stormy sky.

  When she looked into them, that fluttery feeling came back, and she didn’t know what to do with that.

  “I need to get to Carson City, Jed.” Maybe if she used his name, he would feel closer to her. He would be kinder to her. “It is so important that I get there as soon as possible.”

  “Why? What’s the emergency?”

  She shook her head. “You don’t need to know that. I don’t ask you about your business, do I?”

  “No, but you have opinions about it just the same.”

  Her head snapped up, eyes meeting his again. This time, there was no breathless fluttering. It was more like she’d swallowed fire. “When a group of men kidnap you while holding guns, tell me how it makes you feel. Tell me how hard you try to escape. You know you would never stop trying. Even I know that, and I hardly know you at all.”

  The only sound for a long time was that of the wind and rain beating against the canvas walls of the tent.

  “You’re right. You hardly know me at all.” He stood, hands on his slim hips. He had large hands, strong hands. Hands that could span her waist from the back of a horse and lift her as though she weighed nothing more than a feather.

  He was too distracting.

  “You hardly know me,” he repeated, “but you call me names, you say things about what I do. You decided who I was last night, and you treat me like the man you think I am.”

  Just like a man. Turning things around, making it her fault. “I don’t have to like you any more than you have to like me. We are not friends. We do not have to be friendly. I want you to get me to Carson City, to my husband, and I want us to move quickly.”

  He scoffed.

  She reminded him, “The sooner we get there, the sooner you get the money you’re so desperate to get.”

  He turned away, cursing again. She folded her arms, staring straight ahead.

  It didn’t matter that he was the only man who’d ever stirred her blood the way he did. He was a murderer. She’d had enough of men like him to last her a lifetime.

  The ground shook when thunder rolled through, making her tremble again and even whimper softly like a wounded puppy. She hated thunder even more than she hated John Carter. Even more than she hated the man standing in front of her.

  “Are you all right?” he muttered.

  “Fine,” she spat.

  “You don’t sound fine. You sound scared.”

  “I said I was fine.” And she was. She truly was. Deep breaths, in and out, and she would be fine. Thunder never hurt anybody, and she was safe from the lightning and rain and even the wind. Nothing could hurt her.

  He turned, taking a knee at her side. “Did you hurt yourself when you fell from the wagon?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing I can’t handle. Thank you.” It came out stiff, formal.

  “Nothing you can’t handle?”

  She didn’t reply.

  “You’ve handled a lot of injuries, then?”

  She gave him a withering look which she hoped conveyed nothing but disgust—and hid that fluttering he stirred up. “I thought we talked about staying out of each other’s business.”

  He studied her, his eyes narrowing as they flicked over her face. “What happened to you? Why didn’t you flinch when I made like I was gonna hit you?”

  She should have known he would ask, as her reaction had unsettled him so. What would he say if he knew how many blows she had endured? “I don’t flinch.”

  “Why not? Are you used to getting hit?”

  “I don’t want to talk about this.”

  “Does Furnish beat you? Mark Furnish, the great rancher?”

  “I said I don’t want to talk about it!” He blinked hard, pulling back when she shouted in his face. Shame flushed her cheeks—didn’t she know all too well how it felt when someone shouted in her face?

  Modulating her tone, she continued, “Not him. Not Mark. He’s never laid a hand on me.”

  This was true. Not so much as a finger. Not even his eyes. She could at least rest easy in that.

  His face softened. “But somebody has.”

  When his hand touched hers, she wasn’t sure what to do. Pull away? Slap his face for taking liberties? Allow him to hold it?

  There didn’t seem to be the need to slap him or even to take offense at the brief intimacy. For he was gentle, far more so than she would’ve guessed he was capable of.

  No one had ever touched her gently before—and it was the knowing of it, much more than the memory of violence, which brought tears to her eyes.

  “That is the past,” she assured him. “A long time ago.” Who was she trying to convince? Herself?

  For it was not a long time ago. It was a matter of mere weeks. Only weeks since the last time he’d struck her, sneering down at her as she’d curled into a protective ball on the kitchen floor.

  No wonder she had curled into that same ball upon falling from the wagon. It was second nature by then.

  Jed looked down, seemed surprised at the fact that her hand was still in his. He was quick to withdraw his fingers. To her surprise, she mourned the loss of his touch.

  “I could make a deal with you.”

  “A deal?”

  “I promise to make sure the other men are kind to you, that they’re never rough with their words or their manners. But you’ve gotta promise me to behave yourself, too. You say you’re in a hurry to get someplace, but if you try to run it’ll only slow us down.”

  She saw the sense in this. And, truly, if she ran, it would only endanger two lives.

  “Do not bind my hands again,” she countered, seeing her opportunity in the way he’d softened in manner.

  Just like that, he hardened again. She should have known.

  “I can’t promise you that,” he muttered, his eyes darkening with foreboding.

  “Then, I won’t promise not to try to get away. If you treat me like a captive, I’ll only spend my time thinking of ways to free myself. And I will not be pleasant.”

  “We ca
n be more unpleasant,” he warned.

  “We’d have to see about that.” Her eyes darted down to the place she’d kicked the night before—not long, for that would be immodest, and she already felt a tingle in the back of her neck at the thought of him—then back up to his face. “I was pretty unpleasant to you last night, wasn’t I?”

  He looked away, but not soon enough for her to miss the way he grimaced. “That’s a word for it.”

  “Remember, I could have held on inside the wagon if my hands were free.”

  He stood, shaking his head. “Damn it all, woman. Why can’t anything be easy with you?”

  She gritted her teeth. “I never asked you to take me along, remember. I don’t have to make things easy. This was your decision, and you have to live with it. The sooner you get me home, the sooner you won’t have to deal with me.”

  The storm had let up, she realized, when they fell silent. Typical of spring and summer storms, quick to flare up and then die out.

  Jed went to the flap, pulling it back to look outside. Tension made itself known in every line of his body, from his raised shoulders to the way his hands fisted around the canvas tight enough for his knuckles to go bone white.

  He turned his face that she might see his finely carved profile. It seemed wrong, somehow, for a man so handsome to be engaged in such filthy business.

  “I won’t tie your hands anymore. But so help me, if you get it into your head to act foolish, it won’t be me you deal with. It’ll be them. And if you think I’m some terrible thing, remember that I’m not the one who shot those men from the coach last night. I only shot at the one trying to run me down, Mrs. Furnish.”

  The way he said that name. So much bitterness.

  “Melissa. Call me Melissa, please.” Not only because she had no right to the name Furnish, but because she couldn’t stand hearing him snarl it as he did.

  The sound of the tent flap’s closing behind him may as well have been the slamming of a door.

  10

  “How do you expect me to wash myself while you are nearby?”