The more heroic he seemed, the more he could collect.
Imagine. Him, a hero.
He sat up in the shadow of the tent and stretched, feeling better than he had in days. Yes, the sight of Zeke’s grave was a vise gripping his heart, but he would have to keep moving in spite of the sadness of it. Death came to everyone. He only wished Zeke’s had been quicker.
But Melissa had done all she could to make it easier for him. She’d been an angel to a man who had not deserved her mercy.
The memory of those tender moments made him search the area for her. The tent was silent, there was no cooking fire. Was she still asleep?
He stood outside the flap and cleared his throat. And again. No stirring inside. It would be up to him to get things started that morning, then.
The first trip would be to the river, where he would wash up and fill the canteens. He gathered them, humming to himself a bit; it was easy to be in a lighthearted mood on a beautiful morning, after having gotten enough sleep.
Until the sound of quiet retching swept all pleasant thoughts aside.
He paused, tilting his head in the direction of the noise. It had to be Melissa, unless someone had snuck into their camp with the intention of vomiting.
He found her on the other side of the brush line, on her hands and knees. She let out a strangled gagging noise which turned his stomach before coughing something up, then breathed heavily while waiting for it either to pass or for something else to come up.
She covered up the mess, using her hands to sweep loose soil over it, before going to the water’s edge and rinsing her mouth, then splashing her face and the back of her neck with cold water.
She had done this before. There was a skilled nature to her movements. Vomit, cover it up, wash her hands, rinse her mouth. As though this was just another chore she performed every morning.
Every…
“Why are you still lying to me?”
His voice was like a bullet piercing the otherwise peaceful morning air, and Melissa jumped before whirling about. She was pale, as she had been the night before, and now he understood why. He understood it all.
“Why did you lie last night?” He barged through the brush and threw the canteens to the ground. “Why didn’t you tell me everything?”
“What are you talking about?” But there was none of the strength or fire in her voice that he’d come to know so well. Because she knew he had her dead to rights this time.
He went to her, stopped just short of taking her arms and shaking her until her head bobbed like a rag doll’s. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to have a baby?”
13
She couldn’t answer right away, the surprise of him finding her and accusing her of the truth were too much for words to fight through.
And she had been so careful, getting sick as quietly as she could every morning, fighting through nausea in the back of the wagon as it jolted her from side to side. She was skilled in the art of concealing illness, as there had always been somebody else to take care of. The boys, her mama, her husband.
“Why don’t you answer me?” Jed demanded. “Why didn’t you tell me of this? Do you know how dangerous it is for a woman to work as hard as you have when she’s in this condition? Do you know what might have happened if you fell, or if one of the horses kicked you? You did fall, damn it! Out of the wagon!”
He turned away, running his hands through his hair. “Damn it and damn you. Why did you lie last night, when you told me it was time to share the truth?”
“I did share the truth!” she gasped, finally finding her voice.
Not that it mattered much. He spun around, his normally handsome face a mask of fury. “You told the part of the truth you thought was worth telling, which isn’t the same at all!”
“Are you angry because I didn’t tell you about the child, or because I might have been hurt?”
This seemed to knock some of the fire out of him, and when he spoke again, there was no shouting. “Both. I don’t know what I would do with a woman bleeding out from a… whatever it’s called. But I know it can be nasty, and I know there are times when a woman can die if she doesn’t get help. I wouldn’t know what to do.”
She’d never heard anybody sound so miserable, and to her surprise, she felt sorrier than she had in a long time. “Forgive me,” she whispered. “I didn’t want anybody to know. Anybody at all.”
“I can understand why,” he sneered.
“You think I’m one of those women, then?” she challenged. “The type who gets herself in this condition by a man outside of marriage?”
“You already told me you’re not married to Mark Furnish, that he bought your tickets and sent ‘em to you. What else is there to think?”
He hated her. He had no respect for her—if he’d ever had any at all, but she thought he might have. He’d been kinder to her as of late. Gentler. Likely because of Zeke and their working together. That sort of thing had a way of bringing people together.
Now, there was more contempt in his voice than there had ever been when he’d hurled the name Furnish at her as though it were a curse.
He laughed, throwing his hands into the air. “And that’s why you’re in such an awful hurry to get there. Gods, Jed, you’re so stupid!” Another laugh, full of bitterness. “You want him to think the bastard is his!”
“Do not call my child a bastard,” she warned. “I grew up with three of them under my roof, thank you very much, and they were good boys. Sweet boys who had to become young men far sooner than they should have because of how they were born. No fathers to look after them. I had to be their father as best I could until they went out to steal food just, so we might survive.”
Instead of warming his heart, this made him even colder. “Then I would think you’d be smart enough not to do that to another child—making them a bastard as your brothers were.”
“This child isn’t a bastard!”
“If it’s not your husband’s, it is!”
“It is my husband’s!” Her announcement echoed across the river, up to their camp, making birds take flight in the nearby trees.
He let out a long breath, as though all the air left his lungs at once. Melissa instantly regretted saying it—the one thing she’d sworn never to tell another living soul.
“Your husband?” he asked, squinting. “You already have a husband?”
She closed her eyes to keep the world from spinning out of control all around her. If she saw it spinning, she would only get sick again. “I have a husband in Boston—at least, I think he’s my husband. A man came and spoke the vows and John gave me this.” She held up her left hand, where the gold band still sat. “That was a little more than a year ago. We couldn’t afford five of us in the house anymore, and there was no room with the boys growing as they were. I married John Carter so I could get out of there. And now I’m going to marry Mark Furnish so I can get away from Boston and never, ever go back.”
She waited in silence for something. Some word, some gesture, something. Even if he cursed her, at least that would be saying something. Anything would be better than the stony silence.
When he touched her hand, she flinched.
“Relax,” he murmured, and when she opened her eyes, he was leading her to a fallen log a little ways down, near the water.
She sat, and he stood before her with the sun to his back. The glare made it difficult to see his face, to judge what he must think of her.
“He was the one who hurt you.” It was not a question, and there was no use in denying it.
“Very much. Nearly every day in one way or another. I lost three teeth in the back of my mouth. There’s a scar on the back of my head, under my hair. You asked if I ever saw a dislocated shoulder getting set? I set my own, a month after the wedding.”
He turned his face to the side, spitting out a stretch of foul words.
“That’s just the big things. There were black eyes, sprains, split lips. And the screaming and
the terrible words. Over and over. I had to get away from him. When I wrote to Mark Furnish in answer to his ad, I only wanted a way to get out of Boston. I didn’t really intend to marry him. But then…”
“But then you found out about the baby,” he finished.
“Yes. I couldn’t… I didn’t…” She covered her face with her hands, suddenly full to overflowing with shame. Shame for who she was and what she’d done by telling so many lies, shame over someone else knowing all that had been done to her. He probably thought her weak and pitiful, just as John always had.
Gravel shifted under his feet as he drew nearer, but she did not dare uncover her face to look at him. “You don’t need to explain any further,” he assured her in a quiet voice. “I understand well enough now.”
“I… I couldn’t… I just…” The tears wouldn’t stop, nor would the shoulder-shaking sobs which seemed to come from a place deeper than her heart. From her toes, maybe, all the way up to where they poured from her mouth.
“Breathe.” He sat beside her, his warmth and solidness a slight comfort. It was better than nothing.
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed, shaking her head at herself and her folly.
“Sorry for what?” His voice reminded her of the way she once spoke to the boys when they were little and hurting over something.
“Lying. Bringing you into this. It’s illegal, what I’m going to do.”
“If the marriage to your husband in Boston was ever legal, like you said,” he reminded her. “But nobody has to know. I won’t tell anyone.”
“You won’t?” She dared raise her head, knowing she must look a fright—eyes red and swollen, face flushed and wet, nose running.
Rather than criticize, he handed her a handkerchief from his back pocket. “I won’t. I couldn’t send you back to him. And in case you forgot…” He looked around them, as though he had a secret. “I don’t care much about abidin’ by the law.”
The fact that he would joke shocked her out of her misery and pulled a laugh from her.
“Is there anything else I need to know? Anything at all?” Something clouded his eyes, tightened his jaw. “Did he know where you were going?”
She shook her head. “I did everything I could to hide it from him. Do you think I would be here and breathing if he knew?”
“A fair question.” He patted her leg—a casual gesture, as one would pat the leg of a friend—then stood. “Wash up, get yourself ready to go. It seems we’re in more of a hurry than I thought.”
She blinked hard, the last of her tears overflowing and coursing down her cheeks. “You mean it? You’re really going to keep my secret?”
He hooked his thumbs into his belt loops. “Seems to me we both have a secret the other is keeping. That seems pretty much fair. Don’t you think?”
It was more than fair. It was a relief greater than anything she’d ever known.
And that was what shot her from the log and into him, her arms flinging themselves around his neck without her willing them to, her head against his shoulder before she could stop herself.
“Thank you, thank you,” she murmured against the rough work shirt, the smell of leather and horse and man mingling together like a strange cologne she was becoming quite fond of.
He hesitated before winding his arms around her waist. Slowly, as though she might burn at the touch. “You’re safe now. You don’t need to worry about a thing.”
To her surprise, she believed him.
14
“Take a look down there.” Jed pointed over the edge of the ridge they’d just driven up to. Flat, grassy land stretched out as far as the eye could see to the north, south, and west. A silver ribbon of river cut through to the north, where hundreds of head of cattle were drinking their fill and grazing on the thick, emerald grass while a dozen cowboys rode up and down the line to keep the stock together.
Melissa stood, shielding her eyes from the sun. She’d lost the bonnet somewhere in Utah, when a stiff wind blew it off her head, the one and only time she’d worn it untied. Since then, the sun had turned her hair from gold to nearly white.
With the blue sky framing her, her slim body clothed in his extra shirt and trousers—there was no wearing that dress of hers, not if she intended to still have a dress to wear once they reached their destination—she made a striking sight. It was rare that he allowed himself the luxury of staring at her, but he couldn’t help himself just then.
There were times when her beauty just about knocked him over, even when she wore men’s clothes several sizes too big.
“That’s ranchland?” she asked, watching the cattle and the cowboys with rapt attention, unaware of the way he admired her.
“Yep, that’s it. That’s what you’ll be lookin’ at a lot of once we reach Furnish Ranch. Thousands and thousands of acres.” He couldn’t help but note the way his chest tightened at the thought of Mark Furnish and his great big ranch. All the money he had.
And soon, a wife. Melissa.
In a little more than a week, more than likely.
They had crossed into Nevada the day before by his estimation. It would be maybe a week to cross the state if the weather held.
While he knew how important it was for her to reach Carson City in quick fashion, he couldn’t help but wish for a string of stormy days.
That was selfish, and one thing he’d always prided himself on was being unselfish.
But then, he’d never known her. He’d never known what it meant to want a woman all to himself.
She sat back down, beside him, and he steered the team right, so they might skirt the edge of the ridge and continue northwest. Soon they would simply drive west, all the way out until they reached the state capital.
“It’s hard living, ranch life,” Melissa informed him.
She did not yet know he had no need for such information, that he’d seen a rancher’s life close-up and for many years.
“Is it, now?”
She nodded. “The letter Mr. Furnish wrote to me described it in detail. He didn’t make it seem… desirable.”
A damned fool, he was. Any other woman than Melissa—one not so desperate to escape her pitiful life—might have read what the idiot wrote and decided against making the long journey.
“He only wanted to be sure I knew what I was getting into,” she continued, unaware of the battle he fought with himself every time she brought up the man’s name. “He’s a very honest man.”
Honest. So unlike himself.
Jed had no reason to loathe Furnish, and yet he did. More and more with each passing day, in fact. Each time she smiled or laughed, each time she revealed a bit of herself to him.
Like when he’d found out she taught herself to read.
He’d carry the memory of her flushed cheeks forever, deep in the darkest corner of his heart, and look back on it fondly whenever he needed to smile. She’d been proud of herself, and a little embarrassed. He would’ve bet both horses and the wagon they were hitched to that she’d never had a reason to be proud of herself before then.
“My—I mean, John—used to bring newspapers into the house,” she explained. Jed noticed she corrected herself whenever she was about to call him her husband. “And there were mail-order catalogs, too. When I’d see a picture of something I knew the name of, I would learn the word underneath it. I started learning other words, then before long, I could read sentences once I understood the sounds the letters made. I recognized the words as I was sounding them out by their letters…” She’d let out a little laugh. “You see how it went. It took months, but I got the hang of it.”
“What about writing?” he’d asked. She must have written to Furnish, and she’d read his letter in reply. Newsprint and hand-written letters were very different.
Her blush had deepened to one of shame. “When John would go out to work, I would steal into his study and read the letters he received in the post. I knew our name and address, so I knew those letters and words on the envelopes, and I pie
ced the rest of it together myself. It was like working out a puzzle.”
When he’d gaped at her in open-mouthed awe, she’d shrugged. “It gave me something to do. At least I learned something during that year. I can take that away from it.”
Whoever this Furnish character was, he’d better deserve a wife like her. Jed had never known anyone with that sort of determination, male or female. And when he considered the sort of household she’d lived in, too…
She got herself out of there the only was she could. By teaching herself to read and write so one day, she could write to a man clear across the country.
Funny, but he’d never considered how hard it was to be a woman. From what he gathered of Melissa’s stories, her mother got around quite a bit—or, the men got around to her. That was where the three fatherless boys came from, boys whose names Melissa never mentioned. Maybe it was hard for her to do it. Maybe she wanted to forget them.
But the woman hadn’t started off that way. She only started entertaining men when her husband died and left her penniless. He wondered if it was an easy way to earn a meager living, and the only way she could think to keep body and soul together.
In that way, he wasn’t that different from her. Nobody grew up wanting to be a bandit, either.
He wondered if Melissa knew how she made him think, how she forced him to question so many things about himself. If she even cared.
Why would she?
She sat there, looking around, leaning her elbows on her spread thighs. He couldn’t help but laugh at her change in posture.
“What’s so funny?”
That was a tough question to answer, especially when she asked it with suspicion in her voice. Over their weeks together, he’d learned to tread lightly when she took that tone.
“You look mighty comfortable, is all. The trousers suit you.”
She looked down, finally aware of the way she’d been sitting, and laughed at herself. “I look like a real lady, don’t I? Next thing you know, I’ll be spitting tobacco juice.”
A Highwayman's Mail Order Bride Page 9
