“Never took up the habit, myself, or I’d share some tobacco with you just to see you try it.”
They shared a smile with too much warmth in it for Jed’s comfort. He liked her too damn much. She made him feel lighter than he ever had, even when he was a boy and he had no understanding of life.
“I imagine riding would be easier wearing these,” she observed, stretching her legs, spreading them wider.
He wished she’d stop. While there wasn’t a hint of awareness in her movements, the animal side of his nature stirred in his loins.
It seemed that animal never strayed far from the surface of his thoughts anymore, always ready to pounce on the slightest action. When she licked her lips to catch a crumb before it fell, or ran her hand over the long, slim column of her neck.
Innocent actions, the simplest things, yet enough to make him grit his teeth and clench his fists and think about awful, bloody, terrible things to push back the animal desire she unleashed.
He wanted to hurry and get her to Carson City before he ran out of willpower and awful images to call into his mind.
He wanted to take his time and come up with reasons to lengthen the trip, that he might spend more time with her. For how could he go back to being alone after her?
They rode half the day this way, in companionable silence. He allowed her to take the reins from time to time, since she insisted, and his arms did grow tired after so many days.
He studied the way she drove the team, her back straight as an arrow, shoulders squared. She took it very seriously, as she took everything she was just learning to do. Like reading and writing, for instance. The woman was determined.
Yes, she’d make a good rancher’s wife.
“You’re gonna fit right in on a ranch,” he observed, leaning against the wooden planks at his back, tipping the brim of his hat over his eyes to rest a bit.
“Do you really think so?”
“Yup, I do.”
“Why do you think so?”
She was like a child sometimes, always pressing for more, always asking questions. This brought back memories of a child he used to know, one who followed him wherever he went and asked questions about everything he did.
“Because you’re determined. It takes a great deal of determination to help a man run a ranch. You have energy and a keen mind. You’re bossy as hell when you have a mind to be. And you don’t take guff easily. These are all things he’ll need from you.”
“I would want my husband to be a success in anything he does,” she announced.
He caught a glimpse of the firm set of her jaw from the corner of his eye. Like she was willing it so.
A man would have to be the world’s biggest fool to fail with her at his side.
15
Jed grimaced as he climbed down from the wagon.
“What are you so grumpy about?” Melissa asked. “I told you, everything will be all right. Either we get what we need, or we starve.” And she was endlessly hungry as of late. While mornings were still unpleasant, once the nausea passed, she almost always wanted something to eat.
In fact, she’d been loosening her stays as of late. Trousers or no trousers, there was no avoiding undergarments, and she had simply not been able to lace as tight as she once had. It was too early for her to start taking the pains all women did to conceal their growing bellies, which meant she was simply putting on weight.
Jed didn’t seem to care either way, and his shirt was large enough that she need not feel shame at her growing figure beneath its many folds. She’d taken to wearing the corset simply for the sake of holding things in place.
It was an excuse to be comfortable for once, anyhow.
Thanks to her appetite, they were running dangerously low on just about every supply they had. Travis was the last one to head out for goods, back when Zeke was ill. It seemed a lifetime had passed since then.
She knew Jed would rather not make the stop in town, even if it was little more than a village and even if nobody there could have the slightest chance of knowing them.
“You swear you won’t go anywhere without me?” He tilted back his hat, fixing her with a doubtful stare.
“Jed, I’m disappointed in you. Very disappointed.”
“That ain’t an answer.”
“Yes, I swear,” she hissed. “There. Are you happy? I swear I won’t go anyplace. I’m just going to sit here and wait.”
For if she went inside alone, she might tell somebody who she was and who he was. If they went in together and somebody came riding through, later on, asking about a man and a woman seen traveling together, that could be a problem as well.
He’d already worried about this aloud as he shaved in the little looking glass he carried with him. She wondered if he knew just how much he muttered to himself when he was in a mood.
“I guess there’s no way of gettin’ out of this,” he grumbled.
“There isn’t. And I’m hungry. Could you please go in and get us some food?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he muttered, shaking his head as he stepped up onto the boardwalk which ran the length of the street. “She’s hungry. What a surprise.”
She held her tongue only because they were in public and it wouldn’t do to have a fight. What mattered most was getting out of there without anybody noticing them.
He walked into the general store, beneath the large-lettered sign advertising its wide range of goods, and she bit her lip as blood rushed to her cheeks. He was a sight to behold, both when he was walking toward her and when he was walking away.
It was all the riding, she decided. His legs and rear were firm, tight, his shoulders strong, his back lean and muscular and enough to make her wonder what it would feel like under her hands, with no fabric to get in the way of his warmth, of the muscles moving under his skin.
She didn’t know until pain sprang from her palms that she’d dug her nails into them, and her heart raced beyond all measure.
What was the matter with her? She’d gone mad. That had to be it. And every man, woman, and child who passed the wagon more than likely knew what was going on in her deranged mind just by the flush of her cheeks and the way she stared at the spot where Jed had just stood.
Was it right for a woman to think of a man this way? Normal?
It was certainly sinful, of that she had no doubt. For how could the rush of warmth that coursed throughout her body be anything but?
She’d known of the needs of men for longer than she cared to remember, the sounds from Mama’s bedroom enough to teach her from a young age. And that was before the men started looking at her the way they did, once she grew up some.
That was when her mother had sat her down and given her the facts, plainly and sometimes painfully frank. Men wanted certain things, and it was up to a woman to lie back and let them take what they wanted.
John had spoken of his needs, too, and of the rights of a husband to satisfy those needs—not to mention the duties of a wife to do the satisfying.
No one had ever told her a woman might have needs. John had certainly never inspired anything more than discomfort and displeasure as he sweat like a pig on top of her.
Only Jed had ever made her flush with what she guessed was desire. He made the back of her neck tingle when he looked her in the eye, when his gaze sometimes drifted down to her lips.
And her throat tightened whenever he rode the horses, warming them up one at a time before hitching them for a long day’s ride. His capable body, moving up and down in the saddle, and the way he swung his leg over the animal’s back as he mounted and dismounted. She could watch that all that.
Was it natural for a woman to sigh without meaning to as she watched a man mount a horse?
She hoped so, for if it wasn’t, there was something wrong with her.
If only she had a woman to discuss such things with.
“Well, what do we have here?”
She’d been too busy wrapping herself in warm, delicious memories to notice t
he approach of a pair of men. One of them leaned against the wagon while the other climbed up beside her before she could stop him.
If it were John, or this was Boston, she would have frozen stiff. Like a rabbit when it knew it was cornered. She would have cowered away from the man. She might have begged him to leave her alone if she found her voice at all.
This was not Boston, and the whiskey-soaked man beside her was not John.
“Get away!” she grunted, shoving her body into his with all her might.
He let out a cry of surprise as he tumbled from the wagon, the horses neighing and pawing the ground over this new threat.
He stumbled to his feet, swaying and slurring filthy swear words, and for the first time since the night her coach had been overtaken, Melissa tasted true fear. For the look in his half-open eyes was exactly the look John Carter used to have before he attacked.
And for the first time in her life, she wished she had a pistol handy.
“What do you think you’re doin’?” A second later, Jed burst into the scene, running full-force at her would-be attacker and knocking him to the ground for a second time. He hauled the man halfway up by the collar of his stained, dust-covered shirt and landed a solid blow to his mouth. Blood bloomed on his broken lips as if by magic.
“Jed, don’t!” Melissa implored, her eyes darting back and forth as witnesses began to gather in store windows, along the boardwalk.
“He-he didn’t mean no harm, mister.” The man’s friend, clearly in possession of greater sense, put himself between Jed and the man who now bled on the ground, groaning and stunned.
“Jed,” Melissa hissed, still keenly aware of their audience. “Let’s go. We have to go, now.”
There was fire in his eyes when he glanced up at her. “You all right?” He grunted, his chest heaving with each ragged breath.
Dear Lord, he set her blood on fire when he looked like that. Like he would tear the head from the shoulders of any man who dared touch her.
She could only nod. Words failed her.
He loaded the supplies into the wagon, dropped as they’d been when he saw what was taking place in his absence, and she steered the team away from the store and indeed the town the moment he was beside her on the bench.
Only when they were well outside the town, and he pried the reins from her clenched fists did she dare breathe easier.
They rode in silence until night fell and it was time to make camp, and even then, the conversation the held was stilted, broken. Nothing like the usual chatter they fell into.
And she missed that. She hadn’t known until just then how she’d come to rely on their talks, the brief stretches of time that was theirs alone. Disappointment soured the inside of her mouth.
She dared ask only one question before ducking into the tent as she always did. “Do you blame me for what happened today? For attracting those men?”
He looked at her, really looked at her for the first time since they rode away from that little no-name place. “Why would I ever blame you for what they did? You had nothin’ to do with it. And from what I saw, you made sure he knew you weren’t having any of it.”
The note of pride in his voice carried her into the tent on wings, and later on, she fell asleep with a smile… and the memory of his flaming eyes, his heaving chest, and how much she’d wished to fall into his arms.
16
He waited until she doused the lantern inside the tent before letting out a long, slow breath and unclenching his fists. His fingers were stiff from being curled so tight for so long.
And the knuckles of his right hand were sore after smashing against that bastard’s mouth, back in town. He wished he could’ve done more. He wished he could’ve killed the drunken, pitiful wreck of a man who dared to even speak to her.
He might have come closer to doing it if she hadn’t stopped him. She was right, of course, she was. The last thing they needed was to attract attention, and attention had found them. The only thing that could’ve made it worse would be murdering a man in cold blood, out in the open with dozens of people watching.
To think, he’d been nervous about bringing her into the store.
It wasn’t the stranger he’d hit. He might have been holding onto the collar of a man who’d been foolish enough to stagger out of a saloon and into a wagon which didn’t belong to him, but it was Melissa’s husband he saw when he struck.
He didn’t even know what the man looked like, but he’d been thinking of him when he swung his fist. Every time he’d hurt her. The injuries she had described and so many others probably too shameful to mention.
Yes. He would’ve killed the man had she not stopped him in time.
And he had no right to feel that way. He had no right to want to defend her.
To hold her tight and shield her from the world.
To take her into his bed, or bedroll, as the case may be. To make her his under the stars.
He squeezed his eyes shut, willing the images away. They wouldn’t fade. They came back stronger, more vivid.
This was what love must be like.
He’d never known it until then—and a good thing, or it might have killed him a long time before. How did men walk through life with their hearts in their throats and an ache in their pants every time they thought about their woman?
But she wasn’t his woman. She wasn’t, and she never would be. He had killed any chance of that happening when he killed the driver of the stage and taken her as his captive.
No. Sooner.
Many years ago.
The sound of screaming. His mother’s.
His own.
He was not a good man, and certainly not worthy of a woman like the one sleeping in the tent.
“We ought to reach the city tomorrow, isn’t that right?” Melissa counted the days on her fingers. “It’s been eight days now since we crossed into Nevada.”
“That’s right.” Jed’s heart was heavy as he pulled the wagon up to the edge of a ridge, as it had been not long after they’d crossed the border.
That day, he’d pointed out a working ranch to her, knowing there was still a week between then and this moment. He’d kept her ignorant as to how close they’d been drawing to Carson City all day, each mile they rolled took them one mile closer to saying goodbye.
It was best for her, and for the child. This was the only thought which kept him moving. It was for the best that he sacrifice his feelings for her.
It was all he could do for her, making sure she started a new life with a better man than her first husband—a better man than himself, more likely than not.
He set the brake, pointing over the ridge to the valley below. “You know what that is?” he asked with a bucketful of false cheer.
Her eyes went round. “We’re here? That’s it?”
“That’s it.” It shone like a jewel. That was the only way he could think to describe it. The capitol dome stood out over all others, a flag waving proudly from above it. In spite of the smoke from approaching freight trains which were like a dark cloud over the city, the tree-lined streets seemed downright welcoming from afar.
Melissa let out a soft laugh. “After all this time, it seemed like we would never get here. But here we are. It’s real.”
“And it’s your new home,” he reminded her—and himself. She belonged there. She would be safe there, more comfortable than he could ever make her.
“My new home,” she whispered, as though she was trying out the words for size, seeing if they fit in her mouth. “I suppose we ought to get going, then…”
“I suppose.”
Neither of them moved.
“He might be waiting for me,” she added.
“Might be? He’d be the world’s biggest fool if he wasn’t.”
She smiled, looked down at her folded hands. “You’re just saying that.”
“I have no reason to just say that. He’ll be waiting at the ranch for word of you. It would be merciful for us to get down there a
nd find a way to get word to him, I reckon.”
“It would.”
So why did she sound hesitant? He didn’t dare pretend it was for him. He was still her kidnapper. He’d kept her away from her new husband for two precious weeks, weeks when her baby was growing and making it less likely for Mark Furnish to believe he was the father.
“Do you think we ought to wait until morning?” he asked, keeping his gaze trained on the horizon for fear that if he looked at her, his entire heart would be written on his face and she’d see him for who he was. A lovesick fool.
She remained quiet. What was she thinking? Likely she wanted to hurry and get to her new husband and was only trying to spare his feelings.
Could he blame her? Mark Furnish meant everything. The sort of life she could’ve only dreamed of up until then. Not to mention the hope of security, a little kindness from the man whose name she would take.
She needed the marriage. So did her child.
“If you think we ought to go, we can go,” he offered. “Maybe somebody can ride out to his ranch and let him know you arrived safely. He can come to town and get you. Maybe treat you to a late supper, get you a room at the hotel. Or take you…”
“Home,” she murmured. “He could take me home.”
“That’s right.”
All he heard for a while was the sound of her breathing.
“You know you don’t need to feel any sort of… I don’t know, loyalty to me or anything like that,” he muttered, pulling the brim of his hat lower. “My feelings won’t be sore if you hurry off to your new life. You done waited long enough thanks to me—you would’ve been here weeks ago.”
“I know that.”
“So? What do you think?” He dared take a look at her out of the corner of his eye. Hoping. Hardly daring to move.
“I think I might be afraid.”
“Afraid?” This was enough to turn him toward her. “Afraid of what?”
“Of running from one thing and straight into the same thing, just someplace else.”
“You don’t know that. You have to take a chance, is all.”
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