A Highwayman's Mail Order Bride

by Blythe Carver

  “Listen to me.” She raised herself on her knees until they were face-to-face. “You were not at fault. It wasn’t you. You would never have hurt your brother. He ran to help you because he loved you, but you did not make him do it. He was a boy, acting before he thought. You couldn’t have known he would.”

  “I should have.”

  Her hands cupped his face. “You couldn’t have. And the way he looked up to you? The way he ran to help when he thought you might be hurt? I’d bet he would hate to see you tear yourself up over this as you have.”

  His eyes shone with unshed tears as he took her face the way she held his. When he drew her to him, his mouth seeking hers, she did not resist.

  Heat she had never known stirred to life deep inside her core, making her nerves sing and dance, sending gooseflesh in ripples up and down her arms. Jed’s hands moved from her face to her lower back, pulling her closer, his powerful arms wrapping her up until there was nothing to do but melt against him. It would be pointless to fight.

  Especially since she did not wish to.

  Instead, she ran her hands through his thick hair, indulging herself in its softness before sliding them down to his shoulders. Muscles moved beneath shirt and skin, shifting and flexing and turning her fingers into claws as she gripped him.

  It was just as she had imagined, only more so. She had never guessed at the sudden flaring of heat all through her body, the desire to tear at his clothes and feel his hands on her bare skin, all over her. To look into his eyes and know he wanted the same things.

  And all the while he kissed her, tongue probing and caressing, drawing a moan from the back of her throat. She’d never moaned while being kissed before.

  Compared to this, she’d never been kissed.

  There was nothing in the world she wanted more than to give herself to him, to offer what comfort she could, to love him just once before leaving him forever. Would that they could lie together in front of the fire until the sun rose, touching and kissing and creating something she would remember forever.

  Instead, the instant Jed’s arms tightened with new need, need which seemed to echo the need in her, he pulled his mouth from hers and turned his face away.

  “Forgive me,” he growled, his breathing harsh.

  She touched her forehead to his shoulder, closing her eyes, her breathing matching his. It was not meant to be, and they both knew it.

  “There is nothing to forgive,” she managed to whisper as she struggled to regain her self-control.

  18

  There were no words between them as he hitched the team up that morning. It was a bright, clear day, and all of Carson City stretched out before them when they reached the crest of the rise on which they’d spent the night.

  One of the longest, most troubled nights of Jed’s life.

  He watched Melissa from the corner of his eye as she took in the city. “I feel like God, watching from on high,” she murmured, a half-smile pulling up the corners of her mouth.

  Indeed, there was a feeling of looking down on the city as it went about its morning—already busy for so early in the day, he noted. A freight train pulled into the yard near the northeast corner, black smoke belching from its stack. Several buggies ran up and down what appeared to be the main street, where the state’s Capitol building stood head and shoulders over the rest. On what looked like farms at the city’s far corners were workers already in the fields.

  “I suppose we ought to get down there,” he observed, watching the activity. From so high up, the city was quiet, unassuming. That would change once they were in the thick of it, he knew. Especially once word spread that the future wife of Mr. Mark Furnish was in town.

  “I suppose so,” Melissa whispered.

  He turned to her. “I… that is, in case… We won’t get to say what we might wanna say once we’re with your intended, so I wanted to say now that…”

  She smiled, shaking her head. “You don’t need to. I understand.”

  “I don’t think you do.”

  Her shoulders raised in a slight shrug. “Maybe it’s best to leave things where they are, then. Besides, I have a wedding to get to.” Before there was the chance to say anything more, she took the reins and tapped them to the horses’ backs to send them on their way.

  He’d lost his chance. There would never be another moment so perfect.

  It was for the best, wasn’t it? The woman wanted to get down there, meet up with her fiancé and get married, fast. He couldn’t blame her. Mark Furnish offered everything a man such as himself could never dream of giving her.

  Including a good, stable father for her child.

  He could only follow her and hope they kept their stories straight when it came time to collect his payment. And that Furnish would believe them.

  He had no reason not to, so far as Jed was concerned. There was no one to contradict their story, and he was delivering Melissa without so much as a scratch on her. If that wasn’t a gesture of good faith, he didn’t know what was.

  The money was as good as his. He tried to picture it in his head, tried to imagine the land and stock he’d purchase for himself. So long as he got the chance to work on the land again, to be part of it instead of just traveling over it. To watch a herd move together as one and know that sense of pride again, pride that he’d had a hand in bringing them up, in making them what they were. Something real, something honest.

  He’d had enough of the other life, his life up to that point. He would never take again. He would give, instead, and maybe even like himself a little better when his head touched his pillow at the end of a long day.

  It was her. She was the reason these thoughts—so unusual for him—had run through his head ever since he knew he loved her. Especially since that kiss.

  The best kiss he’d ever had, without a doubt. A kiss that might easily have turned into something more—God knew he’d wanted her, aching so bad he could’ve sworn he was about to bust through his trousers. It had almost hurt, truly hurt, when he’d turned away from her.

  Because she’d wanted it, too, which made the refusing doubly hard.

  She was not his to take.

  He would no longer take from other men that which was not his for the taking.

  So one of them had to be stronger, and it had turned out to be him. The ache of pent-up longing might have kept him up through the night if his troubled thoughts hadn’t. Thoughts of her, of Jasper, of what life might look like if he forgave himself for that terrible day and moved on with things.

  He had never once considered what Jasper would think of the way his big brother’s life turned out. The very idea filled him with shame. He’d been a hero to the boy and look how things had changed. Maybe it was the easy way out, living as he had once the war ended, and he had no home to go back to.

  For that alone, he would have remembered her forever and thanked her whenever something good came into his life.

  After their kiss, he would always wonder what might have come of them if she wasn’t already married to one man and promised to another. Just his luck, finding the woman who just might be perfect for him and knowing she was so far beyond his reach.

  Even then, she drove the wagon in silence, like he wasn’t even there. Head high, shoulders squared, she might just as well have been riding at the head of a parade. She could have worn a crown on that head of hers. A woman who’d seen everything she’d seen, suffered as she had suffered, but still had a tender heart.

  How rare she was.

  Mark Furnish had better know how good he had it.

  Then again, Jed reflected with a spiteful sneer, he would never know if Melissa was happy or treated well. He’d be far away. He’d have to put a mountain between them, maybe even a few thousand miles, before he could trust himself to leave her be.

  They rode past a few shacks on the outskirts of town on a street marked “William,” the noisy train shed to their left, before turning left onto the wide street marked “Carson.” This was wh
ere everything happened. They passed the Carson City Mint, where several men stopped to speak on their way to begin the day’s work. Beyond that was a mercantile, a saloon, a bank.

  They attracted no attention, mainly because there was so much going on. People walking, riding, driving buggies. Washing the windows of the stores, sweeping the boards of the sidewalks. Carts full of goods—probably from the freight that had just pulled in—pulled by teams of oxen.

  There was nothing so interesting about a man and a woman simply driving down the city’s thoroughfare. Nothing at all.

  She looked over at him. “I suppose I should check at the Butterfield office, as that was where I was supposed to be coming through.”

  He nodded, looking around. “I’d better hang back.” For word of the robbery would surely have reached the office, and maybe a description of him. He’d covered his face, but there was never any telling with such matters.

  “Meet me in front of the dressmaker’s across the way?” she asked, looking down at herself. “I might be able to charge something suitable in Mr. Furnish’s name. I don’t feel like I can see him looking this way—and between the two of us, I might have eaten my way out of ever fitting into my dress again.”

  He managed to stifle a chuckle. Yes, she had quite an appetite, but there was good reason for it. And he wouldn’t have liked to see her in that rag again—stained around the hem and cuffs, terribly frayed, worn almost clear through at the elbows.

  Dressed as a man was not a better option. She might have done well with a bath, too, but he held his tongue and merely nodded in agreement.

  The less he said, the better. He no longer trusted himself. For something was squeezing his heart, like a pair of iron shackles tightening with every passing minute. Every minute closer to saying goodbye.

  There was no telling what might pour out of his mouth, or how much of a damned fool he might make of himself. Better to stay quiet, then.

  Though he felt like a true fool coming to a stop in front of the dressmaker’s shop, tying the reins to the post running along the plank sidewalk. Two frilly things sat in the window, full of ruffles and lace. It made a man feel downright womanish to be seen standing nearby.

  Yet he couldn’t help imagining Melissa in one of them.

  Or in nothing at all.

  Blowing out a long, slow breath, he decided to think on other things. A handsome carriage, black leather, came rolling down the street on wheels with red spokes. A dandy, he decided. Someone who’d paid their way out of the draft.

  A weathered old woman in a brown dress riding astride a speckled mare, her white-streaked black hair in two braids hanging down to her waist. She spat tobacco juice on the ground without so much as a glance in either direction to see whether anyone noticed. Jed grinned. She’d be somebody he’d like to speak with.

  After a while, watching the people come and go grew on his nerves. What was taking her so long? Was there trouble? His body tightened, like a coiled spring ready to burst forth. Maybe he ought not to have tied the wagon off, after all.

  He was three paces from it when a trio of men galloped down Carson Street out of the eastern end of town, opposite the way he rode in with Melissa. Two of them were dressed in clothing he recognized right off as those of a ranch hand—rough, worn trousers, scuffed boots, sweat-stained hats.

  The third, however, wore a rather fine suit of dark gray, a white shirt, black boots. His hat was black, too, making as was the black hair hanging in a lock over his forehead and spread.

  His horse was fine, a chestnut brown mustang he must’ve had a hell of a time breaking. It tossed its proud head as its rider dismounted and hurried into the office where Melissa had intended to check—

  “Oh.” It came out of him in a gust, like somebody hit him square in the belly and knocked out all his wind.

  That could only be Mark Furnish, come to claim his bride.

  19

  Melissa glanced out the window of the stagecoach office, wishing she could speak to Jed and explain what she’d found out.

  Namely that her fiancé had been staying at the only hotel in town ever since she hadn’t arrived on the coach two weeks earlier. He’d haunted the office every day, waiting for some word of what came of her after the robbery, demanding the sheriff contact other lawmen in Nevada, Texas, even the Colorado Territory in search of her. Half the town was all but holding vigils to pray for her safe arrival.

  And she’d merely wanted a quick ceremony and even quicker bedding.

  Meanwhile, Jed waited within her line of sight, unaware of the nightmare unfolding before her. She did not wish for fame, short-lived though it might be. She did not wish for anything but a safe place to rest her head and a good life for her baby.

  At least, that had been all she’d wished for prior to making Jed’s acquaintance.

  Now, knowing how her fiancé had suffered while awaiting her arrival—knowing already how she’d planned to lie to him about the baby, about her marriage, even about Jed’s true identity—was a knife twisting in her chest.

  When a tall, handsome man in fine clothes burst through the door, she knew it could only be one person. He removed his hat, revealing dark hair and a strikingly handsome face.

  “Melissa?” He marched across the front office, the heels of his boots clicking smartly against the wood floor, stopping just short of taking her in his arms. She knew from the way he held his body that he longed to, but held himself back for propriety’s sake.

  “Yes, I am. I’m sorry to be so late,” she blushed, wishing for all the world there wasn’t so much sincerity in his shockingly blue eyes.

  He took her hands—his were large, calloused, like Jed’s. Why was she thinking about Jed? Even at barely more than a few moments acquaintance, the differences between the two men were plain.

  “It was through no fault of your own,” Mark smiled. “I am simply relieved to have you here, at last. How did you manage it? No, no.” He shook his head, suddenly serious. “There is more than enough time to talk it over during our ride to the ranch. And I’m sure you’re too tired, and the whole ordeal is too fresh for you to wish to relive it right this minute.”

  She nodded, mute in the shadow of his expansive, energetic personality. How much of his attitude was sheer relief and how much was Mark Furnish?

  The last thing she took note of on leaving the dusty, cluttered office was the scowl on the face of the man who ran the place. He wanted all the details of her kidnapping and was disappointed at not hearing them.

  Mark knew it, too. “I figured on you not wishing to go through your story in the presence of a gossip like Dan Learner,” he murmured, even winking as he took her arm upon stepping outside.

  “You are too right,” she grinned, even as her eyes searched the street for Jed. When she caught his gaze, a lump formed in her throat.

  Mark followed the direction of her stare. “Who is that man?”

  It was time to begin one of the biggest lies she would ever tell—funny how all of her lies would be directed at the same man. “He is the one who rescued me when I might just as well have died out on the plains,” she explained. “When I escaped the bandits, I rode as hard and fast as I could, but both I and the horse collapsed from exhaustion after a spell. I knew not where I was, I had no money or food. He saved my life and agreed to accompany me to Carson City, so I might arrive safely.”

  Would he believe it? He had no reason not to. As far as he was concerned, his mail-order bride was an honest woman.

  Mark wasted no time waving Jed across the street. It was better for her to allow them to work things out on their own, she decided, as telling more lies to a man who seemed so decent made her feel very small and despicable. She stepped back a bit, wishing she might fade completely away.

  Nothing was the way it was supposed to be. Nothing at all.

  She was not supposed to like Jed after what he’d done. She was certainly not supposed to love him or dread the thought of being away from him. She wasn’t
supposed to fear for him as he crossed the street, hoping with all her heart he got his money and was able to start a new, honest life for himself.

  Mark thrust out his hand when Jed reached them. “Mark Furnish. I owe you a great debt of gratitude.”

  Jed shook his hand. “Jed Cunningham.”

  “I can’t possibly repay you for what you’ve done, but I can try,” Mark smiled. “Come with us to the ranch, where I’ll make sure to settle accounts with you. You ought to get some rest and a few hearty meals in your stomach before you go on your way, too.”

  “Oh. That would be…” Jed looked to her for help, which she was far too overwhelmed to offer. “That would be right kind of you.”

  “Wonderful. We’d better be off, then—I sent one of my men to rent a buggy from the livery, as I’m sure you would rather not ride another mile in discomfort if you could help it.”

  Melissa smiled. “You’ve thought of everything, it seems. I… thought we would be married right away, though.”

  He patted her arm. “This is hardly the way to do it, wouldn’t you agree? You look as though what you’re most in need of is a bath, a meal, and a long sleep. I can send for the preacher and have him come to the ranch—he knows you’re expected. Many people know you were due to arrive.”

  “Yes, so I heard.” She forced a fainthearted smile.

  A black buggy pulled up, hitched to a pair of white stallions. Mark could afford such a handsome rig. He helped her inside and took the reins while two other men mounted their horses and rode alongside Jed and the wagon.

  They followed Carson Street out of town and kept going straight. Melissa tried to settle back against the leather seat. It was the most luxurious thing she’d ever sat upon, worlds away from the wooden bench of the stagecoach.

  If only she could enjoy it with her whole heart.