An Unwilling Husband (8 page)

That I now have the knowledge is the important thing. No one will carry me in this life here. If I need something, I will have to make it or suffer without. I can pull my weight, and will prove my mettle. Four days, and I am finally starting to find my rhythm.

Chapter 5

Maggie sucked air through her teeth, laid down the knife she’d used to cut the pie, and gave her bleeding hands a rest again. If only they’d heal so she could get a break from the pain. As usual, Lenny had dutifully slathered her palms with salve this morning, but there had been too much work to be done around the ranch to let her hands rest for long.

Lenny must have taken pity on her and decided to wait on shooting lessons today. After breakfast she’d wrapped Maggie’s hands and set to teaching her how to make a pie with peach preserves.

She’d managed not to kill them with her other meals, and sitting there with its steaming golden crust, the finished pie looked decent. Smiling at Lenny across the table, she took a bite.

Baking then, had proved to be her Achilles heel. This tasted like absolute rubbish. Incredibly frustrating. Would she ever be able to make something tasty?

From the sour face Lenny made after tasting a bite, she didn’t appreciate the bitter qualities of the pastry either. Perhaps she’d used too much salt.

Faint hoofbeats against dry ground in the distance brought her chewing to a halt to better hear. Garret wasn’t due back yet. Was she wishfully imagining the sound?

Lenny gave her a frightened glance, rushed to the window, moved the thin curtains aside, peeked out and froze. By the time Maggie had glided to the window to see what had frightened her friend, Lenny was loading the shorter rifle and pistols. Maggie leaned against the wall and pulled the curtain aside with the barest brush of her fingertips. A stranger approached, wearing leather leggings tucked into fine boots. His button-up cotton shirt accented the imposing breadth of his shoulders.

Her mouth went dry. What did he want and why was he calling while the men were in town? And what in bloody hell had Lenny—immovable brave Lenny—so frightened?

Lenny shoved the rifle into her hands. The weapon felt good in her grasp, and her familiarity with it sparked a flicker of pride. Lenny put the pistols down, and with desperate speed unwrapped her bandaged hands. Well, that couldn’t be good.

The man was close, and Lenny signed and whispered in her language. What in God’s name was the girl trying to say? Her fingers were flying through the gestures. She must have realized it, and slowing down, pointed to herself, put her finger to her lips. She picked up the pistols and motioned for them sneak out the back door and around the house.

Hopefully, she’d understood the Indian girl well enough because the man was already tying his horse to the post outside. He took a step toward the porch, and she flung the front door open and pointed the rifle at his face. “What do you want?” Maggie heard the steel in her own voice.

The man put his hands up in the air and slowly backed off the entryway. He was tall. Handsome and thickset, but not from overeating. A man didn’t get such brute strength from eating too much. He had dark blue eyes and sandy blond hair, from what she could see peeking out from under his hat. The feral way in which he looked at her made her think of the cougars she’d read about when she lived in Boston. The man was tame, but just barely.

“My apologies. I didn’t know anyone was here, miss.”

“Then what are you doing here?” Damn her voice as it shook!

“Just came to take a look at the ranch.” The man watched her with the narrow eyed, calculating look of some bird of prey, as if deciding whether to tell her more. “Name’s Wyatt Jennings. My sister’s about to marry Garret Shaw. I was making sure this place was fit to house her.”

He was lying. Not about the first part; that very well could be true, but the last part held such a false note and was followed by a cocky smile as if he didn’t care whether she believed the lie.

“Well, it will be very difficult for your sister to marry a man who already has a wife.” She still aimed the rifle at Wyatt but the end of the barrel had dropped to his chest. The gun grew heavier by the moment, and her arms screamed for relief.

Wyatt’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. The look was then replaced by one of unrivaled anger. The venom in his glare made her throat seize up. He was a dangerous man and his attentions, regrettably, focused on her at the moment.

“You’re married to Garret Shaw?” he asked.

She gave a slight nod. Slowly.

“He was in talks with my father and sister to take her as a wife. Why in the hell would he go and marry you instead? You don’t seem his…type,” he ended with a sneer. “My sister comes with a hefty dowry, you see, and everybody knows Shaw is desperate to save this ranch from ruin.” He looked her up and down, lingering on the swell of her bosom. A cold, clammy sweat broke out across the palm of her hands. “I can see your appeal, though. You’re a pretty lady with a right proper accent. Can’t blame a man for wanting you.”

An icy chill slid down her spine. The way he was inching closer to the porch...

She raised the gun, aimed it directly at his face again. Her arms protested but found the power to obey with the aid of the adrenaline laced blood that pumped through them. “Get off my land before I blow a hole through you, Mr. Jennings.”

“Now, Mrs. Shaw. I don’t think you would really want to do that. Not a lady such as yourself.”

She pulled the hammer back on the gun with a satisfying click. “Don’t try me,” she ground out through gritted teeth.

The rage was squarely back on Wyatt’s face. He spun and untied his horse. “You know, I heard Shaw and his men are in town for at least a few more days yet.” He mounted his horse then leaned forward and spat into the dirt. “I can’t say I’m all that worried about this news, though. People die around these parts all of the time. Part of life, especially for people like yourself, not built for the terrain. I have a feeling my sister will get her man, and being a betting man, I’d say sooner than later.”

Wyatt’s threat was sincere. Fear slithered from her spine to settle somewhere in her gut.

“Since you are alone out here, I think I’ll come callin’ tomorrow. Maybe the next day, too. I think over time you’ll grow to like me, Mrs. Shaw.”

He wheeled his horse, kicked it into a furious pace, and the shotgun sagged in her shaking arms. Lenny peeked around the corner of the house, nodded to her. While the girl headed to the barn to saddle their horses, she rushed inside to pack a few necessities. Wyatt Jennings might come calling the next day, but she and Lenny had no intention of being there for it. Not without backup.

* * * *

She took the main road into town with Lenny at a trot, listening for hoofbeats and hoping to avoid Wyatt Jennings if he were headed in a similar direction. Lenny threw worried looks at her often, but she ignored them. She was too busy trying to pick her way through the maze of her own thoughts.

Jennings was no doubt a villain, and easily an insufferable ass, but had no reason to lie about Garret’s betrothal to his sister. How silly of her, to assume Garret didn’t have a life before she came bumbling along. Did he love the woman? Was she beautiful, as only a woman willingly chosen by Garret Shaw should be?

Maybe Jennings’s sister was the reason he’d distanced himself from her. The questions whirled on and on, like a tumbleweed on a windy Texas day. Unable and unwilling to think of anything else, by the time the first shops at the edge of town appeared on the horizon, she’d worked herself up quite capaciously.

She was foolish to care. Garret Shaw hadn’t managed to say a single civil thing to her since she’d arrived in Rockdale, so why should she care if she ruined any chance of him being with that Jennings woman? He was the one who’d insisted on marrying her, and now he would strap her with this pestering guilt over ruining his chance at love? Absurd!

The tips of her ears grew hot. They had likely turned bright red as they did only when she was truly upset, but that did nothing to calm her escalating fury.

She followed Lenny into town, as the girl seemed to know exactly where to find the men of the Lazy S and rode straight to a building called the Brass Buckle. From inside came the sounds of women singing and laughing drunkenly. Loose women, no doubt. A saloon.

“Really?” Maggie raised an eyebrow at Lenny.

Her companion looked around as if she were uncomfortable. Passersby stared at her and Lenny, open mouthed. The townspeople’s reaction could very well have been caused by the sight of an unfamiliar lady with full skirts flowing off the back of a buckskin horse as she pulled up before a notorious saloon. More likely, because Lenny was Indian.

The girl’s frown drifting to the vicinity of the saddle horn said she thought along the same lines.

Maggie pulled her mount closer to Lenny’s and glared down the closest man, but the girl jumped off skillfully, took Buck’s reins and twitched her head to the side, signaling her to dismount. After she had done so, Lenny led the horses off in the direction of a crude stable near a hotel.

“Okay, now what,” Maggie mumbled, squinting at the saloon doors.

* * * *

“Danged woman,” Garrett muttered as he lifted another shot of cheap whiskey to his aching forehead. He’d seen his dad drown himself in the bottle too many times to count, so rarely drank the throat-scorching liquor. Now at the tail end of the week he’d had though, he’d try anything to escape his misfortune, even if just for a little while.

Down the counter to his left, Burke talked up a woman on his lap. A saloon girl, wearing a bright blue dress with black lace trim cut so low at the neck, her plump womanly attributes were likely to tumble out. Her hair was piled in curls on top of her head. The amount of rouge on her face did little to hide her bad skin and even worse breeding. More than three quarters of the way to being unable to see a hole in a ladder, Burke didn’t seem to mind in the least. Lucky him.

The boys always took rooms above the saloon when they stayed in town. The railroad had only come through a few years before, but the saloon was their traditional place to cut loose when they drove the cattle in. Before the train, they’d had to drive the cattle at least a month to make it to other cattle towns further north. After his nicer digs in Georgetown, the Brass Buckle left him unimpressed, but the men had worked hard for him. The hands deserved a break where they wanted.

If not for the blasted guilt niggling at him, he’d lose his mind and take one of the whores upstairs. But he was a married man now, and it meant something.

He sighed and downed his drink.

“Ahem,” someone said in a dainty, ridiculous accent as the saloon doors swung creakily open. “Has anyone seen Mr. Garrett Shaw?”

Maggie stood at the front of the room, searching for someone with her gaze and looking every bit the lamb in the lion’s den. He had seen all of her dresses. This was the plainest one she owned, but still leaps and bounds fancier than was fashionable here. Her hair was pulled back and pinned like some frilly woman in a catalog picture, and the small, frail looking hat she wore did nothing to help her fit into her surroundings. She was a striking young woman, he had to admit, but must be lacking in brains if she thought it a good idea to show up at the Brass Buckle. Men and whores only. The sign outside said as much.

“What now?” he muttered, slammed his shot glass on the table, and threw some change on the counter. “Thanks, Milly.”

The woman behind the bar nodded and continued to wipe the wooden top with a rag.

He spun around and strode up to Maggie in long strides that echoed off the silent walls of the saloon. “Sorry for the interruption, fellas,” he said to the men, who had as one frozen in whatever position they’d been in when she’d arrived. He grabbed her hand and barged out of the saloon with her in tow.

“Unhand me, you…you…barbarian! What on earth makes you think you can handle a woman like this?”

Legs locked against any forward motion, she wrenched her hand out of his grip. She stared at him as if she actually expected him to apologize.

“What’re you doing here, Maggie?” He was furious and there was an edge to his voice, but so what?

She opened her mouth and shut it. Then, dammit, opened it again. “What are
you
doing here, Garrett Shaw? Four days married and already seeking out a loose woman? You’ve made it clear you don’t respect me in any way, but this is unacceptable.”

He growled. Must the woman air their differences for the entire blasted town to see? Howie Raddick and his wife Hannah had pushed their way through the gathering crowd on the porch of the dry goods store to watch the show, and Raymond Hill was wearing the biggest, dumbest grin he’d ever seen. Any minute now, that trouble stirrer would be clapping and cheering the argument on.