Here Comes the Bride (32 page)

Tess sighed. “I’m so happy you’re home. We thought you’d decided to go after whoever did this. You wouldn’t do that, would you?”

Gabe’s head lowered. “I won’t lie to you, Tess, we did talk about it. In fact, we were this close to doing just that.” He held his finger and thumb in a pinch, demonstrating his point. “But Bart thought it best if I didn’t get myself involved. God knows I tried to convince him otherwise, though.”

“Thank God for Bart,” Tess breathed. “Promise me you won’t ever do that, Gabriel. Promise me you’ll leave it to the lawmen to find them. I couldn’t bear it if I lost you.”

Gabe took her by the shoulders and forced her to look into his eyes.

“I will never leave you, Tess. You and Bart are the only family I have left, and I’m not about to do anything stupid that’ll get me killed.”

“Promise?”

Gabe pulled her close and kissed her, hardly brushing his lips against hers at first. His head lifted slightly, then lowered again to recapture the softness of her mouth, the velvety warmth of her lips.

“Come on,” he rasped. “I’m too tired to stand anymore, let’s go find somewhere to sit down.”

She took him by the hand and led him up to the loft, to the very place his slain friends had lain the night before, and eased him down into the straw. Then she curled herself into the crook of his arm and rested the side of her face on his chest.

Gabe was asleep before she had even closed her eyes. But unlike the night before, his body did not twitch, toss or turn once.

In the days that followed, Gabe and Bart felled buggy load after buggy load of trees and hauled them off to town where Nate Brolin cut them into boards and planed the whole lot of it smooth. Then it was hauled back to El Cielo and stacked inside the barn to keep dry. The horses had since been rounded up and corralled behind the barn.

Collette arrived every morning with enough food for everyone, and it seemed to Tess, more often than not, Wyatt allowed her to make the trip alone.
He must be softening,
she thought happily.

Tess worked to help clear an untried piece of land where the new house would stand, and every morning she took a handful of fresh wild flowers to the graves. More than once Wyatt Langman had offered his hospitality to them, insisting he had plenty of room on his spread for them all to stay, but Gabe continued to politely refuse. He simply would not be run off his ranch, and Tess, ever the dutiful wife, remained by his side, even after Bart finally gave in and accepted a bed in the Langman bunkhouse. Of course, Bart did have other incentives for his decision, but he couldn’t be blamed for that.

Gabe and Tess continued to sleep in the loft, with straw for a bed and a coarse horse blanket for covers. Joby and Seth rode into town every night to stay at the hotel, an expense Gabe insisted on paying himself. The two ranch hands seemed to anticipate Gabe’s wishes before he spoke, and every day they rode out to tend the herd and ride fences.

It was during one of these early mornings when Gabe had taken a fresh load of lumber into town that Tess’s world came crashing down around her. As she stood over Rosa’s grave, she was surprised by the sound of horses coming down the road. It was too soon for Gabriel to be back and Collette had already come and gone with the morning meal. So who . . .

Tess’s feet froze beneath her; it couldn’t be. Her first instinct was to turn and run back through the woods, but where would she go? And what would they do when they found her? Lifting her chin, she stepped out of the trees and marched toward them.

“Hello, Father,” she said, not a trace of emotion in her voice. “How nice to see you.”

She turned her face to the other rider, his thin, lanky features sitting tall in his saddle.

“Hello, Harmon,” she said dryly.

“We’ve been looking for you, Tess,” her father said. “You’ve certainly come a long way from home.”

“This is home,” she said. “And I’m sorry you wasted your time looking for me.”

Harmon Stiles dismounted slowly, his menacing gaze raking over his former fiancée.

“It’s hardly been a waste of time, Tess, since we did find you, didn’t we?” He removed his leather riding gloves and stepped toward her. Tess refused to show one ounce of the terror she felt.

“Yes,” she agreed. “You did find me, but my point is, Harm, it was a waste of time since I’m not going back with you.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Tess.” He slid his forefinger down the length of her cheek, pausing long enough to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “We didn’t come all this way to go home empty-handed. We’ve got a lot of people waiting for us back home, a lot of wedding gifts have been purchased, and I’ve already picked out our home.”

“Again, Harm, I’m sorry you wasted your time, but as you can see,” she waved her left hand in front of him, “I’m already married.”

Neither Harm’s nor her father’s expression changed one bit, but Harm did lean closer when he spoke.

“You think we don’t already know that, Tess? How stupid do you think we are?”

“You don’t really want me to answer that, do you?”

Harmon’s laugh was as evil as his eyes. “Haven’t changed a bit, have you? You still think a woman is allowed to voice her opinion whenever she sees fit.”

“Yes,” she huffed. “I do. Now if you’ll remove yourself from my property, I have work to do.”

Harm glanced around, clearly unmoved by it all.

“It’s a real shame what happened to your house. And those poor people.”

Tess’s heart tripped over itself. Her eyes shot up to her father, who remained in his saddle, then back to Harm. In that brief instant, the truth made itself known in her heart and in her head.

“You!” She staggered back a step, fresh fear creeping through her veins. “How could you? They never did anything to you! If it was me you wanted, why didn’t you take me?”

“Well now, Tess.” Harm smirked shamelessly. “We tried that, didn’t we? But your husband and his brother had to play the heroes and come after you.”

“What?” she cried.

“Oh, come on now, Tess, you don’t honestly think Eli Gribbs is smart enough to track you down on his own, do you?”

“But how . . .”

Harm laughed bitterly. “We met up with your friend Eli on our way through Butte, didn’t we, Stan?”

Tess’s father nodded.

“Seems he had been arrested and was looking for some help getting out of jail.”

“You helped him escape?” she gasped.

“No,” Harm said, shaking his head quickly. “Not exactly. It took a little convincing, but the guard was a reasonable man and, so it seemed, in need of some quick money to pay off some loans.”

“You bribed the guard?”

“Bribe is such an ugly word, Tess. I prefer to think of it as him coming over to our way of thinking is all.”

“Father!” she groaned. “How could you? Have you no pride at all?”

“Pride?” roared Stan Kinley. “Most of my pride was trampled to the ground the day my youngest daughter lit out for parts unknown, leaving her father and her fiancé to explain to two hundred people why the wedding they were expecting to attend needed to be postponed.”

“Canceled,” she corrected.

“Postponed,” Harm reiterated fiercely.

“I am married, remember? And I have no intention of leaving my husband, now or ever.”

Harm shrugged. “The choice is yours this time, Tess. You can come home with us now and we’ll arrange for a quiet divorce from your . . . farmer . . . or, the alternative is . . . well, let’s just say either way you’ll be coming back to Boston.”

“What do you mean?”

“Come on, Tess,” he sighed, glancing nonchalantly toward the grave site. “Do I really need to spell it out for you?”

Tess’s hand clutched her chest where her breath sat frozen somewhere between her lungs and her throat.

“You wouldn’t!” she cried. “You . . .”

“No,” he agreed. “I wouldn’t. But you’d be surprised what people around these parts will do for a few dollars.”

“But why? He’s done nothing! I’m the one you want, why not deal with me?”

“We are,” he sighed impatiently. “This is the only way, Tess. Would you come back to Boston willingly? No, I thought not. The choice is yours then. You leave him, or he leaves you. Permanently.”

“Father! How can you let him do this? I’m your own daughter, for goodness’ sake!”

Stan Kinley didn’t even show the courtesy of being ashamed.

“My own daughter,” he retorted, “left me looking like a fool in front of all my friends and associates when she rebelled against my decision and took matters into her own hands.”

“But you knew I couldn’t marry Harm—look what he’s done here! What do you think he’d do to me the first time I disagreed with him?”

“Put you back in your place,” Stan said without flinching. “Women have a place in society, Tess, and it’s behind their husbands, doing as they’re told, when they’re told.”

“Father!” Tess clamped her mouth shut; she knew it was useless to argue further with the man.

“What’s it going to be?” Harm demanded. “Are you coming peacefully, or should we call your good friend, Nate Brolin, to come and fashion another casket for that plot over yonder?”

“I can’t. . . .” she faltered. Either way, she’d lose Gabriel forever, but there was simply no choice to be made. She had to leave with Harmon, despite the fact she, herself, would no doubt end up in a casket at his hands in the not too distant future. Better her death than Gabriel’s, though—she’d never be able to live without him.

“You’d best decide quickly,” Harm said, nodding up the road.

Tess hadn’t even heard the buggy approach, and yet there it was, the old horses plodding along with their heavy load, Gabe at the reins, his handsome face looking drawn and tired.

“Do you swear to me if I go with you now, you’ll leave him alone?”

“Your loyalty is very touching,” Harm sneered.

“Give me your word no harm will ever come to him.”

“Not unless he comes looking for it,” Harm answered with a shrug.

Tess’s heart raced—she’d have to put on one hell of an act to fool Gabriel, but if he ever found out the truth, he’d come after her, and Harm would not hesitate to kill him, of that Tess was certain.

“You’ll have to give me some time alone with him,” she said. “I’ll need to explain . . .”

“Take your time.” He grinned. “We leave in an hour.”

Gabe stopped the horses just short of the visitors and hopped down.

“Didn’t know we were expecting company.” He smiled apologetically. “I’d have made a point to be here otherwise.”

“They surprised me, too,” Tess said, struggling to keep her voice light. “Gabriel, I’d like for you to meet my father, Stan Kinley, and th-this is Harmon Stiles.”

She watched Gabe stiffen at the mention of Harm’s name, but he held out his hand nonetheless and grinned broadly.

“Good to meet you both,” he said. “I assume Tess has told you our good news.”

Harm raised one brow and scanned the area cynically, his hands remaining at his sides.

“Good news? Doesn’t seem to me you’ve had much of that lately.”

Gabe didn’t miss a beat.

“I’m not saying we haven’t had our share of difficulty, Harmon, but we’ve had a good dose of the good, too, since she agreed to be my wife.”

“Yes,” Harm sneered. “We heard. How nice.”

Gabe ignored the man. “So what brings you way out here?”

Harm and Stan both turned their attention to Tess whose bottom lip was being chewed raw.

“I think Tess would be better suited to answer that,” Harm said. “If you don’t mind, we’ll just water the horses a while.”

“Help yourself,” Gabe said, pointing around the barn. “Water’s ’round back.”

Harm and Stan led their horses around to the back of the barn, leaving a curious Gabe alone with his sickened wife.

“That’s Harmon Stiles?” he whispered. “Don’t know what I expected him to look like, but that’s not it.”

“Yes, well, he’s a hard man to explain really.”

“So what the hell are they doing all the way out here?”

Tess swallowed, hoping it would dissolve the bile that rose in her throat. It didn’t.

“Um, we need to talk.”

Gabe crossed his arms over his chest. “What is it, Tess?”

“Well, Gabriel,” she began, turning her back to him and slowly stepping away. “The thing is, they’ve come to take me home.”

“You are home.” She couldn’t see his face but his tone told her everything she dreaded. This was
not
going to be easy.

“Home to Boston.”

Gabe’s hand was on her arm in a flash, whipping her around to face him.

“Stand still,” he seethed. “And tell me what the hell you’re talking about!”

Tess forced calm into her voice, any hint of nerves and he’d know.

“I have decided to return to Boston.”

“What?” he roared.

“I can’t do this anymore, Gabriel,” she said, her opened hand indicating the disaster around them. “I’m sorry, I thought I was stronger, but I guess you were right all along. I don’t belong here.”

Gabe blinked hard—twice. He must be hearing things.

“What the hell . . . you can’t leave—you’re my wife and your place is here with me.”

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I can’t take this, it’s too much.”

“But you said . . .”

“I know what I said, Gabriel,” she sighed, the lump rising in her throat again. “I was wrong.”

“
You were wrong
?” he yelled, then took in a long breath. “Wait a minute. What did they say to you?”

“Nothing,” she croaked.

“Did that son of a bitch threaten you?”

“No,” she lied. She had to make him believe her—somehow, she had to convince him.

“Then what? Tess, if he said anything to you, tell me. I won’t let him hurt you.” He reached for her hand but she pulled back, fearing his touch would destroy her resolve. “Tess, honey, just tell me what it is.”

“I’m sorry, Gabriel,” she said, her voice finally cracking. “I hate to hurt you like this but it’s for the best. I could never be the wife you need. Or deserve.”

“Damn it, Tess, you’re not making any sense!”

“I’m sorry. . . .”

“Stop saying that! They must have upset you somehow, so tell me what’s happened and I’ll fix it.”

“You can’t fix this, Gabe.”

“How do you know?” he asked, a note of desperation finding its way through. “I’m pretty handy at fixing most things.”

His attempt to lighten the situation seared her heart even more.

“It’s over,” she said, shaking her lowered head. “Once we get back to Boston, my father will arrange for a quiet divorce.”

“No!” Gabe’s yowl could probably be heard right through the main street of town. “I will never divorce you, Tess. I don’t care how good a lawyer your daddy is, it’s not going to happen, do you hear me? Now stop this nonsense and talk to me.”

“There’s nothing else to say,” Tess said, openly weeping now. “We’ll be leaving in a short while.”

“The hell you will!”

“I’m so sorry, Gabriel,” she repeated.

“Shut up! Just shut up, okay?” He rammed his fingers through his hair and paced angrily in front of her. “What if you’re carrying my child?”