Keegan's Lady (19 page)

On the course of the next hour, Caitlin felt as if she were sliding down a steep slope of solid ice on well-waxed runners. No matter what she said or how loudly she said it, Patrick just kept waving his gun and threatening to shoot Ace Keegan if he refused to make an honest woman of her. Since Keegan didn't seem opposed to doing exactly that, Caitlin was the only one who objected when Patrick escorted them to town at gunpoint.

"A shotgun wedding, Patrick? This is madness, absolute madness," she said as Keegan brought the wagon to a halt out in front of Abraham Guthrie's house at the edge of town. No lights shone in the windows of the small, clapboard dwelling. "Look! You see? The poor people are already in bed! Surely you don't mean to wake them up. Let's just wait and see Mr. Guthrie in the morning at his office."

Patrick drew his horse up beside them. "Tomorrow's Sunday. Besides, he's the justice of the peace. He's used to people wakin' him up."

Caitlin doubted that. "Paddy, please. Can't we wait until morning? You may see all of this differently once you've slept on it." Once he sobered up was more like it, but she hesitated to say as much for fear he'd become even more obstinate.

"How could I possibly see it different?" Patrick demanded, still so intoxicated he slurred his consonants.

"Never let it be said that Patrick O'Shannessy is a coward. If a man dishonors my sister, he'll either do right by her or die for his trouble. Nobody can say otherwise."

Caitlin's patience snapped. "This isn't about what your friends may say about you, Patrick. It's about my life, which is going to be destroyed if you go through with this! Can you understand that?"

Still seated on his horse, Patrick squinted down at her along the bridge of his nose. "Don't you worry, Caitlin. I'll see to it the son of a bitch makes things right. Your life won't be destroyed, not if I have anything to say about it."

Caitlin's heart sank. In the past, she'd had similar exchanges with her father. Unreasoning anger, mindless retaliation. She knew it was hopeless. Quite simply, Patrick didn't hear her. Not really. When he got like this, mere words couldn't penetrate the whiskey haze. She wasn't sure what would.

"Give it up, Caitlin," Keegan said as he leaned forward to set the wagon brake and tie the reins.

"I can't give it up! According to you, our father killed yours. You despise us and everything we stand for. Why would you even contemplate marrying me? Unless, of course, you have an ulterior motive?"

"I do not despise you. And even if I did, what kind of ulterior motive could I possibly have?"

An awful squeezing sensation seized hold of her throat. "Having an O'Shannessy at your mercy, possibly?"

He gave a startled bark of laughter. "At my mercy? I realize marriage isn't high on your list, but let's not get carried away."

To her, this was no joking matter, but a nightmare that had somehow commandeered reality. Her father had been dead a little less than a year. She'd only just begun to get a taste of freedom and experience life without constant fear hanging over her like a dark cloud. Now this man meant to make her his chattel? No matter how people tried to pretty it up with romantic notions, Caitlin knew marriage was little more than a contractual union in which the man was granted authoritarian rule and the woman was indentured for a lifetime. She wanted no part of it, especially not with someone who reviled the very blood that flowed in her veins.

"It isn't funny!" she cried shakily. "Of course, it's easy for you to laugh. You're the man."

"And how, exactly, does that signify?" He searched her gaze for what seemed an endless moment. Then, in an intimately low voice, he said, "Caitlin, maybe we need to discuss this."

Discuss it? They could talk all night, and she would never change her mind. She quickly averted her face. "As if anything I say matters?"

Evidently she had him there, for he made no rejoinder. Not that it surprised her. If either man had been taking her protests seriously, she wouldn't be here. Wasn't that always the way of it? Men making the decisions, and women being forced to live with them.

At the thought, a fresh wave of panic threatened to crash over her. Marriage? She couldn't believe such an awful thing was happening. For the moment, to prevent an altercation between Keegan and her brother, she had no choice except to cooperate. But what about later? Unlike the bargain she and Keegan had struck that night in the barn, this was no stopgap measure. A marriage would be permanent unless she could convince Keegan to have it annulled.

Patrick, who for reasons beyond her, still seemed to think he had complete control of the situation, brandished his revolver and slid down off his rented horse. Watching him, Caitlin couldn't help but consider running. Away into the darkness. Away from the insanity. If her brother ended up getting hurt, it wouldn't be her fault.

She dug her nails hard into the wooden wagon seat, trying to shove back the memories. Of Patrick, at seven . . . pummeling Conor with his small fists, trying to make him stop hitting her. Of Patrick, at twelve ... helping her to pack and run away from home, only to get the whipping of his life when well-meaning neighbors found the two of them walking along the road and fetched them back to their father. Of Patrick, at sixteen spending a year's savings, which he'd earned cleaning horse stalls, to consult a lawyer in a futile attempt to get her legally emancipated from their father's custody. Of Patrick, at eighteen… leaping from bed in the dead of night to cook Conor a predawn breakfast, knowing beforehand that he would end up taking a beating in her stead before he got the food on the table.

How could she forget those times? More to the point, how could she abandon the brother who had, until only recently, loved her better than he loved himself?

After staggering about to regain his balance, Patrick led the horse to the porch post. "Get down from there, Keegan. It's time to pay the piper."

Apparently oblivious to Patrick's threatening gestures, Keegan eyed the ramshackle house. "You say this fellow Guthrie is a justice of the peace? That looks like a goat on the porch."

"You don't like goats, or what?" Patrick asked.

Caitlin squinted through the dimness. Sure enough, there was a white blur on Guthrie's front porch that seemed to be moving. As she watched, the animal jumped through the rails and fled. "Patrick, for heaven's sake, the least you can do is take us to the preacher!"

"Preacher's at the social. Roundin him up'd take all night."

"What's this fellow do for a living, anyway?" Keegan asked. "Besides being a justice of the peace, I mean."

With as little inflection in her voice as possible, Caitlin replied, "Back in No Name's gold rush days, he was the assayer. Since we obviously don't have much need of one anymore, he became a justice of the peace. He sells goat's milk to supplement his income."

Keegan pushed up from the seat, placed a hand on the sideboard, and vaulted down from the wagon. Before Caitlin could react, he turned, caught her at the waist, and swept her to the ground to stand next to him. As she caught her balance, she gave him a nervous appraisal. Not that his strength came as any great surprise. The man had a musculature to rival that of a stevedore.

As though he sensed her assessment of him, he turned toward her. To her dismay, their gazes locked, and for a long, endless second, she was helpless to look away. The smells of tobacco smoke, leather, and man blended with the faint odor of horses to curl around her.

"Caitlin," he said softly. "About those ulterior motives you suspect me of having. Despite what you may think, I—"

"Come on, Keegan. Dawdling ain't gonna save your ass."

Keegan sighed. "Your brother would try the patience of a saint."

His expression was so disgruntled that for a moment, Caitlin was able to see some humor in the situation. Patrick, who was so drunk he could barely stand up, threatening a man who could probably shoot the berries off a juniper tree at a hundred paces? It was ludicrous.

That thought brought Caitlin full circle back to her reason for being there, to save her brother's hide. For the last three months, that had been the way of it, Patrick getting himself into impossible situations and her bailing him out.

On the way up the steps, Patrick staggered sideways and nearly fell off the porch. As fervently as Caitlin had been hoping he might pass out, she didn't want him to take a five-foot dive into the bushes and break his neck. "Patrick, for heaven's sake, be careful!"

Somehow her brother managed to catch his balance, cross the porch, and rap on the door with the butt of his gun. "Guthrie!" he yelled. "Get your ass out of bed. We got a wedding for you to—" He broke off and threw a bleary-eyed grin over his shoulder. "Does he witness the weddin or perform it?"

Caitlin saw lantern light flicker inside the house. "What earthly difference does it make?"

Patrick shrugged and started pounding on the door again. "I don't reckon it does, long as it's legal."

Abraham Guthrie chose that exact moment to throw open his door, nearly getting smacked in the nose with Patrick's gun butt in the process. "Good evenin', Abe," Patrick said drunkenly.

Guthrie reared back. "Jumpin' Jehoshaphats!" Clad only in a striped nightshirt and nightcap, he looked ill prepared to officiate at a wedding. "What the devil is the trouble, boy? You're makin' enough noise to wake snakes."

Patrick gestured with his revolver toward Caitlin and Ace. "My sister has been compromised by that no-account scoundrel, and I am insisting, at gunpoint, that the son of a bitch do right by her."

"You want your sister to marry a no-account scoundrel?" A thin, bony legged little man, Guthrie swatted the tassel of his nightcap from over his eye and held the lantern higher to give Patrick a closer study. "I should've guessed it. You've been snortin’ the old orchard."

"I'm sober enough to know he's gotta marry my sister. If he doesn't, I'm gonna blow his goddamned brains out."

"I see." Guthrie sighed and changed hands with the lamp to peer out at Caitlin and Ace. "Evenin’, Miss Caitlin, Mr. Keegan. Looks like you two are in one tarnation fix." Stifling a yawn, he cast Patrick a thoughtful look, then winked and said, "One dollar, regular rates, two for my special version, if you get my drift."

Caitlin's heart leaped with hope. Patrick was so drunk, he'd never know the difference if Guthrie performed a sham ceremony. "Oh, Mr. Guthrie, that would be absolutely wonder—"

"We're not interested in your special version," Keegan interjected. "Miss Caitlin has done me the great honor of agreeing to become my wife."

Caitlin shot him a glare. "I haven't willingly agreed to anything."

"Did I say 'willingly'?"

She gathered up her skirts and started up the steps. "As for our not being interested in his 'special' version, speak for yourself."

"I always do," he assured her in an amused voice that further infuriated her.

Guthrie motioned all of them inside. "Well, if you're wantin' the regular version, I best roust my missus and mother-in-law out of bed to stand as your witnesses."

"You really don't need—"

His dark eyes twinkling with suppressed laughter, Keegan cut her off again. "Please, do wake them. Without witnesses, the ceremony won't be legal, and we can't have that."

Limping on gnarly feet, the elderly man ushered them into his parlor, a dingy little room, everything in it, from furniture to wallpaper, yellowed with age and tobacco smoke. "Don't usually marry folks here at the house, but when I do, the missus likes me to use the parlor, it bein' the fanciest room and all."

Before he left them, Guthrie lit a lamp on the fireplace mantel. Feeling chilled and missing her shawl, Caitlin rubbed her arms. Patrick went to lean against a wall, his gun still clasped in one hand, his heavy-lidded gaze fixed malevolently on Keegan. In Caittin's opinion, her brother looked about ready to pass out. Unfortunately, close didn't count.

His right boot heel scuffling with every other step, Keegan went over to the coat tree to hang up his Stetson. Despite the slight limp, he managed to be intimidating. While his back was turned, Caitlin couldn't help but notice the breadth of his shoulders. Even in the loose-fitting shirt, the muscular swells across his back and through his arms were plainly visible. She gulped and looked away.

Married. The word kept going off in her mind like a rifle shot. Oh, God. This couldn't really be happening. Yet it was. And unless Patrick passed out within the next few minutes, she didn't see any way out. The instant she refused to cooperate, Patrick would feel honor bound to shoot Keegan. In that event, Keegan would shoot back, and that would be the end of the story.

"Well, now." As he reentered the room, Guthrie dragged a suspender strap up over his shoulder. He had exchanged his nightshirt and cap for rumpled brown trousers and a partially buttoned white shirt. He wore fur-lined house slippers on his otherwise bare feet. "I reckon we might as well get started."

Tossing another look at her brother, Caitlin said, "We're in no hurry,"

Her overly cheerful tone brought Keegan's head around. He, too, glanced at Patrick. The twinkle of laughter crept into his eyes again, making Caitlin want to kick him, "I'm sure Mr. Guthrie and his family would like to conclude the ceremony as quickly as possible, sweetheart, so they can return to bed." He cocked a jagged eyebrow. "Unless, of course, you had some reason to delay?"