Wyoming Bride (10 page)

Because she’d known he would care, he realized. Because she’d known any man would care. Because she’d suspected she might lose him if she admitted the truth. What man would marry a woman knowing she didn’t want to bear his children?

He had another thought and voiced it aloud, although he spoke quietly, aware of the pointed look Emaline’s aunt Betsy had given the two of them after his outburst. “Emaline, sweetheart, I don’t know any way to avoid having children if we have marital relations.”

“Do we have to do that?” she asked.

Ransom gaped at her. “Are you suggesting we don’t?”

She glanced back at her aunt, then kneed her horse closer and put a hand on his forearm. “I love your kisses, Ransom. They’re enough for me.”

“You’re not being realistic,” he said, jerking himself free. “I’ve stopped with kisses out of respect for you. A fiancée is not the same thing as a wife. A man wants to hold his wife and touch her and …”
Put himself inside her
. He finished the thought in his head, because she was already cringing away from him.

Dear God. Was she saying she wanted to remain a virgin after they were married?

“You know I’ll be as gentle as I can be,” he said. “Can you tell me what you’re afraid of?”

“Dying.”

“What?” He didn’t think he’d heard her right.

She met his gaze and said, “Can you promise me I won’t die in childbirth?”

“No husband can promise that, but the risk is worth the reward.”

She snorted inelegantly. “It isn’t your life at risk. It’s mine.”

She had a point. But there was no future without babies. “What has you so scared of childbirth?” he asked at last.

“My mother died birthing me. In great agony.”

“Who told you that?”

“Aunt Betsy. It was ghastly. At least, that’s what my aunt said.”

Ransom shot Emaline’s aunt a nasty glance, startling her.

“But that isn’t all,” Emaline continued. “Friends and acquaintances have died far too often trying to bring new life into the world.”

“You’re young. You’re healthy. There’s no reason you couldn’t easily bear healthy children. I’m not saying there’s no pain involved.”

“How much pain?” she asked.

“How the hell would I know that?”

“Please don’t use that language.”

Ransom flattened his lips. He’d known there would be changes when he brought a woman into the house, language being one of them. But he’d figured anything would be worth holding Emaline in his arms through the night and making love to her. He wasn’t sure how willing he was to turn his life upside down for a woman who had no intention of performing one of the primary duties of a wife.

As far as giving birth was concerned, the only experience he had was with horses and cattle, who bore their offspring without fuss. More often, it was the foal or calf that died, rather than the mare or cow. But he wasn’t about to tell her that their child was more likely to die in childbirth than she was.

She was right about the danger. It existed. Especially because there would be no doctor to attend her, unless he brought her back to the fort to deliver the child. There was always the chance the child would come early, or that there would be some complication long before the babe was ready to be born.

“There are no guarantees in life,” he admitted. “But if you won’t take that risk, we’ll never have sons and daughters to hold and to love.”

A look of pain flashed across her face, replaced by the mulish tilt of her chin. “You’re not going to cajole me, Ransom. I’ve been thinking about this ever since I became a woman capable of bearing children. I don’t want to get pregnant. If that means not doing anything after we’re married, so be it.”

Ransom pulled his horse to a stop. “I wish you’d said something about this sooner, Emaline. I really do.”

“What would you have done, Ransom?”

I wouldn’t have proposed
. Was that true? Even though she’d said she wouldn’t make love with him, he believed he could convince her to do so. She had no idea how powerful passion could be. He’d had enough arguments with her—and lost enough arguments with her—to know she had a fiery temper. But this wasn’t a disagreement about whether they should go out for a horseback ride in threatening weather. This was a disagreement about the rest of their lives.

“Is something wrong?” an elderly female voice interjected from behind them.

“Nothing,” they both said at the same time.

Ransom kicked his horse into a trot to increase their distance from the wagon, and Emaline followed after him. When she caught up, he turned to her and said, “I’m not sure I can marry you if you aren’t willing to be a wife. In fact, I doubt our marriage would be legal if it’s not consummated.”

He watched her face blanch as she asked, “Are you sure about that?”

“Ask your father,” he said flatly.

Color flooded her face. “I could never talk to him about this.”

“Because he wouldn’t agree with you?”

“Because the pain of my mother’s death is with him still,” she replied. “I don’t believe he lets himself think about what it will mean for me to become a wife.”

“There might be ways for us to lie together but avoid pregnancy,” he said. “Would that be all right with you?”

“How certain are you I wouldn’t get pregnant?”

He swore under his breath. “The only certain way not to get pregnant is abstinence. That isn’t a reasonable choice, Emaline, and you know it.”

“Why is it so unreasonable?” she argued. “I love you, Ransom. I want to spend my life with you, with the emphasis on
life
. Why isn’t that enough for you?”

“It just isn’t. You’re asking me to give up too much, Emaline. I want more from marriage than you’re offering.”

She stopped her horse. “Then maybe we should turn around and go home.”

“Is there any chance you’ll change your mind?”

“No.”

Ransom had already opened his mouth to put an end to things when she said, “I have a suggestion, though.”

“I’m all ears.”

She glanced at her aunt, then at him, and said, “We won’t go to Cheyenne. We’ll go back to your ranch.”

“I don’t want to marry you if—”

“Hear me out,” she interrupted. “We’ll send Aunt Betsy on to Denver to shop for us while we spend the next two weeks together at your ranch.”

“Where are you going with this?”

She took a deep breath and said, “I want us to try living together as husband and wife—on my terms.”

“What’s the point of that?”

“I want you to see how nice it could be for us, even without the physical aspect of marriage.”

“You’ll be ruined if we don’t get married.”

“Your ranch is a long way off the beaten path.”

“You think your aunt will go along with this?”

Emaline met his gaze briefly, then lowered her eyes. “She loves me. And she knows how scared I am of dying in childbirth. So yes, I think she will. If things don’t work out …” Her voice faltered. She swallowed hard and said, “If we separate later, I know Aunt Betsy will protect my reputation. So what do you think?”

“I think you’re crazy.”

Her eyes glistened with tears that wrung his heart. She was wrong. This wasn’t going to work. And he had a feeling it wasn’t going to be as easy as she thought for the two of them to separate after she’d been living under the same roof with two bachelors. Then he had a brilliant idea.

“All right,” he said. “I agree.”

“Oh, thank you, Ransom. You won’t be sorry!”

“With one stipulation.”

She swiped at a tear that had fallen on her cheek and asked, “What’s that?”

“I want the freedom to treat you as my wife. To hold you in my arms at night and to touch you and kiss you whenever the mood strikes me.”

“I can’t imagine that will be too often. You’ll be out working on the range during the day.”

“The nights are plenty long.”

She eyed him suspiciously. “Touching and kissing are fine,” she said. “So long as you agree it goes no further than that.”

“I won’t do more unless you’re willing,” he said.

“I won’t be.”

“But if you are—”

“I won’t be,” she repeated.

He opened his mouth to argue, but before he could speak she said, “Very well. If I do agree and there are consequences, I won’t hold you responsible.”

“That sounds fair to me.” He held out his hand. “Deal?”

She shook it once. “Deal.”

He laughed, feeling alive and excited and hopeful. “One more thing,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“I’ll have to tell Flint what’s going on. He’s going to think we’re both out of our minds. He’ll need to hear from you that this is all your idea.”

She smiled. “I’ve always found your brother easy to get along with. I’m sure Flint will be happy to go along with our pretend marriage.”

“Not just no, but hell, no!” Flint said. “Emaline is the fort commander’s daughter. If she doesn’t show up when and where she should, he’ll have the entire Second Cavalry out looking for her.”

“It’s already done,” Ransom replied. “Emaline’s aunt is on her way to Denver alone. I dropped Emaline at the house before I came hunting you.”

Flint’s heartbeat ratcheted up as he realized how complicated the situation had gotten. An
unmarried
Emaline living under the same roof? Before he’d committed himself to another woman? There was a hell, and he was about to descend into it.

“When you left Emaline at the house, did you go inside with her?” he asked his brother.

“I guess I should have, but I didn’t want to be alone with her. I stopped by the bunkhouse to ask where you were working.” He shot Flint a chagrined look and said, “I thought it might be easier in the beginning with both of us there.”

Flint laughed, but it was a sound without humor. “You’re in for a hell of a surprise, little brother. Because there won’t be only three of us in the house. There will be four.”

“Four?”

“After I left your engagement party, I found a woman alone and dying on the prairie. I brought her back to the house to mend. She’s there now.”

“Holy shit.”

“No shit.”

“We’d better get back to the house,” Ransom said, turning his horse for home. “What are you doing this close to Patton’s ranch, anyway?”

“One of the cowhands riding fence reported that more cattle are missing.”

“Missing? You mean stolen?”

“Slim said, ‘Missing.’ He didn’t speculate where they’d gone. They weren’t where they were supposed to be.”

“Is there fence down somewhere?” Ransom asked.

“I sent Slim to find out. Pete’s hunting in some of the hollows and gulleys where the cattle go to escape the wind when it starts blowing.”

“How many head are we talking about?”

“A hundred.”

Ransom whistled. “That’s a good chunk of the herd. That many cattle didn’t wander off on their own, Flint. They must have been taken.”

“We don’t know that.”

“You know as well as I do who probably took them,” Ransom said, his lips flattened in anger.

“Ashley Patton doesn’t need our beef,” Flint said. “He’s got plenty of his own.”

“True, but he also knows we’ll need those missing cattle to fulfill the contract with the fort, assuming we get it.”

Flint eyed his brother. “You have any doubt we’re going to get it?”

“Assuming we have twelve hundred head of cattle, I see no reason why the colonel would give it to anyone else, everything considered.”

“You mean, if you marry his daughter. What if you don’t?”

Ransom looked stricken. “I never thought of that. Surely the colonel would understand—”

Flint snickered. “Sure. You tell him you don’t want to marry his daughter because she’s determined not to die in childbirth and see how far you get.”

“Are you saying I
have
to marry her, no matter what?” Ransom demanded.

“One of us has to marry her. It doesn’t have to be you.”

Ransom’s jaw dropped. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“If you don’t want Emaline, I’ll be glad to step up and marry her, no matter what conditions she sets.”

“Emaline is mine,” Ransom said, his jaw taut.

“Yes, she is,” Flint agreed. Outwardly he might have looked calm, but his heart was thundering in his chest. He’d never have taken Emaline from his brother, but all bets were off if Ransom decided not to marry her. “I’m not going to jump your claim, little brother. All I’m saying is that if you abandon it, I’m willing and able to step in.”

“What about your dying woman?” Ransom asked.

“She’s a recent widow. Her name is Hannah McMurtry.”

Ransom raised a brow. “Is there some reason you didn’t take her straight to the doctor at the fort?”

“I figured since I found her, I should have the first chance to court her.”

“I suppose that means she’s pretty,” Ransom said.

“She is, but that’s beside the point.”

“A pretty wife is nothing to sneer at,” Ransom said. “How did Mrs. McMurtry react when you told her you wanted to court her?”

“I didn’t tell her I wanted to court her. I told her I wanted to marry her.” Flint saw the look of disbelief—almost awe—on his brother’s face.

“Where did you get the nerve?”