Wyoming Bride (37 page)

“If the snow gets that deep, we need to be at the ranch to drop hay for the cattle,” Ransom said.

Emaline made a face. “We never did have a honeymoon.”

“I’m sorry, Em. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

She laughed. “Yes, you will.”

Flint watched the couple exchange a happy, conspiratorial look that he envied. He made the distinction in his mind between appreciating what Ransom had with Emaline and wishing he had the same thing with Hannah.

Flint was so disturbed and distracted that he almost missed the flash of gunfire to his right. “Ambush!”

Hannah slapped the reins hard against the horses’ backs and yelled “Giddyap!” The team’s gait went from a trot to a gallop in a few steps, sending the buckboard careening along the bumpy, snow-slick road, while Flint and Ransom spurred their mounts to stay next to it.

The gunshot had reverberated in Flint’s ear a second before he felt the tug on his sleeve. He clenched his teeth at the pain in his biceps and saw blood spurt from his torn coat sleeve.

“You’re hit!” Hannah cried.

“Don’t stop!” Flint said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

They kept up the hectic pace for another half mile, till the knoll disappeared behind them.

“Slow them down, Hannah,” Flint said.

“How badly are you hurt?” she asked as she tugged on the reins.

“It’s a flesh wound,” Flint replied.

As Hannah stopped the buckboard and began tearing at her petticoat to get a piece of cloth to tie up Flint’s wound, Ransom glanced behind them and asked, “Do you think Tucker will follow us?”

It was a foregone conclusion that Sam Tucker had been the man at the other end of the rifle. Patton didn’t do his own dirty work, and Flint and Ransom had no other enemies.

“He’s already headed to Cheyenne,” Flint said as he eased his coat off. “He’d have to be a fool to try riding all the way back to Patton’s ranch in this weather.”

He turned his horse so his injured arm was presented to Hannah, who sat waiting with a strip of cloth in her hand.

She tore his shirt away from the wound, examined it, and said, “You were lucky. The bullet only grazed you.”

Flint hissed and said, “Take it easy,” as she tied the cloth tightly around it.

“If you don’t like my nursing, you can see a doctor when we get to Cheyenne.”

“You’re prickly.”

Her eyes met his as she said, “I don’t fancy becoming a widow twice in the same year!”

He realized all the blood had fled from her face. “Hey. I’m fine.” He reached out a hand to support her, because it looked like she might faint, and she shoved it away.

“You need to do something about that man!” she snapped.

“What do you suggest?” he said, shivering in the cold.

“For a start, put your coat back on before you freeze to death.”

He grinned and then grimaced as he eased his shearling coat back on over his injured arm. He surveyed the ragged hole in his coat sleeve and said, “That son of a bitch has a lot to answer for.”

“What are you going to do?” Ransom asked.

“Confront Tucker,” Flint replied.

“Is that a good idea?” Emaline asked anxiously.

“When you’re attacked by a rabid dog, you put it down,” Flint said.

He glanced at Hannah, whose face looked drained of blood again. But she said nothing.

“Won’t that be dangerous?” Emaline persisted.

“Not as dangerous as leaving Tucker on the loose to ambush us again,” Flint said.

The rest of their trip to Cheyenne was uneventful. Hannah insisted they stop by the doctor’s office first. Once the doctor confirmed there wasn’t even enough damage to require stitches, they checked into the Western Winds Hotel on Main Street.

“I’m looking forward to dinner in the restaurant,” Emaline said.

“I hope you’ll excuse me,” Hannah said. “I’m tired. I think I’ll go to bed.”

Flint was alarmed, because he’d overheard Emaline raving about the restaurant’s steak dinners and Hannah agreeing it would be wonderful to eat somewhere with a fine linen tablecloth and fancy silverware. He perused her carefully, noting her flushed face and mussed hair, and said, “I think I’ll stay in the room with Hannah and have the hotel send up some dinner for both of us.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Hannah protested.

Emaline hugged Hannah in the hallway in front of their room and said, “We can always have dinner tomorrow, if you’re feeling better.”

“We’re going home tomorrow,” Hannah said.

Emaline smiled, glanced at Ransom, and said, “Maybe. Maybe not.”

Flint exchanged a look with Ransom, who shrugged and said, “She wants to shop.”

Emaline giggled.

Hannah waved and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Flint followed her into their room, closed the door behind him, and said, “I wish you had let the doctor take a look at you when he took care of my arm.”

“Why? I’m fine.”

“If you’re so fine, why aren’t we having dinner downstairs with Ransom and Emaline?”

She turned back to him, looked at him with stark eyes, and asked, “Why did you say it?”

He didn’t have to ask what she meant. He’d been wondering the same thing himself ever since he’d said those three fateful words,
I love you
, which she’d dismissed as a joke or an insult or a flat-out lie.

“I wanted you to know,” he said at last.

She crossed her arms protectively over her breasts, above her burgeoning belly, and asked, “When did this change of heart occur?”

How could he tell her what he didn’t know himself? He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Her mouth tightened. “Because it hasn’t happened. For some reason you’ve decided to lie to me about this. It isn’t necessary, Flint.” She unfolded her arms, looked down, and placed her hands on her enlarged belly, caressing it as she said, “I have a child to love. That’s all the love I will ever need.”

Flint winced. “I wasn’t lying.”

Tears brimmed in her eyes. “Please. Don’t.”

Flint stared at his wife. He’d made a terrible mistake. He shouldn’t have said the words, not when she wasn’t ready to hear them. He wasn’t sure where to go from here. How did you prove to a woman that you loved her, when she was certain you didn’t?

She looked him in the eye and said, “I’d rather be alone.”

She didn’t even want him in the same room with her. He felt hurt, but he knew he had a great many fences to mend. Better not to try and do it all in one day.

“I’ll have some supper sent up to you.”

“Where are you going?” she asked as he opened the door.

“I think I’ll take a walk.”

The door wasn’t quite closed when he heard her say, “Be careful, Flint. Don’t make me a widow again.”

He took surprising comfort from the fact that he would have the rest of his life—however long it lasted, considering the threat from Ashley Patton—to convince his wife that he loved her.

“I expected Cheyenne to be a collection of shacks and saloons,” Hannah said to Flint. “It’s so much more than that.”

They were strolling the weathered wooden boardwalk along Main Street in Cheyenne, Hannah’s arm looped through Flint’s, headed for Taylor’s Dry Goods, where Flint and Ransom had an account, to buy Christmas gifts.

“Cheyenne sprang up seven years ago, when the Union Pacific railroad came through,” Flint explained. “When gold was discovered in the Black Hills this past July, it became the stepping off point for miners headed north to the Dakotas. There’s even a Cheyenne to Deadwood stage.”

So why couldn’t you find a bride in Cheyenne?
Hannah wondered. Then she took a second look at the people swarming past one another like ants heading home with a fallen grasshopper and realized there were easily ten men for every woman. At the moment, she and Emaline, who was keeping pace with Ransom behind her, were the only two females on the street.

“Where are all the women?” Hannah asked Flint.

He pointed across the street. Hannah followed his finger to a female face peeping at her from a second-story curtained window above one of the many saloons, from which the sounds of a tinkly piano and a screeching violin spilled onto the street.

“Oh,” she said, her face pinkening with embarrassment. “I meant—”

“The decent women are at home with their kids or shopping for supplies or working with their husbands. I’m not quite sure how many folks live in town, but I expect the population will grow with all the business from prospectors,” he said.

The sun had come out to sparkle on the thin layer of snow, which was rapidly being muddied by wagons and men on horseback. Hannah lifted her face and felt it bathed in surprising warmth.

“Thanks for agreeing to this, Flint,” Emaline said.

Flint glanced over his shoulder and said, “I don’t think Hannah could handle another trip to Cheyenne later this month.”

“Speak for yourself,” Hannah said with a smile.

Flint glanced at her bulk, and she laughed and ducked her head. “Okay, so maybe you’re right,” she said. “I’m glad we have a chance to shop. I haven’t shopped since …” Her voice trailed off.

Hannah hadn’t gone shopping since the week before the Great Chicago Fire, when her mother had taken her and her twin to Marshall Field’s to buy matching dresses, whose design they had first seen in
Harper’s Bazaar
.

She and Hetty had each ended up with a paisley-striped, heavy linen sheath in the new princess style. Hannah could remember the dress as if it were yesterday. It had an upstanding white lace collar, while the lapels, the velvet bow at the neck, the buttons down the front, and the trimming on the pockets and long sleeves were all made of dark pink velvet.

Hannah tried to avoid thinking about her parents—or her siblings—because when she did, she missed them, especially her mother, who would have been excited about this grandchild. Her mother probably would have been appalled at Hannah’s first husband but perhaps more pleased with the second. She definitely would have wondered at a daughter who’d loved pretty things spending most of her days dressed in a man’s wool shirt and Levi’s, or a shapeless piece of muslin, instead of a Marshall Field’s ready-made dress in the latest fashion.

“Penny for your thoughts.”

Hannah turned to Flint and said, “I was thinking about my mother.” She sighed. “And missing her.”

He didn’t say anything, and Hannah realized Flint had no idea how to express sympathy. Not that she needed his pity. Or wanted it. Not to mention the love he was offering.

Hannah glanced askance at her husband. She couldn’t understand why Flint had said he loved her. The words were a painful reminder of the fact she’d twice married strangers for whom she’d felt nothing. She was especially suspicious of Flint’s proclamation of love, because it had come out of nowhere.

One day he was in love with Emaline and making no effort to deny it. The next he was supposedly in love with her. Only an idiot would believe that sort of turnaround.

Hannah was no fool.

The problem was, she was softhearted. Or softheaded. Because somehow she’d developed feelings for Flint. She hadn’t known they existed—hadn’t even admitted them to herself—until Flint had asked her straight-out whether she loved him.

She’d started to say no and realized that wasn’t the truth. She had feelings for Flint, but she didn’t know how to define them, because she wasn’t sure how it felt to be “in love.”

On the Oregon Trail, she’d asked herself whether a person could make herself fall in love. She’d never imagined someone could fall in love without even trying. That was what she was afraid had happened with Flint.

She’d taken one look at the tall, handsome, fairy-tale Prince Charming, with his thick black hair and silvery gray eyes, with his strong nose and chiseled cheeks and chin, and had fallen for him like some stupid fairy-tale princess. Hannah wanted to give her love to a man who deserved it, not one who seemed to have stolen it while she wasn’t watching.

She’d desperately wanted Prince Charming to love her back, to no avail. She had some inkling now of how Mr. McMurtry must have felt, loving her and getting nothing in return. It hurt.

Mostly, Hannah felt terribly confused, which Flint had made worse with his declaration of love. She didn’t believe he was telling the truth. But why would he lie about something so important? Hannah tried to imagine what could be going through his head.

Maybe he hoped to talk himself out of loving Emaline by professing love for Hannah. Maybe he hoped to make Hannah more willing to lie with him. Hannah snorted. Soon she would be too big to lie with him, so what would be the point?

Maybe Flint wanted her to feel cared for during these last months of her pregnancy. If so, she was grateful. Hannah had a lot of doubts about how good a mother she would be and what kind of father Flint would be and whether a tiny, fragile baby could survive the rugged life into which it would be born.

Hannah was torn from her reflection when Flint jerked on her arm. She turned and saw he’d been jostled by another man.

“Watch your step,” Flint said to the man.

The cowboy’s coat was open, and Hannah saw he had a Colt .45 belted at his waist.