Secondhand Bride Read online

  Now, with Chloe miles away, in the cottage behind the schoolhouse, and the kiss they’d shared still reverberating through his body, he was more conscious of being alone than ever before.

  Rafe and Emmeline were across the creek, in their fine house, probably making love.

  Kade and Mandy, down at the far end of the hall, in the big room that had been Angus’s private domain until last spring, were most likely doing the same.

  Hell, even Concepcion and the old man, having moved to Rafe’s former quarters, had each other, and pretty soon, they’d have a baby, too.

  And here he was, Jeb McKettrick, ladies’ man, poker player, bronc buster, fast-talker and even-faster-gun, sprawled on top of his lonely bed with all his clothes on, staring at the ceiling and wondering exactly when the rest of the world had packed its saddlebags and gone right on without him.

  He cupped his hands behind his head and crossed his feet. Concepcion would have his hide if she knew he was still wearing his boots, for she was a choosy housekeeper, and the thought brought a thin smile to his lips. It was a small comfort, this minor rebellion, but a comfort, nonetheless.

  It didn’t last.

  Guilt rose up inside him, as surely as if Concepcion had been standing right there, with her arms folded and one foot tapping. He’d been young when his mother died, and Concepcion had filled the role admirably since then, cooking, cajoling, encouraging, and scolding, keeping them all going when it would have been a sight easier to give up. With a put-upon sigh, he heeled off one boot, then the other, letting them hit the floor with a thud. What he ought to do, he decided, was saddle up his horse and ride out. Never even look back.

  Start fresh, somewhere else. Make something of himself.

  He knew, even as he entertained the thought, that it was pure fancy, the leaving part, anyway. Hopeless as things seemed, given that Rafe or Kade would most likely inherit the lion’s share, he loved the Triple M as much as his pa or either of his brothers did. Oh, he’d tried to break away a couple of times, riding for other outfits, as far away as Colorado and Montana, but he might as well have been tethered to a Joshua tree in the center of the ranch, for the place always drew him home again, calling to him in his sleep, howling through his soul like a storm.

  His mind turned to Chloe. He wondered if she’d latched the cottage door, if she was troubled and wakeful, like he was.

  He gave a mirthless laugh. Like as not, she was dreaming peacefully.

  He rolled onto his side, turning his back to the wide, glowing moon intruding at his window, and purposefully closed his eyes. His body ached for sleep, but his mind was covering ground as fast as a wild stallion on a dead run.

  Finally, with a muttered curse, he got up, opened his door, and made his way down the back stairs, into the kitchen. He lit a lamp, poured himself a cup of lukewarm coffee left over from supper, and sat down at the table to ponder the many and diverse ills of Creation.

  He’d been there maybe five minutes when Kade joined him, shirtless and barefoot, with his pants misbuttoned and a look of silly satiation on his face.

  Jeb scowled a greeting.

  “Howdy, little brother,” Kade said blithely, on his way to the pantry. He came out with half a cherry pie still in the pan, and rummaged in the silverware drawer for a fork.

  “I guess love makes a man hungry,” Jeb observed, somewhat testily.

  Kade laughed and swung a leg over the bench at the far side of the table, intent on finishing off the pie. “You remember that much about it, do you?” he gibed.

  Jeb took a sip of coffee and set the mug down with a thump. “Very funny,” he said.

  Kade chuckled, his mouth full, and gestured with the fork. “You know,” he said, when he’d swallowed, “I could have told you this would happen.”

  Right, Jeb thought. Not so long ago, Kade had been in such a tangle over Mandy, he didn’t know his ass from a gopher hole. Now, suddenly, he was wise counsel in the court of love. “Spare me,” Jeb said, rolling his eyes.

  Merry as a friar in Robin Hood’s camp, Kade plunged his fork back into the pie, stopped with a chunk of cherry filling and crust halfway to his mouth. “You must not have been listening,” he observed, “back when Ma used to read to us from the Good Book every Sunday. ‘As you sow, so shall you reap.’ ”

  “Now you’re a preacher,” Jeb grumbled. If he’d had anyplace to go, he would have left, right then.

  “All those women you trifled with,” Kade marveled, his eyes dancing with delight. “Old love-’em-and-leave-’em Jeb. You’ve met your match in Miss Chloe Wakefield, haven’t you?”

  “Is there a point to this,” Jeb demanded, through his teeth, “or are you just amusing yourself?”

  “That is the point,” Kade said. “I think this is damn funny.” He put the bite of pie into his mouth and commenced to waving the fork again, like a conductor in front of a band. “If I live to be a hundred,” he went on, “I will never forget the sight of you hightailing it across that creek, wanting Rafe and me to hide you.” He paused for a hoot of laughter. “Scared as you were, I half expected to see Geronimo and a few hundred Apaches after your scalp, instead of one redheaded woman with a buggy whip and fire in her eyes.”

  Jeb threw up his hands, then let his palms slap down hard on the table top. “All right,” he said. “I made a fool of myself! I admit it. Are you satisfied?”

  Kade was still shoveling in pie. “Yup,” he said, ruminating on the memory with obvious pleasure.

  Before Jeb could formulate a response to that, a commotion broke out upstairs, and Angus appeared on the upper landing, his white hair wild around his face, his eyes as big as cow pies.

  Overhead, a lusty wail rent the air. Concepcion was getting down to business, and the old man looked horrified. Never mind that he’d had most of nine months to get used to the idea of a baby coming; he was in a panic.

  “It’s Concepcion!” he yelled. “Her time’s come—she’s never done this before—get the doc!”

  “Sounds like it’s too late for that,” Kade decided, pushing the pie tin away.

  “I suppose it’s the same as with a cow,” Jeb agreed, getting nervously to his feet and running his hands down his thighs.

  Mandy showed up then, leaning around the upper railing, clad in a flannel nightgown. “One of you, go fetch Emmeline. The other, keep Angus out of the way. And somebody put some water on to boil!” With that, she vanished again.

  “I’ll get Emmeline,” Jeb said, easing toward the door. Suddenly, he felt a powerful need for fresh air.

  Concepcion let out another whoop. She was no coward, so it must hurt something awful, having a baby. Jeb shuddered.

  “Land sakes,” Angus boomed, “I’ve killed her!”

  Kade took their father’s arm and led him the rest of the way down the stairs. He was the practical one, and right then, Jeb was grateful.

  “Sit, Pa,” Kade said calmly.

  There was another scream, and Jeb bolted.

  When he came back, half an hour later, Rafe and Emmeline were with him. Emmeline, wearing a nightgown and shawl, rushed up the back stairs. Kade had made coffee, and there was a whiskey bottle in the middle of the table, already half-gone.

  Concepcion shrieked, and swore in Spanish.

  “Well, Pa,” Rafe said, hitching up his suspenders and helping himself to coffee and whiskey, “are we going to have to wait for this one to grow up before you decide who gets the ranch?”

  “It might be that long before any of you gives me a grandchild,” Angus grumbled, adding a generous dollop of firewater to his mug. He paused, considered. He’d calmed down considerably in the time Jeb was gone from the house. “Of course, Holt’s got a daughter. I reckon that puts the matter in a new light. I ought to give him the Triple M. Serve the rest of you yahoos right.”

  Jeb’s gaze collided with Kade’s and Rafe’s.

  Rafe recovered first. “Tell me that’s a joke, old man,” he said, in a dangerous undertone.

  �
��He is my firstborn son,” Angus said, drawing grim enjoyment from the situation.

  “He wasn’t part of the deal,” Kade pointed out, unamused.

  “Only because he wasn’t around at the time,” Angus countered calmly. “He’s as much my flesh and blood as any of you.”

  Jeb’s knees felt wobbly, so he sank onto the bench, next to the table. “Pa,” he said, in what he hoped was a reasonable tone of voice, “in case it’s escaped your notice, he hates your guts.”

  “Maybe he’s got a right,” Angus pontificated.

  Emmeline sprouted on the landing. “Where’s that hot water?” she cried.

  Concepcion let loose with another scream, but the old man didn’t turn a hair. He was on a roll, and he’d had plenty of hooch to calm his nerves. Jeb figured he’d be crowing like a rooster by the time that baby finally came.

  “I’m getting it,” Rafe told his wife, and slammed buckets around, emptying the pots of steaming water Kade had set on the stove to boil. “It’s the whiskey talking,” he said, to himself as much as anybody. If Angus did give the ranch to Holt, Rafe would take it the hardest, since he was foreman.

  “Son of a bitch,” Jeb fretted, glancing at the ceiling when Concepcion yelled again. Something about randy old men and the back acre of hell, he thought, though his Spanish was a little rusty.

  “Holt is my son, and he did give me a grandchild,” Angus reasoned.

  Kade slapped a hand on the table, making the old coot start and nearly spill his doctored coffee down the front of his long johns. “But he isn’t married,” he said triumphantly. “That was part of the deal, Pa—remember?”

  Angus frowned. “Damn,” he said. “I did say that, didn’t I?”

  “Yes,” Rafe, Kade, and Jeb replied, in one voice.

  The room went silent after that, but then there was a new sound. A baby’s insulted squall.

  Angus forgot the argument and stood up, looking baffled and hopeful and scared to death, all of a piece.

  Mandy’s head popped around the railing again, but this time she was smiling. “It’s a girl,” she exulted. “Ten fingers, ten toes, and a healthy set of lungs!”

  Rafe was partway up the stairs with the hot water, a bucket in each hand, when the old man blew by him like a gust of wind.

  “Glory be!” he shouted. “A daughter!”

  19

  The sound, slight as it was, startled Chloe awake. She flailed against the sheets and quilt, entangled around her because of fitful dreams, and sat bolt upright in bed, blinking away sleep.

  In the bright moonlight, she saw that the cottage was empty, the door still bolted, but the fine hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stood up, just the same.

  It came again, and this time she identified it. Metal, tapping against glass.

  She snatched the derringer off the little table next to the bed, scrambled into her wrapper, and went to the window.

  Jeb McKettrick was standing in the grass, his hair lit with silver, just sliding his pistol back into the holster.

  Chloe shoved up the sash and leaned out the window. “What are you doing here?” she demanded, in an affronted whisper. “Are you trying to get me sent away?”

  He grinned foolishly, and she wondered if he was drunk. “I’ve got news,” he said, too loudly. “Put away that derringer, will you? It would be a hell of a thing if you shot me.”

  Chloe set the gun aside, on top of the bookshelf. “For heaven’s sake,” she fussed, “it must be two in the morning!”

  Jeb took a watch from his pants pocket and consulted it, swaying a little, as though even that small effort had upset his balance. “Three-fifteen,” he said, plainly relishing the opportunity to correct her.

  Chloe was building toward a boil, so she turned down the fire and put a lid on her temper. “What do you want?” she demanded, having second thoughts about the derringer.

  “I told you,” Jeb said, all long-suffering goodwill. “I have news.”

  “What could you possibly have to tell me at this hour?” She ought to slam down the window and ignore him, she knew that, but for some reason, she couldn’t.

  “I have a sister.”

  Chloe stared down at him, confounded. If she could have gotten hold of his hair, she’d have pulled out a handful. “What?”

  “I have a sister,” he repeated, very carefully, as though she were hard of hearing.

  Chloe’s mind, fogged by sleep and sudden alarm, finally cleared. She remembered meeting his obviously pregnant stepmother, Concepcion, soon after her arrival on the Triple M. “Oh,” she said, taking a moment to envy the woman. She loved children, though with two failed marriages behind her, it didn’t seem likely that she’d ever have any of her own. “Well—that’s wonderful—”

  “Her name is Katherine, for some saint,” Jeb said, slurring his words ever so slightly.

  “Have you been drinking?” Chloe inquired.

  “Celebrating,” he said, correcting her again.

  “I’m very happy for you,” Chloe said tersely. “Now, kindly go ‘celebrate’ somewhere else before you wake up the whole town!”

  He didn’t move, except to tilt his head to one side. “Do you ever get the feeling that the train’s pulled out of the station and you’re still standing on the platform?” he mused. The scent of whiskey rose on the night breeze, along with those of good grass and the last, late roses of the season.

  The question touched a nerve, even though Chloe suspected that Jeb was talking about his own situation, not hers, and it made her testy. “I’ll get the marshal if you don’t leave,” she warned, “and have you arrested. Don’t you think I won’t!”

  He grinned. “You’d have to come outside to do that, wouldn’t you? And then I’d take you in my arms and— have you ever made love in the grass, Chloe?”

  Chloe slammed down the sash, and the glass panes rattled in their sturdy frames. Keeping well away from the window, she pulled on her clothes, then lit a lamp. There was no hope of sleeping, but neither did she intend to go outside, even though something elemental urged her to do just that. She would wait him out, get one of her books and read, right out loud if necessary, until he gave up and went away.

  Jeb started to sing, softly at first, and then with escalating spirit. No serenade, this—it was a bawdy tune of the sort one might hear passing by a saloon. Not that she frequented such establishments. Except for her wedding night, when she’d gone looking for her stray bridegroom, she’d never set foot in one.

  Chloe plunked down at the table, snapped open Pilgrim’s Progress, and began to read, silently, but forming the shape of each word with her lips.

  Jeb sang louder.

  Chloe slammed the book shut and was assailed by dust. She went back to the window, yanked it open.

  “Shut up, damn you!” she hissed. “People will hear!”

  Jeb grinned. “I guess you’d better let me in, then,” he said.

  She was caught between a rock and a hard place. If she left him out there, he’d raise the dead with his catter-walling, and if she let him in, well, God knew what would happen. She reached for the pitcher on the washstand and flung its contents through the opening, dousing him.

  He spread his hands, looking down at his drenched shirt and trousers in apparent disbelief. “Well,” he said philosophically, “now you’ve got to open the door. I could catch my death out here.” He favored her with another of his lethal grins. “Or, I could really start singing—”

  “Don’t!” Chloe pleaded. “I’ll let you in. Just—please— stop carrying on!”

  “Finally,” he said, with a beleaguered sigh, “the woman sees reason.”

  She crossed the room in a few frustrated strides, worked the latch, and threw open the door. Jeb stood on the stoop, his eyes dancing, soaked to the skin. Up close, she could see that he wasn’t nearly as drunk as he’d appeared—no doubt the sluicing had sobered him considerably.

  “Bloody hell,” Chloe muttered, stepping back to admit him, �
�you are half-again as much trouble as you’re worth!”

  He came in, shut the door, leaned against it. “It’s been too long, Chloe,” he said gravely.

  She hated the surge of heat that rushed through her system, hated him for being able to arouse it. “Keep your distance,” she ordered, though she couldn’t have said whether she was talking to him or to herself.

  He let his gaze drift over her, then went to the bedside table, where the lamp was burning, and blew it out. Chloe watched, in miserable anticipation, as he sat down on the edge of her bed, kicked off his boots, and began unbuttoning his shirt, starting at the cuffs. In all that time, he never looked away from her face.

  She folded her arms, determined to stand her ground. Remembering the kiss they’d exchanged, on his earlier visit, she felt as though she were being sucked down into a patch of molten quicksand.

  He pulled his shirttails out, dealt with the last of his buttons, worked the buckle on his gun belt, and all the while, she was a willing hostage, knowing she should look away and never even blinking her eyes.

  Jeb shrugged out of the shirt, stood, and started with his trousers.

  A hot flush bubbled up from Chloe’s center, scalding its way toward her face. She felt herself opening to receive him, not just physically, but mentally and spiritually as well.

  “What’s the matter, Chloe?” he asked quietly, his expression serious now. “You say I’m your husband. Doesn’t that give me a right to your bed?”

  She swallowed. “No,” she said, with consummate uncertainty.

  He was naked, gloriously perfect, unabashedly male. He held out a hand to her; it was an invitation, not a command. She might have resisted the latter, but she had no chance against the former.

  She had been rooted to the floor, but now she felt the twining tendrils of her determination snapping, one by one. She took a single step in his direction, but that was enough. In the next instant, she was in his arms.

  He kissed her, deeply, slowly, as if they had all the time in the world, as if the morning, with all its recriminations and consequences, would never come.

  And she responded, under no spell, but by her own choice.