Secondhand Bride Read online

  She sounded breathless, and scared, too. “What do you mean?”

  “Home is where the heart is,” Jack said, but that was all he was willing to say. He’d had a hard night, and he needed his rest.

  33

  Chloe was on her way to the hotel, for breakfast with Becky, when she spotted Angus, Kade, and Rafe McKettrick standing on the board sidewalk in front of Doc Boylen’s office, and a frisson of alarm fizzed in the pit of her stomach. Holding her skirts so she wouldn’t trip on the hem, she crossed the road at a rapid pace.

  Kade was the first to notice her, and the look of despondent fury in his eyes practically stopped her heart, never mind her feet. By process of elimination, and some fierce, dark instinct, she knew that Jeb was the object of their vigil.

  Kade touched the brim of his hat in a habitual motion. “Morning, Miss Chloe,” he said. The grave note in his voice skewered her on a shaft of fear.

  “Where’s Jeb?” she demanded, terrified of the answer.

  Rafe, who had been pacing, stopped to look down at her. “Inside,” he said. “Doc’s operating on him right now.”

  Chloe’s knees sagged, and she might have dropped, right there in the dirty street, if Kade hadn’t been so quick to reach her side and take a firm hold on her arm. “What—?”

  Kade squired her as far as the bench under Doc’s shingle. She shook her head, dizzy.

  “Jeb was shot last night, on the road home,” Kade told her quietly.

  She put her hands over her face, but only momentarily. Angus sat down beside her on the bench, took her hand between his callused ones.

  “Doc says he’ll make it, Chloe,” he assured her, but his face was ravaged by a sleepless night, and his skin was gray. The ache she saw in his eyes matched the one tearing at her insides. “He wasn’t killed. That’s the important thing.”

  Chloe’s empty stomach flung itself at the back of her throat, making her glad she hadn’t eaten. In her mind’s eye, she saw Jeb sitting across from her at supper the night before, talking about hunting down murderers. He’d been so coldly certain that he couldn’t be on the receiving end of a bad man’s bullet, and now he was lying on a surgeon’s table, shot. He hadn’t had to go looking for trouble—this time, it had found him on its own.

  Angus patted her hand. “Get her some water,” he said.

  Kade fetched a canteen from one of the horses’ backs, unscrewed the lid, handed it to her. She drank deeply.

  “Was he—did you talk to him?” she managed, handing back the canteen with a nod of thanks.

  “Doc’s got him drugged up,” Angus answered gruffly. “Ether, for the surgery.”

  “I just hope to God he’s sober,” Rafe fretted. Chloe’s gaze shot in his direction like an arrow.

  “Do you mean to tell me the doctor is drunk?” she marveled, in horror. She started to her feet, meaning to intercede, but Angus held so fast to her hand that she had to sit down again.

  “Hell, Rafe,” Kade said, “that was a stupid thing to say.”

  “Well,” Rafe retorted, “you’ll pardon me if I’m a little worried about my brother!”

  “That’s enough,” Angus said, with raspy ease. “We’re all worried about Jeb, and going for each other’s throats won’t help. Doc’s no drunkard, Chloe. He likes to let on that he is once in a while, though.” He shook his head. “No understanding some folks.”

  Chloe longed to march inside and stand at Doc’s elbow, supervising, but she knew Angus would never allow it and, besides, she’d probably swoon at the first sight of blood anyway. A tear slipped down her cheek and, shamed, she dashed it away with the heel of one palm.

  She heard the sound of an approaching horse, traveling at a gallop, and Holt appeared, dismounting and leaving the reins to dangle.

  “Where’s Lizzie?” Angus demanded, without preamble. “You didn’t go off and leave her alone, did you?”

  “She’s at the Triple M, with the women,” Holt answered, putting a fine point on every word. His gaze traveled, full of challenge, from Angus to Rafe to Kade, and softened a little when it came to rest on Chloe. “How’s he doing?”

  “Doc’s hacking away at him right now,” Rafe said, and earned himself another scathing glance from Kade.

  “See to that horse,” Angus told Holt sternly, “before the poor critter trips on those reins and breaks a leg.”

  Holt looked exasperated, but he did as he was told.

  Rafe grinned at that little concession, albeit grimly, and Kade resettled his hat. Chloe had seen Jeb do the same thing, the same way, at least a hundred times.

  With the gelding secured to the hitching rail, within easy reach of a water trough, Holt stepped onto the sidewalk. After another kindly glance at Chloe, he set his face into a scowl again and jabbed a thumb toward the door of Doc’s office.

  “How long’s the operation supposed to take?”

  Angus sighed. “Doc said it would be over when it was over. Jeb took a bullet in his right arm, and there was some damage done.”

  “If he’d stayed on the Circle C,” Holt said, “this wouldn’t have happened.”

  “Well,” Rafe said tersely, “he didn’t do that, did he?”

  “If you can’t mind your tongue,” Angus said, watching Rafe, “you’d best go elsewhere, find yourself something worthwhile to do.”

  Rafe’s broad shoulders sagged under the reprimand. He took off his hat, thrust a hand through his dark hair. “It’s hard to just stand around here and wait, Pa,” he said.

  “I know,” Angus answered quietly, “but arguing won’t make it easier.”

  Folks were beginning to take note of the gathering, now that the bank and the shops were opening for business, and all three of Angus’s sons stiffened, as if preparing to form a human barrier in front of Doc’s office door.

  Before that happened, however, there came a shuffling sound from inside, and Doc appeared on the threshold. He looked as if he’d been dragged through half of hell behind a team of demon horses, but there was no blood on him, and he managed a smile.

  “Angus,” he said, “it’s done. Jeb’ll be all right, in time. If he takes it easy—stays off those wild horses he likes to ride.”

  “I’ll chain him to his bed if I have to,” Angus said. He released Chloe’s hand and stood. “I’d like to see him.”

  “He’s still unconscious,” Doc answered, watching Chloe closely as he spoke. “Make it a short visit.” He nodded to Rafe, Kade, and Holt. “You boys will have to bide a while. Might as well go on down to the hotel and get yourselves some breakfast. Becky’ll be pacing the floor, waiting for news.”

  All three of them clearly wanted to argue, but they finally relented, Rafe and Kade going on together, Holt hanging back, watching Chloe with a somber expression. She knew he was inviting her to join them, even though he didn’t speak, and she shook her head in response.

  He gave a slight nod and followed his brothers.

  Angus vanished into the office, and Chloe would have been alone if Doc hadn’t stayed and taken a seat beside her on the bench.

  “You all right?” he asked gently. “You’re a little green around the edges.”

  “If I had anything in my stomach,” Chloe answered honestly, “I’d throw up.”

  Doc chuckled. “Me too,” he said.

  Now that there weren’t so many people watching her, Chloe felt free to cry, and she commenced to do just that.

  The doctor produced a clean handkerchief. “Now, now,” he said. “If you’re going to love a McKettrick, you’ve got to be tough.”

  Chloe stiffened. “Who says I love him?”

  Doc smiled. “I do.”

  “I might like him a little,” Chloe conceded. Did she love Jeb McKettrick? Certainly not, she decided. If she’d loved him, she wouldn’t have arranged a divorce.

  Doc took the handkerchief from her and dabbed at her face, which felt hot and fragile, like it might crumble into pieces at any given moment. “Once Angus is through paying his resp
ects, you can go in and see Jeb. It might do him good to know you’re there.”

  Chloe blinked. “But you said he was unconscious.”

  “There’s a part of a person that never sleeps, no matter what,” Doc told her. “You touch his hand, and tell him he’s a ring-tailed waste of good skin. I guarantee you, he’ll feel obliged to get better, just so he can contradict you.”

  Chloe laughed, right through her tears. “I may have to revise my opinion of you,” she said.

  Doc’s wise old eyes twinkled. “I didn’t know there was a need of that,” he replied.

  “Rafe said you might be drunk,” Chloe explained, and promptly wished she could call the words back. It was the story of her life, she thought with chagrin; from everlasting to everlasting, she was forever saying things she shouldn’t. Doing things she shouldn’t. Her history was one long train wreck, with good intentions scattered on either side of the tracks.

  The doctor’s smile was gentle, and full of humor. “I must see to my reputation,” he said. “It’s a poor one, it would seem.”

  Angus’s long shadow spilled over the sidewalk from the doorway, and Chloe looked up, full of questions. Aching with them.

  “Go on in,” he said gruffly.

  “Thank you, Mr. McKettrick,” she replied, rising.

  He touched her arm, and looked as if he might say something. In the end, though, he merely nodded.

  Jeb lay on the doctor’s all-purpose table, his flesh pale, his hair blood-matted and rumpled, his eyes closed.

  Chloe laid a hand to his cheek, bent to kiss his forehead. “Get better, you ring-tailed waste of skin,” she said tenderly, hoping Doc was right—that he’d fight his way to the surface just to take his own part.

  34

  At first, Jeb thought he’d been buried alive, such was the weight of the pain, but when he opened his eyes, Chloe was standing next to him, gripping his hand. Her red hair was falling from its pins, and he could tell by her puffy eyes and red nose that she’d been doing some crying.

  “It’s about time you woke up,” she said. “Becky and Sarah will be serving supper in a little while.”

  He let out a raspy chuckle, and she gave him some water from a china mug. The stuff tasted like ambrosia, but the touch of her hand, supporting the back of his head, was better yet. “Am I still in Doc’s office?” he asked, thinking it a reasonable question.

  She shook her head. “You’re at the hotel. Rafe and Kade brought you here a few hours ago. They made a litter out of an old door.”

  He took more water, letting the image of that take shape in his mind, then allowed his head to fall back onto the pillow. “Well,” he said, “at least the grub will be good. Doc’s not known for his cooking.”

  She put the mug aside. “Does your arm hurt much?”

  “I feel like the barn fell on me,” he admitted. He wondered what he’d have to promise to get Doc to give him another one of those shots.

  She smoothed his hair back from his face; he liked the feel of that. “You could have been killed,” she said, and tears glistened in her eyes. He wondered if things would change between them now. Maybe getting shot hadn’t been such a bad thing, even if it did hurt like Holy B. Jesus.

  Carefully, he lifted his left arm, cupped his hand behind Chloe’s head, and drew her down into a light kiss. “But I wasn’t,” he said hoarsely, when their lips parted. “Don’t cry, Chloe. Please, don’t cry.”

  Contrary creature that she was, she laid her forehead against his and sobbed.

  35

  The trouble with being laid up and in pain was that it gave a man too damn much time to think. Lying there in that hotel room, Jeb counted the cracks in the ceiling and the boards in the wall. A single fly had come to keep him company, now buzzing at his head, now bumbling against the glass in the window. He tried to read some from the lofty tomes Kade had brought him, but words on those pages seemed as restless as the fly. They just wouldn’t light on his brain and settle in.

  Perhaps because he’d come so close to crossing over— according to Doc, he’d tried to slip away a couple of times during the operation—he kept thinking about his mother.

  He remembered once, when he was six or seven, spending a night in town with a friend and taking in the fiery sermons of an itinerant preacher. He’d been terrified, and awakened screaming and sweating in the depths of a summer night, flailing at his covers.

  “I’m bad and I’m going to hell,” he’d told Georgia McKettrick, in a bullet spray of words, when she hurried into his room with a lantern and a concerned expression.

  She’d sat on the edge of his narrow bed, wearing a satin wrapper and smelling of some combination of lilacs and sleep, and smoothed his hair back from his forehead with one blessedly cool hand. “Nonsense,” she’d said.

  “But the preacher said so.”

  “The preacher is full of sheep dip,” his mother replied, and it seemed to him that there was more than enough affection in her smile, even some left over for the preacher. “The poor man’s just confused, that’s all.”

  About then, Angus had appeared in the doorway, leaning one shoulder against the frame. “That’s how the bastards get you, son,” he’d said, yawning. “By making you scared. Don’t you ever let anybody or anything do that.”

  His ma had cast a glance in her husband’s direction, evidently a sharp one, judging by the reaction to it, which was plainly visible in Angus’s much-younger face. Jeb had an idea that it was the word “bastards” that got Georgia’s hackles up; she didn’t hold with swearing. Said it was a sign of a poor vocabulary and a mean spirit.

  He’d smiled then, comforted, and he smiled now.

  He was hurting. He was bored and frustrated half-out of his skull. But damned if he was scared.

  A heavy knock sounded at the door of his room; he knew, by the weight of it, that the visitor was Angus or one of his brothers and not Chloe. It was the first day of school, and she was down the street, riding herd over a wild bunch.

  He was still coping with the letdown when he offered a gruff, “Come in,” and Angus walked in. Jeb craned his neck, looking past the old man for Doc, with one of his magic needles. Another disappointment—Angus was traveling alone.

  “Afternoon,” he said.

  Jeb nodded a greeting. Now that he wasn’t dangling a foot in the grave, the old man probably meant to give him trouble about leaving the Triple M.

  Angus drew up the only chair in the room and sat down next to the bed with a heavy sigh. He eyed the sling supporting Jeb’s right arm. “How’s the pain?”

  “Oh, the pain’s doing fine,” Jeb replied. “I’m a little worse for wear, though.”

  Angus chuckled, rubbed his beard-stubbled chin. He was a tougher than boiled owl, his pa, a quality Jeb both admired and resented. He’d seen that McKettrick grit carry the day, times beyond counting, and against formidable odds, but he’d also collided with it on a number of occasions and landed on his ass in the dust. “You up to talking a little, boy?” he asked.

  For a moment, Jeb was small again, and fearful of devils and hellfire, but the feeling quickly subsided, finding no place to take hold. If he got to the pearly gates and found out his theology was wrong, at least he’d be able to say he’d thought things through for himself instead of taking somebody else’s word. “I can manage some listening,” he said. “Talking might be another matter.”

  Angus smiled distractedly, ran his big, work-worn hands down the thighs of his trousers. “I’ll try to hold up my end, then,” he said. As if he’d ever had to make an effort in that direction. “I do have a few questions for you, though.”

  Jeb nodded, to show he was paying attention, and waved away the fly with his good arm.

  “What made you take a notion to sign on at the Circle C?” The old man was trying to be diplomatic, Jeb could see that, but he’d never really gotten the hang of it, and this time was no exception.

  “The pay was better,” he answered, a mite flippantly.


  Angus thrust out one of his gusty sighs. “We could have talked about that,” he said, picking his way through the sentence like a man crossing a wild creek, inching from stone to slippery stone. “If you’d given me the chance, I might have upped your wages.”

  Jeb’s jaw tightened; he willed it to relax a little. “Or said I was already earning more than I was worth,” he replied.

  Angus surveyed him from beneath lowered and bristly brows. “It’s true,” he allowed, “that if there’s been an improvement in your output, I haven’t seen it.”

  This was the old Angus, the one he knew. Jeb let the corner of his mouth quirk upward in a semblance of a grin. “Maybe I’ve changed,” he said. “Maybe I’m ready to take hold, make a place for myself.”

  “About time,” Angus said, and shook his head, as if reprimanding himself for letting his tongue run away from him. With the old man, two words were a verbal stampede.

  “It’s all right, Pa,” Jeb said quietly, and with a note of humor, shifting the pillows behind him in a vain effort to find some comfort. “I know what you think of me.”

  “Do you, now?” Angus rubbed his chin again. “You just go ahead and tell me, then.”

  Jeb shrugged his one responsive shoulder, cradled the slinged arm because of the pain. “I’m the youngest. Spoiled. Wild. Irresponsible. Not as strong as Rafe, or as smart as Kade.”

  “The hell you say,” Angus shot back, in a rumbling huff. “The only thing you got right there is your being born last. I don’t compare my sons one to the other. I reckon that’s your own definition of Jeb McKettrick, but don’t go putting my brand on it.”

  Jeb was at a loss, so he kept quiet.

  Angus smiled, though sadly. “Here’s how I see you,” he began. “You’re my son, and you’ve got a steel backbone and a go-to-hell attitude. You’re the best rider and the fastest gun I’ve ever seen. You take too damn many chances, trying to prove you’re nobody’s little brother. And you’re smart as anybody, when you take the time to think before you jump, which—it seems to me—is a relatively rare occasion.”