Secondhand Bride Read online

  “Why do you say that?”

  Mandy smiled a little, looking wistful. “I almost did that myself,” she said. “Kicked over the traces and ran away, I mean. And it would have been the worst mistake I ever made.”

  3

  A silver wash of moonlight illuminated John Lewis’s resting place, and a chilly breeze ruffled the loose tendrils of Chloe’s hair as she stood looking down at the headstone. JOHN LEWIS, it read, BELOVED FRIEND AND HONORABLE MAN. Beneath were the dates—he’d lived only fifty-four years.

  She brushed at her cheek with the heel of one palm and, standing just behind her, Jeb laid a tentative hand on her shoulder.

  “It’s cold out here, Chloe,” he said gruffly. “Maybe it would be better to do this in the morning.”

  She shook her head and, at the same time, wrapped her arms around her middle. Since the chill came from inside, rather than out, the gesture was of little avail. “That’s a fancy marker,” she said, with a lift of her chin.

  “Becky sent all the way to New York for it,” Jeb told her, without removing his hand. She felt some of his vitality pouring into her, and she was grateful, though she would have spurned it if she could. Just the way Jeb had spurned her.

  Chloe turned slightly in order to look up at him. “Becky? Who’s that?”

  Jeb let out a breath. “Didn’t he mention her in his letters?”

  “No,” Chloe said, strangely stricken. She’d have remembered if John had ever mentioned a woman. And surely he wouldn’t have kept something so important from her, even if it was highly personal.

  Then the twinge came, in a quiet, hidden region of her heart. She’d never told John about Jeb, let alone Jack Barrett. She’d been ashamed to admit she’d been so foolish, not once, but twice.

  Jeb drew Chloe’s shawl more closely around her shoulders. He’d offered her his coat, during the long buggy ride from the Triple M, but she’d refused, partly because she was stubborn and partly because she knew wearing something of his would bring back too many poignant recollections. They’d made love in his Tombstone hotel room several times, and she’d worn his shirt afterwards, while they laughed and played gin rummy in the middle of the rumpled bed.

  “They were planning to be married,” Jeb said quietly, his gaze catching and holding hers, pulling her back from that other place and time. “Becky—some folks call her Mrs. Fairmont, and some call her Mrs. Harding, depending—well, she owns the Arizona Hotel. They were in love, planning to be married.”

  “I wish he’d told me.” Chloe felt utterly adrift.

  “Did you tell him about us?”

  “No,” she answered. “Of course not.”

  Jeb shook his head, mildly exasperated. “You didn’t say anything because you were playing a game, and he would have known you already had a husband. His reasons for not mentioning Becky were probably a little more admirable.”

  The words bruised Chloe, as they were surely meant to do, and she would have fought back vigorously if she’d been anywhere but at the foot of John Lewis’s grave. “It wasn’t like that at all,” she insisted. “I intended to write to him, but you left, and I lost my job—”

  She saw disbelief in Jeb’s eyes. He thought she was lying.

  Well, she wasn’t. She would have told John everything if she’d arrived in time. She’d have explained about Jack, too, eventually. Told her uncle how Jack had courted her in Sacramento, convinced her he was a respectable banker, persuaded her to follow him all the way to Tombstone, over her mother’s and Mr. Wakefield’s strenuous objections, and marry him there. Less than half an hour after the ceremony, far from home and in disgrace, she’d learned the dreadful truth: that Jack Barrett was nothing but a common gunslinger. Most likely, he’d been after the Wakefield money—none of which was hers.

  Jeb’s jaw muscles, tight a moment before, relaxed, but by obvious effort.

  “And maybe he never intended to marry her,” she said crisply, and started to move around him. Jeb stayed her by taking a firm hold on one of her elbows.

  “Just a minute,” he said, none too graciously. “Becky Fairmont is a fine woman. Rafe’s wife, Emmeline, is her daughter, so she’s kin to the McKettricks. If you’re fixing to light into her for some reason, you’d best give the idea a bit more thought.”

  Chloe wrenched her elbow free. “I don’t need you, of all people, to tell me how to behave,” she said. Then she picked up her skirts and started hiking purposefully toward the gate leading out of the churchyard.

  Jeb kept pace. “Don’t you?” he countered hastily. “I’m probably never going to hear the end of how you rode me down like a rabbit, then laid into me with your tongue. In my estimation, Miss Chloe, that is not the way a lady generally comports herself.”

  “As if you’d know a lady if you met one!” Chloe huffed, and kept right on walking. Secretly, she regretted her vengeful descent on the Triple M, though she was damned if she’d admit it to the likes of Jeb McKettrick.

  “It so happens that Becky is a lady,” Jeb insisted. “So are Emmeline, Mandy, and Concepcion. You’d do well to follow their example!”

  They’d left the graveyard and gained the main street of town, though all the light, noise, and activity seemed to be at the other end. Chloe strode toward it, ignoring the hired buggy and the patient horse Jeb had hitched to it, back at the ranch. “You can take your sanctimonious attitude, Mr. Lying, Cheating Sneak, and—”

  “You’re calling me a lying, cheating sneak?” He wheeled his arms, but stayed right with her, instead of getting into the rig and driving away, like she’d hoped he’d do. “Oh, now, that’s a laugh!”

  “I didn’t lie,” she said breathlessly, marching onward, “and I didn’t sneak or cheat, either. You’re the one who claimed to be from Stockton!”

  “I guess your definition of deceit is a mite different from mine,” Jeb growled, wrenching off his hat and slapping it against his thigh before jamming it onto his head again. “To my way of thinking, having one too many husbands takes the prize when it comes to deception!”

  “Jack Barrett and I were divorced two years ago!”

  The sidewalk began, and they stepped up onto it. Folks turned to watch them speculatively as they made their inharmonious way toward the Arizona Hotel, and Chloe didn’t give a hang what any of them thought, though she reckoned she might regret that sentiment if any of them were on the school committee. As far as she could tell, Jeb was no more concerned with possible scandal than she was.

  “Strange you didn’t mention that—or mention him at all, for that matter—until you’d roped me in right and proper!” Jeb yelled. Fortunately, he lowered his voice before going on, because Chloe would have torn off strips of his skin if he hadn’t. “When I took you to bed the first time, you pretended to be a virgin, Chloe.”

  She was everlastingly glad that it was dark, for she blushed heatedly at the reminder. Her blood sang under her skin and rushed to the places where he’d touched her, to throb there. “I wasn’t pretending,” she hissed. “Jack and I never—”

  He took her arm again and stopped her, right there on the sidewalk. “Never what?” he demanded dangerously.

  Chloe bit her lip. “What’s the use? You won’t believe me anyway.”

  He released her brusquely. “You’re damn right I won’t,” he said. “How you could be any kin to an honest, hardworking man like John Lewis is beyond me!”

  Chloe struggled, but Jeb held her fast. “Damn you,” she blurted, “let me go! I’ve had enough of your insults!”

  “Believe me, lady, I haven’t begun to run through the list!” he snapped, but he released her. “Come on. Let’s get you checked into the hotel so I can get back to the ranch. Where are your bags?”

  “I suppose the stagecoach driver left them in front of the general store,” Chloe said, deflating a little and perilously near tears. It was one thing, letting Jeb see her cry over John’s death and quite another to allow herself to be provoked into it by his self-serving accusations
. “I had other things on my mind once I saw you coming out of that saloon today.”

  He gave a long-suffering sigh. “I’ll go back and get the rig and pick up your things. After I see you to the hotel, that is.”

  “I can see myself to the hotel. Good grief, it’s right there!” She pointed, in case he was too stupid to notice that they were almost upon the place.

  “I’m going to make sure you get there,” Jeb informed her, “and see that you’re civil to Becky.”

  She swung her small handbag at his head, but he’d clearly had a lot of practice at dodging such attacks. In this case, it was a good thing, since she remembered only after the fact that there was a steel-handled derringer tucked away in the bottom, sure to split even his skull.

  A tall man, just about to mount a fine gelding in front of the Bloody Basin Saloon, left his horse and ambled toward them. Chloe took note of his broad shoulders and rugged features and wondered at the sense of familiarity he roused in her.

  He touched the brim of his hat and, out of the side of her eye, Chloe noted, with satisfaction, that Jeb was glaring holes through the man.

  That made her decide to be friendly.

  “Is my little brother giving you trouble, ma’am?” the stranger asked.

  Jeb took a step toward him, then stopped. “Stay out of this, Holt.”

  Holt? Jeb had told her, albeit briefly, about Rafe and Kade, but he’d never mentioned a third brother. Clearly, there was some bad blood here.

  Chloe dredged up her most fetching smile.

  Holt, raising an eyebrow at Jeb’s words, turned all his attention on her, and in that instant his resemblance to Angus McKettrick registered. Jeb’s father must have looked almost exactly like this when he was young; no wonder he’d produced four handsome, strapping sons.

  “Is everything all right, ma’am?” Holt asked, rephrasing his original question and patently ignoring Jeb, who was seething by then, fit to shoot flames from his nostrils.

  “Your brother has been bothering me, sir,” Chloe said, with a toss of her head. She felt waves of angry heat coming off Jeb, and she was wickedly pleased. “I would appreciate it if you would give him a thorough trouncing.”

  The corner of Holt’s mouth twitched, and his gaze swung to Jeb’s face, then back to Chloe’s. “Is that so?” he asked genially. Then he heaved a great, regretful sigh, turning his hat in his hands. “Well, ma’am, as much as I’d enjoy accommodating you, I can’t, in good conscience, humiliate my own flesh and blood that way.”

  “Why, you—” Jeb erupted, lunging at Holt.

  Chloe stepped between them, though she couldn’t have explained her action, given that she’d been sincere in her previous request. Maybe she’d understand it later, after a cup of tea and some quiet reflection.

  She laid her hand on Holt’s strong forearm. “If you wouldn’t mind escorting me into the Arizona Hotel,” she said formally, “I should be very grateful for the company. It would seem that there are unsavory elements on the streets of Indian Rock tonight.”

  Holt cut another glance in Jeb’s direction, as wry as the one before. “Yes,” he agreed, expansively. “I’ve noticed at least one hothead.”

  Even though Jeb wasn’t actually touching Chloe, she felt him stiffen just the same. “Go ahead, take her,” he snapped. “And God help you.” With that, he stepped off the sidewalk and stalked back toward the cemetery, probably intending to collect the abandoned horse and buggy and return to the ranch.

  “Surly little bugger,” Holt observed, watching Jeb’s departure.

  “I wouldn’t call him little,” Chloe reflected.

  “I don’t imagine you would,” was Holt’s reply. Clearly a gentleman, he squired her to the threshold of the Arizona Hotel and opened one of the double doors for her.

  “Jeb never mentioned you,” Chloe said, stepping through.

  “He wouldn’t,” Holt answered dryly.

  Chloe’s interest was piqued, but she was, after all, grieving over her uncle and fresh from yet another round with Mr. McKettrick, and she decided to conserve her energy in case there were more battles ahead. She wasn’t naive enough to think she’d gotten rid of her husband so easily; he wouldn’t be happy until he’d put her on a stagecoach out of town.

  Inside the lobby of the hotel, Chloe’s attention was immediately drawn to the beautiful dark-haired woman standing behind the registration desk, and she looked up as Holt and Chloe entered. Her eyes widened, and it seemed to Chloe that her lips trembled, despite her quick smile.

  “Becky,” Holt said, still holding his hat in one hand, “I’ve brought you a customer. Unfortunately, I don’t know her name.”

  So this was John’s intended bride—the woman her uncle hadn’t troubled himself to mention. Chloe was oddly stricken, knowing he’d kept such a secret from her. Had he been ashamed, as she’d been ashamed of Jack Barrett?

  Becky moved gracefully, rounding one end of the waist-high desk and approaching. She seemed elegant and self-possessed, not the sort of woman a man would dally with. “You’re Chloe, aren’t you?” the vision asked, her voice slightly husky. A hint of tears shimmered in her eyes. “John’s girl.”

  “He was my uncle,” Chloe heard herself say.

  “Yes,” Becky said, with what sounded like resignation. She looked questioningly up at Holt. “You brought her here?” she asked, puzzled.

  He shook his head. “All I did was rescue her from the clutches of my youngest brother,” he said. “Unless I miss my guess, Jeb’ll be along soon. For the sake of the peace, I’d best get back to the Circle C before he gets here.”

  “Thank you for saving me,” Chloe said.

  Holt smiled at her earnest gratitude, more amused than cordial. “Any time,” he said, and left her in Becky’s charge.

  “Don’t you have any baggage?” Becky asked, after staring at her for a long time. She was still holding Chloe’s hands in a too-tight grip.

  As if in answer to her question, the first of Chloe’s valises crashed through the doorway leading in from the street, soon followed by a small trunk.

  Chloe felt her cheeks heat up. “It’s just arrived,” she said.

  Frowning, Becky let go of Chloe’s hands and swept grandly over to the door, nearly getting herself bowled over by a large hatbox bound tightly with grocer’s string.

  Chloe closed her eyes for a moment, bracing herself, but Jeb did not come inside. Becky asked him what he thought he was doing, and his answer was indecipherable. He hurled the rest of Chloe’s belongings into the lobby, and that, apparently, was that.

  “Great Scot,” Becky said, closing the door after the last reticule. “I’ve never seen Jeb in such a state. He’s usually so easygoing. What on earth happened?”

  Chloe sighed. “It’s a very long story,” she replied, “and, frankly, I haven’t the stamina to recount it just now. I’m perishing for a room, a cup of tea, and a hot bath.”

  Becky smiled, and this time there was nothing shaky about the effort, though her eyes betrayed a variety of misgivings. “You’ve come to the right place, then,” she said. “We have a great deal to talk about, Chloe, but it can certainly wait until morning.”

  Chloe was full of questions, but, thanks to the most recent round with Jeb McKettrick, she was almost totally spent. She simply nodded.

  Becky showed her to a small but pretty room at the top of the stairs, and presently a Chinese man brought her bags up, one by one. While Chloe was unpacking, Becky appeared with a tea tray, set it on the small table under the window, and studied her newest guest with thoughtful eyes.

  “We’ve been renovating the hotel,” she said, at last. “There’s a bathtub, with hot and cold running water, just down the hall.”

  Not since she’d sneaked out of Sacramento had Chloe availed herself of such a luxury. Before her ignoble dismissal from her teaching position in Tombstone, courtesy of Jeb, she’d lived in a cheap rooming house, where she’d employed a sponge and basin for purposes of personal hygiene,
after carrying and heating her own water.

  “That sounds lovely,” she said.

  Becky was still watching her intently, and a frown had formed between her perfect eyebrows. “Chloe—”

  “Yes?” Chloe prompted, suppressing a sigh.

  “You know that John passed away a few months ago, don’t you?” The question was gently put and held a degree of dread.

  Chloe’s throat seemed to swell shut. She blinked back tears and nodded. “Jeb told me,” she managed.

  “You didn’t get the telegram Kade sent?”

  Chloe stopped, with a nightgown in her hands, and faced Becky directly. “It was delayed,” she said. “Someone at the telegraph office found it and brought it to me, just yesterday. I came immediately.”

  “That explains it, then,” Becky said softly, and her eyes glistened again. Then, seemingly by force of will, she rallied. “Sit down and have your tea, dear. I’ll go and see that the bathroom is ready.” She crossed to the door, put one hand on the knob.

  “Becky?” Chloe ventured.

  Becky stopped, without turning around.

  “I’d give anything to have been here to say goodbye.”

  “I know,” Becky said, and went out, closing the door behind her.

  4

  When Chloe made her way downstairs the next morning, rested and ravenous, and thus in search of breakfast, she was disconcerted to find Jeb dozing on one of the leather-covered settees in the lobby. His hat rested over his eyes, cowboy-style, and he was fully dressed. He hadn’t even bothered to remove his boots, which extended some distance beyond the arm of the sofa.

  Chloe resisted an unseemly but compelling urge to bat both his feet to the floor, but she was half-afraid he’d think he was being set upon by brigands and come up shooting. She’d seen, in Tombstone, how fast that .45 of his could spring into his hand, and the memory gave her chills. She doubted it had ever occurred to him that, fast as he was, there surely must be someone out there who was faster.