The Cowboy's Stolen Bride (Historical Western Romance)

by Cassidy Hanton

  Her heart fluttering and stomach churning, Adeline’s throat was dry as Thunder closed the distance.

  What am I doing? Am I being too forward? Am I truly this wicked?

  Ernest looked up as she neared and drove the head of his shovel into the dirt, leaning against it. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his brow before replacing his hat atop his head.

  “Mornin’” he greeted her.

  Adeline smiled. “Good morning.”

  She climbed down off Thunder’s back and stepped closer to him. Ernest was drinking deeply from his canteen then offered it to her. With a shy smile, she accepted the canteen and took a small sip, the cool water quenching her suddenly parched throat. She handed it back to him with a word of thanks.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Stiff. A little sore,” he replied. “Gonna be that way for a while, I expect.”

  “You were fortunate.”

  He nods. “Yeah, I s’pose so.”

  Adeline looked down at the hole he was filling in – the hole that had ultimately claimed the life of his horse. It had broken Adeline’s heart when she’d seen that even though he’d been in excruciating physical pain, he had the presence of mind to take care of his horse.

  “I’m sorry about your horse,” Adeline offered. “I know what she meant to you.”

  Adeline saw that Ernest was struggling to maintain his composure. He was fighting to remain stoic. But she could see the shimmer of tears welling in his eyes and knew just how much his horse meant to him – and how painful putting that horse down was and her heart went out to him.

  “Thank you,” he said, his voice as thick with emotion as his gaze. “She was a good mount. Loyal.”

  “What did you do with her?”

  “I took her out to the south fields,” he said. “Left her remains for nature.”

  Adeline nodded. She’d heard of many people doing that, believing that returning an animal’s remains back to nature completed their cycle of life.

  It is a sweet gesture. A bit sentimental. That’s not something I expected from him.

  “Sheriff Stephens mentioned the possibility of somebody who broke out of prison being in the area,” Adeline said. “Do you think this man had anything to do with this?”

  He shrugged. “No idea. I don’t see how though. It’s not like I know this man.”

  “Who is he?”

  “His name’s Horace Ford – but they call him Shotgun.”

  “Why do they call him Shotgun?”

  A grimace crossed Ernest’s features. “That’s how he murders people,” he replied honestly. “With a shotgun.”

  A chill swept through Adeline and she giggled nervously. “I’m sorry I asked,” she said. “But what does he have to do with you?”

  “Nothing that I can think of,” Ernest said. “I was part of the posse that brought him in, but it’s not like I know the man. We never spoke a word to each other. So I don’t know why he’d set a trap out here for me.”

  “I don’t know why anybody would lay a trap for you,” she said. “Which makes the fact that this man is in the area and you get caught in a trap very troubling. It seems like quite a coincidence.”

  He nodded. “I’m not sure either, to be honest. I haven’t had a tussle with anybody lately,” he said. “And sometimes, things really are just a coincidence.”

  Ernest finished filling in the hole and attached the shovel to his saddle then turned to Adeline with a smile on his face.

  “Richard out of town?” he asked.

  Adeline nodded, a shy smile on her face. “Am I that transparent?”

  He shrugged. “I understand the need for discretion,” he replied. “I’m not faulting you for being cautious.”

  Adeline looked into Ernest’s eyes, feeling her heart turning somersaults in her chest as heat flared in her cheeks. She looked away quickly as her stomach churned nervously.

  How can this man have this kind of impact on me? And how can I keep encouraging this when I do not see a happy ending at the end of this fairy tale?

  “Shall we ride?” Adeline asked, shutting out that little voice in her head.

  “Absolutely.”

  They both mounted up and as if by some unspoken agreement, they turned their horses and headed for the stream – what Adeline had come to think of as their spot.

  They rode in a companionable silence. Unlike when she was riding with Richard, she was comfortable riding alongside Ernest. With him, there weren’t any awkward silences or the need to fill those silences with mindless or idle chatter.

  They led their horses down the now familiar trail through the copse of trees down to the small clearing beside the stream. Climbing down off their horses, Adeline and Ernest set their horses to graze and water themselves.

  As Ernest spread a blanket out for them and Adeline retrieved some things she’d stored in her saddle bags. Ernest watched her with an amused smile as she laid out a mid-day meal for them.

  “Do you always go out riding with a full meal for two?” Ernest grinned at her.

  She looked at him, a coy smile on her face. “Sometimes.”

  “Well, I’m grateful,” he replied. “I skipped breakfast this morning so I’m pretty hungry.”

  “Well then, let’s enjoy a meal together.”

  “I’d be happy to.”

  Adeline gave him a smile and finished laying out their meal.

  Chapter Twenty

  “That was a mighty fine meal, Adeline,” he said contentedly.

  “I’m afraid it was Tillie who did the hard work,” she replied. “She put the basket together for me.”

  “Well, that don’t change the fact it was a mighty fine meal,” he said. “Excuse me for a moment.”

  She smiled and flushed as though the words really were a compliment for her. Just being in his presence made her feel nearly giddy. Adeline watched Ernest get to his feet and walk down to the stream. He took his shirt off and hung it on a nearby branch and Adeline nearly gasped out loud.

  His skin was tawny, his body taut and chiseled from his labors on his land. She took in his hard, corded muscles, and the angular planes of his torso. Adeline’s stomach churned as her heart hammered wildly inside of her chest as she gazed upon him, sending powerful sensations coursing through her body. Adeline had never seen such a strong, beautiful man before in all her life.

  He looks as if he’s been carved from granite by the gods themselves. Michaelangelo could not have fared better in creating Ernest.

  She watched in a rapt silence as Ernest knelt down beside the swift flowing water and took his handkerchief out of his pocket. Holding the square of fabric below the surface, he then brought it up and began to wash his body. Rivulets of the stream’s cool waters ran down his torso and glistened off his skin enticingly.

  Ernest dipped the handkerchief into the water again and again, washing away his day’s labors. Finally, he cupped the water in his hands and scrubbed at his face and hair. Adeline watched it all as powerful waves of feeling she’d never known before coursed through her, filling her with a warmth that consumed parts of her body she was not accustomed to feeling any particular sensation in. It was a strange and yet pleasurable sensation.

  Not only can this man make my heart beat like it wants to burst straight out of my chest, he fills my head with thoughts I’m sure would make Father Flannigan back home blush.

  “You okay?”

  Ernest’s voice cut through her thoughts and snapped her back to the present. She looked at him, positive that he had intuited her every immoral and impure thought, and felt the heat spreading to her cheeks.

  “F – fine,” she stammered. “I am fine, thank you. Must be the heat of the afternoon.”

  A knowing grin touched Ernest’s face as he crossed to his horse and pulled a fresh shirt out of his saddlebag, quickly putting it on and covering the nakedness that had made Adeline feel so many things.

  Thank God for that.<
br />
  “Apologies. I’m kinda used to just doing things my own way out here and don’t stop to think about whether it’s proper or not,” he said. “I realize I shoulda cleaned myself up before eating. The last thing I want is to offend your senses with the odor of my labors this mornin’.”

  “Oh that was – thoughtful,” she said, feeling like a giggling schoolgirl. “But you weren’t offending me at all.”

  He shrugged. “Well either way, at least I’ll be a bit fresher now.”

  Ernest took his place on the blanket beside her and leaned back, bracing himself on his arms. Adeline busied herself with cleaning up the remnants of their meal and was very pointedly trying to avoid looking at him since that only invited the memory of the way his muscles rippled beneath the skin of that sunkissed torso.

  When she was done, she stretched her legs out in front of her and leaned back on her arms, mirroring Ernest’s pose. Together, they sat in silence for a few moments with nothing but the sound of the soft murmur of the stream filling the air.

  “Are you afraid?” she finally asked.

  “Afraid of what?”

  “Of this Horace Ford coming for you?”

  Ernest shook his head. “Not really,” he said. “He and I have no business together. Like I said, I was only part of the posse. Just a face in the crowd.”

  “That’s enough for some men,” she said.

  He shrugged. “I’m not going to live my life jumping at shadows or being afraid of the bad men in this world,” he grinned. “If I gave into that kind of fear, I’d never leave my house.”

  “But if he is out there?” she pressed. “What will you do if he comes for you?”

  “If he comes for me, he comes for me,” Ernest said. “I’ll handle my business.”

  “But if he –”

  Ernest turned and took her hand in his, giving it a gentle squeeze. There was a warmth in his eyes that made her heart stutter. Ernest raised his hand and cupped her chin, massaging her cheek with his thumb.

  His simple touch sent white hot bolts of lightning crackling across her skin and filled Adeline with emotions that made her very soul ache as it was set ablaze. She had never felt so connected to somebody before in all her life. And that both exhilarated and terrified her all at the same time.

  This man holds my heart in his hands and I don’t think he even realizes it. He could destroy me with a simple word.

  “Why are you so worked up about this?” he asked gently. “The chances of ol’ Horace showing up here to exact some sort of revenge are about as slim as us getting’ struck by lightnin’ right now.”

  Because if anything happened to you, it would shatter me into a million pieces.

  “I – I just have no wish to see anything bad happen to you, Ernest,” she said honestly. “I could not bear it.”

  His smile was gentle. Honest. And he looked at her with the sort of emotion in his face Adeline was sure was reflected in her own.

  “Nothing’s gonna happen to me,” he said softly. “Even if Horace is around – which I strongly doubt – I’m not afraid of him.”

  Adeline’s vision blurred with the tears welling in her eyes and she shook her head, trying to dispel the images of Ernest’s broken body lying in a pool of blood, shotgun blasts to the chest, that suddenly crowded her mind.

  This man is so beautiful and so pure, it would be devastating to see that light inside of him extinguished.

  “How can you be so unafraid?” she asked.

  “Because he’s just a man,” Ernest told her. “He sounds a lot scarier than he actually is. And without that shotgun of his, he’s even less scary than that.”

  Adeline stridently wished she had a fraction of his strength. A fraction of his courage. She thought if she had that, it would make dealing with the men in her life a lot easier.

  “You have nothing to worry about, Adeline,” he said. “I know how to take care of myself.”

  “I believe you.”

  Adeline looked over at him, wrapped in a bubble of warmth and emotion. On the one hand, she was terrified for him. On the other hand, she couldn’t deny the genuine swell of emotion within her whenever she merely thought of his name or pictured his face.

  Oh my God – I think I love this man. I mean, it is not like I have any experience with romance or know what it feels like to be in love but what I feel for Ernest cannot be anything else. It is just too pure and too powerful to be anything but love.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” Ernest asked.

  “Other than a shotgun wielding maniac coming for you?”

  Ernest chuckled. “Yeah, other than that.”

  Adeline’s stomach clenched and her heart swelled. She wanted to open her mouth and tell him how she felt. She wanted to tell Ernest that she loved him and then fall into his arms and feel him holding her. She wanted to spend the rest of the day in his arms, wrapped in that bubble of love she felt and shut the entire rest of the world out.

  “I was just thinking about how much I enjoy being here with you,” Adeline said. “About how much I enjoy spending time with you.”

  “And I enjoy spending time with you, Adeline.”

  Her smile was wide and her stomach flipped wildly. Knowing that Ernest enjoyed her company as much as she enjoyed his made her heart swell with emotion. The power of what she felt for him left her trembling. But in a good way.

  But she also knew that enjoying her company wasn’t the same as feeling something for her. Before she let herself be carried away by her emotions and put herself out there, Adeline wanted – no, needed – to know that Ernest felt the same for her.

  Telling him how I feel would not be proper. It wouldn’t be ladylike. But more than anything, it would be a risk.

  Adeline let out a soft breath as a flutter rippled through her heart. She knew how she felt about Ernest but also knew if he did not feel the same, her heart would shatter. She knew it would unleash a torrent of pain unlike anything she had ever felt. She was as certain of that as she was of her own name.

  “What is it, Adeline?”

  She ran a hand through her hair and cleared her throat. “It’s nothing.”

  A small grin touched his lips. “I think we both know that’s not true,” he said, his voice deep and rich. “I can see something going on in that pretty little head of yours.”

  Adeline smiled as a rush of adrenaline surged through her body. She trembled and felt her heart fluttering. But underneath it all, she felt a sense of strength she’d never known before. Adeline felt a certain boldness steal over her that was new – and empowering.

  With a smile on her lips, she leaned forward and pressed her mouth to his. Adeline’s lips parted and she felt a flash of lightning tear through her body when the tip of his tongue met hers. Ernest pulled her closer as their kiss deepened, making Adeline’s head spin and giving her a sense of weightlessness.

  Ernest pressed her down onto her back and Adeline let herself be cushioned by the blanket and the soft grass beneath it. Their kiss grew more intense and the sensations coursing through her became even more vibrant. Adeline relished the feeling of his hands in her hair and his mouth on hers.

  They lay together, staring into one another’s eyes and Adeline savored every second of it. She didn’t want the moment to end. She wanted it to go on and on forever. There was no other place she wanted to be – and nobody else she wanted to be with.

  Eventually though, the spell had to be broken and they needed to return to reality. Ernest pulled back from her reluctantly, a gentle smile upon his lips. They stared into one another’s eyes for another long moment. And then the spell was broken.

  He sat up and took her hand, placing a soft kiss on the back of her knuckles.

  “I would love to continue –”

  “I know, it wouldn’t be proper,” Adeline said softly.

  Just one of these days, I would love to not worry about things like being proper or ladylike. One of these days, I would love to just be free to be who I a
m and indulge in what I want.

  “I should probably get back home anyway,” Adeline said. “Tillie will be worried I rode back to Frailburg.”

  Ernest laughed softly. “Yeah, I have a few more chores that need to get done before nightfall.”

  Adeline stood up and smoothed out her skirts and brushed the leaves and debris from them. She stole glances at him as she got herself sorted, savoring the sight of him. Adeline touched her fingertips to her lips, relishing the memory of his lips upon hers.