A Husband Returned: Men of Wicked Sorrow, Book One

by Wynne Roman

  A part of him was glad for the interval required to care for the gelding. He needed that much time to uncinch, unbridle, and unsaddle the horse. He reached for a towel to wipe Clancy down, and then turned an expert hand to wielding a curry comb. Through every moment of it, his mind raced.

  Nathan had been mounted, ready to leave the Sangre Real, and should never have stopped when Gabriel shouted. Instinct had him responding when the Segundo had strode up and called, “Hold up.”

  He’d done so, thinking Tristan may have forgotten to tell him something. Instead, the other man had stopped next to Clancy and pierced Nathan with that sharp gaze from that one blue eye. Even standing flat-footed and staring upward, Gabriel had been an intimidating presence.

  “Are you sure you can keep Mariah safe?”

  Nathan noticed that Gabriel had again reverted to using his wife’s Christian name, but he’d let it go this time. Instinct had warned him that this was a moment in which he’d want to pick his battles.

  “Why are you so concerned about my wife, Segundo?”

  That forceful look in Gabriel’s eye had never wavered. “Because she’s kind. Loving. And beautiful. Leaving her alone,” he’d blinked once, “isn’t a good idea.”

  Did the other man mean today? Or something more? “And I’ve already done that?” Nathan pushed.

  “You served. We all served.” The man’s shoulder had lifted negligently. “No choice. But now you’re back, and you shouldn’t leave your wi —” He’d cut himself off mid-sentence. “Mariah untended.”

  “What are you trying to tell me, Bonham?” Nathan had done nothing to control the hard edge to his voice.

  “If you can’t keep her safe at the Double C, send her back here. I—we’ll care for her until this rustling threat is managed.”

  “You think I’d trust my wife’s safety to any man other than myself?” Incredulous rage had begun to build deep inside him.

  “Wouldn’t you do what’s best for her?”

  “And you think what’s best for her is to stay here, at the Sangre Real?”

  “Yes.”

  “And why is that?”

  Gabriel’s stare had hardened. “More men. It’s more secure.”

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? If I turned the care of my wife over to you?”

  “Yes.” Just that one word again.

  “And why in Satan’s hell would you think I’d do that?”

  The other man hadn’t answered, so Nathan had waited. He’d stifled his impatience until it had finally burst free. “What is it? What is it that you want to say?”

  “I . . .” The word had died almost before it began, and Gabriel had shaken his head. “Nothing.”

  “You have feelings for her, don’t you?” Nathan had pressed. “You think I didn’t see you touch her at the cemetery that first day?”

  “We’re friends.” Had the explanation come too fast?

  “That’s what she said,” Nathan had mused. “But you want more, don’t you?”

  Gabriel hadn’t answered, and Nathan had pushed. “Don’t you, Bonham?”

  The other man still hadn’t answered, but something in his bearing had changed. That hadn’t been all. The look in his eye had said everything.

  “Yes.”

  There had been more. The Segundo hadn’t even tried to hide it. No, Nathan had read it all in the fierce, smoky look that had darkened everything about Gabriel’s appearance.

  He hadn’t just wanted more of Mariah. He’d had more of her.

  The men had exchanged a heated look, each of them aware of the other’s thoughts. Nathan had understood that as clearly as he’d known his own name. Split-second battle decisions had taught him to size up a man or a situation in an instant; he hadn’t doubted that Gabriel Bonham had learned those same lessons.

  He hadn’t needed to stare at the other man for even a second longer. He’d known enough of the truth to reach the undeniable conclusion.

  Mariah had been unfaithful.

  “If you want to live,” he’d said in a tone so deathly cold, icicles should have formed around his mouth, “you’ll stay away from my wife.”

  Nathan was in the barn. Mariah had heard him ride in, and she knew he was busy caring for Clancy. She smiled to herself softly. That gave her time to put dinner on the table.

  She’d fried a chicken, one of Nathan’s favorites, and had completed the meal with mashed potatoes, chicken gravy, greens, and cornbread. She’d baked a warm, fresh spice cake for dessert, a brand-new recipe she’d been anxious to try.

  With the table set and the cake warming on the stove, Mariah untied her apron and hung it on a peg near the back door. Seconds later, Nathan stalked into the kitchen.

  “Supper is ready,” she said with a welcoming smile. “It’s already on the table.”

  He nodded and went straight to the dry sink, where she had a pitcher of warm water waiting. He washed his hands, swiped them over his face, dried them on the flour sack towel that lay on the counter. He didn’t say a word.

  Mariah held her sigh. Things must not have gone that well with Tristan. The brothers hadn’t spoken often since Nathan had returned, but their meetings rarely achieved positive results. At least not for her husband.

  She followed as he strode into the dining room. “I made your favorite. Fried chicken.” She pointed to the serving plate that was heaped with battered, golden drumsticks, breasts, and thighs. Maybe that would cheer him up.

  He nodded and sat, for once not pulling out her chair to seat her. Mariah swallowed another sigh. Things must have gone even worse than she guessed.

  Each filled their plates, but nerves toyed with Mariah’s appetite. She and Nathan had been learning to establish a new relationship. A better relationship than they’d ever had, she reminded herself with encouragement. Could one meeting with Tristan destroy all their hard work?

  She had to know.

  “Did things go badly with Tristan?” she asked carefully.

  Nathan chewed for a moment before he shot her a glare she couldn’t quite decipher. “They didn’t go well.”

  “What happened?”

  “Not enough information or results.”

  She blinked. “What does that mean?”

  Nathan placed his piece of chicken on his plate and rested his forearms on the table. “Another fifteen head missing. We can’t keep waiting and watching. Half the herd will be on its way to Mexico before Tristan decides to act.”

  Mariah nodded carefully, understanding Nathan’s frustration. Tristan had always been the more cautious of the two, but surely he couldn’t be contented with the way things were. Could he?

  “Does he have enough men to catch these rustlers?”

  Nathan angled his head. “He hired two more vaqueros, plus he got himself a cook. A one-armed man named West Montgomery.”

  “What?”

  She straightened, the idea that Tristan had hired a man with only one arm coming somehow unexpected. Although, she couldn’t say quite why it came as a surprise. She’d heard and read so many stories of men who had been maimed and wounded in the battles. They had to go on and do something with their lives now that the war was over. Was working on a cattle ranch one of those things that would suit?

  “Well, he’s got both arms,” Nathan corrected shortly. “Missing his left hand.”

  “I see.” She blinked, still wondering how a man like West Montgomery managed. She wanted to meet him, help him if she could. “I hope he’s up to dealing with Carolyn.”

  Nathan snorted a short, harsh laugh. “Never thought of that. It’s probably better Tristan hired him. She won’t try to turn him into her own personal lady’s maid.”

  Heat flushed Mariah’s cheeks. She’d known that Nathan hated the way she’d allowed his mother to conscript her, but she’d felt like she had no other choice at the time. Things were different now, and she thanked God every day.

  “We’re going to start spending nights with the herd or at the line shacks. Rota
ting in and out.”

  Something in Nathan’s voice caught her attention. He sounded too flat. He didn’t like the idea. But why?

  “Will you have to go, too?” she asked curiously.

  “Why?”

  “Why?” She stared at him, wide eyed. “It could be dangerous!”

  “And that bothers you?”

  Mariah swallowed and looked seriously at her husband. Not in the meek, conciliatory way she’d been since he’d stormed in so clearly out of sorts, but she allowed her gaze to probe deeper. As a normal wife in a normal marriage who was concerned for her very normal husband.

  He looked . . . wrong. Terribly, unfathomably, and undoubtedly on the edge of unbridled mayhem. He sat there, rage vibrating just below the surface of his civilized veneer. How had she missed it before? Was it because she’d kept herself from looking closely enough, or had he simply hidden it until now?

  She couldn’t move suddenly. She couldn’t think or hear, either. Not over the warnings that shrieked in her head. But what was she being cautioned away from? And why? Whatever had happened today, it had been between Nathan and Tristan.

  “Of course it bothers me. I worry about your safety. The last thing I want is—”

  “Your husband returned?”

  “What?” It was only a whisper, but it was all she could manage around the rapid pounding of her heart.

  “You bedded him.”

  “What?” she said again, because no other words came to her.

  “Your lover is worried about you.”

  “What?” she said a third time, her mind well and truly closed down.

  “You screwed him, and now your lover is worried about you.”

  He said it in such a conversational tone, as though not one word he spoke meant anything to him. As though she shouldn’t be surprised by any of it.

  “Nathan . . .”

  “Do you deny it?”

  Her hands had begun to tremble—when had that happened?—and she couldn’t seem to find any breath in her lungs. She fought for it, knowing she had to say something.

  “Deny what?” she said softly, trying to grasp a moment, two. Just enough time to allow her thoughts to coalesce into some kind of order. “Please tell me what, exactly, I’m being accused of.”

  “Are you saying you didn’t sleep with Gabriel Bonham?”

  And there it was. Her hideous, soul-destroying sin, presented in all its ugliness. A transgression from which she could never recover. The wickedness that would finally destroy her.

  She should have known he would find out, and that when he did, he would reduce it to its most base terms. Just as he had punished her for being his wife instead of Susannah.

  Mariah swallowed and dropped her gaze to her virtually untouched plate. “I was . . . intimate with him, yes.”

  “How often?” He snapped the question.

  God, she didn’t want to say these things.

  “How often?”

  “It was four times.”

  Four times over the course of six weeks or so. Not so much, and yet far too often for her to claim that she hadn’t known what she was doing. She had, and though she’d struggled with uncertainty and guilt, she’d gone back more than once.

  “Four times total?”

  “Yes.”

  “When was the last one?”

  She closed her eyes. She couldn’t look at anyone or anything and answer these awful questions. “It was about a week before you returned. But, Nathan!”

  He didn’t say anything after she cried out his name, and the seconds that followed dragged out to anxious moments that she didn’t think she could survive. Her skin felt raw and heated, like she was being skinned alive, and a sharp pain settled itself in the middle of her back.

  Forcing her gaze up to his face, she looked at him and saw—nothing. Nathan’s expression was cold, distant, and otherwise completely blank. As though his body remained tethered to the earth, but his soul had dived straight into the bowels of hell. She felt as empty as he looked.

  “Nathan,” she tried again. “Please! You were dead! I thought you had died! If I’d known, even guessed, that there was a chance you could ever come back to me, I would never—”

  “Were there others?”

  “What?” There was that word again, but this time it carried a dagger with it, aimed straight for her heart. “What did you say?”

  “Others, Mariah. Did you take other men to your bed?”

  “No!” she gasped. Pain radiated through her as though the knife had been pointed so sharply, it had found its mark with unerring accuracy. She swallowed and forced the words out. “No. There was no one else.”

  “Only Bonham.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why him?”

  She opened her mouth, searching for—well, she didn’t know what answer she could possibly give. Nathan demanded answers that would soothe his injured pride, and she had none. How could she, when he had had no other feelings for her that could make him understand. If he had, wouldn’t he have been able to accept the words she’d said with such heavy regret in her heart?

  You were dead! I thought you had died! If I’d known, even guessed, that there was a chance you could ever come back to me, I would never . . .

  He hadn’t let her finish, but her explanation had said enough. She could only pray that it was so.

  “Never mind.” He pushed to his feet suddenly, and the chair clattered back behind him. “I don’t give a good goddamn why. I’m heading out in the morning with the others. We’ll be gone a few days.”

  Out. On the range with the herd. Fear snaked up her spine, an understandable response after everything that had happened over the last few years. She knew it, accepted it, and even tried to reason that it might be for the best. If Nathan had a little time to himself, maybe he could find a way to—

  What? demanded an unforgiving voice from deep inside of her. Forget about what you did? Forgive you?

  Mariah swallowed and asked the only thing she could. “Will you be back?”

  He lay a heavy, accusing glare on her. “Where else do I have to go?”

  20

  Nathan had been gone for three days, and Mariah hadn’t slept more than two or three hours at a time. The clock in the parlor said it was now after three in the morning, and she sat alone in the kitchen. She clutched a cup of chamomile tea, hoping it would make her sleepy. It hadn’t worked the previous two nights, but Mariah prided herself on being a woman who refused to give up easily.

  Hadn’t she proven so in those early months of her marriage? Or in the years she’d cared for Carolyn? Never once had she shied away from her obligations.

  Is that what my suddenly renewed marriage has become? An obligation?

  Mariah sipped her tea, glad she had sweetened it with a bit of honey. The flavor teased her tongue, and though she probably didn’t deserve it, she liked the treat. She could think of little else that pleased her these days.

  She shook her head. No, she felt nothing beyond a low, subtle fear that warned her of just how far away she was from real happiness. It had pursued her for days now, hovering in the background and remaining just out of reach. Her only solution had been to sit in the dim lamplight, pretend to drink her tea, and wait.

  She’d hoped that Nathan and the men—or at least her husband—would have returned by now. They hadn’t. She’d had no word at all, and Nathan had left her with no indication of when she might expect to see any of them again. Neither had Tristan sent anyone from the Sangre Real to check on her, and she was glad of it.

  Especially because that meant Gabriel had also kept his distance. Had he come meddling again, she would have locked her door and refused to speak to him.

  Whatever had he said to Nathan? The longer she sat alone in this too-quiet house, the worse the possibilities had become. Admittedly, there was a chance that her imagination had been making things seem worse than they actually were, but it appeared unlikely.

  Nathan had made his fe
elings clear. The fact that Gabriel had said anything at all had proved to be more than enough to destroy the fledgling peace they had been building.

  Gabriel clearly hadn’t cared about her or her feelings. He had exposed the time they’d spent together, betrayed what she had once considered a lovely if very private interlude. He had taken her memories and ruined them, and her. Completely.

  She had made mistakes; she would never claim otherwise. After all, how could she defend becoming intimate with a man who wasn’t her husband? It had been an immoral, illicit, shameful, and offensive thing to do. She knew it now, just as she had known it when she’d lain with Gabriel. Her pride would have liked to pretend that she hadn’t behaved as disgracefully as she had, but she couldn’t.

  Nathan deserved to be angry, and it was her place to accept whatever that meant.

  Mariah sighed heavily and leaned back in her chair, relaxing enough to close her eyes. Whether or not she deserved them, his cruel and unfeeling words had hurt. He had denied her any chance to explain, and yet, could she really blame him for that?

  No self-respecting man would allow his wife to justify her unfaithfulness to her marriage vows.

  That she had believed him dead didn’t seem important anymore. It had only made her vulnerable to a man like Gabriel. With a small bit of attention and kindness, he had broken through the isolation of the long, lonely years she’d spent without Nathan. She had been sadly weak, and she would pay the price for her failings for the rest of her life.

  Adulterer. Slut. Whore.

  That must be what Nathan thought of her, and why wouldn’t he? Certainly, she couldn’t deny any of it. She had behaved like a wanton woman who had lost control of her carnal desires. If her transgressions were ever revealed, she would be branded a harlot, and deservedly so.

  Nathan’s cruel words reminded her of it over and over.

  You bedded him.

  Did you take other men to your bed?

  The words had broken her heart, and yet she couldn’t deny Nathan’s right to say them. She could only swallow back her tears and wonder how she’d let everything fall apart so badly.

  You should have told him the truth!