The Rustler's Bride

by Tatiana March

  He didn’t know. All he knew was that he had to hold her in his arms. He reached out and pulled her close to him. Strangely passive now, she made no effort to either resist his hold or deepen the embrace. She simply leaned into him and laid her head on his shoulder. He could feel the rigid tension in her body, and it told him she didn’t really know what she wanted, had not fully considered the consequences of her actions.

  “Victoria,” he said softly. “Why did you bring the shirt to me in the middle of the night?”

  She lifted her head from his shoulder. Something flickered in her eyes as she looked up at him, her face close to his—a flash of nerves, he guessed, and then her expression grew artificially bright as she covered up her uncertainty with silly feminine prattle.

  “Why, of course, because I wanted to give it to you as soon as I had finished it.” She looked around the room, pretending to be baffled. “Heavens. I had no idea how late it was. You must think I’m terribly disorganized. I do apologize.”

  “Victoria,” he said. “Shut up.”

  She tipped her head back. Heat entered her eyes. “Make me,” she said.

  And he did.

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  Chapter Five

  Declan intended it to be only a brief kiss. One more bittersweet taste of her before he laid down the rules and put this marriage back to what it needed to be—a formality, a means of keeping him walking the earth instead of being buried six feet deep in it.

  But his body refused to obey. Too stirred by her presence his bedroom, too stirred by the sight of her clad in nothing more than the thin nightgown and wrapper that revealed more than they kept hidden, he lost all restraint.

  His hands rose to cup her face, to hold her steady for the onslaught of his mouth. He slid his thumb across her chin, urging her lips to part. And when they did, he thrust his tongue inside. She gave a shocked little gasp, a sound of alarm that he muffled against his mouth. Even though their bodies were barely touching, he could feel her stiffen with alarm.

  His hands dropped down to her waist, to lock her in place, in case she tried to break free. Not yet, he prayed in his mind. Not yet. This madness had to end, but not yet. Never had he kissed a woman like this. Kisses that seemed to sear him, body and soul. All his life, his one single-minded goal had been to avenge the death of his parents, and nothing had been allowed to distract him from that aim. Women least of all.

  But now his blood pulsed like liquid fire in his veins. Declan closed his eyes, tried to resist the swell of need, but it was too strong. It swept him along, and he was as powerless against it as a piece of bark floating in a flash flood. His hands gained a mind of their own. They slid up from Victoria’s supple waist and came to rest at the sides of her breasts.

  He lifted his lips a fraction from hers while he waited for her to react—to resist, to protest—anything to stop him from going down the path that would only lead to unhappiness. He could hear her ragged breathing, could feel her chest rise and fall against him, but otherwise she remained still and silent in his arms. The fearful tension that had seized her a moment ago seemed to be easing.

  Slowly, he inched one hand behind her back, fingers spayed, and applied a steady pressure that urged her closer to him. His other hand crept along her chest to settle over a breast. Beneath his palm, he could feel the tightly pebbled crest of a nipple through the thin barrier of those barely-there garments.

  Now she would let out an indignant cry and order him to stop.

  Now she would block the path that led to unhappiness and disaster.

  But she did not.

  She made a tiny sound, half moan, half sigh, and arched her back, so that the full weight of her breast pressed into his palm. Her eyes fluttered shut. Her slender hands rose to clutch his shoulders. Clinging to him. Not pushing him away. Fierce masculine pride swelled inside Declan at the sign of her yielding. Tentatively, he brushed his thumb across the peaked nipple. She made that sound again. He could feel a tremor ripple down her entire length.

  “Victoria,” he said in a low murmur.

  “Hmm…?” It came on a dreamy sigh.

  He intended to tell her that she had to leave, but he couldn’t. Not yet. But soon. For her innocent submission had brought the sense of responsibility crashing back into his mind. He could not take what she was offering. Could not. Would not.

  “Do it again,” she told him.

  “This?” He brushed the pad of his thumb over her nipple, more firmly now.

  “Oh.” She gave a little sharp cry. Her head fell back. Her fingernails dug into his shoulders. Her lashes lifted. In the faint lamplight her eyes looked dark and mysterious, full of feminine allure. Her mouth was open in invitation, her lips red and moist.

  “One more time,” he said roughly. “One more kiss. Nothing more.”

  He lowered his head. There was nothing soft or gentle about his embrace now, only hunger and desperation and need. For one agonizing moment, he realized that he had to make a choice between cupping her breast and feeling every inch of her body against his. Instinct told him the latter, and he wrapped both arms around her and pulled her tight against him, fitting her soft curves against his hard contours.

  Only dimly was he aware that out in the midnight darkness beyond his window the storm had unleashed its full force. There was lighting now, eerie blue flashes that illuminated the small room for an instant, before abandoning it back to the faint glimmer of lamplight. Thunder came in sharp explosions, like the crack of a whip, followed by a low rumble that seemed to roll endlessly over the rain-soaked plateau.

  Time stopped.

  Declan could feel Victoria’s hands lift to twine around his neck. Her fingers tangled in his hair, sending prickles of need down his spine. Her body was warm and pliant against his, all the stiffness and hesitation gone, her lips eager and responsive beneath his.

  When Declan had had enough of her mouth, he scattered kisses on her face—the crest of a cheek, the slim arch of eyebrows, the expanse of a smooth forehead. He trailed his mouth down to the pale column of her throat. She smelled of lavender and sunlight. He let himself imagine that she was his by rights. That he could strip away her nightgown and wrapper, and lower her on the bed behind them, and have her wake up beside him in the morning to a world where nothing stood between them.

  In his arms, Victoria wriggled closer to him, fitting her body more snugly against his, and he groaned out loud—a harsh, desperate sound. The pleasure was almost too potent to bear. Then she started rocking her hips, and each tiny jolt against his erection sent a new spark of need ricocheting along his nerve endings.

  Declan knew he had to stop it. If he didn’t stop it now, he never would. He lifted his head. Or tried to, for Victoria’s hands were fisted in his hair. Dazed with passion, she was clinging to him with a fierce grip, and she possessed a greater strength than he’d imagined. He curled his hands around her upper arms and eased her back a step, with a silent curse at the tug in his scalp when she failed to release her hold on his hair.

  “Victoria…”

  She uncurled her fists, slid her hands down to his shoulders and buried her face in the crook of his neck. “Hmmm…” Her voice was breathless and languid. “I like it when you say my name.”

  With a supreme effort, Declan forced a brusque tone. It might sound like a rejection, but perhaps it needed to be one. He was too wrought up to think of some pretty—or even just rational—words to convince her that they had to stop.

  “You need to go,” he said curtly. “Now. I’m tired. I need to get some sleep before morning. And so do you.”

  Her eyes widened in hurt surprise. “I thought...I thought we would…”

  He hardened himself. It had to be done. “You thought wrong.”

  “Did I?” She made a sweeping gesture with one hand. It took in his body and hers, and the bed behind them, and that single gesture seemed to encompass everything they had shared in that shadowed room.

  His only response was a shru
g.

  “Did I?” she pressed, her voice rising.

  God save him from a stubborn woman. Declan rammed the heels of his palms against his eyes. It would be so easy. In the back of his mind, an ugly idea lurked. What better way to complete your revenge? Take everything. Not just his land, but the only family he has. Leave Andrew Sinclair with nothing. For surely, the ultimate blow for the proud rancher would be to see his daughter give her love to the man responsible for destroying him.

  “Ria, please.” Declan dropped his hands to his sides. He could see hurt flicker across her face, hurt and bewilderment, and a fleeting shadow of shame. “Go,” he told her. “Go before I do something we’ll both regret.”

  “I see.” Her voice was small and tight. “I misunderstood. My apologies.” Something flashed in her eyes, something Declan a moment later realized was the fury of a woman who thought herself scorned. For she dipped down, gracefully bending at the waist, and she plucked his fraying cotton shirt from the floor and said, “You won’t need this anymore. From now on you can wear the new one.”

  And she headed for the door he’d propped open with his boot.

  “Ria…,” he called after her, and then hesitated, doubting the wisdom of doing it. Perhaps he should abandon any effort to smooth things over. Maybe parting in anger was for the best, but he hated the thought of spoiling the memory of night. Anyway, he needed to call her back and remind her to take with her the lamp she’d carried in.

  She turned around. “It’s Miss Sinclair to the likes of you.”

  Declan pointed at the lamp. Despite everything, he couldn’t stop the grin that spread on his face. Oh, the sweet pleasure of having the last word. He waited until she was on her way out again.

  “Actually,” he drawled. “It’s Mrs. Beaulieu now.”

  For a moment, he thought Victoria was going to solve all his problems by hurling the lamp at him and burning them both to death. Then she gathered herself, gave a jerky nod and went off on her way. Declan stripped off the straightjacket of a shirt and went to bed. He tried to get to sleep. He started counting the lighting flashes. By the time the storm lost its vigor at dawn, he had counted one hundred and twenty-six flashes.

  ****

  Victoria’s eyes were gritty from lack of sleep. However, the hours spent tossing and turning had not been wasted. She had thought it through. Considered all angles. Rebalanced her ideas. Reviewed alternative strategies.

  And she concluded Declan was right.

  Of course he was right to toss her out.

  She had tried to make the marriage real, and yet she knew nothing about him. He was a criminal. An outlaw. A cattle rustler. Not even a bank robber, or a card sharp, but the lowest class of villain in the territory, apart from a horse thief.

  Just because he had once been kind to her, and just because her heart beat a little faster every time she caught a glimpse of him, she had convinced herself that he was a good man who had strayed on the wrong side of the law through no fault of his own.

  And yet she knew nothing about him. Nothing at all. Except that last night he had rejected her, thus protecting her from herself. An action which in itself proved that he possessed the sterling qualities she had credited him with in the five years she had spent dreaming about him.

  He was an honorable man. He had refused to betray her father’s trust, ruin her future, and drive a wedge between her and her father. She needed to revise her plan. Reverse the order of steps. Not bring about a fait accompli to ram the marriage down her father’s reluctant throat. The better approach was to win her father over first, and that required her to find out a bit more about Declan. Prove that he possessed all those sterling qualities she was convinced that he did.

  She bounced out of bed.

  First, she’d release him from the burden of having to wear that terrible shirt.

  She found Mrs. Flynn in the kitchen when she went to get a cup of coffee.

  “Might you have a spare shirt?” Victoria asked.

  Mrs. Flynn did repairs for the men in the evenings. Everyone pretended she did it out of the goodness of her heart, when in truth she accepted payment in form of jugs of whiskey and penny novelettes full of ghosts and clanking chains.

  Most men had little spare clothing, so when they tore something they wanted it repaired at once. Mrs. Flynn had developed an inventory system. A man handed in a torn garment and she exchanged it for a mended one. That allowed her to do the sewing at her leisure and have a mended item in readiness to replace the next casualty.

  “Might have one or two.” The housekeep slammed the meat cleaver down on a slab of mutton with a crunch of bone. She glanced up from her blood smeared hands. “What size?”

  “My husband’s size.”

  Another thud of the meat cleaver. “You’ve got yourself a good un’ there. Grandparents, on his mother’s side, came from County Kerry. Only a few miles from where my Seamus was born.”

  Victoria nearly spilled her coffee. “He told you?”

  “We had a wee talk one evening when I took him his dinner tray.”

  “Did he say anything else?”

  Mrs. Flynn tossed the bones into a big cast iron pot and started chopping the meat into even-sized chunks. “Can you put the stock on the stove?” she asked, with a jerk of her head toward the big enamel range.

  Victoria picked up the heavy pot, carried it to the stove and set it on top. She bent to open the hatch. Heat flared out. Dying embers glowed orange at the bottom. “Do you want me to add more wood?”

  “It can wait. Let it simmer.”

  “So…” Victoria drifted back to the scarred worktop in the middle of the kitchen and leaned one hip against the edge, picking a spot where blood and grizzle would be less likely to stain the new overalls she’d bought at the mercantile. The denim fabric Levi Strauss was using now was much more comfortable than her old canvas ones.

  The chopping knife flew up and down so fast Mrs. Flynn’s plump fingers were a blur. She finished the task and swept the meat into another pot. “I have a plaid shirt in his size. Blue, like his eyes. A patch on one elbow, and a bit of fraying around the collar. Has a good few washes left in it.”

  Victoria shoved her hands into her pockets. “Did he tell you anything else?”

  The housekeeper looked up, a subtle reproach in her fleeting glance. “I’m not sure I should be telling you things you ought to know already.” She gave a tiny shrug, as if to give herself permission, and then she went on, “His grandma on his mother’s side was from the Nordic countries. That’s where he gets his fair hair and blue eyes. His grandpa was Cajun. That’s where he got that fancy name. Beaulieu. He said it means a pretty place. His ma loved that name for what it meant.”

  “Cajun. Hmmm.” Victoria picked up her coffee cup and took a sip. French, exiled from Canada over a hundred years ago for refusing to swear an oath of allegiance to the British who’d conquered them. That might be where he got his arrogance.

  “Where are his parents now?”

  “Dead.” Mrs. Flynn clattered her pans. “That’s all he said when I asked. I’m thinking his heart is sore with it. His eyes went blank, like when a curtain comes down at the end of a play.” The housekeeper stole a quick look across the table. “If there ever was a man in need of a home and family, he’s one.”

  Victoria made no reply. Mrs. Flynn straightened and wiped her hands on a cloth she took from a hook at the end of the worktop. “I’ll get you that shirt. Can’t let a man be tortured all day with that yellow thing he was wearing this morning at breakfast.”

  ****

  Victoria waited till sunset. Every night, her father took a walk up to the small cemetery on the hillside just to the west of the house. That was the ideal place to start her diplomatic efforts.

  She located Declan in the forge, talking to the blacksmith, Abe Leatherhorn.

  “I refuse to believe that Hell is hot,” Victoria said as she stepped inside. She inhaled a deep breath of the air that smelled of coal smoke a
nd the peppermint candies Abe was addicted to. “It must be chill and damp.”

  Abe roared with good humor. “Miss Ria, what’s you want? You’se want something to be buttering me up.”

  Abe had grown up a slave. He had a mat of ebony curls streaked with gray, a bellowing laugh, and huge muscles that bulged beneath his gleaming skin. As always, he wore nothing but singed cotton pants, a tall leather apron, and expensive Montana boots. Every year, he hoarded his wages so he could order a new pair of handmade boots in the latest style, the way a woman might scrimp and save to buy a new gown. He said it was because the first half of his life he’d had no choice but to go barefoot.

  Victoria winked at Abe and jerked her head toward Declan. “You get off easy this time. He’s the one I want.” She turned to Declan, who was cranking the iron handle that stirred air onto the coals, making them burn hotter. “I need you to carry something heavy for me. Do you have a moment?”

  He straightened, hesitated an instant. “Sure,” he said in that lazy drawl men use when they are reluctant to agree but feel unable refuse.

  It did not escape Victoria’s notice that her husband had taken no steps to protect his new shirt against sparks. And, when he’d turned the handle over the coals, it seemed to her that another shoulder seam had just popped open. She had Mrs. Flynn’s shirt in the burlap back over her shoulder, but it could wait.

  Declan picked up the black revolver he’d been showing to Abe when she entered. Outlaw’s weapon. Not a nickel plated one that would gleam in the moonlight. He rammed the pistol to the gun belt that circled his lean hips. He had a pair of guns, outlaw style.

  He noticed her curious gaze. “The sheriff returned them to me. The deputy rode over to bring them. Not O’Malley,” he added when he saw her frown. “The older one. Sanderson.”

  She nodded but said nothing. In silence, Declan followed her around the corner to the back of the stables. She pointed at the shovel leaning against the wall, and the steel bucket next to it, and the heap of pungent earth beyond them.