by Kristin Holt
The boy did as instructed, and in two shakes Richard swung into the saddle. He reached to Lessie. “Give me your arm.”
“I am not getting on the same horse as you.”
“You are and you will. Give me your arm.”
The boy’s eyes widened and he skedaddled.
Lessie folded her arms, defiance sparking in her eyes, even without benefit of sunlight to reflect in their depths.
“Woman, you try my patience.”
“Give me one good reason I should get on a horse with you.”
He considered giving her the only reason that mattered— because as her husband, his word was law— but he figured that would make her madder than a wet hen.
“Look around you. Do you see another horse? They’re all working the mines, dragging rail cars along the tracks. I don’t fancy riding a mule and neither should you.”
“Oh.” She lost some of her defiance.
“Your arm?”
With obvious reluctance, she reached for him and he pulled her up to sit across his thighs.
She bit back a squeal of fright.
“You’ve never ridden before.”
“N-no. Can’t say I’ve had the pleasure.”
“We’re not going far.” He had a place in mind, just far enough from camp to assure them privacy enough to talk, with a wall of rock at their backs and enough clear area to ensure they could see anyone coming.
Some things couldn’t be said if they might be overheard.
“Turn to face forward,” he urged, grasping her hips and turning her himself. “No, don’t. Leave your knee right there.” He helped her hook her knee over the saddle horn, mimicking sidesaddle, except she sat squarely on him, not the saddle.
This could be an unbearable ride.
She clung to the saddle horn with both hands, her body stiff and unyielding. He grasped the reins in his right hand and looped his left arm about her middle.
With the barest of nudges, he directed the mare out of the barn and away from all the commotion.
He replayed the foreman’s conversation over and over to keep his ire up and forget his lovely bride sat on his lap. It was easier to manage frustration and anger and disappointment and betrayal than attraction.
After what felt like two or three hours, they’d finally traversed the two and a half miles as the crow flies and he lowered her to her feet. He swung down behind her and tossed the reins over a branch.
Her round, dark-brown eyes put him in mind of a doe. Soft, feminine, engaging.
He had to remember his anger.
“Woman,” he began, making no effort to hide his aggravation or his interest, “you’d better have a darn good reason for disobeying me.”
“Disobeying?” He thought he’d seen her angry, before, but obviously that had been nothing more than a warm-up. “You did not just make an issue out of the archaic, outdated, antiquated ‘obey’ clause in a marriage contract.”
“Yeah, I did.”
She folded her arms. All that did was accentuate her curves beneath the navy blue jacket he’d bought.
“Why don’t you start with explaining why you’re questioning everybody in camp when I specifically told you to lay low, keep any and all suspicions absolutely quiet.”
She paced back and forth, five long strides— at least long for her petite legs, legs whose shapeliness he couldn’t forget— one direction, a brisk about-face that flared the blue calico in an eye-catching swirl before repeating the whole process.
Middle of her fifth track, she halted and whirled on him. “You gave me a specific assignment, Richard. One task.”
“I did, indeed. Glad to see you recall that.”
She glared at him, evidently none too happy with him, either. Thank goodness they were out in the wild where they could have it out, ‘cause sometimes a man simply had to take his wife in hand and lay down the law.
“You’re my wife Lessie, and you’re going to do as you’re told. I told you to stay with the women.” He raked his fingers through his hair, leaving deep furrows that left his thick locks standing in awkward furrows. “Traipsing about a working mining camp is not safe.”
“No one tells me what to do, Richard Cannon. I’ve been on my own, responsible for my sister, for eleven long years. I’ve learned a thing or two during that time, and one of ‘em is I can’t trust anyone but myself to take that responsibility.”
Gah! He could have screamed obscenities, turned her over his knee and paddled her behind. He’d never manhandled a woman in his life, but if one female had the ability to goad him to stooping so low, it’d be his own wife.
“You have the shortest memory of anyone I’ve ever met.”
“I understand perfectly well what I’m doing.” She’d cooled down several degrees. “I’m doing my best to accomplish the one task you gave me. I’m finding out how the people view this, what they need, what’s wrong at the root.”
“You are not safe, Lessie Anne. And I can’t watch you every hour of every day while we’re here, understand that? I need you to stay with the women, where you’re at least protected by association. I can’t have you wandering all over camp, raising suspicions, turning heads, causing trouble.”
Fury— not at her, but at himself—seared through him, hotter than molten ore. She had to be the most aggravating woman on the whole planet. And he’d somehow shackled himself to her, the one woman who didn’t want his protection, who didn’t need a man at all, and blast it if he wasn’t more in love with her than he’d been before.
“Did I marry a suffragette?” He whirled on her, his chest rising and falling with every labored breath. “Is that what this is? You want control over your own life?” And everybody else’s, too?
“I’m not a suffragette. I tried this your way, Richard. I did. And found myself making no progress whatsoever toward helping you. With our time here growing short, I knew I had to figure this out.”
Was that anxiety tingeing her words?
“I never said you had to uncover information—”
“I can’t help but look at our marriage of convenience like employment. I’m sure you do, too.”
“What? We’ve already had this conversation. I convinced you I wanted a wife, not an employee. Do I need to kiss you again to revive your memory?”
She held up a little hand in the universal signal to halt. “Hear me out, will you? You sent for me, paid my way, and married me— not for the traditional reasons of love and a desire to build a life with me. You did all of those things, took a chance on me, because I might be able to help you in one singular way, with your business, with these people here.”
He would’ve said it all a bit differently, but yeah, in a nutshell, that about summed it up. “I do not look at you like an employee.”
She ignored his response. “I tried this your way and got absolutely nowhere. You need me to garner information. I’m going about it in my own way, and it’s working.”
He could have choked.
“I’ve been quite sure to emphasize my curiosity. I just want to know all about this operation, my new husband’s business. I’m not from here, you know, worked every day of my life, but never in mining. I made sure they know I worked in a textile factory, service positions in restaurants, and a factory tinning vegetables.”
He shook his head, exasperated. “The rumors Gibbons brought directly to me show you’re as transparent as window panes, Lessie. The men have taken to calling you Loose Cannon. Did you know that?”
She blinked those uncommonly long eyelashes, naturally dark and captivating.
But she hadn’t any idea she affected him that much. Maybe if he claimed her as his wife, he could get over this obsession he had with her.
“Whose side are you on, here?” an uncomfortable sensation tightened in his chest. Not anxiety, exactly, and surely not more than plain old disappointment… but yet it was more than that. Maybe, if they were actually living like a normal married couple, things might be a whole lot different
.
Or at least he could see things differently. Didn’t a great deal of trust naturally come with that kind of intimacy?
“I’m on the side of right, decency. I’m on our side.”
He grabbed her by the arm, pulled her to him. Her little body bounced against his much larger form. Before she could pull away, he wrapped both arms around her in a husbandly embrace. He hadn’t hugged her like this since their wedding night. In the bathroom, of all places.
“You’re on our side, huh?”
Her little pink tongue darted out, swept her lower lip. Those captivating lashes lowered, hiding her expression. He loved how emotion paraded through her eyes, as if they were truly windows to the soul.
She had no idea how easily he could read her. And if he could, what about everybody else in this camp. “Remember when I told you you’re too valuable to sacrifice in the quest for information? I won’t have you putting yourself at risk, just to complete a task I assigned you.”
She nodded, then did the strangest thing. She rested her cheek against his chest and leaned into him, as if…”
She drew a deep breath in and a soft sigh escaped.
Her little hand smoothed over his chest, and the muscles quivered under her touch… and five layers of clothing.
His memory might be sorely affected, but far as he could recall, this was the first time she’d touched him because she wanted to, and with amorous intent…
And he liked it.
A lot.
He tightened his embrace, giving her a little squeeze, and of their own accord his lips found her hairline and kissed her.
“I’ve been thinking about us,” he confided. She didn’t need to know thoughts of her were never far from his mind and intruded on business several times a day, often at the least opportune times.
“Oh?”
He eased back, nudged her chin up so he could see those expressive brown eyes. Innocence. Trusting innocence stared back at him.
“When we return home to Ogden City, things between us will change. It’s time.”
He realized he must’ve lowered his head, the better to kiss her when she met him halfway. Her lips touched his before he anticipated it and her forwardness set off fireworks, brilliant splashes of bright light and crackling eruptions of sound.
She kissed him back and his heart slammed against his ribs.
A fully formed solution paraded through his mind, the best way to prevent his bride from endangering herself among the miners. The time had come for a lot of things, including paying an agency to handle the detective work. His bride belonged at home, and so did he.
“Let’s go home,” he told her between urgent kisses. If they had enough daylight, he’d pack up and leave now. But that road wasn’t meant for dark of night travel. “First thing tomorrow.”
Chapter Thirteen
Lessie couldn’t sleep.
The mountain night wind howled, whipping against the little building. Outside the temperature had to be below freezing. But wrapped up snugly in her husband’s arms, cocooned in their blankets on a thick pallet, everything but her nose was perfectly warm.
Yet this close to Richard’s very male, very big body, she couldn’t fall asleep.
No one could say she hadn’t grown accustomed to him in the time since they’d met and married. It no longer surprised her to awaken with him or go to sleep with him. Everything from the pattern of his heartbeat to his unique scent to the almost lullaby-quality of his breaths when the night was still… it had all become familiar.
But in moments like this, sharing body heat with another person, Lessie missed her sister the most.
She missed her twin with an ache that went beyond pain.
Yet somehow, inch by inch, Richard Cannon had slowly eased his way into her heart, taking Josie’s place.
She yawned widely, bone tired but still sleep eluded her.
She’d seen the much too-familiar desperation in the eyes of the miners as they’d come out of the mouth of the cavern, covered in dirt and weary from laboring in the dark and heat and fumes.
The same kind of aching desperation had taken up residence among the wives, too. Lessie had spent that afternoon in the company store, browsing the wares, visiting with the shopkeeper, learning more and more about Cannon Mining’s operation.
And witnessed the scrip the employees used to buy food, necessities like lamp oil and boots. She’d never felt more akin to them in her life. No one browsed. No one bought frivolous items… in fact, the shop didn’t carry peppermints or ribbons.
The people couldn’t afford them.
She recognized their resigned desperation… because she’d lived it herself. Until a short two weeks ago. The kind of genuine hunger where there was never enough, would never be enough. She’d labored for hours over a sewing machine in a stuffy, poorly ventilated room, struggling to earn her wages that never went far enough.
But she, at least, had been paid in cash money.
Money she’d had the privilege of spending where she needed.
She found Richard’s warm, solid hand at her waist and held it in his sleep. So fully relaxed and comfortable. Did this man she married have the slightest inkling of the life his employees led? Did he comprehend their desperation?
Today, she learned, she was so very much more like his employees, than she was like him.
Now that the realization had gelled, everything slipped into place in her mind.
Adam and Richard knew they had no comprehension what it meant to barely get by, to labor with their backs for sixteen hours a day to earn a crust of bread and a leaky roof over their heads.
The condition of the renter’s cabins— for those who earned more, because they served as shift captains, and the bunkhouse for those who earned less— was deplorable. No windows. Just a door that either stood open to allow in light or closed off all fresh air. Yes, they had fireplaces but only Bathsheba had a wood burning cook-stove, likely a personal possession carried in when her husband had come to work at the mines.
But now that he’d died, she’d leave. Somehow. Had Richard even paused to consider the widows who hadn’t the means to return to a town not wholly owned by the mining company?
Lessie recognized the tightness in her chest, the ever-present ache with each indrawn breath, the cloying panic that came with earning insufficient wages and helplessness.
If she couldn’t help this camp, one of many such operational sites owned by Cannon Mining, the three hundred or so living here would never know the difference.
They’d continue to toil, labor, sweat, and die too young, completely spent.
What could she, one woman, do?
Her thoughts scattered in the wind buffeting the cabin. Richard coughed and shifted but she knew he remained asleep. Still, he hugged her closer, his hand settled on her ribs and his thumb grazing the lower curve of her breast.
With a strike of sudden clarity she understood what she could do. She had Richard Cannon’s ear. If anyone had a hope of persuading him to try something different, to open his heart and his mind to the possibilities, it was she.
A rush of excitement tingled from her innards clear to her fingertips and toes… and she could see it, all of it. Perhaps this was why an unknown person or persons had struck back in blind fury against Cannon Mining, to hurt the giant machine that wore men threadbare and kept all of the money within the company.
Money.
Richard had it, his employees did not.
She’d reached out to him, a carefully worded telegram, asking him to advance the funds necessary to travel from the Atlantic seaboard very nearly across the North American continent.
And he’d said yes.
Perhaps she had whatever it took to convince him to say yes once more.
She had to try.
Lessie sat beside her husband on the wagon bench, nearly vibrating with excitement. She’d had hours on their return trip to Ogden City to consider everything she wanted to say, how she’d approach
her requests, how to phrase things… after all, Mr. Bob Brown, owner of the burned-out Brown Textile Mill, had never parted with a penny.
She’d overheard the gossip, knew how much Roberta had struggled as the factory manager.
Evidently, wealthy men didn’t remain wealthy by parting with coin easily.
But Lessie believed in her cause. And in her husband. By light of day, her reasoning looked just as solid, just as credible.
She’d started, a good half-dozen times, to broach the subject of changing things at Big Ezra, but hadn’t worked up the courage.
Traffic on Ogden City streets was heavy. Richard’s attention was on the roads, other teamsters, so she waited until they made it through the worst of the congestion and onto a residential street.
He yawned wide and deep, weariness showing. He was dirty, his beard had grown in, and he looked like he belonged more in her world than his own. He hardly resembled the man she’d met at the Union Station.
Would it be better to approach this now, while they were on an even playing field? Once he’d bathed, shaved, dressed in his businessman’s clothing… or not…
What if he intended to follow through on his promise to end their waiting period? What if he didn’t want to talk business?
She couldn’t risk allowing him time to fill their early evening with anything but this all-important business conversation. She believed these changes to be precisely what Cannon Mining needed…
Perhaps she held the key to salvaging his business.
Lessie put her hand, almost possessively, on Richard’s knee. Broad and strong, hard and warm, beneath his denims. She’d meant it only as a conversation-starter, a way to claim a portion of his attention from the road, but he quickly covered her hand with his, slid her a grin that belied his tiredness.
Oh, the man definitely had evening plans on his mind.
She blurted, “I want a serious conversation with you.”
“Sweetheart, if you’re planning to hold out on me again, be prepared for kisses you until you give in.”