Hell's Belle

by Shannah Biondine

  Never press a skittish creature, Del.

  His father's first lesson, when Del had barely been old enough to sit a horse's back and hang on to the reins. Del's father was pure Irish, steeped in the old ways. Del's father probably could have walked up to the lion like Daniel and pulled that thorn right out, never once having to even think about the lion's fangs. He'd been charmed that way.

  Some of his magic had been passed on to Del.

  "But obviously not the female human kind," he groused as he flopped over onto his side, still trying to get comfortable. When he realized his new bride stood not ten feet away in the darkness, he tumbled off the sofa onto the floor.

  "Oh, gracious! Are you all right?"

  Probably wouldn't be a good idea to advise her that his tumescent manhood had partially broken his fall.

  "You startled me, is all," he blustered. Not quite all. She'd also embarrassed the holy heck out of him, left him stiff with sexual arousal, and generally had him thoroughly bemused. He attempted to gather his wits along with his blanket and got back on his makeshift bed. "What did you want?"

  "I don't quite know how to say this."

  Oh, honey lamb, his mind raced. Just blurt it out! "Del, I want you to make love to me," would be fine. Even "Del, I'm lonely in there all by myself." Christ, he'd be pathetically grateful if she just asked for a hug. He'd take it from there.

  She struck a match and lit the lamp on the table nearby, staring at him as though his hair was standing out in every direction. A distinct possibility, since he'd been tossing and turning for hours. He reached up to smooth his rumpled locks. "Please tell me you didn't come out here to say we've made a horrible mistake. Anything but that."

  She shook her head. Oh boy. She wore an agitated look and stood there awkwardly hesitant. He'd make it easier for her.

  "You know it's acceptable. Whatever you need to say," he encouraged, sitting up again. He needed to be ready to enfold her in his arms when she confessed to needing him.

  "It wasn't a mistake…I mean, not in the sense of an accidental sort of thing a person does without intending to. I knew when you took these rooms that you obviously felt uncomfortable about our…unusual circumstances. Unfamiliarity. And I appreciate the gesture. I honestly do."

  But…Here it came...He resisted the urge to rub his palms together in glee. Candidate for sainthood up to this point, he really was. He'd let her mumble out a few more subtle hints, then gather her in his arms and make her forget who propositioned whom to get things consummated.

  "But I think we should go home now."

  Maybe she was talking in metaphors. "Home, as in our marriage bed, together?"

  "Yes, on your ranch."

  He reached over to the high back of the sofa, where he'd tossed his pants, and pulled out his pocket watch. "Twila, it's two in the morning. And you suddenly think we should ride home. Now?"

  "Well, yes, I definitely think we should go back to your ranch and Wadsworth. I've been lying awake mulling it over for at least an hour."

  He'd been mulling for over an hour, too. Somehow, though, he suspected her images of their marriage bed back at the ranch weren't the same as his. For one thing, he knew exactly how big and thick the mattress was, where his own personal dent had been carved to perfectly align with his body. And exactly where she fit in with the whole notion of his nighttime comfort.

  He had a sinking feeling that her ideas involved some kind of dividing line down the center of the mattress, or maybe even had him sleeping out in the bunkhouse with his men. All because he'd been so stupidly noble, pointing out they were still basically strangers and he didn't want to rush her into anything she wasn't comfortable with.

  He had no notion she'd ask to go riding across the countryside at two o'clock in the damned morning. He could argue, but in the time it would take them to pack up and ride back, they'd arrive just as the wranglers were rising to start the day's chores. He had plenty to do himself, and his men would get nervous if he didn't turn up by daybreak. He'd laid down a firm rule years before about men staying off the spread all night. It was all well and good for a man to disappear into the bowels of a cathouse and not leave word where he was, but come sunup, it was time to zip his jeans and get his butt back in a saddle. Del wasn't about to break his own rule.

  "All right, Mrs. Mitchell. Why don't you use the water pitcher and do whatever you need to. I'll just get dressed. Maybe I can wash up out back. I'll get Caramel and come back here for you."

  * * *

  Twila took one look at what Del had in his hand when he came back to the hotel room, and felt her eyes fill once more with tears. He held out the ugliest excuse for a ring she'd ever seen in her life. A misshapen piece of rock crystal had been melded onto a loop of silver bent into an uneven, roughly circular shape. The thing was dreadful.

  "I'll buy you a nicer one, I promise. I just thought you ought to have one when we get back to town, and the only place open was a gift counter in a saloon half a block down. Would have been closed, but a whole company of loggers had come down from the Sierras, eager to spend their pay, so the shopkeeper hadn't yet shut down for the night. It's all he had."

  He slipped it onto her finger. The heavy crystal lump immediately dropped to the palm side of her hand. Del scowled and let out a curse. Then he tipped up her chin. "Twila? Honey, I know it's awful. I said I'll buy you something nicer as soon as I get a chance. Might be a couple weeks, since I had to pay off your uncle, but you won't have to live with this."

  A big teardrop splattered onto the atrocity. "But it's mine," she hiccupped. "Not the one you bought for some other woman, like the rug or the bedroom you added on. This is truly mine. You got it for me."

  He grabbed her wrapped bundle of clothing and bonnet and mumbled something about dad-blamed females and how he would never understand their thinking process if he lived to be a thousand. Twila let him settle her in the saddle of the palomino and swing up behind her before she spoke again. "Delancy. That's your given name, isn't it? You're Irish?"

  "Yes, ma'am. And hungry. But I guess I can wait until we make it home. Biscuit will have some grub ready by the time we get there."

  "What kind of name is that?" Twila laughed.

  "The kind you give a man named VanOverbeke, when he's your cook."

  She turned slightly, so she could see his face. "My name's like yours. People call me by the shortened version."

  He slowed the horse and frowned slightly. "Twila? You got a couple of long la-de-da middle names or something?"

  "No. My given name is actually Twilagleam." He asked her to repeat it. She did, more slowly. She felt her cheeks redden. "My uncle's not entirely unjust in his assessment of my parents. They were somewhat…unconventional. Devoted fans of Mr. Francis Scott Key."

  Del's face broke into a grin that Twila would always remember as lighting up the morning sky—although the hint of sun coming up in the east may have played a role too. "Twilight's last gleaming. Well, I'll be jo-fired!" He chuckled softly, and set the horse to a steady gallop.

  It wasn't until they were beyond town, at the edge of his land, that he slowed Caramel and slipped out of the saddle, walking the horse the last distance to the barn. Twila didn't see anyone up and about yet, but smoke wafted up from a chimney of the building Del had identified as his cookhouse.

  "Your parents were right," he suddenly said, pulling her down from the saddle into his arms. "You're just as amazing and precious as the last light of every day, Twila Mitchell. And don't you let anybody tell you otherwise. Come on. Let's go face the music."

  Twila could have sworn she heard him humming The Star Spangled Banner.

  CHAPTER 8

  The palomino was taken away by a glum-looking wrangler. Del and Twila headed over to the ranch house. Del set down Twila's belongings on the porch and scooped her into his arms. When she tried to protest, he firmly told her to hush. He'd wanted a wife. Now he had one, and this was always how he'd intended married life to begin.

  H
e carried her over the threshold and set her down in the front room. Twila didn't know exactly what she'd been expecting…hadn't really formed any definite mental image of what a ranch house might be like. But what she saw surprised her. It was remarkably ordinary.

  Somehow her sense of internal balance was thrown off by that.

  When a woman ran away from home, took a desperate leap of faith, married a man she barely knew, and consigned herself to an uncertain future, there ought to be something murky, or glorious, or faintly ominous about the new surroundings she was to call home. But she saw four walls, bare except for a peg rack stretched across one and a rock fireplace dominating another, an open doorway to a bedroom, a large rug covering wood floors just like those at the emporium. A sofa, a wooden table and chairs, a sideboard. Nothing unusual.

  Maybe worse yet, nothing to send tingles of alarm down her spine. Nothing that didn't somehow seem to welcome her. She turned her head, taking in the entire scene again. She couldn't fathom the sensation, but she'd almost swear there was a vague expectancy here. As if these walls and furnishings had been silently waiting for this day, the day when Twila would come and call this place home.

  "What do you think?" Delancy asked.

  "It's…I don't know what I pictured, but it's very nice."

  He grunted, she suspected with a tinge of disbelief, and pointed toward the open doorway. "May as well find room for your things in my bureau in there. I'll build you a proper wardrobe as soon as I get a chance."

  She preceded him into the adjoining room. Now here was something troubling.

  "I've never seen such a massive bed." She hadn't really meant to blurt that out. She sounded nervous…maybe because suddenly she was.

  Del's smile was benign. "I like to be comfortable. There's a damned good mattress, nice and thick. Solid frame. Lots of quilts, plenty warm in the winter. Pillows aren't bad, either, considering I had to pluck my own geese for the feathers. Had them since I was a boy, but a man can't keep pets. It's silly."

  "You killed your geese to stuff pillows?"

  Del started to laugh. "I was having you on, honey. Just joshing. They're regular pillows. Go on, and set your stuff down so we can get some breakfast before my men eat all the sausage and grits."

  "You never had any pets?" she inquired.

  He shrugged. "Raised horses all my life. My father was a breeder, started selling his stock, training horses for other folks sometimes too. I really couldn't afford to get too attached to any particular animal. Always the chance one day he'd have to sell or trade it. How about you? Did your unconventional parents let you keep a menagerie?"

  She set down her bundle on the bed, tucked the satchel down under the shadows of the bedstead on the floor by the headboard. Then she stood and wiped a wisp of hair out of her eyes. "We moved around some. It wasn't really feasible to keep animals. I do remember a kitten once, but I must have been very young. I can't recall—oh, I forgot. You're hungry."

  "Aren't you famished?" he chided, gently guiding her out of the house and down a knoll toward the cookhouse, already bustling with activity.

  "No, but that's probably because everything is so strange and new."

  Del paused and caught her hands in his. "Twila, I know it's a big adjustment. We'll manage, though. I feel sure you'll come to like it here, if you give us half a chance. And remember what I promised—I'm looking out for you now."

  "Yes," she whispered, going up on tiptoes to brush a kiss across his lips.

  A loud catcall echoed, and she instantly flushed, pulling back. But Del didn't release her. He kept one of her hands firmly entwined with his, even as they were surrounded by his men.

  "Tarnation, but I owe Zoyer another twenty dollars!" someone yelled.

  "So, you up and got yourself a wife, eh, Del?"

  Twila scanned the faces. Some beamed or looked curious, a few scowled. Most just looked wary, uncertain how to react.

  "Listen, you busters! I'd like you all to meet Mrs. Delancy Mitchell. Her name's Twila, but I want every man here to call her Mrs. Mitchell, as is fitting for the wife of the boss man. Besides, I'm not done enjoying the sound of that yet."

  More hoots and ribald laughter rang out. Twila turned her face into Del's shoulder.

  "As you can see, she's a little shy…until you get to know her," he went on.

  "How the heck did you get to?" one of the men shouted. "That's what we're all wondering. I mean, I was there that day, and we ain't been back from the sale that long. We all know you work fast, Mr. Mitchell, but—"

  "Leon, you can shut your trap, go fill it with grub, or take your worthless hide off this spread. I'll count out your pay right now. Anybody else here who wants to spend time fretting over my marital situation, instead of doing his chores, can follow suit. This here is your new boss lady. You'll treat her with proper courtesy and respect. I don't care where she came from, what you've heard, or what you think. This is my wife. That's all you got to know. We clear?"

  Twila wanted to die, right on the spot. She'd grabbed Del's shirt and shut her eyes tightly, mortified at his harsh lecture. There was a long, painfully awkward silence. Then she heard a shuffling and opened her eyes to see a little cloud of dust near her feet. Henry Dobbs was there, reaching for her left hand and its god-awful ring.

  "I'm pleased as punch you come to stay with us, Mrs. Mitchell. Don't you let these other fools bother you none. Most of 'em spend too much time around horses' rear ends. After a spell, a man takes to acting like one himself. Just want to say howdy, and if there's anything you need, you just call on Henry Dobbs."

  He glanced down for the first time and took in the horrible excuse for a wedding band. "Mighty interesting ring you got there. Course, some say the same thing about your husband."

  Twila couldn't help smiling. Henry had gone beet red. She glanced at Del. "I think he's pretty wonderful."

  That remark broke the ice. Del dazzled her with a cocky grin. Several of his men clapped. One of them hollered they needed a good old-fashioned hullabaloo to mark the occasion. Del held up a hand and cautioned them against involving the whole town. He admitted that Twila's uncle was probably sore at him, considering that the bridegroom had spirited his intended away after knocking the older man insensible.

  The tale was told and retold over breakfast, then Del went out with his men to face the day's tasks, leaving Twila to return to the ranch house alone.

  She spent an hour putting her things away, dusting and sweeping the front room, investigating the contents of the sideboard cupboards, and generally avoiding that daunting, oversized bedstead. It wasn't until she'd made room in a bureau drawer for her unmentionables that she took up the satchel and fretted about what to do.

  Del had already noticed how she tended to obsess over it. He'd asked for her trust, and she truly wanted to give it. In personal respects, with regard to their own intimacy and future as man and wife. But he hadn't been involved with the train, knew nothing of the Vogels, and she wasn't sure she wanted to tell him about the necklace.

  Del was the sort who saw a problem and just trounced right over it.

  Which is exactly why he was now married to a woman he didn't know the first thing about.

  She didn't want him telling her uncle that he'd been remiss in straightening out the problem of the confused luggage, or demanding to search out the Vogels himself. She'd never in her life really been charged with a responsibility. She'd been looked after, barked at, tolerated, but never brought into any major decisions about anything. Even Del had more or less pushed her into this union, running her to ground like he would a wild mare in a box canyon.

  He'd left her little choice but to agree to his proposal. Not that she regretted the choice. Only just once, Twila thought, she wanted to investigate and solve a problem on her own. Without her parents, her uncle, or her husband telling her telling her how to go about it or what should be done. Del had a ranch to operate. He didn't need this distraction, and Twila had little to occupy her. She could ea
sily continue in her search for the Vogels.

  She blinked, suddenly realizing Henry Dobbs might even now be spilling the entire fictional, tale to Del. Henry's version would definitely rile her new husband and wreak havoc. She rushed out, asking any wranglers she encountered if they knew where she might find Henry.

  To their credit, a couple offered to help with whatever her urgent requirement might be. To her dismay, several others pretended they didn't hear her, averted their faces, and clearly weren't about to accept her as the new lady of the house. In fact, one fellow flat out scowled at her, insisting she was a Jonah. He predicted Del would rue the day he'd taken a daughter of the Devil to wife. Twila would later realize she'd never again see that particular man working at the ranch.

  But at that moment, she'd recoiled in shock. Then glanced around to find Henry walking rapidly toward her. Deliverance! Abandoning anything but her immediate concern about the necklace, she rushed to ask him how much he'd confided to his employer about their investigation for her "long lost kin."

  "I haven't seen him all morning, ma'am."

  "Twila, please. You've always called me Twila," she reminded.

  He stubbornly shook his head. "You got to understand, Mrs. Mitchell. When you worked in that store, you were a gal named Twila. But the boss told us he wants you called by your rightful married name, and I do what the boss says. Did you tell him about your grandfather? I figured maybe that's part of why he stole you away from your uncle. On account of the Bell feud."

  "I've told him I may have to go to California, that I have folks there I may wish to visit. I don't want further unpleasantness between my husband and the Bell menfolk, as I'm sure you can understand."

  "No, ma'am…I mean, yes, ma'am." Poor Henry. He stammered on,"I mean, I can understand you don't want no more trouble. Hell of a—excuse me, Mrs. Mitchell, I mean to say that's a darned shame, folks not getting on together, and all. Especially when they're kin. Enough misery in the world without making hard feelings between folks who should all break bread at the same table. That's what my ma always used to say."