Renegade Bride

by Barbara Ankrum

  "Oh, for..." Seth bit back the rest and rolled his eyes heavenward.

  She ignored the look Creed gave her. "What brings you in this morning, Jason?"

  "Ma sent me with a list of things to pick up." He handed a slip of brown paper to Seth.

  Seth perused it and nodded. "I think we can fill this. And while I'm doing it, why don't you walk Miss Parsons down to Emaline Fitzwilly's dress shop. Perhaps she won't mind someone more neutral. There'll be two bits in it for you."

  Jason's mouth opened and closed in a good imitation of a polliwog. "Me? Oh, yessir. You don't have to pay me nothin'. I'd be most honored to walk Miss Parsons down fer no money a'tall."

  Mariah gave the basque of her bodice an irritated tug and smoothed a hand down the blue gingham, realizing she'd been outmaneuvered. "I can't think of a more pleasant companion. Come along, Jason. Let's leave these two worrywarts to their fretting."

  Watching them disappear out the door, Seth shook his head. Holding his fist over his mouth, he half-coughed, half-laughed. "God, I'll say one thing. Life will never be boring with her."

  Creed turned his head toward Seth. "No. I don't suppose it will." He put his shoulder to the hogshead and rolled it over in the corner, then took a crowbar to the top. The wood splintered against the force.

  "You know, Creed, I've been thinking..."

  "Uh-oh."

  Seth laughed. "Well, it was my thinking that got us this store, wasn't it?"

  Creed dug into the barrel and pulled out a sawdust-covered water crock and blew it clean. "As I recall."

  "And this store has made you a man of means, no?"

  Creed shrugged and dug out another piece. "What's your point, my wordy friend?"

  Seth strolled over to the barrel and leaned against the wall of shelves with his arms folded across his chest. "I was thinking... why don't you leave bounty hunting behind... settle down here and become a real partner in the store. Not a silent one. You're good at this, Creed. You've been on the road for years now. It's amazing that you're still in one piece, considering the kind of life you've led."

  Creed frowned and reached into the barrel again. "Mariah's right. You are a worry wart. I'm content with my life just the way it is."

  "Are you? Maybe it's time to settle down. Find a woman."

  Creed shot a look at him. They'd had this discussion before, but then the stakes hadn't been so high. "That's right for you, mon ami. Not for me."

  Seth stared at the crock in Creed's hands. "Why? Is it LaRousse? He's most likely dead."

  "I don't think so. It would take more than one bullet to kill a bastard like him."

  "Maybe... just maybe it's time to let it go," he suggested softly.

  "I'll know when it's time," Creed snapped. He ran a hand through his hair, leaving bits of sawdust there. "Look, I... I didn't mean to shout. I just... thanks for the offer. But the truth is, I'm thinking of cashing out."

  Seth blinked in surprise. "Jesus, you can't be serious. You mean quit? Why? You're making money doing nothing."

  "Exactement. And I don't feel right about that. Besides, it will be yours and Mariah's now. You don't need me taking food off your table."

  "For God's sake, Creed, I hope you don't think that's what I meant when I asked you to come and work here. I didn't. I mean, I couldn't have gotten this place off the ground without the money you invested. I just wish we'd see more of you."

  Creed gave a tight smile. "It's something I've been thinking about anyway. Shopkeeping's not in my blood."

  "Bounty hunting is?"

  "I have to finish with LaRousse once and for all."

  Seth nodded, fingering the stack of heavy denim pants sitting on the counter. "I know. You have to do what you have to do. But don't cut yourself off here because of that. You may change your mind later."

  "I don't think so."

  Seth sighed. "Before you say no to everything, hear me out. There are rumors of a new strike up in a place they're calling Last Chance Gulch. Quartz mining. I hear the syndicates are looking for investors to come in on the ground floor. They intend to bring in crushers to get the gold out of the rock. I've been thinking of staking some of my profits there. If you've no interest in the mercantile, maybe we could pool our money—"

  The bell over the door jangled before Creed could tell him no. He looked up to find Jesse Winslow, blond hair wild and windblown, standing spread-legged by the open door, holding his rifle in one hand and a tight rope on Mahkwi in the other. He looked every bit the mountain man he was reputed to be.

  "Jesse!" Creed set the crock on the counter and strode over to shake his hand. "Pardieu, what are you doing here?"

  Jesse's grin showed as a slash of white through his beard. He clasped Creed's hand. "I told you I was coming in to restock after I took care of our little friend. I just made better time than I expected. I had the wind at my back and songs of 'Nightingales' loomin' ahead." He sent Creed a wink. "Didn't figure it was time to dawdle. Howdy, Seth."

  "Jesse." Seth grinned and shook his hand, too. "It's been a while. How's the trading going this year?"

  "Can't complain. My packs are full of skins and empty of pots and pans."

  "You're in luck, because we just got a full shipment in today." Seth cast a nervous glance at the wolf, who was sniffing curiously at Seth's crotch. "I see you've, uh, picked up a stray along the way."

  "Mahkwi, mind your manners," Jesse told him sharply and the wolf obediently repositioned her head under Creed's hand for a stroke. "She's a pet, but you don't wanna tangle with her if she gets her dander up."

  Seth backed up a few steps toward the dilly-smelling pickle barrel. "I'll, uh... remember that.

  "I see that knock on the head she took hasn't dulled her instincts," Creed said, scratching her behind the ears.

  "Nah... but, ya know, it's been mighty unfriendly since I got into town. Folks are dodgin' right and left to get out of our way." With a puzzled shrug he added, "I mean, I've got her on a short rope." Mahkwi yawned broadly in reply, showing off her razor-like canines.

  "Yeah, what's wrong with people in this town anyway?" Seth commented with one eyebrow arched.

  "Did you find Raven's people?" Creed inquired.

  Jesse nodded. "The fellow she was intended to had just returned from a hunting party and there was a big celebration going on. Raven's return sent the festivities into the next day. Her uncle, Medicine Wing, who happens to be a chief among the Kainahs was, needless to say, very pleased to get her back and promised me good trading with the Bloods as long as sweetgrass grows along the Musselshell'."

  The bell over the door jingled again as several miners came in to browse. Seth nodded to them and turned back to Jesse. "Quite an impressive promise coming from a Blood chief," he observed. "While we're on the subject of gratitude, Jesse, I'd like to add my own. I owe you a debt for what you did for my fiancée and for Creed. Not only by the river, but with regards to that bastard, LaRousse."

  Jesse shrugged and shook his head. "I can't take any credit there. If it hadn't been for Creed's sneaking up on them, Mariah and I would both have been crow bait."

  "Well, you're just in time for Mariah's and my engagement party tonight at Hasty's Livery. We're to be married in two days."

  Jesse glanced at Creed, who was studying the floor. "That so?" He extended his hand to Seth."I'm happy for ya, Travers. Congratulations. She's all right... for a city girl."

  Seth laughed. "Thanks, I think. Speaking of the city, I've been holding a letter for you for over a month." He walked around the counter and reached into a cubbyhole beside his gold scale and blower. He pulled out an onion-skin letter. "It's got an Ohio postmark."

  Jesse's easygoing expression faded and he reached for the letter. He turned the missive over in his hands several times as though he didn't want to open it. "It's... from my folks, I guess. Had it a month you say?"

  "Near that." A customer motioned to Seth for help with a grain order and he excused himself, leaving Creed and Jesse alone.


  "Are you going to open it, mon ami?"

  Jesse smoothed his hand over the paper. "It's been three years since I heard a word from home. I reckon Pa laid down the law to my ma. We didn't part on the best of terms." Carefully, he tore the letter open and unfolded it. While the store filled up with customers, he read. His face drained of color and he sat down heavily on the crate behind him. Finally, he crumpled the paper in his fist.

  "Bad news?"

  Jesse turned to him with stricken eyes. "It's from my ma. My younger brother... Zach, was... killed at a place they call Chicamonga Creek, fightin' for the Union." He sent a puzzled look up at Creed. "He was a farmer like my old man. The land ran in his veins the way wandering runs in mine. What in the hell was he doing fighting in the war?"

  Creed tightened a hand around his shoulder, feeling the steely tension there. "I'm... sorry, Jesse."

  He stared at the paper in his hands as if it was a venomous snake that had just bitten him. "She says Pa took sick with the news. There's nobody to take care of the land and it's goin' fallow." His sky blue eyes met Creed's with a look of disbelief. "She asked me to come home,"—he laughed bitterly—"for my old man's sake."

  Jesse had rarely spoken about his family, but Creed knew there were hard feelings between Jesse and his father.

  Jesse pushed away from the crate, rubbing his palms against his doeskin trousers, leaving damp slashes behind. "In all these years, never once did I hear from him. He's never forgiven me for leaving the farm, goin' off on my own. And now she wants me to give it all up and come home. For him."

  "Perhaps she asks for herself as well."

  With a frown, Jesse turned on him. "I swore eight years ago, when I left, I'd never go back."

  Creed folded his arms tightly across his chest. "Time has a way of mocking the promises we make to ourselves," Creed said, remembering his own unkept vows. "The mountains will always be here, mon ami. They're the only promise written in stone."

  Jesse sat back down on the wooden crate, cradling his head in his hands. His breath came in long, shuddering sighs. Mahkwi settled her head in his lap.

  "It should have been me. Zach would have stayed home where he belonged if I'd been there. He could,"—his voice choked—"he could barely shoot a squirrel out of a tree. His hands were made for a hoe, not a gun, dammit!"

  The war in the East had seemed a long way off until this moment when Creed watched it inflict its tragedy on Jesse. It was easy to forget the hell the States were enduring when Montana was on fire with gold fever. But few who came had been left untouched by the destruction.

  Outside the door, he could hear the sounds of the busy thoroughfare, the wagons, the random shouts that mingled with the pounding of hammers. Life went on.

  Reaching for a bottle of whiskey under the counter, Creed poured Jesse a drink and handed it to him. "What will you do?"

  He stared at the amber liquid swirling in his glass before he slugged it down. He grimaced and wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. "I don't know. How can I stay?" His fingers dug into the wolf's fur. "How can I go?" He glanced up at Creed, then fleetingly at Seth who was with a customer. "And what of you? What will you do now?"

  Creed knew what he was asking. To imagine Jesse hadn't seen what was happening between Mariah and him was impossible. A blind man could have seen it. "LaRousse is still alive. He killed Lydell Kraylor just outside the Gulch." He lowered his voice. "He's after Mariah now, too."

  Jesse cursed roundly. "Does Seth know?"

  He shook his head. "I didn't want to delay their wedding plans. I'll tell him then."

  "I see." His hands tightened around the empty glass. "Damn, what a mess."

  Turning away from him, Creed corked the whiskey bottle and shoved it under the counter. "For the past four days, I've been closer to her than a tick on a dog's ear, without her knowing. Nothing. Not a sign of the bastard. I think he's waiting to draw me out in the open."

  Jesse regarded Creed soberly. "So?"

  "So, I think I'll have to give him what he wants. I told Seth I'd stay for the wedding. Then I'll go."

  "Need some help?"

  Creed pulled his revolver from its holster, checked the rounds, and slid it back. "You've got problems enough of your own."

  "LaRousse made himself my problem, too, remember?"

  "Merci, mon ami. I can handle him. This time, I intend to finish his worthless hide." He laid a hand on Jesse's shoulder. "I've got to go get Mariah. She'll be finished at the dress shop soon. Will I see you tonight?"

  "I don't know. Maybe. I have some thinking to do."

  "Bon. Au revoir, mon ami." Creed turned and walked out of the store.

  * * *

  "A little tuck here, and another one... just so," said Emaline Fitzwilly in a sing-song voice as she adjusted the garnet-colored basque of Mariah's gown. She tugged at the tight-fitting muslin hugging Mariah's waist until it did what she wanted, then marked the tuck with the dressmaker's chalk that dangled from the sterling chatelaine pinned at her belt.

  Mariah stood on the footstool with arms held straight out, feeling lightheaded from staying in one position for so long and from the unaccustomed pressure of the corset. It was cutting sharply into her ribs at her waist.

  "Ahhh—" the seamstress sighed. "We're nearly there. Just another minute or two. Mercy, I wish I'd had some white muslin or nainsook for your gown, but, you know, there hasn't been much call for white in this town. Raise your arm, dear."

  Emaline prodded Mariah's drooping arms up again and clucked around the tiny steel pins she'd stuffed in her mouth. "With a figure like yours, Miss Parsons, it pays to take a little extra time with details. You look so beautiful in this color, why, your man won't even know what hit him when he sees you."

  Emaline prattled on as she'd been doing for the last half hour about the latest town gossip, but Mariah wasn't listening. Two words kept ringing in her mind.

  Your man.

  Her fists tightened around thin air at the despairing thought. It had been four days since she and Creed had arrived. Four days during which they'd barely had one moment alone. There were things she wished she could say to him. Things that needed saying. And though he seemed to always be nearby, he was disinclined to talk to her at all, except in monosyllables.

  She missed him. Missed his laugh, his friendship, and most of all, his touch. Night after night, she'd lain awake wondering if she was doing the right thing in marrying Seth. Night after night, what sleep she got was punctuated with aching dreams of Creed holding her, making love to her.

  The room grew suddenly warmer as a guilty flush spread through her limbs. It was an impossible problem, one for which she supposed there was no real answer. Was it fair to shackle Seth with a woman who could never love him fully, the way he deserved to be loved?

  On the other hand, perhaps that kind of love would grow between them over the years. After all, she grew up loving him. She could surely recapture that feeling again, couldn't she?

  Mariah looked up at the jingle of the little bell over Miss Fitzwilly's shop door. Three young women burst through the door, laughing at something one of them had said. They wore strident-colored calico day dresses, rich with coal tar dyes.

  Behind these three was one of the most beautiful women she'd ever seen, tall and buxom with copper-penny red hair and freckled, honey-colored skin. Her violet-colored dress was made of the finest muslin, lavishly tucked and draped with a wide skirt buoyed by stiff crinoline.

  "Oh, Desiree—" Emaline Fitzwilly murmured as her head came up abruptly under Mariah's arm, nearly knocking her off the stool. Emaline's face flushed bright red and she took the pins from her mouth in one hand. "Hello, girls."

  The three young women stifled the last of their giggles and said hello to the dressmaker, eyeing Mariah curiously. Two of them wore cheek rouge and one had kohl around her eyes.

  Why, they were soiled doves, Mariah realized with a start. She nearly lost her balance again and her eyes widened. They hardly re
sembled the trollops who had been hanging out the windows of the brothel that day she'd ridden into town. They just looked like four friends out for a morning of shopping. Two of the girls looked the same age as she. The other seemed even younger!

  "Ah," said Desiree in a thick French accent, "I'm afraid we are early."

  "No, no. I'm running late," Emaline fretted. "You've come for the girls' dresses, of course, and they're ready."

  Desiree nodded and glanced up at Mariah again. "It can wait. If you would prefer, we could come back..."

  "We're nearly finished here, aren't we, Miss Fitzwilly?" Mariah asked diplomatically, stepping down from the stool. "Why don't you just go ahead and help these ladies while I change."

  "Yes, I suppose so," Emaline admitted, wringing her hands. An awkward silence stretched among the five women for a few seconds, then Emaline cleared her throat. "Um... Miss Parsons, this is Miss Desiree Lupone and uh... her... employees, Angel and Daisy and... uh, Lula Mae."

  "Miss Parsons." Desiree sent her a curious smile. Mariah nodded back stiffly.

  "Isn't this a pretty gown, girls?" Ermaline asked. "It's her weddin' gown. Miss Parsons is marrying Seth Travers in a few days. Sadie and Wade Bender are throwing them an engagement party tonight. Miss Parsons is going to be the belle of the ball, with that gown I stitched up for her, if I do say so myself."

  The doves cooed appreciatively, but Mariah was shocked at the casual way in which her personal life had become fodder for Emaline's gossip mill and she pressed her lips together.

  Desiree's brown eyes widened and she paled visibly at the mention of Seth's name. "'Ow fortunate for you," she said. "'Ee ees a fine man, Miss Parsons."

  Mariah blinked. "D-do you know Seth, Miss Lupone?" Certainly she could not... surely Seth hadn't—

  "Ah, oui, I know 'im. He runs one of the most successful mercantiles in town. Even we must patronize shops, Miss Parsons."

  Color crept to Mariah's cheeks and she stared blindly at Emaline's hand-crank Wilcox and Grubs sewing machine. "Oh, I didn't mean... of course you do."

  Desiree tilted her head in a graceful gesture of understanding and tightened her fingers around the string of her glass-beaded reticule. "Ees's all right, cherie. I know many men 'ere in Virginia City in... other ways. Seth, 'ee ees not one of them."