The Bride Lottery

by Tatiana March

  Reluctantly, the man moved aside to let them enter. He crossed the lobby to the small desk along the wall. Once behind the desk, he slammed his hand down on the domed bell in front of him. The shrill ring echoed around the lobby.

  It seemed an odd reaction to Miranda. Surely, the bell was for clients to summon the innkeeper, not the other way round? She noticed Jamie fall a few steps behind her. He was moving slowly, skirting the lobby, keeping his back to the wall.

  “We’d like a room,” Miranda told the innkeeper.

  The man’s mouth twisted. He spat out his words, as if they tasted foul in his mouth. “I don’t rent rooms to Indians. You’d best leave.”

  “What about a room for the lady?” Jamie asked calmly.

  The man jerked his pointed chin at Miranda. “She belong to you?”

  “I’m his wife,” Miranda replied, anger rising inside her.

  The man reached beneath the desk, took out a big revolver and held it in his hand, gesturing at her—not exactly pointing the barrel at her, but his manner carried a warning that any second he might. “That makes you an Indian squaw.”

  Miranda tensed. From the corner of her eye she observed Jamie. He was not wearing his long duster, only his tan buckskin coat. His gunbelt was in plain sight, and she could see his hands hovering by his hips.

  A female voice came from behind them. “Don’t even think about it.”

  Miranda spun around. A woman, dressed in a long skirt and a white shirtwaist, her auburn hair scraped into a bun, had entered through a side door. Tall and thin to the point of looking emaciated, she was aiming a rifle at Jamie.

  “We don’t want no trouble,” the woman said. “Your kind can sleep in the hayloft at the livery stable. If you pay for your horses, they don’t charge you extra.”

  Jamie raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “No trouble. We’ll go.”

  The woman didn’t lower her rifle. “Indians killed my two babies. It might be twenty years ago, but the pain is still as fierce as if it had been yesterday. I’ve sworn never to have an Indian in my house. Nothing personal, mind you. Just bad memories.”

  Miranda nodded. She inched toward the entrance. Instinct made her shuffle her feet backward, keeping her attention on the woman. She felt Jamie’s hand curl over her arm and he pushed her behind him, shielding her with his body as they retreated.

  When they got to the doorway, Miranda spoke up. “We lost my husband’s niece a few weeks ago. She’d been ill a long time, so we knew to expect it, but it didn’t ease our grief. I can’t imagine how terrible it must have been for you. You have my sympathies. Please don’t worry about us. We’ll be fine in the hayloft.”

  The woman lowered her rifle. Deep lines marred her gaunt face, as if nature had painted a mask of suffering on her features. “Thank you,” she said in a strained tone. “I’d like to make an exception for you but I can’t. I’m afraid to let go of my hate. It’s the only thing I can do for my children now—keep hating what killed them.”

  Jamie followed Miranda outside. Before turning around, he kicked away the stone used to prop the door open. The heavy timber panel swung shut with a muted slam. Miranda could feel Jamie’s body shaking with pent-up rage as he ushered her a few yards along the boardwalk and pressed her against the side of the building. Eyes sharp, he turned to watch the window, to see if a rifle barrel poked out of it.

  “I don’t mind the hayloft,” Miranda told him. “We can keep an eye on the horses and mules.”

  Jamie’s only response was a grunt. A few seconds later, when they could detect no further reaction from inside the hotel, the tension in his body eased. He tugged Miranda down the steps to the hitch rail where their mounts and pack mules stood waiting.

  “Let’s get settled at the livery stable,” he said curtly as he untied the animals.

  In morose silence, Jamie led their small procession along the rutted street. Miranda could read his thoughts as clearly as if he were shouting them into the twilight. He didn’t care for himself. He was used to such treatment. But it was making fury burn inside him that their marriage had branded her an outcast along with him.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  A flash of lightning woke Miranda. For an instant, it bathed the hayloft with an eerie blue glow. Above her, the timber rafters stood out like ribs on a skeleton. Then darkness fell again. Seconds later, thunder rolled in the sky. Heavy rain drummed against the roof.

  Earlier, when they settled down, light had spilled in through the gap between the walls and the roof, but as the night fell, solid blackness had swallowed up everything. Miranda could see nothing—not even Jamie, who had stretched out at the top of the ladder, where he could protect her if anyone climbed up.

  To compensate against the lack of light, Miranda’s other senses had sharpened. Every time she turned, she could hear the rustle of straw beneath the oilcloth she lay upon. Crisp, dry scents of hay mixed with the pungent animal odors from the stable below.

  Another flare of lightning. Another boom of thunder. Again. And again. The storm was moving closer, the interval between the flashes of blue glow and the cracks of thunder shrinking, until they came almost simultaneously, the storm directly overhead.

  Down in the stable, the horses grew restless, whinnying in their stalls and stomping their hooves. The two pack mules were in a corral outside and their frightened braying filled the brief silences between the thunderclaps.

  “Are you awake?” Jamie asked.

  Miranda had not heard him move, but the next flash of lighting showed him crouched beside her. Reassured by his presence, she smiled into the darkness. “I’d have to be deaf and blind to sleep through the fireworks.”

  She felt a touch on her arm. “I’m going outside,” Jamie said. “Castor and Pollux are about to panic. They might bolt against the corral fence and get hurt. I’ll move them into the stable.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “No.” Jamie’s tone was firm. “You stay here.”

  Another flash of lightning illuminated the hayloft, allowing Miranda to see him for a fraction of a second, no more than the blink of an eye, but it was enough to reveal the worried frown on his face. Before she could protest against his orders, Jamie was gone.

  Miranda couldn’t tell how quickly the time passed. The storm continued to rage overhead. Down at the stable, the horses became fretful, kicking against the stalls, neighing in fear. Perhaps the livery stable owner couldn’t come out and reassure the animals.

  Gingerly, fumbling in the darkness, Miranda pushed up to her feet. She used the lightning flashes to guide her to the ladder, moving a few steps at a time. At the edge of the trapdoor, she crouched, gripped the top rung of the ladder and climbed down by feel.

  When she reached the stable, Sirius was calm but Alfie was kicking and thrashing in his stall, his head swinging left and right. Every time the lightning flashed, Miranda could see his eyes rolling with terror. She slipped into the stall, wrapped her arms around Alfie’s neck to restrain him and crooned at the frightened horse. “Easy, boy. Easy now.”

  Slowly, the familiar voice soothed the gray Appaloosa. He stilled, his breath blowing, his nostrils quivering against Miranda’s palm. By now the lightning flashes were growing less frequent, the thunder more distant. Miranda glanced around. Pollux was in a stall, but she could not see Castor or Jamie.

  She gave Alfie a few more comforting pats, eased out of the stall and made her way to the entrance. Pushing the rickety door ajar, Miranda slipped outside. The rain had thinned to a drizzle. The next lightning flash illuminated an empty corral. The gate stood wide-open.

  Miranda edged along the wall, keeping beneath the eaves that protected her from the rain. She passed the water trough. A trickle from the roof splashed into it, the sound like the merry gurgle of a brook. Ahead, a shadow loomed in the darkness. De
spite the lack of light, Miranda sensed the cautious movement of a man advancing in her direction.

  Whispered words drifted toward her, too muffled for her to hear.

  “Jamie?” she whispered back, then raised her voice. “Are you there?”

  The shadow lurched. Burly arms closed around her, pulling tight against a masculine chest. A man spoke in a gruff, throaty whisper. “I thought you’d never come.”

  Panic shot through Miranda. The body that enfolded hers felt all wrong. The chest was too bulky, the arms too high up around her, the thighs that brushed hers too sturdy. She tipped her head back to look at his face but could see nothing in the darkness.

  “Rose,” the man whispered. “I’ve missed you so much.”

  Lightning forked in the sky. The stark blue-white glow fell upon them, the way a spotlight might illuminate a pair of actors on a stage. Miranda gasped, her gaze riveted on the heavy features and thick beard of a dark stranger who was staring back at her.

  * * *

  Jamie dragged Castor along the waterlogged street, the hooves of the mule splashing in the mud. While he’d been leading Pollux into the stable, Castor had kicked the corral gate open. The frightened beast had bolted, running blindly into the night.

  Luckily, instead of charging into the desert, perhaps never to be seen again, the mule had headed for the only source of light in the darkness. He’d crashed into the wall of the saloon and remained there, quivering in the rain, letting out a plaintive whinny.

  A sharp sound pierced the rain-soaked darkness. Jamie froze. What was that? Like a feminine scream? He yanked Castor to a halt, cocked his head to listen. The sound didn’t come again. Had he imagined it? He’d told Miranda to stay up in the hayloft, but since when did she obey his orders? Instinct, honed from years of living with danger, told Jamie the sound had been a woman’s scream, and it had been Miranda.

  With frantic steps, he set in motion again, using the mule for cover. When he reached the side of the building, he released his grip on Castor’s halter, dipped a hand inside his rain slicker and pulled out the gun he’d tucked into his waistband to keep it protected from the rain.

  Darkness surrounded him. There were no sounds, except the steady patter of the rain against the sodden ground and the trickle of water from the roof into the water trough and the restless shuffling of the animals in the stable.

  “Miranda!” Jamie called out.

  No reply. Jamie cocked the hammer and pointed his gun, waiting for the next flash of lightning. His heart beat in the heavy rhythm that always accompanied a gunfight. His mind grew sharp. Sounds magnified. Raindrops hit the ground like cannonballs. Gravel rustled like a landslide.

  Gravel rustled. Someone was moving in the darkness! An icy chill enveloped Jamie. When he was on a hunt, ready to kill or to be killed, it always seemed to him that all warmth of life left him, as if his body was anticipating the arrival of death.

  Lightning flashed. A white glow flared over the landscape. For a second, it painted a tableau. Miranda, in the clutches of a big, bearded man. Jamie aimed his gun, but before he had a chance to call out a demand for the man to release her, the stranger shoved Miranda aside, pivoted on his feet and fled in the opposite direction.

  Once again, darkness fell. Jamie thumbed the hammer down, took the precaution to rotate the cylinder to set the hammer on an empty chamber before he pushed the revolver back into his waistband. It was not a location on his anatomy where he wanted an accidental gunshot wound.

  “Jamie? Jamie?” Miranda cried out, and then she crashed into him.

  For an instant, Jamie hesitated, tempted to give chase. Then he closed his arms around Miranda and cradled her to his chest. She mattered more. Anyway, he couldn’t shoot a man without knowing if the man deserved to die, and it would have been too much of a gamble to chase after a stranger in the darkness, with only the lightning flashes for illumination.

  “It’s me,” he reassured Miranda. “It’s all right. It’s all right.”

  “I came down to see Alfie and then I looked for you. You weren’t there. I saw a shadow and I went to him and he hauled me into his embrace. He wasn’t trying to hurt me. He thought I was someone else.” Miranda’s breathless stream of words held more confusion than fear. “He must have had a tryst with a sweetheart and he thought I was her.”

  Relief coursed through Jamie. Miranda was warm in his arms, warm and vibrant and full of life. Her lungs were heaving, as if she’d been running, and he could feel her body shaking, but instead of the crippling aftermath of true terror, it was the release of tension from a sudden fright.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Yes. I’m fine. I’m fine.”

  Lightning flared again. In its brief glare Jamie studied Miranda’s upturned face, artificially pale in the white glow of the light. Her eyes looked huge and dark, her mouth a slash without color, but her lips were curling into a shaky smile.

  “Go back upstairs,” he told her. “I’ll track down Castor. He tried to get into the saloon. Must have wanted a shot of whiskey to calm his nerves.”

  Miranda’s laughter rippled in the darkness, just as Jamie had intended. He eased their bodies apart and searched along the wall beneath the eaves, until he came upon the storm lantern he remembered seeing on a hook.

  He lifted down the lantern and sloshed it side to side, testing for fuel. A whiff of kerosene drifted at him. He fumbled for Miranda’s hand, guided her fingers to curl around the handle of the lantern. “Hold this.”

  His hands free now, Jamie wiped his fingers dry against his shirtfront. He took out a metal matchbox from the pocket of his buckskin coat, extracted a match, struck a light with his thumbnail and lifted the glass to light the lantern.

  “Promise to be careful with the lamp,” he warned Miranda. “If you burn the place down, you’ll kill not only yourself but the horses. And I’ll have nowhere to sleep.”

  She gave another chuckle. “I’m humbled by your concern for my welfare.”

  It crossed Jamie’s mind to complain that she hadn’t obeyed his orders to stay inside, but he decided to save the sermon for another day. “Go back upstairs,” he prompted her. “I’ll join you in a minute.”

  Miranda lifted the lantern higher, shining the light on his face. “Promise? You won’t chase after the man who grabbed me.”

  “Chase after a man who has done nothing but seek a tryst with his sweetheart?” Jamie shook his head. “I’ll leave him alone. He’s had enough disappointment for one night. He doesn’t want to tangle with me.”

  Standing guard by the door, he waited until he saw Miranda’s boots vanish out of sight at the top of the ladder. Soon, a yellow glow spilled out through the gap between the stable walls and the roof, giving him just enough light to locate Castor huddling in forlorn silence by the water trough.

  While Jamie prodded the recalcitrant beast indoors he shifted through the events in his mind. It had puzzled him how the mule had managed to open the corral gate, but now he knew the stranger must have done it, in order to lure Jamie out of the way while he waited for his sweetheart to arrive. But why would a man arrange to meet his woman behind a stable at midnight, and expect her to keep the tryst despite the onset of a thunderstorm?

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Miranda dreamed of the face of the bearded stranger. In her dream, the heavy, dark beard fell away. The strong features morphed into the flat surface of a photograph. Below the image, numbers appeared.

  Four. Zero. Zero. Zero. And a dollar sign in front of them.

  She awoke with a start. Her eyes flared open. The storm had passed, and the warm rays of morning sunshine poked into the hayloft, painting a golden glow over the bales of hay and the mountains of straw. Jamie was sitting beside her, cross-legged, Indian style, watching over her.

  Every nerve humming w
ith excitement, Miranda lurched up to a sitting position and grabbed her canvas bag from the end of the oilcloth bed. She rummaged inside, pulled out the wanted poster. After a quick inspection to make sure her hunch had been right, she pushed the picture at Jamie. “It’s him. The man who grabbed me.”

  Jamie studied the image. “Alvin and Alonzo Hardin.”

  “He was the one on the left. Looks like the older of the two brothers. Four thousand dollars they are worth.” Miranda lowered her voice. “And I know how to track them down.”

  Talking fast, in a confidential murmur, she told Jamie about Rose, the clerk at the post office. Alvin Hardin is more of a man than all the others put together, the girl had boasted, with a feminine pride that implied ownership.

  The man who’d grabbed her had whispered, Rose. I’ve missed you so much. Those two had planned to meet last night. And if they had missed each other last night, they would be impatient for another tryst. “All we need is to keep an eye on Rose,” Miranda finished triumphantly. “She’ll lead us to him.”

  “No,” Jamie said. “It’s too risky. Two men against one.”

  “I can help,” Miranda argued. “We can plan how to capture them.”

  “I don’t want you involved in a bounty hunt. There could be shooting.”

  Cheeks flushed, pulse racing, Miranda leaned closer to Jamie. “Can’t you see? This is our big chance. Four thousand dollars. If we succeed you can buy a piece of land and settle down.”

  She watched Jamie’s expression darken. He handed the poster back to her. “No.”

  Miranda shifted her shoulders, a stubborn gesture of feminine frustration. “I want to help you. Be a team. Like my parents were, sailing their boat together.”

  “And they died, didn’t they?” Jamie said quietly. An angry frown emphasized the sharp angles of his features. “It’s not like going on a picnic. You’ve already proved you won’t obey my orders. I’ll not risk your life, or mine. End of discussion.”