Depending on the Doctor (Nevada Bounty Book 2)

by Margaret Madigan

  “Red Face filled the pot and the wolf liked the smell so much he stretched his neck far over the chimney to sniff the meat and slipped and fell down into the pot and drowned.”

  Emmett stopped as if he had finished, but everyone watched him, waiting for more. Yellow Hair Woman prompted him. “What happened to them?”

  “Oh, after the wolf was dead, Red Face put her hand in the man’s and took him home to her clan. They welcomed her back, and welcomed the man into their family, and Red Face understood that it was okay to allow other people to love her, too.”

  The audience clapped and pounded the floor, and murmured their approval. The stories had been completely different, but the response sounded, to me, just as enthusiastic. These were a people who appreciated all kinds of stories, and in that way, they weren’t so different from me and my students and, when I thought about it, people everywhere.

  Once again, Four Bears held his hands up for silence. When he got it, he said, “We have been lucky tonight to hear two very good stories. Leaning Bear, your stories always leave us satisfied, and the story of how you got your name is especially a favorite.”

  The spectators whooped with pleasure and my stomach dropped. So Leaning Bear had won.

  “But tonight we were treated with a new story,” Four Bears said. “Hole in his Side, you are a clever storyteller. Leaning Bear made us laugh, but you made us think.”

  I held my breath and watched Four Bears. It sounded as if he liked Emmett’s story better, and that it should win. The crowd nodded, and the noises they made sounded positive, but it wasn’t the roaring approval Leaning Bear received.

  Four Bears dipped his head, acknowledging their reaction, and I closed my eyes waiting for the verdict. I wondered how I’d fit in, and how I’d say goodbye to Emmett.

  “Hole in his Side,” Four Bears said, “Your story was a valuable gift, and is worthy of the prize.”

  My eyes popped open. Emmett had won. I slumped in relief. My heart thrummed inside my chest, and I had to concentrate on slow breathing to calm it. Dear God, that had been too close.

  I glanced across at Leaning Bear. His furrowed brow implied how much he disliked losing, but a hint of respect in his eyes suggested he’d enjoyed Emmett’s story.

  Four Bears retrieved a pipe from the pouch at his waist, packed it with tobacco, and lit it using a stick lit from the fire. He puffed on it, then passed it to Leaning Bear who took a long draw, then handed it across the way to Emmett.

  Emmett looked somewhere between needing to be sick, and a proud new father, but he took his turn with the pipe and handed it back to Four Bears.

  “We’ve given you the gift of saving your life twice, Hole in his Side, first when Leaning Bear took you from the cave, and second when Little Feathers healed you, and you’ve given us the gift of a new story. We’ve smoked together, we’ve shared a feast together. You may take your wife to your lodge.”

  “Wait. What?” Emmett asked.

  Breath somehow wouldn’t enter my lungs.

  “As is our custom, we have exchanged gifts, smoked, and feasted. You are married.”

  Lydia sputtered and tried to express her distress, but between the excitement over the competition, and the celebratory atmosphere over the marriage of their special guests, nobody but I noticed her objections. In the midst of the crowd was no place to deal with them.

  They ushered us to a lodge set up temporarily, just for us. I suspected it had been set up by Four Bears and Leaning Bear, both of whom had engineered it as part of their project to marry Lydia to Leaning Bear. I was more than happy to put a stop to it, but Lydia didn’t seem nearly as glad of the outcome. Part of me was put out that I’d done exactly what she needed me to do—save her from marrying Leaning Bear and end up trapped here against her wishes—yet she didn’t seem pleased about it.

  Once we were escorted to our lodge amidst all the well-wishers, we ducked inside and Lydia turned on me.

  “Don’t for an instant think I’m acknowledging this as a legitimate marriage,” she said, pointing a warning finger at me.

  Her determined protests set me on edge. I’d literally risked my life at her behest, and all she could do was berate me for it.

  “Is the thought of being married to me really so repulsive?” I asked, turning to stoke the little fire pit someone had been thoughtful enough to prepare for us.

  She quieted for a moment, maybe finally thinking about how this whole situation affected others besides herself.

  I stretched out on my back on the fur bedding, and lacing my fingers behind my head. I stared up at the smoke hole in the ceiling, watching the smoke float upward. I didn’t like the pettiness swirling around in my head. I should be satisfied with having achieved what I set out to, and that I’d managed to save us both. When Lydia had suggested a storytelling contest, I’d had to swallow my protest, and when it had finally come around to my turn, I’d still had little idea what story I’d tell. I’d listened to Leaning Bear charm the crowd and known I had no chance of winning, but when I opened my mouth to speak the story just spilled out.

  It shouldn’t matter so much to me that her first words to me weren’t ‘thank you’ or ‘well done’, but it did. When it came down to it, the fact that the first thing she said to me was ‘this isn’t a real marriage’ hurt. I didn’t want Lydia to reject me.

  I sensed her sit near my feet. “I suppose I hadn’t thought about you. I’m sorry.”

  She shifted and I glanced at her. She fiddled with one of her braids, her dainty fingers combing through the loose ends.

  “Things could have gone much worse,” I said, returning my attention to the ceiling. My voice still sounded petulant, but I had a hard time controlling it.

  “You’re right. I could be sitting here with Leaning Bear instead. Thank you for saving me from that. Your story was…interesting.”

  I huffed an indifferent laugh. “I drew a blank and all I could think of was fairy tales, and of course you were on my mind.” I shrugged. “It all just came out.”

  “Well, you saved me, so thank you. It would be difficult to get out of that situation.”

  I leaned up on an elbow to see her better. “And you think the situation between us is easier to get out of?”

  She must have heard the irritation in my voice, and had the decency to at least look contrite, but it didn’t affect her response. “Of course. I mean, you’re probably no more eager than I am to be married. And since this isn’t a real marriage, we can just walk away from it.”

  It was true that being married presented certain problems, but they could be fixed if I could summon the courage to do it. If I had to be married, though, I was glad to have Lydia as my wife.

  I sat up and frowned at her. “How is this not a real marriage?”

  She looked at me like one of her students she’d explained the same lesson to several times and she’d lost her patience—and hope—that I’d ever grasp the concept. “It’s an Indian marriage, not a Christian marriage, so it’s not real. It doesn’t count.”

  I laughed out loud.

  “What?” She said, indignant.

  “When you suggested the competition between me and Leaning Bear, you understood the stakes, didn’t you? Leaning Bear wanted you for a wife, and I challenged him. The winner of your competition would win your hand.”

  “Well, I suppose. I just thought the wedding would occur at a later date and we’d have enough time to figure out a way out of it.”

  “Marriage is marriage, Lydia. It doesn’t matter what culture it takes place in. You’re Christian and you believe in God. If you accept that God knows what’s in your heart, and he knew that you understood—and consented to—the consequences of the bargain you struck, then this is a legitimate marriage.”

  “But there was no ceremony, no warning.”

  “Is that your objection? That you weren’t prepared? Or is it that you don’t want to be married to me?”

  “Well, of my two choices, of course I’d pre
fer you, but we’re complete strangers. We know nothing about each other. It’s sudden and unexpected. It’s not even legal.”

  I shrugged. “It’s legal to the Cheyenne.”

  She crossed her arms. “We’re not Cheyenne.”

  “We are tonight, Red Face Woman.” I couldn’t help grinning when she proved her native name appropriate. “And the rest? Well, we have plenty of time to get to know each other.”

  “So you’re suggesting we should consider this a real marriage? We should make a life together? How do you know you’re not just caught up in the exhilaration of having won a competition that saved both our lives, and you don’t just want to enjoy the spoils of that win? What happens when we return to our world and you realize you’ve married a plain, spinster schoolmistress you hardly know, when you could have your choice of any woman you want?”

  The pained look in her eyes leached the last of my annoyance away. I sat up and moved to sit by her side. Lifting her chin so her eyes met mine, I said, “Lydia, I’ve never wanted another woman as much as I want you.”

  It surprised me how true the words were, and if it hadn’t broken my heart to see it, the warring emotions of doubt and joy in her eyes might have made me chuckle.

  “Nobody’s ever wanted me,” she said, casting her gaze away from mine, even though I held her chin in place. “My father tried to get rid of me, and when the man he sold me to told me he refused to marry such an unappealing woman, my brother had no use for me and left me to fend for myself. No man has ever given me a second look,” she said. Her voice dropped to a strained whisper, “Why should I believe you’re any different?”

  When she finally met my eyes again, the pain and humiliation of her whole life shone naked in her gaze. It took my breath away, and I hated all the men who’d ever hurt her.

  Leaning in to kiss one cheek, I said, “I’m sorry you’ve lived your life believing what those men made you feel.” I kissed her other cheek. “But they were blind and foolish, and I am so glad they were.”

  Her brows came together as she puzzled over my words. While she did, I took one of her braids and untied the cord holding it together.

  “Why?” she asked.

  After I worked the first braid loose, I undid the cord on the other, and worked that hair loose, too, so that all of her hair tumbled in waves down her back and over her shoulders. “Because now you’re mine.”

  She dipped her head, avoiding my eyes, but I saw a tiny smile before she looked down. I slipped my fingers into the hair at the nape of her neck and tilted her head up.

  “I’m afraid, Emmett,” she said.

  “Of me?”

  “I’m afraid to care about someone because I don’t want my heart broken.”

  I bent to kiss one corner of her lips. “That’s the risk we all take, isn’t it?” I kissed the other corner of her mouth, and felt the puff of her breath quickening; desire shot through me like lightning.

  I craved Lydia more than any other woman I’d known. It wasn’t that I wanted to make love to her, which I definitely did. Just thinking about it made my cock twitch. But I needed her in my life, too. I wanted to protect her, and care for her, to come home to her every night and wake up to her every morning, to share my life with her and grow old with her.

  I froze in place, and stared into her eyes. When had I grown so attached to her? When had she worked her way so far under my skin?

  “And you want to take that risk? With me?” She asked, her voice tiny and afraid.

  I supposed the how and when of it didn’t matter, just that it had happened. I found it both terrifying and exhilarating.

  “I do,” I said. “Somewhere between meeting you in Palmer, being held up on the train, kidnapped by bandits, nearly freezing to death in a cave, and waking up in an Indian camp, you’ve really grown on me.”

  She smiled then, a genuine smile that lit up her face. “It has been an adventure, hasn’t it?” She reached a tentative hand up to touch my face. Her fingers fluttered like a warm breeze on my skin. “You make me feel like a different person, like I could leave behind that frightened, uptight woman I was in Palmer and be something better.”

  “Oh, sweetness, that woman’s always been in there.”

  I closed the distance between us, brushing my lips to hers in a light sweep, barely touching, but it rocked me back on my heels. Like a Christmas gift, she waited for me to unwrap and explore her, but I had to remind myself she’d never even kissed a man, and she still hadn’t told me she wanted me as anything other than her savior from an Indian marriage.

  I ran my thumb over her lower lip, and she gasped, but then the tip of her tongue darted out and caught my thumb as it swept by. The gesture shot fire straight to my cock and it stood at attention.

  When I groaned, she looked worried. “Did I do something wrong?” she asked.

  “No. Not at all.”

  She glanced at me from under her lashes, a coy gesture if I’d ever seen one, but all the more adorable from her because of how self-consciously she did it. There was no artifice about her. “Kiss me again?”

  Holy Jesus, she’d be my undoing. “Are you sure?”

  She tried to pull away, and I loosened my grip on her neck. “Don’t you want to?”

  “Oh, I definitely want to. I want to kiss you on your lips and every other part of you. I want to kiss you, and touch you, and more than anything, I want to make love to my new wife.”

  I swallowed hard against my dry throat. How had I allowed the evening to take this turn? When we’d entered the lodge, my intention had been to convince Emmett that we’d just walk away from this marriage as if it had never happened.

  But he’d stubbornly insisted it was as much a marriage as any other, and even more improbably, he declared his attraction to me and that he actually wanted me.

  Now he wanted to make love to me, not just as a convenient female body, but as his wife.

  I thought my heart might beat right out of my chest, because, God help me, I considered it.

  “What if I do it wrong?” I blurted, regretting it the moment the words escaped my mouth.

  Sitting in front of me, he leaned in until his lips were right next to my ear and whispered, “Then we’ll just have to keep doing it until we get it right.”

  He took my earlobe between his teeth and bit just a little. The sting sent a delicious shiver down my spine. When he kissed the sting away, something down low in my abdomen clenched.

  “Lydia?”

  “Yes?” The word left my lips on a plaintive exhale.

  “I’m going to keep kissing you until you tell me to stop,” he said, moving his lips down the side of my neck, one gentle little kiss at a time.

  If he kept kissing me, I’d never tell him to stop. Was it a real marriage, like he claimed? I couldn’t possibly agree to consummate an illegitimate marriage. Would God acknowledge it even if the state didn’t? I’d argued that it wasn’t legal, but all I cared about was if God would bless our union. I wanted to believe He would, with all my heart.

  Emmett tipped my head back and kissed the base of my throat. “Mmmm,” I said. My skin came alive, wondering where he’d kiss next. Every inch of it hungered for his touch.

  My breath caught when the tip of his tongue traced my jaw. Did normal people lick each other? “Emmett?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “You know I’ve never done this before?”

  He pulled back and looked me in the eye. “Yes. Why?”

  “Well, I don’t know anything about it, but I was raised to believe that it’s not something good girls should enjoy.”

  He bit his lips in a struggle not to smile. “And are you enjoying it?”

  To a troubling degree. “I’m serious, Emmett. I don’t want to risk my soul just for sins of the flesh.”

  He chuckled, and leaned in to kiss my lips again. When he finished, they tingled and ached for more. “I see I have a lot of work ahead of me to undo that puritanical upbringing of yours.”

&nbs
p; “So you don’t think it’s wrong to enjoy…it?”

  “No, I don’t. God wouldn’t have made it so enjoyable if it weren’t meant to be enjoyed.”

  “Maybe He made it enjoyable as a way to test our steadfastness.”

  He frowned. “That’s a sad thought, my dear. We should definitely savor the pleasure of each others’ touch,” he said, untying the laces at my throat and slipping my dress down past my shoulder so he could kiss the exposed skin, “and each others’ company.”

  “I won’t be a bad girl if I like you kissing me?”

  “Oh, God, Lydia, you’re adorable,” he said, kissing my shoulder again. “You’re sweet. You’re kind, and generous, and smart.” He punctuated each compliment with another kiss, working his way up my neck. “You’re caring, and determined, and fearless.” He kissed my chin, then took my face in both his hands, forcing me to look into his eyes. “And you are the best of good girls, even if you like me kissing you.”

  He kissed my lips, and I didn’t care about anything else because my heart belonged to Emmett Wilder.

  It shocked me when his tongue nudged my lips, tracing the seam as if looking for a weak spot where it could get in.

  “Open up for me, Lydia,” he whispered.

  The suggestion seemed right, so I did, and he smiled against my lips. His tongue dipped into my mouth, inviting mine to tangle with his. I tested it, pushing my tongue into his mouth. If anyone had suggested a month ago I’d have my tongue in a man’s mouth, I would have scoffed at them. The idea would have been not only ridiculous, but vile. That’s not at all how it felt, now, though. When Emmett pulled me against him and swept one hand down my back, cupping my bottom while he continued to kiss me, a wave of want surged through me. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted, but the idea of opening up to him seemed like a good one.

  I practically crawled into his lap and wrapped my arms around him. He grunted and grimaced.

  I pulled back, remembering his injury. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”