The Drifter's Bride

by Tatiana March

  Life could be good.

  If only it weren’t for the fear that soon he would leave.

  ‘Thank you,’ Jade told Carl when he lifted the pail up to the porch.

  ‘Call me if you need more. I don’t want you lifting heavy things.’

  ‘I’m not…’ Her voice fell. ‘I’m not pregnant.’ A blush rose up her neck and fanned over her cheeks. Her monthly flow had started in the morning. She couldn’t deny the fierce sense of relief that filled her at the thought he would have to stay. At least another month.

  He nodded. ‘We’ll try again.’

  ‘Fine.’ Her throat went dry.

  She didn’t understand what was going on between them, and she could not find a way to ask. The first night after their wedding, Carl had made love to her. Fierce, possessive love, love that had driven her to dizzy heights of delight. Then he seemed to have tired of her.

  Had he really just been doing his duty?

  Had he only been trying to give her a child?

  ‘Jade?’ she heard his deep voice call out from the yard. ‘Can you bring me the small pouch of tools in my saddlebags?’

  ‘Sure. Just let me find it.’ She hurried inside, lifted the pair of leather satchels from a peg on the wall and slung them on the scarred pine table. Tin plate, cup, spoon. Two boxes of rifle cartridges, one for the Colt revolver. Two books. A small leather pouch that rattled when she picked it up.

  She took the tools out to him. Back inside the cabin she inspected the books, hoping for something new to read. Bible. They already had one. Uncle Tom’s Cabin. She’d read that at school. As she put away the Bible, a sheaf of folded papers fell out. A little hesitant, she unfolded them.

  Tom Mulligan. Wanted for murder. Dead or alive. Reward $2,000

  Charlie Hancock. Wanted for bank robbery. Reward $1,500

  The grainy pictures showed men with violence stamped on their features. A frisson rippled over Jade. This was Carl’s life. Pursuing men like this, hoping to kill them before they killed him. She had asked about his family, his home, but he had refused to talk about the past. She knew nothing about him, except that he lived by his guns, had scars on his back, hated locked doors and suffered from nightmares.

  Jade unfolded the third sheet. It was a newspaper article about a fire in a Chicago orphanage in which four children had died. Grace Atkinson, twelve. Moira Glover, ten. Helene Longman, ten. Johanna Creuzer, eight. The girls had been locked in an attic room, unable to get out. A boy of twelve had almost died trying to break down the door.

  Heart pounding, Jade lowered her shaking hands. Now she knew three more things.

  Carl must have grown up in an orphanage.

  She could guess what gave him nightmares.

  And she knew why he had named his horse Grace.

  * * *

  The rhythmic clang of the hammer against the chisel mixed with the clucking of the chickens that roamed free in the orchard and Sam Armstrong’s off-key rendering of “I’ll Take You Home Kathleen.” Carl swept his hand over the slab of polished granite to remove any loose chips. He traced his finger over the letters.

  Thora Thunder Woman Armstrong.

  Beloved Wife and Mother.

  Beneath he would carve the dates. Just the years of birth and death. Jade’s father had told him that his wife had not known her date of birth, but she’d been fifteen winters old when she’d found the wounded Sam Armstrong up in the hills and saved his life.

  Footsteps thudded on the ladder as Sam climbed down from inspecting the ripening peaches. He walked over, the cloud of smoke that floated from his pipe dispersing the flies. Carl had tried it, but despite Sam’s special blend, which included herbs as well as tobacco, he’d coughed and retched at the first puff. Tolerating insects seemed easier.

  Sam halted behind him. ‘Jade will be pleased with the gravestone.’

  His body tensing at the opening gambit, Carl chipped away at the dates. His father-in-law rarely spoke up, and when he did, he usually had weighty matters to discuss.

  Puffing sounds sent more smoke into the air. ‘Is the girl with child?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Carl replied.

  He’d spent enough time with saloon girls to learn about the monthly cycles of women’s bodies. After deciding the marriage was a mistake, he had met the hardest test he’d ever faced and had left Jade alone at night, even though they continued to share a bed.

  Sam made a noncommittal sound and drew on his pipe. ‘She will be soon enough. Will you stay, at least until the baby’s born?’

  The chisel slipped, nearly making the 1 into a 7. Carl muttered a curse.

  ‘Ain’t no use cussing me for offering you a future, son.’

  Not rising to the challenge, Carl continued his work.

  Sam spoke up. ‘Jade wants you to stay, but she’s too proud to ask.’

  Wrong, Carl pointed out in his mind. She was just asking without words. Every night when they curled together in bed, she would turn over and tilt her face up for a kiss, her arms sliding around his bare shoulders. Clinging to him. Offering the tenderness he craved.

  ‘I can’t stay,’ Carl replied finally. ‘That’s all there is to it.’ But even as he said it his mind raced ahead, seeing a ribbon of unfolding years. Children running through the orchard. Family dinners, school fetes, growing old.

  A family.

  Something he’d never known.

  It wouldn’t work, he told himself. Even at the orphanage, he’d never dreamed of a family, like some of the other kids. He knew nothing about being part of a normal household. And yet, each day that went by, he cherished the quiet evenings together more and more.

  Clean sheets. Tasty food. Eating his meals at a table. A roof over his head when it rained. A willing woman in his bed every night. He could get used to it. Hell, he even liked Sam, would miss the old man’s taciturn manner and pipe smoking and out-of-tune singing.

  Carl admitted he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t given any thought to staying. But every time he considered it, the walls caved in on him. He could not live hemmed in behind closed doors. He did not deserve a family. For he knew that one day he would fail them. Eventually disaster would strike, and he would be unable to keep them safe.

  He could not stay. And yet he could not fulfill his promise and then ride out.

  How could he give Jade a child and then leave it without a father?

  * * *

  Jade brought the buckboard to a halt outside the mercantile, secured the carthorse and jumped down, landing soundlessly in her moccasins. In deference to the sweltering heat, she wore a wide cotton skirt and a belted tunic instead of buckskins that might have proclaimed her ancestry with a louder voice. A single eagle feather dangled from her cascading curls, in the manner of a young brave.

  Across the street, two women stopped to stare, their bonneted heads bent together in scandalized whisper. Jade glared back. Since her wedding she had avoided coming into town, the role of an outcast proving more difficult than she had anticipated.

  Conversation died as she entered the mercantile. Behind the counter, Mr. Stevens ducked to rearrange the cans of beans on the bottom shelf. Mrs. Pringle and Mrs. Thurgood sent matching frowns of disapproval in her direction before turning their backs and moving down the aisle.

  Sally Stevens, who’d gone to school with her, hurried out from the back.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jade.’ Sally’s cheeks flamed scarlet. ‘We don’t…serve Indians.’

  ‘I see.’ Jade gritted her teeth. ‘Will you serve my father?’

  Sally glanced over at her uncle, who gave a curt nod.

  ‘Fine,’ Jade said, without waiting for Sally to reply. ‘I’ll send Pa next time.’ She hesitated, then plunged on. ‘Will you serve me now, or did I make a wasted trip?’

  Mr. Stevens uncoiled his gangly frame behind the counter. ‘Just this once.’

  Before his words had faded, an indignant huff came from down the aisle. Jade couldn’t tell if it had been Mrs. Pringle or Mrs.
Thurgood. It didn’t matter, they all felt the same. She took a backward step and spoke in a low voice to the storekeeper. ‘I understand that you can’t.’ Alarm soared inside her as the full outcome of her rebellion became clear in her mind. ‘Will you continue to take our fruit?’

  Mr. Stevens hesitated. He wiped his hands on his white apron and refused to meet her eyes as he spoke. ‘When the peaches ripen, tell your father to bring half the normal quantity in the first week. After that, we’ll have to see.’

  ‘I’ll tell him.’ Jade hurried out, the force of her exit slamming the door against the wall so hard the timbers shook. Tears stung her eyes. It appeared that the town had closed ranks against her. People resented her for deceiving them and then flaunting her Indian birth.

  Grudgingly she accepted that her unwise actions might have jeopardized their livelihood. Everything her parents had worked for, everything they had spent their lives building would be ruined if people shunned their produce.

  * * *

  Crickets chirped in the darkness. A wisp of smoke rose from a bonfire smoldering in a ring of stones on the ground. The glow of embers reflected on the cotton sheets that Carl had rigged up to create a private cocoon between the fruit-laden trees.

  He had told Sam he wanted to smoke out the bees that bothered them as they worked in the orchard. On purpose, he had started the task too late in the day. Jade had brought supper out to him, and now she sat beside him, keeping him company as the night crept in.

  Carl didn’t really mind the bees, but he wanted to talk to Jade in private, without worrying about Sam listening in the next room. For they needed to talk. He needed to make Jade understand why he could neither stay nor give her a child as he had promised.

  ‘Jade?’ he said softly.

  She looked up at him, her green eyes dark in the firelight.

  ‘I know you want me to stay, but I can’t.’

  ‘Why?’

  The single word was full of hurt. He took a deep breath and let the words pour out. ‘I never knew my parents. My mother was a saloon girl who died giving birth to me. I grew up in an orphanage…or what was supposed to be an orphanage. In truth, it was a workhouse.’

  ‘A workhouse?’

  ‘Unpaid labor. Girls as young as six spent their days sewing or doing laundry. The boys hauled coal or chopped firewood. We never had enough to eat. Most boys left by twelve, when they grew big enough to fend for themselves in the streets. The girls ended up in saloons or sweatshop factories.’

  ‘When did you leave?’

  ‘I was twelve when the place burned down.’ He reached out and wound one of her ebony curls around his forefinger. ‘For a while, I lived on the streets. Then a man who arranged bare-knuckle fights took me on. I was good with numbers, so I recorded bets for him, calculated the odds. I did that until I was eighteen. Then I killed the man who used to run the orphanage.’

  ‘Because of…the fire?’

  ‘That and other things.’ Carl made a fist, his fingers tangling in her hair. The smell of smoke, the odor of burning flesh and the cries of young female voices haunted him, but he conquered the memory. He waited for Jade to ask further questions. Her silence gave him an odd feeling that she already knew more than he had revealed.

  ‘Afterward, I joined the army,’ he continued. ‘They taught me to track. To kill more efficiently. I fought in the Indian wars. Sioux, mostly. I served six years. Got out three years ago, at twenty-four, and took up bounty hunting.’

  ‘Why did you come to Arizona Territory?’

  ‘More outlaws to hunt, and rough living is easier in warmer climates.’

  ‘Were you after an outlaw when you rode by my father’s house?’

  ‘No.’ He opened his fist to release her hair, and smoothed back the delicate curls at her temples. ‘I was headed for Tucson. I wanted to get a job riding shotgun for the stage line.’

  ‘Didn’t you like bounty hunting?’

  The corners of his mouth tugged into a rueful smile. ‘The first man I tracked was wanted dead or alive, so I killed him, and that was fine. The next man was wanted alive. It took me four days to take him to the territorial prison in Yuma, and when we set up camp at night he told me his story. He’d killed to avenge someone he loved, just like I had. He was no more a criminal than I was. I let him go.’

  ‘And after that?’

  ‘The same thing happened with the next outlaw. I ended up letting him go. I decided to find another job, or to only hunt outlaws who were wanted dead.’ He leaned down and framed her face between his palms. ‘That’s the kind of man I am. I’ve killed. For revenge and for money. I wanted you to know, so you understand why I can’t stay.’

  Despite the darkness, he saw her frown. ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know how to be part of a family.’

  ‘There was no need for you to marry me after all,’ she said finally. ‘We’ll lose the farm anyway if people in town no longer buy our fruit. I’ve offended them by declaring my Indian heritage. I guess I’ll end up joining the tribe and learning to be a medicine woman after all.’ She glanced up at him. ‘It’s a good thing I’m not pregnant. I wouldn’t have wanted to bring up a child on a reservation.’

  In the orange glimmer of the dying embers, he could see the hurt in her eyes, could read the regret in her expression. Night after night Carl had conquered his need for Jade, and now it crashed like a spring torrent over him. Before he left he would have to possess her one more time, feel her shatter beneath him, hear her soft cries of pleasure, and store a few more memories of her in his mind.

  Carl placed his hand on her back and traced the delicate line of her spine through the loose flannel shirt she wore over her canvas pants. She stared at him, surprise on her face as she caught on to his intention, understood that after weeks of resisting her, he was going to make love to her out in the orchard, beneath the stars.

  ‘Jade.’ The word rasped in his throat. He swept his hand down to her buttocks and then up again, slipping beneath the hem of her shirt. Against his callused palm, her skin was softer than the ripest peaches on the trees. He urged her down onto her back on the blanket he’d spread over the ground and settled half on top of her, his leg thrown across her thighs.

  Taking his weight on his forearms, he cupped her face in his hands and lowered his mouth to hers. Lust rippled through him as he felt the slight bucking of her hips and the sharp sound of frustration she made when he didn’t press his hard arousal to the soft notch at the apex of her thighs.

  He continued kissing her, greedy, open-mouthed kisses, his tongue delving deep, sliding past her teeth. He fumbled at her clothing and found the button at her waist. Running out of patience, he yanked, sending the rest of the buttons flying through the air and landing with muted pops against the sheets, like insects bombarding the cotton walls of the makeshift tent.

  He had her pants and flimsy drawers off in seconds, and her shirt open to expose her breasts. Lifting his mouth from hers, he dealt with his own clothing, only as much as was necessary, undoing the waist of his pants and pushing the fabric down his thighs. A sigh of relief expelled from his chest as his erection sprang free from its confines.

  ‘Jade,’ he murmured as he settled on top of her, every instinct focused on possession. Even in the low light, he could see the flush that flared across her cheeks, the passion that burned in her eyes, the sensual invitation in her open mouth. He dipped his head for a quick, hard kiss. Then, all the while watching her face, he entered her with a single hard thrust that buried him to the hilt.

  Jade closed her eyes and made a soft moan of pleasure. But he wanted more.

  ‘Look at me, Jade.’

  Her lashes fluttered and lifted.

  Braced high on his arms, he started moving, their bodies joined in intimacy but not touching anywhere else. After only a few forceful strokes, Jade arched up from the ground and pulsed around him, her head thrown back, her hoarse cry of ecstasy soaring through the trees.

  ‘Don’t close
your eyes,’ he told her.

  She obeyed, and he held her gaze as he jetted his seed into her. When the last tremors of satisfaction had faded, he collapsed beside her and hauled her into his arms. She tucked her face into the crook of his neck, her breath warm on his skin. When her body relaxed and her breathing grew even, he raked his fingers into her hair to tip her head back so he could look into her face.

  ‘Don’t go to sleep.’ He brushed a kiss on her brow. ‘I have things to say.’

  She stiffened in his embrace. Guilt twisted inside Carl. At moments like this, a woman wanted to hear endearments, sweet words of affection.

  But that was not what he had to give her.

  ‘I’ll be leaving tomorrow,’ he told her.

  And felt his chest tighten when he saw her eyes fill with unshed tears.

  Chapter Five

  Jade stared up at Carl as he sat on his blue roan, ready to ride out, gun belt circling his lean hips and the rifle in its scabbard. A bedroll nestled behind the saddle and a pair of full saddlebags hung on the horse’s flanks.

  He touched the brim of his hat. ‘I’ll ride by and let you know where I’ll be.’

  Jade felt as if her heart were breaking. ‘The stage line might not be hiring.’

  ‘They’re always looking for men,’ Carl said, and whirled the horse around.

  ‘Goodbye,’ Jade called out after him. Such an impersonal farewell. She wanted to tell him more. Tell him that he’d enriched their lives, that she wanted to offer him a home, care for him, even if the comfort of her body was all he might ever want from her.

  Carl twisted in the saddle to glance back at her. The golden glow of the morning sun turned him into a dark silhouette. He looked big and dangerous, every inch the bounty hunter he was—a hired killer, a man who lived by his guns and would one day die by them.

  He raised his voice to carry over the horse’s impatient stomping. ‘I’ll come by to see you. Or I’ll send money. I don’t want you to starve if things don’t get any better.’