From Runaway to Pregnant Bride

by Tatiana March

  Annabel married? There had to be some mistake. Cold fingers of fear closed around Clay. The taunting warnings of Mr. Hicks that had plagued his dreams echoed in his head. Frantic now, his hands fisting on the reins, Clay urged the buckskin toward the mercantile. From the house next to it came the pounding of hammers. The exterior showed signs of renovation, as did the house opposite.

  “They own the mercantile and the house next door to it,” the boy had said.

  Clay gritted his teeth. I will wait forever, Annabel had told him, but he had given her no promises in return. Had she given up on him and married some other man? A man who came from her affluent world, a man with education, born to be a gentleman?

  Outside the mercantile, Clay jumped down from the saddle and barely paused to tie the horse and mule to the hitching rail. His boots pounded on the boardwalk as he charged in through the open door of the store.

  Annabel stood behind a counter, dressed in a loose dress of lavender blue. For an instant, Clay froze at the sight of her. She looked radiant. Her skin glowed and her eyes sparkled, and her breasts seemed fuller than he remembered. She certainly did not appear to have been wilting from loneliness.

  A man’s voice called from the back of the store. “Annabel, you ought to go home early today. Don’t tire yourself out.”

  The hardships of working at the mine through the winter months buffeted Clay along, as though he had no control over his movements. Dimly he could hear Annabel cry out his name, but he was already storming into the back room.

  Two men crouched on their heels, unloading a crate of goods on the floor. Father and son, by the look of it, cut from the same pattern of unruly black hair and bulbous nose and thickly muscled frame. The father seemed too old for Annabel, the son too young. It had to be someone else.

  Clay strode back to the store. “Where is he?” It was not the reaction of a reasonable man, but he did not want to be reasonable. “I’ll make him regret the day he laid a finger on you.”

  Annabel stared at him with those big amber eyes. “Clay!” she shouted. “What is the matter with you?”

  “What’s the matter with me?” He stalked up to her. “‘I will wait,’ you said. ‘I will wait forever.’ Barely six months I’ve been gone, and I come back to find you married. You’re no better than that woman who betrayed Mr. Hicks while he was away making his fortune.”

  “I see.” Annabel put on her nose-in-the-air expression. “I am not only a spoiled rich man’s daughter. I am a fickle woman, too. Untrustworthy and flighty and unfaithful.”

  There was something strange about her behavior. The momentary flash of fear was gone, and now she appeared to be taunting him. The hot flare of jealousy that had driven Clay to act like a fool cooled down, leaving behind the smoldering ashes of doubt and misery.

  He spoke in a low voice that had an edge of despair to it. “I told you once that I’ll forgive you anything, except betraying me with another man.” His hands clenched into fists at his sides. “Who is he? I have good mind to kill the bastard.”

  Annabel craned her neck to call out past him. “Mr. Osborn, could you bring me a coil of rope, please?”

  Returning her attention to Clay, she contemplated him with a challenge in her amber eyes. Clay fell silent. His heart was hammering in his chest, his breathing harsh, his body shaking. He fought to conquer his agitation, but the weeks and months of suffering at the mine acted like a gunpowder charge inside him.

  The middle-aged man walked in from the back, the thud of his boots ominous in the silence. Annabel took the coil of hemp rope the man held out, spun back to Clay and banged the rope down on the counter. “Here,” she said. “Go find a tree. Or a balcony railing might do.”

  “I need to find the guilty man before I can hang him.”

  “That’s easy,” Annabel said. “You just look in the mirror. Then make a noose and stick your neck in it.” She reached up to the shelf behind the counter, took down a leather folder, opened it and slipped out a document and shoved it at him. “Read,” she ordered. “And apologize.”

  Clay took the piece of paper, scanned the few lines of text. It was a marriage certificate, dated seven months ago. And the husband was... Clay Collier. Baffled, he looked up at Annabel. It appeared she was married to him.

  “We didn’t get married,” he pointed out, confusion dulling his mind.

  “Oh, yes we did,” Annabel told him. “We got married in the light of a bonfire under a rock overhang in the Mimbres Mountains. I have proof of it right here.” She pulled her loose dress tight against her body to reveal a rounded belly.

  Clay staggered backward. “You’re...? A baby?”

  Annabel tried to look stern, but a smile was breaking out on her face. “A baby. Yours and mine. A little gold miner. We can call him Aaron, after Mr. Hicks. Or Aria or Arlene if it’s a girl.”

  “A baby.” Clay shook his head, but the idea refused to sink in. All he could think about was that she hadn’t married someone else. That she had waited. That she was still his, as she should be. Forever. He folded the marriage certificate and put it carefully away in the pocket of his threadbare coat.

  “Are you pleased?” Annabel asked, hesitant now.

  “Of course I’m pleased,” Clay said. “It’s just that...” He cast a quick glance toward the open doorway of the storage room, stepped up to Annabel and laid his hand over her rounded belly. He lowered his voice. “I’m sorry for leaving you without any promises to give you comfort. Sorry for making you face the world alone with a baby growing inside you. I know it won’t make up for those months, but it eases my conscience that I found gold. I can support you and the child, keep you safe.”

  Annabel reached out and brushed aside the unruly curls tumbling across his forehead. “I always knew you would come for me,” she said softly. “I just didn’t know how long it would take, so I had to marry you in advance. I have money, too, from Cousin Gareth. It is something called a portion. I bought us a house and the store, and it has given me great pleasure to prepare a home for us, like an equal partner should.” She tugged him toward the exit. “Come and see.”

  “Wait,” Clay said. “Are you sure the marriage is legal?”

  “Perfectly so, unless you dispute your signature.”

  Clay pulled Annabel closer to him, her pregnant belly pressing against his hips. His child, and the memories of how they had brought that child into being, mixed in his mind, filling him with a sense of peace and homecoming. “How did you make it happen?” he said. “I mean the marriage.”

  “With some forgery, some trickery and a total lack of shame. My sisters helped. They took some persuading, but I won them over.” Annabel gave him a cat-with-the-cream smile. “And I’ll tell you nothing more until you come and see the house.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  In her hurry to show Clay around their new home, Annabel stumbled on the rutted street. Clay scooped her into his arms and carried her through the open doorway next door. The house was two-story, with a fresh coat of white paint on the outside and a tiny front garden with wooden tubs planted full of spring flowers.

  The workmen had finished for the day, the pounding of hammers ceased. Clay set her down on her feet, kicked the door to a close and eased her back against the hallway wall. Check for fresh paint! Annabel wanted to cry out, but it was too late, for Clay had silenced her with his mouth.

  The kiss was warm and gentle, full of regret and longing. Annabel parted her lips, asking for more. Clay made a rough sound. The pressure of his mouth grew hungry. How she’d missed him! Missed his companionship during the day, his warmth at night, his partnership in every aspect of life.

  When Clay lifted his head, he searched her face and spoke softly, with a new humility in his tone. “I’d never have left you had I known you were with child, Annabel. Please believe me, I had no idea. I thought..
.”

  “So did I.” She lifted one hand to stir his unruly curls, a familiar gesture that filled her with memories. “It must have happened that last night, when you came to say goodbye. I only discovered a month later.”

  Clay curled his fingers around her wrist and pressed her hand against his heart, to let her feel how hard it pounded. “I was wrong,” he said. “And you were right, about everything. You were even right to lie to me about your background, for when I found out, I did exactly what you feared—I judged you as a rich man’s daughter instead of the brave, resourceful miner you were. I didn’t treat you as an equal partner. I refused to let you make your own decisions, and for that I am ashamed. Will you forgive me?”

  “There is nothing I wouldn’t forgive you,” Annabel replied. “Except betraying me with another woman.” Her tone was fierce, in the name of equality, as well as from true emotion.

  Clay settled the flat of his palm on her belly, as he’d already done in the store, the heavy weight of his hand warm and reassuring. “What is it like?” he asked. “Can you feel the baby move yet? How much longer? Have you been well?”

  “The baby kicks like an angry mule,” Annabel replied. “I was sick to start with, but it’s over now. Two and a half more months to go. By the end of July, we’ll have a child.” She rested her head against his shoulder. “I think this is what might have happened to Mr. Hicks and his Sarah. But he didn’t come back in time.” She lifted her head to look at Clay. “If Mr. Hicks had gone to confront Sarah, I think he might have found a sturdy little boy with his features playing in her backyard.”

  “Maybe so.” Clay raked a glance over the dust sheets and paint pots that covered the hallway floor. “Does this house have a bed?” He framed her face with his hands. “In all those lonely winter nights, what kept me going was thinking of you, of how it feels to sleep with your body tucked against mine.”

  Annabel smiled. “There is a big, soft bed, but first I want to show you the house and tell you about how we got married.”

  A frown drifted across Clay’s features, but it vanished in an instant and an indulgent smile took its place. “Of course,” he said. “Show me around, and tell me everything.”

  There were benefits to having a husband contrite and apologetic, Annabel decided. It gave him the patience to trail behind her, inspecting every corner of their new house, studying every piece of furniture, every scrap of curtain, every pot and pan in the kitchen, never letting his frustration show.

  When their tour reached the bedroom, Clay’s patience came to an end. Gently but firmly, he stripped away her clothing and bundled her into the big four-poster bed, then nearly shredded his threadbare garments in his haste as he undressed and joined her. “Tell me what I can do without harming the baby,” he said as he stretched out beside her.

  “You can rub my back.”

  In truth, they could do a lot more, but if she let him get started, he’d never listen to the story of her cleverness and triumph. Curled up on her side, Annabel felt Clay’s strong fingers probing at her tired muscles. “Yes,” she said, arching her spine like a contented cat. “There. Just there.”

  She concentrated on the pleasure and talked and talked. She told him about Cousin Gareth, and how the sisters had given the fortune back to him and he was now Lord Fairfax again, living at Merlin’s Leap.

  She explained about her portion, how in aristocratic families the eldest son inherited, but it was his duty to provide for the unmarried females, and upon marriage to bestow a portion of the fortune on each of the girls.

  “Most of the Fairfax fortune is tied up with Merlin’s Leap and the shipping line, so my portion is not very big, only thirty thousand dollars, but that is wonderful because that is the value of your gold, which makes us equal again.” Annabel craned her neck to look at Clay. “Don’t you agree?”

  “Yes,” he said. “It is very nice that it makes us equal.”

  Annabel smiled. If Clay ever behaved like a stubborn fool again, she wouldn’t mind, provided he would go to the same lengths with his next apology. Her voice breathless with eagerness, she filled him in with the rest of her achievements.

  “For almost five months, I managed to hide I was with child, but then I had to tell my sisters. I chose a time when Miranda was away. Big sisters are easier to handle one at a time. I knew I had to marry or return to Boston and pretend to be a widow, but I had been putting it off, in the hope that you would get here in time. Cousin Gareth wasn’t as bad as I had expected. He said I could come back to Gold Crossing after the baby was born, and wait for you, pretending to be some other man’s widow, but I feared you’d come while I was away. And anyway, I’ve learned my lesson—that lies don’t solve anything but usually lead to even more trouble.”

  “Uh-huh,” Clay said.

  It was not much of a response, but it indicated he was listening. Annabel rolled over onto her back. She wanted to see his expression when she told him how terribly clever she’d been. “There’s a preacher in Gold Crossing, Reverend Eldridge. He is in his eighties and going senile. He has completely white hair and thick glasses and he forgets things.”

  “Uh-huh,” Clay said. He lifted one hand to her big belly and stroked her pregnant bump, his touch light and dreamy.

  For a moment, Annabel was distracted. She raked her gaze over his naked chest and shoulders. “You’ve gone awfully thin.”

  “I didn’t eat enough. It will pass.”

  She trailed her fingertips along the ridged pattern of his rib cage. “Your skin feels very hot.”

  “Uh-huh.” Clay bent his head to brush a kiss on her belly.

  The tickle of his beard stubble made Annabel giggle. “Listen,” she said. “Reverend Eldridge can’t tell me and Charlotte apart. Of course, we do look very much alike. Miranda is the lucky one with Papa’s looks, tall and blonde and blue-eyed.”

  Clay was kissing the indentation of her waist now, what was left of it, the balloon that she had become. Annabel buried her fingers in his hair, squirmed a little against the onslaught of pleasure, and went on with her tale of triumph.

  “The day after I told Charlotte about the baby, I bumped into Reverend Eldridge on the boardwalk. He squints at me through his thick lenses and says, ‘I recall marrying a woman who looks exactly like you on the porch of the Imperial Hotel, and another one in my church. Which one are you?’”

  She tugged at Clay’s hair to pull his head up so she could see his expression. Once he was looking at her with proper attention, Annabel resumed talking.

  “Boom!” she said. “It came to me like a gunpowder charge going off. You see, Charlotte had been married twice because the first time Reverend Eldridge forgot to enter it in the church register and they had to do the whole thing again.”

  Clay lowered his head once more and began nuzzling her neck.

  “Listen,” Annabel said in a breathless rush. “I hurried back to Charlotte and begged and begged and begged until she agreed to help. We had to wait until Miranda returned because she is the best forger of the three of us.”

  Clay was edging lower now, his lips skimming toward her breasts, his breath brushing heat against her skin. Annabel arched her back, succumbing to the pleasure. But she wanted to finish telling him how ingenious she had been. “Listen! Listen!”

  Clay lifted his head. “I am listening. I can listen with my ears...while I touch with my hand...” His fingers did another butterfly dance over her pregnant bump. “I can kiss with my lips...” He dipped his head and closed his mouth over the tip of her breast.

  Annabel gasped at the sensation. Fighting to focus on her story, she spoke in a husky murmur. “Charlotte went to Reverend Eldridge and said she wanted a copy of her marriage certificate. While he wrote it out, Charlotte stole a blank form. We all learned sleight of hand from Cousin Gareth when we were small.”

  Clay was cup
ping her breast now, studying the shape. “These are bigger now than they used to be. Is it because of the baby?”

  “Yes...” Annabel was trembling now. “Listen!”

  “I am listening.” Clay’s mouth went to work on her breast again, kissing and teasing and tempting.

  “So,” Annabel said, fighting to suppress the tiny moans of pleasure. “We had the blank form, and we filled in your details and mine, and then Miranda forged the signatures. We got your signature from the note you left for me with the partnership money in Hillsboro, and, of course, the reverend had signed Charlotte’s marriage certificate.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Are you listening?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And then I took the marriage certificate and went to see Reverend Eldridge and I told him I just wanted to check that he had remembered to enter our marriage into the church register. He took out the register and looked terribly crestfallen—I felt so guilty for tricking him—and then he entered our marriage in the church register, and because no one had been married since Charlotte, the entry is in the right sequence, too.”

  She tugged at Clay’s hair to indicate she wanted him to lift his head, but she did not tug very hard because what he was doing to her breast felt so wonderful. “Are you listening?” she said.

  “Yes,” Clay muttered against her skin. “Go on.”

  “This is the best part. I asked Reverend Eldridge for a copy of our marriage certificate, so he wrote one out and signed it and gave it to me. There is a blank space for your signature. I’ve already signed. If you sign, too, all the signatures will be genuine and it is no longer a forgery at all. Are you listening?”

  Clay raised his head. His eyes were dark and burning, his expression hungry and intent. “Yes,” he said. “I listened to every damn word you spoke. Are you finished now so I can kiss you properly?”

  “Uh-huh,” Annabel said.

  Clay lowered his head and kissed her, long and hard. Annabel kissed him back, the deep, desperate kisses of lovers too long apart. And then, as the night fell around them, they did all the other things Dottie Timmerman—the dainty silver-haired wife of the ancient Doc Timmerman—had explained in scandalized detail it was possible for a pregnant woman to do with her husband in bed.