by Jillian Hart
“Get away.” She fought him.
His grip tightened. She kicked him hard when he struggled for the reins. A bullet whizzed into the tree beside her. The mare whinnied in terror and took off in a bolt. Anna screamed as Dalton’s grip tore her from the saddle.
She hit the ground with bruising force. Air rushed out of her lungs. Pain snapped through her spine. She leaped to her feet, but Dalton’s shoulder hit her in the abdomen and she flew back into the snow.
Icy wetness seeped through her clothes. She struggled to breathe. Panic rose when she couldn’t seem to draw air into her chest. Dalton’s weight pinned her down. His face, twisted with rage, hovered inches from her own. She looked into eyes dark with demons and saw a man without a conscience, a man who could nde a horse and wear a badge and handle a gun, but who could never be honorable, who could never be a hundredth of the man Cooper was.
She heard bootsteps. The click of a cocking gun. “Get up, Dalton.” Tucker’s voice.
Before she could blink, Dalton rolled off her, then he took her by the collar and lifted her to her feet, nearly choking her. She tried to fight him, but she couldn’t even breathe. Panic rose as he held her tight to his chest like a shield.
“Let her go, Dalton.” Broad-shouldered, as tough as his brother, Tucker cocked his second revolver, both aimed over Anna’s head, she guessed, directly at Dalton. “There’s no way out for you. We’ve got your men. The marshals are here. You can go easy or not. It’s your choice.”
The cold nose of a gun jabbed her jaw. “Not so simple. If you value your wife’s life, you’ll let me go. It’s your choice now, Braddock”
Wife? The single word pierced through the fog of her mind. Air rushed into her chest, and she gasped. Dalton must never have met Cooper face-to-face. He thought Tucker was Cooper. Then where was—
A click of a gun. “Let her go, Dalton. There’s no escape. Not for you.” Cooper’s voice. He had approached Dalton from behind and now held a revolver nosed up against Jennings’ spine.
Dalton’s grip loosened, and she spun away. Tucker moved, Dalton drew, a shot fired. A man dropped to the ground in front of her. Dalton.
Cooper didn’t look at her as he barked out orders to his men. There were outlaws to bind and tie, and riderless horses to catch. Tucker gave her a quick hug, a quick check to make sure she was all right, then strode away to help.
And even though it was over, Anna felt no comfort. Cooper hadn’t come to save his wife, she knew. He’d only been doing his job.
The storm had left a thin layer of wet snow in town, which began melting as soon as the clouds parted. The tinkling drip of water from the trees, the rush of tiny trickles creeking in the road, the music of ice tumbling off the roof of the house seemed far too merry for what lay ahead.
Yellow-faced wildflowers poked up through the disappearing snow, undaunted by the brief, momentary loss of summer. Well, she could be just as stalwart, she thought as she dismounted.
Cooper handed the horses over to Tucker and asked him to care for them. Anna stepped into the house alone. Accepting the inevitable was for the best. After what she’d done, the things she’d said, she didn’t have to look into the depths of Cooper’s eyes to know there would be no forgiveness.
She headed upstairs, chin bowed, unable to see for this one last time the home she’d come to love. She’d already said goodbye. She could not bear to do so twice.
After grabbing a towel from the linen shelf, she closed the bedroom door. Shivering from cold and loss, she began peeling off her clothes. She was wet to the skin. She set out her corset to dry and found a change of drawers and a chemise.
Heavy footsteps sounded outside the room. Cooper’s steps; she recognized his gait. Anna jerked a calico work dress over her head and was smoothing it over her hips when the door flew open.
Cooper filled the threshold, dark as night. Jaw set, muscles tensed, fists clenched, his powerful presence shrank the room, made her feel small against his iron solid strength.
Her throat went dry. Her heart, too hopeless to feel anything, skipped a beat. She ought to apologize and try to explain. She wanted more than anything to make him believe—
“Don’t you ever do that again.” He bit the words out as if they were bitter, with distaste. For her.
And he had every right. She’d hurt him. Intentionally. And now he would ask her to leave. No, judging by the anger tight in his jaw, he would order her to leave. Immediately. “Cooper, those things I said—”
“Were necessary, I know.” He stepped forward and laid a warm wonderful hand against her face. “You couldn’t have meant them.”
“I never meant—” She stopped. Blinked. Could it be?
He wasn’t ordering her to leave. He understood. Cooper believed her. “How did you know? I tried to hurt you.” She laid her hand against his and felt the luxurious male heat of him. “Did you see Dalton in the forest?”
“No.” He smiled, slow, tender, sexy. “You couldn’t fool me, Anna. I believe in you. I trust you.”
“You do?”
“I figured Dalton was nearby. I had to leave, so those men would think you’d succeeded in driving me off. That gave us time for the marshals to circle around and set up an ambush.” He brushed a wet curl from her eyes, his gaze intimate, bold. “I will never stop believing in you. Not in my wife and her fairy-tale wishes. Not in a woman of honor.”
He saw the tears brim her eyes, happy and filled with promise. Like a rainbow after a storm, like flowers through snow, it gave him hope, too. Made him see their future. There would be more children, more little girls for him to teach to ride and climb trees and play outlaw. And Anna, always Anna, in his bed, in his heart, in his life.
“I married you for convenience, Anna,” he confessed. “But I want you to stay for love.”
“For love,” she agreed. She had his love and all of his heart. She could never want anything more.
He folded her against his chest, and they bound their pledge with a kiss.
ISBN : 978-1-4592-5100-7
COOPER’S WIFE
Copyright © 1999 by Jill Stnckler
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