“Thank you,” she said, knowing it would be from Thelma, who was sure to be upset about another delay in her and Ruby’s return to Kansas City. Janette let out a long-suffering sigh. Thelma was a dear. Tenderhearted and loyal, but not a seamstress. Luckily, Eleanor Wakefield had agreed to complete any sewing that needed to be completed in her absence, but she couldn’t continue to request that of Eleanor or Thelma.
What was she going to do? She couldn’t abandon Ruby. Would not leave her at the Triple C. Yet she couldn’t abandon Thelma either. Nor her customers. She’d worked for so long to gain the reputation she now had and couldn’t just turn her back on all that.
Another sigh escaped her lungs, and she plopped down on the bed.
Things would be so much easier if Gabe wasn’t so stubborn.
What she’d said was true. She wasn’t really his wife. Repeating a few words hadn’t changed anything. Furthermore, Gabe hadn’t wanted to be married any more than she did. Why couldn’t he just agree with her?
The knock on the door sent her to her feet. “Come in.”
“Here you are,” Sy said, holding out an envelope. “Must be important. Calvin brought it over himself. Calvin Black. He’s the telegraph operator. The town pays his salary. Costs the city a goodly sum to keep the lines in working order, too. Course, if I’d known you and Gabe were married then, I’d just have given it to him.”
Janette reached into her pocket and pulled out a few coins left from her shopping and handed them to Sy as she took the envelope. “Thank Mr. Black for me, will you?”
“Surely will,” Sy said. “And I’ll have that hot water carried up in no time for you.”
She thanked him again as he left, pulling the door closed behind him. Even as she stared at the envelope, Gabe filled her mind, which made her lock the door and drop the key on the dresser. If they’d truly been married, Sy could have given Gabe the telegram. Then again, if it had been the other way around—if the telegram had been for Gabe—Sy could have given it to her because it was assumed husbands and wives share everything. At least some did. Which was why the judge wanted them to marry. To share Ruby’s upbringing.
A ceremony might unite two people in matrimony, but it certainly didn’t create a marriage.
Janette sat on the edge of the bed again and pressed a hand to her forehead. She was giving herself a headache. Gabe was right. A divorce wouldn’t solve their situation any more than a marriage had. Her parents...
An idea grew. Her parents had been married for years, but Father was rarely home. They’d lived apart far more than they’d ever lived together. Perhaps she could convince Gabe they could do that. They’d simply need to form an agreement for her to take Ruby to Kansas City and visit his ranch whenever necessary. Hope rose inside her. He might agree to that.
She glanced at the envelope in her hand. It would have to be soon.
With a sigh, she did what she didn’t want to do—opened the envelope. Knowing Thelma’s message would be a plea to come home soon.
As predicted, the telegram started with “You must come home now.”
Janette’s frustration became laced with concern and fear as she continued reading.
Please. I don’t know what to do. Deputy Marcus doesn’t know who broke into the house. He asked about Isaac. Come home. I’m scared.
Janette read the words several times, and each time her stomach churned harder. Pinning her trembling bottom lip between her teeth, she drew in a deep breath through her nose, forcing the air to fully fill her lungs. Was Isaac back in Kansas City, or had the deputy learned what had happened five years ago—that she’d shot Isaac? She’d told him to leave. He’d refused, so she’d followed through on her warning but certainly hadn’t killed him. If that had been her goal, she wouldn’t have aimed for his knee.
Had Isaac returned and, looking for revenge, broken into the house?
Thelma certainly had to be beside herself, and scared.
Janette read the note yet again. There was no choice. She had to return to Kansas City immediately. Thelma needed her. If Isaac had returned, there was no saying what he might do. Without her dress shop, she’d have no livelihood, no means to raise Ruby.
Gabe would have to understand. She closed her eyes as a brief thought crossed her mind of how wonderful it would be to face Isaac with Gabe by her side. His glare alone would be enough to send Isaac running all the way back to Ohio, if that truly was where he was from.
Her eyes popped open as her stomach clenched. That wasn’t about to happen—Gabe going to Kansas City with her—but there was an eastbound train leaving Hays tomorrow, and she would be on it.
She stood, folded the letter and, while stuffing it in her pocket, felt that the money was still there, making sure there was enough for another telegram.
Sy was in the hallway, with a bucket in each hand, when she left her room. “I have your water right here.”
“Thank you,” she replied while locking the door, “but I have an errand to run. I’ll be back shortly.” Without waiting for a reply, she hurried for the stairway.
At the front door, just as she’d turned left, sounds of laughter floated on the air. It came from the saloon across the street. She’d bet her last dollar Gabe was there, and her first instinct was to back up and stay within the shadows of the awnings stretching over the boardwalk. That idea quickly dissolved. With little thought as to what she might say, she crossed the road, walking directly toward those swinging bat doors.
A powerful anger built inside her with each step. She’d been obeying orders her entire life. Ordered to console her mother and take care of Anna after each one of their father’s visits, and had continued by taking care of everyone and everything—including Thelma—when their father had died. This morning a judge had ordered her to marry Gabe, and then he’d ordered her to lock the door.
Well, she was done taking orders.
Done.
The doors swung open with little more than a touch, and though she couldn’t help but notice the stares as she entered the saloon, she didn’t pay them any heed. Her eyes were on a man sitting at a table on the far side of the room. Gabe hadn’t noticed her, mainly because he was laughing along with the woman who had her arm draped around his shoulders.
In that instance, anger turned to raw fury. Either the room went dead quiet or she became deaf because by the time she stopped next to the table, silence buzzed in her ears. Her hand had slipped into her pocket, and she folded her palm around her gun. “Lady, if you want to keep that arm, I suggest you get it off my husband.”
Chapter Twelve
Gabe recognized the voice, but it was how Janette’s hand was buried deep in her pocket that had the hairs on his neck rising. He wasn’t sure just how good she was with the gun she kept in her pocket, but he knew for a fact her hand was on it. Moving slowly, he twisted all the way around in his chair.
“Honey, you’re mistaken, Gabe isn’t married.”
“Yes, he is, Sheila,” the judge replied quietly. “I performed the ceremony this morning.”
In one quick but easy move, Gabe stood, stepped forward and grasped the wrist of the hand Janette had tucked deep in her pocket. Her eyes weren’t on him but making a circle of the men sitting at the table where he’d been seated a second ago. The very men who’d been at the sheriff’s office this morning.
When her eyes shifted to him, they were dark, almost black and cold. The tightening of her wrist muscles said she was about to cock the gun. He could wrestle it from her, taking the chance of him or someone else getting shot in the process, or he could defuse the situation.
He chose to defuse it.
Grasping the back of her head with his other hand, he plastered his lips against hers like a man who hadn’t seen his wife in months.
She stiffened, and he stepped closer, pressing his entire length against hers. She gasped, and as he
r breath mingled with his, a desire he’d never known existed rose inside him so swiftly it stalled his lungs from breathing, his heart from beating. She swayed against him, her lips softened, and every sense in his body ignited as if a flame had been set to gunpowder.
A moan rumbled in the back of his throat as he delved deeper into the merging of their lips. He let go of her wrist to pull her closer, fully against him, so the sweet curves he’d admired since she’d first walked into his house could melt against him. The satisfaction of that intensified the fires burning inside him, and he parted her lips with his tongue to explore the sweet, heavenly depths of her mouth.
A flash, an image of him ripping off his shirt and her dress, shot behind his closed eyelids. He could almost feel her skin, warm and silky, rubbing against his.
A voice of reason, the very one he must have gone deaf to for a brief moment, came forth, telling him this had gone on long enough, that they were in the middle of a saloon.
Torn between what he knew to be true and the intoxication of her taste, Gabe increased the intensity of the kiss one final time by taking another full sweep of her mouth, of her lips, before breaking the kiss.
Then, not overly certain what she might do, he spun her around and tried his best to sound normal as he said to the other men, “Thanks for the beer.”
Her steps faltered, but he kept her moving toward the door.
She gained her footing as she hissed, “How dare you!”
“I dare to do it again if you don’t keep walking,” he whispered in return. Then, grasping her wrist again, he warned, “You draw that gun in here and the sheriff will be obliged to put you behind bars.”
He pushed one swinging door open at the same time she shoved the other one, and side by side they stepped onto the boardwalk.
“If you ever—”
“What the hell were you thinking?” he interrupted her threat. “And just who did you plan on shooting with that gun in your pocket?”
“I could have shot you,” she hissed. “You wouldn’t have even noticed with your lady friend sitting on your lap.”
“Sheila wasn’t on my lap. She’d just heard about Max’s death and was offering her condolences.”
“Oh, yes, that’s exactly what it looked like.”
While pulling her several steps away from the door, he explained, “Sheila was telling me about something Max had done the last time she’d seen him.”
“It must have been hilarious.”
She twisted but didn’t break the hold he had on her arm, however. She dug her heels in like a mule, refusing to step into the street. He honestly couldn’t remember what the barmaid had said. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing up, telling him every man in the bar was watching them through the window. In the history of Hays, he was probably the first man to have his wife barrel into a saloon and then kiss her in front of everyone. “Come on,” he growled. “Let’s go to the hotel. The entire town is watching us.”
“And whose fault would that be?” she said while refusing to move. “Not mine.”
He leveled a glare on her that every one of his cowboys knew and obeyed.
She lifted her chin and glared back, eye for eye. “I’m on my way to the telegraph office.”
The wind was pulling her black hair out of the pins holding it and tossing loose tendrils about. He had an urge to reach up and brush a few corkscrews away from her face. Coals from the fire that had flared up while kissing her still lingered inside him. Damn, she’d tasted good. Felt good. His hold on her wrist tightened as she spun about. “Where?”
“The telegraph office. I need to let Mrs. Hanks know I’ll be on the next train east.”
His attention caught on the men who now watched them over the swinging doors. The judge, sheriff and both lawyers. They were probably placing bets on just how long this marriage would last, even though moments ago they’d all been trying to convince him of how their decision had been the only one they’d had.
She started walking, and he fell in step beside her. “Who?”
“Thelma Hanks,” she said, “the woman who lives with me. I’m going to send her a telegram—”
“We’re heading back to the ranch on the next westbound train,” he pointed out.
“I’m not. I’m going to Kansas City.”
If he’d been in a better state of mind, her statement might not have angered him as much. He skidded to a stop, and because he was still holding her wrist, so did she. “So you’re running out? On both Ruby and me?”
“I’m not running out on anyone, most definitely not Ruby. I’ll be back for her as soon as I get things settled.”
Back for Ruby? All because of one kiss? He had half a notion to kiss her again but knew better. Or at least should know better. “If you hadn’t been so intent upon pulling out that gun of yours, I wouldn’t have had to kiss you.”
She opened her mouth but then pinched her lips together and swallowed visibly. Dread or anguish flashed in her eyes as she let out a sigh. He glanced over his shoulder and, noting the four men who now stood outside the saloon, watching them, tugged on her arm. “I thought you already sent Mrs. Hanks a telegram.”
“I did,” she said. “And she sent me a reply.”
Without missing a step, she reached into her other pocket and pulled out a folded envelope. He took it but couldn’t open it with just one hand and wasn’t sure he should release her wrist.
As if reading his mind, she asked, “How did you know I have a gun in my pocket?”
“A man knows when someone is about to draw, and I saw that yesterday.”
“Yesterday?”
“When I was looking for snakes,” he explained. “You dropped your hand into her pocket like a man drops his hand into his holster.”
“I wasn’t aware of that.”
“I was.” When he’d noticed that yesterday, it had taken him a moment to fully comprehend what he’d seen. It hadn’t been that way today. She’d concealed it well, he doubted anyone else had noticed it, and for some reason that made him proud. There was a lot more to her than met the eye. That was for sure. And, as much as he shouldn’t like it, like her, he did.
“You can let go of my wrist,” she said. “I won’t draw the gun here. But you should know, I always hit what I aim at.”
He didn’t question her honesty and let go of her wrist. She was a perfectionist when it came to her sewing, and that would extend to other things, too, including shooting. She’d probably practiced until she was dead-on every time. Her kissing skills weren’t too shabby either. He shouldn’t keep thinking about that, but it had already become a permanent part of his memory.
Pushing those thoughts aside the best he could, he opened the envelope as they walked and read the message, only to discover it caused more questions than answers.
“Isaac? That’s the man you were to marry.”
She let out what sounded like a frustrated growl. “I was never going to marry Isaac. I was never going to marry anyone. And there is no reason for him to be back in Kansas City.”
He caught that her point on marrying anyone included him and held up the note. “What’s this about the house being broken into?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I have to return immediately.” She shook her head. “Thelma isn’t—Well, she isn’t very brave and can be a bit scatterbrained at times. I shouldn’t have left her alone so long. Last time I went to Texas, when Ruby was born, we had a lovely couple living next door who helped Thelma, but they moved away and a bachelor lives there now.”
Gabe rarely—if ever—second-guessed his gut feelings, and right now they were screaming something wasn’t right. “What aren’t you telling me?”
She shook her head and shrugged, but guilt was written all over her face.
His instincts were too strong to ignore, and he stepped in front of her, forcing
her to stop walking. “What was the real reason Isaac left Kansas City?”
She pressed the back of her hand to her lips as he shook her head.
Gabe wished he knew who this Isaac fellow was, because he was ready to throttle the man. Keeping that well beneath the surface, he gently laid a finger on her chin, forcing her to look at him. “It’s all right, Janette,” he said. “You’re safe with me. I won’t let anyone hurt you. You believe that, don’t you?”
Blinking at the tears pooling in her eyes, she nodded.
Relieved and grateful that she trusted him and wanting to comfort her, he took ahold of her hand and squeezed it. He’d much rather kiss her again but didn’t want to frighten her any more than she already was. “Then tell me what happened.”
“I shot him.”
Gabe wasn’t sure if she said the words or merely mouthed them. However, the gun she carried in her pocket didn’t leave much room for him to not believe her.
“You shot him?” he repeated.
She nodded. “But only in the leg. I didn’t want to kill him, just make him leave.” Her words were interrupted by silent hiccups. “I warned him. Told him I’d shoot him in the leg if he didn’t leave, but he wouldn’t listen.” She closed her eyes and shook her head before saying, “Not until I told him the next bullet I fired would be into his chest.”
Gabe wasn’t sure what he’d do about her next answer, yet had to ask, “Did you shoot him again?”
Her sigh was long and jagged. “No.”
Gabe hoped he was hiding all that was going on inside him. Questions were compiling, as was his anger toward a man, any man, who would put a woman in such a position she had no recourse but to shoot. “What happened then?”
“He left,” she said, somberly. “I never saw him again.”
He let go of her hand in order to wrap an arm around her shoulders. “Come on,” he said. “The telegraph office is closed at this hour, but Calvin will answer the back door.”
“Can he still send a telegram? If the office is closed?”
Married to Claim the Rancher's Heir Page 15