High Country Bride

by Linda Lael Miller

  His name was a soft, frantic litany on her lips as he continue his scandalous ministrations, adding to her need by putting a finger inside her, finding the most sensitive place, teasing her there.

  She was wild with wanting by that time, beyond thought or reason, and still Rafe asked more and more of her, and still she gave it. She lost the sense of where she, as Emmeline, began and ended; her soul seemed to expand in a dizzying rush, and then she was nothing and everything, pure essence, at one with the lightning searing the night sky, rolling on the crest of the thunder itself.

  Satisfaction exploded within her, and, after a long time, her body still spasming, she fell gasping to earth, and to Rafe’s bed. Rafe caressed her, spoke soothing words of praise as she settled slowly back into herself. Then, when a blissful eternity had passed, he parted her legs and poised himself over her. She sensed his desire, barely restrained, felt the size and substance of him, about to enter her, and if she’d been in her right mind, she would have been terrified. Instead, she answered the unspoken question, offered by his silence, with a nod of her head and a whispered,“Yes, Rafe. Yes.”

  He claimed her in a long, deep stroke, and her first response was one of shock. There was pain, too, though it wasn’t the tearing sensation she’d expected, even hoped for, on some level of her mind. No, it was Rafe’s size that hurt her, in the beginning, and not the breaching of any barrier.

  She waited, her heart in her throat, for his scorn, for his furious rejection, but those things never came. Instead of raging at her, he began to move upon her, slowly at first, gracefully, and then with increasing power and speed. He urged her, with his hands and murmured words, to keep pace with him. Once again, her deepest instincts took over, leaving no room for doubts, no room for anything but the delicious friction of their bodies, meeting and parting and meeting again.

  When she could endure no more, could climb no further, Emmeline shattered into fragments in Rafe’s arms. He groaned, his face buried in her neck, and then his whole body stiffened at the arch of a thrust so powerful that Emmeline’s spirit was conquered, as well as her body. She began to weep when it was over, and Rafe held her tightly in his arms, as if he’d never let go.

  At some point, she slept, too exhausted even to dream, her fingers still buried in his hair.

  Rafe rapped loudly at Jeb’s bedroom door as he passed it, early the next morning, and then at Kade’s. The storm had moved on, but the aftermath would be wicked. There was a lot of work to be done.

  He lingered a moment outside his father’s room, heard the old man snoring fit to rouse the dead. Let him sleep; he’d earned it.

  Downstairs, in the kitchen, Rafe lighted the stove and put the coffee on to brew. He heard his brothers stirring upstairs and smiled a little. They’d be about as cordial as a couple of old bears prodded out of hibernation, he reckoned, being roused a full hour earlier than usual, but he didn’t give a damn what they thought. He took his job as foreman seriously, and Jeb and Kade might as well get used to it, like everybody else on the ranch. He planned to run a tight operation, with no slack in the rigging.

  He was whistling under his breath when Kade appeared, unshaved and growly, with his shirttail out. “This had better be an emergency,” he said.

  Rafe set a skillet on the stove with a resounding clang Later on, he’d expect Emmeline to get up with him and fix a proper breakfast, but this morning she needed her sleep. He smiled, remembering her response to his lovemaking. She was one of those women who took to it naturally, and that was a blessing as well as a relief. He had neither the time nor the inclination to coax a reluctant bride.“No emergency,” he replied cheerfully.“Just a ranch to run.”

  Kade narrowed his eyes, but before he could say anything, Jeb came pounding down the stairs, looking even wilder than Kade. “What the hell is going on around here?” he demanded of Rafe. “Do you know what time it is?”

  Rafe fetched a chunk of salt pork from a crock in the pantry and tossed it into the skillet, where it started to sizzle right away.“Yeah,” he said.“It’s time your ass was in the saddle.” He paused, sighed magnanimously. “However, because you’re my brothers, my own flesh and blood, I’m willing to overlook one slow start.”

  “Damnation, but you’re generous,” Kade said, sniffing for coffee. Since it wasn’t ready yet, he got a basin off the back porch, filled it with water from the reservoir on the side of the stove, and commenced to wash up.

  Jeb glared at Rafe for a long moment, as if he’d like to start a good row, right there in the kitchen, but finally turned and went back upstairs. By the time the coffee was ready and the salt pork had been fried, sliced, and slapped between slices of buttered bread, though, he’d returned, dressed for a long day on the range.

  “I guess you think you’ve got this contest won, hands down,” Kade said to Rafe, in a low drawl, as the three brothers left the house together, carrying mugs of coffee with them, their hats pulled low against the early morning chill and the collars of their canvas coats raised.

  Rafe merely arched an eyebrow and smiled. He was too much of a gentleman to come right out and say that if there was any rhyme or reason in all creation, he and Emmeline had started a baby the night before. Which wasn’t to say he didn’t feel like shouting the news from the roof. Some things were private, that’s all.

  “You missed supper last night,” Jeb said, frowning.

  “So I did,” Rafe agreed blithely.

  His brothers exchanged troubled glances.

  “You knock on my door before dawn again, Big Brother,” Kade warned, “and the house had better be on fire, because if it isn’t, I’m going to throw you down the front stairs.”

  “Anytime you think you can manage that,” Rafe said, “you just go ahead and give it a try.”

  For a moment it looked like there might be a good fight after all, the backyard being more suitable for a skirmish than the kitchen, but the sun was spilling thin light over the hills to the east, and a full day’s work awaited. Smoke twisted from the bunkhouse chimney and light glowed from the windows, and some of the hands were already saddling up in front of the barn. Rafe tossed the contents of his coffee into the mud and resettled his hat. Best get the day started.

  “Jeb,” he said, “you take a dozen men or so and ride south. There are bound to be a hundred head of cattle or more stuck on the far side of the river, and I want them back with the main herd before the rustlers and sodbusters get to them.”

  Jeb wanted to argue, Rafe could see that, but in the end, he dded against it. He raised his coffee in a mocking toast and headed for the barn without another word.

  Kade waited for his orders, watching Rafe, narrow-eyed, through the steam rising from his mug.

  Rafe kept his brother in suspense for another heartbeat or two, and enjoyed doing it. “You go into Indian Rock and bring back some lumber and tar paper, so we can get started on the new roof for the bunkhouse,” he said.“One more storm like this last one and the whole thing will sag like a whore’s mattress.”

  Kade weighed the instructions. “Anything else?” he asked tersely, and in his own good time.

  Rafe thought about asking his brother to buy something for Emmeline, a pretty comb or a book or even some perfume, but when it came down to it, he didn’t want Kade or anybody else choosing presents for his bride. He did wish he’d asked her if she had a letter to post or anything like that, though. Trips to town weren’t all that frequent, given the distance involved, and he aimed to be a considerate husband. “Check with Concepcion before you head out,” he answered. “She might need some things from the mercantile.”

  Kade nodded and headed for the barn to hitch up a wagon and choose one of the men to ride shotgun. Rafe considered reminding his brother that the visit to Indian Rock was for business, not pleasure, so he ought not to get himself into a poker game there, or a whore’s bed, but he was feeling especially generous that morning, so he held his tongue.

  Rafe was still congratulating himself on h
is leadership abilities when he saddled his horse, appointed ten men to ride with him, and led the way north, in search of more stray cattle. The sky was bluing up nicely, and spring was in the air.

  Rafe looked back once, just when the house would disappear from sight, and wished he’d stayed in bed with his pretty wife for just a little while longer.

  Chapter 6

  THE BUCKBOARD, driven by one of the ranch hands, drew up in front of the house. Concepcion drew a deep breath of the rain-washed air, smiled, and started down the front walk. Emmeline walked beside her.

  The driver tugged at his hat brim, climbed down to the moist, shimmering ground, and offered a hand up to Concepcion. “You sure you ladies don’t want me to go along?” he asked. Concepcion handed him a large covered basket, which he set in the back of the buckboard.“They’s been some outlaw trouble around these parts lately.”

  “Thank you, Red,” Concepcion said pleasantly, “but we’ll be just fine on our own.”

  Concepcion settled herself on the seat and took up the reins. Emmeline, meanwhile, rounded the wagon to the other side. Red hurried to assist her, as he had Concepcion. She arranged her skirts and waited.

  “They’s a rifle under the seat, like usual,” Red said, with good-natured resignation. “Anybody gives you any grief, you just shoot ’em.” Plainly, he’d had this conversation with Concepcion before.

  “I’ll do that,” Concepcion said, and released the brake lever.“Good day to you, Red.”

  The grizzled old man pulled at his hat brim again. “Ma’am,” he acknowledged. “If Angus or Rafe should ask where you’ve gone—”

  “Tell them we’re visiting the Pelton family,” she replied, and gave the reins a flick. The two horses hitched to the buckboard immediately shambled into motion.

  Concepcion drove skillfully across the creek and up the opposite bank, toward the cattle track that passed as a road. Emmeline, not nearly as confident as her friend, glanced back over one shoulder. She hadn’t told Rafe she intended to visit the Pelton homestead with Concepcion; in the two weeks since the storm, when Rafe had made her his wife in every sense of the word, things had been going remarkably well between them. She didn’t like deceiving her husband, but she wasn’t eager to go nose-to-nose with him, either. Her monthly still hadn’t arrived, for one thing, though she prayed for it every day and often lay awake, in the depths of the night, suffering a crisis of conscience while Rafe slept beside her, exhausted by a long day of hard work and by their lovemaking.

  If she was going to have a child, she wanted that child to be Rafe’s. The uncertainty she lived with was taking its toll, chipping away at her spirit day by day and moment by moment. The intimate times with Rafe were ecstasy, transporting Emmeline to heights that literally took her breath away, but he was a different man outside their bed—stubborn, opinionated, and usually distracted.

  Now, jostling along in the buckboard, Emmeline glanced at Concepcion, wishing she dared ask her advice, or at least confide in her. She couldn’t take the risk, of course. Though she and Concepcion were friends, the other woman’s loyalties, in a case like this, would naturally lie with the McKettrick family.

  “Have you sent word to your people that you’ve arrived safely?” Concepcion asked, when they’d been driving awhile.

  Emmeline was greatly relieved; here was a question she could answer honestly, and without hesitation. “Jeb mailed a letter to my aunt when he went to town,” she said. Although the missive would take a long time to reach Kansas City, she was certain her aunt already knew where she was. She’d left several clues behind—most notably the newspaper, folded open to the advertisement for the Happy Home Matrimonial Service—just in case Becky ever got into a forgiving state of mind.

  Knowing that her aunt’s pride was even greater than her own, however, Emmeline did not hold out much hope for reconciliation. She sniffled once, and looked away.

  The Pelton place was small, just a makeshift cabin with a lean-to barn attached to one end, one old cow for stock, and a patch of garden that had dried up before it really got started.

  A tiny woman, enormously pregnant, stepped out onto the porch. She smiled and waved at Concepcion and Emmeline, her other hand resting on her distended belly. Her calico dress, worn to near transparency, was crumpled, but fairly clean, while her dark brown hair had been sheared off at a variety of lengths.

  “That’s Phoebe Anne,” Concepcion confided to Emmeline, smiling at the woman as she secured the wagon. “I thought she’d have her baby by now.”

  Emmeline felt anxious, having never been acquainted with a pregnant woman, but she, too, smiled.

  Phoebe Anne came out to meet them, shading her eyes from the bright morning sun. She touched her butchered tresses self-consciously, and the gesture moved Emmeline, for there was such vulnerability in it.

  “Phoebe Anne,” Concepcion said, “this is Emmeline McKettrick. She’s Rafe’s wife.”

  Phoebe Anne’s smile faded a little at the mention of Rafe. No doubt she and her husband had had more than one run-in with him already, over the land; he was determined to send them packing before winter set in again.

  “How do you do?” she asked, as Emmeline climbed down off the wagon. Concepcion did the same, after reaching back to claim the basket.

  Emmeline gave a polite answer, and smiled.

  “How’s Seth?” Concepcion asked, putting an arm around Phoebe Anne’s waist.“Better, I hope?”

  “He’s still right sickly,” Phoebe Anne said. “He went hunting, though. We don’t want to eat any of these chickens if we don’t have to—’cause that would stop the eggs comin’.” She led them through the tall grass, where a flock of chickens were feeding, and inside the cabin.

  The sour smell of sickness struck Emmeline like a slap across the face, and she was glad Phoebe Anne’s back was to her, so she didn’t see her automatic grimace. Concepcion took note, and nodded slightly.

  Emmeline looked around. There was one narrow bed, a stone fireplace, hastily built and already crumbling, a rickety table with a lamp on top, and two crates for sitting. Light slanted between the unchinked log walls, and the floor was hard-packed dirt. The thought of living in a place like that, let alone giving birth there, truly appalled Emmeline, though again she took care not to let her feelings show.

  “How about you, Phoebe Anne?” Concepcion went on, setting the basket on the table. “Isn’t it past time for that baby to come?”

  Phoebe Anne’s gaze was fixed on the basket, and Emmeline reckoned the Peltons had been going hungry lately; the knowledge filled her with a combination of sorrow, shame, and indignation. Her own problems were small in comparison to all these poor homesteaders faced, and Rafe might have helped them, instead of adding to their worries.

  “I’m not sure everything’s right with this baby,” Phoebe Anne said. “It don’t move like it used to, and it should have been out for a while now.”

  Concepcion gave the basket a little push in Phoebe Anne’s direction and drew back the blue and white checked cloth that covered the contents. “You need to see a doctor,” Concepcion said, as Phoebe Anne crept closer and peered into the basket, which contained a good-sized ham and a variety of preserves, among other things.

  “There’s no money for such as that,” Phoebe Anne said. She was openly digging through the basket now, eager as a child at Christmas. There was a whole fried chicken, wrapped in dishtowels, and at the sight of that she gasped with delight.“You hungry?” she asked, looking from Concepcion to Emmeline.

  Both women shook their heads, and Phoebe Anne immediately bit into a chicken leg.

  “I think Doc would wait for his pay,” Concepcion urged gently.

  “How would I get there?” Phoebe Anne asked, between bites.“Seth sold our te fried cagon off last fall.” The realization that Emmeline and Concepcion were standing showed in her face. “Where are my manners?” she said anxiously, indicating the crates. “Mama would shoot me. Please, sit down.”

  Emm
eline and Concepcion sat. Phoebe Anne perched on the edge of the bed, looking far more like a child than a woman grown. Occasionally, she cast a fretful look toward the door, probably expecting her husband.

  “I’ll drive you to town myself,” Concepcion said. Plainly, she was not about to be turned aside from her objective.“And I’ll explain the situation to Doc.”

  Phoebe Anne bit her lip and glanced at the door again. “Seth don’t hold much with charity,” she confided.

  “The devil take Seth Pelton and his fool pride,” Concepcion said flatly.“He ought to see the doc himself.”

  Phoebe Anne’s eyes widened; maybe she’d never seen Concepcion take such a hard stance. Emmeline certainly hadn’t, and she was fascinated. She also felt a growing admiration for her friend. “He was fit to be tied after you brought us that food two weeks back, when the big storm came in. Said he ought to just shoot himself, since he was good for nothin’ anyways. Said I’d have a chance to get myself a real husband, if he was out of the way.”

  Emmeline felt the bottom drop out of her stomach and, glancing at Concepcion, saw that her friend was unsettled as well.

  “You don’t think he was serious,” Concepcion said.

  Phoebe Anne’s expression was bleak. She looked at the chicken bone she’d practically denuded, and tossed it onto the cold hearth. “Seth’s been real melancholy this last little while. He says he shouldn’t have brought us all the way out here, when we could have stayed and helped his folks on the home place, back in Iowa. At least there was always enough to eat, ’cause of the garden and the hogs.”

  “Now, there’s no sense in despairing over what’s done with,” Concepcion counseled.“Maybe you and Seth could go back to Iowa, back to his folks. Once you’ve had the baby and everything.”

  Emmeline closed her eyes. She was no fortune-teller, but in those moments she was as certain of imminent tragedy as she was of tomorrow’s sunrise.

  “I wanted to do that,” Phoebe Anne said sadly. “I thought we could write Pa and Mam for the train fare and just head on home, but Seth said he couldn’t face his folks, failin’ like we have here.”