Bride of the Shining Mountains (The St. Claire Men)

by S. K. McClafferty

  “I’m right as rain,” she said, her voice breaking on the last syllable. She sniffed, glaring defiantly up at him. “You satisfied?”

  “For now,” Jackson said quietly. The auctioneer had come to hover near his elbow, accompanied by a thin-shanked individual with the same slack-jawed look as the pair that held the girl, and a smaller man standing well back, barely glimpsed. Jackson dismissed the others, addressing the dull-looking bookends instead. “Release her.”

  “Hold there a moment,” the first newcomer said. “I would not be fool enough to let her go until you’re legally bound, husband and wife.”

  “Husband?” Jackson said. “You must be out of your head. I’ve bought the twit. I’m not about to wed her.”

  “But, sir,” the auctioneer interjected. “It’s part of the bargain. A marriage ceremony is to follow the proceedings, with the Reverend Eckland presiding.”

  “You may stuff your marriage ceremony and the Reverend Eckland right up your ass—” Jackson began, only to have the good reverend step forward to confront him.

  He was a foot shorter than Jackson, and had to tip his head fully back to meet Jackson’s gaze. “You would purchase this poor misbegotten creature, then, force her to live with you in sin? Sir, I am outraged.”

  “Outraged, are you?” Jackson said with quiet menace. “Tell me, then, just to satisfy my curiosity, were you a party to this arrangement? This farce?”

  “Why—er--an unwilling participant, yes.”

  “Then you admit that you conspired with these men to sell this ‘misbegotten creature’ into a life of sexual slavery, against her will, and you dare to take me to task for my lack of saintly attributes?” He quieted his tone and stalked toward the smaller man, towering over him, forcing him to step back or be trampled on. “For all your holy posturings, the girl would fare better in my tender care should I decide to make her my concubine than she has under your so-called protection! Now get you gone from my sight, before I smite you where you stand!”

  At once, the reverend fled, the auctioneer stepped back, and the boys released Reagan, sidling away to a safe distance, leaving Luther to stand defiant beneath her owner’s wrath, while Reagan looked nervously on.

  “You would talk to a man of God in sich unseemly fashion?” Luther cried. “By all that’s holy, it shall not stand. I shall not give the chit into the care of an ungodly man who scorns the sanctity of marriage!” He turned to the auctioneer. “I refuse his bid, and accept the other with the bales of fur!”

  “Luther, please, no!” Reagan cried, biting her lip as Jackson’s green eyes sought and clashed with hers. There was an unholy power in his gaze, an intense bright glow that both frightened and compelled her. As she watched, terrified that he would abandon her to that stinking, bearded mountain of flesh, she saw him smile. It was an odd curling of one corner of his mouth; the ruined corner remained fixed, immobile, and there was not an ounce of warmth to be found in the expression. She stared, transfixed.

  “Do that,” he told Luther. “I buy the furs here. Deny my bid and I swear that you will not get a penny on the pound.”

  “He cannot do sich,” Luther said, scowling at the auctioneer. “Can he?”

  “I fear he can,” the auctioneer said. “Mr. Broussard’s family holds much sway here.”

  Luther swallowed hard, and Reagan held her breath, well aware that Luther’s pride was warring with his avarice. “Very well, then; you’ll have your way, but I hope your conscience hurts you. Reagan, girl,” he said, turning away from Jackson Broussard, offering his gnarled hand to her, “I done my best.” Reagan turned her face away.

  “Come,” Luther said, “don’t be that way. We’re kith and kin.”

  “You ain’t no kin of mine,” Reagan said in a snarl, still deeply wounded by his betrayal. “My true papa would have killed you before he let you sell me to a stranger.” She saw Luther’s face flush dark, and feared that he might strike her.

  In that critical moment, Jackson stepped up to shield her. “Gabriel Strickland is the quartermaster for Broussard Furs. Tell him I sent you, and he’ll see that you get your blood money.”

  Luther stood a moment, his blue eyes flashing as he glanced from Reagan to the six-feet-two-inches of pure, unadulterated malice standing stalwartly between them. Then, his shoulders slumping, he turned, leaving the dais, the twins trailing after.

  “Traitorous skunks,” Reagan said, barely loud enough for anyone else to hear. “I hope you fall down a hole somewhere and rot.” Tears pricked her eyes as the darkness swallowed the trio up. She made a valiant attempt to fight them back. She wouldn’t cry. She would not waste a single tear upon them! Yet, when she rubbed her cheek with the heel of her hand, her hand came away wet.

  Standing beside her, ominous in his silence, looking windblown and fierce, Jackson Broussard laid a hand on her shoulder, doubtless an attempt to comfort her. Yet Reagan’s nerves, stretched to their limits, could endure no softness, no sympathy of any kind, most especially from him. “Keep your paws to your own self, damn it! I ain’t no prize goat to be poked and prodded at whim!”

  Her tone was intentionally cutting, and as a result his expression darkened. “I’ve seen goats with more amiable dispositions than you can lay claim to, but few that were more fragrant. You smell like a sump hole.”

  Reagan felt the hot blood of mortification rise to her cheeks. She was well aware of her indelicate condition, and she did not need this handsome rake to point it out to her. “It ain’t no fragrance of my choosin’!” she said hotly. “Those jackanapes thought it a fine joke to roll me in buffalo dung after they caught me, and in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been a mite too busy to indulge in a bath, unlike some folks I know!” The tears did come now, in earnest. Groaning, she half turned away, wiping her face on the sleeve of her old woolen coat. Her face stung where she’d fallen, she ached in every muscle, bone, and limb, and she just wanted to go home. To add insult to injury, her reluctant savior smelled just fine, a fact that soon turned a trickle of tears into a raging torrent.

  Then, before she knew what was happening, she was being turned, her cheek pressed against a hard-muscled shoulder, a clean kerchief pressed into her hand. “Come,” he said, “don’t cry. You’ll wear yourself out, and it isn’t as bad as all that. Though it may appear otherwise at this moment, you haven’t quite fallen afoul of the devil.”

  It sounded good in theory, Reagan thought with a watery sniff. Yet she’d witnessed the way he had chastened her, and bullied and threatened his way into her life, and as she clung to him, sobs racking her, the strength of his wrath was hard to forget. And despite Jackson’s reassurances that she was not in the company of Lucifer incarnate, Reagan clung to her doubts.

  It had long been Jackson’s experience that the consequences of an impetuous act were always hardest to face the morning after. Having seduced his way into many a regrettable situation in his not-so-distant past, he considered that by now he should have known better than to act on impulse. It was a foolish and softheaded way to conduct one’s affairs, and it never failed to get him into trouble.

  He sensed that he was in deep trouble now, for although it was not yet half-past nine o’clock, he was already torn between conscience and regret, and he could only imagine that by the time the dawn broke on his latest folly, he might well wish he had drowned himself in the Popo Agie River, instead of in Tom Bridger’s whiskey.

  The reward of his impetuous act sat huddled close to the fire at his campsite. Arms folded over her upraised knees, she closely watched his every move, as if she fully expected that he would devour her at any given moment, an impression that Jackson found vastly irritating.

  He paced a little, and her gray gaze followed him.

  Turning back, he raked a hand through his shoulder-length hair; the girl started visibly, tensing, as if ready to take flight.

  “For heaven’s sake—and my own—would you occupy yourself with something other than watching my every movement? I feel like
an insect under glass.”

  She flinched a little at his sharp tone, but recovered quickly. “What would you have me do?” she asked. “I ain’t got no embroidery, and I never saw no sport in twiddlin’ my thumbs.”

  “Don’t have,” Jackson corrected. “You don’t have any embroidery, and you never saw any sport in twiddling your thumbs. For your edification, the words never and no should not be used in the same sentence. It’s poor grammatical form, and you really should know better.”

  Despite his reprimand, her gray gaze never wavered. “Funny, at first glance you sure don’t look like no schoolmaster.”

  Jackson let out a slow breath, ready to chastise her, then thought better of it. This verbal sparring was getting him nowhere. Miss Dawes had a tongue as sharp as a rapier, and she plied it with total disregard for whose sensitive hide she sliced to ribbons. Since he was nearing the end of his patience, Jackson felt it far wiser to glean as much information from her as was possible. Perhaps if they opened a dialogue between them, she would be more pliant, less resistant to him.

  Pliant, yes, he thought to himself, not quite able to forget the feel of her body as she clung to him on the dais. Pliant is good.

  His movements deliberately slow, he took a seat across from her, and reaching into his hunting shirt, he came away with a thin black cheroot, which he clamped between his teeth. “You do not mind if I smoke?” he said, holding a burning straw poised in midair. She shook her head and he lit the cheroot, inhaling sharply. “Is there anything you wish? Food? Whiskey, perhaps?”

  “Never did care much for whiskey,” she said, “except for the cherry bitters my ma used to make.” She broke off, a trace of a smile flirting with the corners of her lovely mouth.

  And she did have a lovely mouth, Jackson thought, when it was not drawn into a belligerent slash. He knew a wild impulse to tell her so, but checked it immediately, drawing fragrant smoke into his lungs instead. “Where is your mother, Miss Dawes? And who were those men back there?”

  Her voice was soft when she replied, softer than Jackson imagined it could be. “Ma died last spring, after a lingerin' illness, and Luther decided to venture west to seek his fortune.”

  “Luther was your mother’s husband,” Jackson guessed, “but not your father?”

  A curt nod.

  “And the bookends?” Jackson prodded.

  She wrinkled her nose, clearly perplexed. “Bookends?”

  “The pair that held you captive.”

  “Luck and Lafe. They’re Luther’s blood sons and my half brothers.”

  Jackson frowned at that. “As hard as it may sound, you are better off without them. Your stepfather is no fitting guardian for a young woman. That much is obvious. We’ll need to find someone else to take you in. Have you any other distant relatives?”

  Reagan Dawes shook her head. “What I said earlier was truth. There’s no one left but Luther, the boys, and me. Only don’t go lookin’ so worried. I sure don’t expect you to look out for me. I’m twenty years and two months, old enough to take care of myself. That much is certain. I can find my own way home—” She broke off, glancing wistfully into the dark. “That is, just as soon as I get clear of these mountains.”

  She was quiet for a moment; then she swallowed hard, screwed up her courage, and raised her gray eyes to his. “Two thousand, five hundred dollars is more money than some men see in a lifetime. Why’d you do it? Why’d you pay all that money to get me back here when I would have gladly come for nothin’?”

  Shame, Jackson thought. Remorse.

  Because he’d acted instinctively in sending her away, selfishly. Because he’d seen something, some earnest, deeply felt emotion in her small, heart-shaped face, and had been genuinely terrified of his own feelings. Because, insanely, he had wanted her, wanted to strip away those men’s rags and take her lithe white body right there under the stars.

  All of this, he thought, and more, glancing impatiently at her from under his lashes. She was waiting for his answer, and he knew from their short time together that she was just dogged enough to try to drag the truth from him if he did not fully satisfy her burning curiosity.

  So he gave her what she wanted—or at least a fraction of it.

  “Because I had it within my power to do so,” he said simply. “Any of a hundred men back there would have done the same, given the opportunity and the availability of funds.”

  Reagan looked into his dark visage and knew that he was lying. She could see it in his eyes, yet the truth remained hidden somewhere in their fathomless deep green depths. “Few men would spend a fortune to buy a woman they don’t even know, to save her from an uncertain fate... unless, of course, they had something specific in mind.”

  He’d been staring into the flames; now he glanced up at her from under slightly satanic brows, giving her a penetrating look that sent shivers up her spine. “And if I did have other motives? What then?”

  His voice was silken as he said it, making Reagan think of his words to the cleric: the girl would fare better in my tender care should I decide to make her my concubine than she has under your so-called protection....

  Was that what he planned? To force her to share his blankets? To Reagan’s utter horror, she did not find the idea altogether unappealing. There was something about him, an underlying tenderness running somewhere deep beneath the brittle shell of his hard and sinister exterior that any red-blooded woman would thrill to lay bare.

  She thought of the sinewy, muscular body beneath his rough leather garb, remembered the sensation of his weight bearing down upon her earlier, the feel of his arms around her, and bit her lip until it bled.

  With a will, she forced her thoughts from Jackson to Arley Pratt and the sharp hurt she’d suffered at his hands—Arley, who seemed as ineffectual, as harmless as a child when compared to this man. The words sounded strangled as she forced them past her lips: “Then you’re bound to be sorely disappointed. I may have been bought and paid for, but I’ll have you know right off, I ain’t no man’s whore.”

  Nonplussed, Jackson Broussard smiled. “No self-respecting prostitute would be caught wearing such disreputable rags... yet I will admit, the question of what lies beneath those rags lingers in my mind.”

  Reagan’s heart fluttered crazily in her breast. Her skin went blazing hot, then icy cold all over. Struggling for control, she schooled her features into her best, most menacing glare. “Look you here, Frenchman. Since we’re going to be keepin’ close company for a few weeks, we’d best get one thing straight: you might be bigger and stronger than me, able to force yourself on me if you’re so inclined, and there may not be anything I can do to stop you. But I vow, if you make the attempt, you’d best be prepared not to sleep, because if you so much as close an eye, I’ll find a way to kill you.”

  He laughed at that, a delighted sound that rippled in pleasurable waves along Reagan’s taut nerves. “Force myself upon you? My dear Miss Dawes, I have never forced a woman to my will in all my life. Besides, one cannot force a woman to do what she burns to do with all her heart, all of her soft, perfumed being.”

  Reagan snorted. “Of all the conceited... Why, you’re nothin’ but a dandy in deerskins! A ne’er-do-well, an out and out bounder!”

  “Ah, ah, ah!” the grinning devil said, wagging one lean brown finger in her direction. “I am also your savior, your benefactor, your sole protector... and you need me desperately. Do not tax my patience too greatly or I’ll take great pleasure in turning you over my knee and tanning that lovely pale hide of yours.”

  “You wouldn’t!”

  “ He just might,” another voice affirmed, its owner emerging from the shadows, pausing just inside the circle of firelight. “He’s a heartless bastard, if ever I saw one, always rescuing stray kittens and hapless young women about to be become part and parcel of some wild-eyed trapper’s larder.” The newcomer, a fine-looking man with golden hair and deep blue eyes that glittered in the firelight, smiled and winked at Reagan. “Don’
t let Seek-Um scare you, miss. Despite the scar, he’s not so fierce as he likes folks to think.”

  Jackson just grunted, turning his gaze to the firelight. Reagan looked from one to the other, confounded. “Seek-Um?”

  “So the brute has not introduced himself properly? Then by all means, allow me. Miss....”

  “Reagan Dawes,” Reagan supplied, warming to the newcomer’s soft Southern drawl and easy manner. “Reagan Winifred Dawes.”

  “Miss Dawes,” the man said, “allow me to present Jackson Parrish Broussard, scion of an old and revered French family, Jack Seek-Um to his friends and not a few enemies. Seek-Um, here, is not a man given to talk, at least not about himself. Therefore he will not tell you that he’s but half Creole, nor that the rest of his bloodline is an unlikely mix of Irish and Choctaw Indian.”

  “G. D. talks too much,” Jackson said, throwing some buffalo chips onto the fire. “It’s one of his numerous faults.”

  Intensely glad for the distraction the stranger provided,

  Reagan ignored Jackson’s comment, turning her attention to the former instead of the latter. “And you are?”

  “Gabriel Devereaux Strickland,” he said with a courtly bow, “late of White Willows on the James River in Virginia.”

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Strickland,” Reagan said, putting on her sweetest smile, her politest demeanor.

  “Your servant,” he said, taking her hand and bringing it to his lips. “And please, it’s G. D. Now, if you will be so kind as to excuse us both, I’d like a word with Jackson.”

  Jackson went with G. D. willingly enough. In fact, he was eager to put a little distance between himself and Reagan Dawes, aware what a dangerous turn their conversation had recently taken. He tried to put the talk behind him as they walked toward the black ribbon of the Popo Agie River, yet he wasn’t completely successfully. When they reached the river’s grassy bank, he turned to face Strickland. “If this is about the money, then do not concern yourself with it. I’ll take full responsibility for my actions and replace it from my own account as soon as I reach Saint Louis.”