by Nancy Bush
“I wouldn’t!” Elsie sputtered. “Mrs. Danner, God would surely strike me dead if I should—”
“Be careful He isn’t eavesdropping Himself when you say things like that,” Lexie admonished, hiding a grin as the terrified maid bolted from the room. “She’s the most gullible girl I’ve ever run across,” she said, turning to Kelsey with laughter in her eyes. “Now, about you…”
“But I want to hear about you,” Kelsey said. “Samuel told us about Matilda. A girl.”
“Surprising,” Lexie admitted. “Hard to get in this family. But don’t let her hear you calling her Matilda. She thinks she’s named after a cow.”
Kelsey smiled faintly, thinking of Jesse.
“Jamie and Seth are very protective of her, although she exasperates the hell out of them. Tremaine, too.”
“I can’t wait to meet her. To see them all.”
A disbelieving smile curved Lexie’s mouth. “You actually married a Danner,” she said, shaking her head in wonder. “And not Harrison, Jesse!”
“Have you heard from him?” Kelsey couldn’t prevent herself from asking.
Lexie’s look was knowing and Kelsey, feeling her emotions were naked, couldn’t sustain her sister-in-law’s gaze.
“Not yet. He’s truly a phantom, isn’t he? The whole household’s in a uproar, hoping he’ll show up. Pa and Jesse left on bad terms, and I think he’s hoping they can settle some things.”
“What about you?” Kelsey asked curiously.
“Me? I?” she corrected herself, shooting Kelsey a sheepish glance. “Miss Everly’s School for Girls taught me good, didn’t it?” Kelsey laughed and Lexie went on. “I miss Jesse. He used to drive me crazy. He reminded me too much of Tremaine. And he was wild.” She smiled fondly. “But he’s my brother, and I wish he’d come home.”
“Yes.”
“You’re happily married, then?”
There was such caution in Lexie’s voice that Kelsey suddenly couldn’t bear the explanations—the humiliation—that would follow when she told her the truth. Kelsey Garrett, the spinster, had to bargain herself a husband. “Yes, happily,” she said on a swallow.
Lexie suddenly was all business. “Do you feel up to coming downstairs? Everyone’s still got dozens of questions. And Miracle wants to know if you drank her special tea.”
“That’s what that terrible stuff was? One of Miracle’s Chinook recipes?”
“She did say it was a little bitter,” Lexie agreed.
“Miracle’s a master at the art of understatement.”
Lexie laughed.
¤ ¤ ¤
The Danner parlor was full of people: Tremaine, Lexie, and their two nearly grown sons: Jamie and Seth. Little Mattie, whose dark hair and blue eyes were the spitting image of her father, and also her Uncle Jesse, Kelsey determined, sat on her mother’s lap. Harrison and Miracle were there; Harrison holding their infant son, Lucas, and Joseph Danner, the family patriarch sat quietly in a chair at the far end of the room, one hand folded over the top of a cane. Kelsey could feel their curious gazes on her from time to time, but they kept the conversation general until Miracle finally declared, “I’m dying to meet Jesse. If he’s half as notorious as his reputation, he’ll be memorable.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear,” Joseph Danner said gruffly. He sat stiffly in a chair, a cane across his lap. His right leg had suffered from an accident several years before and now he was lame.
“Why not?” Harrison asked with a faint grin. “Jesse’s lucky to be alive. He undoubtedly still bears the scar from old man McIntyre’s bullet.”
“Jamie, Seth,” Lexie said to her sons. She hooked her thumb toward the door, and the two boys grumbled about how unfair life was as they stomped out of the room. Elsie plucked Mattie out of Lexie’s arms to take her upstairs and they heard her squalling long after she was out of sight. Tremaine, Lexie and their family were staying at the Danner homestead until Kelsey was declared fit enough to take care of herself.
“Do you mind?” Lexie said to Harrison. “Jamie and Seth don’t need to hear about their uncle’s sexual exploits.”
Kelsey suddenly knew exactly why Jesse didn’t want to come back to Rock Springs. He was infamous, and though now, knowing Jesse as well as she did, she believed a lot of the stories had been fabricated, there was no way he could live this down.
“I’m sorry, Kelsey,” Lexie said, hearing herself.
“It’s all right.”
“Has he changed much?” Tremaine asked into the awkward silence.
“Yes and no.”
“I think Kelsey’s been questioned long enough,” Miracle put in quietly. “It’s good to see you again,” she added in a low voice, and Kelsey knew she was thinking back to that time when Harrison had chosen her over Kelsey. That time when Kelsey had learned Miracle was her half- sister. That time when Kelsey’s world had disintegrated, and she’d left everything she knew behind in the plume of dust created by Sadie Mae’s hooves.
“My brother still doesn’t know I’m here, does he?” she asked.
“Jace and Emerald have been kept in the dark, per Jesse’s written request.” This was from Harrison. “Unless you want us to tell him… ?”
“No.” Kelsey was positive. “I don’t care to ever see him, or Emerald, again.”
“He’ll throw an absolute fit when he realizes we’ve been hiding you here,” Harrison said with laughter in his voice. “And when he learns about Jesse—”
“The god of stupefaction will strike him dumb,” Miracle intoned, imitating her Uncle Horace’s orator’s voice, the one he used to sell tinctures and elixirs, the method of commerce both Miracle and Uncle Horace had employed when they first arrived in Rock Springs.
“Hear, hear!” Lexie proclaimed, making a mock toast.
Laughter filled the room and the tense moment passed. But Kelsey knew if Jesse did come home, the whole town wouldn’t give him a moment’s peace.
“I can’t wait to see him again,” Joseph Danner said, as if reading Kelsey’s thoughts.
Kelsey smiled, suffused with a new happiness. She was with her family and friends and they loved her. She’d forgotten that in her quest for freedom, in the desire to find a new life. She’d left Jace and Emerald, but she’d also left the Danners and Miracle. She was glad she was back. Glad fate had found a way to send her home.
“I can’t either,” she admitted quietly. “And if I were dying, I’d make sure I lived long enough to see the look on my brother’s face when he finds out I’m married to Jesse Danner!”
Everyone broke into laughter.
¤ ¤ ¤
“Lord in heaven,” Jace Garrett muttered, words as close to a prayer as anything that had ever passed his lips. The men seated next to him at the Half Moon Saloon’s bar craned their necks to see what cataclysmic event was transpiring to startle someone as jaded and cynical as Jason Garrett.
Above the half curtains adorning the saloon’s front windows, a dark-haired man was tying his horse to the railing. He was dusty, travel worn, and weary looking, but each movement was sharp and fast, as if he was inwardly furious about something. When he pushed through the swinging doors, conversation stalled. His gaze leveled on Jason Garrett, who was actually gaping in surprise.
“You sure as hell aren’t Tremaine,” Jace said, staring at the newcomer as if he’d risen from the dead. “So you must be Jesse Danner.”
A trace of amusement flickered across the hard lines of his face. “Always a pleasure, Jace. You haven’t changed a bit.”
Jace collected himself with an effort. He hated the Danners in varying degrees: Tremaine the most, next Harrison and Miracle, followed by Samuel, and then Lexie, whom he would have liked to hate with the kind of passion he’d once loved her with but for whom he still carried a softly glowing torch. Jesse Danner, however, had never been considered. He’d left at too young an age, and the trail of broken hearts and fallen women he’d left in his wake had made Jace feel almost friendlylike toward
him. Jace had always believed Jesse was a kind of kindred spirit. Jesse was the black sheep, the troublemaker. If anyone could get under Tremaine Danner’s thick, self-righteous skin, it was this brother who looked so much like him it was enough to freeze the blood!
“You’ve changed,” Jace said, easing behind the bar as Jesse leaned one hip against a stool. The glossy oak bar separating them didn’t feel like enough protection, somehow, though Jace didn’t have the slightest idea why he should feel so threatened. “But you’re still the spitting image of your brother.”
“Tremaine?”
“You sure don’t look like Harrison.” Harrison Danner had taken after his mother’s side of the family, as had Lexie. They were both fair with jade-green eyes and a wicked sense of humor. But Jace would bet a year’s salary that Jesse was like Tremaine, a Danner through and through: tough, unbending, cheerfully threatening, and a veritable pain in the ass.
His feelings toward Jesse nose-dived just by looking at the man.
“You still own this place, huh?” Jesse inquired, gesturing to the fact that Jace was planted firmly on the other side of the bar.
“Yes. It’s been a long time.”
“Years,” Jesse agreed. “Quit staring at me and get me a bourbon,” he added with that Danner arrogance that so set Jace’s teeth on edge.
“Conrad!” Jace bellowed, bringing the Half Moon’s manager scurrying from the back room. “Get Mr. Danner a drink. On the house.”
“I’ll pay,” Jesse said with quiet determination, throwing Jace’s gestures of friendship back in his teeth.
“Your family know you’re here?” Jace asked when Jesse’d been given his drink.
“I believe they’re expecting me.” He swallowed half the glass, gritting his teeth as the bourbon burned a trail of fire to his gut. He was filled with anxiety over Kelsey. Her accident had been no accident. Seeing her torn, bleeding, and white as snow, he’d felt as if Montana Gray had ripped out his heart. A shudder swept through him at the thought of how Kelsey had looked, how easily he could have lost her. Jesse had stared death in the face and thought he’d known fear. But nothing compared to the all-consuming horror and debilitating terror he’d felt when he’d first seen her lying on the cobblestones.
Kelsey could die, he’d thought, his mind numb with pain. Die. All because of his vendetta with Gray.
Sending for Tremaine had been an easy decision: He wanted the best for his wife, and the best was his oldest brother, Dr. Tremaine Danner. Kelsey had been seen by another physician first, but Jesse hadn’t trusted the man. Anyone could be in Montana’s employ. Anyone. Jesse had practically sworn the doctor to write in blood that the bottle of medicine he left for her was only a painkiller, but he still hadn’t been satisfied.
He’d prayed that first night. Gotten down on his knees and prayed that she would live. And God, surprisingly, had apparently listened to his prayers, for Kelsey’s injuries had been relatively minor.
So now Kelsey was safe, and mending, and he, Jesse Danner, was back in Rock Springs. While Samuel and Zeke took care of things in Portland, Jesse was being forced to face his past.
Maybe it was time.
“You’ve been gone a long time,” Jace said, eyeing Jesse’s empty glass and lifting his brows in a question.
Jesse shook his head and threw some coin on the counter. “A long, long time,” he agreed. “I hear you’re married now, Jace.”
“Afraid so.”
“That bad, huh?” Jesse grinned. Jesus, Jace would choke with apoplexy when he realized they were brothers-in-law.
What, he wondered to himself, would Jace do if and when he realized it was Jesse who’d taken Emerald’s virginity from her? Obviously Jace didn’t know yet, or he’d hardly be this friendly. And would he ever believe that Emerald had practically forced herself on him, much the same way Alice McIntyre had?
Not a chance, he decided quite accurately, Jace had the understanding and compassion of a snake. He wouldn’t be easy to convince that Jesse Danner—the rebel Danner who’d been tried and convicted of both murder and rape in the minds of many Rock Springs residents—had simply taken what Emerald had so generously offered.
Kelsey would never believe him either, if the whole sordid tale should ever come to light.
Nope, Jesse thought. His marriage to Kelsey wouldn’t breach Danner/Garrett hostilities. It would undoubtedly create wider and more immediate problems.
Deciding life was far too complicated, Jesse turned to leave.
“What made you decide to return after all this time?” Jace called after him. “Half the town thinks you’re dead or in jail.”
Jesse flicked Jace an assessing look over his shoulder. “I’m meeting my wife?”
“Your wife? You’re married?” At Jesse’s nod, Jace hooted with laughter. “Then I guess I won’t offer you one of the women upstairs.”
“Did’ja finally end up at the wrong end of a rifle?” a wheezing drunk chortled from his place at the end of the bar. He was so inebriated, his body was poured all over the stool as if he were a pool of water.
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Jace answered for Jesse. “McIntyre’s been saying for years that he blew your right arm off. Guess the man’s a liar.”
Jesse turned back to the bar, thinking maybe he could use another drink after all. “I guess he is. I’ve changed my mind, Jace. I’ll take another one.”
Jace got the bourbon himself this time, sliding it across the bar to Jesse. “Your wife’s already here with your family, then?”
“That’s right.”
“So how’d she talk you into marriage?” Jace persisted.
Jesse rubbed his nose, hiding a smile. He drank some of the bourbon, considering. “She offered me twenty thousand dollars. Her entire inheritance.”
“Whoa, lordy!” the drunk exclaimed. “That’s a whole lotta money. She an heiress, or somethin’? Your wife?”
“She’s an heiress,” Jesse agreed.
Jace didn’t like the way Jesse was staring him down. Those blue eyes were too knowing, just like Tremaine’s. And they were simmering with some inner amusement, as if a joke had been played at Jace’s expense. Damn unnerving, it was.
“You haven’t seen her, then?” Jesse asked when he’d finished his second drink.
“Well, maybe I have and I just don’t know it yet,” Jace hedged. He determined right then and there that he had to set eyes on Jesse Danner’s bride as soon as possible. Good God, this would set Rock Springs biddies’ tongues wagging for months!
“If you saw her you’d know it,” Jesse assured him.
“She pretty, then?”
“Beautiful.” A slow smile spread across Danner’s face. “Downright breathtaking.”
Jace snorted. The Danners had a knack for marrying beautiful women. “So how come she hasn’t been to town?”
“She’s been in an accident. Tremaine’s taking care of her.”
Jace curiosity was itching. The Danners had obviously been playing host to Jesse’s wife for some time and not a word had been breathed about her, otherwise the whole of Rock Springs would be in an uproar, everyone wanting a peek at the woman who’d managed to drag Jesse Danner to the altar.
“This is a love match?” It would tickle him to death to learn Jesse’d been trapped into matrimony. Jace himself had discovered just how cold and cruel wedded bliss truly was. He hoped the same for Jesse, especially since Lexie, Tremaine, Harrison, and Miracle all seemed to be so revoltingly happy.
Jesse set down his glass. “Jace, I really don’t think you want to know.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I married your sister,” he answered, smiling. “Kelsey is my wife.”
Chapter Eighteen
The lights from the Danner homestead glowed like welcoming yellow beacons through the windows on the first floor. Electric lights, Jesse realized with a start. When he’d left home, the place had been illuminated by oil lamps. It appeared progress had reached even
Rock Springs.
The widow’s walk above the portico was a ghostly white square refracting the faint moonlight. Jesse pulled up his mount about a hundred yards from the front door. He didn’t want to be here. The sensation of a noose around his neck was one he’d fought for years whenever he thought of his family. It was there now, ever tightening. Yet, Kelsey was here and he’d walk through fire to make certain she was all right, even though he knew the best way to ensure her safety was to stay as far away from her as possible.
His moments of amusement at Jace’s expense had been a coward’s reaction to this homecoming, he decided with brutal honesty. He’d put off this meeting because he didn’t want to face them. Any of them. He’d stayed out of Tremaine and Lexie’s way when they’d come to Portland because he didn’t want to see them.
And yet… and yet, he did.
“Hell with it,” he muttered, leading the horse to the stables. Inside the familiar building he breathed in the scents of hay and dust and animal sweat. His gaze flicked ironically to the box at the end. He’d slept with Annie, the maid, there on more than one occasion. Lexie had even caught him once.
He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. No wonder he was such a pariah in Rock Springs.
Rubbing down his horse, Jesse then fetched it some water, and threw a handful of oats in the bin next to the manger of hay. He walked out into the star-studded night, belatedly wishing he’d done something worthwhile in his misspent youth.
There were outdoor stairs that led to the second floor of the house. Deciding cowardice was the only way he would have a few moments alone with Kelsey, Jesse climbed the steps, as lithe and quiet as a cat, and let himself in on the upper floor. Voices rumbled from downstairs, and the scent of roasted chicken still clung in the air. Dinner was over. He could imagine his family seated in the den, sharing drinks.
His family.
Jesse shook his head in disbelief. Which room would she be in? he asked himself, and because there was only one answer, he strode silently to the corner room at the end of the hall. Lexie’s old room.