One Bride Delivered

by Jeanne Allan

  Cheyenne casually scuffed the dirt at her feet. “What do you want, Mr. Karper?”

  The man’s name rang a bell. Thomas searched his mind for where he’d heard it. The answer came quickly. The stepfather Cheyenne had told him about in New York. The man she’d reported for beating his stepson.

  Karper unsteadily pointed his bottle at her. “You got me in a lot of trouble, teach. Lying to the police about me. Getting the brat to lie so the police took him away. Good riddance, I said, but my wife bawled about it so much, I had to give her something to bawl about.” He took a swig from his bottle, then scowled at Cheyenne. “I just belted her a little, but she left. Only ’fore she left she gave some song and dance to my boss and I lost my job.” He took another swig. “Your fault.” Wiping his mouth on his shirt sleeve, he added, “You owe me.”

  Cheyenne shuffled her feet again. “This has nothing to do with Davy. Let him go.” Her calm voice quivered only once. On Davy’s name.

  Thomas saw red. He’d never before felt this savage desire to hurt someone. Moistening lips dried by fear, he moved sideways to lean against the side of the barn while he fought for control. Going off half-cocked would worsen an already dangerous situation. The man was a bomb about to explode.

  Ruthlessly, Thomas thrust worries for Davy and Cheyenne from his brain. Think, Thomas, think. He quickly came up with a million rescue plans and just as quickly discarded them. Panic licked at his veins. He had to defuse the situation. Worth and the others wouldn’t get here soon enough.

  Swinging around, Thomas looked into the barn again.

  The tableau remained unchanged. Thomas squinted. Something was different. Cheyenne had moved closer to Davy. Only a few inches, but she’d moved. The man tilted the bottle to his lips. Cheyenne took another step. She had one hand still in her pocket. The other hand rested on the back of her hip. Thomas concentrated on that hand. She was working a tiny pocketknife, trying to open it with one hand without dropping it.

  The man pointed his bottle at Cheyenne and said in a slurred voice, “You shouldn’t of run off, honey. Now I’ll have to punish you for being naughty.”

  “I’m not your honey.” Shuffling her feet, Cheyenne managed to close the distance between her and Davy another two inches.

  “Don’t back talk me. You know I don’t like it when you back talk me.”

  Thomas’s stomach painfully convulsed. The man was drunk or crazy or both. He’d confused Cheyenne with his wife. Thomas wanted to scream at Cheyenne to keep her mouth shut. To avoid goading the man into action. Maybe his thoughts reached her. Miraculously, she said nothing.

  “After I take care of you, I’ll take care of your brat.” Karper gave an insane giggle. “I told you when I married you, honey, I’d take care of him, didn’t I?” He flicked on the lighter and grinned at the flame. “I like burning little boys. And their mamas.”

  Thomas almost lost it. Slamming a lid on his emotions, he concentrated on finding a way to neutralize Karper. The lighter scared Thomas. He didn’t give a damn about the barn, but the distance between him and Davy was too great. He couldn’t risk not reaching him in time. A risk he’d have to take if no other option presented itself. Beads of sweat covered his brow.

  A horse neighed, and a plan popped into Thomas’s mind.

  He’d run halfway to the house before he’d worked out the details. There weren’t that many. Move horses into the barn to distract Karper, giving Cheyenne an opportunity to free Davy. Thomas would take care of the slimeball.

  The plan worked better than he hoped. The big geldings, Payroll and Denver Mint, snorted and crowded suspiciously back against the rails, but Slots, Copper and Casino trotted eagerly toward the apples Thomas had grabbed from the refrigerator. Using the apples, he lured the horses to the barn, then rolled an apple through the open barn door. Slots eagerly followed the apple in. Thomas rolled in more apples. Copper and Casino crowded each other in their eagerness to get to the apples. A drumming of hooves and the two geldings joined those in the barn.

  Shouted swearwords, sharp with fear, came from inside.

  Thomas dashed around to the door at the other end of the barn. His fist met Karper on his way out. It wasn’t Thomas’s fault Karper made the mistake of trying to get up from the ground.

  Worth and two law enforcement officers ran up as Thomas rubbed his right hand. Looking at the man lying in the dust at Thomas’s feet, they listened to Thomas’s short, precise explanation, then hauled Karper away.

  “What’s this?” Worth bent down.

  Karper’s lighter lay in the dirt at Thomas’s feet. “Leave it. It’s evidence.”

  A whirlwind flew from the barn and into Thomas’s arms. “Uncle Thomas!”

  Thomas wrapped his arms around Davy. Not that he needed to. His nephew clung to him tighter than a burr. “Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused?” He hardly recognized the harsh croak as his own voice.

  “Uncle Thomas, you’re squeezing my middle out.”

  He laughed, light-headed with relief. “That’s what happens when little boys run away. When they’re found, people hug them until it hurts.”

  “It doesn’t hurt,” Davy said. “It feels good. Hey, Worth, look! Uncle Thomas and me decided we like hugging.”

  Thomas looked over Davy’s head. “I’m sorry about the horses. I’ll help you round them up.”

  “Don’t worry about them,” Worth said. “Allie’s here. You better go up to the house and get that hand taken care of.”

  Thomas looked at his bleeding knuckles. They’d started to sting. “I will.” He set Davy on the ground. “Go help Allie with the horses. You’re the reason they’re out.”

  Davy hung his head. “You mad at me?”

  “Furious.” As soon as body parts like his heart started operating properly again, Thomas would give Davy a sermon that set his hair on fire. Fire. He barely controlled a shudder.

  “Going to beat me?”

  “At what?” Thomas asked dryly. “Catching fish?”

  Davy glanced up hopefully. “You’re not mad?”

  Thomas took a deep breath. Parenthood wouldn’t be easy. He wanted to hug Davy until the boy’s insides popped out. He wanted to break a brick over his head. He squatted down and looked his nephew in the eye. “I don’t like what you did this morning. Running away and getting everyone upset was a bad thing to do. Worse, you put Cheyenne in danger.” His stomach cramped. “I’m not going to beat you, but we have to talk about this later. Now, you go help round up those horses.” Thomas stood. “Scoot.”

  Davy scooted.

  “When you’re ready, the law wants to talk to you and Davy,” Worth said. “They’ve talked to Cheyenne.” He nodded toward the barn. “She’s in there.”

  She sat on the hay bale where Davy had been.

  Thomas sat down beside her. “You okay?”

  “Yes. Thank you. It was you who sent in the horses. I saw you hit Karper. How did you guess he was terrified of horses?”

  “I didn’t. I was trying to distract him.” Cheyenne wouldn’t look at him but he saw the damp tear tracks down her cheeks. He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her until her shuddering little breaths stopped and she breathed normally.

  So he yelled at her. “What the hell were you doing, galloping out here like the Lone Ranger to the rescue?”

  She jumped, her arm brushing against him. “How was I supposed to know that jerk was here? I expected to find Davy out at the corral talking to Slots.”

  “You should have waited for me.”

  “Why? You arrived in time to play hero.”

  “That is not the point,” he said through locked teeth. She’d scared the hell out of him.

  “It’s exactly the point. It’s my fault Davy was in danger. If I hadn’t gone to the authorities about Michael’s stepfather, if I hadn’t tried to interfere in your relationship with Davy...” She tried to turn a shaky breath into a shrug. “I have the answer to everything. Except how to save a scared litt
le boy.”

  A drop of blood fell to her jeans, joining a small, spreading stain. “Let me see your hand.”

  “No.” She covered her clenched fist with her other hand.

  Thomas grabbed her hand and forced open her fingers. She’d opened the tiny folded knife. Compressing his lips tightly, Thomas plucked the knife from her, pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it against the red streak running down the center of her palm. “Did you do that trying to open the knife?” He curled her fingers over the hanky to hold the makeshift bandage in place.

  She looked down at her hand. “No. I don’t know. I must have done it after I cut Davy free.”

  “Go up to the house and clean it good.”

  “I will. In a minute. Don’t worry about it.”

  The toneless voice sounded so unlike Cheyenne, Thomas gave her a second look, and cursed himself for not noticing the wide, staring eyes earlier. He put his arm around her. A wooden post had more give to it. “I’ll wait until you’re ready to go up.”

  “Why? You think I can’t make it to the house by myself? You think I was so scared my legs won’t hold me up? You think just because I failed to help Davy, I’m incapable of walking across the yard?”

  Anger was better than apathy. Even if she was wrong. He’d kiss her if he wasn’t so damned mad at her. “You didn’t have to argue with Karper and antagonize him.”

  “Excuse me?” Outrage filled her voice.

  She could be as outraged as she wanted. She hadn’t been the one outside the barn feeling as helpless as a newborn baby. “And that waltzing around to get to Davy. A herd of rampaging elephants moves with more subtlety. It’s a wonder Karper didn’t beam you over the head with his damned whiskey bottle. Don’t you ever stop and think before you leap into action?” He wouldn’t have thought it possible for her to grow stiffer.

  “Obviously not,” she said in arctic tones. “I believe you’ve already made your position clear on my interfering ways, so I don’t know why you are hanging around here.” She glared at the hand on her shoulder. “If you’re waiting for sympathy over your bleeding knuckles and for me to tell you what a big brave man you are, forget it. If you’re waiting for gratitude, I thanked you once.”

  “I’m not looking for gratitude.” How had he ever thought he could marry her?

  How could he not?

  “Then what’s keeping you? You don’t ever want to see me again, remember? Maybe you can find a woman at Belly’s who won’t care about your sterile existence or your refusal to love. Let her fawn over you.”

  To hell with the consequences. He had to kiss her.

  The instant Thomas covered her lips with his, Cheyenne flung her arms around his middle and practically climbed into his mouth. He thought about telling her to slow down. He didn’t think about it long. She plastered herself to his body, her palms pressing against his back. Thomas spared the tiniest part of a second to wonder if blood would come out of his silk-wool-blend suit coat, then decided he didn’t give a damn.

  He loved her hair. The bouncy curls wrapped about his fingers, tying her to him. The barn smells receded. He couldn’t put a name to her scent. Except to call it Cheyenne.

  He loved it.

  He loved her blue shirt. He loved the way the warmth from her skin filtered through the thin fabric to heat every part of his body.

  He loved the way her jeans hugged her bottom. The way he intended to hug her bottom. Without jeans.

  He loved the hot, heavy feel of her breasts against his chest. He’d love them more when he’d removed her clothes.

  He loved the enthusiastic way she kissed. The way her hands traveled around his body.

  He loved how she’d ripped off his shirt in New York. A favor he intended to return.

  He loved the way she clutched frantically at him when he shifted position. As if she was keeping him from leaving. He had no intention of leaving. Sliding to his knees, he pulled her down and then followed her to the floor.

  He loved how her lips never left his.

  He loved how her long legs fit between his thighs.

  He loved the hot, tight, intense way she made him feel.

  He slid his hands between them and took hold of the front edges of her shirt.

  “I came to ask if you two are okay, but I think my question’s been answered.”

  Tearing his mouth from Cheyenne’s, Thomas looked up. Worth stood silhouetted in the large doorway. Allie and Greeley stood beside their brother, and Mary Lassiter stood on her son’s other side, her arm around Davy.

  Thomas braced his upper body on his hands and groped for something to say.

  Davy detached himself from the group in the doorway and ran into the barn “We got the horses put away. I put Slots in the corral all by myself,” he added proudly. “Did you want to talk to me now?”

  “Ah...” Hell, no, Thomas didn’t want to talk to his nephew now. He wanted to make mad, passionate love in a barn. How the mighty have fallen, he thought ruefully.

  “Davy,” Mary said, “let’s go up to the house and have something to eat. You must be starving and I don’t think Worth ate all the chocolate cake I baked yesterday.”

  “I didn’t? I better go help Davy get rid of it. What do you say, Davy? Race you to the cake.”

  “Just a minute,” Thomas said. “Davy, before you eat, call your grandmother and apologize for the worry you caused her.”

  “Okay.”

  “One other thing.” Thomas’s first thought had been gratitude that Cheyenne’s family hadn’t shown up five minutes later. His second was that he had to somehow explain the scene they’d walked in on.

  Her family waited.

  He’d been rolling around on the barn floor with their sister and daughter.

  They expected something from him.

  Why wouldn’t they? He hadn’t even had the brains to remove himself from Cheyenne’s body. She lay perfectly still beneath him. If her chest didn’t push against him with each breath she took, he’d think a mannequin lay beneath him.

  She’d said nothing.

  No defensive words. No explanation.

  Leaving him to do the talking.

  It didn’t take an Einstein to figure out why. She’d shown him her feelings.

  A different kind of warmth filled him. Rolling carefully off Cheyenne, he stood, then reached down a hand to help her up. As soon as she gained her feet, he looked at the group in the doorway. “I hope you have more than a little chocolate cake, Mary, because we need something for a celebration. Cheyenne and I are going to be married.”

  Pandemonium broke out, Davy and all the Lassiters talking at once. Except for one Lassiter. Everyone’s congratulations and questions died away as they belatedly perceived the look of furious disbelief on Cheyenne’s face.

  When she finally spoke, her voice shook with rage. “You are the most self-centered, selfish, egotistical man I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet. I told you I wouldn’t marry you and I don’t care if you’re James Bond and Superman wrapped up in one, I haven’t changed my mind. Did you really think I’d feel obligated to marry you just because you came to my rescue?”

  Thomas opened his mouth but she didn’t even stop to breathe.

  “No, that wasn’t it. You thought after I kissed you, if you announced to my family we were getting married, I’d be too embarrassed to deny it. Well, I’m not too embarrassed. You can’t bully me and you can’t blackmail me.” She whirled to face the frozen onlookers. “I wouldn’t marry him for all the Steele hotels and he knows it because I already told him so.” She stomped out of the barn.

  Thomas couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. She had to marry him. How could she walk out on him? Leave him? How could he have been so wrong?

  Hesitantly, Davy walked up to Thomas. “How come Cheyenne yelled at you?”

  Thomas could tell her family was equally interested in the answer. He managed a shamefaced smile. “I guess I assumed a little too much. I thought thin
gs had changed. I should have asked her.”

  Worth shook his head. “Thomas, you have stepped in it big time.”

  He knew that. What he didn’t know was what to do about it. “Davy, I’m sorry about the chocolate cake, but I think we better return to town. Cheyenne won’t want me to stay.”

  Not one of the Lassiters disagreed with him.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “MARRIED!” Cheyenne marched the length of her living room, then whirled and shot daggers at Allie. “I can’t believe he had the gall to say that. After I told him I absolutely would not marry him. And my own family, congratulating him. As if you believed him and actually approved.”

  “Considering the circumstances, his announcement seemed perfectly reasonable.”

  “Because you saw us kissing? We don’t live in the Dark Ages anymore.”

  “Let it go, Cheyenne,” Allie said wearily. “You’ve been ranting and raving since we came home yesterday. I didn’t think you were ever going to let me go to sleep last night.”

  “He had no right. I told him no when he put his business proposal on the table the other morning. Where he got off telling my family..” She clenched her fists at her sides. “He’s decided he wants me to raise Davy for him, and he thought his stupid announcement would force me into marrying him.” A sneer contorted her face. “Nannies must come pretty dear these days. You’ll never guess what he offered me if I’d marry him.”

  “Since you’ve told me several million times in the last hour alone, I don’t need to guess.”

  “I can’t believe, after I had carefully explained why I would not marry him, he’d turn around and tell everyone we were getting married. He didn’t even bother to ask me again. And no—” Cheyenne turned on her sister “—that’s not why I’m furious.”