Well.
In the near complete darkness beneath the canopy of the trees, his presence seemed larger as he held her loosely by the waist. He smelled of horse and man, and with him this close, with her hands resting on his broad chest, she didn’t feel any fear at all.
He seemed to realize exactly how close they’d become at the same moment she did.
He released her and took a giant step back. “What’s taking so long?”
“I thought you were a bear!” she said at the same moment.
There was a beat of silence.
“A bear?”
“Or a mountain lion.”
She sensed more than saw his smile in the darkness. She remembered the one time he’d smiled, at the sheriff’s office. Did she, in particular, bring out his frown?
“I scouted this area before it got dark,” he said. “No tracks or sign from any bears or mountain lions. Maybe a turtle, or a rabbit or two.”
“Ha.”
“You about done with those dishes?”
“Almost there. Are you done checking up on me?” She knelt at the bank again, expecting him to return to the campsite, but to her surprise, he joined her, his big shoulder bumping hers as he reached for a plate.
“Are you surprised by what I accomplished today?”
He seemed stumped by the question, staying silent for a long moment as he scrubbed his plate with his hand.
“A little,” he finally said.
Their hands tangled as they both reached for the last cup. He tugged it away from her grasp quickly, exhaling loudly in the silence.
Why was he so prickly? Her single experience with the opposite sex made her unsure. Was it her or the fact that she’d ruined his bachelor status? She couldn’t help that she’d forced him into a situation he wanted out of. She didn’t know if they would have enough time together to make peace.
She gathered the dishes and put them into the now clean cast iron skillet, wondering if she dared to ask him.
She didn’t.
She stood and stretched her back as she waited for him to finish the cup.
“You’re sore from driving the wagon?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Regretting riding along this morning?”
She thought about it for a moment. “No.” She’d worked hard that day, but it was a good feeling knowing she’d also protected her sister.
He stood, picking up the skillet when she would’ve reached for it.
But he didn’t move. He stood in the darkness, and she could feel his gaze on her.
“Why’d you marry me anyway?” he asked.
She hesitated. It was almost the same question he’d asked the night before. He deserved more of an answer than he’d gotten out of her then, if only because he’d allowed them to tag along without much complaint.
Finally she said, “I did it for Emma.”
Chapter Five
I did it for Emma.
Edgar lay in his bedroll, wide-awake when he should’ve been sleeping. Dawn was going to come early.
And he kept hearing Fran’s soft-spoken words.
Did the woman never think about herself?
She’d babied her sister all day—he’d witnessed some of it himself, and Ricky had told him about what he’d missed.
His brother had also sung her praises. How she’d driven the wagon until just before they’d made camp for the night. How she was smart, and proper.
Then he’d watched her cooking supper, and though it hadn’t been the best meal he’d ever had—it reminded him a bit of his ma before she’d really learned how to cook—he was reluctantly impressed that she’d made the effort.
And then she’d done the dishes.
He’d needed distance when they’d returned from washing the dishes, so he’d sent her to bed in the wagon with her sister. He wanted to like her—too much.
Fran reminded him of both his ma and his sister, Breanna. Willing to work hard. Protective of her family.
But she was holding something back, too. He needed to remember that.
There was a reason he didn’t trust women. Between his birth mother and the other woman who had lied to him, his whole life had changed at a young age. Penny had earned his trust with her steadfastness to Jonas and their mismatched family. And while he’d known Breanna since she was a tot, he’d seen her twist the truth to her own ends a time or two.
Women didn’t play fair. And couldn’t be trusted.
He’d done his best to stay away from Fran all day, riding as far away from the chuck wagon as he could manage.
And even so, he’d found himself constantly looking over his shoulder, finding her on the wagon seat next to Ricky. He’d stuck her with his brother all day, hoping she would succumb to Ricky’s charm and give Edgar a reason to dislike her. At supper, she’d given his brother the same treatment she’d given everyone else: basic kindness.
Edgar didn’t want to like her, but he did.
Movement in the grass between the bedroll where he’d bedded down and the snoring figure of Seb had Edgar turning his head slowly to one side.
What he saw froze him in place.
The dancing firelight glistened off the patterned back of a snake as it slithered between the brothers. In the cool evening air, the reptile probably sought the heat from the fire.
A very faint rattling noise told Edgar that the situation was dangerous. It was a rattlesnake.
If Seb rolled over in his sleep, the snake might decide to strike. And that could be deadly for his brother.
If Edgar tried to wake his brother, there was a chance Seb might move around and get bit.
And, less important but still a concern, where was that pup of Breanna’s? He didn’t need his sister’s pet getting itself killed.
He couldn’t trust that the reptile would keep moving.
But he could save his brother.
Edgar swung out his arm with a yell, sending the snake flying away into the darkness, but a sharp sting in his hand told him the move hadn’t been entirely successful.
“Wha—” Seb woke with a confused yawn.
“Rattlesnake,” Edgar bit out. He scooted closer to the fire, trying to see the puncture wounds in the meaty part of his palm, just below his thumb.
Seb came instantly awake, as did Chester, the hired cowpoke on his other side.
“Where?” Seb asked.
“What’s going on?” Fran poked her head out of the back of the wagon.
“I tossed him back thataway.” Edgar jerked his good thumb over his shoulder.
“I’ll get him.” Chester unsheathed a long, deadly looking knife from its leather scabbard.
“Didn’t know he was sleeping with that beneath his pillow,” Seb muttered. He untangled himself from his bedroll and joined Edgar near the fire.
“Tossed who?” asked Fran. She sounded genuinely concerned.
“A rattlesnake.” Seb leaned in close to Edgar’s hand. “It don’t look too bad.”
“Well, it hurts something awful.” Edgar thought his hand was swelling, and pain radiated up his arm.
“How bad is it?”
Edgar looked up. Blinked. The bite must be worse than he thought, because he was hallucinating that his pretty wife—the little liar—was kneeling at his side in her rumpled, ugly dress, her dark hair down around her shoulders.
With bare feet.
“Woman, didn’t you hear him say rattlesnake? Put some boots on.”
She furrowed her brows at him, managing to communicate displeasure, but it struck him as funny.
“We should put a tourniquet on,” she murmured to Seb.
“I’ll get some rope.” Seb was off and running.
“Where’s Rick
y?” she asked, holding on to his wrist. Her hands were soft and cool against his skin.
“Out with the cattle. Him and Jack and Matty. Why?” Pain was traveling all the way up his arm now. He gritted his teeth against it, a metallic tang filling his mouth.
A loose lock of hair fell across her cheek. He was mesmerized by how it danced there in the slight breeze.
“Here’s the rope.” Seb skidded to a halt beside him, dirt and grass dusting up beneath his feet. He held out a coil.
“If ya ain’t gonna put manure on it, ya need ta suck out the poison,” Chester said.
She looked up to the other two men standing nearby. “Shouldn’t someone be saddling up? Will you take him to the doctor?”
“Not if they value their horse, they won’t. You see any gas lamps to light the way?”
She looked up at him, perturbed, then around them, taking in the darkness surrounding their little beacon of light, the campfire.
“You need a doctor,” she said.
“Well, I ain’t gonna have one. In case you forgot, town’s a half-day ride for a fast horse.”
She took the coil of rope from Seb and made a loop under his armpit and to the top of his shoulder. Her hands were shaking, her movements jerky and angry, but she didn’t tighten it too much.
“In the morning—” she started.
“In the morning, we’re moving out,” he interrupted her. “We’ve got a buyer waiting.”
He could see from the set of her chin that she wasn’t happy with that answer.
Someone threw a log on the fire, sending sparks flying with a whoosh, and he jumped, heart pounding. Through the haze of his pain, the sparks seemed to dance against the backdrop of the night sky.
He felt hot all of a sudden and might’ve swooned a bit, losing focus for a moment. He heard her voice, maybe talking to the two others, but he couldn’t make out the words.
Someone settled him back in his bedroll. He thought to protest that it was too hot near the fire, but then the soft, cool brush of his wife’s fingers against his brow brought his focus back in close, to her face. He realized he’d ended up with his head in Fran’s lap.
She was mad. Fightin’ mad. Her eyes sparked down on him. He let his gaze travel over her features, something he hadn’t allowed up until now.
“You’ve got freckles across your nose,” he said in a whisper.
She scrunched said feature at him.
She said something to someone standing off to the side, but he was dizzy and couldn’t make out the words. All he knew was that she kept that cool, small hand pressed against his forehead.
And it made him feel better.
And that made him mad, too.
* * *
She could be widowed by morning.
The realization didn’t sit well as Fran dipped a cloth into a pail of water she’d made Seb fetch from the stream.
She wasn’t going anywhere in the dark by herself. A rattlesnake!
“I thought you said there wasn’t anything dangerous in the woods,” she said.
But she forced her hands to be gentle as she wiped the sweat beading on his brow.
“Did not,” he mumbled. “I said there weren’t any bears or cougars.”
She wanted to thump the man, she really did, but she refrained. Barely.
Why was he so stubborn? He could’ve sent one of the others for the doctor. Surely, it couldn’t be that dangerous to ride at night...
But looking at the moonless, star-filled sky, she knew he was likely putting the protection of his hands above his own welfare. Stubborn man.
“How bad is the pain?” she asked.
“Pretty bad. But it seems to be localized.”
Was that a good thing? She didn’t know.
When she and Seb had bent over and examined the wound, there had been no visible puncture marks, only a furrow where the snake’s fang might’ve scratched through Edgar’s skin. Perhaps it would be worse if the fangs had punctured directly?
“Where’s my brother? I don’t need to be babied.”
“I believe he’s gone back to his bedroll,” she snapped. Seb had first ridden out to the other brothers, relaying Edgar’s wishes. Then he’d only gone back to sleep after her insistence that she would care for Edgar in the night. After seeing how long a day the cowboys had had in the saddle, if her stubborn husband insisted they move on in the morning, all the men needed as much rest as they could get.
Edgar struggled to his elbows, but the effort cost him. His face went pale above his beard.
“Why don’t you go back to bed,” he ordered her weakly. But then he lay his head back down in her lap.
And began to shiver.
She pulled the bedroll up around his shoulders, being careful of his injured hand.
She stopped bathing his face as the chills racked his body, then started back up again a few minutes later as he began to sweat again.
Thankfully, Emma had never woken. Fran didn’t want to give her sister something else to fear out here.
The fire began to die down again. Gradually she could see less and less detail in the wagon and bedrolls, their little camp.
And still the prone man struggled. Should she call for Seb? But what could the younger man do? There was no doctor nearby, no help.
“What will they do if you die?” she asked quietly. Because she didn’t dare ask, “What will I do if you die?”
“Not gonna die,” came his slightly slurred response. “Seen someone bit by a rattlesnake before. If I was gonna die, it would’ve already happened.”
Well, that was a relief.
“Might get infected, could lose the arm, but...” he trailed off as if he’d forgotten what he was talking about.
His pain was obviously affecting his responses. He’d hardly spoken to her before this, except at their abbreviated wedding. She should have compassion for him.
But she couldn’t waste this opportunity to find out a bit more about the man she’d married.
“Why is it so important for you to get the cattle where they’re going?”
“Promised my pa,” he mumbled.
“Surely he would understand if you had to delay in order to save your arm.”
He smiled, eyes closed. “Pa would.” Then his lips turned down in a frown. “My own pride wouldn’t. I owe it to him.”
“Why?”
His eyes still closed, he didn’t respond for a long time. Then, quietly, “He took me in when no one else wanted me.”
She’d known he was an orphan, of course. The latent pain still in his voice, emotion that she somehow knew this man rarely shared...
“Bear Creek was the last stop on a long orphan train. I was ten.”
Her breath caught. She hadn’t known they’d shared a similar experience. Was that why he’d been so offended that she’d lied about her age and taken advantage?
“How long ago?”
“Almost fifteen years now.” So he was almost twenty-five. Six years her senior.
“What kind of man is your father? And your mother?” She couldn’t picture the people who would take in so many orphans.
“Jonas took us in before Penny ever came along. Seven of us boys and Breanna.”
How extraordinary.
His tremors began to ease and so did the tension etched in the lines of his face.
She ran her fingers through his long hair. The water from her ministrations had loosened some of the trail dust, and in the dying firelight, the clean locks shone gold.
Her touch seemed to comfort him.
“That’s nice,” he mumbled.
She did it again.
“Do you remember your mama rocking you? When you were little?” His soft question sent her heart up
into her throat.
“No,” she whispered, somehow knowing this connection between them was fragile. Not wanting to break it.
Emma had been a baby in most of Fran’s earliest memories, her mother busy tending to chores required to care for an infant.
“I do,” he said. There was a long pause. “This feels like that.”
He drifted off, the final lines above his brow smoothing.
Leaving her with more questions than ever about this enigmatic cowboy.
* * *
Edgar woke completely disoriented, with a throbbing pain in his favored hand.
He was...outdoors. The sky was dark, but the eastern horizon was turning gray.
It only took a moment for memories to rush in.
The snake.
The bite.
Passing the night with his pretty little wife. The liar.
His head felt stuffed with cotton, pillowed on the same. He was unbearably warm, which was unusual for this time of year when the nights still got cool. Then he realized she was sorta...wrapped around him. His head rested on her folded knees, she was stretched beside him, her head resting on his shoulder.
She’d stayed with him all night?
The warmth that expanded his chest was uncomfortably new. How long had it been since someone had cared for him like that?
Maybe never.
The question was: Why had she done it? Out of some sense of duty since he’d married her?
He couldn’t imagine another reason.
And he didn’t like it anyway.
And then he started to remember her soft questions in the middle of the night. What was she trying to accomplish, pushing him for information? He didn’t like her questions about his family. Was she trying to find a soft spot? To what purpose?
“Lemme up,” he grumbled, shifting her and jostling her head.
She bolted up, the movement sliding her knees out from beneath his head. Without the support, his head clunked against the ground. He growled.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” She knelt at his shoulder and slid those slim, cool hands into his hair and around the back of his head. What was her angle?
“Help me get up,” he gruffed. He pushed to his elbow, and his head only spun a little. He took it as a good sign.
The Wrangler's Inconvenient Wife Page 6