He pushed away from the stall to face Blaze head-on, the compassion in his eyes a stark contrast to the fire that had been there only moments before. “I’d always believed Pastor Poppy’s words that ‘true liberty was doing the right thing,’ but it wasn’t until then that God taught me to actually live it. To battle the bitterness like I would a Mohave rattlesnake.” One edge of his mouth tipped. “Staying far, far away. So I did—repented for my anger and bitterness and started praying for Libby and her family from afar, and you know what? Over time, every prayer eased my pain just a little more, and every blessing I wished on them turned the lock on that jail another hair or so. Until bit by bit, prayer by prayer, I was set free to be the man I wanted to be.”
Uncle Finn laid a hand on Blaze’s shoulder. “A happy one blessed with nephews and nieces who’ve become my loving family, and a ranch and silver mine that’s the fulfillment of my dreams.” He cracked a crooked smile as he checked his watch. “All but one. And she’s waiting for me at the moment behind a bolted door, no doubt.”
His uncle braced hands on both of Blaze’s shoulders with a look of love so powerful, emotion thickened in Blaze’s throat. “I love you, Blaze, too much to see you go down the path that I did before I found true freedom. So fix it, or I’ll kick your carcass off this ranch so high, you’ll think you’re a bloomin’ bird, got it?”
“Got it.” Against Blaze’s will, a smile gave way. “But I still think you’re crazy.”
Finn nudged his hat up. “That’s a given, son, especially when it comes to Libby, but I guarantee it’s a form of insanity you’ll be afflicted with yourself all too soon.”
Blaze grunted as he followed his uncle to his horse’s stall. “Not if I can help it.”
Uncle Finn’s painted palomino, Lightning, nickered as Finn led him to the smaller buckboard. “Come on, boy, we’re going for a ride,” he said softly to his trusty mount, gently rubbing his neck, “because I’m going to need all the support I can get bringing this little filly home.”
He tossed Blaze a glance while he hooked Lightning up. “And all of your support after I bring her home, too, Blaze.” His uncle’s vest rose and fell with a deep sigh as he rubbed Lightning’s neck. “The truth is I’ve never stopped loving her. So, I figure if God saw fit not to take her out of my heart after all the years I asked him to, then managed to get that crusty old father of hers to make amends, well … who am I to argue with the Almighty?” Eyes in a squint, he delivered a probing look. “Which means I’m asking you to do everything in your power to be courteous and pleasant to all of our guests while they’re here, Bren, including your Aunt Libby.”
“Courteous I can do,” Blaze said as he helped his uncle finish up with Lightning, “but ‘pleasant’ is a mighty tall order.” He slid a palm down Lightning’s mane as he shot his uncle a sour smile. “Nonetheless, you have my word I will be courteous and will try to be pleasant to all of our guests while they are here.” With a final pat of Lightning’s neck, Blaze turned on his heel to head back to the foal, smile flat as he glanced over his shoulder. “But I sure in the devil don’t have to like it.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Hey, Don.” Hand to his mouth, Finn called to the hotel manager from the empty dining room table where he’d camped out for the last hour and a half. After five cups of coffee, he had enough nervous energy to fuel the blasted V&T Railroad. “Mind checking on her one more time?”
Glancing up from the front desk register in the foyer where he was closing out the books for the day, Donald Turley offered Finn a sympathetic smile. But the dip of bushy brows conveyed something else Finn wasn’t used to.
Pity.
“One more time?” Don’s roll of eyes might have been comical an hour ago when Finn’s patience wasn’t nearly as exhausted. Now it only confirmed the hotel manager was as fed up to the eyeballs with Libby’s dad-burned lollygagging as Finn. “Maybe third time lucky, eh?” he said while his thickset body lumbered around the front desk to tackle the steps.
“Wait.” Finn jumped up from the table to head into the foyer. “You did tell her she had to be out by nine, didn’t you?” He glanced at the carved burlwood clock behind the oak front desk as it inched past 10:50 p.m.
The weary sigh that seeped from the hotel manager’s lips seemed to sap the poor man’s energy, his broad shoulders actually sagging as much as his whiskered jowls. “Of course I did, Finn—pert near every hour on the hour since her family checked out, including the two times you sent me. But she just keeps yelling through the door that she’s ‘indisposed’ and not ready.”
Venting with a noisy breath, Finn parked his hands low on his hips. “For pity’s sake, Don, you’re the blasted owner of this hotel—didn’t you give her an ultimatum?”
“An ultimatum?” Hand to chest, Donald gaped, facial muscles as strained as the buttons on his overtaxed waistcoat. “To Liberty O’Shea?” His brows dug low. “For the love of mercy, Finn, I know you were only married to the woman for barely a blink, but even I remember that fiery temper of hers. An ultimatum?” He grunted. “Are you crazy?”
Apparently.
A once-familiar heat stirred in Finn, warming both his blood and his temper, something he hadn’t experienced in many a year. His mouth tamped down. Seventeen, to be exact. “She’s nothing more than a mite of a woman, Don, so you need to go up there right now and demand that she checks out or you’ll call the sheriff.”
“Humph.” Donald tugged on his vest, the motion threatening to pop all of his buttons. “Already tried that before you arrived. But that confounded woman just carried on something fierce about feeling poorly, so Sheriff Polk just let her be, spouting something about you can’t evict a sick woman.”
“Wanna bet?” Finn leaned in to give Don a tinge of the temper few knew he had. After Libby deserted him, he’d worked hard at maintaining a reputation for a cool head and patient manner, mastering the temper he’d inherited from a hot-headed drunk of a father. But Libby O’Shea had always been the key to unlocking a storehouse of emotions in him, both good and bad, and he knew the time had finally come to confront them all.
Along with the woman who provoked them.
Shoving the brim of his hat up, Finn drilled Don with a deadly stare. “As manager, you need to demand once and for all that she vacate the premises, Don, and if she doesn’t, you need to unlock that dad-burned door and bring her down.”
Don stumbled back, all color siphoning right out of his ruddy cheeks. “Thunderation, Finn, you are crazy if you think I’m going to do that! Why, the lady could be undressed, and I am not that kind of man.”
“No, but I am,” Finn said in a near growl, amazed all over again how a little bit of a thing like Libby O’Shea could light his fuse so darn quickly. As a staunch proponent for women’s rights, the woman had always bucked every man she’d ever met, determined to get her way no matter the cost. And it had cost him plenty, and her family, too, and it was high time somebody saved his wife from herself. Forcing himself to calm down, he drew in a cleansing breath of air before slowly expelling it again, willing some of his frustration to diminish along with it.
He couldn’t deny that when he married Libby, he’d fancied himself a likable Petrucio to Libby’s Kate, a veritable Taming of the Shrew in true Shakespeare form, determined to make her the wife he needed her to be.
For I am born to tame you, Kate.
But after she’d left, God had tempered him greatly, revealing a mindset that had lost him the love of his life, badly bruising the only woman he had ever longed to cherish. So, this time he was determined to take great pains to “tame” her in a whole new way.
God’s way.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.
And I will, Lord.
A slow smile inched its way across his face as his frustration channeled into the fire, passion, and challenge Libby O’Shea had always ignited in him.
As soon as I drag her out of that bla
sted room.
Reining in his temper, he extended his hand. “Give me the key, Don.”
Ol’ Don distanced himself even further, his shock evident in the rush of blood that suddenly flooded his cheeks. “I can’t do that, Finn. For the love of decency, man, the lady could be indisposed!”
“Well, if she isn’t, she sure in the devil will be,” Finn said, strolling around the front desk to pluck the master skeleton key off its peg. He strode toward the staircase with passion and purpose, ready to reclaim his wife one way or the other. “And any woman holed up in a hotel room half naked to thwart authority isn’t a lady, my friend, so I’d reserve judgment on that one if I were you.” He bounded up the steps two at a time, turning on the landing to shoot Don a strained smile. “Room three at the end of the hall, right?”
Sweating profusely, Don mopped his face with a handkerchief. “You’re not gonna make a scene, are you? Because I’m full up tonight, and everyone’s in bed.”
Finn’s smile was pure patience. “Don’t plan to, Don, I promise. Unless I have to bang on every door to find her.”
A shudder rippled through ol’ Don as he dabbed the back of his neck. “Yes, room number three, but remember you promised, Finn.”
“Yes, sir, I did,” Finn said with a firm salute before tugging on the brim of his hat. “But that wildcat of a redhead barricaded down in that room?” He grinned as he gave Don a quick wink. “Good luck with that.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Peeking at the alarm clock on her nightstand, Libby breathed a sigh of relief, finally allowing her body to sink into submission in the heavenly cloud of her feather-tick bed. The comforting bongs of the grandfather clock in the lobby boomed the hour of eleven, assuring her that Mr. Turley had likely given up and gone to bed. Hopefully locking Finn McShane out of his hotel as thoroughly as Libby had locked Mr. Turley out of her room.
She burrowed deeper beneath the covers to further contemplate about what she was going to do, something she’d been wrestling with all evening. Papa had boxed her in but good, ruffling her feathers more than she’d ruffled those in the blasted goose-down bed, tossing and turning. Great balls of fire, she needed that annulment to marry Harold so she could devote all of her time to her volunteer work, and unfortunately, she needed both Harold’s and Papa’s money to help fund it.
But not at the cost of six months under Papa’s thumb … and Finn McShane’s roof!
Rolling on her side, Libby punched and battered the down pillow several times, wishing she could do the same to Papa’s diabolical plan to ruin her life. A chill rippled through her despite a mound of covers. Because too many men had tried to ruin her life already. Well, she wasn’t going to give any man—be it Papa or Finn—another chance to push her around. At least not willingly, and if it took all night, she vowed to come up with a plan to circumvent Papa’s. She nibbled the edge of her lip as the seeds of a smile tugged.
Or at least make him wish that she had.
She curled up, knees tucked to her chest, wondering if just possibly dear Mrs. Poppy might take her and Maggie in. Libby had heard that the town matriarch lived alone ever since her husband, Pastor Poppy, passed on a few years back, and the very thought caused a dull ache to throb in Libby’s chest. The Poppy’s had been like the grandparents she’d never had, the oldest, dearest people she knew. Her mouth hooked. Even if they bore most of the blame for her sham marriage to Finn.
Before she knew it, Libby’s lips softened into a smile at the memory of Mrs. Poppy’s prize-winning poppy-seed cake and the poppy-seed ice cream she’d served the night Finn and she had decided to court. The sweet, old woman had accidentally spilled a whole jar of particularly potent poppy seeds into her ice cream, quite surprised they added a “lovely little crunch.” A soft giggle broke from Libby’s lips as she lay in the moonlit room. A “lovely little crunch,” indeed, which when coupled with an abundance of more poppy seeds in both the cake and tea she’d served, created a woozy evening none of them remembered the next day.
Until she woke up in Finn’s bed.
In the Poppy’s guest bedroom.
With a wedding ring on her hand.
Poor Mrs. Poppy had been beside herself when Papa showed up, ranting and raving that the marriage would be annulled because Finn was nothing but a fortune-hunter.
Only Finn wasn’t. He was the kindest, most gentle man she’d ever known. A wisp of a smile shadowed her lips as she swiped at the sudden moisture in her eyes. And then in one painful stutter of her heart, the memory of the day she’d left chased her smile away, reminding her of who Finn McShane actually was beneath that so-called loving veneer: a bully who’d given her an ultimatum, obviously as controlling as her father.
In his dreams. Which, if she allowed her father to win this war, would become her nightmares! Jaw hardening along with her will, she flopped on her back, jerking the covers up to her neck as she stared at the ceiling. “When steers fly,” she muttered. “Or mules, in the case of Finn McShane.”
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Libby stifled a groan, ignoring the gentle knock on the door. Go away, Mr. Turley. She held her breath, hoping he would.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Not responding, she squeezed her eyes shut as if that would make him disappear.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
“Mr. Turley, I’m in bed and nearly asleep,” she called, yanking the covers over her head.
BANG! BANG! BANG! She shot up in the bed, temper suddenly exploding along with the stupid door. “I am in my nightgown, sir, so you can bang all night, but I am not opening that door!”
“Fine by me.”
Libby froze to the sheets at the sound of that voice, goose bumps popping like measles while the turn of a key in the lock sucked all moisture from her throat. She caught her breath when the door squealed open, bucking up against the headboard so hard, it rattled along with her teeth. “W-What are y-you d-doing?” she hissed, covers clutched to her neck.
“Taking you home, Mrs. McShane,” Finn said with a polite tip of his hat, his frame so tall and broad, he had to duck through the stupid door.
She gaped. “For the love of decency, I’m in my nightclothes!”
“Uh, no offense, Libs, but I’ve seen it before.” A polite smile hovered on those full lips as he quietly clicked the lock behind him, draining all the blood from her face. He leaned against the wood, hip cocked to the frame. “It’s time to go, darlin’.”
She wrapped the covers around her the best that she could, chin rising along with her temper. “I am not going anywhere with you, Finn McShame,” she said, resorting to one of the many twists of his name she’d coined when they’d butted heads in school so many years ago. “So, you can just march right back out that door.”
A slow grin slid across his lips that annoyed her even further when it tumbled her stomach. Or maybe it was nausea.
One could only hope.
He nudged his hat up. “I’ve missed the nicknames, Libs, but I imagine I’ll get a bellyful before all is said and done.” Pushing off the doorframe, he stood to his full height, the grin fading into that equally irritating half-smile that always pitted his calm-and-collected against her flustered-and-fuming. “I’m taking you home, Libby, so we can do this easy or we can do it hard—the choice is yours.”
“My home is in New York,” she whispered loudly, “and since when did you ever give me a choice? Great balls of fire, I didn’t even have a choice when I married you in the first place—had to be drugged to do it.”
He idly scratched the back of his neck, that shameless twinkle causing more “nausea.”
“You weren’t drugged the next morning as I recall,” he said softly, laughter crinkling at the corners of hazel eyes that had always cast a spell. “When you woke up in my bed”—he paused long enough for the fire in her cheeks to crawl clear up to the roots of her hair, then winked, his voice taking on a lazy drawl—“buck naked.”
“Get out!” So much blood pulsed in her cheeks, she tho
ught she might faint. Without a second thought, she hurled the brass and metal alarm clock at him with a grunt.
Catching it handily, he bobbled it in the air with a crooked smile. “Mite heavier than a teapot, for sure, but at least it won’t shatter.” He casually strolled over to set it back down, and she lunged to the far side of the bed, covers wadded to her chest. Hands on his hips, he nodded toward her arsenal of blankets. “Now, are you going to get dressed on your own, Liberty Bell, or am I going to have to do it for you?”
“Over my d-dead body!” she said in a hoarse stutter, hoping to scald him with a glare.
He shifted, eyes sobering and manner patient. “Maybe. But either way, Libby, you’re coming with me. So, are you going to put some clothes on or should I do it for you?”
“No and no!” she said in another whispered shout, swiping a book from the nightstand to fire it as hard as she could.
Finn nabbed it easily, brows lifting as he held the book up. He shook his head with a tsk. “Flinging the Word of God around, Miss Bell?” He set it back down. “I doubt that’s going to earn you any favor with the Almighty, ma’am.” He moseyed on over to the bureau and opened a drawer, gathering up a chemise, skirt, and blouse before tossing them on the bed. “So, I’m going to ask you one more time, Libby, real nice and slow—you going to dress yourself or do you want me to do it?”
“You wouldn’t dare!” she said in a near gasp, remembering all the times he’d given her an ultimatum—and won.
He folded his arms, mouth clamping into a tight smile. “Try me.”
“Oooooo …!” Frustration surging, she crumpled the chemise up in a ball and pelted it straight in his face.
“Suit yourself,” he said in an unruffled tone, moving around to her side of the bed with the chemise in hand.
“You are nothing but a bully, Finn McShane,” she hissed, scurrying to the other side of the bed as quickly as she could wrapped in blankets like a rolled dumpling. But apparently not quick enough given the fist that Finn latched onto her foot.
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