by Tera Shanley
Hopefully, she’d understood the Indian girl well enough because the man was already tying his horse to the post outside. He took a step toward the porch, and she flung the front door open and pointed the rifle at his face. “What do you want?” Maggie heard the steel in her own voice.
The man put his hands up in the air and slowly backed off the entryway. He was tall. Handsome and thickset, but not from overeating. A man didn’t get such brute strength from eating too much. He had dark blue eyes and sandy blond hair, from what she could see peeking out from under his hat. The feral way in which he looked at her made her think of the cougars she’d read about when she lived in Boston. The man was tame, but just barely.
“My apologies. I didn’t know anyone was here, miss.”
“Then what are you doing here?” Damn her voice as it shook!
“Just came to take a look at the ranch.” The man watched her with the narrow eyed, calculating look of some bird of prey, as if deciding whether to tell her more. “Name’s Wyatt Jennings. My sister’s about to marry Garret Shaw. I was making sure this place was fit to house her.”
He was lying. Not about the first part; that very well could be true, but the last part held such a false note and was followed by a cocky smile as if he didn’t care whether she believed the lie.
“Well, it will be very difficult for your sister to marry a man who already has a wife.” She still aimed the rifle at Wyatt but the end of the barrel had dropped to his chest. The gun grew heavier by the moment, and her arms screamed for relief.
Wyatt’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. The look was then replaced by one of unrivaled anger. The venom in his glare made her throat seize up. He was a dangerous man and his attentions, regrettably, focused on her at the moment.
“You’re married to Garret Shaw?” he asked.
She gave a slight nod. Slowly.
“He was in talks with my father and sister to take her as a wife. Why in the hell would he go and marry you instead? You don’t seem his…type,” he ended with a sneer. “My sister comes with a hefty dowry, you see, and everybody knows Shaw is desperate to save this ranch from ruin.” He looked her up and down, lingering on the swell of her bosom. A cold, clammy sweat broke out across the palm of her hands. “I can see your appeal, though. You’re a pretty lady with a right proper accent. Can’t blame a man for wanting you.”
An icy chill slid down her spine. The way he was inching closer to the porch...
She raised the gun, aimed it directly at his face again. Her arms protested but found the power to obey with the aid of the adrenaline laced blood that pumped through them. “Get off my land before I blow a hole through you, Mr. Jennings.”
“Now, Mrs. Shaw. I don’t think you would really want to do that. Not a lady such as yourself.”
She pulled the hammer back on the gun with a satisfying click. “Don’t try me,” she ground out through gritted teeth.
The rage was squarely back on Wyatt’s face. He spun and untied his horse. “You know, I heard Shaw and his men are in town for at least a few more days yet.” He mounted his horse then leaned forward and spat into the dirt. “I can’t say I’m all that worried about this news, though. People die around these parts all of the time. Part of life, especially for people like yourself, not built for the terrain. I have a feeling my sister will get her man, and being a betting man, I’d say sooner than later.”
Wyatt’s threat was sincere. Fear slithered from her spine to settle somewhere in her gut.
“Since you are alone out here, I think I’ll come callin’ tomorrow. Maybe the next day, too. I think over time you’ll grow to like me, Mrs. Shaw.”
He wheeled his horse, kicked it into a furious pace, and the shotgun sagged in her shaking arms. Lenny peeked around the corner of the house, nodded to her. While the girl headed to the barn to saddle their horses, she rushed inside to pack a few necessities. Wyatt Jennings might come calling the next day, but she and Lenny had no intention of being there for it. Not without backup.
* * * *
She took the main road into town with Lenny at a trot, listening for hoofbeats and hoping to avoid Wyatt Jennings if he were headed in a similar direction. Lenny threw worried looks at her often, but she ignored them. She was too busy trying to pick her way through the maze of her own thoughts.
Jennings was no doubt a villain, and easily an insufferable ass, but had no reason to lie about Garret’s betrothal to his sister. How silly of her, to assume Garret didn’t have a life before she came bumbling along. Did he love the woman? Was she beautiful, as only a woman willingly chosen by Garret Shaw should be?
Maybe Jennings’s sister was the reason he’d distanced himself from her. The questions whirled on and on, like a tumbleweed on a windy Texas day. Unable and unwilling to think of anything else, by the time the first shops at the edge of town appeared on the horizon, she’d worked herself up quite capaciously.
She was foolish to care. Garret Shaw hadn’t managed to say a single civil thing to her since she’d arrived in Rockdale, so why should she care if she ruined any chance of him being with that Jennings woman? He was the one who’d insisted on marrying her, and now he would strap her with this pestering guilt over ruining his chance at love? Absurd!
The tips of her ears grew hot. They had likely turned bright red as they did only when she was truly upset, but that did nothing to calm her escalating fury.
She followed Lenny into town, as the girl seemed to know exactly where to find the men of the Lazy S and rode straight to a building called the Brass Buckle. From inside came the sounds of women singing and laughing drunkenly. Loose women, no doubt. A saloon.
“Really?” Maggie raised an eyebrow at Lenny.
Her companion looked around as if she were uncomfortable. Passersby stared at her and Lenny, open mouthed. The townspeople’s reaction could very well have been caused by the sight of an unfamiliar lady with full skirts flowing off the back of a buckskin horse as she pulled up before a notorious saloon. More likely, because Lenny was Indian.
The girl’s frown drifting to the vicinity of the saddle horn said she thought along the same lines.
Maggie pulled her mount closer to Lenny’s and glared down the closest man, but the girl jumped off skillfully, took Buck’s reins and twitched her head to the side, signaling her to dismount. After she had done so, Lenny led the horses off in the direction of a crude stable near a hotel.
“Okay, now what,” Maggie mumbled, squinting at the saloon doors.
* * * *
“Danged woman,” Garrett muttered as he lifted another shot of cheap whiskey to his aching forehead. He’d seen his dad drown himself in the bottle too many times to count, so rarely drank the throat-scorching liquor. Now at the tail end of the week he’d had though, he’d try anything to escape his misfortune, even if just for a little while.
Down the counter to his left, Burke talked up a woman on his lap. A saloon girl, wearing a bright blue dress with black lace trim cut so low at the neck, her plump womanly attributes were likely to tumble out. Her hair was piled in curls on top of her head. The amount of rouge on her face did little to hide her bad skin and even worse breeding. More than three quarters of the way to being unable to see a hole in a ladder, Burke didn’t seem to mind in the least. Lucky him.
The boys always took rooms above the saloon when they stayed in town. The railroad had only come through a few years before, but the saloon was their traditional place to cut loose when they drove the cattle in. Before the train, they’d had to drive the cattle at least a month to make it to other cattle towns further north. After his nicer digs in Georgetown, the Brass Buckle left him unimpressed, but the men had worked hard for him. The hands deserved a break where they wanted.
If not for the blasted guilt niggling at him, he’d lose his mind and take one of the whores upstairs. But he was a married man now, and it meant something.
He sighed and downed his drink.
“Ahem,” someone said in a dainty, ridicu
lous accent as the saloon doors swung creakily open. “Has anyone seen Mr. Garrett Shaw?”
Maggie stood at the front of the room, searching for someone with her gaze and looking every bit the lamb in the lion’s den. He had seen all of her dresses. This was the plainest one she owned, but still leaps and bounds fancier than was fashionable here. Her hair was pulled back and pinned like some frilly woman in a catalog picture, and the small, frail looking hat she wore did nothing to help her fit into her surroundings. She was a striking young woman, he had to admit, but must be lacking in brains if she thought it a good idea to show up at the Brass Buckle. Men and whores only. The sign outside said as much.
“What now?” he muttered, slammed his shot glass on the table, and threw some change on the counter. “Thanks, Milly.”
The woman behind the bar nodded and continued to wipe the wooden top with a rag.
He spun around and strode up to Maggie in long strides that echoed off the silent walls of the saloon. “Sorry for the interruption, fellas,” he said to the men, who had as one frozen in whatever position they’d been in when she’d arrived. He grabbed her hand and barged out of the saloon with her in tow.
“Unhand me, you…you…barbarian! What on earth makes you think you can handle a woman like this?”
Legs locked against any forward motion, she wrenched her hand out of his grip. She stared at him as if she actually expected him to apologize.
“What’re you doing here, Maggie?” He was furious and there was an edge to his voice, but so what?
She opened her mouth and shut it. Then, dammit, opened it again. “What are you doing here, Garrett Shaw? Four days married and already seeking out a loose woman? You’ve made it clear you don’t respect me in any way, but this is unacceptable.”
He growled. Must the woman air their differences for the entire blasted town to see? Howie Raddick and his wife Hannah had pushed their way through the gathering crowd on the porch of the dry goods store to watch the show, and Raymond Hill was wearing the biggest, dumbest grin he’d ever seen. Any minute now, that trouble stirrer would be clapping and cheering the argument on.
He pinched the bridge of his nose in an effort to relieve the tension building just behind his eyes. What could he say to her? She had a point. He knew how it looked. “Where is your horse?”
“Lenny took him over to that stable by the hotel, I think.”
“Lenny’s here, too?” Aw, hell. If she’d braved coming into town, something big had spooked her. He headed off in the direction of the stable, leaving Maggie to trot after him. “What’s happened? I know Lenny wouldn’t come into town without good reason,” he said when she’d almost caught up to him.
“I need to talk to you about something,” she said low, casting glances at the gawkers. “In private, if you don’t mind.”
He slid her a glare. Someone petite and soft smelling collided with him. Anna, wearing a light blue dress and toting a feminine-looking umbrella. Hell and damnation.
“Oh! Mr. Shaw!” Anna exclaimed.
Arranging his expression into one of politeness, he caught her arms to keep her upright.
Any man could see the woman was pretty, with her blond hair neatly pinned in a bun and eyes the color of a clear spring sky. Her lips were full and pouty, and the color that rose on her cheeks was becoming on her. He could almost see Maggie bristling at the way Anna smiled at him. “Miss Jennings. I’m sorry. I didn’t see you coming,” he said.
Anna laughed, a charming tinkling sound. “That’s fine, Mr. Shaw. I didn’t see you either, though I should have seen a man your size comin’ from a mile away.” She leaned into him and whispered, “I must say, it has been my pleasure runnin’ into you.”
Garrett gave her a half smile. He rarely knew what to do with Anna’s boldness.
Maggie stepped forward. “Hello, Miss Jennings, was it? Maggie Shaw. Pleased to meet you.”
“Shaw?” A slight wrinkle furrowed Anna’s brow.
In hopes of biting back the swear words ready on his tongue, he clamped his mouth shut. In no way did he want to explain the situation then, or ever, if he were completely honest. He’d dreaded this confrontation ever since his blasted agreement to Roy’s final request. Trouble was coming and he had no power to stop it.
He cleared his throat. “Anna, I’d like to introduce you to my wife.” Though he’d bitten out the last word like a curse, for the first time that he’d called her his wife, it still counted.
Maggie shivered beside him like she’d taken a chill. Simultaneous dirty looks from he and Anna stilled her quickly enough though, thank God.
“You’re married to her?” Anna didn’t even try to disguise the disgust in her voice or the scowl on her face. “I wonder what my pa is going to have to say about this, Mr. Shaw. You two practically shook hands on our arrangement, and you know he doesn’t take kindly to Indian Givers.”
Was this tiny woman threatening him? He shouldn’t have been surprised. She was a Jennings, after all. Probably born to extortion.
Maggie looked like she wanted to kick his almost-betrothed in the shin. It was time to go, before that redheaded little hellion did something unwise. Again.
Somehow, he’d managed to dodge one bullet by standing directly in front of another. He sighed with tiredness and tipped his hat. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out, Miss Jennings. It was nice to see you again.”
And by nice, he meant grating.
When he grabbed Maggie’s hand again, she yelped, but he led her around the fuming Anna Jennings and toward the direction of the stables.
“It was nice to have met you!” Maggie called back behind her. No doubt she’d said that to piss Anna off more than to be polite. From the ear-maiming shriek that sounded from behind them, she had likely succeeded.
Garrett tossed the stable boy a nickel and brought their horses out. Lenny followed closely with hers. Once mounted, he had to wait for Maggie to hoist her skirts over the buckskin’s back. How dadburned long did it take the woman to settle into a saddle? In the time it took to preen her skirts to adorn her horse’s backside just so, he could’ve ambled back into the saloon and taken a road shot to prepare him for whatever obnoxious conversation she’d foist on him next.
“What? You try riding in these blasted skirts!” she exclaimed.
His patience back in the shot glass at the Brass Buckle, he held his breath for a five count then said, “Lenny, can you take her to the dressmaker? Get a few readymade dresses and have them put it on my account.” He glared at Maggie. “I can’t stand watching you flounce around in that get-up anymore.”
Her chin lifted and she leveled a fiery look at him. “I don’t flounce. And anyway, I don’t need your money. I have a bit of my own. It’s not much but it should cover a few dresses.”
“Suit yourself,” he said. “I’ve got to talk to Burke and try to find Cookie. You ladies go on ahead and I’ll catch up. I’m taking you home.”
* * * *
Sitting outside the dress shop astride his restless mount and watching through the large window, Garret fumed. He’d mistaken how long it took women to shop for dresses, and by a long shot. He’d already talked to Burke and Cookie about heading home, which should have given Maggie plenty of time to be in and out of the dressmaker’s shop. They should have been on the road already. Long ago, damn it.
She saw him waiting, by the furtive looks she darted at the window, and if the way she stuck her prim little chin in the air as she spoke to the dressmaker was any indication, chose to ignore his glares. Thunderous looks, if his reflection in the window had any merit.
Lenny had escaped to her horse shortly after he’d arrived, which likely had more to do with her withering under the portly dressmaker’s cold stare, and less to do with the tedium of dress shopping. Did Maggie think the same? From the way she snapped peevish, one-word sentences at the woman who was trying to extract gossip from her, she must have.
When Maggie finally came out of the dressmaker’s shop with thr
ee brown paper wrapped dresses, he was minutes from losing his mind and dragging her from the shop. If she’d thought to teach him patience, she hadn’t succeeded.
“Took you long enough,” he muttered while she untied her horse from the hitching post.
She ignored him and mounted Buck. While he put the wrapped dresses into their saddle bags, she waited, lips pressed in a line. Now she had nothing to say?
Without another word, he kicked his horse and turned him down Main Street toward the Lazy S.
“Your manners really are atrocious,” Maggie sang after him.
Though he couldn’t resist throwing her a steely glare, he held his tongue. The woman was a burr under his skin, and maybe it would annoy her. No woman had ever been so irritating. “Only fifty years to go,” he groused.
Chapter 6
Maggie held back on the ride home to the Lazy S because Garret made it obvious he didn’t feel like talking to her. He focused instead on Lenny and asked her questions in her language, which she answered minimally.
Unexpected tenderness warmed her for the way he treated the Indian girl. After the stares and rude mutterings from the townspeople, Garret was a stark contrast. She hadn’t seen him treat Cookie or Lenny differently than any of the other people who worked for him on the Lazy S. If anything, he went to Cookie more often than anyone else for tasks he wanted to get done right the first time. How had they become such a pivotal part of daily life at the ranch? For the hundredth time, she wished fervently that she could communicate with her new friend.
Lenny turned in her saddle, glanced at her and nodded her head up to Garret, who led the way on his chestnut stallion. The girl was right; she was wasting precious time, and Garret would have no excuse not to listen to her out in this wilderness.
She kicked Buck and pulled him up beside Garret. He must have caught the movement out of the corner of his eye because he turned a surprised look on her.