Secondhand Bride

by Linda Lael Miller

  “You,” he said. “I want you. I would purely hate to kill you, Chloe, but I will, if you don’t listen to reason.”

  “I’m listening,” she said, standing absolutely still, grateful that he had stopped at the table instead of coming to her.

  The teakettle boiled over, the water sizzling on top of the tiny stove. Chloe thought she heard the sound of approaching horses, beyond the hiss, but decided it was wishful thinking when Jack didn’t react.

  “You’d best see to that kettle,” he said. He’d laid the.44 on the table, but his hand rested lightly upon it, and his finger was still curled around the trigger.

  Chloe forced some starch into her knees, walked over, and, using a dish towel, lifted the pot off the heat. Men’s voices. She heard them clearly, from the direction of the schoolyard, and closed her eyes.

  No, Jeb, she thought, with desperate calm. Don’t come any closer.

  She turned, saw Jack smiling, and knew he’d heard what she had. He stood, at his leisure, the .44 ready in his hand.

  “Well, now,” Jack said, grimly pleased. “It seems the McKettricks are better trackers than I thought. When I couldn’t get my hands on the little girl—almost had her, too, but they came riding ’round the bend just as I was about to make my move—they must have figured I’d come here next.”

  “I won’t let you hurt him, Jack,” Chloe said. Inside, she was screaming, hopelessly, Run, Jeb! Run! She knew he wouldn’t, though. He didn’t know how.

  Jack chuckled, shook his head, as if marveling at her stupidity. “This won’t be over until they’re all dead, Chloe,” he said, with deadly reason. “It’s Jeb I want, but as long as there’s a one of those McKettricks left, I’ll be looking over my shoulder. That’s not the way I want to live out my days.”

  Chloe watched him turn, and when he did, she threw the kettleful of boiling water at him. It struck him square in the back, and he screamed with pain and fury, but he was still on his feet. He crossed to her in two strides, grabbed her hard by the hair, and half dragged, half hurled her toward the door. He yanked it open with his free hand and stepped out onto the stoop, the barrel of the .44 digging into her left temple.

  The McKettricks were there, all of them, including Holt.

  Chloe’s gaze locked with Jeb’s, and she begged him, with her eyes, to back down. He refused, as clearly as if he’d spoken aloud. He stepped forward, and when Kade reached out to stop him, Angus laid a hand on his arm and shook his head.

  “Put the guns down,” Jack said. “All of you.”

  They complied, after a moment’s hesitation. Angus, Holt, Kade, and Rafe laid their pistols on the ground, though Jeb kept his. His right arm was still in its sling, Chloe noted with despair, and his holstered gun lay awkwardly against his left side.

  “Kick them out of reach,” Jack prompted, giving Chloe’s hair a yank that sent fresh pain shooting through her scalp.

  The McKettricks did as they’d been told—except for Jeb.

  Don’t do this, Chloe pleaded silently, her gaze never straying from Jeb’s face.

  He was ignoring her, wholly focused on Jack.

  “You shouldn’t have messed with my woman,” Jack said, with false benevolence. He shook his head. “That was a bad mistake, young McKettrick. A very bad mistake.”

  “Let her go,” Jeb said evenly. His voice was quiet, but the undertone was deadly. A chill wind blew through Chloe’s spirit, set her to shivering.

  That was when Jack hurled her off the porch, into the grass. She heard the shots in the second before she landed, two of them, one right after the other, and whirled on her hands and knees to look.

  Jeb was standing, his pistol still smoking in his hand.

  Jack lay sprawled against the cottage door, his face completely gone.

  Chloe screamed, scrambled to her feet, dashed across the space between them, and flung herself at Jeb, felt his good arm close blessedly around her. “I’m sorry, Chloe,” he whispered, against her temple. “Christ, I’m so sorry.”

  She clung to him, sobbing, only dimly aware of Angus and the others moving around them, picking up their discarded guns, shoving them into their holsters.

  “I love you, Chloe,” Jeb said.

  She looked up at him, searching his face, his eyes. “Do you mean that?”

  “Like I’ve never meant anything before,” he answered.

  Another tremor went through her. “Oh, God, I thought sure he’d kill you,” she cried. “I was so scared!”

  “Everything’s all right now,” he assured her, but a question took shape in those blue, blue eyes. “Isn’t it?”

  “I love you, Jeb,” Chloe said. “Heaven help me, I love you so much—”

  He smiled. “That’s all I needed to hear,” he said.

  Sam Fee and a bevy of other men rushed into the yard, and Angus spoke to them, explaining quietly. Jack’s body was gathered up, taken over to Doc’s office.

  “I sent a wire to the judge in Tombstone,” Chloe felt compelled to say, when only she and Jeb were left, there in the gathering darkness. “He’ll confirm what I told you, about the divorce from Jack—”

  Jeb laid a finger to her lips, stemming the rush of words. “I don’t need proof, Chloe,” he said. “You’re my wife. That’s all that’s important now.”

  She let her forehead rest against his chest, gathering her scattered emotions. “There’s going to be a baby,” she told him.

  He cupped her chin in his hand, raised her face for his kiss. “Even better,” he said. He nodded toward the door of the cottage, with its speckles of blood. “Let’s go inside, Chloe, and shut out the world for a while.”

  Life roared through her, sweet and infinitely complicated, making its claim.

  She nodded, and Jeb took her hand and led her over the threshold.

  “Hold me,” she said, when the door had been closed and latched behind them.

  He kissed her deeply. “I plan to do a lot more than that,” he said.

  59

  Tom Jessup stood with his hat in his hands, on the front porch of the Triple M ranch house, where Sue Ellen had a habit of sitting for long spells, wrapped in a heavy cloak and watching the creek waters frolic past.

  She met his kindly eyes. “Thank you,” she said. The words got tangled, coming out, but she’d been practicing them right along, and she knew by the look on Tom’s face that he got their meaning. He’d come to call often in the three weeks since she’d escaped Jack Barrett and nearly drowned herself, and each time he’d visited, Sue Ellen had liked him a little more.

  “It’s turning cold,” he said, with a good-natured shiver. “It’ll be winter soon, I reckon.”

  Sue Ellen nodded. She’d be going away, as soon as she was well enough to ride a stagecoach, and even though she should have been happy to leave it all behind, she found she was sad instead.

  “Mr. Kade, he’s given me the use of that cabin,” Tom said, with considerable effort. “I don’t reckon you’d ever want to go back there, on any account.”

  Sue Ellen stared at him, confounded and faintly hopeful.

  “It’s a good place,” Tom went on, struggling in the throes of some dear misery. He was hands down the shyest man Sue Ellen had ever met, and poor as a church mouse, but she’d have been dead, if not for him. “Just needs some fixing up, that’s all.”

  Sue Ellen didn’t move.

  “I can’t give you fine clothes and the like,” Tom proceeded, blushing furiously, and fairly crushing his hat in his big hands, “and I know a woman wants pretty things.” He fell silent, struggling again, then cleared his throat and pressed ahead. “What I’m trying to say, here, Sue Ellen, is that I’ve been half-crazy with loneliness, ever since my Annabel passed. I’d like nothin’ better than to marry up with you.”

  What Sue Ellen felt for Tom Jessup was gratitude, not love, but she was a wiser woman than she’d been when she took up with Mr. Barrett. She freed one hand from the tightly wrapped cloak and extended it to Tom, and he took
it hesitantly, and with such wonder that it might have been a treasure.

  “I have two young’uns,” he said, and flushed again.

  She nodded, smiled. She knew a thing or two about raising children, having brought up her brothers and sisters.

  “You sayin’ yes?” Tom asked, and gulped.

  Sue Ellen nodded again. Life had given her a second chance, just as Concepcion had promised it would, and she wasn’t about to turn it down. Going back to that cabin would be a hard thing, but there was a rightness about it, too, a sense of making over old things into new. She’d plant a garden, hang curtains at the windows, and learn to love Tom Jessup and his children.

  “Hallelujah!” Tom shouted, and threw his hat in the air.

  Holt McKettrick—he wore the name self-consciously, like a suit of foreign clothes—had no intention of getting married, even to get control of the sprawling Triple M. For the time being, he meant to concentrate on getting over his infatuation with Chloe. He and Jeb hadn’t discussed it, never would, probably, but there was an understanding between them just the same. He’d been willing to leave behind everything that mattered to him, to do the right thing, and Jeb knew that.

  On the other hand, he didn’t mind letting his younger brothers think he was looking to take a wife. It was a pleasure to watch them scramble.

  Thinking these thoughts, he whistled under his breath as he walked into the barn at the Triple M, looking for Lizzie. Found her just where he’d expected—with Old Blue and the puppies, in the back stall.

  She looked up at him with both excitement and trepidation in her eyes. “You going to Texas?” she asked, and he could tell she was holding her breath.

  He hunkered down beside her. “Nope,” he said, surveying the pups. They were big now, less interested in their patient mother than in exploring every corner of the stall. “Which one of these ugly customers did you finally settle on?”

  Her small face glowed with relief. “That one,” she said, pointing to a fat little female with a ring around one eye. “Can we take her home?”

  “If she’s ready to leave her mama,” Holt allowed, and then wished he’d chosen different words. The subject of Olivia still lay between them; he’d never been able to find a way through all the regret, all the wishing he’d done things differently, when he’d had the chance.

  “She’s big,” Lizzie said, with confidence, gathering the puppy to her and holding it close. It squirmed and licked Lizzie’s face, and she laughed with a delight that soothed a lot of bruises inside Holt.

  “Lizzie,” he said hoarsely.

  Her gaze shot to his face, wondering.

  He laid a hand on her back. “I’m so sorry,” he said.

  “For what?” she asked, her brow crumpled.

  “For leaving your mother,” he said. “For not being there when you needed me.”

  She leaned forward and placed a wet, impulsive kiss on his cheek. “That’s all right,” she said, with an air of finality.

  Surely a prize like the forgiveness of an innocent child could not be won so easily. Holt looked away, blinked. Looked back. “I’ll do my best to make it up to you, Lizzie. All of it.”

  “I wouldn’t mind a new mother,” Lizzie speculated. “Not that anybody could replace Mama.”

  Holt smoothed her hair. “When you’re ready,” he said, “I’d like you to tell me everything you remember about her.”

  She smiled, nodded, then looked happily speculative. “You could send away for a wife, like Uncle Rafe did,” she said.

  Holt laughed. “Don’t tell your uncle Rafe,” he answered, in a confidential whisper, “but I don’t think I’m brave enough to do that.”

  Lizzie looked disappointed, but only briefly. “All right, then,” she said, with resignation, “we’ll just have to get along on our own until you find her, I guess.”

  He recalled what Angus had said in that godforsaken cabin the day Jeb had put a finish to Jack Barrett, words that hadn’t come easily to the old man, and didn’t come easily to him, either. He’d had next to no practice at saying them. “I love you, Lizzie.”

  She put the puppy down, threw her arms around his neck, and nearly toppled him. “Concepcion said you’d say that,” she said, into his shirt collar, “if I just waited.”

  He kissed the top of her head, then stood, hoisting her onto his hip.

  “I’m a pretty big girl to be carried,” she told him solemnly.

  He laughed again. “I think I can manage. Let’s go inside, Lizzie. Your aunt Mandy has been baking pies. Turns out she’s a pretty fair hand at it, and all of a sudden, I’m starved.”

  60

  Throughout the winter, Jeb had lived in town with Chloe, in the cottage behind the schoolhouse. He rode to the ranch every morning, just after dawn, and returned around suppertime, except when a blizzard made the trail impassable, and even that didn’t generally stop him. Each night, she made supper and told him about her day at school, but he was not so forthcoming about his own efforts. She knew from Emmeline and Mandy, both of whom were as obviously pregnant as she was, that he didn’t spend much time working with his brothers, but they would tell her nothing more, and she was mystified.

  The last day of school came and went, and Doc Boylen told her, as kindly as possible, that the town council would be hiring a replacement for the fall term. It was virtually unheard of for a married woman to teach, and one about to bear a child was simply beyond their capacity to accept.

  Chloe was standing in the center of the schoolhouse, saying goodbye to it all, when she heard a wagon roll up outside.

  She went to the open doorway and saw Jeb grinning at her from the buckboard, the reins resting lightly in his gloved hands. “Time to go home, Mrs. McKettrick,” he said.

  She looked around the schoolhouse, just once more, and closed the door. Jeb had already loaded her belongings into the back of the wagon, and now he got down, took her in his two good arms, and kissed her, right there on the main street of town.

  He lifted his gaze from her face to the building behind her. “I guess you’ll miss this place,” he said.

  She sighed. “Yes,” she admitted.

  He kissed her forehead. “One thing I’ve learned,” he said. “Never look back. Everything good is up ahead.”

  She blinked away her tears, tears of happiness and nostalgia, mixed together. “You didn’t have to learn that,” she told him. “You were born knowing it.”

  He smiled. “We’d best get home while it’s still light.”

  She nodded, and he lifted her carefully into the wagon, a harder job than it had once been, now that she was within a month of delivering their child.

  When they reached the turnoff that led toward the Triple M, Jeb surprised Chloe by steering the team in another direction.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “You’ll see,” he told her.

  They climbed and climbed, through stands of junipers, then pines. “This used to be Rafe’s place,” Jeb said, relenting a little in the face of Chloe’s consuming curiosity. “He got mad at Emmeline and put a torch to it.”

  Chloe frowned, trying in vain to reconcile that Rafe with the one she knew. Except for the matter of the ranch, which continued to plague the three younger McKettrick brothers, each of whom was hoping his wife would be the first to give birth to an heir, he seemed an equitable man. He worked tirelessly, and there was nothing he wouldn’t do for his Emmeline.

  A small log structure stood, alone and brave, on top of the rise.

  Chloe’s heartbeat quickened. Was this to be their home, hers and Jeb’s and the baby’s? Angus had been building on to the ranch house, whenever the winter weather permitted, and she’d assumed they’d live there, with the others.

  Jeb set the brake, laid down the reins, jumped to the ground, and walked around to hold his arms up for Chloe.

  He gave an exaggerated grunt while lifting her down, as though the weight of her was a strain on his muscles, and she laughed and swat
ted at him in playful objection.

  “Is this where you’ve been working all winter long?” she asked.

  He nodded and, holding her hand, pulled her toward the cabin.

  “It’s a little isolated,” he told her, with cheerful resignation, “but the way Pa and Holt are hiring ranch hands, I reckon this will be the middle of town before long.”

  “I don’t mind living out here,” Chloe said. “Not as long as I’m with you.”

  He pushed open the door, gestured grandly for her to precede him over the threshold. She was a little disappointed that he wasn’t going to carry her, but she was heavy, and unwieldy into the bargain.

  With a sigh, she stepped inside.

  Her breath caught in her throat.

  There was a blackboard on one wall, with a desk placed just to one side, and facing a lot of smaller ones.

  She turned, looked up into Jeb’s face.

  “It’s a school,” she whispered.

  He grinned. “Yup,” he said.

  “You built me a school.”

  “I surely did.” He gathered her close, bent his head to kiss her, lingeringly.

  She wept, full of amazement and pure happiness. “Oh, Jeb.”

  He stroked her cheek with the backs of his knuckles. The hope in his eyes touched her heart, moved her even more deeply than the kiss had done. “Do you like it?”

  He’d worked through the winter on that little country schoolhouse, built it with his bare hands, and probably alone, between ferocious snowstorms. And all this while, he’d kept it a secret, this incomprehensible gift. It was so much more than a building—it was an affirmation that she had something to offer the world, something important.

  “I love it,” she said. And I love you. Dear God in heaven, how I love you, Jeb McKettrick.

  His tension eased visibly. “The Jessups live just over the hill,” he said, with a quiet eagerness that brushed against her spirit like an angel’s feather. “Now that Tom and Sue Ellen are married, Tom’s kids will be living with them, instead of Sam and Sarah. So you’ll have at least two pupils when the new term starts.” He looked worried. “Of course, it’s a long way from the main house—”