by Yvonne Jocks
So he accepted her hand and they shook. And he said, "About that bargain, though."
She pressed her lips together and raised her chin—but did she fear he meant to break the bargain or to keep it? He cursed himself for leaving the slightest of doubts—for either of them.
"Oh, Lorelei." He sighed, brushing his fingers across her cheek. "I should think it would be obvious.... But no, that's cowardice. So I shall say it full out."
She nodded cautious encouragement.
"I find myself quite in love with you," he told her.
Her lips parted in ... wonder? Disbelief? He hoped the first.
"I love being married to you. I want no more to do with our foolish bargain, only because it included an end, and I never want this—us—to end." He took her other hand in his as well. "I've no intention of divorcing you. I want to take you home to meet my mother, so that you can see how poor an example of British society you've met thus far, and she can see what an extraordinary woman I found in the wilds of Wyoming. And I do expect you to see out the visit with me."
Ships left for Wyoming nowhere near as often as trains.
"Oh," she said softly, but he thought—hoped—happily.
"I want you to someday have my babies," he continued, lest he leave any dregs of confusion. "I want to grow old with you. I want to build a life with you to rival anything I could have had in England. And I do hope ..."
She stared at him, wide-eyed, not helping in the least.
Mettle, Collier. So he dropped the old saddle blanket into the mud and sank onto one knee atop it, looking up at her.
"My dearest Laurel," he said. "You truly have become my hope for the future ... any future worth having. Please do me the honor of remaining married to me. For good."
She said, "Forever married?" so quietly that he barely heard her.
"And longer, if I can arrange it." He lifted her gloved hands to his cheek, felt the nub of her engagement ring under the leather, breathed the freshness of her and her wet, muddy mountain. Her cold, unforgiving, blustery mountain. How could anyone consider separating her from such surroundings?
"Oh," she said again—but still just stared.
"May I please, please take that as a yes?"
Then she laughed and bent to loop her arms behind his neck, as possessive as any lariat but far more enjoyable, and she drew him back up to his booted feet as firmly as if he were a bogged cow. "Yes," she insisted, kissing his cheeks again, his jaw, his ear. "Yes, yes, yes! Now maybe Papa won't hit you."
"Pardon?"
"I'll explain later." And still she held tight. "Oh, Collier, I was so afraid you'd go back to England for good."
"Wild horses," he assured her, stroking her sleek, curled hair back from her face, "could not drag me away." Which reminded him of something else. "Although that does raise another matter. As long as we are clarifying everything."
She drew back. "Should I prepare my calm-lady face now?"
"No, no. You may save that for company." He had asked her properly this time. She'd said yes. Surely that meant that everything else was mere detail. Wasn't it?
Or perhaps he should have learned, particularly with Laurel, never to assume! He did love how she pillowed her head against his shoulder with a relieved sigh, though. He loved standing with her in the muddy corral, an Appaloosa blowing horsey breaths near her shoulder as it investigated the excitement. No matter what they might be standing in, she transcended it.
And that was why they wore boots.
"I do mean to make this my home, after all," he explained. "Of course, I realize that it is your claim...."
"Our claim," she assured him, ever loyal.
"Thank you. But I must confess to some piracy. As only American citizens can file for free land, and I remain a loyal subject to the queen, I mean to claim this homestead, for England, by force." He kissed her hair. "Thus the Union Jack."
"Oh, really?"
"Although you may fly your flag as well," he added quickly.
"Can mine be on top?" Did she understood her double entendre? Considering how deliciously he had been corrupting her, likely she did. He would make sure of it.
"Perhaps we can take turns," he offered, and kissed her hair. "The correct response is, 'Of course, your lordship.'"
"Oh." She nodded solemnly. "Of course, your lordship. You may lay claim to anything I have."
Oh, my! They'd best leave the corral now, before they risked getting muddier than was seemly, even for Wyoming.
Laurel let him help her as she ducked under the rail.
"In that spirit, I've an idea for a brand," he ventured. When she simply waited, expectant, he went ahead and drew an imaginary L on the corral rail, then an I. Then he waited.As he'd feared, she frowned. "L is for Laurel, right?" When he nodded, she asked, "What's the I for?"
"The Lorelei." Now he was the one waiting. Perhaps it was presumptuous, thinking he could choose their brand. Jokes of piracy aside, it was legally her claim.
But then she smiled—a full Laurel smile, beautiful in its honesty. "Oh, Cole! Do you really want to call the ranch that?"
And he began to trust in their partnership—a real partnership—at last.
"How could I not? And ... as this is to be my home," he continued boldly, backing toward the edge of the clearing, swinging her hand, "you should know that I am set on having a true house. Nothing grandiose, mind you; it should complement the scenery, not do battle with it. But a true building with, at the very least, a kitchen, a bedroom, a parlor, and a den. And a floor—let us just accept that I am a snob about things like that. And a room in back for hired help someday. I thought we could build the whole thing over here." Which was where he was leading her, anyway. "Where that shoulder shelters us from the worst wind, and our front veranda will overlook the basin."
Again she nodded, eyeing the level ground, the nearby trees. She said, "Your remittances aren't that good!"
"No, but I included the price of a house in the startup costs I quoted to Baron Tentrees." He might as well confess to everything. Without it he was back to a cozy shack and no real purpose but hers. And her. He supposed he could do worse....
But for the first time since leaving England, he'd begun to hope for far, far better. He had begun to hope for everything. Starting with her. Ending with her. But in between ...
"Laurel," he confessed. "I do not wish to raise cattle."
She drew back from him, blue eyes widening. "But this is a ranch! All I've ever wanted to be is..." Suddenly she stopped and pressed her lips together, as if to silence further protests. She took a deep breath and then asked, more evenly, "Startup costs for what? What would you like to do?" Good Lord. He loved her so intensely it hurt. So Collier told her about raising polo ponies—and how he meant to start with the half-mustang foal his runaway thoroughbred would likely be dropping sometime that spring.
They sat on a boulder, very near where Collier said he would put their front porch. His free hand moved with excitement as he explained his hopes for breeding the speed and refinement of thoroughbreds with the hardy agility of wild mustangs. His other arm was wrapped solidly around her, his hand on her waist. Laurel, cuddling against the safety of his duster-clad shoulder, imagined the wonders he described and felt foolish again.
She felt foolish for ever resisting a nicer house—what did she have left to prove that she couldn't prove living in a larger home? She felt foolish for thinking he meant to forbid her to raise cattle—he was not such a dreamer as to think they couldn't use a moderately more reliable income.
Most humbling, though, she felt foolish because his ideas were better! The viscount had made one decent point the other day. The time to make one's fortune in cattle was passing. That had been Papa's and Uncle Benj's opportunity. But this!
Not that Laurel knew a blessed thing about polo—but she knew horses, and Collier knew both. Apparently this would keep him involved with his upper-crust peers on a level she could appreciate, one of sk
ill and knowledge instead of mere title or birth order. They could keep their equine stock on her land—The Lorelei!—rather than going months without seeing their cattle as they wandered the range. Collier was already negotiating an agreement with a group of British polo enthusiasts, through the Baron Tentrees, protecting the land and house from forfeiture, in case he did poorly. She might not know much about business, but she recognized in that an incredible vote of confidence.
"May I work with the horses, too?" she asked, increasingly excited by the idea herself. "Assuming I'm any good at it?"
"I am counting on it. You trained Snapper, did you not?"
"And can I ride along when we go after the mustangs?"
"My dearest wife, you may ride straddle if you wish." He seemed to consider that, then qualified, "For the roundup."
She considered challenging that—she could ride straddle anywhere she wanted, if it came down to that! But then she thought about it, and instead she unbuttoned her coat.
Now that she'd finished ironing the blasted thing, she rather liked her dress. It felt soft. She liked the braid. And she very much liked how Collier leaned back from her, obviously admiring the effect. "Oh my! You look..."
That he couldn't find words for it made her blush.
"Is this for me?" he asked, looking her up and down. Then his bright eyes flared, and he blushed too. "That is to say... the frock? And the hair?" He leaned closer, inhaling right next to her neck, which tickled. "And the perfume?"
"Well, is this for me?" she countered and reached under his duster to snap one of his suspenders. He must have borrowed work clothes from Uncle Benj, she thought. They were very good work clothes. And oh, did he wear them well.
"I think," he assured her, speaking low—but with an intimacy less seductive than she'd expected—"that it is for both of us. It's time I discover who I can become. With you."
"Collier?" she whispered, despite the fact that this was one of those moments when his sheer, golden beauty overwhelmed her his burnished hair, bright eyes, long lashes, full lips. This felt even harder to say than an apology—but it was so very much more necessary! "I don't think I've told you that I love you, too."
He went very still for a moment. Then he slanted his eyes, reflecting the blue sky, down toward her and asked, "Are you likely to?"
She elbowed him in the side, making him laugh, which quickly turned into wrestling. She didn't even let him win— he won on his own. The way she went weak, gazing into his eyes, hardly helped her defense. And finding herself pinned beneath him was more than adequate reward.
"I love you," she insisted up at him, and it got easier every time. "I love you, I love you, I love you."
"Thank you, dearest." This time, when he kissed her, it was slowly, deeply, with an affection she'd never imagined. This, she thought, was what Mariah had described. Body and soul.
Love.
"I've loved you since I fell in the creek, and you had to start doing all the chores," she added, so that he would kiss her again.
"So you were holding out for a laborer at that, were you?" But he did kiss her again, and when she inhaled she felt as though she were breathing him into her, like the mountain air. Maybe they went together, after all. "Perhaps I should rethink the hired help."
She scowled at him, and he kissed her nose. Then he sat back up, drawing her with him. She almost hoped he wouldn't take her back inside, just yet; she wanted to savor the wonder of this, just this, a little while longer.
And they had forever to do everything else.
Maybe he felt the same way. Instead of getting up, he looped an arm around her and looked back out over the basin. She pillowed her cheek on his chambray-clad shoulder and enjoyed how comfortable she felt with him. She should have known they would love each other from the start, considering how easy they were together.
"Being a woman has turned out much better than I used to think it would," she confessed quietly after a while. "I might just ride sidesaddle for the wild-horse roundup after all. If I can ride as well as a man, and do it sidesaddle... now that's an accomplishment!"
"If anyone can do it," he assured her, "it would be you."
"Even getting all gussied up can be nice," she admitted. "Within reason."
"I am particularly attracted to your footwear today," he teased, because she was still wearing her cowboy boots. So she pulled a cloth girl-shoe out of her coat pocket, where she'd been keeping them safe from the mud, and offered it as proof of her willingness to be ladylike. He smiled as he took it from her. He looked at it, turning it in his hand.
Then he drew back his arm and threw the thing far, far away. It arched off into trees still bare, but bright with the promise of spring leaves, and vanished down the hillside, toward the view they would someday have from their veranda.
"Being bom second has turned out better than I'd feared, as well," he told her then, quite seriously.
Laurel laughed, delighted, and he grinned his most honest, lopsided grin. Then he drew her against his side again, his arm warm around her, so that they could look toward the Powder River basin and their future together.
The draw of keeping company with a man was sure starting to make more sense. Especially with the right man.
"Cole," Laurel asked softly. "On this new house of ours, can we have a porch swing?"
"With this view," he agreed, his voice thick enough to lick off a spoon, "it would be a crime not to."
And while she sat there with her husband, Laurel saw something flutter by that looked suspiciously like a tiger moth.
Dear Reader:
Thank you for reading . I hope you enjoyed Collier and Laurel's story.
My works are, of course, fiction—but I like to think stories like this could well have happened. There were a great number of "girl homesteaders" at the turn of the century. My research (particularly from Land of the Burnt Thigh by Edith Eudora Kohl) shows that between the late 1880s and 1908, often more than ten percent of people filing for Wyoming homesteads were women—and a larger percentage of women proved up their final claims than did the men! Once I knew Laurel meant to homestead, it seemed the last man she would fall for—and thus the most interesting hero— would be a pretty-boy aristocrat. Enter Collier Pembroke!
The influx of British remittance men to the Old West (as well as Canada, Australia, and other places) started around the 1870s and continued as late as the 1920s. Something I hadn't fully realized when I started writing was just how strong a history polo has in the Big Horn, Wyoming, area! It was in fact introduced by real remittance men—notably Oliver Henry Wallop and Malcolm Moncrieffe—only a few years before takes place! According to Big Horn Polo: The History of Polo in the Big Horn, Wyoming Area, graciously provided to me by the author, Bucky King, these men are largely responsible for establishing Sheridan County as a source of the best high-goal polo ponies in the country—a business which is of course more sophisticated than I've likely conveyed in my novel.
My next novel for Leisure, Explaining Herself, tells about Victoria Garrison's adventures as a turn-of-the-century newspaperwoman who may learn more than she ever meant to about rustling and train robbery. Look for it in May 2002. In the meantime, I love reader mail! Please write me at: PO Box 6
; Euless, TX 76039; e-mail me at Yvaughnaol.com; or visit www.ranchersdaughters.home-stead.com.
The Rancher's Daughters:
Behaving Herself
Yvonne Jocks
There are so many things that a girl shouldn't do, and for a teacher, there are even more. Miss Garrison is learning them all by doing them. No sooner has the hapless beauty escaped scandal in her Wyoming home by taking a Texas teaching job than she meets up with "Handy" Jack Harwood—a handsome gambler who will surely do her reputation no good. She knows she can get on track, if only she can ignore the unladylike excitement he stirs in her. She'll gamble one last time—on the goodness of Jack's rakish soul and that they are meant to be together. After that, she'll start beha
ving herself.
Winnie Griggs
What Matters Most
Reed Wilder journeys to Far Enough, Texas, in search of a fallen woman. He finds an angel. Barely reaching five feet' two inches, the petite brunette helps to defend him against two ruffians and then treats his wounds with a gentleness that makes him long to uncover all her secrets. But she only has to reveal her name and he knows his lovely rescuer is not an innocent woman, but the deceitful opportunist who preyed on his brother. Reed prides himself on his logic and control, but both desert him when he gazes into Lucy's warm brown eyes. He has only one option: to discover the truth behind those enticing lips he longs to sample.
Lori Morgan
Autumn Star
Morgan Caine rescues Lacey Ashton from a couple of pawing ruffians, feeds her dinner, and gives her a place to sleep. He is arrogant, bossy, and the most captivating man she has ever met. He claims she will never survive the wilds of the Washington Territory. But Lacey sets out to prove she not only belongs in the untamed land, she belongs in Morgan's arms.
Morgan is completely disarmed by Lacey s innocence and optimism. Like an autumn breeze, she caresses his body, refreshes his soul, invigorates his heart. At last, the hardened lawman longs to trade vengeance for a future filled with happiness-to reach for the stars and claim the woman of his dreams.
Lori Morgan
Indigo Moon
Chase Hawken's career as a cavalry scout has been legendary, his life a dream. Even when the law turned on him, he took solace in tracking down criminals and bringing them to justice-and he always got his man. But then comes Rebeka, an indigo-eyed beauty who travels with outlaws and stirs feelings he's banished.
Breaking her brother out of jail won't be easy. To do so, Rebeka needs the best tracker in the territory. But the perfect candidate hardly seems willing; Chase even swears that her brother should hang. But his touch speaks of a deeper desire . . . and when together they flee toward the Montana Territory, Rebeka knows that she'll discover not only the man to free her brother, but her heart