The Independent Bride

by Leigh Greenwood

  “Nowhere. This is the only place.”

  “Then you didn’t have any choice.”

  That didn’t make Abby feel any better. She knew Bryce couldn’t have known a storm would blow up so quickly, couldn’t have known the creek would flood. It only made sense to make use of the only shelter available. Still, she wished they had raced for the fort. They would be soaked, but at least she wouldn’t be locked in Bryce’s arms with nowhere to go. One part of her liked the feeling; now that the storm had passed, another part of her panicked.

  She’d never been held like this. Her courtship with Albert had been very formal. He’d done little more than gently kiss her good night. As a result, her response to Bryce was unexpected and she didn’t know how to handle it. Her body was aroused. There was no other way to describe it. Her breasts were so sensitive they felt almost painful. Heat coursed through her body so she felt none of the cold. Liquid heat pooled in her belly.

  Worse still, she could tell Bryce’s body had also reacted to their closeness. He was aroused. There could be no mistake about it. He was careful to hold his body stiff and still, but that couldn’t hide the change. Nor could he disguise the difference in his breathing. Her head rested on his shoulder. She was aware of every nuance.

  There was the feel of his hands on her back. Her skin was so sensitive she became aware of the texture of the cloth against her back. If his fingers didn’t move, she might have been able to ignore this, but they were constantly in motion. The longer she stayed in his embrace, the more insistent the panic became.

  Finally she couldn’t stand it any longer. “I need room to breath,” she said, though that wasn’t all she needed.

  “Water’s still dripping from the trees.”

  “I’ll use my parasol.”

  “It’ll barely keep the water off your head.”

  “That’s all right. There’s not much water falling now.”

  “There’s enough to get you wet.”

  She didn’t care about water. She would dry. She wasn’t certain she would recover so easily from this encounter.

  Bryce tipped the parasol to one side and pulled back so he could look her in the eye. “You’re afraid of me, aren’t you?”

  “What makes you think that?” She was afraid of herself.

  “For one thing, you’re trembling.”

  “I’ve never been caught in a thunderstorm with lightning, hail, and flooding. I was scared out of my wits.”

  “It’s gone and you’re still shaking. Your eyes are wide with fright.”

  “If you must know, I’m not used to being so close to a man, to being held in this fashion. Considering that I barely know you—”

  “As commander of the fort, it’s my job to keep you safe. You shouldn’t be afraid at all.”

  Fool; he was a man and she a woman. Their bodies understood nothing about rank or social standing.

  “I’m not afraid of physical danger"—though she didn’t like the look of the floodwaters, and just the roar of them tumbling over rocks and swirling around trees was frightening—"but being held in your arms makes me uneasy.” Part of her longed to remain in his embrace, but she refused to listen. It was too dangerous.

  “You have to shed Eastern inhibitions when you come West,” Bryce said, showing no inclination to release his hold on her even though the dripping from the tree leaves had lessened considerably.

  “There are certain standards of behavior that are necessary no matter where you happen to be,” Abby said. “You’re violating those standards right now.”

  “I don’t want you to get wet. You could catch pneumonia and die. You might slip and fall into the creek. If that happened, it would be virtually impossible to pull you out before you were swept away.”

  She didn’t believe a word he said. “I need room to move about.” If she didn’t get out of his arms, she didn’t know what she would do. Probably kiss him. Just the thought petrified her.

  “That could be dangerous. The creek is still rising. I wouldn’t want it to carry you away.”

  “Then put me in the buggy.”

  The water was knee-high on the horse, but the body of the buggy was well above the rushing torrent. She would be safe from the water and from Bryce.

  “I’d have to hold you even tighter to carry you to the buggy,” Bryce said.

  The fact that he seemed to be enjoying this annoyed her. She was sure he wouldn’t have treated one of his Philadelphia society women this way. Irritation helped curb her runaway emotions, cool the heat that threatened to consume her body.

  “Then I suppose I’d best remain where I am.” She tried to assume an aloof attitude, but she was in less control than she thought. She couldn’t understand why she should be feeling this way. She’d never felt this way with Albert.

  She wanted Bryce to hold her close. She was aghast at her own reaction, but her dismay did nothing to change it.

  “We do a lot of things differently in the Territories,” Bryce said.

  She really didn’t want to know, but her treacherous tongue asked, “Like what?”

  “Women have more independence and men can treat them with more familiarity without being disrespectful.”

  “How can men be familiar without being disrespectful?”

  “A woman can go places by herself, speak to men without being accompanied by her husband. If she’s single, she can go to a social, even dance. She’s allowed to have men friends without her honor being questioned. She can allow them to steal a kiss without expecting a proposal to follow.”

  Abby was afraid it was too good to be true. She didn’t know much about the rules that operated in high society, but in her social circle women didn’t have that kind of freedom. This was true independence, the kind she’d never imagined could exist. Some of her aunt’s friends thought she’d endangered her reputation just by working in a bank.

  “She can do all this and still be respected?”

  “A woman of spirit can.”

  “Do you think I’m a woman of spirit?”

  Bryce smiled, but it wasn’t a relaxed, genial smile. “There are times I think you have enough spirit for two women.”

  “Then you think my reputation would withstand going dancing?”

  “I can’t imagine you dancing any but the most sensible dance.”

  “Would you still respect me if I let a man kiss me?” She didn’t know why she was asking such a foolish question. She had absolutely no intention of letting any man kiss her.

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t believe you.” She hadn’t meant that as a challenge. It was simply too far from her experience to be credible at first.

  “Then I’ll prove it.” He removed her parasol from her grasp, closed it, and dropped it to the ground. Then he kissed her.

  Abby’s world shattered.

  Something told her she’d asked that question for a reason, that this was what she’d wanted. One kiss, and everything inside her turned over and became something else, something absolutely new.

  Whereas she’d only tolerated Albert’s tentative kisses, she couldn’t get enough of Bryce’s forceful, demanding lips. Whereas she’d been uncomfortable with Albert’s too close physical presence, she found she wanted Bryce to hold her tighter still, to press his body more firmly against her own. Whereas she’d formerly thought of a relationship with a man only in terms of marriage, she was now acutely aware of a desire for a physical relationship. Whereas she’d always thought of her emotional relationship to Albeit as love, what she felt for Bryce was pure, unbridled lust.

  Horrified at the changes this kiss had wrought in her, Abby tore herself loose from Bryce’s embrace. “Stop!” It was practically a cry for help.

  “Did I hurt you?” Bryce asked, apparently surprised by her reaction.

  Abby hardly knew how to answer. Could it be called hurt when you turned a woman’s personality inside out so abruptly she felt a stranger to her own self? Could it be called hurt when it felt as if she’d b
etrayed everything she believed about herself?

  “I guess I haven’t been in the West long enough, but I can’t accept being kissed by a stranger.”

  Bryce laughed. “Surely you don’t consider me a stranger.”

  “And I don’t see how you can respect me when I can’t respect myself.”

  “You are a beautiful woman, and you deserve to be kissed. I was only giving you your due.”

  Abby refused to let herself consider what he said. She was still reeling from the discovery that she was an entirely different person from the one she’d thought she was all her life.

  “If you were my husband, that would be an acceptable remark. Since you are not, and since I have no intention of acquiring a husband, I would prefer you not think like that.”

  “I can control what I do but not my thoughts.”

  Abby was quickly discovering the same truth. Lightning had struck and shattered a tree only a few yards from where she stood. She was standing under a tree that dripped water on her head. The creek had flooded its banks and stranded her on this small bluff, yet all she could think of was the feel of Bryce’s lips and the desire to have him kiss her again. Telling herself that she shouldn’t want that, that she shouldn’t even be thinking about it did absolutely no good. Her body yearned for his touch. She practically had to grip the tree to keep from pushing herself against him.

  “Controlling your actions is enough,” Abby said. “Please don’t kiss me again.”

  “Didn’t you enjoy it?”

  Yes! She’d enjoyed it so much she couldn’t think of anything else.

  “It’s not a question of enjoyment,” she said, trying her best to appear as calm as possible. “It’s not something I should do. It’s not something I want to do.”

  Liar! At least be honest with yourself.

  All right, she did want to do it again, but she wouldn’t let herself.

  “I enjoyed it,” Bryce said.

  “Men always enjoy things like that.”

  “Why shouldn’t women also?”

  She didn’t have a good answer for that. Her aunt had said a wife should try to meet a man’s needs, but that she couldn’t expect to understand them, that it was something beyond the understanding of most women. Now Abby wondered why that should be so. She couldn’t speak for any other woman, but her need was certainly greater than she had imagined. And she understood it too well for her comfort.

  “I wouldn’t have thought that was possible until just now,” Abby said.

  “Why do you say that?”

  She must be rattled to have made such an admission. She certainly couldn’t tell him that his kiss had turned her into a wanton. Maybe that was too strong, but she felt as if she wanted to be a wanton. At this moment it seemed the most desirable thing on earth. Abby struggled to control this previously unknown side of herself. She would not allow an act that lasted barely half a minute to wipe away the training and decisions of twenty-four years.

  “Several men came calling once I passed my seventeenth birthday, but I only allowed one to kiss me. He never held me the way you did, the way you’re still doing.”

  “He must have been a very tepid fellow. You’re better off without him.”

  “He was a liar and a thief.”

  “Then you’re definitely better off without him.”

  “Albert wanted to marry me. You don’t.”

  “That doesn’t mean we can’t kiss again if we want to.”

  She could feel his arms tighten around her. At the same time she could feel the desire, the need, to be kissed filling her up as the thunderstorm had filled the creek, full to overflowing. It did no good to deny it existed. That just caused it to grow stronger. She had a better chance of controlling it if she admitted this was a need that she’d harbored unknown for many years, but a need she would fulfill only when she found the right man. If she found the right man. Until then, she would keep her distance.

  The problem was that Bryce apparently saw no reason why, since he wasn’t married, he shouldn’t kiss any woman he wanted.

  “I don’t want to,” she said.

  She didn’t have to tell herself she was lying.

  “I don’t believe you,” he said. “I can see it in your eyes, feel it in the warmth and tension of your body. Can you deny that you liked it when I kissed you?”

  No. She could do many things, but she couldn’t do that.

  “I was taught it’s not wise to give in to temptation just because it’s pleasurable.”

  “So was I, but I’ve since learned that pleasure is one of the best reasons to give in.”

  Bryce didn’t give her a chance to come up with a rebuttal before he kissed her again.

  She tried to feel shocked, violated, insulted, surprised—anything that would allow her to break the kiss and push him away—but nothing worked. Instead she found herself responding to his kiss, rising on her tiptoes to meet him. For a moment she felt no shame, no reluctance, only the need to sink as far into the kiss as she could, to bury herself in the feeling that she was surrounded, embraced, supported, protected by a power that would keep her safe from all danger and heartbreak.

  This time it was Bryce who broke the kiss. It made her feel much better to see he didn’t look so unaffected this time.

  “I admit I enjoyed it,” she said.

  He seemed to come slowly out of a trance. “I did, too.” He sounded surprised.

  “However, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t kiss me again.” She ruthlessly stifled the voice inside that screamed in protest. “I don’t feel comfortable.”

  “There’s nothing to feel uncomfortable about,” Bryce said. “There’s nothing wrong with an occasional kiss between two single people who find each other attractive.”

  Maybe not for him, but the stakes were higher for her. She had discovered a side of herself that was alien. She didn’t know if it was real—if it was, why had it remained hidden for so long?—or if it was the outcome of the immediate circumstances. She might be lacking in experience with men, but she knew about the powerful force that pulled men and women together. She just hadn’t realized that force lay buried inside her.

  “How soon can we start back?” Abby asked. There was nothing more to say about the kiss. She couldn’t forget it, but neither would she accept its being the natural thing for her to do. There was no assurance that lust wouldn’t turn into emotion, and that would lead to misunderstandings and hurt “It shouldn’t be much longer. I don’t like to drive through floodwater. You never know when a tree branch might be swept into your path.”

  Abby looked to where lightning had destroyed the Cottonwood. A small amount of debris remained on the bluff, but the rest had been swept away by the flood-waters.

  “I guess I have a lot to learn about the West,” she said aloud. And if Bryce’s kiss was any example, not all of it would be unpleasant.

  “I wish I’d gotten caught in the storm,” Pamela said that evening after her father had regaled her and Moriah with an edited version of the trip home. “Nothing exciting ever happens here.”

  “You could have had my place,” Abby said. “I can’t tell you how frightened I was when lightning struck that. tree. I was sure I was going to be killed.”

  “Daddy wouldn’t let anything bad happen to you,” Pamela said, looking at her father with a childish certainty he could fix anything in her world. “He never lets anything bad happen to people he likes.”

  “Then he must be a very busy man,” Abby said, determined not to blush. “He told me he likes everyone at the fort.”

  “I didn’t mean like that,” Pamela said. “I meant—”

  “I appreciate your confidence in me,” Bryce said to his daughter, “but as I’ve told you before, the best way to fix trouble is to avoid it in the first place.”

  Abby could tell from Pamela’s disgusted expression that she’d heard that piece of advice too often for her pleasure.

  “I would probably have fainted,” Moriah said.
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  “Bryce probably wished I had fainted,” Abby said. “Then he could have left me in the buggy and had the rain slicker all to himself.”

  “I would have jumped on Daddy’s horse and raced home,” Pamela said, her eyes wide with excitement.

  “And been pelted into unconsciousness by two inches of hail,” her father said, ruthlessly shattering her image of a heroic ride across the plain with everyone in the fort watching in terror, certain she would be caught but bursting into loud cheers when she dashed into the fort just seconds ahead of a lightning bolt that shattered the gate just after she passed through it.

  Abby smiled, because she’d had dreams like that when she was growing up, dreams of what wondrous deeds she’d accomplish when her father sent for her to join him in the wild, uncivilized country he called the West.

  But her father had never sent for her. Her dreams had faded and she’d taken a job in a bank. Her dreams changed to visions of success that would attract the attention of a handsome manager who would save her from drudgery by a brilliant promotion only she could handle. That dream had turned into a hope for a perfect marriage with Albert. That hope had died in the ashes left by the conflagration of his betrayal. Sadly, it took her father’s death to make possible her childhood dream of going West.

  “I would not have been pelted into unconsciousness,” Pamela declared. “I’d have put on your helmet.”

  Bryce was kind enough not to point out that he hadn’t taken his helmet with him.

  “It was really uncomfortable,” Abby said to Pamela. “You wouldn’t have liked it at all.”

  “I don’t care if it was uncomfortable,” Pamela declared. “Anything would be better than sitting around here listening to Sarah’s momma talk about some dance she’s planning. We didn’t even get wet.”

  Abby had found it hard to believe the storm had completely bypassed the fort. It had looked big enough to engulf the whole prairie.

  “What did you learn from the stores you visited?” Moriah asked Abby.

  “Not much, but I have a better idea of what we need to order. Now that I’ve paid off our creditors, we can replenish our stock. Once we get the money from the next beef shipment, we can order the full line of goods we intend to keep on hand.”