by Carol Arens
Maybe Stanley, having been so involved in driving the wagon, had not glanced back and seen what Boone had done. But there would never be a time when Melinda did not see it. Boone had told her he would protect her, but seeing him do it at the risk of his own life? Well, it changed everything. He was, beyond a doubt, the man she had believed him to be. She was, beyond a doubt—
“I promised that—”
“I promised some things, too. To Lantree, to Boone, and I recited wedding vows before God.”
“You recited them before Judge Mathers. We all knew the marriage was a farce.”
“Just because there was no courtship, no wooing, does not mean that those promises were meaningless.”
“Not meaningless, then,” Stanley said softly, touching the child’s curled fist where it poked out from under the shawl. “Just not promises made forever.”
Melinda turned, carried the baby toward the bedroom.
What Stanley said was true. In the beginning neither she nor Boone had intended to be married forever.
At the doorway, she pivoted. Stanley had been gazing at her back, his eyes reflecting an emotion that seemed equal parts resolution and apprehension.
“I’m not saying that anything has changed, only that—”
That there were some things she wouldn’t say out loud, not until she had them settled in her own mind.
For now, all she wanted was for Boone to come back.
* * *
They would bed down in the loft.
Glancing around the barn, Melinda decided that it made the most sense.
For one thing, the heat from the stove below would rise and help to keep them warm. For another, the big hay door had a window in it and would give them a better view of the road.
While preparing the space, she repeatedly closed her mind to the thought that Boone might not come back.
She would not believe that he was dead, that the last thing she had done in her new husband’s presence was to desperately, helplessly, scream his name.
No. Boone was coming back. He was not dead. There had to be another reason that the sun had set and he hadn’t returned.
This was not like when Papa died. Just because it was cold and dark like that other night so many years ago, it did not mean the same thing. With great effort, she put Papa out of her mind.
She glanced at the cozy space she was creating and sighed. It wasn’t a palace, or even actually indoors, but the cracks between the wallboards weren’t so wide. All in all, the nest did seem inviting, far better than sleeping in a too-crowded house where Stanley would keep everyone awake with his snoring.
She had hauled up a wood crate then covered it with a checkered cloth that she found in the tack shed behind the barn. She had also found a canvas bag into which she had stuffed a candlestick, candles, matches, a pitcher for water and a tin mug.
The small covered table set with the candle and the pitcher looked cozy. All it lacked was a vase of flowers. But being October, she was not likely to find any, especially in the dark with villains ready to leap out from behind the bushes. But she had found a small pumpkin so she set that beside the candlestick.
As it turned out, the tack room was a treasure chest. It seemed that the previous owners had left in such a hurry they had been forced to leave most everything behind.
All that needed doing now was for her to haul more straw up the ladder, form it into a bed and then cover it with the blankets she had discovered among the abandoned things.
Stanley had visited during his turn at watch. Luckily, he did not try to force her to return to the house.
There wasn’t room for a bird to move in, not with the doctor and Stanley sleeping in the small front room and Mrs. Coulter, who was doing splendidly by now, and her infant daughter having the even smaller bedroom.
Perhaps the reason Stanley did not try to make her come inside was that he didn’t believe Boone was coming back.
Stanley was wrong. She would not consider that he was not.
Boone was not Papa. She knew that.
Melinda shook her head, took a breath and then gathered up a skirt full of straw. She climbed the ladder with it, reciting the reasons that Boone would have been delayed hours past sundown.
When the straw bed was the right shape and size, covered with three blankets, she glanced around the loft.
This, she realized with no little bit of pride, was the first home she had made for herself. Clearly, one did not need lavish surrounds to feel fulfilled. All one needed was—Boone.
She had the oddest feeling in the pit of her stomach that any place she spread a bed with him would be home. And any place that she did not, would not be.
This thought made her slightly uncomfortable, but not in a horrible way. It’s just that she had known him for such a short time to be thinking such things.
Also, she wondered if he really saw her or just some delicate and sought-after vision of womanhood, which she happened to resemble, curse it. Perhaps.
But then again, intuition could not be denied. Sometimes a woman knew things, or at least suspected them.
But where was Boone?
Logic and Stanley hinted that he was not coming back. One good man against four—maybe even five evil ones—the odds were not in Boone’s favor.
She had been fighting this devastating thought with every breath, every heartbeat. But now, with the work done, and nothing left to occupy her mind, the obvious conclusion shouted at her.
She actually felt sick, her skin damp and her throat swelling.
Boone was dead.
Just like Papa. But that night she had not been worried, just a child slumbering happily under warm blankets. She had not known that Papa was not in bed, safely curled next to Mama.
Then Mama had screamed. On small shaking feet she had dashed to the head of the stairs. Mama was on the floor, the preacher’s arms around her and the sheriff a looming shadow in the doorway.
“Stop!” she gasped out loud.
Boone was not Papa. He was a more honorable man than her father had been.
It had taken years to understand that his death had been his own fault. That no matter what a good and charming child she strived to be, Papa would have still gone out that night.
With effort, she put her father back in the misty past.
Taking a breath, she noticed that there was one more thing to do, after all. Odor lifted from her body in a wave. Coming back down the ladder she could smell herself quite clearly.
When Boone did come, she did not want him to mistake her for livestock.
She set a pot of water on the stove to warm, took a cracked old wall mirror from the tack room and secured it to the wall behind the stove. She removed her ripe-smelling dress.
Gazing into the mirror, she decided that she looked as bad as she smelled. She shoved her undergarments down to her waist then unpinned her hair.
It fell across her shoulders in a dirty blond tangle.
Running from outlaws did wreak havoc on a lady’s appearance.
Unbidden, an image of Boone’s broken body lying on the ground flashed in her mind. What she ought to do is get Stanley and go look for him because what if he were wounded and in need of help?
Going to search for Boone seemed logical on the surface, but in truth was far more complicated.
Stanley was standing watch. He would never leave the people inside the house unprotected; she would not want him to.
If she tried to go to Boone alone, Stanley would notice and hog-tie her to a stall door. She would do no one any good tied up. She needed to remain here in case the Kings did come. While she was not a queen with a firearm like Annie Oakley, she would be able to help.
During her time in Montana, Grandfather Moreland had at least taught her the differen
ce between the stock and the barrel of a rifle.
For now, she was stuck here with nothing to do but fret over the unknown and clean her smelly self up.
If only Rebecca were here. Her cousin would play her violin and everything would seem easier to face. Since Becca was not here, Melinda imagined a lively tune coming from her instrument. Sadly, try as she might for lighthearted, the melody turned morose.
She dipped a cloth in the warm water, watched in the mirror as water dripped down her nose, chin and throat. Rinsing, wringing and dipping the cloth, she felt the tears behind her eyes swell.
Willing them not to spill, she washed under her arms. Dipped, wrung the cloth and squeezed her eyes closed trapping the moisture that, when it escaped, would mean that she believed Boone to be dead.
Unseeing, she washed her breasts, over, under and across.
“Melinda,” murmured a deep voice from behind her.
“Boone?”
She spun around. With a short leap she flung herself against him, wrapped her arms around his middle and squeezed.
“Boone!” Now the tears that she had been fighting slid freely down her face. She hugged him tight, rejoicing in the solid warmth of him. She listened to his heartbeat, to the rise and fall of his breathing. “I thought—no, I didn’t, I knew you’d come back.”
He touched her, his arms coming around her back, pulling her tighter against him. Even though his hands were cool against her skin she made no attempt to move away or to cover her nakedness.
She didn’t understand why, but this intimacy with Boone seemed right.
Chapter Eight
He hadn’t expected to come back. Charging toward outlaws worse than he was on an old wagon nag, with little ammunition, his survival hadn’t seemed likely. Hell, he still couldn’t figure out why he was still breathing.
He’d expected to die, but instead here he stood with the woman he had married clinging to him as though she cared.
Heaven in an embrace, that’s what it was. Holding an angel wouldn’t feel as healing.
“Melinda, I need to look at you.”
He wouldn’t press her when she said no. But he knew of no other way to cleanse his mind of the past few hours. He needed to look upon beauty in the same way a drowning man needed a breath of air.
Would she even understand that there was nothing sexual in the asking? That he would not defile her?
She glanced up at him, not shyly but not with seduction, either. Those blue eyes held his gaze with understanding.
He couldn’t quite figure out how this lovely innocent would understand anything about him, though. Her gentle world was as far from his as the earth was to the moon.
Beauty and the beast—it was all he could think of to compare it to.
She stepped away from him, her soft palms gliding down his arms until she captured his hands.
She let him look.
Just as he had suspected, the Creator had formed her perfectly. The slope of her shoulders, the delicate hollow at her throat, the shape of her breasts, the ivory hue of them, tipped by the darker flush of her nipples, not like any woman he had ever bedded. Melinda was sweet perfection.
A gift for any man.
Especially, in this moment, for him.
The memory of blood, of cracking bone and gunshots, the crackle of flames and screams of terror—all of this faded in the presence of his wife’s purity. Light penetrated his darkness for the first time in hours. Or maybe, when he thought about it, years.
He lifted her hands, kissed one then the other.
He touched the straps of her camisole where they hung in the crook of her elbows. The fabric felt smooth under his callused fingers. Lifting them, his hand brushed her inner arm, grazed the outer edges of her breasts.
Despite the purity of his intentions, he was a man, and things within him that were not so pure began to stir.
The very last thing he intended to do is to defile her perfection with his worldliness.
It’s true that he was a thief, had robbed and terrified folks. But he would not steal Melinda’s innocence.
“You look done in,” she said, adjusting her camisole, taking her beauty back. “I’ve made us a bed in the loft.”
“I can’t sleep with you.”
“There’s nowhere else you can, unless it’s in the tack room.”
Couldn’t sleep there, either. “Bird King’s in the tack room.”
“Oh, well, that’s good news, I suppose. Now, up you go. I’ll bring you some tea. We need to talk about everything that happened.”
“I reckon we do.” But he wasn’t going to do it in the damned bed. He wasn’t made of stone. “Thank you, Melinda. You are—”
What? How could he find the words to tell her what she had become to him—even more, what she could not be?
“Full of wifely concern. Now get up there before you fall over.”
She kissed his cheek. Again, it stunned him that a simple gesture could mean so much.
“Shall I send the doc to the tack shed?”
“To heal a man who wants to kill him?”
She shrugged and the lacy strap of her camisole slipped off her shoulder. “I’ll ask.”
She started to step into her gown but, judging by the sniff she gave it, she didn’t want to.
He removed his coat and put it over her shoulders. It hung off her, but gave proof that there was nothing that Melinda would not look fetching in. “Let’s go. I’ll bring your trunk on the way back. Besides, I want to get a look at that baby. Anyway, if it comes down to who gets seen by the doc first, I want to make sure it’s Billbro.”
“He’s hurt?”
Boone nodded. “Poor dog is pretty banged up.”
Returning to the homestead, he had carried Billbro on the saddle in front of him and made Bird King walk on a lead tied to the horse. He hadn’t found it in him to give a damn that the Vulture’s arm was broken, not after he’d taken a knife to the dog.
Outside, cold wind blew every which way. It snatched the smoke coming out of the chimney, streaking it east.
“The baby’s a girl,” Melinda said, clasping the coat closed.
“That’s good. Did her mother survive?” He’d feared she would not.
“Amazingly enough, she’s doing well.”
Stanley stood watch on the porch, his coat hiked up around his ears and his rifle braced across his chest.
Coming up the steps, they exchanged nods. He had a lot to tell the lawyer, but not tonight.
Tonight, if the new mother was willing, he would hold her baby. New life was to be cherished, be it a human child just starting out or a sinful one given a new path. Gazing at the little one’s perfect innocence might finish the cleansing that Melinda had begun; help him see more clearly the new path he was taking.
If he was going to go on with this business, act as ruthless as those he was bringing down, he would need a few hours to not feel so dirtied by it.
There was no denying that he was a hypocrite. His soul might not carry the guilt that the souls of the Kings did, but it was far from sinless.
Not that it mattered. The Kings had caused a lot of misery to a lot of folks and he meant to put an end to it.
The doc had asked why he cared. That was easy.
Doc and Lantree were of a kind. He owed his brother a great deal. Given that his life was worth about a nickel, he might never have the chance to make it up to him. But he could through the doc.
* * *
Boone sat with his back against the hay door, looking out the small window set into it. The loft offered a good view of the acreage surrounding the homestead.
At this elevation he would be able to spot invaders from some distance away, as long as they were coming from the north or the
west.
The loft also had the advantage of having the stove directly under it. The chill wasn’t as sharp as it was in the rest of the barn.
Melinda had chosen the space well.
He closed his eyes for the first time in what seemed forever.
His bride sat on the straw bed that she had built for them, her frilly underclothes peeping out from beneath his coat.
She watched him. Clearly she wanted to know every detail of what had happened since he’d ridden away from the wagon this afternoon.
Her silence must be due the fact that he looked as bone-weary as he felt. For all that she would be curious, it appeared that she was not going to press him.
“You look like an angel sitting on a cloud instead of a pile of hay,” he said because he wanted to think about anything but what had happened tonight.
Funny, the sincere compliment made her eyes narrow and her brows dip in a frown. He had a strong feeling that she wanted to utter a sharp retort, but she bit the words back.
“They burned down the store—tried to burn Edward Spears inside it,” he said because he needed to.
“I thought I’d never see you again, Boone.”
Moisture stood in her eyes.
For him? That couldn’t be.
He shook his head. “If it wasn’t for the dog, I reckon those fools would be dancing over my grave.”
“Poor Billbro.” She scooted to the edge of the loft and looked down to where the stitched and battered animal lay on a bed beside the stove. “Good wolf,” she called down.
He couldn’t see the dog from where he sat, but he heard the big tail thumping on the straw.
“Are they fools? Could we be that lucky? What happened?”
She needed to hear about it and, as much as he didn’t want to remember it, hell, he needed to talk to someone.
It was an odd thing, being on this side of the law. Felt as if he had worms in his gut, knowing that in the past he had made folks feel what he had felt today.
“I rode out, figuring to buy time, maybe take a couple of them down before I—” He’d ridden away, not expecting to return. He’d run headlong at the outlaws, but held off on shooting until he was close enough to do more than scare them. He’d kept Melinda’s face in his mind to remind himself that this was worth doing. “Luckily, I wasn’t alone like I thought I was. The deputy charged ahead. He got to Lump King, ripped him off his horse. Took him down by the shoulder.”