Soon enough the mine would reopen and the money would be made and spent; her Crazy Arrow Hotel would be filled with anxious spinsters and her bank account would grow, and their marriage would be nothing but a memory.
But for now, however, she was his wife and she was there in his arms and he wasn't fool enough to leave paradise a second before the devil called him home.
"Jesse?" she whispered in the darkness once their desires of the moment had been met. "Tell me what you're thinking."
He stroked her golden hair with his palm. "I was thinkin' I ain't never expected to have me a wife."
Her laugh was soft and delicate, sweet smoke curling itself inside his ear and moving toward his aching heart. "And I surely never expected to be one. Marriage has never been something I sought."
"Life dealt us one hell of a hand, didn't it, darlin'?"
"That it did, Jesse," she said, her hand tentative and warm against his belly, "but I am so glad it gave me you."
The moon raced across the sky as they loved, then talked, and loved again. She told him of the schools she went to, the parties she'd danced at, the deep aching void of loneliness that always filled her heart.
"Part of livin'," he said, holding her close in the heart of the night. "I been alone since they tossed me out when I was a seedling and it ain't ever goin' to be no other way."
"You have friends, Jesse, people who care for you. Why this town is at your beck and call."
Long-buried pain tore at his gut and he willed away the memories of fear and abandonment that were always a heartbeat away. "Can't count on no one but yourself, Car-o-line. That's the way it's always going to be."
She fell silent and he knew he'd hit a nerve. Hell, he didn't want to hurt her but he was sure that damn fool daddy of hers had never taken time to teach her how to make her way in the real world. If he did nothing else for her during this make-believe marriage, maybe he could do that.
And so he talked into the night; the words tumbling out of him, stories about his childhood, his father's death, his mother's treachery, the tragic loss of his brother. An endless stream of words that came from some wellspring of emotion he'd managed to keep under control until now.
This is for you, darlin'. Ain't nothin' in all this talkin' for me.
He wanted her to listen to his pain; learn by his mistakes; take some of the hard wisdom he'd come by and use it when he'd no longer be around to protect her.
She listened quietly, stroking his hair, murmuring her comments, and when he was finished she kissed his mouth. For once his beautiful, talky woman said nothing at all and only the shimmer of tears in her blue eyes let him know she'd heard and understood the things he couldn't say.
And to Jesse's surprise, he realized he wouldn't have traded that one single moment for all the silver in Nevada.
Drawing Caroline into his arms, he fell into a deep sleep and all his dreams were of his wife.
Chapter 19
Jesse was gone in the morning as Caroline knew he would be, but on the pillow next to hers was the spray of carnations and babies' breath he had brought to her last night. She rose slowly, her body seeming new and different, responding with a languorous grace she would not have imagined herself capable of.
But then before last night there had been much, indeed, that she could not have imagined.
She moved through her morning ritual in a fog, hands drifting across her body as she bathed as if she were learning a different terrain. Where before she had accepted her beauty as a fact of life, now she reveled in it for last night she had seen the joy it could bring to a man.
To Jesse.
Smiling, she donned her undergarments then carefully chose a pale ivory shirtwaist and deep blue skirt, the color of his eyes. What would it be like to see him now that they were truly man and wife? Would she feel awkward standing before him, painfully aware that he knew her body intimately as she now knew his? Would she run to him the first moment they were alone and fling herself into his strong arms, willing to relinquish the last vestige of her hard-won independence?
That thought brought her up short. She may be married before God and man, but the marriage was still a temporary affair, destined to come to an end the moment the mine breathed its last, and she would do well to keep that fact in mind before she found herself doing something foolish and dangerous.
Like falling in love with her own husband.
No, that could not happen, Caroline thought, as she stripped her bed of its linens then deposited them in the laundry chute in the hallway. Jesse Reardon was in little danger of losing his heart to her and she would do well to follow his example. She was legally married and thus entitled to explore the joys of the flesh but when the marriage was dissolved and Jesse moved on to new and greener pastures, she must make certain he didn't take her heart and soul with him.
At least, their secret remained intact. Except for Abby, no one in Silver Spur knew of their marriage; and—thank God!—not even Caroline's headstrong maid knew that Jesse had shared her bed.
Girlish laughter and the sound of Abby's lilting voice as she told one of her many tall tales floated through the hallway from the kitchen at the rear of the house. Caroline paused at the doorway, took a deep breath, and strolled into the room.
"Good morning, la—" She paused and looked at the six faces staring back at her, one looking more guilty than the other. "Is something wrong?" She glanced down at her attire. "Have I forgotten to fasten my stays?"
The Wilder sisters, blushing as red as their hair, looked down at their bowls of oatmeal and giggled, while Margaret and Betty McGuigan glanced at one another, eyes wide and knowing.
Caroline turned toward Abby who stood at the wood stove, frying thick slabs of ham for the paying boarders. "Is there something I should know about, Abigail?"
Abby started to say something then suddenly dissolved into a fit of laughter.
And that's when Caroline knew her secret was no secret anymore.
"How?" she asked, sinking into a maple chair at the huge breakfast table. "Dear God, how on earth could you possibly...?" Her voice trailed off in an agony of embarrassment and disbelief.
"'Twas Mr. Reardon," said Abby, wiping her eyes with the back of her sleeve. "Yes, indeed, 'twas Mr. Reardon himself what told us."
"I don't believe you! He wouldn't say such a thing." Jesse was not a Boston-bred gentleman, it was true, but Caroline didn't think he would announce their intimacy to the world.
"Didn't have to, miss," said Abby, grinning widely. "'Twas written all over his face, it was."
"I saw him in the hallway this morning as he came out of your room, Caroline," Sarah Wilder piped up. "He was smiling from ear to ear."
"I heard him whistling in the kitchen," Jenny offered. "Moment I heard it, I knew."
"Now, really, ladies," Caroline said, trying to gather her wits about her, "don't you think you're jumping to conclusions? Whistling in the kitchen and smiling hardly amount to evidence."
"If you don't mind me sayin' so, miss, Sarah saw him coming out of your room. Evidence wouldn't be much better than that."
"No," said Caroline slowly, "I don't suppose it does, does it?"
"But don't worry, miss," Abby said. "Your reputation wouldn't be tarnished. I told them you and the mister were all legally wed."
Caroline leaped to her feet. "You did what!?"
Abby didn't bat an eyelash. "I told them you were married. 'Twould seem the right thing to do, what with a woman's good name bein' so important and all."
Caroline looked at the earnest faces of the girls sitting at her breakfast table and didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "You must think me the worst hypocrite on earth for stooping to such deception. Please believe me when I say I had no desire or plan to marry. This is simply a business arrangement to—" She stopped, blushing furiously, and wished the ground would open up to swallow her whole.
"Don't you feel you have to explain anything to us, Caroline," said Margaret, patting her on the ar
m in a sisterly gesture of affection. "We ain't ones to pass judgment on anybody for fallin' in love and gettin' married."
Didn't anybody understand what her marriage was all about? She and Jesse had married solely to protect their own separate interests, a coldly logical arrangement for mutual benefit.
"We're not in love, Margaret," Caroline said.
"Oh, you can protest all you want, honey, but I ain't gonna pay you no mind."
Jenny Wilder leaned across the table and lowered her voice conspiratorially. "I saw him with my own eyes, Caroline, and he had that look. Yessiree, he sure did, and I tell you I'd sell my best earbobs to see that look on Harry's face."
"Harry?" Was there to be no end of surprises this morning? "Who on earth is Harry?"
"Harry Morgan's her beau," said Sarah as her sister ducked her head and giggled. "Been seein' each other every Tuesday and Thursday regular as clockwork."
And that was just the beginning. It seemed as if the spinsters of the Crazy Arrow had all found romance. Abby and Sam Markham, the bartender at the King of Hearts Saloon. Jenny and Harry. Sarah and the blacksmith. The McGuigan girls with the four young men who ran the dry goods store.
"I cannot believe it," said Caroline, shaking her head in amazement. "What about the Single Men's Protection League? I thought courtship was out of the question."
"Some things just don't take real well to rules," said Jenny with a knowing smile. "Can't make no laws against love."
Love, thought Caroline with a sigh. Now there was the rub. For Abby and Jenny and the rest of the girls love was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the mysterious and wonderful emotion that brought a man and a woman together and made them dream about a future. They believed in happily ever after, in rose covered cottages and plump and pretty babies, and growing old together as you sat by the fireplace and reminisced about what used to be.
A few months ago Caroline would have laughed at girls who believed in such foolish, sentimental claptrap. Now she envied those who did. She had grown up as the daughter of a man who made a lifetime out of falling in love and she'd seen firsthand how short forever really was; but, how she wished she could throw caution to the wind and enjoy what she had for however long it would be hers.
"Don't look so sad, Caroline," said Betty McGuigan. "That old Single Men's League ain't got long to last. Silver Spur's ripe for weddings and ain't nothin' going to change that fact."
"And you're proof of the pudding," said Sarah, toasting Caroline with her mug of coffee. "Here's to the first of many weddings for the Crazy Arrow!"
The other girls jumped to their feet, holding their coffee cups aloft. "To the bride!" they cried.
Caroline met Abby's hazel eyes across the room and her maid quickly read the plea in her employer's expression.
"Remember what I be tellin' you about the weddin'," cautioned Abby. "Only way the Crazy Arrow will stay open is if the weddin' stays a secret and you know that without the Arrow there wouldn't be many of you what could be stayin' on in town to win yourselves a husband."
"We wouldn't do a thing to hurt you, Caroline," promised Margaret as the others murmured their agreement. "I think it'll be a heap of fun keeping this secret from the menfolk. They'll learn soon enough that bein' single ain't so all-fired wonderful and we'll be havin' the last laugh on the League yet." Caroline could only pray they were women of their word.
* * *
"You ain't payin' attention tonight, boss." Sam Markham pounded on the bar at the King of Hearts. "Hell, you ain't paid attention to nothin' all day."
Jesse looked up from his whiskey. "What was that, Sam?"
His bartender shook his head in exasperation. "You got mush for brains or are you roostered?"
"I haven't drunk enough whiskey to get roostered," Jesse said, "and ain't you gettin' a little personal?"
"You been actin' stranger than a hound in heat," said Sam, pouring himself a draft and sitting down next to Jesse at the bar. "Jade giving you a hard time?"
Jesse shrugged. "Ain't seen her today." After their battle the night before, he wasn't about to go round to the Golden Dragon and set himself up for more of her hot temper. Besides, he didn't owe her an explanation for anything; he had his own life and Jade had hers and right now those two lives weren't exactly moving in the same direction. He'd never hung his brand on her and he sure as hell hadn't let her hang one on him. From the start they'd both been free to do as they please; Jade opened the Golden Dragon and continued to entertain customers of her own choosing, while Jesse had himself a string of women over the years and continued to keep his heart his own.
At least, he'd thought so before last night. Last night something had happened to him, something he couldn't exactly understand. Nothing he and Caroline had done was new or untried; yet he felt as if he had discovered a beautiful new world.
The thought scared hell out of him.
"You ain't been stayin' with Jade lately, have you?" Sam asked.
"What's it to you, Markham?"
Sam shrugged. "Talk is you got yourself a new woman. Can't say the League's too happy about that."
"Can't say I exactly give a prod pole what the League thinks about it." There was no way on earth he would expose Caroline to the anger of Big Red and his crew.
"Now ain't the time to start trouble with 'em, boss. You jest got 'em all calmed down by movin' into the Crazy Arrow. Why give them new reason to get all fired up again and maybe bust into the Arrow, lookin' for trouble?"
Markham seemed damned concerned about the Crazy Arrow. "Opening up the old Rayburn mine ain't good enough for them these days, Sam?"
"You been talking about it a lot but ain't nothin' much going on."
He forced his mind away from Caroline. "I'm signing up a crew tomorrow. Think that'll put the League's fires out for awhile?"
"Hell, yes, boss." Sam's broad face split with a smile. "I think that's going to do the job real fine."
Sam got up and left and the mine and the saloon and everything else drifted away. Jesse took a swallow of whiskey and let it roll slowly down his throat as he thought about his wife and all the reasons why he wouldn't let it happen again.
* * *
He brought her roses this time, yellow roses trembling on the brink of full flower, and he drew them across her breasts and belly and said things Caroline had only heard in her dreams.
Outside lightning split the sky as thunder rumbled over the foothills and for the first time in her life, it didn't matter at all because she was in his arms.
Once she tried to move away from him, to break free of the spell she was falling under, but his arms tightened around her and he pulled her close to his body.
"Don't," she said, her words a whisper in the night. "Don't let me become accustomed to you when we both know this can't last."
"Hush, Car-o-line," he murmured against her shoulder, his hands cupping her breasts. "Don't go thinkin' about the end of it when you can be enjoying what we got now."
But she couldn't do that for in her mind the beginning and the end were part of the whole that was their marriage. She knew full well that implicit in each hello they uttered, was the final, heartbreaking goodbye.
"I never meant for this to happen, Jesse."
"I did." He pinned her hands overhead and pressed his weight down upon her. "You're not goin' near that mine alone again."
His words pleased her immeasurably. Dangerously. "You don't have to worry, Jesse," she said, her voice light. "Nothing will happen to me."
"I ain't taking no for an answer." His voice was fierce and possessive and a thrill ran through her body. "I don't want anything happening to you."
"Of course not." She tried to hide the pleasure his words gave her, even thought she knew they were fool's gold. "I am worth much more alive than dead."
"I want you to start carryin' that derringer Abby got you."
She shivered. "I'd rather not."
"This ain't Boston. A gal like you needs protection."
> "I have you, Mr. Reardon."
"I won't always be around, Car-o-line."
"I understand." Tears, quick and unexpected, stung her eyelids and she blinked and looked away. This cannot last, a voice inside her heart reminded her. It will not last.
"You'll tote the derringer?"
"It will be my constant companion."
He nodded and then his lips found hers and she forgot everything but the way he made her feel.
* * *
Freedom was a dangerous commodity.
Unfortunately, Thomas Addison didn't realize how dangerous until he lost his freedom to the Dodge City, Kansas marshal.
The stagecoach had been delayed in town overnight because the longhorns had just been driven in on their way to the Eastern packing houses and the place was a mess of cattle and cowboys. The sweet smell of money and sin was everywhere Thomas went. There was nobody to tell him no; nobody to tell him he couldn't gamble and drink and whore with the best of them.
In a manner of speaking, Thomas was as far away from his Boston home as he was likely to ever get, and that knowledge broke down the last of the barriers separating fantasy from reality. This might be his last chance, he told himself as the money flew from his pockets. Marriage did things to a man, even marriage to a woman like Caroline Bennett. Once that ring was on their pretty finger, they changed, grew bossy and tight-fisted like his mother Emily or ornery and cold-hearted like the prim and proper wives of his friends. In his heart, he knew this was his last chance to kick up his heels and howl at the moon.
It was like God had been looking the other way when he put Dodge City on the map and things that would put you behind bars in Boston made you a hero there in Kansas.
Except for running out of money.
He hadn't meant to do it, Thomas told the stony-faced marshal as he was rudely tossed into the cell and the door clanged shut after him. It was just the temptation had been so great he couldn't resist.
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