She practically snarled at him.
“Molly,” Emily offered, giving her husband a look that should have withered him on the spot, “why don’t you come upstairs with me and get cleaned up? We can wash your dress and you can borrow one of mine for the ride home.”
Molly glanced down at what had been a lovely blue dress with a white collar and cuffs. Rubbing one hand across the front of it, she watched as dried mud flaked off to land on the floor at her feet. Sighing, she told herself this dress was just like her life. Shining new but splattered with mud.
“New dress?” Jackson asked.
“It was,” she admitted, lifting her head to meet his gaze. She stared into her husband’s one good eye and tried to read what he was thinking. Feeling.
He hadn’t wanted her here, that was plain. But he’d accepted their marriage and maybe for now that was enough. A ripple of determination coursed through her and Molly told herself that her life would be a mess only if she allowed it. After all, just because her marriage had started out badly wasn’t to say it would continue badly.
Love grew out of arranged marriages all the time. Two strangers coming together and somehow becoming one. Jackson’s features tightened as the silence lengthened and she continued to look at him. But she wasn’t seeing him as he was now, covered in mud, one eye swollen shut and a split lip. Instead, she was remembering that first night at the cabin. When he’d turned to her, touched her, made love to her. There had been magic between them, however briefly it had lasted.
There in the darkness, they’d each found something in the other. The fact that the very next day Jackson had tried to deny it didn’t change a thing. His denials, his promise not to love her, these were things that could change. What would not change was what happened when they touched. And wasn’t that a good place to start? To build the future she wanted so badly?
He was right about one thing, anyway. The deed was done. There was no changing the past. There was only tomorrow to deal with and all of the tomorrows to come.
Molly pulled in a deep breath and silently accepted the challenge in front of her. She would make her husband love her. She would have the family she’d always wanted. And they would be happy, blast it.
Tearing her gaze from Jackson’s, she glanced to where Emily stood, waiting. “Thank you for the offer, but I think we’ll just be going home.”
When she turned back to look at him, Jackson felt a rush of pride. Damned if she wasn’t something. A temper like a fire-and-brimstone preacher with hands as soft as heaven, he remembered. He’d almost enjoyed watching her rip into Lucas, a man too used to women falling at his feet.
Wounded pride glittered in her eyes along with a sheen of tears, but she stood there like some mud-covered queen, facing them all down. God help him, he wanted to snatch her up and squeeze her so hard she wouldn’t be able to breathe. And that silent admission scared hell out of him. So instead of doing what his heart demanded, Jackson said tightly, “She’s right. We’re goin’ home.”
But when he took Molly’s arm, she pulled free of his grasp. His hand fisted on emptiness as he watched her march out the door, hips swaying, heels clicking on the shining wood floor. He followed after her, cheered just a bit to hear Emily start chewing on Lucas’s hide even before the bat-wing doors swung shut behind him.
Outside, as he helped his wife into the wagon, Jackson’s hands lingered a bit longer than necessary on her waist. She lifted the hem of her muddy skirt and he caught himself noticing the curve of her leg and her milk-white skin. Something stirred inside him and he gritted his teeth against it. How long could a man stand it? he wondered. How long could a man remain celibate while faced with a woman like Molly day in and day out?
“Guess I’ll find out,” he muttered under his breath.
“What was that?” she asked.
He glanced up, squinting into the sun, met her gaze briefly, then looked away as he pulled himself up onto the bench seat beside her. “Nothin’,” he said, grabbing up the reins.
She squirmed a bit to get comfortable on the unpadded seat and he wished to hell she’d sit still. Didn’t do him the slightest bit of good to have her rubbing her thigh against his that way. He scowled to himself and pain shot through his split lip. Lifting one finger to it, he then drew it away, sneering at the drop of blood.
A lucky punch, he thought, and took comfort in the fact that Lucas looked a sight worse than he did. It had been quite a while since he and his brother had had a knock-down-drag-out, root-hog-or-die fistfight. And damned if it hadn’t felt good to release all the fury that had been riding him for days. And real good to plant his fist into his interfering brother’s face.
He flexed his hands, each in turn, to keep his fingers from stiffening up. The fight hadn’t changed anything. Hadn’t fixed anything. But that was how it had always been between him and Lucas. Things built to a head, they had a fight, and it was over, each of them retreating to cool off.
Except this time, he wasn’t storming off alone. Now he had a wife. A wife he couldn’t afford to care about.
Jackson slanted a sidelong glance at the woman sitting beside him. Even covered in mud, she looked too damned good. She had that stubborn chin of hers tilted at a defiant angle and her green eyes were fixed on a point straight ahead. One corner of his mouth lifted into a reluctant quirk of a smile. Bound and determined to ignore him, he thought, and couldn’t really find it in him to blame her.
He’d been acting as if it was only his life that had been turned upside down, while she hadn’t exactly won a prize by getting stuck with him as a husband.
Jackson grumbled to himself as the familiar landscape rolled by. It just wasn’t like Molly to be so blasted quiet. He was half tempted to push her into yelling at him. But he kept his own silence and concentrated instead on the images flashing through his mind. He saw her in the cabin, humming as she cleaned. He saw her with that bird of hers. And halfway up the mountain, he remembered how she’d jumped into the middle of the fight. A stir of admiration washed over him. By damn, he’d been so proud of her. She’d looked wild and furious and downright terrifying in a raw, passionate way. Like one of those ancient warrior women Uncle Simon had told them about in his stories. Jackson’s heart twisted painfully as he realized there weren’t many women who’d dare something like that. Most he’d known wouldn’t have done more than stand by and look on disapprovingly. But not his Molly, he thought with an inward chuckle. No sir, she jumped in and grabbed hold of Lucas’s fist just before it could connect with Jackson’s nose.
The half smile on his face faded as he realized what he’d just been thinking. His Molly? Squirming on the bench seat, he guided the horse into the clearing in front of the cabin. She was his wife, yes, he told himself. But she wouldn’t be his love. He wouldn’t let her be.
It had been a hell of a day, he thought, glad it was close to over. His fingers tightened on the leather straps as he pulled back on the reins, then set the brake and tied it off. He glanced at Molly to find her staring at him.
And that’s when his day got worse.
“Did you spend all morning brawling with your brother?” Molly asked. “Or were you able to find a little time for your floozy?”
“What?” he damn near shouted and split his lip a little further. Wincing, he gave her a look that had been known to send pretty tough men running for the hills. He should have known that it wouldn’t affect Molly in the slightest.
She sniffed, cocked her head to one side and fidgeted with her skirt. Propping the soles of her feet against the kickboard, she looked up at him. “You heard me,” she said. “I want to know if you’ve been visiting…your lady friend.”
Jackson just stared at her. How in tarnation had she heard about Miss Cherry’s place? Then the answer came to him. Of course. Martha Sutton. A one-woman telegraph station. Damn interfering females.
Hell, he shouldn’t be put in the position of apologizing for visiting a cathouse. He was a man. Men had rights. Needs. And u
p until a few days ago, he’d been a single man with no claims on him at all. So why was he suddenly feeling so blasted guilty?
Staring down into the face of his wife, a trickle of shame drifted through his bloodstream and made him want to look away from her. But he didn’t. He’d done nothing to be ashamed of, despite the unexpected discomfort he felt now. And he wouldn’t be made to feel like a schoolboy caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
The leather reins woven through his fingers dug into his flesh as he squeezed tight. Jackson looked hard at her, noting the spray of dirt on the side of her face and the hurt suspicion in her eyes. Her skin looked a bit paler than usual, making that handful of freckles stand out in contrast. But it was her eyes that grabbed him, held him, and he met her accusing stare squarely.
Grinding the words out through clenched teeth, he said quietly, “No. I didn’t visit anyone but Lucas.”
Molly watched him for a long moment and he knew she was weighing his words, his expression, the truth in his eyes. He waited, not sure what she’d say next.
“Not today, but other times,” she said, and it wasn’t a question.
He blew out a breath, scrubbed his jaw with one hand and muttered thickly, “Damn it, Molly, this isn’t the kind of thing a decent woman talks about.”
“A decent woman can’t talk about it, but a decent man can do it?” she countered, and he noted with some regret that the Irish in her voice had thickened. Meaning no doubt that her temper was once again on the rise.
“I can’t speak for all men, Molly.”
“I’m not askin’ you to,” she countered and laid one hand atop his. “I’m askin’ my husband if he’s avoiding my bed to visit someone else’s.”
Her touch skittered through him like a white-hot bolt of jagged lightning and, to keep from relishing it, he pulled away. “And if I answer you, will you believe me?”
She thought about it for a long moment, then nodded. “Yes. Your eyes don’t lie, Jackson MacIntyre. You’ve been honest with me up from the start. Even telling me that you didn’t want me here.”
Regret poked at him, but he ignored it. He’d only told her the simple truth. He hadn’t wanted her here. Hadn’t wanted any woman in his life, beyond the temporary comfort he’d found in the arms of Dixie. But now that he had a wife, he wouldn’t be seeing the prostitute again and he needed to make sure Molly understood that, in addition to the fact that it wasn’t her in particular he didn’t want. “I didn’t want to hurt you, Molly,” he said.
“I believe that, too,” she said, her gaze never leaving his. “But you still haven’t answered the question. Are you visiting the floozy?”
A soft wind sighed down off the mountain, lifting her hair into a riot of red-gold curls that danced about her head and Jackson could only think that she deserved better than him. A worn-out man with little heart left for life or anything else. The least she deserved from him was the truth.
“No, Molly,” he said, willing her to see the truth in his eyes. “I haven’t been back to Miss Cherry’s since you got here. And now that we’re married, I won’t be going back. Ever.” Which would, he figured, make him more frustrated and edgy than he’d been since he was fifteen.
She studied him thoughtfully and for the first time in his life, Jackson wished he could read minds. He wanted to know what she was thinking. Feeling. And the fact that he cared worried him more than he would admit, even to himself.
Finally she nodded and gave him a half smile. “That’s all I needed to know. We’ll put this aside now and not speak of it again.”
Thank God, he thought, glad to be done with the subject. He climbed down off the wagon and reached up to help her down as well. She set her hands at his shoulders as he grasped her about the waist and swung her to the ground. And when she was standing on her own two feet, she didn’t move away, not even when he released her and shoved his hands into his pockets to keep from reaching for her again.
Instead, looking up into his eyes, she warned, “But you should know one thing.”
Wary, he asked, “What’s that?”
“I’m not goin’ away, Jackson. And you won’t be able to ignore me forever.” She leaned into him, her gaze boring straight into his. “I’ll see to it.”
Chapter Eight
True to her word, Molly spent the next two weeks driving Jackson out of his mind. With surprisingly little effort. “Hell, just lookin’ at her is enough to drive a man to distraction,” he muttered, and his voice was swallowed by the deep forest.
The cabin seemed to be shrinking. Or at least, that’s how it felt to Jackson. Every time he turned around, there she was. Between her and that bird, he hardly got a moment’s peace. Molly talked and talked and talked, refusing to be ignored, not letting go of a thing until she got him talking. He told her things he’d never told a living soul.
Things like how he’d felt when his folks died. About how worried he’d been because he was the older brother and should have been able to take care of him and Lucas. But how relieved he’d been when Uncle Simon showed up and became their family. He told her about moving west and how he and Lucas had always stood together on everything. What it meant to him to have a brother to count on and to fight with. How lonely the mountain sometimes was. And it felt good to say it all out loud. To have someone—her,—listen and care.
He’d told her so much and, yet, still held back. There were some things he couldn’t bring himself to talk about. Like the war and what it had cost him. Like the other life he’d lived before coming to this mountain to hide. Those things were buried too deep to bring out now. Digging them from his soul would start him bleeding all over again and he didn’t think he could bear that.
So he kept quiet about those memories, despite a part of him knowing she had a right to hear about them. She had a right to know why he wouldn’t…couldn’t love her.
Stalking up to the cabin in twilight, Jackson took a tight grip on the rifle in his hand and stopped at the edge of the clearing. Shaded by the overhang of trees, he stared at the cabin and tried to remember how it used to look. But it was getting harder to recall the days before Molly came.
She’d attacked the place, a paintbrush her weapon of choice, and now he lived in a sunshine yellow cabin with what Molly called, “springtime green trim.” A stray spear of dying sunlight fought its way through the trees and lay across the cabin like a blessing. If he’d been a more fanciful man, Jackson might have considered it a sign. Like someone, somewhere, was trying to tell him that in this house lay his redemption…if he had the guts to claim it.
He shrugged his shoulders as though unburdening himself of that uncomfortable notion and thought instead that he somehow didn’t belong in that cabin anymore. Molly’d made it a home, not a refuge. And what did he know of homes?
Flowers she’d transplanted from all over the mountain blossomed along the front porch, looking far more at ease here than he felt. Smoke curled from the chimney, carrying the scent of beef stew to a hungry man who’d become too used to eating well lately. And through the front window, he saw her as she lit a lamp and that feeble flame of welcome drew him closer.
He pushed open the door and was greeted by a screeching order that was all too familiar.
“Put some wood in that hole!”
Jackson shot the parrot a glare that should have knocked it off its perch. Every damn day when he opened the door, the bird told him to close it. He shut the blasted door and he could have sworn the parrot smirked at him.
“Howdy, Jackson,” a deep voice called, and he turned toward the table where Hardy Phillips and Black Mike Galloway were sitting.
Hardy, a short, barrel-chested man with a bald head and a full beard grinned around a mouthful of beef stew and said, “Your woman surely does set a fine table, Jackson.”
“That she does,” agreed Black Mike, a tall, thin man with pale skin pockmarked by coal dust, and he reached for another slice of fresh bread.
It wasn’t the first time Jackson ha
d come home to find folks pulled up to his table. Hell, he supposed by now his wife had fed most of the prospectors, drifters and cowhands that passed over the mountain. Whenever he said anything to her about it, she only smiled and said, “I’ll see no one goes hungry.”
He glanced at Molly now as she came to his side, smiling the wide smile that never ceased to hit him hard enough to steal his breath. Her hair was pulled back from her face and tied with a piece of rawhide at the nape of her neck. That bothered him for some reason. He felt as though he should be giving her the ribbons and whatnots that most women set such store by.
But at the same time, he had to wonder if she’d wear frills and furbelows. After all, he’d told her to buy some new clothes and, instead of going hog-wild with shopping, the darn woman had just bought three dresses and a new nightgown that tempted him every time she put it on.
His gaze locked on the red shower of curls that fell along her spine and his fingers itched to touch it, to catch the mass in his hand and feel the silky softness of it against his skin. Then he scowled as he watched Mike noticing her hair and how it dipped and swayed with her every step.
“Your friends stopped by a while ago,” she said, and went up on her toes to kiss his cheek as she did every evening. And that simple touch of her lips sent a ribbon of appreciation tumbling through him. He’d become accustomed to it, had stopped trying to avoid her kiss. Had, if truth be told, come to look forward to that greeting when he stepped in from the darkness.
He saw the sharp gleam of envy in the other men’s eyes at Molly’s greeting and was jolted by a stab of pure pleasure. Mostly, his life hadn’t been one that anyone with half a brain would envy. But now Molly had changed that, too.
She kept surrounding him with people, forcing him out of the silence and into life again. These men she called his “friends” were never more than passing acquaintances. But with Molly’s warmth, they and others like them were drawn back to this cabin—much as he was, he realized with an inward sigh.
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