Shotgun Grooms

by Susan Mallery

  “Are you hungry?” she asked. When he nodded, she turned to the stove to dish up another bowl of stew.

  He took his seat at the end of the table and halfheartedly listened to the conversation going on around him. Their voices were nothing more than a buzz in his ears, a backdrop for the thoughts racing through his mind.

  She’d done it again, he thought. Invited people into his world. Dragging him into the middle of it. Expecting him to take part. To appreciate friends and good food and the sound of laughter.

  And damned if he wasn’t responding. He hadn’t meant to. Told himself repeatedly to pull back, keep his distance. But Molly was a force to be reckoned with and she didn’t take no for an answer.

  Just like at night, when she had continued to follow him all around the cabin, insisting on sleeping with him. Until he’d finally given up and joined her on the too-narrow bed. He’d thought that by giving in on that score he’d be able to get some sleep. But Molly wasn’t satisfied with lying beside him. She continually moved into him, curling her body into his until it was all he could do to keep from grabbing her, kissing her, claiming her.

  Still he resisted, and usually spent most of the night desperately clinging to the edge of the bed. But that couldn’t go on forever. A man needed more than one or two hours sleep a night. He just didn’t know how he’d manage it. But then, a man needed other things too, he thought, his gaze sliding toward Molly.

  “So, how’s the mine coming along then?” Mike asked, splintering Jackson’s thoughts and drawing him into the conversation.

  “Good,” he answered, pleased to have his mind off Molly and onto safer ground. The mine he’d been working for three years was finally starting to pay off. Soon he and Lucas would be able to fund the horse ranch they’d always dreamed of. “Found what might be a vein,” he said, unwilling to give them too much information. Greed could turn people mean. He’d seen it too often in the past to not be wary of it now. Besides, he didn’t know Hardy or Mike very well. “Looks promising.”

  “A vein, is it?” Mike repeated with a grin and a wink for Molly. “You’ve landed yourself a rich husband then, ma’am.”

  Hardy said nothing, just looked thoughtfully at Jackson before lowering his gaze back to his plate.

  “Really?” Molly asked, looking at Jackson. “When can I see the mine?”

  He shifted on the seat, forked up a bite of stew and shoved it into his mouth. “Not much to see yet,” he said. “Besides, with rockfalls and all, it’s too dangerous for you to go into the mine.”

  “Dangerous?” She picked right up on that word and fired it back at him. “Are you safe in there?”

  “Ah, don’t you be worryin’ about your husband on that score, ma’am,” Mike said, laughing. “He’s a head as hard as Saint Patrick’s Mount. No bit of rock could dent it. Ain’t that right, Hardy?”

  The other man nodded his bald head, shot Jackson a quick look and said, “Right enough, I reckon.”

  And as the men laughed together over the foolishness of women, Molly sat quietly thinking.

  The very next afternoon, Molly made her way through the forest, following the narrow path her husband took every day to his mine. It was time, she thought, that she found out where he spent his days. She ducked beneath a low-hanging branch and stopped to free her hair when it was snagged by a twig.

  “Besides,” she told the little dog walking beside her, “I want to let him know he won’t be escaping me here, either.”

  The scrawny pup yapped as if in agreement and Molly chuckled, pausing to toss it another bite of the chicken she carried in the basket on her arm. Gobbling it down, it looked up at her expectantly and Molly shook her head.

  “Oh no, you don’t, now. Jackson must have something for his dinner.” She sank down to one knee on the forest floor and held out her right hand toward the poor little thing. It had appeared out of nowhere and attached itself to her, staying close but out of kicking range, which told her someone, at some time, had terrified the poor dog. “You’ve been hurt and now you’re afraid to try again, aren’t you?” she asked softly. “But you want to try, don’t you? You want to be loved, you’ve just been on your own too long, haven’t you?” she asked as it sat down a safe distance from her and cocked its head, watching her. “Don’t trust people, eh? Well then, you’ve something in common with my husband, haven’t you?”

  Sighing, she stood up and watched as it approached her cautiously, and she had to wonder what Jackson would have to say about her new dog. Judging by how he felt about Captain Blood, she was willing to wager he wouldn’t be pleased with this latest addition to their household. But what else could she do other than adopt it? On its own in the woods, it wouldn’t live long. And it was such a sweet little pup. Soft brown eyes looked up at her as the dog cocked its head, sending its one crooked ear straight up into a perfect triangle. Its short tail thumped against the earth briefly and Molly smiled.

  “Don’t you worry about Jackson,” she told it. “He’ll be too busy being angry at me to even notice you’re there at first.”

  Walking again, she picked her way across the fallen twigs and layers of dead leaves and pine needles that littered the forest floor. Her gaze shifted to either side of the path, and she smiled as she watched the sunlight drift through the thicket of branches to lay dappled patches of gold along the ground. Far above her head, the wind sighed through the treetops and rustled the leaves, sending a few of them floating and twisting through the air.

  “It’s a lovely place,” she murmured, letting her gaze drift across the shadows and light that surrounded her.

  Different from what she was used to, of course. But lovely. Growing up in a seaside port, she was accustomed to the ever-present sound of the sea. Like a heartbeat, the waves continuously pounded against the shore and she’d thought she would miss that comforting roar. But here, she thought, was another sort of heartbeat. Quieter, yet no less alive. The wind sifted through the trees, the leaves brushed across one another in a gentle dance and somewhere deep among the trees, wild creatures moved in the shadows.

  Here, there were no softly glowing streetlamps. No fog to creep in from the sea with a damp caress. No rattle of wagon wheels on cobblestones. She sighed and told herself that Defiance, Colorado, wasn’t much by Eastern standards, but it had a raw, wild appeal that touched something inside her. She smiled to herself as she realized that she must have inherited some of her family’s adventurous streak.

  Generations of Malones had made their living on the sea. Setting sail in ships that were tossed by waves, run aground on rocks or becalmed on pondlike oceans for weeks at a time, they’d risked their lives for the chance to meet challenging experiences. Now she was finally one of them.

  And she’d be keelhauled before she’d let a stubborn bear of a husband ruin the future she planned to claim for herself. It no longer mattered to her that she’d come here under false pretenses. The point was, she was here. And married to the most stubborn man she’d ever come across. Still, if a thing came too easy, who would appreciate it? “You’ve a wife now, Jackson MacIntyre,” she said, liking the sound of the words, “and blast if I won’t show you how lucky you are to have me.”

  The dog yipped and Molly laughed aloud, then quieted again as she rounded a bend in the path and saw the mine. It wasn’t much from the outside. Just a raw opening in the side of the mountain. But the path led directly to it and from somewhere inside came the distinct sound of a pickax slamming into solid rock. Jackson. In his cave.

  A sudden whirl of nervousness spun in the pit of her stomach. This was different than seeing him at the cabin. This was bearding the lion in his den. Her fingers tightened on the handle of the basket until her knuckles whitened. The puppy whined.

  “You’re my wife, I’ll treat you as such.”

  He’d said those very words, she recalled, and told herself she had every right to see to it that he started making good on his promise. She was a wife in name only and she meant to change that. S
oon. Despite the butterflies in her stomach.

  “Well,” she said to the puppy still watching her, “as Uncle Michael used to say, ‘Let’s get to the rat killin’.’”

  And lifting her chin, she forced a confident smile she didn’t quite feel and stepped into the mouth of the mine.

  Blinded at first by the deep shadows, she narrowed her gaze and looked around slowly. Dampness stained the rock walls that jutted out in sharp angles, as if the mountain itself was alive, trying to snatch at the unwary. Flickering lamplight caught her eye and Molly moved forward, deeper into darkness. She walked slowly, carefully, moving quietly across the dirt, following the rhythmic smack of the ax into rock.

  In the wide opening beyond the entrance, Jackson stood with his back to her. Feet braced wide apart, he swung the pick with almost graceful ease. Sweat streamed down his naked back and Molly watched as his muscles rippled and stretched with every swing of the ax. Her mouth went dry as she watched her husband unnoticed. Broad shoulders, narrow waist and hips, long legs encased in worn Levi’s that stacked atop the toes of his scuffed boots.

  Chunks of rock fell at his feet and the dog beside her barked furiously. Jackson spun around and dropped into a crouch, ready to attack. When his gaze locked on her though, she saw his eyes light first with pleasure then irritation.

  Molly decided to cling to the pleasure and forget the rest. “Hello, husband. I thought it was time I saw the mine.”

  “Damn it, Molly,” he growled, forcing his heart down out of his throat and back into his chest where it belonged. “You shouldn’t sneak up on a man.”

  “I didn’t sneak, I walked.”

  “Well, walk louder.” Though if his mind hadn’t been filled with thoughts of making love to her, he might have heard her approach. As it was, seeing her in person on the heels of his wild imaginings had his body hard and ready and his heartbeat thundering in his ears.

  “Feelin’ cranky, are we?” she asked, and sashayed toward him.

  Sashay was the only word he could think of to describe the slow sway of her hips and the deliberate tilt of her head and soft, knowing smile. Were women born knowing how to do that?

  “I’m not cranky.” Frustrated as all hell, he thought, but cranky? No.

  “Good then.” She lifted the basket. “I brought food.”

  “You shouldn’t be here,” he started, then sniffed as a mouthwatering scent reached him. “Fried chicken?” he asked, and took a step closer. The dog barked again.

  Turning his head toward the sound, he grimaced tightly. Just what he needed. Another intruder into his life. “Where’d he come from?”

  “I don’t know,” Molly admitted. “But he followed me here and he’s very sweet.”

  The dog’s lips curled back over its teeth as it snarled at him. “Yeah,” he muttered, already accepting the fact that the damn dog was now part of the growing crowd occupying the cabin. “Sweet.”

  While he and the dog sized each other up, Molly handed him the basket and strolled closer to the rock wall where he’d been working. Staring at it, she spotted a glimmer of something shiny and gasped as she reached toward the thin ribbon of glittering rock, asking, “Is that gold?”

  He heard the awe in her voice. Setting the basket down, he moved up beside her, knowing instantly it had been the wrong move to make. She smelled even better than that chicken dinner. Kind of flowery and soft. Behind her back, he indulged himself by lifting one of her long, red curls and running it between his fingers. The silky slide of it across his skin had him wanting, hungering for more.

  Molly felt the heat of him fill her, surround her and it was even more exciting than what she was looking at.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said softly, “it is.”

  “The vein you were talking about,” she said, hardly breathing as she concentrated on his nearness, the hard, warm strength of him—so close.

  “It’s still pretty thin,” he told her, then reached up too, his fingers aligning with hers on the rock face. “But I think she’s gonna widen up farther along.”

  At the moment, she wouldn’t have cared if a gold nugget the size of the puppy dropped at her feet. All she could feel, all she could think of was Jackson and how much she wanted him to touch her. And then his fingers closed over hers and heat rushed through her body, setting her on fire from the inside out. Slowly Molly turned her face up to his, hoping she’d see what she’d longed to see in his eyes.

  His gaze moved over her features as gently, as thoroughly, as a touch.

  “Molly,” he whispered, his voice a rough scrape of sound against her soul.

  She leaned into him, hardly daring to breathe. Lifting one hand to his bare chest, she felt the trip-hammer beat of his heart beneath her palm. Felt the heat of his skin, the soft, black curls sprinkled across his chest. Her throat tightened and a throbbing ache settled low inside her body. Knees weak, she kept her gaze locked with his, waiting for him to admit that he wanted her too. That he was finished trying to ignore her. She saw it in his eyes. She read the flash of desire that he couldn’t hide and knew that, at last, she would be the wife she wanted to be.

  Then Jackson yelped, broke free and looked down to where the pup had sunk its teeth into his ankle. Blowing out a breath, he lifted his gaze back to Molly and she saw clearly that the moment was over. Disappointment welled inside her as he said tightly, “Go home, Molly. And take your protector with you.”

  Chapter Nine

  Stung to her soul, Molly glanced at the dog, said, “Hush!” then turned back to look at her husband. “What do you mean, ‘go home’?”

  “I mean I don’t want you here,” he ground out and took a step back for good measure.

  “Oh yes, you do, Jackson MacIntyre,” she said, closing the distance between them. “You want me here. You want me at home. You want me. And you know it as well as I.”

  “Damn it, Molly,” he said, glaring at her again, “this isn’t going to happen.”

  “Aye, it will, be it here or at the cabin, it will.”

  His jaw clenched and shifted as though he was grinding his back teeth into powder.

  “What, then? Do you plan to be married to me for the rest of our lives and never touch?” she asked, her voice dropping when his gaze shifted to her lips. “Never kiss, never—”

  “This isn’t helping.”

  “What will help then, you great oaf?” She planted both hands on his sweaty chest and shoved hard enough to back him up a bit.

  “Oaf?” he asked, one dark eyebrow lifting.

  “Oaf I said—”

  “—and oaf you mean,” he finished for her.

  Her lips twitched despite the anger simmering within. He already knew her so well. “Aye.”

  “It’s no use getting your Irish up,” he told her. “Another argument won’t change anything.”

  Her body still humming, her heart still racing, Molly refused to be put off. Not this time. She was through playing this game of his. They were married and she wasn’t about to live the rest of her life like a nun. It was like Uncle Michael always said, Go after what you want, Molly girl, and don’t let anything—or anyone stop you.

  “I don’t want to argue,” she said. “I want what’s mine as your wife.”

  “You don’t know what you’re asking for,” he muttered.

  “I do,” she said, and took the last step that put her close enough to him to feel the heat rippling off his body. “And I’m not askin’, husband. This time, I’m takin’.” And with that, she went up on her toes and slanted her mouth over his. To give him his due, he managed to hold out against her for almost two seconds.

  Then he surrendered to the fires within, grabbing her close, pulling her into him, running his wide, strong palms up and down her back. Molly groaned, glorying in the feel of his desire pulsing in time with her own.

  He clutched at her, grabbing fistfuls of her dress and hanging on as if she meant the difference between life and death.

  Molly took all he gave and
demanded more. She parted her lips for him and took him inside, meeting his caresses with an eager response. Her breath quickened. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on as he lifted her off the ground, pressing her tightly to him. Her hands flattened against his bare back and she loved the feel of his skin beneath her palms. She wanted to feel him atop her again. Wanted to know the magic she’d known so briefly what seemed like a lifetime ago.

  Again and again, his tongue delved into her mouth, like a dying man looking for the key to heaven. And she felt the gates of heaven swing open as his mouth moved from hers to slide down the length of her neck, stopping only at the trim white collar of her dress.

  She sighed, tipped her head back to allow him access and stared blankly at the rocks overhead.

  “Molly, sweet Molly,” he whispered. His breath dusted across her heated flesh, acting like a match applied to an oil-soaked wick.

  And Molly had her answer. She smiled to herself and took a hold on the quivering sensations rattling around inside her. His desire staggered her, ignited her own and told her everything she needed to know. Whether her husband knew it or not, he cared for her. And she loved him. She loved the dark corners of his soul, the kind nature he tried to hide and the slow rumble of his voice. She loved his gentleness, his temper and the heart that refused to let him turn his back on a wife he hadn’t wanted.

  Now all she had to do was help him see that this was meant. That they were meant. And to do that, she had to make him want her so desperately, so completely, he wouldn’t be able to turn away from her again.

  Molly called on every last ounce of self-control she possessed and used it to push herself free of his grasp. His blue eyes glazed with passion, he reached for her and she stepped back, shaking her head.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, his voice tight, harsh.

  She pulled in a shaky breath, slapped one hand to the base of her throat and felt her pulse beat pounding like an Irish step dancer’s quick feet. This bit of torture she had planned for him was going to be every bit as torturous on her. It was hard, she thought, so hard to keep from stepping back into his arms. But she wanted all of him, not just a bit of wrestling in the bowels of the earth.