Bound for Eden

by Tess LeSue

  He saw her dismay. “Don’t fret, sweetheart, it’s just a nick.” He swayed. Alarmed, she lowered him onto a nearby rock. And that’s when she heard the mad laughter. Alex spun, feeling raw hysteria claw at her. Gideon! Where was he? The wild giggles were echoing, seeming to come from every dark shadow and secret hollow.

  “It looks like I have to thank you, Slater,” Gideon’s disembodied voice crowed, “for taking care of my last bothersome brother.”

  Luke lifted his weapon, but a sudden crack echoed through the mountains and the gun went flying from his grasp. Alex screamed.

  And Gideon laughed. “Keep screaming, darling. I love it when you scream.”

  “What do you want?” Luke called.

  “What do you think?”

  “If you lay so much as a hand on her . . .”

  “I don’t plan to do any such thing,” Gideon sang, his insane voice bouncing from rock to rock. “She’ll do my dirty work for me.”

  Alex and Luke exchanged bewildered looks.

  “Now, bitch Barratt,” Gideon called, “I want you to listen to me well. If you don’t do exactly as I say I’m going to shoot your precious lover.”

  “Don’t listen to him,” Luke hissed.

  There was another crack and Luke gave a shout. There was a spray of blood and Luke gave a terrifying yell. “Get away from him, or I’ll shoot again,” Gideon hooted.

  Panicked, Alex scuttled back, unable to tear her gaze away from Luke’s blood.

  “Walk to the edge of the cliff,” Gideon ordered.

  “No!” Luke bellowed. Another crack and a spray of blood rose from Luke’s forearm.

  Alex screamed and ran for the edge of the cliff. She began to sob. There was so much blood. She remembered Sheriff Deveraux, his belly blown open.

  Luke struggled to sit up, trying to catch her wild gaze. His face was bloodless, making his eyes appear as black as night.

  “Now,” Gideon ordered, his voice ringing with triumph, “jump, you thieving bitch!”

  “Don’t do it, Alex!”

  She stood frozen on the lip of the chasm.

  Crack.

  Blood.

  “Don’t,” Luke rasped, his voice barely audible.

  “Jump!” Gideon whooped, his disembodied voice filling the entire world.

  If she didn’t jump, Luke would die.

  “Don’t,” he begged, stretching a hand toward her.

  Crack.

  All she could see was scarlet. “I love you,” she said hopelessly. She stumbled, and went tumbling over the edge of the cliff. Her hands instinctively scrabbled for purchase as she went over the lip; they clawed into a fissure and her arms were almost jerked out of her sockets as her fall was arrested.

  “Alex!” She heard Luke’s agony. “Alex!” She tried to draw breath to call out to him. She heard him dragging across the rock, and then his face appeared above her. His tortured expression, and the acute relief in his black eyes, made her start to cry. He reached for her. The blood ran down his arms and dripped on her face.

  “I can’t hold on,” she cried desperately, feeling her sweaty fingers begin to slip. Just as they slid from the fissure Luke grabbed her by the wrists.

  She could see the tendons straining in his neck. How could he lift her? The blood was flowing faster and faster down his arms. His skin looked like the skin of a corpse, a frightening bluish gray. Saving her would cost him his life, she realized.

  “Let me go,” she begged. She couldn’t bear it if he were to die.

  “No,” he growled through gritted teeth.

  But they could both feel her weight pulling him slowly over the lip of the precipice.

  “How touching,” Gideon drawled, suddenly looming over them in the flesh, his rifle dangling from his hand. He leaned over to consider the drop. He gave a low whistle. “Sure is a long way down, ain’t it?”

  Slowly he pulled the hammer back on the rifle. And then lazily, nonchalantly, he rested the barrel against the back of Luke’s head. “Let go of her, Slater,” he said conversationally, “or I’ll shoot you. Then she’ll go over anyway.”

  “Listen to him,” Alex whispered, feeling his grip begin to slip and seeing the desperation in his eyes. “Let me go.” She knew he was fighting pain and a threatening black wave of unconsciousness.

  “I love you,” he gritted, tightening his grip on her wrists. It was his way of saying Never.

  Tears flooded from her. She’d never known how much she wanted to hear those words fall from his lips, but not like this, she thought with a sob. Not like this. “I love you too,” she said, knowing what she had to do.

  She drank in her fill of his face, counting down silently until the moment she would wrench her arms out of his grasp. Her death would buy his life, and it was a price she was willing to pay. Three . . . two . . .

  Before she got to one there was a gunshot. She screamed, thinking he’d shot Luke.

  But she was still hanging above the steep drop. And Luke was still holding on to her. “Silas, you dumb bastard,” Gideon sighed, lifting the rifle away from Luke’s head, “why won’t you ever stay dead?”

  “Back off, Gideon,” she heard Silas rattle.

  Gideon hooted. “Or what? You’ll shoot me? We both know you can’t shoot straight.”

  “Hold on,” Luke hissed at her. His left hand released her wrist, shooting out to grab hold of Gideon’s ankle. “Go to hell, Grady.” With the last of his strength he yanked Gideon’s feet out from under him.

  Crack. Silas fired simultaneously.

  Alex saw Gideon’s eyes widen in astonishment. Luke’s shove, coupled with the force of Silas’s shot, threw him backward. His arms flailed as he went over. And then he was plummeting past her, his body making an eerie whistling noise as it fell. As long as she lived she would never forget the sound his body made as it landed in the forest below.

  Silas collapsed beside Luke. He was weeping blood now. Alex didn’t know how he could still be alive. He reached down and gripped her arms, just above Luke’s hands. With a bone-shuddering cry, he helped Luke haul her up, and between them the two wounded men managed to pull her back up onto the ledge.

  Alex rolled over and kissed Luke. She tasted blood. His gaze was glassy. “Hold on,” she whispered through her tears. “I’ll get help. Don’t you die on me.”

  “Alex?” A tortured rattle pulled her attention away from Luke.

  “Silas?” she said gently, wincing as she took in the monstrous mutilation of his face.

  “I’m sorry,” he rattled. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for this . . . for any of this.”

  “I know.” Alex felt a pity so acute it hurt. “You saved me, Silas.”

  “Us,” Luke rasped. “You saved us.”

  Silas turned his head to look at Luke. “Look after her,” he wheezed, as his last breath eased through his broken body, “you lucky bastard.” And then he died, broken and brotherless, but with the woman he loved alive and whole before him.

  Alex swallowed and carefully closed his vacant eyes. Luke began to cough and she scuttled to his side, alarmed. “Don’t you die on me,” she ordered again.

  “I wouldn’t dare,” he sighed, as he succumbed to the insistent blackness.

  42

  LUKE DRIFTED IN and out of consciousness. His hands stayed clenched around the sheets. He had to hold on. He couldn’t let go or she’d fall.

  But then her face swam over him, her gold-streaked curls tumbling over her furrowed brow as her rainstorm-colored eyes stared deep into his. “I love you,” he mumbled, “I won’t let you fall.” And then the rainstorm broke into swirling smoke.

  When he finally came to, he was as sore as hell. Every muscle ached and there were burning points of agony: one in his arm, one in his shoulder, one in his leg. He groaned.

  Alex leaped up from t
he chair beside his bed and the dime novel she was reading tumbled to the floor. “You’re awake!”

  “I wish I wasn’t,” he moaned.

  “Tom! Matt!” she shouted, rushing to the door. He winced. There was a clatter of boots on the stairs and then his brothers appeared in the doorway. They broke into smiles when they saw he was awake.

  “What happened to your face?” he grumped at Matt, noticing that a beard was bristling again.

  “I got sick of shaving.”

  “He means he got sick of the attention,” Tom hooted.

  “Quiet down,” Alex said primly, “this is a sick room, not a dance hall.”

  “Who was bellowing down the stairs a minute ago?” Tom reminded her.

  “Never mind that. I called you in here for a reason.”

  “We can see. Luke’s awake.”

  “Not that.”

  “No?”

  “Well, yes that,” she amended, “but not just that.” They stared at her in puzzlement and she began to blush. She cleared her throat nervously. “It may have come to your attention that your brother is in love with me.”

  Luke looked at her in astonishment.

  Tom and Matt rolled their eyes. “You mean, because of the way he’s been shouting it at the top of his voice every few hours?”

  Luke scowled. He’d done no such thing. Had he?

  “That’s enough, Matthew,” Alex said sternly. “Your brother has been very ill.”

  “Lovesick,” Matt agreed.

  Alex glared at him, but he didn’t look in the slightest bit chagrined.

  “Hurry up, Alex,” Tom sighed, “I’m due to head out.”

  “That’s why I wanted to talk to you.”

  “So, hurry up and talk to me.”

  “You’re completely ruining the moment,” she complained.

  “Would you all hurry up,” Luke sighed, “you’re giving me a headache.”

  Alex gave him a sympathetic look and leaned over to feel his forehead. He couldn’t help but appreciate the weight of her breasts against his chest.

  “You’re hardly going to be able to feel his headache,” Matt said, exasperated.

  “I really do have to go,” Tom complained.

  “Oh, you two are impossible,” Alex exclaimed, stamping her foot.

  “I told you, didn’t I?” Luke said smugly.

  She planted her hands on her hips. “You shush too. I can’t ask them if you keep interrupting.”

  “Ask them what?”

  “Thomas, Matthew,” she began formally, “I’d like to ask you for your brother’s hand in marriage.”

  There was a round of choking noises as they struggled not to laugh. Alex glared at them. “Well, I don’t know,” Matt said dryly, “you don’t seem to be too good for his health.”

  “Shut up, Matt,” Tom sighed. “You’re welcome to him, Alex.”

  “Thank you.” She moved to the doorway. “Stephen!” she bellowed.

  The Slater brothers blinked as Stephen Sparrow appeared as if by magic. He’d obviously been waiting just outside the door. Adam skipped in behind him, followed by Victoria, who was bearing two handfuls of what looked like weeping spruce, which she’d tied together with satin ribbons. “You would get married in winter,” she said apologetically, passing a bunch of spruce to Alex before taking up her post as Maid of Honor, her own spruce held solemnly in front of her.

  Luke blinked and looked at his brothers. They seemed as bewildered as he felt.

  “Now, he’s very tired,” Alexandra told her brother, “so we don’t need a long service. Just the basics will do.”

  And before Luke knew what was happening Stephen was asking him if he’d take Alexandra Antoinette Barratt to be his lawful wedded wife.

  “I didn’t know your middle name was Antoinette,” he said.

  “There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” she observed. “Now answer the question.”

  “I guess I do,” he said, vaguely astonished.

  And the next thing he knew Stephen was declaring them man and wife and asking him to kiss the bride. Which his suddenly bossy bride didn’t let him do; she took matters in her own hands and kissed him first.

  Then she took it upon herself to send everyone packing. “He’s still ill,” she kept saying, as she pushed them bodily from the room.

  “I’ll see you when I get back from California, Luke,” he heard Tom call as she closed the door.

  He watched, amused, as Alex fussed about the room, avoiding his gaze. “Come here, wife,” he ordered.

  She blushed. “I guess you think that was high-handed,” she said, taking the offensive, “but if I’d waited for you to come to your senses I might have died an old maid.”

  He grabbed her by the wrist and hauled her down on the bed beside him, wincing at the pain in his shoulder. But who was he to let a little pain spoil his wedding night?

  “Don’t think that my marrying you means I’ve forgiven you for tying me up,” she warned him, before she could melt under the heat of his dark eyes.

  “I’ll never do it again,” he swore, as he pulled her toward him, his gaze dropping to her ripe mouth.

  “I’ve heard that before.”

  “Would you feel better if I let you tie me up?” he murmured against her mouth, as he began to kiss her.

  Alex’s eyebrows shot up. She had a sudden vision of Luke Slater at her mercy. Naked.

  Oh glory.

  Turn the page for a sneak peek of

  BOUND FOR SIN

  Coming soon from Jove

  1

  A respectable widow of means seeks resourceful frontiersman for the purpose of matrimony. The lady seeks passage west to land owned in Mokelumne Hill, California. The advertiser presumes her manner and appearance will recommend her and expects applications from responsible parties only. Interviews are scheduled for the 6th of next month, beginning at nine o’clock in the morning, in the front parlor of the Grand Hotel. Please be prompt.

  Independence, Missouri, 1849

  NOW THAT WAS how a man should look. Suffocating in the stuffy hotel parlor, Georgiana Bee Blunt looked longingly out the window, where she could see a backwoodsman tethering his animal to the hitching rail outside Cavil’s Mercantile. The fellow was a brute. He had a wild head of bristling black hair and a stiff beard, and his arms were the size of smokehouse hams. And if that wasn’t enough to make him look like a character from one of her dime novels, he was also clad head to toe in buckskin. And the size of him! My, but he looked like he could rip an oak from the earth bare-handed. That was exactly the kind of man she needed, and exactly the kind of man she had advertised for.

  It was also exactly the kind of man who had not answered her advertisement. Georgiana sighed and looked over at the candidate sitting opposite her. He was a dapper, charming, handsome man, with very white teeth and very shiny hair. His fingernails were perfect ovals. And his shoes . . . They were spit polished until they gleamed. How did he do it? She couldn’t set foot outside without the bottom inch of her dress getting covered in dust. Had he shined them in the foyer before he’d come in for his interview?

  She couldn’t imagine the brute outside doing that, she thought, stealing another glance. He was reaching over to unbuckle his saddlebags, and the buckskin stretched tight over the broadest back Georgiana had ever seen. She sighed again. It was probably too much to hope that he’d come to answer her advertisement.

  “So, as you can see, Mrs. Smith, I have a pedigree that would please even the most discerning mother.” Mr. Dugard beamed at her with his white teeth.

  Oh no. He wouldn’t do at all.

  “Thank you so much for your time, Mr. Dugard.” Georgiana tried to smile back. “But as you can see, I still have so many people to interview, and the hour is growing late . . .” She stood and, because he was
a gentleman, he stood too.

  “If I could ask you to leave your details, I’ll be in touch as soon as my decision is made,” she assured him.

  “As luck would have it, I’m staying right here in the hotel,” he said.

  Of course he was. Most of them were. She resolved not to use the dining room tonight; she had no intention of talking to any of them again, let alone marrying one of them. They were all so sociable and polite and courteous and civilized. It was enough to make a woman scream. Her ad had clearly specified frontiersman. She didn’t want a well-bred man, or a good-looking man, or a charming man, or a clever man. She’d had quite enough of that with her first husband (God rest his sordid soul). All she was looking for was a simple, hardworking and reliable brute. Like the one outside.

  The one who was not walking toward the hotel to answer her ad. She watched glumly as he headed in the exact opposite direction. He’d been joined by another rough-looking man and was heading for the saloon.

  Perhaps she should have scheduled her interviews for the saloon, she thought with a sigh. The men there were probably far more likely candidates than the ones she was meeting here.

  “May I say, Mrs. Smith,” Mr. Dugard was saying in his low, suave voice, “I hadn’t expected to find you so young, or so beautiful.”

  She flinched. God save her from men with silver tongues. She wouldn’t be in this situation if it hadn’t been for Leonard and his pretty words. She had no interest in listening to any more pretty words in her lifetime.

  Mr. Dugard took her gloved hand and raised it to his lips. His dark eyes were moist with admiration. It took all of Georgiana’s willpower not to yank her hand away. She suffered through the press of his lips on the back of her glove.

  There was a disapproving cough from the doorway. The hotelier, Mrs. Bulfinch, was glowering at them. “I hate to break up your tête-à-tête,” she said in her clanging voice, “but there are still men in my foyer.” She said it like they were an infestation of mice. “You promised me, Mrs. Smith, that this affair would be done by mid-afternoon. It’s now almost five.” She gave a sniff and drew herself up to her full height of four foot nothing. “I’ve dismissed them all and told them to come back tomorrow. This is a respectable hotel and I shan’t have men clogging up my foyer at all hours.”