Julianne MacLean

by Prairie Bride

  Fear quaked within her as she leaned out of the doorway to look. She withdrew back in. What was she going to do?

  Briggs stopped just outside the store, saw the empty wagon, then looked in the other direction up the street.

  “Good God, Sarah, look at him,” Garrison scoffed. “That hair. You can’t possibly prefer that over me.”

  Her stomach knotting, Sarah watched Briggs pause, waiting for the pedestrians on the boardwalk in front of him to clear. His golden hair blew across his face. The brown fringe on his coat whipped in the rain-filled wind. Indeed, he was different from Garrison. Less civilized, less polished.

  But decent, and most certainly more of a man.

  “Will you introduce us?” Garrison asked.

  Sarah shot him a glare. “He doesn’t want to meet you.”

  “I doubt that. I think he wants very much to meet me.”

  Just then, Briggs looked in her direction just as she peeked out of the doorway. He stood motionless, staring at her. Sarah felt as if she was choking.

  “He’s seen us!” Garrison said, enthusiastically.

  Sarah wondered if she could run to Briggs before Garrison had a chance to say anything. She had to try. She could not let him find out this way.

  When Briggs started toward her, she made a move. Garrison closed his fist around her sore arm and jerked her back to him. She winced in pain.

  “Not so fast, love,” he breathed into her ear. “I want to meet your new husband.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Sarah felt as if she were standing on the edge of a cliff, teetering, about to be pushed over the side.

  Carrying a wooden box of supplies from the store, Briggs walked calmly toward them, not once releasing her from his intense green gaze. Thunder boomed somewhere in the distance and rain pattered on the slanted roof over their heads.

  Time seemed to slow down as Briggs neared. Sarah tried to take a step toward him, but Garrison yanked her back by her injured arm again. He’d always been brazen, but this was beyond belief.

  Briggs drew his eyebrows together. “Sarah?”

  She shook her head frantically, trying to tell him with her eyes that she hadn’t planned this, that Garrison was her enemy, that she had not known he had followed her all the way from Boston. Help me, she tried to say.

  Briggs shifted a narrowed gaze to Garrison. “What’s going on here?”

  She felt the grip on her throbbing arm loosen. She immediately moved closer to Briggs.

  “I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced,” Garrison said, holding out his hand. “You must be Briggs. I’m Garrison McPhee. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  Briggs looked down at Sarah. Her heart tightened with dread.

  “It seems we have a great deal in common,” Garrison remarked, lowering his hand.

  “I doubt that,” Briggs said. “What do you want?”

  “What do I want? I should think that’s obvious.”

  Briggs set his box down on the boardwalk and took a step forward, crowding Garrison against the wall. Sarah had not known her husband to be a violent man, but at this moment, she feared the worst.

  She touched his sleeve. “Briggs…”

  He didn’t seem aware of her. He was glaring down at Garrison, who had by this time backed into the wall. “It’s all right, Sarah,” Garrison said. “He just wants to intimidate me.”

  “You’re damn right I do.” Briggs said nothing more. The seconds ticked by and he simply stood there, towering over Garrison.

  “Briggs, let’s just go home,” Sarah said, touching his arm again.

  At first, he didn’t respond. Then, thankfully, he took a step back. “Sarah doesn’t want to see you anymore,” he said. “So why don’t you go back where you came from.”

  “I didn’t travel all this way to be bullied by you.”

  “I don’t care what you came for. You’re not to lay your hand on my wife again.”

  “What was that?”

  “I reckon you heard me fine.”

  The challenge between them hung in the air while the rain beat down on the overhang. Sarah’s heart thumped wildly in her chest. Her breaths came in short gasps.

  “Briggs, let’s go,” she pleaded one more time.

  He started to back away from Garrison, but Sarah couldn’t relax just yet. She’d do that when they reached the wagon and could finally discuss this mess calmly.

  Briggs stopped again. Sarah’s fears bubbled to the surface. What was he going to say next? Why couldn’t he just let it be?

  He jabbed a finger at Garrison. “Stay away from my wife.”

  Oh, God.

  Sarah shot a look toward Garrison, begging him with her eyes. Please, don’t say anything. Not now. Just let us go….

  A slow, crooked smile played across his face. “Your wife? I think you’re mistaken.”

  “Oh, you do?”

  “Briggs, let’s go,” Sarah said. “We need to talk about this—” They moved along the boardwalk, the raindrops bouncing off the street beside them, but Garrison followed.

  “It’s unfortunate that I must be the one to tell you this,” he said, “but she’s not your wife.”

  Briggs stiffened noticeably. “That’s ridiculous. We were married a month ago.”

  Garrison shook his head in mock pity. “I’m afraid you weren’t. She isn’t your wife.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  Garrison’s dark eyes flashed triumphantly. Sarah thought she was going to faint.

  “Because she’s my wife.”

  Briggs felt like he’d been struck across the chest with a wood plank.

  He laughed once, thinking this conversation absurd, but somewhere beneath the denial, he knew something was wrong. He tried to make sense of it, wanting nothing more than to believe his wife over this scoundrel, but all his thoughts were scrambling together. For some reason—and it shamed him to admit it—his instinct moved him to doubt her.

  “You don’t look as surprised as I’d expected,” Garrison said. “No more arguments?”

  Briggs felt Sarah’s uneasy presence at his side.

  “Let me explain,” she pleaded.

  He couldn’t look at her. He knew he should hear her out, but he just couldn’t listen right now.

  “There’s nothing to explain,” Garrison said. “It’s quite simple. She married me, then perhaps a little hastily she married you.”

  Briggs wanted to say something. Anything. But the words would not come.

  He heard Sarah’s voice like an echo. “Briggs, please listen—”

  He cut her off by holding out his hand. “This can’t be true. I have the marriage certificate.”

  Garrison dug into his breast pocket. “And so do I.” He unfolded a piece of paper and held it up. “See for yourself.”

  The print blurred before Briggs’s eyes. He saw Sarah’s signature and he saw Garrison’s. A sickening feeling engulfed him.

  “You see?”

  But Briggs could not see. He could not accept this. Sarah was his. They’d spent the last month together on his farm. They’d grown to care for one another. They’d made love. They’d made promises….

  “Briggs, there’s more you don’t know,” Sarah said, her voice wavering. “If you’ll let me explain…”

  Finally, he looked at her. All he saw was the woman who had deceived him on their wedding day. He had asked her if she loved this man, and now, to learn she had married him? Sarah touched his shoulder but he shrugged her away.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  Turning, he glared down at her. “No, I’m not all right.”

  He could not stay here. He had to leave. If he didn’t, he might do something he’d regret.

  He hopped down into the wet street, splashing and sinking into the mud. He could feel the cold hard rain slamming onto his head, soaking his hair so it clung to his neck and shoulders. If this man was her true husband, then so be it. Truthfully, it wasn’t all that surprising.
He’d been expecting something like this from the beginning. When had anything he ever loved stayed with him?

  Briggs climbed into the wagon and reached for the reins, staring straight ahead. He would not look at her again. He couldn’t. He slapped the reins, flicking water into the air as a damp chill invaded his clothing. Raindrops trickled from his eyelashes onto his cheeks.

  As he started to pull away, he heard a muffled cry from somewhere beyond his barely functioning consciousness. He tried to block it out, but it cut through his fury like a blade.

  Don’t look back, he told himself over and over as he turned his wagon toward home. But the scream punctured his resolve again.

  He pulled the horses to a slow halt.

  He sat there, staring, water streaming down his face. He felt like he was in a thick fog trying to find his way forward. The muffled screams were coming at him from somewhere outside this debilitating stupor. Sarah. She was crying for him to come back.

  He swung around in the seat. Garrison was dragging her by her broken arm, pulling her along the boardwalk while she struggled and pleaded for help.

  Good God—what had he been thinking?

  Leaping from the wagon, Briggs sprinted toward them. His boots splashed through the mud. Rain battered his face, but he had to get to her. He could not leave her behind.

  He flew up onto the boardwalk before Garrison had a chance to realize it. Sarah was sobbing and crying, her arm outstretched toward him. He grabbed her hand just as Garrison turned around.

  Briggs drew back and punched Garrison in the face. He stumbled backward, then fell onto the boardwalk. A deathly silence surrounded Briggs’s thoughts as he swept Sarah into his arms and carried her into the street, through the mud, then lifted her into the wagon. In a matter of seconds, the horses were galloping away, mud was splattering everywhere, and Briggs had no idea what to do next.

  Sarah tried to control her tears, but couldn’t. Cold rain stung her cheeks as they sped into the wind. Sobbing, gasping for breath, she clung to the side of the wagon as they skidded around a corner. She said a silent thank-you that he had come back for her. He had come back.

  Turning her gaze toward him, she wondered miserably if it mattered. He was staring straight ahead, all emotion absent from his dark expression. Yes, he had rescued her from Garrison, but had he lost all feeling for her in the process?

  “Briggs, I’m so sorry,” she cried over the noise of the clattering hooves.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

  “At first, I was afraid you’d send me back. Then, I became afraid of what Garrison would do if you exposed him.”

  He wouldn’t look at her. He focused on the road ahead and slapped the reins. “Yah!”

  Sarah, swiveling in the seat to face him, clutched his sleeve in her tight fist. “Can you honestly say you wouldn’t have sent me away? You almost left me behind just now, after everything we’d been through these past few weeks. I thought we’d fixed things. I thought there was hope for us, but you almost left me behind!”

  “I’m not the one who should be defending myself. You are.”

  “If you’d given me a chance to speak back there, I would have told you what really happened. Now, I’m not sure it even makes any difference.”

  She saw the muscle in his jaw tighten. After a few seconds, he pulled the reins and slowed the horses to a walk. For the first time since they’d leaped into the wagon, he looked at her. “What do you mean, ‘what really happened’?”

  Sarah let go of his sleeve and wiped the wetness from her eyes. “It’s not as simple as Garrison made it out to be. I didn’t just marry him and then marry you. I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Are you telling me you’re divorced?”

  She shook her head, wishing it could be so. “No. But when I married you, I honestly believed I was free to do so.”

  He pulled the wagon to a stop on the edge of town. “What are you trying to tell me?”

  “I’m trying to tell you that my marriage to Garrison was never a true one.”

  His eyebrows drew together in confusion. “Why not?”

  “Because…because he already had a wife.”

  Briggs sat stone-still, blinking from the rain. “You mean bigamy?”

  “Yes. But I didn’t know it when I married him. He told me on our wedding night, just after we’d…”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this before? If you were innocent, you could have turned him in. It could have been straightened out before you ever came here.”

  “You wouldn’t have wanted me if you knew. And besides that, Garrison threatened me. He said if I told anyone, he’d say I knew what I was doing, that I was after his money. Then I saw your ad and I had the chance for a decent life with an honest, hardworking husband like my father. Someone to start a family with. I didn’t think I’d ever get the chance to have those things if anyone knew. I thought if I could keep the whole thing a secret—at least until some time had passed—I could straighten things out later. But I made a mistake when I got on the train in Boston. I should have used a different name.”

  “You make it sound like your only mistake was getting caught.”

  “I don’t expect you to understand. I wish I could go back and undo everything.”

  They sat in silence a moment, both of them soaking wet. Sarah couldn’t stop her teeth from chattering.

  “So what does this mean?” Briggs asked, looking down at the leather strap he squeezed in his hands. “Are we married or aren’t we?”

  She didn’t want to answer that question, but she knew if she wasn’t honest with him now, all would be lost. The time for secrets had ended. “I’m not sure of anything anymore.”

  He locked her in his gaze. “Why should I believe you after everything you’ve kept from me?”

  “Because I love you. I wanted to say it yesterday, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t sure you felt the same way. I didn’t think you wanted to love anyone. Or for anyone to love you.”

  He bowed his head.

  “In my heart, I’m your wife. Isn’t that what’s most important?”

  “You tell me you love me, but all along you knew you were lying to me. What kind of love can there be without trust?”

  “Briggs—”

  “No, answer me. How do you expect me to reply to this—” he paused and waved his hands in the air “—this sudden confession that you love me? How can I believe you when you’re pretending to be someone you’re not? Our whole life together over the past month has been a lie. Would it be real for me to love you, when I don’t have the slightest idea who you really are?”

  She shuddered at his icy tone. “You say there can’t be love without trust. But I trust you. With my life.”

  He tore his gaze away from her. “Maybe that’s because I never lied to you. I never played any of the charades you’re so good at.”

  With growing resentment, Sarah thought about everything they’d been through, how she’d been treated after their wedding night, how he’d been so cold. “Never lied to me! What about Isabelle? You didn’t tell me any of that. I had to find out from Martha!”

  “I don’t want to talk about that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because that was different. I didn’t lie about Isabelle. I just never mentioned her. There was no point.”

  She felt her blood quicken with anger. “Yes, there was. She’s the reason you sent for me. I was just a way to forget her. You were using me just as much as I was using you.”

  Briggs squeezed the reins in his hands.

  “I know you’ve never gotten over her. So if Garrison finds a way to destroy what we have, will you order another wife and forget about me, too? As if the past month never happened?”

  “Of course not.” His voice was low and controlled.

  “If you were truly over her, you wouldn’t fight so hard against trusting me.”

  He dropped the reins and stood up in the wagon, towering over Sarah. “I am over her. I’m just
not over the—” It was as if he were only now understanding the emotions he’d worked so hard to ignore all this time.

  “The what?” she asked, pressing him. “You’re not over the what?”

  Rain rapped against his coat. “The things I care about always getting taken away.”

  He sat down again and his expression shook her with its openness. “I watched my family die. My mother, my father, my baby sisters and little brother. There was nothing I could do to stop it.”

  Fighting tears, Sarah covered his cold hands with hers. “Oh, Briggs.”

  “I didn’t want to love you, Sarah. I worked hard not to, but then I gave myself permission to hope, and now I find out you were never mine to begin with.”

  “I am yours, Briggs.”

  “You were Garrison’s before you were mine. You took vows, you said you’d love him until death parted you. Did you really believe you would? Did it mean anything to you when you said it?”

  Ashamed, she tried to find a way to answer him. But how could she, when she didn’t even know the answer herself?

  “Did it?” Briggs asked.

  Unable to look him in the eye, she nodded. “I wrongly believed in him.”

  “You promised him a lifetime.”

  She quickly looked up. “And you promised me one, too, when you didn’t know me at all.”

  He did not respond. He just stared at the gray horizon, blurred with rain and mist.

  “Please, believe me. I thought I was free to marry you. I was certain my marriage to Garrison was not valid, and over the past month I’ve grown closer to you than I ever was to him. To anyone.”

  “The past month…” He gazed up at her, despondently. “In all that time, I never really knew who you were.”

  His dark tone sent a chill down her spine. “But you know now. I promise, you know everything.”

  “Maybe so. I’m just not sure I like what I know.”

  Panic shot through her as he picked up the wet reins and flicked them against the horses’ broad backs, turning them around.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.