The Bridegroom

by Linda Lael Miller

  It was crazy, but in the daylight he thought of her as a child—the ailing little girl whose father had frozen to death in a buggy, on a lonely winter-buried road. Lydia had certainly been all woman the previous night, though, responding to his every touch with soft moans, small, rippling quivers he felt through the silken warmth of her flesh. That first lusty climax that would have roused the household if he hadn’t covered her mouth with his, but there hadn’t been much he could do about the complaining bedsprings.

  Carrying his boots in one hand, Gideon descended the back stairway, found Rowdy in the gaslit kitchen, with coffee brewing on the stove.

  “Mornin’,” Rowdy said, and when he turned to nod at Gideon, there was a little smirk quirking the corner of his mouth and his blue eyes were dancing.

  So his brother had heard enough to guess that something had happened, Gideon concluded glumly, despite his efforts to keep Lydia quiet. Lark probably had, too—and that possibility added significantly to his embarrassment.

  “Mornin’,” Gideon responded, without smiling.

  Rowdy poured a second mug of coffee, set it on the table in front of Gideon when he sat down to pull on his boots. “Lark fixed you a lunch,” Rowdy said. “It’s over there on the sideboard, in that lard bucket.” With a glance at the clock, ticking loudly on a shelf, he added, “Reckon you didn’t leave yourself enough time for breakfast, though.”

  “I’ll be all right,” Gideon said, wondering if he would. He supposed it was a good thing that the house was full of people, because if it hadn’t been, he’d probably have said to hell with his lucrative assignment at the Copper Crown, gone back up those stairs and shown Lydia Fairmont Yarbro every trick he knew, and a few he’d only heard about.

  “You want to tell me what you’re really up to?” Rowdy asked easily, after pulling back a chair of his own and sitting down. Pardner came over and rested his muzzle on Rowdy’s thigh, for an ear-ruffling.

  For a moment, the question didn’t fully register with Gideon, given the distractions going through his mind. He shook off the mental seduction of his nubile wife, reminded himself that he couldn’t afford to let his thoughts wander, not if he wanted to live into old age.

  He looked at Rowdy over the rim of his coffee mug, took a sip, savored it and swallowed before replying—and even then, he hedged. “Up to?” he echoed, raising one eyebrow in feigned puzzlement.

  Rowdy thrust out an irritated sigh. “Spare me the theatrics, Gideon. You were a Pinkerton agent before you signed on with Wells Fargo, and before that, you plied your trade with one of the biggest railroad companies in the country. Now, suddenly, you’ve decided you want to be a miner instead. Half the pay, if that, and ten times the work. So I’ll ask you again—what are you up to?”

  Gideon wished he could tell Rowdy the truth—there wasn’t a man on earth he trusted more—but he’d given his word to the mine owners when he’d accepted the job and a sizable initial payment for his services, and that was that.

  So he managed a shrug as he stood to leave, and he lied. An irony, he knew, given the lengths he’d go to keep his promise to his new employers. “Maybe I just want to know I can do a day’s labor,” he said, finding the lard tin, picking it up by the handle, and silently blessing Lark for her generous foresight. “Like any other man.”

  “And maybe you’re full of shit,” Rowdy countered, and though he was grinning a little, his eyes had turned solemn and a mite too watchful for Gideon’s comfort. Most men were easy enough to fool—but Rowdy wasn’t most men, and neither was Wyatt. “There’s been a lot of rumbling in the camps about a strike,” he went on, after a long pause. “Especially since the cartel keeps cutting wages and increasing hours—they’re down to one shift these days, but they expect the output of three. Does your new job have anything to do with that, Agent Yarbro?”

  Gideon did not dare meet Rowdy’s gaze; his brother had struck way too close to the bone, and he’d know it for sure if he got so much as a glimpse of Gideon’s face. “No,” he said, heading for the door. The mine was less than a mile outside of town—he’d walk there instead of borrowing a horse.

  It was a rare thing for a miner to own a horse.

  “Gideon?”

  Something in Rowdy’s tone stopped him on the threshold, with the cool of a northern Arizona dawn easing him a little. Lying next to Lydia all night had left his flesh feeling as though it had been seared raw.

  “Watch yourself,” Rowdy told him, after a brief silence. “Folks around Stone Creek know you’ve been to college and worn white shirts and ties to work. They’re going to wonder why you’d suddenly give all that up to break your back down in some hole in the ground, with a shovel and a pickax.”

  Gideon closed his eyes for a moment. Lying was a way of life for him, vital in his profession, but this was Rowdy, and he looked up to him, same as he looked up to Wyatt. So the story he’d rehearsed so many times snagged in his throat, tearing like rusty wire when he forced it out. “There was a—problem,” he said, without turning around. “On the job, I mean.” Careful, he thought. Parcel it out in small doses. “Wells Fargo showed me the road and put out the word that I wasn’t to be trusted, so you might say I’m running a little short on employment opportunities these days.”

  Rowdy didn’t reply to that—maybe he believed the yarn, maybe he was just sifting and weighing and measuring, the way he did most everything—and Gideon used that delay to make his escape.

  Rowdy was a lawman, Gideon reminded himself, as he strode through still-quiet streets in the direction of the mine, and he might go so far as to wire Wells Fargo to inquire about the “problem” that had allegedly caused his younger brother’s dismissal.

  What he was told would depend on who was on the receiving end of the telegram. Gideon hadn’t been fired from Wells Fargo, nor had he resigned—he was on voluntary leave—and he’d asked his friend, Christian Hardy, the company’s head telegrapher, to field any inquiries concerning his departure from the ranks and say only what he’d been told to say. Everything would be fine if Hardy was the one Rowdy got hold of, but if it was one of the men who worked under him, the whole ruse might go up in smoke in short order.

  Rowdy wasn’t one to spread tales; insofar as keeping the secret went, there was no danger in his finding out the truth. But he’d worry the subject like an old hound dog worries a soup bone, and if Gideon admitted his real reason for being in Stone Creek, Rowdy would be furious and raise every kind of hell.

  Clearly, Rowdy’s sympathies lay with the miners, not the rich cigar-smoking men who held the claim to one of the biggest copper deposits ever discovered west of the Mississippi.

  Striding through the first faint glimmers of morning, the shadows of oak and cottonwood leaves flickering in his path as he passed through a copse of trees along the western bank of the creek for which the town was named, Gideon told himself what he always did when he started a new assignment: Nothing is too small to be important, so listen and watch. And don’t let your mind go woolgathering, because that’ll be when they get you. Pay attention, or next thing you know, you’ll be laid out on the undertaker’s table with pennies on your eyes.

  The speech usually worked.

  That day, though, with every cell in his body aching for the release only Lydia could give him, he knew he’d have to be twice as vigilant as ever before.

  “IT’S BIGGER THAN I REMEMBER,” Lydia said, sitting in the buggy beside Lark, who was at the reins, and gazing up the house she’d last visited as a frightened little girl. With Helga around to keep an eye on the aunts and the Yarbro children, Lark had suggested a ride and hitched up the horse herself.

  Now, she smiled, nodded. “Everyone still calls it the Porter house,” she answered, tucking a lock of pale honey hair behind her right ear when the breeze set it dancing on her cheek. “Even though I bought it from Hon Sing and Mai Lei when they decided to go back to China. Folks are a little superstitious, and I guess they figure poor murdered Mr. Porter might rise up out o
f the cellar some dark night and scare them right into the Beyond.”

  Lydia had left for Phoenix with her aunt Nell by the time Mr. Porter’s remains had been discovered, and she’d been too young to follow the no-doubt sensational story in the newspapers, but she recalled Hon Sing and Mai Lei well enough. The doctor and his wife, along with Lark, had tended to her when she came down with pneumonia. Without Hon Sing and the strange collection of thin, gleaming needles he’d pierced her with, she would surely have perished.

  That morning, after Lydia, waking alone in her marriage bed, had finally worked up the courage to put on the calico dress the Yarbros’ eight-year-old daughter, Julia, had brought to the door of Gideon’s room, and march herself downstairs to breakfast, Lark had related most of the tale. Since the children had already eaten, and raced outside to play, and the aunts were still sleeping, only Helga had been privy to the exchange.

  Lydia wondered about a great many things, sitting there in that buggy with her former teacher, not the least of which was why Lark would buy the Porter house and then leave it standing empty. If propriety had allowed, she would have asked straight-out how the Yarbros could afford it, on top of the huge place they lived in, and all this on a town marshal’s salary. But propriety did not allow, so Lydia held her tongue, and waited for Lark to say why she’d brought her here.

  Memories clouded Lark’s eyes for a moment as she regarded the former boardinghouse where she’d lived when she taught at Stone Creek’s one-room schoolhouse. Then, with a sigh and a resolute smile, she set the brake lever, wrapped the reins around it and climbed carefully down.

  “It’s fully furnished, and Sarah and Maddie will help us with the cleaning,” she said, putting both hands to the small of her back and stretching, making her baby-swollen midriff jut forward for a moment.

  Lydia just sat there on the buggy seat, still confused.

  “You and Gideon will need a place to live,” Lark pointed out, smiling. “There’s room for Helga and the aunts, too. Don’t you want to go inside and have a look around?”

  “We’ll find a house of our own tomorrow,” Lydia heard Gideon saying, the night before. “Then you can have a room all to yourself.”

  Lydia hesitated, biting her lower lip. At least at Rowdy and Lark’s, she got to share Gideon’s bed, and could hope he would—well, touch her again, the way he had the night before. Here, she would be sleeping alone.

  “I know it isn’t as grand as the house in Phoenix,” Lark said gently, watching her from the wooden sidewalk, one hand resting on the gate latch, her brow creased with concern.

  Lydia blushed and hastened to get down out of the buggy to stand facing Lark. “It isn’t that,” she rushed to say. “It’s—it’s just that you’ve already been so generous, and now—”

  “You’re part of our family, Lydia,” Lark said, with affection shining in her eyes, “and this house—well—it’s Rowdy’s and my wedding gift to you and Gideon.”

  Lydia’s mouth nearly dropped open; she caught it just in time. “It’s too much,” she protested.

  Lark laughed and opened the gate. “Frankly,” she answered, starting up the walk, “I’ll be glad to have this place off my hands. I only bought it because Hon Sing and Mai Lei were so eager to go home.”

  The yard looked well kept, and there were flowers blooming in beds on either side of the wide porch steps. A huge lilac bush nodded nearby, attended by several bees, its scent dizzyingly pungent.

  “Surely you could have sold such a lovely house,” Lydia ventured, following Lark up onto the porch, waiting while the other woman thrust a brass key into the lock.

  “Like I told you, practically everyone in Stone Creek believes it’s haunted,” Lark answered, with another smile and a shake of her head. Then, in a teasing tone, she asked, “You’re not afraid of ghosts, are you, Lydia?”

  Lydia was nervous, but it had nothing to do with spirits. Gideon’s lovemaking—if lovemaking was the term for it—had set her all a-jangle inside and, even now, hours later, she felt an occasional, twitching echo of the pleasure he’d given her. She was at once sated, and in dire need of more intimate attention.

  “Oh, no,” she said, with a little laugh. “I don’t believe in ghosts.”

  Indeed, for all that had happened there, much of it truly tragic, the Porter house seemed to embrace Lydia when she stepped inside, just behind Lark. She felt as though it had been waiting to welcome her back, to enfold her and offer her solace.

  “Good,” Lark said, sort of waddling over to the longcase clock standing silent against the foyer wall. Gently, she opened the glass door on its front, reached inside to pull up the heavy brass weights, shaped like pinecones, and, after consulting the tiny watch pinned to her bodice, move the hands to their proper places. “Empty houses make me sad. They should be full, don’t you think? Full of laughter and life and—” she paused, her eyes twinkling as she looked into Lydia’s face “—children. Lots of noisy Yarbro children.”

  Lydia’s cheeks heated. She’d found it impossible to lie still while Gideon was working her up into a frenzy in their narrow bed, after the wedding—had Lark and Rowdy heard some revealing noise? Or was it just that, Gideon and Lydia being newlyweds, everyone simply assumed the marriage had been promptly consummated, like any other?

  “That would be…nice,” she answered, somewhat forlornly.

  Lark stopped, there in the large, blessedly cool entryway, and regarded Lydia seriously. “I know the wedding was a little—hurried,” she said, her voice quiet, though the two of them were alone in that spacious old house. “But—well—when I saw the way you looked at Gideon, I thought—was I wrong?” She chuckled, shook her head again. “That was certainly jumbled. I’m just going to ask you straight-out, Lydia—do you love Gideon?”

  Tears sprang suddenly to Lydia’s eyes, giving her no opportunity to weave a deceptive answer. Even if she’d been willing to lie to Lark, which she wasn’t, it would have been impossible. “Yes,” she said miserably. “I think I fell in love with him years ago, when he brought me here, to this house, from the school, in the middle of that terrible snowstorm. And if it wasn’t then, it must have been when he gave me that letter—”

  Lydia very nearly broke down then, bit her lower lip and looked away, her shoulders trembling with the effort to contain the choking sob that flew into the back of her throat, like some trapped and frantic creature, flapping dry and boney wings.

  Tenderly, Lark took Lydia by the shoulders. “If you love Gideon,” she asked gently, “then why are you crying?”

  Because he doesn’t love me.

  Lydia might not have been able to get those words out, her fondness for her sister-in-law notwithstanding, even if she hadn’t been stricken to silence. For Lydia’s besetting sin was pride, and Gideon’s disinterest chafed her there, and sorely.

  “Oh,” Lark murmured, saddening a little. “Even after the way Gideon behaved last night—well, I thought everything was all right, because you were glowing when you came downstairs this morning—”

  Mortification swept through Lydia. She put her hands to her face, wanting everything to disappear when she pulled them away again—Lark, the wonderful, lonely old house, Stone Creek.

  And Gideon.

  Lark embraced Lydia, offering sisterly comfort. When she took hold of Lydia’s shoulders and held her away to look into her face, Lark’s eyes fairly twinkled with warmth and fond sympathy—but not pity. Thank heaven, not pity—Lydia could not have borne that from a stranger, let alone a person she admired so much.

  “When Gideon got the letter,” she reminded Lydia, “he rushed to save you from Mr. Fitch. From what the U.S. Marshal said in the wire he sent to Rowdy, he turned half the town upside-down to do it. That means something, Lydia. My guess is Gideon just hasn’t figured out what that something is yet.”

  “Rowdy and Wyatt forced him to marry me,” Lydia finally managed to say. “I know they did!”

  Lark chuckled at that. “Lydia,” she said fir
mly, “no one forces a Yarbro to do anything, especially not another Yarbro.” She smiled more broadly then. She tilted back her head, took in their surroundings. “You and Gideon will have a fine home here,” she went on presently, and in a tone of happy resolution. “Together.”

  Lydia could not hold back her confession; it burst from her, partial and broken, the thing with boney wings escaping to fly free. “He didn’t—he hasn’t—”

  Lark frowned, quickly discerning Lydia’s meaning. “But this morning—the way you looked—”

  Lydia said nothing. What could she have said?

  “Oh,” Lark said, as realization dawned. “Oh.”

  Lydia clutched at Lark’s hands. “You won’t tell anyone, will you? Not even Rowdy? I’d die if anyone knew!”

  “It’s natural for a man to please a woman, Lydia,” Lark answered. “There’s no shame in that.”

  Recalling the things she’d felt when Gideon kissed her, when he touched her in such intimate ways, reliving those things so intensely that her very core seemed to be ablaze, Lydia shook her head. “What he did to me was—it was wonderful, Lark. But for anyone to know he didn’t—he didn’t want me—”

  “Oh, he wants you all right,” Lark broke in. “He’s a man, and a Yarbro man, in the bargain. Whatever his reasons for not making love to you, Lydia—and I’d guess it’s some foolish idea that it would be dishonorable—he won’t be able to withstand the temptation forever.” A light went on in Lark’s lovely, serene face. “What you have to do is seduce him!” she cried. “A challenge with the aunts and Helga around, I know, but still—a glimpse of an ankle here, a soft touch to the back of his neck there—”

  “How can I seduce him?” Lydia blurted. “He told me last night that as soon as we found a place of our own, we’d have separate rooms—”

  Lark laughed. “Oh, he is deluded,” she said. “Unless he locks his door, or shoves a bureau in front of it, he won’t be able to keep you out of his bed.”