Brides of Prairie Gold (46 page)

Cody sent the dream to me as a sign that we'll be together. But I'm so tired. How many whores do I have to kill? Is it fair to keep testing me like this?

Thea saw me cut my leg below the knee and she cried. She wanted to tell someone but I insisted it was an accident.

I've done so much for him, what does one more lie matter?

The journey is almost over, thank Heaven. Soon we'll be together. I wish I knew what he wants me to do about the whore. Does he expect me to rescue him from her like I did before?

I'm so terrible tired. Rage is the only thing that keeps me going. If he doesn't declare himself soon, I'll have to speak to him. I can't go much further trying to guess what he wants me to do. I just want to lie in his arms and rest.

Cody pushed them hard. Smokey Joe banged his gong before the sun rose, and they traveled into the long summer evening until the first pale stars appeared behind the sunset. Fatigue etched every face, hands cramped around the reins. Too exhausted to cook, the women gulped cold food and crawled into their tents, asleep before their heads hit their pillows. Even the glad news that the journey had reached its final stage did not penetrate weariness so deep it dulled thought.

Stumbling with fatigue, Perrin met Cody where he stood by the horses, checking the tether lines. She handed him a bowl of cold beans and bacon. "You need to eat something."

"Thank you." He pushed back his hat and lifted the spoon. "How's Augusta?"

Perrin ran a hand down the buckskin's dusty neck. "The swelling is starting to diminish around her eyes, and her lips have begun to heal. She's bruised everywhere, and every bump jostles her nose. The laudanum helps, but she's in pain."

Cora's claim that Augusta had stolen the Eagglestons' money was argued at every campsite during the midday rest stop. No one believed it. But Perrin had concluded that such a scandal was possible.

If the Boyd fortune had vanished, then Joseph's suicide finally made sense. Joseph would rather have died than confess to his daughter that her home would have to be sold, her life of pampered ease would end. If the noose had not killed Joseph Boyd, Perrin felt certain pride would have.

And, if the Boyd fortune was gone, then it explained why Augusta would endure an arduous journey to marry a stranger, why she hadn't turned back, and why she had delayed paying Cora.

If Augusta had begun this journey with insufficient funds, she might very well have stolen the Eagglestons' gold. Of course, her vanity would not have labeled it as theft.

Cody reached inside his vest and withdrew a leather bag. "I want you to have this."

"What is it?" Perrin asked. She turned the pouch between her fingers after he pushed it into her hands.

"It's two hundred and twenty dollars."

A hot flush climbed her throat. Her first instinct was to take offense and throw the pouch back at him. But a week ago she had killed a man; now she and the world were different.

Cody clasped her shoulders and the warm strength of his callused palms thrilled through her body. "I want you to use this money to repay Horace Able for your passage. I've thought about this, Perrin. You shouldn't marry Able unless you decide that's what you want. I want you to have a choice."

Just last week his gesture would have been an insult; only one kind of woman accepted money from a man who was neither husband nor kin. But today she was too tired to take offense.

"Can you really believe I ever wanted to marry and give myself to a stranger?" she asked wearily, looking at him.

Knots appeared along his jawline, men the air ran out of his chest. "No." Stepping away from her, he faced a gleam that flickered along the horizon. All day the oppressive smoke of forest fires had drifted in their direction. After watching the distant orange glow for a full minute, Cody turned back to her.

"All right. I don't want you to marry Able. Is that what you want to hear? And I don't want the others to turn against you if Cora tells them that she saw us embrace."

Such a possibility had certainly occurred to her. "Repaying my passage won't change whatever is going to happen." And something was brewing, she knew that. For days, most of the women had avoided meeting her eyes.

She squeezed the pouch. The bills crackled like the sound of liberty. And because she was not the person she had been before she killed a man, Perrin suddenly knew she would accept the money and the freedom it would buy her.

lifting her head, she gazed into his sun-darkened face. "If you're thinking that once I know I can purchase my freedom, I'll come to your bed you're wrong."

All she had to do was take one step forward, one small step, and she would be in his arms, pressed against his strong hard body. That's what she yearned to do. "It isn't going to happen that way. Never again am I going to offer my bed or my body to a man who cannot or will not love me enough to offer me a future."

She met his gaze squarely. "Learning to respect myself again has been a hard fight over rocky terrain, and sometimes I've progressed only by inches. But I like this new person that I'm becoming, Cody. I never thought that could happen. Finally I'm willing to give myself a second chance. And I'm not going to throw away a good decent future for a man who desires me but who can't commit to me." Her chin rose and her eyes flashed.

Astonishment slackened his jaw. "Wait a minute. Did I say there were strings attached to that money? No, I didn't."

"I care about you. Too much. And if you weren't so stubborn, you'd admit that you care about me." Her gaze challenged him to concede the truth of what she was saying. But, of course, pride stayed his tongue. "But no, you have your plans and they don't include a woman. So my plans don't include you."

"Perrin, you are the most irritating damned woman I ever met! And brazen too! You're all but demanding a marriage offer!"

"If I weren't so exhausted, I'd be embarrassed by this conversation." She glared up at him. "But the truth is, we do care about each other. You and me, we've seen each other in every kind of mood; we've seen the best and the worst. I know you want a ranch you can call your own. You know I want to carry my head high again. We understand each other. There's respect, and friendship, and passion between us. We'd be good together. But you're too damned pigheaded to even admit why you don't want me to marry Horace Able."

"Good God. There's no way you could have made a speech that blunt and immodest when I first met you!"

"You're right. I've changed. Killing Eaggleston taught me that life is short and uncertain. A person can't just wait and hope for what they want. A person has to speak up. Men have known this forever, but I'm just learning that I need to be direct, trust my instincts, and state what I want."

They glared at each other until the smoke from the forest fires stung their eyes and both had to blink. "Are you going to accept that money?" he demanded, choosing to address that issue and not the others she had raised.

"Yes," she decided after a minute's thought. "Because I don't want to marry Able if I don't have to. But I'll earn it. This is the fee I'll charge you for hiring on as an extra gun."

"What?"

"We all know Jake Quinton will try again to steal the arms and ammunition. When he comes, you expect me to be on the firing line. That's what the shooting lessons are all about."

He threw out his hands. "You're a good shot."

She couldn't help it. She was angry enough, fatigued enough to enjoy ruffling him. A tiny smile touched her lips. "Well, consider this." She tucked the money pouch inside her waistband. "If I don't marry one of the Oregon bridegrooms, then I'm not entitled to share in the profits when you sell the arms and ammunition. Therefore, I have no personal interest in risking my life to defend them. So, I'm charging you two hundred and twenty dollars for my services as a gunslinger."

Cody's mouth dropped and he stared at her in bewildered amazement. "That is the craziest damned logic I ever heard!"

"I'm so exhausted right now that my head feels like it's floating above my shoulders. Maybe that's why I can say these things." She lifted her chin and returned his stare. "But I happen to think it's illogical and damned insulting that you look at me like I'm the sole object of your desire, yet you can't admit that you care for me. Yes, I'll take this money, but I'm through thinking about you, Cody Snow! Through aching over you and daydreaming over you! I'm starting to believe you're just like Joseph Boyd and every other man I ever knew. You want to have your cake and eat it too. You want a woman who'll love you without asking anything in return, like a commitment for the future. Well, do you want to know what I say to that? I say you can go straight to hell!"

Turning smartly on her heel, she marched toward her wagon propelled by the steamy heat of anger. It wasn't until she settled into her bedroll that it occurred to her that she had come within an inch of asking him outright to marry her and then had told him to go to hell, all in the span of about ten minutes.

She hadn't a notion where she'd found the backbone to do either thing. But it sure felt good.

Mem told her that Sarah had called a meeting, but Perrin couldn't make herself believe it until the women passed her wagon carrying their camp chairs toward a flat spot relatively free of sage and sand burrs. No one looked at her.

Swallowing, hard, she focused on the distant peaks of the Blue Mountains which rose like a forbidding wall across the western horizon.

She wasn't surprised. Mem had dropped uncomfortable hints, and Perrin had sensed a wave of silent condemnation. She didn't even blame Cora for telling what she had seen.

But she was surprised by how much it hurt. Thinking she was prepared for this was a mistake; she'd hoped for a miracle. Old instincts reared, powerful and compelling. She wanted to crawl into the back of her wagon, curl into a ball, and hide and weep.

Instead, she stiffened her shoulders and made herself follow behind the others. Feeling the heat pulsing in her cheeks, she stood behind the chairs arranged to face Sarah Jennings. Triumph gleamed in Sarah's dark eyes, or perhaps Perrin only imagined it. Perhaps what she saw was only an "I told you so."

"You all know why we're here," Sarah began. She looked tall and commanding, standing before an azure sky that enhanced her natural dignity. "Since both parties are present, we'll hear from each. Cora? You claim you saw Mrs. Waverly throw herself into Captain Snow's arms, that it was clear from what you saw that Mrs. Waverly and Captain Snow have more than a formal regard for one another. Is that correct?"

Standing, Cora wrung her hands and threw Perrin an imploring glance. "She was upset. We both were."

"Did you throw yourself into Mr. Snow's arms?" Ona inquired acidly. "Or was she more upset than you?"

"We were both I'm sorry," Cora said to Perrin. "I just told what happened."

Sarah's voice sliced off further apology. "Is Cora's report true, Mrs. Waverly, or do you deny it?"

Perrin lifted flaming cheeks, speaking to the back of most heads. "I intend to repay Mr. Able for my passage. I no longer consider myself pledged to marry anyone."

"Did you consider yourself pledged to marry Mr. Able at the time when you and Captain Snow, ah, embraced?"

Sarah was offering her a chance to at least make an argument in her defense. A lie might avert what was about to happen.

But Perrin cared for these women. She loved Mem, and respected the rest. They had worked together, wept together, laughed together. She knew their strengths and their weaknesses. Unfortunately, they believed they knew hers. Regardless, she owed them better than a lie.

"Yes," she said quietly, her cheeks on fire. From the corner of her eye, she saw Mem drop her head and touch her fingertips to her lips. "I felt pledged to Mr. Able until yesterday."

Mem stood. "Thanks to my sister's inability to keep a secret" she dropped an affectionate frown at Bootie—"everyone here knows that Mr. Coate and I have married in the Sioux tradition. Mr. Coate will repay the passage expenses for myself and for Bootie." She straightened her shoulders. "But at the time Mr. Coate and I performed our marriage ceremony, my situation was no different from Mrs. Waverly's. It could be said that I betrayed the man in Oregon whom I had agreed to wed. If you condemn Perrin, then you must condemn me also." She sat down.

"The situation is entirely different," Ona objected, jumping to her feet. Anger mottled her face. "You and Mr. Coate love each other and consider yourself married!" She whirled to face Perrin. "Do you and Captain Snow plan to marry?"

"No," Perrin whispered. The fury in Ona's eyes stunned her.

"Has he made you any promises? Has he told you that he loves you? Or has he merely succumbed to the lustful temptations of a proven whore? How many times have you given yourself to him?"

A faint hissing erupted as several of the woman drew in a sharp breath. They all stared at Ona in shock and disapproval.

Sarah stepped forward with a scowl. "Attacking Mrs. Waverly is as distasteful as the recent gossip. The issue before us is whether we wish Mrs. Waverly to continue as our representative. That is the only subject that concerns us today."

Trembling, scorched by the fire on her cheeks, Perrin pulled back her shoulders and prayed her voice would not break.

"I'll make this easy for you. I resign as your representative." Ona's ugly words continued to reverberate in her mind. What had she done to make the girl hate her so deeply? Drawing a deep breath, she concealed shaking hands behind her body. "I propose Sarah Jennings as the new liaison." She pulled another shallow breath into lungs that felt as if they were shrinking. "We've been taking turns driving Augusta's wagon. From this point forward I will drive Augusta's wagon alone."

Hilda was stuck with her at night, but she could spare everyone her company during the day. Heaven forbid that she should contaminate any respectable women.

Angry, humiliated, and aching with embarrassment and pain, she turned suddenly, before they could see the tears brimming in her eyes, and she blindly walked away from them.