High Country Bride (6 page)

All the fight had gone out of Rafe, thanks in large part to Jake Fink, who packed a hell of a punch, for a dirt farmer. He sighed and moved around his father, mounting the steps and walking into the kitchen.

She was there, by the stove, clad in a modest flannel wrapper, her hair in a long, thick braid, and Rafe stopped cold when he saw her, stunned. He held out the parcel.

“I bought you a nightgown,” he said, and felt his face go a dull, throbbing red. He thought he heard Angus groan behind him.

Emmeline hesitated, then raised her chin, ignoring the package. If she’d heard him, she pretended she hadn’t.

“I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. McKettrick,” she said, after some time.“At long last.”

Rafe might have been sixteen, instead of nearly thirty, for all the awkwardness he felt now, when she was within touching distance.

His wife.

“Likewise,” he said, at some length, and drew the parcel slowly back, setting it aside. Obviously, if there was going to be a baby started, it wouldn’t happen tonight.

A
LATE SUPPER WAS SERVED
at the long trestle table in the kitchen. Kerosene lanterns flickered at both ends of the room, casting soft light through the shadows, and the food, some kind of roasted game, venison, perhaps, or elk, along with boiled carrots, potatoes, and turnips, was plain and wholesome. At Angus’s urging, Emmeline was seated first, on the bench nearest the cookstove, where the air shimmered with welcome warmth, and Concepcion took a chair next to her, at the end. Rafe, still flushed from their earlier encounter, when he’d presented her with the nightgown, sat across from Emmeline.

Jeb wandered in at an unhurried pace, pausing to favor Emmeline with an encouraging smile and a nod. Behind him walked another man, a year or two older, probably, with chestnut hair and green eyes. “Ma’am,” the second fellow said, with a nod of his own.

She didn’t respond, but simply clasped her hands together in her lap, sat up a little straighter, and tried to quell a rush of homesickness for Becky and the boardinghouse and all the misguided “girls” in their scandalous dressing gowns. Tomorrow she would begin a letter home, chronicling the long and arduous journey, describing Rafe and Indian Rock and the house on the Triple M. Becky, with her formidable pride, might, or might not, reply.

“I guess Miss Emmeline already knows Jeb,” Angus remarked, while Jeb and his companion pumped water into the sink and scrubbed their hands with yellow soap, “since he was the one to fetch her home from Indian Rock and all.” The old man sent a brief, dark glance in Rafe’s direction.“I don’t think she’s made Kade’s acquaintance yet, though.”

“Kade McKettrick, ma’am,” he said rather gravely, as though the occasion of meeting her was one of lasting personal significance, leaving Jeb at the sink to come and sit beside her on the bench. Kade was good-looking, like the others, and smelled of night air and some costly cologne. “I’m the middle brother.” He put out a hand, cold from the pump water, and she took it, bemused. Jeb had not mentioned Kade on the trip out from Indian Rock, and she wondered why.

“I’m happy to meet you,” Emmeline said politely, though she didn’t spare a smile. Her gaze slid back to Rafe, and she saw that his eyes were narrowed and his jaw was clamped down hard. The realization that he was nettled by the attention she paid his brothers cheered her unaccountably.

“Jeb tells me you hail from Kansas City,” Kade began, in an engaging tone. “Do you have a lot of family back there?”

Emmeline’s throat tightened right up again, as quickly as that. It was dark, she was in a strange new place, not the bustling city she was used to, but a ranch, with miles of untamed frontier surrounding her, and she was married to a man she’d never laid eyes on before that day. What in the world had she been thinking, leaving home the way she had, burning her bridges behind her? “I have an aunt,” she said hesitantly, at some length, and very quietly, hoping that said aunt would still be willing to claim her. “Her name is Becky Harding.” She looked down, looked up again. “My parents died when I was an infant, and I don’t have any brothers or sisters.”

Jeb swung a leg over the bench on the opposite side, sitting next to Rafe, whom he studiously ignored, and reached for the bread plate. His smile, like Kade’s, was easy, sympathetic, but without pity, and thereby quite endearing. “That must have been a hard thing, growing up without a family.” He let a beat pass, then turned the conversation in another direction. “Do you like to ride horseback? I could cut you a pony out of the herd tomorrow—”

Before Emmeline could reply that she’d never actually ridden a horse, though she’d very much like to try, Rafe interceded, glaring at his brother.

“If
my wife
wants to ride,” he said, “I’ll be the one to provide the hse.”

Emmeline was stung by Rafe’s rude, officious manner, and she bristled, but Jeb merely grinned and speared a turnip with his fork. His blue eyes were merry with the knowledge that he’d gotten under his brother’s skin so handily. Kade, too, seemed amused, though his expression was carefully bland.

“That might not be a good idea,” Angus ventured solemnly, from his end of the table, where he did not merely sit but rather
presided,
like the benevolent ruler of some vast and hardwon kingdom. “Miss Emmeline going riding, I mean. Not if there’s likely to be a child coming along soon.”

Emmeline, who had been eating with good appetite—she had economized on food during her journey, fearing to run short of funds and find herself facing some unforeseen emergency—flushed now, and set down her fork with a clatter. She felt the pull of Rafe’s gaze but couldn’t bring herself to look at him. Inevitably, she thought of the Texan who had almost certainly had his way with her the night of her grand folly—why else would he have left gold behind in payment, after all?—and wondered if indeed there
was
a child growing within her. Becky had long since explained the mechanics of such matters, and Emmeline had waited in vain for her monthly ever since. Her cycle had never been regular, a fact that gave her small comfort now.

“Angus McKettrick,” Concepcion scolded. “What kind of talk is that? I swear, you have the manners of a warthog!”

Angus reddened, a sound escaped Jeb—a chortle, perhaps, quickly contained—and Kade feigned a cough.

“Now, Concepcion,” Angus said, sounding defensive as well as chagrined, “it’s not like nobody around here knows that my sons want children, the sooner the better.”

“And we all know why,” Concepcion said pointedly, frowning the big man into a semblance of submission. Emmeline might have interjected that she, for one, did
not
know why Angus McKettrick’s sons were in a hurry to sire progeny, but it hardly seemed prudent to say so.

She was quietly mortified, wishing she could step back in time somehow, to simply vanish from this table and find herself at home in Missouri, rereading library books and stitching still more samplers, giving nary a thought to anything so foolish as dressing up in her aunt’s clothes and pretending to be something she wasn’t, even for a single night.

Instead, she was here, in the Wild West, a wife expected to produce an heir in short order, and no amount of woolgathering would alter the reality of her circumstances by one whit.

An awkward silence descended. Emmeline, her splendid appetite gone, ate what she could, trying to prolong the meal, and put off the inevitable night alone with Rafe for as long as possible. Kade and Jeb cleaned their plates, had second helpings of everything, and then excused themselves, with Angus hastening after them. Concepcion squeezed Emmeline’s hand in an effort to reassure her, but then she, too, made an exit, intent on some project upstairs.

“I guess they mean for us to do up the dishes,” Rafe said, after a long time.

Emmeline wondered just how long such a simple task could be drawn out. She nodded shyly and got up.

“Emmeline,” Rafe said, stopping her midway between the table and the sink.“About today, intown—-”

She didn’t turn around. “I was rather concerned when you weren’t there to meet me,” she said quietly.

He laid a hand on her shoulder, turning her to face him.“What my pa said—about the baby, I mean. I reckon I should explain.”

She waited, looking up at him through her lashes. Her cheeks pulsed with heat, and again she thought of the Texan.

Rafe sighed. “We can’t talk here,” he said. “There’s a moon. Maybe you’d go for a walk with me, down by the creek?”

She’d heard about the fierce beasts that roamed the wilderness, bears and panthers and snakes, to name just a few, and she wasn’t eager to encounter any of them in the dark. On the other hand, she’d be with Rafe, her husband. Surely she could count on his protection. “All right,” she said, but cautiously. If he tried to put his hands on her before she was ready to be touched, she’d make him sorry. Something else she had learned from Becky.

He brought her Concepcion’s cloak to wear over the wrapper and the nightgown, slipped a pistol into his holster, and opened the back door for her.

She stepped through ahead of him, surprised to see how brightly the landscape was illuminated, keenly aware of Rafe’s close proximity.

Outside, he walked a little apart from her, through the tall, star-silvered grass, and she wished he’d take her hand, like one of the men in her romantic fantasies would have done.

She looked around. Did rattlesnakes come out at night?

The stream made burbling music just ahead, and something skittered through the grass, causing Emmeline to give a small, involuntary cry of alarm. Rafe chuckled, and reached for her hand at last.

“Just a mouse or something,” he said.

She raised her chin.“I’m not afraid.”

“I don’t imagine you would be scared of a whole lot,” he replied. “It took some grit, coming all this way by yourself, not knowing what would be waiting for you.”

Emmeline was flattered, whether he’d meant the remark to be a compliment or not, and she even reflected that, in time, she might come to like this husband of hers, perhaps even love him.

They reached the creek, and Rafe led her to a fallen log, where they sat, side by side, a foot of space between them. He’d released her hand, and now he gazed at the water.

She took that opportunity to study his profile. He was a handsome man, in a rugged, outlawlike way, and just the thought of sharing his bed made her head whirl and her stomach do flipflops. She wasn’t sure what she felt, precisely, but it was part anticipation and part mortal dread.

“What made you sign on with the Happy Home Matrimonial Service?” he asked presently. The breeze ruffled his dark hair, which had been barbered since she’d first encountered him in town, sprawled on the ground in front of the Bloody Basin Saloon. His knuckles were scraped, though the fisticuffs had left his face blessedly unmarked.

She wasn’t about to tell him the whole story—that she’d grown up in a brothel, slept with a stranger for money, and fled in a fit of disgrace and wounded pride after the confrontation with Becky—so she related another facet of the tale.“It seemed to me that every day was just like the one before it,” she said quietly, watching the moon’s reflection splinter upon the water of the creek. “I wanted a change. I wanted something big to happen, and I knew it wouldn’t, unless I made it.” She paused. “What about you?”

He sighed. “I needed a wife,” he said, “and fast. I didn’t figure it would take all winter for them to send somebody—they sure didn’t hesitate to cash the bank draft, though.”

Emmeline swallowed. The bank draft.

For the first time, it occurred to her that she’d sold her soul to Rafe McKettrick, as surely as she had her virtue, back in Kansas City, earning herself a few gold coins and a lifetime of secret recrimination. The terms were a little different now, that was all, but a bargain had been struck, money had changed hands, and she was the goods.

She sat up a little straighter on the log, sick with the full realization of what she’d done.

“They might have sent a picture,” Rafe went on, unaware, of course, that she was crumbling beside him, fighting not to double over, not to drop to her knees in the grass, weeping, “or at least told me you were on your way.”

Emmeline bit her lower lip, willed some starch into her backbone. What was done, was done. Like many, many women before her, she would have to make the best of things. “Are you disappointed?” she heard herself ask. She’d never had her likeness taken, and therefore she hadn’t complied with the marriage broker’s request for a daguerreotype, which would, most likely, have been forwarded to Rafe for his approval. “In my appearance, I mean?”

“Nope,” he said flatly.“I reckon you’ll do.”

Emmeline’s last hope for romance died a painful death. Everything was utterly unlike what she’d imagined. True, the large house and thriving ranch had come as a pleasant surprise, but she’d expected to be wooed, perhaps even cherished. Instead, it seemed she was to be little more than a brood mare.

She drew in a long breath and released it slowly. “You brought me out here because you wanted to say something to me, Mr. McKettrick. What was it?”

The answer was blunt. “I sent for a wife—sent for you—because I need to father a child right away. If I don’t, I’m going to wind up as little more than a hired hand.”

She stiffened, barely hearing the last of what he’d said. “Right away?” she echoed. Wasn’t Rafe going to court her at all?

He nodded.“Sooner the better,” he affirmed.

Emmeline had never been intimate with a man, at least, not that she
remembered,
and she was unnerved by Mr. McKettrick’s size and vitality, to say nothing of his rowdy nature. Still, she was here, wasn’t she, with nowhere else to go, and if the Texan had indeed made her pregnant, as she feared, then here was her chance to make her child legitimate, with no one the wiser. The baby would simply arrive a trifle early, that was all.

“I see,” she said, and just then she didn’t like herself very much.

“Have you ever made love, Emmeline?”

These westerners were so straightforward. She shook her head, but she couldn’t make herself look him in the eyspan>

He took her hand again, interlaced his fingers with hers.“That’s good,” he said.

She sat in silence for a long time, struggling with her conscience. It wasn’t right to deceive Mr. McKettrick, but she didn’t dare confide in him, either. “Why didn’t you just marry someone from around here?” she asked finally. “Instead of sending all the way to Kansas City for me, I mean.”