The Barefoot Bride (20 page)

Reluctantly, Patch and Whit crossed to stand beside the bed.

“I think you two have some explaining to do,” he said.

Patch spoke first. “I'm sorry, Pa. I didn't mean for anything bad to happen. Whit made me come along.”

Whit stared in disbelief at Patch. It was true he had asked for her help. But he hadn't forced her to come. He turned to his mother and said,
“She
was the one talked
me
into coming. I was having second thoughts about the whole idea of running away when—”

“If you've changed your mind about leaving,” Seth interrupted, “then you'll be going back to the ranch with us tomorrow. Is that right?”

Whit stuck his hands in his pockets and scuffed the floor with the toe of his shoe. “I guess so.”

“Then you'd better get a good night's sleep. You and I have a lot to get done tomorrow before we leave town.”

Whit's eyes narrowed suspiciously. But if that was the extent of the punishment he was to receive, he wasn't about to complain.

“I'll stay here with you tonight, Pa,” Patch volunteered. “Whit can get a room with his ma.”

“No,” Seth contradicted. “You and Whit can get another room. Molly and I will sleep here.”

Molly opened her mouth to object, saw Seth's brow rise a fraction, and remembered their discussion. They must present a united front to their children. Their entire future depended on it. She caressed Seth's jaw and said, “I want to be able to keep an eye on your father tonight, Patch.”

“But, Pa—”

Seth never took his eyes off Molly's face. “You go talk to Uncle Jake, Patch. He'll make sure you and Whit get settled in,” Seth said.

Patch watched her father reach up to push a stray curl behind Molly's ear. With a snort of disgust she turned to Whit and said, “Let's
get out of here/’ then marched out the door. Whit followed her without a backward glance.

Once the two children were gone, Molly let out the breath of air she had been holding. She reached up to grab Seth's hand, which had begun to tease the lobe of her ear. “Patch isn't going to give up without a fight.”

“I never expected she would,” Seth said. “I'm glad you agreed to have the children take another room. I've wanted to be alone with you for a long time.” His hand encircled her nape and drew her toward him. He kissed the edge of her mouth with the enticing beauty mark on it, then groaned and leaned back against the pillows.

Seth's eyes closed, and his hand fell to his side. “Of all the nights to have a headache.”

Molly laughed. “This isn't exactly how I pictured us spending our first night together, either.” She rearranged the pillows again, helping him to get comfortable.

“Will you lie down with me, Molly, so I can wake up beside you in the morning?” he murmured.

“All right, Seth.” Molly stepped behind a screen in the corner and changed into the warm flannel nightgown she had packed earlier in the day. When she was ready for bed,
she blew out the lantern and Seth held the covers so she could slip beneath them. He curled a strong arm around her and nestled her back into the niches created by his muscular frame.

It felt different from lying close to James. Seth was leaner, and an inch or two less tall, so when their bodies spooned together she could just feel the rough bristle on his jaw against her face. His warm, moist breath on her nape made her shiver.

“You're cold,” he said, pulling her more snugly against him. “Let me warm you up.”

Molly felt as if she were on fire, but she wasn't about to tell Seth that when he had just admitted his head ached. There was no sense starting something they couldn't finish. Instead she asked, “What brought you to Fort Benton?”

His hand absently caressed her waist as he spoke. “I was looking for somewhere I could start over fresh. There are wide open spaces in this country where a man can carve out a place for himself.”

“Start over from what?”

Seth smiled in the darkness. “You don't miss a thing, do you, Molly? All right, if you want to know, I'll tell you. I was a surgeon for the Confederacy. By the end of the war,
I'd seen enough of death and done enough mutilation in the name of medicine to last me a lifetime. I wanted to escape from anything and everything that would remind me of those brutal years. I couldn't do that by going back to Texas. People there will be fighting the war in their hearts and minds for years to come.

“So I headed north with Patch. I ended up taking a steamboat from St. Louis to the end of the line—Fort Benton. I built myself a house here two years ago and started breaking horses for the army. I hadn't intended to let anyone know I was a doctor. But someone got shot once when I was in town and—the rest is history.”

“You didn't mention Ethan. I thought he came here with you.”

Seth shook his head. “Ethan and I met in Texas before the war, when he was still just a kid. He showed up in Fort Benton last year, just before winter took hold. Ethan's life is his own, Molly. If you have questions you want answered, you'll have to ask him.”

Molly made up her mind to do just that. Maybe Ethan would be able to tell her more about the man she had married than Seth was willing to reveal about himself. She was silent, thinking about what Seth had said. He
still hadn't told her what he did for a living before he became a doctor.

But when she opened her mouth to ask, she yawned instead.

“Close your eyes, Molly,” Seth said, reaching up to gently do it for her. “And get some rest. Morning comes early.”

Molly snuggled back against him. The worries of the past weeks and months seemed somehow far away. She felt safe and secure. In moments, she was sound asleep.

Seth's arm tightened about Molly's waist as he felt her body relax. He fought sleep because he wanted to enjoy this moment. He smiled as he thought of how she had demanded that he give up Dora for her. If only she knew! But maybe it was better that she didn't. He didn't expect her to understand why he had done what he'd done. He didn't expect her to care for him.

All the same, he liked the feeling he had gotten when she'd insisted she wouldn't share him with another woman. He hadn't felt like that since Annarose had demanded he take his eyes off the hurdy-gurdy girl at the county fair. He bent over to kiss the petal-soft skin of Molly's nape. Of course, he would never love Molly the way he had loved Annarose. But he had to admit he was starting
to care. That wasn't a bad thing. As long as he didn't let it get out of hand.

Confident in his ability to manage his feelings for the woman in his arms, Seth closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

Meanwhile, Patch was having nowhere near so easy a time finding peace. It was unsettling to realize that her father had sided with his new wife over his daughter. To add insult to injury, she was stuck spending the night with a stepbrother she loathed. Even now, Whit was twisting and turning restlessly in the twin bed across from her.

“Consarn it! Can't you stay still?” she cried at last.

“This bed feels strange. I can't get comfortable,” Whit retorted.

“I can't believe I agreed to come to town with you,” Patch ranted, “and got myself in trouble for no good reason that I can see.”

Whit bolted upright. “Wasn't my fault you stopped to listen at that window! That's when all the trouble started.”

“Yeah? Well, it's a durned good thing I did! Those men are planning to ambush the Masked Marauder.”

“So who the heck
is
the Masked Marauder, anyway?” Whit asked.

“Only the bravest, most heroic man on the
face of the earth,” Patch replied. “Of course, nobody really knows who he is because he wears a black mask.”

Whit snickered. “Sounds like you're in love with him or something.”

“That's ridiculous! I admire him. Who wouldn't?”

“What'd he do that's so special?” Whit asked.

“Somehow he finds out when the stage is going to be attacked by Indians, and he rides to the rescue.”

“So why would those two men want to kill him?” Whit asked.

“From what I heard, the Masked Marauder destroyed some kegs of whiskey those men were selling to the Indians. They don't want him interfering with their business anymore. So they figure to ambush and kill him.”

“Golly!” Whit exclaimed. “And you heard their plan? What are you going to do?”

Patch frowned thoughtfully. “If I knew who the Masked Marauder was, I'd tell him, of course. But that fella Pa fought with, that Pike—he said if I tell anyone what I heard, he'll kill Pa.”

“How would he ever know you said anything?” Whit asked.

“I suppose if the Masked Marauder didn't
fall into their trap, he'd know—or at least suspect,” Patch said. “And I can't take the chance. Pa doesn't carry a gun. He wouldn't have a chance if Pike decided to shoot at him again.”

“On the other hand,” Whit said, “if you warned the Masked Marauder, he'd probably shoot Pike.”

“On the other hand,” Patch said, “how can I possibly warn the Masked Marauder when I don't know who he is?”

Patch froze as she recognized the significance of something the two plotting men had said. “Wait a minute. Maybe I
do
know who it is!”

“You do?”

“I didn't realize it until just now, but I know the identity of the Masked Marauder.”

“So who is it?” Whit demanded.

“Ethan Hawk.”

Whit's jaw dropped. “Naw. Really?”

Patch sat up in bed. “Remember when you came to see me the other night, and Ethan came in from outside when he was supposed to be sound asleep in bed?”

“Yeah?”

“That
was the night those whiskey kegs were supposedly broken to pieces.”

“So?”

“Ethan's shirt smelled of whiskey that night, but he hadn't drunk any. He told me somebody spilled whiskey on him, but don't you see? He must have gotten whiskey on himself when he broke up all those kegs!”

“I've never seen Ethan wearing a gun,” Whit pointed out.

“But he has one,” Patch said. “I've seen it in his cabin. And another thing,” Patch said, her voice getting more excited as she became more certain she was right. “The Masked Marauder appeared for the first time about six months ago. Right after Ethan came to live here.”

“So are you gonna tell Ethan about the plan to ambush the Masked Marauder?” Whit asked.

Patch thought about it. She was drawing a pretty big conclusion from pretty flimsy evidence. If she was wrong, Ethan would be sure to tell her father. And she didn't want to think about the results of such an eventuality.

However, if she secretly followed Ethan whenever he left the ranch from now on, she would not only be there to warn him about the ambush, but she could also be there to see the Masked Marauder in action.

“I'm going to have to ponder this a little
longer,” she said, “and decide what I should do. In the meantime, don't you blab anything to anybody.”

“I won't,” Whit promised.

“Now lie down and leave me be so I can think.”

Whit lay back down and covered himself, but soon he began shifting again.

“Garn!” Patch said. She rolled out of bed, stomped over to Whit, and tucked the blanket tight under the mattress all around so he couldn't move. “Now go to sleep!” she ordered.

Whit smiled and did as he was told.

The first few days home after the disastrous trip to Fort Benton were busy ones for Seth and Molly. He worked with Ethan and Whit to finish the third bedroom. She cooked and cleaned and sewed diligently on a dress for Patch.

On the day the dress was finished, Molly talked Patch into trying it on to surprise the men when they came inside for supper. Nes-sie watched from the four-poster in Patch's room as the transformation began.

Molly started with Patch's straight blond hair, brushing all the tangles out and taking the scissors to the ends to crop them just below her shoulders. Then she cut a fringe of bangs that fell just above Patch's brows. Finally, she combed Patch's hair back from the sides and gathered it at the crown, securing it with a black grosgrain ribbon, leaving the rest to fall down her back.

Once Patch's hair was done, Molly started
from scratch and added layers of clothing. A white chemise with pink ribbons and lace-trimmed cotton drawers came first. Unfortunately, that was as far as Molly got before Patch balked.

Pointing to the corset in Molly's hands, she said, “I ain't gonna put that blasted thing on.”

“Every lady wears one,” Molly said.

“I ain't a lady.”

“Do you want to be one?”

Patch's lids dropped to lay feathery crescents on her cheeks. “Don't matter if I do,” she said in a quiet voice. “Ain't got the know-how.”

“I'm here to teach you,” Molly said.

Patch fidgeted with the ribbon on her chemise, liking the softness of it and the delicate pink color. She kept remembering how Ethan had said she'd look pretty in a dress. She wanted to please him, and to please Pa. But was that instrument of torture really necessary? “Do I hafta wear that durned thing?”

“It'll help your posture and make the dress fit properly.”

“All right,” Patch said in a resigned voice. “Do your worst.”

Molly slipped the white coutil garment over Patch's head and settled it into place before tightening the laces.