Hell's Belle (13 page)

"Well, yes, I
definitely think we should go back to your ranch and Wadsworth. I've been lying
awake mulling it over for at least an hour."

He'd been mulling
for over an hour, too. Somehow, though, he suspected her images of their
marriage bed back at the ranch weren't the same as his. For one thing, he knew
exactly how big and thick the mattress was, where his own personal dent had
been carved to perfectly align with his body. And exactly where she fit in with
the whole notion of his nighttime comfort.

He had a sinking
feeling that her ideas involved some kind of dividing line down the center of
the mattress, or maybe even had him sleeping out in the bunkhouse with his men.
All because he'd been so stupidly noble, pointing out they were still basically
strangers and he didn't want to rush her into anything she wasn't comfortable
with.

He had no notion
she'd ask to go riding across the countryside at two o'clock in the damned
morning. He could argue, but in the time it would take them to pack up and ride
back, they'd arrive just as the wranglers were rising to start the day's
chores. He had plenty to do himself, and his men would get nervous if he didn't
turn up by daybreak. He'd laid down a firm rule years before about men staying
off the spread all night. It was all well and good for a man to disappear into the
bowels of a cathouse and not leave word where he was, but come sunup, it was
time to zip his jeans and get his butt back in a saddle. Del wasn't about to
break his own rule.

"All right,
Mrs. Mitchell. Why don't you use the water pitcher and do whatever you need to.
I'll just get dressed. Maybe I can wash up out back. I'll get Caramel and come
back here for you."

* * *

Twila took one look
at what Del had in his hand when he came back to the hotel room, and felt her
eyes fill once more with tears. He held out the ugliest excuse for a ring she'd
ever seen in her life. A misshapen piece of rock crystal had been melded onto a
loop of silver bent into an uneven, roughly circular shape. The thing was
dreadful.

"I'll buy you
a nicer one, I promise. I just thought you ought to have one when we get back
to town, and the only place open was a gift counter in a saloon half a block
down. Would have been closed, but a whole company of loggers had come down from
the Sierras, eager to spend their pay, so the shopkeeper hadn't yet shut down
for the night. It's all he had."

He slipped it onto
her finger. The heavy crystal lump immediately dropped to the palm side of her
hand. Del scowled and let out a curse. Then he tipped up her chin. "Twila?
Honey, I know it's awful. I said I'll buy you something nicer as soon as I get
a chance. Might be a couple weeks, since I had to pay off your uncle, but you
won't have to live with this."

A big teardrop
splattered onto the atrocity. "But it's
mine
," she hiccupped.
"Not the one you bought for some other woman, like the rug or the bedroom
you added on. This is truly mine. You got it for me."

He grabbed her
wrapped bundle of clothing and bonnet and mumbled something about dad-blamed
females and how he would never understand their thinking process if he lived to
be a thousand. Twila let him settle her in the saddle of the palomino and swing
up behind her before she spoke again. "Delancy. That's your given name,
isn't it? You're Irish?"

"Yes, ma'am.
And hungry. But I guess I can wait until we make it home. Biscuit will have
some grub ready by the time we get there."

"What kind of
name is that?" Twila laughed.

"The kind you
give a man named VanOverbeke, when he's your cook."

She turned
slightly, so she could see his face. "My name's like yours. People call me
by the shortened version."

He slowed the horse
and frowned slightly. "Twila? You got a couple of long la-de-da middle
names or something?"

"No. My given
name is actually Twilagleam." He asked her to repeat it. She did, more
slowly. She felt her cheeks redden. "My uncle's not entirely unjust in his
assessment of my parents. They were somewhat…unconventional. Devoted fans of
Mr. Francis Scott Key."

Del's face broke
into a grin that Twila would always remember as lighting up the morning sky—although
the hint of sun coming up in the east may have played a role too. "
Twilight's
last gleaming
. Well, I'll be jo-fired!" He chuckled softly, and set
the horse to a steady gallop.

It wasn't until
they were beyond town, at the edge of his land, that he slowed Caramel and
slipped out of the saddle, walking the horse the last distance to the barn.
Twila didn't see anyone up and about yet, but smoke wafted up from a chimney of
the building Del had identified as his cookhouse.

"Your parents
were right," he suddenly said, pulling her down from the saddle into his
arms. "You're just as amazing and precious as the last light of every day,
Twila Mitchell. And don't you let anybody tell you otherwise. Come on. Let's go
face the music."

Twila could have
sworn she heard him humming
The Star Spangled Banner
.

The palomino was
taken away by a glum-looking wrangler. Del and Twila headed over to the ranch
house. Del set down Twila's belongings on the porch and scooped her into his
arms. When she tried to protest, he firmly told her to hush. He'd wanted a
wife. Now he had one, and this was always how he'd intended married life to
begin.

He carried her over
the threshold and set her down in the front room. Twila didn't know exactly
what she'd been expecting…hadn't really formed any definite mental image of
what a ranch house might be like. But what she saw surprised her. It was
remarkably
ordinary
.

Somehow her sense
of internal balance was thrown off by that.

When a woman ran
away from home, took a desperate leap of faith, married a man she barely knew,
and consigned herself to an uncertain future, there ought to be something
murky, or glorious, or faintly ominous about the new surroundings she was to
call home. But she saw four walls, bare except for a peg rack stretched across
one and a rock fireplace dominating another, an open doorway to a bedroom, a
large rug covering wood floors just like those at the emporium. A sofa, a
wooden table and chairs, a sideboard. Nothing unusual.

Maybe worse yet,
nothing to send tingles of alarm down her spine. Nothing that didn't somehow
seem to welcome her. She turned her head, taking in the entire scene again. She
couldn't fathom the sensation, but she'd almost swear there was a vague
expectancy here. As if these walls and furnishings had been silently waiting
for this day, the day when Twila would come and call this place home.

"What do you
think?" Delancy asked.

"It's…I don't
know what I pictured, but it's very nice."

He grunted, she
suspected with a tinge of disbelief, and pointed toward the open doorway.
"May as well find room for your things in my bureau in there. I'll build
you a proper wardrobe as soon as I get a chance."

She preceded him
into the adjoining room. Now
here
was something troubling.

"I've never
seen such a massive bed." She hadn't really meant to blurt that out. She
sounded nervous…maybe because suddenly she was.

Del's smile was
benign. "I like to be comfortable. There's a damned good mattress, nice
and thick. Solid frame. Lots of quilts, plenty warm in the winter. Pillows
aren't bad, either, considering I had to pluck my own geese for the feathers.
Had them since I was a boy, but a man can't keep pets. It's silly."

"You killed
your geese to stuff pillows?"

Del started to
laugh. "I was having you on, honey. Just joshing. They're regular pillows.
Go on, and set your stuff down so we can get some breakfast before my men eat
all the sausage and grits."

"You never had
any pets?" she inquired.

He shrugged.
"Raised horses all my life. My father was a breeder, started selling his
stock, training horses for other folks sometimes too. I really couldn't afford
to get too attached to any particular animal. Always the chance one day he'd
have to sell or trade it. How about you? Did your unconventional parents let
you keep a menagerie?"

She set down her
bundle on the bed, tucked the satchel down under the shadows of the bedstead on
the floor by the headboard. Then she stood and wiped a wisp of hair out of her
eyes. "We moved around some. It wasn't really feasible to keep animals. I
do remember a kitten once, but I must have been very young. I can't recall—oh,
I forgot. You're hungry."

"Aren't you
famished?" he chided, gently guiding her out of the house and down a knoll
toward the cookhouse, already bustling with activity.

"No, but
that's probably because everything is so strange and new."

Del paused and
caught her hands in his. "Twila, I know it's a big adjustment. We'll
manage, though. I feel sure you'll come to like it here, if you give us half a
chance. And remember what I promised—I'm looking out for you now."

"Yes,"
she whispered, going up on tiptoes to brush a kiss across his lips.

A loud catcall
echoed, and she instantly flushed, pulling back. But Del didn't release her. He
kept one of her hands firmly entwined with his, even as they were surrounded by
his men.

"Tarnation,
but I owe Zoyer another twenty dollars!" someone yelled.

"So, you up
and got yourself a wife, eh, Del?"

Twila scanned the
faces. Some beamed or looked curious, a few scowled. Most just looked wary, uncertain
how to react.

"Listen, you
busters! I'd like you all to meet Mrs. Delancy Mitchell. Her name's Twila, but
I want every man here to call her Mrs. Mitchell, as is fitting for the wife of
the boss man. Besides, I'm not done enjoying the sound of that yet."

More hoots and
ribald laughter rang out. Twila turned her face into Del's shoulder.

"As you can
see, she's a little shy…until you get to know her," he went on.

"How the heck
did
you
get to?" one of the men shouted. "That's what we're
all wondering. I mean, I was there that day, and we ain't been back from the
sale that long. We all know you work fast, Mr. Mitchell, but—"

"Leon, you can
shut your trap, go fill it with grub, or take your worthless hide off this
spread. I'll count out your pay right now. Anybody else here who wants to spend
time fretting over my marital situation, instead of doing his chores, can
follow suit. This here is your new boss lady. You'll treat her with proper
courtesy and respect. I don't care where she came from, what you've heard, or
what you think. This is my
wife.
That's all you got to know. We
clear?"

Twila wanted to
die, right on the spot. She'd grabbed Del's shirt and shut her eyes tightly,
mortified at his harsh lecture. There was a long, painfully awkward silence. Then
she heard a shuffling and opened her eyes to see a little cloud of dust near
her feet. Henry Dobbs was there, reaching for her left hand and its god-awful
ring.

"I'm pleased
as punch you come to stay with us, Mrs. Mitchell. Don't you let these other fools
bother you none. Most of 'em spend too much time around horses' rear ends.
After a spell, a man takes to acting like one himself. Just want to say howdy,
and if there's anything you need, you just call on Henry Dobbs."

He glanced down for
the first time and took in the horrible excuse for a wedding band. "Mighty
interesting ring you got there. Course, some say the same thing about your
husband."

Twila couldn't help
smiling. Henry had gone beet red. She glanced at Del. "I think he's pretty
wonderful."

That remark broke
the ice. Del dazzled her with a cocky grin. Several of his men clapped. One of
them hollered they needed a good old-fashioned hullabaloo to mark the occasion.
Del held up a hand and cautioned them against involving the whole town. He admitted
that Twila's uncle was probably sore at him, considering that the bridegroom
had spirited his intended away after knocking the older man insensible.

The tale was told
and retold over breakfast, then Del went out with his men to face the day's
tasks, leaving Twila to return to the ranch house alone.

She spent an hour
putting her things away, dusting and sweeping the front room, investigating the
contents of the sideboard cupboards, and generally avoiding that daunting,
oversized bedstead. It wasn't until she'd made room in a bureau drawer for her
unmentionables that she took up the satchel and fretted about what to do.

Del had already
noticed how she tended to obsess over it. He'd asked for her trust, and she
truly wanted to give it. In personal respects, with regard to their own
intimacy and future as man and wife. But he hadn't been involved with the
train, knew nothing of the Vogels, and she wasn't sure she wanted to tell him
about the necklace.

Del was the sort
who saw a problem and just trounced right over it.

Which is exactly
why he was now married to a woman he didn't know the first thing about.