Mail-Order Groom (10 page)

Soon enough, the truth would come out. She would likely feel betrayed. He was a crackerjack with words, able when he wanted to charm and cajole almost as thoroughly as Mariana could in her heyday. But when tender feelings were involved, Adam got muddled. He didn't like to talk about how he felt about things.

But he did like to
feel
. He hadn't known that about himself until he'd met Savannah. He hadn't known he had such
a capacity to feel warmth and caring and protectiveness. Grateful for that—grateful for
her
most of all—Adam stroked the door.

“Aww. Isn't that darling?” The minister's wife bustled into the sitting room, spying Adam's pose with a knowing look. “You can't bear to be separated for a single moment. So romantic.”

Caught, Adam jerked backward. “Are we ready to start?”

“Soon. Soon.” Wearing a pleased little smile, the woman came closer. She lifted something in her hand. A nosegay of wildflowers. “First, you hold still while I gussy you up.”

Impatiently Adam glanced at the doorway she'd entered through. “Where are the witnesses? You went to get witnesses.”

“They're waiting in the anteroom. Hold still.”

She came at him with the flowers. They'd been fashioned into a boutonniere, Adam saw. “I don't need those,” he said. “Miss Reed likes me as I am. Let's just get started.”

She gave him a peculiar look. “We will. We have the minister, the witnesses, the marriage license and—” she tilted her head toward the next room “—the bride. All we're waiting on is for
you
to be properly dandified for your own wedding.”

Clearly the woman would not take
no
for an answer. Obediently Adam struck his chest forward. He held still.

“There.” The minister's wife fussed with a few pins, her wrinkled hands busy at his suit coat lapel. “Fine. You look—”

“Perfect,”
Savannah breathed from the doorway.

Adam glanced up at her. In that moment, he was lost.

There was nothing he wouldn't have done to make her his. Her eyes were bright, her face was beyond pretty and her dress fit her as though it had been sewn by angels. But
those things weren't what made him feel that he would have moved heaven and earth to make her happy. What made him feel that way…was
her
.

Savannah gazed up at him in wonder, and Adam wanted to live up to the magic she saw in him. She stepped quickly toward him, and he wanted to be worthy of her eagerness. She pronounced him perfect, and he longed to justify her good opinion. He wanted to be
better
, for her. He swore in that moment he would be.

Feeling his chest tighten with emotion, Adam inhaled a fortifying breath. “I… You look… The witnesses are—”

Wholly unable to make sense of himself, he gestured toward the anteroom. His first attempt at being
better
had not been a success. Evidently, Adam realized with a despairing heart, he was not yet ready to be a better man—even for Savannah's sake.

But somehow, she understood him. She stepped closer and took his hand, then gazed up into his face with such warmth and caring that Adam felt entirely undone by it.

“I…” she said. “That is… Your suit is so—”

Savannah's eyes widened. Her cheeks colored as she realized that what had emerged from her mouth was at least as garbled as what had come from his. Embarrassed, she glanced away, causing him to fear she might be on the verge of a full-blown curtsy.

Adam squeezed her hand. He urged her to look at him again. He swallowed past his curiously tight throat. “At least we're a matching pair,” he said. “We fit together, the two of us.”

She laughed then, loudly, and he knew everything would be all right. In her eyes, his jest had made him a hero again.

Filled with pride, trailed by the minister's sentimental wife, Adam led his bride to the sitting-room door. Stopping
on the threshold, insensible to any curious onlookers, he gazed down at Savannah. “Are you ready, Miss Reed?”

“As long as you're beside me,” she told him as she lifted her head high, “I'm ready for anything, Mr. Corwin.”

They clasped hands more tightly and headed for the place where the minister waited—ready to tell lies that, if they were very lucky, might eventually come true for them both.

 

Eyeing his brother with trepidation, Linus Bedell shifted nervously from foot to foot. His damned stolen boots rubbed on his big toes, making his movements hurt. But his toes didn't hurt as much as the rest of him would hurt if things went bad. Ever since riding up to Linus's secret hiding place, Curtis had been getting himself ornerier and ornerier. If Linus knew his brother, that meant somebody was getting smacked pretty soon. “I
knew
you was holding out on us!” Curtis said as he paced beside his picketed horse. “I
knew
you was up to no good.”

“I wasn't. I swear! It ain't like that.” Linus waggled his head from side to side as vehemently as he could without shaking it clean off. “All I was doing was watching the telegraph station, waitin' for a chance to sneak in and get that money.”

“Yeah. And ride off with it all to your own self, I bet.” Curtis's eyes narrowed. “Good thing Roy sent me out here to keep a watch on you.” That was how Curtis had happened to spy the lady and the detective leaving the station this morning—and how he'd come to follow them partway on their journey, besides. “Likely
Roy
was suspicious of you, too. He's smart as a whip. He prob'ly knows you're a no-good, selfish liar, clean through.”

“Hey. There's no call for gettin' nasty,” Linus complained.

“Why not? You done let that telegraph lady 'most heal up that cuss Corwin, nearly all the way! Would it have killed you to creep down there one night and smother him in his sleep or somethin'?” Curtis frowned. “I swear, you're plumb useless.”

“I am not. I just don't like the idea of killin', is all.”

“Even a baby could smother somebody, Linus.” His brother appeared disgusted. “I don't know why Roy puts up with you.”

“Probably 'cause
I'm
going to be the one to bring in all that gal's nest-egg money.” Driven to the boast by Curtis's insufferable behavior, Linus pointed to the distant station. It hunkered in the valley below the bluff they were on, peaceful and snug. “I've been waitin' on my chance, and now here it is.”

“Well, the place is deserted by now for sure, I'd say. Corwin and that woman rode almost all the way into Avalanche. I saw 'em afore I turned around and came back here. They'll be gone awhile—leaving all the more time for us to git our share of that money
and
whatever else we can find, besides.”

“The place ain't all the way deserted,” Linus pointed out. He nibbled his lip, thinking of that big station helper who scared him. The only reason Linus hadn't yet investigated the station was that that man was still there. “There's a—”

“I wouldn't have minded if that woman
was
here, though. She's a right fine-looking piece of ladyhood.” Clearly ignoring Linus in favor of his latest reverie, Curtis gazed into the distance with a hungry expression. “I sure could use me a woman like that sometime. She would treat me real nice, I bet.”

Linus couldn't stand it. “She would not. She's fancy. She wouldn't even like you. She's way too good for someone—”

Like you,
he meant to say, but Curtis hauled off and smacked him—as usual—cutting off the rest of his words.

Seeing stars, Linus clapped his hand to his stinging jaw. He let loose a yowl of pain, then kicked his brother. His stolen boot made a satisfying clunk as it connected with Curtis's shin.

Curtis hollered. A second later, the two of them were in the dirt, rolling and punching. Linus opened his mouth to swear at his brother. He tasted gritty Arizona Territory dust instead. Worse, he got a big lungful of Curtis's unwashed stink.

“Tarnation, Curtis! Can't you take a bath sometime?”

Another punch. “You shut your mouth, halfwit.”

Linus rolled and kicked. “You try and make me.”

“I will.” Another hard blow to the head. “There.”

“Didn't hurt a bit.” Dizzily Linus panted. “See?”

He rolled over to his hands and knees, preparing to get to his feet and show Curtis exactly how wimpy his punches were. But an instant later, a big booted foot caught him in the ribs.

Linus collapsed with a helpless
oof
sound. Beside him, Curtis grunted and did the same. That was strange. That was…

A shadow fell over them both. Newly alert, Linus looked up.

His brother Edward stood there with his legs spread apart. Like usual, he appeared ill tempered, mean and tidily dressed.

“Edward.” With his eyes wide, Curtis scrambled himself out of boot-kicking range. “How'd you get here so fast?”

“Shut up. You're both pathetic.”

Curtis nodded dumbly. Linus only gaped in hushed reverence, afeared to move in case he called unwanted attention to himself. Everybody knew better than to cross Edward Bedell. He was almost as smart as Roy, and he was twice as ruthless, to boot.

Linus's ploy didn't work. Edward kicked him anyway.

“That's for not hearing me ride up here.”

“S-sorry, Edward!” Linus cowered. “We was busy.”

Curtis got a kick, too. He bared his teeth like a dog.

“There. Now you're both even. And I hear we got ourselves a party in the making.” Appearing cheered by the whaling he'd given them, Edward rubbed his palms together. He nodded toward the telegraph station. “I'd say it's about time we got started.”

Behind him, the final Bedell brother dismounted from his horse—the one they'd filched from that detective, Corwin. Wynn Bedell moseyed over to stand beside Edward. He spat a brownish stream of tobacco juice in the dirt, rousing a buzzing fly.

Linus couldn't imagine how he'd ignored the sounds of his other brothers approaching. That was just plain idiotic of him. He knew better. Aggravated to have his sweet setup ruined—and seeing his hopes of impressing Roy with getting that nest-egg money fadin' fast—he cast a sour look at Curtis.

“You went all the way to town and told
them
?” he asked.

Curtis shrugged. “I had time. 'Specially riding that fast horse I pinched. 'Sides, I didn't like the way Corwin looked at me on the road to Avalanche, all promisin' revenge or somethin'. I figured I'd better collect me some backup, just in case.”

“
I
coulda been your backup!” Wounded by Curtis's lack
of faith in him, Linus made a face. “I ain't so small that I can't git in a lick or two when it's necessary. I swear, Curtis—”

“Shut up, the both of you,” Edward said. “I'm thinking.”

Instantly they fell silent. Curtis offered a meek nod.

“And what I'm thinking is this: we're going to that station down there,” Edward announced, “and we're going to get…whatever the hell we want.” He grinned. But his was a cruel smile, too filled with malice to be likable. “Linus, you stay up here and keep watch. Signal us if anybody comes near.”

“But there's still somebody down at the station.” Anxiously Linus pointed. He shuffled backward, too, just in case his warning irked Edward, who was prone to getting indignant over the smallest thing—like a wrinkled shirt. “That woman's got herself a big colored man for a helper. He's in the station—”

“He'll get what's coming to him. Don't you worry about that.” Unconcerned by the notion of an innocent person being present in the place he intended to loot, Edward plucked out his firearm. He checked it, then gave a contented nod and holstered it again. For now. “Nobody stands between me and what I want.”

“Well, Roy kinda does,” Linus pointed out. “He's the bo—”

His words ended in a wheeze as Edward cuffed him in the head. Linus clutched his skull. He gazed sullenly upward. “Ain't nobody
my
boss,” Edward told him, just like he'd been one of them gypsies reading Linus's mind. “Not even Roy.”

All the brothers nodded. Wynn shifted his wad of chaw in his mouth, sending a contemplative look toward the
telegraph station. Whenever they had a job to do, Wynn got spookily quiet.

But Linus only got more morose. Especially over what had just happened between him and Curtis, who'd up and tattled on him with no warning at all. And over what had happened between him and Edward, too. His big brother might have given him a chance to help out—to share what tips he'd picked up during all his shrewd watching of the telegraph station over these past few days. That would have been the upright thing to do.

But since Edward hadn't done that, Linus vowed right then and there not to worry no more about his brothers' immortal souls. Not Edward's
or
Curtis's
or
Wynn's
or
Roy's. Instead he'd start worrying about his own soul. Exclusively from now on.

Well, maybe he'd think about Roy's soul, too, Linus amended, feeling guilty about throwing Roy to the devil like that. But only because Roy had been kindest of all to him. And that was it. He was done with watching over the rest of them.

As his three brothers saddled up, Linus made himself think cannily. He watched the others without moving, then waved them off toward the station—just like he would've done if he'd been going to do what Edward asked. Then, the minute that Edward, Curtis, and Wynn rode out of sight, Linus left his watch post.

Defiantly he scurried through the trees and down the hillside, set to warn that big colored man by whatever means his poor bruised noggin could think up. Hopefully by the time he got down to the station he'd be a few steps ahead of his eternally damned brothers and their always-ready guns, to boot.