Promises Linger (Promise Series) (2 page)

Loud hoots and ribald offers broke through the privacy of the argument to fill the saloon. Brent’s pale face grew red. His gaze ricocheted between the speakers, as if every comment were a blow from an unseen fist. If Elizabeth had been looking to get a bit of her own back, she couldn’t have chosen a better weapon, Asa decided. Attacking a man’s mother or his privates was a guaranteed reaction-getter. Respect was a hard animal to corral here in the territory. Once a man had it roped and fenced, he didn’t just open the gate and let it get away. Especially as respect had a way of turning wily once it slipped a man’s lariat. Wasn’t a man born who didn’t know that or hadn’t learned it the hard way.

From what Asa could see of the bottom line, Brent had fouled up big time as a husband, and Elizabeth had gotten a bit of her own back. While he didn’t think the two had a shot at making a peaceful marriage, this game was about played out. Someone had to give, and he didn’t think it was going to be Brent. Elizabeth had her husband backed into a corner. From the way Brent was sitting, shoulders squared, fists at the ready, Asa figured he was planning to come out fighting. Asa couldn’t tell if Elizabeth saw, or if she was so disappointed in her choice of husband, she just didn’t care, because, to his amazement, she kept driving her point deeper.

“If I were to need an annulment, Jesse Graham informs me that’s all the cause I’d need.”

“You went to a son of a bitching lawyer?”

Asa returned the front legs of his chair to the floor. He might have been off in his assessment. If the gambler wanted to come out of this with some skin left on his pride, he might want to withdraw and regroup in private. Elizabeth was one resourceful woman. Unwelcome admiration cozied up to the arousal humming through his blood. Damn. He didn’t need to be in the middle of this.

“A woman has so few options, she can’t afford to be ill informed,” Elizabeth stated simply. “Especially when she has the poor sense to take up with a pathetic excuse of a man such as you.”

With a roar, Brent came out of the chair. He made it halfway to his feet before a stool broke across his face, pole-axing him to the floor where he struggled to find up from down.

Like everyone else in the saloon, Asa found himself sitting in slack-jawed amazement as the pristine example of a lady dropped the remains of the stool, turned, and deftly whipped a six-shooter out of the holster of a man who was wisely scrambling for safety. With a familiarity that eased his mind, she checked to be sure it was loaded, cocked the hammer, and aimed it dead center between her husband’s eyes.

“If I were you,” she said in a very soft, very controlled voice. “I’d stay put.”

“Damned bitch.” Brent swore, holding his bleeding nose. “I’m going to beat you black and blue for this.”

“No.” Elizabeth adjusted the aim of the pistol a little to the left until it lined up with the freckle on the corner of Brent’s eyebrow. The one she’d once viewed as his perfect imperfection. “You’re not.”

He was never going to touch her again. Of that, Elizabeth was sure. She’d die before she allowed that to happen.

Brent pulled out a handkerchief and wiped the blood from his nose. “Who’s going to stop me?”

Her lips didn’t quite make it into the confident smile she was struggling for. Elizabeth could feel them hang up somewhere in the range of a grimace. She hoped the resulting expression wasn’t too pathetic. She didn’t need to be showing weakness in front of this crowd. “For sixteen years before I was the Miss Elizabeth Coyote you claim to love, I was Coyote Bill’s wild daughter. And, I assure you, four years back East in a fancy finishing school hasn’t done much to smooth my rough edges.”

“I knew she looked familiar,” an old timer at the far end of the bar crowed, slapping his thigh.

Brent looked at her over the bulk of the handkerchief he held to his nose, the wad of bloody linen doing nothing to diminish his skepticism. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“It means you’d best watch your back, gambler man, if you’re the one who blacked Wild Elly’s eye,” the old timer hooted.

Brent didn’t take his eyes off the gun aimed at his head. “Shut up, you old fool.”

“Appears to me you ain’t the one in charge right now.”

“I will be.”

“How very like you to be a braggart to the humiliating end.” Elizabeth cut in, taking a step forward. “I cannot believe I was so stupid as to think grammar and dress made the man.”

It was a mistake she wouldn’t be making again.

With her elbow, Elizabeth indicated the pile of money still lying on the table. “Could someone count two hundred and twenty dollars out of that pile?”

“Hey,” Brent protested as a young cowpoke hastened to help out. “You said two hundred before.”

“That was before I had to reimburse the owner of this fine establishment for a chair.”

“Here’s your money, ma’am.”

“As my hands are occupied, could you put it in my pocket? Without stepping between me and my almost-husband,” she tacked on as the young man made to step in front of her.

For a few minutes, everyone watched as the kid fumbled in the vicinity of Elizabeth’s right side, too shy to actually touch her skirt.

“Whatever are you doing?” Her question was sharper than she intended, betraying her nervousness. She took a breath and mentally counted to ten, maintaining her composure through sheer force of will as, with an embarrassed mumble, the red-faced kid shoved the money hard enough into her skirt pocket to tip her sideways. The guffaws following her small teeter set her nerves to screaming again. The only reason this crowd hadn’t turned on her was they were enjoying the show, but that could change any second. She needed to finish what she started and get out of here fast if she intended to get out of here at all

Elizabeth took two cautious steps back. “Good riddance, Brent.”

“I’ll see you back at the ranch, Elly,” Brent retorted. His confidence in his rights was supposed to scare her, she knew. Snap her back in line like a cur who’d forgotten its place. It just went to show how little Brent knew her that he actually thought it would work.

As the warning hung in the air, floating on the smoke-filled haze, Elizabeth knew all eyes were upon her. She could feel them, like hands reaching out of the murk. Some laughing, some goading, but all of them waiting for her to flinch or back down. She wasn’t doing either. She’d been expecting the threat. Someone as blindly selfish as Brent would never take a woman seriously. The knowledge didn’t prevent a shiver of fear from snaking down her spine when she thought of what would happen if Brent ever got his hands on her again. Her finger tightened on the trigger. The only thing that kept the bullet in the chamber was the scorn-laced memory of her father’s voice saying, “You lose control, Elly, you lose everything.”

She had no intention of losing ever again.

When her face muscles felt rigid from the effort to appear unconcerned, she pushed conviction into her voice. “If you set one foot on Rocking C land, you’ll get a bullet between your eyes.”

“I don’t think so.”

The confidence in his voice started a quiver of uncertainty deep inside. She took a breath and immediately regretted it. The smoke that had collected in the musty interior burned her lungs. She suppressed a cough and regrouped. She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t show weakness. She would, however, tighten her grip on the gun and finish what she’d started; undoing the mistake of the day before. “Stay off my land, Brent.”

She wrapped each word in precise enunciation for maximum effect. She might as well have saved her breath. Not by a flicker of an eyelash did Brent let on she’d so much as scratched his arrogance. Instead, he wiped a fresh trickle of blood from his lip with the back of his hand. His teeth bared in a savage, confident smile. “You won’t shoot me, Elly.”

Why did men continually believe that because she was female, she was as inconsequential as dandelion fluff?

“You’re wrong,” she informed him. She was close, so damned close to pulling the trigger that her fingers ached with the effort not to squeeze. She hated him for turning her wedding night from anticipation to terror. She hated him for being weak when she needed someone strong, but mostly she hated him for betraying her faith in her own judgment.

“If you kill me, Elly,” he went on, dabbing at the blood on his shirt, “then you’re back where you started, the ranch going to hell, the bank note coming due, and no husband to turn the situation around.”

God! Had she really thought this man’s clothes and speech had put him a step up on the local men? “I imagine I’ll find a way.”

“Not in time, you won’t,” Brent inserted the taunt smoothly into the conversation. “Coyote Bill loved that ranch more than life itself.” The glance he shot her was calculating. “What would he think of a daughter who, in an attack of bridal jitters, lost the Rocking C?”

“I have no intention of losing anything,” she responded calmly. Of that, she was certain. She wouldn’t lose the ranch. She may not have been the boy her father had wanted, but she’d shed blood for that land. Worked it as hard as any man before Coyote Bill had discovered she’d had other uses as a woman. The Rocking C was hers. As much a part of her as her mother’s intelligence and her father’s determination. She would surrender it to no one. Least of all a wastrel like Brent. The weight of the gun made her arms ache. She raised the muzzle so it was back on target. “I have absolutely no intention of losing, period.”

“If you continue with this lunacy, you will,” Brent’s calm equaled her own. “As your husband, I can sell it anytime I want.” His voice lowered, became harsh. “Just like I can take you across that street anytime I want and teach you a woman’s place.”

Despite her efforts, a spark of fear slipped through her guard. Elizabeth ignored the rumblings of the other men in the bar. Her gaze focused on the widest spot between Brent’s eyebrows. If he made one move in her direction, he was dead. “Are you through?”

“No. While you may want to forget our marriage took place yesterday, the law isn’t so flexible.” The smile he spread around the room was an open invitation for the other males to commiserate with his position.

She didn’t have enough bullets in her gun to shoot the men who met Brent’s smile with an understanding one of their own. Deep inside, the shuddering started. Oh God! What if they all turned on her? She searched the room with her eyes, looking for a friendly face. Her gaze collided with a dark set of eyes in the corner. The big man sat, his back braced against the wall. Despite the laziness of his posture, there was something in the set of his shoulders that told her he was as intent on the conversation as everyone else. His gaze was steady, unnerving, but somehow soothing, as if inviting her trust. She wasn’t stupid enough to believe in the invitation, but if all hell broke loose, she hoped he’d be in the small contingent on her side.

“We are married, Elly,” Brent pronounced, turning back to her, his position obviously bolstered by the silent communion with the other patrons. “The Rocking C is mine.”

“If that were the case,” Elizabeth countered calmly, allowing no uncertainty into her voice, “I’d not be wasting a perfectly good bullet by letting it sit in this gun.”

She might be losing her mind, but she swore the big man with the dark eyes just gave her the thumbs up as he tipped his hat back. Even with the dim light, there was no mistaking the handsomeness of his face or the self-confidence in his expression. Since she had a need, she took some of his self confidence as her own. As a result, her voice, when she continued, betrayed nothing but strength. “Lucky for you, our marriage wasn’t legal.”

“The hell it wasn’t! Reverend!”

Elizabeth followed the trajectory of Brent’s gaze to the far corner of the saloon. A crow of a man garbed in black sat slumped over a table. When Brent bellowed again, the form shifted, moaned, and then raised its head.

“Wh-what?”

“Reverend? Was the wedding you performed yesterday legal?”

“It’s as legal as the parties involved want it to be,” the haggard man muttered before leaning to the side of the table and retching violently.

Beyond a flinching of her right eyelid, Elizabeth didn’t let on that the sound or sight bothered her.

“Let me clarify things for you, Brent,” she offered in that same controlled tone she’d used since walking through the swinging doors. “Because the circuit priest comes through here so rarely, the territory has been recognizing weddings performed by Reverend Pete under common law. As long as both parties are satisfied with the union, there’s no problem.” Her shoulder lifted on a shrug. “Unfortunately for you, I’m not satisfied.”

Brent wiped at his eyes, stared at the blood on his pants, and looked down the barrel of the revolver. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he finally burst out.

“I’m saving my ranch from the hands of a wastrel.”

“You’re saving your ranch!” He dropped his head back against the wall and laughed. “That’s a hoot! The reason it was so easy to pull the wool over your eyes in the first place was because you were in such a big hurry to get married.” He stopped laughing long enough to drive his point home. “Or did you forget the way the men won’t take orders from a woman? Or the way the bank won’t extend credit to a woman? Or the way rustlers have been swooping down on your precious ranch for the last three months ever since word got out that Coyote Bill’s dead?”