Savage Impulses (9 page)

“Your woman's a runaway whore,” Black
informed him.

Marigold winced away from the words that Jake
had used against her.

Jake never moved his gaze from Black. “She's
got more honor in her little finger than you could hope to find in
all your family, Black, but I'm not here to talk about that. She's
mine, she always will be, so you just let her go. I am not warning
you again.”

“She's not...”

The words were barely out of Black's mouth
before Jake reversed the rifle and jabbed the butt hard into
Black's face.

The other man howled, letting go of
Marigold's arm to cover a suddenly fountaining nose. He fell to the
ground, covering his face with his hands.

The men who gathered around him looked less
than sympathetic.

“We'll take care of this, Sloan,” one of them
said. “We've been waiting for a chance to take Black apart ages
ago.”

“See that you leave enough for the sheriff,”
Jake said calmly.

Marigold was so relieved to see Jake that she
nearly collapsed in a heap, but then she met his eyes. They were
dark and cold, and suddenly she remembered the stranger who had won
her over a hand of cards and never wanted her. The look struck a
deep spear of terror into her gut, and she reached out a pleading
hand to him.

He looked down at her offered hand with no
more understanding than a wolf would if a fawn offered it a hoof,
but finally he took it, bringing her close so that she could curl
her hand around his forearm. He guided her around the
still-shouting bulk of Black, and they walked into the street.

“Jake...,” she began, “Thank you so much,
I....”

“Shut up.”

His words were deep and furious, and it was
all she could do not to cringe away. There was a black rage
radiating off of him, and she was bewildered as to where it was
coming from.

Instead of leading her to Tamu, who was
hitched at the post, he lead her straight to one of the nearby
hotels. It was not a nice place, she realized as he paid for a
room. The girls in skimpy clothing nearly identical to what she had
worn were lurking in the lobby, and she could hear the man at the
desk ask if Jake wanted a room for the night or for the hour.

Marigold blinked to see one of the whores
waving at her, and she realized that the small blond was Maisey,
the girl who Black had threatened what seemed like so long ago.

Cautiously keeping eye on Jake, she walked
over to Maisey. The girl smiled at her encouragingly and leaned in
close to visit.

“We barely recognized you in your dress!”
Maisey exclaimed. “You look like a real lady.”

Marigold plucked at the sleeve of her calico
dress. She loved it, both for the cheerful berry pattern and what
it represented, but she knew that in this disreputable setting, it
made her look out of place.

“Thank you, that means a great deal to me,”
she said softly.

“We've all been talking about how you got
away from Black,” Maisey whispered, excited. “Is that your new
man?”

Glancing over her shoulder, Marigold could
see the hard lines of Jake's back, and the ruthlessly erect way he
held himself. There was something so unforgiving about him, and she
wondered a little wildly what she could have done.

“I hope so,” she said fervently, and the
little blond surprised her with a tight hug.

“It'll work itself out,” Maisey said
earnestly. “It always does if you keep on believing it will.”

The kind words gave her some kind of courage,
but it disappeared as Jake lead her to a room in the hotel. There
was a large bed in the center of it, which was certainly promising,
but though she sat down in it, Jake refused to stray very far from
the locked door.

Instead, he took out his wallet and started
to count dollar bills from it. She started to get a sinking
feeling, and that was before he spoke.

“There,” he said bitingly, setting the bills
on the short stand by the bed.

“That should be enough to cover the nights
you spent with me and to see you off to wherever you are going. Not
that you give a good goddamn what I have to say, but I pray to God
that it will be far away from me.”

“What are you talking about?” Marigold cried.
“I'm not a whore, Jake, I've told you over and over again!”

“What else do you call a woman who stays with
a man for several nights, who does what we did together, and then
runs off as soon as that man doesn't meet her standards
anymore?”

“What?”

“You were leaving me, Marigold, don't even
try to pretend you weren't. Either you decided that you didn't care
to be a rancher's woman, or you just decided that I was being slow
with the cash.”

She was so stung by his words that she almost
didn't react when he turned to leave. All it took was his hand on
the door to make her realize that he was serious.

She realized that he really could throw away
everything that they had together, and a sudden wave of temper
washed over her, taking away her sorrow, her confusion and her hurt
and leaving nothing but a cleansing rage.

In three quick steps, she had crossed the
room to where he was standing, and when he turned around to see
what she wanted, she shoved him so hard that his back hit the
door.

“You blind fool,” she hissed. “How could you
think I would ever leave you? How could you even dream that I
wanted to run?”

“I come to town, and I find a horse that I
bought where I never put her,” he said stonily. “You'd saddled up a
horse that didn't belong to you, and you never even bothered to
tell me where you were going.”

A part of her grieved to think that she had
hurt him so, even inadvertently, but the rest of her was intent on
speaking its piece before the chance to do so passed forever.

“I was coming to town to post a telegram,”
Marigold spat. “You know, those things that people use to tell each
other what's going on? I was sending a message.”

“And who was that to? A possible protector
back east? A prospector with more gold than teeth?”

His acid reply made her want to tear out her
hair.

“No!” she shouted. “It was to my sister!”

“Your sister?”

He finally had the grace to look a little
uncertain, but now she had built up a full head of steam and had
every intention of charging.

“Yes! My sister Elspeth, who lives in Bristol
and who has not had word of me since I set foot on the ship. My
sister, who cared for me like a mother, and who never even wanted
me to leave Bristol, let alone leave the country! She expected to
hear from me as soon as I landed, but, of course, that didn't
happen, and I can only imagine the worry and the pain I have put
her through.”

Jake was beginning to look like he
understood.

Marigold shoved the message that she had
written to the telegraph operator into his hand.

“See there,” she said bitterly. “That's all
the proof I have. If you need more, I suppose that it would be
better off that we never saw each other again, because Jake, my
heart cannot take any more of this...”

There was a long moment as he read the
missive.

Marigold was certain she had lost him
entirely. She was so sick at heart that she was past the point of
tears. All she could think about was never getting to feel Jake's
arms around her again, never feeling his lips against hers or
hearing his voice whisper her name.

She didn't hear him move as he crossed the
floor, and she cried out when he spun her around and wrapped his
arms around her.

“Forgive me, Marigold, I have been a
fool.”

They were the words that she needed to hear,
the ones that guaranteed that he would stay by her side, but she
had honestly been expecting something so different that her knees
buckled underneath her.

He caught her and crushed her to his chest,
murmuring her name over and over again like a prayer.

She knew she had won, but the rush of fear
had left, leaving nothing else.

“I don't want to leave you,” she whispered, a
tremulous note in her voice.

“I never want you to,” he assured her.

“I can't... I can't stand it when you call me
names and tell me that I must...that I must be a whore.” Her voice
cracked, and her attempt to keep it steady only made it wobble
more.

“I never will again,” Jake swore. “God as my
witness, I will never call you a whore again.”

“I... I love you, and I can't take it when
you're cruel to me, I simply can't...”

He made a deep sound in his chest like a
wounded animal, and he sat down on the bed, holding her in his lap
and rocking her like a child.

“Oh, darling, darling,” he whispered. “I'm so
sorry, I never wanted to hurt you like this. I love you, I love
you, and I would rather give up my right arm before I would hurt
you again.”

The relief was so intense that Marigold burst
out crying. The tears ran down her face and soaked Jake's
shirt.

He only continued to hold her, stroking her
hair and crooning sweet love words into her hair.

“You are my beautiful woman, my darling, my
hellcat. You are everything that I want, both in bed and out, and I
cannot let you leave now, not when I know now what we mean to one
another...”

Slowly, her tears dried, and he kissed her
wet face solemnly.

“Did you mean that?” she demanded.

“All of it,” Jake assured her. “I'll say any
of it again if you want.”

“And you'll never speak to me in such a way
again? And you'll never hurt me so?”

He nodded solemnly.

She bit her lip.

“And you do love me?”

That last was uttered with such shyness and
fear that it made Jake close his arms around her tight. “Oh yes,”
he murmured, holding her against him. “Ever since I first met you.
Before. I was born to love you Marigold Morgan, and I will never,
ever stop.”

With those words ringing in her ears,
Marigold finally relaxed, and when Jake leaned down for a kiss, she
returned it with the spirit that he had grown to love.

“I love you,” she said softly. “I love you, I
love you, I love you.”

As she curled in his arms, she saw their
entire lives spool ahead of them, two hearts that beat as one, and
she knew she had come home.

The End