Secondhand Bride (6 page)

H
is booted feet propped on a gaming table, Jack Barrett sat alone in the smoky back room of Tombstone’s Broken Stirrup Saloon, pondering the divorce papers he’d taken from one of Chloe’s hatboxes before her hasty departure for Indian Rock. This was all he meant to her, he reflected, a single document, signed by a lawyer and a judge. Resentment surged through him, but he quelled it quickly; a man in the grip of his emotions, he believed, was a man who could be taken by surprise.

He hated being taken by surprise.

With a slow smile, he pulled a wooden match from the inside pocket of his silk vest, struck it against the edge of the table, and set the decree aflame. When the fire got too hot, he turned in his chair and dropped the blazing sheets of vellum into a spittoon.

He watched idly as Chloe’s personal declaration of independence burned, then lit a cheroot and settled back again to smoke and reflect on what he ought to do next.

He thought of Jeb McKettrick, the man who’d trespassed on his territory, and drew his .44 from the holster on his hip. Snapping it open, he spun the cylinder, frowning. The notches on the handle were a comfort to him— seventeen of them, one for each of the men he’d killed, some in fair fights, some by ambush, for a bounty.

With the pad of his thumb, he traced the small notches, counting them one by one, like the beads on a rosary, remembering, with a sense of accomplishment, each man’s name and the place where he fell. McKettrick, he decided, would make number eighteen, and he’d strike the ground wherever Jack found him, though the circumstances had to be right. Chloe’s lover had brothers, and from what Jack had heard, the McKettricks being well-known in Tombstone, they weren’t the sort to be trifled with. Best catch the bridegroom alone, and off guard, though it would be a pure pleasure to kill him in front of Chloe. That would be a lesson to her, and a memorable one.

He felt a peculiar, quivering sensation in the pit of his stomach, thought briefly that it might be fear, and finally overruled the idea. He could avoid the brothers easily enough and, sure, he’d seen McKettrick use a gun, out behind the Broken Stirrup. He was fast, all right, but that had been a boy’s game, shooting bottles out of the sky for money and fun. A way of showing off.

Jack shook his head at the memory. Where was the challenge in that? It was a waste of good bullets.

Dollars to dog turds, McKettrick had never put a slug in a human being, and now he never would. Before the month was out, he’d be asleep in the arms of the Lord.

Giving a philosophical sigh, Barrett snapped his .44 shut and shoved it back into its holster. The way he saw it, he was saving McKettrick’s soul, though he didn’t reckon anybody would appreciate his effort, most especially Chloe.

His jaw hardened. The little trollop. McKettrick had made a fool of her in front of the whole of Tombstone, marrying her in the afternoon, then leaving her alone in their hotel room while he drank and gambled in this very room. As luck would have it, one of the other players in that night’s game had been the head of the school board, and thus, Chloe’s employer.

Recalling the scene settled Jack’s nerves a little and brought a smile to his lips. He’d snagged McKettrick in the street, right after the ceremony, shown him the wedding portrait he, Jack, and Chloe had had taken two years before. The beaming husband had turned sullen in the space of an instant. Instead of confronting Chloe, Jeb had joined the poker game and proceeded to get royally drunk, and when Chloe had finally come looking for him, well after midnight, she’d found her fancy mister with cards in his hand and a girl on his lap.

She and McKettrick had had words, loud, public ones. She’d finally stormed out, but not before her gaze connected with Jack’s. He’d been leaning against the wall the whole while, smoking and watching, and the look in her eyes went through him like a Mexican bayonet. He felt it again, even after all these weeks, and the pain, the insult of it, almost took his breath away.

He’d loved her so much, and it wasn’t like he hadn’t been patient with her flighty, fickle ways. A lot of men would have killed her for shaming him the way she had, divorcing him before the marriage ever got started, but he’d known she was young and had led a sheltered life up in Sacramento, with those rich folks of hers. He’d been willing to overlook her mistakes and take her back, even to hang up his gun for good, if that was what she wanted. Her folks hadn’t approved of the union, but they’d have come around in time and put up the money for a ranch and some cattle.

They could have done all right, he and Chloe.

Was she grateful that he’d set matters straight where McKettrick was concerned? Hell, no. She’d turned on him, claws bared, said he’d spoiled everything, and that she wished she’d never had the misfortune to make his acquaintance in the first place.

Jack’s chair creaked as he stood and stretched, the.44 a heavy reassurance against his right hip. Trying to comfort Chloe, after McKettrick hit the trail, he’d told her part of what he’d just learned from a drifter, down from Indian Rock: that her handsome lover was in need of a wife and a child, both of which he had to produce if he wanted to come into his inheritance, and that he was not particularly picky about where he dredged them up—but she’d thrown his wise counsel back in his face and threatened to shoot off his kneecaps with that derringer of hers if he didn’t get out of her sight and stay out.

It was partly his own doing, he supposed, that she was so quick with that viperous little tongue of hers. He should have straightened her out long ago. Taught her to mind, like a woman ought to do.

The inside door creaked open, and he almost went for his gun, but it was only one of the saloon girls, simpering at him from behind a veil of war paint. He tried in vain to recall her name, but it wasn’t forthcoming.

“You feelin’ lonely, Jack?” she cooed.

He was lonely, all right, but there was only one woman in the world who could ease his yearning, and that was Chloe.
His
wife. “Send the bartender’s boy over to Carson’s Livery,” he said, ignoring the implicit invitation. “Tell them to saddle my horse.”

The tramp’s rouged mouth formed a pout. “You leavin’ us, Jack?”

He snatched up his coat, from the back of one of the scarred chairs, and reached for his hat, lying in the middle of the table. “Yes,” he answered flatly. “Do as I tell you.”

“Where you goin’?”

He took a threatening step toward her, and she backed out of the doorway, blinking, turned on her heel, and ran to do his bidding.

That, he thought, was more like it. Chloe could take a lesson or two from Little Miss No-name. He put on his hat, checked the .44 again, even though it was always loaded, and headed for the bar.

Half an hour later, with several shots of whiskey under his belt to fortify him for the journey, Jack Barrett rode out, traveling north toward the high country.

S
arah Fee came to take the dirty dishes away and wipe down the tablecloth, and cowboys and local businessmen began to wander into the hotel dining room, greeting Becky, tossing curious glances Chloe’s way, and sitting down at other tables to order breakfast.

“My office would be a better place to talk,” Becky said, looking and sounding distracted. She pushed back her chair and stood.

Chloe followed suit, still feeling unsettled. Whatever Becky was getting ready to tell her about her uncle was obviously weighing on her mind.

The small room behind the registration desk was neat and elegantly furnished, more suited to an Eastern parlor than an establishment like the Arizona Hotel.

“Sit down,” Becky said, indicating a delicate chair covered in dark blue velvet. As Chloe complied, Becky settled herself behind the desk, with its beautifully turned legs. “Just before he died,” the older woman went on, “John asked me to look after you.”

Chloe felt an ache deep in the center of her chest, and a lump formed in her throat. “We were close,” she said, “though we didn’t see much of each other after I grew up.” She’d barely reached her full growth the last time her uncle visited her stepfather’s expensive house in Sacramento; he’d said good-bye that day, with a note of finality in his voice and sorrow in his eyes, and promised to write. He’d kept that promise, but the crack he’d left in Chloe’s heart by going had never really healed.

Becky drew a deep breath, let it out slowly, and tried to smile. “He loved you very much,” she said. “Up till now, I missed him for myself. Now, I miss him for you, too.”

Chloe was on the edge of her seat, her hands clasping the arms of the fancy chair. Her eyes had gone so wide that they burned, and she could barely breathe. “Please,” she whispered. “Tell me.”

Becky sat up a little straighter, set her shoulders resolutely. “There’s no easy way to say something like this— John Lewis wasn’t your uncle, Chloe. He was your father.”

“No,” Chloe said, at once stricken and wildly hopeful. “He was my father’s brother—he said—my mother told me—”

Becky simply waited.

Memories spun in Chloe’s head, unwinding like a watch spring taken from its casing.
John Lewis is a bad influence,
she heard her mother say.
He puts wild ideas in your head.
Then her stepfather’s voice joined in, cool and disapproving, like always.
I know you’re fond of him, Chloe, but it’s better if you don’t see him again.

“Why didn’t they tell me?” Chloe demanded, still reeling. “Why didn’t he?”

Becky leaned to take Chloe’s hand and squeeze it once. “I can’t speak for your mother. I know John kept it to himself because he thought you’d be ashamed of him.”

“Ashamed? He was such a good man—”

“He was,” Becky agreed, with quiet conviction. “But he made some mistakes when he was younger.”

“What kind of mistakes?”

Becky hesitated, then got past whatever had held her back for those few seconds. “John was in prison,” she said. “He was involved in a robbery.”

Chloe thought she would be violently ill from the shock of it. Her gentle, unassuming uncle—
father
—committing a robbery, going to jail? Impossible. She put a hand over her mouth.

Becky rose, went to a cabinet on the other side of the room, and poured water from a carafe. She brought the glass to Chloe, who drank it in three swallows and longed for something stronger, even though she was a firm advocate of temperance.

“I could have used a father,” she said weakly, when she’d set the empty glass aside. Her eyes burned, and her stomach roiled.

Becky remained beside Chloe’s chair, a hand resting lightly on her shoulder. “John thought highly of your stepfather,” she said gently. “He said Mr. Wakefield took good care of you and of your mother. That was more important to him than anything else—knowing that you were all right.”

Chloe realized her face was wet, but she made no move to wipe away the tears. “They must have sent him away,” she fretted. “I’ll never, ever forgive them.”

“Shhh,” Becky said. “You don’t mean that. It couldn’t have been easy for your mother, seeing John. And your stepfather, well, he was probably just trying to keep his family together.”

“Yes, I do mean it!” Chloe argued, a flush stinging its way up her neck to blaze in her cheeks. “I was
so
lonely. Mother and Mr. Wakefield were always traveling, or giving grand parties, or going to them. But John was
there,
whenever he was with me—he made me laugh, and when he looked at me, I felt as if he was really seeing me. When I said something, he paid attention, instead of just waiting for me to be quiet—”

Becky had gotten snagged upstream in the conversation. “You call your stepfather ‘Mr. Wakefield’?” she asked, pulling her chair around from behind the desk so she could sit beside Chloe. She pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and handed it over.

Chloe dried her face. “Yes,” she said. “So does Mother.”

“Amazing,” said Becky, shaking her head.

Chloe shot to her feet, too agitated to sit, and began to pace. “Someone should have told me!” she raged. “Dear
God,
how I hate being lied to!”

“People lie for all sorts of reasons, Chloe. In this case, it was to protect you.”

“I didn’t want to be protected—I wanted a father!”

“I’m sorry.”

Chloe stopped. “For telling me the truth?”

“No,” Becky answered, with a sigh. “I’m convinced it was the right thing to do. John would have done it himself if he’d lived. What I meant was, I’m sorry for all you went through, Chloe. I truly am.”

“I lost my father without even knowing I had one,” Chloe mourned.

Becky rose, put her arms around her, and Chloe let herself be held while she sobbed, just as she’d done the day before, with Jeb.

She’d best be careful, she thought, or this tendency toward weakness might get to be a habit.

“There’s another thing John would do, if he were here,” Becky said gently. “He’d ask about you and Jeb. What went wrong between you, Chloe?”

Chloe sniffled. “I was married before,” she admitted. “To a man named Jack Barrett. It—it was a terrible mistake—I ran away from home to marry him, and my mother and Mr. Wakefield were furious with me. I sent them a wire, told them Jack had lied to me, that he was a gunslinger, an outlaw. They’d left on one of their trips by then, and their lawyer wired back that I’d made my bed and ought to sleep in it.”

Becky made a clucking sound, motherly disapproval of a cruel fate, or, at least, that was the way Chloe chose to interpret it. She held Chloe at arm’s length, searched her face. “Where does Jeb figure into all this?”

Chloe sighed, shook her head. “One day, I was minding my own business, coming out of a store, and I ran into him, dropped all my packages. He was so—I don’t know—the way he smiled—”

Becky nodded encouragingly.

“I think I fell in love with him, right there on the sidewalk. We started seeing each other, and everything happened so fast—” She paused, blushed. She lamented Jeb’s reckless nature, but she was impetuous herself. Hadn’t she flouted propriety by leaving home to travel to one of the wildest towns in the West, and marry a highly unsuitable man? Hadn’t she undone two years of hard work and common sense only to make the same grave error all over again, and all because Jeb McKettrick set her heart to racing whenever he looked at her?

She didn’t want a man like Jeb. She wanted someone like Rafe or Kade. Someone settled and responsible.

Didn’t she?

“Obviously, something went very wrong,” Becky prompted.

Chloe bit her lower lip. “I should have told Jeb about Jack, and I didn’t. I was—I was afraid he wouldn’t want me. When he found out, there was no reasoning with him.” She felt heat surge into her face. “I lied by omission, but Jeb lied outright. He said—he said he loved me. If he had, he would have been willing to listen. Instead, he spent our wedding night swilling whiskey, playing poker, and consorting with low women!”

Becky touched Chloe’s hair, and it was a comforting gesture, the kind her mother had never made. “His pride was hurt,” she said. “Men are silly that way. Give him some time, Chloe.”

But Chloe was already shaking her head. “I’ve made a fool of myself twice already,” she said, with vehemence. “I won’t do it again!”

“Only twice?” Becky asked, smiling. “That’s a pretty good record.”

Chloe pulled away, pacing. “From now on,” she vowed, to herself as well as Becky, “I mean to make my own way in the world. If I ever marry again, it won’t be for love.”

Becky raised an eyebrow, considering Chloe’s words. Then she sighed, went to the door, and laid a graceful hand on the knob. “Let’s hope you come to your senses before you get the opportunity,” she said, and left Chloe alone to stew in furious regret.