The Courting of Widow Shaw (16 page)

T
he wagon lurched. Glory felt every bump in the road, every uneven jolt that jostled her body. She’d been ushered into the back of Steven’s buckboard wagon and hidden beneath a layer of supplies. Nothing much could make the ride pleasant—she’d been tossed in like a sack of grain, covered with a scratchy wool blanket and surrounded by all manner of ranching equipment and food staples. Steven had leaned a bag of sugar next to her shoulders, a sack of flour by her head and he’d even seen fit to cover her backside up with two lightweight wooden boards, that suddenly didn’t feel light any longer.

“How’re you doing back there?” Steven called out in something of a whisper.

“I can’t breathe. I’m being beat up by a sack of potatoes and my backside hurts like the dickens,” she whispered back.

Steven chuckled. “Hang on, Glory. We’re well out of town. Soon as I make the bend in the road, I’ll get you outta there. And then I’ll see to your backside,” he said, his amusement ringing in her ears.

She grumbled a reply and heard Steven chuckle again.

It seemed like half an eternity before the wagon stopped and she felt the weight of the boards, then the blanket being lifted from her.

“Sorry, couldn’t be helped,” Steven said, and the scent of fresh air and dry earth pleasured her senses. The dark sky illuminated by hundreds of bright stars lit Steven’s face as she peered up. He reached for her hand then lifted her from the wagon.

She stared into his eyes and noted all amusement was gone, replaced by a serious look. He watched her walk away from him as she stretched her legs and rotated her head, working out kinks from her uncomfortable ride. “How much farther?” she asked.

Steven leaned up against the wagon. “Just a ten minute ride from here.”

“What do you call your ranch?”

Steven scratched his head and shrugged. “Haven’t got a name yet. It’s got to be something… I don’t know…something meaningful. I’ve been thinking on it for a time.”

“Is it safe for me to be out here in view?”

Only the hoot of an owl off in the distance troubled the solitude of the night. They were miles away from Virginia City, although since being concealed in the wagon, Glory couldn’t fathom in which direction they’d traveled.

“We’re on my land now.”

There was so much pride in Steven’s tone, such a satisfied sound of accomplishment, that Glory found herself smiling.

He smiled back.

Then glanced at her lips.

Glory’s breath caught in her throat. Images filled her head of Steven’s mouth claiming hers, his hands caressing her body and their hearts pounding in rhythm together. Just as she imagined Steven entertaining those very same thoughts, he stepped back and away, shifting his attention to his restless horses.

Fancy snorted, the other horse whinnied, both seemingly eager to reach their destination.

“We’d best get going again.”

She moved to the side of the wagon and placed her hands on Steven’s shoulders, readying to be lifted aboard. He peered deeply into her eyes and spoke with honesty. “I understand that your life hasn’t been easy this past year. And just when you’d made new friends and felt safe at the house, I had to pull you away.” He let out a long sigh, taking a moment, it seemed, to gather his thoughts. “I promise to do my best to protect you, Glory. I’m asking you to trust me.”

Glory remembered what he’d told her days ago. She offered him a small smile. “But not too much.”

He blinked hard, as if recalling his own words. “You can trust me in all regards, Glory. We’ll be living out here, pretty much secluded, all alone, but you have my pledge that you’ll never have anything to fear from me. And as soon as we find a way to get you out of this mess, you’ll be free to do as you please.”

Glory couldn’t get that thought out of her mind as they approached Steven’s house. She didn’t fear Steven as much as she feared herself. Feelings rushed in as she glanced at the man sitting by her side on the wagon seat, guiding the horses and taking her away from trouble. She wondered how much longer she’d
be able to deny what those wayward feelings meant. She’d admitted time and again she’d hated him, but hatred wasn’t an isolated emotion, as she’d once believed. Along with that sentiment came dozens of others to perplex and confound her.

And the thought of being free again was a dream she didn’t dare indulge at the moment. There had been so many things she’d wanted to do, but not one held appeal now. Her life was a puzzle and about as muddied up as a streambed after a hard rain.

“We’re home,” Steven announced, pulling up on the wagon’s brake.

Home? Glory hadn’t felt at home anywhere but with her father in the house where she’d been raised with love and kindness.

Steven’s ranch wasn’t her home. It was her refuge, her sanctuary.

It was the outlaw woman’s hideout.

Steven helped Glory down from the wagon and glanced at the house they’d be sharing. “I know it isn’t much right now. There’s still some work to be done. You’ve got no cupboards for the kitchen and you’ll have to watch your step. I haven’t gotten around to building the porch along the front of the house yet.”

The truth was Steven had been dreaming of a place of his own since he’d worked his first round-up at the age of fifteen. But his plans had never included a woman living here. He supposed he’d never thought of himself as a man to take on a wife, so the place he’d built reflected that. His home wasn’t large, just one bedroom, with a decent enough kitchen area and a parlor one might call homey. The house had plank
floors and real windows and there was plenty of room to expand, but Steven never believed he’d have the need.

The only woman he’d been smitten with had been Reverend Caldwell’s daughter, a girl whom he’d admired from a distance. And now, Steven thought with wry amusement, he’d be living with her and trying his darnedest not to let whims of fancy distract him from his duty to protect her.

Glory put a hand on his arm. Tingles of awareness from her soft touch coursed up and down his body. The solitude of the midnight hour and the soft glow of moonlight on her face only helped to illuminate his desire for her.

“It’s a lovely house, Steven. I bet it’s even finer-looking in daylight.”

Steven smiled at her generous offering. “You must be tired. Let’s get you settled and into bed.”

Glory hesitated, her eyes wary as if she just realized her living conditions. This wasn’t Rainbow House with a multitude of rooms and floors where one could pick and choose. Steven wouldn’t be leaving her to her privacy, as he had so often when she lived in town. No, they’d be confined now to close quarters, living in this small ranch house together.

“You’ll take the bedroom,” Steven announced, attempting to alleviate her fears. “I’ll sleep in the parlor.”

Glory drew in her lower lip, a move that tended to fascinate him usually, but he halted that way of thinking. He couldn’t afford those lusty thoughts. “I’d sleep in the barn if you’d like, but it’s far enough away that I wouldn’t hear you, if anything happened.”

Glory shuddered, her body flinching with a tremor. “What would happen?”

He shrugged, reluctant to frighten Glory with the gloomy possibilities. She was a wanted woman. No telling what might happen if Ned Shaw showed up, looking to avenge his brother’s death, or if the sheriff got wind of Glory living here. “Anything could happen. We’re pretty far from town.”

“Isn’t that the point?” Glory asked, her light-blond brows lifting in puzzlement.

“Yeah, that’s the point—to hide you away. But there’s dangers on a ranch, regardless.”

Glory peered out, seeming to note the empty corrals and the ranch pretty much uninhabited. “I don’t see any animals. Are there any in the barn? I didn’t notice any cattle grazing, either.”

Steven had planned to have his ranch running by now. He’d planned on buying stock horses for his ranch and begin breeding, but weeks ago, he’d come upon a lovely young woman who’d nearly perished in a fire. Coming upon Glory had sidetracked all of his plans. There were some animals on the ranch. He’d built a coop just behind the barn and filled it with two dozen squawking chickens. Inside the roofless barn a milk cow named Greta resided. Steven hoped to finish building the roof soon, then Greta would enjoy the company of the livestock he planned on raising.

“This isn’t a cattle ranch, Glory. I’m gonna breed horses here. There’s a big market for them with all the folks pouring into Virginia City. There’s also a need for good cow ponies in the ranches south of here. I figure to have a good-size herd this time next year. Now, about the sleeping quarters—”

“I wouldn’t put you out of your own house.”

Steven nodded. “Fine, then. Let’s both get some rest. The sun’ll be up before we know it.”

Making sure she stepped up carefully, Steven ushered Glory inside and lit several lanterns. Picking one up, he handed it to her then led her to the bedroom. She glanced around, taking the room in as well as one could in the middle of the night.

“I’ve got some quilts and other female things in the wagon.”

Glory’s face registered amusement. Her pretty mouth lifted and she turned to set the lantern down on the dresser. “Female things?”

“Yeah, you know. Mirror, brush and comb, fancy soaps, that sort of thing.”

“Oh? And where’d you get them?”

Glory stood inches from him in the dim light, the faint scent of roses drifting up to tease his senses. It would be the first of many temptations he would have to deny, he was certain even with her blond hair disheveled from the wagon ride, and her dress wrinkled beyond repair, she was still the prettiest woman he’d ever laid eyes on. “You promise to accept them?”

“I don’t know that I could promise that.”

“But they are things you’ll need, right?”

“Well, yes. I suppose.”

“And I could lie to you and say I’d bought them at the mercantile.”

“But you couldn’t very well do that without arousing suspicion, could you?”

“No, I couldn’t. So, you’ll accept them without complaint?”

“Steven, why would I ever complain about such lovely things?”

Steven twisted his mouth. He wouldn’t lie to Glory. “Because they’re from my mother.”

Glory’s face fell, her expression more than grim. “Oh.”

“She says a woman needs female things around her. She wanted you to have them, Glory.”

Glory nodded slowly, but the argument he’d expected didn’t come. Instead, Glory’s eyes swelled with unshed tears. Steven couldn’t take watching sadness, indecision and despair steal over her face. “I’ll be back, Glory.”

Steven left Glory to her musings, wondering if she’d ever find forgiveness for the losses she’d had to endure. Hell, he didn’t know much about the Bible, but he was certain that forgiving past sins was a virtue to be highly regarded.

He walked out to the wagon and lifted the gifts that his mother had sent, wrapping them in a quilt for Glory’s bed. All he could do was present them to her and hope she’d come around.

And he’d not speak of it again.

Glory rose early the next morning, her predicament weighing far too heavily to allow her restful sleep. She’d never been good with change, and these sleeping arrangements had disturbed her even more than her rather bleak circumstances at Rainbow House. Her life was in as much disarray as her mussed-up hair and wrinkled clothes.

Those two things she could do something about. She’d smoothed out her dress last night and laid it across the dressing table. A glimmer of sunlight streamed into the window, brightening the room considerably. Glory peered at her herself in a tall mirror
propped against the wall and immediately grimaced at the reflection staring back at her. “Mercy,” she whispered, then reached for the pearl-handled brush that Steven’s mother had given her.

She sat on the bed and stared at the brush in her lap, her mind spinning with labored thoughts that were far too taxing for the dawning hours. “Mercy,” she repeated.

What difference did it make if she accepted these things from Lorene Harding? She’d already been eating the woman’s food, living under her roof at Rainbow House and taking a host of other things offered. Would using these lovely, much-needed articles change her opinion of the woman? Would she love her father one iota less because of it? Surely she couldn’t be that big a fool to think so.

Glory removed the pins from her hair, letting the tangled mess fall down past her shoulders. She lifted the hairbrush and began the ritual of brushing through until the knots were untangled and her hair glistened once again.

She braided her hair and let it hang long, a much easier style for the ranch, one that wouldn’t have her readjusting pins and fallen tresses all day long.

She donned the blue silk gown again, hoping that sometime today she’d have time to sew a new dress, one more fitting and far less revealing for her own sensibilities.

Once dressed, Glory set out to make breakfast. She strode to the kitchen by way of the parlor and gasped, seeing Steven fast asleep on the horsehair sofa. His clothes shed, he lay there naked, but for the drawers he wore. She glanced away quickly, but not before noticing so many revealing things about him, like the
peaceful look on his face, making him appear boyish. Yet in direct contrast, his burnished skin layered with a thin coating of spiral hairs upon a strong and powerful chest spoke only of his masculine appeal.

Glory swallowed, recalling the tempting ways he’d touched her while they were trapped in that abandoned mineshaft. She’d always remember the tender-sweet words he’d spoken and the way he had of making her seem a cherished prize. Glory would never forget those sensations. She’d never once been treated in such a kind, yet pleasingly shocking way by a man.

That Steven could charm her, she was certain. But she was just as sure that he could never be the man for her. No, not Lorene Harding’s son. She could never give her heart to him. To do so would be the greatest disgrace to her father…and to herself.

Glory entered the kitchen and smiled with relief. It appeared Steven had a fully stocked kitchen, with supplies stacked up on the counter, along with a few dishes and cooking utensils. Glory could finally do something constructive with her time. At Rainbow House, she had to nearly beg Mattie to allow her to help out with even the tiniest chores. Glory had hated feeling useless there. Only after days and a good deal of persistence on her part, had Mattie finally relented in allowing her something worthwhile to do.