The Marshal's Rebellious Bride (11 page)

Whiskey gaped at him. “That’s it? Less than two dozen
words of telling me about yourself, about your life?”

He shrugged and finished off the last piece of cheese.
“You already know I’m a U.S. Marshal. You already know I own most of the
ranch.”

What had she expected? He tended to be a man of few
words, unless he was complaining about her or something she did. Well, she
could be just as stingy with her life story. “I was engaged.”

She met his gaze and knew he remembered the day she’d
come home to announce the news to her brothers. Instead she’d found him and
told him. His eyes darkened and he looked uneasy.

“But you already knew that,” she continued, not
feeling the pain of that loss as heavily as she once had. “Ace was shot and
died in my arms.” Saying the
words,
did cause her a
moment’s grief. Ace had been a good man, too young to die.

Morgan studied her for several awkward moments. She
wondered what he was thinking? He was a hard man to read. She fidgeted with
straightening her skirt, waiting for him to say something.

Finally he said, “It’s time to move on, Angelina.”

Angelina
. Her brothers called her that when they were mad at
her. But his tone had softened as he said the name and it felt right for the
first time in… well, in forever. “Everyone calls me Whiskey,” she corrected
without enthusiasm.

A corner of his mouth lifted in what almost appeared
to be a smile. “I like Angelina better. But I’ll save it for special times.”

Her heart skipped happily as she savored the way he’d
said that. She felt
a warmth
curling through her, more
than the one he’d given her bottom. She took a bigger bite of biscuit.
Resisting him was getting tougher to do. But he was a lawman. Lawmen got killed
every day. He could die. Oddly, she thought his death would hit her even harder
than Ace’s had.

They sat silently eating for several minutes. A light
breeze swept over them. It was cooling down and there was the scent of moisture
in the air. Calmer now, she thought back to his condensed life story.

“You have a son? Is that why you’re insisting on
marrying me? To get a new mother for him?” She wasn’t sure how she felt about
that, about being an instant mother. But she did like kids.

Again he hesitated to speak, frowning. “I’ve been a
widower for almost seven years. If I’d just wanted another mother for Tyler,
I’d have married long before this.”

She supposed he would have. And, even as grumpy and
bossy as he could be at times, there would be a lot of women willing to marry
him. He was handsome as sin and his broodiness appealed to some women. Oddly,
it appealed to her. She was curious about why he hadn’t remarried.

“Where is your son? Tyler, is it?” What would his son
be like? Dark haired like him? Did Tyler look like his mother? What kind of
disposition did the boy have?

Morgan’s brow furrowed and he tensed. “Yes, Tyler.
He’s on his way to Kansas now. With my brother Chase.”

On his way here?
When had he sent for him? She hadn’t heard a word
about this.

“From where? Texas? Isn’t that where Taos said you
were from?” She had so many questions but she sensed that getting answers from
him would be pure frustration.

He gazed across the field, but she didn’t think he was
looking at anything in particular. He was lost in his thoughts, worried, it
seemed. She impatiently wanted to learn more.

 
“Tyler has
lived most of his life with my father. In Texas, yes.” A vein pulsed in the
side of his neck. “I’m bringing him here to be safer.”

Her stomach clenched.
Safer
? “What do you mean?” she asked warily. “Has something happened
to Tyler?”

He met her troubled gaze, shook his head. “Not yet.”
He sucked in a deep breath, blew it out. “Someone is going after my father,
Hanging Judge Rydell. Meanest
sonofagun
on God’s
green earth.”

“This someone? Or your father?” She was confused,
worried, too.

“Truth to tell, both Rafe Marino and The Judge are
mean
sonofaguns
.”

She couldn’t imagine thinking of your own father that
way. Certainly her father was a strong-willed man, but he was a good man. She
loved him dearly and was extremely proud of him. And she missed him.

She turned her thoughts back to what Morgan had said. “If
your father is so mean, why did you have your son living with him?”

“I didn’t have much of a choice,” he growled out.

He suddenly stood up, nodded at a thunderhead that had
seemed to build out of nowhere in typical
Kansas
fashion. “We’d best be heading back.”

Sighing, she understood. She wanted to ask more
questions, wanted more answers, but she knew his time of letting loose with
even a few more tidbits about his life and his son was done. And she wasn’t all
that fond of getting caught in a summer
rain storm
.
More and more clouds rolled in even as she started to gather up the picnic
stuff.

They raced all the way back to the house, barely
beating the storm. As it was she sped into the house with the hamper when the
first raindrops fell. Morgan, however, got drenched as he drove toward the
barn.

She watched from the kitchen window while he jumped
from the carriage just inside the big, wide doors. He was a complex man, more than
just a tough lawman with a fierce reputation. He had a son and she sensed a
whole passel of problems beyond hunting down outlaws and battling for his life.
He was a hard man who upheld the laws of the land and followed rules of his own—or
so Taos had told her. And he had rules for the woman he would marry.
Her? Hmmm
. She really hated rules and
she wasn’t fond of his “consequences” for going against him or his stupid
rules. But she didn’t think she really hated Morgan Rydell. Not so much as
before, anyway.

She moved away from the door, more confused than
before. Maybe they understood each other a tiny bit better now, but she still
would not—could not—take a chance on a relationship with him. She
couldn’t bear to lose another man she loved.
Even if she didn’t
actually love Morgan Rydell…at least not yet.
It was the
yet
part that worried her.

* * *

“So how was the picnic?” Taos asked from the doorway
of the tack room as the rain fell in buckets behind Morgan. “Are you making any
headway with Whiskey?”

He was disappointed to find he wasn’t alone. He’d
needed time to mull over what had happened on the picnic, which wasn’t really
as much as he’d have liked. Taking time out to warm her backside had cut down
on their time to get to know one another better.

Unhitching the horse from the carriage, he avoided
meeting Taos’ eyes. “Your sister is one stubborn woman.”

Taos snorted. “That she is.” He opened the door to one
of the stalls and grabbed a cloth to help rub down the wet horse. “I take it
she is still resistant to the idea of marriage.”

“Damn hard on a man’s ego, a woman refusing his offer
of marriage so much.” He led the Bay into the stall. “She doesn’t want me for a
husband. She doesn’t really want me for a partner on the ranch, not that she
has any say about that.” But he had a gut feeling she didn’t resent him as much
as she had at first. Still, she wasn’t going to be easy to win over.

They worked at rubbing the horse dry. Taos looked at him
over the animal’s back. “Not that I don’t want you to marry my sister, but I
suppose you could simply be partners.”

Morgan thought about how he’d wanted to run his hands
through that wealth of red-brown hair…about how he’d come close to grabbing her
and kissing away her protests…about how he’d want to do a whole more than spank
her butt…

He sucked in a breath and was glad that Taos was on
the other side of the horse. His body had jerked to life at those disturbing
memories. “No way would that work.”

“It sounds like marriage is the only option.” There
was the hint in Taos’ tone of warning about him not messing with Whiskey until
vows were said.

“Truthfully, I think she’s protesting too much. I
think she’s trying to convince herself, maybe more than you or me, that she
doesn’t want this wedding to happen.” Taos looked directly at him. “I’ve seen
the glances she slides your way from time to time. She never looked at Ace that
way, not that I recall anyway.”

Whether Taos was right or not about what he thought he
saw, the words went a long way toward boosting Morgan’s ego again. Her
continual spouting off refusals had been wearing him down, even if he sensed
the refusals weren’t said as strongly as they’d once been.

“She’s still talking about tending to the livestock,”
he said, bringing up the other issue of disagreement between them. “It scares
the hell out of me.”
Almost as much as her taking the balloon
up again.
Something which
he would never allow.

“I’m not fond of the idea either, but she does have
some kind of gift with animals. Always has. Aunt Mae does too. I’m not sure how
to change her mind on that doctoring matter, or if you need to. Maybe—”

“No. I don’t like the idea at all,” he countered
grimly, stomach knotting.

 
He
couldn’t be with her every minute of every day. He couldn’t protect her from
some big animal doing her harm just because it was in pain and she was trying
to help. “Why can’t she be content with quilting or sewing or weaving a rug or
something more domestic?”

Taos chuckled. “That sounds more like our sweet Brandy
than Whiskey.”

“How about I marry Brandy? You can find some other sap
for Whiskey.” Morgan hated the idea the second he said it.

Taos raised an eyebrow and looked at him squarely. “I
suppose I could talk to Pete about Whiskey…”

“No! She’s going to marry me and that’s all there is
to it.”

The knowing grin Taos sent him rankled. But he
honestly couldn’t let another man take the redheaded beauty for wife, take her
to his bed.

Chapter Five

The first rays of sun streaked the sky as Morgan led
his saddled Bay from the barn, grumbling to himself about some neighboring
rancher named “Pete.” He had spent half the night trying to envision the man
who Taos had mentioned could possibly marry Whiskey instead of him. He thought
he’d spent most of the other half of the night wanting to ground the man to
pulp because… well, just because. He needed time and distance away—far
away—from the redhead who was making him think irrationally.
Picnic
. He’d taken her on a damn picnic;
even found her a batch of flowers. It had been so unlike him. He understood
chasing down outlaws. He knew about fighting, about shooting, about killing.
This was so different from all he knew. He didn’t do romance, seduction,
playing games. He was pretty sure he’d made a fool of himself.

Two steps out of the barn Demon raised his head,
jerking his arm, and whinnied like a foolish young colt. His big, bad horse had
begun acting a bit crazed whenever Whiskey was anywhere around. She’d started
sneaking him apples she picked from the row of fruit trees out back of the
house. Spoiled and besotted was what he was. He’d probably be worthless out on
the trail after all this nonsense.

Annoyed, he tipped his hat brim down against the sun
and looked toward the middle corral. Sure enough she was there rubbing down her
one-eyed mule. The ingrate was baring his teeth and looking as if he’d nibble
her arm, again. Damn, but he hated seeing that. His stomach curled up in a
knot. But he now knew that was just the way the critter teased, flirted,
whatever the hell he was doing, with the pint-sized woman who took care of him.
‘Course that didn’t mean he had to like it, but it meant he had to get used to
the odd behavior.

He told himself to mount up, ignore her. Two of the
ranch hands had already headed out to the south pasture to spend another day
mending fences. He was supposed to join them to help with the endless ranch
chore. He really didn’t mind the tedious work, although he wasn’t fond of
baking in the hot sun and it looked to be another scorcher today.

Instead of climbing into the saddle and getting the
hell away from her, he found his feet carrying him across the ranch yard as if
they had a mind of their own.
Stop! Just
ride away. Don’t do this
.

He just couldn’t make his feet obey. Yep, he was plumb
crazy.

“I thought you were going out on the range today,”
Whiskey said over her shoulder, sounding less than pleased that he was coming
closer.

“I was planning on it,” he confirmed and led Demon
next to the corral. Okay, Demon practically led
him
to the corral.

At their approach, the mule looked over and bared his
teeth even more as if warning them to keep their distance from her. Protective.
Possessive. Odd
behavior for a mule, but all of her animals
were
strange. Demon, in turn, showed his feelings about her. He snorted
and bumped against the railing as if demanding her attention and challenging
the mule.