The Marshal's Rebellious Bride (3 page)

“Not a good idea. She’s not my kind of… I’m not her
kind of…” He sucked in a breath. He had only told Taos that he’d had some words
with her that day, not
where
they’d
had their brief conversation.

“She needs you,” Taos insisted. “I need you…to do this…for
me.”

Morgan fought down the demons of his past. As much as
he didn’t want to, he knew there was only one answer he could give. He owed
Taos too much already. “All right. I’ll do it.”

His eyes squeezed shut and looking far too pale, Taos
said on a sigh, “She’s a handful at times…heart as big as…” He opened one eye
to focus on Morgan. “Take care of her. Let her love you. You need each other.”
His chest rattled again.

Morgan remained silent. Everything in him had pulled
in tight, pulled in protectively. He had loved once. He’d needed once. He
doubted he had it in him to take a chance on either emotion again. But he could
take care of her, would take care of her.
Because his dying
friend had begged him to do so.

If Taos didn’t die…

* * *

Little Rock, Arkansas

May 1878

I can do
this. I can do this. I
can
do this!

Stomach tightening with knots, hands clenching,
Whiskey turned to face the cheval mirror. Deep crimson stained the beautiful
ivory and lemon yellow day gown her father had sent her all the way from
England.
Ace’s blood
.

Oh, God!

Her legs gave out. She crumpled to the floor and buried
her face in her hands. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t stop shaking.
Cold, so cold.
Sick.

She slowly raised her head and fought down nausea. She
stared again into the mirror, this time the stain had spread on her gown. Blood
streaked her face and covered her hands.

“No! Please, no! God, no!” the wail tore from her.

Footsteps, light yet steady, came from somewhere
behind her. Then gentle hands touched her trembling shoulders. Her Aunt Mae’s
familiar voice threaded through her tortured memories. “Whiskey.
Sweetling
.”

The gentleness soothed, drew her back, but she
couldn’t speak just yet.

Her aunt carefully smoothed the top of her head.
“Whiskey, what’s wrong?”

“Blood,” she whispered, squeezing her eyes closed. “My
dress…”

Her aunt slid down beside her and wiped at the tears
on her cheeks. “Oh, honey, there’s no blood. You look pretty as a picture in
this new blue dress.”

Blue? Blue
dress?

Her eyes flashed open and she stared at her reflection
in the mirror again. She wore the dress her aunt had given her yesterday for
her twentieth birthday. Not her father’s gift from last year. Not
that
dress! Her pulse pounded. She
hadn’t worn a dress in over a year, not since…

“I’m sorry,” she said in a quivering voice she hardly
recognized as her own. Her gaze locked in the mirror with Mae’s. “But I can’t…
I just can’t wear this to church today.”

The sympathy in her aunt’s eyes comforted her, even as
disgust began replacing her misery.

That loving hand stroked her hair once more. “It is
only a few yards of fabric. Not worth making you miserable.”

Her aunt stood and leaned down to help her to her
feet. “You take the dress off and I’ll pack it away. You can wear those
trousers you favor, just like you always wear. God doesn’t care what you look
like. Not at all.”

She shook off the remains of the tortured memory. She
was tired of acting weak, like a sniveling coward. She had to stop living in
the past. The tragedy would not keep ruling her thoughts and actions.

She squared her shoulders, yet the words that slipped
out were not what she’d intended to say. “Maybe next week.” The emptiness of
loss continued to hold her temporary captive. “I just need another week.”

Mae nodded understanding. “We’ll see.” She turned
toward the bedroom doorway, her tone one of no-nonsense, “Now you get changed.
I don’t want old lady Simpson trying to steal my place again.”

Whiskey blinked. Then a smile tickled her lips. The
elderly spinster and her aunt had been in a long-running battle over church pew
preference. She would shed this treasured gift that her aunt had spent hours
upon hours making for her and don the trousers and shirt that she’d gotten all
too fond of wearing since coming here. She also needed to stop hiding out on
her aunt’s farm. She had known for a while now that it was time to make plans
to go home.

She looked a final time in the mirror. The reflected
image was not that of a young woman who had once been filled with dreams of
marriage and all things romantic. She would never bear Ace Tanner’s children.
They would not grow old and crotchety together. Even though she had spent
nearly
a year
acting like her life was over, it
wasn’t. Only those failed dreams. In truth, she wondered if she and Ace would
have ever been as happy as she’d hoped they would be. But she didn’t want to
ponder that notion now. What did it matter anyway?

With a sigh of momentary defeat, she began unbuttoning
the dress so lovingly made for her. She had a new dream now, one that her aunt
had helped her discover. For as long as she could remember, she’d had a special
way with animals—especially horses. They trusted her and she cared deeply
for them. Her aunt had shared with her the unique gifts she herself had in
working with animals and in doctoring to them. She wanted to use this skill
she’d learned. And she wanted to start out using it on her family’s ranch
outside of Dodge City. When those in the community there accepted what she
could do—and they would, she would doctor any and every animal entrusted
to her care. She also didn’t intend to ever consider marriage again. She would
take care of herself, be happy all on her own, just like her beloved Aunt Mae.

Her brothers wouldn’t like any of her decisions. They
had been overprotective of her all her life, even more so than her father. Not
that any of them had truly been able to keep her from doing what she wanted.
They wouldn’t this time either.

But she did miss them. Yes, it was almost time to go
home.

* * *

Dodge City, Kansas

June 1878

Sweat trickled down between Morgan’s shoulder blades.
His shirt stuck to his back. His whisker-roughened face itched, as did most of
his body. Trail dirt. He’d breathed it in and wore it for too damn many days. As
the first buildings of Dodge City came into sight, he lifted his arm and used
the back of his sleeve to wipe the sweat from his forehead. It had been a long couple
of months spent in Albuquerque while Taos recovered. Now they were headed to
the Wakefield Ranch, after they stopped in town.

“I’m looking forward to finding someplace to take a
bath and get a shave.” He watched a dust devil spring to life. The wind picked
up again. It helped some, but not all that much. He rolled his shoulders. The
kink he’d gotten in his back last night sleeping on the hard ground didn’t want
to come out. He sure led a hell of a life, had done so for a long time.

Next to him, Taos shifted in the saddle and kept his
gaze ahead. “I’m planning on getting a good shot of Red Eye first.
Then a bath.
Then I’ll head over to the telegraph office.”

Morgan stiffened. “There’s no sense in rushing.” He
knew exactly why his friend wanted to send a telegram and to who. He had been
listening for what seemed like forever to Taos talking about this marriage plan.
It had been a one-sided conversation for the most part. He’d hoped without his
chiming in that Taos would get the idea that maybe this was a mistake. Wrong.
The man was dead set on the idea.

“You’re not thinking about changing your mind, are
you?” Taos glanced in his direction. Challenge carved a frown into his brow. He
reached up to rub at his shoulder.

Morgan ground his teeth. “We both thought you might
not make it out of that valley.” He blew out a belly-deep sigh. It greatly
aggrieved him, but he said, “I made the promise and I’ll stand by it.”

Taos lowered his arm and grinned, apparently not
concerned with his sour mood or with his testy tone. “Our Whiskey is a real
prize, special. Both of my sisters are. But Whiskey is—”

“
Gonna
try my patience,”
Morgan interrupted with a scowl.

When Taos looked in his direction, appearing annoyed, he
didn’t back down. “You’ve gone on and on this last month about her
special
qualities. You would think she
was a saint or something.” He knew different. A “saintly” woman wouldn’t have
stood there in a bedroom with a barely dressed man. She sure as hell wouldn’t
have looked far too intently at certain parts of him the way she had. She’d
blushed at least; he’d felt like it, too. He’d also been tempted to tug her
into his arms and kiss the devil out of her. But that would have been the
biggest mistake of his life.
Or at least another big mistake.

Taos focused on the Front Street wagon traffic just
ahead of them. “Well, maybe I stretched the truth a little here and there. But
she’s still special.”

She was
special
all right. Special trouble. Morgan had never met her twin sister, Brandy, but
he wondered if she was as brazen as Whiskey. Brandy was off living in England
with their Lord Something father. It sure would have made his life easier if Whiskey
were there too. But she’d chosen to stay in Kansas with her brothers when her
father had inherited some family holdings that he needed to handle and moved
back to England not long before Morgan had run into Whiskey. And she’d sure
tested her brothers’ patience since then. He had heard a lot of stories about her.
Most of them about pranks she pulled or about some bit of trouble she caused. He’d
heard plenty of mentions about her getting turned over her father’s knee—even
her older brothers’ knees—for a sound spanking. He was damn sure he’d be
warming her butt as well from time to time…if they actually got married.

“I haven’t forgotten those tales you shared over the
campfires about your sisters,” he reminded Taos. Actually they haunted his
thoughts, almost as much as his memories of how she’d looked that day. He’d
been mad as hell about her coming into the room uninvited. But he hadn’t failed
to take in the fact that she was a rare beauty.

He shoved those worrisome thoughts aside and
concentrated on where they were going. They rode alongside the railroad tracks
and he noted McCarty’s Drugstore. Across the road was the livery stable and
Varieties Dance Hall. A half dozen horses were tied to the hitching rail out
front and sounds of a piano, some hooting and hollering drifted out the
swinging batwing doors.

Evidently Taos had decided not to continue with the
subject of his sister for a moment. Instead he said, “I think you should take a
good look at the ranch. It’s a nice spread along the Arkansas River and it
would be a good place to buy.”

“Buy?” Morgan glanced over in surprise, but then
thought maybe he shouldn’t be all that surprised. Taos, his brother, Keno, and
his sisters owned the ranch now, and the Dusty Trails Saloon. Keno had never
been interested in ranching. He ran the saloon and preferred that, as well as
gambling. And Taos had been talking about finally using his legal training and
starting his own law practice in Dodge City.

Taos guided his horse around a deep rut in the dirt
road and then tipped his hat at one of the dancers smiling at him outside of
the Lady Gay Dance Hall. “I know you don’t want to go back to Texas when you
decide to turn in your badge. You’ve talked about breeding horses. Our ranch
would be a good place to do that.”

Morgan’s gut churned.
Turn in his badge. Settle down. Here.
“Talking big, that’s all it
was.” Damn tempting offer, though.

“I think you could do it. Especially with Whiskey at
your side.” Taos spotted the telegraph office and headed for it. “Speaking of my
sister. I need to go send that telegram.”

Pulling on the reins, Morgan turned back toward the
Lady Gay. “I need a drink, bad. That bath and a shave can wait a spell.”

Taos looked back and said, “Do some thinking, too.
About the ranch.
I can always find someone else to sell it
to if you’re not…”

The words were out of Morgan’s mouth before he could
stop them. “I want it.” He frowned in disgust with himself and headed for the
saloon. “Damn.” Evidently he really was thinking about giving up his badge,
about settling down in one place, about planning to take another woman for his
wife.

God help him. No, God help them both.

* * *

Little Rock, Arkansas

Whiskey stood with hands on hips staring at the basket
of her aunt’s balloon in the barn. It had been months since their last short
ballooning adventure. She’d liked the feeling of freedom, liked how it seemed
she had controlled her fate.