The Scoundrel's Bride (26 page)

Rolling onto his back, he pulled her close. “Morality, what do you expect from this marriage of ours?”

She stiffened momentarily, then snuggled against him. “Sleep. Regular baths. An entire day in which my foot never touches a stirrup.”

Darkness hid his gentle smile. “No, seriously, angel. What is it you are looking for from me?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Just answer me, all right?”

She was quiet for a long moment, then he felt her shrug. “I know not to expect love, despite what you said that day. I’m not a fool, Zach. Circumstances have led us down this path, not our emotions. Life has taught me to be very realistic.”

“Is that what you wanted? Love?”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

Damn, but she sounded sad. “You haven’t answered my question. So you don’t expect love. What do you expect?”

She inhaled a deep breath, then sighed wearily. “I expect nothing. What I hope for…a home, children. I’ve told you this before, Zach.”

“You said you wanted freedom, too. What sort of freedom? What if you had that home, and a kid or two, and all the money you wanted? Would you care if you had a husband or not?”

Her body went still. “What are you saying?”

Zach released her, moved away, and sat up. “Morality, I haven’t been entirely honest with you.”

“How shocking,” came her droll reply.

“You know I’ve led a sinful life.”

“That’s why you are seeking redemption.”

Zach searched his mind for just the right words to ask for what he wanted without ruining what he’d already been given. “Because of my past, I’m not entirely positive that I can put my immoral ways behind me forever. What if I slip up? What if I did something that you’d consider really evil? What would you do?”

“If you cheat on me, Zach Burkett, I’ll beat you like a spring-cleaned rug.”

He chuckled. “Not a woman, Morality. Something tells me it’ll take all my energy to take care of you. I guess I’m talking about failure, my own possible failure, where atonement and redemption are concerned. What if—and I’m talking hypothetically, here—what if I up and do something you find unforgivable. Would you be happy enough with your home, children, and money so that you wouldn’t miss having a husband too bad?”

She was silent for a long time. Then, in a quiet voice, she asked, “Are you asking me if I would consider…divorce?”

The word rang like a death toll in the darkness. After a moment’s pause, he said, “Yes. Think of all that freedom.”

“Think of what people would say.” Suspicion rang in her voice. “What are you planning, Zach Burkett?”

“Nothing,” he insisted. “Look, I’m just worried, that’s all. Marriage is serious business, and I think we should put all our cards on the table before we throw the baby out with the bathwater.”

“Mixed metaphors do not make for a clear dialogue. I’m tired, Zach, and it’s difficult to think. What is it you want?”

“Want? What is it I want?” His hands clawed at the straw beneath them, and the tension that had built within him over the past days exploded in a furious passion. “I want to bed you, dammit! I want to bury myself inside you, hot and hard and deep and often, until we’re both too wrung out to move. But for some strange, irritating reason, I care about you, and I don’t, by God, want you hurt in all of this!”

His shouted words echoed in the sudden silence.

Wonder filled Morality’s voice. “Oh, Zach. That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Good God, the woman was hopeless
. “Come here.” He grabbed her arm and tugged her toward him. “I’m giving you a chance, here, angel. You know going into this thing that I’m bad, right? I probably won’t make your dreams come true. This is your chance to call it off.”

“I don’t want to call it off. I daresay I’m more aware than most people about the harsh realities of life. I realize this marriage comes with no guarantees. But I don’t care. I want to marry you, Zach.”

His heart was thumping like a beaver’s tail. He stroked his thumb across the softness of her lower lip, finally acknowledging the ache that had existed inside him for most of his life. Morality could fill that emptiness. “God help you, angel, I want to marry you, too.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

WIND CHIMES SHAPED LIKE shamrocks marked the turnoff to Gallagher’s Tavern and Traveler’s Inn. From her first glimpse of the building, Morality was charmed. Cedar-scented smoke rose from the limestone chimneys that stood at each end of the structure, and a pair of star quilts hanging from a clothesline flapped in the breeze. Through the inn’s open doorway drifted the cheery sound of a boy’s laughter. The inn had the look of a home about it.

She turned to Zach and said, “It’s wonderful.”

He nodded. “I’ve never stayed here myself, but a friend of mine highly recommended it.”

“Mr. Tanner? Isn’t he the man you’re supposed to meet here?”

“Yes. He’s not due to arrive for another few days, but that’ll suit our plans just fine. Give us time for a little honeymoon once we locate a preacher.” Saddle leather creaked as he dismounted.

Heat from a blush crept up Morality’s face. Zach noticed and quirked an amused brow above twinkling blue eyes as he assisted her to the ground.

A boy came to greet them. “Howdy, folks. Welcome to Gallagher’s. I’m John Kincaid, and this is my uncle Dan’s place.”

Zach didn’t take his eyes off Morality. “Is your Uncle Dan a preacher by any chance?”

“Preacher? Uncle Dan? For land’s sake, no. That’d plumb break the hearts of the ladies in a three-county area. ‘Sides, Uncle Dan’s too wicked to be a preacher.”

A man about Zach’s age walked onto the porch and spoke in a good-natured, Irish-accented scold. “And ‘tis not the wicked child who repeats such foolishness of the grand man a-puttin’ food in his belly and a roof above his head?”

“Just for another week,” the boy shot back, his golden eyes gleaming the same color as his hair. “Then my ma and pa will be by to take me home, and you’ll be lonesome as a painted lady in church.”

The older man gave a sudden smile. “That I will, boyo, that I will.” He turned to his guests. “I’m Daniel Gallagher. Welcome to my inn.”

Morality took only a vague notice of Daniel Gallagher’s crippled right hand. She was struck dumb by the brilliance of the man’s smile. Up till now, Zach had been the most handsome man Morality had ever seen. She turned her head looking from Mr. Gallagher to Zach, and back to Mr. Gallagher again.

Her betrothed couldn’t hold a candle next to Mr. Gallagher. If the term “beautiful” could be applied to a man, then Mr. Gallagher was it. He had rich, auburn-colored hair and classical features of the sort she had seen in the oil paintings hanging in the homes of Reverend Uncle’s wealthier supporters. He had a smile she felt clear to her toes. Yes, the man was beautiful.

She felt a nudge on her leg and ignored it, then suddenly she was being pulled from the saddle. Her eyes widened with surprise as she gazed up into Zach’s gruff expression. “Best shut your mouth, angel, or you’ll go to catching flies.” He set her on her feet and gave her a disciplinary glare.

To Gallagher, he said, “My name’s Burkett, the lady is my wife—or will be just as soon as we can find a preacher.”

“Ah, ‘tis a runaway wedding we be having?” Mr. Gallagher’s eyes twinkled in amusement even as Zach’s grew stormy. The innkeeper made his way down the steps and approached them. “Congratulations, Miss…”

“Brown,” she breathed, as he lifted her hand to his lips for a gallant kiss.

“You know, innkeeper,” Zach drawled. “I learned long ago that an overly polite man often harbors some mighty impolite ideas. I suggest you keep your hands off my woman.”

“Zach!” Morality flushed from embarrassment.

“Don’t worry about Uncle Dan, Mr. Burkett. He acts that way to all the ladies—even if they’re not purdy as a polished pearl like Miss Brown. Why, you should’ve seen him this one time. This old woman had more wrinkles on her than a—”

“Johnny, I do believe that for the next week, at least, part of your job is to tend to our guests’ horses,” Gallagher interrupted, all traces of brogue having vanished. “See to it.”

Zach offered Morality a significant look. “The man is a liar.”

“Holy saints in Heaven above, never be accusing me of such. ‘Tis not lies I be telling, but a touch of the blarney I learned at me dear da’s knee.”

Morality couldn’t help but laugh. “Mr. Gallagher, blarney or no, what I am most interested in right now are your accommodations. Does your inn offer bathing facilities?”

“For you, Miss Brown, anything.” He looked at Zach. “Please come inside, and I’ll show you to your …” He paused, lifting his brow inquisitively as he finished, “Rooms?”

“Room.”

“Zach!”

He looked at Gallagher. “Any way to get a preacher here today?”

“I suppose my nephew could ride into town and ask. It would be evening before they could possibly return.”

“Do it.”

In the process of leading the horses away, John Kincaid paused and said, “Y’all should marry like my folks did, by bond. It’s how they used to do it years and years ago when there weren’t many ministers in Texas. All you have to do is sign a paper sayin’ you’ll hitch up when a preacher comes around.”

Morality sniffed. “I don’t like the sound of that at all. God must bless the union between a man and wife.” She gave Zach a sidelong look and added, “Besides, I’ve been acquainted with men of such questionable moral character that they might back out of such a commitment.”

Johnny Kincaid chortled. “That’s exactly what my pa did! My mama crows about it when she’s needling him. ‘Course, they did eventually see a preacher, but the in-between times makes quite a story. You gotta understand my folks. The first time they met, she slapped him with a pair of dead squirrels.”

“I do believe I’d like to meet this woman,” Morality observed.

Daniel Gallagher chuckled. “Katie does tend to get her Irish up. You should have seen her–”

“What kind of inn are you running, Gallagher?” Zach interrupted. “At the rate you’re going it’ll be summer before my lady gets her bath.” He turned to the boy. “You can count on a nice bonus if you get the churchman here by dark.”

Morality scolded Zach for his rudeness as he carried their saddlebags up to their room, although a wicked part of her had been pleased by the way he’d reacted to Mr. Gallagher’s attentions. By the time the bathwater arrived, she was so sleepy she could hardly keep her eyes open.

Zach looked from the tub to her and back to the tub again. “You know, I heard one time about a fella who fell asleep in his bathtub and drowned. Maybe I should stay up here while you’re bathing, just in case you need rescuing.”

Morality shoved him toward the door saying, “What a selfless offer, Burkett, but I don’t think you’ll be needed.”

He wiggled his brows wolfishly. “Saving that till after the wedding, huh?”

“Go.” Smiling, she shut the door behind him, then walked toward the tub, her fingers working the buttons on her bodice. An unexpected creak made her jump and she whirled around to see Zach poke his head in the room.

“Just wanted to tell you to check my saddlebags. There’s a package in there you might want to see to. You’ll have it for this evening.”

Before she could rail at him he was gone.

The large leather bags hung around the bedpost. Morality stared at them, both curious and hesitant at the same time. She licked her dry lips then reached for the buckle.

Wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine, the parcel was thick and soft. Slowly, she tugged the end of the string. The paper made a ripping noise when she tore one end.

She gasped. Emerald-green silk.

With painstaking care, she unwrapped the bundle. Emerald-green silk with gold embroidery. And tiny pearl buttons.

Morality clutched the gown to her chest. “Oh, Zach.”

Her tears were those of joy.

ZACH TOOK a sip of his glass of whiskey and decided he liked the proprietor of the inn—as long as the man stayed away from Morality. Over the course of the afternoon Gallagher had proven himself both witty and knowledgeable on a wide range of topics. The brogue was something he turned on and off at will, used mostly when he teased Mrs. Payne, an older woman who lived at the inn, or when he spoke to the stage passengers that had stopped at Gallagher’s for a meal and a rest shortly after noon.

He told a few stories about the time he’d lived with Cherokee Indians and of the years he’d spent as a ranch foreman at the Double K ranch out north of Dallas. His sister, Katie—the squirrel-slinger—owned the ranch with her husband, Branch, and their passel of children, one of whom had been on loan to his uncle Dan since Christmas.

“Johnny’s a good boy,” Gallagher said. “He and his daddy are too much alike, and that’s what is causing the friction between them. Katie thought a little time apart might be good for them, help Branch see that his oldest is quickly becoming a man. Then too he was getting a tad too close to a girl from a nearby ranch.”

“So his parents sent him to
you
?” Zach asked drolly. “Why, weren’t his methods good enough? Needed to learn seduction at the knees of a master?”

Gallagher’s green eyes twinkled as he shrugged and said, “And what would ye have me do, deny me God-given talents?”

“Just keep your talents away from my woman.”

“ ’Tis a difficult proposition, to be sure.” Then, sincerely, he added, “Your Miss Brown is a beautiful woman.”

Zach lifted his glass in a toast. “Here’s to beautiful women and fast horses.”

“Fast horses?”

“Fast, preacher-totin’ horses.”

Gallagher lifted his glass and nodded solemnly. “Beautiful women, fast preacher-totin’ horses, and Irish whiskey.”

Zach stared through the ripple-paned window toward the cozy two-room cabin standing a few hundred yards from the inn. “And honeymoon cottages.”

The innkeeper followed the path of his gaze. “Fussing with these wedding doings has made Martha Payne happy as a colt in clover. She’s quite taken with your Morality.”

“Yeah? Well, so am I.” Even as he said it, the truth of his statement sent a tremor of unease down his spine.