Shotgun Bride (Book Six of the Brides of the West) Page 8

  "I'm curious about something. Something that has been bothering me since…" She twisted her head and distanced herself from him.

  "What's that?" He stopped abruptly and she nearly bumped into him.

  She found a piece of a log on the ground and sat on it.

  She looked down at her clothes, and was glad she had had the good sense to wear riding clothes to the mountains. It sure made the trip easier for her. The day Darrel barged into her office she had been about to go to the mining camp and she always wore her riding clothes there. It was rough terrain and there were few women in the camps.

  "What's bothering you?" He asked.

  "Forgive me, but I can't help but wonder. Why did you volunteer to marry me? I mean aside from wanting to shut Ma up."

  He shrugged. "Seemed the easiest way to resolve the matter at the time. Darrel was too young, the others well, I wouldn't want that to happen…so I volunteered. I didn't know it would bother you so."

  It sounded logical to her. But his words had her head flying up to meet his gaze. "Surely you have a life of your own, somewhere to go back to. Or someone?"

  He glanced at her for a minute. "A man like me, moving about like I do…there's no woman in my life. So if you're worried about my love life, don't be."

  "I couldn't stop my curiosity." She glanced up at him, shyly. "I didn't mean to pry. It's just that, of all the men here, you seem to have the best future. And then you went and did something so out of character…"

  "I don't know…I don't know what to tell you. It didn't seem like such a sacrifice to me. I hadn't planned on ever marrying. But it was no imposition."

  Shannon shivered from those words. He saw it and took note of it.

  "When you acted so unconcerned about getting a divorce, I really didn't know what to think about you. I mean, you look like a man who doesn't want to be tied down to a woman, and yet, you tied yourself to me…why?"

  He came closer now, his glance more serious. "You want the truth?"

  "Yes, please." She stared into his gray eyes.

  "If I married you, she would shut up and let us go. So I did…That's how it started out…"

  She nodded, but still something niggled in the back of her mind. "You do understand why I insisted on coming, though, don't you?" She kept staring at him.

  "Yeah, you were afraid I'd run out on you and leave you in a fix. Which…maybe I would have. I don't know." He shrugged. "This is as new to me, as it is to you. I guess I didn't take the marriage too seriously. At least not as much as you did."

  She bowed her head, thinking about that for a second. "A woman tends to take that kind of thing quite seriously. Even a woman like me. Now that I've gotten to know you better, I don't think you would have run out on me. I think if it were possible, you would have come back to take care of it. The problem is, in your line of work…you might not have been able to come back, that's what scared me."

  "How'd you come to that conclusion?"

  "Even though Jimmy John and the rest haven't given you much trouble yet, I think you are a man that trouble seems to find. Strangely I also think you seem to want to do the right thing, all the time." She glanced up and smiled.

  He reached down to take her hand in his and then looked into her eyes. "Not all the time, ma'am. Like right now…"

  The huskiness of his voice made her aware of her own feminine interest in the man. The raw male character of the man pulled her to him.

  Before she knew what he was doing, he had pulled her up and against him and bent his head to take her lips against his own. He wasn't rough or manhandling her, he was coaxing and gentle. Her heart couldn't resist him.

  A warm melting feeling enveloped her, running from their lips all the way to the tips of her toes. Her arms went up and around his neck as she invited his exploration of her mouth. She reeled with the soft impact of his dominance.

  He raised his head, looked at her moistened lips, and the soft gentleness of her eyes. He found no censure in her expression. Only a matched desire. "This isn't the right thing…" He murmured against her lips as he kissed her again.

  She swooned in his arms, captivated by the way his lips persuaded hers to open. It was as if some crazy fever had hold of them, like a rash spreading through them, shouting their needs.

  She moaned softly when their tongues met.

  But it was she that pulled away abruptly, when good sense finally prevailed. "You're right; it isn't the right thing…"

  And she ran away, into the woods.

  Why had she let that happen? She hadn't expected it for one thing. Yet she encouraged it when his lips captured hers. When he kissed her, everything else seemed to blank away. Still in the back of her mind, that same old memory haunted her. "No man will ever want her…when they see."

  She'd managed to hold herself away from men so long now. Always managing to never get involved. And here she was, involved with a man. Married to him!

  He didn't say sweet things to her, or lie to her, but when he kissed her, it was an experience of her lifetime. Never had all her feelings come rushing out of her at once. He had managed to satiate her desires with a mere kiss.

  Why had she opened herself up to him? She'd been careful to guard her heart until now.

  Perhaps the getting married itself threw her off balance.

  She had to remember that the marriage wasn't based on anything other than him getting his job done. He wasn't in love with her. No man would ever be. She'd resigned herself to that long ago. So why had she indulged in the kiss, participated, encouraged, and enjoyed it.

  She knew why. All her life she'd been waiting for a man to come and sweep her off her feet, tell her he loved her and that the scars were unimportant. It was her dream, but that's all it was…a dream!

  She knew she was courting trouble when she let him kiss her. Yet something about the way he touched her, the way he was so honest, the way he kissed her gave her a hope that had never been there before.

  She ran for a short distance, then leaned against a tree and cried. Cried! She never indulged in crying before. Crying was a sign of weakness, and she wasn't weak. Her hardships in life had made her strong. So why was she crying?

  He caught up to her and his face looked like a storm cloud. "Look, I apologize for back there. I was way out of line. It was just a kiss. A man without a woman so long forgets to be a gentleman sometimes. However, I don't want you running off like that again. Stay with the camp. You don't know these woods. I can't protect you if you run off."

  She nodded, gathering her wits about her. "Of course, I'm sorry."

  "You were crying?" He sounded incredulous. "I think maybe we both are sorry, now let's forget what just happened. I have a job to do; I’m going to do it. And you…you will get your papers, the way you want them, once I deliver my prisoners." He announced. "I'll see you get a way back to Oregon too. If that's what you want. So…there's nothing to worry about…You've lost nothing but a little time."

  Except that kiss changed things. How could he run so hot and cold? Hadn't it affected him at all? Did he have any feelings? He had to have some, he kissed her!

  It wasn't a kiss of an unpracticed man. He'd probably had plenty of women at one time or another. He didn't know she'd never been kissed like that before. It shook her. It unraveled all her emotions at once and they came flooding out at her. How did she deal with this?

  How could she walk away from him, unscathed in the end?

  She kept herself bottled tightly. Yet, Jesse managed to unravel her in one kiss.

  "You're right of course. My father used to say, 'A man leads with his right hook. A woman leads with her heart'. But…it won't happen again. I'm a doctor first…"

  "Well, I don't know about that…I kind of thought you were one hellova woman, myself." He smiled tenderly at her and walked away.

  That was the way he was, he'd walk up to her and kiss her silly, back off, compliment her and then walk away. How was she supposed to handle that?

  If he'd b
een crude, rude, or mean, she could have handled that, but instead, he was gentle with her. She didn't know how to combat gentle.

  She had to stay away from him, he was more powerful than she realized. And yet something more powerful than she'd ever imagined drew her to him.

  Chapter Nine

  As they came to Salt Lake, a group of Mormons met them. They were working in a field, men and women together. They sang songs as they worked. "Good day to you neighbor. May we be of some help to you?" One of the men in the field stepped forward when he saw them riding up, extending his hand for a shake.

  Jesse shook his hand. "Just passing through. Looks like you might have a good crop…"

  "We try. Where are you headed, if I might ask, friend?" The man glanced at everyone. He was simply dressed in black, with a flat-headed hat on his head. The women were dressed in long dresses and bonnets, as they continued to work.

  "Texas." Jesse said his eyes scanning the horizon.

  Everyone continued working but this one man.

  "Be watchful for the Ute's, they are stirring up trouble right now." The man advised as he went back to work in his field.

  "Thanks for the warning." Jesse tipped his hat.

  The man nodded.

  Jesse was about to turn away from them when a cloud of dust announced itself and a small party of Indians came whooping and hollering down on them.

  "Get down," Jesse ordered the people automatically.

  He pulled a rifle from its holder and threw it at Darrel. Darrel nodded and caught it, just as an arrow breezed by his cheek. Darrel began shooting, knocking one off his horse.

  Jesse glanced around at the men who were hovered in a circle trying to stay hidden. At least they had the good sense to stay down.

  He saw the Mormon running down the field and crouching down with the women, trying to protect them.

  All the people in the fields fell to the earth while Jesse grabbed Shannon and pushed her into a brush. "Stay here." He ordered.

  She stayed for a moment, but when she saw the Indians firing at them, she ran to Jesse's side. He gave her a quick frown.

  "You need someone to reload for you." She explained.

  Pulling his gun, he shot at them as they peppered the air with their arrows. Shannon moved close to Jesse and when his gun was empty, she reached to reload it for him. He shot her a crooked kind of smile.

  "Thanks," he muttered thickly as he aimed the gun she handed him, one of the Indians was about to jump them.

  As he fired, the Indian fell right in front of her, she shrieked. But the Indian wasn't dead. He pulled out a deadly knife, from its scabbard and was about to stab Jesse in the back with it, when she raised the gun she was reloading, aimed and fired.

  Jesse whirled about in time to see Shannon shaking. He saw the dead Indian and the knife. He took the gun from Shannon's cold fingers and raised her chin. "You did good."

  His words penetrated her frozen brain and she blinked hard. "Stay down…" He told her gently, and then kept firing.

  Jimmy John and the others kept themselves out of view, without guns they were at the mercy of everyone. Jesse couldn't worry about them just now; he was too busy trying to run these renegade Indians off the land.

  Jesse killed three of them before they finally gave up and rode off, hollering as though they had earned a victory.

  The man in the field stood up and stared at Jesse.

  "That was close, friend. We thank you, sir. We brought no weapons to the fields. They seemed to have caught on to that, and take us by surprise quite often." He said. "My name is Nathaniel."

  Jesse's mouth curved into a slow warm smile. "Jesse…my wife…Shannon." He grabbed Shannon and pulled her close for reassurance.

  The way that flowed from his mouth had Shannon taking note of it. The sound of it rang in her ears though. 'My wife.'

  "And the rest of you?"

  "That's Darrel on the end and Billy beside him. The others are prisoners I'm taking back to Texas." Jesse informed him. He didn't distinguish them by name, and Jimmy John grunted.

  "Prisoners. What have they done, friend?"

  "Robbed, and killed." Jesse told him staring at the man a long time.

  "Will they hang?"

  "It's possible." Jesse frowned. "But they'll get a fair trial first."

  Nathaniel tried not to stare at them. "Come, you must let us repay you with some food. We'll pray for their souls."

  "Sounds good to me." Jesse smiled and turned to see Shannon staring at him.

  "I killed…"

  "No…you did what you had to do. I know you are a doctor and that you don't believe in killing, but there comes a time, when it's necessary. Unfortunately, that time came. You only did what you had to do. That's all."

  Thinking about what he said, Shannon raised her eyes to him. "I've never killed anyone before…" Her voice wasn't quite steady.

  He nodded, "I know…" His voice lowered, and he bent to kiss her on the forehead.

  He waited for her to absorb his words, and hooked her arm in his. "Thanks for the help."

  She glanced at him shyly, and smiled. However, Jesse had seen the tear that fell down her cheek.

  "Looks like they are going to feed us." Jesse told her.

  "Glad to be able to eat someone else's cooking for a change." Shannon smiled and tried to snap out of her thoughts, when one of the women looked at her.

  The girl was young and pretty and her eyes went over Jesse very slowly. She had dark hair covered by a bonnet, and her eyes were so very blue. She was lovely. Shannon was shocked that a mere glance could suggest so much, but she soon realized that these women were not aggressive and their expressions had to speak for themselves.

  Even though she was married to Jesse, this didn't deter the girl, as Mormons were known for having more than one wife, she'd read about them back in Boston. She wondered how the women got along, or if they fought over the man. It was an interesting concept, but one she didn't hold with.

  When the woman moved almost seductively in front of Jesse, blinking shyly from his occasional glance, Shannon felt a pang of something deep within, but she ignored it. She had no real claim to Jesse. Even though their marriage was legal, there was nothing between them, except a growing trust.

  "I think she likes you…" Shannon chuckled nervously.

  Jesse shook his head. "That's too bad. I'm a married man."

  Shannon looked at him strangely.

  There it was again, that temporary feeling nagging at her. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that marriage was not supposed to be temporary. Still, that was not rational thinking. They'd both been forced into this marriage and the sooner they took care of the matter, the better.

  Surrounded by women who shared the same man, she felt out of place and untethered.

  The men regarded equally strange.

  Shannon's mind kept going back to Jesse.

  They had both been forced into the marriage. Yet, he didn't seem to fret that he now had a wife. He took it in such stride she was trying to understand him, and these people.

  When they sat down to eat, Jesse pulled her chair out for her. The young girl that was so interested in him sat right across from him and smiled every time he looked up. She couldn't have been more plain about her intentions had she announced them.

  Shannon had to admit, she was beautiful. Any man would be interested in her. She had a soft feminine look about her that was seductive in a different way.

  The table before them was long and filled with good smelling food and plenty of people. Food was plentiful and everything was fresh from their gardens.

  Nathaniel and his wives sat at one end.

  "Under the circumstances, I think you should untie your prisoners so they can sit at our table and enjoy our food. Until they are finished at least. What harm can they do, they are outnumbered?"

  "Alright…" Jesse agreed. He looked at Jimmy John, "These people are kind and generous, let's don't spoil that."

  J
immy John nodded. "I ain't never seen so much food in my life. And all of it looks good, too. I won't raise a ruckus."

  Nathaniel introduced them and told everyone of them fighting off the Indians. Smiles went around the table.

  "So why are the Utes at war with you?" Jesse asked.

  "They feel that this land is theirs and we have no right to it. They don't understand the concept of sharing it. Their heathen ways makes it hard to understand that we do belong here, as we are sanctioned by God to come to this Promised Land. They see us as a threat, and I suppose we can be, if pushed in that direction. They believe we should share everything we have with them and they would do likewise, but we are a hardy bunch of people who work hard for everything we have. We grow our own foods, build our own homes, and govern our own people. If the land itself cannot be shared, then nothing can."

  "How long has this been going on?" Jesse asked.

  "Nearly a year now. We can't come to terms with each other I'm afraid. However, God will show us the way, I’m sure. We were meant to be here, it is our promised land."

  "I thought religious groups didn't believe in violence." Jesse raised his eyes to meet Nathaniel's.

  "We believe in defending ourselves, and if necessary using force when needed. Just like the wars in the bible. Even aggressively, if needed. We mean no one any harm sir, but God has led us here, and we are not leaving. Eventually, they will come to understand that."

  Jesse nodded, but Shannon saw by the look on his face that he wasn't convinced this man was right.

  Shannon was quiet most of the meal. Still trying to get a hold of her nerves and justify what she had done. She was justified in killing the Indian, for surely he would have killed Jesse. Yet killing and and taking the oath of a doctor clashed to her way of thinking. She was suppose to save lives, not take them.

  "You were very brave," one of the women blurted.

  "No…actually I was petrified." Shannon explained.

  "She saved my life…" Jesse sent her a crooked smile.

  Rachel, the girl that stared so at Jesse blurted, "It's a woman's duty to help her husband."