Bushedwhacked Groom (30 page)

He chuckled. “Well, my granddad did have an entire
collection of Ned Buntline novels, and I read those
when I was a kid.”

Her eyes lit with pleasure. “0h, I love Buntline and
his tales of Buffalo Bill. You know, he’s bringing his
Wild West show to
Colorado
City
in a couple of weeks, and Ma says maybe we’ll all get to go.”

“Sounds like fun.” He shook his head. “As odd as it is for me to think of Buffalo Bill as still being alive.”

“Which is your favorite Buntline novel?” she went on excitedly.
“Buffalo Bill, The King of the Bordermen
or
Buffalo
Bill’s Best Shot?”

“Gee, that’s a heavy question—I’ll have to think on it.”

She pinched his arm.

“But first, hand me a kitten.”

She handed him the precious calico one, laughing
as it wrapped itself around his large hand, purred and
began chewing on his knuckles.
“
So we’re just gonna
sit here all night, discussing dime novels and petting
these kittens?”

His arm tightened at her waist and his gaze grew unexpectedly tender. “Do you mind our waiting, Molly? I
mean, it will give us a chance to get to know each
other even better, won’t it?”

“Hey, that’s sweet,” she replied, snuggling up closer
to him. “And no, I don’t mind.”

They jabbered away happily and petted the kittens
for many hours.

Chapter Thirty-two

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True to his word, the following Sunday Molly’s bride
groom took her on the promised picnic. She felt al
most shy sitting beside him as he drove the buckboard
toward the lower five hundred. She had a good idea
what would happen when they got there, and her
cheeks bloomed every time she thought about it.
Lucky had promised they would make love together
again, that they’d make a baby, that this would be her most fertile time. He was more than willing to do his
part as a husband, now that he, too, coveted the land.

Be careful what you wish for. .
. Now, too late, she
remembered her father’s admonition. Now she was
coming to care for Lucky, and wanted to be wanted for
herself, not just as a means to an end. Now she knew
precisely how he’d felt.

Not that he hadn’t been sweet toward her this week,
kinder and more charming than ever before. She felt
as if they were friends now, united by a shared goal. But she didn’t just want friendship from him, she
wanted everything—his heart, his soul, his love and
passion.

At least it felt good to escape the house for a while. After last Sunday’s debacle at church, things had been
decidedly tense at the Reklaw homestead; her four
brothers had moped around, having been denied ac
cess to the Trumble girls. Molly had also sensed a rift
developing between the elder three and Cory, and
she prayed it had nothing to do with the outlaw gang
increasingly raiding the region. She knew Cory
wouldn’t be involved but was concerned because her
older brothers kept riding off alone. Indeed, on Thurs
day afternoon the three eldest had gone off hell-
raising in Dillyville—and sure enough, Friday morning
Sheriff Hackett had again come calling. He’d reported
a new stage robbery near the town and had questioned the boys, who’d denied all involvement. At
least this time Hackett had been smart enough not to
bring along his white-trash paramour, Dulcie Hicks,
although Grandma had berated him thoroughly
nonetheless. Still, Molly had a bad feeling about the
whole incident.

“Well, here we are,” Lucky announced happily, guid
ing the team down into the valley, where wildflowers
blazed and the scent of nectar was heavy in the air.
The day was lovely, slightly crisp but sunny.

“Yeah, here we are,” she muttered at last.

In the center of the pastoral vale, he stopped the
buckboard, hopped down, then assisted his wife to the
ground. Her mouth went dry at the feel of his strong
hands at her waist, the ardor glowing in his eyes.

“You look mighty fetching today in that yellow cal
ico,” he said.

“Are you buttering me up for the kill?” she managed
to tease back.

“Oh, yeah.”

She gulped, watching him take out the blanket and spread it on the ground, then set down the picnic bas
ket. He took her hand. “Come on,
I’m
starving.”

“Me, too.”

For a while they sat and munched on fried chicken
and potato salad, watching chipmunks scurry about
near a distant tree, a bighorn sheep eyeing them from
a high ridge.

Lucky in particular seemed entranced by each whisper of wind through the pines, each call of a mourning
dove or horned lark. Molly found herself longing to know more about his connection to this place. After a
moment she cleared her throat. “Lucky, this is the
place where you lived in the future, right?”

He laughed. “You know, it’s kind of hard to hear the
future referred to in the past tense, but I guess that
makes about as much sense as anything else that’s hap
pened to me here.”

“Well, it’s the place where you lived with your
grandparents.”

“Right.”

“The other night you spoke about losing them. I’d
like to know more about your life with them here.”

“Such as?”

“Well, like how you came to be reared by them, and
what it was like to grow up here.”

Lucky nodded, then spoke at length, telling Molly
how he hadn’t known his father, how his mom had
gotten killed in an auto accident, how his grandparents had stepped in to rear him and had raised him
righteously on this very land. He outlined the charac
ter traits he had most admired in Virgil and Bessie La
mont—his strength of character and sense of humor,
her old-fashioned values and role as a traditional
homemaker.

“You really worshipped your grandma, didn’t you?”
she asked with a touch of pain.

“Oh, yeah. She was one great lady.”

“And she’s still the reason I’m not your idea of a
proper wife?” she added sadly.

He managed a wink. “Maybe I’m cottoning more to the notion of a feisty bride with each passing day.”

Sure he was,
Molly thought morosely. To Lucky, she
said carefully, “Last week you spoke of your granddad dying from that awful lung ailment—”

“Emphysema.”

“Yeah, that. And how losing him killed your
grandma.”

“Sure did,” he acknowledged tightly.

“Tell me more about that time in your life. I mean, that must have been so hard on you. I can’t even imag
ine losing my own folks or my grandma.”

He gave a heavy sigh. “Yes, that period was really
tough, especially since I was only twenty-two when I
lost them.”

Lucky spoke of his grandparents’ final illnesses and
deaths, his words growing gruff and terse. Molly’s heart
reached out to him as, for the very first time, she saw
him as a man who was not just arrogant, determined
and strong. Yes, he was all of those things, and all of those qualities drew her to him. But for the first time
she also saw him as vulnerable and alone, especially so far removed from the world he’d once loved, and
this endeared him to her most of all, especially consid
ering the courage he’d demonstrated.

She grasped his hand. “I’m sorry, Lucky. I know you must miss them somethin’ awful.”

Briefly his eyes met hers and she spotted the emo
tion gleaming there before his gaze moved to a distant
hillside. “On that knoll yonder is where they were—will
be—buried.”

“How sad for you. But, Lucky, I’m wondering—”

“Yes?” he asked tensely.

She squeezed his hand.
“
If all of that happened—
will happen—here, why did you bring me to this place
of pain for you?”

He turned to gaze fully into her eyes. “Molly, it may
be a place of sorrow, but it’s also a place of joyous memories for me. It’s the place where you and I seem
to be connected, where all of this—my being here—
makes the most sense. I want this to be the place of a
new beginning for us, a new life.”

“A baby,” she murmured. “So you can have the land.”

“A baby,” he repeated fervently, “so
we
can have the
land . . . and perhaps be drawn closer together in the
process.”

“Will we be?” she asked ironically.

“What do you mean by that?”

Molly hesitated a long moment, then forged ahead,
asking the question that had been tormenting her for
some time now. “I mean, will you ever really be able to
trust me after what she—that woman—did to you?”

He gave a groan. “Molly, I apologize for ever com
paring you to her. I was wrong to say those terrible things—and to mock you when you said you’re hon
est. The truth is, you are honest, and you’re really
nothing like Misti. I’m realizing that more with each
passing day. I know I’ve accused you of conniving, when the reality is, the whole world knows exactly what’s on your mind. You go straight after whatever
you want, and you get it. Maybe that’s why I fought
you so hard for so long, ‘cause I’d never met a woman
as determined and tenacious as you. As for Misti, she was weak, stupid, deceitful—and you’re truthful and
strong.”

“But you don’t want a strong wife,” she whispered in
anguish.

“Don’t I?”

With those words, Lucky pulled Molly into his arms.
She hadn’t expected such tenderness from him, to be
wooed so expertly. No longer did she feel used by him.
His words had brought their worlds full circle and
made everything seem right. When his lips took hers,
she felt strangely at home.

He pressed her to the ground and smiled down at
her, his eyes so blue against the sky. He trailed his lips
lovingly over her face, down her neck. She gasped and
shivered. When he pulled down the bodice of her
dress, it seemed natural to reach up and unbutton his
shirt. When she trailed her fingernails over his naked chest, he sucked in a ragged breath and his eyes grew
fierce. He covered her, kissing her as his hand slipped
beneath her to tug on the strings of her corset.

Though his hands seemed impatient, his lips took
their time, slowly trailing down her body, his tongue circling each breast in turn, his mouth taking one nipple, then the other. Molly bucked as a feverish need
blazed inside her. Soon her impatient fingers were un
buckling his belt, undoing the buttons on his jeans. She reached inside his drawers and touched his hot
hardness, moaning her delight.

His eyes blazed with desire as he spread her legs
and pushed himself inside her, inch by throbbing inch.
There was no pain this time, only the most exquisite,
shattering tension. Soon she was sobbing, “Lucky,
Lucky, more . . .”

He heard her plea and with a groan plunged home
powerfully. Never had Molly felt anything so sweet, so
fulfilling. They mated fiercely, mouths, bodies and
loins locked, until their movements reached a stagger
ing crescendo and their ragged cries rose to the heavens. When Lucky spilled his seed inside her, Molly
knew with a certainty that they had just made a new
life together. But what brought tears to her eyes was
the realization that she loved him now, truly loved him.
Which meant she was powerless, defenseless against
him. But she loved him so much that she no longer cared about the risks. She just wanted them to be to
gether, now and always.

***

Claiming his bride, climaxing deep inside her, Lucky
felt deeply humbled and overcome with ecstasy. He looked down and saw the tears in Molly’s eyes. What
was she feeling? Happiness? Regret? Perhaps some of
both?

He loved her, he realized with a sudden knotting of
his throat. Truly loved her. And he knew in his soul that
they had just made a baby together. The knowledge
rocked him to his core. Just the thought of watching
his baby suckle at Molly’s breast, a baby with her curly
auburn hair and perhaps his eyes . . .

He shuddered, feeling exposed as never before, not
since Misti and Bobby had betrayed him. Not to mention scared to death. What if Molly didn’t return his
feelings? She had asked if he would ever fully trust her.
What if he still couldn’t?

For the moment none of that seemed to matter as he
clutched his bride close to his heart and kissed her
with aching tenderness.