The Devil's Daughter (4 page)

“Stay. Over. There.”

He wished he could stand up and adjust his trousers, but that’d only give her more to smile about. “This is exactly what I’m talking about.”

“Lust?”

“No, not lust.” He shook his head. “Well, yes, but no.”

“You’re not making sense, husband.”

Jed glared her way, then exhaled slowly. “If you’d just stay over there – and not touch me – I’ll try to explain.”

The scorching sun seared through his clothes and hat, making it near impossible to draw a clear breath.

“As I was saying,” he sighed. “A marriage is better built on reality and respect than silly notions and romance.”

She just shrugged.

“As for lust--” He tightened his hold on the reins until the leather pinched his skin white-- “-it’s an important part, too, but that’s not what I want.”

A look of horror gripped Lucy’s features. “You don’t want to. . .?” She gasped loudly. “Or do you mean you
can’t
. . .?”

“No!” He bit back a curse. “I mean, yes, of course I want to. And of course I can!”

“Thank goodness.” Her saucy smile returned. “You had me worried there for a minute.”

Every breath was a chore, every word a lesson in patience.

“I just mean that in order for our marriage to be strong, we need to have something more than that between us.”

Lucy yawned.

Yawned!

“Once we know each other better,” he continued, “and have a good amount of respect for one another, then we can. . .well. . .I mean--” Heat raced up his neck and ears.

“Get lusty?”

Jed couldn’t help but laugh. “Yes, Lucy. Then we can get lusty.”

God help him, what had he married? A practical man would turn the buggy around and dump her back in Miss Blake’s lap, refund or not. What happened to that practical man? Somewhere between walking into the restaurant and touching Lucy’s calloused hands, he’d disappeared, replaced by this stuttering fool who couldn’t seem to put two words together without tripping over his tongue.

Lucy chewed her bottom lip for a moment, her brow furrowed slightly. “So you’re saying you don’t want to bed me?”

Jed gulped back a breath. Women didn’t – or shouldn’t - speak of these things so openly. “That’s not what I said.”

“Yes it is.”

“No,” he corrected. “I never said I didn’t want to. . .bed. . .you.” Breathe. “I said we need to develop trust and respect between us before we. . .”

“Get lusty and impassioned,” she finished for him, a not-so-innocent smile tugging her lips upward.

Jed swiped his arm across his brow. If Lucy was trying to drive him mad, she was doing a damn fine job.

“Right,” he finally muttered, then forced his breathing back to normal. “So we’re agreed then.”

They rode in silence for a long while, Jed trying his damnedest to control his thoughts and breathing, while Lucy seemed to be pondering the whole idea amid her confusion.

“What about kissing?” she blurted, her eyes widened with hope. “That’s fairly harmless, isn’t it?”

Jed groaned. Somehow, he doubted anything about Lucy would be harmless. With any other woman, kissing could undoubtedly be completely safe, but with her? Sweet Jesus, she’d likely devour him whole.

“How ‘bout we just take it slow and see what happens?” He cast her a quick glance, just in time to see her frown.

“Don’t you
want
to kiss me?” she asked.

“Lucy--”

Too late, she was already sliding closer again, pressing her body against his arm as her whisper breathed against his ear. “I’ve been wanting to kiss you, husband, since the moment I saw you at the back of that smelly old room.”

“I--”

Swallow. Breathe.

She ran her finger around the edge of his ear, then down his jaw.

“Why don’t we stop under that big tree there. . .” she pointed toward a towering pecan tree about a hundred feet off the road.

Its huge branches cast the only significant shade for miles around; it’d be cool and comfortable, the perfect place to –

“No.” He shook away from her touch and released the reins long enough to point her back to her side of the bench. Hadn’t she heard a word of what he’d just spent so many tortured breaths explaining to her?

“You don’t want to kiss me?” Lucy pouted. “Then why did you marry me?”

With a long sigh, he searched for the words to make her understand.

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” he said finally. “I’m sure every man in town wants to.”

That seemed to make her feel a little better. Her pout disappeared, and the frown began to fade.

“You’re a very strange man, Jedidiah Caine.” Lucy shook her head slowly. “Very strange indeed.”

She was right. He was a little strange, especially compared to most of the men in town.

“Well,” Lucy said, “even practical men want to bed a woman once in a while.”

Jed sighed. He’d be willing to bet any one of the others would have taken a room at the hotel and made Lucy their wife ten minutes after marrying her. But Jed wanted more; more than just a woman in his bed, more than just a wife who did his every bidding.

Three years ago, he thought he’d found that wife. She was everything he needed; capable and caring, without any of the usual female sensitivities or need for undying love getting in the way. It was a sensible pairing, and he had every confidence the respect they felt for each other made up for any romance that was lacking.

But then he’d gone and introduced her to his brother. After that, he could only stand back and watch as the two of them fell head-over-heels in love. 

He knew that kind of love didn’t happen to everyone, and since he’d just up and married a woman who was his complete opposite, it sure as hell wasn’t likely to happen to him. But he didn’t need love to make his marriage work. All he needed was a basic mutual respect between him and Lucy.

Given her main concern seemed to be nothing more than pretty dresses and sex, it would no doubt prove more of a challenge than he’d expected, but somehow – someway - he’d make it work.

God help him.

“Is this it?” Lucy stared down from the wagon seat in dismay. Surely to Satan, there was more to Jed Caine’s spread than a tiny barn and a slapped-together shanty. Somewhere beyond the sparse patches of grass and acres of dirt there had to be something more.

“Yup, this is it.”

A tiny corner of Jed’s soul flickered to darkness, then fought back to the light. To him, as a human, it would only seem like a moment’s disappointment, but Lucy knew better. Too many disappointments darkened a mortal’s soul until it was charred beyond recovery. A heartbeat later, a look of determination settled over him with such intensity, it rattled her nerves for a moment.

“It might not look like much yet,” he said, “but it will. Just needs a little work.”

“A little?” She let him lift her from the wagon and then followed him toward the small shanty. How did anyone live like this – and why would they want to?

“How long have you lived here?” she asked.

Jed shrugged. “Going on six or eight months I guess.”

“And what – exactly - have you been doing out here all that time?” He obviously hadn’t spent the time working on the house.

“Settling in, stringing the fence--” he trailed off.

“The fence?” She wanted to scream, but bit it back. “You didn’t think a proper house might be the better place to start?”

His lip curled in a small grin. “You’re the one who told me you had all the strength I needed, so I saved the big work for you.”

He was certainly handsome when he grinned like that; a delicious mixture of boyish charm and male determination.

“But--”

“No buts.” He took her by the hand and led her into the middle of the yard, then turned in a slow circle, his arms spread wide. “It’s going to be the best piece of land God ever set on the earth.”

“But--”

“We’ll build a house, a new barn,” he paused, then added, “we can raise a family here.”

She clamped her mouth shut, grinding her teeth together. Hell would freeze solid twice before she’d agree to bring a child into this world. She was here for herself and no one else, not for this new husband and certainly not to have a child.

She was here to claim three souls: Jed’s, Maggie’s and the baby’s when it was born. The baby was the most important; the other two simply stood in the way.

Maggie should be easy enough to sway, given her fragile state of mind. But she had a feeling Jed was going to prove a bit more difficult.

Once she’d completed her mission, she could hand their souls over to Satan and be free to do as she wished. And what she wished was for someone else to take her place in the bowels of Hell.

Jed interrupted her musings by waving his finger in front of her and pointing to the strings of barbed wire snaking off in the distance.

“I had to finish the fence first so we could start building a herd.”

“A herd of what?” The stench of horse dung assaulted her senses, making her eyes water and her throat tighten against a gag.

“Cattle.”

“Cows stink,” Lucy groaned. “And they’re stupid.”

Jed shot her a wink and grinned. “True, but they’re also money in the bank.”

“But--”

“No buts.”

As he took her hand and headed back toward the wagon, Lucy’s next complaint fogged out of her mind. His hands were distractingly warm. And strong.

“Why don’t you take this.” He pulled the parcel of new clothes from the wagon and handed it to her. “You can get changed into one of them other dresses, and then we can get started.”

He set about releasing the horses, speaking softly to each animal as he unbuckled the straps, taking a moment to scratch behind their ears and across their noses.

“Maggie might be sleeping,” he warned. “So be quiet when you go in.”

The mention of Maggie redirected Lucy’s thoughts. She shouldn’t focus on the horrid land and piles of dung surrounding her, but rather on what she could do to hurry things along. Maggie was the first step.

With a small flounce, Lucy took her package into the house and stood staring through the gloom.

A tiny window faced north toward the makeshift barn and main pasture, but whatever light it might have let in was shadowed by a narrow overhang from the roof. She lit the lamp, turned it as bright as she could, then took a good look around the cramped space that was now her home.

The one-room shack did nothing to boost her spirits. A small square table sat under the window, with two oddly crooked chairs tucked beneath it. Long narrow shelves hung on both the far wall and the one between the door and the table, each filled with cans of beans, bags of rice, and various other household items.

Three hooks in the near corner held changes of clothes: a pair of faded denim pants, a blue button-down shirt, a tattered pair of gray long underthings, and two plain dresses.

The other corner of the pathetically small room was completely taken up by a narrow, lumpy bag of straw with a green blanket tossed over it.

The lump shifted and moaned.

“Jedidiah?” The voice coming from the bed was frail and feeble.

“No,” Lucy said. “I’m Lucy, Jedidiah’s wife.”

“His what?” Maggie scrambled from the bed, then stumbled back into the wall, her nightgown tangled around her legs. Stringy blonde hair fell around her shoulders in a matted mess, and her skin was so pale, so fair, she almost appeared transparent.

“His wife,” Lucy repeated as she stepped forward.

“Don’t touch me.” Maggie recoiled. She narrowed her eyes and squinted back at Lucy. “Who are you?”

“I told you, I’m Lucy.”

“Where did you come from?” Distrust oozed from Maggie’s every pore.

“You don’t want to know,” Lucy laughed.

“Why are you here?” Maggie hadn’t moved from the wall.

“To look after you.”

There seemed to be a barrier of some kind around Maggie’s soul; one that made it impossible to read, but Lucy could still see the woman was obviously mad.

“Who sent you?” Maggie’s voice grew tighter. Lucy was certain the other woman would have crawled through the wall if it meant she could get away from Lucy.

“Nobody sent me, Maggie. I’m here to help you.”

Where was the stove? And the floor! Not a single sliver of wood to step on, nothing but more dirt. How could anyone be expected to keep that clean?

Obviously, by marrying Jed Caine, Lucy had done nothing more than trade one form of Hell for another.

At least the other Hell was warm.

“I don’t need your help.”

“Really?” Lucy shrugged indifferently. “That’s not what I hear.”

Maggie turned a little more into the room. “What did you hear?”