The Marshal's Rebellious Bride (12 page)

“Stop it, you damn fool,” Morgan said, trying to pull his
horse back.

Whiskey gently patted the mule’s neck and turned to
smile at Demon. The smile was warm and understanding, nothing like she would
give him and that irritated him. Jealous. He was damn jealous of a horse and a
mule. Humiliating. Flat out stupid.

She lifted her gaze to meet his and the smile slipped
away. “Don’t let me keep you.”

He jerked out of his state of foolishness and pulled
up into the saddle. “Are you going into town today? That dressmaker said you
needed to get fitted for a gown as soon as possible.”

“I’m going into town today, yes.” When he glanced in
her direction, he caught the spark of fire in her green eyes. “
Not
to get fitted for a dress I don’t
intend to wear.”

The most obstinate female in the whole world, that’s
what
she
was. “Then why are you going to town?”

She put her hands on her small hips and said, “Not
that it’s
any
of your business, but
I’m going to visit a couple of my friends at Varieties.”

“The dance hall?” he asked, looking sharply at her in
disapproval. “A lady shouldn’t be going into a place like that.”

The mule nudged her from behind with his nose. She
shoved him away with a, “Stop that.” Then she faced him again. “I suppose you
also think a lady shouldn’t go into a saloon?”

“Course they shouldn’t.” Immediately he knew the
idiocy of that statement
since her family owned a saloon
and she’d spent a lot of time there. Hell, he even knew the story of how she
and her sister had earned their nicknames. The two mischievous imps had been
there with their father, who had gotten busy and left them alone unsupervised.
They’d evidently each gotten stone cold drunk drinking from a couple of bottles
they’d found behind the bar: one a bottle of whiskey, one a bottle of brandy.
Their amused brothers had come up with the names and they’d stuck.

“Good thing I’m
not
a lady then. At least I’m not a lady by
your
definition.”

“I didn’t…” He was losing ground here, best to shut
his mouth and head out to the range. He wouldn’t get in more trouble there.

She turned around to pick up the brush that had
slipped from her hand. “There are just so many reasons for why we shouldn’t get
married. We don’t see eye-to-eye on most anything.”

True enough, he supposed, but now that the idea of
marrying Whiskey had settled into him, he planned to do it.
Even
if she made him nuts.
Besides, he kind of looked forward to taming the
little wildcat.

“Three weeks, Angelina. Actually nineteen days from
now.” He used her real name just to annoy her.

“Just because you keep on harping about it doesn’t
mean
its
going to happen.” She didn’t even bother to
look his way, simply went back to brushing down the mule.

Demon snorted and appeared determined to bust on
through the fence to get to her, clearly wanting some of her attention as well.
Again, he felt a twinge of jealousy. He wanted her attention, too. He was
getting right down tired of arguing with her. He reined his horse away with a
firm jerk. “You’ve got to be the most stubborn woman God ever created.”

“Proud of it, too. Now go away. Quit bothering me and
go on about your business.”

He held his anxious horse in place for a minute
longer. He sure didn’t like her always wanting him to go away, always telling
him they weren’t getting married. He didn’t have a lot of time for courting or
wooing or whatever a gentleman was supposed to do in order to get a woman to
marry him. He had to head back to Texas and another assignment a week after the
wedding. Unless Rafe showed up before then and the two of them had their final
showdown, one Morgan intended to win. If that happened, he’d wire his
resignation down to the U.S. Marshal’s office in Texas.

Deciding it was best to leave before the conversation
turned even more upsetting, he reined his horse toward the ranch road. “Go to
the dressmaker and stay away from the dance hall,” he said and pushed Demon
into a trot not wanting to hear yet another refusal.

* * *

“I’ll take a shot of red-eye,” Whiskey stated boldly
as she walked through the batwing doors of Varieties and spotted Ham Bell
behind the bar. After arguing with Morgan and avoiding her brothers, she wasn’t
in the best of moods. She’d been worrying over this ridiculous marriage idea
all during her ride into town. One thing for sure, she
wasn’t
going to see the dressmaker.

She headed for the long, currently spotless wooden bar
and plopped her elbows on it with a heavy sigh. “I need a drink something
awful.”

Ham hadn’t said a word in response, didn’t appear to
be his usual jovial self. It worried her, causing her to put aside her own
problems to find out what was going on with her friend. Finally he looked up
into the big mirror behind the bar and met her gaze. He looked like he hadn’t
heard a word she’d said. His forehead was furrowed.

“Is something wrong?” she asked, straightening,
considering going behind the bar to get her own drink.

As if he read her mind and had actually heard her
before, he turned to face her and shook his balding head. “Your brothers would
skin my hide if I gave you a glass of red-eye. But I’ve got some tea back here
that Maybelle made earlier.”

She heaved a put-upon sigh but nodded. Few people in
town would go against her brothers and she knew it. They didn’t approve of
either her or Brandy partaking of liquor of any kind. “Fine. Tea it is. My
throat is parched and I need something to drink.”

It only took him a minute to pour her a glass of tea
and set it on the bar in front of her. He still didn’t say anything, just
leaned back against the shelves by the mirror. He seemed to be thinking,
wrestling with something.

Taking a quick drink, she pressed him. “Tell me what’s
troubling you, Ham. Can I help?”

He looked at her for a few seconds, opened his mouth
to speak, and then closed it again, shaking his head.

Her two friends, Maybelle and Abigail walked up behind
her and she smiled at them in the mirror. She’d met the women near her age when
they’d came to town on a stage several years ago. They’d become friendly almost
immediately, even though the more proper “ladies” in town didn’t approve of
them, especially when they had quickly gone to work for Ham.
Dance
hall ladies were shunned by many of the town’s women, but
not by all. As
for her, she didn’t care a bit what the old, pompous biddies thought about her
friends or about her. She befriended who she wanted to and that was that. Even
her brothers’ meager attempts to change her mind hadn’t worked, and they’d
given up. Truth was, Keno and Taos liked Maybelle and Abigail.

Abigail appeared to have had trouble containing her
wildly curly reddish-orange hair today. She had it tied back in a ponytail of
sorts, but it was trying hard to escape being confined. She grinned at Whiskey.
“It sure is good to see you here, to see a smiling face.” She glanced at Ham.
“He’s been fretting over business lately.”

That surprised Whiskey. Usually the Varieties did a
lot of business, almost as much as Keno’s place. She set her glass down and
studied the forty-something man. “What’s the problem, Ham? I thought your place
was packed most nights.”

His shoulders slumped beneath his white shirt. “It has
been until recently. The regulars still show up, but fewer newcomers are
dropping in. I hear grumbling about the men wanting something more.”

A bar was for drinking, playing poker, for getting
rowdy at times with a man’s friends. At least that’s all she’d ever witnessed
in Keno’s saloon, on those rare times she’d gone there at night. He frowned on
her being there more and more.
“It’s not
proper for a woman like you to be here.”
And he didn’t listen to her arguments
on the matter.

“What kind of ‘something more’ do they want?” She
couldn’t figure it out.

Maybelle moved beside her and answered before Ham
could respond. She looked worried as she said, “They want Abigail and me to do
some new fancy dance they’ve heard of. Some kind of leg-kicking dance.”

Whiskey raised an eyebrow. She’d heard her brothers
talking about this dance. Evidently Keno had seen it on one of his trips to
Chicago. “The Can-Can? That new French dance?”

Ham nodded grimly. “It’s innocent enough, from what I
gather. Just some high-kicking, some leg showing.” He looked warily at Abigail
and Maybelle. “They could do it; I don’t doubt that for a minute. But they’re
nervous about trying it. Understandably. And I won’t make them do something
they’re uncomfortable with.”

“I’ve heard Keno talk about this dance. He says that
sometimes the men in the audience get a bit boisterous.” She worried her bottom
lip. She didn’t want her friends to be in any kind of danger.

“You know I wouldn’t let anyone harm my girls,” Ham
said firmly.

She did know that. He looked on the two women almost
as his daughters. He took care of them, watched over his crowds like a hawk.

“I’d even pay a couple of men to control the crowd,
make sure the audience behaved.” He met her eyes and she sensed that he’d given
this matter a lot of thought.

“You never mentioned that,” Abigail said, giving him
an annoyed glance.

“
If’n
that’s true, I reckon
we could give it a try, at least once.” Maybelle looked determined.

Both of the women would do almost anything for Ham.
He’d taken them in, given them work, and a home over his saloon, too. They had
pretty sad stories before they’d shown up here in Dodge City, stories they’d
shared with Whiskey a little at a time. And other than the righteous biddies
who spurned them, there wasn’t a soul in town who didn’t like them. One of
these days she suspected a man or two around here would be brave enough to step
forward and actually marry one, or both, of her friends.

“Still, we’re a bit nervous about this newfangled
dance. Not sure we can even do it,” Abigail admitted, sounding worried.

Ham walked closer, hazarding a supportive smile. “I
know you could do it.”

Maybelle looked uncertain, too.

Whiskey knew she had to do something to help. She’d
never been afraid of trying new things. “How about we try this dance out?”

She focused on Ham, her heart beating hard at her
daring suggestion. “Is Pete around somewhere? Can you get him to try the music
on the piano?”

Ham’s eyes lit up with excitement. “I’ll go round him
up.” He hurried out from behind the bar, calling over his shoulder, “Draw them
curtains back on the stage and dance up there.”

Only rarely was the stage used for anything more than
Ham standing in front of the curtain to announce someone in the audience’s
birthday so everyone there could help celebrate. Maybelle and Abigail had never
danced any kind of dance up there. The most they ever did in the saloon was
serve drinks and occasionally put up with a pinch or a slap on their bottom.
Both of her friends looked unsurely at the stage.

“I don’t know…” Abigail said, glancing over at
Maybelle.

Maybelle faced Whiskey. “You said
we
, when you talked about trying out this dance. That mean
you
will try it with us?”

Her head was telling her to say ‘no.’ Her heart was
thudding as excitement raced through her. It wasn’t like she would be doing the
dance in front of anyone other than her friends…and the piano player. Nobody
would ever know. Most importantly her brothers wouldn’t know.
Morgan, either.

She drew in a breath and nodded. “Let’s do it.” She
hurried toward the stage and climbed the steps. “Help me pull this curtain
aside.”

***

Loud, boisterous laughter poured out of the Varieties
Dance Hall as Whiskey stood outside the batwing doors. A cool breeze fluttered
around her and already the sky was darkening. She’d been here earlier this
afternoon to see her friend Ham and to see Maybelle and Abigail. She’d even
tried out that new dance with them, kind of had fun with it. But then she’d
gone to visit Camelia.

Uneasiness swept over her. She really should be
heading home or at least staying the night at
Camelia’s
.
She absolutely shouldn’t be here. This was crazy, even Camelia had told her
that…over and over. But she hadn’t been able to keep away.

She rubbed at the nerves curling in her stomach and
concentrated on familiar sounds: spurs jangling on a wooden floor, chairs
scraping back and forth, men yelling to the bartender for drinks, and the piano
player pounding out a lively tune. Smoke drifted out the doors along with the
smells of sweat, liquor and tobacco. She wrinkled her nose and worried her
bottom lip. She was risking much to be here tonight. If her brothers found out
there would be hell to pay.

If Morgan found out…

Morgan
. She was confused about him. She couldn’t stop
thinking about him, especially in her dreams. In her dreams he did things to
her she’d only heard her more colorful friends talk about. She’d barely even
been kissed. Ace hadn’t wanted to do much more than give her a brief flutter of
a kiss until after they were properly married. And then he’d struggled with
setting a date for that. And then…he’d died.