The Marshal's Rebellious Bride (5 page)

“Mourning. She’s been mourning losing that deputy
she’d planned to marry.” Morgan still wondered what had kept them from
marrying. Taos had said something about Ace having kept putting off a wedding
date, that he and Keno had not pressed the younger man about it. Still, why
hadn’t
she
pressed the matter? He had
always thought women were eager to get hitched. It didn’t make sense to him
that the young deputy hadn’t been damn anxious to take that sassy minx to wife
and to bed her as soon as he could manage it. He could only imagine what all
that fire in bed…

He stiffened, horrified about what he’d been thinking.
He scowled as he looked ahead at the knee-high grass blowing in the breeze, at
the worn dirt path heading into Dodge City. “I thought you told me the other
day that it felt nice and peaceful around the ranch.” He’d hoped it could stay
that way for a much longer spell than this.

Taos chuckled. “Yes, but not right. Whiskey has a way
of… I don’t know… a way of adding spirit to a place. You’ll see.”

Spirit
. Morgan remembered each and every tale of
trouble
both Taos and Keno had shared with him since he’d
come to the ranch a couple of weeks ago. She drove them crazy sometimes. Yet
they loved her dearly. He couldn’t remember ever being loved like that.
Certainly not by his father…and not by Sarah.
He damn sure
didn’t think he was capable of giving that kind of love. Oh he’d believed
himself in love when he’d taken her to wife, but as time went on, he knew he
hadn’t loved her.

He reached up to mop the sweat from his brow with the
back of his
shirt sleeve
. He didn’t think he wanted to
spend the next twenty or more years dealing with a woman who would try his
patience. There were enough problems in his life already. And he sure didn’t
have much patience.

In spite of the number of times they’d discussed the
matter, he asked again, “How come you’re so all-fired set on me marrying
Whiskey? Why not that twin of hers, Brandy?” He hadn’t heard nearly the
“horror” stories about Brandy.

Taos looked over at him and shook his head. “You would
scare the boning right out of Brandy’s corsets. She’s a bit on the prim and
proper side. Quiet.”

“Quiet would be all right with me. I could even get
used to prim and proper.” Not that he wanted a wife he probably would be able
to walk all over, frighten when he got a tad grouchy—which happened from
time to time.

“Trust me. It’s Whiskey that will make you a good
wife.” Taos grinned and rode a little happier in the saddle. “You’re lucky I
chose you for her husband.”

A gust of wind threatened to whip the Stetson from
Morgan’s head. Dirt swirled and blew over them. He grimaced as he wiped off the
new layer of dust from his black trousers. Then he sneezed and cursed the day,
cursed the fact that he’d agreed to marry Whiskey.

“I’ve been thinking about Tyler,” he said after a few
minutes. Hell he thought about his son all the time, ached with missing him,
ached even more knowing the boy was better off without him. “It’s been nearly a
year since I last saw him. I’m one sorry father. You ought to want a better man
than me for your sister.”

Taos rode up beside him and scowled. “You could be a
damn good father, if you would give yourself and that boy a chance. You’ve run
scared from the commitment for too long.”

Morgan snorted and remained silent. He was scared. Not
of commitment, but of who he was, what he was. A man with a reputation as a
fast gun, a man half the outlaws in the frontier would love to take on and make
a reputation of their own by killing him. This was a hard land and it took hard
men to tame it. He reckoned he was about as hard as they came.

“You have bought into the ranch and that’s a good
beginning. Getting married is another good step. You need to stop living out of
the saddle and start living with your son, with your new wife. Whiskey will be
good for you both, believe me.”

“Yeah, I bought into the ranch, but the rest of it…
Well, the rest I haven’t figured out yet.” Taos saw her as the answer to his
problems, but he just couldn’t see his marrying her as the solution to his
difficulties with Tyler.

Taos looked over in challenge. “Except the marrying
Whiskey part.”

He nodded, his jaw clenched in reluctant agreement. He
had been thinking about hanging up his guns, about breeding horses for a long
time, which was why he’d bought the ranch. But he’d been on his own since he
was seventeen and done all kinds of work, sometimes on the razor’s edge of the
wrong side of the law. Settling down? He didn’t know if he could actually do
it. Living with his son…as a real father… He had his doubts about that, too.

He pictured Tyler, the blond-headed, nine-year-old boy
with vivid blue eyes so like his own. He had hardly seen his son in the six
years he’d lived with his father. His father had thought it best, and he had as
well, considering…. Still, he carried a wrinkled, faded photograph of Tyler in
his saddlebag. He also had a few precious letters that he’d gotten from Tyler
over the years, and he carried a batch that he’d written back but never sent.
He had wanted to tell his son how much he meant to him, but he didn’t know how.
And he figured it was probably too late now anyway.

Taos maneuvered his horse closer and pulled him out of
his thoughts. “Sometimes a man can be too cautious. We’re only given a handful
of time to live. A man shouldn’t waste it riding these dusty trails too long.”

He looked toward the town just ahead. “I’m ending my
life as a lawman before long. I’m going to set up that law practice I’ve talked
about.”

Morgan already knew that, they had discussed the
matter several times since they’d returned here. He would miss traveling with
Taos. His heart wasn’t really in hunting down criminals anymore, either, but,
truth was, he wasn’t sure about staying in one place. What if he couldn’t
handle managing a ranch? He hadn’t handled more than keeping track of his few
belongings and his horse in a hell of a long time. What if those eager young
guns did come hunting him down? He would be endangering the hands
who
depended on him. He would be endangering a wife.

But he’d made a promise to Taos. He was being crushed
between that rock and a hard place.

From the other side of the river they were riding by,
they heard the quiet lowing of cattle. The wind shifted and brought the stench
of stock pens in their direction. They were opposite the eastern edge of Dodge
City now. He glanced ahead and saw the toll bridge they were aiming for to
cross the unpredictable river. His gut churned again. Soon he would come
face-to-face with his bride-to-be.

A hawk swooped down a dozen feet from them and snared
an unsuspecting field mouse. It made him wonder if maybe Whiskey had been as
surprised as that poor mouse when she’d learned her brothers had sold him the
ranch. Most young women wouldn’t want the burden of running a ranch, but he
doubted she was like “most women,” at least from some of the things her
brothers had said off and on.

But she didn’t have a choice now and she’d have to
live with it. He also wondered how she would feel about her brothers’ plan to
marry her off to him. Again, most women wanted to settle down and raise a
family and she’d been engaged before.

He still remembered her bounding into Keno’s room to
announce her plans to get married. Lord, she’d sounded so damn happy. Yes, she
probably wouldn’t be opposed to the notion of marriage. Well, maybe she might
be reluctant at first since she didn’t know him, but he didn’t see that she’d
have much choice in the matter once her brothers got to reasoning with her.

Like
me.
No choice
.

He supposed he ought to court her some. He couldn’t do
it long, though, because he planned to get married and have at least a month to
settle into marriage before he went back to marshalling. He still wasn’t sure
when he would finally turn in his badge. The hands already working the ranch
could handle things for a spell and he knew Taos would keep an eye out as well.

A strange hissing sound drew his attention. His hand
shifted automatically to his Colt and he looked cautiously around. A few feet
away a snake slithered into the brush and he relaxed a bit. Yet he continued to
wonder about the unusual noise. It seemed too much for that small of a snake.

Taos appeared uneasy, too.

Something yellow floated in the sky above the town. He
reined Demon in and snapped, “What the hell?” He’d seen one of these
contraptions before, back east. A balloon. He had seen one list off to one side
like that right before it fell out of the sky. “Damn thing’s
gonna
crash!”

He headed hell-bound toward the heart of town with
Taos hot on his heels.

* * *

The wind picked up again, jerking the balloon around.
Whiskey slid against the side of the basket. “Dadblamed horse’s
patootie
!” She used one of the many phrases she’d learned
growing up around her father’s ranch and the various saloons he’d owned. She
rubbed her aching shoulder. Her entire body felt like one big bruise. This
adventure hadn’t quite turned out like she’d imagined.

With the next gust of wind the foul odor of manure
from the cattle pens below drifted up. She tried to hold her breath. Then she
caught sight of the toll bridge on the Arkansas River at the end of town.
Relief swept over her. The Wakefield Ranch wouldn’t be far away now; she was
almost home. Thank God.

She carefully manipulated the gas valve and tried to
judge the weight of remaining ballast, concentrating on steering the balloon to
a safe landing just on the north side of town.
 
But the wind jerked her again. She
unintentionally turned the gas valve off. The silken globe began collapsing.

Her stomach knotting, she raced to untie the ballast
bags, hoping to keep some altitude.

To her distress, the balloon continued collapsing in
on
itself
and drifted while rapidly losing altitude.
Her heart pounded.
Lord, don’t let me
slam into the side of a building
.

The balloon floated only a few dozen feet above the ground,
swaying and rocking. Morgan was rolled up into a protective black-and-white
ball and bounced around the basket floor. All she could do was pray and
desperately throw the dragline over the side.

She looked down once more and saw a pair of riders racing
through town, dodging around the chaos that reigned in the street. Riders
struggled to control startled horses. Wagons stopped at all angles with their
drivers staring skyward in disbelief.

Up and down the wooden boardwalks people gaped.
Children pointed. Even Bat Masterson with his drooping mustache and familiar
bowler hat stood next to Deputy Wyatt Earp just outside the Occident Saloon
watching in fascination.

The two riders she’d spotted thundered in her
direction. She blinked and her breath froze. The leaner man, face ashen with
worry, looked up at her:
Taos
. She
felt momentary relief.

Suddenly the balloon did another wild bob. She grabbed
the rope with the anchor attached from the floor, and then tossed it over the
side. Unfortunately, she hadn’t paid any attention when she tossed the rope.

As she peered over the side, she heard the anchor hit
the flat roof of Kelly’s Opera House with a clunk! “
Darn, double darn
!” she grumbled.

A deep bellow of rage roared up from the street below,
loud enough that she heard it above the continued hissing of the collapsing
balloon’s envelope. She looked down and then wished she hadn’t.

“Angelina Wakefield,” Taos shouted, using her given
name, which was always a really bad sign. “I’m going to warm your backside but
good!”

Annoyed with him, she held onto the side of the basket
and glared down. She had plenty of things to say to him, too, but not in front
of half the town.

Before anymore could be said, the gondola landed with
a teeth-jarring thud on the rooftop.

She yelped and was thrown against the side of the
basket. The massive yellow cloth, with all its netting ropes, covered the
basket. She had a whole new problem to handle now.

* * *

Morgan was beyond furious, beyond thinking about
anything but getting to that crazy redhead. He ignored everyone around him as
he dismounted almost before Demon had even stopped. He tossed the reins at the
hitching rail and then tore into the Opera House, heart pounding.

Flying in a
danged balloon! Didn’t that just beat
all.

He stormed through the partially dark main room,
ignored the few people inside, and took the stairs at the back two at a time.
Taos was right behind him.

He gritted out, “Hell of a friend you are, wanting me
to marry that idiot sister of yours.”

Taos merely grunted a response, but Morgan didn’t
think there was much his friend could say at the moment in defense of his
sister. Every man, woman and child in town had to be thinking Whiskey Wakefield
was way short on brains. Still, no matter what he thought of her right now, he
was more than a little worried.