The Rustler's Bride (4 page)

“I’m sure I’ll get it, whether I want it or not,” Victoria replied.

“Keep your distance, that’s what I’m saying. A man like that, he’ll take your heart with him when he rides out of here.” Mrs. Flynn pinched her lips into a tight seam and dipped her head in a forceful nod. Then she shuffled out of the room, with the haughty posture of a woman who has said her piece and has no intention of remaining around to hear it challenged.

Victoria mulled over the remark while she helped herself to eggs and ham from the display Mrs. Flynn had set out. The housekeeper’s warning struck a deeper cord than her father’s threats, and yet Victoria chose to ignore the sudden stirring of misgivings. She would stick to her plan—find Declan and get properly acquainted. And what better time to start than right now? With that thought, she attacked her breakfast and devoured every morsel with unladylike haste.

Outside, the sunshine fell like a cloak of heat over the arid landscape. There were no ranch hands about. Victoria spent a few idle few moments drifting between the outbuildings, and then she located Declan at the stables, mucking out the stalls. For a moment, she paused at the entrance. Unaware of her presence—or pretending not to notice her—he continued the steady rhythm of ducking down and straightening, the muscles on his arms and shoulders bunching and flexing as he scooped up the soiled straw with a pitchfork and tossed it into the wheelbarrow behind him.

“Good morning,” Victoria said, and moved deeper into the dim light.

Declan stood straight. He propped the tip of the pitchfork against the cement floor, and, lifting one arm, wiped a tattered sleeve across his brow. Strands of golden hair clung to his damp skin. His black Stetson—the only part of his clothing that didn’t look as if it might disintegrate any moment—hung from a peg on the wall.

He offered no reply to her greeting. He merely stared at her with narrowed eyes, caution stamped on his battered features. Victoria drifted closer. Her hips swayed with the lazy steps of an aimless stroll that suggested she had stumbled upon him purely by chance.

“How are you settling in?” she asked.

At first, she didn’t think he would answer. Then he lifted the pitchfork again and started swinging it, but his pace was slower, and there was a new tension to his movements.

“Met the men,” he said finally.

“How’s your room?”

He slanted a rueful glance at her. “Adequate.”

Adequate. An educated word.

“Mrs. Flynn said you didn’t eat much last night.”

“I wasn’t hungry.”

Declan finished with the stall that belonged to Flint, her father’s black stallion, and moved on to the next. Victoria scuttled forward to keep him fully in her sights. The horses were all out grazing, except a mare and a newborn foal in the far stall. Flies buzzed in the air. The heat made her dizzy. She could feel beads of sweat gathering on her brow.

“I’m sorry about my father last night,” she ventured.

“Nothing to be sorry about.”

“I mean, those things he said…”

Declan shrugged and tossed another load of dirty straw into the wheelbarrow.

“He’ll get over his hostility,” Victoria muttered. “Eventually…”

Declan shot her a glance, half sour, half amused.
The hell he will, and you know it,
the single mocking blue eye seemed to say.

“I mean…you’re my husband…surely, it would be fitting for us to get to know each other a bit…a year is a long time to be tied to a stranger without at least making friends…” Victoria let her fumbling words trail away.

It wasn’t going as she had expected. In Boston, if she spoke to a gentleman in a ball or in a concert, or if she boldly let a stranger approach her in a store or in the public library on Boylston Street, those men would fall over themselves to engage her in conversation. She might not experienced in the art of flirting, but she knew when a man’s demeanor told her that they wanted her to go away, and that was what Declan’s rigid posture was telling her right now.

She stood in helpless silence while he continued to work. At the end of the corridor, the foal whinnied. The mare blew soothing sounds from its nostrils, and then Victoria could hear the eager, slurping noises of suckling as the foal found its mother’s teat.

All of a sudden, loneliness closed in around her. Victoria rarely felt sorry for herself, but now Declan’s taciturn refusal to interrupt his work and keep her company acted like a wrench that lifted the lid from the pain of having grown up without a mother.

Oh, Declan Beaulieu, speak to me
, she thought.
Look at me.

She admitted now that ever since they sat on their horses beneath the hanging oak and took their wedding wows, the girlish dreams she’d made up about the fair haired outlaw had grown into something more, something ill defined, and yet real and powerful.

“I…I assumed,” she muttered. “Since we’re married…”

Her voice died away. What had she assumed? She hadn’t really thought it through at all. She had merely acted upon instinct. And instinct drew her to Declan Beaulieu.

Her eyes followed him as he finished with Buttercup’s stall and came out again. Instead of moving on to the next stall along the row, he halted in front of her. He seemed to tower over her. Victoria’s mouth went dry. Her pulse quickened.

“It’s no good, Victoria,” he said. “Your father hates me, and for a reason. I’m a rustler. There is no greater enemy to a rancher than a man who steals his cattle. It’s best if you keep out of my way, and I’ll keep out of yours.” He pulled off one stained leather glove and reached out, as if to touch her face, or perhaps her hair, but then he seemed to think better of it and withdrew his hand.

He pulled the glove back on. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet but his words were clear and firm. “I owe my life to you, and that means I need to put your honor above any dark desires that might swirl around my mind when I look at you. I have little to be proud of, and I want to be proud of treating you with the respect you deserve. Don’t make it harder for me. It is hard enough as it is.”

He turned away and resumed his chores.

Victoria felt her body shiver with a sudden chill. If there ever had been a rejection clad in the bright mantle of honor, she’d just heard it. There was nothing she could think to do or say that would not appear foolish or desperate.

And Declan was right.

If she didn’t watch out, her reputation might be stained beyond repair, leaving her with no choice but to remain married to him. She would incur her father’s wrath and—if Declan chose to ride out at the end of the year anyway—it would doom her to the lonely fate of a woman who bore a man’s name but possessed nothing else of him.

She turned around and went back into the house. It was no use chasing a dream, a vague, ill defined dream that she could not fully understand even herself. And yet, she knew that as the year went by—no, as the hours and days went by—it would never be possible for her to keep out of Declan’s way, and for him to keep out of hers.

Chapter Three

“Hey, Beaulieu!
Ayuadame.
Help me.”

Declan heard the plea and hurried across the stable yard. Flaco, one of the Mexican
vaqueros
was trying to lift a timber beam onto the flat roof of the cookhouse. Small and slight, aged anywhere between thirty and forty, Flaco had difficulty coping with tasks that required physical strength.

He had wedged one end of the beam against the edge of the roof and was staggering beneath the weight of the other end that he’d propped over his shoulder. Declan crouched behind him, settled his shoulder beneath the beam and straightened his legs.

“I’ve got it.”

Flaco slipped away.
“Gracias.”
He gave Declan a broad smile. He had a pinched, rat-like face with teeth as crooked as a collapsed picket fence, but he was good natured and friendly. The others were reluctant to insult his masculinity by limiting him to easy tasks, but it appeared to Declan that such concerns were misplaced, for Flaco disliked any type of work and he seemed quite at ease with being called with a name that meant ‘skinny’.

“Where do you want it?” Declan asked.

Flaco pointed at a gap in the flat roof. “There.”

Declan crouched once more, jerked his body upright and levered the timber beam up with his raised arms. A string of curses hissed out through his gritted teeth.

“
Es dificil, si?
Difficult.”

Declan gave another grunt. “It’s all right.”

Mrs. Flynn had caught him shirtless and had seen the damage on his body, but he didn’t want anyone else’s pity. He kept up the stream of curses as he strained his muscles to slide the beam up on the cookhouse roof.

Cookhouse
was really a misnomer. Although the roof was solid, the walls around the outdoor kitchen and eating area were made of heavy timber posts with wide gaps between them. The overall effect was one of a huge cage with an opening for a doorway at each end.

“
Oy, oy, oy. Tu mujer.
Wife. Miss Ria,” Flaco said with a lusty roll of his eyes.

Declan gave the beam one final shunt to roll it into place where a rotten one had already been removed. He turned to look. Victoria was striding up. She was wearing a pair of brown canvas overalls that stretched tight over her rounded bottom. Because the garment was a fraction too small, instead of covering her breasts, the flap at the front acted like a shelf that pushed them up. Her hair was gathered into an elaborate upsweep. Combined with her rough outfit, it created a contrast that would have made any man’s mouth water.

She nodded a quick greeting and went into the cookhouse. Declan watched. She spoke a few words to Cookie, and then she turned around and came out again. Flaco moved closer to the entrance for a better look. Declan grabbed him by the collar and hauled him back.

“You said it,
amigo
,” he bent to whisper in the small man’s ear. “
My
wife.”

Rio’s black eyes glittered and his sharp features crumpled with laughter.

Three days ago, when Declan rode with Victoria and her father to the ranch, Andrew Sinclair had taken him straight to the cookhouse and introduced him to the men who had already gathered for lunch. Sinclair had bluntly spelled out the reason for his daughter’s sudden marriage, and had made it clear that the marriage would remain in name only.

Declan had confirmed every word, but the men had taken to teasing him, goading signs of possessiveness and jealousy out of him. It wouldn’t have been too bad, if Victoria had not been constantly dashing in and out of the yard, dressed in those tight overalls.

When she was safely out of sight again, Declan left Flaco to finish the repairs on the cookhouse roof and went to the corrals on the other side of the yard to see how the teenage black cowboy, Johnston, was getting on with the horses.

“Howdy, Mr. Beaulieu.”

Johnston was tall and lanky, with a curious looseness to his joints. Despite the jerky way he moved, he did not appear clumsy. Watching him made Declan think of a cat’s tail—how it swished with tense little flicks when the animal was about to pounce.

“You can call me Declan.”

“Sure, Mr. Beaulieu.” Johnston wiped his face with the red cloth tied around his neck. He turned to Sinclair’s black stallion he’d been grooming. “I’m gonna buy me a horse juss like this one day,” he said, longing in his tone. “I puts money away from my pay.”

Footsteps sounded behind them. Declan turned. Victoria sauntered past, carrying a rope bridle across her arm. She went to the next corral and called for her palomino. When the horse trotted up, Victoria slipped the bridle on it. Then she led Buttercup out and through the gravel yard to another corral farther away.

“Why’s she do that?” Johnston asked.

Declan shrugged, equally baffled. “To give the horse shade?”

“There’s no more shade over there.” Johnston stared, then got bored with the mystery and went back to his daydreaming. “I got me saved twenny dollars. How much do you think a horse like this costs?”

It dawned on Declan then. Something he’d never thought of before. Victoria and her father would not be the only ones hurt when the ranch was taken by the bank’s bailiffs. The hands might lose their jobs. And Abe and Cookie and Mrs. Flynn. The realization sent an uncomfortable sensation churning in his gut.

He considered the ill-gotten gains he had stashed away. Two thousand dollars in gold. Seven cowboys. Blacksmith. Housekeeper. Cookie. Ten people in total. He would share the money between them. He had no idea how much a housekeeper earned, but for the rest of them the sum would represent six months’ wages. That should tide them over while they found new employment.

Ill at ease, his mind rebelling at the idea of hurting innocent men, Declan turned back to Johnston. Five minutes later, his nerves got another jolt when Victoria came out again and moved Buttercup back to the corral from which she had a moment ago removed the horse.

“Why’s she do that now?” Johnston said.

“Because she’s a woman,” Declan replied. “You can’t figure them out.”

The young cowboy howled with laughter. Declan stood and watched Victoria walk away, her hips swaying inside the tight canvas overalls.

****

Dark clouds rolled across the morning sky. The first autumn storm. Victoria finished dressing and stood by the window, watching the thunderheads roll in. Her own life seemed just as unsettled. She had been married for five days now—five days of restless unease that thrummed in her veins and prickled on her skin.

Since their encounter at the stables she’d barely seen Declan. Her father drove him like a slave master. He drove all his men like a slave master. How come they were down to less than a dozen hands? And where had the maids gone? She kept asking her father, and he kept mumbling something about the difficulty of finding the right people to employ.

She had attempted to occupy her mind with reading, and writing letters, and cleaning the neglected house, but Declan crowded out all other thoughts. Every waking moment, some unseen force drew her to the window to keep an eye on the stable yard. If she spotted him, she would find some pointless errand that took her to the barn, to the corrals, to the blacksmith’s forge, wherever Declan might be, so she could catch a glimpse of him. So far, she had taken care to avoid trouble by not stopping to talk to him.

In the evenings, Declan ate alone in his room. By choice, her father claimed. As they dined together, facing each other across the big banquet table, her father kept sipping whiskey and staring morosely into the air—that is, when he wasn’t staring at her, the way a mother hen stares at a chick when there is a fox around the coop.

An entire year of this atmosphere of tension and mistrust and dislike. An entire year of this ache of longing inside her. An entire year of this tearing mix of uncertainty and a crazy hope that something wonderful—something more wonderful than she’d even dared to dream of—might be there for the taking, if only she was brave enough to reach out for it.

She couldn’t take a whole year of this tension.

She couldn’t take a single more day of it.

Victoria threw on a fringed buckskin jacket, grabbed a measuring tape from the bureau in the corner of her bedroom and clattered down the stairs. Declan needed new clothes. That would give her an excuse. Although it seemed crazy that a wife would need an excuse to talk to her own husband.

She’d misjudged the weather. The late August heat had not abated, but a wall of scorching air hit her the moment she stepped out of the door. Sweat beaded on her skin, even before she’d walked across the yard to the barn where they stored firewood. The steady thuds of an axe against a log stump greeted her. The interior smelled of pine resin and sawdust.

“Declan,” she called out from the door. She knew better than to startle a man wielding an axe. Or a gun. Or a hunting knife. Or even a corded leather whip.

The thudding sounds ceased. “Over here,” a voice called out.

Victoria entered the shadowed barn. Declan stood at the far end. Shirtless, hatless, he slammed the axe into the chopping block and reached for his shirt draped on a stack of wood. There was resignation in his gesture. As if he too had spent hours fighting the need inside him and knew the battle was already lost.

She hurried up to him. “No,” she said. “Don’t put it on.”

Declan froze, the shirt clutched in his hands. Victoria’s eyes fell on the dark bruises that mottled his chest. She swallowed. Reaching out, she curled her fingers over the pair of knotted fists that gripped the garment. Lightly but firmly, she pushed downward, until Declan lowered his arms out of the way.

With a gentle touch, she probed at his injuries. Angry red welts spanned across his ribs, and a patchwork of blue and purple bruises covered the ridged muscles on his abdomen. There was a healing two-inch scar beside the neat dimple of his belly button, and she could see another one lower down, half covered by the waist of his faded denim pants.

“How did this happen?” she asked.

Declan flinched but said nothing. She repeated her question. She could tell the tension that had seized him from the way his muscles grew taut beneath her cautious exploration.

At length he said, “That red haired deputy.”

The image of the freckle-faced bully formed in Victoria’s mind. He had the strength of a lumbering beast—and the clumsiness of one. Although leaner, Declan was almost as strong, and as agile as a mountain lion.

Startled, she looked up at his face. “Mick O’Malley did this to you?”

Icy anger flashed in the blue eyes. “He got me alone in the jail the night before the hanging. My hands were tied behind my back and the rope was lashed to the iron bars.” His expression grew grim. “I was no more able to fight back than a punching bag.”

Victoria bit her lip, thinking how hard her father had been driving Declan. “It must hurt…to chop up firewood…to lift heavy things.” She kept up her inspection of the marks of violence on his body. She’d been horrified at the cut on his face and the swollen eye and the bruised lips, but those were superficial injuries, perhaps signs that he might have resisted capture, and they were well on their way to healing by now. This was worse. Far worse. The marks on his body were evidence of a calculated, cruel beating for the sole purpose of inflicting pain.

“What are these circular cuts?” she asked, pointing at his collarbone.

Declan hesitated. He gave a small shrug and spoke in a casual,
who-cares-anyway
tone. “That big silver ring he wears. I was lucky he didn’t have it on when they arrested me and he crashed his fist into my face. I could have lost an eye before he sheriff intervened and made him stop.”

Dear God. Horror welled up inside Victoria.  She inched one hand up his ribcage, testing for broken bones. “Tell me if it hurts,” she said as she pressed down on each narrow ridge and groove.

Declan spoke very softly. “It hurts just to breathe.”

Startled by his candid response, Victoria looked up. His eyes were intent on her. The cold fury had gone, replaced by the vulnerable sheen of yearning. She stilled, her fingertips resting against his naked chest. She could feel a shiver ripple through him. Could hear the sudden catch in his breath.

“Stop,” Declan said in a rough murmur.

A wildness seized her. Surely, this was the time to reach for the happiness that might lay hidden in the hazy mists of a future yet to unfold. “Stop what?” she asked. “This?” Her eyes held his as her fingers made a small, caressing motion on his skin. “Or this?” Slowly, she flattened her palm against his chest. She could feel his heart thundering beneath, could feel the heat that radiated from his body—heat and raw power and a faint quivering that hinted at masculine instincts barely held under control.