Bride On The Run. Elizabeth Lane

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СКАЧАТЬ face, were a rich, startling shade of amber, flecked with bits of gold and brown. They had regarded him boldly, as if he were a prize hog she had just won at a church raffle. “Well,” she had said in a husky contralto voice that seemed much too big for the rest of her. “Well, well, so it’s Mr. Stone, is it?”

      Malachi’s heart had dropped like a plumb bob.

      He should have turned away right then and there, he lashed himself as he leaned hard into the brake to slow the careening wheels. He should have tossed her a few dollars for fare back to Salt Lake, climbed into the buckboard and driven off without a backward glance. Instead here he was, wondering how he was going to make do with the last kind of female he wanted on his hands.

      Malachi’s inner grumblings were cut short by the crack of splintering wood. His bride gave a little yelp as the wagon lurched sideways, its momentum pitching her out of her seat. The parasol flew from her hands and vanished into the wide, rocky void of the canyon. She might have gone the same way if he had not grabbed her arm and wrenched her back toward him.

      “What on earth—?” Her eyes were as wide as a startled fawn’s, her arm taut through the thin fabric of her sleeve.

      “It’s all right,” he growled, “I’ve got you.”

      “I can see that, but it doesn’t explain what happened.” Annoyance formed a furrow between the golden wings of her eyebrows. Close up, she smelled of clean sweat and cheap hotel soap.

      “Broken axle.” Malachi bit back a curse as he released her. “Happens now and again on this road.”

      “So what do we do now?”

      “We unhitch the mules and ride them down to the ferry. Unless you’d rather walk, that is.”

      “What—about my things?” Her eyes flickered uncertainly toward her leather-bound trunk. It was of modest size as trunks go, but Malachi was in no frame of mind to lug the woman’s useless finery down six miles of rough road.

      He scowled at her. “No reason it shouldn’t be safe where it is. Nobody comes this way when the river’s in flood.”

      “We can’t take it with us?” The eyes she turned on him would have reduced a lot of men to quivering putty, and probably had.

      “There are two mules,” Malachi swung out of the seat and dropped to the ground. “I plan to ride one of them. The other one can carry you or the trunk. Not both. Take your pick.”

      Still she seemed to hesitate. Resolving to ignore her, he strode to the front of the rig and began unbuckling the double harness from the traces. One of the mules raised its tail and dropped a steaming pile of manure in the orange dust. Yes, that about summed things up, Malachi reflected dourly. Stuck on the road with a useless city female, an hour from darkness, with the children alone and waiting for him. He hoped to blazes the woman could ride a mule.

      “Aren’t you going to help me down?” Her raspy little voice, as mellow as southern bourbon, penetrated Malachi’s awareness. He glanced back to see her watching him with eyes as bright and curious as a wren’s. There was a birdlike quality about her small frame, the quickness of her movements and the way she sat forward on the wagon seat, as if she were about to spread her wings and take flight. Anna. A good, simple name. But something told him there was nothing simple about this woman.

      “Well, Mr. Stone?” Was she demanding or only teasing him? Malachi was tempted to ignore her, forcing her to climb down on her own, but then he noticed the narrowness of her skirt and realized she could not get down except, perhaps, by jumping. How in blazes was she supposed to ride a mule? He hadn’t brought along a damned sidesaddle.

      With a sigh of resignation, he walked back to the side of the wagon and extended his arms. The corners of her mouth lifted in a tight little smile as she leaned toward him, letting his big hands encircle her ridiculously tiny waist. He lifted her without effort, bracing his senses against the onslaught of her nearness as he swung her over the edge. This was a business arrangement, Malachi reminded himself. It would remain just that until she got tired of the sand, the bugs, the isolation and the unending work, and lit out for greener pastures. That wouldn’t take long, he reckoned. A week, a month, surely no more, and he would be faced with the dismal prospect of starting over—if it wasn’t already too late by then.

      Anna.

      Her hands lingered on his shoulders as he lowered her to the dusty roadway. Close up, her skin was warm apricot in tone, luminous beneath the smudges of rust-colored dirt. Her eyes were the color of aged brandy, her body warm through the fabric of her dress and soft, he sensed, beneath the tightly laced corset. Malachi felt the all too familiar tightening in the hollow of his groin. He cursed silently. No, this wasn’t going to work out. Not for a week. Not for a day. Not for a damn-blasted minute. He’d have been better off alone.

      Determinedly, he stepped away from her. “I’d better get these mules unhitched,” he muttered, feeling sweaty and awkward.

      “Can I do anything to help?” she asked all too innocently.

      “Just stay out of the way. A skittish mule can kick hard enough to kill you.” He turned aside and began fumbling with the buckles, which seemed unusually stubborn. Anna stood where he had left her, glancing up and down the road as if she were expecting company.

      At last she cleared her throat. “Well, if you don’t need me, I’m going to find a convenient bush,” she announced. “Heaven knows I’ve been needing one.”

      Malachi choked on his own spit. He wasn’t used to having a woman speak so frankly about her bodily functions. There was hell of a lot he didn’t know about this woman who’d given her maiden name as Anna Creer. But one thing was already certain—his new wife was no lady.

      “Watch out for rattlesnakes,” he said. She shot him a startled glance, then turned and stalked up the road toward a big clump of sagebrush, lifting her skirt to keep the hem from trailing in the dust.

      Malachi’s mood darkened as he finished unhitching the mules. He could feel his whole plan unraveling like a badly made wool stocking—not that it had been a great plan to begin with. He had grown desperate over the past eleven months, with Elise gone and the children so sorely in need of a mother. Every day he had lived with that need—watching Carrie grow toward womanhood without a mother’s guidance, seeing the lost look in little Josh’s eyes. His heart had ached for them. But there were no eligible women within a day’s ride, and it was all he could do to manage the ferry and the stock and the household chores, let alone go off courting.

      He had let the months pass without taking action. Then the letter had come—the letter that even now threatened to rip his whole world apart—and Malachi had known he could not wait any longer.

      One desperate night he had hit on the idea of ordering a wife—a plain, good-hearted woman with no illusions about romance, a woman who would be content to stay in the canyon, care for the children and work at his side. Before dawn he had written the letter to Stuart and the plan was in motion.

      The terms of the contract had been set up to protect both himself and his prospective bride from hurt if things didn’t work out. But it had been Malachi’s hope that over time, mutual respect would ripen into a semblance of love, and the awkward arrangement would become a true marriage. Now—he swore under his breath as he struggled with the harness. What a calamity he had brought down—upon himself, upon his innocent children, and upon this willful bit of fluff who seemed to have no notion what was in store for her.

      Anna СКАЧАТЬ