Colorado Courtship

“I’m not leaving the train,” she said firmly, her jaw set, as if that alone would convince him of her intent. “My husband has—had, I mean—a deed to property near Pike’s Peak, and that’s where I’m going. It belongs to me now.” Her hand rested in an automatic gesture against the rounding of her belly as she spoke. “It’s all I have, Mr. McMasters, and I’m not walking away from it.”

“Well, it’ll take a man to work the land and build a place for you to live,” he told her bluntly. “A woman alone can’t handle something like that.”

“There’s a cabin there, according to what Lyle heard of the place. Not much, but enough for shelter. And he said there was a chance that gold could be found there.” She lowered her voice, lest the words carry to the adjacent campfire. Gold was a powerful incentive, its presence inciting men to lie and steal. Even to murder.

Lyle’s life’s blood had been shed today, and unless she missed her guess, the claim to land in Colorado had something to do with it. Lyle had bragged one night, after he’d consumed half a bottle of whiskey, telling her of gold to be found, and then left bruises as he threatened her lest she repeat his words to anyone.

Now the land was hers, and sharing it with a man was not her first choice.

“Ma’am, you’ll have to be thinking about accepting one of the available men on the train as your husband,” Jonas said, his dark eyes holding not a shred of doubt as to his ultimatum. “It’s just the way it is, ma’am. I’ll give you till we get to Council Grove to make a choice.”

He looked around the circle to where more than a dozen men watched the drama going on, with Jessica as its focus. “You won’t have any lack of suitors,” he said with a grimace. “There’s already talk about who you’ll pick.” He grinned briefly, shaking his head. “There’s never enough women to go around in the West, and these men are already plottin’ to come courtin’ you.”

Jessica glanced at him, then shot a look at Finn. He returned it with a nod. “Jonas is right, you know,” he said. “Any one of those men—” He tilted his head, lifting an eyebrow for emphasis as he spoke. “Any one of them would be on you like flies on honey if you give them a nod. You’re a good-looking woman, and you’ve got a wagon and a team of oxen, and, as you said yourself, your husband had a deed to a piece of property.”

He smiled, looking into the depths of the fire for a moment. “You’re going to be in demand, Mrs. Beaumont. I’m not the only bachelor who’ll be coming to call. And, as harsh as it sounds to a woman newly widowed, you’re going to have to make up your mind in a hurry.”

Jessica nodded, aware that the truth was staring her in the face, and the man delivering the message was no doubt presenting himself as one of those offering for her hand.

“I expect you’re right, Mr. Carson. But not tonight, please. I can’t think straight right now, and by the time I get my supper mess cleared up, I won’t be fit company for anyone.” If Finn Carson meant to make her an offer, he’d have to wait until her head was clear and she was able to consider all of her options.

An hour later she was settled atop her feather tick on the wagon floor, her mind racing with the events of the day. And for the first time, tears came to her eyes. Not grief at Lyle’s death, although she supposed she should feel some small amount of remorse, at least, at leaving him by the side of the trail in a poorly marked grave.

But the past years had hardened her heart to his cunning smiles, and she’d long since lost any love she’d ever harbored in her heart for the man. He’d been mean. There was no other word for it. The man had been uncaring at times, harsh when she didn’t oblige him to his specifications, and too handy with hands that hurt and bruised her on occasion.

No, she didn’t mourn him, only the loss of those long years she’d spent trying to hold together a marriage that was doomed from the beginning. Her father had been right. Lyle Beaumont was a taker, a man without scruples. And Jessica had been blind to that side of him…until it was too late.

She curled on her side beneath a quilt, and a succession of faces appeared behind her closed eyelids. Miners, both young and in their middle years, at least half a dozen that she knew of, who had offered their condolences today as they eyed her with narrowed gazes, as if they considered her ripe for the taking.

She shivered. There were only two unattached men on the train she would even consider if push came to shove and she was forced by circumstances to choose a husband. Finn Carson, one of the guides, was one of them. The other, a miner named Gage Morgan, was a tall, husky man, older than Finn by few years. He was quiet, a good-looking specimen with dark hair and smoky-gray eyes. He’d offered his hand and had engulfed her own in his palm, just for a moment as he passed by the open grave this afternoon.

“Ma’am,” he’d said quietly, and his piercing eyes had darkened, taking her measure, a hint of admiration in their depths as he offered silent condolences. On the surface, he was all that a woman could ask for, she thought, and wondered what there was about him that made her stomach clench. Not that he had offered any disrespect. Never had he been anything but courteous the few times she’d nodded in his direction during the weeks they’d been following the trail.

Now she wondered at him, her fists clenching as she thought of what it would mean, should she take either of those two men as her husband. Eventually they would want to claim their rights, and she would be obliged to comply.

Shivering, she pushed aside the memories of nights filled with fear. Sleepless hours when she dreaded Lyle’s home-coming, those times when he was out at a saloon or gambling at a poker table.

Taking a man into her bed was a daunting prospect. Offering her body before the baby was born was out of the question. She was misshapen, her body swollen with the babe she carried. Not that she cared—in fact, she gloried in the heavy weight of the child within her. But to a man, especially one who’d had his share of voluptuous women, she might be more than a bit off-putting. But then, most of these men were hungry for female companionship, and that fact alone would probably make her more appealing to them.

She smothered a giggle under the quilt, and then felt a stab of shame that she could lie in her bed less than a dozen hours since Lyle’s body had turned cold in death and laugh at the prospect of another man climbing into her wagon and taking his place at her side. She needn’t fear turning a man’s head, she decided, punching her pillow as she tucked it beneath her head.

The deed to land near Pike’s Peak was another matter. It was enough to lure any man into her clutches, given the steady stream of miners heading west, hoping to find just such a claim to work. If Lyle was right, if the land were indeed worth—

She sat upright. If the deed was worth what Lyle had claimed, perhaps someone had killed him in order to lay hands on it. Shivering, she pulled the quilt up around herself and leaned against a trunk. Someone might be, this very moment, planning on finding the deed.

And she didn’t even know herself where it was. Only that Lyle had hidden it and laughed when she’d asked its location. “You don’t need to know,” he’d said harshly.

“Mrs. Beaumont? Jessica?” The voice was low, its tones pitched so as not to carry beyond her hearing, and she caught her breath sharply as she saw the shadow of a man standing at the back of her wagon. Standing head and shoulders above most of the men on the train, he was easy enough to recognize. Finn Carson, himself, come to call. She drew the quilt closer about her shoulders and felt the beating of her heart like a bass drum in her ears.

“Yes, Mr. Carson,” she answered, her whisper carrying to where he stood.

“Are you all right, ma’am?” he asked. “I’m going to crawl under your wagon to sleep tonight, and I wanted to know if you need anything before I settle down.”

“Are you by chance staking a claim, Mr. Carson?” she wanted to know, aware that her voice held a brittle note. He might as well put up a sign, she thought. This woman taken.

And then his words verified her thoughts, and she heard amusement color the syllables. “You might say that, ma’am.” He was unmoving and she shifted, rising to her knees, the better to catch the expression on his face.

“I hope you know that Jonas wasn’t pulling your leg, Mrs. Beaumont,” Finn said. “You don’t have a choice. Either you marry one of us, or you get sent back East when we reach Council Grove.” He stood without moving, as if he awaited a reply, and then he held out a hand to her.

“Will you come over here and talk to me?”

“No.” She didn’t believe in mincing words, could not countenance a clandestine meeting on the very day she’d buried her husband, and her cheeks burned with embarrassment as she wondered that he would expect it of her.

“Will you take a word of advice, then?” he asked quietly.

“Talk to me tomorrow,” she said sharply. “I’m a newly widowed woman, Mr. Carson. At least give me tonight to mourn before you make your bid for me.”

He was silent for a moment, and then he propped his forearms on the side of the wagon and leaned forward a bit. “I saw you in Saint Louis, Jessica.” As though he owned the right to it, he used her name deliberately. “I watched the way the bastard treated you that day when the first wagons loaded up and pulled out toward Independence. You can’t know how badly I wanted to knock him flat on his back.”

“You saw me? In Saint Louis?” She was stunned by his words, not that he’d seen her, but that his reaction to Lyle’s behaviour had been so strong. “Why should you care about the way Lyle treated me?”

“I’ve watched your wagon, him especially, for the past weeks, ever since we left Independence, and he did nothing to impress me with his…his ability to perform as a man.” He chose his words carefully, and Jessica heard the bitter tinge they carried.

“Who are you?” she asked, whispering the words as a shiver of apprehension swept over her. “Have you been keeping an eye on me all along?”

“No.” It was one syllable, one word, muttered harshly, and she knew it for a lie.

“Good night, Mr. Carson,” she said, drawing the quilt over her shoulder again as she placed her head carefully on her pillow. She heard him move after a moment, heard the muffled rattle of a metal bucket beneath the wagon as he found his place on the ground. And knew that Finn Carson was a man to be reckoned with.

He’d botched it. He’d pushed her too hard, said too much. He’d backtrack, let her stew a bit and then choose his time. The ground was hard beneath him, but Finn was used to sleeping wherever darkness found him. He’d shared feather ticks in his time, slept on cotton mattresses more times than he could count, and spent more nights under the stars than he could shake a stick at.

Sleeping beneath Jessica’s wagon was, after all, akin to staking a claim, as the lady herself had said. And somewhere in that wagon was the deed to a claim that Aaron Carson had died for. Finn’s mouth flattened as he thought of his older brother.

Aaron’s mercantile had held the man captive as surely as if it had wrapped chains around him for almost ten years. He’d been tied to making a living, when his heart had yearned for adventure, and his feet had itched to travel toward the goldfields. Aaron’s letter to Finn in April had been filled to the edges of each page with his excitement.

A customer, a man Aaron had outfitted and sent on his way four years before, was dying and had sent the deed to his claim back to Saint Louis, addressed to Aaron, the storekeeper, with a description of the location of Carson’s Retail Establishment.

Becuz you give me a hand when I needed it, the letter had said. Now I’m dying and here’s yer payback. The miner had signed it with a shaky hand, and sent the letter, the deed, and the assayer’s report with it to Saint Louis. Aaron’s life had changed forever.

It was a rich claim, according to the assayer’s report that had been included in the envelope, and the deed had been proclaimed valid by a lawyer. Aaron’s soul had thrilled to the news. He’d written to Finn, inviting his brother to join in the trek to the goldfields, offering to share the gold they would mine together.

And then he had been killed for a piece of paper, one that promised riches beyond belief. Standing by Aaron’s grave, Finn had sworn to avenge his death and set off to find Lyle Beaumont, the man he’d been told was the thief and murderer who’d pulled the trigger and stolen the deed.

Only to find that Lyle Beaumont had something infinitely more precious than the deed to a piece of land.

A woman—a heavily pregnant, defenseless female named Jessica Beaumont. A woman who had, from the first, touched a chord in Finn’s heart. A woman who even now held the deed he’d vowed to regain.

He would have them—Jessica Beaumont and the deed to the piece of land Aaron had died for. No matter the price, Finn would possess both.