Gerrity's Bride

He released her and stepped back, then bowed in a parody of elegance. His next words were underlaid with an emotion she could not have put words to.

“Welcome home, Miss Emmaline Carruthers.” His eyes glittered with the intensity of his appraisal. “We’ve been expecting you.”

* * *

The buckboard wasn’t much of an improvement over the train, Emmaline decided before they’d traveled a mile.

“Do you ride in this thing often?” she asked, clinging to the edge of the seat.

His eyes swept her with a hooded appraisal. “Havin’ a hard time keepin’ your seat?” The corner of his mouth twitched as he slapped the reins against the broad backs of the two huge animals trotting in tandem. Accordingly, they increased their pace, and Emmaline gripped more firmly to the wooden board beneath her.

“Surely you have a buggy of sorts that would have been more suitable,” she suggested, her voice vibrating with the rhythm of the springless wagon.

“Buggy don’t hold much in the line of supplies,” he told her, casting a glance at her pursed lips and furrowed brow. It was really more of an initiation than he had planned. Piling discomfort on top of distress wasn’t exactly playing fair, he admitted to himself as he noted the paleness of her cheeks, flushed from too much sun.

Pulling back on the reins and bringing the team of horses to a halt, he sighed. “Look, little sister...”

Between gritted teeth, she spit the words, barely moving her lips. “I’m...not...your...sister!”

His grin was quickly covered by a swipe of one large brown hand, and he turned to her with a suggestion of his amusement still vivid in his narrowed eyes. “Whatever you want to call it, we’re related, lady. Now, since that’s been established, let’s get you a bit more comfortable. You can’t sit in the sun with all those clothes on, stranglin’ you and holdin’ all the heat in. You’ll have heatstroke before I get you home, and then what good will you be to that little sister of ours?”

She sat in a huddled lump of bedraggled dark linen and considered his words. Then, as he reached toward her, obviously intent on loosening the buttons that marched up the front of her suit, she moved quickly. Her hands were there before his, her fingers moving stiffly as she set free the plain black buttons and turned back the lapels to reveal her throat.

Her eyes closed in pure pleasure as an errant breeze cooled the heated flesh she had exposed, and she breathed deeply of the scent of desert blossoms that the southerly wind carried to her nostrils. Scarcely had she inhaled, barely had she stretched her slender neck from within its folds of fabric, when she felt his hard hands on her wrist.

She opened her eyes, blinking against the glare of the afternoon sun, to see him undoing the buttons that closed her sleeve. She watched in stunned silence as he rolled up the cuff as far as it would go, almost to her elbow, then reached across her to grasp the other hand and repeated the motion.

Emmaline watched, aware of the total lack of respect he was displaying, aware of the proximity of their bodies as he bent to his task, and more aware than she wanted to be of the rough texture of his fingers against her pale skin. She swallowed back the flood of saliva that rushed to fill her mouth.

For just a moment, a swirling sensation in her stomach prompted her to consider anew her refusal of his offer of lunch. That is, until she decided that it wasn’t simply pangs of hunger she was feeling, but rather an unusual awareness of the man who handled her so casually. And then, with a grunt that might have signified approval, he straightened and retrieved the reins.

“Feel better?” he asked as he once more set the team in motion.

“Ummm,” she managed to reply.

“Once we get to the ranch, you’d do well to get out of those stockings and whatever you’re wearin’ under all those layers of clothes,” he suggested in an offhand manner.

Emmaline straightened on the seat, oddly refreshed by the loosening of her jacket, but hovering on the edge of anger at his casual mention of her underclothes. “I beg your pardon,” she said stiffly. “What I am wearing is no more or less than any lady would wear.”

“You won’t find any of those harnesses and piles of petticoats on a ranch, Miss Emmaline,” he said with dry precision. “The ladies wear light colors, and not too many layers.”

“I’m in mourning,” she announced primly, even as her honest heart prodded her. It was difficult to mourn a father she had little memory of, but she had dutifully donned the required black garb and yards of veiling on her hat. That the veiling had gone by the way after she discovered how hot it was behind the layers of gauze was not to be admitted, she thought warily. Now she’d allowed this...man, this ranch hand, to handle her clothing, and...

The memory of his work-roughened fingers against her skin was the final straw. He was bossy, she decided, not to mention arrogant, and she was still too hot. Her eyes blinked and narrowed against the unrelenting sunshine. Not only that, she was too tired, and sick of being jolted about on this sad excuse for a wagon, she thought as she fought the weary tears that burned behind her eyelids.

His voice saved her from the disgrace of tears. “We’ve arrived,” he announced as they passed beneath a sign proclaiming that they were on Carruthers land. But it was not to be a quick arrival, she noticed, watching the group of buildings in the distance. Indeed, it was another twenty minutes before the wagon halted.

As if it had sprouted from the desert, the house sprawled in several directions, its sand-colored walls dotted with windows and doors. A wide roof provided overhanging shelter, forming a shaded spot on the eastern side of the building. Appearing from the shadowed doorway, a woman stepped forward. Wiping her hands on the front of the white apron she wore, she smiled her welcome. Behind her, the open door revealed a dim interior, and Emmaline yearned suddenly to step within that shady area, out of the sun that beat upon her with unrelenting brilliance.

She shifted upon the seat, and, as if spurred by her movement, the man sitting next to her leaped to the ground and then turned, hands reaching to lift her from the seat. She moved nearer and then, fingers clutching his shoulders, felt him take her weight as he circled her waist with hands that held her firmly. He swept her to the ground, providing support while she gingerly tested her weight on limbs that were unaccountably shaky.

“Got the ground under you, ma’am?” he asked, his eyes mocking as he watched her closely. She was a slim little mite, he decided, flexing his fingers against the boning of the undergarment she wore. ‘Course, once she took off the corsets, or whatever it was they called those idiotic things women wore, she might spread out a little.

She stirred against his hands and he released her, his eyes hooded as he watched the sway of her skirt, the graceful steps of her slender booted feet and the tilt of her head under the bonnet she wore.

“Thank you, Mr....” She groped for a name as she stepped away from him.

“Just Matt,” he said bluntly. “We don’t deal in formalities around here, sis.”

She stiffened. “All right. Thank you, Matt,” she said, declining the argument he’d resurrected with his reference to their relationship.

“Come in, come in,” the woman on the doorstep said, stepping back to allow Emmaline room.

“Maria, this is Miss Emmaline,” Matt said. “Maria is our housekeeper, Emmaline.”

The woman nodded quickly. “I’ve been watching for you. You must be hot and tired. Hungry, too, unless this man fed you in town. From the looks of things, you need something cool to drink and a place to sit and rest a bit.” Maria bustled ahead, Emmaline trailing behind as she looked about the large room, drawn by the simple beauty of its furnishings.

Blinking against the dimness, she basked in the cooler temperature within the house. On the outside wall, the windows were covered with white curtains, sheer and filmy with deep ruffles that were held back at the sides. Large pieces of leather furniture sat about the room, deep chairs with reading lamps close at hand, and a pair of sofas that faced each other before an enormous fireplace on the far wall. A game table, surrounded by heavy wooden chairs, filled another corner. Whitewashed walls, dotted with paintings and an assortment of hanging rugs and tapestries, caught her eye. The floor beneath her feet was wooden, scattered with woven rugs across its wide planking.

A quiet, cool welcome enveloped her as she stood in silence...a welcome she had not thought to discover in this place.

Behind her, she heard the murmur of voices and then the bustle of men carrying in the contents of the wagon.

“Take Miss Emmaline’s bags to the guest room,” Maria instructed the men from the doorway.

“I only have my carpetbag and a small trunk,” Emmaline said quickly. She’d trusted her trunk to fate when the train conductor deposited it on the platform earlier. There it had remained until Matt shouldered it easily and dumped it without ceremony in the back of the wagon.

“I didn’t bring much with me,” she added. Her smile was distracted as she watched Maria. The woman waved her hands at the men hustling to do her bidding, alternately scolding them and shaking her head at them.

“Will your other things be coming later?” Matt asked from the doorway.

“No.” Turning to face him, she slid the bonnet from her head and brushed at the curls that sprang to life, vibrant against the darkness of her mourning dress. “I didn’t plan on staying long enough to need many things.”

His brow rose, and he braced his feet apart, one hand resting negligently against his hip, the other holding the belt and holster he had just slipped off.

“Oh?” The questioning syllable hung in the air.

Her chin lifted a bit as she silently defied him, determined to set the pattern for their short future together. “I only plan on staying long enough to hear the will read and make arrangements to take my sister back to Lexington with me.”

Only the sharp intake of breath warned her of another presence, and that only for a second. Then a wail of anguish filled the air and set her in motion.

“Noooo...” cried a child from the far side of one of the sofas, where she peered over the high back. “I’m not going away! I’m not going to Lexing with her, am I, Maffew?” she wailed piteously.

“‘Course not, Tessie,” he assured her, reaching her in several long strides, his gun belt flung onto a peg on the wall as he moved.

Emmaline was right behind him as he gathered the child into his arms. The little girl wrapped herself about him, burying her face against his broad chest.

The look he slanted at Emmaline clearly told her she had made her first blunder in this place.