The Widowed Bride

Stung by his vehemence, Ruby checked the impulse to back away. Summoning her courage, she took a step toward him and raised her eyes to meet his stony gaze. Her heart was pounding like a runaway locomotive. Could he hear it, echoing in the dark chamber of the cellar?

“It seems we have that much in common, at least,” she said coldly. “Let’s declare a truce. I’ll respect your privacy if you’ll respect mine. That should be suitable for both of us. Agreed?”

He stood glowering at her, tall and strong and over-poweringly masculine. He could break her bones with his bare hands if he chose to, Ruby thought. But the emotion that poured through her body wasn’t fear. Heaven help her, she wanted to feel his hands on her again. She hungered for a second helping of the sensual pleasure he’d ignited when he caught her in his arms and lowered her to the floor.

Leave before it’s too late! a voice of caution inside her urged. But Ruby’s feet would not obey. She stood rooted to the floor, straining toward him like a grass stem reaching for the sun.

The darkness pressed around them, intimate in its silence. She could hear the low rush of his breathing and smell the clean, musky-sweet aroma of his sweat. A warm, liquid ache rose from the depths of her body.

“Maybe we should just stop talking altogether.” His voice had gone thick and husky. Heat sizzled over her skin as he bent closer. Her lips parted, anticipating his kiss.

What if she couldn’t do this?

What if she froze in panic, as she’d done almost every time Hollis had touched her?

This was a mistake. She wasn’t ready. Maybe she never would be.

A whimper escaped her throat. She stumbled backward, shattering the tension between them. Ethan watched in silence as she battled for composure. His dark eyes held a world of unspoken questions.

Questions she wasn’t ready to answer.

She drew herself up and faced him again. “Perhaps we’d both be better off if you stayed at the hotel,” she said.

His gaze hardened. “Ruby, if you’re afraid that I’d—”

“Of course not!” Her cheeks blazed with heat. “It’s just that—”

From the house above them, a muffled rapping interrupted her words. Someone was knocking on the front door.

Ethan froze, instantly alert. Wheeling away from him, Ruby raced up the cellar steps and into the blinding sunlight.

The kitchen door stood open, as she’d left it. From the front of the house, the rapping came again, more insistently this time. Ruby raced through the kitchen and dining room, into the parlor. Maybe Jace and Clara had brought the girls into town. Or maybe Marshal Sam Farley was coming by to check on her, as he’d promised Jace he would. Whoever it was, they’d be welcome. Being alone with Ethan was wearing down her all-too-fragile defenses.

Ruby wanted to make a good impression on the townsfolk, and that included being a proper hostess. If only she’d had the foresight to buy some cookies or cake from the bakery up the street and brew a pot of tea! It was too late for that now, and of course the house was an impossible mess. Why hadn’t she been better prepared?

Hastily pinning up her hair and tugging her blouse closed, she hurried across the parlor and flung the door open.

Two men, both strangers, stood on the front porch.

The older, shorter of the pair was well into middle age, his heavy features punctuated by a Roman nose. The younger man, who looked to be in his late twenties, had mousy brown hair and a receding chin. Both of them were dressed in mail-order brown suits and matching fedoras. Despite the lack of resemblance, Ruby surmised they were father and son. Only the father was smiling.

“Thaddeus Wilton,” he said, extending his hand. “I just heard today that someone had bought this old house. As mayor of Dutchman’s Creek, it’s my pleasure to welcome you to our town.”

Ruby accepted the proffered handshake. The mayor’s palm was baby smooth, his prolonged clasp uncomfortably warm.

“Ruby Denby Rumford. I’m happy to meet you.” Ruby extricated her fingers and took a step backward. “Won’t you come in? Please excuse the condition of the place. I’ve barely had time to start on the cleaning.”

“Perfectly understandable, my dear.” The mayor stepped across the threshold, removing his hat to reveal a polished mat of ebony hair. “Allow me to present my son, Harper.”

“Ma’am.” Harper Wilton gave her the barest inclination of his head. His neutral expression appeared to have been chiseled on his face. Only his basalt-colored eyes moved, glinting like a reptile’s.

“Mind the broken glass. I had a slight mishap this morning.” Ruby scurried ahead of the pair to place two chairs near the window. “Please forgive me for not having refreshments to offer you. I’ll need to scrub the cupboards before I can unpack my kitchen things.”

The mayor lowered himself onto the nearest chair. A ray of sunlight revealed the edge of his slick black toupee. “Quite all right, my dear,” he said. “In fact, since you’re still getting settled here, we’d be honored if you’d join us for dinner at the hotel this evening. I own the place, so I can guarantee you a good meal.”

The offer caught Ruby off guard. “Oh, really, you needn’t go so far as—”

“Please say yes, my dear,” the mayor interrupted. “Since you’ll be part of our community, we’d like to get to know you better. And we can tell you a great deal about this house. It used to belong to my late wife’s aunt. In fact, Harper was born here, weren’t you, Harper?”

“Can’t say as I remember.” Harper hadn’t taken a seat. He stood just inside the door, leaning against the frame. His gaze flickered as if scanning every detail in the room. His behavior was beginning to make Ruby nervous.

She glanced toward the kitchen. Evidently, Ethan had decided not to show himself—strange behavior for a man who claimed to be writing a book about Colorado. One would think the mayor would be the first person he’d want to meet.

Maybe he was just being mindful of her reputation. But she wouldn’t bet money on it. Ethan Beaudry, she sensed, had his own secret agenda. And her only chance of dealing with him lay in discovering what it was.

Ethan pressed against the wall behind the kitchen door. The narrow space along the frame allowed him a limited view of the parlor. From what he could see, Ruby’s visitors looked harmless enough, but appearances could be deceiving. In any case, the mayor’s reason for stopping by with his hatchet-faced son clearly went beyond sociability. Every time the strutting peacock called Ruby my dear, Ethan felt his teeth clench. Was it a simple case of a man playing up to a beautiful woman? Or did Mayor Thaddeus Wilton have some darker purpose in mind?

He took a moment to weigh the possibilities. If the mayor and his son were involved in the moonshine trade, it made sense that they’d stop by to make contact with the house’s new owner. They’d spoken to Ruby as if meeting her for the first time. But that didn’t mean it was true. She could easily have given them a signal, warning them that someone might be listening.

Weighing the facts, Ethan speculated that all three of them could be up to their necks in illegal activity.

Or it could be that the scene in the parlor was as innocent as a damn Sunday-school picnic!

Easing along the wall toward the open back door, he returned to the yard and went back down the cellar stairs. It wouldn’t do for Ruby and her new friends to catch him eavesdropping. In any case, he should be able to hear what went on from under the floor. He’d spotted a battered study desk beneath a six-foot roll of moth-eaten carpet. Extricating it would give him reason enough to be down here. Meanwhile, he could keep his ears open.

“I insist that you be our guest, my dear!” The mayor’s booming voice filtered through the floorboards overhead. “Some of the town’s most important citizens dine at the hotel. We can introduce you to the right people, get you off to a good start.”

The silence that followed suggested hesitation. Dared he hope Ruby didn’t like the oily pair? But what difference did it make? She was only a woman, after all—prettier than most, but with no less than her share of faults. He could take what she had to offer and walk away tomorrow, Ethan told himself. And maybe he would.

He’d come close to kissing her—close enough to know that the attraction was there for both of them. Given what he knew about her past, he shouldn’t have been surprised when she’d backed away. But her retreat had left him with a powerful itch. He wanted her, pure and simple.

He had a job to do, Ethan reminded himself. But getting the beautiful widow in bed could be the most pleasant way to discover what she was up to. Call it workman’s compensation.

The mayor’s voice boomed into his thoughts. “No excuses, my dear. You’ll be needing a good meal, and the Dutchman’s Creek Hotel has the best food in the county. We won’t take no for an answer, will we, Harper?”

The mayor’s son muttered something Ethan couldn’t make out. Again, a beat of silence passed before Ruby answered. “You’re right, of course. And I do need to start meeting people. Very well, it would be a pleasure to accept your invitation. What time shall I meet you there?”

The reply was muffled. Evidently the mayor had risen and moved to a less audible part of the room. But Ethan had heard enough to conclude that further eavesdropping would be a waste of time. Whatever the mayor wanted, he would most likely save it for that evening.

With a vaguely muttered curse, Ethan turned back to the task at hand. The rolled carpet was thick and heavy, its woolen nap permeated with dust. He was dragging it out of the way when he happened to glance at the wall behind it. Where the furniture had blocked his view, a length of corrugated tin roofing stood against the rear wall. Behind it, a section of the wall was open.

Pulse galloping, Ethan held his breath to listen. From the direction of the parlor came the creak of a floorboard and the muted sound of voices. A quick look—that was all he dared risk. But it would likely be enough.

Lifting aside the tin, he peered into the opening. Musty odors of dampness and decay rushed into his nostrils. The place had likely been a root cellar for storing apples and winter vegetables. Maybe that was all it had ever been. But Ethan had his doubts. When he shifted to one side, allowing more light to shine in, he could see that the earth had been dug out farther under the house to make a chamber nearly a third the size of the original cellar. In its dark recesses, the dim light glinted on a motley assortment of glass jugs—scores of them, crowding the floor and stacked high on crude wooden shelves.

He knew at once what he’d found. Bootleg whiskey, brewed in an uncounted number of secret backwoods stills, had been brought here to be picked up and paid for by big-city crime syndicates. Ethan estimated the worth of the stash in the thousands of dollars.

Moving with quiet haste, he replaced the tin, the carpet roll and the other furniture that had concealed the opening. By the time he’d finished, he was sweating, more from nerves than from effort.