Mail-Order Groom

“Oh dear! I’m forgetting myself, aren’t I?” Blushing prettily, Savannah interrupted his musings. She straightened into a formal posture, then … curtsied? Holding herself stiffly in that pose, she inclined her head. “This is a very great pleasure for me. I’m indelibly charmed to meet you, Mr. Corwin.”

She sounded as though she were arriving at a highfalutin ball—one presided over by kings and queens. Her stilted manner was so at odds with her casual way of touching him that Adam almost laughed. Instead he gazed at Savannah’s downcast lashes, proud nose and full lips … and something inside him gave way.

If she wanted to appear sophisticated and proper to him, he would not prevent her from it. Except in this one instance.

“Please,” he said gruffly. “Call me Adam.”

“Informal address already? After only one meeting? I sincerely doubt that would be—” She broke off. She gave him a tentative peek, then closed her mouth. Her chest expanded on a giddy breath. She gazed downward again. “Very well … Adam.”

The breathy way she said his name made tingles race up his spine. Against all reason, he wanted to hear it again.

“Adam,” she said experimentally, not knowing how handily she obliged him. Along with her tone, Savannah’s posture eased. Relaxed now, she nodded. “Yes, I think Adam will be fine.”

But all at once, Adam wasn’t fine. Frowning with an unwanted sense of revelation, he remembered the other odious strategy Bedell had used when setting up his latest mark. When corresponding with Savannah, Bedell had used Adam’s name.

It was an audacious tactic—and a taunting one, too. After all the months Adam had spent tracking Bedell, the confidence man had gotten cocky. He’d deliberately used Adam’s name in his newest double-cross scheme, and that detail had truly rankled.

It had bothered him so much, Adam guessed, that he’d shoved it clean out of his mind. Mariana had given him no end of grief about Bedell’s ploy, though. Every time she’d copied down one of Savannah’s letters, she’d teased Adam about “his” woman, reading aloud Savannah’s usual greeting in mocking, overgirlish tones.

My Dearest, Kindest, Most Longed-For Mr. Corwin….

Foolishly Adam had set aside that detail. Bedell’s theft of his good name had galled him, but since he’d never expected to meet Savannah in person, he hadn’t counted on its potential consequences. Now those consequences batted their eyelashes at him, creating an unexpected thrill in the pit of his belly.

Damnation. This was troublesome. His initial fascination with Savannah, kindled by her letters and her picture, was fast becoming something more. Adam didn’t understand it. In all his days, he’d met saloon girls, pert prairie homesteaders, dance-hall ladies, society belles, soiled doves and down-home women who could make a man propose with a single, cinnamony forkful of their prizewinning apple pies. None of those women, however appealing, had ignited his curiosity the way Savannah Reed did.

He already knew a handful of her hopes and dreams. Now he wanted to know her. He wanted to call her Savannah; wanted to have a right to do so. He wanted to make her smile at him again.

Telling her about Bedell wouldn’t accomplish any of those things. But now that Adam had met Savannah, the thought of Bedell hurting her—stealing from her—troubled him all the more. He couldn’t let that happen. But suddenly, he felt too woozy to reason out how he could stop Bedell from getting to her.

Doubtless that was because of the tincture she’d given him. Cursing the medicine’s sedating effects, Adam nonetheless knew he needed it. His shoulder blade throbbed, his ribs ached and his head … Wincing at a fresh wave of pain, he raised his hand.

“Oh!” Savannah grew instantly alert. “Does it still hurt?”

Hazily Adam noted that her formality had dropped away. Apparently she wore her fancy comportment the way Bedell did his various—and fraudulent—accents and manner isms. and names. Savannah’s curtsies and timidity and cordiality seemed to sit outside her, somehow. They weren’t nearly as much a part of her as were her golden hair and capable hands and intelligent gaze.

“It doesn’t hurt so much that I’ve forgotten all my manners altogether,” Adam gritted out. With strict determination, he lowered his hand. He smiled, the better to ease Savannah’s worries about his condition. “It’s my honor to finally meet you, Miss Reed. Until now, I’d only dreamed about this day coming.”

That much was true. Fruitlessly but unstoppably, Adam had whiled away the long hours on Bedell’s dusty trail by fancying himself as the one who’d come west to be with Savannah. He’d have sooner curried his horse with his teeth than admit it.

“And I’m the one who should protect you.” Fighting against the drowsy effects of the tincture, Adam fisted his hand in the soft bed linens. Roughly he said, “I will protect you, Miss Reed. I promise you right now—I swear I’ll keep you safe.”

He gazed straight at her, willing her to understand exactly how much he meant it. In that moment, he would have let Bedell bash him in the head with a branch twice over, just to save her.

“Oh, that is sweet of you, Adam. Thank you ever so much.”

Clearly Savannah didn’t know what he was talking about, but she smiled at him all the same. That was good. She did not, he noticed dispiritedly, suggest that he call her Savannah. That was bad. Her omission made him yearn for that privilege with an intensity Adam would have found laughable a day ago.

“But don’t be silly! You don’t have to protect me.” Savannah curled her fingers trustingly around his. She laughed. “It seems everyone always wants to protect me! First Mose, now you. But all you have to do is marry me, just as we agreed.”

Marry me. At those words, Adam stilled. He had to tell her about Bedell. Right now. But all at once, he felt even wearier than he had just a moment before. He cursed the medicine he’d taken. His tongue felt thick. His eyelids felt heavy. His head drooped. Dumbly he repeated her words. “Marry me?”

“Yes. I’ll have some questions for you first, of course.” As though she were considering quizzing him then and there, Savannah gazed directly at his face. She seemed to lose herself in his medicine-hazed eyes. Then she shook herself. “We’ll get to that when you’re feeling better, I reckon. And naturally we’ll want to spend some more time together first, to ensure a successful partnership. You do know how I feel about compatibility, don’t you?”

Adam did. He’d read her views at length in her letters to Bedell. Prompted by an absurd and inescapable desire to please her, he said, “You believe husbands and wives should be as close-knit as friends are, able to talk and laugh equally.”

His reward was a beatific smile. In response, his heart skipped a beat. All his life, Adam had felt gruff, tough, ready to take on bad men of every variety and bring them to heel. But now, suddenly, all he wanted was another of Savannah’s smiles.

“Why, Mr. Corwin! You did pay attention to my letters.”

“I treasured every last one of them.” Even though those words were accurate, Adam felt a fraud saying them. Further wearied by his recitation from those letters, he thumped his chest. “I carried them next to my heart the whole way here.”

“Hmm. You’re getting a bit tired now, aren’t you?”

“Tired?” He realized he’d closed his eyes. He wrenched them open to see Savannah’s amused expression. “No. Not tired. I’m never tired. I can ride for days, track a man for miles, shoot from the saddle and never miss. You can count on me, Miss Reed.”

His assurance sailed right on past her. She laughed and patted his hand. “I think someone’s been reading too many dime novels on the train. Don’t fret, though. When it comes to our marriage arrangement, I know exactly what I’m getting.”

“No, you don’t.” Urgently, Adam caught her wrist. Bedell might be near, he remembered. He should warn Savannah. “Your groom is not who you thought he was! He’s … he’s …”

He blinked, trying to summon the appropriate words. His tongue roved around his mouth in search of them. While he struggled, Savannah slipped from his feeble grasp. She fussed over him, fixing his bandages and checking for fever.

At last, Adam found the words he wanted.

“Your groom,” he announced gravely, “is a bad man.”

She gazed at him. “Well. He’s certainly not able to hold his medicinal tinctures for neuralgia, I can say that much for certain.” A new smile quirked her mouth. “Sleep now. That’s the best thing for you. I’ll be back later to check on you.”

Drowsiness flooded him. Adam bit the inside of his cheek, deliberately rousing himself. “Wait. You don’t understand—”

“I understand all I need to.” In a dreamy blur of feminine fabrics and floral fragrance, Savannah made him lie back. She stroked his arm and tucked in the quilts again, her face open and kindly. “I’d wondered how you would take to me, when we met, too. After all, we shared a great deal with each other over the wires, didn’t we?”

“No. You have to listen to me now,” Adam insisted, trying again to broach the topic of Roy Bedell and his scheme. “It’s important. Your groom is not who you thought he was! He’s—”

“He’s everything I could have asked for.” Savannah smiled. She brought her mouth next to his ear, letting her breath tickle his skin in a sinfully pleasurable way. “He’s even better than I imagined. You’re even better, Adam. I’m very, very pleased.”

She liked him. At the realization, Adam groaned. Under the influence of that damnable tincture, he felt as clumsy as a youth, as green as a new field agent, as needful of sleep as an express rider on the last leg of a weeklong journey. But he couldn’t help grinning as Savannah’s approval washed over him.

“And since you likely won’t remember this when you wake up.” Still hovering above him, Savannah touched his cheek. She rested her palm against his skin, then gazed unabashedly at him. “I guess I can be forthright. I think you’re beyond handsome, too. So far, it’s been all I could do not to swoon over you.”

Adam turned his head on the pillow, bringing his gaze to hers. Plainly startled to find herself the subject of his attention—however bleary—Savannah blinked. Her cheeks pinkened.

“Now sleep,” she blurted. “You’re clearly hallucinating.”

Then she bustled from the room and returned to her desk.

Chapter Five

Flustered and a bit overheated, Savannah headed blindly for her telegraphy equipment. On the way there, she almost collided with Mose. He stood inside the doorway as she passed through, a few steps from the desk they shared. He wore a knowing look.