The Bride Lottery

“Maybe that’s all you’re worth.”

Miranda bit her lip to stop an angry retort. You walked right into that one, she told herself. And now, shut up, before you’ll make it even worse. She had her provisions. Now was the time to gather her wits and start making plans for an escape.

* * *

This is a mistake, Jamie thought as he ushered the blonde beauty out of the saloon. He’d acted on impulse. He should have known better. In his profession a man needed cool judgment to stay alive. He had a premonition that hauling the little Eastern princess along with him for four days, until he could get rid of her, would not inspire cool judgment.

He’d have to get her a horse of her own. Last night, he had tried to bury his lust in the saloon tart, but his mind had given the girl beneath him the flawless features and the proud carriage of the woman he was now towing in his wake.

If he rode four days with her arms around his waist, her breasts pressing to his back, he might start thinking with the wrong parts of his anatomy and end up hitched to her for good—an idea that did not suit his plans.

“Can you ride?” he asked.

“Yes. Faster than you, I’ll bet.”

Jamie smirked. “That depends on the horse, not you.”

Although she was tall, the girl had to break into a run to keep up with him as he strode down the street. Clouds whipped about in the sky overhead, but it wouldn’t rain today. The weather was clearing, and tomorrow it would be sunny. He could tell.

He could always tell. Sensing the weather and reading signs were what he got from the quarter of his blood that was Cheyenne. The rest of the Indian mumbo jumbo he could do without. All of that mysticism junk his sister, Louise, had embraced with such fervor before her untimely death.

Jamie paused to let his wife catch up. “I thought you said you’re faster than me.”

“On four legs. Not on two.”

Smart mouth she had, his little Eastern princess. Four days in her company would be filled with temptation. Jamie led her past the storefronts, mostly closed for Sunday. A few men loitered on the boardwalk, smoking, talking, watching them with envy in their eyes.

Maybe he could auction the little princess when he was done with her, Jamie thought. He suppressed a smile. No, he’d be a good boy, cut her loose and give her enough money for the train fare to wherever she’d been trying to get, with no ticket and no money to buy food.

Before parting with his ten dollars, Jamie had got the facts from Marshal Holm. According to the railroad conductor who’d arrested the girl, she’d been caught stealing. Jamie suspected the accusation might be false. She seemed too proud to steal, but Jamie knew from personal experience that sometimes an empty belly ruled stronger than pride.

They came to a halt by the pole corral where the four horses of the bank robbers stood idle, tails flicking at flies. “Take your pick,” Jamie said and gestured at the horses. “Don’t go for the paint. He’s going lame.”

She spent a moment studying the animals and spoke with her gaze intent on them. “The buckskin has sores on his flanks from the cruel use of spurs. The bay has mean, shifty eyes. The black is a stallion. I don’t like to ride stallions. They start to misbehave the minute there’s a mare within a mile.”

“Aren’t you a picky one?” Jamie grumbled. “Good thing you had to take a husband in a draw. If you were left to choose, no one would have been good enough for you.”

“How astute,” she replied, and pursed her mouth into a prim circle of disdain. Her eyes raked him up and down in a look that plainly dismissed his worth. Then she turned back to the four horses in the corral and said, “Can you take the bank robbers’ horses before they’ve even been convicted? Is it part of the bounty?”

“It is, if you bring them in dead.”

“Dead?” Her pretty blue eyes snapped wide, then narrowed into angry slits. “You said... You threatened me with them...”

“I never said they weren’t dead. I merely said they didn’t care about adding rape to their sins. Considering they are dead, I’m sure that’s correct.”

“You...you...oaf...”

“Oaf?” He smirked at the little princess. “Is that the best you can do?”

“I’ll work on it,” she said tartly. “I’m sure that a few weeks in your company will expand my vocabulary.”

Not weeks, sweetheart, Jamie thought. Four days, and that’s four too many.

“Which will it be?” he asked. “The buckskin that’s been mistreated and is looking to take his revenge, or the shifty-eyed bay, or the uncontrollable black stallion?”

“How about one of those?” She pointed to the next corral where half a dozen horses from the livery stable jostled at the water trough “Can’t you sell these four and buy me something better? A horse suitable for a lady?”

Jamie sighed in resignation. “Let’s go and take a look.”

He hung back as his little Eastern princess, Miranda—what a fitting name for a woman who was bound to drive him crazy with complaints during the next four days—leaned over the corral fence and inspected the horses.

A gust of breeze molded her skirts against her legs. Strands of golden hair fluttered around her face. She wedged one boot on the lowest rung and climbed up for a better look, agile and slender. Like a blonde version of an Indian princess. Jamie hurried to quash the thought.

“That one.” Her arm shot out to point at a gray Appaloosa with an evenly spotted coat.

Jamie groaned. Indian princess indeed. He should have guessed she’d pick the most expensive horse at the stable.

Ten minutes later, he had traded all four of the bank robbers’ horses against the Appaloosa, and had been forced to haggle not to owe a balance. He’d been crazy to think marrying her was going to save him money.

He ushered the little princess into the cool, shady interior of the livery stable. Once they were inside, he nudged the toe of his boot at the bank robbers’ saddles and bridles that lay in a heap on the floor.

“Pick your saddle and tack.”

“My saddle?” She looked down at the pile by their feet, then back up at him. “But I can’t... I’ve never ridden astride... I’ll need a side saddle...”

The moment of payback had arrived. Jamie felt a twinge of shame, but he brushed it aside. It was best to make the little princess hate him, in case he wasn’t as good at resisting temptation as he ought to be.

He lowered his voice, bent to speak into her ear. “Considering you’re female, it shouldn’t be too difficult to learn to spread your legs.”

Chapter Six (#u6263ff93-6fa5-55f7-bcef-2e846db924ff)

It took a few seconds for the bounty hunter’s lewd comment to penetrate Miranda’s brain. How dare he speak to her like that? Her hands fisted in impotent range. The...the...oaf! She longed for stronger words—ones she hoped to add to her vocabulary very soon.

In an effort to overcome her fury, she focused her attention on the equipment carelessly stacked on the floor. It was clear which set held the most appeal. Saddle and bridle in black leather, shiny and supple, carefully maintained. She could see a pair of matching saddlebags, too. The metal studs that decorated each piece might be silver.

Miranda was about to point out her choice when her gaze strayed to the bounty hunter. The oaf—James Fast Elk Blackburn. He was leaning against the timber wall, arms crossed over his chest, watching her from under the brim of his hat. She might not be able to match him in dirty talk, but she could gain some measure of petty revenge by vexing him.

“I want to try out the saddles,” she declared.

He pushed away from the wall. “All of them?”

“That will be the only way to know which one fits the best.”

The long canvas duster flared wide as Blackburn moved toward her. Halting toe-to-toe with her, he pointed at the gray Appaloosa tied to the hitching post outside the livery stable. “There’s your horse.” He gestured at the heap of equipment by their feet. “There’s your saddles and bridles. Try them out to your little heart’s content.”

Oh, yes, Miranda thought. This is going to be very satisfactory indeed.

She turned to survey her new horse. The black saddle with silver studs would look beautiful on the gray. She pointed at a worn saddle in cracked tan leather. “Let’s start with that one. It looks a bit smaller than the others.”