Barefoot Bride for Three (2 page)

Chapter Two

Elizabeth James pressed her back against the cold jail wall. The stone, solid and sturdy, helped to steady her. A few months ago she’d thought marrying old Mr. Carter was the worst thing that could happen to her.

Ha! She’d escaped that life but found more of the same, only worse. Mr. Carter was rich, and when he died, she would have been a very comfortable widow. He was far older than she. With luck, she’d have only a few years of wifely obligations to tolerate.

She looked at the man on the far side of the room and gulped. Compared to Mr. Carter her fiancé was young, healthy, and, from the state of his clothing, poor. At least her flesh didn’t crawl when she looked at him, as it did with Mr. Carter. Instead, a heated shiver struck her.

Mr. Elliott idly rubbed his flat belly when it rumbled loudly. She flushed when hers answered the call. Hunger wasn’t new to her and she’d often gone hungry on the train. However, three days of Sophie McLeod’s wonderful food from the hotel dining room had reminded her belly that it could be filled.

With the poor state of this man’s clothing, she’d be getting used to hunger again. She didn’t mind if it brought her freedom. As a daughter, she was under her father’s control. As a wife, she belonged to her husband. After weeks traveling on her own, she would not become a compliant wife like her mother. She would protect her children from everything, even their father if she had to. No child of hers would be beaten with a cane.

She heard the tinkle of spurs and scrape of boots on the wood floor when he shifted his feet. He watched her warily, as if she was dangerous. What would a man that big have to fear from her? She gulped. What had he done that required him to marry before he could enter Tanner’s Ford? Sophie said to trust Sheriff Chambers, that he was a good, fair man.

She crossed her arms to hug herself. She had to marry a total stranger, dragged into the jail by the sheriff. Under these circumstances, how would he care anything about her or what she wanted from life?

His stomach rumbled again and he sighed. He turned more fully toward her and scratched his chest. Long legs clad in stained canvas trousers rose out of scuffed boots. An open buckskin coat revealed a shirt with missing buttons. His hands were huge, with long fingers. Dark hair dripped onto his shoulders. Like every other man, he wore a hat so her quick glance at his face only showed a strong nose above a thick moustache, all surrounded by
heavy black stubble. He wore the usual faded gray bandana around his throat.

When he spoke, he’d croaked like a raven, his voice harsh and raw. She wouldn’t judge him by that. Both her father and Mr. Carter spoke jovially with smiles and pleasant voices when they wished. Behind closed doors their true, violent nature emerged. The huge gun her fiancé had held in his right hand, cocked and steady, had stopped Charlie from hitting her.

All that didn’t mean she wanted to marry him. Once again, men gave her no choice in her life. But it didn’t matter. She’d marry this stranger rather than Big Joe. After all, she could always run away later.

“Evening, ma’am.”

He spoke in the deep, rasping voice of a devil. She watched the brim of his hat drop as he looked from her tangled hair and dirty face to her ripped gown and equally filthy feet. Heat followed wherever he looked. A heat she was sure was indecent, though she’d never felt anything like it before. The fiancé her father chose had made her back away in disgust.

She curled her bare toes under her dress, both to hide them and to quell the hot shiver running through her. Her nipples budded as if a cold wind whistled past, yet a flush rose from her belly.

He was everything Mr. Carter was not. Young, handsome, dirty, and poor. If she was lucky, he might also be kind. However, luck was not a frequent visitor in her life.

His wide chest expanded with each deep breath as he watched her. She grasped her skirts with her fists to stop herself leaning toward him. Something pulled her to him, something strange and unnatural. She blinked for a long moment, then fought back as she had all her life. She’d had enough of men running her life. Too bad if the law said a husband owned his wife. With a strong first impression, half the battle was won. This one, she would win. She raised her nose and spoke like Mama would to one of her pretty sister’s impertinent suitors.

“I am Miss Elizabeth Katherine James. I do not know you, sir.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. He leaned back on his heels and rested his thumbs in his front pockets. Her eyes dropped at his movement. His tanned hands curled naturally, fingers framing taut pants. Pants that held what proper young virgins should not know about. She gulped, face heating. While locked up, she’d heard a few disgusting men boasting about what they wished to do to her with their unmentionable parts.

She raised her eyes to his shirt, but that wasn’t safe either. Bleached from the sun and stained with who knows what, the fabric stretched over his chest. A jagged rip allowed dark curls to peek out. Missing buttons and frayed collar and cuffs
 
proved the man needed a wife to keep him.

“Name’s Trace Elliott, ma’am. You’ll know me a whole lot better in the morning. After I make you my wife.”

She choked at his quiet words and then coughed. A tornado of desire swirled up from her belly. When Mr. Carter ran his hands over her dress and tried to do more, she’d gagged and kneed him hard. Even though her father tried to beat her into marriage, she’d sworn she’d not let a man touch her again. But she’d never known a man could make her feel all fluttery.

“I have not agreed to the proposal put forward by Sheriff Chambers,” she said, imitating her most prim teacher. “I do have options other than marriage.” She looked down and dusted her dress from belly to hips as if brushing off a stray bit of fluff. It did nothing to the ground-in filth, unless dirt transferred to her hand from her brown traveling dress. She heard a sniff and the light clink of spurs as he shifted.

“Mistress or whore, ma’am?”

“I beg your pardon!” She straightened her back and gave him the full force of her most intimidating glare. After weeks of being ogled by odorous men, she’d perfected the look while quaking inside. He rubbed his finger under his nose where a bushy moustache obscured his lips.

“You’re a woman. In Montana Territory, a female’s got three choices. Wife, whore, or mistress.” He looked at his hand as he counted them off. Thumb, pointing finger, middle finger. “If you throw out wife,” he pulled his thumb back in, “that leaves two.” He wiggled his two fingers at her. “Mistress or whore?”

She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. Her pounding heart seemed to twist, a sharp pain shooting from it to her head. She felt her lip curl.

“How dare you? I am a woman of good breeding!”

“Breeding don’t matter out here ’less you’re talking horses, cattle, or sheep.”

“I would die first.” She thrust the words out like spears, each one sharp and controlled.

“Your choice. Just stating the facts, ma’am.” He pulled his mouth into a grimace and scratched the dark stubble on his right cheek with the fingers that had pointed out her fate.

“Mistress, now, that’s a problem. The only single man in town able to pay for a fresh piece like you is Orville Rivers, the mayor.” He shrugged and lifted his hands in a shrug. “He’s the one said you had to get hitched tonight so I guess he’s out. That leaves one choice.” He held up his first finger and then pointed it toward her like a pistol. “Whore.”

“No!”

“Miss Lily runs a right nice place,” he continued calmly, as if she hadn’t screamed at him. “I hear the whores at Baldy’s Saloon do it fast and cheap. They spend most of the night on their back or their knees. Lily’s gals, now, they only entertain a couple men a night. Costs more but you get a whole woman, not just a pussy.” He touched his hat, not bothering to lift it. “Pardon, ma’am, but that’s all it is to those drunken miners. The woman don’t matter a’tall.”

The walls pressed in on her as if she was already in her tomb. For a moment she heard nothing over the hoarse rasp of her violent breathing. Finally the deeper rasp of his voice penetrated her horror.

“Course, if we get hitched, you won’t have to worry about that.”

He stuck his thumbs in his gun belt and looked at her, eye to eye. She fought to keep from fainting, using his face as the only stable place in the spinning room.

He was right. She let out a shuddering breath. When she’d defiantly headed west it was with dreams of being a person in her own right. She would open a business of some kind, be a strong woman able to hold her own. She had no intention of being owned by a man.

Now it was time to face reality. She’d had her dreams, but they were now dust under her bare toes. Her reality would be marriage to this man. She’d live with him wherever he chose. From the look of him, it would be in a small cabin far from town, likely with a sod roof and dirt floor. No matter what he did to her, no one would know. Nor would they care, for she would belong to him, body and soul, until she died.

Sheriff Chambers had brought this man here to save her from marrying a brute. She’d learned to trust the older man while she was in his jail. Sophie McLeod, the closest person to a friend she had, did as well. Elizabeth managed to calm her breathing but couldn’t stop shaking. She clenched her hands behind her back. His eyes dropped to her chest.

“Bet you’re pretty under all that dirt.” She startled when he spoke, quiet and calm. She met his eyes. “Ma’am, I know I ain’t much to look at. I wrecked my throat years ago and ended up with this croak so I don’t talk much neither.” He shook his head. “I said more tonight than in five or seven years altogether.”

His dark eyes seemed to expand, enfolding her.

“Me and my brothers got a place on the Rocking E ranch west of town. Won’t be much to a city gal like you, but it’s home. We work long days and come home to bad cooking and a cold bed. It’s not an easy life, but it’s all I know. If we get hitched, I’ll still work long days, but it’d be right nice to come home to good food and a warm bed.”