Lonesome Bride (3 page)

Despite his obvious anger, Jed's words made Caite's heart leap in her chest. He thought of kissing her! He must like her, after all, even if it was only a little bit. She squared her shoulders. A little bit was all she needed. She followed him to where he paced beside the wagon.

"I'm not offended you want to kiss me, Jed."

Jed stared at her for a moment. “Then you are not much of a lady."

Stung, Caite stepped back. “You're always accusing me of not acting like a lady, Jed Peters, when it is you who prompt me into doing or saying the very things you seem to hold in so little regard!"

Caite turned from him, moving back to the blanket where the picnic waited. Her appetite had fled, but she vowed not to let that arrogant, churlish man see how his words had affected her. Although her stomach churned from the effort of fighting back angry tears, Caitleen forced herself to sit and begin slicing some fried chicken for herself.

"You had best come and eat,” she uttered quietly. “We have the rest of the journey ahead of us, and it will not do to travel on an empty stomach."

Jed said nothing. Caite forced herself to speak again, although her throat felt so tight every word was a struggle. At least her voice did not waver and betray her dismay. “I promise not to seduce you with my hoyden ways,” said Caite, still not turning to face him. “If you like, I'll even sit where you will not have to look at me."

"I don't reckon you have to do that."

"Are you certain?” Caite struggled to keep her shoulders from shaking with the effort of holding back her tears. “I would not want to offend you, Jed."

"I said that won't be necessary, Caitleen,” Jed repeated brusquely. “I believe I can control myself."

Caite nodded, brushing the hated tears away, and handed him a plate. They spent the rest of the meal in awkward silence.

After the clearing the meal and repacking the basket, Caite busied herself brushing off her clothes, repinning her hat securely on her head, and anything else to excuse her from looking at Jed. He was completely confusing to her, this man who would be her husband. Even the thought he found her attractive did little to lift her spirits. After all, what good was it that he thought she was pretty, if he still hated her?

It's up to me, she thought, to bring peace to this relationship. The thought of living the rest of her life with a man who hated her was unbearable, worse than marriage to Hammond. She would have to make Jed love her, no matter how daunting a task it seemed.

"It's time to get back on the road,” Jed declared finally.

Caite could tell he had been busy with invented chores of his own. Anything to avoid the awkward moment when he would need to lift her onto the wagon seat, even if it meant delaying their journey by an hour.

Caite nodded, moving to the buckboard. She was looking forward to the lift no more than Jed was. She waited patiently, silently, sadly. She did not even turn when she heard Jed behind her.

"Caitleen,” Jed said awkwardly.

"Yes?” Still, she did not turn.

"Please look at me."

She complied, but would not meet his eyes.

"Please look at me, not the ground,” Jed asked.

Their eyes met. Hers were guarded, her expression carefully blank. “Yes, Jed?"

"Caite, I ... oh, blast!” Jed sputtered. “Listen, Caite, I'm sorry."

"You don't need to apologize to me."

"Yes, I do,” Jed stated stubbornly. “I've been thinking about what you said earlier—that we're going to be a family—and I reckon you're right. We should be able to get along, Caite. I'm sorry for the way I acted before, it's just..."

"Just what, Jed?"

"You're not like any woman I've ever met, that's all,” Jed said finally.

"Well, if it's any consolation to you, Jed,” replied Caitleen, “you're just the same as every man I've ever met."

Then, without another word, she grasped the high seat of the wagon and pulled herself aboard.

They rode in awkward silence for several hours, neither speaking except for Jed's occasional shouts to the horses. The wagon moved along at a good pace, bouncing in ruts and jarring its passengers, but Caitleen made no complaint. She merely sat ramrod straight, hands folded in her lap, eyes staring ahead.

Jed allowed himself to look only rarely at her, for every glance at her strained face troubled him. Maybe he shouldn't have been so harsh with her. In the next instant, however, he thought of the way she had felt in his arms, and cursed the circumstances that had brought them together. She was a mail-order bride! She was not supposed to be so lovely. Her beauty was only going to cause trouble.

It shouldn't matter what she looked like, he told himself. Fat, toothless crone or fresh-faced beauty, both should be the same to him. Except, of course, if she'd been fat and toothless he'd be thanking the stars she wasn't his, instead of cursing them because she was his father's.

At last he reined the horses to a stop. Caite, her expression neutral, remained staring straight ahead. Without meeting his gaze, she finally broke the silence.

"Why are we stopping this time?” Her tone was perfectly polite, perfectly proper ... and perfectly emotionless.

"We'll stop here for the night,” Jed told her, copying her tone exactly.

"Here?” Caite was incredulous, the steely facade she had maintained all afternoon beginning to crack. “I see no inn, no place to stay..."

"There is no inn,” Jed barked. “We make camp here."

"Camp!"

"Yes, camp, Miss Chatterbox!” Jed snapped. “We don't have any fancy hotels throughout these parts, so get used to it."

Caite's mouth thinned as she obviously struggled to maintain her temper. “I will manage just fine, Mr. Peters."

Jed leaped over the seat into the wagon bed and began untying ropes and shifting boxes. He had worked for some minutes, choosing supplies and repacking goods he would not need, before he looked up to see Caite still sitting stiffly on the front seat. Knowing she could not see him, Jed allowed the slightest touch of a grin to touch his lips. She was waiting for him to help her down. Well, he'd be darned if he'd wait hand and foot on some prissy lass from back East who didn't even know how to camp!

He jumped down from the wagon and started unloading the supplies he would need for the evening. He toyed with the idea of making camp even sparser than usual just to teach Miss Caitleen O'Neal a lesson about life in Montana, but decided against it. Jed was no stranger to a hard bedroll and cold meals, but he didn't see any reason to inconvenience himself just to annoy a woman. She would learn soon enough running an estate in Pennsylvania was nothing like running a horse ranch in Montana.

"What are you waiting for? An engraved invitation?” Jed asked finally, loping over to the wagon and staring up at Caite.

She peered down at him formally. “I was waiting for you to offer your hand, Mr. Peters."

"You'll be waiting an awful long time, Miss O'Neal. I have more important things to do than cater to you!"

Her marvelous Irish eyes slitted again. “It is very high, Mr. Peters. In case you hadn't noticed, I am not attired for leaping on and off wagons. I presumed you would be a gentleman and offer to help me down!"

"You seemed to do all right before,” Jed remarked.
Lord, she's beautiful.
Even more so with the angry fire sparking from her eyes. He felt the telltale tightening in his groin and renewed his determination to resist her charms.

"I was angry before,” Caitleen retorted hotly, “and did not wish to feel your hands upon my person!"

"And so you want to feel my hands on you now, is that it?” Jed asked. As soon as the words left his lips he regretted them. The image of his hands on her body sent a shaft of quicksilver into his already throbbing groin. The thought of her actually wanting him to touch her, perhaps even begging him to lay his hands against her flesh, was nearly more than he could bear.

At his words, Caite gasped, her face pinking. “You are a low, scurvy...” Her vocabulary deserted her and she sputtered to a stop. Instead, she stood quickly, hands on hips, and glared at him. Her mouth worked as she tried, without luck, to think of something—anything—to put Jed Peters in his place. “Disrespectful lout!"

If only she knew how the sight of her heaving bosom was affecting him. “Hard words from someone supposed to be so genteel!"

"Oh, you!” Caite raged. She swung her arms as if to swat him, and lost her balance. For a moment she teetered precariously on the wagon's edge, arms flailing as she helplessly tried to regain her stance. Within moments, however, she was toppling forward in a tangle of petticoats and hat strings.

Fortunately, Jed caught her before she could hit the ground. As he suddenly found himself with an armful of fragrant, wriggling woman, Jed's heart hammered in his chest. Caite struggled against him, trying to stand on her own. Every move she made pressed her against him, until he thought he might burst from the exquisite torture of it. For a heart-stopping moment, as she realized she was not going to disentangle herself from his grip so easily, Caite's emerald eyes met Jed's matching ones.

Realizing as his gaze searched Caite's that he was lost, Jed groaned and crushed his lips to hers. Her mouth had opened in a tiny moue of surprise, and his tongue darted out to explore the heady sweetness within. Without pulling his mouth away, Jed plunged his hands into the fiery depths of auburn coiled atop Caite's head. In a shower of hairpins, her hair cascaded down her back and over her shoulders. Her tresses were like silk against his fingers. Lilac-scented silk. She was irresistible.

Letting his fingers run again and again through the silk of her hair, Jed kept his mouth slanted against Caite's until he could no longer breathe. When he pulled away to take in a gasp of air still filled with the scent of her, Jed found himself nose to nose with the most bewitching and enticing woman he had ever met.

Caitleen's gaze was glazed, but she was smiling at him. Running the tip of her tempting pink tongue over her kiss-swollen lips, she said, “My goodness, Mr. Peters, if I'd know what would happen when I fell, I might have jumped."

Her teasing words were like a dash of cold water on his lust-heated skin. She should have resisted him, slapped his face and called him some more names. She most definitely should not be joking with him. What was he doing kissing her, anyway? This was his father's bride-to-be. Even if that little fact didn't seem to bother her, it sure as heck bothered him.

Abruptly, Jed pushed her an arm's length away. His gaze raked over her from head to foot, capturing her hair tumbled all about and her skirts half raised to show her knees. His lust turned immediately to self-loathing, coupled with scorn for a woman who would submit to the kisses of a man who wasn't her husband. If he was a scapegrace for giving in to his lust, then what was she? Knitting his brows together and stalking away from her, he ran his fingers through his dark hair in an impatient gesture.

"What do you think you were doing, allowing me to kiss you like that?” he growled. “Look at you with your hat off again! And your hair straggling all over the place! What kind of morals do you have anyway, Miss O'Neal? Were you raised in a cathouse?"

At this long and impassioned speech, the longest she had ever heard from him, Caite blanched. Then, two spots of hot color began to rise high upon her cheeks. With trembling fingers, she began to tuck stray strands of hair back into place and to smooth the rumpled material of her clothes. She looked as though she might retch, and Jed's own stomach turned to knots. First, he had created an impossible situation by kissing her, then he had made it worse by yelling at her. He didn't know whether to apologize for the kiss or for the shouting. He decided to do neither.

While Caite rearranged her clothes and hair, Jed stormed to the back of the wagon. Throwing supplies carelessly onto the ground, he began to set up camp. Tossing a few blankets to one side and a few more on the other, he realized he was in no condition to do the job. He had to get himself under control.

Jed could not believe a few paltry kisses had affected him so much. Except they weren't very paltry, he admitted to himself. Lord, every step he took pinched and rubbed him in places he definitely did not need any more stimulation. His breath felt thick in his lungs. Caitleen O'Neal had to be a demon—she must be. It wasn't as though he'd never had a woman before! Just not one with silky auburn hair, tantalizing green eyes, and a body that seemed to beg for his caresses.

"I do not understand,” Caitleen said miserably, quietly. She had finished her ablutions, but had not moved from her spot. “I thought you wanted to kiss me."

Jed whirled to face her, his own emotions in an uproar. “What difference would it make if I wanted to kiss you or not?"

Caite flinched but did not retreat. She replied dully, “I thought it would please you if I kissed you back, so I did. I was only trying to please you, Jed."

Her soft reply and obvious hurt provoked Jed even further. A thought suddenly occurred to him. “How many other men have you ‘pleased’ this way, I'd like to know!"

Caite met his gaze with the look of a startled doe and flushed. Jed took her blush for admittance of her indiscretions. That explained everything, then. “So you have done this before!"

"No, I..."

"Oh, don't deny it, Miss Prissy, I'm-Too-Good-to-Sleep-On-the-Ground, Pennsylvania O'Neal! How many others have you played this with, that's what I want to know!"

Caite's blush grew deeper until her entire face and neck were crimson with emotion. “I swear to you, Jed, I never—"

Jed did not wait for her to finish. “I reckon I can see why you decided to sell yourself into marriage with a stranger."

Caite crumpled against the wagon, breath catching in her throat. She raised unsteady fingers to her still kiss-swollen mouth. Tears welled in her luminous green eyes and began to wend their way down her flushed, perfect cheeks.

"But
you
kissed me,” she whispered.

"You should've stopped me,” Jed snapped.

Caite's wet eyes met his, and this time she did not look away. She didn't point out to him that he was much stronger than she, and she could have done very little to stop him should he have decided to keep kissing her.