Lucas (13 page)

Lucy had come to
Thistleberry, Montana, with every intention of marrying a perfect stranger, but
she hadn’t expected the turn of events that would lead her to fall in love with
Lucas Deardon. She looked up into his eyes and knew she could never deny the
feelings that had taken root deep inside of her. What was she afraid of?

He waited an answer,
his hand gently caressing her jaw and skimming her bottom lip. Her gaze moved
from his eyes to his mouth.

Oh, my goodness. He’s
going to kiss me.

The hand holding hers to
his chest dropped to her waist, but she didn’t move, reveling in the feel of
his taut muscles beneath his fancy buttoned shirt. As he bent his head down
toward her, her breath caught in her ribs and she closed her eyes.

“Lucas,” a woman’s
voice called from his doorway, “have you seen Lu…”

Lucy jumped back, her
fingertips shooting to her mouth, brushing her lips.

“Well, this makes
everything so much more interesting.” Mara leaned against the doorframe with
her arms folded across her chest and a smile that claimed to know more than
there was to tell.

“What do you mean
more
interesting?” Lucas asked, narrowing his eyes at his aunt.

“I mean, Gilroy Hearn
is downstairs in the parlor room waiting to speak with his mail-order bride. You
know, the man she was supposed to marry.”

Lucy didn’t dare look
at Lucas. She hadn’t wanted him to find out this way. Not that there was much
to tell. Liam had explained to her many times that her mail-order intended had
run away with another woman and she was better off without the likes of him.

She hadn’t understood
his reasons at the time for why he’d felt responsible, but he had provided more
than she could have dreamed—a roof over her head, food to eat, gainful employment
with a fair wage, and most importantly, his friendship. It was now comforting
to know that he had been such an important part of her family’s history.

Gilroy Hearn?

What was the cowardly
brute doing here now and what did he want with her? Didn’t he have a bride he
needed to be looking after? She stepped toward the door and stopped.

Gilroy Hearn,
she repeated in her
mind. The more she thought about him, the angrier she became. How dare the man
show his face here after everything he’d done? She glanced into the mirror,
pinched her cheeks, and squared her shoulders.

“I’ll be right down.” To
her annoyance, her voice cracked as she slipped around Lucas and out the door,
ready to give Mr. Hearn a piece of her mind.

“I hope you’re not
planning on letting her get away,” she heard Mara tell Lucas before she nearly
tripped down the stairs.

She’d left Lucas yet
again without an answer.

Coward. Stop being so
wishy-washy.
She’d come west to get married and waiting for the man she loved to say the
right words in return was just plain silly. Yet, she knew she needed to hear
them.

When she walked into
the parlor, a man of average height and mousy brown hair stood staring at one
of the photographs on top of the piano, his hat in his hand behind his back.

“Hello,” she called in
greeting.

The man spun around to
face her. “Miss Russell?” he asked, his brows raised and his voice higher than
what she had expected.

“Yes, I am Lucy Russell.
The mail-order bride you abandoned,” she said matter-of-factly. “How can I help
you, Mr. Hearn?”

The man was better
looking than she had expected, but there was an air about him that put her on
guard.

He rushed forward and
collected her hands in his, shaking them both with eagerness. “Please, call me Roy.
Forgive me for not being at the stage to meet you. I was otherwise…detained.” He
stood just a few inches taller than her, his hair was slicked back against his
head, and a straggly line of whiskers, stretched thin above his lip, extended
slightly beyond the width of his mouth.

“By a woman, I hear.”
She wanted to retrieve the words the moment they were out of her mouth. They sounded
quite snippety.
Be polite
, she reminded herself, forcing a cordial smile.

His face fell slightly
as he let go of her hands, his brows scrunched together. “I guess my mama
is
a woman. She’s been real sick and needed someone to look after her.”

It was Lucy’s turn to
scrunch her brows. “Your mama? It has been nearly six weeks, Mr. Hearn. How
does your mother keep you away from your commitments for more than six weeks?
Without as much as a word to the woman you had promised to marry?”

He twisted the hat in
his hand, his head bowed, and he glanced up to meet her eyes. “I’m here now.
Isn’t that what’s important?” He cleared his throat and craned his neck
slightly to look at her. “And you are lovelier than I could have hoped. I know
it’s late, but I’m standing here, hoping you’ll give me another chance.”

The front door opened
and Hank stepped inside the house, followed by Sam.

Mr. Hearn straightened
his back and reached up to run a finger beneath his collar. He smiled nervously
as he widened his stance, his gaze shifting from one Deardon to another. A
slight curl in his lip twitched against a partially closed eye.

Mara joined her in the
parlor and Lucy looked back to see Lucas descend the stairs. He paused, casually
perching himself on the bottom step, and leaned against the railing. Hank and Sam
stood on either side of the arched entryway into the parlor, folding their arms
like sentries standing guard.

Mr. Hearn cleared his
throat again, but looked at the ground. “Well, it’s getting late yet. Maybe
it’s best I be going.” He glanced up at her. “But I’ll come back tomorrow to
call on ya all proper like.”

“Like hell you will,”
Hank said, one eyebrow raised. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, Hearn, showing your
face around here again.” He rested a hand over the holster on his hip. “The
money you stole and used to pay Ardis Franks to tell her pa that you weren’t
the father of her baby, was meant for the orphanage. Children went to bed
hungry every night for days before Dad found out what you’d done.” He balled
his free hand into a fist and then stretched it again.

Lucy’s mouth dropped
open at the blatant accusation, then turned her shock on Mr. Hearn. Hank was
gruff and often discourteous to those who displeased him, but she’d never known
him to lie.

A thief? And a cheat?
How could she have been
so naïve to believe that everything the man had written in his letters was
true?

“Miss Russell, I assure
you there is no truth to these outrageous charges,” Mr. Hearn said with a
slight bow of his head, as if pleading with her to believe him.

Hank took an
intimidating step forward, but Mara rushed to him and placed a hand on her
husband’s arm. He looked down at her and took a deep breath.

“You are lucky my
father thought a man—even a miscreant like you—should be given the chance to do
the right thing.”

“But now you’ve broken
the arrangement,” Sam spoke up. “Our father gave you enough money to marry the
girl and start a small farm far away from Thistleberry on the condition that
you promise never to return. So, what are you doing here?” He pushed himself
away from the wall and took a step toward them, now standing even with Hank.

Mr. Hearn moved so that
Lucy stood between him and the Deardon men, who effectively blocked his retreat.

“Now, hold on there,
Deardon,” Mr. Hearn said, peeking around her, “I come here to pay my respects
to your pa. And while I was here, I thought I’d make things right with Miss Russell.
There ain’t nothing wrong with that.”

“Except that we don’t
believe a word that comes out of your mouth,” Sam countered.

“Don’t you already have
a wife?” Hank asked.

“Maybe you should mind
your own business,” Hearn said. His voice exposed a slight quiver. “Besides,
shouldn’t you be out there greetin’ your visitors?” He pointed to the window
with a tilt of his head.

“I think the boys can
handle it for a few minutes,” Hank replied. “And Lucy
is
our business.”

She smiled at him with
gratitude. It was nice having a family to look after her. And that is what they
had become. Family.

“Funny thing,” Sam said
casually, “we did some digging around after you left and discovered that three
of the colts you’d claimed had died from the last herd ended up on ranches in
some of the neighboring towns. Very much alive. How do you think that
happened?”

The tension in the room
thickened and the silence grew. Lucy didn’t want to be in the middle of the
mounting confrontation.

“Lucas, why don’t you go
out and get the sheriff,” Sam told his nephew. “I think he’ll be real
interested to hear what we’ve learned.”

“You know what the
penalty is in these parts for horse thievin’?” Hank asked.

Grateful the Deardons had
forewent some of the more traditional mourning rituals they often displayed in
New York society, Lucy caught a glimpse of Mr. Hearn in the large gilded mirror
above the piano as he pulled a pistol tucked in the back of his pants.

“He’s got a gun!” she
yelled and tried to duck away, but he was too fast for her. As she jerked
forward, his fingers curled into the long strands of her hair and he yanked her
backward until she was close enough that he could slither an arm around her
neck. He pulled her tight up against him, the stench of his hot breath searing
her nostrils as he breathed hard against her ear.

“Nobody’s going to be callin’
on the sheriff today.” Hearn spat as he waived the gun around, passing over
each of them. When his aim finally settled on Lucas, he pulled back the hammer
of his gun until it cocked. “Who the hell are you?”

Lucas appeared cool as could
be as he turned to face her captor. “Lucas,” he said as if that was enough.

“Well, don’t you be
trying anything funny over there,
Lucas
. I’ll be leaving now, and Miss Russell
will be coming with me.” He turned to Hank. “Your pa done promised me a sizable
dowry from this mail-order bride and I aim to take what’s mine.”

Dowry?
She didn’t have any
dowry. What on earth could he be going on about?

“You’ve mis—”

“Shhhh,” he cautioned,
tightening his grip on her hair. “There’ll be plenty of time for talking after
the wedding.” He sniggered.

“I’m afraid I can’t let
that happen.”

The gravelly sound to
Lucas’s voice comforted Lucy and she glanced up at him, praying for his safety.

He met her eyes, his
brow raised.

She nodded.

In one swift movement,
he rolled off his perch against the railing and closed the few strides between
them in an instant, his own gun drawn, the barrel of it resting up against Mr.
Hearn’s temple. “My grandfather entrusted me with Miss Russell’s safekeeping.
The only person she will be marrying, is me.” He guided her away from Hearn’s
grasp and tucked her under his arm. “If she’ll have me.”

“Grandfather? Shoulda
known you was one of ‘em.”

Sam rushed forward,
slid the gun from Hearn’s grasp, and gripped his shirt in a bunch just below
the collar. “How could you have possibly believed that this was going to turn
out in your favor?” he shook his head as he walked him toward the door.

Lucy turned into Lucas,
wrapping her arms around his slender waist and squeezing, reveling in the feel
of
his
arms as they encircled her with unexpected warmth and an unspoken
promise of his protection.

“You’re safe now,” he
said, then placed a gentle kiss atop her head.

“Thank you,” she
whispered against his chest.

After a moment, he
pulled away from her enough that she could look up into his face.

“You still haven’t
answered me,” he coaxed with some semblance of a smile.

She sucked in a deep
breath.

You love him, idiot.