Montana Bride (24 page)

She didn’t want to lie to Karl. Or hurt him. She loved what he’d done to her. With her. How he’d made her body sing. At least, before that last part. But that didn’t mean she loved him.

Hetty had done everything in her power
not
to love Karl Norwood. She was his mail-order bride, nothing more, nothing less. She liked him far too much to love him. Loving a man she was deceiving so completely was a disaster waiting to happen.

So she said nothing. But she was sure he heard her message loud and clear:
You might love me. But I don’t love you.

He got up and began dressing. “We’d better get moving. It’s about time we took over for Grace. She must be pretty tired by now.”

Hetty saw the closed look on Karl’s face and knew she’d hurt him. Badly. She should have lied. She was certainly good enough at it.

But it was too late now.

She needed to get out of bed and get dressed, but she was suddenly shy, aware of her nakedness as she hadn’t been when Karl had been making love to her. She kept the sheet tucked up under her arms as she reached for her pantalets.

Karl already had his trousers back on and said, “I’ll take the rest of my things and dress by the fire in the other room.”

Then he was gone, leaving the door ajar.

Hetty sat slumped in the bed. She felt like crying. She was going to have to find some way to repair the damage she’d done, but she had no idea how.

You can offer to make love to him. He’ll probably want to do it again. So do you, if you’re honest. At least, you want to do the first part again.

Hetty was still pondering her options when she heard Karl yelling from the other room. Her blood froze when she made out what he and Grace were saying.

“Why did you let Griffin fall asleep?”

“I’m sorry, Karl,” Grace replied. “He can’t have been asleep for very long. Just wake him up.”

“I’ve tried,” Karl said. “I can’t.”

When Karl left the bedroom, he was angry. When he’d told Hetty “I love you,” what he’d really meant was,
I forgive you for lying through your teeth. For not being who you said you were. For showing up with two children who cannot possibly be yours.
He’d been ready and willing to accept whatever story she told him and move on with their lives from there. Because the truth was, he’d somehow fallen in love with her, despite all the lies.

Except, she hadn’t bothered with another story. She’d shot him a single guilty look and said nothing at all.

Karl had known when he married Hetty that his bride might never love him. But he hadn’t expected it to hurt quite so much when she made it clear that she didn’t.

He felt used. Hetty hadn’t wanted a husband, she’d wanted a home for herself and those two kids. Having a husband was simply a necessary evil. She’d submitted to his lovemaking because he’d made it clear to her that making love was part of the deal.

Had Hetty really thought he wouldn’t notice she was a virgin? He’d been stupid about a lot of things where she was concerned, but he was wising up fast. Who was Henrietta Wentworth Templeton? And where had she picked up the son and daughter she was passing off as her own?

Karl shoved open the door to the kids’ bedroom intending to surprise them into confessing the truth, only to find them both sound asleep. Which was when he realized that the last thing Griffin should be was asleep.

He crossed the room in two strides, shook Griffin’s shoulders, and said, “Wake up!”

The kid didn’t move. He lay still as a stone.

Karl sat down on the bed, lifted the boy into his arms, and said, “Wake up, Griffin.”

Grace sat up in the next bed, groaning and stretching and yawning. “What’s wrong?”

“Why did you let Griffin fall asleep?” Karl demanded.

“I’m sorry, Karl. He can’t have been asleep for very long. Just wake him up.”

“I’ve tried,” Karl said grimly. “I can’t.”

“Oh, no!” Grace climbed out of her bed and into Griffin’s in a flash, crawling as close to her brother as she could get. “Griffin! Wake up!”

The boy’s head lolled back over Karl’s arm.

“What’s wrong with him?” she cried. “Why isn’t he moving? Is he dead?”

Griffin’s eyes fluttered, and he licked his lips.

“He’s alive!” Grace sobbed. “Griffin, wake up! You’re scaring me.”

The boy groaned and mumbled, “Stop shouting, Grace. You’re making my head hurt.”

“Open your eyes,” Karl ordered. “Look at me.”

Griffin blinked as his eyes adjusted to the glow of the lantern on the bedside table. He lifted his head and finally focused his gaze on Karl.

Karl studied Griffin’s dark brown eyes. The pupils seemed normal and both were the same size. “Do you feel dizzy? Or like you have to puke?”

Griffin started to shake his head, squinted his eyes closed instead, and said, “No. I just want to go back to sleep.”

“Sorry, kid. You can’t do that,” Karl said. “Not until we’re sure you don’t have a concussion.”

Karl had barely finished speaking when Hetty arrived in the doorway looking disheveled and frightened. She was barefoot, her tousled blond curls tumbling over her shoulders, her blue eyes luminous with unshed tears. She’d obviously grabbed the first thing she could find to cover her nakedness, because she was wearing that flimsy nightgown through which he could see the shadow of the pink nipples he’d so recently sucked.

Karl felt a flare of lust so strong that, if the children hadn’t been present, he would have taken her then and there—against the wall, on the floor, on the bed—anywhere he could find a flat surface to have his way with her.

“Grace, go get in bed in your mother’s room,” Karl said.

“I want to stay with Griffin.”

Karl’s response was abrupt and unsympathetic. “Do what I said!”

Grace shot Hetty a fearful look and fled.

“She’s just a child,” Hetty said, stepping farther into the room. “It’s not her fault she fell asleep.”

“It’s not Grace I’m angry with,” he replied.

Hetty’s face blanched.

“I’ll stay with Griffin,” he said. “You go keep Grace company.”

Her eyes looked forlorn. She started to leave, but paused long enough to say, “I’ll heat up some coffee to help you stay awake.”

Karl’s heart ached. He was going to have to figure out some way to fall out of love with Hetty. Because it hurt too much to love someone who didn’t love him back.

“Why are you so mad?” Griffin asked.

“If I didn’t owe you my life, I’d be a lot madder at you than I am,” Karl shot back. He knew he shouldn’t take out his ire on the kids. Hetty was the one who’d deceived him. Hetty was the guilty one. But he couldn’t stop himself from asking, “Where did you and Grace meet Hetty?”

Griffin’s mouth dropped open in shock before he recovered and said, “What do you mean?”

“I know she’s not your mother.”

“Did she tell you that?”

“Not in so many words. I figured it out.”

“Don’t blame Hetty,” the boy said, laying an imploring hand on Karl’s arm. “She only took Mrs. Templeton’s place to help out me and Grace.”

It took Karl a moment to process what Griffin had said. There had apparently been a Mrs. Templeton—the woman he’d corresponded with—but Hetty had taken her place. When? How? If Hetty wasn’t Mrs. Templeton, then who the hell was she?

Karl’s head was reeling. Who was it he’d married?

“Are you going to make us leave?”

The kid’s plaintive question cut to the heart of the matter. Was he going to throw them all out? And if he wasn’t, where did he go from here?

Hetty stuck her head in the door and said, “Coffee’s ready. Do you want me to bring you a cup, or do you want to drink it out here at the table?”

“At the table. Just give me a minute.” Karl turned to Griffin and said, “I haven’t made up my mind yet what I’m going to do. I suggest you sit here and think about how you’d feel if you were in my shoes and found out everyone you cared about had been deceiving you.”

Karl was halfway to the door when Griffin said in a fierce voice, “Nobody ever gave a damn about me except Grace until Hetty came along. Don’t hurt her. Or you’ll have me to deal with.”

Karl saw the kid had his jaw clenched in an attempt to keep the tears that had filled his eyes from spilling over. Karl swallowed over the sudden painful lump in his throat. “I have to do what I think is right.”

“I mean it!” Griffin warned.

“I know you do.” Karl left the room, determined to confront Hetty and get the truth out of her. But little pitchers had big ears, so he shut the door behind him, then crossed the house and checked on Grace. The lantern was out in the bedroom, but he could hear muffled sobs. He was tempted to try and comfort her, but he couldn’t do that until he made up his mind how he was going to resolve the situation.

“Come sit down, Karl,” Hetty called to him as she set a tin cup full of steaming coffee on the table.

“What if I don’t feel like sitting?”

She set a second cup of coffee on the opposite side of the table and sat down in front of it. “It’ll be easier to talk if we can look each other in the eye.”

He scraped a chair back, dropped down into it, and leaned his elbows aggressively on the table. “I can see how looking me in the eye wouldn’t be a problem for you, Hetty. You’re pretty good at lying right to my face.”

Even in the scant light from the lantern on the table he saw her cheeks flush. He couldn’t be sure whether it was shame for what she’d done, or frustration at getting caught.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

“My name is Henrietta Wentworth.”

“Not Templeton?”

She shook her head.

“What the hell is going on, Hetty?”

She focused her gaze on her hands, which were knotted before her on the table. He watched her swallow hard, but she didn’t speak.

He reached across the narrow kitchen table and forced her chin up. “Look at me. Talk to me! Whose kids are those?”

She jerked her chin free, her eyes flashing, and said, “Mine!”

“They can’t be yours,” Karl retorted, grasping her wrist when she started to rise. “We both know why.”

Hetty turned her eyes down and to the side, an admission that she’d been untouched before he’d made her his wife.

Karl felt an unutterable sadness. He hadn’t insisted on having a woman who’d been untouched by another man. He hadn’t thought it would matter to him that his wife had already borne two children. But the masculine exultation he’d felt when he’d realized the truth, when he’d known for certain that no other man had touched her and he was the first, had been something he’d never expected.

Her flush deepened as she sat back down. “The children needed a mother and I was available. I’m their mother now.”

“Where did you find them?”

“I didn’t find them. They found me.” She tugged at her wrist and said, “You’re hurting me, Karl.”

Karl let her go and knotted his hands into fists, contemplating the beautiful woman sitting across from him. The beautiful,
deceitful
woman sitting across from him.

“You didn’t expect there would be consequences if you were found out?”

“I didn’t expect to be found out. How did you know—”

“I’ve never taken a virgin to bed, but I know what a hymen is, and I know when I’ve broached one.”

She covered her face at such plain speaking. He waited her out. When she lowered her hands he said, “Let’s start with how you hitched up with those kids. Did you meet them in Cheyenne?”

“I’ve never been to Cheyenne.”

“You just said—”

“Do you want to hear what happened?” she interrupted. “Or do you want to yell at me?”

He clamped his jaw and waited. He watched a half dozen emotions flicker across her face before she began speaking.
Figuring out how to put the best face on her lies,
he thought bitterly.

“I was traveling west on a wagon train with two of my sisters—I come from a family of six children—when we were attacked by Indians. I was wounded in the shoulder by an arrow.”

“I’ve seen the scar,” Karl said.

She put a hand to her shoulder where he’d seen the raised flesh that she’d kept constantly covered with clothing. “The savages went crazy when they realized Hannah and I were twins and let us alone. But they took my youngest sister Josie captive and stole the oxen pulling the wagon.”

“I have to give you credit. When you make up a story, it’s a corker.”

“It’s the truth!”

It sounded too farfetched to be the truth, but the anguish in her voice was real enough. “Where was the rest of the wagon train when all this was happening?”

“We were thrown off the train,” Hetty admitted.

“Why?”

“Does it matter?”

He thought about that for a moment and said, “I can’t believe a wagon master would abandon three women without a man to protect them.”

“My sister Hannah’s husband, Mr. McMurtry, was with us.”

“What happened to him during the attack?”

“He’d died earlier that day of cholera.”

“Helluva lot of bad luck, Hetty. Where’s your twin? What happened to her?”

“I don’t know,” Hetty said. “I was dying, so she went to find help. She never came back.”

“Then how did you get well?”

She hesitated.

Running out of convincing lies,
Karl thought.

At last she said, “Bao found me and nursed me back to health.”

Karl was stunned. Bao had been a part of this charade? He’d thought the Chinaman was his friend! He’d trusted Bao to travel to Cheyenne and return with his mail-order bride. He’d returned with a bride, all right. Just not the one he’d been sent to get. How had someone he trusted as much as he trusted Bao become a co-conspirator in this tale of betrayal?

Karl realized he was letting himself get distracted. There was still a big, unexplained hole in Hetty’s story. “Where did you find the kids? Were they with the wagon train, too?”

Hetty swallowed hard and said, “They traveled from Cheyenne with your mail-order bride. Mrs. Templeton saw what she thought was an abandoned wagon along the trail and stopped to see if there was anything left inside. There was. Me.”

Karl was trying to fill in the blanks between what Hetty had said and what she’d implied, trying to unravel the knotted string of truth she’d presented to him.