Rocky Mountain Rose (Rocky Mountain Bride Series Book 3) (18 page)

“All right,” she whispered.

He settled behind her again.

“Remember that you said that the next time I throw a chamber pot at you,” she said, and he laughed.

“Fight me all you want, Rose. I’ll be here long after all your weapons are spent. I found beauty, and I’m not giving it up.”

Sitting up, he blew out the candle then cocooned her in his arms.

In the darkness, Rose bit her lip. He’d had that beauty with someone else. What if she could never give him the life he deserved?

*

The next day, there was a chill in the air. Fall was upon them, and winter would soon follow. Rose felt a lump in her throat; cold weather always heralded hard times in her life.

Lyle was chopping wood, and Rose came out to help stack some on the porch. The sound of horses had her look up, confused at first, then wondering if the Donovans were visiting.

The first rough looking man broke through the trees, and Rose turned to stone.

“Get in the cabin. Bolt the door,” Lyle ordered as the one man became two, and the two became three, grim faced and riding straight for them. “Go!”

Picking up her skirts, she fled, but paused on the porch. The three men rode up to her husband, guns in hand.

“Lyle Wilder?” One asked. “We’ve come for Rose.”

Her heart stopped beating as they surrounded him.

“You can’t have her.” Lyle didn’t look the least bit afraid.

“That’s not what Doyle says.” One smirked, and Lyle hefted the ax in his hands.

“Stop.” Rose’s voice rang out over the clearing. She stepped off the porch and walked towards the men. “I’m here.”

“Rose, no,” Lyle called. “Get back in the cabin.”

“Come on over, pretty lady,” the leader said. The three thugs watched her with hungry eyes. “Doyle says you owe him a debt.”

“If I go with you, will you leave him alone?” Her eyes were burning, but she wouldn’t cry now. The old mask over Rosie May settled over her features as she bargained for her husband’s life.

One man cocked his head, pretending to think it over.

“You’re not going to do that, Rose.” Lyle glared at her.

“Lyle, please. I can’t lose you, too.” She faced the man, coming near enough to see his teeth stained with tobacco. “Do I have your word you won’t hurt him?”

“If you come quiet like and don’t give no trouble.”

“Rose—” Lyle started, but she quickly spoke up.

“I promise. I’ll go with you.”

One man moved his horse to her, and slid off. The other two kept their guns trained on Lyle, who was tense as a caged bear.

“Why are you doing this?”

“I’m sorry.” The tears started now, but she ignored them. They didn’t matter. Nothing did. “I can’t be a good wife to you. I tried, but it can never be.”

The ax almost slipped from Lyle’s hand as he stared at her, stunned.

One of the two men cackled. “Seems Rosie May isn’t cut out for homesteading. Find yourself a good church woman; we’ll take the harlot back where she belongs.”

The leader had Rose up on the horse in front of him.

“Rose.” Lyle started for her, ignoring the guns on him, and the thug leader pressed a gun to Rose’s temple.

“Stay where you are, pretty boy.” With a nod to his two men, he turned his horse and thundered off. Rose clung to the pillion, feeling the thug’s fetid breath on the back of her neck.

“Smart girl,” the man murmured.

Rose couldn’t help herself looking back one last time. Lyle hadn’t moved, staring after her as if his world was falling apart and he was helpless to stop it. As a sob shook her, she watched one of the thugs raise his weapon and aim it.

“No,” she shrieked, but her captor caught her around the neck, gripping her until she thought she might pass out.

A shot rang out behind her, and she heard a horse screaming. Lyle’s stallion.

“Had to be done, girlie. Can’t have your man chasing us down.”

He released her and she slumped forward, her stomach roiling. She used to feel nothing. Now the floodgates opened and she couldn’t stop the fear, rage, and, above all, hopelessness burning through her, filling her mouth with bile.

“You be good now, and we’ll get you to Doyle in one piece. Don’t make us regret not doing for your beau.”

She nodded numbly. The other two riders had already joined them, trotting out of the pine forest and out to the road to town. She barely noticed, even when they veered off the road into the wild country.

They rode hard for a while, grunting and sweating in the sun. Once they’d put a few miles between them and the homestead, they seemed to relax, and slowed their horses.

“That went easier than expected,” one said. “Doyle will be pleased.”

“You see his face when she said those things to him?” One man guffawed.

“Rosie May knows her place, don’t ya, girlie? Pretty boy and house like that, not for the likes of you. That’ll teach ya not to get above yourself.”

He tore the front of her dress and slipped his hand down the front of her corset, roughly grabbing her breast. It hurt, but she did not cry out.

“Aww, Rusty, quit handling the goods.”

“Doyle won’t begrudge me a treat,” the man grunted, groping his redheaded prize.

“You gonna hog her all the way there?”

Rose felt the man shifting behind her, trying to rub against her fleshy bottom. This was to be her life now. Letting men use her body to find pleasure, her own taste of the good life a distant memory.

One man rode closer to his friend, watching the lustful proceedings. “Pull her top down, let me see.”

“Wait your turn,” the other started to say, when the third gave a shout.

“Ho! We have a follower.”

The three men turned, the one behind Rose fumbling with his cock and breeches. She didn’t bother looking back. No one was coming to her rescue. Not this time.

“Man on a white horse,” one reported.

“You don’t think...”

“Can’t be.” But the three men whipped their horses faster, all the same. Rose was flattened forward, body almost crushed against the horse while the man behind her kicked their mount.

The minutes passed, men and horses’ labored breathing the only sound.

“He’s getting closer,” one man said.

“Dammit! If I wanted, I could look back. Swing wide, both of you, and stop him.”

Their escort peeled off and the man gripped her neck again. “Better not be your boy, Rosie May, or we’ll kill him, and leave his body for the buzzards.”

It’s not,
she almost said out loud. She’d rejected him, after all. Why would he come for her?

But the sight of red wildflowers spreading over the plains caught her eye. Their sweet scent rose up as the horse crushed them, bringing memories of Lyle’s promises.

I found beauty, and I’m not giving it up.

She sat up straight in the saddle, shaking off the man’s hand, and looked back.

A horse and rider thundered over the plain, the stallion pure white. The man’s dark form rose about the horse’s heaving flanks.

Lyle. Her hero.

The two thugs advanced and he kept coming, riding straight as an arrow for Rose and her captor. She knew it, and felt hope rising in her like a dove even as she cried out in fear for him.

A gun cracked once, twice, and Rose cringed, but Lyle didn’t fall. Instead, his two attackers flew off their mounts, one flying straight off, dead, and the other rocking over the side of his mount and falling halfway to the ground, where a cloud of dust rose over his dragging form until his horse slowed.

Her captor looked back and cursed.

“He’s coming for me,” Rose told him. “And he’ll kill you.”

“You shut your mouth.” The man started to strike her, but she ducked, flattening herself against the horse’s neck.

“Now, Jesse, now,” she whispered, and felt the bullet hit her captor, his body jerking wildly, threatening to knock her off. Grabbing the horse’s reins, she pulled hard until her mount came to a halt. The body behind her was dead weight, and as she dismounted, she caught sight of the blood-spattered form before turning and rushing away.

The white horse galloped over the plain at break neck speed, finally slowing in the seconds before Lyle reached her.

Her man vaulted off, striding towards her like she was the only thing in his world. She felt her knees go weak as he got closer, but made herself stagger towards him.

Lyle’s face darkened as he took in Rose’s torn bodice and corset. Then she was in his arms.

“You all right?”

“Yes, yes.” She rubbed her face on his chest, hands reaching up to slide from his jaw into his thick hair. Her touch reassured her he was real. “They didn’t hurt me. I’m fine.”

“Rose.” He caught a fistful of her hair and drew her head back. “Don’t you ever, ever...”

“I won’t.” Her breath blew out, half way between a sigh and a sob. “You came for me.”

“Always.” He crushed her to him. “Always.”

Their mouths met in a frenzy until Lightning whickered impatiently, stamping his foot.

“Is this Lightning?” she asked, stroking the pure white mane.

“Miles gave him to us, as a wedding present.”

He took off his long coat, and wrapped it around her, then lifted her up onto Lightning’s back before vaulting up behind her.

They rode past the dead men and two aimlessly wandering horses.

“Look.” Lyle pointed to the top of the rocky hill.

His brother Jesse appeared, standing with coat flapping in the breeze, rifle in hand. Rose could almost picture his cocky smile.

Lyle raised his hand in salute, and she waved, then their white mount rode on, and the scene disappeared in a cloud of dust. Before them lay the vast, aching wilderness, with the mountains rising behind. The savageness was softened, though, by the endless stretch of wildflowers, a pink carpet that seemed to spread from their feet all the way to the setting sun, a carpet leading them home.

The End

About the Author

Bestselling author Lee Savino has been telling tales since she was young. While she was studying creative writing at Hollins University, her first manuscript won the Hollins Fiction Prize. Living in Richmond, Va with her awesome husband and her pet cat, she can most often be found on Facebook as Lee Savino, or in person at a local coffee shop drinking tea. Other than half-made plans for world domination, she has no other aspirations in life than writing many more books about strong women and the sexy men who love them. Visit her website, leesavino.com, to download a free book.

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