The Rustler's Bride (16 page)

“Ssshh,” Declan said, his mouth brushing against hers. “You talk too much.”

“You don’t talk enough.” The words came on a sigh as she opened her lips for him and tried to deepen the kiss. He didn’t let her. Instead, he lifted his head and studied her face, then dipped down again. He kissed her brow, her eyes, the tip of her nose, the crest of her cheeks, the edge of her jaw.

“Did you hear me?” She squirmed beneath him, fighting the wheel of pleasure that had started its slow spinning inside her. “They’ll hang you.”

“Ssshh…ssshh.” He kissed her throat. Leaning up on his elbows, he undid the buttons on her cotton shirt, found her thin chemise beneath and said, “This thing has no buttons.”

“Of course it doesn’t.” She tried to kick him in the shin, but her bucking motion only served to bring his hips into a more intimate contact with hers. “Are you listening to me?” she demanded. “Sheriff Weston is riding after you.”

“There should be buttons. But it’s easy to fix.” He curled his fingers around the neckline of her chemise and modified the garment by adding a neat rip down the front.

“What are you doing?” she asked on an indrawn breath.

“Ssshhh.” His lips trailed along her collarbones, downward, found the peak of a breast, closed around it. He sucked the tip into his mouth, played gently with his teeth.

“Oh…God…Declan…stop…this is crazy.” Her body was no longer her own as she writhed and wriggled beneath him. Tendrils of pleasure shot from her breasts to the rest of her body. Heat throbbed between her legs. Now she knew for certain that her father had wasted his money on her education, for a lady did not allow an outlaw to make love to her beneath the midday sun, husband or not.”

“Ssshh,” Declan said, in his infuriating way of not talking enough. He edged down her body, delivering hot, greedy kisses that left a burning trail on her skin. His hands searched at her waist, found the buttons on her denim overalls, popped them open. She could feel the denim sliding over her hips, down her legs, as he tugged and pulled and twisted, somehow removing her boots as part of the process.

“Sssshhh.” The softly whispered sound was his only reply to her protests. His hands, warm and strong and callused, curled on the inside of her thighs, gently easing them apart. And then his mouth settled on the heat there, probing, licking, tasting, teasing, finding a spot that made her jerk up on the bedroll and send a harsh cry of passion rising up toward the sky. Decadent, unspeakable, things he did to her, things of which she had never even dared to dream, had not known men could do to women, and women would enjoy having done to them. Her body thrashed and convulsed beneath the onslaught of his mouth, and when she finally found a release, tears brimmed in her eyes.

He held her in his arms while she came down from the pinnacle, while her shudders stilled and her tears dried, and her spirit returned to earth from its mad soar up into the heavens.

“Am I forgiven?” he asked.

A clever retort sprang to her lips.
Yes, if you promise to do that again
.
Yes, if you learn to tell me how you feel
. Instead, she followed her father’s advice not to play childish games, but to accept humility and reach out for what she wanted. She lifted a hand to touch his cheek. “When there is so much love, there is no need for forgiveness. I’ll always love you, no matter what you do. Will you stay with me?”

He clasped her wrist and pressed a kiss on her palm. “You deserve better.”

“I don’t want better.”

Declan reached into his pocket, pulled out a blue silk ribbon and trailed it across her bare shoulder. “In that case, you can have me. Forever and ever. Until death do us part.”

She caught the trailing end of the ribbon. “You stole this from my room?”

“I thought I’d never see you again.” He bent to press another kiss on her mouth, and then rolled aside, rising up on his knees. “You’d better get dressed…damn it.”

“Dear God.” Victoria jackknifed to a sitting position and crossed her arms over her naked breasts. The ground beneath her rump shook with hoof beats. A blanket landed in her lap, and she heard a click as Declan cocked the hammer on one of the big revolvers that had lain beside him on the ground.

“They are here,” she said in a shocked whisper.

“It will be all right. Don’t speak.” Declan spread the blanket over her, hiding her, and stretched out on his side in front of her.

She could see nothing through the blanket. The coarse wool made her naked skin itch, but she didn’t dare to wriggle or scratch. She heard the riders come to a halt, hooves clattering against the rocky ground. Bits jingled, spurs rattled, leather creaked.

“Have you left Victoria Sinclair?” It was Sheriff Weston’s voice.

“No,” Declan replied.

“The bastard’s lying. Victoria tossed him out on his ear this morning.” That was Mick O’Malley, as belligerent as ever.

Sheriff Weston spoke again. “You know the terms of the marriage ordinance as well as I do. A year’s labor. You’ve left before the year is up. Your pardon is forfeited. I have no choice. It is my job to enforce the laws in this county, and that is exactly what I’ll do.”

Oh God, oh God.
Victoria’s heart pounded. Her father was going to kill her. She was going to be the laughing stock of the entire county. Her friends would shun her for being a hussy. But she had no choice. She had to reveal her presence before Declan let the sheriff haul him away. Victoria moved her arm to lift the edge of the blanket so she could poke her head out. The fabric wouldn’t shift. Declan must have trapped the edge beneath his body.

“What’s that wriggling in your bedroll?” Mick O’Malley was asking. “Are you rustling pigs now?”

Pigs?
That lousy son-of-a…Victoria pulled at the edge of the blanket, feeling just like a piggy fighting its way out of a burlap sack. Then she heard the thud of boots as someone dismounted.

“Not another step, O’Malley,” Declan warned.

“Put your gun down, Beaulieu,” Sheriff Weston said.

“No.” It was Declan’s voice, sharp and edgy.

Dear God. The sheriff was going to shoot Declan, for a crime no worse than attempting to protect her modesty. She clawed at the blanket, her nails scraping against the thick material, but the solid weight that was sealing her into a parcel would not budge.

Clipety, clipety, clip.
Another rider. By the sound of it, this one was approaching from the north. Whoever it was, they would notice her palomino grazing by the stream and know she was around, for there was no other gold colored horse in Mariposa County.

“Hold it, Weston.” Victoria heard her father’s voice. A tiny, very pig-like squeak erupted from her throat.
Come all and sundry
, she thought, hysteria bubbling up inside her. Was there anybody who wasn’t going to witness her humiliation?

“Sinclair,” the sheriff called out. “Have you come to help us string him up?”

“Don’t reckon so,” her father replied. “I believe it’s my daughter wriggling beneath that blanket. Let her out, son. She loves you, you love her, and everyone can go home.”

“That’s not Victoria. That’s a rustled pig,” O’Malley said. His voice came directly above her. He must be standing almost on top of her. Someone grabbed hold of the blanket and tugged. Victoria tugged back.

Declan spoke. “Sir, you’re right. It
is
my wife beneath that blanket, and she needs to stay there.”

“Son, if you start punishing her for disobedience, you’ll be at it for the rest of your life.”

“That’s not the problem.” Pause. Then, Declan’s voice again. Muffled, like a man resigning himself to a trick of fate. “She doesn’t have any clothes on.”

All hell broke loose. Her father bellowing in fury, Mick O’Malley hooting out an obscenity, the sheriff and other deputy roaring with laughter. She heard Declan threaten to shoot O’Malley, and then she heard Sheriff Weston yell at Declan to drop his gun. And finally, finally, the weight that had trapped the edge of the blanket lifted away. Victoria poked her head out, knowing that her face blazed scarlet.

She looked about, and said the only thing that came to mind.

“Hello, father. Nice day for a picnic, isn’t it?”

****

Victoria pushed the office door ajar. “Are you ready for bed?”

“Give me a minute,” Declan called back.

“Son, you’d better go.”

She watched, a proud smile on her face, as two heads, one golden, one jet black, studied the ledgers that totted up the recent cattle sales. Together, her father and her husband were turning their financial fortunes around.

“I give you another ten minutes,” she told Declan. “I want to talk.”

“Son, you’d better go,” her father said. “She wants to
talk.
”

Declan laughed, but he got up and followed her up the stairs. She loved to hear him laugh. In the two months since he had confessed to his revenge plan, he had changed. His mood was lighter. He laughed more often. Occasionally, he would even reveal how he felt.

When they had undressed and settled into bed, she curled up to him.

“So, talk,” he said, and dropped a kiss at the end of her nose.

“We are going to have a baby,” she told him.

“You sure?”

“Sure.”

“Positive?”

“Positive.”

“I…” He reached down, laid his palm on her belly. “When?”

“About six months.”

“A baby.” Slowly, in degrees, like a spring sunrise, his face lit up with the biggest smile Victoria had ever seen on a man’s features. It crinkled up the corners of his eyes and scored a dimple in each of his cheeks. Then a quick flash of alarm dimmed some of the radiance. “Are you all right? Not sick, or anything. Is there anything I can do?”

“No.” She sent an angelic smile up at him. “Everything has been working fine since we understood what was wrong about our wedding vows.”

A notch formed between his brows. “What do you mean?”

“Remember? You said that if I obeyed, you might be persuaded to cherish.”

“Yes,” her husband drawled. A look of suspicion crossed his face. “So?”

“It works much better this way round, doesn’t it?”

“This way round?”

“You obey. I cherish.”

He pressed his face to her neck and gave a gust of suppressed laughter that spread warmth against her skin. She rammed her hands in his golden locks and pulled his head up.

“Kiss me,” she said. “If you obey, I promise that I will cherish.”

About this Book

I originally wrote
The Rustler’s Bride
as part of a miniseries intended for the Harlequin Historical Undone line. However, a few months after I submitted the manuscript to my Harlequin editor, I learnt that this line would be discontinued.

The first novella in the series,
The Drifter’s Bride
, had already been contracted and came out as a Harlequin Historical Undone in the spring of 2014. After exploring options for the rest of the planned miniseries, I decided to release them myself on Kindle Direct Publishing.

It can be difficult to tell an entire story, from the first meeting to the happily ever after, in a very short work. Since I was no longer limited by the word count requirements of the Harlequin Historical Undone line, I was able to revise
The Rustler’s Bride
to be more than double the length at around 45,000 words. I hope that these revisions allow the relationship between Victoria and Declan to develop more naturally. It certainly allowed me a little more room to include minor characters.

In due course, I plan to give the young widow, Annelise Krauss, and the banker’s daughter, Rebecca Eastman, their own stories. Annelise will be reunited with her first love, from whom she was separated by fate and the cruelty of the people around her. Rebecca will lose her fiancé to another woman, and will have to find a new direction for her life.

If you have any comments on
The Rustler’s Bride,
or any other one of my books, I’d love to hear them. Anything—things you particularly liked or disliked, plot aspects that didn’t make sense or you would have liked to see handled differently, or a typo or a historical inaccuracy you stumbled upon—please let me know.

I’m also always looking for beta readers for new books. If you are interested, please get in touch! Email address on next page.

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