Undaunted Love (PART ONE): Banished Saga, Book 3 (9 page)

“How? How am I to understand when you won’t tell me anything?” he roared. “I’m not one of those clairvoyants. I don’t know what you want without you telling me.”

“I … I …” I tried to speak, but no words emerged, as though I were choking.

He turned away from me and took a deep breath. “Happy anniversary, Clarissa.” He spun around to face me, and he watched me with tormented eyes for a moment before he moved past me and down the stairs. I heard the resounding slam of the workshop door.

I stood in the middle of the room, a welling desire to tell Gabriel everything filling me. I swayed, almost to the point of following him before I collapsed into my rocking chair.
No one will want you but me
. I shuddered at the whisper of memory, at the possibility of truth in those words.

***

GABRIEL THRUST OPEN the swinging shutters of the Turf Bar, his boot heels forming a resounding clunk with each step on the battered wooden floors. He stalked toward the wooden bar with its scarred top, edging his way around customers leaning against it. He nodded his agreement when the bartender held up a glass and turned to look around. The darkened, seedy interior matched his mood. A man sat in a far corner, playing discordant music on a button accordion. Many of the low tables were occupied, most of the men sipping their drinks rather than telling tall tales.

Gabriel slapped down his coin, picked up his beer and moved to a table in the shadows toward the rear of the bar. He sat with a thud and sighed. His glower and unfocused gaze prevented those who knew him from approaching. He continued to replay his argument with Clarissa, each time finding a way to breach her resistance to speak with him about what truly concerned her.

“What’s the matter, McLeod?”

Gabriel jerked toward the voice to his left, his body stiffening and readying for battle. “Cameron. I’d hoped you had enough sense to leave.”

“Why would I? The town’s got other wealthy women.” His honey-brown eyes blurred with drink, he gripped his tankard of beer and glared at Gabriel.

“I’d think you’d go to Butte. That’s where the real heiresses are.” Gabriel fisted his hands as he confronted the man who’d tormented his wife.

“You just want me out of town. Away from Clarissa. So she isn’t reminded of what she gave up by marryin’ you.” His voice slurred, he waved one hand toward Gabriel.

“Think what you like.”

“What’s it like, bein’ with your wife, knowin’ that another had her first?” Cameron’s voice was low and taunting. “That no matter what you do, I’ll always be a part of her life? That every time you touch her, she’ll have the memory of my touch to compare it with?”

In an instant, Gabriel had him by his shirt collar, dragging him from his chair and slamming him against the rear wall of the saloon. “Don’t you dare speak about her with me. You have no right. Not after what you did.”

“I have every right.” Cameron gasped as Gabriel tightened his hold. “She should have been mine.
Mine
. She should have borne my children, rather than run off to you, you worthless immigrant.”

“All you wanted was her money. And when you knew she didn’t want you, you tried to ruin her spirit, destroy her in the worst way. For that alone I should kill you.” Gabriel leaned his face into Cameron’s, his fiery gaze met by Cameron’s taunting brown eyes.

“You should, and yet you haven’t. You’ve let me live. Seems that all your purported love for Clarissa doesn’t extend to defending her honor.”

“You have no idea what honor is. I honor her by loving her. By cherishing her. By building a life with her. I can’t do that if I’m in jail for killing your worthless carcass.” He shook Cameron once more and then flung him away. Cameron fell to the floor and glared up at Gabriel.

Cameron rose, brushing his hair into place and running his hands down the sleeves of his tattered jacket. “Seems to me, if you believe what you said, you wouldn’t be in a saloon looking miserable. You’d be home with your wife.”

Gabriel glared at him and then turned to the other patrons in the room, noticing their hasty attempts to avert their curious stares. He grabbed his hat and strode from the room.

CHAPTER 9

“HOW WAS THAT ANNIVERSARY, Missy?” Mr. Pickens sat in his chair in the rear of the Book Depository, next to a table of recently returned books.

“Fine. Amelia cooked us a lovely meal.” I moved around the stacks of books, putting them away.

“Seems a mighty strange way to spend an anniversary. No sirree. When my Bessie ’n’ me had our anniversaries, we were all by our lonesome.” He smiled his near toothless grin. “An’ what a time we had.” He thumped his cane down once in emphasis. “Though with your cooking
incapacitations
, makes sense to have someone else prepare the meal, else you’d both die of starvation.” He guffawed at his own joke.

His eyes narrowed when I failed to laugh, and he focused on me. “What’s got you in a bad mood, Missy?”

“Nothing, Mr. A.J.”

“You look like a woman headin’ to her funeral, rather than a blushin’ bride,” he said, clamping his mouth around his imaginary pipe, as he frequently did.

“Mr. A.J., it will all be sorted soon.”

He motioned me toward him with his cane, and I stumbled as I went to sit on my small stool next to him.

I began to sort the books he had failed to look at.

“If you want to know somethin’ about menfolk, Missy, it’s
don’t make ’em feel vulnerable.
Word has it, yer unhappy at home, an’, if that’s the case, your man knows it. Find a way to show him that’s a bunch o’ malarkey.”

I stared at him, unable to hide the shock from my eyes.

“It’s a small town, Missy. And people like to have somethin’ to talk about. Yer the most interesting thing to come around in some time. ’Specially since that good-fer-nothin’s still here and courtin’ Mrs. Bouchard’s daughter.”

“Cameron.” I shuddered as I said his name.

“Afore you know it, they’ll start sayin’ you wished you’d married him, if you keep carryin’ on the way you are.” He watched me with solemn eyes.

“Never!” I said.

“Well, show that husband of yours, an’ the townfolk’ll know well enough the truth. ’Cause you keep actin’ like this, no one’ll ever believe yer happy, married to the man you chose.”

“Mr. A.J., why can’t people just leave us alone to solve our problems?” I stood and picked up a few books, slamming them onto the table as I vented my frustration.

“Where’s the fun in that, Missy? Asides, you enjoy a little gossip just like the rest of us. It’s just no fun when it’s pointed at you, now is it?”

My shoulders stooped, and I collapsed onto the stool again. I pinched the bridge of my nose in an attempt to ward off a headache.

“Whatever you think’s so terrible to tell that young man of yours ain’t no worse than what yer already doin’, Missy. Just tell him.”

“How do you know what I’m going through?”

“I know women. Well, as much as a man can. Yer all a bit mysticalerious. But I knew my Bessie. An’ when she got all ornery like you, was ’cause she had some bad news to tell me. The imaginin’ was always worse for me than the reality.”

I half smiled as I puzzled through his word. “
Mysterious
?
Mystical?”
At his broad smile, I nodded. “What’s the worst news Bessie ever told you?”

“Other than she was dyin’?” He shook his head from side to side a few times and rubbed his face. “There’s nothin’ worse than death, Missy. An’ we do all kinds o’ things to protect those we love from the pain of it. Sometimes it’s a pain that should be shared. An’ there ain’t no protectin’ those we love from it.”

He sighed as he settled onto his chair. “My Bessie did no end of tryin’ to protect me.” A wistful smile spread across his face. “In the end she learned that we were together to protect each other.” He pierced me with a fierce stare. “You remember that, Missy. You and that man o’ yours are together for each other.”

I blinked rapidly, nodding as I turned away toward the books. Mr. Pickens ignored my sniffling as I returned to work.

***

GABRIEL SAT IN THE BACK of the shop, staring at a sketch. He tapped at it before erasing half of it. Ronan worked at his low workbench at the base of the stairs, sunlight spilling in from the window. He sang ribald songs from the saloon, pausing in his singing when he needed to focus on a task. Ronan looked up at the heavy footsteps entering the workshop.

“What’s gotten into you, McLeod?” Sebastian asked. He took off his hat, slapping at his pants, brushing off dust from his fawn-colored pants.

Gabriel glanced toward the door, setting aside the pencil he held, and straightened. After a quick glance at Ronan, who shook his head in a near imperceptible movement, Gabriel frowned. “I don’t know what you mean, Seb.”

“Getting into bar brawls. Doesn’t seem your style.”

“I was in no brawl,” Gabriel snapped, as he picked up a piece of wood and slammed it down onto his workbench.

“Nearly stranglin’ a man to death seems close enough to me,” Sebastian said. “What’s got you so riled? You haven’t been acting like yourself for weeks.”

“Months,” Ronan murmured. Gabriel shot a steely look at him, but Ronan shrugged. “It’s the truth, Gabe. Something’s bothering you, and you’ve been hell to be around.”

At Gabriel’s persistent silence, Sebastian wandered over to Ronan and sat on a stool near him. “Seems it’s that lovely wife of his who’s got him so tied in knots.” Ronan nodded his agreement.

Gabriel growled at them before marching toward the door. “Gabe!” Ronan said, but, instead of leaving, Gabriel shut the door and locked it.

“You never know who’s listening in,” Gabriel said. Less light entered the room with the door shut, although enough light entered through the two windows on either side of the door to illuminate the room.

Gabriel pulled over a dusty chair and sat in it with a loud thud. “I wanted to kill him last night. I would have too, if I hadn’t remembered that I’d be separated from Clarissa.”

“What’s going on, Gabe?”

“I don’t know. I think she regrets marrying me.” The words came out in a tortured whisper, and he refused to meet his friends’ gazes. “She’s been so different the past few months.”

After a few moments, Ronan asked in a quiet voice, “How is she different, Gabe?”

“Prickly. Like she doesn’t want me near her. Doesn’t want me to touch her.” He rose and paced. “And that’s not like her. Well, not like her since she overcame her fears.”

“Maybe she has other fears you don’t know about,” Sebastian said.

“I’ve tried to think of what they could be, and I can’t. She’s survived the worst. What more could she fear?”

“Well, it’s a large fear, because who you’re describing isn’t the Clarissa I know,” Ronan said as he leaned back in his chair.

“Do you think she’s upset you haven’t taken care of that varmint?” Sebastian asked.

Gabriel shook his head. “She insists I do nothing to harm him so that I won’t go to jail and be separated from her.”

“Well, almost starting bar brawls isn’t the way to go about honoring that request,” Sebastian said with a sardonic lift of his eyebrows.

“Gabe, the only one who can end your misery is Clarissa. Talk to her. Insist she tell you what is occurring. You have that right. You’ve earned it,” Ronan said.

“What if she truly regrets being my wife?”

“The only way you’ll know is if you ask her. Otherwise, you’ll just continue to torture yourself.” Ronan tapped his fingers on the arms of his chair. “The woman I met last summer didn’t seem anxious to escape you. She wanted to be with you, even with everything that had happened.”

“It’s better to know than to spend your life wondering. Take it from me,” Sebastian said.

“What do you mean?” Gabriel asked.

“I was married before,” Sebastian murmured, a mocking half smile gracing his lips as Ronan and Gabriel gaped at him. He rose and paced the workshop. He picked up tools, traced patterns in the dust and remained in perpetual motion as he wandered.

“What happened to her?” Ronan asked after sharing a long glance with Gabriel.

“She left me for a drifter, traveling to New Mexico. Thought it sounded like a more interesting life than living in a small house near a sawmill. I can still see her, brown hair shot with red, flying loose in the wind. Pointing around at all I had earned for her, for us, and her snickerin’. Didn’t want any of it. Never had envisioned the sort of life I craved. Wanted a man with bigger dreams.”

He spun to face Gabe. “I should never have married her—knew she was fickle. But the heart’s not always rational. I paid for my folly.”

“Are you still married?” Gabriel asked.

“No, she died in a carriage accident a few years ago. She and our daughter. The child I never knew I had, not till I received the letter from the lawyer telling me about their deaths.”

“Seb—”

“There’s nothin’ to say, Gabe. I made the greatest mistake a man can make, and it cost a child, my child, her life. I hope you chose better than me.”

“For God’s sake, Seb, you know he did,” Ronan snapped. “It’s Clarissa you’re talking about. She’d never treat Gabriel false.”