Julianne MacLean Read online

  Good Lord. What if Briggs had abandoned her and the hotel manager had come to throw her out? She wasn’t dressed yet!

  There was no time to pull the dress over her head. She could only hug it fast to her body, hiding all but her bare shoulders.

  A knock sounded, but the intruder pushed the door open without waiting for her to request otherwise. Now finding herself staring at the brown fringed coat and long golden hair that could belong only to her husband, Sarah exhaled a long-held breath and barely heard him when he spoke to her.

  “Wagon’s ready.” He stepped all the way into the room and closed the door behind him before looking up from under the rim of his brown cowboy hat. His icy gaze flicked from her eyes down to her feet, then back up to her eyes again. “Hurry and dress yourself. I want to get on the road.”

  With that, he was out the door again, leaving Sarah frozen in her place, her heart pounding like a hammer while she looked down at herself clutching the silk and lace against her skin, wishing she could go back in time and change what she had done.

  Briggs stood by his wagon, one hand on his hip, the other raking through his long thick hair. He watched and listened with annoyance to a pack of dogs across the street, barking and howling at each other. He wished they would quiet down for just one minute so he could think about how he was going to stay married to this stranger he had taken as a wife.

  Even now he was hoping he’d been mistaken about what he’d discovered last night. What he needed was an explanation about why she’d put on that gifted performance. If he didn’t like what he heard, he would just have to stop caring about it. He’d done it before—stopped caring. He could do it again. He’d never intended any of this to matter in the first place.

  Ten irritating minutes passed before he spotted Sarah walking out the front door of the hotel, shading her eyes with her white gloved hand while she perused the street looking for him. For a moment he just stood there, letting her search, until she finally spotted him and seemed to sigh with relief. He noticed she wore the same dress she’d worn yesterday—the lacey purple thing with the oversize bustle, which would no doubt get flattened when she plopped herself down to milk Maddie.

  Gathering his resolve, he approached and took her bag. “Here, let me take this.” He carried it to the wagon, then helped her into the seat.

  “I came right down, thinking you were in a hurry to go,” Sarah said, adjusting her skirts around her. Briggs looked into those deceivingly innocent brown eyes and felt an inexplicable stab of regret. Why couldn’t things have gone smoothly and without any surprises?

  Staring up at her, he noticed her eyes had that sweet twinkle in them again, the same twinkle that had completely charmed him the day before. He hated to think she was looking adorable on purpose, to manipulate him in some way. Surely he was being too suspicious.

  “I have to return the key,” he said. “Wait here.”

  He walked back into the hotel and stopped at the front desk, but no one was there. Waiting impatiently, he tapped his boot against the bottom of the counter and turned the cold metal key over in his hand. He stared listlessly at it. Perhaps he should look at the room one more time. Just to know for sure.

  Trying not to be too hopeful—that would only lead to disappointment—he climbed the stairs, walked down the hall and slid the key into the lock. When he opened the door, he hesitated, his heart booming as if inside his head. He stared forlornly at the bed, its intimidating pink quilt pulled up and tucked tightly under the pillows. This was foolish, he thought again, but he had to do it.

  He walked to the bed, grabbed hold of the blankets, took a deep breath and ripped them back. A pristine, white bedsheet stared back at him.

  The hopes he had tried to keep at bay plummeted before him. What had he expected? To find he had been wrong, and the evidence would be written like a freshly painted sign on the sheet? He’d walked all over Dodge last night wondering if it was possible that he had simply not understood the realities of virginity. After all, he’d never been with one before. Perhaps it was difficult for a man to know whether or not a woman…

  Briggs shook his head, feeling the sharp sting of betrayal all over again. It wasn’t that she’d done it before that bothered him; her past wasn’t really any of his business. It was how she’d pretended to be the nervous virginal bride, and he couldn’t help wondering why.

  Out on the windy prairie where the grass whispered a thousand continuous secrets, Briggs pulled the wagon to a slow halt. The harness jingled lightly as the horses paused and shook the flies off their backs.

  Sarah’s insides reeled. Was he stopping to check a wheel or a hoof? she wondered. Or was this sick feeling in her stomach about to prove itself justified?

  Briggs removed his hat, ran his hand through his hair, and donned the hat again. Squinting toward the west, he leaned back in his seat. “We need to talk about something.”

  Sarah felt as if a hand had closed around her throat.

  “I think we need to know a bit more about each other,” he continued, his tone frightfully thick with accusation.

  “What is it you want to know?”

  He looked up at the cloudless blue sky and frowned. “I know it ain’t proper to talk about stuff like this, but I don’t really enjoy brooding about things either—especially if they’re just misunderstandings, and right now I can’t seem to get something out of my mind.”

  “What is it?”

  He looked directly at her. “I want to know why you looked so nervous last night when…you had me thinking you’d never…” He paused. “Not that it matters. Your past is your business, not mine, but why were you acting so nervous if you’d done it before? Were you trying to trick me?”

  The calm, matter-of-fact tone of his voice did little to ease her nerves. “No, I wasn’t trying to trick you.”

  “Then why all the nervous looks when I came to the bed?”

  “I was afraid.”

  “Of what?”

  Oh, she didn’t want to talk about this. “I was afraid you’d know.”

  “Why? It wouldn’t have mattered as much as being misled,” he said, his voice empty of emotion.

  “I didn’t lie to you. I just didn’t tell you. What was I supposed to say?”

  He sat in silence a moment, as if contemplating that question. “Nothing. You weren’t supposed to say anything. You came here, you married me, and now we’re going home.”

  He made a move to flick the reins, but Sarah’s hand came up to catch him, to rest on his soft buckskin sleeve. He lowered the reins and looked at her.

  “I’m sorry you’re upset,” she said. “I never meant to mislead—”

  “I’m not upset. Just a little disappointed, that’s all.”

  Sarah withdrew her hand and clutched a white handkerchief in her lap. Disappointed. Somehow that was worse.

  “Just tell me one thing.” He slapped the reins lightly and set them in motion again. “Were there many?”

  The question stung and she suspected he’d meant it to. “No, just one.”

  “One.” He considered that a moment, then looked into her eyes. “Did you love him?”

  His words came as a surprise. Sarah wanted to smooth things out between them, to set them back on track, and as unlikely as it seemed at this moment, she wanted Briggs to respect her. She swallowed nervously.

  “Well?” he asked again. “Did you or didn’t you?”

  What was the correct answer? To tell her husband she’d loved another man didn’t seem right, but to say she didn’t…

  “Yes,” she replied, softly. “I did.” In all her innocence, she had loved Garrison. Though now, she wasn’t certain what that word truly meant.

  Briggs slapped the reins again to hurry the team along the bumpy road. “How long has it been since you’ve seen him?”

  She stared blankly at the horses’ long manes, their heads bobbing up and down. “I suppose—” she paused, counting the days “—it must be two weeks now.”

>   “Two weeks!” Briggs pulled the horses to a hard halt, wrapped the reins around the brake, and leaped out of the wagon. He stopped about twenty feet away, his back to her, his hands braced on his hips. He was shaking his head.

  Oh, no. He’s going to send me back. He’s going to leave me in the streets of Dodge City with nothing but my bitter regrets and my traveling bag.

  Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to think positively. It wouldn’t be so bad, she told herself. She could find work in a restaurant—she had experience—and start her own life. Alone. This dream of being married and living a simple life on a farm was just that—a dream.

  She opened her eyes. Briggs was sitting in the grass, leaning on one arm stretched out behind him. She watched him fiddle with a long blade of grass. He was disappointed in her, to say the least, and his feelings were justified, but to see him like that, sitting alone on the wide-open plains…

  She climbed out of the wagon and hopped to the ground, removing her hat pin and setting her hat on the wagon floor. The wind sailed through the rippling grasses, hissing like a snake, blowing loose tendrils of hair into her face. She owed Briggs a choice, a way out of this marriage if he wanted it. She knew why she’d been so quick to agree to be a mail order bride—she’d needed to get away from Garrison and start a new life—but maybe Briggs now regretted being so hasty. She would ask him to take her back to Dodge and she would agree to a divorce. How bad could that be? She’d been in worse situations.

  When she reached him, she sat down. Staring at the distant horizon where the world met the sky with striking conviction, she waited a moment, steadied her voice, then spoke.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” Her heart felt like it was snapping in two. She was about to end her short-lived marriage, and she wanted to cry. “I’d been on my own for four years and—”

  Briggs tossed the grass away. “You mean four months.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Four months. Since your folks died.”

  Sarah drew her eyebrows together. “No, four years ago.”

  Briggs shot her a glare. “You wrote in your letter that it was four months.”

  “No, I couldn’t have. Perhaps my writing was a little—”

  “Your writing was fine.”

  “Are you sure that—”

  “I’m positive.” His tone was so sharp, she knew he was telling the truth. As she remembered the haste in which she wrote and sent the letter, she began to wonder if she might have made a mistake. A horrible, horrible mistake. Oh, how could she have been so careless?

  Then again, maybe it wasn’t a mistake, she thought miserably. Maybe she’d known that marrying Briggs was wrong and she had purposefully tried to undermine her own desperate measures. It certainly seemed that way now.

  “You’ve been living on your own in Boston for four years?” he asked.

  Sarah nodded, not knowing what else to do.

  Briggs plucked another blade of grass. He shoved the end into his mouth and pressed his lips together. His silence was more unnerving than any reprimand. All she could do was sit in the tangled growth and suffer, knowing what he must think of her—that she had purposefully lied about everything.

  “What else did you tell me?” he asked. “Oh, yes. That you went to church. And I suppose you’re about to tell me the church in your neighborhood burned down and you haven’t seen a Sunday worship in what, four years?”

  “No,” Sarah said. “I do go to church. I wouldn’t lie about that.”

  He continued to stare coldly at the distant, rolling hills. “But you’d lie about everything else.”

  Sarah looked away in frustration. It was futile to argue and it would be futile to trust him with the truth now. He was too angry. If she told him why she had needed to escape Garrison, Briggs might report her to the authorities and she might be blamed for Garrison’s crime. Besides that, she knew what Garrison would do if he ever found out she’d told someone. He’d made that more than clear. She couldn’t put herself or Briggs in that kind of danger.

  Briggs brought his knee up and draped his wrist across it. “Do you still love this man?”

  The question shook her. Yes, I loved him two weeks ago, but I don’t love him today. Sarah knew Briggs would never believe that. No one would. But after what happened, it was the absolute truth.

  Sarah shut her eyes, facing the wind. “I don’t love him. I hope I never see him again.”

  “And what will you wish for two weeks from today? That you could be on your way again? Will you leave me and leap into another man’s bed to drive the one you really love from your heart?”

  His words stung her to the core. She deserved this, she knew, but it didn’t make it any easier. Rising to her feet, she spoke with surprising confidence. “If you’re sorry you brought me here, I’ll understand. We can go back to town right now and get a divorce. I won’t hold it against you. All I ask is that you find me a place to stay until I figure out where I’m going to go.”

  She turned to leave, angry at herself for getting into this mess and involving Briggs in it. It had all started when she’d met Garrison. She wished she had listened to her instincts then. Something about him had made her uncomfortable from the start, but his behavior had always been impeccable. Too impeccable. He’d said all the right things and looked the part of a gentleman. Handsome and wealthy, he had wooed her well and ruined her life in the process. Now Briggs thought the worst things about her and he deserved a way out.

  She walked back to the wagon, realizing miserably that Briggs had every right to judge her the way he did. But what did it matter now? The marriage was over.

  Chapter Five

  Sarah marched back to the wagon, her long skirt gathered in her fists, her petticoats swishing through the tall, bristly grass. She could feel the wind at her back, pushing her away from Briggs and forward into this unfamiliar land. The sky seemed like nothing more than a huge suffocating circle all around her.

  She reached the wagon and hoisted herself up with surprising swiftness. She bit down on her lip and forced herself not to think about the life she had thought only yesterday that she would be living. She would accept this fate and think positively about it. She was far from Boston. She was safe, and maybe the next town would welcome her in some way.

  From the corner of her eye, she saw Briggs approach, but resisted the urge to acknowledge him. She sat with dignity, her backbone as straight as a steel skewer while he climbed into the wagon, making it bounce, squeak and wiggle.

  He’s going to turn us around and that will be the end of it, she thought with regret. She gripped the side of the wagon in preparation for its sudden lurch, but nothing happened. Briggs held the reins in his large, sun-darkened hands, as if thinking. Sarah waited, waited for him to click his tongue and turn this old wooden box toward town. But still, he said nothing, did nothing.

  She’d been brave and strong a moment ago. Where did those feelings go? Now she was uncertain and more than a little intimidated. She could do nothing but wait for his decision.

  After another agonizing moment, he slapped the reins and the horses plodded forward. They flicked their ears back and forth while Sarah held on to the wagon seat, waiting for them to shift direction and turn back toward town, but they did not alter their course. The horses lumbered along the straight and narrow road, lightly jingling their harness.

  “We had an agreement,” Briggs said cooly. “Whatever you did in Boston is your business and I’d rather not know about it. But you assured me you’d be a good worker and that much I hope is true. The rest doesn’t concern me. Like I said, we had an agreement and I plan to stick to my end of it.”

  Surprised and hopeful, she sneaked a glance at Briggs, but was disappointed to find all traces of tenderness gone from his face. The word agreement held less allure than her dream of a real marriage, but at the moment it was something, however minuscule, to cling to.

  It was late afternoon when they approached a homestead. Sa
rah saw a barn built of sod and roofed with hay, a noisy chicken coop, a vegetable garden, acres and acres of tall green corn to the west and golden wheat to the east, but no house. Perhaps it’s over the next hill, she thought, then wondered why anyone would build a house so far from the animals.

  The muffled sounds of moos and snorts from inside the barn interrupted the constant roar of wind as they drew closer. Sarah inhaled the scent of fresh manure and animals, and strangely, she found the smells agreeable. She realized she had become accustomed to the city smells of sewage and rotting garbage.

  She sat forward in her seat, feeling like her behind had been battered with a washing board. Stiff and sore, she wanted to ask if this was to be her new home, but hesitated when she glanced at the scowling face beside her.

  “Darn,” he whispered.

  Briggs pulled the wagon to a hard stop and hopped down. A wandering hen clucked and flapped its wings, scurrying out of the way.

  “What are you doing out here?” he asked a pig. The swine was licking the cuff of a pair of work trousers hanging from a clothesline strung across the yard. “How’d this happen?”

  Sarah waited in the wagon while Briggs strode toward the barn door. “Darn dog,” he said, barely loud enough for Sarah to hear. He flipped the door latch with his finger, then called out, “Shadow! Come here!”

  Sarah felt a nibble of concern as she imagined what he was going to do to this poor animal who had let the pig out of the pen. Just then, a flash of movement whisked past the wagon. It tore across the yard toward Briggs.

  He knelt down to meet a golden retriever who bounded into him and nearly knocked him over. The dog whimpered and licked Briggs’s face and hands. Sarah couldn’t suppress a smile.