The Barefoot Bride Page 11

  Seth drew an arm-waving Molly into his embrace and held her there. “Molly,” he said, trying to cut her off.

  “—and buffalo and mountain lions and—”

  “Molly.”

  “—and desperados and—”

  Seth shut her up with his mouth. She had kept her distance from him ever since that night a week ago on the front porch. He had watched her, and wanted her, every moment of every day. But there had never been a time when their children were not around. Now that he had her in his arms, he took full advantage of whatever moments of privacy they might have.

  He pulled her up snug against him, fitting himself in the cradle of her thighs. He could feel her breasts against his chest through the thin cotton material of her dress. He grunted his disapproval when he discovered her waist was corseted. One hand held her head so she couldn't escape his kisses, and he plundered her mouth, taking what he needed.

  Molly was overwhelmed by the astonishing heat of his passion. Hands that had come up to push him away, roamed his sweat-slick shoulders instead, feeling the muscle beneath smooth skin. When his tongue slid along the edge of her lips and she opened her mouth to protest, he thrust inside. He compelled a response from her, and her body gave what her heart would have withheld.

  His mouth left hers to seek the flesh of her neck. She gasped at the curl of desire she felt as he sucked on tender skin. She hid her face against the muscle at his shoulder and accidentally tasted the salt on his skin. As his ardor increased, so did hers, and when he nipped her shoulder, she bit him back. And discovered it was pleasure, not pain she had caused.

  With some sixth sense necessary to the frontier, Seth realized they were being watched. He abruptly pushed Molly behind him to protect her.

  Molly gasped when she saw the look on her son's face.

  Whit turned and ran. She started to go after him, but Seth stopped her.

  “Let him go.”

  “I have to talk to him!”

  “What can you say that he doesn't already know?” Seth asked.

  Molly stood apart from Seth, refusing to let him draw her back into his arms. “I don't know,” she said. “But for him to see us …”

  Seth's lips flattened. “What he saw was a husband kissing his wife. There's nothing wrong with that.”

  But they both knew there had been more to it than that. It had not been a matter of simple kisses. There had been raw, explosive passion between them. And James Gallagher had been dead for less than a year.

  “I brought a picnic,” Molly said. “I'll leave it for you and Ethan … and Whit. I'm feeling tired all of a sudden. I don't think I'll stay to eat with you.”

  She turned and ran. Molly was breathless when she got back to the spot where Ethan was working. She grabbed Nessie and, with a quick excuse about the little girl's nap time approaching, headed back to the house.

  Molly lay down on Patch's bed with Nessie and read her daughter a fairy tale—one with a happy ending. As the little girl drifted off to sleep, Molly tried to make some sense of her confused emotions.

  She couldn't deny her attraction to Seth. It would be foolish to try. Molly simply didn't understand how it was possible to feel so passionate in another man's arms when she was still grieving for James. Only, when she was in Seth's arms, she didn't think about James. Something magic happened. And the only face she saw, the only man she wanted, was Seth. She needed time to understand her feelings. But she was very much afraid Seth wasn't going to give it to her.

  When Molly woke up, Nessie was gone. Something else had taken her place.

  Molly stared wide-eyed at the snake on the pillow beside her and forced herself not to scream. She wouldn't give Patch the satisfaction. The rest of Patch's menagerie, once she had become acquainted with them, had all turned out to be harmless. Surely her snake —what was its name?—wasn't poisonous. Molly looked at the head to see whether it formed the triangle Seth had warned her meant a snake was venomous. It didn't look deadly. But better safe than sorry. She would just lie still. Patch would soon tire of waiting for her terrified reaction and come and collect her pet.

  Only Seth showed up first.

  “Don't move/’ he said.

  His caution surprised Molly. Was he afraid of snakes in general? Or just this particular snake? He crossed slowly to the window and pushed it all the way open. She lay perfectly still as he reached for the broom standing in the corner. He slipped the wooden handle under the dark brown snake, which opened its mouth, revealing sharp fangs in a huge white expanse. In one continuous movement, Seth flipped the snake off the pillow and out the window, where it slithered away.

  Seth pulled Molly up into a hard embrace. “Are you all right? You weren't bitten?”

  “No. I—I thought it belonged to Patch.”

  Seth laughed shakily and hugged her tighter. “Oh no, my dear little tenderfoot. That was a cottonmouth.”

  “Venomous?”

  “Very.”

  “How did it get in here?”

  Seth nodded his head toward the open window. “Most likely through the window. Mostly the cottonmouths stay down by the water, but we're close enough that they sometimes wind their way up to the house looking for frogs. You have to be careful.”

  Molly began to shiver, a delayed reaction to the danger she'd been in.

  Seth felt her reaction and rubbed her back to calm her. “You're all right. There's nothing to be afraid of now.”

  Molly shuddered. At one point, she had actually considered picking up the snake and confronting Patch with it. Imagine the child's reaction if she had! Molly laughed. It was her first genuine laugh for a long, long time. But really, enough was enough.

  Misunderstanding Molly's hysterical laugh, Seth murmured soothing words of comfort. “Take it easy, sweetheart. You're fine. I won't let anyone, or anything hurt you. Relax, Molly. Relax, little darling, I—”

  “What did you call me?”

  Seth's stream of words was halted by the touch of her fingertips on his lips.

  “Sweetheart? Darling?”

  “Little darling,” Molly said. “You called me little darling. James used to call me that.”

  Seth stiffened and started to release her.

  “Please don't let go,” Molly said. “I—I'm still feeling a little scared, if you want to know the truth.”

  Seth's arms closed around her again. He put one hand under her hair to rub her nape. Her head eased forward to give him greater access, and her cheek rested against the chambray shirt he had donned.

  “What are we going to do about our children?” she murmured.

  “I don't know,” Seth said. I'm doing everything I can think of to make it easier for Whit, but he doesn't seem to want to cooperate.”

  Molly stiffened at his criticism of her son. “He's only ten. You can't expect him to be able to do such hard work.”

  “Out here, a boy learns to do a man's job in a hurry, or he doesn't survive.”

  Molly's head came up. “Well, he's not a man, he's a boy,” she protested.

  “You expect a lot from Patch, and she's just a little girl,” Seth said.

  “She's twelve!”

  “She's a kid.”

  “She's a—” Molly cut herself off.

  Seth grimaced and stood. Neither of them felt very loverlike at the moment. “I only came by to say I have to make a trip into town to get some window glass tomorrow, and to invite you to come along. I thought maybe you'd like to get some curtain material or something.”

  Molly opened her mouth to continue the discussion—all right, argument—they'd been having about their children, then shut it again. It was a long ride into Fort Benton. She would have plenty of time, and privacy, to talk with Seth about his daughter—and her son. “I would very much like to go,” she said.

  “Fine. You might want to ask Ethan to keep an eye on Nessie.”

  That evening at supper, Seth announced that he and Molly would be driving in to Fort Benton the following day.


  “Can I come, too, Pa?” Patch asked.

  Molly's heart sank. If Patch came, they wouldn't have a chance to have that heart to heart talk. To her surprise, Seth said, “I'm taking the buckboard so I can get supplies. There won't be room for you.”

  “I can sit up front with you,” Patch said.

  “Molly's sitting up front.”

  “Oh.”

  Molly waited for further complaint from Patch. When it didn't come, she eyed the girl suspiciously. Patch never gave up when she wanted something, she just went about it another way. Molly decided that it wouldn't hurt to keep watch over her shoulder when they left, to see if they were being followed.

  Ethan's nose twitched at the heavy smell of perfume in the darkened room. “Dora?”

  “Over here, Ethan. I'm at the window.”

  He lit a lantern before trying to cross the room and then was glad he had. Dora collected dolls. They were all over the room, on shelves, on the dressing table, on the bed, and even in boxes on the floor. Ethan wove his way around the clutter and sat down on the windowsill. Dora was sitting in the rocker facing out, caressing the yarn hair of a Raggedy Ann.

  “Drake was here tonight,” she said. “He had me try everything, but nothing worked. Poor man.”

  Ethan was sure from the way she said it that Dora wasn't the least bit sorry. “Any news?” he said.

  “He's setting up another operation on the butte west of town, where his whiskey-seller can see for two miles around who's coming. Do you think the Masked Marauder can manage to get the drop on him?”

  Ethan smiled. “He usually does.”

  “Cal gave me this doll,” she said, holding the Raggedy Ann like a child against her breast. “Said he was gonna give me a Raggedy Andy to go with it. That was the day before Drake had Pike Hardesty shoot him.” She leaned forward and grasped Ethan's thigh. Her nails bit into his skin clear through the denim. “Drake has to die. He had Cal killed, and he has to die.”

  Ethan put a hand on hers, forcing her to release him. “I owe you, Dora. I'd've lost my leg if it hadn't been for you. Whatever I can do, I will.”

  Dora's voice was barely audible when she said, “Cal wanted to marry me, Ethan. I would have been the sheriff's wife. I would have been an honest woman. Drake Bassett took that away from me. He has to pay.”

  For the tenth day since those Gallaghers had shown up, Patch made a bed for herself on the buffalo skin in front of Ethan's hearth. He slept in the bedroom, which was divided from the main room by a red-striped gray blanket across the doorway. Thanks to the upheaval in her life caused by the appearance of the Gallagher family, she had recently spent many a sleepless night reliving distressing incidents from the day just past.

  Even now she cringed at the memory of the humiliation she had felt three days ago when her father had stripped her naked and dumped her willy-nilly into that tub of water. He had seen everything. She wasn't his little girl anymore. She didn't want to grow up; but her body was doing it despite her wishes.

  Her stepmother had come into the house after that disastrous business with her pa and insisted on measuring her for a dress. Not that Patch would ever wear it. Not willingly, anyway. It was bad enough that her body was conspiring to make her a woman; now Molly Gallagher seemed intent on finishing the job. If that woman had her way, Patch could say good-bye to trousers forever.

  She had barely gotten her long Johns on after her bath when that woman had confronted her with a measuring tape in one hand and a silk dress in the other. It had certainly been a pretty dress, a kind of mossy green. And it had looked a good deal softer than the chambray and corduroy Patch usually wore. But she wasn't about to let herself be bribed into doing anything Molly Gallagher wanted. She had watched warily as the woman approached her.

  “I want to see if I can cut this down to fit you,” she had said as she laid the dress over the back of a chair.

  Patch hadn't been able to resist reaching out and caressing the fabric. It was as soft as it looked, as sleek and silky as Rebel's underbelly.

  “Hold your arms out, please,” Molly said.

  Patch had thought seriously about refusing, but the possibility of her father being called to enforce Molly's request convinced her to obey.

  Molly measured her shoulders, the length of her arms, and then beneath them, around her budding bosom. “I'll have to take in the bodice slightly.”

  Patch flushed a deep red, but Molly had already gone on to measure the distance to her waist from under her arm.

  “When I was a child growing up,” Molly said, “my father used to spend time with me each evening, talking to me while I took my bath. He told me funny stories about the customers in his saloon. We laughed a lot, and we both enjoyed it immensely. Then a day came when I felt uncomfortable about having him there. I had changed. Things had changed.”

  If Molly hadn't had the measuring tape around Patch's waist, she would have bolted right then and there. But there was no escape, so she was forced to listen as Molly continued, “I didn't quite know how to tell him that I was growing up. I felt sad that I wasn't his little girl anymore.”

  Patch stood frozen as Molly measured the length for the hem.

  “Fortunately, I had a mother to turn to. I told her how I felt, and she explained my feelings to my father. I knew everything was all right when he came to me the next night at bedtime instead of bathtime to tell all the funny stories about his customers. We hadn't lost any of the closeness we had shared before. He had simply acknowledged that I was a young woman entitled to my privacy.”

  Molly had finished measuring and began winding up her tape. “There. That wasn't so bad, was it?”

  “Bad enough,” Patch muttered. She stared with narrowed eyes at her stepmother. Her pa must have said something about what had happened here tonight. Was Molly offering to speak to her pa on her behalf? Had she already done so? Patch wanted no repeat of the embarrassment of this evening. Better to be safe than sorry. She cleared her throat and said, ‘I'm—uh … I need some privacy myself.”

  “Of course you do,” Molly agreed. “I was just telling your father tonight that we need to make some arrangements to curtain off a portion of this room for baths.”

  “Uh … sure.”

  “I'll just get started on this dress.” She had eyed Patch's long underwear, tapped her chin with a finger, and added, “I think some dainty underthings are needed as well.”

  Molly had left her standing there feeling both confused and relieved. In the past, Patch hadn't needed anybody helping her get along with her pa. Why had she been willing to let that Gallagher woman intervene now? Maybe there were just some things a girl shouldn't have to explain to her father. Patch consoled herself with the thought that she hadn't asked for help, she had just been smart enough to take it when it was offered.

  Last night, Patch had taken a bath in absolute privacy. To her relief, her pa hadn't said a thing to her. When she found herself feeling grateful to her stepmother for the way things had turned out, she reminded herself that if Molly Gallagher hadn't married her pa, the issue of baths and privacy would never have arisen in the first place.

  Anyway, the sooner that woman was gone, the sooner things could get back to normal. Patch closed her eyes, tightened her fingers in the thick fur of the buffalo robe, and imagined that everything was back just the way it had been before the Gallaghers had arrived. But even that thought didn't bring the comfort she had hoped for. Because things hadn't been perfect even then. She fingered the slightly chipped tooth she'd gotten in the fight with the preacher's middle boy. At least with the Gallaghers here, forcing her to stay around the house, she hadn't been in a fight lately.

  When the front door rattled, Patch sat bolt upright. Not that she was afraid, with Ethan asleep right in the next room. But she had lived long enough in Montana to see the results of an Indian raid. And she had overheard tales of the cruelty of the small bands of Blackfoot renegades that roamed the plains. Patch rose on her haunches when the door open
ed just a crack, as though someone were sneaking in. She searched the room for a weapon she could use and settled on a medium-size log from the woodpile near the fireplace.

  Tiptoeing, she edged her way over to a spot behind the door. As the intruder stepped inside, she raised the log over her head. It was at the top of its downward arc when she heard Whit whisper, “Patch? Are you in there?”

  It took every bit of muscle she had to swerve the log so it didn't crush Whit's skull. “Durn it, Whit! I nearly smashed you flat!” she hissed.

  Whit had a hand at his throat, and his eyes were wide as he confronted the raging girl. “I need to talk to you,” he said, keeping his voice low. “It's important. A matter of life and death.”

  Phrased like that, Patch couldn't very well turn him away. She looked down at the baggy red long Johns that were all she was wearing, shrugged, and said, “Come on over by the fire where there's more light. And be quiet so you don't disturb Ethan. He's sleeping behind that blanket over there.”

  Whit followed her, Pied-Piper style, across the room. “Golly!” he said in a hushed voice as they settled on the buffalo robe. “Is this real?”

  Patch snorted disdainfully. “What do you think?”

  “Golly!” Whit repeated. “This is great. Look at those antlers over the fireplace. I've never seen the like. That must have been a huge deer!”

  “It was an elk,” Patch corrected impatiently. “Did you come here to talk or to admire the furnishings?”

  Whit sat cross-legged, and he pounded a fist against his knee. “I came because I have to get out of here. I have to get back to New Bedford—to the sea.”

  “Why are you telling me? If you want to leave, just go. And good riddance!”

  “I wish I could. But I need your help to get to Fort Benton. I figure that from there I can stow away on a steamboat downriver, then hide on a train heading back east.”

  Patch was a little in awe of Whit's resolve. “Aren't you scared to go all that way alone?”

  Whit sat up a little straighter. “Naw. It'll be easy,” he said with bravado.