Historical Cowboy Romance Two Book Box Set - Mail Order Brides (26 page)

“That’s the way!” he exclaimed. “Besides,
your sisters sure do seem to like ‘em.”

“That’s the truth,” Violet replied. “I don’t
think I’ve seen either Rose or Iris act this way around anyone
before. They can’t stop smiling and going red in the face.”

“And Jake and Mick act the same way,” Chuck
pointed out. “I guess we’re acting that way, too, come to think of
it.”

“It sounds like all of us are lovestruck,”
Violet remarked.

Chuck moved closer. “I know I am.”

He kissed her again, and this time, he
caressed her cheek in his other hand. Violet let her head fall
against his palm, and he cradled her in his arms. Oh, to drift away
on that swaying stream of bliss! Soon, soon, she would ride away on
it into a sea of forgotten harmony and never give a second thought
to anything else.

Before she knew it, the kiss turned into
something else entirely. Chuck’s breath quickened, and he pressed
his lips more firmly against her mouth, more insistently, more
commandingly. It only seemed natural to open her mouth slightly to
accommodate the additional pressure, and when she did, his tongue
darted in and tickled hers.

A fork of lightning shot through her and
rocked her to her core. Instead of drifting away on a sea of bliss,
she jerked upright and almost tore herself out of his arms. Chuck
immediately withdrew, and his eyes sought her out in the yellow
light. “We shouldn’t go too far. We have a long way to go before
we’re married.”

Violet nodded mutely. What a fool she was!
Why had she reacted that way? Didn’t she long to give herself to
him? Didn’t she dream day and night of nothing else? What if he
turned away from her? What if her sudden repulsion disappointed him
and he changed his mind about marrying her? Had she thrown away her
future on this man? She only just met him! Who was he that she
should give herself to him?

The thought of separating from him struck her
with grief and misery. Oh, please, don’t let it be! Don’t let him
cast her away, not after all they’d been through that day! Was it
only today she’d met him at the station? Was it only today Cornell
threatened to cut her off? Was it only today she nearly cracked his
head open on the stairs for raising his hand against Chuck?

Chuck studied her. But he didn’t take his
arms away from her the way she feared he would. In fact, he didn’t
withdraw from her at all except to stop kissing her. “It’s gonna be
awful hard to wait until Friday. Maybe we shouldn’t sneak off alone
together anymore.”

“Why not?” Violet asked. “Don’t you want me
anymore?”

“Sure, I want to,” Chuck replied. “But if
we’re gonna do things we shouldn’t—or almost do things we
shouldn’t—then maybe we shouldn’t go off alone. That’s all I’m
sayin’. It would be like a refined form of torture, to be so close
to you and not be able to touch you and kiss you.”

“But….” Violet stammered. “But….but….I want
to.”

His head flew up. “You want to what?”

“I want to be alone with you,” Violet
exclaimed. “We don’t have to get carried away with anything. That’s
not what I mean. But I want to go off alone with you. I’ve waited
all this time for you to come, and now you’re here. I don’t think I
could stand it if we didn’t. I don’t think I could stand to stay
apart from you for the next three days.”

Chuck smiled. “All right. We’ll do it. But
let’s just stick to the basics—holding hands and maybe kissing.
Promise me we won’t get all hot and heavy before we’re
married.”

Violet smiled. “I promise. We’ll keep
calm.”

They kissed again, and again, and again, but
calmly and tenderly. Violet rocked in her feather-soft cradle, all
her cares forgotten.

“What’s going on tomorrow,” Chuck
inquired.

“What do you mean?” Violet asked.

“Do you have anything planned?” he asked.
“Any plans for getting ready for the wedding?”

“I don’t think so,” she replied. “Like Iris
told you at supper, Rita’s making the cake. Everything else is
done. Our dresses, the parlor—it’s all ready. We just have to wait
for the minister to get here. What about you? What are you doing
tomorrow?”

“I guess I’ll just have a look around,” Chuck
told her. “I’ll ride out and have a look at the stock. I might talk
to your hands about the operation. That sort of thing.”

“You could talk to Iris, too,” Violet
suggested. “She knows as much as anyone about what’s going on.”

Chuck looked away. “I might.”

“You really can trust her,” Violet insisted.
“Even though she’s a woman, she really does know a lot about
running the ranch.”

“I never said she didn’t,” Chuck replied.

Violet saw him set his jaw and dropped the
subject of Iris.

“Mick and Jake are going out hunting
tomorrow,” Chuck observed.

“That’s what they said,” Violet replied.

“If they haven’t left by the time I finish
looking around, I might go with them,” Chuck told her.

Violet lowered her head. “Okay.”

“I guess it’s time to walk you home,” Chuck
remarked. “The others’ll be coming back soon.”

“I guess so,” Violet replied.

“Come on.” He got up off the settee.

“I can find my own way back,” she told him.
“You don’t have to come. You could stay here. That would help fool
the others.”

He peered at her in the candlelight. “I don’t
think they need any foolin’. They know very well what’s goin’
on.”

“I guess you’re right,” she replied. “But you
don’t have to walk me back if you don’t want to. I can find my
way.”

“What if you meet Cornell again?” he
asked.

“I think he’ll stay out of our way from now
on,” she told him.

“You mean you
hope
he does,” Chuck
shot back.

“I hope he does,” Violet agreed. “For his
sake, I hope he does. You know, I feel kind of sorry for him. He
just doesn’t understand that he’s outmatched now. He’s still
fighting with the same weapons he used when we were children. He
doesn’t understand that we’re grown women now. And now that you men
are here, he doesn’t stand a chance.”

“He’s a blasted fool, is what he is,” Chuck
grumbled.

“He’ll just keep throwing himself at us until
he breaks himself,” Violet continued. “And he’ll do it all because
he just doesn’t understand.”

“He doesn’t want to understand,” Chuck
corrected her. “Jake is right. There’s no reasoning with a man like
that. Once he loses control of himself, the only thing to do is to
get rid of him.”

Violet stared into the darkness. “I only wish
it hadn’t come to that.”

Chuck regarded her. “Jake was right about
you, too.”

“In what way?” she asked.

“He was right about you thinking everyone is
like you,” Chuck explained. “You know what I think? I think you’re
probably the most innocent of the three of you.”

“Innocent!” she snorted.

“That’s right, innocent,” Chuck repeated.
“You wish it hadn’t come to that, but he made it come to that. You
did everything you could to prevent it, but he just wouldn’t quit
until it did come to that. You let him walk all over you for too
long. That’s why he thought he could get away with man-handling you
and making you do what he wanted.”

Violet thought it over. “Do you want to know
something else?”

“What’s that?” he asked.

“I don’t think I would have reacted the way I
did if he hadn’t struck out at you,” she told him. “I only went
after him when I saw him strike you. Something in me wanted to
protect you from him. I don’t think I ever would have done it to
protect myself. If I’d been alone, I probably would have let him
drag me to my room.”

“He wouldn’t have dragged you to your room if
you weren’t with me,” Chuck reminded her.

“But you know what I mean,” Violet insisted.
“I snapped, because of the way I feel about you.”

“And what is that?” Chuck asked. “How do you
feel about me?”

Violet stepped closer to him and put her arms
around his waist. “I guess I love you. I did it because I love
you.”

“You do?” Chuck asked.

“I shouldn’t be telling you this,” Violet
remarked. “I only met you a few hours ago. Is it possible to love
someone in such a short time?”

“I don’t know,” he told her. “I’ve never
loved anyone before. But I know I love you now. I’ve never been so
certain of anything before.”

“Me, too,” she replied.

“All right, I love you” Chuck moved toward
the door. “Now, let me walk you home before we fall asleep
here.”

“Stay here,” Violet insisted. “If the others
come, you being in here already will explain the candles being
lit.”

“I’m telling you,” Chuck repeated. “We don’t
need to bother trying to fool them. They already know, just like we
already know about them. What’s the point of trying to keep it a
secret?”

“Just call it my female sense of propriety,”
Violet explained. “If you need a reason, just let me maintain the
illusion a little while longer before my maidenhead goes whistling
down the wind and I become Mrs. Charles Q. Ahern.”

Chuck chuckled. “It isn’t ‘Q’. It’s ‘J’.”

“ ‘J’?” Violet asked. “What does that stand
for?”

“ ‘Julius’,” he told her.

Violet guffawed. “ ‘Julius’!”

“That’s right.” Chuck stiffened. “What’s
wrong with that?”

Violet laughed even harder. “Julius!”

Chuck furrowed his eyebrows. “You can stop
that now.”

Violet covered her mouth with her hand, but
her giggles still bubbled up from inside her. “I’m sorry.”

“You are not!” Chuck barked. “Now stop that
this instant! I won’t have you calling me Julius! Now stop it!”

Violet bit her lip. “I’m sorry.”

“Now get home,” Chuck pointed toward the
door. “And don’t make me have to tell you again.”

Violet rushed up to him and kissed him. When
she pulled away, he broke out in a grin. “Go on. I’ll see you in
the morning.”

She kissed him again. “Good night.”

Their lips just wouldn’t come apart, no
matter how hard they tried. “Good night. Now get out of here.
You’re torturing me.”

She flashed him a glorious smile and hurried
out the door before she raced back to him and threw herself into
his arms again. He kissed her once and pushed her away. “Go! Leave
me alone!”

She left. She ran down the hill, but when she
reached the corner of the fence, she stopped. She didn’t want to go
back to the house just yet. For one thing, she wanted to wait as
long as possible to make sure Cornell wasn’t waiting there for her.
The last thing in the world she wanted was to run into him
again.

She also wasn’t finished walking in the
moonlight. She came outside to walk in the open air, and she hadn’t
had a chance when she decided to take Chuck back to the Fort House.
She wasn’t tired yet. In spite of her long day, she wanted to stay
out a little longer. The air cleared her thoughts and refreshed her
aching heart.

What a day it had been! It started with her
first confrontation with Cornell, followed by the trip to Butte,
her first meeting with Chuck and the other two men, and now the
final run-in with Cornell. This would go down as one of the most
challenging days of her life.

Yet Violet couldn’t fault herself for any of
her actions, not even smashing Cornell’s head into the stairs.
She’d merely delivered the final result of all his provocations.
She hadn’t retaliated at all when he harassed her endlessly about
her decision to marry a mail-order husband. She’d barely reacted at
all when he threatened to disown not only her, but her sisters as
well, if they went through with their plan. And she only lashed out
at him violently when he attacked first Chuck and then her.

She strode along the fence line, but she
didn’t see the stars or the moon. Her mind only rolled over and
over all the events of the day. She relived the memory of seeing
Mick McAllister brawling in the streets, assaulting a man and
taking back his rightful property. She relived her fear and
foreboding at going into the hotel saloon to find Jake.

Chuck’s description of his two comrades
conflicted so deeply with her impressions of them that Violet
wondered if he might be mistaken. Maybe they took him in with their
talk and good manners. A person could act as politely as he wanted
to in a quiet train car. Get him out on the street and he might
behave quite differently.

What if Rose and Iris married dangerous men,
but only found out their true nature after it was too late? What if
Cornell was right about them being wanted outlaws?

And now this final experience of loving
Chuck, of the wild insanity of falling into his arms forever. Just
thinking about it, remembering his touch and the comforting
intimacy of their conversation, sent her spinning out among the
stars. Would she ever return to earth again?

Just imagine what would happen on their
wedding night, when nothing remained to bring her back! She could
discard all the social inhibitions tying her down to the ground and
dive head first into him. She could discard this stiff proper body,
shedding her skin like a lizard. The confining strictures of self
and society would fall away, and she would be pure, unadulterated
being.

She could hardly contain her excitement when
she thought about it. She felt herself approaching the precipice of
annihilation again, and she shook herself to regain her composure.
Chuck was right. A few days was a long time to wait.

How stupid all those rules were! How stupid
the whole concept of marriage was! Why couldn’t they just live like
savages and go home together? They knew they loved each other. They
knew they wanted to live together and give themselves to each
other. Why not?

Violet stopped at the corner of the fence
where Chuck leaned against the top rail. From here, she could see
all the range land for a long way around. The moon illuminated the
landscape so it shone as bright as daylight.