Secondhand Bride (26 page)

“L
ook!” Lizzie cried, bouncing between Holt and Chloe on the hard seat of the buckboard as they rolled into Flagstaff. They’d left the ranch at dawn to get there, and the ride over cattle trails and dirt roads—where there had been roads at all—was difficult. “That man is wearing the shirt Concepcion made for Uncle Jeb, just last week.”

Chloe shaded her eyes from the bright, cold sunlight and followed the direction the child indicated. Sure enough, she recognized that blue checked shirt, along with those buff trousers and the light-colored hat, with its distinctive copper band. Only the boots—and the man himself—were unfamiliar. Jeb’s easy grace, that innate sense of being fully at home in his skin, with all his joints greased, was missing.

Holt steered the team alongside the sidewalk. “Where’d you get those duds, stranger?” he demanded, sounding even more like Angus than usual.

Chloe didn’t speak, but she was sitting on the very edge of the seat, and both ears were wide-open.

The man looked rueful, but relaxed. “Swapped with a one-armed feller,” he answered. “Fair and square.”

Chloe jumped into the conversation. “Where is this ‘one-armed feller’ now?” The big event was scheduled for three, according to Holt’s newspaper, though the rodeo itself had already started and would go on for several days. By the clock on top of the bank, they had less than an hour to find him.

The man on the sidewalk looked her over in a way she would have found wholly objectionable had the situation been less urgent. “You his wife?”

“We’ll ask the questions,” Holt put in coldly. “If you don’t mind.”

“Don’t know where he went,” the man said. “He shouldn’t be too hard to spot, though.”

“Why’s that?” Holt asked, his voice as tight as the muscles lining his jaw.

The fellow shrugged. “He’s wearing a mighty fine suit. And he’s only got one good arm.”

“Thanks,” Holt said, probably deducing, as Chloe had, that they weren’t going to get any more information out of him. Most likely, he didn’t know much else, and even if he did, Jeb had surely made secrecy part of the deal.

They drove to the rodeo grounds, scanning the streets for Jeb as they did, but they had no luck. The town was jammed with rodeogoers, but all they saw were children, cowboys, ordinary smiths and merchants, and women clad in calico and sateen. Not a “fine suit” in the lot.

Three trips around the dusty edges of the dusty gathering served no other purpose than to take them in circles. Finally, at quarter to three, by his pocket watch, Holt parked the buckboard with a flock of others, set the brakes, and secured the reins. He got in line to buy tickets, while Chloe and Lizzie waited off to the side, watching everyone who came and went.

Still no trace of Jeb.

Holt joined them, then escorted them to their places in the crude grandstand. “Stay here,” he said tersely, when they were seated. “I’ll head over to the chutes, see if he’s there.”

Chloe watched helplessly as he walked away.

Lizzie took her hand, squeezed it, and brought her back to herself. “Might as well enjoy the show,” she said, grinning that McKettrick grin. “If Uncle Jeb’s made up his mind to ride in this rodeo, nobody will be able to stop him anyhow.”

Chloe feared Lizzie was right, but she searched the milling throngs anyway, growing more frantic with every passing moment.

The bronc-riding event was announced by a man with a big voice and a megaphone. Only four riders had entered, he said; the horse had never been ridden, and the prize money was an unprecedented $1000 in gold.

Chloe watched, with her heart in her throat, as a chute opened on the far side of the large arena, and the fabled horse sprang out in a fury of snorting and stomping. The cowboy on his back went flying over the beast’s head with the first good buck, and his chest was crushed under those deadly hooves before two other men managed to drag him out of the ring.

“Oh, dear God,” Chloe whispered, searching the area around the chutes for Jeb or Holt, but there was no sign of either of them. They were lost in a cloud of churning dust and cowboys.

“This horse is a killer!” crowed the man with the megaphone, as if it were something to be celebrated.

Chloe shook her head, watched as the hell-born bronco was roped and half-dragged, half-herded, back to the pens. A garish flash of color—red and yellow, mixed up in a blur of motion—drew her eye to the next rider.

It was Jeb.

She tried to cover Lizzie’s eyes, but the child squirmed free.

Even over the din, Chloe heard Jeb’s shout of challenge, meant for the heavens, as well as the horse. Like as not, he didn’t give a damn about the crowd.

At the edge of her vision, Chloe saw Holt climb up onto a fence to watch, but she couldn’t take her gaze off Jeb, even for a moment. She was willing him to stay on that devil horse, or be thrown clear, and as clods of dirt flew from under those wicked hooves, still stained with the other cowboy’s blood, her heart beat hard enough to rattle her bones.

She surged to her feet, but Lizzie caught hold of her hand and pulled her down again, with a strength Chloe might have marveled over, if she hadn’t been so completely absorbed in the horrid spectacle.

The horse was an ugly creature, albino white, except for a splotch of mud brown on its heaving chest. It had wild pink eyes and narrow, spavined legs and its tail and mane were sparse. It was a monster, and the man dearest to Chloe’s heart was riding on its back.

If Jeb McKettrick survives this,
she thought vehemently,
I’ll kill him myself.

“Ride him!” Lizzie shouted, into the thundering, breathless silence around them.

Jeb gave another rebellious yelp and hung on with his one hand. The bowler hat sailed off and was soon ground into the bloody dirt, and Jeb’s fair hair gleamed, a fire of gold in the sunlight.

After an eon, a bell clattered, and a cheer went up. Jeb had ridden the required length of time, but somebody had neglected to tell the horse that the contest was over. It went into a dizzying spin, then rocked from hind to forelegs, determined to ditch its rider or die trying.

Cool as an April evening, Jeb swung a leg over the brute’s neck and jumped off. Even from that distance, Chloe could see the white flash of his grin, lighting up his dirty, triumphant face. Meanwhile, the horse whirled and went after him like an enraged bull, head down, foam flying from its mouth. He sidestepped it in a deft motion, watched calmly as the animal was roped in again, and subdued, though barely.

Chloe shot out of her seat, and this time, Lizzie couldn’t restrain her. She ran to the fence, scrambled over it, her legs tangling in her skirts, and ran through the middle of the arena.

Jeb stood facing her, in his silly plaid suit, beaming like an idiot. The spectators roared, seeming to shift the very earth with the force of their exuberance, but for Chloe the sound was just a pulsing hum, distant and wholly irrelevant. Looking past Jeb’s shoulder, Chloe caught a glimpse of Holt, sprinting toward them; but in that moment, he was no more real to her than the people swelling the grandstands and lining the fences.

“I won,” Jeb said, evidently expecting a crown of laurels, then his eyes rolled back in his head, his knees buckled, and he would have gone down if Holt and Chloe hadn’t grasped him and held him upright.

Holt draped Jeb’s good arm over his shoulders and supported him. “Get Lizzie,” he said to Chloe. “We’re leaving.”

Jeb’s head lolled on his neck. “Not without my thousand dollars, we aren’t,” he said, and passed out again.

“Damn fool,” Holt muttered, and steered his brother toward the nearest gate. Meanwhile, a third cowboy was mounting up for a suicidal attempt to take the contest for himself.

Chloe hurried back for Lizzie, who was still sitting in the bleachers. The child stared mutely into space, and her face was so pale that, for a moment, Chloe forgot all about Jeb McKettrick.

“Lizzie?” She touched the little girl’s shoulder, noticed the doll in her lap.

Lizzie looked up at her, blinking. “I saw him,” she said, her voice small.

“Who?” Chloe asked, sitting down, gathering Lizzie into her arms and holding her close.

“The bad man. The one who shot Aunt Geneva and the stagecoach driver,” Lizzie murmured. “He wasn’t wearing the bandanna over his face, like before, but I recognized him just the same. I knew his voice.”

A chill struck Chloe to the marrow, and she looked around desperately for Jack, but he was nowhere in sight. “What did he say, Lizzie? What did he do?”

“He gave me this doll,” Lizzie said, looking at the thing in her lap with horror, as though it were something coiled and venomous, ready to strike. She flung it down, and its china head cracked on the ground. “He wanted me to go with him, but I wouldn’t. I kicked and bit—”

Chloe hugged Lizzie close again, fiercely, and she was sick with fear. Between Jeb’s exploits and the rising threat from Jack Barrett, she felt light-headed and wobbly clear through. “Dear God,” she whispered.

“He took hold of my arm,” Lizzie went on, as if she were reading the words off some invisible scroll. “So I bit him.”

Chloe kissed the top of Lizzie’s head. “It’s all right, sweetheart,” she said. “He’s gone now, and you’re safe.” The child was trembling, and Chloe waited for it to stop, holding on tight. “Let’s go and find your papa, shall we? He’ll be wondering where we are.”

Tears glittered along Lizzie’s lower lashes. “He’s coming back. I know he is.”

Chloe cupped the girl’s chin in her hand. “Listen to me, Lizzie. Your papa will go to the law, and they’ll find the man and arrest him. He can’t hurt you.”

Lizzie didn’t look convinced. Maybe she knew Chloe was just as scared as she was, and whistling in the dark.

“Here’s your money!” Holt growled, when the bronc-riding event was over, and two more cowboys had been injured in the effort to claim it, flinging the heavy bag of gold coins at Jeb’s chest. He’d just collected the prize from the table, a few yards away. “Are you happy now?”

Jeb, sitting on the floor of Holt’s buckboard, with the tailgate dangling, caught it with his left hand, hefted it in his palm, gauging its weight, and shoved the thing into the pocket of his ill-fitting plaid coat. “You’re damned right I am,” he said. He still felt a mite woozy, and he knew he was in for it with Chloe, but he’d
won
. He was a man of property, and for the moment that was all that mattered.

It was a short moment.

Something inside him quivered and, at the familiar signal, he looked up. Chloe was hustling toward them, her hat askew, her dress covered in dust. Clasping Lizzie’s hand tightly in her own, she gave him one skewering look and turned to Holt. He hadn’t minded the look, but he wanted her attention on him, even if she
was
spitting mad.

She went so far as to take Holt’s arm and pull him out of earshot, which added insult to injury, from Jeb’s perspective. They spoke in hushed voices, and as he watched, the color drained out of Holt’s face. He drew Lizzie to his side, hoisted her easily onto his hip, and she threw her arms around his neck and clung for dear life.

Jeb frowned. He wanted to jump down off the wagon, walk right over there, and demand to know what was going on, but he’d torn out some of the sutures in his arm during the ride, and blood was seeping through the sleeve of his coat. His knees might as well have been made of water as muscle and bone; If he tried to stand on his feet, like as not he’d pitch over in a swoon and get a mouthful of dirt for a bonus.

Chloe went on talking, waving her arms. Holt listened and shook his head, as if refuting whatever point she was trying to make, and he kept looking around, even as he held Lizzie with one arm and patted her back with the other. The kid was sobbing.

Jeb felt a rush of chagrin. Had his ride scared Lizzie that much?

No, he decided. It couldn’t be that—Lizzie was a McKettrick, whatever Holt’s stubborn claims to the contrary. She’d probably been cheering for him the whole time he was on that demon’s back.

Suddenly, the gold felt cold as ice against his chest, even through his shirt.

Chloe hurtled toward him like a barrel rolling downhill, her face streaked with dirt and tears, and he wanted more than anything to take her in his arms and hold her, but he didn’t quite dare.

“Look at you,” she said, with none of the admiration he reckoned as his due. “You’re filthy, and you’re
bleeding
!”

Out of self-defense, he shifted his gaze to Holt, who spoke quietly to the child as he carried her toward the wagon. “What’s the matter with Lizzie?” Jeb snapped to Chloe.

Chloe put her hands on her hips. “What do you care?” she shot back, in a sizzling whisper. “You never think about anyone but yourself!”

Dammit, that hurt. He’d been thinking of Chloe, and no one else, the whole of this adventure. “I wasn’t—”

Just then, Holt reached the wagon, hoisted Lizzie up into the seat. She huddled there, hugging herself, but her chin was at an obstinate angle, she’d squared her shoulders, and she’d stopped crying.

“Don’t ever come near me again, Jeb McKettrick!” Chloe raged. “I don’t want to look at you, I don’t want to hear your voice—”

Fury stung through him. “Now, wait just a damn minute—”

She whirled away from him, rounded the wagon, raising little puffs of dust as she went, and hauled herself up beside Lizzie. Holt came his way, but from the expression on his face, there were no words of praise forthcoming and none of condolence, either.

“I’d advise you to settle in and hold on tight,” Holt drawled, his eyes snapping with bad temper. “It’s going to be a rough ride back to the Circle C, and an even rougher one when we get there.”

A handshake would not have been untoward, considering that Jeb had just ridden an unrideable horse and earned himself a thousand dollars while he was at it. At the moment, though, he was more concerned with Lizzie than his pride. “Just tell me
what happened
,” he rasped.