The Badger City Gang [Bride Train 7] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (12 page)

She waited for a sense of mortification to descend. After all, she’d done things that no self-respecting woman would do. No decent wife would eagerly demand satisfaction from her husband. It was worse that she wasn’t married, to any of them!

It was no use. She felt no shame at all. Joy bubbled up and she laughed. She rolled out of bed, naked as the day she was born, and stretched. Her hair tumbled down her back, wild and free. She leaned her head back and shook it. The ends tickled her bottom. She laughed again and twirled, arms out, like she used to when they went to the park and Father wasn’t around.

He’d sent her away in disgrace, thinking she would slink under a rock and disappear. Instead, she had found her freedom. She was born to be wild and carefree, enjoying the gift of her body’s arousal. Never would she be ashamed of who she was, or what she chose to do!

She had a quick wash, dressed, and started breakfast, singing snatches of songs as she worked. She made coffee for the men, but preferred tea. Since she couldn’t find any, she’d do without. She took a slab of salt pork from the larder and sliced off a few chunks. After chopping them into finger-size pieces she cooked them with the leftover potatoes and onions.

What would her mother have been like if she’d followed her heart and run away with Wilbur instead of marrying Father? Even if she died while being attacked by Indians, her greatest fear, she would have lived a far richer life, one full of love and caring.

Which was worse? A quick death after a short life of joy or dying day by day, inch by inch?

Kate would take the joy she’d found in the last few days. She’d never known the touch of a man could bring her rapture. She wanted love in her heart but, for now, would settle for pleasure in her body. If she had to die tomorrow, she’d die content with her choice.

Mama hadn’t believed she’d had a choice. She did what her parents demanded, and was terrorized without a hand being raised. Father knew how to slay those less powerful with his voice, cruelly cutting them down. He used public humiliation and private threats against the things her mother most loved. It turned her into a cringing creature who barely spoke over a whisper.

Kate fought him for years. The final embarrassment was at seventeen when she won the race against the sons of his friends. Since she refused to cry when he punished her, this time he turned his quiet rage on Mama. He took her precious figurines, handed down from her grandmother, and smashed them. No, she corrected herself, that would show emotion.

Though he was furious, she remembered the pleasure he took in fondling the delicate figures as she and her mother watched. He took a laughing shepherd with a crook and slowly climbed the stairs. He leaned over, his cold eyes on Katherine, and held it out. Without blinking, he released it above the marble floor far below. It exploded on impact, sending tiny shards everywhere. She cried out as they sprinkled her face, arms, and clothing. She saw his satisfaction, so pressed her lips closed.

He trailed one hand on the banister as he slowly descended. His feet crunched over the broken porcelain as he passed her to grasp the matching shepherdess holding a lamb. Mama’s favorite.

Once more he climbed. He held it out in his fist. One by one, he uncurled his fingers. Mama choked back a cry just before he let it drop. A shaft of satisfaction touched his face when the silence was again shattered by its destruction.

Kate still had a scar on her cheek from a piece of the lamb hitting her.

As Mama quietly sobbed, Kate had bowed her head, hands behind her back, and begged his forgiveness as a dutiful daughter. He didn’t know her head was bowed to hide her fury, disgust, and scorn. Though she begged, it was for her mother’s sake.

She kept her tears for later, when she asked for forgiveness as Mama cleaned her cut face. Her mother quietly explained that in some ways it was a relief to have her most cherished things destroyed. That meant her husband couldn’t hurt her anymore. He’d turned her children against her, all but Katherine. The only thing he could do to hurt her now, was to send her eldest daughter far away.

Mama explained that he’d never do it because it would raise questions he couldn’t answer. She’d made sure to impress on the wives of his most important clients that she couldn’t bear to have her dear daughter leave home, except to a suitable husband. While Mama was alive, Father could do little more than humiliate and berate her.

As she lay on her bed that night, Katherine vowed that fear, of a man or anything else, would not determine her life. She would obey Father, but only because she loved Mama. It didn’t stop her from fighting him, but she kept it hidden. He kept her housebound, often locked in her chamber, and she loved to read. He didn’t know Mama found her a key to his library. He never did more than lay certain books on piecrust tables as if he’d just put it down. He only used the room to entertain his friends and cultivate clients with expensive drinks and cigars.

She snuck in when no one was around and borrowed books about things proper women were not to trifle their little heads about. She loved arithmetic, natural philosophy, botany, history, and more. All sorts of ideas were revealed to her. His tread was heavy enough that she could hide her book before he unlocked her chamber and entered. He always found her staring out her window. She knew he gloated about locking her away from the temptation of the outdoors.

But that was no more. The family and home she’d spent twenty-one years in was gone. She was dead to them as if she’d never existed. Now she could create her own life. She wanted a home with a husband and children. But love, passion, and trust had to be part of it.

She wanted an unquenchable love that made her body explode with passion. She wanted to trust her husband not only to protect her, but that he would choose to love her over other things, such as his pride. She wanted her husband to accept her as she was, even need her.

The McInnes men seemed to approve of her, but they also wanted to bed her. The afterglow of bedding could easily fade and reveal their true feelings about her. She would wait, and watch, to see their true characters. She could test them, to make sure they accepted her contrariness. If they still wanted her after she showed them she refused to be a compliant female, perhaps one of them was worth marrying.

If he loved her. If she loved him. Because of how they treated her, she was halfway in love with them already.

She called the men in for breakfast.

It was midafternoon when the rattle of the window pulled Kate outside. Clouds rose in the west, high and dark. The wind whipped her hair around her face. The afternoon’s heat had finally begun to fade, but the weather made her pause and look for her men. The barn was to the west and so was the road, so she walked past it to look down to the north. Skeletons of round plants, nothing left but white branches, tumbled past her. Gusts of wind flattened her clothes tight against her body.

A jagged streak of lightning flashed seconds before thunder blasted her ears. She jumped, though the storm was still far away. From what Zach and Rusty had said while riding from the train, cattle would be frightened and could stampede in such a storm. There was little she could do to help while wearing a thin dress.

She ran back to the cabin and changed into the clothes she’d worn to ride. The rough pants were fine, but she needed something to cover her chest other than her chemise. She sorted through the overflowing mending basket until she found a shirt. She stuffed it into her pants, which she tied with twine. She folded up the cuffs and put her boots on. She jammed her bonnet on her head and tied it under her chin, more to keep her hair from getting into her eyes than for any protection.

The horses were milling about, as far from the noise as possible. This brought them near the barn. That’s where Zach found her when he rode in for a fresh horse.

“Kate?” She turned at the yell. His face snarled his displeasure before he found words to blast her. “What do you think you’re doing? Get in the cabin!”

“I need help saddling a horse, but I can ride. An extra person could help keep the cattle in order.”

“An extra person could get trampled in a stampede, gored by a horn, or a half dozen other things! Now get back in the house like a decent woman.”

He jumped down and strode over. His fury was greater than anything she’d seen on her father’s face, but she trusted him not to hit her. He grabbed the leather reins of the horse she held and brought it to the barn. It was so agitated it trotted, so he had to run. She followed him, leading the horse he’d rode in on.

“Make up your mind, Zach McInnes!” She shook her finger at him. “A decent woman would not live in a cabin with three men. If I’m good enough to live here with you, I’m good enough to help with the cattle.”

“She’s got you there, cousin.” Rusty flashed her a wink as he switched saddles from a tired horse to a fresh one. She was so hepped up she hadn’t seen him enter the barn. They all jumped when thunder pounded, and then rumbled away.

“It’s too dangerous for a female out there,” said Zach. He switched saddles, grunting when the fresh horse knocked him sideways with her head.

“Looks like your mare doesn’t agree,” said Kate sweetly.

“Darn it, Kate, this isn’t funny. You could get killed.”

She took the tack that Rusty thrust on her, holding it for him while he worked.

“I was perfectly safe on the Bride Train, but some bandit wearing a bandana over his mouth hauled me away and tossed me into the arms of a man on a galloping horse. I could have died right then. I could have fallen riding those trails. But I didn’t!”

“She’s right,” added a new voice. Gideon had arrived. “We can use any rider we have.” He took Zach and Rusty’s tired horses and brought them out of the barn.

Zach flipped the stirrup onto the saddle horn and checked the belly band. He let the stirrup down, whirled, and stuck his finger in her face.

“You do exactly what I say! Not a thing more, and not a thing less. Do you understand?”

She nodded. Part of her was eager to be accepted and another part was terrified, but it was too late to back out. This would either prove that she deserved respect, or kill her. She swallowed her fear.

“If I say stand there in the pouring rain and don’t move, you’ll darn well stand there!”

“Yes, Zach.”

He thrust the reins of the horse he’d just saddled at her. “Shorten the stirrups on Sissy and get ready to ride.”

An hour later, soaked to the skin and shivering, Kate waited where she was told. They had circled around to the east and brought the cattle toward the west, into the wind. They didn’t like it, not one bit. The idea was that, if they stampeded, they might stop while still on the Running W, rather than on the property to the northeast, which belonged to the mayor. It seemed he couldn’t be trusted to give their cattle back if they strayed. She didn’t ask Zach why the town would elect someone untrustworthy to be mayor, but she’d get around to it one of these days.

She heard the cattle bawling before she saw them approach. They moved slowly, pushed from behind by the mass of the rest. She stayed where she was, guarding the entrance to a small cliff that, if they roared past in panic, could send them to their deaths. Her horse stamped her feet impatiently.

“Sorry, Sissy,” she said, patting the mare’s neck. “Zach says we’re doing an important job standing here, and we’ll do it the best we can.”

A cow with horns that spread farther than Kate was tall came toward her. She made Sissy step forward as she swung a rope to make herself seem bigger. She yelled at the cow to back away. It snorted as if she meant nothing to it, but continued on. Few other longhorns even looked her way as they plodded past, following the one in front.

Rusty rode over. The sky was so dark that all she could see of his face was his teeth.

“You look cold, Kate. You want my shirt?”

She shook her head. She had two layers to his one, and she couldn’t get any wetter.

“Stay here until the last of the stragglers come by, then push them into the wind. We’ll hold them at Sinclair Gulch Creek until the worst of this is over.”

“Will do,” she said. Rusty started to turn away, and she waved to catch his attention. “First one home makes supper!” He laughed and trotted away.

Half an hour later she followed the slow ones straight into the wind. The rain smashing against her body started to hurt. She flinched when one drop hit her knuckle like a red-hot poker. White dots bounced off Sissy’s hide.

It wasn’t rain. It was hail!

Kate hunched forward, crossing her arms to protect her breasts from the sting. This was what the men were worried about. If the ice pellets got too big, the cattle would run and run, fighting to escape the pain. They’d run in the dark over everything, including a cliff.

She winced at the pellets peppering her. It wasn’t really painful, but so many of them added up to a real nuisance. There was no shelter here. No trees to hide under, no rock outcrops to lean against. Like Sissy and the cattle, she had to endure.

Though it felt like an hour, the hailstorm must have lasted only a few minutes before it switched back to rain. The wind slowed, as well as the slap of the raindrops. She shook out her shoulders and sat tall.

She’d fought for the right to ride and work as an equal, and she’d survived!

Her sisters could coyly hide behind silk fans, fluttering them to gain the attention of a useless dandy. They would be protected from physical danger, but they’d never know the joy of conquering fear and surviving the elements!

A horse rode out of the rain toward her. “Time to go home,” said Rusty. “How’re you holding out?”

“I’m fine. Where are the others?”

Rusty’s wicked smile heated her, but not enough to stop the bone-cold chill. “Gideon was closest so Zach sent him in to get the stove going. There should be a hot supper waiting by the time we get home.”

She turned Sissy and rode beside Rusty. The luxury of having the cold wind at her back, rather than in her face, was warming in itself. Zach joined them shortly before they arrived at the barn.