The Gunman's Bride (10 page)

“You want action?” Bart growled, throwing a thunderous punch into the man’s midsection. “I’ll teach you
to talk about a woman like that.” He rammed his fist into the man’s mouth. “Talk now, you good-for-nothing thief!”

Spitting out teeth, the stranger held up an arm to ward off the blows. “Let me go. I didn’t mean nothin’!”

“I’ve shot men for less, you yellow-bellied little skunk.”

“Don’t shoot me! I’ll leave! I swear it.”

Bart lifted the man off his feet and threw him across the saddle of his horse. As the air whooshed out of his lungs, Bart grabbed the shotgun and slammed the stock into the back of his skull. Instantly limp, the man hung over his horse, blood dripping from his mouth.

Using the rope with which the man had planned to tie him to the tree, Bart bound his assailant.

“Get out of here now.
Shee-hah!
” he shouted, giving the nag a slap on the flank. As the horse skittered out of the clearing, Bart stood watching with his hands balanced lightly on his hips. Even though his chest rose and fell with the effort he had expended, he felt no pain in the hands that had battered the thief. He felt nothing but the raw male power that had been a daily part of his life for so many years.

Anger ate at him. How dare anyone think he could get away with trying to rob Bart Kingsley? And the things he’d said about Rosie were—

He turned suddenly. “Rosie, where are you?”

Her head appeared above the rim of the wagon bed. “I’m here.”

She was pale as a sheet, he realized as he hurried toward her. “Rosie, darlin’, are you—”

“Bart, you mean, awful man!” Although hunched
under the saddle blanket, her brown eyes spat fire. “You didn’t have to knock his teeth out!”

“What?” Bart stopped, dumbfounded.

“That fellow didn’t stand a chance after the first time you hit him. But you just kept on at him like some kind of wild animal. You could have killed him, and then where would you be?”

“I should have killed him. Do you know what that lowdown snake was planning to do to you?”

“He’s probably going to die out there in the wilderness. Even if he doesn’t, his brain will never work right again.”

“His brain? Rosie, that fellow didn’t have half a brain to start with.”

“But you were so rough—you didn’t know when to stop.”

Confusion and anger racing through him, Bart shook his head. “I stopped when I was done with him. When I was sure he couldn’t lift a finger against you, that was when I laid off him—and not a minute before.”

Rosie sat scrunched up beneath the blanket, her eyes filled with tears. “But what if he dies? The sheriff will come for you.”

Bart slammed his palm against the side of the wagon. “Blast it all, Rosie, what do you want out of me? I can’t be a gentleman and a protector at the same time. I’m just what I am. Forget city duds and canes and pecan pie. I’m a man who uses his fists better than he uses his head, and that’s never going to change.”

Unable to stop trembling, Rosie stood beside an aspen tree as Bart began to gather the picnic supplies. Then he
grabbed the shotgun, shouldered it, picked up the basket and returned to the wagon.

Oh, why had she snapped at him so? He had protected her in the only way he knew. The stranger had been planning to do terrible things. He might have taken it into his head to kill them both.

On the other hand, Bart had beaten the fellow into a bloody pulp. The memory of her gentle Bart slamming his fist into that man’s mouth made Rosie shudder. This was the man she didn’t want to acknowledge—this sledgehammer. If he could use his bare hands to take out a gun-toting thief, what couldn’t Bart do? What wouldn’t he do?

How could a woman feel at ease with someone who could explode like that? Yet Bart had done everything in his power to prove himself a gentleman. The memory of his fancy suit and cane, his picnic, his tender touch warmed Rosie’s heart.

“Bart,” she said as he stowed the basket. “I owe you an apology.”

He lifted his head and with one finger tipped back the brim of his hat. “That’s right.”

It wasn’t the response she had expected, but she continued. “I know you were trying to protect me. I’m very grateful.”

“Yup.” He slapped the wagon seat. “Get in.”

She lifted her skirt. “Are you going to help me up?”

He stretched out an arm. Rosie frowned but took his wrist. As she hauled herself up into the wagon, her boots slipped on the bare wood and her skirt tangled
in the wheel. Bart moved not a muscle to help her any more than holding out his arm.

When she had finally settled on the seat, she arranged her skirts, stuffed her loose hair under her bonnet and crossed her arms. But when Bart started the mare with a swift slap of the reins, she had to grab the sides of the wagon seat to keep from tumbling off.

They were almost back to Springer before he spoke. “I’ve done some thinking,” he said. “Near onto a month now I’ve done my level best to be somebody I’m not. I told you outside the church the other night that new clothes can’t change the color of a man’s skin. Well, they can’t change what’s inside him, either.”

“What’s inside you, Bart?” Rosie asked.

He reached down, grabbed the shotgun and shook it in front of her. “This is what’s inside me. It’s what I’m made of, see? You can dress me up in a coat and tie, but underneath I’m still Bart Kingsley. I’m a half-breed, illegitimate no-good who’s spent every year of his grown life on the wrong side of the law. I tried to be all you could want in a man, but I messed up today. I’m going to keep messing up real regular, because when push comes to shove, the citified dude steps out the door, and the gunslinger walks in. I don’t imagine there’s a thing in the world that can change that.”

Rosie fiddled with the folds of her skirt. There were a thousand things she wanted to say to Bart. She wanted to tell him God could change his heart. He could be a different man if he gave God half a chance to work on him. And she wanted to say that she thought he was the bravest, strongest, handsomest man she’d ever seen.

But to be so bold would give him the idea that she
cared about him too much. Rosie knew she couldn’t let herself feel strongly about Bart. He
would
go back to his old ways. And if the sheriff caught him, Bart would be thrown in jail. More important, if Bart’s outlaw past caught up with him, he’d leave town, and Rosie knew he would never be back.

No…she couldn’t encourage him to try to change. Not when her heart was at risk.

“Well,” she said finally. “Just do whatever you can to look like a good husband to me for the next few weeks. Then you can go off and be anything you want.”

“You care more about that teaching job and that sidewinder’s lost teeth than you ever cared about me.”

“I sure never let anybody else be as forward with me as you were today,” she countered. Unexpected tears filled her eyes. “Even that snake of a man I was supposed to marry in Kansas City kept his hands to himself after I set him straight.”

Bart slowed the wagon as it rolled into town. “I meant this to be the best day of your life, Rosie. I meant it to be the start of something new between us.”

“There can’t be anything new between us,” she said, brushing a tear from her cheek. “We started out wrong, and things have gone wrong ever since.”

Bart was silent a moment. “If you don’t think there’s hope for us, if you don’t believe I can change, then I reckon there’s no chance at all. You were always my light, Rosie.”

He eased the wagon to a stop at the Springer train depot. “If you can’t see any light at the end of this tunnel of ours, if the only bright spot in your life is that teaching job, then I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“I don’t know, either, Bart,” Rosie said as she watched the three-thirty train pull into the station. “I don’t know, either.”

It took about five minutes for Rosie to lose her job as a Harvey Girl. She had just returned to the dormitory when Mrs. Jensen stormed into the pink bedroom and demanded to know where Rosie had been all day. When she announced that she had eloped with Buck Springfield, Mrs. Jensen turned on her heel and marched right down the stairs to tell Mr. Gable.

Tom Gable said he had half a mind to keep Rosie on if she wanted to work. He didn’t know where he could get as reliable a waitress as her. But if she had set her heart on being a farmer’s wife, there was nothing he could do.

Etta and the other girls flew into a flurry of questions, exclamations, giggles and sighs when Rosie told them about the train trip to Springer. Although she knew her hands were trembling as she packed her clothes, Rosie kept up a bright voice and a Harvey Girl smile.

Buck was wonderful, she avowed. The perfect husband. “I’ll miss you all,” she said as he drove his new wagon up to the Harvey House. “I’ll come for ice cream soon.”

“You better take good care of this little lady,” Mr. Gable warned Bart. “She’ll make you a fine wife.”

“You’re lucky to get her,” Mrs. Jensen called out when Rosie was seated and the wagon began rolling away from the depot. “You just remember that, Mr. Springfield.”

Rosie watched the familiar faces fade into the evening gloom. As the wagon rounded the corner, she heard Mr.
Gable call out, “Back inside, everyone. We’ve got forty omelets comin’ in on the seven o’clock from Denver!”

Rosie smiled as Bart turned the wagon toward the schoolhouse. As hard as it was to leave her friends at the Harvey House, it was exciting to think about the moment she would stand on Mr. Kilgore’s doorstep and present her new husband.

“Be sure to tip your hat when you meet Mr. Kilgore,” she reminded Bart. “He’s very proper.”

“Reckon I should kiss his hand?” Bart drawled.

“No!” Rosie laughed suddenly. “Bart, we’ve had a rough day, but once I have that teaching job, everything will be all right.”

He pulled the wagon to a halt in front of the small house next to the one-room school, clambered out and rapped on the door. In a moment Mr. Kilgore opened it and stared agog at Rosie.

“Why, Miss Kingsley,” he said. “I certainly didn’t expect to see you at this time of evening. Do come in.”

When he led the couple to a small front parlor, Rosie saw at once that she hadn’t chosen the best time to apply for her new job. Mr. Kilgore had company—a man, a woman and three children hastily rose to greet the newcomers.

“Miss Kingsley,” Mr. Kilgore began, “May I introduce—”

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Kilgore,” Rosie interrupted, “but my name has changed since we last spoke. I am now Mrs. Springfield. This is my husband, Buck.”

“Howdy,” Bart said, tipping his hat.

“This is a surprise,” Mr. Kilgore exclaimed. “I had no idea nuptials were in the offing.”

“Oh, yes,” Rosie affirmed.

“I’ve been planning to marry this gal for a long time,” Bart put in. “And who are these folks?”

Mr. Kilgore cleared his throat. “Mr. and Mrs. Springfield, may I present Mr. and Mrs. Sneed and their children, Abigail, Tom and Lawrence.”

“I’m so pleased to meet you.” Rosie held out her hand.

“Indeed,” Mrs. Sneed responded, stepping forward. “Congratulations on your marriage. I’m sure I’ll be seeing a great deal of you once you begin your family.”

“Oh?” Rosie replied.

“Yes, I’ll be educating your children in the years to come. I’ve just been hired by Mr. Kilgore as the new teacher for his school.”

B
art could not get a word out of Rosie all the way from Mr. Kilgore’s house to his homestead, a long wagon ride. The moment she had been able to exit the scene of her devastation gracefully, she had pulled her shawl over her bonnet and retreated into silence. Bart tried commenting on the full moon, the probability of rain, even the uneven gait of one of his horses. Rosie just sat.

He knew what she was thinking. A fine mess she’d gotten herself into: stuck with Bart Kingsley and no teaching job. Now she had lost her secure place and regular wages at the Harvey House, and the whole town believed she was married.

The worst was yet to come, Bart knew. When Rosie took one look at the barren hills, rocky streams and scrubby brush he owned, she would go plumb soggy. Already he could hear her sniffing under her shawl.

For all the world he wanted to take Rosie in his arms. But what did he have to offer? Outlaw manners and a sinful reputation. Oh, and a hole in the ground that was supposed to pass for a house.

Bart tugged his hat down over his brow. What he had
to offer Rosie was pitiful—a fireplace made of river rocks, a bare plank floor and four plank walls, a bed with no mattress, a table with no chairs and two windows fitted with paper instead of glass panes.

He was a fair hand at carpentry, but horse work was his specialty. With the plowing, planting, digging and building he had to fit in around his job at the livery stable, Rosie was lucky to have a bed at all.

The more Bart thought about the bed with its hard board bottom and thin blankets, the more uneasy he felt. What would happen to a woman who, all in one day, had kissed a gentleman who turned out to be a wild animal, had seen her dream of teaching turn to ashes and had to start living like a mole in the ground?

Lord, he wished he’d had a better family to grow up in.

What was a man supposed to do with a crying woman? Most of the men who had lived with his mother—including the louse who eventually became Bart’s stepfather—wouldn’t have had a moment’s patience with tears. More than once, Bart had seen his stepfather slap his mother’s face for bawling about things.

Bart sure didn’t want to slap Rosie. He wanted to hold her close and whisper in her ear that he’d take care of her. But maybe that wasn’t the right thing to do. Maybe if he tried to comfort her, she’d cry all the harder. If he touched her, maybe she’d get scared of him again. Or mad.

The best thing to do was just not say anything, Bart decided. If he ignored Rosie, she couldn’t think one way or the other about him. His hands grew damp on the reins as the horses pulled the wagon up the incline
toward the clearing where he had dug the house. The track sure did feel rutted and stony. The pine trees seemed closer than he’d thought when he was clearing a road.

“All told I’ve got one hundred sixty acres,” he ventured. “It’s good land. Trees for lumber. Three streams with fresh water running all year. Once I’ve been living here for five years, I can go to Springer and file proof of my claim. Then the place will be mine.”

Rosie said nothing. The wagon topped the hill and rattled toward the board-and-batten walls that rose a mere three feet above the ground. Bart tugged on the reins to pull his horses to a halt. For a moment he sat staring at the tar-papered roof and the two windows beside the front door.

“This is a far sight from Kansas City,” he began. “Not what you were used to with your pappy.”

“Help me down, Bart,” Rosie said.

At least she was still alive. He clambered from the wagon and held out his hands. She had let her shawl slip down from her head. The full moon silvered her blue dress and washed her pale cheeks in alabaster.

“Thank you, Bart,” she said when her feet were on firm ground.

“I’ll fetch your trunk.” To cover his uncertainty about the moments to come, Bart lifted her heavy trunk from the wagon bed and carried it toward the house. “This is a half dugout. Cheyenne Bill told me most homesteaders start off with one. It’s warm in winter and cool in… Well, it’s not much, to tell the truth…. I’m digging out a back room for storage.”

“Is there a lock on the door, or do we just walk in?” Rosie asked.

“Not much point in a lock. Wait here while I light my lamps.” Heart thumping, he descended the steps and pushed open the door.

Alone for a minute, Rosie lifted her head to the sky and sucked in a shaky breath. This was her home now, the place where she would be forced to live and toil until she could find a way to escape it. Her hope of freedom had come to nothing. She was more a slave now than she had ever been in her life.

This was her punishment for disobeying her father. For being deceitful to Dr. Lowell. For running away from her fiancé and her pappy. For letting Bart Kingsley kiss her under the cottonwood tree.

The half-buried house, the wilderness that promised backbreaking labor by day and the howls of wild animals by night, the husband she couldn’t be sure of—all would be penance for her sins. In such a place as this, God was nowhere to be found.

“You can come down now, Rosie-girl.” Bart held up a lamp, and Rosie could see the worried look in his green eyes.

“It’s a good solid door,” he said as she descended.

“You dug this yourself?”

“Well, sure, but it’s not much.” He stepped back as she entered the soddy.

At the first sight of the small room with its bare wood walls and floor, Rosie felt a lump form in her throat. But she had wept enough for one day. More than enough. This was her lot, and she would make the best of it.

“I don’t have a cookstove yet,” Bart was saying as he gestured toward the cold fireplace. “This’ll have to do. I bought a pot and a skillet. They go a long way toward a decent meal. There’s a pantry back here.”

He slapped a wooden wall. “I’ll cut the door between these rooms once I get things sealed good. I jump down in the hole when I need something.”

Rosie pondered the notion of climbing in and out of a hole in the ground to fetch potatoes, sugar, flour and such. “Do you have a ladder?”

“I’ll build you a set of steps.” He hooked one thumb around a suspender. “Being as tomorrow’s Sunday, I’m off work. Next week I’ll work afternoons at the livery stable so I can do my spring planting. When you plant beets, you put out seed balls. When they sprout, you thin ’em. I’ll rotate my sugar-beet crop with potatoes. If I can keep the blister beetles away and raise a healthy crop, Rosie, I can sell all I harvest. Beets bring five cents a pound, and I’ll market the greens for cattle feed.”

“Oh, I see,” Rosie managed, trying to imagine how she would endure this desolate place. More troubling, how would she handle having Bart around? His green eyes, his teasing, his warm embrace and gentle smile would make it hard to maintain a prudent distance.

“How about some supper?” he was asking. “I’ve got oysters. Bought ’em last week just for you. The grocer said they’re the rage with city folk.”

Rosie tried to smile as she compared the lonely dugout to the luxurious oyster bar where she had attended parties in her previous life.

“Oysters would be nice,” she said, drawing her shawl
from her shoulders. “Do you have a wardrobe or maybe a hook?”

“I’ve got a nail.” Bart took her wool wrap and hung it on the single nail protruding from a plank.

“I’ll take care of my things while you fix the oysters.”

As Rosie sorted the clothing in her trunk, she wondered why Bart had no hooks. Would he have an ironing board? A washtub?

“Here’s a stool, Rosie-girl.” He presented the only seat in the house.

Rosie seated herself gingerly on the three-legged stool and made an attempt to arrange her skirt and bustle. Eyeing the pale gray oysters on his plate, Bart sat on the edge of the bed.

“Do they smell right to you?” He pulled his knife from the leather sheath on his belt and stabbed at an oyster. It shot off the plate and landed on the floor.

He looked up at Rosie. “Wilful little critters, aren’t they?”

“I’ll get spoons.” She stepped to the mantel where three dusty, bent spoons lay among knives, chains and fishing lures. With two fingers, she lifted a spoon and wiped it on her skirt. She sat down in time to see Bart grab an oyster with his bare hand and pop it into his mouth.

An expression of vague discomfort spread over his face. He began to chew. He chewed a while longer. Then he chewed some more. Rosie watched, wondering why on earth she felt like laughing at a time like this.

“Is it good?” she asked him.

“Mighty fine,” he answered around the mouthful of oyster.

While Bart continued to chew, Rosie slipped an oyster onto her spoon and swallowed it. Even though it was lukewarm and just out of a can rather than chilled on a bed of ice, the taste transported her to a time of gentility and refinement.

If a woman could dine on oysters in such a house, couldn’t she make life here better?

“I don’t know about your varmint,” Bart spoke up, “but mine was as tough as an old shoe.”

Rosie couldn’t suppress a giggle. “Bart, you don’t chew oysters! You swallow them whole.”

As a grin lifted one corner of his mouth, he regarded his plate. “You sure about that? My mama taught us kids to chew our food before we downed it.”

Rosie took her plate and sat down beside Bart. “Slide the oyster onto the spoon,” she told him as she demonstrated. “Then put the oyster in your mouth and swallow.”

“I’ll give it a whirl.” Taking her spoon, he chased an oyster around his plate before finally nabbing it. Then he followed Rosie’s instructions and gulped the morsel whole.

“There!” she said with a laugh. “You did it!”

“Sure enough, Rosie-girl.”

As he watched, she lifted another oyster and slipped it between her lips. Eyes closed, she savored the taste for a moment before swallowing.

“Mmm…” she purred. “Now it’s your turn.”

“How about if you snag me one?”

Rosie scooped up an oyster and slid it into Bart’s mouth. “Now swallow.”

He obeyed. By his expression, she suspected he was not acquiring a taste for them.

“In Kansas City, oyster restaurants are on every street,” she told him. “After the theater, everyone goes out for oysters and champagne. They’re said to be the food and drink of passion.”

Bart took the spoon and served Rosie another oyster. After she swallowed, he bent and kissed the dampness from her lips. “Rosie-girl, you look so good to me right now. And I don’t think those oysters have a thing to do with the way you make me feel.”

“Oh, Bart, it was good between us this afternoon, wasn’t it?”

She let out her breath as his mouth slipped down the side of her neck. “But that awful man scared me so much…and then I lashed out at you…and then Mr. Kilgore—”

“Hush now, darlin’. That mean-mouthed snake who tried to rob us is long gone. A good life is waiting for you—even without the teaching job. I’m not much of a gentleman, and this place is no Kansas City mansion, but if you’ll have me, I’m yours.”

She gazed at the intense light in Bart’s green eyes. If only she could rely on him, if only she could be certain he wouldn’t abandon her, if only she could be sure his past wouldn’t catch up with him…

“It’s going to take time,” she said.

“I’m not going anywhere.” He kissed her as if to silence her protest. “Tomorrow morning I’ll build steps
for the storeroom, just wait and see. Now come here, girl, and stop looking so sad.”

He set the plates on the floor and took her into his arms. She shut her eyes, relaxing as his fingers stroked her cheek. Bart wanted to be the man to nurture and succor her, and it was time to accept that she had set her own course. His kisses were sweet and his touch stirred a flame to life inside her.

“Are you a betting woman, Rosie?” he whispered as he eased her onto the blankets that covered the bed.

“I did bet once on a game of whist,” she recalled. “Then my father found out.”

“Well, I’m willing to make you a bet I know I can’t lose.” He ran one finger down the side of her neck. “I’ll bet that if you just relax and think about those oysters for a few minutes, things are going to look a whole lot better to you in the morning. What do you say, Rosie-girl? Do we have us a bet?”

“I just have to think about oysters?”

“That’s all.” He eased up on one elbow and began slipping her dress off her shoulders.

Rosie slept with sweet dreams…beautiful memories of Bart’s love. It might be possible, she thought, to make a good life with Bart on his homestead. Yet even as she drifted in the contentment of a future as Bart’s wife, she remembered that she would never be a mother. The doctors in Kansas City had declared her barren.

Nor would there be children singing songs and learning to count. No anthems. No recitations. She had lost the teaching job to another woman.

Even Bart was gone from their bed. Rosie slipped
from beneath the blankets and went to one of the two windows. Although it was daytime, she could see almost nothing through the waxed paper that covered the openings. He had told her he would build steps into the pantry. But she could hear no hammer or saw.

Ashes in the fireplace, a dusty floor, chipped crockery were her lot. Life could not be filled with dreamy passion forever. Heavyhearted, Rosie dressed in a simple blue calico she had never liked—preferring her swishy silks instead. She had never enjoyed a silent room either. Rosie liked people, laughter, chatter.

Even as she mourned the past, she realized this tiny sod house now belonged to her to do with as she pleased. The land outside belonged to her, too. Was this what she had been after all along?

Every night on her knees, she had begged God for her freedom. Was this the way He had answered her prayers?

Bart’s voice drifted into the house as he sang a hymn out in the yard. Rosie went to the door and peeked outside. Just beyond the house, he was chopping wood. She had to smile. Bart might be a terror at robbing banks and holding up trains. He might be the handsomest man this side of the Mississippi, and he made Rosie feel wonderful when he loved her. But Bart Kingsley couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.

Rosie shut the door and leaned against it. Bart hadn’t gone away, as she’d feared. For this moment, at least, he was acting the reliable husband. In the weeks Rosie had known him again, he hadn’t robbed a train or a bank, he hadn’t murdered anyone, he’d worked at a decent job and started his own homestead.