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“All right. I’ll stay in the back with her,” I told the driver.
I tilted my chin up, met the man’s sharp gaze as I walked over to the stage, peeked in, then reached for my small bag. “But you’ll take me to where Miss Strong was headed.”
“Take you…” He shoved his hat back on his head, spit into the grass again. “I see what you’re about.”
“Oh?” I asked. “And what’s that?”
“You’re going to take her place.”
I slid my gun from my bag, aimed it at him. He slowly raised his hands.
“And you were going to leave a passenger out on the prairie for the wolves,” I argued.
“Now there’s no need for a gun.” He eyed me. Not fearfully, but suspiciously. “What kind of lady are you?”
“The kind of lady who has five older brothers. A gun adds a certain level of… assurance that you’ll do the right thing by me and take me to Pueblo and the man she was to marry.”
“And the right thing is to let you become a stranger’s wife?”
Obviously he knew more about Patricia than he did me.
“The man waiting in Pueblo requested a woman, not specifically Miss Strong. Listen, Mr.… um, driver.” I had no idea of his name. “My brothers taught me a few things besides shooting.” I gave a slight shrug, but the gun didn’t even quiver. “They taught me to take an opportunity when it falls in my lap.”
Even when it was a dead body.
Did I want to marry a man I’d never met? Patricia was going to do it. Why couldn’t I? It’s what I wanted, a man of my own, children someday. But I knew nothing of him. What if he was old or had seven children already? What if he was mean? A drunk? Well, I could just shoot him. It would serve him right.
The driver thought for a moment, scratched the back of his neck, then slowly he shook his head. “Don’t matter to me one way or another. Her way’s been paid and I’d rather not have to explain to the man when I get to Pueblo that his wife just up and died.”
I lowered the gun then. “So we’ll be doing each other a favor.”
He walked toward the front of the stage, hoisted himself up. He looked down at me before he climbed up onto the high bench, then pointed into the stage. “We’re leaving Miss Strong’s body at the next stop and we’re not waiting for her burial. I have a schedule to keep and you have a man to meet.”
While seeing the woman properly buried was the right thing to do, I knew I couldn’t argue. I was gaining a husband.
CHAPTER TWO
Lane Haskins
“I can’t fucking believe it,” I murmured. I’d seen quite a bit in my time, but this… I’d never forget. “This has to be the seediest, dirtiest saloon in town.”
“We looked everywhere else,” Spur replied, taking off his hat, running his hand through his dark hair.
Even though we’d arrived a little late to meet the stage, Patricia Strong hadn’t been there waiting for us. Since the stage’s arrival time varied wildly depending on anything from the weather to the sobriety of the driver, we’d intended to be a day early. My mine in Jasper was turning into quite the headache; the latest fiasco with the shirring beams had set our ride down the mountain back until this morning. The owner of the town’s mercantile said the stage had, of course, arrived an hour early, which meant we’d had to find our bride in the bustling town of Pueblo. It had been harder than we’d expected since she hadn’t been in any of the feminine haunts, taking over an hour to track her. To a fucking saloon.
We stood a few feet inside the entry and watched as our wife, with the hair the prettiest shade of red I’d ever seen, won a hand of poker against not two men or even three, but five. I could see a royal flush spread out in front of her. She was gambling in a saloon, and winning. She leaned forward and swiped her forearm across the scarred table, collecting her winnings and sliding them into a reticule that dangled heavily from her wrist. The way it sagged, I could only imagine what she already had in there.
“That’s your wife,” I muttered, elbowing Spur in the side. He was the one legally married to her through the mail order bride company. I was the one who was legally wed to her through the recent law in Slate Springs that said two men could marry one woman, so she was mine, too, by proxy.
We knew nothing about her other than her name, she was from Kansas and that she was to arrive today on the afternoon stage. Perhaps the man who ran the mail order bride service left out the rest intentionally.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Spur smile as he watched her. I watched the unhappy man who sat across from her. Based on the way his face was turning a mottled red and his body shook with rage, he was going to do something stupid, and to our wife.
“I’m not losing to a woman!” He stood up and pointed at her. Yup, while Spur was a doctor and used to reading people for his profession, I’d learned quite a bit through my business dealings. This man, though, wasn’t very subtle.
The winnings were tidily away in her little ladies’ bag and she had her hands primly folded in her lap.
Prim. Ha! We were in a fucking saloon, not church.
