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“We seem to like a wild, feisty, impetuous redhead,” Spur murmured, his gaze raking over my face, my lips, my body.
“So you took her place,” Lane guessed, obviously not wishing to change the direction of the conversation.
I nodded. “I knew these two would follow me.” I pointed my thumb over my shoulder and pursed my lips. “When I found her… gone, I was to be off the stage at the next stop. I only had a few coins left and knew my brothers would find me. A failure.”
A hand on my shoulder spun me about. Knox bent at the waist to meet my eyes.
“A failure? Hell, Piper, you’re not a failure.”
“What would you have done when you found me in tiny Lamar, Colorado? No money, no place to live.”
“Taken you home,” he answered without hesitation.
“And then what?” I wondered. “Kept an even closer watch on me so I didn’t do anything so impetuous again? Like I said, a man could strike out on his own, so why not me?”
“The opportunity to become a mail order bride literally fell in your lap,” Spur said.
I glanced his way, nodded. “I didn’t want Patricia to die. I liked her, at least for the few days I knew her. But it was my chance to take control of my life, just as she had been doing. While I hadn’t known who I was to marry, neither did Patricia. Being a mail order bride is a woman’s choice for change, and I took it. See how far I made it on my own?”
Knox grabbed me and pulled me in for a hug. “You did good, Sis. I’m proud of you.”
A mixture of relief and sadness washed over me. “You are?”
His big hand patted my back. “You took opportunities that were presented to you. Glad you had your gun with you. You kept your head and when these bastards fucked up, you kept your heart, too.”
“Damn right,” Jed added.
“But now that Lane explained himself and you’ve told us why you’ve been impersonating someone else, you need to face the consequences of your actions,” Knox said.
I pushed out of his arms. “I’m not going back to Wichita with you.”
Both Knox and Jed shook their heads. “No. You’re marrying them. This time with witnesses. Us and God.”
Jed pointed to the church set back from the boardwalk. In my anger earlier—and being upside down—I hadn’t noticed where Lane had taken me.
I turned once again to face Lane and Spur.
“You still want me?”
Both men nodded.
“We wanted you from the second you shot a hole in that man’s hat in Pueblo. We knew what we were getting from the start. We just didn’t know who. But we won’t touch you again until this is fixed, until you’re legally ours.” Lane reached out to tuck a curl behind my ear, then realized he was contradicting his words and dropped his hand away. “You want our touch, don’t you, precious?”
“That’s my sister, Haskins,” Jed warned.
Lane kept his eyes on me, but barked at my brother. “Yeah? She’s my wife. If you don’t want to know how much I want to fill her with my cock, then you’d better wait inside the church with the minister.”
I blushed hotly. It was one thing for my brothers to know I’d been with Spur and Lane, another for it to be talked about so plainly.
“How do we know you won’t toss her over your shoulder and carry her away?”
Lane rolled his eyes, but Spur spoke.
“Don’t question our honor.” His voice was as sharp as I’d ever heard it, his eyes narrowed and his hands clenched in fists. “We’ve been over this time and again on the ride up from Jasper. What we did with Piper was—we thought—under the sanctity of marriage. We won’t touch her again until she’s legally ours. But while you might not care if she’s dragged to the altar, we do. She might have been a mail order bride the first time, wed sight unseen. This time it’s different. Everything’s different. Except for how we feel about Piper. How we treat her. Respect her.” He walked right up to Jed, got directly in front of him. If one of them leaned in, they’d be kissing. “Now fuck off.”
I heard my brothers grumble as they walked up the path to the church.
Spur turned to face me, the harsh lines of his face softening immediately. “You’re marrying us, Piper.”
