Dorothy Garlock - [Wyoming Frontier] (26 page)

“Thanks, but no,” Pack said firmly. “Cullen’s as much your brother as I am. I’ll not ask you to go against him. I’ll take care of Cullen, but I’ll need you to stay here in the house and take care of my . . . sweet wife.”

Much to Mara’s embarrassment, he had moved her hair aside and his lips were making little forays down the side of her neck. She all but bared her teeth and snarled. “Stop that!”

Pack laughed softly. “Don’t be skittish, honey. The boys don’t mind if I give my woman a little lovin’. You’re just so pretty and soft and sweet-tempered, it’s hard for me to keep my hands off you.”

“I’ll get even with you,” she murmured between clenched teeth.

“What’d you say, darlin’?”

“You heard me, you—you—jackass!”

Pack laughed with his lips against her neck.

“She’s a hell of a lot prettier than that Candy woman at the Diamond Saloon.” Travor chortled happily, and Mara suddenly hated him, hated Trellis, and most of all hated Pack Gallagher.

“I don’t know about her being prettier, Trav.” The fingers on her rib cage spread and Pack’s thumb rubbed back and forth across the underside of her breast. “For sure, she’s plumper, but she’s not as loving as Candy,” he murmured. “I liked blondes best till just lately. Now I
think
I like redheads better. But then, blond women don’t have freckles on their bottoms like redheaded women.”

Pack’s lips were fastened to the skin of her neck below her ear and Mara could feel little sucking movements. She was shamed to the bone, to the heart. What he was doing could be a beautiful thing between a man and a woman, but he was doing it now to mock her. She would scream if she stayed on his lap a second longer.

Her arms were locked against her sides, but her hands were free. She wanted to hurt him and hurt him! She lowered her hand down to his thigh, slipped it behind her, and viciously pinched him where he had received the bullet wound.

“Yeow! Goddamn it, you little devil.”

His arms loosened. She sprang to her feet and backed away. Just for an instant she regretted the vicious pinch. Then she looked into a face flushed with anger and knew that she would do it again if she had to.

“What’s the matter . . . dear?” she asked in a breathless voice filled with exaggerated concern.

“You know damn good and well what’s the matter, you little imp of satan! If you broke open that wound I’m going to whip your hind end.”

“Oh, dear. I’m sorry if I accidentally hurt you.”

“Accidentally, my—”

The last word was mouthed, but Mara was pretty sure she knew what it was. She lifted her reddish brown brows, opened her emerald eyes wide with playacting horror, and stared into his fiery dark ones. Her manner was light, but her thoughts were heavy. It was best to set the rules right now. If he tried to manhandle her again, he’d get a poke in the eye with a stiffened forefinger for his trouble. If that didn’t work, he’d get a fist in the gut. She was fully prepared to do what was necessary to see that he kept his distance.

“Gosh, I just can’t believe you and Mara Shannon are married.” Totally unconcerned, Trellis propped his elbows on the table and rested his chin in his hands.

“That makes two of us,” Pack growled, and threw Mara a dark look.

“Three,” Mara said with a bright smile. “Are you boys hungry now?”

“Sure.” They both spoke at the same time.

While Mara was setting the food left over from the noon meal on the table, Travor hesitantly asked about his father.

“What about Pa, Mara Shannon?”

“Cousin Aubrey has a home here for as long as he wants it. Heavens! Did you think I’d turn my father’s cousin out after he worked this place and paid for my schooling?”

“God save us from a stupid woman!” Pack snorted and rolled his eyes to the ceiling.

The words didn’t even rate a glance from Mara.

“I’m glad you’re not going to run him off,” Travor said.

“He’s worried about it,” Trellis echoed.

“Tell him not to worry. I haven’t fully decided what I’m going to do yet, but there will be room here for him.”

“So
you
haven’t fully decided what
you’ll
do?” Pack snarled. “I know what
you’ll
do.
You’ll
tell Aubrey McCall that he can have a bed in the bunkhouse if he works for it. There’ll be no dead wood on this place from here on out.”

Mara dismissed him with a haughty stare, then spoke to the twins.

“We have almost two thousand acres here and it’s all paid for. Of course, half of it is Pack’s. We’ve got to think of a way to make a living on the other thousand. It’s not suitable for vast fields of potatoes as my father dreamed, but there are other things we can do with land besides growing potatoes.”

It was killing Pack to hold back the cutting words that sprang to his lips. The fiesty little baggage was showing her sharp edges. She was trying to provoke him into a shouting match so he’d come off looking bad to the twins.

“I heard fellers sayin’ this would be good sheep country. You could start a sheep ranch.” Trellis was getting warmed up to the conversation and the fact that Mara was including him and Travor in the planning.

“Oh, no, Trell. I can’t stand sheep. They stink to high heaven. Or is it goats that stink? Oh, well, I’m thinking very strongly about raising turkeys. They don’t stink at all.”

Three pairs of eyes turned to look at her, three mouths opened in awed silence, then three voices joined in a chorus. “Turkeys?”

“Jesus, my God! Are you daft?” Pack’s voice exploded in the hushed silence of disbelief.

“I’ve warned you about taking the Lord’s name in vain. Don’t do it again.” She spoke in her schoolmarm voice and set a pan of bread down on the table with unnecessary force to emphasize her demand.

“But, Mara Shannon, I don’t think turkeys are . . .” Trellis’ voice faded. His young face was a mask of disappointment and confusion.

“People in Denver are wild for a taste of tame meat. We could sell every turkey we raise.”

“How do you plan to get them there,
Mrs.
Gallagher?” There was an insulting tone in Pack’s voice that raised Mara’s hackles and made her more determined to speak calmly and rationally.

“Drive them,” she said as if he were an idiot for not knowing that was the logical way to move turkeys from one place to the other. “A few years ago a man and two boys, not as old as the twins, drove a flock of five hundred turkeys from Nebraska to Denver with the loss of only a few birds. The man said the birds ate grasshoppers along the way and roosted on and around the wagon loaded with corn at night. People lined up for blocks to buy the turkeys.” She looked down her nose at Pack, then took her place at the table. “Supply and demand. You should understand that. Didn’t you get your start selling cats to miners?”

“There’s a mite of difference between a twenty-five dollar cat and a two-bit turkey.”

“Who said my turkeys will go for two-bits?”

Pack slammed his fork beside his plate. “You’ll not be raising feed on this land for wolves, fox, wildcats—”

Mara held up her hand, palm out. “We will not discuss it now,” she said, her calmness in direct contrast to his agitated state.

Pack looked every bit the black Irishman as he glared at her. Finally he made a show of eating a few bites, then got up and refilled his coffee cup. He listened to Mara’s chatter as she told the boys that they could sleep in the front room that had been hers when she was a child. And that, if they were interested, in the evenings she would read to them or teach them to read and to write. The choice was theirs.

Travor sat in openmouthed admiration. Pack supposed he should be glad that his brothers had such a warm feeling for his new wife. But at that moment he was unable to be glad about anything. His leg hurt, Mara Shannon was acting as if he had the plague, he had the problem of what to do with his business in Laramie, and in the morning he faced the task of getting rid of Cullen and the petty thieves who had paid him to stay there.

Mara was telling the boys that she planned to wash the following day and that they were to leave their dirty clothes in a pile at the foot of the bed. Her voice was calm as if she had not a care in the world, but Pack knew she was as nervous as a cat on a tin roof. She pushed her loose, curly hair over her ear with shaking fingers. Five times in the next few minutes she made the same gesture, only there was no loose hair to brush away.

Pack didn’t speak until the boys were ready to leave the table.

“One of you will be responsible for keeping the woodbox filled and one the water bucket. In the morning both of you will help Mara Shannon fill the washtubs and the boiling pot. Later, after we’re settled in, we’ll sort out the rest of the chores. But first there’s fixing up to do.”

“We figured to help her.” Trellis picked up a fried pie and followed his brother to the door.

“Another thing,” Pack’s voice stopped them. “Not a word about me and Mara Shannon to anyone, hear?”

“Oh, shoot!” Travor said, coming back to pluck the last pie off the platter. “I was hopin’ to throw it at Cullen and see him have a fit.”

“Sorry to spoil your fun, but that’s the way it’ll be. The morning is time enough for them to be knowing. Bed down in the bunkhouse tonight. I want to be alone with my . . . bride.”

Mara’s heels scraped on the floor as she shot to her feet. She opened her mouth to protest but closed it when she saw the black scowl on Pack’s face and the way the twins had accepted the order. She turned to the workbench to hide her flaming face from Pack’s direct stare.

As soon as the door slammed behind the twins, Pack got up and went into the room where his mother had spent her last days. Now that he was alone, he allowed his shoulders to slump wearily. He was tired, but there were things to do, plans to make. He lit a lamp, then pulled a small, very old, wooden chest from under the bed. It had been painstakingly made with grooved ends and held together with pegs. The forged hinges were long and reached across the top and down the back of the box. His father had made the chest in Ireland, and it had held all of their meager possessions when they made the perilous trip to the New World. Pack took an iron key from a hiding place behind the bureau, unlocked the box, and lifted the lid.

As the familiar scent of rose petals wafted up, his lips tightened and he blinked his eyes to hold back the tears. He would always associate the scent with his mother. For as long as he could remember she had kept the letters his father had written to her in this box amid the rose petals. He had never read the letters, nor would he now. He gently moved the bundle aside and took out a packet of letters addressed to him. He sat back on his heels, removed a letter, and scanned it. When he was finished, he returned it to the envelope. He picked up a tintype of himself that he’d had made for his mother years before when he was no older than the twins. He looked so young. Where had the time gone? Pack locked the box and shoved it far back under the bed.

He lifted his holster and gun from the peg on the wall, picked up the rifle that stood in the corner, and brought them to the bunk. For the next half hour he cleaned and oiled the weapons. His hands worked automatically, allowing his thoughts to stray to Mara Shannon. It had cost the haughty little colleen dearly to ask him to take her as his wife. He was sure that it ate at her guts to have to admit that she needed him. It was almost a relief to have her say something snide to him during the meal. It gave him a reason to stay angry with her. Rage lashed at him now as he recalled her words to Emily and Charlie.
I bought him for half of my land.
He understood that the words were a salve for her pride, but nevertheless, someday she would eat those rash words.

His face hardened and his hands became still on the gun. He didn’t want to think about the cruel words they had thrown at each other because it hurt inside. Nor did he want to think about her sweetness or her response when he had held her and kissed her. When the preacher had pronounced them man and wife, he had felt for a brief moment that every sweet dream he had dreamed had come true. The elation was quickly dampened when she turned away from him and turned up her nose as if he were a necessary evil.

Pack’s gaze lifted from the gun to the doorway leading into the kitchen. His midnight eyes examined every inch of her proud body as she moved back and forth, hurrying he was sure, to finish the cleanup so she could escape to the room upstairs. She was alone and scared. She was his wife by her own choice, and she wasn’t sure whether or not he would insist on his marital rights. Her only defense against him was her sharp tongue. He still held the rifle in his hands, and his rough thumbs moved gently, caressingly over the polished stock. If only he could make her understand that he would never hurt her. If she only knew how gentle he would be.

She passed the doorway without a glance into the room. He heard her footsteps going up the stairs and the soft click as the door closed. Ah, sweet, scared little woman. If he wanted to go in, that closed door wouldn’t stop him.

*  *  *

Mara undressed in the dark, slipped her gown over her head and crawled into the bed as if the covers were some protection. She wrapped her arms about her body hoping to stop her shivering. This had been her wedding day. The day that should have been her most joyous day had been a nightmare. She and the man downstairs had been circling each other from the moment she brought him here, sniffing and fighting like two tomcats. Now she was married to him for life, because divorce was unthinkable and was granted only on rare occasions and only to the ones who could afford it. No, the vows she’d made today would hold until one of them died.

There was no way that she could ever go back to the old life now. The feeling of vulnerability and isolation swept over her, making her feel sick, making her heart feel like a stone in her chest. Slow tears slid from the corners of her eyes and into the auburn curls on her temples. She cried silently, and then a thought so terrifying came to her that she sat up in bed holding her hands to her cheeks.

What if Cullen killed Pack?