Shotgun Bride Read Free

he told Emmeline. “I’d be glad to borrow a buckboard from Old Billy and drive you out there.” He was always trying to charm the women, Jeb was, and it didn’t seem to matter much if they belonged to somebody else. Kade set his jaw briefly, biting down on a string of words better left unsaid.
    “Like you did the first day I came here,” Emmeline reminisced, with a little laugh that did a lot to raise Kade’s flagging spirits. She shook her head, probably reflecting on the memory of arriving in the Arizona Territory, believing herself well and truly married to a man who’d just rolled through the doors of the Bloody Basin Saloon to land at her feet. Her introduction to Rafe had been an eye-opener, even by Western standards. “I remember wishing I’d signed on to marry you instead of your brother.”
    “That,” Jeb said, with one of those crooked grins of his, “was your common sense talking.”
    Just then, a clamor arose in the street, horses’ hooves clattering on the hard ground, saddle leather creaking, men calling to each other in raised voices.
    “There he is now,” Emmeline said, but even without her saying so, just by the way she leaped from her chair with her face all pink and shining, Kade would have known that Rafe had arrived. He felt a sore yen to have a woman light up that way for him and despaired of its ever happening.
    Rafe strode right into the hotel, just as if he owned the place, bringing the frigid, snow-flecked wind and nine or ten rambunctious, spur-jangling range hands right along with him. When Rafe entered a room, it always felt as if the ceiling had dropped and the walls had sucked in like the sides of an empty bellows.
    “Well,” he said, towering in the doorway and jerking off his work gloves one finger at a time, “if it isn’t my little brothers, home from the far country. Kill the fatted calf.”

Chapter 2
     
     
    M andy Sperrin sneaked through the hotel kitchen, having avoided the dining room entirely, and took refuge in the alley beyond. Oblivious to the snow and the cold searing her flesh even through the heavy woolen habit she wore, she stood absolutely still, with her back pressed to the wall of the general store, one hand to her chest. Her heart thundered like a herd of runaway horses.
    She was sure Kade McKettrick didn’t remember her from that night five years ago down in Cave Creek, which both troubled and relieved her, but he’d given her a curious glance or two just the same. Doubtless, it was only because of the nun suit, she thought, grasping at straws. Next time she needed a disguise, she’d darn well pick a garment that didn’t draw so much notice. Or itch like something off the floor of an abandoned teepee.
    One moment, she was standing there, hiding out and battling the urge to scratch, and the next, she was pinned to the clapboard wall, nearly choking, with an icy rifle barrel pressed lengthwise across her throat. She scrambled onto her tiptoes and pushed with both hands to free herself, but it was no good.
    Blinking with fear and breathlessness, she stared into Gig Curry’s furious eyes. Curry would have been her stepfather, if he’d ever taken the trouble to marry her mother, though he never hesitated to claim the title if he saw any benefit in it. The old emotions rose up in her, bitter and violent but at the same time sustaining. Her blood burned like kerosene in her veins.
    Slowly, degree by degree, Curry relaxed the pressure of the rifle, allowing Mandy to drop to her heels and draw a desperately needed breath. Curry was a thin man, not particularly tall, but full of rangy strength, and he’d been born pissed.
    “Well, now,” Gig crooned, his face so close to Mandy’s that she felt a splash of spittle as he spoke, “so here’s where she’s been hiding, our own little Sister Mandy.” He paused to shake his head. “Now, that’s funny, you posing as a nun. That’s downright hilarious.”
    Mandy closed her eyes for a moment in a