Wanton in the Wild West Read Free

Maisie
squeezed Amber’s arm. “What on earth was all that about?”
    “What?”
    “You know what!” she exclaimed.
“You’ll destroy your reputation behaving like that in a public place, ya know!”
    “I fell asleep!” Amber was hurt
that Maisie would think that she had faked her fall. “Then I felt faint. I
didn’t do that deliberately!” Her throat tightened, and tears pricked at the
corners of her eyes. Everything was so confusing and so contradictory in this
life. People could be good and bad. It was okay to want some things but not
others. Men were allowed to behave as they liked, but women were condemned for
similar behavior. Was there ever a truly right way to think, feel, or act?
    The heat in the carriage was
suddenly oppressive and unendurable.
    “I have to get out of here!”
Amber rose and picked up her reticule and fan from the floor where she’d
dropped them as she fell, then moved towards the aisle.
    “Where’d ya think you’re going, Miss Carpenter?”
    “I need some air.” Amber
lifted her chin and swallowed hard, cursing the emotion that threatened to overwhelm
her. She tugged at her jacket irritably.
    “I could take some air.” Harry
nodded. “What about you, Miss Bennett?” He reached out a hand to Maisie.
    “No, thank you.” Maisie
shook her head. “I’m fine right here.”
    “But shouldn’t you come
along with Miss Carpenter?” Harry paused. “For propriety’s
sake?”
    Maisie looked at Amber, and
Amber scowled back. Her friend was such a hypocrite. All that
stuff and nonsense about staying pure for a husband. Where did it get
you? If you were lucky, you got wed to a kindly gent who’d make you a nice home
and not get drunk every night at the saloon with the whores. If not … the
alternative made her shudder.
    Nope. Getting wed was not
high on her agenda, and even though she knew that it was that or life as an old
maid, she really wanted to focus on living and experiencing here and now. She’d
seen what had happened to her mother at the hands of her husband, and no man
was going to rule her like that.
    Not ever.
    She’d have her fun and give
her heart to no man.
    “It’s fine!” Amber said. “I’ll
not go far!”
    With that she flounced along
the carriage and towards the door where a grimy looking cowboy was handing the
women down onto the side of the track.
    Amber nodded her thanks at
the cowboy then began marching away from the train. She was so mad she could
pop! Maisie was her good friend and she cared about her deeply, but at times
she found her infuriating. If Maisie didn’t take care she’d fall into the arms
of the first man to propose to her, and if she got really unlucky, he’d be a
wastrel who’d break her heart.
    Love and
devotion. Hell, marriage was for
fools! Why shouldn’t she just throw caution to the wind and have some fun?
    Her Granny’s voice nagged at
the back of her mind, warning her about why not. Fun was what had gotten her mother
into the family way by a married man, her own daddy. He’d denied all
responsibility, and when Amber had been born, her mother had rushed into
marriage to the first man who’d have her. It had been a big mistake. She had
fallen head over heels for the rich prospector who’d seemed fine and dandy. A
regular hero he’d been, taking on a wanton woman with a bastard child.
    At first. But he’d been hiding a darkness of his own. He’d
enjoyed beating her mother and hurting her in the most awful ways. Amber could
still hear her muffled cries of pain. The cries her mother had struggled in
vain to keep from her little girl. They haunted Amber’s dreams, never far away.
It fired her determination to stay single, to stay away from love.
    Yet there lay her major
contradiction. For she did want to be with a man, to enjoy
the pleasures of the flesh. Though she’d vowed to avoid loving a man,
she hadn’t vowed to avoid lying with one. She knew that a woman had to be
careful about conceiving and all that. Her Granny