I held his gaze. The wind shrieked through the switchgrass and shook the boundary fence. “I’m not something to be owned.”
“Course not.”
He angled his shoulders one pulse closer. “I do apologize that I wasn’t clear.” The vibrations of his deep voice rumbled against my bodice. “But I want to be with you.”
He told me he’d bought the ticket a while ago, had planned to ride up at the first blush of spring to propose. All winter he’d felt conflicted, between his sense of duty to Clara and his growing feelings for me. Then, after the storm, he knew he couldn’t let me go. He supposed, if another woman was about his claim, perhaps Clara wouldn’t deem it improper to move down without nuptials, that perhaps we could create a haphazard family linked between our homesteads. He’d been mulling over how to pitch the notion to Clara when, the day before last, a letter arrived from her. She’d met someone. Clara, her four daughters, and her new husband inquired if they could journey south, if perhaps Stot would help them settle.
“After the ice storm, I assumed my intentions were straightforward.” He bit his lip, his brows drawn. “I construed your discomfort as feeling unready to discuss a future with me. But I should’ve clarified that I no longer intend to propose to Clara. I reasoned they could make a home in my shack, and I—”
He trailed off. “You’d live where?” I asked.
“We can consider that, perhaps another time.” He was flushed, his nose red. “But you know I welcome old traditions.”
He untangled my curls from where they’d caught in my cape. “You’ve been pulling away because of Clara?”
I settled my hands on his hips, beside his gun belt. “Of course.”
He shook his head, said he couldn’t believe he hadn’t recognized that.
“You’re not marrying Clara this spring?”
“I am not.” He drew me to him, and I felt on pause, rewriting all that had happened these past days.
“Can we stop talking about my brother’s widow,” he said, “so I can kiss you?”
I bit my lip, warmth foaming up. He wasn’t beholden to another woman. I studied the way his waistcoat strained across his chest, and my heart took a wide breath. Then I leaned forward and kissed him.
It was gentle and curious, honest in a way our previous kisses had not been. And just as swift as my fury had raged, I quieted. I wrapped my arms behind his neck and pulled him closer. He tasted of salt and whiskey. His hands gripping my blouse, his mouth slow and thorough. As if he wanted to take the time to learn me. Then, all a’sudden, I was pressed against the barn wall, panting, his palms all over my body, my hands slipping beneath his shirt, leftover ice crackling above, hot in the swell of his cloak, the air scenting of all my favorite parts of the Wild West: warm leather, weapon oil, fresh grass. He kissed me until there was nothing left.
He spoke against my collarbone, his mouth roaming up my neck. “To be clear—are we still taking it slow?”
His mouth returned to mine, and I grazed my teeth along his lip. “Probably?”
I pulled away, straightened the knot of his bandanna. His hands brushed my sides, his expression thoughtful, cheekbones windburnt and dusted with cold. Knowing Stot, he’d want an orthodox relationship—marriage, children, forever. Growing up, I’d always assumed I’d wed, but I’d lost ahold of those notions a while ago. I didn’t know what I wanted now and hadn’t had a moment to consider a future with Stot. I always raced reckless and blustery, but for once I wanted to make a choice I was proud of. So it seemed wise to allow some time to let myself settle. I kissed him in the middle of his throat, somewhere vulnerable, and he clenched the fabric along my back.
“I want to be with you,” I said, my mouth on his skin, “but perhaps—just grant me some time to envision it all.”
Lamplight glinted on the gold-hued bullets in his bandolier; the barn’s wood planks bruised a ridge up my spine. He kissed me, long and aching, savoring, then stepped back. “Well, permit me to follow you on home.”
We led our horses outside and rushed on, the dark sky above a whorl of stars. Now that he wasn’t intended for another, an immense gap opened inside. I felt on the edge of a precipice, just as adrift as I’d been a year earlier. ButmarryStot? What lunacy, for two wild souls to try at making something traditional.
I teetered between hope and disquiet, feeling as if my story kept cycling, the narrative shuffling too fast between possibility and despair. I couldn’t quite grasp ahold of all the pieces. Marriage seemed dizzying but, at the same time, the most natural thing. After staking claim, I assumed I’d just live out my days alone on my stretch of prairie. I hadn’t expected to go falling for some cowboy.
Chapter Forty-Two
The midnight hours were swollen with shadowy dreams and screeching sounds. I slept fitfully, hot and then too cold, blankets tangled round my ankles, Winchester clutched to my chest—a habit since confessing at the saloon. I woke with a headache grating across my brow and a hunger for coffee: hot and black. I shoved out my door—and stumbled back, knocking my shins against a steel pail. Against my porch’s wooden pillar an old bowie knife cleaved into a stack of papers. Terror shot across my shoulders and quaked up my neck. I yanked my pistol from my holster—scanned the timberline.
After a moment, I exhaled. I was alone.
But the size of it: Someone had been on my porch during the dark of night, and I’d heard nothing. I ripped the knife from the wood and unfolded the newsprint. Between all the words was a graphite sketch of a woman with features an exaggeration of my own, with elegant black eyebrows and menswear like Cattle Annie, the portrait labeledThe Famed Minnie L. Hoopes of Grant County.
Notice—Bloodshed solved. Word has reached here that the two slain cowboys of the Wild Bunch were sent to their maker in self-defense by Minnie L. Hoopes of Grant County. Col. Archibald Williamsoverheard the tale at Duke’s Saloon in Wakita last night. “The lady held the entire saloon enthralled,” Col. Williams recounts. “Them cowboys were god-awful bandits, preying on the chastity of our women. None in that room had a dry eye, everyone commending Miss Hoopes for her courage.”
I didn’t recall such an event, fearing that I’d be shot in the back. But folks apparently believed me, had reshaped my harrowing tale into something sensational. The story spreading across the territory wasn’t quite truth, but it seemed my friends and I were safe from vigilante law. I slipped the newsprint into my pocket. A skein of geese lofted into the sky, their throaty sqwacks sharp in the hush. Who’d leave such a thing below my shake-shingles, with a knife whacked into my post?
I picked at a scab on my wrist, gaze unfocusing on the middle distance. On the oak slats underfoot, a scrap of rag paper curled in the breeze. The paper lifted, as if to blow away—but I caught it, gripped the note between both hands, black ink on buff-colored paper.We won’t stop watching you, Miss Hoopes. And lay off being so high and mighty. It’s irritating.
Terror sank into my bones. My wrists ached, clutching the letter. The message was clear: The outlaws retained power. The Wild Bunch could drop me anytime they wanted: in the dark of night, during the daylight hours, whenever I lowered my guard.
