A Wicked Woman (Mail Order Bride of Slate Springs 3)

I didn’t move, barely breathed, wondering what she would do next. She just stared at my chest, unblinking. I wasn’t so grand in the head to think she found my body appealing. In fact, I doubt she saw anything at all, so lost as she was in her thoughts.

“It seems you knew little of Mr. Thomkins? No letters?”

She blinked, then looked up at Jed. “No. Nothing at all. I feel so poorly about this.”

I lifted my hand to pat her arm, then thought better of it. “Yes, it is hard to lose someone, especially a spouse.”

Her green eyes shifted to mine and she pushed her glasses back up. “That’s just it, Mr. Dare. I feel poorly because I don’t feel anything about Mr. Thomkins. While I am sorry to hear he has died, I don’t grieve him. I am also slightly relieved because I was married to a complete stranger. But I am now alone, with barely any money and no place to go. I am only thinking of myself when someone has died.”

“Please call me Jed and my brother Knox, otherwise you’ll be making us confused.”

When I nodded, he continued. “Your feelings are understandable and you do not have to explain yourself to us,” Jed offered. “We have a sister who made us more aware of the challenges women face. As for you, while you no longer have Mr. Thomkins as your groom and protector, please allow us to offer you our escort to Slate Springs.”

“And our protection,” I added.

She looked between us, her chin tilted back so she could see us fully. “I couldn’t do that. It would be unseemly.”

Probably taking off her gloves would be considered unseemly. Her coat was buttoned all the way to just beneath her chin. Not an inch of skin below the neck showed. Why then did I want to undo one button at a time and strip her bare, watch her face as every unseemly inch was exposed?

“I assure you, a journey to Slate Springs alone is not advisable,” I said. “The weather at the top of the pass could change at any moment. Snow falls even now, in July. Everyone in Jasper would agree not to make the trip alone, man or woman.”

“Do not fret. If your sensibilities are bothered, you will not stay with us in Slate Springs,” Jed added. “You will stay with our sister, Piper and her husb—”

Jed bit off the last word, for now was not the time to teach her about the special law of our town, that Piper had not one husband, but two. If either of us were going to court her, we needed her in Slate Springs to do it, not on the next stage back to Denver.

“You will stay with our sister,” I repeated, ending it there.

Jed held out his elbow in a very gentlemanly fashion and I picked up her bag. “We have completed our tasks here in Jasper,” he told her. “Shall we go?”

Miss Jamison eyed Jed’s arm, decided on what she should do. I eyed his arm, too, but for a completely different reason. We were trying for the same woman, a woman whose first name we didn’t even know. Just like we were nineteen again and eager for Samantha Perkins’ attentions. This woman wasn’t Samantha Perkins. Hell, no. This woman was so much more.

I was of the notion to toss her over my shoulder and take her to the nearest minister, but Jed was more patient. Prudent, too, for she took his elbow and they walked down the boardwalk toward our wagon. Damn him.

I didn’t like seeing her on Jed’s arm, but I did like watching the gentle sway of her hips and the ribbons I’d given her dangle from her gloved hand. This woman, she was going to be mine. She just didn’t know it yet.

CHAPTER THREE

Eve

I didn’t know what to think. I’d left the perfidy of my stepsisters behind. The further the train traveled from Clancy, the more I’d realized I could leave them behind as well. I didn’t have to live with them. I didn’t have to eat with them. I didn’t have to be taunted by them. I was free.

But, I was also alone. For a short time—the slip of paper in my pocket proved it—I’d been married to someone who’d actually wanted me. He hadn’t met me, but he’d sent for me, wed me. Then, he died. I’d never even laid eyes on the man and I was a widow. There had to be some kind of record for the shortest marriage in some book.

As I told the Dare brothers, I was ashamed of myself for not feeling something—anything—for Mr. Thomkins, but how could I? He was a stranger to me. And even more shameful were the thoughts I had for Mr. Dare. And Mr. Dare.

I was wedged between them on the wagon bench, their solid bodies keeping me from the rough ride up the mountain. I’d never been so close to a man before, let alone two. I had no idea their muscles could be so hard, so… corded.

We spoke of generalities on the journey; about the pass that closed in the winter, the rugged terrain, the way the trees stopped growing at a certain altitude, the silver found in the sides of the mountain. It was all fascinating to me, and they spoke of things my book did not mention. They’d shared that they’d only been come from Kansas a year ago and settled near their sister. They’d put in a mining claim and started their own venture. It seemed the two were full of aspirations and, based on the book I’d been reading, had strong backs. Well, I didn’t need the book to inform me of that last part. Just looking at them told me that.

I was glad they filled the three-hour journey with conversation, for my mind didn’t have time to linger on how warm they were, how I could feel every inch of their sides, how the scent of them made me almost woozy.

Why did I find these men appealing when no one had before? And why both of them? Something was definitely wrong with me. Perhaps shock over Mr. Thomkins’ untimely death. My heart beat frantically, then calmed, then skipped a beat when one of them glanced down at me. I was hot, then cold. My palms were sweating and I wasn’t going to think about how my nipples had turned hard and began to ache. That was something new.

“Oh, good, you’re here,” Jed said to the redheaded woman who’d come out onto the porch of a two-story white house at our arrival.

“Where else would I be?” she asked, hands on hips, eyebrow raised.

Knox climbed down from the wagon. “Saloon, perhaps?”