The Stagecoach Bride Read online

  “Now see here,” their gunman called out, “you can’t do that. Mr. Gray’s expectin’ her and there will be hell to pay.”

  “I expect so,” the man beside her said, mirth in his tone. “We’re counting on it.”

  She glanced from the gunman to her abductor. “What do you mean by that?”

  Ignoring her question once again, the man lifted her as if she were no lighter than a feather and settled her on the saddle. For a moment she teetered, grabbing the saddle horn for balance, not that the man’s hold on her loosened until she was settled firmly on the saddle.

  With one hand he touched her right leg, and she kicked him, unbalancing herself. He grunted, the only sign that she’d hurt him. His hands returned to her waist, keeping her from falling off backward.

  “You have no right to touch me so intimately,” she hissed. Oh of all the liberties this man was taking with her person!

  Keeping a steadying hand on her waist, he touched her leg again. “Put your right leg over the saddle horn, cikala wiwayaka. It’ll keep you from falling off.”

  Gritting her teeth, but not seeing any other choice, she obeyed. He instantly removed his hands from her and mounted the horse in one fluid movement, evidence that he was accustomed to riding it.

  She briefly noticed the way his body conformed to hers, cradling her, and her face grew warm. Tears of anger and shame stung her eyes. This was a disgrace. No man should be handling her like this. It just wasn’t right. She was a lady, not a whore.

  “No!” Maggie cried, trying to free herself from the man holding her. “You can’t do this! You can’t take an innocent woman and…and…”

  Lillian understood what she was saying. Neither of them knew what would happen, and quite frankly, they didn’t want to explore the possibilities.

  “Did you give them the letter?” her abductor called out as he shifted behind her and wrapped his arm around her waist.

  She grimaced, hating the close proximity of this situation but worrying it would only get worse once he had her at his place…wherever that was.

  One of the bandits nodded and gave an envelope to the driver who slowly took it.

  He pocketed the letter and looked at her abductor. “Don’t you hurt her!”

  “What reason would I have to hurt a woman?” he asked softly.

  The second bandit picked the guns off the ground and pointed them in the driver’s direction. “You make sure Charles gets that. If you don’t, she will be hurt.”

  The man holding her sighed and gestured to the luggage. “Which is yours, Uzizitka?”

  “Uh,” she swallowed back her tears, “the brown trunk.”

  “Get it and load it on the horse.” He gestured to the other three bandits. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Finally,” the second attacker grumbled. He grabbed the trunk and cursed, waving the younger one to him. “What you got in here?” he grumbled.

  The younger man laughed. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten how women pack.” They heaved the trunk on a horse and tied it on with the guns and rifles.

  She blinked back more tears, barely aware that the driver was calling out that the bandits wouldn’t get away with this. The bandit who’d been holding Maggie released her.

  Suddenly the attackers were hustling around to get on their horses, and before she knew it, they were galloping away from the stagecoach. The man kept a firm grip on her waist to keep her steady, and she was so scared of riding such a large beast that she held onto the saddle horn with all her strength. She didn’t have time to look back at the stagecoach. Whatever was going to happen, she just hoped she’d survive it.

  Chapter Two

  They topped the rise and Mic glanced at Abigail, or Abby as they affectionately called her, and nodded. With her height, coal blackened hair, dirty face, and oversized men’s clothing, she looked like a man if someone didn’t look too close. As long as she stayed quiet, kept her hat pulled down, and guns out, few people would see beyond the disguise.

  Abby grinned, breaking away from the group. They all knew their jobs and for the moment, Abby had done hers. Noah and Caleb followed her. They’d travel parallel to the coach until it made it safely to Laramie, protecting it from any more mishaps that might befall the driver and gunman without their guns to defend themselves. Then they’d circle around the town and enter from a different direction once Abby cleaned up and changed her duds for a dress.

  Mic couldn’t stop the grin from spreading across his face. Abby in a dress was the most humorous thing he’d seen in a very long time. She’d flat out refused to be seen in one during their younger years and hadn’t worn one, despite their mother’s nagging until a few months back. Of course, by then the need for her to be a woman in town was far more helpful than her helping around the ranch.

  The smile died on his lips. Abby and Caleb were, by far, safer on the ranch than in town, but the need to have eyes and ears in town was far more important at this point in their plan. It meant he had to stay focused, stay firm, and do a distasteful deed to keep his family alive. It meant he had to kidnap a woman and frighten her near-to-death so he could send a clear message to Mr. Charles Gray.

  He couldn’t afford to be sidetracked by the woman nearly sitting on his lap, her trembling body pressed so close to his own, and the gentle scent of her rose and honey perfume filling his nose. The woman had to be terrified and all he wanted to do was stroke her fire red hair and comfort her as he would his sister. He wanted to reassure her that she wouldn’t be hurt and everything would turn out all right.

  But he didn’t know if everything would turn out all right. He couldn’t say what Charles Gray would do when he found out the Nichols boys had stolen his precious mail-order bride. He only hoped he wouldn’t hurt the woman because of him.

  He tried to ignore the twinge of guilt that twisted in his gut and slowed his horse to a ground-eating canter. Jimmy Boy, nickered and pulled at the reins, wanting his head to race ahead of the others.

  The woman stiffened, drawing closer to him as Jimmy Boy’s movements threatened her precarious position on the saddle.

  Mic shoved aside the sudden warmth her actions created and reminded himself that she was a frightened woman who would probably gut him if given the chance.

  “How long am I going to be on this horse?” she asked, sniffing.

  He tightened his hold briefly, like he’d done with Abby in the old days to reassure her. Then, thinking it might make her feel better, he released the ties that bound her hands together. “We’re about a day’s ride from camp.”

  Wade’s gelding sidled up beside them and Wade jerked the bandana from his face. “Do we have to listen to her snivel the whole way? Can’t you gag her?”

  “Well, excuse me for being abducted,” she snapped, glaring at him. “If you take me back to the coach, I can be out of your hair. Then you can grunt and beat rocks together like the Neanderthal you are.”

  He groaned. “Another learned person. God must hate me.”

  “Another learned person? I’m sorry. Am I using words too big for you to understand? Me go to coach. You be happy.”

  Mic chuckled. The girl was a spitfire, able to hold her own despite her fear. “It’s all that sinning you did as a boy. He’s making you pay now,” Mic teased, pulling the bandana from his face.

  “So when’s he going to punish you for being a hellion?” Wade asked with a grin. “I seem to remember—”

  Mic shifted the girl’s weight and her hands scrambled on his arm as he leaned over and slapped his brother upside the head. “No telling tales.”

  The girl glanced between the two, her red eyebrows furrowed, although she didn’t say anything.

  Wade laughed. “Maybe our little prisoner wouldn’t look so comfortable sitting in your lap if she knew more about you.”

  Mic groaned. Wade had a big mouth and he had a feeling it was going to get him in trouble with the soon-to-be Mrs. Charles Gray. “I think she’d prefer my company to yours right now
.”

  She looked at him, a worried frown on her pretty face and he had the urge to smooth the furrow from her brow. “Neither one of you are gentlemen.”

  “Mic’s being the perfect example of a gentleman in this Territory. Besides, we all can’t be like the men back East. Weak men don’t survive here long.” Wade glanced at her, giving her the devilish grin Mic remembered from their childhood. It meant trouble. “For that matter, neither do weak women.”

  “So strong men go around kidnapping helpless women?” Her mocking tone dripped with a sarcasm that made Mic wince. “Real strength comes from within, not from a gun or by forcing your will upon another.”

  Wade’s face hardened and the tic beneath his eye pulsed. It was a bad sign and Mic guided Jimmy Boy away from his brother. “What do you know about anything? You’re a spoiled, highborn lady marrying a monster for money. Shut her up, Mic, or I will.”

  Wade’s gelding leapt forward, galloping over the ground at breakneck speed. The horse carrying the woman’s trunk was forced to follow over the rocky, sagebrush covered terrain toward the tree line and the mountains ahead.

  Mic worried about him and the horses. They couldn’t afford to lose either. Wade was a powder keg waiting to explode and he’d take everyone with him when it happened.

  “I hope he runs off a cliff,” she muttered.

  “He probably does too,” Mic said quietly. “You stay away from Wade, you hear?

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t know what he’d do to you and I promised you everything would be all right.”

  She hesitated but then said, “That’s the first question I’ve asked that you’ve answered.”

  “It’s the first one you’ve asked that I can tell you the answer to.”

  “Are you going to hurt me?”

  “No, Miss. My mama raised a better man than that.”

  And if she knew what he was doing now, she’d take the razor strap to his hide and then put him to work until he couldn’t move. Probably a good thing she wasn’t around to see what had become of her children. Outlaws, each and every one of them.

  “Where are we going?”

  He knew he shouldn’t tell her. If she ever escaped or Charles paid the ransom for her, she’d be able to lead the lawmen back to them, yet he couldn’t add to her fear. She was a gentle bred woman from back East if he guessed her accent right. Her clothes were well made and expensive. She wasn’t like the strong women who came out West with their husbands and helped carve out a home in this desolate place.

  He lowered his head beside hers, raising his arm to point. “See that ridge? There’s a homestead cabin that I’m taking you to.”

  “Will it be just…um…” She cleared her throat. “We won’t be alone, will we?”

  He turned his face away, hiding his smile. “Noah will come back when they know the coach arrived in town safely. Caleb won’t be back for a day or two with supplies and news. I’m sure Wade, in his anger, will beat us to the cabin, so it might be the two of us tonight.”

  “No women?” she asked, her voice raising several octaves in panic.

  “No women except you, Uzizitka,” he affirmed.

  She stiffened, pulling away from him and holding tighter to the saddle horn. Her pale, bloodless knuckles were almost blue through the lace gloves she wore.

  He sighed, wishing he could see her face and understand what was going through that mind of hers. Not that he would understand what he was seeing if he did. He’d never been very good at reading people. He could understand cattle and horses. He could read the changes in the seasons and the tracks on the ground. His world didn’t lie or cheat or kill without warning. Nature was truthful, brutal, and kind.

  It was better for them both if he keep his distance. If he remembered why he was doing this and didn’t allow himself to worry about a stranger. He had to remember, that no matter what atrocity he was being forced to carry out now, it was better that he be the monster than sensitive Noah or young Caleb. Neither boy should be tangled in this mess, yet Charles had dragged them all into a war that could only end in death. And now Mic was bringing another innocent with them.

  His stomach lurched at the thought and he prayed to God that he wasn’t destroying them all. That He’d look over the innocent in this coming fight. That if anyone should pay for their sins, that it would be Charles and himself.

  Tired of the long silence and his own thoughts, he shifted in the saddle. “What’s your name?”

  She brushed her cheeks, her gloves coming away wet. “I’m supposed to be Mrs. Charles Gray.”

  “But you aren’t yet, so what name do I call you?”

  They rode in silence, coming ever closer to the forest and his safe haven. He’d be home by noon tomorrow and there would be one more mouth to feed, one more person in his home.

  With another sniffle, she said, “Miss Christian.”

  He held out his hand. “My name’s Mic. It’s nice to meet you, even under the circumstances, Miss Christian.”

  He purposely left out his surname, knowing it was rude, but then she already thought him a brute so missing a few manners wouldn’t surprise her. The less she knew about him and his family, the safer she would be when this was done.

  She looked at his hand and shook her head. “I see no reason to get familiar with you.”

  He tugged on a lock of brilliant red hair trying to escape its pins, an action that annoyed Abby, who had the same hue of red, only lighter. “Manners, Miss Christian. I have no intention of being too familiar with you.”

  She swatted at his hand, almost losing her balance, and grabbed the saddle horn. “I should hope not! I’ve been born and bred a lady. Back in Virginia, I attended the finest school the state had. I’m not to be treated like a common whore. I hope you remember that tonight.”

  Mic laughed and loosened his hold on her waist now that she was steady. So that was what she was worried about. “You are a delight, Miss Christian, and I can promise you, no one will touch you in such a way.”

  With a glimmer of hope in her tone, she asked, “You won’t? And you’ll make sure no one else will?”

  “My dear, poor mama would rise from her grave if we even thought such a thing,” he said as they entered the forest. “Besides, Wade is very much in love with his wife, Caleb has an eye on a girl of his own, and Noah wouldn’t know what to do with a woman if he caught her. And I’m not saying he isn’t capable of catching the eyes of a girl or two.”

  “Give my sympathies to Wade’s wife. As for Noah, don’t tell him what to do with one.”

  Mic winced. The sharp pain of memory rising. He ruthlessly shoved it back and chuckled at the irony of her statement. “If I see Wade’s wife, I’ll let her know you sympathize for her.” He halted Jimmy Boy and swiftly dismounted. “And I have every intention of letting Noah figure it out himself. It’s much more amusing to watch a boy stumble around after a girl and win her affections.”

  Night would be coming soon and he wanted to have camp set up before then. He looked around for Wade but didn’t see him. He probably hadn’t stopped at the designated campsite and Mic couldn’t blame him. Miss Christian had landed an unintentionally hard blow to his brother’s ego. He was most likely sulking further up the mountain. At least Mic hoped so.

  He reached up and lifted the witty Miss Christian from the horse and set her on her feet, reluctant to release his hold on her. “We’ll camp here tonight. It’ll be dark soon and the ground is too treacherous to travel safely.” He untied the knots from her wrists, glad to see that although his brother had tied them a little too tight in his anger, it hadn’t been tight enough to cut off her circulation. “Don’t wander far from camp.”

  Miss Christian pulled her hands from his, tilting her head up to look at him. “Why not?”

  He tapped the tip of her nose. “While I might be a Neanderthal, Uzizitka, I’m not nearly as dangerous as the bears, mountain lions, wolves, Indians, and other cave-dwelling humans around here.”


  She scanned the trees surrounding the small clearing, her eyes resting longer on the ring of stones around a pit, and then moving on. “There can’t possibly be all those dangers out here. It looks like a peaceful area.”

  “City folk.” Mic laughed, turning to Jimmy Boy and unbuckled the saddle straps then pulled the tack from his back. “The nearest town is a few days walk. The nearest neighbor’s a half day ride.” He tied Jimmy Boy and started picking up kindling for a fire while he spoke. “The nearest Indian settlement is to the west of us, but their scouts like to hunt nearby. Cattle are easier prey than deer and buffalo.”

  She smoothed out her skirt. “Where will we go tomorrow?”

  “Further up the mountain. We’ll reach the cabin by noon.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then we wait for a response.”

  He knelt beside the fire pit, placing the pine needles, twigs, and larger sticks into a tepee shape. Pulling the kindling box and matches from his coat, he quickly had a fire burning merrily, and not a moment too soon. The world around them darkened and the temperature started to drop. A storm was coming.

  Taking what little he had from his saddlebags, he offered the newspaper-wrapped meal to Miss Christian: a hunk of bread, a chunk of cheese, and several slices of jerky strips. “Hungry?”

  She studied the contents for a moment before gingerly accepting it as if it would suddenly come alive and nip at her. She slowly peeled aside enough newspaper so he could examine the bread, poking at it and frowning. Then she sniffed the cheese and grimaced. After that, she picked up a piece of jerky and asked, “What’s this?”

  “Beef jerky.”

  “What’s beef jerky?” She appeared genuinely confused by the hard strip of beef.

  “Really? It’s a staple out here.”

  She shot him a pointed look. “Don’t take that tone with me. I never saw this thing before. I grew up in Virginia. We didn’t have,” she sniffed it, “beef jerky. What’s it made of?”