The Gunman's Bride

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As he spoke, he slipped his fingers through the bun she had so carefully knotted that morning. Oh, how she tingled at his touch! The desert in her heart came to life for the first time in six years, and Rosie closed her eyes as a powerful yearning washed through her.

When he drew her closer, she sighed and moved against him. But she remembered too well the pain a broken heart could bring. At the sudden realization of her peril, her eyes flew open.

“Bart, you’d better leave,” she breathed out. “Just go!”

“Rosie?” Confusion darkened his eyes.

“I—I have to work the early shift tomorrow.”

“I’ve scared you, haven’t I?”

“I’ll be tired if I don’t get a good night’s sleep. You ought to head out while the moon’s up.”

She looked into his face. She longed for this man and she loathed him. She feared the feelings he evoked in her, and she craved them. She hungered for his touch, yet the thought of it terrified her.

“Goodbye, Bart.” She forced the words out. “It was good to see you again, and I sure hope your wound heals up.”

Before he could see the quiver in her lower lip, she turned away from him and hurried to the hook where her aprons hung.

Chapter Five

Bart studied Rosie in the lamp’s glow. With shaking fingers, she fumbled to release the buttons on her bib. Unable to watch her in such distress, he stepped behind her and set his hands on her shoulders.

“Rosie,” he murmured against her ear. “Rosie, I don’t mean to upset you. I just want you to know that a day hasn’t gone by without my thoughts going over and over those times we spent together. I want you to understand how I felt while we were apart. Rosie?”

His hands circled her waist and he turned her to face him. Her fingers kept working at the bib buttons as she trained her focus on her uniform.

“You’re all atremble,” Bart whispered as he covered her hands with his own and began sliding each tiny button out of its hole. “Did I ever tell you how crazy I am about your ankles, Rosie?” he asked.

As he let the bib fall, she shook her head. “My ankles?”

“When you were fifteen, you used to take off your stockings and wade in the swimming hole. You were so prim, but seeing you that way just about killed me.” His focus lifted to her face. “Once you slipped on a mossy rock and fell in the water, remember?”

She shook her head and shrugged. “Anyhow, I bought you a shirt today. I decided against a collar. They cost twenty cents each.”

“I remember everything about us. You’ve changed a lot in six years. You’re more beautiful than ever. I’ve been half loco missing you, girl.”

He wouldn’t hurt or frighten his Rosie for anything in the world. But he couldn’t abide the thought of leaving without saying the things he’d needed to say for six long years.

Even though she had told him to go away, she was having trouble meeting his eyes. In spite of what she said, maybe she had missed him just a little, and maybe she’d thought about him now and then. But she was still trembling and her hands were locked behind her back as though they’d been handcuffed. Was he scaring her?

“Rosie,” he whispered. Her eyes, dark brown and liquid, focused on him at last. “Rosie-girl, will you put your arms around me the way you used to? Will you hold me just once before I go?”

“Oh, Bart, I can’t.”

“Because your pappy made you promise to marry another man? Or do you love your rich Dr. Lowell? Is that what holds you back?”

“Bart, it’s not like you think. I don’t love him and I don’t want to be attached to a man again. Not ever.”

“How come?”

She squared her shoulders. “You might as well know I can’t have children, Bart. After you left me, I was sick a long time. Months and months. I couldn’t eat, I didn’t sleep much at all. My normal functions…well, everything stopped working right. My father took me to several doctors, friends he trusted, and they said I was barren. All of them agreed I’ll be childless. Since having children is the only reason I can think of for…for going through all that rigmarole, I’ve decided to be a spinster for the rest of my life.”

He couldn’t hide a grin. “Rigmarole?”

“You know very well what I mean.” Pulling out of his arms, she walked across her room, sat on the edge of her bed and began unlacing her boots. “As far as I’m concerned, God made beds for sleeping in, and I don’t intend to put my arms around you or anyone else.”

Bart hunkered down on one knee beside her. Taking her blistered foot, he set it on his thigh and began rubbing her reddened heel and each sore toe. It bothered him that Rosie had spent time with another man. But it bothered him a lot more to realize that maybe he himself had killed the spark he had once loved so much.

Maybe not quite killed it. Squelched it.

“Rosie, you reckon I could get a job here in Raton?”

“Not a chance. The sheriff would recognize you. He said he saw you before he shot you.”

“How well could he see me in the dark?”

“Well enough to shoot you again.”

“What if I wore that new shirt you gave me? Would you cut my hair, Rosie?”

She shivered. “It wouldn’t do you a bit of good. Your skin is as brown as a berry, Bart. The sheriff said he’d be on the lookout for a man with a face like yours.”

“Would you cut my hair anyway, Rosie? I want to give the straight life a chance.”

“But here in Raton? Why, Bart?”

Raising his head, he covered her fingers with his big hands. “Once upon a time, all it took was a few harsh words to send me scampering. But I’ve changed in six years. I learned to do things. If I set out to break a horse, I’ll have him gentle as a kitten in no time flat. If I aim to rob a train, I’ll rob it plumb dry.”

“Bart!”

“That’s the facts. I came to Raton to find you and make a new life. So if you’ll give me a haircut, darlin’, I’ll get on with it.”

As she combed and snipped away at Bart’s coal-black mane, Rosie berated herself over and over again. Crazy. She was just crazy, that’s all! She should have sent him off long ago. Instead, she’d let him hold her hand, whisper in her ear, rub her foot. And now she was actually cutting the man’s hair so he could stay in Raton and make her miserable!

“Reckon there’s any chance I could pass for a gentleman dandy just off the train from Chicago?” He studied himself in her silver hand mirror.

“Bart, you look just like what you are—an outlaw. A big, brawny gunslinger.”

“I’d better leave my six-shooter and holster with you.”

“Don’t you dare! Bad enough I have to hide a bloody rug and a pile of chopped-off black hair.”

He chuckled. “You’ve done me a good turn, Rosie. Much as my side still hurts, I wouldn’t have made it this far without your kindness.”

Softening, she ran her brush through his hair. Now that it stopped just above his collar, she could see the tremendous breadth of his shoulders. “In spite of the haircut, you still look like an Apache to me.”

“Does my blood make a difference to you now, Rosie?”

“I always told you to be proud of who you are, Bart. It’s what’s inside a man—what he chooses to do with himself—that makes him who he is.”

“And I chose to be an outlaw. I’m a no-good half-breed outlaw.”

Rosie stepped around his chair. As she gazed into his green eyes, she saw that he had become the little boy again, wounded by the cruelty of others. “When I knew you on the farm, you never hurt anything. What happened to you? What changed you?”

He stood suddenly. “Aw, why does it matter anyhow? I can’t turn back time. I’ve dug myself a grave and I’m just one foot out of it. All my life I’ve been searching for something, but I don’t know what. The only thing I’m sure of, Rosie, is that when I’m near you, I’m close to the answer.”

“Oh, Bart, I can’t mean so much to you! I have to get on with my own life and find what I’m searching for.”