Cheyenne Wife

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“Then you’d better figure some other way to come up with the cash you owe us,” Sykes told her.

“There must be something else you can do,” Lily insisted. “Please, I can’t—”

“Get her a room close to the kitchen,” Becker suggested. “More convenient that way.”

“And I’ll put up a sign,” Sykes offered.

“Paint it red,” Becker advised.

“No!” Lily insisted.

“Don’t worry,” Fredericks said. “You’ll pay off your debts in a couple months’ time.”

“Listen to me.” Lily clenched her fists. “You can’t force me to do this.”

“Then how are you going to pay us?” Fredericks demanded, his voice growing angry. “Do you think you can just waltz in here with your high-handed Eastern ways, take everything at your pleasure, then leave like none of it happened? You’ll do as we say, and that’s that.”

Tears threatened, and Lily fought to gulp them down. “Please, there must be something else I can do.”

Fredericks gave her a hard look. “Listen up, Miss St. Claire, we’re—”

“I’ll settle her debts.”

The three men looked past Lily to the back of the trade room. Lily whirled, her hopes soaring, searching the crowd for the man who’d made the offer.

North Walker stepped forward, sparing not even a glance at Lily.

“I’ll trade you,” he said to Fredericks. “For her.”

Snickers rumbled from the men.

“Hmm…” Fredericks rubbed his chin thoughtfully. He glanced at Sykes, then at Becker.

“I guess we can hear him out,” Fredericks said with a casual shrug.

“All right by me,” Becker agreed.

North looked at Lily. “Go outside.”

She couldn’t move. She could barely think.

“Go outside,” he told her again, more harshly this time.

Lily’s temper flared. She’d had enough of men today—every single one of them. And she wanted to tell them all exactly what she thought of them, but decided it more prudent to keep her mouth shut for the moment.

She pushed her chin up, whirled and strode out of the room with all the dignity Madame DuBois had taught her, despite feeling the hot gaze of every man in the room on her back.

Outside, she eyed the gate and, for a moment, contemplated making a break for it. Right now with her anger up and her heart pounding, Lily thought she might actually hike all the way to Aunt Maribel’s home in Richmond—by sundown.

That foolish notion left a moment later when Jacob Tanner squeezed through the crowd in the trade room and walked over to her.

Embarrassment heated her cheeks. Jacob was a nice young man, and he’d been present for her humiliation. He looked as uncomfortable as she when he stopped next to her.

“They had no right, saying those things and talking to you the way they did,” Jacob said softly, nodding toward the trade room. “It ain’t right, but… Well, that’s the way it is around here.”

Lily nodded, comforted and mollified somewhat by his compassionate words.

“Why do people stay here, Jacob?” she asked. “Why do you stay?”

He gazed thoughtfully across the plaza. “Came out here a couple of years ago with my ma and pa, my sister. We all got sick. They died.”

“Oh, Jacob, that’s so sad,” Lily said, feeling a new kinship with him. “But why do you stay? Why don’t you go back home?”

“Got no home to go back to,” Jacob said with a shrug. “My pa sold our farm in Tennessee when he decided we needed to come out here.”

“Don’t you have any family back there?”

“Yes, some. But I haven’t heard nothing from them in so many years now—” Jacob stopped abruptly as North walked out of the trade room. “You take care now, Miss Lily,” he said, and hurried away.

“They can’t do this,” Lily insisted to North, her anger flaring again. “They can’t force me to stay under those—conditions. Where is the sheriff of this territory?”

“They’re the law around here,” North told her and jerked his chin toward the trade room. “They can do whatever they want.”

Her boiling anger cooled slightly because she knew he was right. Jacob had told her the same thing.

“Why are you helping me?” she asked North. “You heard what the other men said about me. I’m of no value to anyone here.”

He eased a little closer. “I think you’re perfect,” he said softly.

Her anger dissolved and an odd tingling took its place, deep inside Lily.

Then his gaze dropped to the hem of her dress and rose slowly, deliberately over her waist, lingered on her bosom, and finally rested on her face.

“For what I have in mind for you, Miss St. Claire,” he said, “you’re perfect.”

Chapter Five

She’d brought the fort to a complete standstill, it seemed.

An unnatural silence hung over the place as Lily crept through the alley and once more took her hiding place among the stacks of crates.

North had insisted she go to her quarters and remain there, but Lily had watched out the window and seen the men who had gathered in the trade room to witness her humiliation head toward the stable.

Now, every man in the fort, it seemed, stood in a loose circle, maintaining a discreet distance from Hiram Fredericks, Oliver Sykes, Sam Becker. And North, of course.

Once more, it seemed she was their entertainment.

With practiced ease, North dickered with the three men. Lily couldn’t hear their words, but she could tell by the frowns, head shakes and shrugs that negotiations were underway.

For her.

What would North offer in trade for her? Lily wondered as she watched. That beautiful stallion she’d seen him with in the corral? An item of greater value? Did North possess something that Fredericks and the other men would find acceptable in her stead? For a moment she supposed a woman should be flattered by all this attention. Under other circumstances, that might be true.

Watching North, she thought once again that he was rescuing her, saving her from a terrible fate. But Lily couldn’t work up any gratitude or compassion for him, not yet, anyway.

Not until she knew what he expected in return.

A murmur rose from the crowd gathered around the negotiators. Several of the men shook their heads—whether in amazement or dismay, Lily couldn’t tell. North clasped hands with Fredericks, then Sykes and Becker.

So, it was done.

Lily’s heart pounded a little harder as she watched North go into the corral, then disappear into the stable. The stallion. The finest example of horseflesh she’d seen at the fort—surely the most highly prized commodity in the territory. Is that what he’d traded? For her?

Then a snicker went through the crowd and several men laughed aloud as North led three horses from the stable, then out of the corral, and handed the lead ropes over to Fredericks.

Humiliation burned Lily’s cheeks like a hot brand, stealing her breath. Three old nags. Sway-back, heads hanging, hoofs dragging.

Worthless.

Which, apparently, was what North considered her.

Some of the men seemed to think so, too, because the chuckles continued.

“Hey, North,” one man called, “I still think you’re getting the worse end of this bargain.”

More laughter rose from the men as they drifted away; they would be talking about this for days.

North shook hands once more with Fredericks, Sykes and Becker. Apparently, they were pleased with the deal, and for that, Lily knew she should be grateful. Yet she’d never been so insulted in her life.

Three broken-down, worn-out horses? That’s all North had offered in trade for her? That’s all he believed she was worth?

When Becker led the horses back into the stable and Fredericks and Sykes headed to the trade room, Lily climbed down from the crates. She stomped over to North and blocked his path.

“That’s it?” she demanded, flinging her hand toward the stable.

North gazed at her, his brows pulled together.

“That’s what you think I’m worth?” she asked, once more gesturing with her hand.

He leaned his head slightly sideways, just looking at her.

“I know you speak English!” Lily declared. She pulled herself up a little taller. “In polite society, a gentleman answers a question posed by a lady.”

“This isn’t exactly polite society,” North told her. “And as you’ve already said, Miss St. Claire, I’m no gentleman.”

“Are you suggesting that I should have no expectation of civility from you?” Lily demanded.

North just looked at her. “Are you still speaking English?”

“Of course I am!” Lily reined in her runaway temper. Alienating him would do her no good.

She turned their conversation to a more pressing issue, though she could barely bring it up without blushing.

“I—I’d like to know what you…expect of me,” Lily said.

“I expect you to be what you are,” North told her, as if it should be obvious. “A white woman. That’s what I want. Now, pack your things. We’re leaving.”

“Leaving?” A cold chill swept up Lily’s spine. She drew back from him. The fort that had been so foreign, so frightening to her now seemed as if it were the safest of havens.

“Do you think you can order me around because you’ve paid my debt?” Lily asked indignantly. “As if I’m your property?”

North expression hardened. “If this doesn’t suit you, Miss St. Claire, I’m sure Fredericks is still willing to set you up in business.”

Lily flushed but refused to look away. “All right,” she admitted. “I do owe you for settling my debts. If you’ll just let me leave, I’ll go to my aunt’s home in Richmond. She’s very wealthy. She’ll arrange to send you your money immediately.”

“The only place you’re going is with me,” North told her. “And when I’m finished with you, I don’t care where you go.”

For a woman who’d talked nearly nonstop since the first time North had laid eyes on her, Lily hadn’t spoken a word to him—or anyone else—since she’d climbed into the wagon and left the fort.

Whoever had stolen her horses and her belongings had damaged the wagon considerably; he didn’t know for certain but strongly suspected the culprits were the three men who’d ridden into the fort with her, then taken off for Santa Fe the morning her father died.

North figured the thieves must have speculated—wrongly—that she would mount an effort to pursue them and recover her possessions, and damaging the wagon would prevent that.

He’d done minimal repairs and hitched up a team of his own horses to make the journey from the fort. Still, the wagon creaked and moaned with every turn of its wobbly wheels.

Lily sat huddled at the rear of the wagon, the torn canvas flapping in the breeze. He’d thought that she would sit up front beside him on the seat, but she hadn’t. North wasn’t sure why he’d expected her to, or why it bothered him that she hadn’t.

He wasn’t sure why many things about Lily troubled him.

Like the way she smelled. Fresh and clean. Flowers in a spring meadow after a rain shower. No other woman he’d ever known had smelled that way.