Plum Pudding Bride (7 page)

“Nonsense. Got places to see.” Arnie dug his spurs into the horse. The steed leapt forward, throwing Patience into Arnie's chest. Her head thudded against his rib cage.

“Hang on.” Arnie spurred the horse faster.

Her house faded into red rock and spruce trees as the horse's feet pounded up the pebbled path.

She couldn't marry this man in a matter of hours. She just couldn't. There was no need for some detailed discussion of future plans and dreams. She'd just tell him no.

Both hands on the horse's moist back, she pulled herself as far away from Mr. Dehaven as possible and cleared her throat. “Mr. Dehaven.”

“Not now.” Arnie stared at the road ahead. Out of earshot of civilization now, ponderosa pines and spruces surrounded the trail. The path forked, one way going north towards less-civilized parts and the other leading west towards the Clintons' silver mine. Arnie's horse stumbled over a rut in the road.

From up the mountain came the faint rumble of cart wheels.

Jerking the horse's reins, Arnie pulled the steed to a stop behind a ponderosa just before a curve in the rutted wagon path.

Finally. “Mr. Dehaven. I insist you turn this horse around and—”

He clapped a hand over her mouth, and greasy skin covered her lips.

Her hands leapt up to pry at his fingers, but he slammed her head back against his chest. She tried to bring the heel of her boot back against his shins. With a grunt, he immobilized her against his thighs.

The rumbling grew louder. Through the pine needles, she made out a fast-moving cart.

Digging his heels into the horse, Arnie rode out in front of the cart.

The wagon slowed. It bore the official crest of the Clinton silver mine painted in green and purple just as Mrs. Clinton had designed it.

Good. She'd be getting off Arnie's horse immediately and riding home with Mr. Clinton's silver courier.

Arnie's hand came off her mouth.

Grabbing his coat lapels, she tried to swing off the horse. “Mr. Dehaven, you let me go and you—”

Swift as a breath, Arnie reached inside his hide jacket and produced a six-shooter. “Hands up.”

“What are you doing!” Patience tried to twist around, but Arnie's arm pinned her to himself.

Leaping to his feet on the buckboard, the silver courier reached for his holster.

Arnie shot him.

With a cry, the man stumbled forward, hands pressed to his side. Staggering drunkenly, the man toppled off the cart and fell to the frozen earth below.

Only inches from Patience's body, Arnie's pistol released a light haze of gun smoke.

Her heart pounded as if it would burst out of her chest. She twisted up to see Arnie's face. His black eyes held no emotion. Mouth dry, she glanced down to the man now groaning on the ground.

Arnie's arm still dug into her waist, making movement impossible.

“Let me down to help him.” Her voice scraped out of her throat in a whisper. Her hands trembled, and she wasn't half-convinced her legs would hold her if he did place her on the ground.

The bushes shook on the opposite side of the road. A man scrambled out of the underbrush. His dirty hair topped a face she'd never forget.

Her hand came up to her mouth. It was the man that Peter had handed over to Sheriff Westwood that day almost two weeks ago when they had walked this very path.

“Tie him up and leave him,” Arnie ordered.

“The man needs medical attention. You wretch!” Indignation lent strength to her arms. Patience twisted and shoved at Arnie's chest with both hands. She kicked at him too, but to no avail.

“You've got that right, sweetheart.” Grabbing her around the waist again, he tossed her up on the now-empty buckboard. The wood groaned underneath the weight of his boot as he followed after. “Let's get this haul to some place less con…con…conspicuous.”

His partner threw a few loops of rope around the courier and jumped into the wagon bed. In the back of the wagon, straw covered burlap sacks of what must be silver.

Arnie reached forward for the horses' reins.

“So writing for a mail-order bride was just a tactic to gain a foothold in Gilman to plan your larceny?” She almost shrieked it. She was inches away from a possible murderer and definite armed robber. “I bet you don't even have a ranch in Montana.”

“Not yet I don't. But with this haul of silver, I have myself a mind to buy one. You'll make a spit-fired rancher's wife.”

“I'll
never
marry you.” Edging to the end of the seat, she grabbed the top of the wheel. Throwing one petticoat-encumbered leg over, she made to jump.

Arnie laughed. Grabbing the back of her dress, he yanked her back beside him. His thick arm snaked around her waist. His hand touched her in places no decent man dared.

Balling her fists, she struck at him. “You let me go, you—”

“Hi-ya,” he yelled and drove the horses into a gallop. His laughter rumbled along with the cart wheels as they bounced over the uneven ground.

~*~

In the back room of the general store, Peter leaned forward over a neatly piled row of receipts. Taking up his pen, he crossed out another line of itemized canned goods. Flicking that paper off, he grabbed the dry-goods account.

Petticoats rustled in the doorway. Kitty was smirking.

“What are you doing here?” He dipped his pen in ink.

“I need an excuse to stop by my darling beau's shop?” Resting one elbow on the account book, she batted her eyelashes.

“There's no one here. You don't need to playact.” He firmly displaced her elbow from his ledger and focused on summing the third column.

“This is important.” She slapped both hands on top of his page. The motion disturbed the receipts, blowing them onto the floor. “Tonight”—Kitty paused dramatically—“Patience marries Mr. Dimwit.”

“I know,” he growled. He didn't even get up to gather the receipts.

“So this afternoon's your chance for a grand gesture.”

“One needs moonlight for a grand gesture.” He stared gloomily at the overflowing shelves and stacked crates. He'd been more successful in this business venture than he'd ever dreamed possible. And failed utterly at love.

“You're not giving up on my sister, are you? Because Mr. Dehaven is immeasurably worse than even I could have imagined.” Kitty stood.

“I'd planned to propose to her tonight after the Christmas Eve service before she boarded the train for Montana Christmas morning.” Abandoning the ledger and fallen receipts, Peter started pacing. His boots scuffed.

“Good. Move it up to afternoon, and that will be perfection.” Kitty tugged on her pink mittens, looking quite pleased.

“If she can see that Montana oaf in person and still think she wants him, she's more in need of a lunatic asylum than a proposal.”

“Peter!”

“I'm sorry. It's just, I—”

“I know. He's horrid. Which is why you
must
propose.” Kitty placed her hands on his shoulders and tried to shake him. It didn't work.

“When? What am I supposed to do, accost her when she's walking around town with the oaf?” His hand rose in a truly King Lear–like expression of despair. Patience would be pleased.

“She's not in town. Mr. Dimwit rode up on a black stallion and took her off to the mountains.”

“The mountains?” Peter stared at the girl.

“Yeah. Pa was none too happy when he heard she was off in the wilderness with a stranger. But it happened so fast, no one had time to complain. Besides, Mr. Dimwit seems a good enough backwoodsman in a lummox-ish kind of way. I'm sure he'll have her back in time for the Christmas Eve service.”

Peter marched over to his desk.

“What are you doing?” Kitty sidestepped towards him.

“Might not be anything I can do about her marrying the man in ten hours, but I'll be hanged if I let him abuse her beforehand.” He jerked open the topmost drawer of the desk. The lamplight reflected off cold steel.

“What do you think he's going to do?” She looked at him askance.

“I don't know. Why's he taking her to the mountains without a chaperone?” His hand closed on the pistol. He needed something stronger than his fists to beat the ignorant bulk of Mr. Arnie Dimwit.

“Patience got up on his horse of her own accord. She'll think you're desperate if you follow her.”

Kitty was right. There was nothing untoward about a man taking his bride-to-be, mail-order or not, on a ride in the woods. He'd probably stumble upon Patience happily picnicking and feel like a fool. He should stay here and miserably pore over end-of-year accounts.

“You should wait for them to return, propose then,” Kitty said. Her words echoed in the dim little room.

But his hand tightened on the pistol. “I don't care.” Tugging out his shirt, he dropped his pistol into his hidden holster.

~*~

“Stop flopping around like a fish.” Arnie slapped the reins against the horses' backs. A low pine branch brushed his head. If only it had toppled him.

“Or what? You'll kidnap me?” Patience struck at his face as she tried to pull away from the grip he had on her skirts.

He brushed away her hands with no more regard than one gives a meddlesome gnat.

The road narrowed. Pines grew shorter as the wagon climbed the winding road. Arnie had veered off on so many side paths she'd lost her sense of direction.

Bending forward, she tore at the hem of her dress as she'd done a dozen times before. The tiny scrap of calico floated down through the falling snow only to have a cart wheel roll over it.

Overhead, thick clouds blocked sunshine and covered the mountains in a foggy stillness. Clouds this heavy could cast down waist-high snow and blow drifts that would bury a man. Their tracks would be covered within a half-hour.

Even if the silver courier had managed to escape his bonds, it would be days before a posse could follow.

A pace ahead, the tree branches rustled. Probably another white-tailed deer, but she glanced over all the same.

A single rider emerged from between the snow-laden pine branches. A black coat with a turned-up collar covered the man. A snow-dusted bowler sat on his head. The man held a pistol and leveled it right at Arnie. “I knew you were a criminal,” he said.

Patience's heart lost a beat. She held out both hands. “Peter.”

8

“Put your hands up where I can see them.” Peter held the pistol steady. His knees clamped against his horse as he stood in the stirrups.

Reluctantly, Dehaven's large hands rose towards the sky. The man in the back followed.

“Get on the ground. Slowly.” When he'd seen the first scrap of fabric from one of Patience's favorite dresses, he'd known something was wrong. He'd followed the bits of material the last ten miles. But it was his horse's sure footing, not Peter's tracking abilities, that had allowed him to take a shortcut through the evergreens and cut ahead of them on this trail. “Now,” he ordered.

Hands halfheartedly extended, Arnie swung his boot down from the buckboard. The robber in the back scooted out of the wagon bed.

A gust of wintery wind blew through the branches above. Snow flopped onto Peter. His horse startled and stumbled forward on the slick ground. Peter's feet slid out of the stirrups and he fell forward. He grabbed for the horse's neck, but too late. With a crash, he tumbled to the earth as his pistol discharged into the air.

Arnie's hulking frame towered over him. The man dug his foot into Peter's ribs.

Peter lunged for his pistol, but it was out of reach. A groan escaped.

“Tie him up and throw him in the back,” Arnie ordered his associate.

Peter cast one desperate glance up to the buckboard.

Patience sat frozen on the wagon seat.

The other criminal looped rope around Peter's wrists and ankles. Before the man knotted the cord, he gave it a savage yank. The bonds bit into Peter's flesh as his fingers numbed. “And that's for turning me over to your sheriff last week.” The man kicked him towards the wagon bed.

~*~

Peter lay in the back of the wagon, two bags of lumpy silver pressing into his spine as the cart rumbled up mountain roads. He fought against the ropes, but only succeeded in rubbing off skin. Snow fell, freezing on his face and neck around the filthy gag stuffed into his mouth.

The escaped robber sat in the back, gun out, menacing anyone who dared follow. Up front, Arnie was whistling a tune.

“What will you do with us?” Patience's voice was shrill.

“Us?” Arnie guffawed. “According to Mrs. Clinton, you don't care much for that sack of bones back there. Rejected his pathetic proposals, what, four, five times?”

Rope burned Peter's skin as he fought against his bonds.

“What will you do?” Patience asked again.

“I'll probably dump his body over a cliff. Now what to do with you—that's an entirely different matter.” Then the despicable Arnie groped the loveliest woman alive.

“You are loathsome.” Patience sat very straight on the wagon seat. Her skin looked pale. Snow accumulating on her hair plastered it to her brow.

Peter wrestled against his bonds again. If only he could tear rope with his bare hands like those heroes in Patience's novels.

Something hard dug into Peter's leg. The packing shears he'd used while tying up a box of gingham this morning. Wriggling over on his side, he tried to get his numb hands towards his pocket.

The sacks rattled as the cart shifted to an upward slope.

Arnie patted Patience's hair. His cracked lips touched hers.

She screamed.

Fingers rapidly stiffening, Peter squirmed. The tip of his forefinger touched hard steel. He slid the scissors out.

9

Patience was seated beside a bloodthirsty thief intent on ogling her, with a month's worth of silver stashed in the cart. It read just like the climax to a French novel. But where was the hero who would rescue them all and send these two crooks to the hangman's noose?