Foxfire Bride Read online

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  Foxfire Bride

  By

  Maggie Osborne

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  Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

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  Overcome by impatience, Fox shoved Tanner down on the blanket and climbed on top of him.

  "I don't mean to sound bossy, or maybe I do, but it's time to stop this blathering and start, well, you know."

  His eyes sparkled and he wore the expression that came over him when he was trying not to laugh.

  She narrowed her eyes and tried to find the anger that helped her through her vulnerable moments. "I mean, that's why we came here, isn't it?"

  "Are we running behind schedule?"

  Her cheeks heated. Sitting up, he leaned forward and kissed the tip of her nose. "I like the way you're wearing your hair tonight. Piled on top of your head. You have beautiful hair." After kissing her lightly on the mouth, a tease, he removed her hairpins and waves of red hair tumbled to her shoulder then spilled down her back almost to her waist.

  "Like silk," he murmured.

  The heated look in his eyes stifled Fox's laugh. Her throat went dry and hot and she felt the first tremor of what she suspected would soon erupt into an earthquake deep inside. Fox felt his hand cupping the back of her head, buried in her hair. She had never felt a man's tongue before but did so now and a jolt of lightning scorched through her body. He tasted of smoke and coffee and something sweet, and she wanted more of him

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  Also by Maggie Osborne

  SHOTGUN WEDDING

  PRAIRIE MOON

  THE BRIDE OF WILLOW CREEK

  I DO, I DO, I DO

  SILVER LINING

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  Foxfire Bride is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  An Ivy Book

  Published by The Random House Publishing Group

  Copyright © 2004 by Maggie Osborne

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Ivy Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  Ivy Books and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  ISBN 0-8041-1992-9

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition: December 2004

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  To George.

  They've all been love letters to you, cowboy.

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The names Norwood and Barbara Robb were generously offered by their auction-winning owners.

  Excelsior and I are grateful to the Robbs for their charity and their good humor.

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  CHAPTER 1

  The ice wasn't good this year. Ordinarily the lake froze to a depth of eight or ten inches, but this winter had been unusually warm. Frustrated and worried, Fox sat on a rock, smoking and scowling at the fringe of thin ice circling the lakeshore. She had some decisions to make.

  "We haven't cut enough ice to fill half the shed and winter is almost over," she said to Peaches. Peaches wore a thick flannel shirt beneath his overalls. This time last year they had both worn heavy coats, scarves, and hats with fur earflaps.

  "We'll get by."

  Sometimes Peaches's relentless optimism was exactly what Fox needed. Other times optimism made her want to bash him over the head with a block of ice. This was one of the bashing times.

  "Once summer comes, it'll take us about three weeks to sell the ice." She jerked a thumb over her shoulder toward the ice shed. "And then what?"

  "We ain't the only cutters with no ice. Nobody going to have ice this year. That ice is going to fetch a pretty price."

  That was true. Fox smoked and watched the sun sparkling on the water in the center of a lake that should have been frozen solid. Raising the price on the ice they had already cut might see one person through the season, but not both of them.

  She had a feeling that fate was gathering force, getting ready to kick her in the fanny. That the ice wouldn't be profitable this year was a nudge.

  "You could go back to doing what you're good at doing. Me? I can always pick up work," Peaches said.

  Fox swiveled to study his brown face. Deep lines scored a grid on his cheeks. His hair was more white than dark. "How old are you? Seventy?"

  "I don't know how old I am," he said with a shrug. "Doesn't matter as long as I can work."

  He had a point there. And unless his rhumitiz was acting up, Peaches could work rings around anyone else Fox knew, including herself. But a seventy-year-old man shouldn't be looking for work. A seventy-year-old man should be able to sit on the porch if he had a mind to, and do nothing at all.

  "I've been thinking about a lot of things," she said, fixing her gaze on a distant peak.

  "I know it, and I don't like it when you start thinking deep." Standing, Peaches examined a line of clouds building to the north. "Looks like a storm coming in," he said hopefully. "I swear it feels colder already."

  "I'm thinking how I just gave up on everything when DeBeck shot me and put me out of business. And I'm thinking about Hobbs Jennings and how he stole my whole life and I haven't done a fricking thing about it. Mostly I'm thinking about revenge. DeBeck died before I could kill him and there's a lesson in that. So I'm thinking about killing Jennings before he up and dies on his own." Thinking was too mild a word. Brooding and obsessing were closer to the truth.

  "You can't change the past, Missy." Peaches's voice softened like it always did when he was worried about her. His big hand came down on her shoulder and squeezed. "You can only change the future."

  "I'm thinking about taking my half of the ice money, whatever it is, and going to Denver. Hobbs Jennings's future is the one I want to change." She had almost made up her mind. All she needed was a sign that she was thinking right.

  Over supper, Peaches brought the subject around again. "We might as well talk about it. So, let's say you go to Denver."

  "All right, let's say that." Tilting her biscuit toward the lantern, she buttered the surface. She didn't like a blob of butter in the middle like some people she could name. The butter should be neatly spread to the rim.

  "And let's say you find Mr. Jennings and you shoot the bastard and kill him. Then what?" He put a scoop of butter in the center of his biscuit just like she knew he would. "The law will arrest you and hang your butt. So what did you achieve?"

  "Jennings would be dead. He would have paid for what he did."

  "But you'd be dead, too."

  "Now why can't you butter your biscuit right? You end up with a couple of dry bites and one bite that's pure grease!"

  "If you want
to talk manners, Missy, I done told you a hundred times that refined folks don't hold the handle of their fork in their fist. Here's how you're supposed to hold it."

  "And I done told you a hundred times that me and refinement don't fall within spitting distance." It could have been different. That she wasn't refined was the fault of Hobbs Jennings. And that thought circled her back to brooding about fulfilling her vow, to find Jennings and put a bullet in his thieving heart.

  After they washed up the supper dishes, Fox stepped outside for a smoke. The cabin was small, and they had agreed not to stink it up with cigar smoke. While she waited for Peaches to set up the chessboard, she thought about walking away from the cabin, the lake, the ice business, and Peaches. Peaches was the sticking point.

  Fox had known him since she was six or seven. They had run away from her mother's cousin when Fox was twelve. There'd been some gaps, but by and large they'd been together for almost twenty years. Peaches had taught her pretty near everything she knew that was worth knowing. What he couldn't teach her, like reading and woman things, he'd made sure she learned from someone else. And some things she'd learned herself.

  Her biggest learning experience had come when she'd run off again when she was seventeen, leaving Peaches behind. At the time she hadn't known that seventeen-year-olds, particularly women, didn't set off alone to find the goldfields in the mountains west of what was now Denver. That had been some trip, all right. The memory curved her lips in a smile. She'd gotten half frozen, half broiled, half starved, and was hopelessly lost about a hundred times. She had talked her way in and then out of Indian camps, had shot a mountain man with rape on his mind, had killed two bears and enough deer and rabbits to keep her alive.

  Newspapers all over the territories had printed articles about her journey, which had launched her into the scouting business. She'd found a livelihood that had worked just fine until DeBeck shot her in the leg. After that, she'd fetched up in Carson City, gimping around and waiting for her leg to heal.

  "Remember that day we met up again?" She'd gone into Jack's Bar and discovered Peaches sweeping the place. It was like coming home. "You were still mad that I'd run off in the middle of reading you one of Charlie Dickens's novels."

  "I ain't got over it yet," he said, grinning as she came back to the table. "You're black this time."

  It didn't matter which color she played, he always beat her. "How long have we been sitting on the side of this mountain just drifting and waiting for something that never comes?"

  " 'Bout three years, I guess. That's a long time to brood, Missy."

  "Is that what you think I've been doing?" It was as good an explanation as any.

  "I know that's changing. I know you're going to go to Denver. Probably knew 'fore you did." He studied the board. "You want some company on the ride east?"

  "Could you stand to see me hanged?" She studied the board, too.

  "Might not happen. Might be you'll stop living in the past and start making yourself a future. Might happen before we get to Denver."

  It would be like old times, her and Peaches on the road. But she was smarter now, wiser to the ways of the world. If Peaches was with her when she shot Hobbs Jennings, even if she shot him in front of a dozen witnesses, everyone would swear the black man was the killer before they'd believe a white woman had pulled the trigger.

  "You can't be with me when I shoot Jennings. You have to agree to that or I'm leaving you here."

  "We'll cross that bridge when we get there. I'm going."

  There was no point arguing now. They'd have about twelve hundred miles to work out details.

  When Fox opened the door in the morning, snow swirled into the cabin on a blast of frigid wind. She and Peaches slapped hands, then carried their coffee out to the lake to watch the snowflakes melt into the water. The pine trees looked like they'd been dipped in vanilla frosting and smelled sharp and tangy the way Fox thought green ought to smell. "Now if it would just stay this cold for another two weeks!"

  But it didn't. The new ice was gone in three days.

  Fox stood in her shirtsleeves, not needing a coat, and frowned at the stacks of ice blocks that filled about a third of the shed. The shed was protected from the sun by pines and aspen, and she had insulated the ice blocks with straw. There was no melt water on the floor of the shed, but if the weather got much warmer, there would be.

  "Company's coming," Peaches called.

  Picking up the shotgun that leaned against the inside of the door, Fox stepped outside the shed. At least it was still colder inside the shed than outside.

  Peaches lowered his wood-chopping ax and they both waited for the man they could see glimpses of as he wove through the trees.

  The horse was quality, not blowing and heaving at this altitude. The rider looked to be quality, too, judging from his leather hat and wool jacket. He was clean-shaven, which set him apart and marked him as a city man, possibly from the east.

  "Hello the cabin," he called, much later than he should have, which made Fox think he was damned lucky he hadn't been shot long before now.

  "Come on in," she answered.

  He rode into the clearing and tipped his hat to her then looked toward the lake. "Nice view you got here."

  "What's your business, mister?"

  Once he'd admired the lake and the peaks, he examined the cabin and shed, then swung his gaze from Fox to Peaches and back again.

  "I'm looking for Fox." His eyes stopped on Peaches. "Would that be you?"

  "That would be me," Fox said, swinging up the shotgun so he could see it. "What do you want?"

  Surprise tightened his jaw and he stared at her, then an irritated frown pulled his brow and he swore under his breath. "I beg your pardon, ma'am. I suspect some boys in town were having a bit of fun at my expense."

  "Is that so." She kept her gaze narrow and hard, ready for anything. He wasn't wearing a gun, didn't pack a rifle scabbard. And since he didn't sport a beard, she could see that he had one of those craggy angular faces that could flash from pleasant to threatening in a heartbeat. "And who are you?"

  "Matthew Tanner." He took off his hat and nodded, revealing shoulder-length reddish brown hair. Clean shiny hair, which also set him apart from the miners, prospectors, and general grub bags who seemed to gravitate to this part of the territory. "I'll be on my way, but first, I wonder if I could trouble you for a cup of water?"

  "I'll get it." Peaches set down his ax and headed toward the lake with a bucket. He wouldn't have left the clearing if he'd smelled one iota of trouble on Matthew Tanner. Peaches's judgment was good enough for Fox.

  She leaned the shotgun against the shed wall. "Might as well get down and stretch your legs."

  "Thank you."

  He turned out to be as tall as she'd guessed he would be. Maybe six feet. At least a head taller than she was. "So why were you looking for me?"

  "It's a mistake." Eyes the color of old wood examined her. "I need a scout. Some men in Carson City said Fox was the best scout in the territory. Directed me up here."

  "Well," she said, walking around him, sizing him up, "those boys weren't wrong. Except I gave up scouting after I got shot."

  He was one damned fine-looking man. Built like a wedge of muscle and sinew, not an ounce of fat on him. Wide shoulders, buttocks made for long days in a saddle. His jawline announced he was stubborn, but what man wasn't? The lines of his face saved him from being handsome, but not from being attractive.

  Fox felt a tug deep inside that she would have sworn was long dead.

  "I didn't want the aggravation that one of my competitors was giving me. So I decided to go into a different business. But you coming up here is like fate paying a call. I've been thinking about going back to work."

  His smile turned into a stare. "You really are a scout?" After a minute he walked around her, doing his own sizing up, inspecting her work boots, trousers, poncho, and raggedy hat.

  Fox experienced an insane urge to tuck up her hair and s
crub her face with her hanky. Scowling, she gave him stare for stare.

  "Listen, when I was taking parties east, I was the best there is," she snapped. "You don't have to be a fricking man to find your way from here to there, so you can stop looking so amazed. Where do you want to go?"

  "Denver."

  The word rocked her back on her heels. Peaches heard, too. He stopped on the path so abruptly that water slopped from the bucket. His eyes widened and swung toward Fox.

  "Well, hell," she said uneasily, slapping her hat against her thigh. Destiny had just kicked her in the pants. "You can get to Denver without a scout. Just head up to South Park in Wyoming, cross the divide, and turn south."

  "That's the route I took coming out here, but I need to get home by a faster, more direct way." He ladled water out of the bucket and thanked Peaches.

  "You can cross the divide through Wyoming, or you can go south and pick up the Sante Fe trail. If you try it as the crow flies, you'll have to cross severalI'm saying severalmountain ranges. That's not smart. And trouble and setbacks could end up costing more time than if you'd taken either of the tested routes."

  "But it could take less time."

  "It could. But that's not how it usually happens."

  His gaze hardened. "The truth have you taken the direct route before?"

  "The truth?" The hair on the back of her neck bristled. "Listen, mister." She jabbed a finger on his chest, making him step backward. "I don't lie. There's not much about me to hang my pride on, but honesty is one of those things." She stared up at him, her eyes glittering. "Yes, I've done the direct route. Several times. And each time was a fricking disaster. You hear me? People died, people got hurt. Go up through Wyoming." Turning on her heel, she went into the cabin and slammed the door.