Jake swallowed. “She’s a beautiful young woman.”
“Yes.”
Jake planted his hands on his hips and stared at the toes of his boots. At last, he looked up. “I don’t love her, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Well, of course you don’t. You scarcely know her,” Loretta inserted.
Once again, Hunter motioned her to silence. “Go on.”
Jake was beginning to feel like a bug in a hot skillet. These people didn’t even know who he really was. If he married their daughter, he would eventually have to do some mighty fast talking to explain. “You want the truth?”
Hunter inclined his head. “The truth—from your gut.”
Jake slid a glance at Loretta, licked his lips, and plunged ahead. “She’s a lovely girl. Any man with eyes would be attracted to her. The physical aspect of marriage with her wouldn’t be a hardship for me.” He cleared his throat. “That’s it, in a nutshell. I’m not even sure how we’d make a marriage work. She’s not your average young woman.”
“No,” Hunter agreed.
Jake sighed again. “On the other hand, though, I have to look at the right and wrong of it. The other night wasn’t her fault, it wasn’t my fault, but it happened. And unless I marry her, she’s going to pay for it for the rest of her life. I can’t turn my back on that. If I could, I wouldn’t be worth the powder it’d take to blow me to hell.”
Hunter nodded in agreement. “It is a fine thing for you to do, and your words tell me you have only good in your heart. But what of a bride price?”
Loretta threw her husband a horrified look. “What are you—Hunter, have you taken leave of your senses?”
“A what?” Jake asked.
“A bride price,” Hunter repeated. “Among my people, it is the way. A man offers a bride price of great worth to the bride’s father. The greater the bride price, the greater the honor to the bride.”
Jake circled that. “You want me to buy her?”
“No, I want you to honor her.”
Loretta made a strange little squeaking noise. Jake had a horrible urge to laugh. Here he was, offering to marry a girl to save her reputation, and he was being asked to pay for the privilege. “How much do you have in mind?”
Hunter smiled. “My daughter is very beautiful.” He grew thoughtful for a moment. “But you are a poor man, yes? And you have only one horse.”
“You want my horse?”
“No, a man must have at least one horse.” His mouth quirked at the corners. “Perhaps you can pay the bride price from your wages, a little at a time.”
“From my wages? How much are we talking about?”
“A man does not cherish that which costs little.” The half-breed arched an eyebrow. “It is not my place to say the price. You must make an offer. If it isn’t enough, I will say so.”
Jake sighed. Money wasn’t an issue. The point was, did he really want to do this? Jake knew the answer to that. He couldn’t do otherwise and live with himself.
“How does five hundred strike you?” he ventured.
“Seven, and she is yours.”
“Hunter-rr-r!” Loretta clamped a hand to her forehead.
“Seven it is,” Jake agreed. He glanced at Loretta. “I’ll be good to her, if that’s what’s worrying you.”
Loretta fastened gigantic blue eyes on him, then turned toward her husband. “You both seem to be forgetting Indigo’s say in all of this. She’s not going to marry Mr. Rand. She wouldn’t consent to marry anyone.”
Hunter looked unruffled. “She will do as I ask.”
“Oh, Hunter, you can’t do this,” she whispered.
“It is already done,” he replied.
Jake shifted his weight and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Is there a judge here in town? I think we ought to take care of this immediately.”
Hunter nodded. “Not a judge, though. My daughter must stand before a priest. If you ride over to Jacksonville and get Father O’Grady, he will come and say the words. It is early yet. If you hurry, we can finish this tonight.”
“Tonight?” Loretta threw up her hands. “Tonight, Hunter?”
“Yes,” he replied, “before the gossips in this town draw any more blood.”
Jake’s thoughts turned to Indigo. He tried to imagine how he could best break the news to her. Matter-of-factly, he decided. Indigo was an intelligent girl. If he approached it correctly, she’d see the inevitability of it. “I think I should go out and talk to her before I leave.”
Hunter nodded. “When you have finished the talk, tell her I wish to see her.”
Sunshine leaked through the cracks in the loft walls, striping the hay with brilliant gold. Indigo studied the dust motes that danced in the shafts of light. Now that she had cried herself out, the familiar smells of the barn worked on her nerves like an opiate. She was utterly drained. Her arms and legs were boneless and heavy. When she conjured images of Brandon, she felt nothing but contempt. Not even thoughts of Lobo penetrated. Cleansed. Her father was right; tears worked their magic.
Suddenly, the serenity in the barn was shattered. From beneath the loft, she heard the pig Useless begin to grunt in eager anticipation, as he did when slop was about to be poured in his trough. Buck whinnied. She heard Molly kick her stall and shove her rump against the gate. Someone had entered the barn.
No sound, other than those of the animals, warned her. It was more an electrical awareness in the air, much like she felt before a lightning storm. Indigo trusted her instincts. Brandon? She slowed her breathing and pressed her back against the wall. She heard one of the ladder rungs creak and knew someone was slowly climbing to the loft. With equal stealth, she reached for her knife.
When a dark head appeared above the billowing hay, Indigo returned her knife to its sheath. Jake. She released a pent-up breath. His broad shoulders, swathed in blue wool, came into view. Even in the dimness, she felt the impact of his dark eyes when he looked at her. She brushed at her cheeks.
“I thought I might find you here,” he said with an indulgent smile. “There’s no place quite like a hayloft to do one’s thinking, is there?”
He stepped into the loose hay and made his way toward her, lurching when he stepped into bottomless softness where bales were missing. When he finally reached her, he sat and braced his back against the wall. The loft, which had always seemed spacious to her, was diminished by his presence. Stirred dust burned in her nostrils.
Indigo tucked her heels against her bottom and looped her arms around her knees. The huddled position made her feel safer. More than dust hovered in the air, an unnameable something. She sensed that his attitude toward her had undergone a change. She ventured a glance at him. He was studying her. She noted a peculiar light in his eyes that had never been there before.
His mouth curved as if he felt like smiling and wasn’t sure he should. Crossing his ankles, he drew his heels under his thighs and rested his elbows on his knees. A nostalgic expression played upon his face as he took in their surroundings.
“Years ago, here in Oregon somewhere, my father staked a claim near a farm. I used to sneak into the farmer’s barn of an evening after he finished his chores.” He hunched his shoulders. “My father did placer mining, and we always lived in a tent along a creek. There were five of us kids, and it always seemed to rain, so we had to huddle indoors. At night, I felt like one of six yeast rolls, all shoved into one muffin cup.”
He waited a moment, as if giving her an opportunity to speak. “Sometimes, if I didn’t get away, I felt as if I’d suffocate. When I discovered the hayloft in that old barn, I thought I’d struck the mother lode. I’d spend hours up there, spinning dreams about someday when I’d be old enough to earn the money to take care of my brother and sisters without my father’s help. I imagined having my own house. A huge one, with so many rooms we’d all be lost in it.”
His voice rang with sadness. A distant look came into his eyes. Then he seemed to refocus on the hay before him.
<
br /> “The trouble with dreams is that when they come true, they never live up to your expectations. I finally got the house, and I finally made the money to be independent of my father. But I still—” He laughed softly and shook his head. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this. But until I came here, I still felt like one of six yeast rolls in a muffin cup.”
Indigo’s throat felt oddly tight. “Why don’t you now?”
His dark eyes warmed to the color of mulled wine. “I don’t know. Being in the mountains, I suppose.”
Plucking a piece of hay, he ran his fingertips along the shaft. She couldn’t picture him as a child and wondered what had prompted him to share something so intimate with her. That he had was indicative of the change she sensed in him.
Since her experience with Brandon years ago, she had erected an invisible barrier between herself and men. Until now, no one had challenged the perimeters. Jake Rand was not only challenging them, but had stepped over into the space she considered sacrosanct. She couldn’t say why she felt that. She only knew it was so. He was pressing too close. He had just shared a private part of himself with her, and she had the awful feeling he expected her to give something of herself in return.
While he was preoccupied with the piece of hay, she skimmed his body with a wary gaze, noting the depth of his rib cage, the leanness of his waist, the roped tendons in his thighs that stretched the denim of his pants taut. Her attention shifted to his hands, tanned to burnished umber and dusted with black hair that swept outward into a silken, dark line to his wrist. Broad, sturdy hands with long, powerful-looking fingers—hands that had been fashioned to take hold and never let go.
“What do you dream of, Indigo?” He searched her gaze. “You must dream of something. About the right man walking into your life someday, about marrying him and having children? Or have you already met someone special?”
“Someone special?” she echoed.
“A fellow—someone you’ve given your heart to.”
She shook her head. “There’s no one.”
“And what of your daydreams? All young women dream of Mr. Right, don’t they?”
Indigo’s stomach knotted. She felt like a hooked fish being led toward a net. If she made a wrong move, he might entrap her. “I don’t dream of anyone.”
He seemed to ponder that a moment. “Maybe that’s just as well. Like I said, reality seldom lives up to our expectations.”
“This isn’t idle conversation, is it?”
He gave a sheepish chuckle. “That obvious, huh?” He rubbed his jaw, averting his gaze. “I’ve never been good with words. This is one time I wish to hell I was. There’s something you have to know, and I’m not sure how to tell you.”
“How to tell me what?”
Why she asked, she hadn’t a clue, because suddenly she knew. From the instant she saw him, she had sensed this moment would come. He turned to look at her. The gleam she had glimpsed in his eyes was still there, but more pronounced, smoldering like a fanned ember. She recognized it now as possessiveness. “Your father and I just had a long talk.”
A cold feeling surrounded her heart, making it skip a beat and lurch. “About what?”
“About you.” He discarded the piece of hay and reached to brush a tendril of loose hair from her cheek. His knuckles felt warm and slightly rough against her skin. “About all the gossip. Unless something’s done, you’ll be ostracized.”
Indigo wanted to stop him from saying anything more, but her vocal cords felt frozen.
As if he now had the right to touch her, he traced a path to her ear with his fingertips, then followed the line of her jaw to her chin. Feathering his thumb across her lips, he studied her expression, then allowed another smile to slant across his mouth. “The thought of marrying me can’t be as objectionable as all that, surely. You’re looking at me as if I’ve grown a third eye in the center of my forehead.”
She couldn’t breathe. She parted her mouth to drag in air, and he touched the moist lining of her bottom lip with his thumb.
“Believe me, Indigo, we didn’t reach this decision without your best interests at heart. I know I’m a little older than the husband you’ve probably fantasized about, but the age difference won’t seem so great once you grow accustomed to the idea.”
“I t-told you, I haven’t fantasized about a husband.”
“Haven’t you? Well, I don’t have to worry about measuring up to your romantic expectations, do I?”
Her romantic expectations? Her thoughts of marriage had never been that. “I d-don’t want to be married.”
He abandoned his exploration of her mouth and took her hand, enfolding her fingers in his. “I know,” he replied gently. “And I wish things had happened differently. This isn’t exactly what I had in mind, either. But life doesn’t always dish up what we expect, does it? All we can do is make the best of it.”
It hit her then, with the impact of a fist in her guts, that he and her father had decided her future without even consulting her. Married to Jake Rand? The prospect exploded in her mind like a short- fused stick of dynamite.
“No!” she cried on the crest of a sob. “No, I won’t do it.”
He tightened his grip on her fingers and lowered their hands onto her lap. The heat of his wrist burned through the leather of her pants leg. “Indigo, be reasonable. We don’t have any choice. Your reputation is destroyed.”
“No-oo-o!”
He took a deep breath and exhaled with a weary sigh. She tried to tug her hand free, but his grip was relentless. The fact that he held her when she didn’t wish it drove home what he was telling her. No wonder his eyes glowed with possessiveness. He was anticipating that he’d soon be her husband.
“It may not be much comfort, but I’ll do everything in my power to make you happy,” he said huskily. “I promise you that.”
The finality in his tone panicked her, and the panic lent her strength. She jerked away from him and, in one fluid motion, rolled to her feet. “My father didn’t agree to this. You’re lying!” Her foot hit soft hay and she lost her balance. Scrambling to right herself, she made her way toward the ladder. “I’ll never marry you! Not you or any other man!”
“Indigo, listen to—”
“No!” She whirled to face him. “I won’t listen! You’re a liar. My father knows me better than I know myself. He’d never agree to a marriage without asking me. Never!”
“I’m afraid he’s done exactly that. And if you’d just stop and think about it a moment, I’m sure you’ll understand why.”
She threw a leg over the top ladder rung, found a toehold, and grasped the side rails. “He didn’t. He wouldn’t!”
Loretta perched on the rocker and leaned slightly forward to study her husband’s dark face. His mouth had settled into a resolute line that was all too familiar to her. She couldn’t help but wonder if the regular doses of laudanum she’d been forcing upon him had addled his senses. He adored his daughter.
“Hunter . . .” She clasped her hands and rested them on her knees. “Surely you can’t mean to carry through with this insane notion. Mr. Rand is so much older than Indigo, and there’s no love between them to lessen the gap. They’re little more than strangers. I realize you’re concerned about the gossip and that marriage may put an end to it, but what of the other problems it’s bound to create?”
He smiled in that knowing way he had. With a sinking heart, Loretta knew she might as well go argue with a wall. Once her husband reached a decision, nothing could dissuade him.
“Little one, you must trust me, eh? I know what I’m doing.”
Loretta doubted that. “She’ll hate you for this until her dying day.”
“Only until she comes to love him. Then she will forgive.” With his uninjured hand, he touched his left breast, which was still as hard and muscular as it had been years ago when she first saw him. “Sometimes, a voice speaks within me, and the path I should walk stretches before me. I know if I follow it that all will b
e well. I have looked deeply into Jake Rand’s eyes. He is a good man with a kind heart. He does not know it, Indigo does not know it, but the Great Ones have led him here. I feel the rightness inside me.”
“It isn’t your place to decide that!” she cried.
“Yes,” he replied. “I feel that inside me, also. I look at all that has happened, his coming, Lobo’s death, their night in the woods together, his sense of responsibility toward her. It is the circle of fate, closing in around them. As the circle tightens, they walk toward one another. Now, though neither wishes it, they stand face-to-face. It is up to me to grasp the ends of the circle and tie an unbreakable knot, so neither can walk away. It will be as the Great Ones wish it.”
“What if the voice inside you is wrong?”
“It has never been wrong.”
“I can’t stand aside and allow this to happen.”
“Yes, you will stand aside.” The firm tenor of his voice told Loretta he would brook no defiance. “Always, I have bent to your will, little one. Always, I have tried to grant your wishes.” He gestured at their home. “I’ve honored your ways with every breath I’ve taken for over twenty years. Now, you will bend to me. Our daughter will marry Jake Rand. I have spoken it.”
“And if I—”
He cut her off. “You won’t. You will honor me, as a woman should honor her husband. You will not stand against me, not in your heart or in your actions.”
“You know I’d never do that, Hunter, but I think you’re making a terrible mistake.”
“You will wash the thought from your mind. I love our daughter, yes? You will trust me in this because you know her happiness is my happiness. I would die before I would lay her heart upon the ground.”
Indigo stood at the foot of her father’s bed, shock gripping her with icy fingers. Looking into his dark blue eyes, she saw none of the familiar things, his love, his warmth, his understanding. Instead, all she could read was determination.
“Y-You can’t mean it,” she whispered raggedly.
“You will marry Jake Rand,” he repeated. “It is my wish. We have agreed upon a fine bride price. The time for talking is finished. You will go to the kitchen and wait for your mother to return from the jail so you can help prepare the wedding supper.”