Page 18 of Their Accidental Bride (Bridgewater Brides 5)

My mind raced. Elise needed to be safe while we fought the fire. The Bridgewater men would all come and help no doubt, but the womenfolk would stay out of the way and mind the children. Elise needed to be with them. Our small ranch was closest to the smithy; she may not be safe in our cabin. But I didn’t have time to waste, taking her somewhere. She would just have to run to Emma’s. I wouldn’t even have time to unsaddle my horse.

Men were running towards the fire as we approached Bridgewater and Shane was nowhere to be seen. I reined my horse up outside our cabin, hopefully far enough from the fire to be safe, but he tossed his head and snorted in fear. I would have to stable him. He would run away otherwise. I lowered Elise to the ground and leaped down myself.

“Run to Emma’s!” I told her. “Go!” She turned away. “Wait!” I took her face in my hands, held steady in my palms, and looked deeply into her eyes. I pressed my mouth to her lips in a passionate kiss, trying to show her that already, I loved her.

She wrapped her arms around me and kissed me back just as passionately and I smiled. She knew.

“Now go!” I cried. “But stay safe! Help Emma with the children and stay out of the way of the fire! We’ll be back to get you when it’s safe. Run!”

I watched her for just a second as she turned and fled, but I couldn’t watch her for long. I had to quickly sort out my horse, then I had to help the men.

12

ELISE

* * *

I ran towards Emma’s house as fast as I could, holding up my skirts so I wouldn’t trip. My heart pounded in fear. Roscoe hadn’t let me get close enough to the fire to see, but it looked to be well engulfed. Smoke muddied the air, making me cough. I kept running.

Just up ahead I could see children, women, all milling around. Was that Emma I could see, shepherding children inside, or was it someone else? A bonnet obscured her face and I couldn’t tell. I was about to call out to her when I was tackled from behind and I went flying, landing heavily, rolling. Something, or someone, was holding my arms, pinning me down. I struggled to get away but they were too strong for me.

“Mr. Yates is waiting for you,” a deep voice that I didn’t recognize, rasped. Before I could tell him that he was too late, that I was already married, he pressed the muzzle of a gun against the side of my head. I froze, terrified, but he didn’t pull the trigger. Instead, he spoke quietly, evil words that filled me with dread. “You’re just going to have a little sleep,” he said. He rolled me over to face the sky and held a cloth to my face, pressing down on my nose and mouth. An unfamiliar sweet smell filled my nostrils. I panicked, fighting with everything I had, but he was too strong and still, he kept the cloth pressed to my face.

Help! I screamed in my mind but I knew no one could hear me. It was unlikely anyone would see me either, with a barn between us and the fire, and our cabin blocking the view to Emma’s house. This criminal had chosen his spot well. My fights grew weaker and weaker and finally, everything went black.

I’m not sure how long I was asleep for, but when I came to I was facedown over the back of a horse. My body rocked in time with the plodding of the horse. My captor wasn’t in any rush, which made me suspect we had left Bridgewater far behind. I squinted, my vision blurred, trying to make out where I was but I couldn’t move for my wrists and legs were tied and I was afraid to lift my head too far for fear my captor would see I was now awake. I didn’t know what he would do to me so I stayed quiet and as still as I could while I tried to gather my wits. I didn’t recognize the little I could see of the surrounding landscape but then I wouldn’t; I’d only been in the Montana Territory for such a short time.

My brain was foggy and my mouth was dry but I didn’t dare ask for a sip of water to quench my thirst. It was much better to feign sleep, until I knew what kind of a man I was dealing with. No man who would kidnap a woman was likely to be kind, I knew that much. Mr. Yates is waiting for you echoed in my head, in time to the beat of the hooves beneath me, and the words filled me with fear. I’d thought I would be safe, this far from Philadelphia. I had no idea that he would want me bad enough to track me clear across the country. How on earth had he found me? I had left no trace…

Panic welled up within me but I pushed it away. It would do no good to give in to terror now – I had to keep my head. I had to think! How was I going to get out of this mess? I had no idea. I forced myself to breathe normally, in and out. In and out. Over and over, nice and slow. The dust kicked up from the hooves beneath me assailed my nostrils and threatened to make me cough but I closed my eyes and swallowed lots, forcing it away. I knew my captor wouldn’t kill me – I was no good to Mr. Yates if I was dead – and I hung onto that thought as each stride of the horse took me further and further away from Bridgewater and the men I had fallen in love with so quickly.

I let my thoughts drift to Shane and Roscoe. My husbands. Tall, dark and handsome, both of them. I thought of the chiseled lines of Shane’s jaw, the scratchy beard softening the hard planes of Roscoe’s face. I saw myself reflected in their dark eyes when they cuddled me close, remembered the feel of their strong arms around me as they held me tight. I pictured their bodies, long, lean and well-muscled. The way their cocks sprang out at my touch from where they were nestled in their bed of dark, curly hair. I thought of how huge their hands were. How their spread-out fingers covered most of my bottom when they spanked me, how their hands felt as hard as a board. But oh how different their hands were when they didn’t use them to punish, but to give pleasure, instead! They were skilled at making all my senses come alive, at making my nerve endings tremble and dance. At turning my core into molten lava. They were so alike I almost thought of them as one, yet they were so different as well. Already, they had made me feel like I was the most important woman in all the world.

How many hours had passed since I’d been taken? I didn’t know. Did they have the fire under control yet? Had they noticed I was missing? Were they searching for me? So many questions that I didn’t have the answers to, and I wouldn’t have the answers. All I could do was wait. And hope.

I hadn’t yet seen Shane’s smithy but I knew he was proud of it, of what he had achieved there. Pride was evident in his voice when he spoke of it, and the panic in his yell when he’d realized it was on fire, haunted me.

I imagined all the Bridgewater men making a human chain, passing along bucket after bucket of water, in a desperate attempt to extinguish the flames. How did they even fight fires out here? Did they have a water cart and steam pump like they had in Philadelphia? I didn’t know. I hadn’t been in the Montana Territory long enough to know about anything at all. I just hoped they were safe. I hoped I would see them again. I hoped they would find me…

My eyes closed of their own accord and the rhythmic rocking of the horse soon lulled me back to sleep.

13

SHANE

* * *

It was no good – the fire was too big. All I could do was stand and watch helplessly as my blacksmith shop, the business I had worked tirelessly in for years, making it the best smithy around, was consumed by flames. I heard my father’s voice in my head. He’d said the same words to me so many times I knew them by heart. Don’t go getting above your station, boy. You’ll never be anything more than me. A poor copper miner, living in a rough shack. That’s all you’ll ever be. I’d been bound and determined to prove my father wrong. I wasn’t going to be a copper miner, spending my days below ground, never seeing the sun. Having just enough money to get by and sometimes not even that. Drowning my sorrows in moonshine every night. I wanted better than that. And I had it. Well I did have it once, I corrected myself. But I probably didn’t have it anymore. My livelihood was burning to the ground in front of my very eyes. We’d fought valiantly to save it; all the Bridgewater men had. We’d been fighting for what seemed like hours. And it wasn’t enough.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, there was the long, low rumble of thunder and the heavens opened, spewing down hail in a violent storm.

All around me, men cheered. They whistled, yelled and clapped. We were saved! Someone took my arm from behind and danced me around in a merry jig, a crazy celebration of a sudden spring hailstorm.

The hail was painful as it pelted us, little blocks of ice hitting our skin in a stinging kiss but I didn’t care. The hail was our savior! I watched, mesmerized, as the hail slowly extinguished the flames, leaving behind the smoldering ruins of what had once been my dream.

The hail storm was over as suddenly as it had begun and we stood around, triumphant. My smithy was mostly gone, but Bridgewater was safe. No lives had been lost. Tomorrow, when the ashes were cool, I would sift through the rubble and salvage what I could. My anvil, my forge, my tools. I w

ould start again. I would have to – I had a wife now.

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