Secondhand Bride by Linda Lael Miller

just as much talk. They’ll wonder why we’re not living together.” He paused, hat in hand. “I’m not your enemy, Chloe.”
    “You’re not my friend, either,” Chloe pointed out, busying herself with one of the trunks. “As for what people will think, I’m surprised you care. It’s not as if you’ve ever acted like a husband.”
    He went to her, turned her to face him, catching sight of the contents of the trunks as he did so. Books. Piles of them. He looked into her eyes. “I could remedy that easily enough,” he said. And then, before she could protest, he kissed her.
    At first, she set her palms against his chest and tried to push him away, just as she’d done the night before, when he’d kissed her in the street, but then he felt a softening in her. She slid her arms around his neck and kissed him back in earnest.
    “Chloe,” he said, when they both came up for air.
    She drew back, out of his embrace, smoothed her hair, then her skirts. “Oh, no, you don’t, Jeb McKettrick. You are not going to get me into that bed. And you are not going to cost me this job, either. I want you to leave, right now.”
    “If we’re married,” he reasoned, knowing he’d already lost this battle, “what’s the harm?”
    “You know damn well what the ‘harm’ is,” she bristled. “You don’t trust me any farther than you can throw me, and you’re not willing to acknowledge me as your legal wife.”
    He grinned weakly. “I think I could throw you quite a ways,” he said. “You don’t weigh very much.”
    She didn’t smile. In fact, she turned her back on him and started grabbing up books, setting them on the shelves with a lot of thrusting and thumping. “Go away , Jeb,” she said, and he thought he heard tears in her voice. “I mean it. I want you to leave. Immediately.”
    He hesitated. “All right,” he finally agreed. “I’ll go. But I’ll be back, Chloe. You can’t hide out in this cottage forever.”
    “Go,” she said, and that time he was sure she was crying.
    He wanted to take her into his arms again, but he didn’t dare. “I’ll be at the Triple M,” he said, pausing in the open doorway. “If you want me, send word.”
    “Don’t watch the road for a messenger,” she said.
    He sighed and went out, leaving a part of himself behind.
     
     
     
    Jack Barrett watched as McKettrick vaulted the school-yard fence and crossed the street, headed toward the main part of town. He itched to shoot the bastard, then and there, but he knew he couldn’t indulge the impulse just yet. It was broad daylight, and he’d be caught for sure.
     
    He turned his attention to the schoolhouse and smiled to himself. At least he knew where to find Chloe when he decided to pay his respects. In the meantime, he’d lie low. She wasn’t the only one who’d landed a job that day; he’d just met the foreman from the Circle C, a man named Henry Farness, and he’d signed on to ride fence lines and punch cattle.
    It would be a change from bounty hunting and playing cards for a living, but he was a good rider, and a hand with a gun, and he knew how to bide his time. He also knew that the ranch belonged to Holt Cavanagh and recalled the name from his conversation with the little girl, alongside the stagecoach the night before. If Cavanagh was her daddy, like she’d said, and she ended up living out there on his ranch, he might run into her. To his way of thinking, that merely added spice to the game, and, anyway, she probably wouldn’t recognize him even if they met face-to-face.
    He watched as McKettrick conferred with an old man and a very pregnant Mexican woman outside the Arizona Hotel, and wondered how many folks he’d have to kill before this thing was over.
    Maybe he ought to go over to the schoolhouse, right now, and confront Chloe. Tell her the jig was up, and take her away. He had plenty of money, thanks to last night’s enterprise, and they could start over somewhere new, live high on the hog.