Bride of the Shining Mountains (The St. Claire Men) Read online

  Bride of the Shining Mountains

  S. K. McClafferty

  Copyright © 2000 by Susan Kay McClafferty

  Blue-eyed dog Publications Edition 2013

  By Susan Kay McClafferty

  All Rights Reserved.

  Cover Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

  For Clint Aaron McClafferty…

  with love and admiration, Mom.

  Also by S. K. McClafferty

  ROUGH AND TENDER

  FORBIDDEN FLAME

  EMBRACE THE WILD DAWN

  ONLY IN DARKNESS (Avon Books Paperback: CONQUER THE NIGHT)

  BRIDE OF THE SHINING MOUNTAINS (Zebra paperback A SCANDALOUS BRIDE)

  THE FORTUNE HUNTER (Precious Gems LOVE, JAMES)

  LORD OF THE WOLVES

  AS NIGHT FALLS

  DON’T TELL A SOUL (January 2013)

  IN AT THE KILL

  BE VERY AFRAID

  NOTHING TO LOSE

  SHAKEN AND STIRRED as Sue McKay

  The Jenna’s Cove Romance Series

  THE GHOST AND DEVLIN MUIR

  LOVE-MATCH.COM Coming soon!!!

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Also by S. K. McClafferty

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Bloodroot, Kentucky May, 1829

  Thin spirals of a ghostly mist rose from the deep, verdant hollows and, creeping opaque and white along the uneven ground, steadily inched their way toward the towering hemlocks that marked three corners of the small family plot.

  For two days and two nights, almost since the moment of Evelyn Dawes Garrett’s passing, the rain had fallen steadily in one form or another... gentle spring rain, drizzling mist, and drenching downpour. Just now it came in shimmering sheets over the western mountains, dampening the cheeks of twenty-year-old Reagan Dawes, blessedly hiding her tears from view.

  It was hard for Reagan to believe that the ailing mother for whom she had lovingly cared these past few months was truly gone, and harder still to accept the fact that the trio slouching a few feet away from the Right Reverend Wells on the opposite side of the newly dug grave were all she had left in this world.

  At a signal from the minister, Reagan’s stepfather, Luther Garrett, and her half brothers, Luck and Lafe, scooped up a few handfuls of mud and hurled them into the grave, where they landed on the simple pine box with a hollow thud.

  “Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust,” Reverend Wells intoned solemnly. “The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.”

  Reagan sniffed into her handkerchief. With her mother’s passing, the last bit of softness and gentility had gone from her life. Evelyn Dawes Garrett had been a true lady, and just how the slovenly Luther had managed to marry her remained one of Bloodroot’s greatest mysteries.

  Yet if the gentle Evelyn, the widow of Raymond Dawes--the only son of Blanchard Avery Dawes, the founder of the settlement—had ever felt the pinch of disappointment in her second husband’s total lack of manly attributes, she kept her own counsel on the matter. Over the years she had proven herself a worthy wife to Luther and a loving mother to Reagan and the twins, Luck and Lafe, who had just turned sixteen the previous autumn, and who were the mirror image of their father.

  Ever the soul of patience, Evelyn had made a valiant stab at bringing education and refinement into the lives of her three children, at least as far as her limited circumstances would allow. Yet where Reagan exhibited a penchant for cleanliness and excelled at reading and learning her letters, the boys had mulishly balked, preferring to spend their days and nights roaming the woods that surrounded their simple country home, wild as Indians.

  Reagan might have been able to tolerate her half brothers’ total lack of initiative had they not taken such a perverse delight in ridiculing her for attempting to better herself, a circumstance that usually resulted in Reagan soundly trouncing the twins in the mud-clogged dooryard.

  Almost from infancy, Reagan’s temper had been legend in Bloodroot, and whatever polish Evelyn had managed to bestow upon her was little more than a thin veneer.

  Her saucy, unbridled tongue had often been a bone of contention between mother and daughter, as well as a source of frustration and fury for Luther, whose views on a female’s appointed station in life were somewhat antiquated.

  “A woman yer age ought to be married,” Luther had said more times than Reagan could recall.

  Evelyn, ever the buffer in a raucous household, counseled patience. Grudgingly Luther complied, but his patience, unlike his wife’s, was limited.

  In the years that followed, a long string of suitors trickled through the Garretts’ parlor, promising young men with bouquets of wildflowers in hand and hope shining brightly in their hearts, and each with a killing flaw: too little ambition, a disdain for personal hygiene that rivaled that of Luck and Lafe, teeth missing in front, or the fact that Reagan could best her potential husband in an Indian-wrestling match. No man seemed to suit until Arley Pratt, smelling of cologne and surrounded by an air of worldliness and sophistication, had arrived in Bloodroot... and Reagan lost her heart.

  On the opposite side of the open grave, Luck snuffled loudly and wiped his nose on his shirtsleeve, dragging Reagan from her musings.

  The misting rain came harder now, and within seconds dissolved into a proper deluge. Reverend Wells put a hasty end to the service and, with a glance at the lowering sky, closed his Bible with a snap. “God be with you all,” he said in parting, slogging through the sea of mud to his piebald mare, which was tethered to the low-hanging branch of a nearby tree.

  Luther turned to Lafe, the sturdier of the twins. “See to yer mama’s grave, son. We need to git movin’. We gotta lot o’ ground to cover ’twixt now and full dark.”

  Lafe’s expression grew sullen. “Gee, Pa, can’t Reagan do it? She does everything else around here, an’ it’d save us daylight.”

  “Whist, boy!” Luther said in an aside. “Have ye forgot so quick what we talked about last night?” A nod of his head indicated the jagged gash in the earth that was Evelyn’s final resting place. “Do as yer told.” He then turned to Luck, who stood snuffling and scratching his ear, and gave the youth a hearty shove. “Stop that snivelin’, boy. We’ve done our duty by your ma, and there’s no lookin’ back. Go see to the task I gave ye. Yer sister and me need to have a little talk.”

  With a sly, darting glance at Reagan, Luck shambled off toward the barn, his bare feet making sucking sounds in the mud.

  Luther took a firm grip on Reagan’s arm, propelling her toward the house. “I expect you know that it’s long been my dream to venture west and seek my fortune, and with yer ma in her grave, there ain’t nothin’ left for me in Bloodroot.” Reagan said nothing, just hunched her shoulders beneath the old woolen coat she wore, shoving her fists a little deeper into the pockets of her brother’s cast-off breeches. She wished that she could say that she would miss Luther and the boys, but the hard truth was that she would not. As a family, they had never been terribly close. Evelyn had been the common bond
that had held them together, but sadly, Evelyn was gone.

  Striding along beside her, Luther fixed her with a frowning glance. “Have ye given any thought to Jim Singer’s proposal?”

  “I have,” Reagan said tightly, wishing her stepfather had never broached the subject, “and I have no intention of marryin’ that crackbrained old codger. He’s buried half a dozen wives already, and I ain’t about to be number seven.”

  “A woman yer age can’t afford to be choosy!”

  “Choosy?” Reagan snapped. “Jim Singer’s eighty years if he’s a day!”

  “He’s the last in a long line of beaus,” Luther said in a growl. “And we both know there ain’t likely to be no other.” Breaking off abruptly, he shook his head. “Lord knows, I have tried to be patient! I have waited and watched and chewed on my tongue whilst ye turned up your nose at the local swains. Not a one of all those who come here could please ye, except for Arley Pratt! And him ye couldn’t catch!”

  Reagan’s slim shoulders shook with indignation. How dared he mention Arley’s name, today of all days? Arley, with his smooth city ways and winning smile... dapper in his starched white shirt collars, hair pomade, and pencil-thin mustache.

  “Jim Singer is a well-to-do man,” Luther went on, “a good provider. He’ll keep a roof over yer bullet-hard head and food in yer belly!”

  Pulling away from her stepfather’s grasp, Reagan planted her feet wide, bracing her balled fists on her hips. “You can’t make me marry that gnarled old bastard! The thought of his hands on my person makes me want to retch!” Taking a deep breath, she let it go slowly, forcing herself to calm down. “I don’t need no man to survive, Luther. I can do well enough on my own, and you well know it!”

  Luther eyed her narrowly, his mouth a thin, unforgiving slash in his hawkish face. “I can see that I’m wastin’ time on this talk. At twenty, ye’re too old and set in yer ways to take a wiser head’s counsel, yet I give ye fair warning that, all in all, I can’t in good conscience leave ye alone and unprotected. I owe yer ma’s memory more’n that.”

  Luther gave a curt nod. At the same time Reagan caught a blur of movement at the edge of her field of vision. Her spine prickling in warning, she turned toward it, watching warily as Luck emerged from the barn and approached her, a burlap sack clutched in his grimy hands. From the opposite direction came Lafe, armed with a length of hempen rope, a menacing grin on his face.

  Luther just folded his arms and looked on, while Reagan’s blood turned cold.

  One at a time she could best them, but in force she knew she could not. Whatever they had in mind, her best chance at escape lay in outwitting them, then taking to her heels—over the fields and into the woods, where she could hide until the trio lost patience and gave up the search.

  As the two circled around her, she kicked off Luck’s old boots and feinted to the left.

  Lafe dashed in to stop her, but Reagan was ready, coiling her arm, and let go with a blow that rocked him right off his feet.

  Lafe let loose a hideous howl, but the blow had only stunned him, and in an instant he was on his feet again, grappling for a hold on her arm. Reagan shook him off, landing another wild punch, while Luther called advice from a safe distance, “Circle ’round her, boys! Get hold of her arms! She can’t best two of ye at once!”

  Reagan danced back and away, ducking beneath their grasping hands, slipping and sliding in the greasy mud. “Get clear from me, you apes!” she cried. “I warn you, I’ll not be carted off bodily and dumped on that old reprobate’s doorstep while there’s breath left in my body! You’ll have to kill me first!”

  Luck lunged, the sack at the ready. Reagan skidded to one side, and almost fell. She tried to skitter away, but the ground was too slick, and she slid to a wobbly halt a hand’s breadth away from Luck and his sack.

  Before she could cry out, before she could launch a counterattack, he swooped, and Reagan’s world went dusty and dim. In an instant the rope was tied tightly around her, pinning her arms at her sides.

  Enveloped in the grimy burlap shroud, she coughed and sputtered, the smell of moldering corn and dust assaulting her sensitive nostrils. “You miserable”—cough—“unshod heathens! When I get loose, you’ll rue this day, I swear!”

  Luck’s toneless voice came through the sack as they grasped the short length of rope that held up her breeches and flung her face down over the waiting mule’s back. “Easy now, sis. No need to fret yourself sick; we won’t be cartin’ you off to Jim Singer’s. We’re takin’ you with us to the Shinin’ Mountains to get you a man, whether you want one or not.” Chuckling, he patted her sack-shrouded head as Reagan loudly vented her fury. “Take care, now, not to wriggle too much. You’re liable to fall off the mule halfway to Saint Louie, and drown yourself in the muck.”

  Chapter One

  On the Popo Agie River The Rocky Mountains August, 1829

  The day had been uncomfortably warm, with the sultry sort of airlessness common in towns and cities in late summer, but exceedingly rare in the higher elevations. Even now, with the sun slipping down behind the red sandstone bluffs and twilight close at hand, not a whiff of a breeze was evident.

  Crouched in the shadows cast by a rickety wooden dais, with her hands bound behind her back, Reagan Dawes scanned the sea of leather-clad scarecrows milling near the base of the platform, trying to ignore the nervous thudding of her heart.

  It was impossible. As much as she wished it otherwise, she could not ignore the ugly, terrifying truth: that unless she could escape her bonds, she would soon be forced to mount those steps, to stand before this very crowd and be sold as a mate to the highest bidder, a fate she was desperate to avoid.

  Biting her lip, Reagan clutched the sharp sliver of stone all the harder, contorting her hands so painfully in an effort to reach her bonds that she thought her bones would snap.

  The stone was small and difficult to maneuver, but the agony of stretching and straining sinew and tendon was nothing compared to the anguish failure would bring.

  That knowledge alone kept Reagan doggedly working the improvised tool back and forth, back and forth, while darting occasional glances at the twins standing guard a short distance away, waiting—every bit as anxiously as the milling throng—for the auction to begin.

  As Reagan paused to ease the cramp in the base of her thumbs, a chill of pure foreboding slithered up her spine, and for what seemed the thousandth time that day, she mouthed a fervent prayer: “Please, God, if you can’t see fit to help me escape, then at least strike me dead before this farce begins.”

  The cramp eased, and Reagan redoubled her efforts, as determined to elude her fate as Luther seemed to seal it.

  Three months had passed since she’d laid her mother to rest in the small family plot and walked into Luther’s ambush. Three months, and she still could not seem to countenance the fact that he truly meant to find her a man in so cruel and uncaring a fashion.

  Oh, it was true that Luther had been something less than an ideal stepfather. He’d been hardheaded, and at times even unreasonable, yet he’d never been cruel or abusive to Reagan or the boys... at least, not until that last day in Bloodroot, when with the help of her half brothers, he’d bound her hand and foot, slung her across Mariah’s back, and carted her off to the west.

  At first she’d thought the kidnapping a ploy to frighten her into accepting Jim Singer’s proposal. Yet as the days turned into weeks, and the weeks to months, and Reagan found herself being borne across the broad Mississippi and high into the Rocky Mountains, she began to realize the depth of Luther’s determination.

  Having grown impatient with her reluctance to wed, he intended to find her a mate, and that end seemed to justify his means considerably.

  Sweeping the gathering with a hurried glance, Reagan felt a surge of alarm. Strangely enough, Jim Singer, eighty years old and as cantankerous as a colicky mule, was looking a good deal more desirable as a husband just now than he had back in Bloodroot.

&n
bsp; The men who were gathered in tight little knots across the open meadow were a hard-looking lot. Most made their living plying the rivers and creeks here in the high country, in search of brown gold—beaver pelts—which they in turn brought to rendezvous like this one. Rendezvous—annual gatherings of hunters, trappers, traders, and Indians—were held each year at a predetermined location somewhere in the mountains, and served a number of needs.

  Most men came to sell their furs and to resupply, to buy or trade for sufficient sundry items, traps, horses, or firearms, to see them through another year. Others came to socialize, to drink, to game, to break the monotony of life in the high country... to escape for a little while the hardships and dangers of their peculiar existence, where far more men met an early and often violent death than ever made their fortune.

  It was a life that Reagan was not anxious to share... and so she ignored the cramp in her thumbs from clutching the stone too tightly, and kept up her scrape, scrape, scrape, pausing at intervals to test her bonds.

  Luck sashayed near enough to send her a squirrel-eyed look. “What you wriggling for, Reagan? You got an itch or somethin’?”

  Luck’s question caught brother Lafe’s attention before Reagan had time to answer. He approached his brow furrowing and a look of keen concentration coming over his thin face. “Looks more like quiverin’ than wrigglin’ to me, but maybe we ought to ask Pa, just to be certain.”

  Luck’s expression darkened. “Ain’t no need to ask Pa. She’s our sister, ain’t she? And we kin tell what’s what. Now shut up ’n’ watch her for a spell. I’ve gotta take a leak, ’n’ I don’t mean to do it with all these strange folks watchin’.”

  “Better stay clear of the bushes, Luck,” Reagan quipped. “If a panther jumped out and, with a swipe of his paw, changed you from a he to a she, Luther’d connive to sell you, too; make no mistake!”