Thank you for your help.”
“You’re welcome.” She was relieved, but so far, Colton Lee had yet to speak to her directly. And as the sheriff and his men escorted the coach the remaining few miles to town, that didn’t change.
“Stop laughing and take the damn bullet out,” Colt snarled, removing his shirt. The last thing he needed was more of Whit’s needling.
“Got yourself quite the delicate bride-to-be there, Dr. Lee. Hold still.” Whit used the tip of his big bladed knife to expertly dig into Colt’s shoulder, causing him to hiss out a curse in response to the sharp pain.
“Got it.” The bloody bullet went into a chipped porcelain basin on the desk. Whit sloshed whiskey over the oozing injury. Colton hissed again and immediately reached for the clean square of white cotton sheeting he’d taken from his medical bag and pressed it against the wound to ease the bleeding.
“Want me to ask her in to sew you up?”
Colton glared.
“Just asking. No need to get surly.”
Colt knew Whit was having a good time. Were the shoe on the other foot, he’d be the one poking fun, but it was on his foot and it pinched like hell. What kind of woman shot her intended? Yes, it was an accident but his pride was as wounded as his shoulder.
Whit added, “If you’re going to send her back let me know. The way she shoots, I might like to swear her in as a deputy.” The two surviving outlaws were locked up in the small jail behind his office.
Colton ignored him, or as much as one could a six-foot-five-inch former cavalry soldier who on better days was called friend. Instead, his thoughts were on Regan Carmichael. What kind of woman had he asked to take the place of his late wife, Adele? What other nonladylike skills did she possess? Had she lied to him about being educated and cultured? A part of him was half-ready to scrap the marriage agreement and send her packing. Colt’s grandfather Ben would undoubtedly agree. Whit’s humor notwithstanding, Colt found nothing funny about it, and neither did his gunshot shoulder.
Regan, who’d been told by the sheriff to wait outside while he patched up the doctor, paced the wooden walk in front of his office. How was she supposed to know the riders were a sheriff’s posse? She’d been too busy protecting herself and Mr. Denby to stop firing and politely ask their identities. Colton Lee seemed furious, and on the ride to town hadn’t once looked her way. She supposed he was allowed. After all, how many men met their prospective brides via a bullet from her Winchester? She couldn’t blame him if he decided to send her packing, thus preventing her from trying to make things right—not that she knew how that might be accomplished.
Word must have gotten around about the shooting because a small group of men were on the other side of the street watching her from in front of the general store. One, sporting whiskers, long white hair, and wearing trousers and a shirt made from deerskin called out, “Did you really shoot the doc?”
Her cheeks burned. “It was an accident.”
Another man shouted, “This called a shotgun wedding where you’re from?”
They all laughed. She didn’t respond.
The door opened and the sheriff stepped out.
“May I see him?” she asked anxiously.
“I think I should probably take you over to Minnie’s. She takes in boarders. You’ll stay there until the wedding. You can see him later.”
That wasn’t the answer Regan wanted, so she sailed past him and went inside. Her steps halted at the sight of Lee attempting to drag his union shirt up and over his bandaged left shoulder. Seeing her enter, he stopped and her first thought was that the tall slender Colton Lee was as handsome as an African god. The second thought: the riveting eyes were as foreboding as a gathering thunderstorm. All they lacked were lightning bolts. “I . . . want to apologize. I didn’t know you and the others were a posse.”
His gaze didn’t waver, and again she expected lightning. Instead, he resumed his one-handed attempt to cover his bared left shoulder. She took a step forward to assist him but his silent rebuke froze her in place. Regan swallowed in a dry throat. She noticed him wince again as he finally got the shirt positioned. He used his right hand to do up the buttons, then picked up a blue denim shirt and slowly worked it on.
“Where’d you learn to shoot?” he finally asked quietly.
“A neighbor.”
“What else he teach you?”
She took offense at both the question and his tone. Surely he wasn’t intimating that Old Man Blanchard had taught her anything unseemly. “To hunt, shoe a horse. Shingle a roof. Again, I’m sorry for wounding you.”
His continued displeasure made her temper rise. In her mind, he was being terribly unfair. Even if he was still angry, he could at least acknowledge her apology.
“I’m not sure we’ll mesh,” he finally said.
“Neither am I. A grown man should be able to acknowledge a sincerely offered apology and converse in sentences consisting of more than five words. Good day, Dr. Lee.”
She turned on her heel and stormed out.
Outside, she found Sheriff Lambert talking with Mr. Denby. All her trunks and valises were off the coach and waiting. “I’m ready to go to Minnie’s,” she declared hotly. “Wherever that may be.”
“Got a temper, too, do you?” the sheriff asked, taking in her tight face.
She glared.
His thick mustache framed his smile. “You may be just the tonic Colt needs.”
“The doctor needs a colonic. Not a wife.”
Denby hooted.
The sheriff laughed, too, and after Mr. Denby left them, turned his attention to her trunks. “All these yours?”
“Yes.”
“You going on safari?”
She gave him another glare, even though she did have a small mountain of belongings.
“Just pulling your leg. Give me a few minutes to get a wagon from the livery and we’ll be on our way.”
“Thank you.”
While waiting for his return, she noticed a man on a bay stallion riding towards the outskirts of town. It was Lee and she wanted to yell after him, “Coward!” Instead she settled for fuming. This was not how she’d envisioned her journey as a mail-order bride would begin.
About the Author
BEVERLY JENKINS is the recipient of the Michigan Author Award by the Michigan Library Association, the Romance Writers of America Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award for historical romance. She has been nominated for the NAACP Image Award in Literature, and was featured both in the documentary Love Between the Covers and on CBS Sunday Morning. Since the publication of Night Song in 1994, she has been leading the charge for inclusive romance, and has been a constant darling of reviewers, fans, and her peers alike, garnering accolades for her work from the likes of The Wall Street Journal, People Magazine, and NPR.
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By Beverly Jenkins
Wild Rain
Rebel
Tempest
Breathless
Forbidden
Destiny’s Captive
Destiny’s Surrender
Destiny’s Embrace
Night Hawk
Midnight
Captured
Jewel
A Wild Sweet Love
Winds of the Storm
Something Like Love
Before the Dawn
Always and Forever
The Taming of Jessi Rose
Through the Storm
Topaz
Indigo
Vivid
Night Song
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Excerpt from Tempest copyright © 2018 by Beverly Jenkins.
wild rain. Copyright © 2021 by Beverly Jenkins. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers. For information, address HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.
Digital Edition FEBRUARY 2021 ISBN: 978-0-06-286172-6
Print Edition ISBN: 978-0-06-286171-9
Cover designed by Patricia Barrow
Cover illustration by Anna Kmet
Cover image by iralu/Shutterstock
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