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  Will put a comforting hand on her arm, but she shrugged it away. “Thank you, Will, but I’ll be all right. I’ll think of a way to get around Mr. Ben Sheeks.” She swung her shawl over her head and moved to the door.

  “It won’t be easy,” cautioned Will.

  She turned and opened the door. “I’ll think of something. Whether the law thinks so or not, I’m the only mother the child has known and I won’t desert her. Thanks for preparing me, and good afternoon, Will.” She hurried out the door.

  The blustering wind snatched at India’s shawl and nudged her down the street. Something pelted her skirt, then she was struck on the side of her head. She looked down and saw oozing goo on her shawl. Rotten eggs! She muttered under her breath as her eyes darted to the nearby alleyway, spotting dark heads a split second late in their concealment.

  India hitched up her skirts and sprinted into the alley. I’m coming after you! This is the last time you’ll plague me. I’ve endured your mischief long enough!

  It wasn’t the first time the pair had lain in wait for her. Among the local rascals it seemed to be a mark of distinction to torment a town suffragette. She had been the target of stones and pits, mud balls and paper wads countless times. But rotten eggs! That was grounds for retaliation.

  When she was almost upon them, they jumped up and ran, but determinedly she followed, jumping obstacles and taking odd turns. They had youth to their advantage, but she had anger to hers. Her breath was coming heavy when the taller of the two assailants stumbled. She leaped upon him like a coyote on a jackrabbit. He squealed for help, but his cowardly companion kept running.

  “Now, I’ve caught you!” She used the age-old ear pinch to hold him. “Why do you tease me? I’ve done nothing to you.”

  He was on the verge of tears, though he seemed a brave boy. “Pa says you want women to have the vote. The vote ain’t for women, only men.”

  “Did your Pa tell you to throw rotten eggs at me?” She thought maybe she had the wrong culprit by the ear.

  “No, ma’am,” he said with sudden politeness.

  India looked around. They were on Thirteenth Street, famous for its dance halls and saloons. The boy needed an object lesson more than a thrashing. Her eyes traveled to the steps of the Red Dog Saloon to the passed-out figure of the town drunk, Thirsty Parson. Giving the boy an unmerciful yank on his ear she pulled him along till they stood over the pitiful drunk.

  “You see this man?”

  “Yes, ’um,” replied the boy, squirming.

  “I say he’s better than your mother!”

  The boy’s eyes squinted with insult. “No he ain’t. He’s a good-fer-nothin’ drunk.”

  “He’s better, because he can vote. Think about it. If a drunk can vote and your mother can’t, then he must be better. Now you get on your way and next time I catch you I won’t be so nice.” Once she released his ear, he shot off like a bullet.

  “Lordy, what’s that smell?” Heddy sniffed when India came into the boardinghouse kitchen.

  “It’s me. Those little scoundrels waylaid me again today and threw rotten eggs. But I caught one and I think he learned his lesson,” India said, taking off her shawl and heading for the bathroom under the stairs. “Good news, Heddy. Colonel Bright’s bill on suffrage has passed the Assembly.”

  “Well, heaven be praised! First, emancipation and now the vote. We be livin’ in interestin’ times, we surely be.” Heddy’s wide mouth broke into a white-toothed grin.

  “Where’s Hope?”

  “She nappin’ still.” Heddy picked up a wooden stirring spoon and began humming “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” “A letter came for you this morning. I put it there on the clock shelf.”

  “Heddy, I’ve some bad news, too.” India had left the door open while she filled the pinewood bathtub. “The people at the foundling home have denied my request to adopt Hope because I’m unmarried.”

  Heddy stopped her work. “Oh, Miss Indy, that is bad. What we gonna do? I sure gonna cry if I lose ma baby Hope.”

  India began unfastening her dress. “I think we’re all going to cry. But I intend to fight the decision.”

  On a shelf above the dry sink, the kitchen clock chimed four o’clock and Heddy threw up her hands. “Lordy, I near forgot, I have to run this basket of clean laundry down the street by four. Yee Jim gone to the railroad dining hall to help out when the eastbound train comes in.” With that she picked up a basket of freshly pressed linen and hurried out the door.

  After a few trips, India had filled the pinewood tub with tepid water. She undressed, stepped inside and lowered herself gently down. The water covered her stomach, just under her full breasts, so that they floated and undulated like cast away blossoms on a pond. With a sigh of relaxation, she contemplated her breasts for a self-conscious moment. When she was a young girl she’d agonized and fretted how it would all end up. Would she have large breasts or small? What size would her waist and hips be? Somehow being attractive was of tremendous importance to everyone. And a good young lady knew how to control herself as well as her gentlemen so she would not be taken advantage of.

  I’m not a very good young lady anymore, she thought dejectedly, and then she settled back pondering the sensations she’d felt when Gat had kissed her, and in particular the times he’d pressed against her as if he wanted to melt into her very being. That night on the prairie he’d said kissing wasn’t the best part; unfortunately she’d never know the best part, the pleasuring that Lady Jane and Eugenie had talked about. Her eyes followed the contours of her body from toe tip to hidden crevice. Where was the woman’s witchcraft that preachers so readily denounced? What power did women embody that threatened men so? Talking to herself aloud she said, “You will never know, Miss Simms!”

  Unfastening her hair, she let the strands cascade down to cover her bare shoulders and breasts. Everything, perhaps her thoughts included, would have to be washed clean. She lathered her body and hair with soap, then reaching for a porcelain pitcher of warm water, she rinsed off her hair. A door opened and closed and in the hall she heard the creak of floorboards. Heddy had returned. She splashed another pitcher full of water over her and stood to reach for a towel on the chair by the tub. Suddenly, the door left accidentally ajar, opened full swing.

  “Hed—” The male voice stopped in mid-word. Gat Ransom’s tall frame filled the doorway.

  India stood statue-still, the moisture beading like unstrung pearls over her body. She felt his black eyes move carefully, wasting not a glimpse, from her limply wet auburn hair to her dove-white breasts and lowering to her rounded hips.

  He expelled a slow breath.

  The kitchen clock ticked away as embarrassment bloomed and withered. Seeing him again was like seeing him for the first time. Strong dark brows hovered over twinkling black eyes. His dark hair curled away from a sharp down-curved nose to brush the shoulders of his buckskin coat. A deep yearning swelled inside her and the grip of his eyes held her in place as solidly as shackles. In that moment, as brief as an eagle’s cry, she fell into the black fire of his eyes and she felt the dulcet blood-rush of desire. Suddenly she wanted him with an intensity that clutched her bodily.

  “I don’t think anyone is here, Gat,” came a woman’s voice from the hallway.

  “It appears not,” Gat answered. Regret passed like a veil over his features. He took a step backward and softly closed the door.

  “I hope Heddy has rooms,” said the woman.

  Stunned, India recognized the voice of Bess Anderson. Wrapping a towel about her wet head, she stepped out of the tub and quickly put on her robe. Her knees weakened and she sat down on the stool, her pulse pounding. She’d stayed too long. She’d been a fool not to return East months ago. Deep down, she knew she’d stayed because of Gat Ransom, and now because of him she must go. Seeing him again made it as clear as sunlight. His free indolence that attracted and charmed without the least aggressiveness would subvert her reason. They were so different, he the bache
lor cowpuncher and she the maiden misogamist. Their love had been conceived in contradiction.

  Chapter 23

  India burst into Ed Lee’s office in a whirlwind of tumbleweed and dust. The brewing storm had blown loose strands of her chestnut hair into a scattered halo and had tugged her topknot into a lopsided horn. Upon seeing her Gat cracked a smile, for she bore the true appearance of a lovely but wild-haired fanatic. Barely two hours had passed since he’d seen her stark naked in the boardinghouse bathtub, yet he never ceased to be amazed at the constancy of her beauty.

  “I received Gat’s note and came as soon as I could,” she gasped, attempting to straighten her disheveled hair and clothes. Gat was on his feet offering her a chair while Ed took a seat at his rolltop desk.

  “I’ve told Ed about the problems you’ve had in adopting Hope,” said Gat.

  “Who told you?” India quizzed. As far as she could tell, the man had only been in town a couple of hours, and already he was stirring about in her business.

  “Heddy,” he said, not returning to the chair beside her.

  Ed Lee drummed his fingers on his rolltop desk and shook his head thoughtfully. “I don’t know if I can help you, Miss Simms. Gat seems to think I can, but if Ben Sheeks has convinced Mrs. Horn at the foundling home that you aren’t a fit mother to baby Hope because you’re unmarried, then perhaps the only thing you can do is get married.”

  Looking out the window, Gat watched the Red Dog Saloon’s failing sign rip loose and cartwheel down the street, but at the word married Gat turned and stared hard at Ed as if he hadn’t heard right.

  India straightened up in her chair like a quill on a porcupine’s back. “I have no intention of ever marrying!” affirmed India, terribly conscious of Gat’s spurs clinking on the wood floor as he moved to sit in the chair beside her.

  “Oh, I don’t mean a conventional marriage.” Lee smiled a little to himself. “I mean a marriage of convenience. Gat is already the legal guardian of the baby. You could marry him.”

  As Gat sat down, India shot up out of her chair. “You are being absurd, Mr. Lee. It would be a mockery for two people who don’t—” she was going to say who don’t love each other, but in truth she knew how desperately she loved Gat Ransom “—who aren’t suited to matrimony to join in marriage. Can’t he just sign the guardianship over to me?”

  Gat who had been studying India silently now spoke up. “We tried that, but guardianship, according to Sheeks, is a male prerogative. He refused to let me sign the baby over to you.”

  India began pacing. The two men followed her with their eyes momentarily mesmerized by her grace and intensity. Suddenly she stopped short and stared narrowly at Gat. “Suppose I agree to marry…Mr. Ransom. How long would it take for an annulment afterward and still not affect the legalities of the adoption?”

  “Generally, you have three days to annul the marriage, and as far as the adoption I could write up the papers immediately after the marriage. Sheeks will have no choice but to concede.”

  India began pacing once again. Gat rolled his eyes heavenward and then exchanged a tolerant smile with Ed.

  Her pace slowed and she stared thoughtfully out the window. With a deep sigh she finally turned and said, “I’ll do it!” Then she looked a little embarrassed. “Providing Mr. Ransom agrees.”

  Gat rubbed his chin slowly, the old devilment awakening in his eyes. “I don’t know. Marriage is a pretty big step, it might take me a few days to get my courage up.”

  Though they had been parted for months, and India had spent much of that time idealizing him in her mind as the lovesick sometimes do, she was not so lovesick that she was blind to the mischief-loving side of his nature.

  “No fence-sitting, Gat Ransom,” she snapped. “By the time you get that kind of courage they’ll be pounding nails in your coffin. Besides, the marriage will be over before it begins.”

  That’s the problem. I’ll miss out on the best part, Gat thought, then said, “I’ve never had a lady propose to me, but I suppose just this once I’ll accept, Miss Simms.”

  Her hand clenched into a small trembling fist against her black merino wool dress, and she could have slapped him there and then for his teasing. “I did not propose to you, Mr. Ransom!”

  As Ed Lee looked on he realized there was more going on between them than met the eye. “Now, now, you two. Let’s not have the divorce before the marriage. It’s getting late and we had better get started.” He began pulling out papers from the desk.

  India, awash with an odd sense of panic, said, “Now both of you have to promise me you won’t breathe a word of this to anyone.” After all she had been the woman who had stood on her soapbox from one side of the territory to the other telling women not to marry until they had the vote.

  “You have my word as a gentleman, though the marriage and the annulment will be recorded in the town records,” said Ed Lee.

  India tugged on the small gold earring in her right ear out of nervousness. She turned to Gat, her blue eyes bright with anxiety. “And you, Mr. Ransom?”

  His dark eyes held hers a moment. “Have I ever let you down?”

  Quite regularly she wanted to say, but in truth, in the things that counted most, he never had let her down, and suddenly feeling repentant for her sharpness toward him, her voice filled with a soft caress and she said, “Thank you.”

  Gat stood then. “Well, Ed, you start writin’ the marriage license. I think the parson is just across the street.”

  Gat was out the door before India connected with the word parson, and she quickly turned to Ed Lee. “But I thought it would be only we three. I…I didn’t plan on a ceremony.”

  Ed was busy writing but took a moment to explain. “The license is only an application for marriage. You have to have a ceremony to make it binding. Don’t worry—”

  Just then the door opened and in came Gat with the parson, or “Thirsty Parson” as everyone called him. “Don’t worry, the parson won’t remember a thing.”

  Thirsty leaned precariously against Gat, who guided him to sit in an empty chair. “Now Thirsty, I’d like you to marry the little lady and me,” said Gat.

  “I haven’t done that for sssome time,” he slurred, and then attempted to tidy up by dusting off his frock coat and straightening his bib and tucker, though his stovepipe hat still sat crookedly on his head. “I seem to have lost my Bible along the way.”

  During one too many visits to the publicans and sinners, thought India, wholly aghast by what she’d gotten herself into.

  “I have one here,” Ed grabbed a leather-bound volume from his bookshelves and thrust it into Thirsty’s hands. India squinted closely and read Tom Jones on the binding. She gave Ed an intolerant eye, but he gave a hopeless shrug.

  Thirsty opened it and cleared his throat. “Forgive me if I don’t ssstand, but my health isn’t what it used to be. If the bride and groom will place themselves in front of me.”

  As the two moved together Gat looked over at India and saw that the porcelain skin of her high cheekbones was vivid rose. Under his assessing gaze her hands patted her cheeks self-consciously and she said, “My goodness, it’s warm in here.”

  “If there was a fire in the stove it might be even warmer,” he said, deadpan, not missing the opportunity to slip his hand around her waist. He felt her tense from his touch like a jerk-away colt, but he didn’t drop his arm.

  Thirsty licked his finger and dully thumbed through the pages. “Dearly beloved…” he began, his head swaying and his eyes focusing briefly on a random page. “It hath been observed by wise men or women, I forget which, that all persons are doomed to be in love once in their lives.” He hiccuped, fumbled the book and then after taking a moment to find his place he continued, “As in the season of rutting—”

  India’s mouth dropped open with affront and Gat reached over and clapped the book shut. “Why don’t you just have us put our hands on it.”

  “Ah…that might be best,” agreed Thirsty.
r />   Gat took India’s small hand into the warmth of his own and rested them on the book. She didn’t pull her hand away as he expected, but she did pinch her lips together and glared at him sidelong.

  “Now pronounce them man and wife,” prompted Ed.

  “I now pronounce you man and wife,” echoed Thirsty. A genuine etheric light touched his watery bloodshot eyes as he smiled on the newly united couple. “Don’t forget to kiss the bride,” he urged Gat.

  India opened her mouth, “I don’t think that is necess—”

  Gat took her in his arms, lowered his head and captured her protesting lips with the kiss of reconciliation he had wanted to give her earlier at the boardinghouse. It was the kiss he had dreamed of during long days and nights herding cattle on the prairie, and if it was to be their last kiss, it would be the memory of this kiss he would savor during the skin and bones of loneliness in years to come.

  Not surprisingly, India jerked back, but this time Gat used his superior strength to hold her gently but determinedly fast. And with the rich, pleasurable touch of Gat’s lips India’s starch soon dissolved and she relaxed into their reunion. His tongue moved inside her mouth filling the empty space as he kissed her deeply and blissfully. Her eyes closed as if she were in a deep sleep and her arms crept around his wide chest while her tongue tasted the heady nectar of his own. Between them time hung in suspension, renewing the past, holding the present and promising the future.

  It was Ed Lee who finally cleared his throat. “The papers are ready to sign. I’ll witness along with Thirsty.”

  India pulled away from Gat, her eyes lowered and her nostrils widening so she could catch enough breath to speak. Her ear tips had turned red and her faced flushed; she felt as soft as jelly and as weak as watered-down broth.