The flat, treeless terrain made for easier traveling and Jimmy Boy made good time to the camp where most of the others were waiting. Noah sat beside the fire, roasting something that looked suspiciously like sage grouse. Wade and Jeremiah were napping against the saddles, their guns discreetly out of sight. Abby and Caleb had yet to show up. Mic wouldn’t be too worried about them until an hour after sunset.
“It’s about time,” Wade said from his position on the ground, not even moving his hat from his eyes to see who had come. “I was wondering if you two would ever reappear.”
Mic dismounted and reached up for Lillian. His hands closed around her tiny waist, enjoying the feel and wishing it was bare skin. Maybe they should have taken more time at the spring. “It’ll be a while before sunset. We have plenty of time.”
Jeremiah chuckled, looking at them from under his hat. “I’d rather they do it somewhere else than where I can hear them.” He grinned at Lillian. “Although listening to Little Spitfire last night-”
“Jeremiah,” Mic growled, setting his wife on her feet and tucking her behind his back. He wasn’t sure if it was to keep her from going after Jeremiah and killing him or himself from beating his brother again. “I’d hate to finish the scene at the river when we could use you right now, but if you finish that sentence I’m going to.”
Jeremiah grinned and crossed his arms across his broad chest.
“I don’t get it,” Noah said from his place beside the fire. “Did you get lost, Michaiah? You never get lost.”
Wade and Jeremiah exploded into full belly laughs that echoed noisily off the surrounding rocks.
Noah looked even more confused, glancing between everyone. “You guys never tell me anything.”
Mic glared at his brothers. “One day, Noah. One day you’ll understand.” He unsaddled the horse and laid a blanket on the ground for him and Lillian. Grabbing her hand, he sat on the blanket, leaned against the saddle, and pulled her down beside him. “Be quiet. You two are jealous.”
Lillian didn’t say anything, though the blush on her cheeks let him know that she was far too embarrassed by his crass brothers. She curled against his other side, keeping him between her and his brothers, and hid her face in his shirt. The sudden urge to see how far the blush went across her skin led to thoughts of her luscious breasts and the look of her face as he sucked on her rosy nipples. His cock hardened in response.
And that reminded him of that first morning when Lillian had slept at his side, her thigh thrown over his leg, her hands touching every part of his body in her hurry to get away from him. This was a very different scene than the one Wade had found them in that first morning and he liked it far more.
She sighed and snuggled up to him. “How long will we stay here?”
“Until nightfall. Abby and Caleb will join us and we’ll head to Charles’ place. Right now we’re far enough away to be mistaken for cowboys passing through if anyone sees us.”
“Unless they get close enough to see you two cuddling,” Wade remarked with a grin.
“Then they’ll be looking for the nearest tree to hang us on until they realize she’s a woman,” Jeremiah added.
Wade yawned. “All she would have to do is start screaming.”
“Do you two have no sense of propriety?” she called out. “I’m married to him. I have every right to be with him.”
Lillian missed the look between the brothers. Mic did not. Inwardly, he groaned. This wasn’t going to be pretty and there was no stopping them now. If he said anything, they would take it as a challenge.
“Propriety?” Jeremiah asked.
Wade grinned at Jeremiah. “Decorum. Modesty. Decency. Those pesky manners that your mother tried to teach you.”
“Oh. I’d have to say no. No sense of respectability. I think the mayor’s exact words to me during the barn dance were that the barn was too good for the likes of me. I was tempted to tell him where his wife was at that moment. ”
Mic winced.
Lillian gasped and sat up. “Where was his wife?”
Jeremiah grinned at her and Mic gave him a pointed glare. This wasn’t a conversation for either Lillian or Noah to hear. “Hiding in the dark behind the barn with the banker. I don’t think the mayor has realized that his six children aren’t his.”
“That’s awful. Just what could you have been doing that was worse than that?”
Mic groaned. “Don’t you dare answer that if you aren’t going to tell her the truth, Jeremiah.”
Jeremiah looked offended. “I never lie.”
Wade burst out laughing. “You always lie, and do inappropriate things when pretty women are involved. He stole a kiss.”
“From the mayor’s daughter,” Noah added.
“Who didn’t protest in the least when I kissed her,” Jeremiah said, looking crestfallen. “It was like kissing a sucker fish and I couldn’t wait to get away.”
She crossed her arms on Mic’s stomach and rested her chin on her forearms. “What’s a sucker fish?”
“A fish with a big mouth that latches on and doesn’t let go. I thought she was going to kill me by sucking the breath from my lungs.”
“That’s about the time the mayor caught them,” Wade said. “And he starts shouting that his innocent daughter has been spoiled and that Jeremiah was trying to take advantage of her.”
She laughed. “Jeremiah, you need to stop going around kissing women. All it does it get you in trouble.”
Jeremiah had the gall to look saddened by his actions. As if that was the worst of it. “I wouldn’t bed that creature if she was the last woman on Earth. She might be beautiful but she doesn’t hold a candle to you, Little Spitfire. I mean look at you. You’re smart and resourceful. You’ve traveled thousands of miles to marry a man you don’t know, been kidnapped by Mic, held against your will, and made an outlaw. You stood up against me when you feared I would hurt your man, armed only with a skillet. If you weren’t spoken for by my brother, I’d have to make another try.”
“She’s got a point, Jere,” Mic said, rubbing circles on Lillian’s back. “Kissing girls gets you in trouble.”
She was much calmer about the content of the conversation than usual, which gave him hope that she might one day come to like and understand his strange family. Of course, she had yet to meet Abby or Caleb.
“Kissing men would get me in more trouble,” Jeremiah retorted.
“What you need is a wife,” Lillian declared, earning groans from the other men. “Then you wouldn’t have to try to find a woman to kiss. You would already have someone you knew you could kiss. Just make sure she doesn’t kiss like a suckerfish. Then you won’t fear for your safety,” she finished in a teasing tone.
Jeremiah crunched up his face. “How am I going to know how they kiss if I don’t try them out first?”
“Your approach is all wrong. You can’t come up behind a woman and try to kiss her. She’s going to think you’re attacking her. What you need to do is take the time to talk to her, get to know her. Then you ask if you can kiss her. If she latches on but won’t let go, you know you need to find someone else.”
Mic shook his head, frowning. “The kissing wasn’t what got you thrown out of the party, Jere.”
The scrape of a boot against rock was Mic’s first warning that someone approached. He listened, focusing on the smallest sounds, and discreetly drew his gun.
“If it wasn’t kissing the mayor’s daughter that got him thrown out, then what did?”
“Defending my Jane’s honor,” Wade responded instead.
“How so?”
“The mayor recognized her from his many visits to the saloon and called her out as a whore.” Jeremiah’s voice shook with anger. “So I hit him.”
“You broke his jaw,” Mic corrected.
“If Jane hadn’t stopped me, I would have broken his damn head!”
Whoever was out there was moving with care, taking their time to sneak up on the camp, and they weren’t moving as a white man would even though they were wearing boots. The clumping of boots was a distinct sound. The person was trained to move as an Indian would, and Mic was pretty sure it was Abby. Caleb always made too much noise. Abby was lighter on her feet.
Wade shook his head. “Jane knew it wasn’t worth a hanging.”
“Well, I think it was nice of you to defend her.” She frowned. “Did he ever find out his wife was with the banker?”
The three brothers exchanged grins. “No. He’s now raising three more bastard kids and everyone knows it.”
“You mean everyone knows and no one will tell him? Why not?”
Mic hugged her tighter to him, kissing the top of her head. “How do you tell a man that his wife is sleeping with nearly everyone in town except him until she finds out she’s pregnant?” From the corner of his eye, he saw movement on the rocks. “As sweet as that revenge would be, there would be eight children who’d suffer for their mother’s mistake.”
“A mistake is something done unintentionally. What she’s doing is wrong. Do the children know?”
“It is wrong, Uzizitka, but would you tell him? Would you tell the children? Would you paint shame upon the innocent for the sins of their mother and father?”
She sighed. “No, I wouldn’t, but I’d be tempted to give the mother a piece of my mind.”
“Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies,” Jeremiah said in his preacher voice, probably quoting scripture.
“A virtuous woman isn’t going to like being snuck up on for a kiss. All you’ll do is scare her away,” she pointed out.
“Then I’ll know she’s virtuous.”
“Then you’ll know… I just don’t understand you at all.”
Mic chuckled. Lillian was relentless and he loved that about her. However, her attempts to fix Jeremiah would be wasted. Jeremiah was too set in his ways.
“Supper’s ready,” Noah announced.
Lillian groaned and rolled her eyes. “There’s no getting through to him, Mic. ”
Mic hugged her tightly. “I know. I stopped trying years ago. ”
“What did I miss?” Abby asked from the rock.
Mic glanced at his sister, drawing Lillian closer to his body, and opened his mouth to answer.
“He killed food for her,” Wade said, sidling up to the fire to cut a strip of meat off the grouse. “Slept with her and let her take advantage of his person.”
“He let her ride his horse to his house,” Noah added. “And wrestled with her beside the stream.”
“Beat me senseless for touching her,” Jeremiah said from his bedroll with a yawn.
Mic rolled his eyes. “Lillian and I got married.”
Abby grinned and leapt off the rock. “The first time didn’t work for you so you had to try three more?”
“Does everyone have to know our business?” Lillian asked. Then she sat up, frowning down at him. “What was that about three more times?”
Mic groaned. They were trying to get him into trouble and he’d better explain before they succeeded.
Abby drew her knife, advancing on him. “Did you take advantage of her innocence, Michaiah?”
“No!”
“No, he didn’t,” Lillian spoke up. “He was a perfect gentleman.”
Abby nodded her head sharply. “Good. I’d hate to thrash him for being a lusty husband to a woman who didn’t understand that in the Sioux world she was married to him that first day. ”
“What?”
Mic sighed. “She was talking about you with that comment about the three times. It’s called stealing a bride. ”
“Oh, that’s silly. You don’t just take someone out of a stagecoach and are suddenly married to them. If that was the case, then women wouldn’t accept a man’s hand if he wanted to help her out of one.”
“If I was Lakota and if I wanted to steal my bride, I could kidnap her and bring her to my home.” He glared at his sister. “Which wasn’t what happened and you know it.”
Abby grinned. “I know but teasing you is so much fun.” She crouched down beside the fire and cut a piece of meat from the bird with one of her knives.
“Where’s Caleb?” Wade asked.
Abby waved behind her. “Bringing the horse. I wanted to see if I could sneak up on Mic.”
“Stop wearing the boots.” He holstered his gun. “They make too much noise on the rocks.”
“Does it?” Lillian asked. ”I didn’t hear her.”
Abby laughed, slapping her hand on her thigh. “You have to be part wolf or part Mic. How far back?”
Mic shrugged. “Foot scrapped on a rock about ten feet back. Jeremiah was talking about the reason he broke the mayor’s jaw. There were a few other sounds along the way. ”
“You heard her that far back?” A smile crossed Lillian’s face and she kissed him. “You never cease to amaze me with everything you can do.”
“Are they always this way?” Abby asked the others, chewing her food.
“Worse,” Wade answered.
“If you don’t like what you see, turn the other way.”
“Well darlin’, a thunderstorm only masks so much and I’m not getting a cold by going out in it.”
“It serves you right, Wade, after everything you did.”
Abby chortled. “I like her.”
“Me too,” Jeremiah and Noah said.
“I reserve judgment,” Caleb said, bringing the two horses into camp. “Though anyone who can put up with Mic, Wade, Noah, and Jeremiah definitely has my respect.”
Lillian smirked at Wade.
He groaned. “Thanks. It’s good to know my family is there to stab me in the back.”
“So what have my idiot brothers been teaching you?” Abby glanced at Mic with a raised brow. “Besides the obvious marriage stuff from Mic.”
“They taught me things I can do to protect myself if I ever need it, like hiding, using a knife, paying attention when I’m at a stream, being careful what I do when someone might be watching or listening, and how to use my feminine wiles.”
Abby burst out laughing. “Feminine wiles? What do these thugs know about feminine wiles?”
“I’ll have you know that Jane told me all about feminine wiles,” Wade said irritably.
Jeremiah shrugged. “I don’t get women.”
“That’s obvious,” she spat at Jeremiah. “Let me guess, their ideas of feminine wiles is batting eyelashes, puckering lips, and Cleopatra? Idiots!” Abby stood and stalked over to Lillian. “Come on. We have to talk.”
Lillian glanced at Mic who nodded then rose to her feet. “Alright.”