Sarah nodded, anything but ready. She stepped inside the church. It wasn't dark at all, but lit brilliantly from sunlight pouring through the tall, stained gla.s.s windows on the west side of the building. Two tidy rows of pews lined either side of the aisle, leading her eyes to the front where Logan stood, solemnly watching her. He was freshly shaved. His hair was still damp. He wore a dark suit that showed his tanned face and blond hair off to quite an advantage. Seeing him, the church and its occupants faded from her vision.

"I want to marry you," he'd said at the sheriff's office. He wanted this. She had nothing to offer him. No dowry. No joy. Not even the promise of future children. Only the certainty that her past was quickly catching up to her.

Yet still, he'd said he wanted her.

"Mrs. Hawkins, won't you please hand your flowers to Leah to hold?" Reverend Adamson asked. She did as he requested, hiding her ungloved hands in the folds of her skirt as she faced Mr. Taggert. "Now, if you would set your hands on Mr. Taggert's?"

She drew a breath, locking her eyes with Mr. Taggert's gray gaze, willing him not to look down, willing him not to withdraw from her now. He smiled at her.

"Do you, Sarah Worthington Hawkins, take Logan Samuel Taggert to be your lawfully wedded husband. . ." She looked at the reverend, her mind a whirl. Was this real? What if this was another bad decision? It was hard to breathe.

"Mrs. Hawkins. Look at me." She moved her gaze to Mr. Taggert's. His gray eyes held a warmth in them, as if he was about to smile. Faint lines radiated out from his eyes, paler in the short furrows where he squinted from the sun. "Breathe, honey. I never break a bargain. You have my word about how our lives will unfold. Tell the reverend if you take me as your husband."

"I do."

More words. Jace reached over and handed him something. He took her left hand and held her third finger out so that he could slip his ring on her finger. A ring. A bright, wide, gold band. She stared down at it. Her first wedding ring had been a small, thin band. The Indians had taken it and had given it to one of their wives. She was already a terrible wifea"she hadn't thought of a ring for Logan. He pressed something cold against her right hand. His ring. He'd thought of his ring. He held his left hand steady for her, his long, blunt, ring finger extended. At the reverend's prompting, she slipped his ring on his finger. He grinned at her.

"I now p.r.o.nounce you man and wife. Mr. Taggert, you may kiss your bride."

Logan looked at her. "May I kiss my bride?" he asked her. She nodded almost imperceptibly, her mouth pressed shut. She prayed she wouldn't vomit as she tried unsuccessfully to block out memories of other men, other faces moving above her, laughing, touching her with their mouths, with their hands.

He turned her away from the small crowd and bent toward her without actually kissing her. He cupped her cheek with a hand. "You did just fine. Now you're mine, and I will take care of you."

She met his gaze and released a long, shaky breath. Then they were suddenly engulfed by all of Mr. Taggert's friends. Like dust in a wind burst, they moved as a group down the aisle and out into the sunlight. Sarah filled her lungs with the warm afternoon air. There was much laughter and chatter. She was feeling apart from it all, until Mr. Taggert reached down and took her hand in his. She looked up at him, but he was talking to Jace and Jim, the storekeeper. It was an unconscious gesture. She tightened her hand around his, glad for his strength.

They crossed the street and entered Maddie's kitchen. The smells of coffee, roasting meat, and all the fixings filled the room. Maddie had sneaked down to her kitchen while Sarah was being prepared for the wedding to make an extensive feast for them. Leah walked over to the cupboard and began setting out dishes. Sally poured coffee and brought cream and sugar to the table. In short order, the roast was carved and the table filled with bowls of mashed potatoes, green beans, fresh bread, and sweet b.u.t.ter.

Jim popped corks on a couple bottles of champagne he'd brought down from the store. "I'm sorry your family couldn't be here," he said to Logan as he filled gla.s.ses.

"There wasn't time," Logan answered. "Maybe, when things settle down, we'll have another reception. Until then, I'm going to keep Sarah out of town so that she won't be a magnet for trouble while Cal does some research and sees what he can discover."

Cal met Logan's look. "And when I do get to the bottom of things, I'll handle it within the boundaries of the law."

Logan grinned. "That would be the ideal resolution."

"That will be the only resolution." The two men shared a look.

"Now, now, boys. We can't fight during a wedding celebration!" Sally broke the tension. "Here's to the newly wedded couple. May your lives together be filled with love, laughter, and the blessings of many, many children!"

Logan lifted his gla.s.s and sipped the cold champagne, watching as Sarah did the samea"quietly and without looking at anyone. He wondered if he would be able to chase away the shadows in her eyes, the horrors in her mind that were always so close to the surface.

They ate a leisurely dinner, catching up on each other's lives and the changes that had come to Defiance after Logan left. Between his college years and the time since, he'd been gone almost twelve years. Maddie and the Kesslers had aged, but were the same in so many ways. Jace and Cal were new additions to the community, but they fit in as easily as if they'd been lifelong residents.

The warmth of the gathering made Logan edgy, and he didn't like to think why. It was well past sunset when he stood up and offered the group a polite smile. "I think it's time my wife and I retire. We need to hit the trail early tomorrow."

Sarah felt her limbs turn wooden. Mr. Taggert helped draw her seat back so that she could stand. He exchanged polite words with those gathered. She kept her eyes pinned on the table, the floor, her feeta"anywhere but the people in the room who thought they knew what was about to happen. She moved silently beside Mr. Taggert, causing him no problems, no reason to challenge her. Would he remember his promise? Was he different behind a door than he was in public as Eugene had been? Would it matter? Who would fault him for seeking the rights due him in their marriage bed?

They went up the stairs and paused in front of her room. She didn't know what she was allowed to do. She unlocked the door, but didn't open it.

"My room is just next to yours. I'll come over in a half hour. Will that give you time to settle? I need to write a couple of letters. My family and friends should hear about us from me."

She did look at him then. "How will your family react to our being married?"

He met her look. "It doesn't matter. You will be safe at their ranch. And I won't leave you with them long." He opened her door for her.

"It is a bad bargain you made, Logan Taggert."

"It is the best bargain I ever made, Sarah Taggert. I told you I would have gone as high as thirteen horses."

When he entered Sarah's room a short while later, the lamp had been turned low. She was in bed with the blankets pulled up to her chin. He moved silently across the room, his feet bare. He'd washed and shaved, then donned a fresh pair of denims and a loose cotton shirt. He usually slept in just his drawers, but he felt it would be awhile before his wife would be comfortable enough with him that he could resume that habit.

He turned the light out and lay down next to her, on top of the covers. His wife. He liked the sound of that.

"Good night, Mr. Taggert."

He turned on his side and looked at her lying stiffly next to him. "Mrs. Taggert, do you think, now that we're married, we might use each other's given names?"

She looked at him, turning only her head to do so. "I guess that would be all right."

"Are you tired?"

She straightened and shut her eyes. "I feel like throwing up."

Logan laughed, appreciating her honesty. She didn't pretend to be comfortable just to appease his vanity. It was a good start. "Would a foot rub help?"

"No! No, it would not."

Logan settled on his back, next to his very stiff wife. "When we leave here, we'll head north for about a week. We're meeting with a man named Chayton. He's Sioux. His mother was a white captive. He is unbelievable with horses. I wonder sometimes if he hasn't found a way of speaking to them without words. I trade each year with his wife, whose beadwork is the highest quality I've ever seen."

"Does he have white wives?"

"No. He has only one wife. Laughs-Like-Water. They have two kids, a boy who's about six and a little girl who's four or so."

"You sound fond of them."

"Chayton is like a brother to me." More a brother than Logan's own stepbrother was. "When I left home, he was the first person I met. We almost killed each other, but we ended up hunting together instead. He had gone to search out a herd of wild horses. Laughs-Like-Water's father had set a high bride price on hera"five horses. Chayton had asked her father to not accept any suitor for her until he returned at the end of the summer. I stayed with him that entire summer and helped him catch his horses. Her other beaux offered the requested horses and many gifts. One, whose father had many horses and was the wealthiest man in the village, even offered ten horses. But Laughs-Like-Water made her father keep his promise to Chayton." Logan paused, remembering Chayton's ride into the village, followed by twenty horses.

"What happened?" Sarah prompted him to continue.

"Summer ended. We were a long way from his people. An early snow hampered our return. He was sick with worry that her father would have waited only until the end of the summer moon."

"Did she wait for him?"

"We didn't know yet. He rode into his village at dusk, leading his herd. I rode drag, but no one paid attention to me. Chayton brought great wealth to his people, and he'd done it by his own hand. He didn't trade on the strength of his father. That night, he stood with fifteen horses outside Laughs-Like-Water's tepee. He gave a command, and the horses rose on their hind legs as Chayton cried her name. He gave another command and they went down on one leg. It was magnificent. Long seconds pa.s.sed. I watched him wait. It seemed a lifetime. At last her father emerged. He looked impa.s.sively at the gift Chayton offered. Three times the bride price he'd asked."

"Logan! What happened?"

He smiled at her. His wife was a romantic. "Laughs-Like-Water's father called for her mother to come out and take the horses to the corral. He accepted the bid. Chayton and Laughs-Like-Water have been together ever since. He has become a legend among his people. All the warriors bring him their horses to train. What he does with them is nothing short of magic."

"You make the Sioux sound so different from the people I knew."

"There are good and bad among all peoples, Sarah. I think you've just gotten to see mostly the bad."

When Sarah woke the next morning, the sun was high, flooding her room with light. Disoriented, she looked around the unfamiliar room, listened to the sounds of the house. People were talking in the kitchen. The tantalizing aromas of coffee and breakfast floated in the air. She remembered every minute of the whirlwind yesterday had been.

Logan! She jumped out of bed. They were supposed to have left early this morning. The morning was well along. Had he gone without her?

She rushed to wash and dress. Hands shaking, she gathered her things and put them in a pile, having no satchel to pack them in. She stepped into the hall. He'd said his room was next to hers. She tried the one to the right. It was empty. Same with the one on the other side. He was gone. All of his fancy words, his promises. He'd still left her. She wrapped her arms about herself as the hallway seemed to spin.

"You're up!"

Her head shot up as the familiar deep voice slipped into her mind. He was coming up the stairs bearing a cup of coffee. "I thought you'd left."

"Of course not. It occurred to me there was no reason to rush off at the crack of dawn. You've had quite a few hard days. I wanted you to rest." He handed her a cup of coffee. Her hands shook as she took it.

She looked up at him, his image wavering in her eyes. "I thought you were gone."

He pulled her into an easy hug. "Aw, sweetheart. I'm sorry I frightened you." He rubbed her back. "Come down to breakfast. Maddie's been cooking for hours. I hope you're hungry." She leaned into his chest, drawing a long breath and slowly releasing it. He seemed to be waiting for her composure to return. He could read her far too easily. She hated letting him see how dependent she was on him.

She sipped her coffee, using the motion to shield herself from him. She wondered, as she followed him to the kitchen, if he would be different once he was away from town and these people he knew so well. Would he keep his promises to her when there was no one around to know if he didn't?

Chapter 9.

A ma.s.sive covered wagon drew up in front of Maddie's boardinghouse a short while later that morning. Their ponies were tied to the tailgate. Sarah sent Logan a questioning glance. "Are we traveling in that? Is it safe?"

He grinned. "It's safe. We'll be out for a couple of weeks. I thought you'd rather ride in a wagon than on a horse for that amount of time. Besides, I need to take a fair amount of supplies to Chayton and hope to be picking up a good collection of artwork from his wife. We could either bring two pack mules with us, or take the wagon." He shrugged. "It just seemed easier."

Sarah's gaze traveled across the hard planes of Logan's face. His eyes were alive with excitement.

"Comea"I'll show you. It's a chuck wagon." He took her hand and drew her around to the end. The backside of the wagon was a custom-fitted cupboard, with cabinets, panels, and compartments. "There's a table that folds down for food preparation. The drawers are hidden behind the table's board. Its leg folds up and over to the side. We're stocked with coffee, flour, sugar, beans, oats, grits, cornmeal, salt, pepper, baking powdera"any dry goods you might want. The cabinets hold utensils, pots, and pans."

He took her around to the front bench, past a large water barrel tied to the side of the wagon, along with various ropes and lanterns. The driver's bench sat high atop another cabinet. Logan helped Sarah up to the bench. He followed her up and stepped over the front seat into the interior of the wagon. There were two benches on either side with a table between them. They ended at another cabinet, on top of which lay a mattress, complete with sheets, quilt, and pillows.

"Logan, this is a house. On wheels. Where did you get it?"

He grinned. "The livery owner bought it awhile back from a logging crew. He's repaired all the bad wood and broken hinges and made a new tarp for it. Took him awhile to get it cleaned up for us this morninga"which was another reason I decided to leave later than planned. The linens are newa"picked them up from Jim's store. Maddie gave us the pillows and quilts."

"It's too much. You wouldn't have done this if not for me. I don't want to slow you down."

"I'm not in a hurry, Sarah. Not anymore. I'm dragging you across the territory. I want you to be comfortable."

Sarah looked away, shocked by the depth of his thoughtfulness. Her father had been a kind and gentle man. He'd done everything in his power to make her mother's life what she wanted it to be. Her own marriage to Eugene had not been anything like the magic her parents shared.

Logan climbed back onto the seat next to her. "I brought your things down and packed them under that bench. We're all loaded up. Ready to start?"

She drew his old hat up and cinched the thong beneath her throat. "Ready."

Maddie stood in her drive and waved to them. "You take care of Sarah. And don't be a stranger, Logan. We've missed you."

He nodded to her with a quick tug at his hat, then slapped the reins. Sarah looked at Logan. Her husband. So many times over the last couple of years, her life had taken a turn she'd never seen coming. Her family's move west. Her parents' deaths. Her first marriage. Her capture by the Sioux. And now her marriage to Logan. It was like living in a river full of rapids and falls, the current moving so fast that anything resisting the raging waters would be destroyed.

Logan's hands were light on the reins. He looked relaxed, a man very much at home in this wild territory. She felt his courage, doubted he'd ever encountered something or someone he couldn't handle. His hat shielded the upper half of his face, but sunlight touched his chin, the hard outline of his jaw. She couldn't believe he'd found her, that they were married. Her gaze lingered on his face, drinking in the sight of him.

She forced herself to look at the land slowly pa.s.sing by, but saw nothing of its green lushness. Her mind was too filled with gray eyes, eyes that seemed to read souls. She knew she had no secrets from him, not when he could look at her and know her wounds.

She folded her legs up on the bench and wrapped her arms around her knees. "Why have you stayed away from your home and family so long?"

A muscle worked in the corner of his jaw. He shrugged. "No good reason. Habit, I guess. Being gone was easier than returning."

"Why?"

He sent her another quick look. His face was a careful mask. He sighed. "I spent four years back East getting my degree. I planned to take a job there, but my stepfather wanted me to come home. He had plans to have me marry his neighbor's daughter."

Sarah was speared by an unfamiliar blast of jealousy. "Did you get married?"

He shook his head. "My stepbrother fell in love with her."

"Is that why you left?" Sarah held her breath, waiting for the devastating news that he still felt the loss of his first love. Or worse, that he'd only married Sarah so that he wouldn't have to return home alone. She blinked away her tears, quickly, before he could notice them. What was, what might have been, was in the past. She and Logan, for better or worse, were married. She would do her best to help heal that old wound. She would make him proud.

"Maybe it was. But it isn't why I stayed away. I'm happy for my stepbrother and Rachel. They were meant for each other. She mended the things that were broken in Sager's spirit. There could have been no other for either of them."

"Why, then, did you stay away?"

"My stepbrother and stepdad are a bit overpowering. I didn't want to live in their shadow. My brother will inherit the ranch we grew up on. And in marrying Rachel, he gets all of her father's land, too. There was no place for me. So I left to find where I belonged."

"What happened to your parents? Your stepdad raised you?"

"My father died when I was very young. I don't remember him at all. My stepdad met my mother when I was only a few years old. They married and he brought us out here, to his ranch. He is really the only father I remember."

"Was he a good father?"

Logan considered her question. He sent her a quick look. "My stepdad lost his first wife to a Sioux raid. She was pregnant when they took her. Sid, my stepdad, searched for her for years. When he finally learned she'd died, he also discovered that she had borne him a son. I think Sid cared for my mother and me, but he was gone a lot searching for his real son. I was left alone with my mother, who was angry about having to live in so remote a spot. She was a bit unbalanced. Her rage grew over time. We all lived in fear of upsetting her."

"I'm sorry, Logan." She reached across the bench to touch his arm. "Is she better now?"

He shook his head. "She pa.s.sed away eight years ago."

"Oh, Logan!"

He shrugged. "It's done. My brother came home when he was a teenager, and left again almost immediately. Again my father searched for him. And then, when I graduated college, my father and his neighbor hatched a plan to have me marry Rachel. Sager had come back about then. I thought we could try to be a family, but it wasn't possible." He gave her a wan smile. "And that, Mrs. Taggert, is the whole sordid story of my life."

Sarah moved her hand down to clasp his hand, glove to glove. "That is not the sum of your life, Logan. You are part of this wild country. You're friends with everyone. You can speak Sioux and probably a dozen other Indian languages. You understand tribal customs. You ride across this land without fear, as if you welcome the challenges that might come your way. You don't let men bully youa"or any strange women you happen to run into. You are an extraordinary man. I am glad you are my husband."