a place like this. You lose stock. Sometimes you even lose people, and the sooner you get used to that, the better off you’ll be. So stop your sniveling, lady! If anything, I’m the one who ought to be upset. I paid top dollar for that idiot mule!”
Anna stiffened as her distress congealed into a wintry rage. Slowly she rose to her feet, her clothes dripping mud, her hair streaming in her tear-blotched face.
“How dare you?” She forced each word past the barricade of her chattering teeth. “How dare you speak to me like that—as if I were nothing, a piece of livestock, bought and paid for?” She took a step closer, her eyes drilling holes in his face. “I’ve known some cold-blooded, self-righteous prigs in my day, but you, Mr. Malachi Stone—you deserve the blue ribbon! You take the all-time first prize!”
Chapter Three
The darkness shimmered with the storm’s electric glow as Malachi stared down at her—this small, hysterical creature who had suddenly flown at him like a bantam hen defending her nest.
Cold-blooded? Self-righteous? Priggish? Lord, how his friends from the old days would have laughed at her description of him. Malachi didn’t much like the names she was calling him, but for the moment, at least, he was too bone-tired to respond.
“So you paid top dollar for that mule, did you?” she lashed him “How much did you pay for me, Mr. Stone? And what would you have said if I’d been the one to tumble off the side of the road and disappear in the storm?” She squared her shoulders and thrust out her trembling chin in imitation of a male swagger. “Paid top dollar for that fool woman!” she drawled in a voice that was startlingly deep for the size of her. “Damned shame she’s gone, but I reckon it can’t be helped. ‘Luck of the draw in these parts.’ But what the hell, there’s always more where she came from. Maybe I’ll order a taller one next time.”
Under different circumstances, Malachi would have laughed. But there was nothing funny about anything that had happened today. She was making too much of his words, and he was becoming irritated. “That’s a low blow,” he growled. “You don’t know enough about me to go making snap judgments, lady, and as for—”
“My name is Anna,” she said, cutting him off, “and you’ve already made it quite clear that I’m no lady in your eyes! As for making snap judgments, I haven’t a patch on a certain so-called gentleman I could name. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black—”
“Now, listen—” Malachi took a tentative step toward her. In that same instant lightning flashed behind him, illuminating her face to reveal wet strings of hair, bloodshot eyes and a full lower lip that was quivering like a little girl’s. Only then did he realize how cold and miserable she must be.
“No, you listen!” Her teeth were chattering now. “To hear you talk, one would think that anyone—anything—is expendable!”
“To hear me talk? That’s a joke! I can’t get a word in edgewise!”
She went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “Break an axle, lose a mule—fine! You just pick up a replacement the next time you’re in town! Lose a woman—” She struggled to finish the sentence, but cold and exhaustion were clearly winning out. “Lose a woman, and all you have to do is wire your efficient Mr. Wilkinson to send you another! It’s that…simple to you, isn’t it?” She was shaking uncontrollably now, fueled only by her own anger. Malachi knew that if he didn’t do something to ward off her chills she would be sick, if she wasn’t sick already.
Hellfire, what he wouldn’t give for a flask of good whiskey!
“How many others have there been?” she raged. “How many other mail-order brides before me? Did they run off, or have you got them all locked up down there in your—”
Her tirade ended in a startled gasp as he caught her shoulders, jerked her against his chest and wrapped her tightly in his arms.
“What do you think you’re doing?” She fought like a wet cat, squirming and twisting in protest. Malachi could feel her small, shivering body through his clothes. He tightened his none too gentle embrace.
“I’m trying to keep you warm. Hold still, damn it!”
“I will not! This is outrageous!” she hissed, craning her neck to glare up at him. “Let me go this instant!”
Malachi did not loosen his grip on her. “Listen to me for a change,” he ordered. “You’ve taken a bad chill. If we don’t get you warmed up fast, you’re going to be down with double pneumonia, and the last thing I need is a sick, whining female on my hands. Is that clear?”
“Clear?” She gave a disdainful little snort that could have meant either yes or no. “What a question! After the way you’ve treated me, I’d rather snuggle up to Beelzebub over there!”
Malachi swallowed the temptation to let her try exactly that. She was so cold it frightened him, and her teeth were chattering like Spanish castanets.
He dredged the well of his patience, his arms tightening around her as he spoke. “I wouldn’t recommend that. Beelzebub is covered with mud, and even when he’s dry he has a disposition like a snapping turtle’s. So unless you want to catch your death, Anna, I’m afraid I’m your last and only resort.”
Even then she resisted, triggering a burr of annoyance that rankled Malachi beyond the point of self-control. “If you’re worried about your precious so-called virtue, believe me, you’ve nothing to fear,” he snapped. “I’m so damned cold and tired myself that I couldn’t take advantage of you even if I wanted to!”
Anna had gone rigid in his arms. He could feel the rage pulsing through her body, the ragged intake of breath as she groped for a retort that would hurt him as much as he had just hurt her. “What was it I called you earlier?” she asked in a raw-edged whisper.
“As I recall, you called me a cold-blooded, self-righteous prig,” Malachi said.
“So I did.” Anna’s eyes glinted like an angry bobcat’s. “Well, I was wrong, and I would like to apologize.”
“Apologize?” Malachi raised his guard.
“Yes.” She spoke in brittle phrases, not quite veiling the sentiment that if she’d had a knife she would have cheerfully buried it to the hilt in his gut. “I fear that I was guilty of gross understatement. If the truth be told, Mr. Stone, you are the most sanctimonious, high-handed, hypocritical bast—”
“Shut up, Anna.” He jerked his arms tight, crushing her against him so abruptly that the breath whooshed out of her lungs. Her throat made incoherent little grunts of anger as she wriggled and squirmed against his vise-like grasp. Malachi felt the sudden gush of heat in the depths of his own body, and for the space of a breath he wrestled with the idea of silencing her full, plum-ripe mouth with his own. A sharp kick against his shinbone jarred him back to reality. This woman had every reason to hate him. Married or not, he had no business kissing her.
Steeling himself, he kept his hold on her. “I’m well aware of who and what I am,” he said, spitting out the words syllable by syllable, “and right now all I’m trying to do is keep you from freezing.”
For an instant longer he felt her straining in his arms. Then she muttered something under her breath and sagged wearily against his chest. It was a victory of sorts,
