The Devil's Daughter by Laura Drewry Page A

boil.
    “No.”
    Jed paced beside the fire, his teeth clenched, his belly enflamed and knotted – and growling loud enough to wake the dead. “Why?” He wanted to grab her and shake an answer out of her, but doubted her answer would be anything he wanted to hear. “And where they hell did you come from that you didn’t learn to cook or clean?”
    Her silence fueled his frustrations until he thought he’d scream – at himself, not her.
    Jed cursed himself sideways. Lucy was the only woman who would have left that auction with him. He needed her even if she couldn’t boil water.
    At first glance, he’d wanted Lucy for the same reason every other man at the auction had wanted her: she was sexy as hell. But he could have resisted that. Good looks didn’t last under the hardships of Texas ranching. He’d been pulled in by something so ridiculous, he still couldn’t believe it.
    It all came down to pride.
    She had tried to hide the calluses on her hands, evidence of hardship and years of work. Those hands tipped it for him, despite what the rest of her appearance said. Anyone with hands like that knew hard work, and that was the kind of woman he wanted working with him.
    And he’d enjoyed that she would only have him and no other man. That alone should have been a warning.
    Pride cometh before the fall, after all.
    When he turned to face her, she didn’t even have the courtesy to look contrite.
    “What about children?” he finally asked. “Was that a lie, too?”
    So help him, if she admitted to that lie as well, he’d load her into the wagon right this minute and haul her back to town so fast she’d be dizzy for a week.
    No matter what Miss Blake said, annulments were easy enough to get these days – especially if it involved a woman who lied as Lucy did. He might not ever be able to hold his head up in town again, but that was just all the more reason to avoid town.
    “No.” She looked him square in the eye and smiled. “That wasn’t a lie. If it’s truly my lot in life to have children, I’ll welcome them.”
    “Your lot?”
The faint glimmer of hope he’d felt a second ago, flickered out. “Do you mean to tell me you don’t want children?”
    “There was a time. . .” She shrugged slowly.
    “But—”
    She silenced him with raised finger. “No buts, remember? I told you I’d do whatever you wanted, Jed, and if that includes children, then that’s fine with me.”
    Despite his anger, despite her lies, she had the audacity to smile back at him.
    “Of course,” she added, “if you want children, you’ll need to bed me first.”
     o0o
     
    Lucy choked back her last mouthful of burnt beans, then downed it with another cup of water. Maybe Jed would see the light now and take over the cooking; surely he wouldn’t let his darling sister-in-law starve to death.
    He’d been awfully quiet since learning she’d deceived him, but he’d as much as licked his plate clean, so perhaps he wasn’t as angry as she’d thought.
    “Thank you.” He set his plate on the blanket next to him. “That was a fine supper.”
    She fought the urge to snort. Instead, she set her plate on top of his and looked up at him with a wry smile.
    “What?” he asked. A quick splash in the creek had rid his hands and face of the afternoon’s dust and sweat, but not the frown etched across his brow.
    “I never would’ve taken you for a liar.”
    A look of absolute umbrage froze his mouth in an O. “I don’t lie.”
    “Oh really?” She rolled her eyes for effect. “’A fine supper’?”
    Jed sputtered for a second. “But it
was
a fine supper.”
    “What we just ate, dear husband, was anything but fine.” She lifted her chin a notch, then pushed up from the blanket. “You needn’t waste time trying to appease me, Jed. I’m a horrible cook and we both know it.”
    She walked over to the side of the fire pit, where she’d left a pot of boiled water to cool, and set to washing the dishes.
    “Lucy.”
    Hunched