Cowboy, Take Me Away

{6. Their Travels - part 3}

A dark chuckle leaves Wyatt's throat and I know whatever he's about to say won't be good.

I just wish I knew how bad it would make things.

-

"She'll leave you." Wyatt saying looking at Beau with a smirk- one I used to find charming but now it seems cruel and cynical. I gasp, the audacity of him to accuse me of such wretchedness. When I look to Beau, his jaw is clenched so tightly I fear his teeth may shatter. "She thinks you're taking her to freedom, she'll hate you for the life you're taking her to."

"I won-" A movement beside me stops my denial. Beau has grabbed his hunting rival from behind him, where it was attached to the canvas wagon cover. The barrel crosses over my lap, and I tense as the barrel focuses on Wyatt, sitting on his black stallion -Clemenza.

"I've asked nicely." Beau is able to say calming, at least he's calm as my heart feels it may race out of my chest. "My wife and I are trying to get home."

Wyatt's eyes squint just slightly. Then, he smiles down at me, tipping his hat, before looking back up at Beau.

"Mark my words, Locksley, she'll leave." Then he tugs Clemenza's reigns and he's gone.

Wordlessly, Beau snaps his own reigns and I wait for him to comment, but he doesn't. We pass five farms before I finally reach out and touch his tightly clenched hand.

"I'm won't leave." I promise, closely watching his expressionless face. What possessed Wyatt to say such a horrible thing, I'll never know, but it's seemed to have ruined the small willingness Beau had for taking me as a wife. I guess it's a good thing that Wyatt was too late. Beau certainly won't ask for an annulment.

"Time will tell." He mutters without a glance to me and I attempt to shove the hurt down as it threatens to claw through my throat.

We may have grown apart the pst two years, but we were friends once. I thought he knew me well enough to not leave.

"Momma raised me better." I quietly voice my thoughts, but they seem to fall on deaf years.

-

We travel in silence for the rest of the day, and my thoughts start to drift.

"What happens in the marriage bed-"

"Momma!" I gasp, pulling my hands from my mother. My cheeks feel as if they've been set aflame as my eyes widen. My mother is fading from consumption and she wants to talk about... "Momma, we've talked about this already, I know."

"Sweetheart," She grips my hands again, her cold ones wrapping around my own. "There are some things you must know. It will hurt at first," I frown, I had thought the marriage bed was a good thing. "But if you love your husband and he loves you, it will only be a few moments and then it will be something beautiful, that ties you together and creates beautiful life." She reaches up and cups my jaw gently, with a small smile. "Beautiful."

My thoughts now drift to what the marriage bed will be like with Beau. My mind tries to conjure images of simple having a man I bed next to me - I never even saw Papa in his night clothes. The night dresses a brought with me were my two nicest I had, but I know realize that Beau will have to see me in them.

"Are you okay? Beau's voice causes me to jump. "You look quite red."

Explaining my thoughts isn't an option, so I tell a partial truth. "The sun is warm." The April sun shines down on the both of us, and while its the perfect temperature at the moment, the sun is directly in my face. When I glance up at Beau, he's regarding me with a slight frown. Then he reaches for his own hat, silently offering it to me. I'm too distracted by the dark locks that have fallen into his eyes to accept it, the suddenly, its placed on my head.