Chapter Twenty-One
Jayce
Jayce found Adeel Jiroji in the cemetery behind the church. He was using a Peacemaker for target practice and plinking tin cans off the fence. The only person in Burning Scrub who owned a real Peacemaker that used real bullets was Mavis, meaning she must have loaned it to him.
Jayce didn’t know why she would loan Adeel a weapon, since she was aware he was going to ask him for Malika’s hand. Seeing how good his aim was didn’t raise Jayce’s confidence that this conversation would be well received.
No sense in wasting time.
“I want to marry Malika,” he said.
“Why would you want to do that?” Adeel asked.
Another can jerked, then flipped off the rail.
Jayce had thought the statement was self-explanatory. He felt like a complete idiot for having to express his feelings for her out loud, to her brother.
“Because I love her,” he said.
“Yes, yes. She’s beautiful, she’s exciting, she’s all the things American men love in a woman.” Adeel dismissed Jayce’s affections with impatience. “But can you afford her?”
“I believe so. Yes. She’s surprisingly low maintenance,” Jayce said.
It helped that she thought he was poor, but his was a level of poverty she believed she could endure because of her hardy ancestry.
“I mean,” Adeel said patiently, “can you afford to pay mahr for her?” He checked the gun’s chamber and reached in his pocket, withdrawing more bullets.
“You’re going to have to help me out, here,” Jayce said. “I have no idea how much a mahr is worth.” He was used to buying horses, not women.
He didn’t dare say it.
Adeel looked thoughtful.
He shifted his gaze from the gun barrel to Jayce. “Twenty-five million dollars should do.”
The twenty-five million dollars the town refused to return for Malika’s adventure.
How convenient.
“I don’t have twenty-five million dollars,” Jayce said.
And as much as he loved her, he didn’t believe anyone else had offered that much. He was being robbed.
Adeel fired another shot. Another can leaped to its death. “I’m sure you’ll think of some way to come up with it.”
Blackmail should work. Because suddenly, Jayce had suspicions.
“You hired Eli Chamas to come here,” he said, because it had been several hours since he was last shot and he was feeling lucky. “He was never Malika’s fiancé. He’s an actor. You set us up.” When he stopped to consider a few things, it made the most sense.
Adeel missed the next can.
He frowned at the can, then at Jayce. “Where did you come up with such a ridiculous idea?”
“Eli overplayed his role. He had no reason to kidnap Malika after the bank robbery. If he’d truly wanted her, all he had to do was wait for you to arrive and let you sort it out.
” Jayce continued thinking it through. “I have yet to see the client that Tilly couldn’t find online, and yet she couldn’t find anything on Eli Chamas until Malika gave her the name.
That was very convenient. Malika’s sister refusing to send her money was another clue.
This is the same sister who gave her two hundred thousand dollars to start a peepshow online. ”
“Aisha did what?”
Maybe Adeel hadn’t known what the money was for.
Jayce hastened on to the next bit of proof. “My mother objected to my relationship with Malika. That’s unlike her. She wouldn’t care who I married if I was happy and she was going to get grandchildren out of the deal.”
His dad had tipped his hand on that one.
His parents had no secrets when it came to their son.
When Jayce said he was going to marry Malika, his dad said how happy Jayce’s mother would be, meaning a much different conversation had taken place between them than the one she’d had with Jayce about shotguns and weddings.
And all his dad’s talk about her being forbidden…
Yeah, okay. That did add extra spice.
The way Mavis had thrust Malika on him from the beginning should have been another red flag. And only Benny had shown genuine surprise when Jayce made the announcement.
That didn’t mean Benny hadn’t known about it—only that he didn’t remember.
“You are not to discuss your unfounded theory with Malika,” Adeel said.
He slid the locking bolt on the Peacemaker aside, pulled back the hammer, and dropped another bullet into the chamber.
Jayce would never tell her. Not for any amount of money or because of an implicit threat to his life. She was pleased with herself because she believed she’d defeated Adeel, and he wasn’t about to spoil it for her.
“For twenty-five million dollars, it will be our little secret,” he said boldly, because he hadn’t forgotten that his dad and the town needed the money, which was why he was blackmailing Adeel even though the threat had no teeth.
Adeel spun the gun’s chamber. He frowned, then lifted his thumb from the hammer. Jayce sweated a little. He’d been shot plenty of times. The anticipation was always the worst. Even the songbirds held their breaths.
Adeel thrust the gun in its holster. “Very well,” he said. “I will grant my permission.”
*
Malika
Adeel had agreed?
Just like that?
Malika didn’t believe it.
She was not going to leave such an important matter to Jayce. There had to be no confusion on Adeel’s part.
She wanted this marriage. She would make certain he knew where she stood.
Midafternoon, she stormed to the front door of the lodge.
She pounded her fist on the wood. “Adeel!” she shouted. “Answer the door. We need to talk.” She continued to pound.
Two months had passed since he abandoned her here. He needn’t think he could walk back into her adventure—the one forced on her—as if nothing had changed.
She was not the same little sister who once depended on him. She had fought off a bear. She’d helped foil a bank robbery. She’d survived an Indian attack on the town and avenged the murder of the man she loved. She was a woman of the Western frontier, and she’d earned her place in this town.
The door opened. She held her head high. She might be a woman of the West, but she was also a direct descendant of desert nomads whose women held power. She would determine the outcome of her adventure, not her treacherous brother.
“It wasn’t locked,” Adeel said. “You could have walked in.”
She swept past him, then swung around. She jabbed his chest with her finger, refusing to be distracted from her rage.
“I will not marry Eli Chamas.”
Adeel ignored the jab of her finger and nodded. “Agreed. Eli is no longer an option for you.”
Confusion deflated the righteous indignation raging inside her. “Why is he no longer an option?”
“I believe his exact words were, I’d rather wake up next to a flea-riddled camel. Return the mahr I paid.”
How dare he insult her. And to think she’d felt a little guilty about electrocuting him.
“I hope you weren’t too harsh with him,” she said.
Destroying him financially should be enough. He’d already lost any hope for an alliance with Adeel Jiorji and his family.
“I returned his money.”
“Adeel.” She gasped, horrified. “What about honor?”
“Funny thing about that.” Adeel walked into the front room of the lodge.
She followed. He took a seat facing the window. She remained standing.
“Word has spread that I’m unable to manage you.
” The harsh lines of his face hardened. “Eli was the only man in all Djitania who made an offer for you, and only then because he believed he could succeed where I have failed. Thank you for proving him wrong, by the way. But I have my daughters to think of, and they need husbands too. You’ll return to your mother’s house and live with her.
I will not arrange another marriage for you. ”
She reconsidered the protest that sprang automatically to her lips. As far as fates went, that was generous of him. She wasn’t returning to Djitania to accept it, however.
She was in love. The American kind. The kind that sneaked up on a woman when she least expected it to.
The kind she’d never experience again, because she didn’t have the amount of patience required to wait for it to grow after marriage the way her sisters assured her it would, even if Adeel hadn’t refused to arrange another marriage for her.
“I’m not leaving Montana. I’m staying right here, in Burning Scrub, and I’m marrying Jayce.”
“My sister? Marry a cowboy?”
She began to have suspicions about the sincerity of his opposition. His dark expression and his stilted tone didn’t match. As if he were acting. He adored cowboys. He especially adored Jayce.
And he adored her. He would never have promised her to someone as coldly arrogant as Eli Chamas when he could have banished her to her mother’s household, as he now threatened, instead.
“Jayce has no choice but to marry me. He has already ruined me,” she said.
Adeel drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “This is a serious matter, Malika. This isn’t the Wild West adventure I’ve paid for we’re discussing. It’s your future.”
“My future is here. I want my own family. With Jayce.”
“You’re pregnant.” Adeel launched out of his chair. “I’ll kill him.”
“I’m not pregnant.”
She stopped. Counted off the days in her head, then checked her math. No.
“I’m not pregnant.”
She couldn’t tell if he was relieved or annoyed, or a combination of both, by the news.
“You would rather marry a poor cowboy than return home and live with your mother? You’re sure?” he demanded.
“I’m sure.”
“Very well. Jayce has offered to pay mahr for you, but I wanted to hear from you first that this is what you want before I accept it,” he said.
Jayce had offered mahr for her, even though it wasn’t part of his culture. The gesture warmed her heart. Maybe he couldn’t flirt, but he knew how to earn her affection and win her brother’s respect.
But Jayce wasn’t rich. That was concerning. She hoped Adeel hadn’t robbed him.
“How much did he offer?” she asked.
Adeel remained standing.
He wasn’t a tall man, but he was imposing. “Coincidentally, he made the exact same offer for you as Eli Chamas did. Twenty-five million dollars.”
“Is that a lot of money?” She hadn’t figured out the value of certain things yet.
One million dollars wasn’t enough to rent real Mexicans for a week. What might a Djitanian wife cost an American husband? She was going to have to learn about finances if she wanted to be a proper ranch wife.
Adeel smiled. “Yes, Malika. That’s a lot of money. More than Aisha received, and she received many offers.”
Jayce had paid a lot of money for her.
The rush of pleasure faded as fast as it rose. He didn’t have a lot of money, because his father was using the available funds from the ranch to buy bison and build a barn. Adeel had taken advantage of him.
If managing household finances was to become her responsibility, then this was a good place to start. They were not going to begin their marriage in debt to her brother.
“The mahr is mine. I want it,” she said.
Adeel lost his smile. “It’s only yours if you’re widowed or divorced.”
“According to Djitanian law. The laws are different here, and I’m not obliged to return to your household if something should happen to Jayce.”
“Or if he throws you out.” Adeel frowned. “Very well. The money is yours. But if I give it to you, you are no longer my responsibility, Malika.” He let the warning hang in the air long enough for her to understand that he meant it. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“I do.”
She couldn’t restrain herself any longer. Happiness burst through the seams of her gingham dress. She threw her arms around him and kissed his cheek.
“I love you, Adeel.”
Almost as much as she loved her American cowboy.