Short Straw Bride. Dallas Schulze

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      The last time anyone could remember the McLain brothers setting foot inside a church was three years past when their mother had been laid to rest beside her husband. So their arrival on this fine spring morning created a buzz of talk as people wondered what had caused their sudden attack of piety.

      The speculation was already well advanced by the time Eleanor’s family arrived. Zeb Williams had a firm, if unspoken, belief that God rewarded not merely godliness but punctuality. But this morning Anabel had been unable to find a particular hair ribbon and their departure had been delayed while the house was searched for the missing item. Though the pink ribbon was found in Anabel’s reticule, exactly where she’d apparently put it, the blame for their lateness had somehow fallen on Eleanor and she’d been treated to a telling silence on the carriage ride.

      She was actually grateful for the opportunity to review the decision she’d made the night before. Though she tried desperately to find some flaw in the plan, none presented itself. No matter how she looked at it, marrying Andrew Webb seemed the best option available to her. He was a respectable man, a kind man, even. She’d be a very foolish girl indeed to turn him away.

      So, when Mr. Webb greeted the Williams family today, she’d put on her very best smile for him and try to look as if the prospect of wedding a man with cold, damp hands and four small children filled her with something other than dread.

      But the whispered buzz that hummed through the small church pushed all thoughts of Andrew Webb momentarily aside. Of course, even without the whispers running through the pews, Eleanor would have noticed the McLains. They sat in the front pew, next to the aisle. Broad shoulders beneath neat black coats, dark hair worn just a little too long for complete respectability—even from the back, they drew a woman’s eyes.

      Though she’d attended church there every Sunday for six years, it seemed to Eleanor as if the building was suddenly much smaller than it had been, as if the McLains’ presence filled up the available space in some way that mere mortal men had no business doing.

      It was doubtful that anyone paid much attention to the Reverend Sean Mulligan’s sermon that day. Eleanor certainly couldn’t have repeated a word of it. When the sermon ended, the murmured amens were perfunctory, everyone’s mind occupied with things of more immediate interest than the hereafter.

      It was the normal practice for people to linger in front of the church, exchanging greetings with each other, complimenting the minister on his sermon. On this particular Sunday there was only one topic of conversation among the womenfolk—what had brought the McLains to church after all this time. And though the men pretended to be above such common speculation, it didn’t stop their eyes from sliding to where the McLains stood talking with Reverend Mulligan.

      Cora Danvers suggested that they’d come to repent their sins in the eyes of the Lord. But no one who looked at either McLain—and everyone was looking at them—could give much credence to that theory. Neither of them looked as if they felt the need for repentance. There was too much confidence in the way they moved, too much arrogance in the way they carried themselves.

      Perhaps they were lonely, Millie Peters said. After all, they were orphans, alone and without family. Her soft blue eyes teared up at the thought, her plump face crumpling in sympathy, and Eleanor had no doubt that Millie would try to take the McLains under her wing. But they didn’t look as though they needed Millie’s wing, nor anyone else’s, for that matter.

      She’d never actually seen either Luke or Daniel McLain but, like most people in Black Dog, she knew who they were. They owned the largest ranch in the area, a ranch their father had begun and that they’d continued to build after his death. Their patronage kept half the businesses in town in the black. She knew Mr. Webb’s store depended in large part on orders from the Bar-M-Bar.

      But she wasn’t thinking about Andrew Webb as she watched the brothers talk to Reverend Mulligan. Though there was a strong resemblance between them, it was the taller of the two who drew her eyes. He looked dangerous, she thought, studying his profile. A strong chin, an almost hawkish nose, his hair brushing the collar of his conservatively cut black coat—there was something just a little untamed about him. And the gun that rested so snugly on his hip completed the image. Not that he was the only man wearing a gun—this was still a wild land in many ways, after all, and most men went armed. It wasn’t the presence of the gun but the ease with which he wore it that was just a little shocking.

      As if sensing her gaze, he turned his head abruptly and their eyes met across the packed dirt of the churchyard. He was too far away for her to see the color of his eyes but she felt the impact of that look all the way to her toes. She knew she should look away, that it wasn’t ladylike to stare, but she couldn’t drag her gaze from his.

      “Stop staring like a cheap tart. Try to at least pretend you’re a lady,” Dorinda Williams hissed in her ear. Eleanor gasped as her aunt’s fingers found the tender flesh on the back of her arm in a vicious pinch. She lowered her lashes to conceal quick tears of pain. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Anabel smile with pleasure and had to restrain a most unladylike urge to slap her smug pink-and-white face.

      

      “What I’ve got in mind is a gentle girl, one who won’t be too demanding,” Luke said. “I’ve got enough on my hands with the ranch work. I don’t want a wife who expects me to dance attendance on her.”

      Sean Mulligan had known Luke and Daniel since the family had first moved to Black Dog after the war. He’d been a friend of their father’s, and he’d often thought that Robert McLain would have been proud of the way his sons had kept the ranch going after his death, fulfilling his dream. He was fond of both boys—men, he corrected himself, looking up at the two of them. He’d been pleased to see them in his church this morning, but his pleasure had rapidly changed to dismay as he’d listened to Luke coolly outline his plan to find a wife.

      “I don’t want to waste a lot of time,” Luke was saying now. “Spring’s a busy time, what with calving and all.”

      “Finding a wife isn’t like buying a horse, Luke,” Sean protested.

      “Buying a horse would be a damn sight easier,” Daniel put in, grinning at his older brother. “Just check the bloodlines, look at the teeth, take it for a ride and you know what you’re getting. Too bad you can’t do the same with a woman.”

      “Well, you can’t,” Sean snapped. He dabbed at the beads of sweat on his forehead. The mild spring sunshine suddenly felt uncomfortably warm.

      “It can’t be that hard, Sean,” Luke said, looking impatient. “People get married all the time.”

      “Yes, but they generally spend some time getting to know one another. They court. A man doesn’t just pick out a bride like…like…”

      “Like picking out a horse?” Daniel supplied helpfully.

      “Exactly.”

      “I don’t have time for courting, and we can get to know each other after the wedding. As long as she doesn’t have a temper like a wolverine or a face like a mud fence, we’ll do fine. I need a wife, not a best friend.”

      “But…” Sean sputtered and dabbed the handkerchief frantically over his forehead. How could he explain the impossibility of what Luke wanted?

      “There must be some unmarried females in town,” Luke said, his eyes skimming the crowd, unconcerned with the interest he was receiving in return.

      “Yes,” Sean СКАЧАТЬ