Short Straw Bride. Dallas Schulze

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СКАЧАТЬ have had. “Though, from the looks of some of those girls, I’m not sure it’d be such a hardship to take one to wife. That redhead wasn’t hard on the eyes, and a little temper might make life interesting. A little fire can be a good thing.”

      “In a horse, maybe, but not in a wife. My life is interesting enough.” Luke let the reins go slack as he reached for his own makings and began to roll himself a cigarette.

      “What about the dark one? The widow. She was easy on the eyes.”

      Luke considered Letty Sinclair briefly and then shook his head. “Sean says she lives on her own. A woman who’s been living on her own is likely to be set in her ways. I want a girl who’s willing to get set in my ways.”

      “How about the one with the yellow hair?” Daniel suggested. “I can’t say I’d mind looking at that one over the breakfast table.”

      “Too young.” Luke dismissed Anabel Williams out of hand. “Besides, I’d bet my last dime there’s a streak of mean in that one that’d make a man’s life mighty unpleasant. And a girl that pretty probably spends half her time in front of a looking glass, admiring her own reflection.”

      Luke lit his cigarette and narrowed his eyes against the drift of smoke. “What I want is a girl who’s not so young that she’s got her head all full of romantic notions but not old enough to be set in her ways. Pleasant enough looking that it won’t be hard to go about the business of having sons with her but not so pretty that she’ll expect me to spend all my time admiring her. She’s got to be strong and willing to work.”

      “That’s quite a shopping list,” Daniel said. He reached up to tilt his hat down a bit, the better to shield his eyes from the afternoon sun. “You see a girl you think might live up to it?”

      “Eleanor Williams,” Luke said, drawing on the cigarette.

      “Don’t remember meeting an Eleanor Williams,” Daniel said after a moment. He blew out a thin stream of smoke and frowned at the endless vista of prairie ahead of them. “She wasn’t the one with the nose like a buzzard, was she?”

      “No.” Luke shot him an irritated glance, though he couldn’t have said just why it annoyed him that Daniel didn’t remember the girl.

      “She was the one standing next to the girl with the yellow hair. The cousin.”

      “The one wearing the god-awful hat,” Daniel said, making the proper identification.

      “Her choice of headgear don’t interest me,” Luke said shortly. Privately, he promised himself that the first thing he’d do when they got married was burn that hat.

      “There ain’t much to her,” Daniel said, just as he had when Luke had asked Sean Mulligan about her.

      “I’m looking for a wife, not a pack mule,” Luke said irritably.

      “Need some of the same qualities in both,” Daniel said. “Strong and steady, even-tempered—” He caught his brother’s annoyed look and broke off but there was nothing repentant about his grin. “Course, I’ve never seen a pack mule I wanted to share a bed with.”

      “Pack mule’s got more sense than to look at the likes of you,” Luke said.

      “So you think Ellen Williams is the one?”

      “Eleanor,” Luke corrected automatically. “And I won’t know till I’ve had a chance to talk to her a bit more.”

      “I don’t know, Luke. Marrying’s a serious business.” The laughter died out of Daniel’s eyes, which were the same clear gray as his brother’s. “Maybe this ain’t such a good idea, after all. Maybe we ought to just forget the whole idea and try another housekeeper.”

      If he’d thought about it, Luke would have said that he wanted nothing more than to give up the idea of finding himself a wife. And here was Daniel, saying that he should give it up. He opened his mouth to agree that it had been a dumb idea from the start and that they should put it behind them. And found himself remembering Eleanor Williams’s big brown eyes, the shy smile in them and heard her voice saying that she’d lived in Black Dog six years, four months and twelve days.

      “I said I was going to find a wife and that’s what I’m going to do,” he heard himself say stubbornly.

      Out of the corner of his eye he saw Daniel’s surprised look. Since he was no less surprised himself, the last thing he wanted to do was talk about his decision. He nudged the gray into a canter, effectively putting an end to the conversation. For some reason, the idea of having a wife just didn’t seem as bad as it once had.

      

      The Wednesday after he and Daniel attended church, Luke found himself driving the buckboard into Black Dog to pick up supplies. He hadn’t expected to find himself back in town quite so soon and was irritated by the necessity. But since their last cook had decided that California’s winters would suit his old bones more than the biting prairie winds, Luke and Daniel had been sharing the duty, and it was Luke’s turn to make the trip.

      He nodded to Chet Longman, who ran the livery stable and was also the sheriff, when Black Dog had need of such. He heard the tinny sound of a piano from the Gold Dust Saloon as he drove past and decided he’d stop by for a drink before making the long, dusty drive back to the ranch. It wasn’t much consolation for a wasted day but it was better than nothing.

      They had to find another cook, he thought irritably. Or a wife. His eyes narrowed as his attention was caught by a particularly ugly hat—a familiar hat. The woman wearing it was walking briskly down the boardwalk, the skirts of her mint green dress swaying invitingly. As Luke watched, she pushed open the door of Webb’s General Store & Emporium, and Luke allowed himself a grin. Maybe this trip wouldn’t be such a waste of time, after all.

      

      When her aunt Dorinda had sent her out to buy a length of linen for new towels, Eleanor had welcomed the chance to get out of the house and enjoy a walk in the spring sunshine. And going to Webb’s would give her a chance to make amends to Mr. Webb for her blatant inattention to him after church on Sunday. When Reverend Mulligan had brought the McLain brothers over to be introduced, Andrew Webb had been promptly and somewhat rudely forgotten. She couldn’t expect to draw a proposal from Mr. Webb if she ignored him just because she’d been introduced to another man. Even if that other man did happen to be the most attractive—

      But that wasn’t the point, she reminded herself briskly. Even if Luke McLain was the embodiment of every girlish fantasy she’d ever had, she was no longer a girl. She was twenty now and it was time to put away childish dreams. There was no knight in shining armor to come riding out of the prairie and sweep her off to a better life. She was going to have to build that better life for herself, and Andrew Webb offered her the best hope for a new future.

      So she’d put on her favorite dress, a soft green cotton that suited her coloring much better than most of Anabel’s castoffs, and she’d put on the ugly hat Mr. Webb had thought suited her. She’d wondered briefly if she could really be contemplating spending the rest of her life with a man who had such dreadful taste in millinery, but then reminded herself that there could be worse things. Like living with her aunt and uncle.

      She’d spent a moment batting her eyes at her own reflection and trying to imitate Anabel’s way of looking at a man from under her lashes. But the look that was coquettish on Anabel СКАЧАТЬ