An Unwilling Husband (21 page)

The men laughed amiably, and so the banter continued as Lenny’s exotic beauty and Maggie’s conversation kept them seated and entertained.

A few girls around her age eventually joined the group—they had apparent interest in some of the eligible men. Maggie made sure to introduce herself and Lenny before making room for them at the table. Years in Society had taught her the women’s acceptance would be important if either of them were to thrive in the small society.

“So that squaw—” a girl with honey colored hair named Martha started.

“Lenny,” Maggie said patiently.

“Right. Lenny. Is she with you?”

“Of course. She is my friend,” she said, not liking where the conversation was going.

“How can she be your friend if she doesn’t have any English? You can’t even talk to her.”

“I’m learning her language, naturally. And besides, she has many attributes I can appreciate.”

“Such as?” Jimmy asked.

“Such as she could probably out-hunt, out-ride and out-shoot most of the men at this table.”

Everyone grew quiet, likely at the sheer audacity of her challenge.

“Oh, this I gotta see!” one of the men said.

Chapter 14

“Now where has that blasted woman run off to?” Garret grumbled. He scanned the tables but failed to find neither hide nor hair of Lenny or Maggie.

He’d convinced Burke they needed to take a break to eat something and check on Lenny, but really he wanted to see Maggie. For all her irritating qualities—and she had many—she was a beautiful woman. Difficult to ignore in such a dress, which seemed to have been made to accentuate her dark auburn hair and startlingly bright green eyes. He’d even grown fond of the freckles gracing her nose and cheeks.

His plan to make her fall out of love with him crumbled by the minute as he found his thoughts maddeningly consumed with her. Maybe if she wasn’t so damned pretty he could resume his relentless battering at any semblance of a relationship with her. The worst part was she didn’t know she was pretty, which only made him like her more. He growled in frustration as he scanned the tables one last time.

Gunshots sounded. He surged to his feet, headed toward the side of the house, Burke following with a worried look on his face.

Worry curled in the pit of his stomach, and he lengthened his strides. What if something had happened when he wasn’t there? He’d thought the girls safe enough in such a public setting, but what if they hadn’t been? He shouldn’t have left them there unprotected, especially with the amount of danger Maggie was in and the promise he’d made to Cookie about protecting Lenny. That old Injun would shoot him dead the minute he found out anything happened to Lenny and not give another thought to his rotting corpse.

He and Burke rounded the corner of the house and stopped short. There she was. Leave it to Maggie to initiate a shooting competition a few hours into a barn raising. Lenny was competing against a growing line of young men waiting to take a crack at out-shooting her.

Garret laughed loudly. He couldn’t help it. Maggie had found a way to integrate Lenny seamlessly into the party. A growing group of young women cheered Lenny on, and Maggie jumped excitedly up and down, pride evident in every facet of her expression.

Burke snickered behind him. “You have to hand it to her. She’s a clever woman.”

He wished he could disagree. “Where are you going?” he asked Burke’s retreating back.

“I’m gettin’ in line!” he yelled back at Garret.

“Oh hell, why not?” he muttered and followed Burke.

Never would he forget the sight of Lenny and Maggie standing side by side, easily the most beautiful and sought-after women at the barn raising, in their fine gowns, hefting rifles. Each held their breath, waiting to steady the sights on their target before they pulled the trigger. Lenny easily out-shot Maggie, who was the second-best female marksman. Hell, she even shot better than some of the men.

Despite his attempts to hide how impressed he was with her, a grin crept onto his face. When Maggie saw it her face lit up like the sun. He would have to kiss her right then and there if she didn’t look away from him soon.

The male attention she was receiving gave him a feeling he had never in his life encountered before. Jealousy. He tried to stomp it out like the spark of a fire, but the red-eyed monster was determined to stay lodged in his gut, to his burning annoyance.

“Gentlemen. Ladies.” Garret bowed gallantly to the cluster of women chattering excitedly around Lenny and Maggie.

Fawn James and Thelda Mooney, both of whom he’d gone to grade school with, fluttered dark eyelashes his way and grinned boldly. They wore their hair in the same, pulled back fashion and similar yellow dresses. Just as they’d done when they’d attended the old school house. Apparently not much had changed in the years he’d been gone.

“Sorry to interrupt, but I wonder if I could steal my wife for a while?” he asked.

The small crowd seemed disappointed but gave in willingly enough. He should leave her there to continue to charm the masses, but he couldn’t stand the looks and flirtatious remarks directed at her for much longer. And up and walking away didn’t seem like an option. He took her hand and led her toward the banquet tables. When he turned to see if Burke followed, the man had offered Lenny an arm and escorted her, trailing after them. Lenny seemed agreeable enough. He’d have to keep an eye on them.

Maggie twined her fingers in his, and he looked down, surprised.

“It’s a nice touch. The hand holding,” she explained. “Keep it up, and the town might actually begin to think you like me.”

If she could hear his heart hammering away at the touch of her, she wouldn’t question his intentions. Her saying so meant he’d been doing a decent job of keeping her at bay. “Gotta play the part,” he said. He hated the words as they spilled from his mouth, and even more, the look of hurt in her eyes before she turned away from him and released his hand. Dammit. “I haven’t eaten yet. Do you want to sit with me?”

Her brow furrowed. “Are you wanting me to fix you a plate?” she asked.

That she was willing to pull the worst from any kind offer he had for her bothered him. “Nope, think I can do that on my own. Just wondered if you wanted to sit by me.”

“Fine,” she said, but looked suspicious.

It was dinnertime, and he and Burke filled their plates while the girls perused the desserts table.

“Do you want anything from over here?” Maggie asked. She seemed to ask more out of a sense of duty than actual caring.

“Yeah, grab me a piece of your pie,” he answered.

Maggie jerked her head up in surprise. “Which one?”

“The peach one. It’s my favorite.”

“Do you want anything else?” she asked, after plopping a massive portion of pie onto the plate she held.

“Nope. That’s the only thing that sounds good.” Garret headed in the direction of an empty table and the others followed after they were done filling plates.

Maggie cut the piece of pie in half and started in on her portion.

“Is that all you’re eating? You’re likely to starve to death if you don’t eat more than sweets for dinner.”

“I had a big lunch.”

He arched an eyebrow and hovered his fork over his food like a tiny guillotine.

She rolled her eyes, scooped an impressive heap of potatoes off his plate and shoveled them into her mouth. “Happy?” she asked around a full mouth. “Mmm, that’s really good. I swear, everything tastes better when I don’t have to cook it.” She helped herself to another bite and he leaned back in amusement as she went at his plate in earnest.

After she’d slowed down, turned her interest back to the dessert, he finished the rest of what she hadn’t picked over and grabbed a second plate. This time he made sure to spoon out additional potatoes. He wouldn’t tell Maggie the extra food was for her, but it was. Doing little things she wouldn’t notice was his only way to make up for the cruel things he had to say to her. He liked taking care of her, though he’d never admit it out loud.

A few people joined their group. He knew most of them from grade school, and the others, at least recognized from the small town. From the familiar way Maggie conversed with them, she must’ve met them earlier in the day. She had an easy way of making everyone feel included.

Her face was so animated when she spoke. How had he not noticed before? Probably because she didn’t feel happiness when she talked to him. Regretful. Her mouth was riveting. It was as if time slowed and he could almost read her plump, pink lips as she spoke to the captive audience.

“Garret. Garret?” Maggie looked at him with worried green eyes and real time resumed again.

“Sorry, what?” he asked. How much of the conversation had he missed in his blasted daydreaming?

Burke waggled his eyebrows at him and grinned. At the moment, Garret wanted to punch the smile off him.

“Miss Mary Beth just asked you how your cattle did. Twice,” his ranch hand said.

Garret cleared his throat and leaned forward to block Maggie’s profile from his peripheral vision. She was too distracting. “They caught a fair price.”

Mary Beth waited for him to continue, and when he didn’t, tried again. “I heard Mr. Jennings is trying to buy up the Lazy S. Is that true?”

Maggie also waited for his answer, but he didn’t have the knack or patience for small talk the way she seemed to.

At his hesitation, she said, “Isn’t Mr. Jennings always trying to buy the Lazy S? That man just wants what he cannot have.” The corners of her mouth turned up in a mischievous smile. “Besides, if we sold, what other dusty cactus-infested ranch would we have to grow old on?”

Yep. He couldn’t have said it better himself.

* * * *

Hammering on the final wooden shingles of the barn echoed through the clearing. The barn doors still needed to be hung but it was finished enough, and everyone broke into applause as the last of the volunteers climbed down from the roof. Groups in pairs and threes migrated toward the new building, as the sun showed promise of setting. Maggie and Lenny stayed behind to help pack up the tables of food and transport the desserts into the barn for hungry dancers later in the night. Garret and Burke stacked wooden chairs and loaded them into waiting wagons.

When the group headed through the barn doors, Maggie was overwhelmed by the crush, the volume of the mumbled conversation around them. Plenty of townspeople looked at her and Lenny, but they seemed to be growing used to them. The few smiles they received from the crowd helped to bolster confidence. Mr. McDowell stood on a platform at the back of the barn and gave his thanks to the townspeople for coming out and lending a hand.

The barn smelled like freshly cut wood and the excited crowd murmured and bustled, readying for the dance. Children chased each other through the openings between people and men hung lanterns to give relief from falling darkness. Organized, jovial chaos. She had never been to a dance in the country before. From the way Garret closed his eyes to the first note held on the old fiddle, she imagined it had been a long time for him too.

“We need four couples on the dance floor,” the caller yelled out.

A fiddler behind him picked up a fast beat, encouraging the bravest into the empty middle of the barn. No sooner was the final partner on the floor than the caller, a lanky old man with a bushy gray mustache, was singing out commands to the beat of the fiddle. From the dancers’ baffled laughter and obvious recovery at unexpected calls, the song was an original. The dance was a fast jig with stomping and twirling, and a raucous switching of partners in the middle.

Laughing in delight, she clapped along with the other onlookers. Very different indeed from the parties in Boston Society. She favored this one hands and feet over the colorless, proper ones in the city. Oh, to be sure, there were politics involved in this dance, but nothing like the games in ballrooms.

Garret seemed completely uninterested in asking her to dance. She had already put herself out there more than was fair, so waited quietly beside him and watched the braver couples having fun.

Someone cleared their throat in a delicate manner beside Garret.

Anna Jennings in a beautiful cream and gold colored gown, looked up at his imposing height with an overly innocent expression. “Excuse me, Garret?” she said. “I know it is forward of me, but would you oblige me with a dance?”