Read High Country Bride Online
Authors: Linda Lael Miller
Tags: #Westerns, #Fiction, #Romance, #Western, #Historical, #General
There was an awkward pause.
“Forced it?” Emmeline echoed quietly, at some length.
Concepcion squirmed a little, and took a rather noisy sip of her tea.
“Concepcion,” Emmeline insisted, forgetting all her private doubts and worries for the moment, “what did you mean just now, when you said Angus ‘practically forced’ the marriage?”
“Oh, dear,” Concepcion said.
Emmeline waited, and so did Becky.
Concepcion looked as though she wished she could disappear through a crack in the floorboards. “It’s nothing, really.”
“Then you won’t mind explaining,” Emmeline said.
Concepcion bit her lower lip, let out an enormous sigh. “Madre de Dios,” she murmured, and crossed herself. Her lips continued to move, but silently, for a few moments, and then, reluctantly, she went on. “It is just that Mr. McKettrick—Angus—wants grandchildren, very much. He has been feeling his age, worrying that he would die without ever seeing his sons married, with families of their own. So he—he sort of helped things along.”
“How?” Emmeline asked, very quietly. Becky, though listening intently, said nothing.
“It was his birthday,” Concepcion said, looking harried. “He was melancholy. He told Rafe and Kade and Jeb that he would give control of the ranch to whichever of them married first
and
gave him a grandchild.”
Emmeline had known all along, of course, that her marriage to Rafe was not a love match, and he’d made it perfectly clear that he wanted a child right away, but it wounded her, just the same, to realize he hadn’t made the decision to take a wife on his own volition. She was a means to an end to him, a convenience, and probably little more. He would have married
anybody
, because he needed a wife and a child to get control of the Triple M.
“I see,” she said, to no one in particular.
“No,” Concepcion argued, under her breath, “I do not think you see at all. Rafe cares for you. In time—”
“In time,” Emmeline echoed, standing up.
“She’s just tired,” Becky said hastily, rising, too. “Perhaps a short rest—”
Emmeline shook her off. “Please let me be,” she said, very softly.“Both of you.”
Becky and Concepcion exchanged concerned glances, but they subsided, let her climb the back stairs without tagging after her.
She moved briskly along the upstairs corridor, saw through the open doorway that Becky’s things had been brought to the spare room, where she’d slept that first night after her arrival. A cot had already been set up for Phoebe Anne.
She went on to Rafe’s room, opened the door, stepped inside. It was empty, but his scent was there, and so were the sweet memories of their lovemaking. She sighed, then turned the key in the lock, crossed the room to the writing table, and opened her remembrance book.
She sat down, opened the ink bottle, reached for her pen, dipped it, and began to write. At her elbow was the album Rafe had given her in Indian Rock, with its taunting gold lettering.
Our Family.
She paused in her writing, and a shiver moved along her spine. If Holt betrayed her to Rafe, there would
be
no family for her.
“I do not intend,” Becky told Angus McKettrick that evening, after supper, when the two of them were alone in his study, each with a snifter of brandy at hand, “to overstay my welcome. I will be returning to Indian Rock in a few days, where I have taken a hotel room.”
Angus had graciously asked her permission before lighting the cigar he was so obviously enjoying, seated behind that grand, if rustic, desk of his. His sons, and Emmeline, were elsewhere in the house, as was Concepcion, but Becky had no doubts whatever that all of them were wondering what kind of discussion was transpiring behind the study doors. “No need to be hasty about leaving,” he said.“This is a big house.”
Not big enough,
Becky thought wryly, remembering the tension she’d seen in Concepcion’s face and bearing upon her arrival that afternoon. Angus probably didn’t have the first idea, she reflected, that Concepcion loved him, and had for years. It was even less likely that he knew he felt the same way about her. These McKettrick men, she decided, had thicker skulls than most.
“I am used to looking after myself,” she said. She had taken the chair across from his desk, next to the crackling fire. She smiled a little, gazing at the flames. “I have been in business for some years, though I am now retired.”
Angus didn’t ask what sort of business; maybe he knew. After all, how many women drank brandy and talked about profit and loss, the way they’d been doing? More likely, though, he assumed she’d run a millinery shop or something like that. “You’d be a welcome addition to Indian Rock, that’s for sure,” he said, in that pleasantly gruff way of his. “Why, you could rope yourself a good husband in two twitches of a mule’s tail, if you wanted.”
Becky’s smile widened a bit, before she brought it under control.“That’s very kind of you to say, but I’m not really looking to marry. I have a little money set aside, and I’m an independent sort.” Understatements, both. She couldn’t imagine taking orders from some man, just because he’d put a ring on her finger, and she had considerably more than “a little” money spinning gold in her bank account. Why, when Emmeline saw what her share alone added up to, she’d probably faint.
“Of course,” she went on, when Angus didn’t say anything, “if I came across the right business arrangement, I might choose to settle down. Have you ever thought of selling the Territorial Hotel, Mr. McKettrick?” Was that her talking? She didn’t want that crude place, with its shared bathrooms, rough plank floors, and flour-sack curtains.
Did she?
Angus savored his cigar for a while. “Are you fixing to make me an offer, Mrs. Fairmont?”
Becky smiled, recognizing a kindred soul, another sharp trader. It almost seemed that Angus had known what she intended before she did. “I might be,” she said. “You understand, that hotel is in a sorry state of affairs. It would take a lot of hard work and money to bring it up to my standards.”
“Would it, now?” Angus asked. He was enjoying the encounter as much as Becky was, that was clear.
“Still,” Becky mused aloud, playing her part, “I think it has possibilities. A town of any size at all needs a decent hotel.”
“I agree,” Angus said generously. “I’ll admit I’ve neglected the place. I never was much interested in the hostelry business. Bought it for taxes when the first owner went bust, two or three years ago.”
“Then you ought to be able to give me a good price,” Becky said. It was a game to her, this genteel haggling. She loved it for its own sake, though all the while she was wondering what in the world had possessed her to start the conversation in the first place. Just about the last thing she needed was a hotel in a backwater place like Indian Rock, way off in the Arizona Territory. Why, in five years, given a financial calamity or two, the whole kit and caboodle could be nothing but a ghost town, full of empty buildings, sagebrush, and jackrabbits.
“I was thinking I’d offer you a share of the profits,” she said. “Whatever you paid in taxes, up front, and a third of what I make for the first five years. After that, it’s all mine.”
Angus leaned back in his chair, smoking and cogitating. He took his time, but Becky wasn’t ruffled. If he accepted, she’d have a project to occupy her mind w kept an eye on Emmeline, made sure she was safe and settled. If he refused, well, she wouldn’t be saddled with a miserable excuse for a hotel.
“You are quite a horse trader, Mrs. Fairmont,” he said presently.
“Becky,” she corrected,“and yes. I am.”
Angus chuckled, stubbed out his cigar in the ashtray on his desk.“You have yourself a deal, Mrs.—Becky.”
Becky rose, as did Angus, and they shook hands over the top of his desk, two people who understood each other.
Emmeline’s manner was very stiff that night at the supper table, but Rafe didn’t set much store by that. He figured she was still feeling delicate, with that female thing and all. For his part, he was glad to be home again, eager to push up his sleeves and get back to work.
He remembered the telegram, midway through the meal, and handed it to Phoebe Anne, who looked a mite perkier, all gussied up in the blue dress Emmeline had brought her from town.
All eyes turned to Phoebe Anne. Her hands shook as she opened the envelope and unfolded the sheet inside. Gradually, as she groped her way through the words written there, a light bloomed in her thin face.
“They want me to come home!” she cried, jubilant.“Pa and Mam Pelton want me to come home, soon as I can get there!”
Cheers erupted at the table, and Emmeline unfroze herself long enough to go over and hug Phoebe Anne tightly. All the women got teary.
Good, Rafe thought. Now I can burn that claptrap cabin to the ground, and there’ll be an end to this homestead business.
He’d build a fence around the two graves first, of course.
He finished his supper and excused himself from the table when Angus did, leaving the womenfolk to their chatter. His pa went to the study, while Rafe headed outside.
He found Kade and Jeb in the bunkhouse, enjoying a game of poker with half a dozen of the men, while that many more looked on. The new man, Cavanagh, sat over by the stove, watching.
Red, the cook, if you could call him that, laid down three aces and a pair of tens.
“Son of a bitch,” Jeb said, throwing in his cards.
Kade shook his head.“I’m out,” he said.
The other players offered good-natured laments of their own, but they were eyeing Rafe speculatively at the same time.
“Maybe you’d like to join us in a game,” Red said to him.
Rafe thought of his bride, up there at the big house. She’d be all right without him for a little while, he supposed, visiting with her aunt and the like. By now, he reckoned, they’d have gone over Phoebe Anne’s impending trip home and moved on to planning the shindig.
“Don’t mind if I do,” he said, feeling confident, and drew back a chair.
“Got room for another player?” the new man asked.
“You can have my chair,” Kade told Cavanagh. “I can’t afford to let Red pick my pockets again.”
Jeb wasn’t going to play again, either, but he always took an unabashed interest in other people’s folly, so he pulled his chair out of the way, turned it around, and straddled it, his arms resting across the back. A matchstick jutted from the corner of his mouth. “I’m too broke to do anything but watch,” he said. He slid a glance in Rafe’s direction. “Big Brother’s pretty flush, though, now that he’s foreman and all.”
Rafe let the remark pass. Petty jealousy, that’s all it was.
Cavanagh took Kade’s seat, and Kade leaned against the wall, his arms folded.
“Where you from, cowboy?” Red asked the new man, as he shuffled.
Rafe noticed that Cavanagh never took his eyes off the cards, not for so much as a second.“Texas,” he answered.
Another man, Dusty, gave a hoarse guffaw. He gathered up his cards as they were dealt, as did the others at the table.“Hell,” he said,“half the wranglers I ever met up with claimed to be from Texas. Ain’t nobody from Kansas? Or Iowa?”
“Where you from, Dusty?” Denver Jack wanted to know. He was at the stove, brewing up some of his infamously bad coffee. The other men claimed he washed his socks in the stuff before he poured it.
Dusty ducked his head, grinned, showing front teeth that overlapped a little. He probably hadn’t seen his seventeenth birthday yet, Rafe thought, and wondered if the kid had people someplace, watching the road for him. “Ohio,” he said.
“Ohio?” chorused four or five of the men, nudging one another.
“We got us a sodbuster here,” Red remarked, assessing his cards with all the concentration of a surgeon deciding where to cut.“Don’t know as we ought to put up with it.”
There was more good-natured joshing, but the game was under way, and it was in earnest. One by one, the players dropped away, over the course of the evening, until only Rafe and the Texan remained. The pile of chips in the center of the table was a significant one, and Rafe was sweating a little under the collar. He had two months’ salary in the pot, money he didn’t actually have at the moment, despite his promotion to foreman. If he lost, he’d have to borrow from Angus, or even Concepcion, to make good on the debt.
He resisted an urge to wet his lips with the tip of his tongue and waited.
Cavanagh drew the moment out as long as he could, then laid down his cards. “Two pair,” he said, showing eights, jacks, and a lone ace.
Rafe let out his breath, literally and figuratively.“Three of a kind,”he said. There they were, the other three aces, a deuce of hearts, and a five of clubs. He raked in the chips while the others pounded his back and hooted in congratulations.
“Must be a bridegroom’s luck,” Red observed jovially. He still had money, having pulled out of the game early on, and he’d probably taken a pull or two on the whiskey jug, too.
“Must be,” Rafe agreed. “And speaking of that, I’d better be getting back to my wife.”
Jeb and Kade glanced at each other in some unspoken exchange. Kade pushed away from the wall, and Jeb got up from his chair with an exaggerated groan of weariness.
“Think I’ll turn in mysel” Jeb said.“Unfortunately, I’ll be alone.”
Kade slapped his younger brother on the back. “Poor, lonely soul,” he said, with a fair amount of drama. “We can’t all be as lucky as our big brother, Rafe. Why do you suppose that is?”
“Somebody get a harmonica,” Red said. “We need us a sad song played here.”
Enjoying his brothers’ good humor, perhaps because he knew it would be short-lived, Rafe laughed, and happened to glance at Cavanagh, saw him watching with a solemn look in his eyes. He was not a man to inspire pity, this fellow from Texas, but he looked kind of lonesome, sitting there, like he’d been shut out of something.
“I expect those fences around the Pelton place to be mended tomorrow,” Rafe said,“bright and early.”
Jeb saluted, Kade shook his head, and the new man grinned a little, then looked away.
* * *
The green silk brocade glowed like liquid emerald, lying in folds on the freshly scrubbed kitchen table. It was full dark outside, and the room was lit only by lanterns. The stove seemed to shimmer with warmth. Phoebe Anne sat in a rocking chair, smiling and reading her telegram over and over.
“Oh,” Concepcion breathed, admiring the fabric Emmeline had just unveiled,“it is
lovely
.”
“Here is yours,” Emmeline said excitedly, pushing a large parcel toward the other woman.“Open it!”
Concepcion did so, eagerly. She gasped when she saw the silver-gray silk, and laid a hand to the base of her throat, murmuring in Spanish.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Emmeline asked. Only then did it occur to her that Concepcion might not like the cloth as much as she did. Maybe she would have preferred red, or the green Emmeline had chosen for herself. “Concepcion?”
“Oh, yes, “Concepcion whispered, and her eyes were shining with joy when she looked up at Emmeline. “I have never had anything so fine. Not even my wedding dress—”
Emmeline went around the end of the table and embraced the other woman, who sniffled as she returned the hug.
Rafe came through the back way just as they were carefully folding the lengths of cloth and wrapping them in the brown paper again. In the morning, they would cut their patterns from newspaper, using the carefully chosen designs in
Godey’s Ladies’ Book
as a guide, and then the sewing process would begin. Emmeline had never stitched anything more ambitious than a simple shirtwaist, but Concepcion was an accomplished seamstress. Together, with Becky to supervise, they would have the gowns ready in no time at all.
Concepcion cleared her throat, when she saw Rafe, and hastily excused herself. Becky was still shut away in the study with Angus, and Kade and Jeb, who came in just behind their elder brother, tipped their hats and made themselves scarce.
Rafe stood gazing at Emmeline, handsome as Apollo in the lantern light.
“Good evening, Mr. McKettrick,”Emmeline said formally.
“Evenin’,” he said, still frozen in place, hat in hand. “You look right pretty,” he added, when the silence had lengtheignificantly.
“Thank you,” Emmeline responded, and kept her distance.
“Your aunt settled in and all?”
She nodded.
“Is something wrong?”
Emmeline spread her hands.“What could be wrong?”
“You’re acting kind of strange, that’s all. You have been, all evening.”
She pretended to be busy wiping down the already spotless table. “Tell me, Mr. McKettrick,” she said, “would you have sent away for a wife if the Triple M hadn’t been at stake?”
He was quiet for a long time, and she couldn’t bring himself to look at him.“Probably not,” he said, finally.
“You would have gone on carousing and drinking and fighting and chasing saloon women forever, I suppose,” she said.
“Not forever,” he said miserably. “For a while longer, though, I reckon.”
At least he was honest, Emmeline thought. That was more than she could say for herself. She’d have to get down off her high horse, difficult as that would be, and make the best of things. She was married, she had a real home, and in time there would surely be children. It was everything she wanted, everything she’d hoped for, save one.
Perhaps it would be asking too much to expect love as well. At that point, she wasn’t sure the true article even existed, outside of fairy tales and her silly dreams.
“I want to thank you, Rafe,” she said quietly.
He looked startled.“Thank me?”
“Yes,” she replied. “You’ve been kind to me, and patient.”
“Are you—well—over that other thing?”
She smiled at his embarrassment. “Not for a few days yet,” she said.
“I reckon you must be about worn out. Maybe you’d better turn in. I want to have a word with Pa, and then I’ll be up.”
She nodded, went to him, stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. Then, without another word, she climbed the back stairs and made her way along the corridor to their room.
He gave her plenty of time to change into a nightdress, brush her teeth, and get into bed before tapping lightly at the door and waiting for her answer. He stood shyly on the threshold for a few moments, then came into the room, closing the door behind him.
“I brought you this,” he said shyly, and handed her a brick wrapped in felt.