That brought a grin to David’s face. “You’re lousy at it, actually, but for Daphne’s sake, we’ll both carry it off.”
“People are already whispering, I think.” Brianna glanced down at the street, where shoppers scurried from one store to the next. “When I open the shop tomorrow, I fully expect a dozen women to drop in just to get a good look at me.”
“Don’t worry about that. People are going to talk. There’s no avoiding it. But with me being the marshal and my family being so well respected in the community, the buzzing will die down pretty fast.”
“And what about Hazel Wright?”
David frowned at her. “What about her?”
“Don’t you think she’ll be very upset, and justifiably so, if she believes you courted her when you knew you were a married man?”
“Shit.” He raked a hand through his hair. “You’re right.” His eyes went as dark as storm clouds. “Ace and I didn’t think about that. What’ll I tell her?”
Brianna considered the question. “Tell her that we had long been discussing divorce in our letters, and you thought you’d soon be free to marry.”
The creases in his brow vanished. “That’ll work. The last time we talked, I was getting itchy feet, so I said something about having to make plans before I proposed officially.”
Imagining David about to propose to that woman put a bad taste in Brianna’s mouth. “So we’re agreed? We were going to divorce and changed our minds.”
He nodded.
Brianna took a bracing breath. “So now it starts. As of today, we begin living a lie.”
“Yes,” David replied. The emotion in his blue eyes tugged at her and made her want to believe in magic again. “Who knows? Maybe if we do it well enough and long enough, it’ll no longer be a lie. I’m coming to care for you. Maybe in time you’ll come to care for me.”
Oh, how Brianna wished it were possible for this to
become a real marriage. This man had wormed his way past most of her defenses, and she was starting to fall in love with him. Rationally, she knew that was a mistake. The only reason David wanted so badly to make this marriage work was because he cared deeply for Daphne and wanted her to have a normal, happy childhood. He would do anything to protect his child—
anything
, even it meant sacrificing his own life. He’d proven that.
Gazing into his eyes, Brianna wouldn’t allow herself to believe in what she saw there. He didn’t love
her
. He loved Daphne because he thought she was his own flesh and blood. How would he feel when he learned she wasn’t?
Immediately following his talk with Brianna, David went to sit in front of his office and wait for Hazel Wright to leave the school and walk the length of Main to her little house, provided for her by the town. He could face her now. Brianna had agreed to the story he and Ace felt should be told. He’d relate it to Hazel and try to assuage her hurt feelings, and hopefully they’d part as friends.
It wasn’t long before David saw her trudging along the dirt thoroughfare. She wore a pretty green dress and a lacy shawl the color of whipped cream. When David stepped out into her path, she jerked to a halt and pierced him with a wounded gaze that made him feel like shit. He’d never meant to hurt her.
“Hazel, can we talk?”
“Yes.” She swept past him. “At my place. I will not be humiliated out here on the street.”
David felt like a dog trained to heel as he followed her home. Once inside her sitting room, he swept off his hat. Meeting her gaze dead on, he said, “I know I’ve got some explaining to do. Just please know I never meant to mislead you.”
She stepped over to a round table at the end of her settee and opened a carved box. The next instant, David felt the sting of something hit him in the face. He looked down and saw the gold pendant he’d given her lying at his feet.
“You are a lying, faithless scoundrel!” she shrieked.
“Hazel, please. Just hear me out.”
She disappeared into the kitchen. A second later, she reappeared with a broom. David realized she meant to hit him with it, and he had the option of ducking, but he’d hurt this woman and figured he had a hard lick coming. He braced as she swung. The broom handle caught him alongside the head, and for a second he saw stars.
“Get out!” she cried. “And take your lies with you!”
David nodded. “All right. I understand your anger. You’re entitled to it. I just wish you’d listen and—”
She swung with the broom again. Until that moment, David hadn’t realized that Sam had followed him into the house. The dog yelped as the broom handle connected with his back. He scrambled behind David, whining. David stared hard at this woman he’d once tried to tell himself he loved. Had he taken leave of his senses? He couldn’t stand people who abused animals, and Sam had done nothing to deserve a wallop.
Head still smarting, David turned, flung open the front door, and nudged his dog out on the porch.
To hell with giving her an explanation.
As far as he was concerned, she no longer deserved one. Before he could close the portal behind him, Hazel took two more swings, nailing David on the knee and Sam on the head. That cinched it.
David rounded on her. “Take your anger out on me, but leave Sam alone.”
She struck David on the arm. “A pox on you
and
your stinking dog!”
When she tried to hit Sam again, David flung up his arm to block the blow. The broom handle snapped clean in two. Hazel stared at the broken wood. Before she could decide to stab Sam with a sharp end, David cleared the porch, ordering his dog to follow him.
So much for trying to do the right thing. From here on out, Hazel Wright could pickle in her own bitterness.
Over the next many days, Brianna’s life with David fell into a pattern. He stayed above the shop a few nights a week and went back to the ranch the other nights. On town nights, they circled each other. Brianna felt like a splash of kerosene exposed to an open flame. To her the tension between
them seemed so electrical that a mere touch of their fingers set off sparks, and she truly felt as if her very flesh might ignite. As she had out on the prairie, she often found herself watching him, admiring his physique. The play of muscle under his clothes fascinated her. From the corner of her eye, she enjoyed observing the way his thighs flexed as he moved. The rich sound of his voice made all her nerve endings thrill. She even liked how he looked in what she had come to think of as his “desperado” garb. In Boston, no one would ever mistake him for a gentleman, but she had come to appreciate his rough edges and strength, finding those traits far more appealing than tailored suits and manicured nails.
With David in the apartment, she felt protected against all outside dangers. Perversely, it was only David himself who presented a threat to her peace of mind. Sometimes when she caught him studying her, she saw a glint of desire in his eyes and knew he wanted to bed her and make their pretend marriage a real one. Brianna held firm, not because she still harbored any fear of him, but because consummating the marriage would be unfair to him. When the day came that he realized Daphne wasn’t his, Brianna wanted him to be free to leave her and make a life with someone else. He was far too honorable a man to ever make that choice if he believed she might be pregnant or if they’d had a child together.
No.
She would be strong for both of them. If he ever wanted out, there would be nothing to hold him back. She just hoped he didn’t choose to be with that snotty Hazel Wright.
Hazel came into the dress shop nearly every day after school, and without fail, she was spitefully unpleasant. Though Brianna could understand Hazel’s feelings of resentment toward her, she began to dread the visits.
“This satin is less fine than what Clarissa kept in stock,” she said one afternoon. “You’ll soon find yourself out of business if you try to sell gowns of lesser quality to optimize your profits.”
Brianna, standing behind the display case, met Hazel’s glittery blue gaze. “Actually, that particular satin was here
when I bought the shop. Dorothy Chandler is delighted with the gown I fashioned for her from that bolt. It’s so popular I’ll need to order more soon.”
Another time, Hazel bypassed the snide remarks and went right for Brianna’s throat. “I’ve heard the story of your marriage to David, and I’m convinced it’s a bunch of poppycock. He isn’t the kind of man who would court me when he was married to another woman.”
Brianna put down the child’s frock she was hemming and stood to face Hazel. “You’re free to think what you like, I suppose. The story you heard is the truth.”
“So David is a conscienceless philanderer?”
“I didn’t say that,” Brianna replied. “David is a fine man. I don’t believe he has it in him to do anything dishonest or unkind.”
“Really?” Hazel studied a brooch displayed on velvet inside the glass case. “Well, he certainly had no problem being unfaithful to you. He courted me. He bought me gifts. He was about to propose marriage. If he’s such a fine man, why was he contemplating bigamy?”
Brianna moistened her lips. “At the time, David and I were discussing divorce in our correspondence. David believed he would soon be free to marry. As it happened, though, we began sorting out our differences in our letters, and we changed our minds about ending the marriage.”
Hazel brought the flat of her hand down on the glass with such force that the report was deafening. “You’re lying! And mark my words,
Mrs.
Paxton, one of these days I will take great pleasure in exposing you for the trollop that you really are.”
Brianna clenched her teeth to keep from saying anything in response. When Hazel left the shop, she hugged her waist, bent her head, and tried to stop shaking. David entered the shop just then. Brianna jerked and looked up.
“What the hell did she want?” he asked.
“She knows, David. She knows it’s all a lie.”
He strode over to grasp Brianna’s shoulders. “She knows nothing for certain, Shamrock. Don’t let her upset you this way.”
“It’s difficult to remain calm when someone is being so nasty.”
David cupped her cheek in his hand. His touch sent a tingle all the way to her toes. She’d come to love the light caress of his thumb over her cheek, and it took all her strength of will not to lean into him right then and beg him to hold her close.
“You want me to tell her to stay away from the shop?” he asked.
Brianna collected herself and stepped away from him. “No. It’s a place of business, open to the public. If we did that, we’d only be adding fuel to the fire.”
David sighed and put his hands at his hips. “You’re probably right. Maybe you should just ignore her. You’re not obligated to talk with her about anything personal. If she makes snide remarks or asks questions she has no business asking, try pretending that you don’t hear.”
“I’ll do that.”
For David, his nights in town were a mixture of pleasure and torture. He greatly enjoyed the evenings above the dress shop, with Daphne chattering while they fixed supper and then entertaining them with stories of her day during the meal. With school out of session in less than a month, he was pleased to hear that the child was making friends. She particularly liked Kaylee Thompson, Brad and Bess’s blond, green-eyed daughter, a bright little four-year-old who’d entered first grade a year early. Then there was Ralph Banks, Eva and Charley’s son, a stocky boy, soon to turn twelve, who’d taken Daphne under his wing; and Donnie Christian, a jet-haired little pistol with mischief gleaming in his blue eyes, who would celebrate his eighth birthday in June. Daphne regaled them with tales of Donnie’s latest pranks in class.
“So how do you like your teacher?” Brianna asked one night at supper.
Daphne wrinkled her nose. “She’s all right, I guess. She’s not mean to me or anything. I just don’t think she likes me very well.”
Brianna shot David a worried look. Later, as he helped
her with the dishes, he tried to reassure her in a hushed voice. “Surely Hazel won’t take out her anger on a child.” He remembered Hazel’s attacks on Sam and prayed he was right. Anyone who’d hit a dog without cause might mistreat a little girl. “I mean—well, I know she’s doing a burn, but none of it is Daphne’s fault.”
“Let us hope.” Brianna plunged her hands into the sudsy dishwater. “So far, I’ve detected nothing in that woman’s character that I deem commendable.”
Clutching the towel in both fists, David yearned to toss it down and encircle Brianna’s waist from behind so he could nibble on the nape of her neck. Tiny dark curls had escaped her chignon to rest against her pale skin. He imagined nosing them aside, tasting her, breathing in the scent of her until he felt intoxicated. She had apparently purchased bath salts and was using them, for even at three feet away, David caught the light, heady fragrance of roses.
The yearning to hold her plagued him every night when he stayed in town. Small as the apartment was, he brushed against her in the kitchen as they worked, and each time, his body reacted. Later tonight, he knew he would lie awake on the cot, listening to the sounds of her breathing and turning over only a few feet away. And he would wish as he had a dozen times before that he could make those springs sing a different tune. She was his wife, damn it, and he suspected that she was as attracted to him as he was to her, yet she held him at arm’s length.
When the kitchen was tidy, David sat at the table with Daphne to help with her homework while Brianna sat in a corner rocker, hand stitching the hem of a gown for Tory Thompson, Tobias’s wife. Though she’d placed a lighted lantern at her elbow, she squinted to see. It was time, David thought, to get the upstairs wired for electricity. There was a social scheduled for the first part of June, and a lot of ladies were ordering new dresses for the occasion. Brianna was even working on a gown for herself in her spare time, the cloth the color of burgundy wine. David couldn’t wait to see her in it even though he had no idea what it would look like finished.
Burgundy.
Normally Brianna gravitated toward dark, drab colors. Her decision to wear something
brighter and more striking gave David hope that she was beginning to relax a little in their marriage.