Fully intending to honor her promises and her vows, she tightened her fingers in determination. She wanted a family all her own. There was nothing left for her back home where bachelors sought younger belles, and the sisters she'd raised were busy newlyweds. No matter what, she'd take on Norman Dale Haynes and his child and his household, make it all her own. And get him to love her like he'd hinted.
At the church steps, he at least found enough manners to hold her skirts and help her inside. A pump organ faltered over the wedding march.
Unwavering, Minda walked into her future. The wide-eyed interest of the wedding guests didn't surprise her much. After all, she'd traveled a long way to marry a man she'd never actually met. For a half-second, she recalled the amused and dubious eyes of the folks back home when she left. No, she'd never go back. Not ever. Resolute, she gripped Norman Dale's arm.
A few female voices cooed as her bridegroom tossed away his hat with his free hand, then straightened her veil that the wind had rustled. Pride burst inside her.
For a delicious moment, Minda enjoyed the view of his shoulder muscles moving underneath his tight black coat. Of course, she'd expected a hard working man of the land to be strong and hale, but this man looked like he could lift her with just one arm. And she wanted his touch, pure and simple. No, it wouldn't be hard at all to be his loving wife.
She walked beside her bridegroom on steady feet up an aisle that seemed a mile long. The organ faded as the reverend started the vows without delay.
“Miss Becker, do you take this man to be your lawful husband?”
She stared at the young reverend who didn't look at her. He hadn't used her full christened name, Melinda Susanna, and his knuckles whitened around his prayer book. She peeked at her husband, but he didn't catch her eye either. Perhaps this was the minister's first time officiating at a wedding and he'd forgotten her name.
Norman Dale's hand tightened around hers as if expecting her to say no.
“Yes, I do,” she said, eager for her new future.
“Do you, Mr. Haynes, take this woman for better worse?"Her bridegroom growled his response as he slid a ring on her finger. Minda trembled at the sound and the touch.
The ring fit perfectly.
“Now if there be anyone present who objects to this union, let him speak now, or ever after hold his peace.” Her bridegroom's hand tightened again during the silent moment. When no one said anything, Minda heard sighs of relief from a hundred throats.
“Then I now pronounce you man and wife.”
There. It was done. She was married. Her husband bent down and touched her lips with his own. Gentle but somehow insistent, his mouth closed around hers, and his warmth settled all the way to the ends of her toes. At the deliciousness of it, she reached up to hold him close.
Yes indeed. He tasted like peppermint with a hint of cherry. Tobacco maybe. Oh, it wouldn't take long at all to fall in love the whole rest of the way.
* * * *
Brix stepped back from his bride, hating himself for liking the kiss.
But damn, she was a pretty thing. Likely untouched, too. Those sweet but tight lips made him think no man had kissed her before. For a split instant, he leaned down to brush his face over the top of her head, drinking in one last whiff of her warm, rose scent. His poor brother had missed out on one hell of a wedding night.
So would he.
Something had stirred his heart deep inside during that kiss, and he didn't much like the feeling. Not at all. Hadn't felt it since the rancher's daughter in West Texas had stomped on his love so hard he still felt the pain.
Brixton Haynes knew how dark a woman's heart could be. This one was no different. Something she'd written in her damn letters had made his brother work himself to death for her. Why had she allowed Norman Dale to think the man he was, and what he had to give her, wasn't good enough?
Anger snarled his gut. Yes, indeed. Brix had duped her, but he'd had no choice. He'd promised Norman Dale. With his last breath, his brother had made Brixton swear to take his place, marry Minda, and make the kids his own. Keep everybody together, one family. Already folks hereabouts had started laying claim to the kids, one at a time. Like they were abandoned puppies needing homes.
The congregation started warbling a hymn, and his bride pulled away in a maidenly manner. He felt that tug on his heart again that spread down to the notch of his trousers. Damn indeed, she was the prettiest thing he'd seen in a month of Mondays.
Her big pansy eyes twinkled and her cheeks bloomed bright red from the kiss. And hidden beneath that veil was hair the colors of every precious metal he'd ever seen. She was far younger and daintier than that little brown portrait his brother had loved to show off.
Jaw tight, he looked away from her, out the little window next to the organ. Shutting his eyes to hold off a tear, he regarded the fresh mound of dirt that made Norman Dale's last bed. He fingered a fresh blister on his right hand. He'd helped fill up that grave just an hour ago. His heart hardened against Minda Becker. Minda
Haynes.
His back teeth ground together. Damn it. Norman Dale had pulled wheat from the ground for fifteen summers and never died. It was the whitewashing, the trimming, the gussying to impress this
outsider
after harvesting twelve hours a day that had done him in two days ago. Resentment built like a thunderhead and pounded behind Brixton's eyes.
Before turning back to his bride, he rubbed his hand over his eyebrow. Past the graveyard, the prairie rolled like a golden ocean, running into sandy hills on its way to the Shining Mountains. He'd been there, seen Pike's Peak. Right now Brixton Haynes wished he was sitting right on top of it. Instead, he was pa to a passel of kids and married to boot, something he'd sworn he'd never do.
Married to a woman he didn't want.
* * * *
The kiss had shaken Minda and made her more eager than ever for the night to come. When she pulled him close, for that single proper instant, his chest had felt rock-hard against the softness underneath her corset. And for a most improper moment, church or not, she'd imagined how they'd feel skin to skin, without all the layers of clothes.
“Let's get that register signed,” her husband said harsh and low during the song. He tightened his grip on her hand.
At his touch, every inch of her shivered. He led her to the big book where she signed the name Melinda Susanna Becker for the last time. Her shaky fingers could hardly manage the inkwell. Then he grabbed the pen from her, scribbled something, and led her from the sanctuary, all the way down the aisle. Once in a while he reached out to clasp the outstretched hands of wedding guests.
Minda found herself smiling at her new friends and neighbors, glad they couldn't see her trembles or read her fiery thoughts. While her husband's behavior seemed a bit gruff, she relaxed somewhat at his firm grip on her fingers. Surely it was a sign that he never wanted to let her go.
Outside, she started some polite conversation as he headed toward the wedding dinner. The tables set up under the trees, she realized, were old barn doors on sawhorses, scattered once in a while with bed sheets.
“I'd hoped Priscilla might stand up for me,” she said, holding back the disappointment at the absence of the stepdaughter she longed to love.
“Who?”
“Priscilla? Your daughter?” She had spoken clearly enough. “I'd suggested her as my bridal attendant in my last letter.”
“Ah. You mean little Silly.” Her husband grinned. “She doesn't have the faculty to do any such thing. All she cares about is a full belly and clean britches.”
“Silly?
Little Silly?
” Minda stumbled in shock, but he forced her onward toward the tables.
“Be still and hush now,” he said. “Don't make a scene.”
As she passed folks full of congratulations, Minda decided not to embarrass herself by pulling away from her husband, but she tossed him a quick mutter. “What's this about
Silly?"
“I said not now.”
Fuming, Minda plastered a fake smile on her face. She would speak her mind later in private. How could her husband have failed to mention that his daughter was feeble-minded?
And how could anybody, much less a father, ridicule a backward young girl with such an offensive nickname? His own blood? By now, he'd hauled her over to a table under a trio of box elder trees. A young, yellow-headed woman was draping a garland of meadow flowers along two slatback chairs.
Minda wanted to appreciate the attempt to prettify the plain chairs, but she pondered more and more on a wedding that might be a mistake.
Norman Dale was simply not the charming father he'd presented in his letters. What other surprises did he have in store for her? Did he imagine her so besotted she wouldn't mind?
No matter. She'd signed that register pure and simple. He'd made her his wife, and she'd willingly taken him as her husband. For better or worse.
“Sit yourself down. I'll go get Silly and the rest of the kids,” he said through slitted lips. He raised his brows at the blonde woman and she nodded, leaving them in private.
“The rest of what kids?” Minda's skin prickled. Deciding to obey him for the first and only time, she sat down.
“Our kids. Yours and mine.”
“Our kids? What in the world do you mean, Norman Dale? You wrote that you've got one daughter. Fourteen years old.” Minda's voice rose and despite the heat, her shoulders tensed with a sudden chill as if a clump of snow had just fallen from the treetops. “What kids? What on earth are you saying, Norman Dale? Your letters didn't say one single word about
kids
.”
He glared down at her. “You must've misread my brother.” The last two words slid from his tongue in slow deliberation.
His brother? She sat helpless, hopeless, paralyzed against the back of the hard little chair. For a moment, she had no air to speak.
“Your brother?
Your brother?
What do you mean?”
He leaned close to her, like he had during their kiss, but at her ear he growled, low, “You promised to wed a Haynes today. Well, I'm the only one left. Your Norman Dale, my brother—” His fingers, calloused and hot, held her chin still so he could glare into her eyes, “—is dead.”
Minda gasped and grabbed the flower-covered chair so she didn't fall out of it. Her Norman Dale, dead? The handsome widower of thirty-nine who had promised her a new life?
“Yep, Miz
Haynes
.” His voice was dry as August dust. “I come all the way back home to stand up for my brother at his wedding, and instead I get to lower him into the ground. And it's all your fault.” Eyes as black as Pennsylvania coal bore into her. “You killed him, sure enough.”
Chapter Two
“What?” The word came from her in a soundless puff.
“You heard me.” Of course she'd deny it, but it was her fault. Here he stood before her, hemmed in with a wife and kids. Freedom forever gone, his brother dead. Shaking his head at the turn of his life, he held back his feelings of chastisement against Norman Dale and turned his resentment to Minda. His brother had died trying to impress her, and her arrival made things worse.
Her face turned white as her veil, and he figured she was about to swoon. Cold water for her and a long hard swig for him sounded mighty good about now.
She shut her eyes tight and he looked away from them, away from those eyelashes lying on her cheeks like butterfly wings. He wanted to touch that cheek, reckoning it was even softer than it looked, and anger rose in his gut. He didn't need her, not one single bit. But even with the chitchat around them, he felt like they were the only two people in the world.
Just as he thought the words, she stood up angrily and pulled off the veil. She must've loosened her hair pins, too. Copper, silver, and gold tumbled past the sash around her waist. His fingers twitched, longing to touch the gleaming cascade.
Something more, something worse, tightened his manhood.
Her lips flapped same as a fish needing air, but still he longed to kiss them. He remembered their sweetness and warmth, like wild strawberries in spring sunshine. She took a deep breath, stared back at him and spoke.
“My fault? What can you possibly mean?”
As he straightened up beside her, the hot afternoon gusts whipped her hair across his cheeks. It smelled like roses. He grabbed the calm control that had gotten him out of many a stampede. Sure as hell he could wrangle one small woman.
“My brother's done nothing but work his fingers to the bone getting ready for your arrival, Miz Haynes. In this ruthless heat. Two days ago, his heart plumb gave out.”
“But ... he claimed he was in the best of health.”
Brixton shrugged. “Doc Viessman said even a hale man can see his heart give up during overwork.” He looked away from Minda's wide eyes. “He lingered half a day.”
“Well, I am sorry for your loss. But I lost somebody, too.” Her voice rose. “Didn't you think to ask me? What on earth possessed you to imagine I'd want you?”
He shrugged again, not letting her words sting. It didn't matter at all, her not wanting him. Even if he figured she did, deep down. Her kiss had been timid, but real. But she did owe Norman Dale the honor of his last request. His brother had out and out planned for her future, a stranger in a strange town, in his dying moments.
“You ought to be grateful Norman Dale picked somebody to take care of you.”
“But ... it's...”
“It's the right thing to do.” He pushed her back down on the chair. “Calm down. Folks are watching. You traipsed hundreds of miles to wed up with a stranger. Don't matter which one of us now, does it?”
“This is unimaginable,” she muttered.
Brixton Haynes disliked her big uppity word, disliked her more and more. She was the reason for all his problems. He couldn't very well resent his own brother, but he damn sure could resent Minda. “Don't like it any better than you, but you owe it to my brother. It was his dying wish. You and I hitching together fixes everything.”