Matthew: The Circle Eight (4 page)

Read Matthew: The Circle Eight Online

Authors: Emma Lang

“Yes, ma’am. We have a couple of ranch hands too and our housekeeper, Eva. I’m the oldest, so I take care of the business end of things.” He glanced at Miss Foley, who was staring at him with her hands clasped in her lap. “We, uh, that is, my father had applied for the land grant from Texas. It’s six thousand acres to every resident.”
“Six thousand? I can’t even imagine how big that is.” The younger woman finally spoke again.
“Miss Foley, it’s as far as the eye can see, and then some. It’s going to make our ranch ten times its original size.”
“Hannah.” Her voice had slid down into a near whisper.
“Pardon?” He leaned toward her and got a whiff of her scent again.
“My name is Hannah.” She caught her lip with her teeth. They were straight and white, contrasting sharply with the dark pink of her lips.
Matt told himself to stop acting stupid.
“Hannah.” The name fit her perfectly, slightly feminine but strong. “My Pa didn’t have a chance to claim the land grant before he died. I went to Houston to claim it, but it seems there’s a requirement I don’t meet.”
“Spit it out, boy.” Granny was obviously not shy.
“I, uh, need to be married. The wording on the land grant means the Graham who claims it must be married.” He let that piece of information sink in before speaking again. “While I was in the land grant office, I did something I shouldn’t have and now I’m, well, truly stuck between a rock and a hard place.”
“What did you do?” Hannah leaned forward, her whiskey eyes wide.
“I told them I was already married.” He paused and couldn’t even muster up enough spit to swallow. “And that my wife’s name was Hannah.”
The only sound in the room was the burbling of whatever smelled so good on the stove. Granny’s gaze narrowed while Hannah’s eyes just kept growing wider.
“And you’re here because my Hannah isn’t married and you need a wife named Hannah to get your land.” The older woman’s tone was not very warm.
“I didn’t want there to be any misunderstanding about my intentions.” He turned to Hannah. “I can offer you a good home, a faithful marriage, and a promise that I’ll always take care of you the best I can.” There, he’d finally gotten it all out. Funny thing was, he didn’t feel any better.
“A-are you asking me to
marry
you?” Hannah’s mouth was slightly open.
“Yes, yes I am.” He slid off the chair and onto one knee. “I know you don’t know me from the next person. Please don’t say no right away. Take a week to get to know me before you make a decision.” He took her hand, ignoring the rush of lightning that again hit him as soon as they touched. “Please.”
She stared at him, her hand trembling in his. “I, uh ...” Hannah glanced at her grandmother while he waited, his stomach somewhere near his throat. “Okay.”
“Okay, you’ll take a week to get to know me?” Now his voice sounded almost as breathy as hers.
She shook her head. “No, okay, I’ll marry you.”
There was a rushing sound in his ears as he realized he’d found a woman named Hannah, one he was already attracted to,
and
she was a good cook. Best of all, she’d agreed to marry him. A surge of joy hit him and he leaned forward and kissed her hard.
He didn’t know who was more surprised, he or Hannah. She put her fingers to her lips while he sat back in his chair. The silence hung between them, low and heavy.
“I guess we’re having a weddin’,” Granny cackled merrily from her perch.
 
Matthew managed to make it back to the store without making a fool of himself, but his knees were still knocking an hour later. He’d actually asked a stranger to marry him, invited her into his home, to share his name and likely have children with him.
His stomach turned over once, then twice, leaving a coating of bile in the back of his throat.
Olivia waited by the wagon, fussing over the younger ones like baby chicks, as was her way. She didn’t bother to look at Matt, but started to shoo the Graham brood onto the wagon. He knew she’d seen him and that she was still fuming about his dismissal thirty minutes earlier.
Now he would have to deal with her wrath. He had a moment to wonder what it would be like when Hannah moved in and had to fight for control of the house with his sister. No doubt it would be more than interesting. Hannah seemed a bit shy, but she also appeared to be strong. All she had to do was stand up to Livy and she’d be all right.
Matt nodded to Caleb, who stood next to the wagon smoking a cheroot. “Let’s go.”
The ride back to the ranch was quiet except for the melodic voice of Rebecca reading a story in the back of the wagon. Livy rode between him and Caleb, speaking not a word, her ramrod straight back never bending even a smidge.
Her silence was okay by Matt since it gave him time to think about what he had done and what was in store for him in a week’s time. He’d first have to tell everyone about Hannah, and that included Eva and her sons. It gave them only one week to ready the house for a wedding and a new mistress.
It also meant he would have to move into his parents’ bedroom. He’d avoided it since their deaths, but he couldn’t expect Hannah to sleep on a narrow bed in the same room with Nick and Caleb. That left the biggest bedroom, which stood empty, full of ghosts and memories.
It was a chore he had put off as long as possible. Who wanted to go through the things that had belonged to their parents? It was a weakness he’d tried to overcome but hadn’t been able to. Neither had Livy or Caleb for that matter. The room had become a sanctuary of sorts, an area they didn’t go into for fear they’d lose something, or perhaps destroy the memories of their parents.
It was silly to think or feel that way, but there it was. He didn’t know how to deal with losing his parents so abruptly and violently. So he avoided thinking about it at all. There were so many other things to occupy his mind, after all. Excuses, of course.
Perhaps marrying Hannah would let him confront the painful task of letting his parents go.
Hannah was not a small girl, thank God, so perhaps his mother’s things would fit her. Most of the Graham children had taken after their father in height and slenderness, except Rebecca and Catherine. Matt knew his mother would approve of someone like Hannah wearing her clothes. She’d always altered clothes for the next sibling down, eek-ing out every last possible use from a garment before it was cut up into rags to be used for cleaning. Very rarely was anything thrown away.
They were within ten minutes of the house when Livy finally decided to speak.
“Are you going to tell me why you acted like such a jackass?” Olivia demanded.
“I wasn’t acting like a jackass.” Matt kept his temper under control. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of seeing that she had riled him. “I was acting like the head of the family.”
“Humph. That’ll be the day.”
He turned to look at her. “Whether or not you like it, I am head of this family. Ma and Pa are gone and I’m the oldest. Sometimes you might not like what I have to say or do, but that’s just too bad.”
Her brows drew together as he spoke, forming a brown caterpillar of annoyance. “I won’t accept that.”
“Find yourself a husband then.”
Caleb snickered while Nicholas sucked in a breath. Livy punched him in the arm. Hard.
“Now don’t start something you can’t finish, sis.” His arm smarted from her knuckles.
“I’ll finish it, all right. You can’t tell me what to do, and that’s that.”
Matt’s sleeping temper rose and he pulled on the reins, stopping the wagon in the middle of the road. He turned to her. “No, you are wrong, Livy. I do have the right. I have to make hard decisions and our family can’t turn into an ant hill of insanity every time I do. I just asked a perfect stranger to marry me for this family. Don’t think for a second you have the right to do whatever you want. I certainly don’t have that right and neither do you.”
The only sounds were the drone of bees nearby and the occasional chirp of a bird. Olivia’s mouth had fallen open. Everyone else stared at him with wide eyes.
“What did you say?” Livy whispered.
“You heard me. I found myself a wife.” He leveled a fierce stare at all of them. “Now shut up until we get home and I’ll tell you about her.”
To his surprise, they did just that. He sat back to enjoy the minutes of peace before they reached home. The next week, hell, the next month, would be a whirlwind of chaos.
Hannah’s hands shook so hard, she burned herself three times just trying to get the biscuits out of the oven. The day had started so badly, and now it seemed as though she had stepped into a dream, or perhaps a nightmare.
A man she barely knew had asked to marry her. He was handsome, had a ranch and nice teeth. Yet the only reason he wanted to marry her was to make his ranch bigger and to hide his own lie.
It wasn’t an especially good start to a marriage, by any stretch of the imagination. She should have said no, for that matter, she shouldn’t have even listened to what he had to say. He’d had the audacity to walk into the boardinghouse without being invited. But she hadn’t said no; instead, she had agreed to marry him.
What was wrong with her? Was she that desperate for a husband she’d accept a total stranger?
Something
had compelled her to accept his sideways proposal and she didn’t know what.
Granny had gone upstairs to take a nap, so Hannah was left alone with her whirling thoughts. Hours later, she poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down heavily in the chair to watch the setting sun paint the back of the kitchen shades of orange and pink.
He’d kissed her. That was what was running through her mind over and over, even more than the impending marriage. It was her first kiss, such as it was, though of course he couldn’t know that. His lips were soft but firm, and she tasted a bit of sweetness like he’d been eating a peppermint.
She had stopped breathing for a moment afterward, dumbstruck by not only the kiss, but the idea that she would be married in one week’s time.
Married!
Aside from changing the course of her life irrevocably, the agreement meant Hannah would be leaving the boardinghouse and Granny. That didn’t sit too well with her. It was a dark cloud on what could be a bright horizon. She couldn’t leave her grandmother alone to run the boardinghouse, which left her two choices. One, they must hire someone to cook and clean, which they couldn’t afford. Two, Granny must close the boardinghouse, which would leave her with no income. Either option would be tough.
She sipped the bitter brew and thought about how selfish she had been not to have considered how her leaving would affect Granny. For the last ten years, Hannah had been the one running the boardinghouse. Her grandmother socialized with the boarders, kept them happy and collected their rent. Hannah did everything else.
As the reality of her decision hit her, Hannah knew she’d made the wrong choice. No matter how handsome or appealing Matthew was, he was not more important than Granny. She would have to tell him she couldn’t marry him. The thought made her heart pinch, but it had to be done.
“Don’t you think about changing your mind, child.” Granny’s voice made her jump a country mile.
“How did you—” She stared at her grandmother, amazed by the woman’s perceptiveness.
“Now that you’ve had time to think about it, you remembered the boardinghouse.” Granny pointed at her with one bony finger. “Don’t you dare be giving up this chance for a husband and family because of it.”
Hannah opened her mouth to refute the accusation, but closed it, knowing Granny was absolutely right. This was her chance and obviously she was meant to have it, but that didn’t make it any easier to contemplate Granny’s fate. She refused to put her own happiness in front of her grandmother’s entirely.
“What will you do?”
Granny shrugged. “I’m too old to run this place anyway. Have been for some time. You been running it, child. It’s high time I sell it and live out my days watching sunsets and sunrises. Been thinking about doing that for a while now but I didn’t know what you would do. Now God saw fit to solve both problems.”

Other books

Arch Enemy by Leo J. Maloney
The Burning Time by J. G. Faherty
A Quiet Adjustment by Benjamin Markovits
The Last Days by Scott Westerfeld
The Unseen by Nanni Balestrini