by Lily Reynard
Sarah stared at the banners curiously, trying to decipher their significance.
"What sort of businesses are these?" she asked finally.
"Um." Walt suddenly looked uncomfortable, and Sarah noticed a flush creeping up his neck from beneath his shirt collar. "This here's the red-light district, and those are, um, the town's ladies of the line."
"Ladies of the line?" His explanation certainly wasn't solving the mystery.
Walt's flush deepened and rose to his cheeks. "Soiled doves. Um, fallen women." He cleared his throat. "You may have noticed, but there aren't very many women in Twin Forks, and most of those here are, well, not like you or Mrs. K."
"Oh!" Sarah suddenly felt very foolish.
A chilling thought struck her: Would this have been my fate, had I chosen to continue on friendless and without prospects in Butte?
On its heels followed another, more terrifying thought that sent a roil of sick apprehension through her. If my deception is discovered, I may yet end up in a shack on this street with these other unfortunate women.
At least Walt seemed every bit as gentlemanly and pleasant as his correspondence had drawn him. Sarah vowed to do her utmost to impress him with her wifely virtues. Two husbands might be scandal-fodder and quite possibly illegal…but marriage to them offered her the only chance of safe haven she had right now. She couldn't afford to fail.
Shouts and cursing coming from just ahead of them snapped her attention away from the sobering reminder of the fate that might await her if Walt and the mysterious Larkin Williams rejected her.
Two coatless men in mud-encrusted boots and canvas trousers were brawling in the middle of the street, fists flying and legs swinging as they cursed and punched and kicked at each other. A dozen other men wearing the same type of muddy clothing surrounded the brawlers in a loose circle, cheering and jeering.
"Whoa." Walt pulled the wagon to a halt.
"What's happening?" Sarah asked.
"One of those men is a known claim jumper," Walt explained tersely.
His attention focused his big bay horse, which was flicking its ears and stamping its feet nervously at the commotion.
"Whoa, there, boy," he crooned to it in a soothing tone. "Whoa, steady, boy."
Sarah was about to ask what claim-jumping was when another man came galloping up on a horse. Sunlight gleamed off a star-shaped polished metal badge pinned to his brown coat as he drew a pistol from his holster and shot into the air.
Walt's horse half-reared in its harness at the sound. Sarah clutched at the bench seat as Walt fought to keep his horse from bolting.
The brawl came to an abrupt halt. Both combatants sprang apart, and the ring of onlookers hastily widened and began to disperse.
"What in tarnation is going on here, Johnny?" demanded the newcomer, holstering his weapon.
"Caught Fergus here tryin' to jump my claim, sheriff," one of brawlers said, spitting blood into the dirt. He was a stocky man with a deeply tanned face and wiry black hair.
"Why, that's a damned lie—" his opponent, a wiry, freckled man with fiery red hair began to protest.
Several of the onlookers jeered and shouted, "You're the liar, Fergus!" and "Sheriff, he tried to jump my claim last week!" and "Mine, too, the sonovabitch!"
"Fergus Donovan," growled the sheriff, "It's time to move on. You're no longer welcome in these parts."
A round of cheers and applause greeted the sheriff's words. Fergus scowled and crossed his arms. "It's a free country, sheriff."
"Sure it is, son. But you best be gone by sunset, Mr. Donovan," advised the sheriff. "A little bird told me that the miners' court intends to throw you a necktie social the next time you're caught claim-jumping. And I wouldn't be inclined to interfere if they do string you up."
What kind of place have I come to? Sarah thought in dismay. They hang men here without a proper trial?
Fergus hunched his shoulders and glared around at them before marching down the street.
As he passed the wagon, his watery blue eyes widened. He caught sight of Sarah and slowed to stare up at her in wonder, then promptly stumbled over one of the ruts in the street.
His reaction drew the attention of the others, and Sarah suddenly found herself the center of attention as every man in the vicinity turned to stare at her.
She shrank against Walt's comforting bulk, and he quickly shifted his reins to his left hands and put a reassuring arm around her shoulders.
"Hey, Walt, this here your mail-order bride?" someone called.
"She's a real daisy!" came another comment.
"Lookit her hair! Looks like she lost a fight with Texas Mattie's sofa!"
Sarah's face heated and she looked down.
"Yep," Walt nodded. "Everyone, this here is the future Mrs. Walter Edwards."
"Ask her if she's got any sisters willin' to come out to Twin Forks to marry a millionaire!" someone else shouted. "I'm real close to striking it rich!"
The sheriff touched his spurs to his horse's flanks and trotted over to them.
"Sarah, this here's our sheriff, Charlie Plummer," Walt said.
Plummer lifted his wide-brimmed hat and nodded to Sarah. "Ma'am, welcome to Twin Forks. As you can see, we could sure use a lady's civilizing influence in this place."
"Thank you, sheriff. I'm pleased to meet you," Sarah said, trying to hide her nerves.
Brawling and gunfire in the street reminded her of the penny dreadful stories of cowboys and frontier outlaws that Father had so enjoyed reading.
"Sheriff, we're headed back to the ranch, but I'll see you the next time I'm in town," Walt said with a friendly nod.
He removed his arm from around Sarah's shoulders, but immediately made up for the loss by taking her hand. She squeezed his fingers gratefully, and he squeezed back.
Then he spoke to his horse and got the wagon moving again. As they drove slowly past the scene of the commotion, the gathered miners, most of them young men of all different races, smiled at her and tipped their hats or waved shyly.
Just minutes ago, they had looked like a rough, mean crowd. But now she saw them as a group of lonely youths living far removed from their families or sweethearts. A tight knot of tension eased inside her as she realized that despite this town's rough appearance, no one here wished her ill.
She and Walt soon left the town behind them.
"From here, it's about a half-hour's drive out to the ranch," Walt informed her. "Lucky for us, it's a nice day."
And it was, sunny and mild, the sky dotted with fluffy white clouds like sheep in a vast blue pasture.
As the last of the shacks dwindled behind them, Sarah found herself in a verdant, hilly landscape dotted with stumps where the forest had been cleared of trees, presumably for buildings and firewood. A carpet of vibrant yellow and purple wildflowers stretched out on either side of the road, which followed the course of a broad stream.
Its banks were crowded with men interspersed with a variety of machinery, from long sluice-boxes to more complicated contraptions whose function she could only guess at.
As they drove along, Walt explained the process of panning for gold flakes and nuggets washed out of the hillsides, and told her a little bit about how the E&W Ranch supplied these miners with meat, leather, tallow, and other products.
Sarah listened closely, eager to learn all she could about the place she hoped would become her new home.
The landscape gradually became wilder but also more beautiful the further they went away from the town. The hills and the surrounding slopes of ridges that rose all around them were now blanketed with a thick forest of dark green conifers rising halfway up the stony, snowcapped peaks. It was all utterly wild and breathtakingly beautiful, with occasional herds of shaggy brown bison and elk grazing in distant meadows and pastures.
After they had driven for a while, Walt turned the wagon onto a narrower track that led through the forest.
"Almost there now," he said encouragingly as they follow
ed the track, which now climbed upwards into the wooded hills.
"I'm looking forward to meeting Mr. Williams," she said.
Walt turned his head and grinned at her. "And I can't wait to introduce you to Larkin. And watch him fall over in shock."
"Because of my hair color?" she asked, self-consciously tucked a few stray strands back under her hat. "I knew we should have stopped at the mercantile!"
Walt shook his head. "Nah, because you're so young and pretty. He's convinced that since you didn't send us a photograph, you must be some dried-up, horse-faced spinster."
"Oh." Sarah pondered this.
She had taken an instant liking to Walt upon meeting him, and everything about his chivalrous manner and their conversation on the long drive out here had convinced her that he would make a considerate and caring husband. However, the few hints that Walt had given her regarding his friend and business partner were, well, worrying.
After a few more minutes of driving, they emerged into a clearing. Walt pointed. "And look, there it is! Home, sweet home."
In the wide valley below, she saw a white-painted house with a wide wraparound porch. It was just a simple cottage by Boston standards, but it looked a hundred times better than the log cabins and crude shacks that had comprised most of the dwellings she had seen so far. She breathed a sigh of relief.
But the fact that Larkin Williams seemed to be skeptical of his friend's matrimonial scheme, plus the fact that he hadn't come to meet her, troubled her.
For better or worse, I'm about to discover what sort of man Mr. Williams is.
Chapter Five
When Walt returned the ranch house, Larkin had drained the bathtub into the back garden and was busily coaxing a fire to life in the kitchen stove. He was standing in the pantry, contemplating what he should fix Walt and himself for lunch. Oh, and their unwelcome guest too.
He scowled at the thought.
Thinking that he'd be damned if he was going to get all fancied up for that sour-faced spinster that Walt had ordered from a matrimonial magazine, Larkin had dressed in his usual garb: a clean but worn pair of jeans and an open shirt with a bandanna knotted around his neck.
Then he heard the jingle of harness and the creaking of the wagon through the windows he'd opened at the front and back of the house to air the smoke out of the kitchen until the stove began to draw.
Larkin yielded to curiosity. He headed for the living room at the front of the house, just in time to see Walt pull up on the circular gravel drive outside the front door.
To his astonishment, Larkin spotted a beautiful young thing perched on the wagon's bench. He noticed was that she was sitting so close to Walt that she was practically cuddled up to him.
The second thing he noticed was that her hair was an improbable and unnatural shade of purple.
"What in hell’s going on here?" he muttered, intrigued despite himself.
Maybe this mail-order bride won't be so bad, he thought, but quickly pushed the conciliatory feeling aside.
Beautiful or not, he was still hopping mad that Walt had gone behind his back and courted this woman on his behalf.
Worse yet, while Larkin had been taking his turn to guard their mine, Walt had moved his belongings out of the back bedroom that he and Larkin had shared for years.
Even after Walt's parents died in the big cholera epidemic last spring, the two of them had stayed put in in their childhood bedroom, their beds where they'd always been, one on each side of the room, with a rag rug between them and a big wooden armoire and chest of drawers against the wall. That armoire now stood half-empty, and the bookshelves on the opposite wall stood half-bare too. Walt had moved everything, including his books and trinkets.
He'd also stripped his bed down to the bare mattress, contributing to the lonely feeling that the room had suddenly acquired. He clearly intended to stay upstairs in his parents' attic bedroom, sharing the big bed with his bride-to-be.
Through the window, Larkin saw Walt lift Miss Hunter down from the wagon's high seat in a sweep of skirts and take her in his arms for a quick kiss.
Damn fool's already sweet on her. Larkin made a disgusted sound at the sight and turned away from the window as they approached the house.
He plucked a book at random from one of the living room's bookshelves and settled in his favorite armchair. When Walt entered the living room, Larkin pretended to be deeply immersed in a treatise on mining.
Walt cleared his throat and said, "Lark, I'd like you to meet Miss Elizabeth Hunter. She's come all the way from Missouri to marry us."
"Hello, Mr. Williams." Her voice was soft and low. "Everyone calls me Sarah. I'm pleased to meet you."
Larkin looked up. A shock ran through him as his gaze met a pair of striking blue-green eyes.
Miss Elizabeth Hunter was not at all what Larkin had expected.
In the hours since Walt had confessed his lunk-headed scheme, Larkin had built up a mental image of the kind of woman who would agree to travel hundreds of miles from home to marry two men, sight unseen. She would be at least fifteen years older than advertised, with a face like a hatchet, a disposition like vinegar, and a temper as fiery as chili peppers from Texas.
Instead, the young woman standing in the living room doorway was a few years his junior and positively dewy, with astonishing purple-dyed hair, a smooth, pale complexion, and full lips that immediately stirred up a host of dirty thoughts of what he'd like that sweet mouth to do to him.
The rest of her was equally appealing, with ample curves under her close-fitting but modestly cut bodice and fashionable bustled skirts. She looked travel-stained, no surprise. She was pale with dark shadows of fatigue under her eyes, and her expression conveyed extreme uncertainty.
What she most definitely did not look like was a farm girl from Missouri. Her fine clothes and ridiculously tiny hat aside, Miss Hunter's face and neck didn't look like they'd ever seen the sun while weeding a kitchen garden or boiling vats of laundry in the backyard. And none of the farm girls he'd ever met had worn gloves except to church. Miss Hunter was not only wearing gloves, but gloves that looked like they'd been sewn from high-quality kidskin. And they'd been dyed to match her wine-colored skirts and bodice.
What kind of woman owns enough gloves to match her dresses?
Instead of replying to her greeting, Larkin just stared at her, astonishment having driven all coherent speech from his brain.
After a moment, a flush of color stained her cheeks and her gaze dropped to the worn carpet with its faded pattern of cabbage roses. He fought the instinctual urge to say something reassuring.
"I'll just leave you two to get acquainted while I go fetch Miss Hunter's trunk from the wagon," Walt said, sounding a titch too smug for Larkin's taste.
He turned and headed out.
Miss Hunter gazed after his retreating back with the air of someone being abandoned in the lion's den. Then Larkin saw her take a deep breath and lift her chin with a determined expression before she turned back to face him.
"It's quite a beautiful day outside, isn't it?" she asked, sounding just like someone hosting a tea party for the queen of England.
If she's from Missouri with that accent, I'll eat my hat, he thought.
"Weather's awful changeable in these parts," Larkin heard himself replying. "Don't be surprised if you wake up tomorrow and find it's snowing." He blew out a breath, then demanded, "Why in tarnation would a sweet young thing like you want to come to a place like Twin Forks?"
She blinked, and he thought he saw a flash of actual terror dart over her expression before she smiled stiffly. He noted that she had dimples.
"It's, ah, not so bad," she ventured.
He snorted. "You're a terrible liar."
To his astonishment, she flinched at that. "I came here because I wanted a husband—or two, as the case may be—and Mr. Edwards—Walt," Larkin found himself resenting the way her voice softened when she spoke his friend's name, "wrote me the most charming letters. Bac
k home, there are very few respectable men willing to consider a bride with no money and no prospects, and even fewer when my father and brothers are opposed to me marrying at all. I did not want end up a spinster, trapped at home for the rest of my life."
Larkin felt unwilling sympathy for her situation, especially since he heard undercurrents of emotion in her explanation that informed him that there was more to her story. He'd fully intended to give her the cold shoulder, but he had hadn't expected the gut-punch that her beauty would give his defenses.
And he remembered, all too well, what it felt like to find a refuge from a bad situation.
"Your ranch is lovely, and this house feels like a place I could call home," she finished.
"Yeah, about that," he bit out, trying to harden his resolve, which was melting like a snowbank in summer. "I need to go help Walt unload the wagon. Excuse me."
He gave her a wide berth as he practically fled the living room.
"So, what do you think? Isn't she the prettiest girl you've ever seen? And the sweetest?" Walt demanded when Larkin emerged from the house to join him.
Larkin grunted and went to grab one of the sacks of supplies from the wagon bed.
Walt dragged a big, brass-bound trunk towards him and continued, "Now that you've seen that our bride is everything I hoped she'd be, I want to get married as soon as possible."
"Give it some time, Walt," Larkin said, exasperated. "Getting yourself hitched to a woman you just met an hour ago is a dunderheaded idea. At least get to know her first. I mean, she's a looker all right, but how do we even know that she can cook? And that she doesn't have an evil temper?"
