Claiming Their Mail-Order Bride: A Cowboy Ménage Romance (Montana Ménage Book 2)

by Lily Reynard

  "If she can't cook, you know I can." Walt clearly wasn't listening to reason. "I'm sure Reverend K won't mind marrying us lickety-split. Only thing we need to decide on is which one of us gets to stand up next to Sarah as her official husband, and which one of us is going to pretend to be the best man."

  Larkin stopped in his tracks, a twenty-five-pound sack of potatoes slung over his shoulder, and stared at his friend.

  He wondered whether it would be easier to just go along with this ridiculous marriage plan. But then his stubborn nature kicked in. "I told you, Walt. I'm not marrying Elizabeth—Sarah—whatever her name is. I can't stop you from making a big mistake, but I'm not gonna let you stampede me over a cliff like a spooked cow."

  He turned on his heel and marched back to the house.

  Miss Hunter was still standing in the middle of the living room where he'd left her, looking like she wasn't sure what to do next.

  He paused at the doorway.

  "Look, Miss Hunter…Sarah," he said, feeling like a cad. "I'm real sorry, but it appears that Walt told you a whopper. Before this morning, I didn't know a thing about you or Walt's plan for all of us getting hitched, and I never agreed to it."

  "Oh." Color flooded her pale face. "I—I had wondered why Walt was the only one who wrote to me."

  "And now you know."

  Ignoring the stab of guilt at the stricken expression on her face, he turned and continued down the hallway that led past his bedroom to the kitchen and pantry in the back of the house.

  "Lark!" Walt set the trunk down with a hollow thump at the foot of the stairs leading up to the attic bedroom, and followed Larkin into the kitchen.

  "What the hell is wrong with you?" he demanded as Larkin carefully lowered the sack to the flagstone floor of the pantry, and prepared to raise the trapdoor to the cellar. "Sarah is even more perfect than I thought she'd be! I mean, I already knew that she was sweet and kind from her letters, but when I saw her—" Walt actually stopped and sighed, a dreamy smile tugging at his mouth. He finished, "She’s going to be the perfect wife, I just know it."

  "And I just told you that I don't want a wife," Larkin retorted. "I'm not ready to tie myself down to just one woman."

  Walt sighed. "Look, Lark, I'm really sorry I didn't tell you about this. But tell you the truth, I was afraid you were gonna react like this."

  "Because you know me well enough to know I got no interest in getting hitched."

  Walt shook his head. "C'mon, Lark, think about this for a minute. Isn't it time we settled down and started a family? We're not getting any younger. And now that our finances have taken a turn for the better, thanks to the mine, I'm ready for a change. I'm tired of riding into town on a Friday night and paying one of the ladies of the line for a few hours of their company. I want to come home to a hot dinner and a smiling face and sit at my table with my wife like a civilized man."

  "I don't," Larkin said in automatic opposition, though he understood exactly what Walt was talking about.

  The soiled doves fulfilled certain needs, sure, but this house hadn't really felt like a home since Walt's mother had died.

  "We've been damned lucky neither of us has caught one of those diseases that drive men mad, and I'm done taking chances," Walt continued, as if Larkin hadn't spoken. "How about this: I'll give you a couple of weeks to warm up to Sarah before I ask the reverend to marry us. At least give her an honest chance, Lark. That's all I'm asking."

  Getting to know a pretty young thing like Miss Hunter doesn't sound too bad, does it? Larkin felt his resistance softening once more.

  "But I'm telling you now, I intend to make an honest woman of her no matter what. But I'd really like it if we could both partner up with her and start a family together," Walt finished.

  Chapter Six

  Larkin didn't know that Liza was traveling to Twin Forks to marry him. And he doesn't want her—me—here?

  Sarah stood in the living room, dizzy and nauseated with shock. She had gambled everything on Liza's dying words…and lost.

  Serves me right for trying to deceive these men, she thought bitterly. I deserve no better, but what am I going to do now?

  Tears welled up, blurring her vision. She fumbled for her last remaining clean handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes, trying to regain control. No matter how badly she wanted to fall to pieces right now, she couldn't afford the luxury of sinking onto the worn-looking horsehair sofa and sobbing her heart out. She needed to think about what to do next.

  Her plans had all gone horribly, horribly wrong, and she had no one to blame but herself. Never mind that Walt had seemed so perfect too—a handsome, chivalrous man of means willing to consider a penniless bride. Of course, it was too good to be true!

  Sarah stared out the living room window as she fought to bring her emotions under control. Years of dealing with Father when he'd been drinking had taught her that her only safety lay in remaining calm and reading his moods very carefully.

  Breathe, she told herself, as she fixed her gaze on the fenced pasture that stretched out on the other side of the narrow dirt track and watched a herd of brown-and-white cows grazing among the wildflowers, calves at their sides. Should I remain in Twin Forks in hopes that Emmaline Kottinger might be willing to help me find respectable work, when clearly, this is a place with little or no need for a governess or schoolteacher? Or should I humble myself and beg Walt to loan me enough money to take the next train to Butte?

  After what felt like endless minutes, she heard the creak of floorboards under a firm masculine tread.

  "Sarah, I'm real sorry about all this," Walt said softly.

  She crumpled her damp handkerchief in her hand and turned to see him standing in the doorway. "It's—it's quite all right," she lied valiantly.

  "No it's not," he replied in a firm tone. He looked stricken. "And I can't tell you how sorry I am about lying to you. I figured that Larkin wouldn't mind, once I'd made all of the arrangements. Apparently, I was wrong."

  Given the fact that he thought her to be the same woman with whom he'd spent months corresponding, Sarah wasn't hypocrite enough to tell him that he shouldn’t have lied to Liza in his letters. "I don't want to be the source of trouble between you and your friend," she told him. "If you'll be kind enough to lend me train fare and drive me back to town, I will board the next train to Butte and seek a position as a governess or something there. I promise I'll repay you the money as soon as I'm settled."

  Walt stretched out his arms and gripped either side of the door frame, as if trying to block her escape. "I don't want you to leave. Please stay."

  Sarah shook her head. "I'm sorry, but I can’t live here, not with a man who hates me. Though I confess that I'm disappointed that things didn't work out between us." Which was a monstrous understatement, since she'd gambled her future on this unorthodox arrangement.

  "Look, I'm sure Larkin doesn’t hate you," Walt said. "He's just a bit ornery and stubborn as a mule. But if we give him some time, I'm sure he'll come around. What if we just postpone the wedding for a while, and give him a chance to get to know you?"

  Sarah was sorely tempted to grasp the lifeline he had just thrown her. Then she remembered the anger burning in Larkin's gray eyes as he spoke to her. His demeanor had not been that of a man who would just "come around."

  With infinite regret, she said, "I appreciate your willingness to hold to your part of our marriage arrangement, but I do think it's best if I stay at that hotel I saw in town and just catch the next train to Butte tomorrow morning."

  "Tomorrow morning?" He looked puzzled. "But, Sarah, the next train to Butte—or to anywhere else—won't arrive for a couple of weeks."

  "What?" She couldn't help gaping at him in the most unladylike fashion.

  "Didn't the ticket agent tell you? Twin Forks isn’t on the main rail line—it's on a special spur, and the train only stops here once every two weeks to deliver cargo and take on passengers. All the towns on this spur are about the size of ours, and the
railroad company says that they'd lose money if they ran a train out here more often."

  Two weeks? Sarah thought in dismay. Until then, I'll be trapped on this ranch with Larkin Williams, who doesn’t want me here, and Walt, who deserves better than a woman pretending to be someone else.

  * * *

  Nice job, Walter John Edwards, he berated himself. Your beautiful bride hasn't been here but fifteen minutes, and you've already made her cry.

  He could tell that she was trying so hard to be brave and sweetly understanding about the awful pickle he'd landed her in, but he had noticed her reddened eyes and wet cheeks as soon as he returned to the living room. He needed to find a way to repair this situation.

  "Look, I know you must be awful tired after that long train ride," he said, feeling guilty. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

  She sighed and looked around. "I would love to wash my face," she said wistfully. "And a change of clothing would be nice, too."

  "There's a washstand with soap, a stack of clean towels, and washcloths in the upstairs bedroom. Let me draw a pitcher of water and I'll carry your trunk up," he said eagerly, feeling a spark of hope that she hadn't just marched out to the wagon and demanded that he drive her back to town immediately.

  The image of sharing a bath with her popped into his head, and suddenly, he couldn't think of anything else.

  She's a respectable woman. A lady. You shouldn't be thinking about her like that unless you're sure that you're actually going to be marrying her.

  But still, it was a real effort not to mention the big tub in the washroom. Instead, he continued, "And then maybe something to eat? Did they feed you on the train?"

  She gave him a watery smile."Mrs. Kottinger was kind enough to offer me breakfast while I was waiting at the train station."

  "She does that for all of the new arrivals in town," Walt said. "Did you know that she was a mail-order bride too? We're lucky to have her." He realized he was babbling nervously and quickly added, "Just wait here for a minute, and I'll be right back."

  He hurried down the hall, hoping that Larkin hadn't used up all the hot water earlier.

  As he was filling a big glazed pitcher with steaming water from the boiler's spigot, he saw Larkin out back in the vegetable patch, violently ripping weeds out of the soil and hurling them into the huckleberry bushes.

  I guess I shouldn't have declared that I was going to marry Sarah no matter what.

  But it was true. From the moment he'd laid eyes on Miss Elizabeth Sarah Hunter, he'd been seized with a feeling of absolute certainty that she was meant to be his.

  His mail-order bride wasn't exactly what he’d expected—instead of the simple farm girl in homespun that he had pictured from her letters, Sarah in the flesh was a real honest-to-goodness glove-wearing lady, with an educated turn to her speech and clothing that looked like it had come right out of those monthly magazines that his mother had subscribed to.

  And even after days on the train, Sarah had smelled pleasantly of lemony eau-de-cologne when he took her in his arms.

  He knew he probably shouldn't have kissed her five minutes after meeting her, but he'd been unable to resist her plump, juicy-looking lips…and besides, she was his fiancée, wasn't she? Before he stood in front of Reverend Kottinger and hitched himself to this stranger for life, he had needed to know that there was some kind of spark between them.

  And there had been. What he'd intended as a quick, chaste brush of his lips had turned into blaze of unexpected heat that set every nerve in his body aflame.

  It was clear from her initial reaction that Sarah hadn't been kissed before, but damned if she hadn't taken to it like a river otter to water. He couldn't wait for their wedding night. He reckoned that bedding her would be as fine as cream gravy, hot and smooth and luscious.

  Beautiful, passionate, soft-spoken…she seemed too good to be true. After all of the tragedies and upheavals he'd experienced over the past few years, Walt wanted to believe that he might just get the happily ever after that he remembered from the stories that Mama used to read him when he was still a boy.

  But then there was Larkin… his best friend and the only family Walt had left in the world.

  Walt's head began to ache as he tried to figure out the best way to make both Larkin and Sarah happy.

  I'll start by getting Sarah settled in, then I'll go talk some sense into Lark.

  She was waiting for him next to her battered black trunk at the foot of the stairs. He handed her the steaming pitcher, then lifted the heavy trunk by its tarnished brass handles.

  "Follow me," he said and began to climb the stairs up to the bedroom that had belonged to his parents.

  The cottage plans had been for a one-bedroom house, but Walt's father had converted the available attic space into a two-room suite. There, he'd built a huge wooden bedstead with carved roses on the headboard, because they had been Mama's favorite flowers.

  The other room was a sitting room which had been used briefly as a nursery for Walt's baby sister, who had died before her first birthday. Her cradle, shrouded with an old tablecloth, still stood forlornly in one corner of the bedroom.

  "Oh, this is lovely," Sarah exclaimed, coming to a halt in the middle of the sitting room. Light poured in from a pair of windows set into the walls at either end of the attic space, glowing in her mauve hair and making her look like a sprite from a fairy tale.

  Walt walked past her, into the bedroom, and put her trunk against one wall. "Here you go. Please make yourself at home."

  He wasn't sure if he should move his clothes and books back downstairs, and decided to wait and see.

  Sarah followed him into the bedroom and made a beeline for the marble-topped washstand with its wide, shallow porcelain bowl painted with roses, and a fresh cake of Castile soap placed next to a pile of clean, folded cotton towels.

  "I'll just leave you to it," he said. "Take your time." He turned to go back downstairs, then paused. "Thanks for giving me another chance. I promise you won't be sorry."

  Then he headed out into the garden to talk to his best friend and foster brother.

  If only Lark and Sarah just spent some time together, I know they'd take a shine to each other, he thought as he strode down the hall in the direction of the kitchen.

  When he emerged from the house, Larkin was still waging furious war on the weeds. He didn't look up as Walt shut the back door behind him.

  Knowing better than to try to start a conversation when Larkin was in a mood, Walt went over to the chicken run and released the rooster and hens for their afternoon forage through the garden. In addition to providing eggs and the occasional chicken dinner, the birds were useful for finding and gobbling up the bugs that would otherwise despoil their vegetables and herbs.

  Then he grabbed a hoe and began to attack the weeds at the opposite end of the vegetable garden as he waited for Larkin to work though his fit of spite.

  "I can't believe you invited her here, without talking to me!" his friend exploded at last. "Goddammit, Walt, it hasn't been two weeks since the Harley brothers tried to move in on our mine. We got lucky, but they're not the first claim jumpers we've had to deal with, and you know they're not the last."

  "I know," Walt said softly, remembering the fracas with Fergus Donovan this morning.

  "We need to be worrying about protecting what's already ours, not adding something else to look after!" With a long arc that trailed bits of moist earth like a comet's tail, Larkin chucked another clump of weeds into the huckleberries. "Having a piece of calico around the property will just get in our way."

  "Well, I was thinking that if we had a wife to look after things here at the homestead, we could both spend more time at the mine," Walt countered.

  "You really want to leave a pretty young thing like her all alone and unprotected out here?" Larkin snorted. "Especially after parading her through town today? With all those single men desperate for a woman of their own?"

  With a sinking heart, Walt re
alized that his friend was right. But he couldn't bear the thought of sending Sarah away.

  "Look, Larkin, since Sarah's come all this way to meet us, it's only fair that we give her a chance before sending her packing. I like what I've seen so far of her, and want to get better acquainted. You should get to know her better, too."

  "I don't want to get to know her!" Larkin snarled. He bent and uprooted a defenseless weed with a grunt and a hard yank. "I told you, I like my life just the way it is."

  Sarah emerged from the house in time to hear Larkin's declaration. She froze at the top of the back steps, holding the washbasin and clearly intending to empty the used water in the yard. Walt noticed that she had changed into a plain shirtwaist and a simple skirt that looked more in line with a Missouri farm girl.