“Why else do you think I’ve been working on building my own house? I want to be on the ranch with you all, but I want to give her, her own house to run. Her own kitchen.”
“I’ll be bringing Sadie into the big house with all of the rest of you.”
“Yes, but it’ll be her house to run, and as the rest of us marry, we’ll leave the big house. Of course, by the time Thad and Wally marry, hopefully you and Sadie will have a bunch of little ones of your own.”
“No, no little ones,” he said, shaking his head vigorously, almost sounding scared.
“Oh, I think you’ll change your mind. I have a good feeling about all of this. I think you and Miss Sadie will have more children than the rest of us.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“We’ll see,” Cade said, a grin on his handsome face as he turned to walk away.
Tobias stood at the front of the church, his brow furrowed. His brother had given him something to think about. He hadn’t realized how much they worried about him. It may not be his fondest wish to get married, but that was no reason for the rest of them not to.
Tobias turned to face the back of the church when he heard the big, double doors open, and his thoughts scattered. Sadie stepped through the doors, his younger brother, Thaddeus by her side. He was apparently standing in for her father and giving her away. He watched them slowly make their way up the aisle, mesmerized by how truly beautiful she was. He had noticed yesterday, but today with her all cleaned up and well rested and dressed in a dress that had obviously been made for their wedding, she was more breathtaking than he could have ever imaged. He wondered if he should take it as a sign that her dress was trimmed in green and they were getting married today, of all days.
Several minutes later, he stood in the yard between the church and the pastor’s house. They had decided to have a picnic style reception, with all the ladies of the town pitching in with food and a cake with punch. They had been blessed with a warmer day, with only a soft breeze blowing. Quite unusual for this early in March. They had decided to take advantage of the unexpected, pleasant weather, and let everyone get some fresh air while they mingled.
He could barely remember the ceremony, only thinking it seemed to have been quick. Like the preacher had been told to make it short, to keep him from fleeing before it was over. His responses must have been the right ones. Everyone seemed happy. Well, everyone except for him, that is. He just didn’t want to be responsible for someone else’s misery in the future. One thing was for sure, he would never look at Saint Patrick’s Day the same, ever again. Whether or not that turned out to be a blessing or not, remained to be seen.
Chapter 3
Wednesday, April 7
The happy glow Sadie felt at the wedding only lasted until they got out to the Townsend ranch, where Tobias unceremoniously dumped her without a word. Not even a goodbye, see you at supper. He had turned and stomped back to the door, slamming it on his way out. By the time the shock wore off enough for her to follow him, and she raced out to the porch, he and his horse were just a speck on the horizon.
When she had turned back to the others to ask what was wrong, they all just shook their heads with a mix of expressions on their faces. Some sad, some confounded. One or two even angry. She had thought then, maybe they were angry with her. It hadn’t taken long to realize it was none other than Tobias they were angry with.
They had all, in turn, came over to her, and giving her a hug, apologized for their idiot brother. Their words, not hers. Even though, now she agreed with them. At the time, she was just hurt by his behavior. They had all repeatedly assured her everything would work out. She just had to have faith, and patience.
That had been three weeks ago, and nothing had changed. He had given her, her own room, down the hall. It felt like he had intentionally given her the room farthest from his own. All his brother’s rooms were upstairs, and there were three more rooms between theirs. That may not have been what he was thinking, but she had no way of knowing. He did his best to avoid her. He did so well in fact, she only saw him at meal times with his brothers. He made sure to come to the table after the rest of them were seated, and was the first one up and gone. She never found a private minute to talk to him.
Each night after supper, he would leave the house almost at a run. He’d take off toward town so fast, you’d think the devil was on his heels. All she wanted was for him to give her a chance to prove she could be a good wife. He wouldn’t even give her a chance to ask what it was she’d done so wrong. When he had kissed her at the wedding, she had felt like every dream she had ever had was coming true. If someone would have asked her right then, she would have said he felt the same way.
Tonight, after he had left, she had looked to all his brothers for an answer. They had tried, whole heartedly, to reassure her she had done nothing wrong. They just kept telling her, Tobias had something he had to work out.
It had taken her several more minutes to wear one of them down enough to get him to tell her where Tobias ran off to every night. The rest of them had sat there with stern looks on their faces, shaking their heads. If she heard them tell her once she couldn’t go, she heard it twenty times. While she got the feeling, they were all just concerned, they all seemed to think Tobias would be angry. Well, quite frankly, anger would be much, more preferable than stone cold silence. At least it was an emotion almost guaranteed to get him talking.
So now, here she was, stomping down the center of main street, headed for the only saloon in the whole town. The dirty rascal. “So much for getting married on Saint Patrick’s Day being a good sign of things to come,” she grumbled to herself. His brother Thaddeus had told her she could find Tobias there. She was getting sick of being ignored. She was starting to think he had married her just to do his laundry and cook for him. Now she finds out he’s been spending his nights getting drunk. She didn’t even know where he was sleeping it off at. It certainly wasn’t at home with her. If she found out it was in some whore’s bed, she was going to use one of his own fancy pistols on him.
She knew she didn’t belong in a saloon, but he had left her no choice. Things had to change. If they didn’t change soon, she was going to demand an annulment and go back east. Maybe Mrs. McBride could find her a different husband. She didn’t know how she’d find the money, but she’d figure that out later. She could probably try finding a new husband in town, but she didn’t think she could handle running into Tobias. Especially when he got remarried. Besides, who would want to marry her. They would probably all think there was something wrong with her. Why else wouldn’t Tobias want her? There was nothing else she could do. She’d have to go back east.
She shook her head, nearly moved to tears. That wasn’t what she wanted. She had taken an instant liking to her new husband. Despite how he had been avoiding her, she had managed to fall in love with the idiot. With his obvious love for his brothers, and the way he treated everyone else in his life, she knew deep down he was a very caring and giving person. He just didn’t seem to care anything about her.
She stepped through the batwing doors of the saloon and couldn’t help but shudder. She had come from a very gentle family. Her father had worked for the local bank. She wasn’t used to men like the ones you found in an establishment made for carousing and drinking one’s self into a stupor.
She clutched her hand over her rapidly beating heart and gazed around the room, looking for her arrant husband. She spotted him across the overcrowded room at a table in the corner. He was sitting by himself with his head down. He had a bottle of whiskey, a third of it already gone, in one hand, and a glass in the other hand. She started across the floor, her gaze glued to Tobias, wondering why at this point he even bothered with a glass.
She was so absorbed with her thoughts, she didn’t notice the big, hairy, brute of a man before it was too late, and she was nearly running him down.
“Oh, sorry,” she said, trying to move around him.
> “That’s okay,” he said, grabbing her by the arm to pull her back around. “I know how you can make it up to me. How about a free tumble?”
“Sorry, a free tumble?” she asked in confusion. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know what I mean,” he said, trying to wrap his arms around her. “I could use a good tumble, right now. I need something soft to sleep on for the night.” He grabbed her bottom, squeezing her round cheek extremely hard, drawing a squeak from her. “You’re a little over dressed for a saloon girl, ain’t you.”
She pushed hard in the middle of his chest, turning her face away when he tried to kiss her. “Let go of me. I think you’ve gotten the wrong idea. I just came in here to find my husband.”
“Husband?” the man chuckled with a leer. “I can play your husband for the night if you want to play house,” he added, wrapping his arms tighter around her, breathing in her face. His breath was very heavy with whiskey fumes, and the smell was making her feel faint.
“Tobias,” she shouted, trying to get the blackguard’s attention. “Let go of me, you drunken oaf.”
“Now, let’s not be that way. I’m sure I’m no different than any of the other men who’ve tumbled you.”
“No man has ever tumbled me,” she spluttered. “I just came in here after my husband.”
“If you had a husband, you wouldn’t be in here,” he said, trying to bring his face closer to hers once again. Before he could though, someone latched on to the back of his old, dirty coat, that looked like it should have been thrown out with the garbage a long time ago and swung him around causing him to release his hold on her.
She stumbled, nearly falling, before catching herself on the back of a chair. When she looked up, she found the dirty cowboy clutched in her husband’s fist. “Keep your grubby hands off my wife.”
“You? You’re the husband she’s so fired up about? No wonder she’s coming to saloons for a tumble,” the big brute said with a smirk. “You couldn’t keep the first one happy. What made you think you could keep a second one happy?” he asked before wondering off with a chuckle.
Tobias turned his glare on Sadie, causing her to flinch. “Uh, Thaddeus told me where I could find you,” she whispered, barely having the strength to say anything at all. When he just kept glaring at her, she wondered if he had heard her at all. “Maybe, I should go. I can see now, this was a bad idea.”
Before she could take a single step, he grabbed her by the wrist and started dragging her to the door. “Really, Tobias, I’ll go home. I can wait to talk to you, till tomorrow.”
Once they made it outside, he stood there looking like he was looking for something. When he finally turned to look at her, his glare was only slightly less severe than it had been before. “Where’s your horse?”
“I walked to town,” she said, her chin coming up another notch. “Don’t you remember my telling you in my letter that I have never ridden a horse?”
“You what?”
“I have never ridden a horse,” she snapped, sounding exasperated.
“Never mind that. The other part,” her growled back at her.
“I walked...”
He didn’t let her finish. He turned his back on her and started heading down the street toward the livery stables, dragging her behind him once again.
“Tobias, please, slow down,” she whimpered when she stumbled over a small stone in her path.
He stopped, turning back to her with a glare. Without saying a word, he bent and tossed her over his shoulder. He made it the rest of the way to the stables in just a few seconds.
When he stepped into the livery, the stable hand’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head. “Good evening, Mr. Townsend. Is your wife alright? At least, I’m assuming that’s your wife.”
“You just pay no never mind, Jed Carter,” he growled. “Get me my horse.”
“Yes, Sir. Of course,” he said, turning back toward the stales.
“Don’t go and sir me. I may be ten years older than you, but you played with my younger brothers growing up. Your father founded this town right along with mine.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Jed,” he snarled, giving him a stern look.
“I mean, Tobias,” he nearly yelled, turning to take off in a run. “My parents only tried to teach me manners.”
Tobias slid Sadie down his body, letting her land on her feet. Once the young stable hand returned, leading Gray Wind behind him, he mounted up, and without saying a word he yanked her up to lay across his lap in the saddle.
She landed with a grunt, shoving her hair out of her face, where it had finally fallen out of her bun, after her trip to town. “I can see you’re going to be your usual, pleasant self.”
He tipped his hat to the stable hand and lit out at a full gallop.
By the time she had bounced the nearly three miles back to the ranch house, she was ready to breath fire. The second her feet hit solid ground again, she took a deep breath, ready to tear into him.
“Don’t,” he growled, handing the reins off to one of the ranch hands. He grabbed hold of her hand once again, dragging her up the porch steps and through the front door.
“Don’t?” she nearly screamed, jerking to a stop, only managing to pull her hand free, because he was so surprised she was resisting him at that point. “You, don’t. There was no reason to ride back here at a full gallop with me laying... You could have let me ride sitting across...”
He glared at her, grabbing her hand once again, to drag her down the hall to his bedroom. He flung the door open, pushing her into the room before him.
“Why am I in here?” she asked with genuine confusion. “I figured this was the last place you wanted me to be.”
He ignored her outburst, dragging her across the room to a chair sitting in the corner. He plopped down, yanking her across his lap on her stomach. When she felt him throw her skirt up over her head, she screeched at him. “What are you doing?”
“Giving you what you are obviously asking me for,” he said, yanking her knickers down around her ankles, exposing the round, pale globes of her bottom.
She gasped, trying to squirm off his lap. “I am not asking to be manhandled.”
“Really?” he snorted, giving one full cheek a hard smack, causing her to scream. He ignored her protests, continuing on. “Then what do you think you were doing in that saloon?” he asked, giving her another hard smack. “I can assure you, if I had not found you when I did, you would have been far more roughly manhandled then what I’m doing right now. Jacob Daniels isn’t known for his gentleness,” he said with another swat.
“I was looking for you,” she screamed at the top of her lungs.
“And another thing,” he said, continuing to punctuate each statement with a swat to one of her cheeks. “You had no business going to town by yourself. Especially this late at night, and especially without a horse and wagon. What did you think you were doing? How did you think you were going to get back if you hadn’t found me?”
By this point she was screaming so loud, he wasn’t even sure she had heard him until she answered. “I would have just walked back.”
That earned her another hard smack, before he jerked her off his lap, causing her to drop on her stinging bottom with a hard thump. “Ouch,” she said, looking up at him with tears in her eyes. “Are you drunk?”
“No,” he snapped. “I don’t drink.”
“Then what were you doing with that partially drank bottle of whiskey?”
“If I’m going to sit in the saloon, I am required to buy,” he answered in an almost conversational tone. “It was partially drunk, because everyone in town knows I don’t drink, and they all come by and get a drink. Basically, I buy everyone in the saloon a round of drinks.”
“Do you pay for other... pleasures found in a place like that?” she asked, flushing scarlet.
“What?” he asked, his head snapping up. Was she asking what he thought she was?
She huffed
, glaring up at him. “You know what I mean?”
By this point he was sure he did know what she meant, but he wasn’t ready to tell her that. “Why no, my dear lady, I surely do not know what you mean.”
She huffed again, pulling herself to her feet. “Where are you spending your nights? Whose bed were you sleeping in? I know you haven’t slept here in the last three weeks.”
“Are you trying to ask me if I’ve been sleeping with the whores?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
She bit her lip, working to hold back the tears.
“Why? Are you jealous?” he taunted.
“I want children.”
“There will be no children in this marriage.”
“This is not a marriage.”
“Marriage can be so many different things.”
“This is not what God intended.”
“Well, this is what it is.”
She burst into sudden tears, turning her back on him. “I want an annulment.”
He sucked in a really hard breath before standing to his feet. “No,” he snarled before stomping over to the door.
She gasped, spinning around. “You can’t stop me.”
“Yes, I can. Even with an annulment, you have to get my consent and confirmation that you and I have not... Well, you know what I mean,” he smirked.
“Anyone of your brothers could confirm that you and I have not spent any time alone together,” she said, crossing her arms with a huff.
“You want away from me bad enough to bring my brothers into this?” he snarled.
“You’ve given me no choice.” She wasn’t going to mention if he were willing to make theirs a real marriage, no one would ever be able to pull her away from him.
“If you push me, I’ll do what I have to, to make sure you can’t get that annulment.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, I think you understand me just fine, on that point,” he said, turning back to glare at her. “And I better not catch you in that saloon again, or what I just did will be mild compared to what I will do.” With that said, he flung open the door and stormed out.
His Unexpected Mail-Order Bride (Historical Sapphire Springs Book 1) Page 4
