How had all her hopes and dreams and ambitions gone so wrong?
For a short time, she had thought about running away, but her last excursion had gone so badly she decided it wasn’t a viable solution to her problem. If she wanted to be a teacher, she was out of options.
A knock on the door startled her and made her heart race. It must be Jack, coming to escort her to the ceremony.
“Come in,” she called out.
The door opened, but instead of her brother it was R. J. Wexler. She hadn’t spoken to him since the night he had helped her escape from the guardhouse. Irritation tightened in her belly. If not for him, she wouldn’t be marrying Kane.
“What is it, R. J.?”
“Ma sent me over. She’s gettin’ ever’thing ready over at our quarters for the weddin’. But she wanted you to have these.”
He pulled some things from his pocket: a blue ribbon, a brooch, and a white lace handkerchief.
“She said it was tradition. Something old, something new—”
“Something borrowed, something blue,” she finished. “That was very considerate of your mother.”
They heard the sound of horses in the compound outside, and R. J. went to the window and looked out. “Mr. Tanner’s here with the chaplain.”
“Then I guess it’s time for me to get married.” Kane stood up and took his hat from the desk. “Want to walk me to your place?”
The boy’s eyes grew bright as he nodded eagerly.
Kane put his hand on R. J.’s shoulder as they left his office. He was glad the boy stopped by. For some reason he felt a little better.
Cady stood in the doorway to the Wexlers’ home clutching Jack’s arm. Due to the speed with which the wedding had come together, they had decided to have only a few people. A reception would be held in the mess hall afterward.
Cady saw Lieutenant Brewster, as well as R. J., the Hallecks, the Chases, the Stantons, John Eagle, his father, and Mac. The small room was filled, but she found Kane almost immediately, standing head and shoulders above almost every other man. In his spotless dress blue uniform, he was so handsome he took her breath away. His thick brown hair was neatly parted and combed. He was so tall and strong. If only he could have been there because he wanted to and not because Jack had forced him.
When he had first seen her, Cady thought there had been approval in his eyes: then his expression became unreadable and she wasn’t sure if she had only imagined it because she wanted so badly for it to be true.
Next to Kane stood a gray-haired man in uniform who held a book in his hands: the chaplain, no doubt. Beside him, Major Wexler held his wife’s arm while she dabbed at her eyes.
Cady felt like crying too, but not from happiness.
The people parted and Jack walked her through their midst, stopping beside Kane. The two men exchanged a look, and then the minister cleared his throat.
“Miss Tanner, I’m Chaplain Barnes,” he said, nodding at Cady. Then he looked around at everyone. “We are gathered to unite this man and this woman in holy matrimony. If anyone present can show just cause why these two should not be joined, let him speak now or forever hold his peace.”
Cady started to lift her hand from Jack’s forearm to get the man’s attention. This was her last chance. Her brother instantly covered her fingers with his own and whispered in her ear, “I wouldn’t advise it.”
She pressed her lips together and glared at him.
Finally, when no one spoke up, Jack smiled tightly. “Guess it’s time to get on with it.”
He held her hand out to Kane, who took it and tucked her palm in the bend of his elbow, then stood beside her as they faced the chaplain.
“Captain Carrington, Miss Tanner, is there a ring?”
“No,” Cady said.
“Yes,” Kane said at the same time.
She looked up at him.
He smiled at her. “I’m not sure it will fit, but I’d like you to accept my mother’s ring. Will you?” He pulled it from his pocket and handed it to the chaplain.
She swallowed the lump forming in her throat. “Of course I’ll wear it.”
“With the matter of the ring settled, do I have your permission to begin?” When they both nodded, he continued. “Do you, Kane, take Cady to be your lawfully wedded wife, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?”
Kane looked down at her. “I do,” he said in a clear, deep voice.
“Yes’m. The handkerchief is something new. Ma said you should keep that as a gift from her, and the blue ribbon too. The brooch is the borrowed part. It’s Grandmother Wexler’s, and she’d like to have it back.”
“Of course. Tell her I’ll take good care of it.”
“She figured you’d have something old,” he said, handing her the things.
Cady nodded. “This dress.”
It was the long-sleeved high-necked white cotton with pink rosettes at the collar and wrists she’d worn to her welcome reception.
“You look real nice, Miss Tanner.” Now that his hands were free, he whipped his hat off and curled the brim nervously.
Cady stared at him suspiciously. If she didn’t know better, she would think he was being nice.
“Are you feeling all right, R. J.?” she asked.
“Yes’m, just fine. Why?”
“Because you’re not looking at me as if you wish I’d fall in a prairie-dog hole.”
“About the way I been actin’, ma’am. You’ll be pleased to know that Pa tanned me good for what I done.” His voice cracked and he cleared his throat. “I’m glad Kane found you and you’re all right after bein’ up in the mountains. I want to apologize for sendin’ you into danger. I didn’t mean you no harm. I’da come and said it sooner, but I figured you’d best have a couple days t’simmer down before I did.”
Cady wanted to give the boy a piece of her mind. After all, if it hadn’t been for him, she wouldn’t be forced into this marriage. Then she reminded herself that this mess was really her fault. A sudden warmth crept into her cheeks as she remembered that night and the pleasure she’d found in Kane’s arms.
“I appreciate your apology, R. J. It takes a big person to do that.” She placed the brooch and handkerchief on her pine table and pulled the ribbon beneath the heavy length of her hair. She fixed the bow at her crown and turned to the boy. “How does it look?”
“Right pretty, ma’am.” He frowned at her. “Is everything all right now?”
“Yes, why do you ask?”
“Ya seem sorta jumpy. Are ya sure about marryin’ Kane?”
It surprised her that the boy was so perceptive. If she hadn’t been so nervous, she never would have said anything, but the need to say out loud what she felt was too strong.
“I don’t think he likes me very much, R. J.”
“You’re wrong about that, ma’am. He’s sweet on you.”
“What makes you think so?” He was wrong, of course, but she was curious about why he would say that.
He squeezed his hat brim until his knuckles turned white. “After I busted you out of the guardhouse, I never saw Kane look like that before. He was mad and scared too. He lit right out lookin’ for you. I ain’t never seen him ride that way, especially through the desert.”
“Like what?”
“Like the devil was after him.” He paused for a second, then went on. “Ma says he’s sweet on you too.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “She told Pa the first time she saw Kane and you together that there would be a weddin’, although she didn’t think it would be this soon.”
“Give your mother my thanks for the things,” she said, touching the brooch she had just pinned on her bodice. “And for all her help with the wedding preparations.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He put his hat on and left.
Cady stared at the door for a moment. Her anger had passed after she’d tried to get Kane to call off the wedding. Now she was merely sad. In spite of what R. J. said, she didn’t believe
Kane cared about her at all. She had lost her innocent conviction that she could have a say in what happened to her, but not her belief that she could make a difference in settling the West. She was resigned to the fact that being loved was not something she could hope for. Her fulfillment would have to come from her work.
Kane stood in his office with his hands clasped behind his back and looked at the scratches on his desk. Soon he would marry Cady Tanner, and she’d made it clear that she was not happy about being tied to him.
He wondered how he had messed everything up so badly. From the day he’d first met her, he had tried to prevent this.
There was a knock on the door. It must be the sentry notifying him that the chaplain had arrived.
“Come in, private.”
The door creaked open and he turned around. R. J. stood there. “Howdy, captain,” he said, removing his hat.
Kane frowned as he looked at the kid. That lanky, redheaded, freckle-faced hellion was why everything had gotten messed up so badly. If he had just minded his own damn business. “What do you want, R. J.?”
“Wanted to see how you were doin’. How’s the eye?”
“Feels all right. How does it look?”
“Not too bad. Still a mite purple. The lip’s down now, though. Except for the cut, you’re as good as new.” R. J. looked curious. “You never said how that happened, captain.”
“No, I never did.”
R. J. grinned. “Can’t blame a fella for askin’.”
“Guess not. But I can blame you for other things.”
R. J. looked down at the hat in his hands, then back up. “I’m here t’say I’m sorry for what I did. I never should have helped Miss Tanner get away.”
“You got that right.”
Still, he couldn’t blame the kid for what went on when he found her. The truth was, if he hadn’t bedded Cady, nothing Jack Tanner said or did could have forced him to marry her. The fault was his alone.
“Forget it, R. J.”
“Miss Tanner’s sweet on you,” he blurted out. “Ma says so,” he added. Kane had the feeling that it was supposed to make him feel better. It didn’t.
“How does your ma know?”
“Got me,” he answered, looking confused. “She just said she knew the first time she saw the two of you together. Guess I’ll be diggin’ outhouses for a long time t’come.”
Kane looked up at the kid and couldn’t help smiling. “No, I think you’ve learned your lesson.”
R. J. grinned back as he rubbed his backside. “Pa walloped me good.”
Kane nodded approvingly. The major’s attention was all the boy had ever wanted. He’d probably gotten more than he bargained for, but in a strange way Kane felt this whole incident had brought father and son closer.
“So you think Miss Tanner’s sweet on me?” Kane asked.
“Yup. Why would she marry you if she wasn’t?”
“Why indeed,” Kane said, remembering his conversation with the lady two days before in this room. It was too complicated to go into, and R. J. was far too young.
“Do you, Cady, take Kane to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, for richer, for poorer, until death do you part?”
She couldn’t look at Kane. He would see the tears gathering in her eyes and she couldn’t bear that. When she trusted herself to answer she replied in a voice as loud and clear as Kane’s, “I do.”
“Kane, will you love and honor your wife and keep her safe to the best of your ability as long as you live?”
“I will,” he said.
“Cady, will you love, honor, and obey your husband? And forsaking all others keep him only unto yourself for as long as you live?”
Cady thought about what she was being asked to do. “Sir, may I ask you a question?” she whispered.
She felt all eyes in the room on her, and Kane’s arm tensed beneath her fingers.
The minister looked down at her with a hint of surprise. “What is it?”
“Do I have to promise to obey my husband? I mean I’ll do my best with everything else, and forsaking all others is easy as pie, but I’m not sure I can vow to obey blindly without at least some discussion. Especially if I think he’s wrong. I know that’s how it is in the army, but I have to tell the truth here in the eyes of God, and the truth is that I’m not sure I can do it.”
The minister cleared his throat. “What if we insert that you promise to obey if, after discussion, you agree with your husband? Can you promise that?”
“Yes, I will,” she said.
The chaplain nodded and handed the ring back to Kane, and he slipped it on her finger. It was too large, and he held it in place while he took her other hand in his and turned her to face him. There was something in his eyes, an intense look that Cady didn’t understand.
“With a ring given and solemn promises from Cady and Kane expressed before God and witnesses present, I now pronounce them man and wife. May I present Captain and Mrs. Kane Carrington.”
Quiet applause rose from the gathering. Then Chaplain Barnes said, “You may kiss your bride.”
Cady saw Kane’s eyes smolder with an emotion she couldn’t name. His right arm encircled her waist and he pulled her against him. With his left, he cupped her cheek, then slowly lowered his mouth to hers. At the first contact, cheers went up from the gathering. When Kane slipped his fingers in her hair and gently pressed the back of her head to force their lips closer and deepen the kiss, Cady didn’t hear anything but the pounding of her heart. Everything and everyone disappeared except Kane.
She was married now. And the heated way her new husband kissed her was a hopeful promise for their life together as well as for the wedding night to come.
14
Kane escorted Cady across the acequia and hesitated beneath the ramada outside the quarters they would now be sharing. In the cool breeze blowing off the desert, the scent of mesquite and juniper mixed together and surrounded them. As soon as the sun went down, gentle teasing from the people gathered at their reception had compelled him to take her home. Betsy Wexler’s eyes had twinkled when she had said everything was ready for them.
As much as he’d wanted to, he couldn’t put this moment off any longer. It was important that everyone thought they were a typical couple in love. After all, isn’t that why they had gotten married in the first place, to preserve their respective reputations?
Cady waited beside him, nervously clasping her fingers as she waited for him to open the door. The fragrance of flowers drifted from her and the sweet smell took him back to that night in the cave and the moments of heaven he’d spent in her arms. Had it been worth what had happened afterwards?
He looked down at her, bathed in moonlight. Her long golden-brown hair was tied back from her face with a blue satin ribbon and flowed free down her back to her waist. Her lips were full and soft, her eyes big, bright, trusting, hopeful. His breath caught as he realized she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
Kane opened the door and let her precede him inside.
“Oh!” she said, looking around.
He closed the door and stood behind her. Another iron cot stood beside the one Cady had been using. Candles had been lighted and placed around the room, bathing everything in a flickering golden glow. As he looked closer, he noticed that his belongings were there, his uniforms hanging beside Cady’s dresses on pegs in the corner, his shaving things on the dresser beside her brush and comb. On the table, a bottle of champagne stood in an olla, its coolness preserved by the clay container. Someone had taken the liberty of preparing the place for their wedding night.
Someone had gone to a lot of trouble for nothing.
“Who did this?” Cady asked, turning to look up at him with the trusting expression that always twisted his gut inside out.
“My guess is Betsy Wexler. I can’t even imagine how she got her hands on a bottle of champagne.”
“That was very sweet of her.”
“Cady, I—” He st
opped, noticing that his mother’s ring was suspended from a piece of string resting against Cady’s breast.
“It was a little too big. Betsy helped me tie it on because I was afraid I’d lose it. Why did you give this to me?” She glanced down, then back up at him shyly. “Didn’t your first wife—”
“Annie never saw it.” He blurted it out and wasn’t sure why, anymore than he knew why he’d put a ring on Cady’s finger that he had never considered giving to another woman.
Cady stiffened a little at his sharp tone. Then she said, “Tell me about your mother. You’ve never told me anything about your family.”
“They’re all dead. My father was killed in the war, fighting for the Union at Gettysburg.”
“How old were you?”
“Twelve.” He saw the sympathy in her eyes, but she said nothing. “My mother never got over it. She died a year later.”
“A broken heart?”
His jaw clenched for a moment. “A foolish romantic notion.”
“I’m a foolish person, as you’ve pointed out once or twice.”
“Cady, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said.
But he could tell by her tone that it did matter. He hated himself more for what he still had to say. He was stalling and he knew it.
She walked over to the table, running one finger through the moisture collected on the side of the champagne bottle. “What did you do after your mother died?”
“I joined the army.”
She looked up sharply. “But you were only thirteen. That’s just a little older than R. J. is now.”
“I lied about my age and got away with it because I looked older. The army fed me, put clothes on my back, and gave me a place to sleep. It’s the only family I’ve known for a long time.”
“Did the army always come first? What about Annie?” She absently toyed with the ring hanging around her neck.
He didn’t know how to answer that. She probably had another romantic notion about him and Annie, but all he felt for his first wife was guilt and regret. She had shared his life and now she was dead and he was partly to blame.
“Annie never understood how I felt about the army.”
Reckless Destiny Page 21
