by Merry Farmer
“She’s my wife now.” Mason broke the silence, sounding far more confident and solid than he felt.
“What?” Hector blinked, then frowned. He shot a fierce look past Mason’s shoulder. “Libby.”
“I will not marry you, Hector.” Libby answered as if it wasn’t the first time she’d spoken those words. “I’m married to Mason now.”
Hector worked his jaw in frustration. “I went through all that trouble to trace where you’d gone, I left my work to come after you to bring you home, and you went and married someone else? After everything we shared?”
Libby stepped further behind Mason’s back. Her forehead touched Mason’s shoulder. He didn’t need to get a look at her to know she was terrified down to her toes. Terrified by a man who claimed she was his fiancée? Who declared she was carrying his child in front of witnesses? It was all very, very wrong.
“You heard her,” Mason snapped, raising his voice. “She married me. Now I’m beginning to understand why.”
“You don’t understand anything,” Hector spat. “You don’t understand that that woman was meant to be mine for a long time. She is mine. She’s carrying my child to prove it.”
“Get out.”
“She may be a fallen woman, but she’s my fallen woman, and I won’t rest until she knows that.” He raised his voice, confirming that Libby had hidden herself so thoroughly behind Mason’s back that Hector couldn’t see her.
“Son, you need to get yourself far, far away from here before something happens to you,” Pete spoke up, marching into the aisle toward Hector, Luke and Freddy with him.
“Yeah,” Travis echoed, Cody coming forward with him. “We don’t take too kindly to strangers showing up in town accosting good women.”
Libby flinched behind Mason’s back. Mason didn’t like that either. Hiding? Flinching? She couldn’t actually believe Hector’s accusations, could she? He pivoted so that he could scoop her into his arms and hold her against his chest in a protective embrace. All the while, he glared at Hector over Libby’s head.
Between that, the looming presence of Pete and Libby’s brothers, and the threat of Travis and Cody, Hector saw he was outnumbered. He shifted to a defensive stance and attempted to stare down all four men.
“If you don’t believe me, that’s your fault,” he said. “I’m simply stating what I know, what I’ve experienced to be true.” He turned and started back down the aisle toward the door. “I’m going to check into the hotel now. You and I will sort this out later.” He pointed to Libby—who huddled against Mason’s chest—then strode out into the bright, cold afternoon with his head held high.
“I’ll kill him if you want me to,” Cody blurted into the silence that followed.
His foolish threat broke the spell. Everyone rushed forward to comfort Libby at once.
“What a horrible, horrible man,” Josephine said, reaching for Libby.
“And a liar too,” Muriel added. “He was lying, wasn’t he?”
Before Libby could answer her, Matthew shot forward and threw his arms around Libby’s legs, burying his face in her skirt. Petey shuffled up behind him, looking like he wanted to hug his ma but thought he was too old.
“I never liked him,” he said instead.
That set off another warning bell in Mason’s mind. Children often picked up on things that adults didn’t.
“He’s gone now,” he said, putting a hand on Petey’s head.
Petey glanced up at him with a grateful smile. That smile reminded Mason that more than just Libby needed him now.
“Let’s head back to the house,” he said. “I hear tell there’s a feast to be had there.”
Slowly, awkwardly at first, everyone began to move.
“I’ve got chicken and biscuits that you can’t shake a stick at,” Josephine said with false cheer, though her brow was creased with worry. “And Muriel set the table and made everything look lovely. Why, Mr. Gunn even sent over a chocolate cake from the hotel as a wedding present.”
At the mention of the hotel—the place where Hector had gone—hush spilled over them all again. As a group, they’d made it halfway back down the aisle, but suddenly Libby stopped.
“You must all be so ashamed of me,” she said. “I’m utterly ashamed of myself.” She buried her face in her hands.
All around, their friends and family exchanged anxious looks of confusion.
Mason took Libby in his arms, tilting her chin up until she faced him. “I’m not ashamed of my wife,” he insisted.
“I’ll understand if you want to tear up the certificate we signed before Rev. Pickering can file it.”
“No.” Mason silenced her. “I don’t want to do any such thing. All I want to do is get to the bottom of what’s troubling you and make it better.”
Libby shook her head. “You can’t make it better. I’m carrying Hector Sterling’s child. You can’t fix this.”
“Are…are you certain it’s his?” Wendy asked, then chewed her lip as if she wasn’t certain she had the right to ask.
Libby sent her a mournful glance and nodded. “The timing…” She swallowed, leaving it there.
Their befuddled group continued to stand in uncomfortable silence until Josephine said, “Well, lunch isn’t going to eat itself, and I’d hate to see it go to waste. Besides, we did just have a wedding, no matter how eventful.”
“Right you are, Jo.” Pete smiled, taking his wife’s hand and kissing it to reward her for taking charge.
Conversation and renewed pledges of support rose up around them as they continued out the back of the church and across town to Josephine and Pete’s house. Everyone was doing their best to make light of things or to cheer Libby up. It was her wedding day, after all. She even managed a weak smile by the time they made it to the house.
Mason held tight to her hand the whole time. Libby may not have been blameless, but there were a thousand different things that could have happened between the day Teddy died and the day Libby stepped down from the train in Haskell and back into his life. And Mason intended to find out what they were.
Chapter 6
Libby said little all through the lunch that was intended to be a celebration of her marriage to Mason. She hardly touched the magnificent feast Josephine had prepared either. Every bite turned to ash in her mouth and twisted her already roiling stomach.
“You need to keep your strength up, sweetheart,” Pete told her at one point with all the affection of a natural father. “That baby will need its mother to be strong when it gets here.”
He winked and squeezed her shoulder. Libby managed a watery smile of thanks. She didn’t fully understand why these people who fancied themselves her family hadn’t turned their noses up at her aside in disgust when Hector blurted out what she’d done. It didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel stable. She kept waiting for one of them to stand up, bang their fist on the table, and demand how a woman who had prided herself on being a good wife to Teddy and mother to the boys could turn around and give in to another man’s advances so quickly.
“You can wear that beautiful dress Wendy made to church on Sundays,” Muriel said from the other end of the table. Libby’s younger sister sat stiffer than was normal, and her voice was pitched higher, but she was trying her best to act like nothing was wrong. “Wendy is so talented, don’t you think? I’m going to be sixteen next month, and I wouldn’t mind having a Wendy dress for my birthday party.” She sent a covert glance to Josephine.
Josephine pretended not to notice, though she cleared her throat and shot a look across the table to Wendy.
It was all so normal. So painstakingly brittle and normal.
“I can’t do this.” Libby blew out a breath and stood, turning away from the table.
Mason, Travis, Pete, and Josephine jumped to their feet as well.
“There’s nothing wrong, honey. Sit and eat,” Josephine implored her.
“No one here is listening to anything a stranger in town says,” Travis second
ed.
Mason—who stood so close due to the proximity of their chairs that he was pressed against her—merely asked, “Do you want me to take you home?”
Libby held her breath, staring up at him. Where was her home now anyhow? The logging camp had stopped feeling like home the moment Teddy’s body was carried out of their cabin to the makeshift cemetery at the edge of the woods. Josephine’s house was just that, Josephine’s house. And the house in The Village that Howard Haskell had promised Mason was only half built.
In spite of all that, she nodded.
Mason slipped his arm around her shoulder. That arm was her comfort and her lifeline. “Thanks for the luncheon, Miss Josephine,” he nodded to a visibly upset Josephine. “We’ll do it all again sometime real soon, once things get sorted out.”
Libby winced. Could this be sorted out?
“We’ll take good care of the boys,” Pete assured Libby.
“Yeah,” little Petey agreed, attempting an eight-year-old version of Pete’s voice and posture. “We like Grandpa and Grandma’s house. I’ll make sure Matthew behaves.”
Libby smiled in spite of herself. Even in the worst of times, her proud little men could always make her smile. It was in their best interest to stay with Josephine and Pete. If Hector came after her, they wouldn’t be caught in the crossfire. She stepped out of Mason’s arms and around the table to where she could kiss Petey’s head and hug him, then did the same for Matthew. She could only pray that they didn’t understand what was really going on, though the look in Petey’s eyes told a different story.
“You be good,” she whispered to them.
It took several more minutes and hugs and kisses from Muriel, Freddy, Luke, Eden, and Wendy before Libby and Mason could make their way out the kitchen door and to the stable, where the horse and wagon Mason had borrowed from Paradise Ranch waited. Libby watched in silence as Mason hitched the wagon. He helped her up, and the two of them headed out of town, still silent.
They were all the way out to where the road passed beside The Village before Mason said, “I’m sure glad Howard had the foresight to build those houses with plenty of bedrooms. Looks like we’ll have ourselves quite a brood right out of the gate.”
Libby couldn’t hold her pain and fear inside any longer. “I’m serious when I say I’ll go away and forget this marriage ever happened, if that’s what you want me to do.”
“It’s not.” He cut her short.
She couldn’t let things stand there. “You can’t possibly want a used and sullied woman like me.”
“Libby. Enough.” His tone was sharp, beyond frustrated. He turned to frown at her as the horse clopped along. “No more making yourself out to be some kind of sinner. And no more wringing your hands with guilt over this. Something happened. I’m as inclined as not to believe it was that man, Hector’s fault.”
“It wasn’t, it was my—”
“I don’t want to hear that sad, guilty note in your voice again.”
Cold confusion stiffened Libby’s back. He didn’t want to hear her confess her wrongs, feel suitably disgraced about them? Did he want her to be proud of what she’d done? Happy that she’d betrayed Teddy’s memory so fast? And why did she still want to lean against him, feel him wrap his arms around her?
Mason let out a breath and reached for her hand. “Sorry to snap. I just don’t like hearing anyone disparage my wife. Even my wife.”
“But—”
“No buts.” He squeezed her hand. “Now. Tell me what happened.”
A tremor spiraled up Libby’s back. “Hector came to the house one night, about a month after Teddy died. He was one of a handful of men offering to marry me for protection. He didn’t like that I said no, so he came to over to convince me to say yes.”
“Convince you? How?”
Libby shrugged. “He talked. He laid out his case for marriage. Then he kissed me. Next thing I knew, we were on the bed.”
Mason was silent for a long time, his face pinched to an angry frown, his eyes narrowed and pointed straight forward. With a look like that, Libby expected him to stop the wagon and shove her out.
They passed under the arch that marked the entrance to Paradise Ranch. Libby had been so mired in her troubles that she hadn’t noticed the landscape they drove through. Now she noticed, and it took her breath away. She was used to trees and hills. Paradise Ranch was all wide open vistas and fields that ran up into the mountains. Black and brown cattle dotted those fields, some near and some far. Ahead of them, down the road, several wisps of smoke marked the locations of buildings.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, a smile tugging at her lips.
Beside her, Mason relaxed. “Yes, it is. It’s different than Oregon.”
“I like it.” She craned her neck to see how far the fields stretched in one direction, then leaned forward to look around Mason and up at the snow-capped mountains. “They look like they’re so close, and yet so far at the same time.”
“It would take you days and days to hike or ride up to the mountains,” Mason answered. “Cody and Luke and I tried it once.”
“Hiking to the mountains?”
He nodded. “The idea was to get there, then climb to the top. We had no idea what we were taking on.”
“Climbing a mountain is no small feat.”
“No, ma’am, it’s not.”
With just a few short exchanges, the tension lifted. Mason smiled and patted Libby’s leg, then snapped the reins over the horse’s back to get it to pick up its pace for the final half mile.
The area of buildings that made up the heart of Howard Haskell’s portion of the ranch was humming with afternoon activity by the time Mason pulled the wagon into the central yard. A handsome man in a fine suit with some sort of iron braces on his legs greeted Mason from the top of a sleek chestnut gelding.
“Back so soon?”
Mason nodded. “Franklin Haskell, I’d like you to meet my beautiful bride, Libby Montrose.” He smiled at her new name.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Montrose.” The man, Franklin, nodded, touching the brim of his black hat.
“The pleasure is all mine,” Libby replied.
Mason hopped down from the wagon seat and came around to help her. “Franklin is my boss,” he explained. “And he’s a good one too.”
Franklin laughed modestly. “A boss is only as good as his men.”
Mason closed his hands around Libby’s waist and lifted her down from the wagon as if she weighed nothing. Heaven help her, it felt good to have him hold her that way, and not to let go until her feet were steady on the ground.
“Don’t listen to that,” Mason said. “It’s just Franklin’s modesty talking.”
Franklin shook his head. “I’ll have Mike take care of the wagon. Why don’t you go on ahead and get your bride settled in the Hen House? Ma spruced it up this morning and lit a fire to warm things up.”
Mason nodded and gave Franklin his thanks, then took Libby’s hand and led her on to a tidy cottage, set somewhat apart from the other buildings. It was unlocked, and when he pushed open the door, he swept Libby into his arms and carried her over the threshold. Libby’s heart rushed to her throat, and stayed there even after he put her down and shut the door.
“It’s not technically our house,” he said with a sheepish smile. “So carrying you over the threshold might not count. But I wanted to do it.”
She barely had time to smile before his expression shifted back to seriousness. He took three long steps across the room to where she’d stopped to lay a hand on the small dining room table.
“Libby, I don’t ever want to see that pained look on your face again for as long as I live.”
The sudden shift and the vehemence of his passion took Libby by surprise. She blinked and sputtered for a moment before saying, “I can’t change the past. I can’t undo what I did.”
“I know.” He nodded. “But we can’t start this new marriage with the troubles of your past hanging
over you all the time.”
She let out a breath and looked away. He was right. That was the problem.
Mason rested a hand on her shoulder, then ran it along her collar to reach the buttons of her coat. She turned toward him, helping him to unbutton it. He lifted it off her shoulders, then took it to a row of pegs near the door to hang it, hanging his own coat in the process. Libby glanced around the cheerful, well-decorated interior of the Hen House. She could live here for a time. Something about the space was comforting. She was separated from her boys, but at the moment she considered that a good thing.
When Mason marched back over to her, his expression still held concern, but something closer to resolve along with it.
“We need to do something about this Hector fellow,” he said.
Hot shame flooded Libby’s cheeks. “No one has ever been able to simply ‘do something’ about Hector.”
Mason’s brow furrowed in confusion.
“Hector is the sort of man who always gets what he wants,” Libby went on with a sigh. “Apparently he was only at the logging camp because of the stipulations in his grandfather’s will. Hector was set to inherit a lot of money, but his father was only willing to release it if Hector spent some time working in a manual profession. He chose logging.”
“And you turned him down? A man with money?”
Libby edged away from Mason, peeking into the kitchen. “Money is not everything.”
Mason followed her. “No, it’s not.”
He reached her in the archway leading to the kitchen and slipped his arms around her waist from behind. Libby gasped, both in surprise and at how good it felt to be held that way. She let herself relax enough to lean back against Mason’s chest. The part of her that had found him so attractive all those years ago surged to life. They were married now. Hector may have shamed her, but something in her soul whispered that Mason could redeem her.
It wasn’t until his large hands circled around to rest protectively over her belly that she tensed again.
