An Improper Proposal

by Spencer, Davalynn

  Weariness and the monotony of a moonless night had swept her from her senses on the trip from town, but not so much that she didn’t recall the strength of Cade’s embrace and his protective warmth. This morning he was so different, so distant. No smile teased his mouth. No light filled his eyes. Only … avoidance. He was avoiding her. Avoiding looking at her, speaking to her.

  Like a third person, silence perched between them on the sturdy bench.

  Rather than pick at him with idle chatter, she chronicled her surroundings, noted the way the grassland rolled up against pine-draped mountains blotched with lighter, brighter green. She’d not seen such blue sky in all her days, and it put her dress to shame. Topaz, saffron, and amethyst wildflowers winked along the roadway, encouraging her to breathe deeply of the clean, unfouled air.

  After miles of creaking wagon, clomping hooves, and occasional bright birdsong, houses began to dot the landscape, appearing closer together as they neared a town sprouting from the horizon. Riders and other wagons passed, and drivers lifted a hand or nodded in passing. Cade stared straight ahead as if going to a funeral.

  Oh dear. That was exactly what he was doing. Taking her to gather the remains of her betrothed. How could she have forgotten?

  ~

  Cade drove down Main Street for the second day in a row. A first in his memory for coming to town more than once in a month.

  If he hadn’t ridden in yesterday, his life would be as it had been for the last thirty years—routine, predictable. Now it was anything but, and he still hadn’t completed his business at the bank. He turned at the alley and came to a stop behind the barbershop. “Wait here.”

  His conscience barked, clearly audible over his churning gut and his ma’s voice telling him kindness never killed anybody. He seemed to have used up all he had the day before. Never had he been in such a fix, and it was costing him his manners. Leave it to a woman to work a kink in his rope.

  He looped the reins on the brake handle and jumped down without looking at Mae Ann. He couldn’t look at her and keep his wits. In her simple bonnet and blue dress, she stole the breath right out of his lungs and the good sense from what little brain he had left. It wasn’t so bad yesterday in the bank with tension running high as a flooded creek. Even at the church, when he still felt he was doing right by her, he hadn’t had a good view of what lay ahead. But now, in clear daylight, he had to work at not making a fool of himself. How was he going to live with her?

  He entered the building to find Reiker’s coffin propped against a wall in the back room as he’d expected. The doorknob pushed against his hand when he attempted to close the door, and he gave way. Mae Ann.

  She looked him square in the eye, daring him to deny her. So much for doing what he’d told her. If not listening to him was her idea of a manageable arrangement, then she was in for a surprise. As he understood it, they were business partners. And he ran the outfit.

  “Mornin’.” Ward came from the front with his barber’s apron on, smelling of shaving soap and tonic. “The preacher stopped by and said you’d be in.” He looked to Mae Ann with a slight nod. “Ma’am. My condolences.”

  “Thank you, Mr. …”

  “Ward. Bartholomew Ward.” He pulled his apron off and dropped it on a desk chair. “I have something for you that I found inside Henry’s coat.”

  From the top desk drawer, he withdrew two darkly stained envelopes and handed them to her. Each was shot through the middle with a neat hole. Cade’s chest tightened.

  Mae Ann’s breath caught in that little gasping way, and her hand trembled as she reached for the papers.

  Ward couldn’t keep from pointing out the obvious. “You’ll see he labeled them. His will and a payment.”

  One thick. One sealed. Both discolored with Henry’s blood. She turned them over in her hands, and Cade turned away from watching her.

  He gripped the top of the coffin. “We’ll be taking him to the farm.”

  The barber bent for the bottom. “Ma’am, if you could get the door, please?”

  She looked at Cade, dragging his heart out of his chest with her dark, shining eyes. He held her gaze a moment, then stepped to the door and pushed it open before returning to the rough-finished pine.

  The coffin slid easily to the head of the wagon, and Cade latched the back board. If someone had told him he’d be hauling Henry Reiker’s body to his farm after taking the man’s bride as his own, he’d have cuffed them hard.

  Mae Ann didn’t wait for help, but climbed to the seat. She had more spine than most, he’d give her that. Yet she had an air about her that made him want to be a better man.

  That was the part that hobbled him.

  He joined her on the bench and drew in as much air as he could hold. “You might want to read those before we leave town. If that really is a land payment, we can take care of it on our way out. I have to stop at the bank anyway.”

  She stared at the envelopes, tracing the hole in the top one with her finger. “You are right.”

  He gathered the reins and clucked Smoke down the alley to the corner, where he turned back to Main Street and pulled up in front of the bank. She still hadn’t read the papers. He set the brake and leaned forward on his knees to give her the time she needed. Lord knew he hadn’t given her much else this morning.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw her thumb through several bills in the thicker envelope. She laid it in her lap and ran a finger under the other envelope’s sealed flap. It gave way easily, and she withdrew a folded paper covered in dark script, much of it blurred. He looked across the street and studied Reynolds Mercantile.

  Fred Reynolds’s wife usually had butter and cheese in the storeroom that she sold to bachelors like himself. It wasn’t yet warm enough that it’d melt before they got to the ranch.

  Paper rustled and he leaned back.

  She returned the letter to its envelope and tucked it in a pocket in her skirt. “I’d like to make the land payment.”

  “Before you see the farm?” She didn’t know what it was like. Neither did he, but he felt obligated to warn her before she handed over money that could pay her way back to St. Louis if she decided to leave. The possibility that she might do just that made him uneasy.

  “It was Henry’s wish, and as his heir, I intend to carry it through.”

  His heir. That beat all. He’d signed the land over to her before he even married her. That’d chap Sean MacGrath’s hide for sure, a woman getting the land he’d tried to buy from Reiker. “Suit yourself.”

  He jumped down and reached for her, gripping her about the waist as he had before. But this time she laid her hands on his shoulders. She held on a mite past what she needed and searched his face as if she were looking for gold.

  “Thank you.” A hint of maple syrup brushed by on the words. She’d eaten alone. He should have been there.

  Releasing her, he stepped back and opened the door for her.

  The bank was as crowded as the day before. Mae Ann looked down and stopped, rigid as a new rope. Her breath came short and quick. The floor had been scrubbed, but Henry Reiker’s blood stained the wood. Only time would erase it, and then maybe not completely.

  Cade moved in close and linked an arm around her waist. Hang what people thought. She was his responsibility, and he’d brought her back to the scene of Reiker’s death.

  For the life of him, he couldn’t shake the idea that she was promised to Henry first. Made him feel as if he’d run under the man whether the fella was dead or not.

  Just barely, she leaned into him but maintained her set jaw. That’s my girl. He’d thought the same thing yesterday, but today it was true. At least as far as the parson was concerned.

  The teller coughed politely. “Mr. Parker.”

  Cade moved forward, still with a hold on Mae Ann. “Busy today, aren’t you?”

  The man shuddered. “I’m afraid so. Yesterday’s robbery delayed several transactions.” His attention drifted to Mae Ann. “I’m so sorry,
Miss …”

  “Mrs. Parker,” Cade replied. “My wife, Mae Ann Parker.”

  The teller’s widened eyes flicked between the two of them, and he stumbled over his tongue. “Uh, well, yes. How can I help you?”

  She slid the thick envelope through the window. “I’d like to make the next payment on Henry Reiker’s land note.”

  More adept at business than small talk, the teller opened a ledger. “According to this, there is only one more payment and it isn’t due until the end of July.” His fingertip inched the envelope his way. “But I’d be happy to complete the transaction for you today.”

  Cade bit the inside of his cheek to keep from speaking his mind.

  Mae Ann stuck her hand through the window, palm up. “Very well. I will wait.”

  The teller glanced at Cade, then returned the envelope.

  “However, I should like to deposit this on account until the note is due.”

  The man reached for the money, and Mae Ann pulled it closer to her. Cade choked back a laugh.

  “A personal account, please. In my name.”

  The teller stared. “That is highly unusual, Miss—er, ma’am. Women do not normally open accounts of their own. But if you’d like to make a deposit to Mr. Parker’s account …”

  Cade opened his mouth, but she beat him to the draw.

  “Normality has nothing to do with this situation, sir. I have in my pocket Henry Reiker’s last will and testament, written by his own hand, which declares me as his sole heir. That means the money is mine, not Mr. Parker’s or anyone else’s.”

  Silence turned Cade’s glance toward other patrons, who had halted their conversations to hear how the Olin Springs Bank would care for its newest customer.

  “If you will excuse me one moment, please.” The teller held up a finger to indicate that moment and scuttled to the bank president’s desk in the far corner. Cade would wager that every eye in the lobby followed him.

  Mae Ann’s shoulders hardened and she stretched herself to her full height. If Cade was a bettin’ man, his money’d be on her.

  The president leaned around the teller and peered over his spectacles at Mae Ann, and with a flick of his hand, sent the teller back with his decision.

  “As you wish, Mrs. Parker.” The poor man’s face reddened like a late apple in fall, and bonnets bobbed as women whispered their hearty approval.

  Pride edged under Cade’s rib cage until he realized that her same steely determination would be riding home with him and fixing his meals for the next—well, forever.

  Mae Ann handed over the money. The teller counted it out and gave her a receipt. She stepped aside yet stayed close enough for Cade to sense her body trembling like a colt new to the halter. But she stood on her own two feet.

  He thumbed his hat up a notch. “I need fifty dollars from my account.”

  “It will have to be in bills today. They took all the—well, you already know about that.” The teller opened the drawer where he’d just deposited Mae Ann’s cash, and withdrew the fifty from her payment.

  Ironic that the robbers hadn’t checked Henry for money.

  Cade nodded his thanks.

  Mae Ann stepped in front of him and leaned near the window, her voice a whisper. “Did you—did anyone—happen to find a brooch from—from yesterday’s …”

  The man’s expression softened and he shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Parker.”

  Her shoulders fell.

  Cade laid his hand against her waist and ushered her to the door.

  On the boardwalk, he drew her aside. “Reynolds Mercantile has just about everything you might need, and if not, I know Fred’s wife has a Montgomery Ward catalogue.” He peeled off a twenty-dollar bill and pressed it into her warm hand. “You can order another brooch.”

  Mae Ann’s eyes glistened and she stared at the mercantile across the street, refusing to look at him. A muscle in her jaw flexed, and her voice came even softer than it had with the teller. “It was my mother’s.”

  Cade rarely came to town armed, but sudden regret at not having his gun yesterday left a bitter taste in his mouth. “I’m sorry.”

  Her eyes met his. “It’s not your fault.”

  He swallowed and reset his hat with no clear idea of what to say next other than the obvious. “I’ve got business at the telegraph office. Go ahead and get what you need. Butter, cheese, and anything else you want.”

  He paused for her response. It didn’t come. “Do you feel up to waiting at the mercantile until I get back?”

  She drew herself up, and he squelched a holler, relieved that her fire had returned so quickly.

  “I am not a dolt.”

  “I didn’t say you were. I was only trying to make it easier on you.”

  She cut him a look that thanked him and insulted him at the same time, and he walked away before that holler broke loose.

  At the corner, he checked to see she’d made it across the street unharmed, and caught her stepping through the door. Tugging his hat down, he continued to the telegraph office to wire the money he’d promised his sister, the other woman in his life who kept him twisting like a bronc.

  Between the two of them, he’d have no hair on his hide at all by the time the fall roundup came.

  CHAPTER 6

  Mae Ann hadn’t had so much money to spend at one time in all her life. She folded the bill and tucked it into her pocket next to Henry’s will. Thank God she at least had a pocket.

  A cheerful bell clanked above her as she stepped inside the mercantile, and an equally cheerful voice greeted her from the left, but no one was there.

  “Hello?” Easing the door closed, she took in the wall of canned goods. Notions and dishes filled glass-front cases, and barrels of pickles and dried beans and crackers crowded the narrow aisles. Aromatic spices blended with the tang of lye soap and leather goods. Nearly everything a person could want filled the cramped establishment. On the counter, distinctive yellow-and-red Arbuckle’s packages and a coffee grinder caught her eye. She headed that way but stopped short when a broom-thin woman popped up behind them like a jack-in-the-box.

  “Good morning!” Both hands patted silvered hair and then brushed a neat apron as she stepped from behind the counter. “Just rearranging, making room for catalogues and such. I don’t believe I know you.” She extended her hand. “I’m Wilhelmina Reynolds and so happy to see a new face in town. Please, call me Willa.”

  Mae Ann returned the greeting, unaccustomed to such an open welcome to strangers. “I’m Mae Ann Rem—Parker. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  The woman’s eyes skipped to Mae Ann’s left hand and back to her face. “Parker, you say? As in Cade Parker of Parker Land and Cattle Company?”

  Heat climbed Mae Ann’s throat and she tucked her ringless hand into her pocket, masking her discomfort with a polite smile. “We were married yesterday by Parson Bittman.” She braced herself for raised-brow judgment and tsking disdain and was, therefore, ill-prepared for Willa’s exuberant response.

  The woman threw her arms around Mae Ann in a quick embrace and kissed her cheek. “Welcome, welcome! Finally, someone has captured that cowboy’s heart. How he needed it after that little hussy treated him so poorly a few years back. But do tell me all about the wedding and your trip here, since I know you’re not from these parts. Did you come on the train? Oh, what a journey that must have been from … Where did you say you were from.”

  Hussy? Mae Ann found herself holding her breath as much from surprise as gratitude. “I didn’t say, but St. Louis.” She inhaled deeply and the tightness in her shoulders eased somewhat. “I arrived yesterday on the train from Denver.”

  Praying the woman wouldn’t bring up the bank robbery, she reached for a package of Arbuckle’s. “I’d like ten pounds of coffee, please. And I need to see what else you have that I may need at the ranch.”

  Willa skittered back behind the counter and pulled out an empty Arbuckle’s crate. “Well, if you ask me, you�
��ll be needing everything from flour and sugar to lard and licorice. And if I were you, I’d choose some garden seeds too. I know for a fact he hasn’t kept the garden up. Travine Price told me and she’s as good as gold. Her son, Todd, rides over to the Parkers’ now and again with fresh milk.”

  “Cade did mention a neighbor with a milk cow.”

  “Good thing too. Honestly, those men live on bacon and beans.”

  Men?

  “And that Deacon.” She huffed. “Old coot needs to trim that bush on his face, if you ask me.”

  Mae Ann laughed. Men. Of course. “He is a sight, isn’t he?”

  “At least Mr. Parker does not let him influence his appearance. How did you meet, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  Mae Ann turned away, searching for some necessary item to draw the woman’s interest from yesterday’s events. “You mentioned butter. That would be lovely. We have no milk cow for cream, but you already knew that.”

  “Oh yes, butter, cheese. All those things that bachelors can’t do for themselves. And I have Eagle Brand milk to tide you over until Todd rides out. You’ll have to water it down, you know. I imagine those cowboys are short on canned fruit as well.”

  With twenty dollars, Mae Ann felt she could buy half the store, but she wanted to prove herself frugal. If only she’d had more time to look through the larder and see what they needed. Surely Cade had a smokehouse and root cellar. And beef. It was a ranch, after all. She worked her way toward the back, mentally compiling a list and distancing herself from the inquisitive owner.

  She had not lost her sewing kit or linens packed safely in her trunk. And she had two dresses in addition to her suit, with petticoats and stockings and an extra pair of stout shoes—precious purchases she’d made before leaving St. Louis for life on a farm. A barb snagged behind her breastbone, and she remembered Henry’s coffin in the wagon bed.

  Willa swept by in a rush of words. “I’ll fetch another box for you dear.”

  A muffled question floated from behind the curtain where she disappeared. “Has Mr. Parker told you about his family?”