An Unwilling Husband

by Tera Shanley

  “I do. It’s gotta be you, Shaw. I don’t trust no one else to take care of my girl but you.”

  “Look, Cookie’s here. Stop talkin’ and he’ll get to work on you and you’ll be okay.”

  “Stop,” Roy said as he put a hand up in Cookie’s direction. “Cookie, tell the boy I won’t live past what I got to say.”

  Cookie shook his head at Garrett.

  “I don’t have time,” Roy said weakly. “Marry her. It’s my last request. Say it.”

  “Roy—”

  “Say it!” Roy commanded, gripping Garrett’s hand with what little strength remained.

  Resignation dragged him under the waves of anguish that threatened to drown him. “I swear it. I’ll marry your girl and see her taken care of.”

  “Boy, if you let her, she’ll be good for you,” Roy whispered. His last breath was just a soft sigh as he passed. His dark eyes remained open and focused on him, like he was beseeching him, even after death.

  He sat back in the dirt as Cookie covered Roy’s eyes with his hand and whispered the lyrics to a prayer or song that didn’t quite reach him. There, in the dusty rays of sunlight, lay the shell of the best man he’d ever known.

  * * * *

  Maggie came to, and for the briefest of moments couldn’t remember her name. Above her were the exposed wooden beams of an unexpected ceiling, and as she sought pockets of coolness under the sheets with her arms, the bedding rustled in an unfamiliar way. The pillow smelled crisp and masculine. She was in Garret’s bed.

  Her heartbeat tripped into a furious pace. She had never been in a man’s bed before, and the thought of those blue eyes and firm physique had her thoughts turned in a shocking direction. Were his strong arms as hard and unforgiving as they looked? Maybe they’d soften if he put them around her. Had he ever lain in that bed and thought of her those many years?

  “Miss?” a man asked in a deep voice.

  Heat flushed her cheeks. She wasn’t alone.

  “Miss, my name is Brian Burke. People around here call me Burke. I work for Mr. Shaw. Do you need anything?”

  Maggie sat up and shook her head to rid it of the last remnants of an unsettling dream she couldn’t quite remember. Burke was a thin man with light brown hair and a darker, short beard, and sat in a chair in the corner of the room, his hat hanging from his knee. His dark eyes were worried with a genuine concern for her well-being. The sympathy in his gaze, so like... Roy. “Is Roy all right? Did Mr. Shaw find him?”

  “I can’t say, miss—”

  “Maggie,” she finished for him.

  “Maggie. They ain’t back yet. I’d say that means they found him, though.” He gave her a small smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “If you need anything, you let me know. I’ll be out front loading the wagon. Just holler.” Burke put his hat on, leaving her to wallow in her fears.

  The room was small and the walls unadorned. A washbasin stood under a wood framed mirror and a straight razor lay waiting by a pitcher. To her left was a small writing table with an oil lantern ready to battle the dark. A simple wooden chair sat in the corner and served as a stand for a knee length duster jacket. Even the window lacked the color of curtains. The decor of the room was manly, clean and simple, though it somehow still felt like a home a woman could find herself comfortable in. Stop it, Margaret, she thought angrily, punishing herself with her given name. A vision came of Roy’s open stomach, and she balked against the memory.

  She was confident in Garret. When Roy had been hurt, she hadn’t even thought about where to go for help. She’d pointed Buck in Garret’s direction because she’d known he would be cognizant of what needed to be done. She looked down at her hands. They shook badly, despite her determination not to fall to pieces. “Keep busy until I know more, then,” she said.

  The reflection in the mirror extracted a shocked gasp. Her hair hung in loose curls, not a one remaining in its pins. Her face was pale and blotchy, and her dress had a mixture of dirt, what smelled and looked like a streak of horse manure across the back, and blood from where she had wiped her hands after holding the rag over Roy’s wound. Ripped tendrils of petticoat hung from the bottom hem. Clearly, the light gray dress, her most appropriate for this life, was ruined.

  “Cockchafer,” she whispered, turning again to scrutinize the smelly brown streak across her posterior.

  Ugh. She was horrifyingly filthy. Washing up would be her first order of business while she waited for news of Roy. She’d have to find water, though, because the washbasin was empty. She emerged from Garret’s bedroom and ambled slowly into the living area, and pulled up short. The bones of the cabin were the same, to be sure, but that was where the similarities to the house she remembered stopped. He had changed everything, and it gave her an odd sense of dizzying discomfiture to stand in a place so like and so different from her vivid memory.

  Mrs. Shaw and Mother, who’d been dear and fast friends, spent a great deal of their spare time together in this cabin. While they’d visited, mostly complaining about the dust and heat and inconveniences of the wilderness, she’d been free to spend hours playing with Garrett. Hide and seek. Rustlers stealing cattle. Jumping into the piles of soft fragrant hay in the barn. Swirling around on a rope swing and climbing trees. Always, climbing trees.

  The Lazy S Ranch accommodated much more acreage, and subsequently, more head of cattle than Roy’s smaller homestead. The main house was also bigger than Roy’s, though she had forgotten just how much. Garret’s cabin boasted three fair sized bedrooms, a small upstairs loft, a kitchen and living room big enough to fit a large dining table along with the seating. Most of the furniture was unfamiliar, and that which she recognized had been rearranged, giving the home an altogether new and unexpected feel. She liked it. Everything was pristine and in its place. She hadn’t expected tidiness from an unattached man such as Garret.

  Desperate to avoid Burke’s gaze falling on her manure stained rump, she headed through the kitchen and out the door. The pump was on the side of the house, but she could just as easily get to it from the back of the house as from the front. She filled a bucket and returned with it to Garret’s bedroom and closed the door firmly behind her. After she made the bed, she removed her dress carefully and scrubbed at the stains with a rag and water. At last, the dust and stain across the back were mostly gone but the bloodied handprints were a permanent fixture, as they’d had plenty of time to dry and set.

  With a growl, she set to washing herself as best she could without the convenience of an actual bathtub. She saved her long, dark hair for last and felt around it for pins to refasten it. Only two remained. The rest presumably lay somewhere in the pasture between Roy’s place and Garret’s from her wild ride.

  “Fine. Down it is.” She used the two pins to fasten the front of her hair to the sides, and rechecked it in the mirror. Oh, if Mother could only see her now.

  Her appearance hadn’t improved much after all of her efforts, but she didn’t care as much as a lady probably ought. Once dressed, she went into the den and waited in a large, comfortable chair by the cold hearth.

  Hours later according to the relentless ticking of the clock, she was joined by Burke. He’d brought over a dinner of beef stew and hard, yet edible, cornbread he’d made in the field hands’ cabin. Though she wasn’t hungry, Maggie set to the task of eating as if it were a chore. She would need her strength if she were going to tend to Roy like he would need.

  She and Burke sat quietly in the den that night. Neither said much as they listened for any noise outside that would announce Garret’s return.

  Garret and the other ranch hands had not returned by the time her eyelids grew too heavy to keep open, and she drifted off in the chair. She awakened in the deep of night with what was likely a perfect wood grain imprint on her cheek from the table, and stumbled into Garret’s bedroom to take advantage of his comfortable bed. Though improper to lie in a man’s bed, she had lain there earlier in the day. Best not to muck up two beds with her d
irty dress. And she was so sleepy, she couldn’t have found her way to another room if she’d tried.

  * * * *

  A soft breath in the quiet of the morning. The subtle creak of the floorboards under a boot. A stirring of the air that told her she wasn’t alone. She opened her eyes. Slouched and exhausted looking, Garret watched her from the chair Burke sat in the day before. His elbows rested on the arms of the chair and his hands were clasped in front of his mouth.

  “You bite your nails,” he said in a deep, gravelly voice. “Not an attractive habit in a woman.”

  “You bait people too early in the morning, sir,” she replied, and glanced down at herself to make sure she was decent. “Not an attractive habit in anyone.”

  Eyes sparking with the barest hint of anger, he stood and stalked to the door. “I’ll be waiting in the den when you’re ready.” He glanced over his shoulder at her once and then slammed the door behind him.

  There was tragedy to his unhappy demeanor. Garret truly wasn’t the kind and carefree boy she remembered.

  Early gray dawn light filtered through the curtain free window and nearby, a rooster crowed. Though the bed was comfortable, she had slept fitfully after the disturbing day before. Maggie washed her face and fiddled with her hair for a few seconds, but gave up quickly in her haste to find out about Roy. Her full skirts swished and dainty leather shoes clacked across the wooden floor as she headed into the den. Lenny and Cookie sat solemnly at the table and Garret stood, leaning against the fireplace. He looked every bit the impatient predator.

  “Roy passed. There was nothing we could do for him,” he said softly. Sternly. He stared at her as if daring her to show emotion. “You didn’t tell me he was your pa.”

  “You didn’t ask,” she said, voice shaking. She stood frozen in grief, unable to escape his piercing eyes.

  “Margaret?” he asked.

  She nodded. “I go by Maggie now.”

  “Roy was good people,” he slowly bit out then paused. “And you and your ma just up and left him.”

  Lenny jumped up from her seat. She stabbed an accusing finger at Garret and yelled a string of unintelligible words. Cookie opened the front door with a sorrowful expression and Garret preceded him out the door.

  How could Garret be so cruel? She loved Roy, and this place. Had never wanted to leave it. A sob broke from her throat before she could stop it. Lenny turned on her heel and caught her as she crumpled to the floor, and crooned comforting words. The Indian girl’s words turned to a soft, moving, and whisper-quiet string of notes that rose from her throat as she mourned Roy’s passing with her.

  They didn’t have to speak the same language. They both knew heartache.

  Chapter 3

  The men gave Maggie an hour to mourn before they grew impatient to return to Roy’s and hold the funeral. “A body doesn’t keep long in this kind of heat,” was all Garret said.

  When she ambled outside, a stout older man introduced himself as the circuit preacher. He droned on for a time about how lucky she was that he happened to be in town when Roy died. As the dull numbness of grief covered her like the chill of a late winter blizzard, the preacher’s voice faded to a background murmur.

  Alone. She was completely alone.

  Lenny held Buck’s reins out to her. Thank the Lord, Garret hadn’t actually killed her horse in his efforts to get to Roy. She mounted and rode beside Lenny as the circuit preacher led them toward Roy’s homestead. Shaw, Burke and the other men rode behind them and Cookie drove the buggy. Though she couldn’t see Garret, she felt his gaze from behind. As if the tender place on the back of her neck was laid open to his prying eyes, the fine hairs there prickled and rose beneath her long tresses. More likely, he was glaring at her tattered state of dress, so she did her best to ignore him.

  The men dug the grave under a huge oak tree toward the back of Roy’s property. The climbing tree from her childhood. When she looked skyward to the branches, she could still see the remnants of the old rope that had long ago held a crude wooden swing. Roy swung her in it when she was little, and when she got older, Garret became her climbing partner. She traced a hesitant fingertip over the faint carving of Garret’s name in the trunk. Maggie turned to find him watching her with stormy eyes filled with some emotion she couldn’t fathom.

  The preacher read scripture over the grave, and though she was quiet about it, tears traveled down her cheeks, searching for solace in the ground beneath her feet. After he finished, the preacher nodded to Garret, who cleared his throat.

  “Roy was like a father to me when I needed one. He stuck up for me when my pa was being an ornery old cuss, and he showed me what it is to be a man. When I was little I used to imagine what life would have been like if God had seen fit to give me to a man like Roy. I’ve never met a better man.” He picked up a handful of black earth and tossed it into the grave. “I hope you know what you are doing, old man,” he mumbled then put his hat on and plodded off toward the house. The rest of the crowd followed shortly.

  What had he meant, that he hoped the old man knew what he was doing? Garret would likely forever be a mystery to her.

  Her full skirts puffed with air and slowly deflated around her as she took a seat next to the black hole that held her lifeless father. She’d stayed behind to mourn in private but, unable to look at the still, blanket wrapped form below, stared instead at the crude wooden cross serving as a headboard to Roy’s eternal bed. Lenny and Burke waited a short distance away.

  As the last of her sobs died and no more tears would come, Burke returned. As he shoveled dirt onto the grave, she ambled back to the house, Lenny beside her. The girl’s dark almond eyes looked as if she wanted to say something but couldn’t, and Maggie smiled and took her hand as they walked. That day, Lenny had shown her more kindness than anyone ever had except perhaps Roy, and she was grateful.

  They neared the house, and the others stood out front. Cookie and a couple of men were gathered around Garret, who, from the looks of it, was cussing fit to turn his mother in her grave. Lenny stared solemnly straight ahead of them. Did the girl understand the curses, or just Garret’s tone? Cookie dusted off Garret’s vest and shirt, as if in an effort to make him look presentable. Odd.

  Whatever the men were up to, she had no inclination to get involved. She wanted to be alone with Roy’s things, in the home that had built her. Lenny disappeared around the side of the house as quiet as a breath, and Maggie stepped through the back door to Roy’s cabin.

  Her luggage lay open and disheveled on the quilted bed. Dresses and petticoats spilled over the sides and even her small jar of rose salve had been tossed haphazardly onto the pillow. She could have sworn she’d packed her belongings neatly the morning before.

  The front door banged open, and she jumped. Garret barged in and tossed his hat on the table. From the disconcerting way he stared at her, she couldn’t tell if he was going to kiss or kill her. Heartbeat thundering away in her chest, she waited for him to speak.

  “You look different than you did when we were little,” he started, sounding almost angry.

  “So do you, Garret,” she said. What had offended him now?

  He stepped forward until he stood directly in front of her. Raw power seeped from his very being and the brush of it against her skin brought a delicate shiver across the back of her shoulders. Could he see how much he affected her?

  Neck stretched, she drank in his towering height. His brilliant, sky blue gaze touched places in her she hadn’t even known existed until that very moment. He stood so close, his warmth reached for her and she took an unintentional step closer. He was an intoxicating man, like the first sip of fine whiskey, and it left her dizzy to be this near him.

  “I remember you had this ridiculous fiery red hair when we were kids.” He gently lifted a long strand of her wavy hair, now dark as a redwood. A look of tenderness flickered across his face before it was replaced with one of disdain. Her breath caught at his touch. Even angry he was beautiful.
Like an avenging angel.

  Garret pulled away and dropped her hair then rounded on the open luggage in two long strides and picked up the gaudy cream silk dress she had worn from the train station. “This one will do.” In his work-roughened hands, the shimmering material looked fragile, ridiculous. “It will remind me of exactly what I’m getting myself into.”

  As he tossed the dress in a billowing heap onto the bed and headed for the door, she put voice to her confusion. “Garret, I don’t understand what you are talking about most of the time, but today you have been speaking to me in puzzles. Why would I wear this dress for you?”

  He wheeled and faced her. “Because I aim to marry you. Today. Right now. I have to get the cattle to the train station tomorrow and the preacher has other engagements so this will be our last chance for a while.”

  He couldn’t be serious. Marry her? She barked a laugh.

  The determined expression on his face hadn’t changed. Peals of laughter burst from her, then more until the look in his eyes rivaled the coldest winter. At last, between gasps for breath, she could speak. “You don’t love me, Garret. Bloody hell, you don’t even like me.” Still chuckling, she wiped moisture from the corners of her eyes. “Why on God’s green earth would you want to marry me?”

  “Trust me, darlin’, there is nothing I want less. But Roy made it his last request. Said you didn’t have any other options. Said it had to be me to take care of his girl, that he didn’t trust anyone else. And I, the damned fool that I am! I gave him my word.”

  “Well that is very serious,” she said, hiccupping a laugh. She might actually be hysterical for the first time in her life.