Secondhand Bride
Page 1
“Linda Lael Miller creates vibrant characters and stories I defy you to forget.”
—Debbie Macomber
SECONDHAND BRIDE
Jeb McKettrick: He thought proposing marriage would be the hardest thing he ever did. That was before his new bride’s secret past wounded his pride.
Chloe Wakefield: The spirited teacher has met her match in Jeb—but is he ready for domestic life? Or is she just his ticket to inheriting the family ranch?
Praise for the Warm, Wonderful Novels of Linda Lael Miller
SHOTGUN BRIDE
“Astory that will leave readers smiling…. Linda Lael Miller hits a bull’s-eye with another winner.”
—Romance Reviews Today
“An exciting, action-packed tale…. Wonderful…. Will keep the audience breathless in anticipation.”
—Thebestreviews.com
“Pure delight…. The McKettrick Cowboys is a great series—not to be missed.”
— Old Book Barn Gazette
HIGH COUNTRY BRIDE
“Linda Lael Miller is one of the finest American writers in the genre. She beautifully crafts stories that bring small-town America to life and peoples them with characters you really care about.”
— Romantic Times
“Miller ably portrays the hardscrabble life of the American west… [in a] winsome romance full of likable characters.”
—Publishers Weekly
THE LAST CHANCE CAFÉ
“The Last Chance Café delivers powerful romance flavored with deep emotional resonance.”
— Romantic Times
“This novel is dead-on target… [with] suspense, down-home comfort, and sizzling tension…. Ms. Miller has a timeless writing style, and her characters are always vivacious and appealing.”
— Heartstrings
“[An] enriching tale of contemporary frontiers and family fulfillment…. Linda Lael Miller brings to life the modern-day descendants of her popular Primrose Creek settlers with the vivid clarity and rough-hewn beauty of Nevada’s rugged terrain bathed in sunglow.”
—Romance BookPage
“An entertaining story.”
— Booklist
SPRINGWATER WEDDING
“Fans will be thrilled to join the action, suspense, and romance portrayed in [Linda Lael Miller’s contemporary fiction].”
— Romantic Times
“Pure delight from the beginning to the satisfying ending…. Miller is a master craftswoman at creating unusual story lines [and] charming characters.”
— Rendezvous
“The perfect recipe for love…. Miller writes with a warm and loving heart.”
— BookPage
“Miller’s strength is her portrayal of the history and traditions that distinguish Springwater and its residents.”
—Publishers Weekly
COURTING SUSANNAH
“Enjoyable…. Linda Lael Miller provides her audience with a wonderful look at an Americana romance.”
—Midwest Book Review
TWO BROTHERS
“A fun read, full of Ms. Miller’s simmering sensuality and humor, plus two fabulous brothers who will steal your heart.”
— Romantic Times
“Great western romance…. The Lawman is a five-startale…. The Gunslinger is an entertaining, fun-to-read story…. Both novels are excellent.”
— Affaire de Coeur
ALSO BY LINDA LAEL MILLER
Banner O’Brien
Corbin’s Fancy
Memory’s Embrace
My Darling Melissa
Angelfire
Desire and Destiny
Fletcher’s Woman
Lauralee
Moonfire
Wanton Angel
Willow
Princess Annie
The Legacy
Taming Charlotte
Yankee Wife
Daniel’s Bride
Lily and the Major
Emma and the Outlaw
Caroline and the Raider
Pirates
Knights
My Outlaw
The Vow
Two Brothers
Springwater
Springwater Series:
Rachel
Savannah
Miranda
Jessica
A Springwater Christmas
One Wish
The Women of Primrose
Creek Series:
Bridget
Christy
Skye
Megan
Courting Susannah
Springwater Wedding
My Lady Beloved
(writing as Lael St. James)
My Lady Wayward
(writing as Lael St. James)
High Country Bride
Shotgun Bride
The Last Chance Café
Don’t Look Now
Never Look Back
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used ficticiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS
POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
Copyright © 2004 by Linda Lael Miller
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
ISBN: 1-4165-1453-8
POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Visit us on the World Wide Web
http://www.SimonSays.com
For Dr. Sam Walters,
with love, admiration, and gratitude.
You made the difference.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Epilogue
Secondhand Bride
1
Triple M Ranch, Arizona Territory
FALL 1885
There was no place to run to, no place to hide.
Jeb McKett
rick, always careening recklessly from the core of his being to the circumference and back again, was caught between the bunkhouse wall and the manure pile, with all the rage of a woman scorned bearing down on him in redheaded, whip-wielding, chicken-scattering fury.
Chloe Wakefield had found him, as surely as the needle of a compass finds due north, and chased him all the way from Indian Rock. Pretty much kept up, too, even though he’d been on a fast horse.
He was dead meat.
The buggy she drove might have been a chariot, drawn by the four horses of the Apocalypse, instead of a battered conveyance and a single lathered and huffing nag, both hastily procured at the livery stable in town. For the length of a heartbeat, Jeb actually believed she meant to run him down, grind him into a pulp under the wheels of that spindly, black-bonneted rig. For all his reckless love of life, he could not help but conclude that there would have been a certain mercy in oblivion. At least then he wouldn’t have had to deal with the problem.
Clearly, he was not to be spared.
After a minute or two, his stepmother’s chickens settled down a little, though, and went back to their ground-pecking and feather-shuffling. Maybe that was a good omen.
The only rooster in evidence, Jeb scrambled for his trademark grin, his one talisman, found a shaky semblance of it, and stuck it to his mouth. He put his hands out from his sides and made himself the picture of innocent affability, though on the inside, he was a tangle of contradictory emotions—sweet terror, bitter amusement, and anger, too, because, dammit, he was right, and she was wrong. And because he had never guessed, before that day, that among his many secret and interchangeable selves lurked a yellow-bellied chicken heart.
“Chloe,” he said, making a plea of the word, as well as a smooth reprimand. A red hen tapped briefly at the toe of his right boot; he ankled it aside impatiently.
Standing up in the buggy now, drawing back on the reins with powerful, delicate hands, Chloe fixed him in a sapphire glare. “Don’t you ‘Chloe’ me, Jeb McKettrick!” she commanded. “You’re a liar and a cheat and three kinds of devil—you’ve all but ruined my reputation and my life, you sorry excuse for a man, and I have half a mind to whip the hide off you right here and now!”
He rolled his shoulders once, within his brown corduroy jacket, pushed his hat to the back of his head. He had no defense, other than his charm and good looks, which did not seem to be having any noticeable effect. “May I suggest,” he countered, with an ease that was wholly false, “that you consult the other half?”
She set the brake lever, snatched up the buggy whip, and clambered down; all of this happened so quickly that the separate motions seemed to tumble into one continuous whole. Her auburn hair, falling from its pins and combs, blazed like fire around her face, which was flushed with outrage, and she advanced. “Scoundrel!” she spat. “Rounder! Do you have any idea what I’ve been through because of you?”
“Chloe,” he said again, with hopeless goodwill.
She took his measure with her eyes and plainly found him wanting, but she was a little calmer, it seemed to him. Or maybe she was merely winded by the mad rush from town. By some perverse twist of fate, he’d just come out of the Bloody Basin Saloon when she stepped down from the afternoon stage, and he’d been as surprised to see Chloe Wakefield as she’d been to see him. He’d made up his mind to face her, try to make peace, but when he’d registered the look of shock and indignation on her face, he’d panicked instead, mounted up, and ridden back to the ranch like a mouse bolting for a hole in the wall.
“If there was any justice in this world, you would have sprouted horns and cloven hooves by now,” she burst out. Pink spots pulsed beneath her flawless cheekbones, and her lovely bosom rose and fell with the rapid, shallow rhythm of her breath.
He waited. It was that or dive into the manure pile and try to bury himself.
“Did you think I wouldn’t find you someday?” she asked, and though her eyes were still snapping with conviction, her tone was softer than before. Was she settling down? He couldn’t rightly guess, and didn’t want to err on the side of optimism, which was his natural inclination.
“I guess it never occurred to me that you’d come looking,” he replied, in all truth. He’d fled to Tombstone, stung by the discovery that half his father’s life had been a lie, and therefore much of his own as well, and facing the probable loss of what he held most dear in all the world—the Triple M. By decree of the almighty Angus McKettrick, the ranch would go to the first of his three sons to marry and provide the old man with a grandchild, a contest his eldest brother Rafe had all but won by getting hitched to Emmeline. And now Kade was married, too, and still in the running.
His own prospects had seemed worse than dismal at the time—who’d have thought they could get worse?
Back then, Jeb’s plan had been to carouse his troubles away, bedding as many dancing girls as possible, playing as much poker as he could, and consuming copious amounts of whiskey. Instead, he’d encountered the lively Miss Wakefield right out of the chute, and things had promptly gotten out of hand. Oh, yes, from the moment he’d collided with Chloe in front of a mercantile in Tombstone, chaos had been the order of the day.
Hell, he’d have been better off at the OK Corral, siding with the Clantons and McLaurys against Doc Holliday and the Earps. At least then he’d have had a fighting chance.
Was that the glimmer of tears he saw in her eyes? Please, God, anything but that. For all of it, he’d rather be flayed alive than see her cry.
“You and I are married,” she said. She held up her left hand, his ring glinting in the crisp sunshine of that October afternoon. Fresh color flared in her face. “Or did that slip your mind?”
He took off his hat, put it on again, this time with the brim drawn down, to cast a shadow over his face. He’d been over this same terrain a dozen times, walking the landscape of his own conscience, raising all the unflattering arguments that could be made against him, and shooting each one down like a tin can tossed against the crisp autumn sky. And none of that had prepared him for this single, inevitable confrontation.
The manure pile was beginning to look downright inviting.
“Our getting married was a mistake,” he said, in what he hoped was a reasonable tone of voice. For a moment, he was back in Tombstone, a happy bridegroom of less than an hour, with a honeymoon ahead of him, being stopped in the street by a stranger, presented with irrefutable proof that he’d just been crowned king of fools. “It should never have happened in the first place.”
He saw her stiffen at his words, then commence building up a head of steam again. “At last,” she said. “Something we can agree on. I should never have given you the time of day!”
“Go back to Tombstone, Chloe,” he said flatly.
“I can’t,” she retorted, with an indignant little huff of a sigh. “Thanks to you, and that scene you made in the Broken Stirrup Saloon, I lost my teaching job. I’m a poor moral influence, according to the president of the school board. That’s why I followed you out here—to tell you that you’ve ruined my life!”
“I might have overreacted a little, back there at the Broken Stirrup, I mean,” he allowed, but grudgingly. There was more of the old man in him, he guessed, than he liked to think. He felt Angus McKettrick’s pride and stubbornness right there, behind his heart, jostling for standing room next to the coward. Furious with himself for letting Chloe get him on the run in the first place—so many people in town had seen him run for his horse and bolt that he’d probably never live it down. And that wasn’t counting the spectacle he’d made in front of his brothers just minutes before, riding up in a frenzy and yammering at Rafe and Kade to hide him—God knew what they’d told her, when she’d stopped to speak to them. He took a step toward her, gratified when she took a corresponding step back. “Anyway, we settled all this before I left Tombstone. Far as I’m concerned, you got what you had coming.”
She had the lid-rattling look of a kettle coming to a
high boil; he thought the top of her head was fixing to blow right off and braced himself for a steam burn. “You did most of the talking, if you’ll remember,” she accused. “You never gave me a chance to explain!”
He wrenched the buggy whip out of her right hand and hurled it aside. If she went after it, she’d find herself up to her pretty little nose in horse shit, literally as well as figuratively. “Once I saw your wedding picture, Miss Wakefield, and the man you were standing beside in that daguerreotype didn’t happen to be me, no further explanations were required!”
Her eyes widened, as though he’d struck her, and her mouth tightened. She took back the scant inches of sod she’d given up moments before, standing toe-to-toe and nose to nose with him. “Please stop trying to portray yourself as the injured party,” she snapped. “You didn’t mean any of the things you said when we were courting, and you damn well know it, you—you—”
Guilt foamed up inside him, like the head on a mug of just-drawn beer, but he blew it aside. His jaw clamped down so hard that it hurt, and the challenge hissed through his teeth. “Yes?” he prompted.
She was utterly defiant, a petticoat-Texan, holding the Alamo all on her own. “You used me,” she repeated. “You wanted a wife and a baby, so you could get this ranch!”
He indulged in an insolent shrug, though he was surprised that she knew about his father’s unreasonable demand. “You seemed willing enough to me.”