Secondhand Bride

by Linda Lael Miller

  Rafe’s face changed instantly. Gone was the easygoing smile, the affable tone of voice, the friendly stance. Now he was coiled, ready to strike. “What?”

  “You heard me,” Holt said.

  Rafe reddened up, jerked off his hat, slapped one thigh with it. “If that doesn’t beat everything,” he hissed. “Pa’s gonna have a fit and fall in it.” He glared at Holt. “And that was the point, wasn’t it?”

  “It’s a side benefit,” Holt allowed. He tried to sound nonchalant, but the truth was, he wished he’d just paid Jeb his fifty dollars and kept his mouth shut about the job.

  Rafe bunched up his fist, then let it fall back to his side. “Just last night, Pa was talking about giving you this ranch,” he said, then swore. Plainly, he regretted giving up that much, would have taken it all back if he could have.

  “Now why the hell would he do that?” Holt demanded.

  Rafe jabbed at Holt’s chest with an index finger, never knowing that he had the distinction of being the first man who’d ever done that without getting a few of his teeth knocked down his throat. “Because you’re his firstborn son,” he bit out. “Because you gave him what he wanted more than anything else in this world—a grandchild.”

  Holt steadied himself, braced for the punch he knew Rafe wanted to throw, but it didn’t come. And even if it had, it couldn’t have stunned him any more than what Rafe had just said. He was speechless.

  “And what do you do?” Rafe rushed on, practically blowing steam. “You as good as spit in his face!”

  “Papa?” It was Lizzie’s voice but, for an instant, Holt couldn’t think who she was talking to. She tugged at his sleeve, looking warily up at Rafe. “You’re not going to get into a fight, are you?”

  Holt put a hand on top of her head. “No,” he said, still watching his brother’s face. “Get your things, Lizzie. We’d better be heading back to our own place.”

  Rafe didn’t miss the emphasis he put on the last few words of that statement, that was clear by the blue snap in his eyes, but some of the tension went out of him, and he shifted his gaze to Lizzie and smiled, albeit with an effort. “You tell your papa,” he said pleasantly, if a little stiffly, “that you’re a member of this family, and there’s something to be celebrated, so you’re staying. Your uncle Rafe will bring you home in the morning, if Mr. Cavanagh is so all-fired set on turning tail and running like a rabbit.”

  With his oration completed, Rafe turned and stalked toward the house without a backward glance. The kitchen door slammed hard behind him.

  “Can’t we stay, Papa?” Lizzie asked, squinting against the sun as she looked up at him. “Please?”

  “Lizzie—”

  “Please?”

  He squatted, so he could meet her gaze. “We’ll compromise,” he said. “After supper, though, we’re going home.”

  Lizzie looked concerned, and determined. “Grandpa said he left you, when you were little as a puppy,” she said. “He’s sorry he did it, except that I got born. Why can’t you get over being mad at him?”

  Holt looked away. Couldn’t answer.

  “I’m going inside,” Lizzie announced, into the silence. “I never had any uncles before, and only one aunt. Mama’s folks died when I was a baby. Maybe you don’t want a family, Papa, but I do.” Having said her piece, she followed the fiery path Rafe had laid.

  Holt stood, watching her disappear inside the house. At least, he consoled himself, she hadn’t settled on a puppy.

  24

  Just about the last place on earth Chloe would have chosen to be, on that particular day, was the Triple M. Emmeline and Becky had practically kidnapped her, though, saying she oughtn’t be alone. Which made her wonder if they knew that Jeb had broken her heart all over again, then walked blithely out of the cottage, leaving her in pieces.

  She’d cried for a long time, after Jeb was gone, because she’d let him use her. Then she pulled herself together, splashed her face with cold water at the basin, and given herself a thorough sponge bath. She’d dressed, arranged her hair, and set out for the main part of the town, with a specific destination in mind: the office of Victor Terrell, attorney at law.

  Mr. Terrell was new in town, and happy to have a client, though he made a pretense of sorrow when Chloe told him she wanted to file a petition of divorce against Jeb McKettrick. If she hadn’t had the hastily prepared papers in her possession, no power on earth, including Emmeline and Becky, who were formidable when they’d made up their minds, could have made her set foot on the same acre of ground as her soon-to-be-former husband.

  She was going to hand him those papers and let him know in no uncertain terms that she never wanted to cross paths with him again. True, she had to finish out the year at Indian Rock School, since she’d given her word, and avoiding Jeb might prove next to impossible, given the size of the town, but if she was going to have any peace of mind or self-respect, she had to cut the ties, once and for all. She meant to save her money in the meantime and scour the many newspapers Becky subscribed to for a new position. When the year was over, she would have a job waiting, as far from the Arizona Territory as she could get, and if she had to lie to get it, she would.

  For all her determination, she wasn’t prepared for what she felt when she stepped into the McKettrick kitchen and practically collided with Jeb. He looked surprised to see her, to say the least, and stood there like a tree in the middle of a stream as Becky and Emmeline flowed past him, staring. He swallowed visibly, then found his voice.

  “Well,” he said, plainly flummoxed.

  “I want to speak with you,” Chloe informed him tightly. “Alone.”

  He recovered quickly. His old insolence came to the fore, and he raised his eyebrows as he gestured grandly toward the inside door of the kitchen. “Pa’s study ought to be empty,” he said.

  Chloe looked neither right nor left as she swept in that direction. If she’d made eye contact with any of the McKettricks at that moment, she would have burst into tears.

  The study brought back unhappy memories; it had been here, after all, that Jeb had told her John was dead. It had been here that he’d held and comforted her, acting as though he really cared. Which, of course, he hadn’t.

  She fumbled in her handbag for the papers while he closed the doors. Held them out wordlessly when he turned to face her.

  He watched her warily for a long moment, then waxed cocky again. “For me?” he taunted, putting both hands to his chest. Chloe fought not to remember how those hands had felt on her body, the intimate responses they’d wrung from her in the night just past.

  She waggled the document, too angry and too hurt to risk speaking again.

  Jeb took the papers, unfolded them, and read them. Except for a slight stiffening in his shoulders, he seemed unmoved.

  “This seems like a lot of trouble to go to, when we were never married in the first place,” he said, when he’d finished. His tone was light, even flippant, but his eyes were cold. “Wouldn’t it have made more sense to divorce your real husband?”

  “I will not dignify that remark with a response,” Chloe said, after taking several deep breaths.

  He slapped the papers against one palm. “What’s the point of this exercise, Chloe?”

  Chloe was thankful for her temper in those moments, though it had always been her worst character flaw. Without it, she might have given in to tears. “I want to put this whole episode behind me for good,” she said, with all the dignity she could manage. “I will thank you to sign your name in the appropriate place and leave me completely alone from this day forward.”

  He had the nerve to look exasperated. “All right, Chloe,” he said, approaching Angus’s desk, scrabbling about for a pen and a bottle of ink, spreading the petition out with a furious gesture of one hand. “This game seems to be important to you, so I’ll play along.” He dipped the pen and signed with a flourish, and Chloe felt as though he’d stabbed her through the heart.

  She raised one hand to her
chest, lowered it again, quickly, before he looked her way.

  “What are you planning to do now?” he asked. He might have been a callous stranger, rather than the man who had made such sweet love to her mere hours before.

  Spinning in an emotional whirlpool, Chloe said the first thing that came into her head. “Maybe I’ll get married. For real, this time.”

  He looked as furious as if she’d rammed him in the midsection with one end of a fence post, but only for an instant. As before, in the kitchen, he rallied immediately. “Who is he?”

  She was in over her head now, and if she didn’t brazen it out, she would surely drown. “Holt,” she said, because everybody else she knew around Indian Rock, except for Doc Boylen, was already married.

  Jeb went pale. “What?”

  Dear God, Chloe thought, what have I done? She barely knew Holt Cavanagh, and if Jeb confronted him, he’d probably go through the roof. Call her a liar. “Jeb—” she began, meaning to admit she’d spoken out of anger, but he cut her off.

  “Don’t say another word, Chloe. Not another word.”

  Her eyes widened. She opened her mouth, closed it again.

  Jeb handed her the papers, turned his back on her, wrenched open the study doors, and strode out. That was the last she saw of him.

  The celebration of little Katie’s birth was agony for Chloe. She couldn’t meet Holt’s gaze, she was too ashamed, and the food Mandy and Emmeline served tasted like sawdust.

  Rafe had been glowering throughout the meal, and Angus finally demanded to know what was the matter.

  “Why don’t you ask him?” Rafe snapped, jabbing a thumb in Holt’s direction. “Or maybe Jeb?”

  “I think I’d like to go home,” Chloe said, into the thundering silence that followed. Becky, who had been watching her closely all evening, took her hand, squeezed it.

  Angus pushed back his chair with an ominous scraping sound. “Where is Jeb?” he asked, though his gaze was fixed on Holt.

  “Probably hiding behind the bunkhouse again,” Kade said. The joke fell flat; nobody laughed.

  Mandy, having left the table, put a hand on Chloe’s shoulder. “Kade and I will drive you and Becky back to Indian Rock,” she said, in a tone that dared anyone to object.

  “It’s late,” Kade protested. “They ought to stay the night.”

  “Hitch up a wagon,” Mandy said.

  Tension pulsed in the room. Angus went out, shutting the door hard behind him. Little Katie started to cry in her basket next to Concepcion’s chair, and Becky gave Chloe’s hand another squeeze.

  “Never mind,” Holt said, rising from his chair. “I’ll take the ladies to town if Lizzie can spend the night.”

  Lizzie, glancing warily from one adult face to another during the exchange, looked pleased.

  Which was how Chloe came to be riding two hours in a buggy seat beside a man she’d told a whopping lie about.

  Angus found Jeb in the barn, saddling his horse by the light of a kerosene lantern. The boy looked as though he’d been set afire and stomped out, but that didn’t salve Angus’s irritation.

  “I didn’t raise my sons to be rude,” he said. “What the devil were you thinking, leaving your wife to get through the evening alone?”

  Jeb wrenched at the cinch strap. “She isn’t my wife, and she wasn’t alone. The whole damn family was with her.”

  Angus narrowed his eyes. Folded his arms. Dammit, Georgia, he told his late wife silently, you should have let me whup these boys when the situation called for it. I’ve got half a mind to take a strop to this one anyway, right here and now. And don’t think I couldn’t do it.

  “If you’re not heading out to make peace with Chloe, where are you going?” he asked, in what he figured was a reasonable tone, given the circumstances.

  Jeb took hold of the horse’s bridle and led him toward the barn doors. “To the Circle C,” he said.

  Angus took the time to put out the lantern before he followed his son outside. He was in a state, but fire was a serious matter, and he couldn’t risk it.

  “Why would you be heading up there at this time of night?” he demanded, even though he reckoned he knew. “If you want a word with your brother, he’s right inside the house.”

  Jeb put his foot in the stirrup and swung up onto the gelding’s back. “Holt offered me a job,” he said. “And I took it.” With that, he reined the horse around and rode out.

  Angus was still standing in front of the barn, trying to deal with a lot of unfamiliar emotions, when Holt came up beside him.

  “I guess he told you,” he said.

  Angus turned, met his eldest son’s gaze head-on. A lot of words came to mind, but he didn’t think he ought to say any of them out loud, feeling the way he did.

  “I’ll look after him,” Holt said, whistling for the horse he’d unhitched from his buggy when he and Lizzie arrived and left to graze by the creek. The animal trotted toward them.

  “See that you do,” Angus warned, and walked away. He wasn’t ready to go back in the house and face Concepcion, so he made his way to the front porch and sat down in the rocking chair, where he’d passed a lot of his time, back when he was ailing. Jeb had run off then, too, and he’d sent Kade to find him. Hadn’t drawn a peaceful breath until the two of them rode in, either, safe and sound.

  He saw Holt drive past the house a few minutes later, with Becky and Chloe next to him, and he still didn’t move.

  The front door creaked open, and Concepcion was there. He knew by the starched-cotton scent of her, by the quiet warmth of her presence. “Holt told me what happened,” she said. “Jeb will be all right, Angus.”

  Angus was a long time answering.

  “Will he?” he asked.

  25

  Chloe kept herself busy all the next day, in a futile attempt to hold a legion of memories at bay, leaving the cottage only when she could stand in front of the small mirror over the washstand and see a sensible woman looking back at her, instead of a brazen hussy, twice divorced.

  She had breakfast at the hotel, with a circumspect and watchful Becky, chatting merrily about her lesson plans for the first week of school, as though nothing was wrong.

  She returned the divorce papers to Mr. Terrell, so that he could file them properly. After leaving his office, which was housed in a stuffy little room above the Cattleman’s Bank, she proceeded to the mercantile, opened an account, and stocked up on tea, sugar, and other staples. Back at the cottage, she put everything away in its proper place, made up the tangled, Jeb-scented bed, in which she had wept for the better part of the night, and paced.

  At noon, she picked some fading wildflowers from the schoolyard and headed for the cemetery.

  John’s headstone seemed to glow in the crisp autumn sunlight, and a few golden leaves danced on his grave, as if putting on a show.

  Chloe laid the flowers next to the stone, smoothed her skirts, and sat down in the grass with a sigh, folding her hands in her lap.

  “I’m a damn fool, Uncle John,” she said.

  The wind played in the treetops.

  “I’ve got no business staying in Indian Rock. No business at all. If I had any sense, I’d be on my way to Sacramento right now.”

  A tendril of hair tickled her cheek; she brushed at it. Tears sprang to her eyes, unbidden and wholly unexpected.

  “You must have known Jeb McKettrick.”

  Birds twittered, as if in reply.

  “He’s handsome,” Chloe went on. Wagons passed on the road, but she had the churchyard to herself, which was a good thing, since she was prattling to a grave marker and a mound of dirt. “He makes me so mad sometimes, I could spit, and nobody’s ever hurt me the way he did. But he made me laugh, too. I should never have married him—he’s probably never had a serious thought in his life.”

  She plucked a piece of grass, tore it apart between her fingers. The scent of it rose to her nostrils, a sweet and singular solace. I wither and die, that smell seemed to say, then I
flourish, green again.

  “Now, I, on the other hand,” she continued firmly, “have plenty of serious thoughts. One of us had to be practical, after all.”

  A bee droned slumberously by, not having noticed, apparently, that summer was over and all the other bees were gone.

  “I’m sensible, even if I am a little impetuous. I know you remember that about me.” Chloe’s shoulders sagged, and she reached for another blade of grass, heaving a great, despondent sigh. “Except when it comes to men. I thought I was in love with Jack Barrett. He told me he was a banker, and I believed him. Turned out he was a gunslinger, instead. A bounty hunter. How do you like that? Well, I know you wouldn’t have liked it at all, of course, because you were sworn to uphold the law, and Jack lives to break it. That’s why I didn’t tell you at the time. You see, I had no way of knowing that you might have understood, just a little, because you were my father and because you were in trouble yourself once.” A lump formed in her throat, and she swallowed. “Why didn’t you tell me you were my father?”

  A chorus of children’s voices blew her way, frolicking on the breeze.

  “I guess it doesn’t matter now, anyway,” she said. “But I would have liked to know, just the same.”

  A flash of movement caught the edge of her vision; she saw Harry Sussex walking the churchyard fence, skinny arms outstretched, red hair brilliant in the daylight.

  “Get down!” another child called to him. A girl, Chloe thought. “You’ll break your neck! I’m going to tell Mama if you break your neck!”

  Chloe smiled and, as if she’d touched him, Harry noticed her at precisely that moment, jumped gracefully off the fence, and sprinted toward her, grinning.

  “Afternoon, Miss Wakefield,” he said. “Doc says you’re going to teach school, for sure. I’m real glad about that.”

  Chloe nodded, putting on a brave face. “I’ll expect you and all the other children in class by eight o’clock Monday morning,” she said.

  Harry’s eyes shone. “We’ll be there,” he promised. A frown elbowed his smile aside. “You got any rules about shoes and the like?”

  Chloe’s heart warmed, aching a little. “No,” she said. “But when winter comes, I expect you’ll want to wear some.”