Taming the Rancher: Mail Order Bride (Brides and Twins Book 2)

by Natalie Dean

  Church was going to be a dilemma. Bonnie knew that her mother would be horrified to think that her daughter was going to attend a heathen church—and to Wanda Yankovich, anything other than a Catholic church was heathen—but Bonnie was part of a family now, and she would worship where the Kennesaws worshipped. She didn’t think God would mind, as long as she was in church and faithful to the teachings she’d learned. But what if Zachary Taylor was having second thoughts about marrying her? Then what would she do? Go back to Pittsburgh, humiliated, because her husband-to-be had decided that he’d rather have his freedom than a wife? Or would she stay in Texas and marry someone else? But how could she do that, when every other man would be a pale imitation of Zachary Taylor?

  “You’re scrubbing that stair like it’s got the plague all over it.”

  Will Henry was standing in front of the porch where Bonnie, determined to exorcise her fears in a frenzy of Saturday cleaning, was taking a scrub brush and bucket of soapy water to the steps. She was wearing one of her housecleaning dresses, faded and mended, and her hair was bound back behind her head in a loose bun.

  “Oh, I just thought it needed cleaning,” she said lamely.

  “Uh-huh. Well, I reckon outside stairs always need cleaning, but that doesn’t mean it’s what you need to do on a Saturday afternoon.”

  “Cleaning keeps my mind off things.”

  “What kind of things?” he asked, stepping onto the first step. He took the scrub brush from her and moved the bucket. “Z kind of things?”

  “I guess.” Tears filled her eyes. Angrily, she brushed them away. “If he doesn’t want to marry me, I’ll have to figure out what to do.”

  “Whoa, hold on there,” Will Henry said. “Now, sit down and think about this. Who said he didn’t want to marry you? Z never said that, and if he was having doubts, he’d have told me.”

  “He’s not here.”

  “That doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to marry you.” Will Henry’s eyes were kind. They had nothing of the sparkle that lit up his brother’s gaze, but their warmth was comforting. “Don’t you think you’re jumping to conclusions? He might have gone fishing; it’s a warm day, and they might be biting. He’s probably going into town later on tonight, to let off a little steam.”

  “Let off a little steam?” Fishing wouldn’t be bad, she could cook the fish. But letting off steam in town didn’t offer any option for her. In fact, quite the opposite.

  “It’s what he usually does.”

  “And he loses.”

  “He’s not a good poker player,” Will Henry acknowledged.

  “Then he shouldn’t play!”

  “Maybe not,” Will Henry said slowly. “But that’s not the argument that will bring him around to your way of thinking.”

  “What happens when he loses?”

  Will Henry shrugged. “He pays up.”

  “So he can afford to lose?”

  “He—I reckon he can. It’s not like he’s a pauper.”

  “But he said that he’d make good on losing his horse and pay Linc the cash. That’s not cheap.”

  “No,” Will Henry agreed, drawing out the word as he considered what she was saying. “But it’s not like Grandmother is going to disinherit him because he has to pay for a horse.”

  “Maybe that’s the problem! Maybe he keeps playing and losing because it doesn’t matter whether he wins or loses. Nothing changes. If he really had to work for his keep, he’d see things differently.”

  “Probably. But he doesn’t, you see.”

  “I do see!”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going inside. I’m going to get myself a bath and dress up in my fanciest frock and then I’m going to ask you to ride me into town.”

  “What for?”

  “Because,” Bonnie said triumphantly as she emptied the bucket of water into the dirt and headed into the house, “maybe it’s time that he learned firsthand what losing really feels like.”

  She didn’t give Will Henry the opportunity to refuse, and even though he wasn’t quite sure of what she planned to do, she looked so determined and so pretty when she appeared in a fetching red and white dress, with a red shawl over her shoulders, and her hair done up in some kind of intricate knot that made her look like a Greek goddess, that he couldn’t say no.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said as Cabot took off in the wagon.

  She did know what she was doing. The night, its black velvet sky adorned with the stars that looked like they’d spilled out of a jewelry box, this way and that, wrapped itself around her. She was aware that her dress, the prettiest one she owned, the one that she’d sewn for herself with the trousseau money that she’d earned, fitted her perfectly, the red lacing of the ribbons in the bodice fitting trimly over her bosom and the skirt flaring out smartly like a bright banner. It was a woman’s way of going to war, Bonnie realized. Knights of old wore armor and soldiers wore uniforms, but when a woman did battle for the love of a man, she dressed in a way that announced her intentions the way pennants did in medieval times and flags did for the modern warrior. Her weapons didn’t kill, but Bonnie was aiming to strike a blow nonetheless, and she hoped that, when she was done, Zachary Taylor would realize that the freedom her love would offer him was unlike any freedom that a Saturday night in town could provide.

  As Will Henry drove the wagon into town, Bonnie considered how different it looked at night. The shops were closed, their proprietors at home with their families. It seemed that when the sun went down, the town ceded ownership to the night that came with the dearth of daylight. Last night’s dance had been in the barn of one of the local families, not in town, so there was no impression that the music and the laughter were anything other than young people having a good time with one another.

  This was different. The streets were dark, except for the light coming out of the saloon at the very end. As they approached, Bonnie could hear the noise and smell the odors of beer and whiskey layering the air. There was music, but it wasn’t a fiddler. The saloon had a piano player and the tunes ringing forth were as jaunty as what the fiddler had played last night, but there was no sound of lively feet upon the floor. No one was dancing, she could tell that much without going into the saloon.

  Dear God, she prayed, I’m not the first woman to go into a saloon to find the man she loves. But I don’t exactly know what to do, so I’m asking you to come in here with me and together, we can let Zachary Taylor realize that I’ll have something a whole lot better waiting at home for him when we’re married.

  “I’m not sure this is such a good idea, Miss Bonnie,” Will Henry said to her as he pulled the wagon up to the hitching post in front of the saloon.

  “It’s the only idea I’ve got, Will Henry, so whether it’s a good one or not, it’s what I have to use.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Had the stakes not been so high, the expression on Zachary Taylor Kennesaw’s face when he looked up from the cards in his hand to see his almost-wife striding purposefully toward him in her red and white dress with the red insets that swayed as she walked, would have been amusing. He had a whiskey glass in front of him, as did the other men at the table. A malodorous cloud of tobacco smoke hung over the table like a noxious swamp miasma. There was a girl at the table who was dressed in a skimpy costume that revealed more of her lower limbs and her bosom than was proper for a female to show to men who were not her husband. She was leaning over the shoulder of a man who was vaguely familiar to Bonnie from the dance. He had several days’ growth of beard on his chin, a cigar in the corner of his mouth, and a sardonic expression on his face.

  The saloon had gone silent as the men inside, and the girls working there, marked Bonnie’s advance to the table where her fiancé played cards.

  “Tell Wooly to get back to the piano,” the man said without looking up. “I play better with music.”

  As he looked up, he saw Bonnie. “Well, if it isn’t the future Mrs. Kennesaw. I
warned you, Z, looks like she’s come to fetch you.”

  “What are you doing here? This is no place for a lady!” Zachary Taylor exclaimed, no longer speechless from the sight of the woman he planned to marry standing before him in a place she ought not to be.

  “If it’s no place for a lady,” Bonnie returned, “then it’s no place for a gentleman.”

  This sally was greeted with appreciation by the other men at the table, who seemed to relish the novelty of a feminine attraction to their Saturday entertainment. Will Henry hid a smile at her remark; she was a clever girl, he thought. Z had gotten himself a prize with this little lady. Will Henry hoped his brother was alert enough to realize that fact before he lost her because she sure didn’t seem like the kind of woman who, when a wife, would sit docilely at home while her husband gambled away horses and hats.

  The piano player returned to his music with gusto, and gradually the din of the saloon returned. Whatever Z Kennesaw was doing that had brought his pretty Eastern bride-to-be into the saloon was his business, although one or two of the men at the other tables found himself distracted from his card-playing as he bestowed lingering glances upon the little brunette.

  “What makes you think we’re gentlemen?” challenged the unshaven man who had to be Linc Duffy.

  “I do admit to being in some doubt,” Bonnie responded. “A gentleman would offer a lad a chair.”

  Three of the men, including Z, hurried to their feet. “Beg your pardon, ma’am,” apologized Ellsworth Pelly. Will Henry knew him; he worked at the neighboring Turner ranch and was a decent sort of fellow. Pelly pulled a chair from the adjacent table and placed it beside him, forcing the man next to it, a stranger to Will Henry, to move his chair as a result. But the other man didn’t seem to object.

  Bonnie gave both men a beaming smile. “Why thank you, gentlemen,” she said.

  Pelly held out the chair so that she could be seated. She gave him another smile, tossed over her shoulder like a bridal bouquet, and he mumbled something in embarrassment.

  “Ma’am, can I get you a drink?” asked the other man.

  She smiled at him. “That’s very thoughtful of you, but I’m afraid I simply don’t have a head for hard liquor.’

  “A saloon ain’t no place for a woman,” Linc Duffy retorted.

  “Ordinarily, I’d agree with you, Mr. …” her voice trailed off, making it clear that they had not been introduced.

  “Duffy. Lincoln Duffy.”

  “Of course. Mr. Duffy. I believe you covet my fiance’s attire,” she said.

  Against his own intentions, Zachary Taylor found himself smiling at Miss Bonnie’s words. She didn’t lack for words, that was for certain. “Miss Bonnie,” Linc Duffy said, “we’re playing for cash, not clothes.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” she declared.

  “You are?” Zachary Taylor asked, surprised at her approval.

  “I certainly am. Cash is one thing, and if you gamble away all your inheritance, we’ll simply have to head further west so that we aren’t a burden on the ranch. But I’ve come this far, I think I can travel a little further. It’s a wife’s duty to go with her husband.”

  Will Henry wasn’t sure he followed the logic of his brother’s intended, but she had a way of making it sound as though what she said was indisputable. Zachary Taylor frowned, unsure where she’d gotten this information which had never been communicated to him. Will Henry could tell that his brother was wondering if, during one of their conversations, Grandmother had told her future granddaughter-in-law that Z’s days of gambling without repercussions were coming to an end.

  “But,” she went on, “if you intend to continue playing for his shirts, I shall be rather busy sewing him new ones. It’s a wife’s duty to provide for her husband’s clothing, and although I don’t wish to boast, I’ve been told that I sew rather well. But I did not intend to spend all of my days, nor my nights,” she said, casting her eyes down in modesty, “with a needle and thread. But if I must, I will.”

  The other men at the table were taken aback by the manner in which the ladylike Miss Bonnie had as good as announced that when she was a wife, she intended to keep her husband occupied at night in a fashion which would be to his pleasing, unless other duties intervened.

  Will Henry turned to the bartender and ordered a drink. He didn’t remember when he’d enjoyed a conversation this much. Miss Bonnie Yankovich, the daughter of Polish immigrants, was wooing a table of Texas cowboys as if she had been born to the art of flirting, a talent which Texas girls regarded as their own province.

  Pelly said that he was sure that the bartender could find a drink suitable for a lady of refinement and he went up to check. Zachary Taylor leaned back in his chair and perused Bonnie over the edges of his cards.

  “Is this what wives do in Pittsburgh?” he asked genially. “Follow their husbands into saloons?”

  “I told you, Z,” Linc Duffy reminded him, “she’s gonna tie you to that apron, one way or t’other.”

  Bonnie’s smile deepened so that the curve of her lips drew twin half-moons on each side of her face. “Mr. Duffy,” she said, leaning closer to the table so that her words could be heard over the noise in the saloon, “you appear to be unfamiliar with ladies’ fashions. But as you can see,” she rose from the table and turned around slowly so that her dress was visible from all angles, “I am not wearing an apron.”

  Linc Duffy sensed a challenge somewhere in her remark, but he wasn’t sure where or how to respond.

  “Well, now,” he said, “Maybe you’d like to join us in a hand. Maybe you’d like to win my shirt. Of course,” he added, “maybe I’ll win that pretty wrap you’ve got around yourself.”

  “That’s enough,” Zachary Taylor’s voice, always so amused and genial, cut through the conversation like the lash of a whip. “Miss Bonnie might not be where she belongs, but no matter where she goes, she’ll keep her clothes on, and I’ll not be tolerating any loose talk about her.”

  “I didn’t mean anything, Z,” Linc assured him. “I was just trying to let the little lady know that she’s come to a place she don’t belong, and I was trying to do it gentle-like, so I didn’t hurt her feelings.”

  Bonnie’s smile never wavered. “Mr. Duffy, I’m getting married soon to a fine man. I don’t know what you expect from a wife, but this is the kind of wife that I’m going to be.” Looking at Zachary Taylor, Bonnie recited, “’for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.’”

  She turned her focus back to Linc and this time, there was no smile on her face. “If my husband wishes to be in a saloon to play cards, I will join him there, as is my wifely duty. And, having said that, Mr. Duffy, I suggest that you deal me in.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Mrs. Kennesaw was surprised when her somewhat irreverent grandson asked her to be sure to have the parson include scripture from the Book of Ruth for the wedding ceremony. She had been told, of course, of what happened at that Saturday night poker game when Miss Bonnie Yankovich showed up at the saloon and proceeded to win the shirt off Lincoln Duffy’s back in a poker game.

  Her first reaction was to grip her canes tightly so that she would not fall over from the shock of the tale. Then she wondered if, after all, Zachary Taylor was marrying the right sort of woman. Women did not go into saloons. It was an unwritten rule. Saloons were the province of men, places where they could indulge in their vulgar interests without sullying their homes.

  But then she noticed that Zachary Taylor began bragging about Bonnie’s behavior that night. “Looking like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth,” he said one night, “she taught Linc Duffy a lesson he’ll never forget.” Zachary Taylor cast a fond glance upon his wife-to-be. “I don’t know what kind of women they grow out there in Pittsburgh, but my Bonnie is a sure ‘nough Texan too.”

  Bonnie merely smiled. After she had washed the shirt she’d won off Linc Duffy in that memorable pok
er game, Zachary Taylor had planned to return it to his chagrined friend, whose loss at cards to a little brown-haired lady was rapidly becoming one of the legends of Mesquite, Texas. But Bonnie had said no, explaining to him that it was a trophy and it was Zachary Taylor’s to keep and, if he chose, to wear. Although, she had added, the stitching was of poor quality and she would sew him much finer shirts when they were married.

  The Texas relatives all heard the story when they came to town to celebrate the wedding. The ranch house was fairly bursting with kinfolks, all impressed with the bride that their wild Zachary Taylor had found for himself. Zachary Taylor was startled to find that, instead of being joshed for giving up his freedom and getting married, he was envied by other men because he’d gotten himself a girl with spirit.

  Spirit, Bonnie realized when Zachary Taylor passed on the compliments that came his way, meant a whole lot of things in Texas. It meant that she was a little bit wild too, like a horse that couldn’t easily be broken and that, when it accepted the reins, was very clear on what it would tolerate. Spirit meant that what the Texans prized most about their state, which had for a short time been its own country, was its independence. Spirit meant other things too, private things between a husband and wife that the bashful bachelors would never refer to in a lady’s company. The men at the card table that night had watched as a woman came into their province and staked her claim with nothing more than a woman’s weapons—beauty, love, and the trust that where God had led her was where her husband would stay—and had won Zachary Taylor Kennesaw’s maverick heart.