by Merry Farmer
“Is that a cedar chest you’ve got in there?” one woman, her hair pulled back in a severe bun, asked.
“Not for sale,” Mr. Montgomery croaked, then coughed. “The lace inside it is, though.”
The women oohed and aahed. Until the one with the severe bun switched her attention to Talia with a frown.
“Have you taken to selling women now, Mr. Montgomery?” she asked, then sniffed.
“Nope,” Steve answered. “Just givin’ her a ride.”
The severe bun woman narrowed her eyes at Talia. “Looks foreign to me.”
“You’re right, Jill,” one of the others, a plump woman in a fine dress, said. “Her features are downright pointy, and look at all that hair.”
Talia raised a hand to her head. She wore a bonnet, but traveling while exposed to the elements wasn’t ideal for keeping a neat hairstyle. Large pieces of her honey-blonde braid had slipped loose and waved in the breeze.
“What kind of person has green eyes like that?” the third woman asked. “Those are cat’s eyes, is what they are.”
Talia lowered her head, no idea what to make of the scrutiny the women were throwing at her. She searched the wagon bed for her carpet bag, eager to get out and be on her way.
“Shove aside, girl,” the plump woman said. “I want to see what merchandise you’re sitting on.”
“Lawd, Beata,” the third woman laughed. “And here you are, wife of our shop owner.”
“What would Lex say if he saw you eyeing the peddler’s merchandise?” Jill snorted.
The plump woman, Beata, flushed red and babbled wordlessly for a moment before saying, “I’m just checking out the competition.”
Her friends laughed. Talia stood and did her best to climb over packed-tight merchandise to the back of the wagon. At least she wasn’t the only one the women were poking fun at.
Talia would have expected Mr. Montgomery to hop down from the wagon’s bench and come around to lift her to the ground, like he did when they stopped for refreshments in Everland, but he kept to his seat, bending over and resting his head in his hands. He must have been exhausted from all the driving, so she decided to forgive him for his rudeness and help herself down.
“Would you look at that,” Jill gasped. “That foreign woman was sitting on a bundle of brooms.”
“So? Beata asked, her expression a dead giveaway that she was still hurt by her friend’s criticism.
“Why, she rode into town on a broomstick,” Jill went on. “Must be a witch.”
All three women burst into laughter. Talia could feel the blood drain from her face. Her chest squeezed tight as she climbed down from the wagon, pulling her carpet bag with her. “I am not a witch,” she murmured.
“What’s that, deary?” Beata asked, her smile back again.
Talia sighed. “I’m not a witch,” she said, louder, clutching her carpet bag tighter.
“Careful,” the third woman chuckled. “She’ll give you the evil eye.”
The three women dissolved into laughter once more. Talia shot a quick look up to the front of the wagon, but Mr. Montgomery was climbing down and looking to his horses. She couldn’t rely on him for help, and she sure wasn’t going to ask the three ladies to help her find her groom-to-be. Instead, she curtsied to the women, then turned and walked off.
“Uh-oh, Edna. The witch is going to curse you for sure now,” Jill called after her.
Talia did everything she could to ignore their cackling laughter. She’d been insulted before. She’d been called a witch before too, which was where the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach came from. Those accusations hadn’t been pretty or deserved, but they had led to a world of trouble. In a way, being called a witch was the reason she was there, in Haskell, Wyoming, marching up a dusty street with no idea where she was going.
The one thing she knew was that her groom-to-be, Trey Knighton, was Haskell’s sheriff. So as she wandered the streets, the first place she looked for was the town’s jail. It wasn’t hard to find. In fact, she didn’t even have to look. The jail stood right at an intersection that was marked with a sign that pointed Main Street one way and Station Street the other.
“Hello?” she called out as she stepped inside.
Her call was met by silence. Not a board creaked or a curtain billowed. The jail was empty. For a moment, she debated staying put and waiting for Sheriff Knighton to get back from wherever he was. But there were more people in Haskell that she should be looking for. In the end, she left her carpet bag just inside the door, then set out onto Main Street in the hope of finding at least one of her friends from Hurst Home.
Chapter 2
By the time Gunn’s staff had served Trey and his friends and all the ladies who had come to greet Miss Lambert, catered to their needs, then cleared away the feast, Trey was feeling much better about life. Even the constant chatter of the ladies and occasional fussing of the children stopped bothering him as much as it had at the train station. Maybe he could get out of this after all. Maybe he wouldn’t have to be captured in the yoke of domesticity, like George had been.
And George was definitely caught. His wife, Holly, showed up halfway through lunch, happy that she hadn’t missed Miss Lambert’s arrival and eager to join the conversation that to Trey was sounding more like a bunch of hens in a chicken coop. He could even smile at how pleased they all seemed with their situation…and how hooked George was. The man couldn’t tear his eyes off his wife.
“You’ll never catch me acting the fool like that,” Trey whispered to Sam as they headed out of the restaurant and through the hotel lobby to its wide porch at the end of lunch.
Sam laughed and clapped him on the back. “Horse hooey. As soon as that pretty mail-order bride of yours shows up, you’ll be as bad as George is, or any of the Montrose brothers or Luke Chance or Athos Strong.”
“I won’t be like Athos,” Trey insisted. “You’ll never catch me with eight kids, for one.”
Sam continued to chuckle. “You say that now, but just you wait.”
“Wait for what?” Trey snorted, then lowered his voice. “It’s not like I’ve never been with a woman before. You know that, and Bonnie sure as heck knows it too,” he added in a wry aside. He wasn’t one of Bonnie’s Place’s most regular customers, but her girls had warded off a few lonely nights in the past. “Besides,” Trey went on, “where do you get off being so certain you know what I would do with a wife when you don’t have one yourself.”
“And never will,” Sam said.
“I don’t believe that one bit. If it can happen to me, it can happen—”
His sly comment was cut short as the women coming out of the hotel all suddenly burst into ear-splitting squeals and shouts. They rushed past him and Sam and clattered down the hotel’s stairs. Trey was instantly on high alert, and would have reached for his revolver, if he hadn’t left it back at the jail. He was just about ready to think downtown Haskell had broken out in a riot…until he saw the thin and dusty woman walking up Main Street.
The second all the brides who had come from Hurst Home started running to the woman—Elspeth reaching her first and catching the woman in a fierce hug—Trey knew who she was. A strange, sinking feeling hit the pit of his stomach. He stopped at the top of the hotel stairs and watched, his heart beating double-time.
Miss Talia Lambert was a beauty, that much was certain. Even with her dusty and worn dress, hair that even he could see was wildly out of place under a bonnet so ugly that he would burn it at the first opportunity, and with her shoulders stooped and weary. That hair was the most unusual color, like honey, and the lines of her face gave her a foreign sort of look. And as the others drew her closer—still chattering like a bunch of crows in a cornfield—he could see that Miss Lambert had some tempting curves along with her slim figure.
But no. No, he was not going to fall for a pretty face. He’d do his duty and live up to his responsibilities, but he was not going to fall in love.
“Here she is
,” Eden said, whisking Miss Lambert all the way to the front of the hotel steps. “Our dear, sweet friend, Talia Lambert.”
“Talia, this is Sheriff Trey Knighton.” Wendy introduced him, holding Emanuel in one arm and giving Miss Lambert a subtle push in the small of her back with the other.
Trey wished he’d been wearing a hat so he could sweep it off and hold it to give his hands something to do. Behind him, little Winslow Chance whined as Virginia held him and baby Howard back from joining the crush of women coming up the stairs. Trey knew how Winslow felt.
“Ma’am.” He nodded to Miss Lambert, doing his best not to shuffle his feet like a green schoolboy. As an afterthought, he held out his hand.
Miss Lambert reached the top of the stairs and took his hand. “Mr. Knighton. Or should I call you Sheriff Knighton?”
She had the softest, prettiest hands, with long, strong fingers. “Uh…you should probably call me Trey,” he answered, a beat too late.
She smiled. “Trey.”
Lordy, but her smile lit up the afternoon. And the afternoon was already bright. But no, he wouldn’t fall for her. Even though she had the most enticing green eyes. Curious green eyes. Unnerving green eyes. The feeling that she was foreign hit him even harder.
“You can probably let her hand go now, son,” Virginia said from behind him. “She’s not gonna run away.”
The ladies laughed. Trey flinched and let go of Miss Lambert’s hand. “Sorry,” he mumbled.
“It’s okay.” Her smile made him feel like it actually was okay. No wonder the ladies all liked her so much.
“So, uh, how did you get here?” Trey asked, then coughed. He wasn’t making the best first impression.
“I rode with a peddler, Mr. Steve Montgomery.”
“Oh. Steve’s back in town?” Virginia asked.
“Yes, he is.” Miss Lambert nodded.
“I’m glad you found a way to get here,” Eden went on, somehow managing to direct the entire clump of seven women, three men, and five children off to one side of the porch. “Although traveling in a peddler’s wagon couldn’t have been comfortable.”
“It wasn’t.” Miss Lambert moved with her friends, but glanced back to Trey. Was he supposed to give her permission to go with the ladies? “The wagon was packed nearly to overflowing with merchandise. I ended up sitting on a bundle of brooms.” She started reaching for her backside, but stopped, blushing, and held her hands in front of her.
A faint smile tickled the corner of Trey’s mouth. He liked that she didn’t seem to be the stiff and formal type, like Elspeth Strong or Corva Haskell. Miss Lambert seemed like she might be more easy-going under her best manners, like Eden.
Eden, who suddenly burst into laughter. “You mean to tell me that you rode into town on a broomstick.” She seemed to think that was uproariously funny.
The others were suddenly and surprisingly sober. They frowned at Eden, and Elspeth and Wendy closed ranks on either side of Miss Lambert, as if protecting her from something.
“That’s not funny,” Corva whispered.
Trey blinked. He glanced sideways at Sam and then George. Neither of them looked like they had the first clue what was going on either. At least he wasn’t alone.
Eden blinked, looking crestfallen. “Come on, now. If you can’t joke about things like that, then what’s the point?”
“The point is that those times were very hurtful to Talia,” Wendy answered in a hushed voice.
Trey glanced from Wendy to Eden and back again, no idea what the women were talking about. It wasn’t a new feeling, but for the first time, he kind of wished he was in on the ladies’ talk.
“It’s all right.” Miss Lambert smiled and took a deep breath, letting it out in a relieved sigh. “As you all keep telling me in your letters, Haskell is a good place to start over, and I intend to do just that.” She took a step away from her friends and closer to Trey. “I’d like to thank you, Sheriff—Trey, for accepting me as your bride. It means the world to me.”
Of all darned things, Trey had to swallow a lump of guilt in his throat. “Uh, sure.”
“Well, now that the bride is here, we can head over to the church for the wedding,” George said, stepping forward with a welcoming smile for Miss Lambert.
Trey wasn’t sure if he should throttle the man for rushing things or not. All he could say was, “Okay.”
“I’ll go tell Mr. Gunn to be ready for us to come back for the reception in about twenty minutes,” Wendy said, then disappeared into the hotel.
“Reception?” Trey asked as everyone started moving toward the porch stairs and down into the street. “Didn’t we just have that?”
“We can’t leave the bride out of her own reception,” Eden insisted. “And there’s nothing wrong with having a second party.” She winked at Miss Lambert.
Their whole crew started along Elizabeth Street toward the church. As soon as Trey was ten feet past the hotel, a wave of panic hit him. It was really happening. He was really about to go and get himself hitched.
“Uh, Miss Lambert.” He stopped, reaching as gently as he could for Miss Lambert’s elbow to stop her as well.
She did stop. So did all of her friends. Trey was near to making a run for it, until she told her friends, “You go on ahead.”
The ladies nodded and hummed and gave them both knowing looks. At least they continued on without a fuss. Trey waited until they were a good, long distance away before taking a breath.
“You can call me Talia,” Miss Lambert said. “Since we’re about to be married and all.”
“Yeah, about that.” Trey rubbed a hand over the lower half of his face. Talia’s gentle smile faded. “See, the thing is, if I’m being honest, I’m kinda having, well, second thoughts about this whole marriage thing.”
Talia suddenly looked as tired as a young woman who’d ridden miles in the back of a peddler’s wagon would look. “I see.” She lowered her eyes.
Trey’s chest started to ache in a peculiar way that he wasn’t used to. “I’m not saying that I won’t marry you,” he rushed to tell her.
“You’re not?” She looked up at him with so much hope in her eyes that a lump formed in Trey’s throat.
“No, ma’am. I made a promise. And I know what kind of life it was you left behind.” He knew he was echoing everything Virginia had said to him at the train station, but the woman had spoken the truth. “I will most certainly marry you, it’s just…” He let his sentence trail away and let out a helpless breath through his nose. Marrying her terrified him, but not marrying her somehow terrified him even more. “It’s just that I’m thinking I might not be ready for all the things that come along with a real marriage.”
“Oh?” She blinked fast, her brow knitting in confusion.
“You know, things like children and intimacy and…and children.” The words had come out of his mouth, but he wasn’t sure whether he stood behind them or not. Things like marrying a girl should have been a lot simpler.
Talia’s face brightened inexplicably. “Oh, I see.” She was back to smiling again, although Trey had no idea why, considering everything he’d just said. “You want to have a marriage in name only to start with. Until we get to know each other better.”
Was that what he’d asked for? “Uh, yeah,” he answered.
Talia’s smile grew so big that she laughed lightly before saying, “I’m perfectly fine with that arrangement. It’s a sensible one. I always did wonder how a woman could jump into every aspect of marriage so suddenly when her whole world has changed.”
She’d taken all that from what he said? “I’m glad we see eye to eye on this.”
“We do. And thank you, Trey.” She reached out, and it was several seconds before Trey realized she wanted him to hold her hand.
Still feeling a half-step behind, he took her hand, and they joined the others outside of the church. Part of him hoped they got to know each other really fast. The rest of him was still quivering in his boots.
> Trey had stood by George during his wedding, and he’d attended the weddings of more than a few of his friends in the last few years, but he had no idea how fast a marriage ceremony could feel when you were the one standing at the front of the church with a woman.
“Do you, Trey Alexander Knighton take this woman, Talia Lambert, to be your lawfully wedded wife?”
Trey almost answered, “Huh?” when George asked the question, a teasing twinkle in his eyes, but he managed to squeeze out, “I do,” without looking like too much of a numbskull.
“And do you, Talia Lambert, take this man, Trey Alexander Knighton, to be your lawfully wedded husband, to love, honor, and obey, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?”
“I do,” Talia answered with more certainty than Trey would ever be able to manage. She smiled up at him too with a look that said she was confident she’d done the right thing. How did she manage that?
“Then by the power invested in me by God and the Territory of Wyoming, I now pronounce you husband and wife.”
Before Trey could so much as catch his breath, a round of applause broke out from the cluster of Talia’s friends, all of whom stood beside her as bridesmaids. Corva even wiped a tear from her eyes. Trey wanted to shake his head. They wouldn’t be so kindly disposed toward him if they knew how confused he was about the whole marriage thing.
George cleared his throat. “You may kiss your bride.”
Trey had the awkward feeling that he’d already given him permission once and he’d missed it. He rolled his shoulders to steady himself and turned to Talia. One little kiss couldn’t hurt. Except that she stared up at him with those big, green eyes of hers, and something twisted in Trey’s gut. It wouldn’t have been gentlemanly of him to half-ass his kiss, so he reached for her waist, pulled her close, and bent down to cover her mouth with his.
She was so warm and soft in his arms, and her lips felt perfect against his. He could feel her sigh as their kiss lingered on. She tasted like sweetness and light and…dirt. He broke their kiss, opened his eyes—which he hadn’t realized he’d closed—and straightened.
