Shotgun Grooms

by Susan Mallery

  “You suggested that before I knew all the facts. However, I know them now. Therefore, I’ll pay you ten percent of the profits, no rent, and I want a cash settlement at the time of the annulment.”

  Had he been drinking, he would have choked. “Why?”

  “Because you need to marry me more than I need to rent your hotel.”

  Lucas raised his eyebrows. Em might be a scrawny thing on the outside, but she had the heart of a lion. And she was a damn fine businesswoman. He was in trouble and she didn’t hesitate to take advantage of that.

  He stood and crossed to the door connecting his office to the main room of the saloon. He opened it and yelled for Perry to bring him a pot of tea and two cups. He glanced back at Emily.

  “Bargaining is thirsty work.”

  Thirty minutes later Lucas knew he’d been had—cheated by a professional in spinster’s clothing. In exchange for Emily’s hand in marriage, he was getting a mere thirty percent of her profits, she wasn’t paying rent and when the marriage was annulled he would pay her five hundred dollars. He should have been furious. Instead he was impressed.

  “I think that’s everything,” she said, rising to her feet. “Thank you, Mr. MacIntyre.”

  He shook his head. “Lucas. Or the deal is off.”

  She pressed her lips together. “All right. Lucas. And I must tell you, I don’t particularly care for you shortening my name. Emily is perfectly fine.”

  “I know, Em. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “When did you want to get married?”

  “How about tomorrow morning? Say ten?”

  “Fine. I trust you’ll make all the arrangements?”

  “Sure. Just meet me at the church.”

  “After the wedding I’ll start moving my things in upstairs. I want to get the hotel open as soon as possible.”

  She nodded slightly, then turned to leave. Lucas watched her go. He had the oddest feeling that he should do something to seal the deal. But what? Shake hands? Kiss her?

  That last thought came from nowhere and he quickly pushed it away. Kiss Emily Smythe? That would be about as exciting as kissing a block of ice. She might have a head for business, but she had the heart of a spinster. Her idea of warming her husband’s bed would probably be to set the mattress on fire.

  Chuckling at the thought, he watched her leave, then had the disquieting realization that by this time tomorrow, they would be married.

  Curled up in a small chair just to the left of the window, Emily watched the men entering Miss Cherry’s house. From across the street she could hear the music spilling out the open windows. There were faint sounds of laughter and occasional drifting bits of conversation. Bright lights illuminated the front of the house, as well as the well-kept wooden sidewalk.

  Emily’s room was at the top of the stairs, the third story of a building on the town’s main street. The floor below housed the baker and his family and the ground floor held the bakery. When Emily had first arrived in Defiance, she’d been pleased with her narrow but private quarters. She’d spent many nights staring with fascination until she’d finally realized the purpose of the house across the street. The comments she’d heard around town had suddenly made sense. She’d been shocked and embarrassed, afraid someone might have seen her practically hanging out of her window, staring.

  Unfortunately, her curiosity had never lessened, so she’d found a way to sit in her chair, out of sight of anyone on the street and yet still watch the goings-on.

  Miss Cherry’s girls were lovely in a way Emily could never be. They had large eyes and beautiful hair. Their bodies were full and womanly. They knew how to talk to men, to tease and laugh and flirt. Sometimes Emily’s stomach hurt so much when she watched them.

  She knew she wasn’t pretty, but she also knew there had to be something else wrong with her. Other plain girls had managed to attract beaux and eventually husbands. Why couldn’t she? Why didn’t she know how to start a conversation with a man? She’d listened to her sisters flirting with their gentleman callers. Everything they said sounded so silly and the men had loved it. When she tried it though, men simply stared at her as if she were completely without sense.

  A tall man turned in to the house. At first Emily’s heart leaped into her throat. Lucas? But then the light caught the side of the man’s face and she realized she didn’t recognize him at all. No. Not Lucas. Not tonight. But he had visited Miss Cherry’s before. Would he after they were married? She knew that some other husbands did, and theirs was to be a marriage in name only. Wasn’t he marrying her because with her he wanted to be sure he wouldn’t be tempted to consummate the marriage?

  She continued to stare out into the night and ignored the single tear that trickled down her cheek. She told herself that she had made peace with her life a long time ago. A husband and children were not for her. She had other plans. Yes, of course it would have been lovely to fall in love, but she wasn’t the kind of woman men responded to in that way. She had a greater purpose. She had a plan. And that was going to have to be enough.

  Despite the fact that nothing about the marriage was going to be real, Lucas found himself surprisingly nervous the next morning as he waited for his bride-to-be and the minister to make an appearance in the wooden church on the west side of town. He’d come alone after making arrangements for Pastor Bird’s wife and oldest boy to act as witnesses. He’d thought about sending a message to Jackson but figured his brother either wouldn’t show or would make a scene. A brawl during the wedding wouldn’t help anyone.

  “Good morning.”

  He turned toward the sound of the voice and saw Emily had entered the rear of the church. She removed her dark cloak to reveal that she’d dressed for the occasion. Today’s dress was light gray and edged in cream lace. At least she hadn’t shown up in black. Not that he’d ever seen her in anything but gray.

  Nothing else about her had changed in the night. She still wore her hair tightly pulled back in a knot at the nape of her neck. Her posture was straight, her thin shoulders square.

  “Miss Smythe,” he said, bowing slightly.

  She raised her eyebrows at his formal address. He only did it to throw her off balance. While he hadn’t spent much time in Emily Smythe’s company, he’d learned several things about her. She was intelligent, determined, a damn fine negotiator and great fun to tease. If he had to be married, the last thing he wanted was some grim woman who didn’t know how to laugh. He wasn’t convinced Emily enjoyed humor, but he’d received a few hints that she might be tempted into a giggle now and again.

  “I spent most of last evening packing my things,” she said, walking up the center aisle of the small church. She placed her cloak and her gloves over the first pew. “I thought that after the ceremony I would begin to move in my belongings. I assume I may use the back stairs.”

  “Sure. There’s a way up from the hallway behind the saloon, but I don’t guess you’ll want to walk through my place very much.”

  Her blue eyes widened at the thought. “No. Thank you.”

  He pretended to consider the idea. “In case you change your mind, seeing as we’re going to be business partners as well as man and wife, I want you to know that any liquor you drink is on the house.” He squinted at her. “I can’t see you sipping whiskey, but you might enjoy a nice glass of apple brandy in the evening. To help you sleep.”

  Color flooded her face, but she didn’t rise to the bait. “How considerate,” she murmured. “I’ll have to let you know later.”

  “Whenever. The offer stands. Oh, and I’ve put a couple of my men to work on cleaning the rooms. They haven’t been used in years, so they’re quite dusty. There’s also more furniture up there than I’d remembered. Plenty of beds and dressers. All you’ll have to do is provide mattresses, curtains and whatever other doodads you like.”

  “Thank you,” she said, obviously pleased. “How very thoughtful and kind of you.”

  Her words and her smile made him slightly uncomfort
able. “It wasn’t anything.”

  “I disagree. It was a very nice something.”

  Light seemed to fill her blue eyes. That, along with the color still lingering in her cheeks, made her look…different. Not exactly pretty, but not quite so plain. But before he could figure out what, if anything, that meant, Pastor Bird, his wife and his oldest boy arrived. It was time for the ceremony.

  Lucas and Emily stood together at the front of the church. Except for the exchange of vows, the large open space was quiet. Lucas tried to remember if he’d ever been to a wedding before, and, although he couldn’t recall a time, the words he and Emily repeated sounded familiar.

  As he promised to love and honor the stranger standing next to him, he felt a flare of resentment that he had to go through all this to keep something that was already rightfully his. Damn Uncle Simon. Did the old bastard really think he could force his nephews into marrying?

  Obviously he had and it had worked. But he couldn’t keep them married. Lucas had never planned on taking a wife and he didn’t intend to keep this one for very long. He sure wasn’t going to turn the marriage into a real one, so there weren’t going to be any children. It was unlikely that Jackson would think any different, so the MacIntyre name would die out with them.

  “You may kiss the bride.”

  The pastor’s words brought Lucas back to the present. Apparently he and Emily were well and truly hitched. He leaned down to do his duty, but she shook her head and took a quick step back.

  “A handshake will do, Lucas,” she said primly as she extended her hand.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he murmured, taking her slender fingers in his and squeezing gently.

  She seemed startled by the contact, or maybe she hadn’t expected him to agree so quickly. She pulled away as fast as she could and busied herself thanking the pastor and his family for their assistance. As he watched her, Lucas had the crazy idea that it might be kind of fun to seduce Mrs. Emily MacIntyre, just to see what happened.

  Then he reminded himself that he had enough troubles already, the main one being getting his brother married before the three-month deadline was up. He hoped Jackson’s mail-order bride had plenty of backbone and didn’t scare easy.

  Chapter Three

  “I heard you got hitched,” Mangus Reeves said, then waved his beer in the air. “Say it ain’t so, Lucas. Not you.”

  “I heard he married that schoolteacher lady.” Barney Jefferson—a tall redhead with a temper to match his fiery looks—shook his shaggy head sadly. “It’s a terrible day when one of our own gives in to a female. And that one in particular. It’s not just that she’s skinny. It’s worse. She has a way of lookin’ at a man as if she knows all the black secrets of his soul.”

  “And disapproves,” another man added.

  Lucas ignored the comments and kept pouring liquor. He’d known that he would get some ribbing about his sudden marriage, not to mention his choice of a bride. He could silence them all by telling them why he’d married, but strangely enough, he couldn’t bring himself to do that. As if by telling the truth, he would embarrass Emily. Although why he cared about her delicate feelings was beyond him.

  “She ain’t so bad,” Hep told the crowd collected around the bar.

  The old miner was on the far side of sixty. Small and wiry, he’d worked the mountain most of his life without ever once striking it rich. Now age and pain in his bones kept him from his chosen profession. Hep was honest and a hard worker, so Lucas gave him small jobs to tide him over through the cold Colorado winters.

  “What do you know about the schoolteacher?” Mangus demanded.

  Hep raised his chin and stared up at the man more than a foot taller and nearly two score younger. “She taught me some learning last winter. My letters and my numbers.” The old man flushed slightly at the confession but kept on talking. “I’d tried before, but figured I didn’t have a head for it. Miss Smythe—” he shot a look at Lucas and amended the title “—Mrs. MacIntyre was real patient and now I can read.”

  Lucas frowned. He hadn’t known that prim Emily had ever bothered with the likes of old Hep. Maybe she wasn’t as spinsterish as he’d thought. Damn. Until Hep had said something to defend her, Lucas had been content to let the men talk themselves out. Now he had to speak up.

  “Emily MacIntyre is my wife,” he said to the crowd. “I’m proud to have her as my bride. Anyone who says a word against her is going to answer to me.”

  He spoke the words easily, but their meaning was clear. He wasn’t a man to go looking for a fight, but he wasn’t afraid of one if it found him, and he generally left his opponent much the worse for wear.

  Everyone got very quiet. Mangus and Barney avoided his gaze while Hep looked pleased.

  “I’m sure she’s very nice,” Mangus muttered into his beer.

  In the silence Lucas heard the sound of people climbing the steps leading to the second story. Emily had three men hauling trunks and boxes up to her new hotel. How many things could she have and how long was this going to take? He had a sudden sense of having gotten more than he’d bargained for when he married Emily that morning. Perhaps he’d better go see what she was up to.

  An unexpected delivery, not to mention a brawl over a “friendly” card game, delayed Lucas’s trip upstairs until nearly three that afternoon. He left Perry in charge and made his way up the rear stairs to the top story of his saloon.

  The men Emily had hired had finished a couple of hours before. He found the rear door propped wide and dozens of boxes and trunks open in the large foyer area. Curtains, sheets, blankets and lace things that looked unfamiliar were stacked together in foot-high bundles. A stiff breeze attested to the open windows in all the rooms and he could hear banging from a far room.

  He followed the sound, taking in the swept-and-washed floor and relatively clean walls. Lucas had never paid much attention to the upstairs of his saloon, but obviously this section of the building had been intended as a hotel all along. In addition to the foyer, he counted fifteen bedrooms, two linen closets and a small office just off the built-in reception desk.

  Most of the rooms had at least a bed frame and a dresser. Some even had wallpaper. As he came to the end of the hall, he heard a sneeze, followed by a ladylike sniff.

  “Em?” he called.

  “In here.”

  He turned to his right and found himself in a large bedroom overlooking the main road. The bed was large and, unlike the others in the hotel, covered with a feather mattress thick enough to make Miss Cherry’s girls envious. Emily had already hung crisp white lace curtains at the windows. She was in the process of hanging blue velvet drapes over the curtains. On the high dresser stood a basin and pitcher sitting on a lace table runner. A gild-edged mirror hung opposite the window. There was a rocker in the corner and two table lamps, pillows on the bed, along with sheets, blankets and a coverlet in deep blue.

  “I just can’t…” Emily’s voice trailed off as she tried to reach the last hook of the drapes.

  “Allow me.”

  He motioned for her to step off the stool, then he reached up and slid the hook into place. When he was finished, he glanced around the room again because it was much easier than looking at the woman he’d just married.

  “It’s very nice,” he told her.

  Emily gave him a tight smile. “Thank you for both the assistance and the compliment.” She picked up the stool and surveyed her handiwork. “I have enough linens for fifteen beds, although only mattresses for five. I’ve ordered the rest. I’ve also ordered more lamps, towels.” She paused, then shrugged. “By the end of the day I’ll have at least five rooms for rent. More tomorrow.”

  She led the way into the hall. “And speaking of customers, I want to talk with you about getting a sign. Something elegant. I thought I would put it on the side of the building, pointing to the rear stairs. Is that all right with you?”

  “Order as many signs as you’d like.”

  “One should be sufficien
t,” she said, moving into the bedroom next door. He followed.

  Twenty-four hours ago he’d barely known that Emily Smythe was alive. Now she was his wife. He’d also learned that she was a tough negotiator, a hard worker and that she’d taught old Hep how to read, although he couldn’t for the life of him imagine where the two of them had ever met up long enough for her to offer assistance and Hep to accept.

  Lucas glanced around and saw a feather mattress placed neatly in the bed frame. Folded linens sat on top. Two open boxes stood on the floor, one containing curtains and drapes while the other held a basin and two lanterns. Afternoon sunlight sparkled through a clean glass window.

  He’d ordered his men upstairs the previous day. They’d swept out the place and had washed it down, but it never would have occurred to them to clean a window. Emily must have done that herself.

  “You’ve been busy,” he said, pointing to the glass.

  “I didn’t do them all,” she told him. “Just the ones in the rooms I can get ready tonight. It’s going to take me a few days to get things in order.”

  He tapped his toe against one of the open boxes. “Where’d you get all this? You have enough to fill a couple of houses.”

  She set down her stool, bent over the box with the drapes and pulled out the lace curtains. “Or one very large one.”

  He didn’t understand. “Did you cart all this west with you?”

  “Some of it. The rest my parents shipped to me.”

  When she reached for the stool, he grabbed it and the curtains from her. “I’ll do that,” he grumbled. “No sense in you breaking your neck on the first day we’re married.” Although he couldn’t believe he’d just volunteered to hang drapes. Hell, he had a business to run. He didn’t have time to stay up here with Emily. Yet he didn’t seem to be in any hurry to leave.

  She pulled out a lace table runner from the box with the basin and put it onto the long, low dresser in this slightly small room. While Lucas fumbled with the curtains, she put the bowl and basin in place and assembled the lamps. He inhaled the scent of oil as she filled them, then something floral. He glanced over her shoulder and saw her tucking lace sachets into each drawer.