by Sasha Gold
Maria’s daughter celebrated her coming out party the Christmas before, trying on and promptly discarding several of Maria’s creations before deciding upon the perfect dress. It was the girl’s castoffs that Maria and Loretta insisted Esme try. Both of them refused to hear of Esme wearing any of her own dresses. Only a white dress would do.
To Esme it seemed half the countryside had been mobilized in the aftermath of Luke’s proposal. The more she heard of the plans unfolding, the more Esme fretted that word might somehow reach her father, and he would appear as though materializing from some terrible dream and put an end to all the preparations.
She heard wagons arriving outside bringing provisions for the dinner. Men shouted instructions in Spanish and English. Roberto, Consuelo’s husband, tended a smoke pit somewhere outside, the aroma of slow cooking meats wafted through the window. Luke had enlisted everyone’s help, but judging from the silence from his room, he still lay in bed.
“The groom won’t be needed until it is time to say the vows,” Loretta explained. Besides, all plans are already in motion. She listed the more important details. The pastor, Ted Crosby, Luke’s uncle, would officiate. He was expected to arrive at noon; musicians, extra cooks, and servants were on the way. Nolan had left early on an errand, and the boys were running to and fro doing chores for Consuelo and her contingency of cooks, a trio of sisters drafted into service in the wee hours of the morning.
Esme’s emotions careened between terror and joy, leaving her exhausted and almost tearful. Thankfully, the warmth behind her eyes didn’t turn to real tears in front of Maria and Loretta. Her marriage to Luke, and the speed with which it was happening, shocked her. She, Esme Duval, after what seemed like a lifetime of loving Luke Crosby, was going to become his wife in a few hours.
Loretta shook her head and drew a tragic sigh as she studied Esme’s gown.
“It’s not perfect. A little snug in the bodice, but I think that makes it even more becoming. I’ll let the hem down a little more. Margarita must be a good two inches shorter than her.” Loretta spoke to Maria as though Esme weren’t standing a mere four feet away.
“We could add an extra crinoline,” Maria suggested. “Make it a little more full.”
“Good Lord, no,” Loretta fussed. “That skirt already takes up half the county. Can you meet with your sister to talk about the bouquet?”
“I could take care of the bouquet,” Esme offered.
“Did Roberto check to see if we have enough tables and chairs?” Loretta ignored Esme’s offer. “If so, he could tell the boys to start setting up. Tell him I’m sorry Nolan can’t help since he’s in Honey Creek picking out the ring.”
“Nolan?” Esme asked in bewilderment. “Nolan is selecting my wedding ring?”
“Luke asked him to. He didn’t have time,” Loretta said.
“He’s lying in his bed right now,” Esme grumbled. “I haven’t heard any sign of movement from next door.”
Loretta shrugged. “Don’t worry. Nolan has great taste.”
Esme shifted her weight on the crate making the taffeta rustle. Her legs ached. A pin scratched the tender skin on her wrist and she pouted. She was ready to take off the dress and put her nightgown back on. The rumpled sheets of her bed looked inviting after having been awakened before five in the morning.
“I just want to go to back to bed,” she grumbled.
Loretta repositioned the pin Esme had displaced. “Speaking of which, are you ready for your wedding night? Your mother’s not here. Is there anything you want to ask Maria or me?” The woman batted her long eyelashes, smoke grey eyes glinting with humor. Maria giggled.
Esme shook her head, her face heating with embarrassment.
There was a knock at the door. Henry, the youngest of the lost boys, strolled in carrying a tray with a coffee pot and some sweet rolls. Esme sighed with impatience, and shifted as she balanced on the crate. The women made a fuss over the child. They doted on all the boys, but it seemed that Loretta and Maria were being especially affectionate with Henry this morning. They made a fuss over the tray he’d brought, how sweet it was of him to bring it all the way upstairs and what a good boy he was to help Consuelo in the kitchen.
They went back to fitting the dress as Henry leaned against a chair and watched them work. When the older ladies’ backs were turned, he ate one sweet roll and then another. Hunger made Esme petulant and she made a face at him. He stared back at her impudently and with deliberate ease took the next-to- last roll. The black eye Sal had given him in the corral had faded to a purplish hue. Esme wanted to chastise him for wolfing down the pastries as though they were all for him, but something stopped her. She noticed with dismay that his collarbones jutted out from his neck like spokes of a wagon wheel. He was small but he was a scrapper. The defiance in the boy’s eyes reminded her of Luke’s belligerent nature when he was a child. Henry’s idle lingering in the room told her he had no desire to return to peeling potatoes in Consuelo’s kitchen. It dawned on her that his having to help in the kitchen while the other boys did chores outside was some sort of dressing down. That was the reason; Maria and Loretta praised and coddled him at every opportunity, even now as he devoured their breakfast. They were soothing his bruised ego.
For her part, Esme would just as soon not have any child around so early in the morning. They were trying enough during waking hours. “Thank you, Henry,” Esme said in a tone she hoped sounded dismissive.
But he didn’t move. “My mama had red hair too.”
Esme patted her copper locks wondering what a mess they must be after trying on so many dresses. “How delightful. Please tell Consuelo thank you for the sweet rolls.”
The boy rolled his eyes, snatched the last roll, and slipped out of the room.
“Are you ready to be a Mama to all of those muchachos?” Maria asked.
“I like children,” Esme replied. “Some of them anyway.”
Loretta laughed. She took the pins she had clasped between her lips. “We believe you, don’t we, Maria?”
“One thing’s for certain,” Esme said. “Boys are not nearly as bad as girls. They don’t sulk or shriek like teenaged girls. I was never so glad to leave a place as when I gave my notice at St. Adelaide’s.”
Maria straightened the skirt of the dress and tugged at the hem. “Don’t worry, the boys aren’t so bad after a while. Luke’s mother came to love them, even though, in the beginning what she really wanted was a house full of girls in ribbons. It was Luke who changed her mind. He was the first orphan to come, and she loved him best of all, like he was her own flesh and blood. Let me tell you he was the worst cabron that ever stepped foot on the ranch.”
Esme didn’t know what a cabron was, but knowing Luke, she suspected Maria was insulting him, and the word cabron sounded like she was calling him a goat. It made her smile. Luke had been a rascal. While she might not relish the idea of nightly meals with a table full of rambunctious young men, she had to appreciate that they had no one else to care for them. It hurt her like nothing else, a deep splinter in her heart to think of Luke as such a child, an orphan, a lost boy. One day, perhaps he would tell her the story of his life before he came to the Crosby Ranch.
While the ladies toiled in the next room, Luke lay awake, listening to low hum of their voices. He imagined them fretting over Esme, trying their best to make everything perfect for the wedding. It wouldn’t matter what she wore. He was sure she would look like an angel. His angel.
In the night, he woke up with a start from a terrible dream. In it, Esme left him, vanished from the house, fleeing from her wedding day.
Sweat beading his brow, heart pounding, he had crept like a thief down the hallway to her room. Outside her door, he listened.
Wind was blowing around the house, and downstairs the grandfather clock chimed softly, but he heard no sound from Esme. He waited, anxiety tightening his chest until he was ready to burst through her door. Then he heard her shift in the bed. The breath Luke hadn’t re
alized he’d been holding blew from his constricted lungs. He leaned against her door, remaining there until his heartbeat slowed.
The rest of the night Luke passed in a deep sleep. He did not wake until he heard the women talking in Esme’s room. He smiled to hear Esme’s voice. He couldn’t make out what she said, but it pleased him to hear her first thing in the morning.
There was much to do to prepare for the wedding, and naturally, the women had the lion’s share of the tasks on their shoulders. It couldn’t be helped that his bride had to get up early. He had it easy. He could wear any good suit. Her dress was what everyone would notice, not his duds. Tomorrow, she could sleep in until noon if she wanted.
Satisfaction warmed his heart. Everything had worked out perfectly. She’d readily agreed to the marriage, maybe because of the letter from her father. But, maybe the letter had nothing to do with it. After all, Esme had always been wrapped around his little finger. Once, when she was just a little girl, he’d sold her an orange kitten, a mangy stray, for a nickel. His mother had made him return the money to the “poor gullible Duval girl.”
He never thought of Esme as gullible, but she was certainly willing to do anything for him. Any time she visited Blanco with her uncle, to go to church or the mercantile, she would arrive at the livery, her eyes bright, looking for him. No matter where he was working, grooming a horse, tacking on a horse’s shoe, or repairing a bridle, she would seek him out to say hello and offer him some small gift, a bag of candy or a bit of copied verse. She was devoted to him from the start, and it didn’t take long for the devotion to become mutual. The affection he felt for her was brotherly at first, demonstrated with teasing and tormenting. Out of earshot of the adults, he could have talked her into paying for a barrel of monkeys.
Luke smiled at those memories, like the time he’d sold her a ticket to a swimming hole in Honey Creek, one that didn’t really exist. She’d been thirteen then, and he’d charged her another nickel, telling her he was selling it half-price on account of her being a pretty girl. This time his own conscience made him return the coin, and she’d smacked him soundly on the shoulder when he confessed his ruse. Unable to resist tormenting her just a little more, he told her no one paid to swim there anymore – ever since they’d discovered the man-eating sharks, and she’d believed that too.
Over time, Luke’s feelings grew from brotherly to something quite different, and that had been the beginning of all the trouble. Once Randolph Duval got wind of the young romance, he put a stop to his daughter’s visits.
When Luke first heard Esme was returning to Honey Creek after so many years, he was incensed. It was a painful reminder of the threats Randolph Duval made when Luke was nineteen. He promised to “send some boys to pay him a visit.” None of Duval’s threats had concerned Luke since he’d always relished a good brawl, but the possibility that the old man would make Esme’s life difficult did concern him. That was when Luke stopped writing to her.
Years later the idea that the one woman forbidden to him would be returning to Honey Creek, and would be living next to him, just out of his reach, was more than he could bear. Now, thanks to Randolph, it all worked out better than Luke could have hoped.
Luke folded his hands behind his head and smiled. He would marry today at noon, share a wedding night with his sweet Esme, the only one he’d dreamed of, and in a day or two, set off for San Antonio to pay a visit to Randolph Duval. The bastard wouldn’t know what hit him when Luke Crosby strolled into town offering him a deal.
Chapter Six
The sun settled on the horizon and a cooling wind skimmed through the oaks, making the late winter afternoon take on a sudden chill. In the twilight, Luke and Esme danced, the only couple still swaying as the band played the last song of the night.
The ground under the low-hanging tree limbs had been tamped hard by the boots and slippers of at least a hundred wedding guests, most of whom Esme did not know but who greeted her with the affection of long-held friends. Each of the ladies had complimented her dress, expressed excitement and even wonder that Esme had managed to lasso the elusive Luke Crosby. Her new husband, Esme gathered, had been in the sights of several matrons wishing to see their daughters in the Crosby home.
Esme couldn’t help casting nervous glances, searching for signs of her father, her brothers, or any of the Duval henchmen, but her concerns were for naught, and the afternoon passed without incident. The vows were said, guests toasted the couple, and the evening drew to a close without incident. It was done.
The fiddle player drew out the last plaintive note and the few remaining guests clapped as the band took a final bow and began packing their equipment in cases and boxes.
Luke kept Esme in his embrace. He kissed her temple and stroked his hands down her back. His touch made her weaken and she drew closer, reveling in his embrace. Underneath Luke’s wool vest, Esme could feel thick bands of muscles flex. She inhaled his scent, an agreeable smell of leather and soap.
Since the vows were said, they had only danced twice. Luke had been busy talking to other men about ranching business. Esme tried moping, but he’d hardly noticed. There had been few glances from him in her direction, and no kisses other than the one in front of the minister. If she hadn’t been wearing a wedding ring, one picked out by Nolan, she remembered, the whole evening might have passed like a party instead of a wedding reception.
“You’re all mine now, Esme.” He pulled her close as he whispered to her.
She drew a deep sigh. “It’s true. I’m all yours. But don’t forget the two springs, a half-mile of Honey Creek river-front, and four hundred eighteen acres that I bring with me.”
“And a house.” Luke’s hands drifted down to the small of her back. “Don’t forget the house with a new roof. I’m going to make that land profitable for us. Your uncle was a brilliant man, an intellectual, but not the best rancher.” He nuzzled her neck, nipping the tender skin playfully.
“Everybody wants that ranch. You’re not the only cowboy around interested in my land. I had several gentlemen in San Antonio on the string. Gentlemen too,” she teased, “Not rogues who stoop to practically stealing me.”
Luke frowned. “You’re talking about those friends of your father’s?”
Esme nodded. She bit her lip in an effort to repress her amusement. Always, she had been on the receiving end of his teasing, and she enjoyed the glint of jealousy she saw in his eyes. He hadn’t professed his love to her, not when he proposed or at any time today, and as a result she found herself seeking some sign of affection from him, even if it was only jealousy.
He twirled her around as though music still played, pulled her back into his arms, and pressed a firm kiss on her mouth. He narrowed his eyes. “You and I belong together. That’s why I stole you. I should have stolen you a long time ago.”
Esme searched his eyes, wondering if he meant those words because of affection for her or because of their shared property lines. He drew her toward their remaining guests. The tables, illuminated by lanterns, dozens of them that the boys had helped set out before the wedding, were surrounded by the boys and a few guests who looked as though they had little intention of leaving soon. All sat in a circle around Nolan, who was finishing an outlandish tale about the ghost of a wild bronc haunting the sand flats by the creek.
“What do I need to do to get these people to go home?” Luke grumbled, looking at the last guests with irritation. “If Nolan keeps feeding them liquor, they’ll be here for breakfast.”
Nolan began a new story, one about how he proposed to Loretta from the window of a hospital in Fort Worth. Esme couldn’t hear the details, but a roar of laughter extended beyond the boys who lingered nearby. When the story was done, Nolan held an empty whiskey bottle out to Maria who jumped to her feet to fetch him a replacement from a nearby table.
“They sure don’t put as much in these bottles as they used to!” Nolan proclaimed, taking the full one from Maria.
One of the men pulled out a
deck of cards. The boys, all seven, joined the adults. They pulled up chairs and argued about what type of poker was the best.
“Don’t you know it’s bad manners to be the last to leave a wedding reception?” Luke asked as he approached the card players hand in hand with Esme.
Nolan looked over at Luke. His eyes widened. “What the hell you two still doing here?”
Luke felt his irritation mount as he watched Nolan pour several other old-timers a generous belt of Luke’s best whiskey. Where was Loretta, he wondered, looking into shadows for a sign of the woman who could always be counted on to cut Nolan’s whiskey with a little water to slow him down. Luke didn’t especially like his foreman drinking in front of the boys, but at least he didn’t drink like he did before he married Loretta. Still it was still entirely possible for Luke to find him on the den couch, passed out after a night of drinking and banished by his wife from their house.
Luke decided to let it go. Nolan was already gaining momentum on a new tale, and the boys were more interested in the game of Five-Card Stud than listening to more of Nolan’s yarn.
Let them have their fun, Luke thought, drawing his wife near, and away from the cluster of tables. He’d spent the entire afternoon, an eternity it felt like, playing host with friends and neighbors, smiling, and conversing with them when all he really wanted was for everyone to leave early. If there were a few leftover guests, and if Nolan was intent on drinking into the wee hours of the morning, Luke wouldn’t worry. Not tonight. Not on his wedding night. He was ready to have his beautiful bride all to himself.
“Mrs. Crosby and I are retiring for the evening,” he called over his shoulder. “Ya’all can find your way home.”
Luke didn’t wait to hear their responses. Grasping her hand, he drew her away from the noise and toward the house. They walked up the path as dusk settled.
Loretta hurried past them with a tray of sandwiches, cookies and a pitcher of what Luke hoped was lemonade. She halted on the path and turned back to them. “I had Consuelo leave a tray of sandwiches in your room. I’m going to go play cards, unless you need me.” The last bit was directed to Esme. Loretta gave her a pointed look to communicate motherly concern. “Esme?” she added to make her offer perfectly clear.
