Marianne's Marriage of Convenience

by Lynna Banning

  Her footsteps slowed and then stopped altogether as another thought struck her. Now that she and Lance were married, were husband and wife and living together in the same tiny apartment, would he kiss her again?

  She stumbled blindly on toward Collingwood Boots. Abe met her at the door of the shop. “Mr. Lance, he’s upstairs,” he said, punching his forefinger toward the ceiling. “And, Miss Marianne, Ah shore do hope you like what we went and done.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Lance watched Marianne’s face as she came through the apartment door. She stared at the cot arrangement he and Abe had devised, and her eyes widened. Then she got the oddest look on her face. She glanced up at him for a split second, then instantly turned her gaze back to the cots. “I don’t understand, Lance. When I left, that was just a single cot. Now it’s…”

  “Abe thought we needed a bigger bed,” he explained. “You’re looking at both the old cot and Abe’s cot. We carried it upstairs just before you came in.”

  She surveyed the two cots now sitting side by side to make a double bed of sorts. “But what is Abe sleeping on?”

  “He made up a pallet on his floor. Wouldn’t take no for an answer, either. He said a man only gets married once and that we, um, we shouldn’t waste it.”

  Marianne’s cheeks turned the prettiest shade of pink. She turned toward the kitchen where he had cobbled together a simple supper of cheese sandwiches and slabs of apple pie he had brought from the restaurant.

  “Oh.” Her voice shook the slightest bit. “That was thoughtful of him.”

  Her face was a study, the pink in her cheeks darkening to rose, her green eyes pensive. He’d give anything to know what she was thinking.

  “Where did you go when you slipped out of here this afternoon?” he asked.

  “The mercantile.”

  “Yeah? What for? Thought we already bought out Ness’s supply of soap and bleach.”

  She bit her lower lip. “I… Well, I bought some yard goods and a notepad and some pencils to work on our business plan.”

  “You were gone over an hour. That’s all you bought, pencils and paper?”

  “I… I also looked at the Montgomery Ward catalog.”

  “What for?”

  She studied the floor, then focused on the bare windows over the sink. Finally her gaze moved to the two cots he and Abe had shoved together. “I ordered a bed. When it’s delivered, we can arrange a cot next to it to make one, um, big bed.”

  Lance stared at her while a bubble of something fizzy swirled around in his brain. “One big bed,” he repeated. Hot damn! One big bed! All at once he wanted to shout hallelujah.

  Right before his eyes she blushed an even deeper shade of pink. “Of course,” she said in that no-nonsense tone he knew so well.

  He knew better than to press her, so he just nodded. “Are you hungry? I made a couple of cheese sandwiches.”

  “Yes, I’m starving. I worked up quite an appetite at the mercantile.” She didn’t explain why. Seated across from each other at the round walnut table, they devoured the sandwiches without further conversation. Every so often he glanced at her face, but she’d gone back to her stonewall expression, which told him absolutely nothing about what she might be thinking.

  Then without a word of explanation she set the plates in the sink, reseated herself at the table and bent over a notepad. Every so often she tapped her pencil against her teeth and gazed off into space. She looked like she was turning something over and over in her mind, but she didn’t explain what it was, and he was too smart to ask. It never paid to push Marianne when she was preoccupied.

  Lance watched her chew on her pencil and scribble sporadically in the notepad until he couldn’t stand it any longer. “Marianne, what in blazes are you doing?”

  She sent him an exasperated look. “I’m doing what I said I would do this morning. Working out a business plan for the shop.”

  “It must be really complicated,” he said. “You’ve crumpled up at least twenty of those note pages so far.”

  She ripped off another sheet, squashed that up as well, and tossed it down to join the field of white paper snowballs littering the floor.

  “Making any progress?” he asked cautiously.

  She didn’t even glance up. “Some.”

  “Need any help?” He was going to say “advice,” but he thought better of it. But the instant the word “help” left his mouth he realized that, too, was a mistake. “Help” was something he had never once seen Marianne seek. She was always so convinced she knew better than everyone else that nobody ever bothered to risk an opinion.

  To be fair, that was because she was usually right. Mrs. Schneiderman’s boardinghouse ran like an efficient clock on a strict no-nonsense schedule, and he knew without a doubt that old Mrs. Schneiderman had little to do with the success of her establishment.

  But nobody could be perfect all the time, even Marianne. No matter what anyone at the boardinghouse had thought, Marianne was only human. And she knew nothing about the business of making boots.

  Squish-squash went another sheet of notepaper. With a groan she bent over the table, twiddling her tooth-marked pencil between her thumb and first finger. Lance pulled out his pocketknife, gathered up a fistful of the dull pencils scattered over the kitchen table and whittled on them until their points were sharp once more.

  He stared at the empty coffeepot she’d unpacked and set on the stove. Marianne was so preoccupied he knew if he wanted a cup of coffee he’d have to make it himself. He rummaged around in the cabinet under the sink, found the coffee beans in a tin canister, located the coffee mill and filled the pot with water. Then he realized the stove was stone cold.

  He grabbed the coffeepot and clattered down the stairs. “Abe, can I set this to boil on your stove?”

  The man nodded and lifted it out of his hand. “Might not be polite to ask, but what’s Miss Marianne doin’?”

  “She’s…thinking.”

  Abe pursed his lips. “That right?”

  “Yeah. She’s been doing that a lot lately. Usually she’s pretty good at thinking, so I can’t guess what’s got her so stumped tonight.”

  Abe studied him for a moment. “Mebbe it’s the Collingwood Boots business,” he suggested.

  Lance nodded, and the two men’s eyes met. “Listen,” Abe said after a moment. “You go on back upstairs an’ keep Miss Marianne company, all right? I’ll bring up the coffee when it’s ready.”

  Upstairs, Lance found Marianne pacing back and forth in front of the china cabinet, a sharpened pencil clenched between her teeth. He took one look at her, scooped four more pencils with the lead worn down off the table and whittled them to a point, too.

  “Thank you,” she murmured.

  He smiled at her, but she wasn’t looking at him. He watched her for a few moments, then decided he needed to do something else besides stare at her, wondering what she was up to. He wrenched his gaze away from her and turned his attention to their living quarters.

  She had spent all afternoon unpacking the heavy trunk he and Sammy had lugged upstairs, and he had to admit the place looked far more homey now than it did yesterday. Plates and cups were neatly stacked in the china cabinet. In the armoire he found his shirts and two pairs of jeans hanging next to her yellow wedding dress and the green travel suit she’d worn on the train. One drawer in the bureau in the corner held his socks and clean drawers.

  When he slid open the other drawer he almost choked. Marianne’s lacy-looking camisoles and underdrawers were arranged in neat, soft-looking rows. Staring down at them made his groin swell. He resisted an impulse to run his fingers over them and wrenched his gaze away.

  In the far corner stood a folding screen he’d not noticed before, but before he could peek behind it, Abe rapped at the door and handed him the coffeepot. “Made it real strong,” the older man confided. “Figured ya might need it.”

  Lance filled a cup for Marianne and set it on the table near her elbow, then pour
ed one for himself and settled in the straight-backed chair across from her with one of Abe’s dime novels titled Riders of Red River. Marianne went on scribbling away on her notepad and ignored the coffee.

  He took a sip of the brew and winced. Abe wasn’t kidding about making it strong! He downed two big gulps and opened the book. The only sound was the ticking of the alarm clock on the top shelf of the china cabinet and the occasional rustle of Marianne crumpling up notepaper.

  He’d give a silver dollar to know what she was doing, but he’d learned at Mrs. Schneiderman’s not to interrupt Marianne when she was figuring something out. Once when he’d forgotten this unspoken rule and asked what she was doing, he hadn’t got any dessert that night.

  The outside light faded to gray-blue twilight, and after a while he got up to light the kerosene lamp and set it down on the table between them. Marianne worked on, scratching notes all over fresh sheets of paper and muttering to herself while Lance read about gun-toting rustlers and impossibly brave cowboys. Every once in a while he looked up to find her head still bent over her notepad. Sitting across from each other without talking, they probably looked like an old married couple, he thought wryly.

  Except that…

  He shot a glance at the double cot arrangement he and Abe had come up with this afternoon. The longer he looked at it, the warmer he felt. A single blue-flowered quilt covered both cots, but he knew the bed was divided down the middle, and that would keep Marianne plenty separate from him. Still, they would be close together. All night.

  He wondered if thinking about their sleeping arrangement made her as nervous as it was making him. Maybe not. She’d flabbergasted him last night in their hotel room when she’d stood before him buck naked and dripping wet. It didn’t seem to unnerve her, but it had sure unnerved him!

  He went back to his novel and tried to concentrate on the rustlers and the posse chasing them.

  Around midnight she suddenly flapped her notebook shut and stood up with a sigh. “I am completely exhausted,” she announced. “I can’t put one more idea into my brain tonight, so I’m going to bed to get some sleep.”

  Lance’s belly flip-flopped. He was right in the middle of a fistfight between the hero and the outlaw, and he didn’t really want to close the book, but the thought of going to bed with Marianne was pretty tempting.

  She leaned across the table and studied him. “What are you reading?”

  “One of Abe’s dime novels. Pretty exciting stuff.”

  “Is it a good story?”

  Lance nodded without losing his place. “Gotta see how this fight ends.”

  He heard nothing more until she sat down on one of the cots and it squeaked. He looked up and lost his place.

  She was wearing her long white nightgown, and she’d let her hair down. It hung past her shoulders in dark, shiny waves, and Lance clenched his jaw and dropped his gaze to the floor. God, her bare toes were peeking out from under the hem of her gown! His groin started to ache.

  With a tired sigh she sank on to one side of the bed and curled up under the quilt. As much as he wanted to find out how the fight between Slim and Injun Joe ended, the prospect of lying anywhere near Marianne tonight drove all other thoughts from his mind. He puffed out the lamp, stripped down to his drawers, and crawled on to the cot next to her.

  She was asleep before he could even say good-night.

  Disappointment warred with frustration. He folded his arms under his head and lay staring up at the exposed timber beams. Guess we really do have a marriage of convenience, like she says.

  Finally he couldn’t keep his eyes open and drifted off to sleep, only to be awakened hours later by a hoarse scream.

  “That’s it!” Marianne bolted straight up in bed. “That’s it!”

  Half asleep, Lance rolled toward her and sat up. “What’s ‘it’?”

  “I just figured out the perfect business plan!” She flopped back down on her side of the bed, and with a little satisfied humming sound she was instantly asleep again.

  Lance had a sudden suspicion that he wasn’t going to like her “perfect business plan” any more than he liked his marriage of convenience. The way things were going he figured he’d never have the chance to even kiss her again.

  An hour later it was his turn to jerk upright with an idea. Marianne had a business plan, did she? Well maybe he had come up with a plan, too. A seduction plan.

  He lay back down with a wide smile on his face.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The next morning when Lance went downstairs Abe took one look at him, handed him a tack hammer and sent him a knowing grin. “Didn’t get much sleep last night, huh? Guess them double cots are workin’ out all right.”

  “You’re right, Abe. I didn’t get much sleep last night, but not for the reason you’re thinking.”

  Abe’s grin widened. “Oh, sure. An’ chickens on a hot day lay fried eggs. No need to shilly-shay around the bush, son. Not with me, anyway, ’cuz I know all about it.”

  Sammy Greywolf set aside the piece of calfskin he was cutting and looked up. “All about what?”

  “All about women,” Abe answered. He sent the boy a speculative look. “You know about women, do ya, Sammy?”

  Sammy’s blush turned his skin a darker shade. “I know about girls, if that’s what you mean. Don’t know much about women, I guess.”

  Lance caught Abe’s twinkly dark eyes. “How old are you, Sammy?”

  “I’ll be fourteen in November, Mr. Burnside.”

  “Tha’s plenty old enough,” Abe said. “I know ya ain’t got a pa, Sammy. Did yer momma ever talk to you ’bout them things?”

  The boy’s black eyebrows pulled into a frown. “What things? You mean about moving your cot upstairs so Lance and Miss Marianne can—?”

  “Yeah,” Abe said quickly. “Them things.”

  Lance set down the tack hammer with a decisive snick. “Look here, Abe. I didn’t get much sleep last night because I was reading that damn novel you lent me, Riders of Red River.”

  “Oh, sure, son,” the older man said in a skeptical tone. “I believe ya.”

  “Well, it’s the truth.”

  “Them double cots aren’t doin’ much fer your marriage, seein’ as how you stay up all night readin’ ’stead of doin’…other things. You might want to borry a few more of my dime novels. I got dozens of ’em. The mercantile sells them books by the crate.”

  “Can I read some?” Sammy asked. “All Ma’s got at home is the Bible and the newspapers she saves from Miss Jessamine at the Sentinel.”

  “Sammy, kin you read?” Abe asked.

  The boy looked startled. “Read! Sure I can read. I was top of my class in reading, tied with Annamarie Panovsky. You got some books I can read, Abe?”

  Abe shot a look at Lance. “Well, I dunno. Might be too much S-E-X in ’em for a boy who’s only thirteen.”

  “I can spell, too!” Sammy said indignantly. “And I know about sex because Ma explained all about it.”

  Lance chuckled. “Just ‘knowing all about it’ isn’t enough,” he said very quietly.

  “I got sharp ears, too, Mr. Burnside,” Sammy shot back. “How come knowing about it isn’t enough?”

  “Yeah, Mr. Burnside,” Abe echoed with a sly smile. “How come knowin’ all about it ain’t enough?”

  Lance caught the old man’s gaze. “Mind your own business, Abe.”

  “Hell’s half acre, son,” Abe snorted. “It is my business! That’s my cot you say you’re not gettin’ any sleep on.”

  Lance sent a significant glance toward Sammy, but it did no good. Once Abe got something between his teeth he was like a hungry terrier with a steak bone. “Abe,” he said patiently, knowing Sammy was curious about what was going on in the S-E-X department, “Marianne spent most of the night working on her new business plan, and I was reading Riders of Red River. Didn’t leave much time for…other things.”

  A puzzled expression crossed Sammy’s face, but Abe sent him a
sharp look, and the boy resumed his leather cutting. Abe stepped closer to Lance. “Ya mean no time a t’all fer ‘other things’?” he murmured. “None?”

  Lance hesitated. “That’s right. None.”

  “Somethin’ ain’t right about that.” He raised an eyebrow at Lance and beckoned him out the back door, beyond Sammy’s hearing. “Son, ya been married three days an’ you’re not yet—?”

  Lance let out a long sigh. “Look, Abe, Marianne and I have, uh, a special arrangement. It’s what you’d call a marriage of convenience. That means we don’t—”

  “Marriage of convenience? Horse feathers!”

  Lance grimaced. “Well, you may be right there, Abe, but we—”

  “Nuh-uh,” Abe interrupted. “I seen the way you look at Miss Marianne. An’ I seen the way she looks at you when you’re not watchin’. Ya better wise up, son, ’cuz your eyesight ain’t too good.”

  Lance blew out an exasperated breath. “You ever been married, Abe?”

  “Heck, yes. Four times. So I know somethin’ about it, see?”

  Lance frowned. “You’ve been married four times?”

  Abe dug the toe of his boot into the ground. “Yep, that’s what I said. My first wife died of the cholera down in Texas. Second wife divorced me for smokin’ in her prissy clean kitchen. Third wife died havin’ my baby. An’ my fourth wife, she jest run off somewhere after a couple of years and I never heard from her again.”

  Lance studied the man more closely. The grin was gone now, and in its place was a steady, tight-lipped look and a bruised expression in his dark eyes.

  “Why d’ya think I work so hard makin’ all them fancy boots?” Abe said in a subdued tone. “Keeps my mind off wives and things.”

  Lance knew enough to keep quiet at that point. Instead he reached out and gripped Abe’s bony shoulder in a wordless gesture of sympathy.

  “’Nuff said, I reckon,” Abe muttered. “Guess both you’n me got the woman mis’ry, huh?”