Not Another New Year's (Holiday Duet Book 2)
Page 27
"That?" Kitty repeated. Inside the frame was a needlework piece dated 1852. She thought it really belonged in her great-aunt's house, preferably buried in a box in the attic, but Aunt Cat always insisted it be displayed in the brothel parlor.
"Yes, that," the young man said. "What is it?"
Kitty cleared her throat against a tide of rising nervousness. She was so close, so close. "It was stitched by one of the original owners, named Rose," she answered quickly. "She was the older of a pair of sisters who came to Hot Water from New Orleans."
Her heart started banging harder against her breastbone as all eyes swiveled to read the words stitched on the square of buff-colored linen. In precise and delicate embroidery, they stated: Wilder Women Don't Wed And They Don't Run.
"But what's that saying mean?" Mr. Persistent asked. "They 'Don't Wed'?"
Kitty didn't dare look toward the back of the room as she carefully picked her words. "The miners were desperate for wives." No reason to mention how desperate, or the little custom they'd devised to lure women into matrimony.
"And, um, despite their reputation as 'soiled doves,'" she went on, "the women of The Burning Rose received their share of proposals. Marriage, though, would have meant surrendering their lucrative livelihood and their independence. So Rose indicated right up front how things stood."
The room went silent and Kitty held her breath. Then, as the silence continued, she started to relax. If her OSM had been planning to say anything…awkward, that would have been the perfect opening.
End of Sample Chapter
Sample Chapter: Then Comes Marriage
By Christie Ridgway
CHAPTER ONE
Humming "Here Comes the Bride" to bolster her flagging spirits, Honor Witherspoon marched toward the emphatically closed gate in the twelve-foot-high rock wall surrounding the home of her brand-new husband.
There was some doubt in her mind that he would let her in.
Honor blamed that doubt on the grim set to the groom's hard mouth and the icy green of his eyes during the brief ceremony at the courthouse that morning. Or maybe it was because of his obvious impatience with the county clerk, who then took her time faxing the proof of marriage Honor's father had required.
Certainly the doubt's seed had flowered when Honor had volunteered to retrieve her belongings from her small rented cottage alone. So as not to inconvenience her husband any further, she'd explained at her most charming. If she'd expected him to politely insist he accompany her (and she had), then his instant grunt of agreement would have rendered immediate disappointment—except that she refused to acknowledge so negative an emotion.
However, if she'd known her car would choose this afternoon to have a cardiac arrest, she would most certainly have demanded his escort, or at the very least she would have worn flat shoes and blue jeans. But lacking psychic powers or mechanical know-how, she was left to make the trek from disabled vehicle to isolated destination in sandals suited only for starring in Vogue layouts and Rodeo Drive window displays.
Every time she planted a foot, her three-inch spiked heel wriggled as it tried to find purchase in the thin layer of dusty needles and candy-corn-colored leaves that had fallen from the pines, maples, and sycamores lining the long private drive. With every step the monogrammed tapestry suitcases she gripped in each fist swung awkwardly as she tried to prevent their overpacked weight from creasing the elegant yet understated Oscar de la Renta shift she'd selected as post-wedding wear.
Not until every little piggy was squealing in pain did Honor at last reach the unwelcoming, still-closed gate. She dropped her luggage in a puddle of shade and flexed her cramped and sweaty palms. Then she hooked a pinkie over her wraparound sunglasses and slid them off to study the button an arm's reach away. It was nearly hidden in the rockwork beside the gate, which was twenty fierce-looking feet of peeled logs lashed tightly together with iron bands. She presumed pressing the button would alert Bram Bennett to her arrival at the house the locals had nicknamed—very aptly, it seemed—the "Fortress."
Honor dropped her sunglasses atop a suitcase to reach for the tea-sandwich-sized purse slung bandolier style across her breasts. No reason not to take a few minutes and undo some of the damage done by the early October warmth, she told herself. It wasn't stalling, or anything cowardly like that.
But then she hesitated, wondering if her new husband's obsession with security didn't mean cameras installed at his gate. Thinking that it probably did, she snapped the purse shut.
"You don't want him deciding you're shallow or silly or vain," she muttered to herself. Though was it really so shallow or silly or vain to want one's husband to think one was … presentable?
No, it was dumb, she thought, answering her own question. Her new husband didn't give a flying fig whether Honor looked presentable, pretty, or outright ugly. Her father had forced them to wed.
As she made herself step up to the button, she smothered a small pang of regret. Though she'd harbored the usual white-lace-and-promises wedding fantasy, in the grand scheme of life's thunderbolts an unwanted marriage wasn't that bad. Eventually her father would see reason and allow them to dissolve it. Until then, she would convince her husband to look on the bright side of the situation as she did: It was an interesting way to make a new acquaintance.
Without further hesitation, she punched the button with a freshly French-manicured nail. Nothing happened.
Accustomed to the uncooperation of anything electrical, she released a short sigh and poked the button once more. Still nothing happened. Honor huffed a second time.
Then, from the bushy undergrowth nearby, came a loud rustle.
Her heart bucked hard. The rustle sounded again—someone was moving up behind her! Pulse accelerating to freeway speed, she whirled to confront—
Nothing.
The panic dissipated slowly. Too slowly. Annoyed with herself, Honor spun back and plucked off a sandal, giving it a last chance to prove worthy of its designer price tag—she used the painful thing to whack the balking button.
Something rumbled, soft but deep.
Honor's heart tripped again, but then she realized the noise was the sound of the gate sliding open. In the time that it took for her to step back into her sandal, though, the contraption of peeled logs lurched off its track and abruptly stopped, leaving an opening of eight askew inches.
Shaking her head, she stepped to it and squeezed through. Quick impressions bombarded her: more trees and a winding stream; a rustic house of rock and logs, its Daniel Boone-style fashioned on a Paul Bunyan scale. Then, over the cheery gurgle of that stream splashing over stones, came a deep, threatening growl.
Honor froze as the growl sounded again. Woods, log house, stream, all led to one thought: Bear. Her head snapped right. She gaped at a snarling creature eyeing her from ten yards away, and her second thought was even more startling.
Scooby Doo?
Scooby Doo. The prerequisite huge head, perky ears, large size. But while cartoon character Scooby smiled when he opened his mouth, this, this…thing was baring its metal teeth at her. Metal teeth, because the whole darn dog was exactly that. Made of metal. It appeared to be an overgrown, homelier version of the robotic dogs that had been the hot kids' toy three Christmases back.
Before she could grasp the situation more fully, the huge creature slowly started toward her. It rolled along the flagstone drive on little wheels attached to the end of its long metal legs. Still emitting that low, threatening grrr, its mouth opened and shut, teeth snapping like the jaws of a trap.
Her gaze glued to the approaching figure, Honor cautiously stepped back. "Nice boy," she called out. "Nice, nice boy."
The metal thing paused, then gave an even louder snarl, amber lights glinting from eye sockets in its huge, pewter-colored head.
Honor swallowed, sensing the timber gate behind her and its skinny opening to her right. Should she go?
No. Her palms pressing against the peeled logs behind her, she held her g
round. She'd survived monsters far more terrifying than this during the kidnapping.
The satanic Scooby edged nearer, now a mere eight feet away. Honor crowded closer against the gate, quickly searching her mind for tips about confronting strange dogs and wondering if said tips applied to strange cyborg dogs.
Then the thing gave another throaty growl. It seemed to gather itself to spring. Honor threw up her arm to protect her face and braced for impact.
Instead, the only thing that hit her was the resounding crash and clatter of metal hitting flagstone. Her arm dropped, her eyes opened, and she looked down to find a heap of cyborg Scooby at her feet. The creature lay on its side, its amber eyes flickering to opaque black screens. It gave a jerk, a whimpering moan, and then went motionless.
Stunned by the sight, Honor was still staring at it when a pair of scuffed, rugged boots strode into her field of vision and halted beside Scooby's slack-jawed metal snout. Honor lifted her head.
Her new husband had changed clothes since the wedding too, out of a sober suit and into washed-to-the-point-of-whiteness jeans and a plain T-shirt. Both well matched the offhand air of his worn footwear. The only thing the least bit spiffy-looking about him was the streamlined palmtop computer he held in one hand. Bram Bennett obviously hadn't cared about dressing to impress her.
Self-conscious heat rolling up her neck, Honor straightened her spine and resisted the urge to smooth the wrinkles in her linen dress. She resolutely pinned on a friendly smile. "Hello, Bram. As you can see, I made it."
His gaze moved slowly off the mangled metal at her feet to meet hers. The angles and planes of his face hardened with unmistakable unfriendliness and his eyes went arctic. "You…"he said, his rough voice making the words as abrasive as sandpaper against bare skin, "you killed my dog."
Following Bram's stiff back in the direction of the house, Honor faced the fact that his accusation of crime against canine probably indicated he wasn't on the same why-can't-we-be-friends page that she was.
Still fixed on the goal of getting him there, though, she allowed herself a single sigh, then spared a glance over her shoulder at the heap of metal still lying by the gate. "I'm, uh, sorry," she said.
Again.
He grunted in reply.
Again.
His crisp footsteps snapped against the wooden slats of a footbridge that crossed the stream running through the expansive, tree-doffed front grounds. Beyond the five words earlier, he hadn't said anything at all. He'd silently retrieved her suitcases after her brief explanation of her car-lessness. He hadn't commented on the off-kilter gate either, just muscled the heavy thing back on its track to slide it closed.
Though Honor had jumped at the loud, final-sounding clang of the heavy gate locking behind her, Bram had brushed by her without a word and strode toward the house. Apparently, bringing a new wife into his life didn't cause the merest ripple in his still waters.
She gave another guilty glance at the remains of cyborg Scooby. "That, um, thing back there," she began, trying to sound supportive. Upbeat. "It probably just needs a new battery or something."
Turning his head, he sent her a long, cold look.
Refusing to be squelched, she took another stab at starting conversation. "So … um … what do you call it?"
They were climbing the front steps to the porch now, a half dozen of them that were long stretches of smooth wood with rugged stone piers on either side. "Its name is Fifo," Bram answered.
"Fifo?" Now that her husband was finally making noises beyond grunting, she didn't think she should laugh. "As in Fido? It has an actual name? But … but what exactly is its function?"
She herself had always dreamed of having a dog, some needy mongrel to love, but she didn't think that was Fido's—er, Fifo's —purpose.
Bram set her suitcases near the double front doors and reached into his pocket to retrieve his custom-looking palmtop. "Its name, Fifo, is a computer programming term that stands for 'first in, first out.'" He glanced at her. "As to its function, it's security, of course. It's the first generation of a robotic guard dog I'm developing."
"Ah." Honor nodded, stifling a second urge to laugh. A robotic guard dog? But Bram was perfectly serious, that's for sure. Bram Bennett was always perfectly serious. Even though she hadn't been in Hot Water long, town gossip and her own brief observation confirmed that. "A guard dog. I suppose the ordinary Doberman or German shepherd variety is too—"
"Unpredictable. They can't be completely controlled." He turned away and pressed something on the handheld unit that caused the front doors to swing silently open. Then he grabbed up the suitcases and stepped through. "Close them behind you, please."
Palms going clammy, Honor stood where she was, eyeing the interior. It appeared positively murky in contrast to the bright sunshine outdoors, too sharp a reminder of the wine cellar that had recently served as her dank and dark personal hell.
After a moment, Bram reappeared in the doorway, shadows casting a diagonal slice of darkness across his face. "What's wrong?"
She stared at him, noting his ruthlessly cut dark hair and the equally ruthless angles and planes of his cheeks and jaw. Though she'd occasionally glimpsed him from afar about town, their wedding had been their first actual meeting. Since her father had coerced them both into nuptials during a three-point, three-way conference call, today was the closest she'd ever been to Bram's six-plus feet of lean, hard body.
It didn't take much imagination to picture him in camouflage paint, moving stealthily through a danger-filled jungle. He was attractive, she supposed, if one wasn't intimidated by all that stony commando coolness.
Which of course she wasn't.
She wiped her palms on her dress. Pinning on another social smile, she tried to forget intimidation and imprisoning darkness and follow him into the shadows.
Only to hesitate again.
His dark brows drew up and something suspiciously like a sneer curled his upper lip. "If you're waiting for a red carpet, princess, I didn't have the time to order one. Your daddy's ultimatum caught me by surprise."
Princess. Honor flushed at the little dig. "My father caught me by surprise too."
"What, he doesn't buy you every cute little town you get a hankering for?"
Honor felt her cheeks go hotter. After the kidnapping, Warren Witherspoon hadn't protested when she moved to this tiny town in northern California. In fact, he'd even bought two stakes in the community—Bram's company, Enigma, and also the town's six-block historic district, which was now hers to manage. But when a foreign ambassadorship had been offered to him, her father's imminent move out of the country had made him obsessed with Honor's safety.
In his typical bullheaded, feelings-last fashion, her father had promised to be the economic ruin of the town if they didn't wed. Couldn't Bram see that she'd been as neatly trapped as he?
She tried another smile. "It's only going to last a few months, I swear. Three months, four tops."
"That long?"
Something about his cynical expression made her reckless. "Six weeks, then. In six weeks he'll know as I do—that in Hot Water I'm perfectly safe. Until then…"
"Then until, what—mid-November?—you plan to intrude upon my privacy and solitude."
Again, his put-upon tone stung. "You should have chimed in when I was trying to convince my father you could handle the job without me living at your house and without us being married," she said. "That was not the time to hone your strong and silent act."
The angle of the sun had changed. Bram's face was now completely shadowed and his voice was harsher than before. "Your father mentioned that a man would go to any lengths to protect his wife. Not only couldn't I counter that argument, but I have some…compassion for it."
Honor's heart squeezed and her irritation evaporated. Bram had a very good reason for that compassion. "It won't be so bad," she promised, rubbing that sympathetic ache in her chest and thinking of the friends angle again. "I have it all figured out."
Honor peered once again through the yawning, dim doorway. Ignoring the anxiety trying to clutch at her stomach, she inhaled a fortifying breath and straightened her shoulders. Hadn't she just declared herself perfectly safe in Hot Water? To the depths of her soul she believed that. It was, perhaps, the only belief she had faith in anymore.
With one determined stride, she crossed the threshold.
It took a few more steps for her eyes to adjust to the change in light. Once they did, she found herself stunned for the second time that day. Nobody in town seemed to have firsthand knowledge of Bram's home, so she'd assumed it would be as cold and uninviting as Bram himself. But instead, the decor was just plain unexpected.
Like the outside, the interior walls were honey-colored log, the chinks between them sealed with a material of matching color. To the left of the small foyer was an informal dining area filled with a rustic French farm table. Through a doorway beyond it, she glimpsed a large kitchen, complete with copper pots hanging from an iron rack.
Bram had turned right, though, and Honor followed him now, into what she'd term a "great" room. It had soaring ceilings, with windows stretching from the hardwood floor to reach heavy, exposed beams. The expanses of glass let in light and wide views of the trees, stream, and a massive back deck with more forest beyond. The furniture was big too, heavy pieces velvet-upholstered in shades from sand to goldenrod. Their color warmed the room and their size went well with the mammoth stone fireplace anchoring one wall. Framed above it were two brightly colored, intricately embroidered Chinese robes, probably gained from some long-ago barter between a Chinese immigrant and a Bennett ancestor.
Honor drew closer to them and the mix of objects on the thick, log-slab mantel below. A gold miner's pan, metal sides battered and pocked with use; a hand-lettered sign, red paint faded and flaking, that read, BENNETT'S DRY GOODS, EST. 1853; a framed photo—the original of a copy she'd seen in tourist brochures—that depicted downtown Hot Water in the height of its gold boom.