The Bridegroom

by Linda Lael Miller

  Rowdy spoke again. “I’d tell you to forget this mining job you’ve signed on for—I don’t know why you’d want it anyway, with your education and experience working for Pinkerton Agency and then Wells Fargo—and light out of here, pronto. But I think you did what you did because you have strong feelings for Lydia Fairmont, and that’s something a man should never run away from.”

  “Amen,” Wyatt said. “I’d be dead by now, if it hadn’t been for Sarah.”

  Gideon raised his head, squared his shoulders. Whatever he felt for Lydia—a desire to protect her, mostly, he supposed—it wasn’t like what Rowdy had with Lark, or what Wyatt had with Sarah.

  “I’ll talk to her,” he said, after a long time, getting to his feet.

  Rowdy glanced at the clock—it was a little after eight. “Don’t wait too long,” he advised. “Lydia’s had herself quite a day, and she’ll likely want to turn in soon.”

  Gideon nodded glumly, started for the door.

  Wyatt was fixing to leave, too, while Rowdy banked the fire in the potbellied stove. Neither of them had drunk so much as a drop of that coffee they’d set such store by, Gideon noticed.

  “Sarah will be watching the road for me,” Wyatt said. Then he grinned. “If there’s about to be a wedding, though, maybe I ought to stay around and see what happens this time.”

  Although nothing was funny to Gideon at that moment, most especially weddings, he still gave a raspy chuckle as he stepped out onto the sidewalk.

  Rowdy whistled for the dog and caught up to him in a few strides. Wyatt had a horse waiting, so he swung into the saddle and reined toward home.

  As much as he’d jabbered inside the jailhouse, Rowdy didn’t say a thing as he and Gideon and the dog named Pardner headed for the big stone house at the end of a tree-lined lane behind the marshal’s office. Lights glowed in all the windows, and the sight made Gideon yearn to belong in such a place, like Rowdy, to have a wife watching the road for him, the way Sarah watched for Wyatt. Maybe even a few kids and a dog of his own.

  Instead, he was about to face a woman who had every reason to want him lynched.

  THE YARBRO HOUSE WAS BIG, though not nearly as big as Lydia’s home in Phoenix—her former home, that is. The furnishings were simple, the ornaments few and sturdy, and little wonder with four high-spirited children chasing each other through the spacious, uncluttered rooms—and another little Yarbro on the way, by the looks of Lark’s burgeoning middle.

  When Lydia had first known Lark, as her teacher, Lark’s hair had been dark, but now it was almost the color of honey. Even as an eight-year-old, with problems aplenty of her own, Lydia had sensed that “Miss Morgan” was unhappy, and running away from something—or someone. Evidently, Lark had been trying to disguise herself back then—changing the color of her hair had been a drastic measure, one no respectable woman would undertake without good reason.

  The dilemma, whatever it was, had apparently been resolved—Lydia wouldn’t have presumed to ask any personal questions in order to find out, though she burned to know—with Lark’s marriage to Rowdy. Lydia had never seen such serenity in a woman’s face and bearing as she did in Lark Yarbro’s, even with a houseful of unexpected company.

  Lark had immediately lent Lydia a dress, as well as a nightgown for later, since Helga had packed only her most prized personal mementos. Lark had served them all supper, keeping plates warm in the oven for Rowdy and Gideon, and graciously settled the aunts, both mute with exhaustion and residual excitement, in a guest room on the main floor.

  Lydia and Helga would be sharing the double bed in a small chamber behind the kitchen—Helga, like the aunts, had retired immediately after supper, utterly worn out and still defiantly pleased with her part in the disasters of the day.

  “You’re so grown up, Lydia,” Lark sighed, as they sat at the kitchen table, having after-supper cups of tea. “It’s wonderful to see you again.”

  Lydia blushed. “The circumstances leave something to be desired, you must admit.”

  Lark smiled at that, shook her head. Lydia had told her the story of her interrupted wedding—she’d had to, arriving at the woman’s door in a bridal gown the way she had. And what details she’d left out, Helga and the aunts had hurried to provide.

  They seemed to think this was all some grandly romantic adventure.

  Lydia, apparently the only one still in possession of her senses, knew it for the calamity it was.

  “These Yarbro men,” Lark said. “A woman never knows what to expect next.”

  “I certainly didn’t expect to be abducted on my wedding day,” Lydia said, but now that some of the panic had subsided, along with the shock, she’d admitted the truth, at least to herself. She was glad Gideon had kept her from marrying Jacob; she’d hoped all along that he would come for her, that was why she’d sent the letter in the first place.

  It was purely selfish to be so relieved, given the bleak future she and the aunts and Helga would have to face, but she was relieved. If it hadn’t been for Gideon, Jacob Fitch would be doing unspeakable things to her in his bed by now, with the blessing of God and man. Instead, she was sitting quietly at a kitchen table, in a lovely house at the end of a quiet country lane, sipping tea with her former teacher.

  Except for her aunt Nell, Lydia had never admired another woman as much as she did Lark.

  She was just about to excuse herself and retire when the screened door opened, and Rowdy came in, with a dog trailing behind him and Gideon following somewhat forlornly behind the dog.

  Rowdy approached his wife’s chair, bent to kiss the top of her head. Lark glowed, smiling up at him.

  “I’ve kept your supper warm,” she told him.

  “I’ll eat later,” Rowdy answered, with a twinkle in his eyes. “Right now, you and me and Pardner are going to make ourselves scarce for a little while.”

  Lydia felt a jolt of something very complicated as her gaze skirted Lark and Rowdy and connected with Gideon’s face. What she felt was partly alarm, partly annoyance, and mostly a complete mystery to her.

  Gideon, meanwhile, hovered just over the threshold, as if struck dumb, long after Lark and Rowdy had left the kitchen.

  “I didn’t know what else to do,” he finally said. “But if you want to go back to Jacob Fitch—if that’s really what you want—I’ll take you to him myself.”

  It was too late to go back now, though Gideon probably didn’t realize that. Even if Jacob was willing to take the chance that Lydia hadn’t been “compromised,” as he would undoubtedly have put it, his mother wouldn’t be. The look Lydia had seen on the woman’s face before leaving the house with Gideon was burned into her memory—Malverna Fitch was not the sort to forgive such a disgrace.

  Furthermore, without Mr. Fitch to guarantee payment of the family’s many debts, the creditors would close in, possibly as soon as tomorrow morning, since word of the aborted wedding had surely spread from one end of Phoenix to the other within a matter of minutes, like the wildfires that plagued the desert.

  “I haven’t the first idea what I’m going to do, Gideon Yarbro,” Lydia said presently, with what sternness she could muster. “But I most certainly won’t be returning to Phoenix.”

  Gideon, standing so still for so long, finally moved. He crossed to Lydia, crouched beside her chair, the way he’d done in the parlor at home the day before, took her hand, and looked up into her face. “I’m not a rich man,” he told her solemnly, “but I work hard, and I’ve got a little money put by. I can look after you, Lydia, and your aunts, too. Even Helga, if she doesn’t mind earning her keep.”

  Lydia stared at him, dumbfounded—again. She could not think of a single other person who had Gideon’s capacity for surprising her. “Are you proposing to me?” she asked bluntly, because she was simply too spent to arrange her words in any other way.

  “I guess I am proposing,” Gideon said, after swallowing visibly. “Rowdy said it was the least I could do, after today.”

  If Lydia had
n’t wanted so badly to cry, she would have laughed. No wonder Rowdy had squired Lark out of the kitchen so quickly, leaving the two of them alone. He’d probably ordered Gideon to make things right. “That’s why you’re offering for me, Gideon? Because your brother thinks you ought to?”

  Gideon made an obvious attempt to smile, and failed utterly. His expression was one of resignation, not ardor. “He’s right, Lydia,” he said. “It’s the least I can do.”

  “The least you can do,” Lydia echoed. She found herself possessed of an almost incomprehensible urge to touch his face, tell him everything would be all right. At the same time, if she’d had the strength to slap Gideon Yarbro silly, she probably would have done it.

  “I’m getting this all wrong,” Gideon said, and this time he did smile, though sadly. “It won’t be a real marriage, Lydia. I won’t expect you to share my bed, that is. You’ll have a home, and so will the aunts, and Fitch won’t be able to cause you any trouble because you’ll be my wife. That’s not such a bad bargain, is it?”

  It was, in Lydia’s view, a terrible bargain, especially the part about not sharing a bed. Gideon had awakened a formidable hunger in her when he’d kissed her, and now he expected to marry her and still leave that hunger unexplored, unsatisfied?

  On the other hand, he made a good case.

  The aunts would be safe, with food to eat and a roof over their heads, and they obviously trusted Gideon or they wouldn’t have left the house with him, let alone bought new hats and dresses and traveled all the way to Stone Creek onboard a train at his behest.

  As for herself, once she’d exchanged vows with Gideon, she would be part of the Yarbro clan. Lonely all her life, she would have sisters, Lark and Sarah, and a brother, as well, in Rowdy. She would have nieces and nephews and, in time, perhaps even friends, people who liked her for herself and not because she was a Fairmont.

  “But what about you, Gideon?” Lydia asked softly, after mulling over all these things. “What could you possibly gain from such an arrangement?” A dreadful thought struck her then. “Suppose you meet another woman someday, and fall in love with her and—”

  And I won’t be able to bear it if you do.

  A muscle in Gideon’s strong, square jaw bunched, then relaxed again. “I’ll never fall in love with another woman, Lydia,” he said. “I can promise you that.”

  “How can you, Gideon?” Lydia asked. “How can you promise such a thing?”

  Gideon rose to his full height then, but he still held her hand. “A long time ago,” he answered, looking directly, unflinchingly, into her eyes, “I made up my mind never to love anybody. And so far, I’ve stood by that. That’s not likely to change.”

  Looking back at him, Lydia knew Gideon meant what he said.

  And even as she made a firm decision of her own—she would accept his proposal, if only to protect herself, the aunts and Helga from the wrath of Jacob Fitch—she felt her heart crumble into dry little fragments, like a very old love letter found in the bottom of a dusty box and handled too roughly.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ONCE THE DECISION WAS MADE, Rowdy went to fetch the preacher, and the aunts and Helga were awakened to stand witness to the ceremony in their nightgowns, sleeping caps and wrappers.

  Lydia put on her aunt Nell’s wedding gown, for the second time in one day, and Gideon allowed Lark to drape him in Rowdy’s best Sunday coat and knot a string tie at his throat.

  It might as well have been a noose, considering his expression, Lydia thought, finding herself in a strange state of happy despair.

  “We’ll have to hold a reception as soon as we can,” Lark fretted happily. “Sarah and Maddie will never forgive us if we don’t.”

  Lydia knew that Sarah was Wyatt’s wife, though she had yet to meet her second prospective sister-in-law, and vaguely recalled Maddie as Mrs. Sam O’Ballivan. A prosperous rancher and a former Arizona Ranger, Mr. O’Ballivan had been Stone Creek’s leading citizen when Lydia had lived there as a child.

  “There’ll be no fuss,” Gideon said to his sister-in-law, sternly alarmed at the prospect of a party to celebrate the marriage. “I mean it, Lark.”

  Lark smiled. “I’m sure you do, Gideon, dear,” she replied lightly. “But this time, you’re not going to get your way. Fuss isn’t the word for what’s going to happen when this town finds out you’ve come home and gotten married, all in the same day and without a howdy-do to anybody.”

  “I haven’t had time for a howdy-do,” Gideon snapped. “And I’ve got to be at the mine, ready to work, at seven o’clock sharp tomorrow morning. When I’m through there—after a little matter of, oh, ten or twelve hours—I’ll be turning the town upside-down looking for a place to put all these women—”

  A place to put all these women.

  The phrase echoed in Lydia’s mind, brought a sting of humiliation to her cheeks. Gideon made it sound as though she and the aunts and Helga were a band of unwanted horses in need of stabling.

  If she’d had anywhere else to turn, any honorable way to earn a living, she would have told her clearly reluctant bridegroom to go and—well—do something else beside marry her.

  The minister arrived, a plump, middle-aged man, looking sleepy and surprised, the fringe of hair around his bald pate still shining with the water he’d used to slick it down in his haste to answer Rowdy’s summons.

  A license had been hastily prepared, and Gideon signed it with a bold, harsh flourish. Lydia’s own hand trembled as she penned her much less spectacular signature beneath his.

  Probably anxious to get the whole thing over with, so he could return to his bed, the man of God took up his post with his back to the fireplace, and impatiently pointed to where the groom ought to stand. Lydia stood frozen for so long that Helga finally put her hands on her shoulders from behind and pushed her to Gideon’s side.

  For an event of such momentous significance—neither Lydia’s life nor Gideon’s would ever be the same, after all—the ceremony went very quickly. In fact, Lydia noted, stealing glances at the mantel clock behind the minister’s right shoulder, the whole thing was finished in under ten minutes.

  Lydia responded when she was supposed to—with prompting from Helga, who kept nudging her in the ribs. Gideon, she saw out of the corner of her eye, had to unclamp his jaw before every utterance he made.

  Finally, the clergyman, after a nervous glance at Rowdy, who was standing at Gideon’s right side, announced loudly, “I now pronounce you man and wife. Mr. Yarbro, you may kiss your bride.”

  Lydia, concentrating on getting through the wedding without fainting or bursting into tears, had not thought about the traditional kiss. She’d barely had a moment to steel herself for it when Gideon turned her to face him and gave her a brief, almost brotherly, peck on the mouth.

  “Well, then,” the minister said, all but dusting his hands together. “That’s done.”

  The aunts giggled like little girls and clapped their hands together, and Helga muttered, “Thank heaven!”

  Lark gave Gideon a scathing look as he left Lydia’s side, without so much as a backward glance, to pay the minister for his services and escort him to the door. Then she hugged Lydia, whispering close to her ear, “Everything will be all right—I promise.”

  Rowdy, clearly as annoyed with Gideon as Lark was, smiled and kissed Lydia on the forehead, welcoming her to the Yarbro family.

  His words brought tears to her eyes and, seeing them, Rowdy wrapped his strong arms around her and drew her close against his chest for a long moment. “You’ve got brothers now,” he told her. “Wyatt and me. And we’ll look after you, even if that young fool yonder doesn’t.”

  Lydia let her forehead rest against Rowdy’s shoulder. She nodded, too overcome to say thank-you.

  The celebration, alas, was as short as the ceremony.

  The aunts each kissed Lydia on the cheek, and then turned to go back to their room. Helga actually shook her hand, as though they’d completed some business arrangement, a
nd returned to the nook behind the kitchen, yawning as she went.

  Rowdy and Lark each skewered Gideon with a look and then vanished, like the others. Rowdy’s supper, evidently, had been delayed long enough.

  And so Lydia found herself alone in the parlor with Gideon.

  Her husband.

  What was she supposed to do now?

  Gideon looked as uncertain as she felt.

  “I guess that wasn’t the wedding you probably dreamed about, growing up,” he said, smiling for the first time since they’d all assembled in the Yarbros’ front room a mere fifteen minutes before.

  He was wrong about that, at least in part, though Lydia would never have told him so. She had dreamed of marrying Gideon many, many times, as a child, as a young girl, as a woman. But in her fancies, he’d always been eager to make her his bride, and there had been church bells, and flowers, and pews full of well-wishers. And a romantic honeymoon afterward.

  Speechless, Lydia simply shook her head.

  Gideon shoved a hand through his hair, glanced toward the stairs. “I know I said I wouldn’t make you share my bed,” he began, “but—”

  Lydia found her voice. She even came up with a shaky little smile, then finished the sentence for him. “But they’ll expect us to sleep in the same room, since it’s our wedding night.”

  Gideon nodded. He looked so glum, so tired, that Lydia’s foolish heart went out to him.

  She walked over to him, took his hand. “It’s all right, Gideon,” she teased in a mischievous whisper, once again taken over by a bolder, stronger version of herself. “I promise I won’t compromise your virtue.”

  He laughed, and the sound heartened Lydia. “Come along, then, Mrs. Yarbro,” he said, squeezing her fingers lightly. “Let’s turn in for the night, like the respectable married couple we are.”

  Lydia’s heart sprouted wings and flew up into her throat, fairly choking her, but she allowed Gideon to lead her up the stairs, in that ancient, thrice-worn wedding dress.

  Putting a finger to his lips as they passed the rooms where his nieces and nephews were sleeping, he led her into a chamber at the end of the hall, under the slant of the roof. A beautiful china lamp glowed softly on the nightstand, and the window was open to the night breeze.