Western Spring Weddings

by Lynna Banning

  This part of the day was quite pleasant, she admitted. The part she dreaded was making conversation with the townspeople. Strangers.

  “Do you think Miss Serena will attend?”

  “Serena?” Gray shook his head. “Nah. She’s got better things to do.”

  Emily piped up from the wagon bed. “What’s better’n a picnic?”

  “Makin’ money, I guess.”

  “How can she do that on Sunday?”

  Clarissa tipped her head away from him, but Gray saw that her cheeks had turned bright red. All he could see under her wide-brimmed sun hat was the tip of her nose and a bit of her chin. She didn’t say anything for so long he wondered if she’d gone to sleep.

  “Mama?” Emily persisted, “how can she make money on a Sunday?”

  Gray cleared his throat. “Let’s just say Miss Serena works, uh, long hours every day of the week, Sunday included.”

  “Like you did when you saved your money in a sock?”

  He had to work to keep from laughing. “Well, kinda.” He guided the wagon into town and straight down the main street until they reached the leafy, green town square. Ramon and Maria were just dismounting at the hitching rail, but the rest of his ranch hands were nowhere to be seen. He’d left Erasmus, the grizzled old stable hand, in charge, with his picnic supper on a plate and Gray’s shotgun. The man would probably enjoy the peace and quiet with all of them spending the day in town.

  Gray braked, climbed down and reached up for Clarissa. Holy smokestacks, her waist was so tiny he didn’t see how she could eat much. And he could sure tell she wasn’t all laced up tight in a corset. Sensible woman.

  The minute Emily’s feet touched the ground she raced away toward Maria. “Bet she can’t wait to take off her shoes and wriggle her toes in the grass,” Gray remarked.

  “Or roll down a hill,” Clarissa added. “There aren’t any hills, are there?”

  He lifted out the wicker picnic basket and grabbed an old quilt to sit on. “No hills,” he said. “But you can wriggle your toes in the grass if you want, Clarissa.”

  “Certainly not!”

  “I’ll spread out the blanket far enough away from the center of things that you won’t hear any of the long-winded speeches the mayor’s gonna make.”

  “For that I am grateful, Gray. Why is it that the minute a man gets elected to an office he has to make speeches?”

  “Dunno. Smoke River’s judge, Jericho Silver, doesn’t, and neither does the new sheriff. Two more close-mouthed men you’ll never meet.”

  Clarissa settled onto the quilt next to the picnic basket, and after a moment Emily and Maria joined her. Gray wandered off for a game of horseshoes with Ramon and Nebraska, leaving Shorty with the women.

  “Miss Clarissa sure is pretty,” Nebraska murmured to Gray. He let fly with a metal shoe that fell far short of the steel pole embedded in the ground.

  “Oughtta keep your mind on the game, son.” Gray tossed a perfect ringer.

  “You mean to tell me you never noticed?”

  “Never,” Gray lied.

  Ramon’s snort of laughter was loud enough to carry back to the picnic blanket. “Is a sin to lie, señor!” his foreman chided. He dropped his horseshoe on top of Gray’s.

  “Loser has to deliver a package to Serena’s, a dress Clarissa is...donating,” Gray said to change the subject.

  “You mean winner, don’tcha?” Nebraska quipped.

  Gray shook his head. “Only if you’re young and green and new in town, kid.”

  “Heck, boss, I am young and green.” He sent Gray a hopeful look.

  “Si,” Ramon intoned, spitting on his second horseshow for luck. “But you not new in town.”

  Gray slanted a look at Clarissa, sitting on the quilt with Maria. Looked like they were having a serious talk about something; Maria was leaning her head close to Clarissa, and Clarissa’s face looked like a cloud had settled over it. He’d give a fistful of silver dollars to know what was going on.

  Emily sat between the two women, looking bored to death.

  Late in the afternoon they devoured all of Clarissa’s potato salad, which tasted really good, and most of Maria’s fried chicken and Mexican chocolate cake, then lounged on the grass playing mumblety-peg and hide the nickel to keep Emily entertained. Maria leaned back against Ramon’s bent knees and they talked quietly in Spanish.

  Clarissa gazed off in the distance, thinking about Anthony’s death and his child, who now called her Mama. The afternoon was “soft,” she decided. The warm air smelled of pine trees and the spring sunshine felt gentle on her face. A moment ago Maria had said that in time she would get used to life out here in the West, but she knew she wouldn’t. She began to think about her return to Boston. Funny that it didn’t bring the jolt of happiness it usually did.

  Shorty and Nebraska started up a poker game, and after a few hands Gray joined in. “Playin’ for matches or pennies?”

  “Playin’ for who’s gonna get breakfast duty at the bunkhouse tomorrow morning,” Shorty answered. “Ain’t gonna be me.” He grinned and dealt Gray in.

  “Can I play?” Emily asked, her blue eyes sparkling with curiosity.

  “Not unless you can count, Squirt.”

  “Well, I can count! Mama taught me.”

  “Okay, you can play on my side. See this card? That’s a jack. There’s three more like it somewhere in the deck, and I’ll pay you my winnings to keep track of them.”

  Suddenly Clarissa emerged from her reverie and focused on what was happening right in front of her. “Surely you are not teaching my daughter to play cards?”

  “Yeah, I am,” Gray said with a sly smile. “How else is she gonna learn?”

  “Gray, I am not at all sure I want Emily to learn such a game. Playing cards is not something a proper young girl should do.”

  “It’s proper out here in Oregon, Clarissa. Things are different in the West.”

  “I do not intend to stay in the West,” she said, her voice cool.

  Gray shrugged. “Deal me two cards, Shorty.”

  “Mama,” Emily said suddenly. “Who is that man? He keeps staring at us.”

  “What man? Where?”

  “Over there, in those trees. See him?”

  No, she didn’t see him. All she saw was a tangle of brush and maple trees at the far edge of the park. And then a shadow moved and she went cold all over. Caleb Arness.

  Gray sent her a sharp look. “Somethin’ wrong?”

  She leaned close to him and intoned, “I thought I saw Caleb Arness over behind those trees.”

  “I don’t think so, Clarissa. Like I said, he’s in jail.”

  “Oh.” But she couldn’t stop staring at the trees. Gray’s eyes followed her gaze.

  “Do you think he could recognize me?” she whispered.

  “No. He was drunk when he saw you at the saloon that one time, remember?”

  “Yes, very drunk. Disgustingly drunk.”

  Clarissa tipped her head down to hide her face. Surely Caleb wouldn’t remember her; he hadn’t known who she was that night she sang at the saloon. He had known that she would be arriving in Smoke River, but maybe he had been too drunk even to remember that.

  After a long minute Gray brought his head close to hers. “It’s not Arness, Clarissa, but if you’re uncomfortable I’ll take you home. Maria and Ramon can watch over Emily.”

  She nodded, and without another word he spoke to Ramon and went to fetch the wagon. “I’m takin’ Clarissa back to the ranch,” he announced when he returned. “Too much potato salad.”

  The ranch hands grinned but didn’t stop their card game. Ramon took over Gray’s hand, and Emily was so engrossed she scarcely looked up.

  Gray walked Clarissa across the grass to the w
agon and lifted her up onto the bench. “You’re shaking.”

  “I know. I’m frightened.”

  “Some reason, other than Arness?”

  “N-no. I just feel safer at the ranch house.”

  He said nothing as he climbed up beside her and lifted the reins. All the way out to the Bar H, she didn’t say a word, and when a roadrunner blundered into the wagon wheel, she didn’t even look up.

  It bothered him that she was frightened. All of a sudden he wanted to protect her, keep her safe. Aw, hell, he wanted to make her smile at him, like she had an hour ago when he taught her to flip a jackknife into the ground and she beat him at mumblety-peg. The look she’d sent him still made his stomach flip over like a drunken kite.

  Chapter Eleven

  The minute the wagon rattled through the Bar H gate and across the cattle guard, Clarissa let out a relieved breath. Life in Oregon was fraught with risks and dangers, especially now that Caleb Arness was lurking about. But she did appreciate Gray’s solidly built ranch house with its sturdy beam ceiling and cozy kitchen, the gracious verandah across the front and the tiny bedroom at the top of the attic stairs. She felt safe here. She liked the pink climbing rose that rambled over the porch post, and she was growing fond of kind, down-to-earth Maria. And she appreciated Ramon, who took extra time every day with Emily, answering her incessant questions about cows and horses and dragonflies and saddles and the horse trough where she floated her toy boats.

  But now more than ever, Clarissa wanted to return to Boston.

  Gray set the brake on the wagon, climbed off the bench and reached up for her, sliding his warm, strong hands about her waist. Effortlessly he lifted her down, but she was surprised that he didn’t release her.

  “Clarissa, you’re still shaking.”

  “Am I?” She worked to keep her voice steady.

  “Yeah. What’s going on with you?”

  “I don’t know—I just can’t stop trembling. Maybe it was seeing Caleb Arness at the picnic.”

  “Forget about Arness. It wasn’t him.”

  He still had not let her go, but for some reason she didn’t mind. She sensed his strength, and his hands curving gently around her waist felt comforting. She stared at the top button of his blue chambray shirt, then raised her eyes to the hint of dark hair visible on his upper chest and stared at his bare throat. Finally her gaze went to his mouth.

  He was not smiling. He didn’t move under her perusal, but his breathing changed.

  So did hers. He smelled of wood smoke and sweat and something faintly spicy. And he felt solid. Dependable. Safe. Her stomach did a slow somersault up into her rib cage and her hands came up to rest on his exposed forearms. Well, maybe not so safe, she amended. But nice. Very, very nice.

  She could feel his heart thudding under her palm. Lord help her, when had she moved her hand to touch his chest? Her eyes lingered on his lips, and after a long moment he bent his head and covered her mouth with his.

  She had been kissed only once before, at a New Year’s Eve celebration in Boston when she was seventeen, but that was nothing like this swirly, dizzying rush of sensation. Warmth and gentle, insistent pressure opened up into something deep and hot that made her ache. Without thinking she laced her hands together behind his neck.

  Without breaking contact, he reached up and disengaged them, then lifted his mouth from hers and stepped back. His breathing was uneven. Hers was... She had no idea. Disoriented, she wondered if she was breathing at all. Her pulse thrummed in her ears.

  She opened her lids to find Gray’s gray-blue eyes looking at her oddly—half puzzled and half penetrating. “Hot damn,” he murmured. “What just happened?”

  She gave a shaky laugh. “I d-don’t know. Does kissing always feel like that?”

  “Never.”

  “Ever?”

  “Never happened to me like that.”

  “I have only been kissed once before, when I was a girl. It was nothing like this.”

  Gray looked up at the sky. “Yeah. Kinda scary for me, too.”

  He didn’t touch her again, but he didn’t move away. Instead, he stood staring at her with that dumbstruck look.

  “You ever drink whiskey?” he inquired, his voice husky.

  “Heavens, no. Why do you ask?”

  “’Cuz right now I need some.”

  * * *

  Inside the kitchen, Gray studied her from across the round wooden table and rotated a glass of whiskey between his palms. Her hair was mussed and one wayward strand had worked loose from the bun at her neck. He wanted to touch it, but he didn’t dare. Her mouth looked soft, and her eyes still had that smoky look that punched into his gut. His heartbeat was hammering all over the place like a crazy woodpecker and he had to concentrate on holding on to his glass to keep his hands from trembling.

  What the hell was happening?

  She’d filled her own glass with water, but she hadn’t touched it. Instead, she studied the scarred cedar tabletop while he watched the ruffle on her white shirtwaist flutter with her every heartbeat. Some insistent element of male satisfaction swelled inside him, but he didn’t feel aggressive or proud; he felt poleaxed, like he’d been run over by a steer. He wasn’t sure he liked it. What the heck had possessed him to lay a hand on her? Even more, he kept wondering why he hadn’t wanted to stop.

  Well, sure, Clarissa was female as hell; maybe that was why. But there’d been other females before. Nothing had ever felt like this. Nothing.

  “Gray,” she said quietly, “would you...would you consider advancing me the money for my train ticket back to Boston?”

  “No.” Usually he considered his words before he spoke out, but now he’d blurted the word without thinking.

  An arrow of hurt went across her face. “I would pay you back, I promise.”

  “No,” he said again.

  She bit her lower lip. “But whyever not? You know how out of place I feel here on your ranch.”

  He tossed back the rest of his whiskey and tried to corral his thoughts into some semblance of rational order. “Because...because I don’t want you to go back to Boston.”

  If he’d thought for a hundred years, he couldn’t have predicted what would come out of his mouth. When did the thought of losing her make him so crazy?

  “Gray, you know that I don’t belong on a ranch.”

  He gripped his whiskey glass so tight his knuckles turned white. “Yeah, I know that. But dammit, I still don’t want you to go.” Maybe I’d better knock off the sauce... I’m sure not making much sense.

  She stared at him, her mouth all trembly and her eyes like two soft patches of spring ferns. “Gray, I don’t fit in here. I don’t understand life on a ranch. Much of it I don’t even like.”

  Her words fell on his ears like hammer blows. “Yeah, I know all that.” He splashed two more fingers of whiskey into his glass.

  Face it, Harris. She doesn’t like it out here, so there’s no point in getting all fussed up about her. Might be some point in kissing her again, but I wouldn’t want to lead her on.

  But he couldn’t get the thought of kissing her again out of his mind. He drew in a ragged breath and tossed back the rest of his whiskey. Guess he’d better think up some way to keep busy until she got on that train to Boston.

  Guess he’d better not let her mean so damn much to him.

  * * *

  “Mama?”

  Clarissa surveyed her daughter, who scrambled from her kneeling position beside the bed onto the quilt. “Yes, Emily? What is it?”

  “I like it here! Maria shows me fun things to do, and Ramon lets me pet the horsies, and Gray tells me stories.”

  “That’s nice, honey,” she said absently.

  “You like Gray’s stories, too, don’t you? Even though they’
re not very happy stories, about working down in a dark hole and saving his money in a sock?”

  Clarissa bit her lip. Yes, she liked Gray’s stories. She liked his low, gravelly voice and the sound of his laughter and...

  “I like Maria’s stories, too,” Emily confided.

  Clarissa paused while pulling on her white nightgown. “Oh? What stories does Maria tell?”

  “About riding a long, long way across the desert with Ramon. And being hungry.”

  Heavens, what difficulties people endured to reach this rough, raw country. There must be something about Oregon she was missing. It wasn’t anything remotely like Boston; it wasn’t even civilized! So why did people struggle so hard to get here? Even more puzzling, why would they fight so hard to stay here?

  “Emily, do you really, truly, honestly like it out here on this ranch?”

  “Yes, Mama, really truly honest. Don’t you?”

  Clarissa opened her mouth to list all the reasons she felt uncomfortable and out of place here on Gray’s ranch, then thought better of it. Emily shouldn’t be burdened by her mother’s difficulties. “I like some things about it, yes.”

  The girl snuggled under her arm. “What things, Mama? Tell me.”

  Clarissa pursed her lips and thought hard. “Well...I like the color of the sky when the sun rises, all pink and gold. And then it turns into a beautiful clear blue, as blue as the flowers painted on our china dinner plates.” She drew in a long breath and looked up at the gabled ceiling. “And I like the birds singing in the evening. Gray says they are sparrows, but they certainly don’t sound like sparrows back in Boston. Out here they seem to go on and on singing until it gets dark.”

  Emily’s small hand crept into hers. “I like the birdies, too. What else, Mama?”

  She smoothed her daughter’s tumbled red curls. She liked the smell of wood burning in the big stone fireplace in the parlor. And Gray’s low laughter at Emily’s often inadvertently pointed questions. Last night at supper her daughter had asked, “How come you don’t have a wife? Ramon has a wife. Don’t you want one?” Clarissa had had to turn away to the stove to hide her burning cheeks.