Lucky Bride

by Ana Seymour

  There were no uniformed servants at the Lucky Stars, and the only way he was likely to get warm was to remember for the hundredth time those kisses he had shared the other night with Molly. Which was not, he had already discovered, the most sensible way to get a productive start to the morning.

  He jumped out of bed, grimacing as the frigid air hit him. He’d slept in his long underwear, and he didn’t intend to remove it for a morning wash. His standards of cleanliness had diminished somewhat since coming West. And, hell, it was too cold to smell bad, anyway.

  He had pulled on his pants and was buttoning his flannel shirt when there was a knock on the door. He opened it to find Molly on the other side, her expression thunderous.

  “Smokey said you bedded down those calves last night.”

  “I did.” He’d checked the stall latches twice, and had even tied a length of twine around one that looked loose.

  “What did you feed them?”

  Parker looked puzzled. “Feed them? I just gave them hay.”

  “Well, they’re down.”

  “Down?”

  “Bloated. Something has sickened them.”

  He could see that she was extremely upset, fighting for control. “Maybe something they ate out on the range before we rounded them up.”

  “It’s all four of them—Moonlight, too.”

  “What can we do for them?”

  She closed her eyes for a minute. “I don’t know.” Her voice grew softer. “I’m sorry, Parker. It probably wasn’t anything you did. I only thought that maybe you’d given them something….”

  “I wouldn’t do that. I don’t know much about ranching, but I know enough not to go making up the rules on my own.”

  She nodded, fighting tears. “It’s just that… I need these animals, Parker. I need every single one.”

  He quickly tucked his shirttails into his pants and stepped out the door, taking her arm. “Well, then, boss lady, let’s get busy and save them.”

  They’d stayed in the freezing barn all day, going into the house only when their hands became so numb they could no longer move them to work. One of the calves had died almost immediately, justifying the worst of Molly’s fears. The other three lay on their sides, kicking their legs every now and then and bleating in agony.

  Smokey had said that the only thing to do with a bloated calf was to feed it oil. They tried to funnel some down their throats, but without much success. By midafternoon the distension of the animals’ left sides was painfully obvious.

  Moonlight’s writhing had become increasingly frantic. Her eyes had turned dull, and her tongue lolled out of her mouth.

  “We’re going to lose them,” Molly said grimly.

  But Parker was not ready to give up. During his summers upstate he’d sometimes worked with the veterinarians who came to treat the horses. Once in a case of severe colic they’d considered puncturing a hole into the animal’s intestine. “The way you do with bloated cattle,” the doctor had said.

  “How about if we just make a hole and let the gas come out?” he suggested.

  Smokey looked as if Parker had taken leave of his senses, but Molly’s eyes brightened. “Yes. I’ve heard of that.”

  All three eyed the fallen calves. The skin over their swollen middles was stretched so tautly it almost looked as if they might explode on their own.

  “You mean just poke ‘em—like a pig’s bladder?” Smokey asked warily.

  Parker had already walked over to the shelf to search for the awl they used to repair leather. “They’re going to die if we don’t do something.”

  Molly knelt next to Moonlight, rubbing her soft ears. “It doesn’t look like we have a choice.”

  Parker entered the stall beside her and held out the instrument. “Do you want to do it?”

  She gave a little shudder. “Would you?”

  He took a deep breath. “I never did anything like this back in the bank,” he mumbled as he knelt beside her. “Where do you suppose I should stick her?”

  Molly ran her hand over the bulge in the animal’s side. “I guess here where it’s sticking out the most.”

  Parker puffed out his cheeks. “All right. Here goes.” With a swift downward stab, he pierced the animal’s skin. Immediately a foul-smelling liquid shot straight up in the air, splattering them both.

  “Whew!” Smokey said with a grin. “It looks like that just might work, but you two are going to be smellier than a skunk in a briar patch.”

  Parker and Molly looked at each other and laughed, their noses twitching. Almost immediately Moonlight stopped writhing. In a few minutes she was standing. Molly and Smokey tied a strip of cloth around her middle to cover up the tiny wound while Parker proceeded to carry out the treatment with the other two calves.

  By late afternoon all three animals were on their feet. Their distended stomachs had shrunk and the complaining moos had stopped.

  “We did it,” Molly said wearily.

  In spite of the odor that still clung to them both, Parker gave her a quick hug of victory. “We sure did, boss lady. For these three, anyway. Too bad we couldn’t have saved their buddy, too.”

  “You’re the one who saved them, Parker. You just might turn out to be something of a cattleman after all.”

  Parker smiled. “I’ll remind you of that when we start rounding them up again.”

  She straightened and looked at him. “Seriously, thank you. I would have given up when the oil didn’t work. We would have lost all four without you.”

  Smokey and the girls had gone inside to start supper. Parker put a comforting hand on Molly’s shoulder. Now that the crisis was past, the battle lines were gone from her face, replaced by a soft fatigue. It was odd, these feelings she engendered, unlike anything he’d ever quite experienced. He’d felt protective with Claire, too, but then it had been understandable. Claire had been a fragile wisp of a beauty who had ultimately proven too delicate for this world. There was nothing fragile about Molly. But at the moment he wished he could pull her head to his shoulder and make all her problems go away. That is, he thought with a grin, he would wish that if they both didn’t smell so terrible.

  “I reckon they won’t let us in up at the house in these clothes.”

  Molly looked down at herself and wrinkled her nose. “I should have told Smokey to bring something out here for me to put on.”

  “Come on over to the bunkhouse. You can put on something of mine.”

  “Then we’ll smell up your place.”

  “I don’t care. It’s better than stinking up the house where people are going to be eating in a few minutes.”

  After a moment’s thought, she agreed and they walked across the yard to the bunkhouse. Once inside, Parker shut the door behind them. Molly gave him a wary look. “I’m not going to ravish you, boss lady. Frankly, you don’t smell too appealing at the moment.”

  She laughed. “You’d rival a bed of skunk cabbage yourself, tenderfoot.”

  He stripped off his jacket and shirt and dumped them in a pile by the door. “I’ll scrub all these clothes after dinner. Does Smokey have some lye?”

  Smelly or not, Molly had to swallow hard at the sudden sight of Parker’s well-muscled chest. It tapered to a narrow waist where at the moment his hands were beginning to unfasten the buttons of his trousers. “Ah… lye?” she asked stupidly.

  Parker grinned at her obvious reaction to him. He stopped unfastening his trousers and said, “I’ll change first and then wait outside while you wash up. You can turn around if it makes you uncomfortable.”

  She did so, a little reluctantly. And she kept her back turned as she heard the sounds of him sloshing water from the pail that served as his nightstand. “There,” he said finally. “That’ll do for the time being. I’m decent now, boss lady. You can turn around.”

  He was now wearing the silky shirt he had worn on Christmas. It was tucked into snug Levi’s. He gave an apologetic shrug. “I’m out of clean shirts, other than this one,” he s
aid, holding out a plaid flannel to her.

  “You…ah…look fine,” she said.

  “There’s the rest of your ensemble, my lady.” He pointed to a pair of his trousers that he’d laid out across his bunk. “I’ll wait right outside, and I promise not to peek,” he added with a wink.

  Molly quickly took off her smelly clothes, gave herself a perfunctory wash in the bucket and dried her wet body with the flannel shirt. Then she donned it and the pants and went over to open the door.

  Parker was waiting on the stoop. “That’s what I like,” he teased. “A lady who can dress for dinner in five minutes.”

  He stepped back inside and used his foot to kick the pile of dirty clothes out the door. “Those can just stay outside until I’m ready to wash them up.”

  Molly shook her head. “Are you sure you were a banker in New York, Parker?”

  “Born and bred,” he answered. “If my father had had his way, I’d be there still. Pushing papers. Counting other people’s money.”

  “Well, you’ve saved me a pile of money today. I’ll let you help me count it when we sell those heifers.”

  They shared a smile. “I think it was a mutual effort, boss lady, but if I helped, I’m glad.”

  “You did. Thank you again.”

  “I hope you’ll continue to let me help you. You don’t have to do everything alone, you know.”

  The smile died and her eyes became wary. “Now you’re starting to sound like Jeremy. ‘A woman can’t expect to run a ranch alone,’” she mimicked in a low voice.

  Parker sighed. “Just because someone offers to help out doesn’t mean that you aren’t good enough, Molly. Everyone needs help—men and women. It’s not a weakness.”

  “So you think I should let the Dickersons sashay on over here and start to give orders?”

  It seemed as if she had shed the vulnerability and the weariness of the past couple of hours along with her smelly clothes. Parker sighed again. “Of course not. I didn’t say you needed their kind of help, but, goldang it, Molly, sometimes it seems that you’re not willing to accept support from anyone—even your own sisters.”

  “I’ve accepted it from you,” she said defensively. She hugged her arms around her middle and looked up at him with something like anger in her eyes. “I’ve accepted more than that from you, Parker.”

  A few minutes ago he’d wanted to put his arms around her and protect her. Now suddenly she was glaring at him like a prizefighter in the opposite corner. Keeping a rein on his patience, he said, “Well, you’ve accepted a couple of kisses. You’re right about that.”

  She mumbled something about tradition and mistletoe, but he interrupted her, still speaking calmly. “I’ve kissed under the mistletoe before, Molly. That’s not what we were doing the other night.”

  “What were we doing, then?”

  Her face was stony, and Parker fought off the urge to put his hands on her and watch it soften. “We were kissing each other, Molly, rather thoroughly. And I’m standing here thinking very seriously about doing it again.”

  She blinked hard, then looked down at his flannel shirt, which hung all the way to her knees. With a halfsad smile she said, “I’m hardly dressed in satin today….”

  His restraint snapped. He gripped her arms and moved closer. “Blast it, Molly. It’s not a pretty dress or scents or a Christmas social that makes the connection between two people. It’s what’s inside you— what you feel. It’s how your stomach takes that little jump when you hear the other person’s voice. It’s how you can’t wait to tell them when something good happens to you. It’s how you feel that you just might die if you have to wait one more minute to put your lips together.”

  Molly didn’t want to hear the words as they bombarded her, as stinging and as unwelcome as the tiny ice pellets of yesterday’s storm. She didn’t want to have them batter against the defenses she’d so carefully built up for herself over the years. She’d sworn when she was still a child to be as good as a man, to run her father’s ranch the way a son would. She’d sworn never to turn into one of those simpering, lovesick females who hadn’t a thought in their heads except for their beaux. Only the weak needed to be in love. And the fact that Parker’s hands around her arms were making her feel like jelly inside was perfect proof of just how debilitating it could be.

  He was watching her intently, waiting, as her doubts flickered across her eyes. She took a deep breath. “I liked kissing you, Parker. It was a new experience. It was…educational. But it’s not anything I’m interested in pursuing. I’ll have to ask you not to bring up the subject again.”

  Parker’s jaw dropped. Educational? He stared at her impassive features. Maybe Molly Hanks was exactly as tough as she said. Maybe behind the facade of this woman there was a core of ice that wouldn’t be melted with any amount of passion. For a moment she almost had him convinced. But then he noticed the telltale flush creeping up her neck. He saw that the tips of her fingers, just barely showing out the sleeves of his shirt, were shaking.

  She wasn’t tough—she was scared. Well, that made two of them, Parker thought grimly. Because the last thing he’d expected to find in the barren stretches of Wyoming prairie was a feisty young woman who would open wounds that had barely stopped bleeding.

  Educational? To hell with that. He reached behind him and slammed the door shut, then picked her up by both arms and brought his mouth against hers—two stiff, cold pairs of lips melding, sucking and drawing heat from within to create a tiny, focused, wet inferno of sensation in the frigid bunkhouse. He leaned backward against the door and let her body ride his. His hands moved, slipping underneath the flannel shirt to find her firm, slim rib cage. His strong fingers held her there against him, then moved to seek the softness farther up her body—the same tantalizing swells of breasts he had watched rise in passion when he had kissed her on Christmas night. He wanted to feel them bare and rising into his palms. He wanted to kiss her there and hear her moan as he suckled her. She moaned now, but there was distress in the sound, and immediately his hands stopped their search.

  He pulled away from her mouth, the moisture on his lips turning immediately cold. He put his hands on her waist and let her slide down him until her boots touched the floor again. She straightened without looking at him and stepped from between his legs. The flush now reached all the way to her hairline.

  He waited for her to speak, to look at him, to get angry… to do something. When she just stood there, he gave a little sigh and pushed himself away from the door. “All right,” he said. “If that’s the way you want it, boss lady, I’ll try not to bring the subject up again.”

  Then he pulled open the door and gestured for her to leave.

  They spent the next two days riding in the snow,’ gathering cattle from the far reaches of the ranch. Molly was angry with herself. She should have branded last summer, even if she’d had to do every blasted calf herself. At least Moonlight and the two surviving strays that Parker and Smokey had brought back would not be lost. She’d decided to keep all three wintered in the barn. It was still a mystery as to why they had separated from their mothers. But then, why had the herd scattered in the first place? If there was a mountain lion on the loose, she wished they’d find it.

  She pushed herself hard, trying to keep her mind on the cattle and off Parker Prescott. But she couldn’t help spending a little time watching him, silently admiring how quickly he’d learned to handle his horse and move the animals like a seasoned cowhand. He’d kept his promise and not mentioned anything about what had happened between them. In fact, he’d barely spoken to her. But then, there’d been little time for conversation. They were working too hard.

  The dry prairie was covered with neck-deep drifts in some areas and, unlike the earlier storm, this snow wouldn’t melt off till spring. They couldn’t possibly expect to find all the cattle. She could only hope that they hadn’t wandered out of Lucky Stars territory, at least the unmarked ones.

  As they rode back to th
e ranch she leaned forward and rubbed Midnight’s neck. “We’ve done our best, girl,” she told the animal. “We’ll just hope the winter’s mild and that next spring they’ll all be loping in, fat and happy.” The mare gave a toss of her head as if in agreement. Molly smiled. The two days of riding had worked most of the irritability out of her system. At the moment she felt as if she could handle the ranch—and Parker Prescott, as well. She looked up at the overcast winter sky. “Don’t worry about us, Papa. I’m taking care of it. Everything’s going to be just fine.”

  Parker watched Molly stroking the neck of her horse. Midnight was not the showiest animal. At the Westhills Riding Club back home, she probably wouldn’t have even been allowed a stable. But she was the most surefooted gol-danged critter Parker had ever seen. And she never flagged, never seemed to get tired. Sort of like her mistress, he thought ruefully. Molly’s energy out on the range was boundless. When everyone else had headed back to the barn, Molly kept working, well after dark. And Parker had stayed working with her, unwilling to leave her out on the range by herself. But whereas he’d come in each day with his thighs aching and a ladder of twinges running up his back, she’d seemed as steady and brisk as when they’d set out in the morning.

  He’d tried to keep his mind off her, but he couldn’t keep his eyes from drifting her way, watching her skillfully cut and turn with Midnight as if the two were one creature. Her determined face was set in lines of total concentration, eyes lively, cheeks rosy with cold. It was hard to imagine that he had once thought her sister more attractive. Susannah was a beauty, and rode with speed and grace, but Molly had an inner fire that no male clothes could disguise.

  She turned now and waved at him to follow her home. He trotted a distance behind, making no move to catch up to her. The snow had made his decision to stay at the Lucky Stars irrevocable. There was no way he’d be able to head across the mountains until spring. And he just wasn’t quite sure what he was going to do about the way his gut had begun to twist every time he looked at her. It wasn’t something he was ready for, and he had no intention of acting on his feelings. But he’d wager his entire winter’s pay that before the snow disappeared he and his boss lady would have to get back to talking about more than cattle.