The Rancher's Inconvenient Bride

by Carol Arens

“Are you looking for a beau, Mother?”

  “Ha! You know I am not. But it will be a romantic spot for anyone who wants to steal a kiss under the stars.”

  Ignoring the steps, William leapt over the rail, landing on the grass with barely a thud. Doing that made him look playful in a way she hadn’t seen before.

  Probably being around his mother brought out the boy in him.

  “How big do you want it?” he asked.

  “Smallish rather than large. Space for ten couples will do.”

  “I wonder if I might invite my sister and her husband?”

  “Oh, my dear!” Victoria took both of her hands, squeezed them. “You must think me horrible not to have mentioned that they are the first people I did invite! Your uncle and his wife as well.”

  Uncle Patrick! Madame Du Mer? She hadn’t expected to look forward to her wedding reception and its one hundred guests with anything less than dread, but all of a sudden she felt half-giddy with anticipation.

  “Thank you, Mother!”

  A kind of joy that she could not recall having before swelled in her chest, made her twirl about. She felt her skirt flutter around her ankles, then the warm pressure of William’s fist when he caught her hand.

  “Good night, my dears. I’m for my bed. I’ll see you at breakfast.”

  “Sweet dreams, Mother,” William said without lifting his gaze from Agatha’s eyes—her lips.

  The backdoor screen squealed when Victoria went inside. The tip-tap of Miss Valentine’s toenails trotted across the terrace.

  “We should go in as well.” Still, he didn’t lift his gaze from her face.

  “Yes, with the cat from the window now watching from the bushes, it might not be safe out here.”

  “I imagine it’s only a neighbor’s nosy pet.” He slipped his arm about her waist so she leaned into him. “It’s early. How about a game of checkers?”

  How about a kiss in the moonlight? “I’d like that.”

  Miss Valentine followed them across the yard, up the stairs and into the house.

  While William set up the game in the parlor beside the fireplace, which tonight contained a vase of flowers instead of snapping flames, she gazed out the window.

  It was hard not to look at the spot where they had stood a moment ago. What if they hadn’t come in the house? What if he’d given her the kiss that had been in his eyes?

  What if he had laid her down on the lush cool grass?

  “What are you looking at?” his voice murmured past her shoulder.

  She turned, felt the heat of his breath skim her hair. He reached behind and loosened the curtain tie back. The panel fell into place across the window.

  “Intrusive felines.”

  He touched the hair at her temple, fingered it between his thumb and finger. He removed one pin. She removed two more. The hard-won loops and whirls fell down her back and over her shoulders.

  “You have the prettiest hair, honey.”

  “So do you.” How could she do anything but reach up and stroke the dark wisp that flopped over his forehead.

  He caught her hand and kissed her fingers.

  “In spite of the way things happened,” he murmured then let go of her hands. He touched her cheek with one finger, slid it under her chin. “Of the way they must be between us—I’m not sorry I married you. I care for you, Agatha.”

  “I care for—”

  He cut her off with a kiss—a tender one that heated to a simmer when he pressed her to his chest. She sighed and leaned against his heartbeat. The sweet simmer ignited and smoldered.

  Breaking the kiss, he did not push her away but bent his forehead to hers.

  “Chess—we were going to play—” His breath beat fast against her face.

  “We ought to.”

  “We will.”

  And they did. After another kiss.

  This one lasted only seconds before William set her away from him at arm’s length, both of them breathing heavily. It left her mouth scorched, her heart shaken and her toes curled.

  She lost the first game because all she could think of was, one day he was not going to tell her he cared for her.

  He was going to say he loved her and she was going to say the same back.

  She won the next two games.

  When he left her at her bedroom door, he did not kiss her good-night.

  * * *

  William sat on his mattress, legs hanging over the side, hands clenched between his knees and his head bent.

  It was useless trying to sleep. At three in the morning he gave up trying.

  Every time he closed his eyes he saw the red fall of his wife’s hair, felt the silky curls slide under his fingers.

  If he lay on his side he imagined her beside him, moonlight caressing her shoulder and the curve of her bare hip. If he lay on his back he could see the contentment in the curve of her smile as she gazed down at him, the beat of her pulse in the slender column of her neck.

  That sultry image launched him from his bed.

  Going to the window, he braced his hands on the sill. Below, the yard lay in darkness. Nothing stirred except an owl that swooped across the yard then landed in a tree on the far side of the fence.

  There was only one way to get impossible images of Agatha out of his mind and that was to look back.

  He didn’t want to remember the past, but he forced himself to bring up a hurtful time—no, not hurtful—shattering. A time that had left him forever distrustful of the sudden changes life served up.

  By force of will he made himself remember his mother’s milk-white face on the night he sat at her bedside waiting for her to die.

  All of a sudden he was young, he was Billy. The pressure behind his eyes was very real. Even though his mother was safely sleeping in a room above his, emotions from the past cramped his chest.

  It was true that his mother had not died. Not on the outside, but she had grieved so horribly for her lost daughter that she might have on the inside, for a time.

  Had his mother not been such a strong woman she might not have survived it.

  He wanted Agatha to his bones, but not so much that he would be willing to go through that experience again. He would not see his wife in that bloody bed. Watch their child turn blue after only one breath of life.

  Aching to make Agatha his wife in the way God intended was not enough to make him act on it.

  He cared for her far too much.

  Hell, that was not the truth. His feelings for her were growing stronger than mere caring every time he looked at her, heard her voice or caught a whiff of her rose scent.

  Day by day, watching this woman face down her demons and overcome them, seeing her spirit grow stronger with the struggle—he—well, he damn well more than cared for her.

  Chapter Ten

  This morning while dressing, Agatha noticed a difference in her thighs. Where the skin was once flaccid, weak, there was now a faint shadow that defined her muscle.

  Earlier today she’d run a quarter of a mile without becoming winded.

  In her opinion, she had become as strong as any other woman her age. Indeed, stronger than some.

  She was going to say so to William. Give him proof, professional proof, that she was not one of the china dolls his mother had no use for.

  This was how she now found herself staring at a glazed window with the name “Dr. Frederick Connor, MD” etched on it.

  It was time to know the truth. If she was fit for motherhood, she would rejoice. If she was not, she needed to know that, too.

  She rallied her courage with a prayer, opened the door and went inside.

  Moments later she sat in a chair, across from a stranger who might determine her future.

  “
What brings you here today, Mrs. English?” Doctor Connor asked, his smile friendly as he stroked the stethoscope looped around his neck.

  “Proof.”

  “Proof? Of what?”

  “That I’m healthy enough to bear a child.” Her heart beat against her ribs, her face felt hot and cold all at once. The future of her marriage, of the family she wished for, depended upon what he had to say. “Am I strong enough?”

  “Is there some reason you would think otherwise?”

  His bushy gray brows dipped toward his nose. His eyes crinkled at the corners while he listened to her tell about her illness, how the doctor had told her father childbirth would kill her.

  Dr. Connor was so understanding about her concerns and professional in his comments and questions, she confided about the laudanum as well.

  Until today, the only people who knew about that were Ivy, Travis, and William. And now Dr. Connor knew, too—he had to know everything in order to give her an honest opinion.

  He listened to her heart and her breathing, asked her to jump up and down then listened again.

  “I see no reason why you should not have a lovely child, nothing I see that tells me otherwise. Before, when your father was given that diagnosis, you were gravely ill. But you’ve been running, strengthening your heart and your muscles. You are a vision of health, Mrs. English.”

  “My husband is terrified that he will be responsible for my death,” she admitted.

  “Ah, the concern of every man. All I can tell you is that you are healthy. I cannot predict the future. Many things can go wrong, even to the stoutest of women. But most give birth with no problem at all.”

  Leaving the doctor’s office, Agatha felt light, buoyant in a way that suggested gravity did not exist.

  Ever since the first time she had defied Mother Brunne by eating a forbidden croissant that Ivy had offered, she had been taking small steps toward standing, walking and becoming hardy.

  Now, with the sun blistering down upon her shoulders, she wanted to dance home.

  She was going to be able to give William what he wanted most. Watching the planks of the boardwalk, all she saw were babies. Some with blue eyes like her husband’s, some with green like hers. One was even blond like Ivy.

  William’s proud smile, newborn cries and toddlers’ laughter filled her mind. For a second she saw herself gray-haired, bouncing a grandbaby on each knee.

  Life was about to become perfect.

  Walking past the Bascomb, another kind of laughter caught her attention. This was not the laughter of people sharing a joke. No, this was the practiced calling card of a fallen woman.

  Just because the sound came from a second-story window of the formerly elegant hotel did not mean that it sounded any different than it had at the circus.

  Looking up she saw that the Bascomb sign had been replaced with one reading “Pete’s Palace.”

  In Agatha’s opinion it wasn’t much of a palace when princesses hung out windows calling to passersby with intimate organs swelling out of their underclothes.

  Someone dressed in black clothing limped past the window, yanked the princess out of view.

  Something about the woman in black—at least she believed it to be a woman—made Agatha miss a step. She stumbled into the grasp of a stout man wearing dirty boots and a travel-stained hat. A gun belt rode low on his hip.

  “You envy her? Want her job, maybe?” He spat a wad of tobacco juice at her, missing the hem of her skirt by an inch. “A fine lady like you? The boss would be real interested.”

  He forced her against the wall by stepping too close, walking her backward to avoid being touched by him.

  Leering, he put his face within inches of hers. She wanted to vomit, seeing spittle leak out of the corners of his mouth.

  She heard the footsteps of several boots coming out the front door and shuffling about on the porch. Given the position she was in, she couldn’t see anyone.

  Insulting laughter carried down the block.

  She kicked out with her boot, landed a blow to her captor’s shin. He grunted, but her assault didn’t sway him.

  The way the men carried on, laughing and whistling, she might have been a sparrow, locked in the sights of a sparrow hawk.

  Still, she did land a blow, which was more than she had managed with Frenchie Brown.

  “Let go of me,” she insisted, making sure her voice remained calm, assertive.

  She balled her fist, swung at the lout. Her knuckles barely grazed his nose, but he went down.

  Shiny black boots flashed in her line of sight.

  William!

  He stood between her and the man on the ground, legs braced, shoulders heaving. Those on the porch jeered at the fellow because it had not been her fist that brought him down, but the swipe of William’s boot. The villain had toppled over like a tree felled by a logger’s saw.

  “Gentlemen, please!” A tall well-dressed man pushed through the onlookers. The cigarette clenched between his lips bounced with his words.

  Standing before her he nodded his head, plucked the cigarette from his mouth.

  “I do apologize for the rudeness of my employees.” His remorse might have been more believable had he not blown a ring of smoke in her face. “Barbarians one and all.”

  He slid a half-lidded gaze at his men. “In the future you will treat the lady with the deference she deserves.”

  “Sounds to me like you don’t care what they do,” William snapped, anchoring his arm around her waist and drawing her away.

  “Does it?” He snorted, took another drag on the cigarette then dropped it on the boardwalk.

  It took all of half a minute for William to hustle her past the bank, the bakery and the general store.

  “Get to work, you fools! We open in two days!” she heard the lank-haired man shout.

  Glancing back, she noticed that he had not bothered to snuff out the smoldering butt.

  * * *

  Again that night, William stood beside his open bedroom window. Wind blew the curtain inside, ruffled the lapels of his robe. He looked out at the stars, at the moonlight illuminating the garden below.

  Naturally, he thought about Agatha. There was something different about her tonight. There had been all day.

  After the way she had been nearly assaulted on the street, he would have expected her to be withdrawn, frightened.

  It made his insides edgy wondering what would have happened to her if the office coffeepot hadn’t run dry and forced him to go to the bakery for more.

  Those men had been leering at Agatha, insulting her. Things had not escalated beyond words, but they might well have. There was little doubt that they would in the future.

  She had to be awake, fretful, worried.

  It would not be a good idea to go to her now, not given the way his feelings had deepened toward her. The way his body reacted whenever her rose-scented fragrance passed within a foot of his nose.

  Even so, he did have a responsibility to comfort her.

  Turning from his window, he left his room, went to hers. He would have to be man enough to hold her without the touch going from comfortable to sensual.

  Damn, this was risky. He knew how easily it could—had—happened.

  Quietly, he entered her unlocked room to discover that she was not pacing, staring out the window, or even weeping.

  She was quite peacefully asleep in her bed!

  Had she turned to drugs to help her sleep? No, she would not—he would never believe it.

  Besides, she didn’t have a drugged look about her.

  She appeared healthy. Because of the heat she had kicked the covers down about her ankles. Filmy pink fabric bunched high on her thighs.

  Moonlight beaming in the window shone softly on
her face. When had she gotten freckles on her nose? How?

  Perhaps she spent time in the garden while he passed his day in the office. No doubt she had Mrs. Bea carry a chair into the sunshine so she could read her book out of doors.

  Very gently so as not to wake her, he sat down on the edge of the bed.

  Her hair, glimmering auburn and speckled with hints of copper, fanned out over her pillow. The slender fingers of one hand were tangled in it. Her other hand rested on her belly.

  It was hard to believe that given what she had been through today, she smiled in her sleep.

  Good. She would be dreaming of puppies, kittens and pretty pink flowers rather than leering, insulting men.

  Clearly, she did not need him to comfort her tonight.

  He ought to get up and go to his own room, but couldn’t quite get his limbs to agree with the idea.

  Not when he had the chance to look at her like this. A soft glow touched her face, her throat and her chest. It kissed her bent knee and her trim ankle.

  It hit him then that it was not only freckles making her look different. She had put on a bit of weight. She no longer had the gaunt look of a helpless waif but was curved, womanly.

  No wonder his reaction toward her had changed. Somewhere along the way he had gone from wanting to protect her—to wanting her.

  “Hell,” he murmured.

  There was no denying that she did look stronger, but that only increased his misery.

  Just because she now looked better than she had when the doctor pronounced her unfit to give birth, it did not mean that there was not some other reason she should not risk it.

  According to Agatha’s father, the doctor had been adamant about it. It was why, before he passed away, Foster Magee had insisted William marry Ivy rather than Agatha.

  The doctor had made his decision on Agatha’s future for a solid medical reason. Who was William to question his professional opinion?

  Bedsprings creaked. She turned to her side, tucked one hand under her cheek. A hank of hair slid across her face. Carefully, he drew it back, felt the silky fire of it on his fingers.

  Where had his lamb of a wife gone?

  He’d certainly not seen her today when he had expected to the most.