Seven Brides for Seven Texans Romance Collection

by Amanda Barratt

  Love at Last

  by Erica Vetsch

  Dedication

  To all the lovely ladies who joined me in this collection. Working with you has been a wonderful experience. Thank you so much for making these Hart boys come alive. And as always, to my husband Peter, the hero of my story.

  Chapter One

  September 28, 1874

  Bowie Hart eased into the foyer of El Regalo and leaned his rifle against the hall tree, his chest heavy and mind preoccupied. Perla, the housekeeper, flashed him a smile as she disappeared through a doorway into the back of the house. She’d been in her element, what with all the recent engagement parties and weddings in the Hart family. The place had been in an uproar for months.

  Bowie missed the quiet rhythm of the days before Pa’s ultimatum.

  Stonewall nosed his way past the front door, his nails clicking on the hardwood, tail wagging. Bowie rubbed the dog’s head, making his ears flop. Perla always frowned on Bowie letting one of his cow dogs into the house, but she had a soft spot for Stonewall. Bowie had found the pup nearly drowned when his cruel owner had tossed him into a burlap bag and thrown him into the Sabinal River, and Perla had helped Bowie nurse the sodden pup back to health.

  “Stay here, and don’t chew on anything.” Stonewall dropped to his belly and rested his chin on his outstretched paws. For such a large and athletic dog, the Catahoula leopard obeyed well, trained to voice and hand signals into the best cow dog in Texas. Bowie bent and gave him another pat before heading toward Pa’s office. It was well past the time he and Pa had a talk.

  Five weddings so far, and Austin’s most likely not far away. All six of his brothers married, taking up their inheritance just as their father wished. Ha, wished? Commanded was more like. Marry or be disinherited. Bowie’s gut tightened every time he thought about it

  That would leave Bowie as the sole remaining bachelor … and likely to stay that way.

  He moved down the hallway, the thick carpet muffling his steps. As he approached the heavy pocket doors, male voices drifted through the slight opening, and Bowie stilled, not wanting to interrupt.

  “This year’s worked out even better than I could’ve hoped. All you boys toppling like bowling pins. Five in nine months, and I expect you have a plan to find yourself a bride?”

  Pa. Bowie closed his eyes, picturing his father leaning back in his office chair, propping his boots up on the corner of his immense desk. Satisfaction colored his every word. And why shouldn’t it? His sons had lined up and marched to his tune right on the beat.

  “I’ll admit, I was sore when you rolled out this plan on New Year’s Day, but I can’t argue with the results.”

  Bowie’s older brother, Austin. He’d confided to Bowie that he had been kicking around the risky idea of sending off for a mail-order bride, a notion Bowie had considered for himself and discarded … quickly. Still, Austin would get something worked out before the end of the year. Another party for Perla to plan. Seems they’d hardly gotten any ranching done around these parts all year. Bowie took a step toward the door but stopped when Austin spoke again.

  “Pa, the boys and I have been talking it over, and we think you should let Bowie out of the marriage requirement.”

  Bowie sucked in a slow breath, and feathers of unease rippled across his chest. His brothers had been talking about him? His muscles tensed, and he discovered his hands had fisted at his sides.

  “I mean, it’s already near October, and he hasn’t found a wife, and I don’t think he’s even going to try. Are you really going to take his part of the ranch away from him? Hasn’t he been through enough?”

  Bowie wanted to leave, but his boots stuck to the rug. Twin flames burned in the pit of his stomach, one of shame and one of hope. Shame that even his brothers recognized no woman would ever marry the likes of him, and hope that perhaps his pa would renege and let him out of the marry-or-be-disinherited clause of the will.

  Pa’s chair creaked. Bowie could picture him rubbing his chin, his eyes sharp as flint. “I’ll admit, the thought has crossed my mind, but”—his hand smacked the desk—“he’s got to at least try. Otherwise he’s going to spend his life alone.”

  “Maybe that’s what he wants. And where is he going to find someone to marry him? If his battle scars don’t put the ladies off, his surly disposition will. I heard in town that someone suggested starting a betting pool. Which of your sons would marry in what order, and they were offering some pretty tall odds on Bowie, but there weren’t even any takers. I doubt there’s a woman in the county who can even look him in the face to talk to, much less walk down the aisle with him. And it’s nearly too late for a mail-order bride.”

  Bowie’s skin prickled, and anger speared through him. Anger at the ignorant townsfolk who were looking on his family’s private business as sport, at himself for caring at all what anyone thought, and anger at God for not letting him die on the battlefield at Gettysburg or in Elmira prison where he’d sat out the duration of the War. Anything would be better than being the object of his brothers’ pity or the ridicule of the good people of Hartville, Texas.

  “Gambling? On my sons?” Pa’s voice rose.

  “Don’t get in a squawk. I put an end to the betting pretty quick, but still. It’s all over town that nobody expects Bowie to find a wife. And if he doesn’t, what are you going to do? Kick him off the ranch? Have him stay on, but working for his brothers instead of alongside them? That will go over real well.”

  Pa was silent for a while, and Bowie knew he was thinking it over. “Maybe you’re right. I’ll admit, when I thought up this scheme, it was Bowie I worried about the most.”

  Bowie reached up and touched the patch covering his left eye socket, letting his fingers trail down his puckered and shiny cheek … well, shiny except for where the black powder of the explosion that had taken his eye had embedded itself under his skin like a tattoo.

  A freak.

  A monster.

  An embarrassment to his family.

  He’d heard and thought them all.

  Turning on his heel, he strode back down the hallway to the staircase, treading quietly up the steps to his room at the back of the house.

  Minutes later, he was packed. Saddlebags thrown over his shoulder, papers rolled and under his arm, gun belt wrapped around his waist, and a scrap of linen and lace that he’d kept for more than ten years tucked into his pocket. He clomped down the stairs, not caring if anyone heard him this time, snatched up his rifle from the hall tree, snapped his fingers at Stonewall, and left El Regalo.

  He refused to look back. Either his plan would work, or he’d just keep riding.

  The sun was setting as he rode into Hartville, and he was grateful for the concealing dusk as he headed down a back alley toward his brother, Houston’s, hardware store. Stonewall trotted at his stirrup, nose raised to all the unfamiliar smells of town.

  Houston opened the back door to Bowie’s knock. His blue eyes took in Bowie and Stonewall, and then he glanced up and down the alley. “Trouble? Is it Pa?”

  Bowie ducked under the door frame. “Pa’s fine.” Fine and still meddling in his sons’ lives.

  “Then what are you doing in town? You never come to town.”

  Coralee, Houston’s new bride, swept down the shop, and Bowie turned so his right side was toward her, tipping his chin so his long hair swung forward. “I’m going away for a little while, and there’s a couple things I need you to do for me while I’m gone.” He dug into the inside pocket of his buckskin jacket, drawing out the folded papers.

  “Going away?” Coralee asked. She twisted one of her ringlets around her finger.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Bowie shifted his weight, not looking at her. He’d known her for years, but now she was his sister-in-law. He was at a loss to know how to act around the bevy of females that had invaded his family, so he fell back on saying as little as possible.

  She laughed, and he tensed, as he did every time a woman laughed. Was she la
ughing at him?

  “When are you going to call me Coralee? Ma’am sounds so formal.”

  He jerked his chin to let her know he heard. Handing his papers to Houston, he said, “Can you get started on this for me? On the rise above the Sabinal where Austin shot that big buck when we were kids. And can you put my horse up at the livery? He’s tied out back. I’m taking Stonewall with me, but could you tell Travis to have Robbie keep an eye on Clara for me? I’m pretty sure she’s going to whelp in about six weeks.”

  Houston scanned the pages, flipping through them. “A house?” Bowie could just about see the lists of needed items forming in Houston’s head. Lumber, doors, windows, nails, shingles.

  “Where did you get these plans?”

  “Can you do it or not?”

  “Of course I can. Just how long do you expect to be gone?”

  “A while.” Maybe forever.

  “How soon do you want this done?”

  “By the end of next month. Hire whoever you have to. I need to hustle to make the evening stage.” He nodded to Coralee. “Ma’am.”

  Houston followed after him. “Wait, you want me to build you a house in not even five weeks? What are you planning? When will you be back? Does anyone else know you’re leaving? What do I tell the family?”

  Bowie kept on walking, Stonewall trotting at his side. As he settled himself into the stage bound for San Antonio, he gripped his rifle barrel and took the scrap of linen out of his pocket, wondering if he was the biggest fool in Christendom, and if he had the courage to take the next step in his plan. He rubbed the last few threads of the monogram that remained on the fabric. Stonewall sat on the floor between his boots, looking up at him as if questioning his sanity. Bowie couldn’t blame the dog. He was wondering, too.

  Pa’s demand that his sons marry hung over him like a sword, and his brothers’ pity and concern twisted like a knife.

  Marry or be disinherited.

  There was only one woman he would ever consider asking to marry him, the only woman who had never recoiled at the sight of his ravaged face. He would track her down, propose if she wasn’t already married, and if she refused, that would be it. His inheritance would be gone. He’d just keep going and never return to the 7 Heart Ranch.

  “You are undoubtedly the most addle-brained female it has ever been my curse to be saddled with. A three-legged, blind donkey could work the button punch better than you.” Uncle Zeb towered over Elise Rivers at her station in the button factory, his hand raised.

  She jerked her head at the last instant, but not quickly enough to avoid the slap altogether. Hot pain shot through the side of her face, and tears welled in her eyes in spite of her vow never to cry in front of Uncle Zebulon. The clack and punch of the machines around her and the sickening miasma of old seafood hanging in the air made her nauseous.

  His rant continued as the women on the factory floor kept their heads bent to their work. Elise didn’t blame them. To draw attention to oneself was to call down wrath.

  “Look at these. Wasteful.” Uncle Zeb held up a fistful of oyster shells, each pierced with many round holes. “It isn’t enough that you’re a charity case forced on me. Now you try to rob me? Look how far apart you’ve spaced these punches. And you’re nowhere near the edges, leaving all this behind.” He flung the shells at her, and she threw her hands up to protect her face.

  Fear burned away, flaming into indignation. She stiffened her spine, knowing she would regret challenging him but unable to stop the flow of words. “You slapped me last week because a batch was returned as defective. You had us cut the buttons so close together, they overlapped and weren’t round. And I would cut them closer to the edge where the shell is thicker if you’d ever sharpen the blades on the punches so I could get through the mother of pearl without shattering it. It’s your own miserly fault we can’t turn out a decent product.”

  One of the workers gasped, and Uncle Zeb’s face reddened. He floundered for a moment, spittle flecking the corners of his mouth, his fist rising. “You ungrateful leech! When I think of how I took you in, fed you, clothed you, gave you a place to live and work, and this is how you repay me? Insolence, wastefulness, laziness. I’ll teach you to backtalk me!”

  Elise braced herself, her eyes slamming shut, already ruing her hasty accusation, though every word of it was true and she wouldn’t take it back.

  An odd squeak from her uncle had her eyes popping open. Elise sucked in a breath that snagged in her throat.

  Silhouetted against the sunlight streaming in the open factory door, a massive man stood firm, his huge hand gripped around Uncle Zeb’s fist. At his side, a muscular dog bristled and snarled, his eyes glowing hot.

  “Touch her again, and I’ll break you into kindling,” the big man growled.

  Where had she heard that voice before? Low and gravelly, making eddies in her middle. He stepped farther into the workroom, pressing down on Uncle Zeb’s fist, forcing him to stagger back and drop to his knees. The women at the presses sat open-mouthed and wide-eyed. Machinery stopped, and hands and expressions froze.

  Buckskin fringe swayed along the big man’s sleeves, and in one hand he carried a long rifle. The other maintained its hold on Uncle Zeb with seemingly little effort. Zebulon squeaked again, his eyes wide, all the fight gone out of him.

  Elise swallowed and half rose from her stool. She knew that voice, but from where? Then the man looked at her, his long, dark hair swinging back so she could see his face.

  It wasn’t the patch or the black-powder burns on his cheek and neck that she recognized … no, it was the single, brown, thickly-lashed eye that she remembered. Watchful as a bird of prey, trained on her as she had moved through the hospital ward tending the broken bodies of men fighting for what they believed in.

  “Captain Hart.” The whisper came, not so much from her lips as from her memory. The heartbreak, the despair, the desperate longing to be able to do more for the wounded…

  “Let go of me, you … you … brute. I’ll have the law on you.” Zebulon writhed, unable to loosen the captain’s hold on his fist. The dog inched closer, his fangs bared by his curling lips. Zeb stilled, sweat globbing on his reddened face.

  “Miss Rivers?” Captain Hart tossed her uncle aside like an old newspaper, snapping his finger to the dog that quieted but never took his eyes off Zeb. “I’d like to talk to you.” He glanced at the workers, frozen at their presses, then at her uncle, stock-still and rigid, held at bay by the dog. “In private.”

  “This ain’t her break time.” Uncle Zebulon barely moved as he spat out the words.

  Captain Hart ignored him. He lifted his rifle and held it in the crook of his elbow, pointed at the ground, the very image of power under control. “Miss? Can I have a word?”

  Elise pressed her lips together, wishing her mouth wasn’t so dry. Why on earth is he here? How did he find me? My uncle will thrash me proper if I leave my station … And yet, when Captain Hart motioned with his head toward the door, she found herself wanting to follow him, curiosity winning over all.

  “Yes.” She wiped her hands on her apron and slid off her stool. As she edged around the dog, Captain Hart moved between her and her uncle.

  “Heel, boy.” The dog relaxed and came to his master’s side. Uncle Zeb pushed himself off the wall, rubbing his sore hand, scowling.

  Captain Hart stepped out into the alley behind the factory and away from the door, his stride long and confident. Elise had never had the opportunity to observe him upright and healthy before, and his height struck her. He must be well over six feet. Near six and a half, maybe. And lithe as a cat.

  The alley stank of discarded refuse, rotting cabbage, and old smoke. Grimy brick walls rose on either side, blocking out the sun. He turned to her, and behind him on the street, New Rochelle, New York, bustled and hurried, indifferent to the sadness and suffering around it, intent on its own purposes.

  Elise stuffed a stray lock under the kerchief covering her hair, and folded her h
ands at her waist, wishing that her apron was clean at least. Sniffing and snuffling the plethora of odors and smells in the alley, the dog nosed from one pile of trash to the next. The captain looked down on her, saying nothing, and she forced herself not to fidget under his intent stare.

  Finally, he spoke. “Is that man your husband?”

  Elise blinked. “No.” As if I would marry such a contemptible tyrant, and twice my age or better?

  “But you live with him? He said he took you in.”

  “He’s my uncle, though admitting it brings me no joy.” She twisted her fingers at her waist.

  “Are you married to anyone?”

  She almost laughed. A spinster of thirty years whose uncle had long ago discouraged any man from courting her lest he lose his unpaid servant, she’d given up hope of marriage and family. Who would want her anyway, a penniless factory worker? It was a question with which her querulous uncle often taunted her. Old maid, plain as a slice of bread, useless hanger-on.

  “No, sir. I am not married to anyone.”

  Something in him seemed to ease. He shifted his weight and adjusted the rifle in his clasp. “Do you want to be?”

  Elise’s hands went slack, and she raised her eyebrows. “Pardon me?” What kind of question was that, and to be asked so abruptly by a man she hadn’t seen in ten years or more?

  He sucked in a deep breath, expanding his already broad chest. The presses in the factory began their familiar thumping and banging, and Uncle Zeb’s shout berating his workers pierced the fall air. “Is there some place quiet we could talk?” Captain Hart had to raise his voice.