The Cowboy & The Shotgun Bride (The Brides of Grazer's Corners #1)

by Jacqueline Diamond

  Rashness wasn’t part of Kate’s nature. She couldn’t imagine herself throwing conventionality to the winds, the way Charity had done when she conceived her seven-year-old son and then insisted on keeping him.

  The town gossips still liked to speculate, but no one had ever figured out his paternity, and Charity wasn’t talking. Not about that, anyway.

  Someone rapped on the door with military precision. “Is the bride ready?” boomed a male voice. “Let’s get this show on the road!”

  That would be Maynard Grazer, the president of the school board. A wealthy descendant of the town’s founders, he owned stables and vineyards just outside town and was considered something of a local patriarch. He had also backed Kate when she applied to be elementary school principal.

  Unsure who should walk her down the aisle, she had decided it would be a nice gesture to ask Maynard. He had replied that he could use the practice, since his own daughter, Jordan, would be getting married the following Saturday. It was as close as Maynard ever came to making a joke.

  “I’m ready, I guess.” As she opened the door, Kate hoped neither Charity nor Maynard noticed the equivocation in her response.

  She let the photographer exit first, then stepped into the vestibule. Maynard made a reassuringly solid figure in his tuxedo, his once-youthful good looks now tempered by extra weight and graying hair but his bearing still straight and proud. When he offered his arm, Kate placed her gloved hand atop it gratefully.

  The foyer of the Spanish-style church stood empty. From the sanctuary, Kate could hear “We’ve Only Just Begun,” harmoniously rendered by the town’s choirmaster, who doubled as organist.

  Charity must have signaled him, because the melody switched to “Here Comes the Bride.” And here, with a deep breath, she came.

  Dead ahead, before the altar, waited Moose, his face flushed and his shoulders thrown back. The cockeyed position of his bow tie gave the tuxedo a comical air, which somehow made her feel better.

  Behind him, the aged pastor, the Reverend Louis Lewis, beamed vaguely and with great dignity at his congregation. Perpetually on the brink of turning eighty, the Rev. Lewis seemed to have been pickled in the jar of time. Gossip suggested that he had been exactly the same age and held the same position since the town’s founding in 1910.

  Kate spared a glance for Jordan Grazer, sitting beside her future husband, banker Randall Latrobe. They made a handsome pair, Jordan dark and sweet-faced, Randall blond and sleek.

  Jordan’s eyes met Kate’s for a flick of a second. Was that unhappiness in them? Could Jordan be entertaining the same sort of doubts as Kate?

  Just beyond her sat the other couple who would be married this month, in two weeks’ time. Garrett Keeley, who had the rugged appeal of a former star quarterback, radiated self-assurance. It was hard to read much in the reserved, model-perfect face of his fiancée, socialite Hailey Olson.

  But then, Kate told herself, none of the Grazer’s Comers brides and grooms were so immature as to expect to live out a fairy tale. They were marrying someone respectable and would take their proper places in the life of the town.

  Just like her. And that was as it should be. She was older than this month’s other two brides, ready to settle down, and doing the right thing by marrying Moose.

  Then Kate glimpsed a man sitting to one side, near the front. The man who had haunted her dreams for the past three nights, whose searing touch remained imprinted on her arm. The man who should never have come back.

  He sat twisted in his pew, his steely gaze sweeping the church. His eyes touched on her face in surprise, and Kate nearly missed her step, but Maynard steadied her and they surged forward.

  Mitch Connery, wanted criminal, had crashed her wedding. But why? Who or what did he expect to find here?

  There was nothing in the etiquette books, she felt certain, about how to deal with such a situation. However, Kate had read somewhere that when the unthinkable happened, it was best to ignore it. Besides, in her current state of mind, she could come up with no better course of action.

  She and Maynard reached the altar. Moose blinked, gulped and helped her up the steps. Instinctively, Kate reached to straighten his bow tie, and heard a murmur of amusement run through the guests.

  Oh, well. There was no sense in pretending she was too carried away to notice such a detail, when everyone here had known her and Moose since childhood.

  Kate found herself glancing at the stranger. A faint frown etched across his forehead. When he realized she was looking, he cocked his head and raised one eyebrow as if to ask, Why?

  Indignation roared through her. Did this cowboy, this fugitive, this...this...lawyer presume to question her judgment?

  Kate put her hand in Moose’s and faced the minister. The Reverend Louis Lewis pushed his wirerimmed spectacles higher on his nose and fumbled with his Bible.

  “Dearly beloved,” said his scratchy voice. “We are gathered, uh...” A piece of paper slipped to the floor.

  Moose bent over to scoop it up. Kate thought she heard, but hoped she was wrong, the sandpaper rasp of stitches parting. Behind her, people stirred, and a couple of coughs might have covered titters.

  Then the world, if not Moose’s pants, tore asunder.

  The sanctuary’s side door banged open, sunshine flooded the church and three ill-matched silhouettes stumped in. In the blazing glare, they might have been three demons risen from hell.

  Kate recognized the shapes: the big, hulking one, the thin one with the limp and the lanky, long-necked one. She also recognized the outlines of shotguns clutched in their hands.

  A sense of unreality held her, and everyone else, motionless. Then the reverend squinted toward the doorway and said, “Would the latecomers please take a seat so we may continue the service?”

  “We’re not leaving without him!” grunted one of the men, and swung his shotgun toward Mitch Connery.

  But Mitch wasn’t sitting in his pew anymore. He must have dived for the floor and crawled for his life, judging by the way people were swiveling and sidestepping in the row ahead.

  “Hand him over or y’all will pay!” whooped the gangly bandit, and fired into the ceiling.

  The noise exploded through the room like a chain reaction. Women screamed. A couple of people in the back dashed out. A man cursed, but was quickly shushed.

  In the front row, Maynard Grazer loomed to his feet. “Now see here!” he began, when his daughter let out a cry from where she sat with her fiance.

  “Daddy, don’t!” wailed Jordan. “They’ll kill you!”

  The large bandit swung his gun toward the school board president. Kate’s throat clenched in horror, and then she saw something small—about the size of a roll of film—fly through the air from one side and smack the gunman in the temple.

  He stumbled, and his shot went wild. Charity Arden ducked behind a curtain, and Jordan Grazer rushed to her father’s side. Maynard appeared stunned, but unharmed.

  The church seethed as people ducked for cover. In the shuffling and shoving, it was no longer possible to trace Mitch’s movements.

  The bandits, whom she could now see were wearing bandannas, fanned out through the sanctuary, poking at people and peering under the pews. The young one kept shouting threats, but his Texas accent was so thick Kate couldn’t understand half of what he said.

  She felt an absurd impulse to call for order. Then it penetrated her dazed brain that she wasn’t the principal, these weren’t unruly students and she was standing here gaping like an idiot.

  “Come on!” Moose called while piloting the baffled minister toward an inner door. “Get a move on!”

  “Right.” Kate took one step and nearly tripped over her many-layered skirt. Grimly, she collected it in one hand and began descending from the dais.

  The harsh, angled light distorted her sense of depth, and she had to move cautiously. Then, across the room, another shot hit the ceiling, and the tumult abated.

  “Everybody down!�
� yelled the tall, gangly bandit, who managed to torture at least three syllables from the word down.

  Kate froze. She was stuck on the steps, the most prominent and exposed figure in the church. Should she sit? Finish making her way to the floor? Just stand here?

  The older, grizzled gunman noticed her dilemma. Or rather, he saw his opportunity.

  “Well, now,” he drawled as he limped up the aisle toward her. “I don’t suppose you want to see this sweet young bride harmed, now do you, Connery, you murdering varmint? So you just come out now, or I’ll—”

  From the direction of the curtains, a plastic film can flew with such deadly accuracy that the bandit might have had a bull’s-eye painted on his forehead. In the split second in which the entire church was focused on his startled figure, someone grabbed Kate and dragged her toward the open door.

  She knew those strong arms, and that spicy cedar smell. Mitch Connery had rescued her again.

  The largest of the intruders thudded toward them down the side aisle. Kate flung her bouquet wildly at him, but it flew instead into the arms of Jordan Grazer, who regarded it in confusion.

  However, the hefty bandit had the misfortune to be passing Agatha Flintstone. Pulling a book from her purse, the town clerk whacked him in the side of the head so hard he staggered.

  The elderly woman let out a whoop that reminded Kate of Mel Gibson in Braveheart. Around the church, people began howling and flinging things at the crooks.

  “Let’s get you out of here,” growled Mitch.

  They had reached the threshold when Charity Arden dashed forward, camera clicking as her news instincts came to the fore. Kate hoped the young woman got a good shot of her and Mitch; after her bold and lifesaving accuracy, she deserved a reward.

  Then they were outside in the blinding light, and Charity slammed the door behind them. It wouldn’t slow the bandits for long, but every little bit helped.

  Half a block away, Kate saw Charity’s brother, Bud, struggling to parallel-park a panel truck bearing the logo of the family pig farm. She wasn’t sure why he’d come late—Bud had been so moody these past few weeks that even his sister had remarked on it—but his present position blocked the bandits’ van and would probably slow them even further.

  “The best thing I can do for you, ma’am, is to make myself scarce,” the cowboy said in a regretful baritone as he loosened his grip on Kate. “But my advice is to marry somebody else. Your fellow’s chickened out on you twice.”

  “He saved the minister!” Kate retorted.

  “It’s your decision, ma’am. I don’t mean to interfere.” Sunshine turned Mitch Connery’s amber eyes to molten gold as he released her. The June air felt cold as it rushed to take his place.

  Kate felt a tug as he moved away. Not a delicate interior tug, but a sharp yank near her waistline. “Hey!”

  They both glanced down and saw the same thing. Somehow, during their close encounter, his belt buckle had worked its way into the lace of her skirt.

  The man’s hips swiveled tantalizingly close to hers. Kate could feel his heat reflecting in places she’d never dared to associate with a man, not until her wedding night.

  She fumbled furiously with her gown. “What a mess! You’ll have to take it off!”

  “Excuse me?” He cocked his head.

  “Your belt!”

  “Oh. Yes, ma’am.” Standing so close she could almost hear his blood thrumming, Mitch jerked on the buckle, but the prong was caught in the fabric. “Sorry. It looks like I’ll have to resort to brute force.”

  “Don’t you dare!” But she could see they had no choice. What did a little bit of lace matter, anyway?

  With a muttered apology, Mitch grabbed his belt in one hand and her skirt in another, and wrenched. If anything, the buckle twisted even deeper into the fabric.

  Kate had years of experience in disentangling and unknotting and de-chewing-gumming all sorts of things, and she could see that this buckle and this skirt had well and truly mated. They would not be parted without scissors or a great deal of time, time that she and the cowboy didn’t have.

  Mitch must have drawn the same conclusion, because before she knew it they were both heading for his pickup, hopping along like two picnickers in a three-legged race. Like it or not, Kate would have to go with him until they could sort out their clothing.

  Not only go with him, but sit practically in his lap. Worse, she discovered as they crammed into the front seat, she had to position herself sideways, her stomach pressed to his hip and her legs entwined with his.

  At this close range, she got a front-row experience of how a man’s body moves when he starts a truck. His muscles tighten, and he stretches out his thigh when he presses the accelerator, and as he shifts, his arm brushes the all-too-sensitive breast of any woman who happens to be pasted against him.

  She also got a glancing view in the side mirror of the bandits bursting from the church, guns blazing. Down the street, Bud ducked out of sight, his vehicle still partly blocking the van.

  Bullets blasted by, and Kate said a silent prayer of gratitude for the camper in the truck bed, which shielded Mitch’s rear window. And for the fact that it didn’t occur to those idiots to shoot out the pickup’s tires.

  The truck screeched around a comer, centrifugal force pressing Kate hard into Mitch. She’d never felt so aware of a man physically, even in years of stolen kisses and slow dancing with Moose.

  “I figure by now somebody’s got to have called the police, or the sheriff, whatever you folks do for law enforcement around here,” Mitch said as he whipped onto first one side street and then another, zigzagging north of the square.

  “Unfortunately,” she said, “I’m the sheriff.”

  He hit the brakes, bringing the truck to a thumping halt in the shade of a eucalyptus. “Ma’am,” he said, “you have got to be kidding.”

  “I wish I were.” On the verge of an explanation, Kate stopped herself. She saw no reason to reveal the full extent of Moose’s shenanigans to this stranger. “In any case, we’re not used to this sort of activity in Grazer’s Corners.”

  “Ma’am, I realize that, but...” He stared through the windshield with a look so piercing it could probably be used for laser surgery. “I’m afraid there’s something you need to know about me.”

  Sitting here, they were likely to be dead before he got through his confession, if that was what he intended to make. “Just turn right at the next comer and keep heading southeast,” Kate said. He remained still. “We’ll talk shortly,” she assured him. “Now get moving, Mr. Mitch Connery of Gulch City, Texas.”

  The cowboy’s jaw worked silently. Then he pressed the gas pedal and followed her directions.

  By the time he spoke again, his lower eyelids had pouched up as if he were squinting over a prairie. “You taking me in, ma’am?”

  “This isn’t the way to the jail,” she said. “I hardly ever lock up people who save my life. In fact, if they save it twice, I usually listen to their story before I decide what to do with them.”

  His taut mouth curved into an appreciative smile. “You do have a way with words, ma’am.”

  “My name is Kate,” she said.

  “Nice name.”

  “As opposed to what?”

  “Tiffany. Bambi. Something typically California. Kate’s a nice, serviceable name.”

  She blew a wisp of stray hair from her mouth. “Mitch isn’t bad, either. I guess you use Mitchell when you’re arguing in front of the Supreme Court, though.”

  His laughter rumbled through her bones. “Mostly I draft people’s wills and try to talk them out of divorces. Or weddings, in the present case.”

  Kate took a deep breath, then realized that, pressed so close, he could probably feel the rise and fall of her chest almost as well as she could. “Let’s leave me out of this, all right?”

  “If you say so, ma’am.” The truck veered around the elementary school, slowing to twenty-five miles per hour even though it was s
ummer and there were no children present.

  The sight of her home-away-from-home steadied Kate. No matter how chaotic life became anywhere else, she always felt in charge there.

  But she couldn’t think about that today. She had to get herself disentangled, figure out what to do with Mitch and then...

  Then what? Go back to the church and marry Moose?

  She owed it to the man. He’d been loyal for years, waiting patiently and respecting Kate’s decision to save herself. Maybe he wasn’t some romantic hero, but he didn’t deserve to be abandoned at the altar.

  Of course, in a sense, he’d abandoned her at the altar. Had the reverend really needed help, or had he simply presented such an obstacle to Moose’s escape route that it was easier to take him along than to go around?

  She couldn’t puzzle it out, could only stare through the window and try to decide what to do next. They were entering a familiar neighborhood of California bungalows built in the 1920s and ’30s. The friendliness of the porches, many flanked by rosebushes in bloom, made her feel better.

  “Mind telling me how much farther we’re going?” Mitch asked.

  With a start, Kate realized she was guiding him toward her own house. Well, why not? Under the circumstances, who would think to look for her at home?

  “We’re nearly there. Turn left at this street and then right into the second driveway. It curves around the back so no one can see the truck.”

  He did as she instructed, cornering past the mailbox designed as a red schoolhouse and bumping along her gravel drive. Behind the house, the engine died to silence in a small apple grove that her father had planted years ago.

  Kate felt Mitch’s heart rate decelerate as he took in the sheltering trees and rambling lot, the screened rear porch and the flower bed bursting with pansies. “This your home, Kate?”

  She nodded. “I’ve got a key hidden. We can go inside and talk—once we get our clothes straightened out.”

  He made no move to separate them. “You planning to live here with that groom of yours?”

  A wry chuckle escaped her. “Moose has a bigger place on the west side of town. He wouldn’t live in a little cottage like this.”