“We can just skip that part.”
Her objection was overridden.
“No.” Cougar caught her hand in his. His skin was warm and hard under her palm. She looked down as he slipped a gold band on her finger. It was smooth and heavy and glowed softly against the backdrop of his dark skin. There were intricate carvings across the band that rubbed against the inside of her fingers as he closed his fingers around hers.
Dorothy leaned over and the small frown that had been pleating her brow, dissolved. “Your mother’s ring?”
Cougar tightened his fingers over Mara’s. “Yes.”
She had the crazy desire to rip it off. She couldn’t live up to the expectations that came with a man giving his bride his mother’s ring, but another hand came over her free one. She glanced up to see Doc looking at her, his gaze understanding. Doc squeezed her hand.
“It’s a good beginning,” was all he said.
* * * * *
And it seemed to be. While her wedding breakfast took place in the same small bedroom as her wedding, the tension had been replaced with good-natured teasing. It was almost as if an exchange of “I do’s” had rewritten the past, erasing the bitterness and recriminations and replacing them with hope and potential. She shook her head in wonder, and made a grab for her plate, which Cougar had displaced when he’d opted for the bed as his seat.
“Sorry about that.” He checked the tilt of his own plate as warm syrup made a beeline for the edge. “Dorothy would probably have my head if I got this load on her best quilt.”
“Not only your head,” Dorothy corrected, “but a few more vital parts too.”
“Ouch.” Brad Swanson mouthed around a bite of blueberry pancake. Mara stared at the man. She’d been doing it a lot for the last hour. She simply couldn’t connect someone as young and handsome as he with the church.
A whisper that could be likened to a growl came from Cougar, “He snores.”
“So do you, I imagine.” Mara settled her napkin in her lap. “Is he really a Reverend?”
“Yes.” Cougar sent the man a glance that should have had Brad choking on his next mouthful. “He’s a Reverend, for all he sometimes forgets.”
“He seemed competent enough when he married us.” She couldn’t decide whether that was a blessing or a sin.
Cougar took a vicious bite of pancake. “If you’re staring at the man because you’re wondering if we are really husband and wife—we are.”
Obviously, the Reverend Swanson was a touchy subject with her husband. “Actually,” she admitted, “I’ve been trying to reconcile in my mind that someone that good-looking could be a man of God.”
Cougar’s knife clattered on his china plate, cutting through the joking going on about them.
“He’s not that good-looking,” he hissed.
In the sudden silence, his words were clear to all.
“Who’s not that good-looking?” Doc asked.
“No one,” Cougar growled.
“Nothing,” Mara muttered, no more pleased than Cougar to have her comment overheard.
Brad Swanson smiled around his cup of coffee. “Must be talking about me.”
“Figures you’d assume we were talking about you,” Cougar said.
Brad held up a hand to ward off the insult. “Hey, it was an easy deduction. Especially when you take into account the way Mara was glowering at you when she said it.”
Doc cleared his throat and ran his hand over his hair. “Appears to me, Mara could’ve had someone else entirely in mind when she brought up the subject of good-looking men.”
His lips were twitching before he finished the comment.
Cougar leapt onto the opening. “Heck, Doc. For Mara to call you good-looking, it would have had to have been her eyes that were damaged rather than her ribs.”
“Either that or she’s been chewing loco weed,” Brad offered as he cut into his pancake.
“I’ll have you know,” Dorothy interrupted, “Doc has always stood out in the crowd.”
“At least his hair,” Cougar teased.
Doc did nothing to defend himself. He merely settled back on his chair, and calmly lit his pipe. His complacency surprised Mara almost as much as the small smile hovering around his lips. She followed his gaze to see it settle squarely on Dorothy as that woman set her empty plate on the floor with a decisive click.
“Doc is and always has been a man to set a woman’s heart to fluttering.” Dorothy got to her feet and jammed a hairpin back into her bun. “Every woman in Charleston was panting after him—”
“Sure they weren’t panting from the fright he gave them?” Swanson interrupted.
The silence in the wake of his teasing was deafening.
In the seconds it took Dorothy to get around the bed to his side, the Reverend had time enough to realize he’d made a mistake. He had to know it for sure when Dorothy snatched his still full plate from his hand.
“Hey!”
Dorothy held the plate out of his reach. “Doc is a fine man.”
“I never said he wasn’t,” the Reverend argued, a grin tilting his lips as he assessed Dorothy’s reaction.
“Doc is a fine looking man.”
The look the Reverend shot Doc was full of incredulity, but he covered it with a hasty, “Well, not being a woman, maybe I’m not qualified to judge.”
“That may be so,” Dorothy agreed. “But for having the poor taste to voice your opinion at my table, you may be excused from it.”
“Ah, Dorothy,” Brad groaned, making a halfhearted attempt for his breakfast. “Have a heart.”
Dorothy whisked the plate behind her back. “I have a heart and it’s belonged to Doc since I was eighteen years old.” She took two steps backwards. The move brought the plate within touching distance of Cougar and Mara. The aroma of bacon, eggs and pancakes intensified.
Cougar reached out and snagged the meal, putting his empty plate on the floor. “No sense letting this go to waste.”
“Hey!” Brad protested, reaching around Dorothy who stood as immobile as a rock, blocking his path. “That’s mine!”
Cougar smiled as be bit through a piece of bacon. He waved the remaining bite in Dorothy’s direction. “Not anymore.”
“You can’t let him have that!” Brad told Dorothy.
“Why not?” Dorothy asked. Though Mara couldn’t see the woman’s expression, she could hear the smile in her voice. If anyone had told her a year ago she’d be sitting in a bed surrounded by a family that spent more time teasing than fighting, she’d have said they were crazy, especially as in her experience, teasing led to violence, but no one here looked ready to battle, though there did appear to be some maneuvering going on.
Brad ran his fingers through his hair before pointing an exasperated finger at Cougar who was contentedly munching on a second piece of bacon. “Because he started it.”
“He’s right, Dorothy,” Doc offered from his seat. The chair legs squeaked as he got to his feet. “And that being the case,” he reached over and plucked the plate from Cougar’s unsuspecting hands. “It appears these particular spoils belong to me.”
“Hey!” Now it was Cougar’s turn to protest and Brad’s turn to be satisfied.
Doc shrugged and cut off a large chunk of pancake. “Don’t know how many times I’ve told you, son,” he pointed his fork at Cougar, “never start something you can’t finish.” A drop of syrup dripped off to land on the plate with silent punctuation.
Dorothy grinned over her shoulder at Mara. “Let this be a lesson to you in husband management, Mara. A woman doesn’t need to scream to get her point across.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” Mara answered. As strange as it was to be in the midst of good-natured teasing, it felt good. Like there might be a part of herself she’d never explored.
Cougar shot his mother a disgruntled look. “These aren’t the kinds of lessons I want you teaching my wife.”
“And what exactly would you suggest I teach her?” Dorothy
asked, going back to where she’d left her own plate.
Cougar ran his finger through a tiny puddle of syrup left in his plate. “How to cook like you might be a start.”
“And be like every other mother-in-law in the territory?” Dorothy asked as she straightened, plate in hand. “I’d rather learn to ride astride.” Which considering her distaste of horses, said a lot.
“And I’d rather know about husband management,” Mara offered.
Cougar frowned at her as he sucked the syrup off his finger. “I don’t think that’s a subject you need to be studying.”
She clenched her fingers on the plate on her lap. She thought he was joking, but she couldn’t be sure. Doc’s hoot coincided with Brad’s guffaw, and Dorothy’s snort. All three gave Mara the courage to go on.
“I disagree.” She lowered her lashes as she’d seen Dorothy do. “I feel it’s a subject I should devote a great deal of time to.”
“Uh-huh.” Cougar took her empty plate, leaving her fingers with nothing to clench around. She opened them flat on her thighs instead.
She felt extraordinarily brave as she said, “I’m glad you agree.”
“That wasn’t agreement,” Cougar corrected dryly, his golden eyes meeting hers, the force of his personality hitting her anew.
“It wasn’t disagreement, either,” she said, keeping her voice even, fighting the instinct that screamed “back off”. She’d sworn when she’d left Cecile’s, she was never going to live to please someone again. All that had ever gotten her was abandoned, kidnapped and raped. She was a new person with a new plan. And that plan included standing up for herself.
“She’s got you there,” Brad offered as he took a sip of his coffee, the only thing remaining of his breakfast.
“Keep it up and you could lose that, too.” With a jerk of his chin, Cougar indicated the coffee.
Brad shrugged, “Just trying to help.”
Mara was quick with her “Thank you.” Too quick for Cougar’s peace of mind. He couldn’t get it out of his head that she had been staring at the big blond. A bystander might say she was fascinated with the man.
“There’s no reason to be thanking him,” Cougar pointed out as reasonably as he could. “The only thing he’s done this morning is insult Doc, and upset Dorothy.”
“He took my side in a discussion,” Mara corrected him, her eyes glittering briefly beneath her lashes. “Good manners dictate that I thank him.”
“Seems to me you’re forgetting something,” Cougar countered.
Mara lifted her face to meet his gaze, her expression so serious, he knew it wasn’t fake. “I don’t think so.”
“An hour ago,” he pointed lazily at Brad, “the man took my side against yours.”
“When did I do that?” Brad demanded.
Cougar gave him a smile that showed all of his teeth. “When you married her to me.”
Dorothy snorted in disgust. “That was nothing more than good sense.”
Doc took his unlit pipe out of his mouth and shook his head. “You disappoint me, son. That’s a damned weak point to be making.”
Cougar kept his gaze on Mara, watching all the emotions chasing across her face, not the least of which was resentment. He shrugged. “It was the best I could come up with.”
“My point exactly,” Doc rebutted. “The Reverend had no choice but to marry you two. Especially as Mara was all for the union.”
“Yeah,” Brad piped up. “I didn’t have a choice. Things being the way—”
“He’s right,” Mara interrupted, still serious, as if she’d missed the underlying humor in the situation. It was almost as if she were feeling her way through the conversation. “I can hardly blame the man for doing something I asked him to do.”
“Since when?” Cougar asked.
The look Mara gave him suggested he’d taken leave of his senses. “Since the beginning of time.”
“May I remind you that you didn’t ask him to marry us? That you thought him a lecher out to take advantage?”
“She what?” Brad asked.
“I did no such thing!” Mara sputtered.
She pushed herself higher on the pillows. The sheet fell to her lap. If he stared hard enough, Cougar could make out the gentle curve of her breasts. The outline became clearer when she took an outraged breath.
“I really didn’t think you a lecher,” Mara placated the Reverend. “I was a little surprised when you tried to touch me…”
“You acted like he planned on stripping you then and there,” Cougar countered.
“I did not!”
“Did, too.” Cougar reached down to retrieve his coffee cup from the floor. Something soft thumped him on the head. When he straightened, the pillow squashed around his face.
“Ignore him.” He heard Doc order the Reverend. “He’s just upset because you’re better-looking.”
“He is not!” Cougar didn’t know if anyone heard his denial through the muffling pillow. He tugged at it, but Doc pressed harder.
“Before I answer that,” the Reverend said, “I’ve got to ask Dorothy something.”
“What?”
“Is Cougar off-limits?”
“Nope. I love him but he has a way of bringing things on himself.”
Cougar frowned behind the pillow. His own mother taking sides with that no-account preacher. He grabbed the pillow, intending to yank it free.
Doc’s “Hold this, Mara,” and a lot less pressure on the pillow let him know Mara now held the pillow. He immediately gentled his intentions.
“In that case,” Brad continued, the glee in his voice at being unleashed, audible through two inches of feather and ticking. “I’ve got to admit how a man of Cougar’s puny attributes might feel uncomfortable when compared to other men.”
Cougar reached around and caught Mara’s wrist. When he pulled, she immediately gave ground. He jumped into the fray as soon as the path was clear, keeping his hand on her wrist. Her arm was so tense, he could feel tiny vibrations. “This from a man who needs a step stool to get knee-high to a grasshopper?”
“A step stool beats the heck out of a ten-rung ladder.”
“You only wish it were the truth,” Cougar rejoined. Mara tugged at her arm and he lowered his hand to the bright quilt, taking hers with his. A glance out of the corner of his eye revealed her discomfort. Did she think he would take offense?
“The same way you wish women gave you the looks they give me when I pass by?”
“Hell no!” He kept his eyes on Brad, but let his fingers stroke the soft skin of Mara’s wrist. “Having women faint in horror when I pass isn’t my idea of fun.”
“Just goes to show you’ve been out in the territories too long when you mistake awe for horror.”
“Just goes to show why you came out to the territories.” Mara’s arm jerked on the fourth pass. He tightened his grip but stopped stroking.
“I needed the rest from all those adoring women.”
He put all the skepticism he could into his “Uh-huh. I’ll bet you needed a rest. But it would be from all those outraged daddies bent on revenge for curling the hair on their daughter’s heads.” Beneath his index finger, he felt Mara’s pulse jump. Did she think this was serious?
“Must be you misheard the rumors. It was their toes I curled, not their hair.”
He glanced at Mara’s face. The tension he could feel in her arm was clearly written in her expression. He glanced at Doc who was also watching Mara. He shook his head almost imperceptibly.
Doc cleared his throat. “Seeing as how we’re venturing into impolite territory, I’ll declare this round a draw.” He stood, crossed the room, and kissed Dorothy. “Would you like some help with the dishes?”
“I would love some.”
As soon as they left the room, breakfast plates in hand, Cougar tossed a taunt at Brad, but this time with a smile alongside. “Lucky break.”
He wasn’t surprised when the other man picked it up and tossed it right back with o
ne of his own. “Lucky for you, you mean.”
Cougar was about to rebut when Mara interrupted.
“You two are friends.” She sounded surprised by the fact.
“You could say that,” Brad agreed.
“He has his moments,” Cougar offered grudgingly.
She huffed in response.
Cougar sipped his coffee, winced at its coldness, and then patted Mara consolingly on her knee. “Next time, you’ll pick your allies better.”
She pulled herself up with the dignity of a queen. “I have no idea what you mean.”
“Sure you do.” He grinned at her. “You meant to use Brad against me. A good strategy, but one you shouldn’t use unless you’re sure of his allegiance.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Which is to you?”
“It’s only fair. I saw him first.” Feeling good, tempted by the way her gesture drew her gown tight across her nipples, he leaned forward and kissed her cheek. Her hastily expelled breath rushed by his cheek as he pulled back.
“The Reverend,” she reminded him.
He touched the place where his lips had been. “That, Angel, was a consolation prize, and in no way could be misconstrued as anything else.”
She didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t look ready to bolt either. He took that as a positive sign as he grabbed his makings off the bedstead.
“I hate to put an end to things, but I’ve got to be heading out,” Brad interrupted.
“Baptism?” Cougar asked, shaking some tobacco onto a paper, while watching the way Mara’s fingers replaced his over the spot he’d kissed.
Brad sighed, and shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. Old man Dillon passed on yesterday.”
“Damn. I liked the old coot.” He wet the paper, rolled the cigarette up tight, and twisted the ends.
“Just about everyone did. Ought to be quite a turnout for his funeral.”
He put the cigarette between his lips, and as he struck the sulfur, asked, “You’ll pass on my regrets and sympathy?”
Brad nodded, got up, and shook Cougar’s hand. “Mabel will understand.” He turned to Mara. “It was nice meeting you. I wish you the best in your marriage, and remember, if you get tired of this galoot, I’m around.”
Promises Keep (The Promise Series) Page 12