Pretending to Wed

by Melissa Jagears

  “What family and town do you hail from?”

  With her body trembling in either a surge of rage or a need to cry, she couldn’t look at him. She picked up the kitchen knife and whacked off the ends of the onion. “I’m from the Chicago area. My parents are no one of importance.”

  “How’d you meet Nolan?”

  She ripped off the skins and threw them in a pile. “It’s a long story. Perhaps you’d rather hear it from him.”

  She took the knife back up and chopped with more vigor than necessary.

  Though her knife pounded against the cutting board, it didn’t drown out the sound of Nolan’s thumping gait on the stairs.

  She smacked the knife flat on the counter. It was best she not have a weapon in her hand when she saw him next, because she might be tempted to thrust the blade through his heart, like he’d already done to hers.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  The smile Nolan had sported since he woke died under the glare his wife was giving him. He stepped off the last stair into the kitchen and hesitated. That certainly was not the look he’d hoped to see this morning.

  She turned back to chopping the onion in front of her, the sinews in her neck tight and stiff. What was wrong?

  A creak to his left swung his gaze to his uncle.

  His uncle?

  “Uh, good morning, Uncle.” He forced his feet forward to shake hands with his favorite relative.

  Matthias sported a large grin, his grip on Nolan’s hand warm and affirmative. “Good morning, Nolan. I’ve met your wife.”

  “I see.” Nolan took his hand back and looked to Corinne. He’d thought she’d like his uncle once she met him, but perhaps he’d been wrong. Matthias was blunt and arrogant sometimes, but he wasn’t as hard to endure as his son. “What brings you up here? Did we miss your letter?”

  “No letter, it was a last-minute detour.”

  Nolan tried to keep his smile up, but maybe that was why Corinne was acting as she was. Perhaps she, too, had been hoping they’d have the house to themselves this morning. He’d toyed with the idea of sending his men to go dig up a fence on the back forty for no reason—as long as it took them all day.

  Matthias’s chair creaked as he sat back down. “I hope you don’t mind my dropping in, but I’m on my way to Billings and thought I should come see you beforehand.”

  “Of course not, you’re welcome any time.” He wanted to mean that, so he plastered his smile back on. Corinne would be here every day for the rest of their lives, so he could wait until nightfall to have her to himself again.

  He turned to give her an anticipatory wink, but she still didn’t appear happy. When he lifted a brow in silent question, she gave him the look his mother had whenever he’d displeased her.

  Corinne went back to whacking the onion.

  He walked toward her, careful to stay far to her right. “Do you need help with breakfast?”

  “I was hoping for biscuits and gravy,” Uncle called over.

  “That’s what I’m making,” Corinne said tightly as she kept chopping.

  He frowned at the tiny slivers of onion bouncing around on the counter with each thwack. He was afraid to mention it, but… “I don’t put onions in my gravy.”

  Corinne smacked the knife down. “Fine, you make it.” Then she brushed past him, yanked out a chair from the table, and sat.

  Uncle looked at her for a moment, then to Nolan, his expression likely mirroring his own bewilderment.

  Nolan shrugged. He had no idea what had gotten into her, but now wasn’t the time to probe. He began moving things aside to work on the dough. Thankfully, the oven was already hot. “Why don’t you tell us what brought you to town while I cook?”

  Wait. If he’d come about Corinne’s ideas—

  “Uh, are you here to drag Matt home?” With any luck, that would steer Uncle onto another subject. “He’s in danger of getting himself roughed up for being too good at cards. Maybe you could encourage him to move to another town.”

  “I want nothing more to do with my son.”

  Nolan stopped measuring flour. “What?”

  “The boy stole money from my business to invest in schemes he didn’t tell me about—until they failed. Then he had the gall to get angry when I got upset. He thought I’d be fine with his embezzling.”

  Nolan expected a shock to have rippled through him, but his subconscious must not have been surprised at such a revelation. He brushed the flour from his hands and added the salt and baking powder. “Have you pressed charges?”

  “No.” Matthias scowled, turning to stare out the window. “Didn’t want my business partners to know. But he’s out. He’ll have to make it in the world without my money and influence. His luck with cards will run out, always does. Hopefully, he’ll actually try working at some point.”

  Corinne sat in stormy silence.

  Nolan forced himself to finish the dough despite wanting to pull Corinne upstairs to talk instead of discussing Matt. But it wasn’t too surprising his cousin was the center of attention even when he wasn’t around. “From what I’ve heard, the money’s coming easily—too easily. If he doesn’t find somewhere else to play, he might end up losing his life to someone who doesn’t take kindly to being fleeced.”

  Earlier in the week, Rascal had shared that the saloon goers were beginning to think Matt was counting cards.

  His uncle sat looking out the window, stone-faced.

  The kitchen went silent, all except for his biscuit making and the noise of Corinne’s leg shaking under the table. If she was that agitated, why did she stay?

  After he slid the baking sheet into the oven and set the pan on the stove, he could no longer ignore the black cloud enshrouding his wife. “What’s wrong, Corinne?”

  She startled, then pushed herself away from the table. “Excuse me, but since I’m not needed, I’ll head upstairs.”

  And with that, she stood and stomped off.

  Nolan watched her until she disappeared into the stairwell. Not once did she look back.

  He turned to glare at his uncle. “What did you say to her? She’s acting as if she’s been offended.”

  His uncle’s head snapped back. “You know I wouldn’t insult a woman—to her face, anyway.”

  “Did you say something she could’ve taken as an insult?”

  “Women do twist every word a man says.”

  “Corinne doesn’t.” Though his late aunt had made a mess of his uncle’s life with her deception, he wouldn’t lump all women into the same category as Aunt Edith.

  Matthias rolled his eyes, as if Nolan were a naïve boy. “Every man’s convinced his woman’s different—until she stabs him in the back.”

  Nolan shook his head and turned back to fry up the sausage.

  His late aunt had cheated on Matthias decades ago, but his uncle always acted as if it happened yesterday. Matthias’s second son, the late Lionel Key, with his red hair, green eyes, and delicate bone structure, had turned long-held suspicions into assurance upon his birth. He had been the spitting image of Matthias’s former warehouse manager. Years later, when Nolan had learned of the affair, he’d been surprised his uncle had remained married, especially since he and his aunt never got along.

  “You haven’t been married long, right? Could be your wife’s one of those moody types.”

  Nolan pulled himself back to the present, quickly scraping the pan to keep the gravy from burning. “I can’t say I know everything about Corinne, but after last night—” He stopped himself by clearing his throat. “I, uh, thought she seemed fine. So something must have happened since she awoke. Are you sure you didn’t say anything to upset her?”

  If last night had gone as well for her as he’d thought it had…

  “I did say I was surprised you snagged such a pretty woman. I hadn’t expected it after talking to Lilith at the station. I assume Matt wrote to her after meeting your wife.”

  “Actually, Lilith was here a couple of months ago.” Nolan thw
acked his spatula against the pot’s rim.

  “Really?”

  “Yes.” He didn’t want to get into that mess. Now that his marriage was real in every sense of the word, he no longer had to worry about either one of them. “What exactly did Lilith say about my wife?”

  “I only talked to her in passing, but with the disdain in her voice, I figured Matt considered the match far below you.”

  “She was the town laundress.”

  “Ah, that explains it. But now,”—Matthias reached into his suit’s inner pocket—“for the reason I came.”

  Nolan shook his head though it didn’t surprise him his uncle wasn’t worried about Corinne. The man cared little about women’s feelings.

  Matthias unfolded the paper he’d pulled from his pocket. “These are really good, Nolan. In your letter, you alluded to having others. If they’re half as good as these, we might make ourselves a pretty penny.”

  Nolan shoved the pan off the heat and crossed over to the table. If his uncle had come all the way here for this, he must think Corinne’s ideas were good.

  “The men I’m visiting in Billings will probably be interested in what you have here.” Matthias tapped the sketch of the waterer. “I can help you with the distribution, but you’re going to need investors. I need to know what else I can present them.”

  Nolan’s heart shuddered. “You think they’re that good?”

  “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

  Corinne would be ecstatic. A shrewd businessman not only thought her ideas were good, but so good that he wanted to pitch her other inventions sight unseen? “There are more that would likely interest you. A stepladder especially, but these aren’t my designs.”

  “What? You led me to believe—”

  “No. I only asked your opinion.” He got up to check on the biscuits.

  “Then which of your men do I need to talk to?”

  “Not a man. A woman.”

  His uncle frowned and pushed away the drawings.

  Nolan came back to turn the paper around. “That reaction is exactly why I didn’t tell you whose they were in my letter.”

  “Your new wife, I assume.”

  “Yes.”

  Matthias’s posture softened a touch. “Well, that’s not too difficult. Have her draw up the ideas and we’ll decide which ones have merit. She’ll need to make prototypes to prove they work, you’ll patent them—”

  “She’ll patent them.”

  Matthias shook his head. “To an investor—”

  “Doesn’t matter. They’re either good, or they’re not.”

  “Son.”

  A lump in his throat formed. As much as he wanted to keep his uncle’s favor, his wife was more important. “They’ll be patented under her name, or no name.”

  “But—”

  Nolan held up his hand. “I know you don’t hold women in high regard. Yet only minutes ago, you thought these would sell. Nothing’s changed about them since.”

  He grabbed the ad copy he’d clipped from the newspaper when he’d realized it was the same one Corinne had shown Annie. “Look at this.” He handed Matthias the square scrap of paper. “This is some lady’s iron handle-swapping thing. A woman sells these.”

  His uncle barely glanced at the advertisement. “Just because she paid to put her name on an ad, doesn’t mean she’s selling any. It could be she hadn’t enough sense to listen to someone who told her to keep her name off it.”

  Nolan huffed. This was more of a fight than he was hoping for. “But you could sell these irons?”

  “Maybe.” He shrugged and leaned back in his seat. “But it’s household goods. This Mrs. Potts isn’t trying to sell stepladders and farm equipment. Does your wife invent kitchen stuff, beauty tonics, that sort of thing?”

  He frowned and stuck out his leg. “I don’t know what’s all in her notebook, but she did fashion this new leg for me.”

  Matthias huffed. “That isn’t any better. You’d need a doctor’s name to sell that.”

  Nolan kept his mouth shut on that one. Even Corinne had been discouraged when she’d seen the brochure and realized who her competition was. “I think she’s working on a laundry stain remover for grease.”

  “Now, that’s more like it.” His uncle nodded slightly.

  “But you can’t tell me you’re more excited about a stain remover than this chicken waterer.”

  He shrugged. “I’m excited about anything I could sell.”

  The stairwell echoed with Corinne’s heavy tread. She’d gotten dressed, but she still wore a blank expression.

  Surely this news would put a smile back on her face. “Hey, honey, my uncle stopped in because he’s interested in the things you’ve come up with. The waterer, the wire nest, and possibly your stain remover.”

  Her expression changed from blank to confused. She glanced at Matthias, then back at him as if he’d said something unintelligible.

  Of course, he’d skipped the part where he told her he’d sent his uncle her ideas. “You see, I sent a page of your things to him.”

  If only his uncle had sent him a letter before he showed up, he wouldn’t have to confess he’d sent her ideas off without her permission. If only he’d believed in her abilities enough to tell her to patent them first, and then ask Uncle if he wanted to join their venture.

  She took a step forward, holding her head cocked as if wary of walking into one of her own snares.

  “He came in hopes of doing business with us.”

  “Us?” Her voice dripped with disbelief.

  “Yes.” Why was she acting as if that was the wrong way to put it? Hadn’t they discussed splitting everything? Of course, they’d only talked about the ranch’s profits before they’d married—he hadn’t known she could do this. “Can you show him what else you have? He’s thinking his friends in Billings would be interested in investing if you could give him more things to show them.”

  She nodded woodenly. “I suppose after breakfast.” And with that, she abruptly turned toward the oven, taking out the biscuits he just realized smelled done. She had probably come down to rescue them.

  “How many of these do you have prototypes of?” Uncle sat up, obviously eager to eat now that the smell of buttery dough wafted through the room.

  “I don’t have any, but—”

  “No matter. I can get preliminary feedback with these drawings to see if it’s even worthwhile. But I’ll need prototypes to get anybody to sign on, considering. Do you think you could have some done when I come back through next week?”

  “Next week?” Corinne’s face screwed up as she set the hot baking sheet down. “I doubt I’ll have time.”

  “Sure you will.” Nolan jumped up, joining her at the counter to get plates. “She can spend all her time working on whatever you’d like to see first.”

  On the back porch, the clomping of his men scraping their boots sounded. Seemed they were as eager for biscuits and gravy as Uncle.

  The door creaked open, and Rascal’s nearly toothless grin wrinkled up his face. “Mr. Key! I’d wondered who that buggy belonged to.”

  Matthias got out of his chair to shake the hand of his brother’s long-time ranch hand. “Rascal, you look as worse for wear as ever.”

  Rascal thumped him hard on the back. “You’re looking quite old yourself.”

  Sal took off his hat and hung it on his usual hook behind the door. “What brings you up?”

  “Mrs. Key’s chicken waterer, apparently.”

  “Oh, did you come up with something new?” Timothy practically slid across the floor and up against the table. He spun the paper around so he could see it. “Looks like it’d work.”

  He then flopped into his chair, draping one lanky arm over its back and gesturing toward Uncle with the other. “You should take a look at the chicken coop. Best chicken coop for miles around, I’d bet.”

  “You improved a coop?” Uncle cocked an eyebrow at Corinne.

  She shrugged as she handed
Sal the napkins and silverware to set out.

  “Don’t let her shrug fool you.” Timothy took the napkins from Sal and tossed them around the table. “She had us do a complete overhaul. Took us two weeks to get done.”

  “Nothing you can pack up and show anybody,” she said quietly.

  “Oh, does he want to show off something you’ve done?” Timothy chimed in again.

  Nolan shook his head at Timothy’s mouth running off with him. For some reason, his youngest ranch hand was more talkative than usual.

  Timothy poured himself coffee. “She came up with a new stepladder while working on the coop with me.”

  “It’s not done either,” she responded as she set the creamer on the table.

  Matthias eyed Timothy. “Do you not find it abnormal for a woman to be telling you how to rebuild a chicken coop?”

  Timothy’s eyes widened. Seemed he’d finally realized Uncle didn’t think as highly of Corinne’s talents as he did. “Uh, sir, I take my orders from wherever they come.”

  Nolan laid the biscuits on the table. He needed to keep this conversation going in a positive direction, especially with Corinne here. “My uncle was only wondering what you thought of Mrs. Key’s ideas. He’s interested in investing.”

  “Oh!” Timothy’s face cleared up. He turned to smile at Corinne. “That’s right good, Mrs. Key.” He then turned his mischievous grin toward Nolan. “Us average men can’t aspire to women who’ve got money, so if we can’t marry money, getting a woman who can make you some is smart going.”

  “Average men?” Rascal grumped. “You’re still a tenderfoot.”

  “I beg your pardon. I grew up out here. You’re just jealous because you ain’t ever got you a woman.”

  “Hey, now.” Sal clinked his spoon against his mug. As foreman, he never allowed the men to stray too far out of line—especially Timothy, whom he treated like the son he never had.

  “A toast!” Timothy held up his mug. “To the new Mrs. and the money she’ll bring in to get us all the cattle this ranch can handle.”

  Nolan grinned at Timothy’s antics and held up his mug in silent assent, though perhaps cattle weren’t what they’d be buying.