by Mindy Neff
Well. I guess he told me how the cow eats the cabbage. Before she could think better of if, her eyes dipped to the front of his pants.
Oh, my. Tight jeans. Visual outline of the equipment.
She could have just died at the thought.
“Amy?”
“What?”
“Relax, okay?”
She sighed. They were standing in the middle of the sidewalk on Main Street. A couple shopping at King’s Western Wear had stopped to watch them. Brewer’s Saloon was only a few paces farther. Her nerves were going to cause them to become a town spectacle.
He was right. He was just a man. With a capital M, to be sure, but a man nonetheless.
“Sorry. I don’t know the rules.”
“There aren’t any. If you offend me personally, I’ll let you know. Until then, just be yourself.”
“Oh, now there you’re leaving yourself wide-open.”
He grinned and started them walking again. “Nothing wrong with a woman who speaks before thinking. You find out all kinds of interesting things that way.”
She couldn’t believe he was bringing up that unfortunate medical clinic incident. She choked, laughed. “You’re no gentleman, Dan Lucas.”
He winked at her. “I’m the epitome of a gentleman.”
When it suited him, she imagined. “So, where are we going?”
“Unless you’re truly interested in sight-seeing, I thought we’d go to my place.”
Her heart lurched for no good reason, other than the idea of being alone with this man made her nervous. She was on pins and needles. She didn’t know how to bring up the subject that was uppermost in her mind.
What if his answer was no? What if it was yes? This was so bizarre. She wished her grandfather was here. She’d like to look the man in the face and give him a piece of her mind. At the loudest decibel she could muster.
The two blocks down Main Street were long ones, nearly a half mile, she guessed. The street ended at a tee. To the left was Tillis’s General Store and to the right was the medical clinic and veterinarian’s office. Across the road was the small white church with gabled roof and a steeple atop, and next to it, the red brick courthouse, its flag waving in the wind as though sharing secrets with the spire above the steeple.
Dan led her around the back of the church, where a beautiful white Colonial-style two-story house stood, with a barn several yards beyond.
He paused. “Would you like to take a tour of the church first?”
“Maybe later.”
“Then, why don’t we start with the outside and work our way in?” he suggested, urging her with a hand at her back along the pathway to the barn.
She wondered if he was stalling, then decided he was probably trying to put her at ease. She appreciated his thoughtfulness. She felt like a fish flopping on the banks of a shallow riverbed, out of her element, wanting desperately to return to the safety of her own environment yet dependent on the benevolence of a passing bear to either have her for dinner, decide she wasn’t worth the effort and leave her gasping, or to rescue her by throwing her back in.
Lord, she hated having to be rescued. That was her mother’s MO. Not Amy’s.
Off in the distance, a frozen creek bed snaked across the land, outlined by naked cottonwoods. In the spring water would trickle over those rocks in a soothing litany of sound, and the terrain would come alive with budding hope as a new season promised change.
Amy wondered where her own life would be in the midst of that change.
The interior of the barn was a few degrees warmer than the brisk air outdoors. Wonderful smells of hay and leather surrounded her, with the more pungent scents of manure mixed in.
A gleaming chestnut horse poked its head over the half-door of the stall and nickered a welcome.
“How you doing, boy?” Dan called. Fondly he rubbed his hand over the horse’s nose. “This is Moses. I promised him a ride today, but we didn’t quite make it.”
“Oh, now I feel bad.” She joined Dan and lavished attention on the horse’s silky coat. “It’s my fault he had to stay cooped up in the barn.”
Dan laughed. “Don’t go feeling sorry for him. He gets plenty of exercise and is spoiled rotten by the kids from the reservation. Cheyenne Bodine, the sheriff, has the kids come out to his place for a day of riding at least once a month. I take Moses over there so he can get in on the fun. Plus, I have a young man who comes over to feed and exercise him. He doesn’t lack for attention.”
But Dan lacked for time, she surmised. He would continually set aside his own plans to accommodate others.
Like he had today. For her.
“Figures you’d give your horse a biblical name.”
“Stereotyping, Amy?”
She had the grace to look chagrined, and he laughed and gave her hair a playful tug.
“He comes by the name rightly. He got caught in a flash flood in a riverbed and nearly died. It was quite a production getting him to safety.”
“Like the Pharaoh’s daughter fishing the baby out of the Nile.”
“Yes—Moses.” He grinned. “You paid attention in Sunday school.”
She shrugged. “I was competitive. I wanted to be the first to fill up my page with merit stickers.”
He laughed. “We might have to recruit you to teach Sunday school.”
“Oh, I don’t think I’m the type.” Nor was she preacher’s-wife material, either, but stranger things had been known to happen.
“So, do you have a church you attend regularly back home?”
It was a subtle probe, and she understood his reasoning. Still, she couldn’t help but bristle a bit. “Is your decision pending on my spiritual beliefs?”
“No. But I’m planning to share my life with you in these next days to come and I’d like to know a bit more about you.”
She didn’t hear anything past the part about sharing his life with her. “You are?”
“Yes.”
Tears filled her eyes. She didn’t like it. Couldn’t help it. She laid a hand on his chest, looked up at him. “Thank you.”
The urge to run to the nearest phone and call her mother was enormous. But somehow it felt as though doing so would sully the sacrifice he was offering her, the selfless aid.
She didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath. He was the answer to her problems, but at what expense to himself? This was what she wanted, what she desperately needed. But second thoughts intruded.
“Be very sure, Dan,” she said softly. She didn’t want to ruin this man’s life or reputation. “Because I’m only agreeing to ninety days—a marriage in name only. That’s it. We’re clear on that, right? After that we’re free to have the marriage annulled.”
“Are you trying to talk me out of the decision?”
“No. I don’t know. Maybe. I feel bad, but…” She looked up at him. “I need you.”
“And I’m here for you.”
She’d thought she’d feel a big burden lifted from her shoulders. It only got heavier.
He touched her cheek, made her look at him. “My eyes are wide-open, Amy. We’ll help your mother keep her house.”
“Thank you.”
Moments passed while they looked at each other. She had no idea what he was thinking. She, however, was thinking that under any other circumstances, if he was any other man, she would have pressed her lips to his, perhaps even attempted to woo him into a relationship, to see where it would lead.
That would be in a perfect world. If they were both operating under their own free will.
“I hate this.”
“What?”
“Being needy.”
“Oh, stop it.”
The order astonished her. She was getting maudlin. Nearly whining. Next to feeling helpless, whining was her number one pet peeve.
A smile started in her heart, reached her lips, turned into a laugh. “Bossy man.”
“I can be.”
“Well, I’m a stubborn sort. I’ll le
t you get away with it this time, but in the future, you probably ought to know I won’t sit still for it.”
He laughed and tugged at her hair. “Duly noted.”
“And to answer your earlier question, I was brought up in the Baptist church. We didn’t attend regularly, but I’ve had the basic upbringing.” Which made this whole marriage of convenience escapade difficult for her. Her worries were more for Dan than for herself, though. He didn’t just talk the walk, he lived it. And she’d asked him to compromise it for her.
“What are we going to tell people?” she asked, thinking about the enormous impact this might well have on him.
“The truth always works best. I knew it might be embarrassing to tell everyone your business, but I felt it was important to level with the church board. I couldn’t make this decision alone, and their approval was vital to my decision.”
“And you got it?”
“Yes. You have to understand that Ozzie Peyton and his cohorts comprise most of the church board. And with those four matchmakers, any sentence that starts with wedding has them rubbing their hands together and taking full credit for the romance. However, telling them something is like taking out a front-page ad in the newspaper. Word will spread anyway, so we might as well be up-front and get it out of the way.”
“But you told your church people this wasn’t about romance.”
“That won’t stop them from putting their own interpretation on it. Although I was a bit surprised that Ozzie admitted that he’d spoken with your grandfather a few months back.”
“He did?”
“They were war buddies together—Ozzie hasn’t lost contact with a single one of the men in his air squadron. He’s a man whose loyalty runs deep, and I really admire that about him. When your grandfather began investigating the pact our fathers made and found out I was in Shotgun Ridge, he contacted Ozzie to inquire what kind of man I’d turned into.”
Amy sighed. “I’m comforted that he at least did some homework, and didn’t blithely try to tie me to a stranger who was an ax murderer or something.”
“An ax murderer wouldn’t dare live in Shotgun Ridge.”
She rolled her eyes. “Still, when he found out you were a minister, I don’t know why he didn’t just drop the whole crazy thing.”
“Ministers aren’t priests. We do marry.”
“But of your own free will. I wonder if Gramps had any idea what he was doing. It’s so frustrating not being able to ask him. I want to be mad at him, but…”
“But you loved him.”
“Yes. Cantankerous old goat. I can almost understand how he’d want to pull the strings in my life. But to involve you…”
“It’s done, Amy. We can speculate all day and that’s not going to give us the answers you’re looking for. Or we can go forward. I opt for going forward.”
“You’re right.”
“So what’s on your agenda for the next few hours?” he asked.
Her heart raced. “You want to go get married right now?” Well, duh, Amy. Isn’t that what you’re here for?
“I was thinking more along the lines of going next door to the courthouse and getting the paperwork started. Even here, we’ve a bit of red tape to deal with.”
“Oh. Of course. I wasn’t thinking.”
And she should have been. Because her ninety days were ticking away by the minute.
Chapter Four
They’d visited the courthouse and taken care of the preliminaries. The wedding was set for Saturday at eleven o’clock.
Now that the wheels were firmly in motion, Amy’s nerves were even more of a mess. She was doing this for her mother, she reminded herself. But the very idea of marriage—especially to a minister who was firmly entrenched in this town—made her want to hyperventilate.
She wanted nothing more than to go back to the boardinghouse and hide under the covers for a while, but Dan had other plans.
“It’s Thursday night dinner at Brewer’s. Nobody cooks on Thursday night. I know we just had lunch there, but this is one of those be-there-or-be-square sort of things. Plus it’ll be the perfect opportunity for us to announce the engagement.”
Her heart rate went straight through the roof. Nobody had said anything about making public announcements. Though how she’d ever imagined they were going to hide a marriage for three months was beyond her. Dan had told her they should tell the truth. She’d figured that would be on a case-by-case basis.
“I don’t have a problem with being square.”
He laughed and draped her coat around her shoulders. “Well, I do. I have a reputation to uphold around here.”
She nearly groaned. “Are you sure I’m not fixing to ruin it for you?”
“I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the people of this town.”
BREWER’S AND SHOTGUN RIDGE in full swing were nothing like she’d expected. It seemed as though folks had come out of the woodwork.
Every time she turned around or took two steps, it required an introduction—Hannah and Wyatt Malone, Dora and Ethan Callahan, Emily and Cheyenne Bodine, Chance and Kelly Hammond. She didn’t even try to keep all the children straight or remember who belonged to whom. Everybody seemed to be holding somebody else’s child, and it was simply too confusing for her first day here.
To tell the truth, she was a bit overwhelmed by all the names and faces she’d be expected to remember. Although she was from a midsize town in Georgia, where some of the small-town dynamics prevailed, the Marshall name had set her apart, thrust her into a different social circle. The upper-class, country-club folks.
Admittedly, she’d been the rebel amongst their midst, not buying into the polite smiles when she knew they were judging the inappropriateness of her clothing or her nonconformist ways.
Gramps had money, and it was a well-guarded secret that Amy and her mother weren’t in the same income class, that her mother, at least, was dependent on the goodwill of Ben Marshall.
But Chandra Marshall was the perfect Southern lady and a big advocate of keeping up appearances. Amy had been surprised that she’d hadn’t pitched a fit when Amy had taken the waitress job at the gentleman’s club.
Kelly Hammond, the doctor’s wife and also a doctor herself, placed a hand on Amy’s arm and studied her face.
“Dan told us you’d been in the clinic earlier, but decided not to wait. How are you feeling now?”
Amy’s gaze whipped to Dan’s. You told them? It was a silent question, but he picked up on it as though she’d spoken aloud.
He laughed, and teased, “Shame on you. I only mentioned the part about the dizzy spell.”
She sucked in a breath, nearly whacked him before she thought better of it. The man had the very devil in his eyes. Although she knew he’d never betray a confidence, she also knew she’d have to stay on her toes around this guy.
Turning back to Kelly, she said, “Low blood sugar, I’m sure. I hadn’t eaten and scared myself. It was only a little vertigo.”
“You might want to come in and let Chance or me check you over, maybe do a blood workup.”
“No. I’m fine now.”
“Okay. But if you need us, we’re here for you.”
The genuine words touched Amy. They were words she heard often during the evening. Probably due to the fact that each person asked the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question—” What brings you to Shotgun Ridge?”
With Dan sticking close by her side, raising eyebrows in the bargain, he easily elevated her flustered nerves. In his charmingly teasing manner, he forestalled probing questions, informing everyone that he was going to save Amy’s vocal cords by waiting until everyone arrived, at which time he’d make a blanket introduction.
The curiosity and speculation in the room was palpable, but acceptance and patience went right along with it.
Before long, Amy felt herself relax enough to give Dan a gentle nudge. “I can see you’re itching to mingle. I’ll be fine on my own. Go.”
“Are you trying
to get rid of me?”
“Yes. You make me nervous.”
The gleam in his eye was very unpreacherlike. “And you’re making me the most envied guy in the room.”
“Get out.” She still wore hiking boots, jeans and a man’s flannel shirt. Hardly the attire of a lust-inspiring woman. Besides, every man in this room had eyes only for his own wife. She’d already learned that the majority of them were newlyweds.
As the evening geared up with a community spirit that continued to awe Amy, they munched on pretzels and chips, laughed, played pool…and Dan smoked cigars. Even Dora Callahan partook as her husband watched on indulgently.
Dan had already mentioned the indulgence to her, but seeing it made him even more of a confusion in her mind.
Why wouldn’t the man stay in the pigeonhole she kept trying to fit him in?
Latecomers straggled in, and the noise level in the room increased, country music vying with laughter and happy shrieks of children. There was one waitress, Maedean, as well as Iris Brewer to handle all the customers.
When Amy overheard Maedean explaining that their other waitress had called in sick with the flu, she excused herself from the hot and heavy pool game taking place between Chance Hammond and Cheyenne Bodine.
She admired Iris Brewer. The woman was small in stature but worked harder than three people twice her size. Amy couldn’t imagine her own mother taking so much initiative, taking it all in her stride with a laugh here and a touch there.
Slipping behind the bar, she gave Iris a wink. “You’ll wear yourself to a frazzle. I’ll take care of the drinks, you just bring me the orders.”
“Oh, you’re a guest. I can’t let you work.”
“My grandmother always said many hands make light work.” She glanced out at the overflowing diner. “In this case, at least lighter. It’s getting so crowded in here, pretty soon I’ll have to go outside to change my mind.”
Iris chuckled. “That it is. Thursday night tradition at Brewer’s is like church on Sundays. You miss it and somebody will be wanting to know why. Still, I hate to toss you into the fire this way.”
“Shoo. I’ve got plenty of snap in my garters and can pour a beer on tap with the best of them.” Plus, she needed a distraction. The knowledge that Dan intended to announce their coming marriage kept her in a constant state of apprehension. “I’m like a chameleon. I adapt well to my surroundings.”