Mail-Order Marriages

by Jillian Hart

  “Because that’s how it started with me and my wife. The sparks flew for us, too.” The older man backed toward the stairs. “Good luck to you, Gabe. Looks like there will be another Brooks wedding in the offing before long.”

  “Like hell there will be.” He tore the coat from Melody’s hands and held the garment for her, fighting the powerful surge of anger strumming through his veins. He was not falling victim to his mother’s schemes. If it took every bit of strength he owned, he was going to make sure Miss Melody Pennington hated him and would continue to hate him. He was not marrying some fancy city princess.

  “I will reimburse you.” The lady’s soft alto voice was like music, lovely and sweet. She smelled like budding roses and impossible dreams. She was all honesty—he could see that clearly as she turned to him, her graceful hands buttoning her expensive coat. “Gabriel, I know you are only trying to protect your family. But I didn’t come here to hurt them. I came to love them. Since that is not possible, I don’t want to cause any harm.”

  Disliking the woman was going to be harder than he thought.

  “Follow me,” he barked, and headed for the stairs.

  Melody had never seen such lovely country, and if it hadn’t been for Mr. Gabriel Brooks seething dislike on the buggy seat beside her, she would have described the journey through the mountain forest as divine. Surely heaven could not be as glorious as the riot of sun-blessed green mantling the world surrounding her. Evergreens held up their limbs proudly toward a cloud-filled sky rimmed by craggy granite peaks. Deciduous trees lifted newly opening leaves for every kind of bird to land on and sing from. A golden eagle soared overhead with his mate, wings spread wide to soar side by side on unseen currents. No ballet had ever been as beautiful or romantic.

  Sadness threatened to creep in, because she would have been happy in this strange, rough country. The view alone could make her forget the cruelty she’d left behind. Not even the dour oldest Brooks brother could diminish the beauty of it and the hope rising through her like lark song through the trees. It would not be such a bad turn of events to spend time in this mountain paradise. She would find a job, earn her own living and look for another prospect. She had placed one advertisement successfully—and the young Joseph Brooks would have been the perfect groom had he actually known she was coming. Why shouldn’t she have just as much luck with a second advertisement?

  “Great.” Gabe’s mutter rang with deep sarcasm. “The woman doesn’t have a trace of remorse.”

  Melody jerked her attention from the stunning mountainsides to the clearing ahead. A two-story ranch house complete with dormers and a wraparound veranda crowned a lush green rise of lawn, gardens and orchard. Spring’s touch had brushed budding leaves with bright new green and painted the world in wonder. Larks sang as a pleasantly plump woman with apple cheeks and sparkling blue eyes dashed down a walkway lined with daffodils.

  “So happy to see you, dear!” Mary Brooks ignored her eldest son completely as she seized Melody’s hands and held on tightly. “I worried Gabe would be so unpleasant that you would refuse to let him accompany you.”

  “It did cross my mind.” She shot him a glowering look, not at all surprised to see the dark scowl etched into his handsome features. “But I wanted to see you again. I hadn’t realized how much I relied on your letters. Corresponding with you had become the best part of my days.”

  “No doubt because you miss your own mother terribly.” Mary gave her fingers a maternal squeeze, radiating a concern only the best of mothers with the most loving of hearts could give. “You must be freezing. There’s a chill in the air made colder because of Gabe’s mood, no doubt. Come inside. I have tea steeping. We’ll have a chance to chat before supper is on the table.”

  “That sounds lovely.” Before Melody could blink, Gabriel removed her hand from his mother’s, his big, impressive frame standing in front of her to block the wind.

  “Allow me.” The deep notes of his baritone rumbled through her, a strangely intimate sensation. The heat of his grip, iron strength sheathed in a battered driving glove, seared through layers of leather and wool like a brand.

  A shiver coursed through her. Numb with surprise and confusion, she hardly remembered climbing out of the buggy, only that she stood before him with cheerful flowers at her feet and Gabe towering over her stealing the very breath from her lungs.

  What was happening? Surely this couldn’t be fear she felt, for the formidable man did not frighten her in the least. She, who’d known fear from another man’s touch, felt safe standing in his shadow. That could not be the reason her heart hammered against her ribs with almost enough force to break bone. Gabe’s dark blue gaze fastened on hers, penetrating her as if he could see deep inside to her secrets and her fears. Exposed, she took a startled step back, her pulse skipping through her veins, but again it was not fear that trembled in her hands or turned her knees to jelly. Never had she felt so vulnerable before a man, exposed, as if there could never be a secret between them.

  “You ought to look sorry for what you’ve done, Ma.” Disapproval knelled like thunder in his deep voice. “Dragging this young woman all the way out here with false promises.”

  “Are you accusing me of being a liar?” Mary Brooks gave a light trill of a laugh, like a couplet of lark song, before she reached up to pat her son’s shoulder. “I told Melody nothing but the truth, didn’t I, dear?”

  “The whole truth,” Melody agreed. “Didn’t you try to pretend to be one of your sons when you were searching for a bride for him?”

  “That would be for my middle son, Nate, and yes, I did mislead poor Savannah just a tad in those letters we exchanged, and while I still argue the ends justify the means in that case, my sons have never let me live it down. All’s well that ends well—my Nate is happily married and I have a beautiful granddaughter. I was right in matchmaking. Now that my youngest son has lost his heart to our dear Clara, that can only mean one thing—”

  “Keep me out of your schemes.” The big man glowered, jerking away and storming off to secure the horse by the bridle bits. Something dark passed across the rugged contours of his face.

  Melody’s hand felt cold where he’d held it, which made no sense. Because of their gloves, their skin had not touched. The bite of the wind pummeled her, needle sharp because Gabe no longer stood before her to block it. The sunshine dimmed and the temperature plummeted as he stalked away.

  “If I want a wife, I can find her myself,” he shot over his shoulder, and although he spoke to his mother, his midnight-blue gaze fastened on Melody. “Not some castoff who couldn’t find a decent man to marry her back home.”

  “Gabriel Adam Brooks!” Mary burst out, as if shocked to the core. “You come back here and apologize at once. I did not raise you to speak like that in front of a lady.”

  “If I ever meet one, I’ll keep that in mind.” The wind carried his words, and the intonation of disgust and judgment, with it. He strode away, the buggy faintly rattling and the rigging jingling pleasantly through the beautiful fall of sunshine. The vivid fresh greens on the trees and bushes blurred and Melody took a slow, painful breath.

  So that’s what he thought of her.

  “He was the sweetest little boy.” Mary’s hand gripped hers, tugging her gently up the walk. “Then he grew up and turned into a man, and you know what men are like.”

  “I do.” Rough and unpredictable, capable of great cruelty. And yet she remembered how safe she’d felt in Gabriel’s presence. The tingling sensation remained where he’d touched her. Gabriel Brooks was more than an ordinary man. In spite of his capacity to cause harm, an honest core of tenderness lived within him, too.

  Intrigued by the combination of rough and tender, harsh and magnetic, she longed to glance over her shoulder and steal just one more glimpse of the man striding like a shadow through the thinning daylight.

  Her good sense kicked in and she did not.

  Chapter Two

  The fact that he’d said t
hose things to Melody Pennington gnawed at his gut. Gabe swiped the currycomb over Bucky’s flank, shaking his head. He’d spoken out of self-defense. It was no different than taking a shot at an outlaw gunning for him, except for the fact that no outlaw had ever been nearly as innocent as the golden-haired fragile miss.

  “If I hadn’t taken a hard stand, then you know what would have happened next.” He gave the old gelding a final swipe of the comb. “Ma would have started trying to match me up with the woman. I had to put a stop to it before she started hatching up a plan.”

  Bucky, gentleman that he was, gave a polite nicker as if to say he was in perfect agreement. Females were a wily bunch, and a male had to protect himself.

  “I’m not saying marriage doesn’t have its benefits.” He couldn’t argue that. A man had needs, life got lonely and he had to admit there was something pretty nice about the things a woman did to a house to make it a home, how she cooked hot meals and gave comfort to a man’s life. But the second you started adding love to the equation, he’d noticed that the man came up short every time. “I’m not about to fall head over heels for a gal no matter how much Ma wants it.”

  Bucky nickered, as if he wasn’t fooled one bit.

  Gabe sighed, deciding he might as well be honest with the horse. He set the comb on the nearby shelf. “Fine, so she’s pretty. But that won’t change my mind. A man has to keep the upper hand.”

  Bucky stomped his right front hoof, as if he was in agreement with that.

  Melody Pennington was a darn beautiful female, no doubt about it. Good thing he was immune to a woman’s charms and beauty. His head hadn’t been swayed yet and he intended to keep it that way. Of course, if he ever found a sensible woman, he just might marry her—but he’d never tell his ma that. Women of the type he was looking for were dang scarce—a lady who understood that marriage was a bargain, one of give and take and duty and, if you were lucky, a respectful companionship.

  Scarce? He shook his head as he led Bucky into his stall. Scarce wasn’t the right word. Nonexistent was more accurate. Hell, he’d ridden nearly every square mile of the western half of the territory and he had yet to run into a gal like that. Didn’t figure he ever would at this point.

  Melody Pennington, with her dainty citified looks, expensive tailored clothes and seven trunks she had arrived with, was about as far from that kind of gal as a woman could get.

  The setting sun sank low against the nearby peaks, thinning the light and tossing deep shadows across the protected hillside as he hiked from the barn to the house. Greening limbs waved in the wind, as if showing off their fine new curling leaves. A robin tore old twigs from a shrub by the garden gate, his only company as he stood outside the kitchen door gathering his courage. As a territorial lawman, he’d seen his share of dangers and always rode into trouble without a lick of fear. So why did his palms break into a sweat knowing what waited for him in the parlor?

  “There you are, son.” His father stepped out of the shadows, smoke drifting from his newly lit pipe. “Your ma’s looking for you.”

  “No surprise there.” He could picture his mother settled down with Melody in the parlor, telling tales of his youth meant to capture the young woman’s interest. “Miss Pennington is all wrong for me. She’s not what I’m looking for.”

  “Well, sure, seeing as your ma and I picked her out for your brother.” Not much troubled Jake Brooks, who had carved not just a living out of these rugged, unforgiving mountains, but an admirable success.

  Gabe respected his father, and so he held his tongue when he had plenty to say about his parents writing away for brides for their sons. Just because there were little to no marriageable females in all of Mountain County didn’t mean they had the right to take matters into their own hands.

  “Miss Pennington is mighty easy on the eye.” Pa puffed on his pipe, sending a cloud of tobacco smoke into the crisp air. “I figure a young buck like yourself might think she’s more than a bit pretty.”

  “A man doesn’t need beauty in a wife.” He needed loyalty, fidelity and the ability to shoulder hard work without complaint, since he didn’t make a salary that could pay a household staff. “Besides, she is too young for me.”

  “She’s twenty-one. That’s old enough.” Pa opened the kitchen door to the delicious scents of pot roast and baking corn bread. “The problem isn’t in the decade between your ages, but the fact that you’re too old for your age.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You’re a fuddy-duddy, son. Older than your years, and that ain’t a compliment.”

  Great. Gabe stormed into the kitchen, his boots striking the floorboards like gunfire. “If you are trying to put me in a more agreeable mood for supper, you just failed.”

  “I’m trying to get you to see reason.” Unaffected by his son’s angry outburst, Jake took another puff on his pipe. Around him the cook, the cook’s assistant and the new maid scurried from worktable to counter to stove, pots clanging and steam billowing, but he walked on, oblivious. “If you don’t change your ways, you’re going to wind up alone. You will have no wife to grow old with. No sons to take pride in. No daughters to dote on.”

  “Who says I want those things?” Gabe put enough grr in his growl to make sure his words sounded menacing, as if there was no hint of the truth beneath.

  “Every man wants those things down deep.”

  “Not me.” If he held the walls firm around his heart, then he wouldn’t have to feel the impact of his father’s words or the old yearning for home and hearth, a kindly wife’s gentle touch and the laughter of their children—all of which could not be. He didn’t trust a woman that much. He grimaced fiercely, so his father could not guess. “I’m immune to that brand of foolishness.”

  “Fine, if that’s what you think.” Pa didn’t seem too troubled. “You doth protest too much.”

  Gabe would have argued that his protesting wasn’t any more vigorous than usual except that the sweetest sound stopped him, drained every thought from his head and his convenient anger with it. A woman’s voice, modulated and unguarded, lilted from down the hallway. Of course he knew the speaker had to be Melody Pennington—there was no other woman in the house save for Ma and the hired help. But away from sight, and safely protected from her by several thick walls, he didn’t listen to her with fear for his bachelorhood. He could hear her true voice for the first time. Unclouded by his own prejudice and his desire not to like her, her gentle laughter touched him like lark song; the alto tones of her words were arresting as a poignant hymn.

  “The poor dear has come all this way hoping to join our family and escape her problems,” Pa sympathized.

  “Problems?” He gritted his teeth, building a solid, stoic perimeter around his heart. He refused to feel sorry for Melody, for sympathy would weaken his defenses against her. “Who doesn’t have problems? She ought to be more concerned with finding a job and earning her own living instead of finding some fool to marry and provide for her.”

  “You know how unkind this world is to a woman alone.” Pa grew serious, his tone solemn, disappointment cutting into the deep wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. “How did a son of mine become so unforgiving?”

  “Experience,” he said simply, waving his discomfort and his father’s disappointment of him away, as if they didn’t trouble him, but it did not work. The emotions lingered as if stuck to his soul. He followed his father into the parlor, where kerosene lamps glowed brightly and steadily against the encroaching twilight, and his mother clasped her hands in glee. “Finally! I swear men can waste more time in a barn than we women can in a fabric shop. Gabriel, put some wood on the fire, will you? I fear Melody might catch a chill. She’s not used to our Montana evenings.”

  “Massachusetts gets its share of inclement weather,” the beauty assured everyone, keeping her gaze carefully focused on his mother, and only his mother.

  So she wasn’t any more pleased with this gathering than he was. Had she figured out his mo
ther’s intention yet? He cut through the room, and when he crossed in front of her, he did his best to ignore the tug of awareness that came to life and spilled into his bloodstream. Settling one knee before the hearth, he grabbed a split quarter of cedar from the wood box and settled it in the red-hot flames. The moss and bark crackled when it caught. Not unlike the heat burning within him.

  I’m not attracted to her, he reminded himself as he lifted the iron poker from its hook and prodded the log into a better position for burning. What he felt was a natural consequence of a man’s hungers, which an affirmed bachelor like him could expect to flare up from time to time. Nothing to be troubled by.

  “Melody was telling us she loves to read, too.” Ma positively beamed as she sat in her favorite chair, her basket of embroidery at her feet. Ma loved her needlework, and that she avoided it now was a sure sign she wanted to put all her concentration on the beautiful blonde seated demurely on the sofa. “Guess what she confessed to be reading?”

  “Not interested.” He drew himself up to his full height, gazing down at Melody with his most piercing gaze. She didn’t like him, which was the only bright spot to the evening, and he sure as hell intended to keep it that way.

  “Journey to the Center of the Earth.” Ma didn’t seem to mind that he didn’t care. She looked ready to burst with excitement. “Can you imagine? The same exact book you’ve had your nose in all week.”

  “You read Jules Verne?” Melody turned toward him, surprise making her blue eyes a truer blue—such a stunning color the sight of it knocked every bit of air from his lungs.

  Not that he wanted her to know that. Was it his imagination, or was something missing? Some of the chairs in the room had vanished, and there was no other place to sit except to share the sofa with Melody. No doubt Ma’s handiwork, too. He strode carefully to the far edge and chose the outer cushion, as far away from her as he could get.