by Arlene James
Chandler had called his cousin Asher for a legal opinion. After determining that Bethany’s situation presented no impediment, Ash had advised that Oklahoma required no residency, no blood tests and no waiting period. Because Chandler had to be there anyway to compete, the situation seemed tailor-made. They slipped out of the house before daybreak, picked up the horses and made the four-hour drive up to Lawton. Along the way, they stopped off at a discount jeweler’s and purchased matching gold wedding bands.
It wasn’t much of a ceremony, just Chandler, Bethany, the JP and a doddering female clerk. Bethany’s hands trembled so violently when she slipped his ring onto his finger that she almost dropped it, and then she flinched when he kissed her so that it wasn’t a real kiss at all, landing as much on her cheek as her lips.
He told himself that he shouldn’t have expected otherwise. She’d made her wishes concerning this marriage abundantly clear. Much to his disappointment. Nevertheless, he remained convinced that, even if temporary, this marriage was best for everyone, him, Bethany, the baby and their respective families.
It was just after two o’clock in the afternoon when Chandler helped his new wife up into the passenger seat of the truck. He loosened his tie as he slid behind the steering wheel, asking, “Hungry?”
“Starved, actually,” she answered.
“We’ll grab something on our way to the motel.” He started the engine. “We should call my aunts as soon as we get there, though I imagine they’ve figured out what’s going on by now.”
“Yes, I imagine they have. Garrett, too.”
Chandler nodded. “Once I eat, I’ve got to change and get to the arena to check on the horses and meet Drew.” As soon as they’d arrived in Lawton, they’d gone to the arena and dropped off the horses and trailer. He’d arranged to meet Drew for check-in as close to three-thirty as he could manage. “You can relax at the motel until I get back,” he told her.
“Could I come with you?” Bethany asked tentatively.
Chandler jerked a glance at her, surprised but pleased. He managed a nonchalant shrug. “Sure, if you want. Keep a lookout for Lee Boulevard, will you?”
Bethany nodded and dutifully began reading street signs. She spotted a drive-through that offered fried chicken dinners, so they carried that to the motel, then sat around a desk affixed to the wall in the crowded double room to eat. He made the call, speaking briefly to Hypatia, letting her know to expect them back Monday afternoon. He didn’t see any reason to rush back to Buffalo Creek Sunday night. Might as well sleep in and take their time. It was their honeymoon, after all. Sort of.
He was just getting off the phone with the aunties when Bethany went into the tiny bathroom to change her clothes. While she did that, he removed his tie and coat and swapped out his boots and hat, rolling back the cuffs of his longs sleeves. Bethany emerged a few minutes later wearing a long red tunic and black leggings with tall red boots. Worn to a comfortable suppleness, they weren’t cowboy boots, but they did have a Western heel.
“Is this okay? I can’t get into my jeans.”
“You look great,” he told her honestly.
“Thanks.” She wrinkled her nose and plucked at the tunic. “I used to wear this as a dress.”
Chandler admitted to himself that he’d have liked to have seen that then cleared his throat and led her out of the room.
They met Drew and Cindy walking across a field where they’d parked, about a hundred yards away from the rodeo arena.
“Hey!” Chandler shook Drew’s hand, smiling and nodding at Cindy, whose gaze boldly swept over Bethany.
“This is my wife, Bethany,” he said, finding that the words rolled off his tongue with surprising ease. “Honey, this is my new partner, Drew Shaw, and his wife, Cindy.”
Drew’s jaw was hanging open. He recovered and doffed his hat just as Cindy launched herself forward and dealt Chandler a stinging slap on the upper arm.
“You rat! You never said anything about being married and having a kid on the way! What’s wrong with you?”
Before Chandler could stammer a reply to that, Bethany came to his rescue. “Men! They think we know everything that goes through their heads, even when they’re as private as this one.” She gave Chandler a little pat on the chest. He thought his shirt buttons might just pop, his heart swelled so.
Drew chuckled, shaking his head. “Man, you could’ve saved me a lot of headache if you’d just brought your woman around sooner.”
“What do you mean?” Bethany asked.
“I mean, Cindy might not have worried so much about the two of us partnering up if she’d known he was married. In her words, she doesn’t want me ‘hanging around with some chick magnet’ while she’s stuck at home with the baby.”
Chandler laughed. “No chance of that here.”
“Oh, please,” Bethany said in a scoffing tone. “If ever there was a chick magnet…” She broke off, color blooming in her cheeks.
Chandler grinned. He supposed he’d drawn his fair share of female attention, but he’d stopped paying attention to the buckle bunnies that came around a long time ago. Too many party girls more interested in the party than a guy holding out for something serious when the time was right.
The time wasn’t right, not by Chandler’s reckoning, but “something serious” had blindsided him anyway. He guessed it happened like that a lot. Too often, though, what blindsided a fellow turned into a hit-and-run. His heart didn’t just slow at that thought, it all but stopped.
“That’s what wives are for,” Cindy was saying, “to keep the chicks away. Right?” She winked at Bethany, asking, “So when are you due?”
“October eighteenth.”
Cindy patted her baby bump. “This one won’t show up until the first of November.”
“He,” Drew said, grinning. “It’s a boy.”
“No kidding?” Chandler laughed at himself, that being one of Bethany’s favorite phrases. She was rubbing off on him already, this new wife of his. “Ours, too.”
“That’s cool,” Drew said. “Who knows? Maybe one day our sons will be roping partners.”
Something lurched inside Chandler, and he felt the warm glow of fatherly pride. Whatever happened with him and Bethany, he told himself, he’d always have Matthew, at least. If that didn’t seem like quite enough just now, well, he’d have to leave that to God.
Chapter Eight
Ours, too.
Those simple words had echoed in Bethany’s head from the instant that Chandler had spoken them. They raised goose bumps on her skin and plucked at her heartstrings.
Our child. Mine and now Chandler’s.
The momentous ramifications weighed on her, filling her with equal parts joy and concern.
The air unit kicked on, filling the dark room with its rattling hum. Chandler rolled over again on the other bed. Apparently, he was having as much trouble getting to sleep as she was. She couldn’t forget that this was their wedding night or that Chandler had offered to get separate rooms instead of just separate beds for them.
Knowing that money was a concern for him, she had insisted that this would be fine. Besides, if anyone should come looking for him, it would look decidedly odd if they weren’t together. The main reason, however, was that she simply hadn’t wanted to be alone on this of all nights. It didn’t change anything, of course. This marriage was still a sham. At least it was a legal sham. She told herself that was a step forward, but it didn’t feel that way. It felt…lonely.
Chandler shifted again and punched his pillow into a more pleasing shape. She suspected that part of his restlessness had to do with the fact that he slept—or tried to sleep—fully clothed in jeans and a T-shirt. Another reason probably had to do with his performance that night.
He and Drew were leading the team roping, though two more go-rounds of competition remained before overall winners could be determined. Drew was in first place in his personal event, too, while Chandler had come in ahead in the steer wrestling and second
in the tie down.
Bethany hadn’t been able to watch the steer wrestling, not after the first competitor. If anyone had told her that she’d wind up married to a man who did something so dangerous as throw himself off a running horse onto the horns of a stampeding steer, she wouldn’t have believed it, and she dared not dwell on it now.
To distract herself, she asked into the silence, “Do you ever hear the air conditioner at Chatam House?”
Chandler pushed up onto one elbow. From her bed, she could just make out the shape of his head in the darkened room. “Nope. Never do.”
“Isn’t it right above us in the attic there?” she mused. “I think that’s what Magnolia said, that they put the central air units in the attic.”
Chandler collapsed back onto his pillow. “Yep. Air units are in the attic.”
“Thought so.”
For a long moment, only the hum of the fan blowing cold air into the room filled the silence. It occurred to Bethany that she had been remiss, and this was as good a time as any to say what should have been said earlier.
“Chandler.”
“Hmm?”
“Thank you. For everything. For offering me a ride back there in that diner. For introducing me to your dad and driving me around. For rushing me to the emergency room and not embarrassing me that day in church. For throwing Jay’s lawyer out of the house. Most of all, for claiming Matthew.”
Matthew. Not her. He hadn’t claimed her, even if she was his wife, but she couldn’t let that matter.
She sat up, aware that her white sleep shirt and baggy shorts made her more visible than him.
“You’ll be an awesome dad,” she said, knowing in her heart that it was true.
Chandler slid his hands behind his head. “I did this as much for me as anyone else,” he muttered at the ceiling.
She was glad that his reputation was safe now, glad that she could do that much for him, at least. God above knew that he deserved it, that and more.
“You don’t owe me any thanks, Bethany,” he went on. “You’re sharing your son with me. There’s not much greater gift than that.”
Bethany smiled, feeling as though her heart smiled, too. “I prayed that my child would have an awesome dad, you know. I just didn’t think it would be you.”
“Who would?” he retorted wryly.
She could have argued that point but feared giving away too much of her feelings. Instead, she changed the subject.
“Speaking of awesome,” she said, injecting a note of fun into her voice. “I have never seen anything like what you did today. I had no idea anyone could move that fast or that accurately. And the horses! Oh, my goodness. How long did you have to train them? Cindy says you’re a ‘dab hand,’ by the way.”
Chandler chuckled. “Not sure what that means, frankly, but I’ve been working with this bunch for years.”
He talked about the horses for a while. Ginger Boy was eight years old and had been with him almost the whole time. He’d had Red Rover, a nine-year-old, for only five years.
“Arroyo,” he went on, “is the old man, nearly seventeen. We’ve been together the better part of a decade. He was the first horse I bought on my own. As for Ébano, he’s the youngster at six, and I’ve only worked with him about a year. He’d been through a few hands before I got him, and nobody had really pegged him as a roping horse, but I think we can win together. He’s got good bloodlines and a natural talent, even if he is a bit high-strung, which is why I got him at a good price of ten thousand.”
“Ten thousand dollars?” she exclaimed.
He turned his head, targeting her form in the dark. “That’s a tenth of what a good roping horse can cost. I figure he’s really worth seven or eight times that. Like I said, he’s got fine bloodlines.”
“Kind of like you,” she mumbled around a yawn, stretching out on her bed again.
“Can’t take any credit for that,” Chandler said softly. “That’s just pure blessing, being a Chatam.”
“Yes, I know.” She yawned again, feeling pleasantly tired now. “Thank you,” she said again some minutes later, thinking that she and Matthew were Chatams now, too. The words whispered out on a sigh.
Pure blessing, he’d said, and he was certainly right about that.
It was her last thought before sleep finally claimed her.
Listening to the soft, even breathing of his wife, Chandler rolled onto his side and stared through the darkness at the white figure on the other bed.
Some wedding night, he mused. Some wedding. Come to that, it was some marriage.
At least it was legal.
He couldn’t help wondering now what it was going to cost him, though. He’d been so worried about finances that he hadn’t stopped to worry about any other sort of cost. Now, he knew that he was in serious danger of losing his heart.
Being with her tonight, introducing her as his wife, knowing she was up there in the stands watching him, it had all felt so right. She had even cemented his partnership with Drew, which felt more like friendship now, rather than just a business arrangement. It would likely be more permanent than this marriage.
He wished that their marriage was more than just a convenient, temporary agreement, but it did have its benefits. Having Bethany on his arm would make any man proud. And how many men could choose their sons? Funny, though, that his reputation didn’t seem so important now. Why should it? He’d been letting Kreger drag it through the mud for years, after all. Still, he didn’t want to be thought of as the sort of man who would impregnate a woman outside of the bonds of marriage, especially not as the sort of man who would do that and then abandon the mother of his child, not to mention the child himself. Yes, this marriage did have benefits for him.
His main concerns were Bethany and Matthew, however. Maybe it wasn’t much of a marriage, but it was a marriage to a Chatam. He had given them both that much.
Chatams were godly, loving people, and they took care of their own. He had no doubt that his father, sister, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, every last member of the family, would accept and love his wife and son, even if some of them would be less than pleased with him once word of this marriage got out.
The aunts would stand by him, though. He had no doubt of that. He smiled, grateful and glad.
Bethany was right. He did have an excellent pedigree. That, he realized, was one of the greatest blessings of his life. It was about time that he started living up to those bloodlines.
Thank You, Lord, he began in silence, for letting me be born a Chatam.
He had much else for which to be thankful, too, so much that he felt himself sinking into sleep before he could get through the mental list. He struggled to stay with it, but sleep finally pulled him into dreams. Even from there, he reached out instinctively to God, until he at last knew peace.
“My sister’s here,” Chandler announced as soon as the truck turned up the drive early that next Monday afternoon. He nodded toward a small red convertible parked in front of the mansion.
Bethany sat up a little straighter, one hand going to her hair, which she’d slapped up in a messy ponytail bun. She felt tired and grimy after the trip back from Lawton this morning and all that went with dropping off the horses again, not that Chandler had let her help with that. He wouldn’t even let her get out of the truck for fear that the horses would bump into her. She supposed he was right about that, but she so wanted to be as much a partner to him as Drew was, as much a partner as Cindy was to her husband.
Of course, the Shaws’ marriage was real.
The rodeo had fascinated and frightened her, though she’d done her best to hide the latter from Chandler. The roping was all skill, but the steer wrestling… Chandler was bummed because he’d finished out of the money in his personal events that weekend, but at least he and Drew had taken second place in the team roping, which seemed to please Drew. Chandler, however, appeared to feel that he’d somehow let down the team. Bethany hoped that seeing his sister would perk him
up.
The aunts had told her a lot about Kaylie and her husband, Stephen. Chandler had also spoken of his younger sister with great affection, which Bethany felt was surely mutual. Whether that affection would extend to the pregnant woman who was now his wife, Bethany didn’t know. In truth, she couldn’t think of any reason why it should.
Chandler brought the truck to a stop in front of the house and came around to take Bethany’s arm as she slid out on her side. He escorted her up the steps and across the porch to the door, where he paused, lifted his eyebrows and said, “Here we go.”
They’d already discussed what sort of reception they could expect from his aunts and her brother. Kaylie presented a complete unknown. Bethany sucked in a deep breath, and Chandler opened the door.
“Surprise!”
Odelia rushed forward, waving her hankie wildly. She wore tiers of bloodred lace and rubies the size of robin eggs on her earlobes, hopefully fake ones. A petite, big-eyed young woman with long, soft sandy-red hair watched calmly from the center of the foyer as Odelia hugged first Bethany and then Chandler, babbling about shopping and cakes and honeymoons.
“And look!” she exclaimed, waving her hankie at the young woman, who wore a chic sleeveless sheath of crisp lilac linen, her hair held back by a matching headband. “Look who just showed up!”
Bethany shrank inwardly, rooted to the floor in her flip-flops, bagged out navy leggings and a clownish polka-dotted top that she’d found on clearance at the discount store. She had never felt less attractive.
“Kaylie,” Chandler said, slipping away from Bethany to hug his sister. “Welcome home. Is Stephen here?”
“No. And don’t change the subject.”
“Which is?”
Drawing back from the embrace, Kaylie tilted her head and lifted her eyebrows at her brother before looking pointedly to Bethany. Then she balled up her fist and punched him in the gut. The blow didn’t so much as rock him, but he caved belatedly and let out a long-suffering sigh. Odelia giggled uncertainly.