The Lassoed by Marriage Romance Collection

by Bell, Angela; Breidenbach, Angela; Carter, Lisa

  “But you are pretty,” he said, realizing even as he said them, the words didn’t fit Penelope Pinehurst. Pretty was too vapid a word. She was striking. She was memorable. She was…strong.

  “You don’t have to lie to me.”

  Wash turned serious, realizing that she was telling the truth as she saw it. “You know what I see when I look at you?” he asked.

  Her eyes darkened until they were no longer the tawny color of strong tea, but deep and rich like the chocolate he’d seen imported from Europe.

  “I see a survivor. I see a woman who was left to fend for herself, who made do for years but kept everything going regardless of the enemies she faced. I see strength, resilience, and fortitude.”

  She took a deep breath, the air shuddering. “But not beauty.” She said the words quietly; they were no more than a whisper between them.

  “When you have all that,” he said, “what is beauty?”

  Chapter 5

  Penny held her breath as he said the words. Could he really mean them? Never before had she met someone like Wash. Never before had she truly dreamed of getting married. Those dreams had died a swift death a long time ago. Once she realized that she wasn’t like the other girls. She could cook and clean, and keep a house. She could take care of her own, and she had for the longest time. But now it seemed everything was different. Because of him. Because of Wash.

  “Kiss me,” she invited. She knew it was bold, but they were married, after all. And he had said the sweetest things to her that anyone had ever said in her entire life.

  Wash let go of her arms and took a step back. Immediately she felt bereft, and though her heart cracked at the rejection, her logical side said that it wasn’t the first time. Most likely it wouldn’t be the last.

  “I can’t do that,” he said with a shake of his head. “I can’t lead you on that way. I can’t make you think that I’m something I’m not. And I’m not husband material.”

  “Because you killed someone?” she whispered.

  He shook his head. “Because I didn’t kill anyone.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Wash took her hand into his, and Penny allowed him to lead her over to the rocking chairs next to the fireplace. Dinner was half eaten and still sitting on the table. Maybe they would get back to it, maybe they wouldn’t.

  They settled down side by side, Wash still holding her hand in his.

  “My family was very wealthy, once upon a time. We lived over in Butler. We had quite a large farm there. A plantation I guess you could say, and everything seemed to be going really well until Kansas decided to enter the Union as a free state. Then the talk began to give up what we had and move to Missouri. That decision was taken from us by others, and before it was all said and done we had almost nothing. But we did the best we could, so we were still an upstanding family in the community. For the most part.” His voice took on a far-off quality, as if he were in another place as he told her his tale. “Then my parents died. My father had a heart attack, and I think my mother died because she missed him so much. That left me and Nancy, my sister. And I vowed that I would take care of her always. She was a little younger than I was, so wonderful and full of life.” He gently traced the outline of each knuckle on her hand. Penny didn’t know what to say, she just listened. Somehow she knew she wasn’t going to like the ending.

  “Then Nancy met this man, Ralston James, and he swept her off her feet. I really didn’t care for the man, but she was in love, and I agreed that they could get married. Because it meant so much to Nancy. Then two days before the wedding I went over to James’s house, only to find—” His voice broke.

  Penny waited as he gave a small cough and regained some of his earlier composure.

  “He had killed her,” he said.

  Penny gasped and blinked back her tears as Wash continued.

  “He thought we had money.” He shrugged. “I don’t know where he got such an idea, but when he found out that we were poor, he grew angry and strangled her. Then he framed me for the murder, and here I am.” He let go of her hand to spread his wide.

  Penny shook her head. “I don’t know what to say.”

  Wash gave her a bitter smile. “There’s nothing to say. He killed my sister then sent me to prison. You walked into my cell and offered me freedom. And I’ll stay here and I’ll bring in your crops, but come the fall I’m going to find Ralston James, and I’m going to kill that man.”

  “Wash, you can’t do that. You can’t go around seeking vengeance,” she said. “Vengeance belongs to God.”

  Wash shook his head. “An eye for an eye, isn’t that what the Bible says?”

  “That’s not what it means,” Penny started. “I mean it is, but it doesn’t mean that you get to take an eye for an eye. You’re supposed to turn the other cheek.”

  Wash stood so fast he knocked the rocking chair over behind him. “I can’t turn the other cheek. He killed the one thing I had left in this world, the one person I loved more than anything. And then he sent me to prison for it. My family lost everything in the span of just a few years. And he’s not going to get away with it.”

  Penny stood, her insides trembling, even as she straightened her shoulders and looked him square in the eye. “Vengeance is not ours, Washington Brannock. I’ll pray for you.”

  As the next weeks turned into another month, Wash grew tired of Penny’s constant Bible quotes. If it wasn’t one about vengeance belonging to the Lord, it was one where Jesus said to turn the other cheek. She never missed a chance to tell him the verses, tell him that she was praying for him, or to stand in the middle of the yard and raise her hands to heaven and say a prayer that he would come to his senses. But there was no coming to the senses.

  She would be the same way if she knew that something had happened to one of her beloved family members the way he did. It was really easy to say turn the other cheek when she wasn’t the one having to turn it.

  “Hello!” someone called from the road.

  Wash looked up as a lone rider came down the lane. He shaded his eyes to get a better look-see, but he could see only that it was a man on the roan horse who rode near. “Hello,” he called in return.

  “I was looking for a place to water my horse,” the man said.

  Wash pointed to the water trough just this side of the corral. “You can get some water there, and I can get you a scoop of oats for your beast, if you want to sit and rest a spell.”

  “Much obliged,” the rider said.

  The stranger’s voice rang familiar, but Wash thought perhaps it was merely a trick of his ears. He hadn’t heard another man’s voice in quite some time. He and Penny, despite their differences of opinion on the matter of vengeance, had been working very closely side by side to get everything in order. She made it known that she hated the fact that he was leaving soon, but she knew she couldn’t make him stay.

  The rider dismounted and led his horse to the trough. Like many in this postwar time, the man wore a gun on his hip and had a rifle in a scabbard on the side of his saddle.

  “You just coming in from town?” Wash asked.

  The man took off his hat and wiped his forehead with his sleeve then turned to face him.

  Wash would have known those eyes anywhere. Green as meadow grass and evil to the core.

  Ralston James!

  Somehow Wash kept his wits about him. He might’ve recognized James, but the man did not recognize Wash. He supposed he’d changed a lot in the last few years. He had lost some weight. His hair was longer, and he knew that his face bore the pinch of bitterness.

  His heart pounded hard in his chest. He looked to where his own rifle lay several yards away. He kept it out here in case coyotes or small game happened by. He had no idea the man he wanted to kill more than he wanted his next breath would be riding up. But he’d never get to his rifle before the man in front of him could raise the gun from his hip.

  “Hello there!” Penny came out of the house wiping her hand
s on a towel as she surveyed the newcomer.

  The man tipped his hat at Penny then flashed her that devilish smile Wash had seen him use too many times to count.

  Watch out, Penny. The man’s a snake.

  “I just stopped in for some water and some oats. I won’t be troubling you long. I appreciate your hospitality.”

  Penny gave a small nod then came down the stairs. “I’m Penny,” she said. “Penny—”

  “Pinehurst,” Wash interjected. “Her name is Penny Pinehurst. And I’m her husband…George.”

  Penny frowned at him but seemed to realize something was up. The woman was nothing if not smart.

  “That’s right,” she said.

  The man reached out a hand. “Ralston James.”

  Wash looked from the hand to the man who extended it. The last thing he wanted to do was touch the hand that had killed his sister. Those hands, together, had choked the life out of his Nancy. How was he supposed to shake it in good faith?

  Penny elbowed him in the ribs. “Don’t go all day-dreamy on me now, George. Shake the man’s hand.”

  It took all the strength he could muster and a small prayer for more before Wash could shake James’s hand. Strange, but when their skin touched, he didn’t burst into flames.

  “It’s a pleasure,” James said. “Like I said, I can’t stay long.” He looked behind him nervously, and Wash wondered if perhaps someone was following behind.

  “You can stay as long as you need.” Penny beamed at him. Wash wanted to elbow her back in the ribs. The man could not stay as long as he wanted. Wash wanted nothing more than to shoot him on sight.

  “Can I speak to my wife for a moment alone, please?” Wash didn’t wait for James to respond. He grabbed Penny by the elbow and pulled her to the other side of the yard. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that he can stay as long as he needs to, because if he can’t then he might realize something’s up.”

  “I want to kill that man.”

  Penny plopped her hands on her hips and eyed him skeptically. “Oh yeah? Then why haven’t you?”

  “I—why, I—” Wash sputtered. Why hadn’t he? He’d had the perfect opportunity. The man that he wanted to seek vengeance on had ridden up in the front yard, right there in shooting distance. He could’ve moved closer to his gun. He could’ve gone inside and gotten a different gun. He could’ve jumped James from behind. He could’ve done a number of things to bring Ralston James down. So why hadn’t he?

  “I’ll tell you why,” Penny said, “because vengeance is not the way. And you know it.”

  He looked to the woman in front of him and in that instant realized that his decision not to kill Ralston James had nothing to do with vengeance and everything to do with love. More specifically love for the woman he’d married.

  “He cannot be allowed to get away with killing my sister.”

  Without waiting for her to respond, he stalked across the yard. James stood with his back to them, and Wash had only a split second to wonder if perhaps that was a gift from God, before he’d jumped on Ralston’s back and wrestled him to the ground.

  “Wash! What are you doing?”

  Wash was breathing heavy. Ralston had managed to land a few punches of his own, but Wash had the element of surprise on his side. Now he sat astride the dandy, the man’s face in the dust, as he pulled both arms behind his back. “Quit hollering at me, woman, and go get some rope!”

  For once Penny did as he asked, running into the barn and returning a few moments later with a length of rope just long enough to hog-tie Ralston James. The man sputtered and fussed until Wash took a bandanna and tied it around the man’s mouth to stifle his acid words.

  “Now what?” Penny looked from him to Ralston.

  “We’re taking him to jail. Can you help me load him in the wagon?”

  She smiled, obviously relieved. “Thank the Lord for answered prayers.”

  “Penny?” he prompted.

  “Yes,” she said with a smile. “I’ll help you load him into the wagon.”

  The look on the sheriff’s face was worth more than anything as Penny and Wash pulled into town. In fact everyone wanted to hear about how Ralston came to be hog-tied in the back of Penny’s wagon. Wash told his story to the sheriff, who promptly locked Ralston up in the jail where only months before Wash himself had been incarcerated. Then Wash promised to come back and testify as soon as the judge came through town. And before Penny knew it, she and her husband were on their way back to her farm.

  They were quiet on the trip. Penny couldn’t speak for Wash, but she didn’t know what to say. Somehow Wash had given up his need for vengeance and settled for justice instead. She wanted to tell him that she had prayed for some sort of peaceful resolution and that God had delivered Ralston to their yard so that it could come to be. God was good, and Wash needed to realize that.

  He had turned the other cheek whether he realized it or not. But more than the circumstances surrounding Ralston James and his arrest, Penny had to figure out what to do with her gallows husband.

  Penny climbed down from the wagon and went into the house. It was close to time for supper, and she needed to get them something together to eat. Wash took the wagon and unhitched the horses. But an air of expectancy hung around them both. What was to become of them now?

  Wash would stay until the crops came in, which might be another month, and then he’d planned to head off after vengeance. But what were his plans now?

  Penny’s heart thumped hard in her chest. She was just being foolish. Why would his plans have anything to do with her? You silly, silly girl. You just had to go and fall in love with a man like that. A man who could never love you in return. How could he? He is so handsome and so strong.

  Despite his sweet words to her from a few weeks ago, she doubted they held true today.

  They sat down to dinner, still no words of importance spoken between them, just “please,” “thank you,” and a “here, this is for you,” when she passed him the salt. But nothing of any substance, nothing of any importance.

  She said grace over their meal, and they began to eat, each one busy with their own thoughts. Was he thinking about their marriage? Or was he thinking about his sister as he thought about Ralston James?

  Penny was being ridiculous. He was more than likely thinking of his sister, needing time to come to terms with the justice served to her killer. And his thoughts would probably not hold much else until all of that was resolved.

  Finished with her meal, she stood and took her plate over to the washstand. She supposed even homely girls could be foolish over boys. And she had been the biggest fool of all.

  “Penny?” He spoke directly behind her, and Penny jumped, so lost in her thoughts that she hadn’t realized he’d come close.

  “Yes?”

  “About the harvest…”

  He couldn’t leave! She needed him! And he had promised.

  She turned on him then, punching one finger in his chest. “You can’t go. You promised to stay until the harvest came in. And I can’t allow you to leave without you helping me. I can’t do it alone.”

  “Wait! I mean, why are you poking me? What’s wrong with you?”

  “Isn’t that what you’re looking to tell me? That you’re leaving before the harvest? That’s not acceptable. I need your help. My father and brother are coming back. I know they are. And I need to do everything I can to help feed them. Bring in the crops and keep this farm running until they return.”

  Even as she said the words she doubted that her father and brother would ever return to Kansas, but she couldn’t let loose of that last shred of hope. And she needed Washington Brannock to help her regardless of his desire to be anywhere but with her.

  “I’m not leaving. I mean, I can’t—” His face turned a shade of red she had never seen before. “Penny, my time here with you has shown me something different.

  I hadn’t thought about getting married in a long, long time, muc
h less getting married to someone who paid for me from the gallows. When you walked into the jail, I saw my chance at vengeance. But you wouldn’t even allow me that.” He chuckled, taking the sting from his words. “This is not anywhere I thought my life would be now. I expected to find Ralston James, shoot him dead for killing my sister, and then live my life on the run in Indian Territory, just trying to stay alive. Never had a farm, a wife, or crops ever come into it.”

  Penny’s heart skipped a beat. “A wife?”

  He gave a small nod. “Yes, a wife. I never thought I’d have one, and now I do. And I’ve got crops to bring in. What I want to know is after the crops are in, can I stay?”

  “Can you—”

  He nodded again. “Stay. Can I stay?”

  “With me?” Surely she had heard him wrong. Why would he want to stay with her?

  He took her hands in his and held them up close to his heart. Penny’s mouth turned to ash as she waited for him to continue.

  This time he laughed. “Well it won’t be much fun here by myself.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’m saying, Penelope Pinehurst Brannock, can I stay and be your husband? See, I found myself falling in love with this woman. Some folks say she’s not very pretty, but there’s something about her that I love.”

  Penny’s heart thumped back to life. “Oh really? Like what?”

  “She’s strong, for one. And she’s a little bossy, but I can overlook that. But she gives me a different perspective on things. And that’s one thing I really need in my life.”

  Penny grinned. “Yes.” She could hardly believe this was happening to her, Not So Pretty Penny. “Yes, you can stay.”

  Wash pulled her close, holding her tight and kissing her like he had that day in the yard. Penny had never felt so loved.

  He lifted his head and smiled, the sweetest smile she had ever seen. “There’s just one thing,” he said.

  “And what’s that?”

  “I’m no longer set to hang, and you did buy me from the gallows.”

  “Does your story have a point?”