The Lassoed by Marriage Romance Collection

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

  “Have a snack,” he said, perching on the edge of his desk.

  She took a wedge of apple. “How was the delivery?” she asked before eating the slice.

  “Quicker than expected. I left the twins sleeping contently in their father’s arms.”

  “And Mary?”

  “Exhausted.” When Coral’s eyes narrowed, he added, “And looking more beautiful than ever. Speaking of beauty…”

  He leaned forward and kissed her cheek then ear before moving to her neck, pulling her to her feet and into his arms. He drew back and studied her face, the desire in her eyes reflecting what he felt. His heart quit beating quite so properly. She gripped the lapels of his coat. His hands slid down the gentle slope of her spine and held her against him.

  Her gaze shifted to where sunlight streamed in through the window sheers he’d helped her hang the day after she—and their wedding gifts—invaded his home.

  “Jack, it’s the middle of the afternoon. Don’t you have patients to see?”

  He smiled. “I’d rather examine you.”

  She smiled back, and looked deliciously devious. “I imagine you would.”

  She gave him an apple-flavored kiss that left him breathless and thankful for a wife who enjoyed flirting with him. Just when he was about to carry her to the other room, she pushed him back and smoothed his hair and the front of his gray suit coat.

  “Go to work, Dr. Kent,” she ordered yet was still smiling.

  He groaned. “You’re torturing me.”

  “I could say the same.”

  Jack picked up an apple slice and took a bite, glancing at the covered desktop. “Is any of this new mail?”

  Her eyes sparkled. “Yes, several things came for you.” She handed him two manila envelopes, a folder, and a white, already opened envelope with a Wathena postmark. “Two hospitals in Cleveland have already responded to your employment request, exactly the two I’ve been praying would answer, and they are both interested. The third item is a folder containing adoption forms. I’ve filled out everything. It only needs your signature. Dr. Becker included a letter detailing how he believes surgery could open Gracie’s ear canal and possibly enable her to hear. I haven’t found a surgeon yet. Finally, Hiram invited us to Saturday’s apple picking and pig roast, and I will post our regrets in the morning.” She drew in a breath. “You look angry. Did you want to go see your family?”

  Jack closed his eyes for a moment, pinching the bridge of his nose. What did she expect from him? He loved her kindness to others, determination to find the good in any situation, generosity, and how she talked about their future. She was also stubborn to the bone.

  Once Coral latched on to an idea, she wouldn’t let go.

  This was one idea she needed to let go.

  Two ideas, actually. They weren’t adopting Gracie. Not this year. Not next. Children were their future, not their present. He’d had a free hour in which he’d wanted to spend with her, and now this? They’d agreed not to make any major decisions without talking to the other. He let out an aggravated breath.

  “Coral, I didn’t contact any hospitals in Cleveland.”

  She smiled, patted his hand. “Of course not, I did,” she said, clearly unperturbed by his tone.

  “If I’d wanted to contact any hospitals in Cleveland, I would have.”

  “You didn’t have the time.”

  Jack gritted his teeth. “I could have made the time if it was something I wanted.”

  Again, she did not take the hint.

  She touched his face, her skin soft and warm along his jaw. “Dear husband, sometimes we don’t realize we want something until we learn of that something’s existence. You will love Cleveland. It has electricity, streetcars, and a nine-story shopping mall. The Arcade sells things we’ve never dreamed of. Clevelanders need doctors, too.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Coral, will you let things alone?” he said irritably.

  She gave him a peeved look. “This is for our future. It’s the only way we can be free of the feud.”

  “We are free of it.”

  “Until something happens again, and you know something will happen because the adults keep feeding hostility to the children. Generation to generation.”

  “Be optimistic,” he told her.

  “I have three facts for you.” She held up a pointer finger. “Rain falls from the sky”—two fingers—“roosters crow”—three—“and our families will always hate each other.”

  He dropped the mail onto the desk. “Four: we are not moving to Cleveland.”

  “But—”

  “No.”

  She looked at him with such disappointment, it was almost too much to bear. “Won’t you at least look at what the hospitals sent?”

  “No.”

  “But—”

  “No.”

  “Can’t you say anything besides no?”

  Jack released a ragged breath. “Yes, I can.” He cradled her face in his palms. “Be the one to end the hate.”

  Her chin trembled. “How?” she said, her voice sounding like it might crack.

  Jack brushed his lips across hers, lingering, relishing how blessed he was to be the man responsible for cherishing her. “Love me, Coral, and let me love you. When our families see what we have, they will realize what they’re missing.” He rested his forehead against hers. “I will take you to Cleveland at Christmas so we can see this behemoth shopping mall you speak of and the mighty and mystifying wonders therein.”

  Her eyes shone bright with tears. He hoped from joy, not heartbreak.

  “Next year,” he said softly, “we can add a child to our family.”

  Her head tipped in acknowledgment of his words.

  “I love you,” he whispered.

  Her lips parted. His mouth found hers, and he kissed her until they were both breathless. She was his. More importantly, he was hers to do with as she wished.

  Jack chuckled.

  Coral drew back. “What was that for?”

  “I was doing my own planning for future.” He winked. “Tonight.”

  She blushed.

  “Until later, Mrs. Kent.”

  Jack snatched another apple slice off the plate. He chewed as he descended the staircase. He strolled into his office. Leaving the door open, he sank into his chair. She hadn’t declared her love, but he didn’t mind. When she did, the words would come from her heart, not out of an obligatory response.

  He stared at the front door.

  Waited for his afternoon appointment.

  No sound could be heard, save for the ticking of the wall clock.

  He tapped the top of his desk. That Coral hadn’t found an ear surgeon yet meant she was looking. Even if she found a listing of surgeons, she wouldn’t know what to ask when interviewing. His gaze fell on the wall of textbooks and medical journals. If a surgery was all it would take to help Gracie hear, it may be possible Coral could be helped, too. Jack grabbed the most recent American Medical Directory. Flipped the pages until he came to a list of eye, ear, nose, and throat hospitals.

  New Jersey. Buffalo. Bronx. Baltimore. Maine.

  Fort Dodge, Iowa, was so far the closest.

  No, there was one in Cincinnati…but it specialized in ophthalmology.

  Philadelphia. Pittsburgh.

  “Wait, what’s this?” he murmured. “New Orleans. The institution was established not alone for the treatment of indigent patients but also for the education of practitioners of medicine. The hospital’s new building latterly erected and embodying the latest improvements…H. D. Bruns, MD, surgeon-in-charge… W. DeRoaldes, MD, surgeon-in-chief.” He slapped the book. “That’s who I need to contact.”

  Chapter 8

  While there is life, there is hope.

  JULES VERNE

  The following Saturday

  A tree-lined horizon. Crisp Kansas breeze. Not a cloud in the blue sky.

  Coral kicked the leg she’d crossed over the other as she rocked on the porch, enjoyi
ng the beautiful autumn afternoon, the floorboards under the rocker squeaking. She’d smile if her cheeks didn’t already ache from a day of smiling, even though no one but Jack smiled in return. Or talked to her. That she was a Kent in name didn’t atone for being a Davies by birth. She hadn’t expected the Kents to give up decades of hostility after a month of a Davies married to one of theirs.

  Change never came easy.

  She would change.

  For Jack, she was going to overcome her doubts, fears, and desire to move to Cleveland. She was going to do her part to end the feud. Because he loved her. Because she loved him. Love was much like horticulture. Begin with a single seed. Gently plant. Then prune, cultivate, and feed.

  After twenty years of watching her father cultivate over a thousand varieties of apple, peach, and pear trees at the Davies orchard, she now knew why the Kents struggled to produce an abundant crop. They weren’t good horticulturists. Jack’s uncle (Hiram’s father) either hadn’t known enough about spraying or pruning or hadn’t cared to read up on it in the Kansas Farmer. Or maybe Mr. Kent hadn’t been able to read. If that had been the case, someone in the family could have read it to him. Why hadn’t his wife? Could be she didn’t know how to read, either.

  But Jack did. So did Hiram. Enough of their kin had to know, too.

  From what little she could remember of Howsley Kent, the man never took “charity” from anyone. Advice given without being requested amounted to charity. Even without listening to others, he’d been able to see farms where hedges had been planted as a fence to hinder farm stock from plundering the trees. He could’ve figured out what apple varieties produced best in summer, fall, and winter. He could’ve planted other fruit-bearing trees besides apples.

  Yet he hadn’t.

  Coral released a sad sigh. She wasn’t a horticulturist. She’d never read a paragraph in the Kansas Farmer or any of the pamphlets her father’d brought home from State Horticultural Society meetings. If she could figure out these things by giving halfhearted attention, then Howsley Kent should have, too. Now that Hiram had taken over from Jack in managing the orchard since he earned a degree in—

  How strange.

  She had no idea what degree he earned from the University of Missouri, or if he earned a degree at all. She’d have to ask Jack.

  From her spot on the covered porch, she leaned forward in her rocker and looked to where Hiram stood pointing at the packed barrels that were to be loaded on wagons and shipped north. The past was the past, and if Hiram wanted the farm to prosper, someone needed to tell him that no amount of spraying would make a tree produce fruit, if those trees haven’t already produced fruit.

  She breathed deep. From the smell of it, the pig roasting over a pit was ready to be served. She probably ought to go find Jack.

  She glanced around the yard filled with Kents of all ages. Jack held two glasses of lemonade and politely nodded as he listened to one of his cousins. Gerald. No…George. George had three boys and was married to… Where was she? There. With the other Kent women clustered near the food tables. None looked her way. Oh, what was her name? She was one of the Losees from Troy. Lyla. That’s it. Lyla Losee.

  “You can try to hide, but that hair will always give you away.”

  The spite-filled voice sent a chill up Coral’s spine. The first—and last—conversation she’d ever had with Jack’s grandmother after accidentally bumping into her at the post office had been enough for Coral to vow never again. Thankfully at the wedding, the woman had limited herself to fiery glares and a cold shoulder.

  “No response, girl?” the icy voice continued. “I was rather shocked it took a wedding to a Kent before Lou Davies finally disowned ya.”

  Coral gripped the rocker’s arm rests. Don’t respond. Look at Jack.

  “All that money and he couldn’t keep his wife faithful. Everyone knows ya can’t trust a Davies to be faithful.”

  Coral grit her teeth.

  The woman cackled. “Five children and only three of them his.”

  She waited a minute in hopes Jack would intervene before she had to speak to his vitriolic grandmother. As if he could feel her staring at him, he turned and smiled, every bit of his love clear.

  “Fool boy,” Mrs. Kent spat along with a few other denigrations. Her slurs truly knew no bounds.

  Be the one to end the hate.

  Coral forced a smile and stood. “Mrs. Kent, you are blessed to have such an honorable grandson. He is a fine doctor.”

  Marsella Kent’s thin lips pursed tightly, almost vanishing. Unlike the other ladies in attendance, with hair pinned up and covered with a hat, the haughty elder Kent wore her white hair in two shoulder-length braids. Rumor was she had Potawatomi blood. In her younger years, she must have been a striking woman. Over the years, sun and age bore some responsibility for the heavy lines in her skin, but the ones about her lips, which drew her mouth into a perpetual frown, those came from bitterness, from jealousy, from grief.

  What had made her so angry?

  She couldn’t have been born with it. No one was born with that much fury.

  It had to have come from loss and wounds and grief. From the lack of love to give and to receive. From having no one to share the burden.

  From feeling alone.

  Coral thought that rather sad, and accurate. She tried to speak, but her words tangled in her throat.

  “Don’t look at me like that!” Mrs. Kent drew air in through her nose and blinked several times in rapid succession. “I know what you’re doing.”

  “I don’t understand,” Coral said softly. “What am I doing?”

  “Pitying me,” she seethed.

  Coral couldn’t look away from the rage in the petite woman’s eyes. Of course she pitied her. Two sons, three stillborn daughters, and a husband buried not fifty feet from the kitchen window. Every day she washed dishes she saw the graves. Daily reminders of her loss. Daily reminders she was alone. One widowed daughter-in-law, Jack’s mother, leaving her fifteen-year-old son for Marsella to raise. The other daughter-in-law, Hiram’s mother, dying in childbirth.

  How could any woman bear such loss? Such responsibility?

  “I am so sorry for this feud between—” Coral flinched the moment Mrs. Kent’s hand struck her cheek. Coral blinked.

  Be the one to end the hate.

  She raised her chin and held her hands together, clasped before her, to keep from touching the stinging skin. “Between our families,” she finished. “I pray we can be—”

  Jack grabbed his grandmother’s palm before it connected with Coral’s reddened cheek a second time. Coral looked shocked. She looked terrified. It was his fault for agreeing to attend.

  “Don’t touch her again,” he warned.

  Marsella jerked free. “Get that filth off my land.”

  “She’s my wire.”

  “Only because you didn’t have the courage to stand up to the judge.”

  “I volunteered!”

  She snorted. “She has done a devil of a number on you.”

  Jack could feel his blood boiling. He’d seen little of his family since the wedding. He’d missed them. This Marsella—the one who was quick to unleash her vindictive hands and words in punishment—he did not miss.

  Coral touched his arm, and Jack immediately sought her eyes, her soft and inviting gaze. She loved him. He knew it, though she hadn’t yet said the words. She loved him. She calmed him. She strengthened and believed in him. She trusted him to do the right thing. He could see it there in her bright eyes. He needed her to believe in him as much as she needed him to cherish her. To be one. Until death did they part.

  Her lips curved.

  Jack felt his own curving as well.

  She gave him an encouraging nod.

  Jack winked at Coral then looked at Marsella. “It doesn’t have to be like this.”

  Her lips were parted in surprise.

  “We don’t have to keep hating each other,” he said gently. “What we perceive to
be the truth isn’t always the truth. We have wronged the Davies family as often as they have wronged us.”

  “We never stole from them!” Marsella bit off.

  Jack didn’t have to look behind him to know Kents surrounded all sides of the porch. Coral’s warm palm slid against his. He held tight. Together they could end the feud. It wouldn’t be easy, but they could do it. They could return love for hate, kindness for selfishness.

  He breathed deep then spoke loud, clear, and calm. “I examined all the acreage titles after Uncle’s death. I looked at bills of sales and anything I could think of to prove ownership. No Kent ever owned a square inch of Davies—”

  Marsella slapped him hard. “You think they didn’t destroy the originals?”

  Jack’s cheek stung, yet he tempered his emotions to say, “The past cannot be rewritten.”

  Several Kents gasped at his retort.

  Marsella studied his face, looking intently, looking at him as if she didn’t recognize him. She cackled. “You think she cares for you.” Her mocking laughter stopped. “You’re fool-stupid not to see what she’s doing. She’s been twisting your thoughts, Jack. Making you forget the truth. You”—she poked his chest—“you’re weak. Hiram isn’t. She tried to seduce him, but he got away because he’s strong. She’s after him again. I saw her watching him. Once she’s buried you, she’ll go after your cousin.”

  Jack stared speechless. Had she gone mad?

  “Do you actually believe that?” came Coral’s girlish voice, her tone numbingly calm.

  “Yes,” Marsella snapped.

  “But why would I do this?” Coral asked.

  Marsella’s eyes flashed. “The land!”

  “She’s trying to steal it back,” someone yelled.

  Coral flinched. “Ow.”

  Jack turned in time to see two rocks pelt her skirt. The fourth hit her back. She screamed.

  “Stop,” he roared. He swung around and shoved Coral behind his back, shielding her from any other attacks. “Put the rocks down.”

  Seven-year-old Samuel dropped the stone he held. Two others hid behind their mother’s skirt. Teddy and another teen stood defiant. Coral was right—the adults were feeding hostility to the children. Generation to generation.