A Bargained-For Bride

by Marcia Lynn McClure

  “Choose my horse?” Jilly asked.

  “Well, yeah. I reckon you’re gonna need one…unless you plan on hitchin’ up the wagon every time you want to run into town and see your folks,” Boone answered.

  “No…no…the use of a horse would be wonderful,” Jilly admitted, smiling.

  “Then we’ll take care of that business first off,” Boone said. “Just let me finish up a few things, and then we’ll see what we can find for you, all right?”

  “All right,” Jilly answered, trying not to smile too widely. But it was hard for Jilly not to feel absolutely giddy about having her own horse! She’d always dreamt of having her own horse—a horse she could saddle up and ride whenever the need or want to do so presented itself.

  Thus, once Boone had carried in Jilly’s trunk and deposited it at the foot of her bed, she kept busy with familiarizing herself with the kitchen and the rest of the house while Boone did some chores. But when at last he did return, walking with her out to the big barn of horse stables he owned—when he suggested a handsome buckskin gelding and had Jilly feed the horse an apple—when the buckskin, Romeo, nuzzled her neck a bit with his velvety nose—Jilly was fairly certain she was the happiest girl in Mourning Dove Creek.

  Yet as the sun began to set, Jilly discovered that all her newfound courage and excitement began to evaporate as quickly as it had appeared.

  She’d made a delicious supper of ham and biscuits with butter—both of which were so much more delicious when paired with the sweet, fresh honey Boone had collected from a beehive he’d found holed up in an old maple tree. Boone had relished the supper Jilly had prepared, complimenting her over and over on how wonderful it had been.

  Yet the lower the sun sank in the west and the darker it grew, the greater Jilly’s returning anxieties became.

  What had she done? She’d married a near stranger! Worse, she’d done so out of spite—spite directed at Jack Taylor—and even a little spite directed at her grandpa and grandma. How could they do this to her? Send her off to live with some man she hardly knew?

  Jilly tried to mask her fears and insecurities, tried to appear perfectly calm and settled as she shared supper with Boone, as they sat in the parlor afterward sharing light conversation.

  She knew that Boone was not an idiot, however. Jilly had no doubt that Boone could read her countenance as bedtime drew nearer.

  And he proved it when he rose, at last, and said, “Well, I’m plum tuckered out. And I’m sure you are too, Jill. So why don’t we head off to bed? Separate beds, of course.”

  “It h-has been a long day, it seems,” she managed to stammer as he rose from his chair and slipped his suspenders off his shoulders.

  “And tomorrow will be the same,” Boone said.

  Jilly’s eyes widened as, standing right there in the parlor, Boone Ramsey stripped off his shirt—right there—right in front of her! She tried not to stare at him as he stood bare-chested directly in front of her. But the fact was she couldn’t help herself! Boone Ramsey’s broad shoulders and chest were discernable enough when he was dressed, but when he was undressed, the full revelation of his muscular, bronzed torso was astonishing!

  As Boone started to toss the shirt over the back of his chair, he paused, saying, “Oh. I suppose I better quit leavin’ my clothes layin’ all over the house now, huh?” Yet as he stood glancing around the room, as if he weren’t sure what to do with the shirt, Jilly felt a grin of amusement tug the corner of her lips.

  “There’s a basket I put on the back porch,” she told him. “Just toss it in the basket. That’s where we’ll put things that need washin’…if that’s all right with you.”

  Boone’s handsome brows arched in admiration of a good idea. “Hmmm. I never woulda thought of doin’ that. I just sort of left everything layin’ here and there…then gathered it up when it needed washin’. A basket on the back porch, huh?” He shook his head and smiled. “Sometimes I think I’m dumber than an ox.”

  Jilly smiled, thinking that it was somehow endearing that Boone had never thought to put his soiled clothes all in one place.

  But her smile faded the instant he turned to leave. “What on earth?” she exclaimed, leaping to her feet. “What happened?”

  Boone turned back to face her, a puzzled frown on his face. “Where?” he asked, glancing around the room.

  “There!” Jilly exclaimed, pointing to him. “At your back!”

  Boone sighed. “Oh, that. Just a cut. An ax fell off the barn wall and hit me there. I had Doc Havasham stitch it up the other day, since I couldn’t reach it myself. But then that whole mess with the Lillingston boy ripped it open again, and the doc had to do some more stitchin’. It’s fine now though.”

  “Fine?” Jilly asked in lingering consternation. “It’s dreadful! It must be excruciating! It’s not even bandaged!”

  But Boone simply shrugged. “It just needs to dry out a bit more…scab over some. It doesn’t hurt near as much now as it did,” he said, working his arm on the same side of his body.

  Yet as Jilly lay in her new bed late that night, weeping and sniffling for missing her old bed—the soft, comfortable, familiar bed she’d slept in for the past fourteen years—she couldn’t keep the image of Boone’s terrible wound from hovering at the forefront of her mind. In all her life, she’d never had a wound as severe as the one Boone seemed to shrug off like it were only a cat scratch. It made her wonder what other injuries or wounds he might endure in the future; it made her fearful of his well-being.

  And mingled with Jilly’s worry over Boone’s well-being was the angst she was beginning to feel with herself over Jack Taylor, over what she was realizing were her true feelings where Jack was concerned—and those feelings weren’t love as she’d thought they’d been. And as she lay in her new, albeit large and very comfortable bed, worrying over Boone’s injury, astonished at how even more attractive he’d appeared while standing in the parlor shirtless before her—as she lay there missing her grandma and grandpa, her childhood, her parents, and everything else she could possible miss—she wept—wept and sniffled. Yet it wasn’t the weeping of heartbreak but that of melancholy, of knowing nothing would ever be the same—not ever again. As she lay in bed, the evening breeze and moonlight wafting through the open window—even as the thought passed through her mind that she should see about making some curtains for her bedroom window—Jilly wept in knowing that her life would never be the same. And though she knew that life as Boone Ramsey’s wife would be secure and maybe even happy one day, Jilly knew that the blithe and easy days of childhood and adolescence were gone—never to be recaptured.

  Boone sighed. There it was—what he’d expected all along—the soft weeping, the sniffling of a woman crying her heart out. As Boone lay in his bed gazing at the moonbeams softly streaming through his open window, he promised himself that one day he’d beat the wadding out of Jack the Jackass Taylor. The man deserved nothing less for what he’d done to Jilly Adams’s heart, not to mention Dina Havasham’s.

  Boone was just thankful he’d overheard the conversation between Doolin Adams and Doc Havasham—for who knew what that tomcat, Jack Taylor, might have done to destroy Jilly if she’d been trapped in his claws any longer? Oh, he knew Jilly was miserable now, but at least she’d be cared for, provided for, and protected under his roof. And Doolin Adams knew it too—and that gave Boone a great measure of comfort.

  Yep, Boone had been lucky. He’d snatched Jilly from the jaws of misery, just as he’d always promised himself he would do. From the day the sweet little girl had walked all the way from town out to his empty, lonely farmhouse one Christmas morning ten years before—from the moment she’d showered him with compassion with that sweet, succulent, beautiful orange—well, Boone Ramsey had promised himself then and there that he would always watch over Jilly Adams. As he’d stood at the threshold of his lonesome farmhouse that first Christmas after losing his parents—as he’d watched little Jilly Adams happily skipping away through the sparkl
ing, frost-sifted snow—Boone Adams had vowed to keep her from harm, no matter what he would have to do to do it. And even though he could hear her quiet weeping and knew that she was unhappy in being forced to marry him, Boone knew he’d kept the vow he’d made so long ago; he’d kept her from harm. He’d married her out from under Jack Taylor, snatching her away from further heartache and misery. Oh, she didn’t realize it, of course—and maybe she never would. But Boone would do everything he could to make sure that Jilly Adams was cared for. And he could only hope that, in the end, she would find a measure of happiness in her life with him.

  As Boone closed his eyes and exhaled a heavy sigh of fatigue and anxiety for Jilly’s sake, a memory flittered across his mind: an image of a little girl and an orange. And for a moment he could remember the cool, sweet, delicious sensation of that long-ago orange as it juiced in his mouth before sliding down his throat. That orange—it was still the sweetest taste Boone Ramsey had ever known.

  Chapter Seven

  “He’s a beautiful horse, Jilly!” Effie exclaimed, patting Romeo’s nose.

  “Yes, he is,” Doolin agreed, studying the horse’s flanks. “Boone Ramsey sure knows a good horse when he sees one. Has this boy got a good disposition?”

  “Oh yes!” Jilly confirmed. “He’s a sweetheart!” She nuzzled Romeo’s nose, and he let go a quiet whinny of pleasure.

  “And how was your first day as Mrs. Boone Ramsey?” Jilly’s grandmother asked.

  Jilly shrugged. “Fine, I guess,” she answered.

  “Fine?” her grandpa exclaimed with a grin of amusement. “Fine? Well, if that don’t beat all. A woman’s first day of marriage—first night away from home—and she says it was fine?”

  Jilly shrugged again. “Well, I don’t know how else to describe it. I mean, in truth, after the weddin’ ceremony, I spent most of the day thinkin’ on how shallow and stupid I was where Jack Taylor and all that nonsense was concerned.”

  “How excitin’ for Boone,” Doolin chuckled under his breath.

  “Hush, Doolin!” Effie scolded, shoving a scolding elbow into her husband’s ribs. “And what are you goin’ on about, Jilly? What do you mean you spent most of the day thinkin’ on how shallow and stupid you’ve been?”

  Jilly shook her head. “Well, I did,” she said. “I mean, I cooked a good enough supper for Boone—or at least I hope I did—and I got my personal things in order and such. But mostly, I just thought a lot about…well…thought about…wondered about why I ever fell into the association with Jack Taylor that I did. I mean, I’m more mad and humiliated than I am hurt by him for bein’ such a tomcat and puttin’ me off. I find that I don’t miss him a lick. I’m not even sad that he didn’t really care for me…just angry that I wasted my time. The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that the only reason I liked Jack in the first place was because all the other girls in town fawn over him and told me I was crazy not to let him court me once he asked.”

  “So you spent the day in evaluatin’ yourself, hmmm? Appraisin’ your past, so to speak,” Doolin sighed. “It’s a good thing to do every now and again, Jilly. In fact, it’s necessary.”

  “Yes, it is,” Effie agreed. “Seems you figured a lot of things out after you married Boone Ramsey. And that’s a good start to a marriage.”

  “I don’t know that it’s anything like a real marriage,” Jilly began. “All we did was chores, horses, and supper.”

  “Sounds like regular life to me,” Doolin chuckled. His smile broadened then, and he winked at Jilly as he asked, “And how was the weddin’ night, by the way?”

  “Doolin Adams!” Effie exclaimed. “You know better than to ask such questions!” Yet in the next breath, Jilly’s grandma turned to her and asked, “Well? How did it go?”

  Jilly shrugged. “Fine, I guess. I slept well enough, especially for bein’ in a new place…and even considerin’ the big ol’ bed in my room.”

  “Your room?” her grandma and grandpa exclaimed in unison.

  “Yes,” Jilly affirmed—though she found she felt cheated somehow, or as if she’d failed at something. “Boone has his room, and I have mine. He said he knew I married him because Grandpa worked it out and not because I wanted to. And so he wasn’t gonna haul me to his bed and have his way with me…whatever that means.”

  Doolin frowned. “I always took Boone Ramsey for a gentleman but not an idiot.”

  “Doolin!” Effie scolded in a whisper. Putting her arm around Jilly’s shoulders, Effie soothed, “All in good time, honey. You don’t worry about not havin’ a weddin’ night yet. It will all come along in good time.”

  But Jilly shrugged and said, “I’m not worried about it.” Though, in truth, she kind of was—especially because of the way her grandpa had reacted.

  “Well, let me just say this, Jilly,” Doolin began then. “You don’t worry another minute about Jack Taylor and his shenanigans. Everything we go through in life—whether it’s good or bad, embarrassin’ or brings praise—everything teaches us somethin’, and I ’spect you learned a lot from ol’ Tomcat Jack. For one thing, you learnt the difference between infatuation and love…and that’s an important little item to know in life.”

  Jilly nodded but glanced away in feeling the fool anyway. “I suppose everyone in town knows I went to Jack in a storm of tears and made a fool of myself.”

  Jilly looked up when neither her grandpa nor grandma responded right away. They were exchanging glances and smiles.

  “What?” Jilly asked. “It’s worse than I thought? The gossip, I mean?”

  “Not at all,” Doolin answered. “Seems Reverend Dryer was so impressed by the passion he saw sparkin’ between you and Boone when Boone kissed you at your ceremony yesterday that he was all over town yesterday with tales of undeniable true love.”

  Effie smiled. “Yep. Half the town believes Jack Taylor’s story that Doolin made you marry Boone Ramsey…and the other half thinks you and Boone were secretly in love for months and months.”

  Jilly frowned. “But in the end of it, folks are more likely to believe Jack and the truth than the Reverend Dryer’s misconception.”

  “Not at all,” Doolin countered. “Fact is, folks know Jack Taylor is a tomcat…just as well as they know Reverend Dryer ain’t about to lie.”

  Jilly shook her head, unconvinced. “And the worst part is…my stupid, silly foolishness will reflect on Boone. Everyone in Mourning Dove will be wonderin’ what really happened…why he really married me.”

  “Oh, don’t give it so much of your thinkin’ attention, Jilly honey,” Effie soothed. “Even if people are wonderin’ what the whole truth is, in a week or two they’ll be onto nippin’ at somethin’ else that’s gone on. You just worry about takin’ care of yourself and your new husband…about settlin’ in and makin’ a good, comfortable home for the both of you.”

  “That’s right, honey,” Doolin agreed. “People are gonna talk no matter if they’re chewin’ on the truth or makin’ up fairy stories. So you just live your life from here on, all right?”

  Jilly nodded—though she still felt like the biggest ignoramus to walk the earth. What had she been thinking where Jack was concerned? How had she let herself be so silly and foolish? Still, she figured she wasn’t the first girl to mistake infatuation for something deeper. She’d have to move past it—quit thinking on it and stop beating herself. The truth was she couldn’t undo it. All she could do was what her very wise grandpa had said—learn from it.

  “Now let me get that cinnamon you needed for your supper tonight, honey,” Effie began, “and then you can be on your way home. You wouldn’t want Boone comin’ home to find you still gone and think you run off, now would you?”

  Jilly grinned. “No, I wouldn’t,” she giggled. “But he knows I was plannin’ on comin’ up to get the cinnamon, so I’m sure he wouldn’t think such a thing.”

  “Well, you never know,” Effie said as she turned and hurried into the house.

  Jilly sighed with a se
nse of being overwhelmed suddenly. But when she looked up to her grandpa, it was to see him grinning at her—as if he knew something she didn’t.

  “What?” she asked, smiling at him.

  “You like Boone, don’t you?” he asked in return.

  Jilly felt a bit of pink heat rise to her cheeks. “I’ve always liked him. You probably knew that better than I did.”

  “Yes, I did. But you like him more than you realized, don’t you?” he pressed.

  Jilly shrugged. “Maybe. And that’s all I’m sayin’.”

  Doolin laughed. “Well, it’s enough to tell me I was right.”

  But Jilly wagged an index finger at her grandpa and scolded, “Now don’t be sittin’ your high horse, Grandpa. Just because I admit that I’ve always found Boone Ramsey intriguin’ doesn’t mean that I was ready to marry him…or that everything will work out as sweet and perfect as Grandma’s peach pie, you know.”

  “We’ll see,” her grandpa said. “We’ll see.”

  As Jilly rode home—home to the pretty house where she was now wife to a man she hardly knew—her mind still lingered on her own foolishness regarding Jack Taylor. Glancing up to the blue, summer sky—to the billowy, white clouds sitting on the horizon, looking like freshly popped cotton bolls—she tried to distract her thoughts from Jack Taylor to the beauty of the day.

  The wildflowers of so many varieties—orange and scarlet paintbrush, purple columbine sunflowers—covered the earth like a pretty patchwork quilt. The aroma of summer still hung in the air—of sunshine and green grass, the wildflowers and rich soil. A breeze caught a strand of Jilly’s hair, and a large yellow butterfly lit on Romeo’s forehead for a moment.

  But even for the glory of the day, Jilly could not keep from thinking of what a fool she had been. Over and over she told herself that Jack and her nonsense were in the past; there was nothing that could be done about it now. All she could do was live in the present and look to the future. Yet humiliation is a clinging vine—a clinging weed—and Jilly knew it would bind her for some time.