Wolf Creek Wife

by Penny Richards

“It would have been easier all around if you’d just told her no.”

  “You don’t know Martha. She never did take no for an answer if she thought she had any leverage at all. She let me know her first day back that she wanted me to give her a second chance, and she’s been back every day this week pretending she’s concerned about me, flirting, doing all the things I remember so well.”

  “So after you’d already brushed me off in the kindest way possible, you used the situation to get rid of her by making yourself unavailable.” Her frowning gaze met his. “Don’t you think marrying one woman just to rid yourself of another is a bit drastic?”

  He blew out a deep breath. Put into actual words, his actions weren’t pretty. Or admirable. Even worse, it was totally self-serving. “I guess I did,” he said with a reluctant nod. “I hadn’t planned it. Please don’t feel you need to abide by what you said.”

  “Are you withdrawing your proposal, if that’s what it was?”

  Will cocked his head and looked at her. “You almost seem afraid I am.”

  She gave a slight shrug and scratched Banjo behind his ear. “I’m not sure what I’m feeling.”

  “Yet you said yes.”

  “I did,” she said, unwilling to tell him that she was actually somewhat relieved. “My thoughts were all tangled, and then I just heard myself agreeing. I was as surprised as you.” Her eyes narrowed in irritation. “There was just something about her attitude that put me off.”

  Well, that was interesting. He scraped a hand through his hair. “What an unholy mess!”

  “I’m sure she’ll waste no time spreading it all over town. What do you suggest we do now?”

  Will gave in to the inevitable. “Look,” he said. “Let’s think about this. At this point in my life, I seriously doubt I’ll trust any woman again, much less fall in love. I get the impression you pretty much feel the same about men.”

  Blythe looked uncertain. “Well, I had hoped to love again, but you’re correct. I had serious doubts about finding the right person in Wolf Creek.”

  “All right,” he said, leaning toward her and resting his forearms on his knees. “So let’s don’t think of this as a marriage. We can think of it as a sort of...business arrangement that benefits us both.”

  Blythe was regarding him thoughtfully, but he saw the spark of interest in her eyes. “A business arrangement?”

  “Yes. I want Martha out of my life for good and you want to escape more gossip and restore your reputation. After we marry, she’ll have no choice but to go back to St. Louis and the gossipmongers will have to find someone else to talk about. It makes sense, don’t you think?”

  “Well, actually, I guess it does in a perverse sort of way.”

  “So we both go into this marriage with no preconceived notions, no pressure to live up to anyone’s expectations or hurting each other’s feelings, no jealousy, nothing but a peaceful coexistence,” he said, realizing he was spouting Win’s earlier argument.

  “That sounds like a...practical way to approach things,” she agreed. “But...”

  “But what?”

  “What about...children?” she asked, glancing at him from beneath her lashes. “There can be no children if we have strictly a business arrangement. I would like them someday. Don’t you?”

  Will felt as if he’d been hit by a two-by-four. He hadn’t expected this. What an idiot! He’d been so busy laying out his plan that he hadn’t given a single thought to the most basic of human needs. He did now and knew without a doubt there was no way he could remain abstinent the rest of his life. Having children with Blythe Granville and everything it would entail took his breath.

  “I would, yes,” he said, aware that his voice was huskier than usual, even with his illness. When her gaze flew to his, he hurried to say, “Not anytime soon, of course.”

  “Oh, no! I agree. We’ll need, um, time.”

  “Yes.” Will thought he was bumbling around like a callow schoolboy, but despite her brief marriage, which he assumed had been real in every way but legally, Blythe was the picture of inexperience and innocence. He was eight years older than she. Innocence was something he’d left behind long ago.

  She nodded and stared at the hands that were clasped in her lap.

  “So are we agreed? We’re doing this?”

  “Yes,” she said. “We’re agreed.”

  To prove his intent, Will held out his hand to shake on the agreement, just as he would with any other business deal. After all, the handshake of honorable men was as binding as a legal document. To his surprise, Blythe stood, her own hand extended.

  He wasn’t prepared for the little tingle of awareness that sizzled through him at the feel of her small, warm hand in his. Their gazes clung. “One more thing,” he told her without releasing his hold.

  “Yes?”

  “Regardless of what we’ve done or been or what’s happened in the past to bring us to this point, I’ve always believed that marriage is forever. Once we say ‘I do,’ there’s no going back. Whatever happens, we talk it out, work through it.”

  Even as he said the words he heartily believed, he wondered if he could stick to them. What if she was another Martha, a snooty, snotty, spoiled rich girl who expected him to wait on her hand and foot and give her whatever her heart desired? He suppressed a shudder. Well, whatever the future held, he’d just have to keep his end of the deal. They’d already shaken hands.

  * * *

  Seeing that Will was getting tired, Blythe and Banjo left Rachel’s, crossing the railroad tracks at Third Street. Well, she’d solved the problem of regaining her respectability, but what had she gotten herself into? How was it possible that she and Will had entered into a business arrangement they’d both adamantly refused to consider less than a week ago?

  Strangely, instead of trying to figure out why she’d agreed to the preposterous arrangement, her mind turned to memories of the day last December when she’d first returned to Wolf Creek with Win. A stranger had confronted her the instant she disembarked from the train, introducing himself as Turner Davis, a reporter from Boston. She’d later learned that when the Globe had gotten wind that she would be going to Wolf Creek to start over, the newspaper had sent him ahead to make sure he didn’t miss her when she arrived. Exhausted and embarrassed, she’d had no desire to talk to him or anyone else about the situation with Devon.

  “Go back to Boston and leave me alone,” she told him. When she turned to walk away, Davis’s hand closed around her upper arm. Shocked by the action and more than a little uneasy, she tried to pull free, but his fingers dug into her flesh so cruelly that she had bruises the next day.

  “Unhand me this minute, sir!” she commanded, adopting the tone her mother used when she was angry with someone. It was a tone that often made grown men tremble. Not this one.

  “I just want to ask you a few questions,” he wheedled, gripping her arm tighter.

  “I have nothing to say to you.”

  “Aw, come on, sweetie. How about I buy you some lunch at that café down the street and we’ll have a nice chat about your plans for the future?” The invitation was offered along with a fawning smile.

  “I believe the lady asked you to let her go.”

  The statement, delivered in a tone that resembled a deep growl, gave the reporter pause.

  Looking up, she saw that Will Slade had approached and was standing just behind her tormentor. His brows were drawn into a frown and his hands were curled into loose fists at his sides. Though she didn’t actually know him, Ellie had pointed him out one morning when he and her brother were talking business at the café.

  Like everyone else in town, she’d heard the rumors about him and had no feelings one way or the other about him or his situation. Being the subject on everyone’s conversation herself lately, she imagined that he’d g
one through much of what she had, since the loathsome correspondent in front of her appeared determined to make her life miserable. She was glad Will Slade had been close enough to overhear the whole confrontation and intervene.

  “I believe this conversation is between me and the woman,” the journalist said, flicking a dismissive glance over his shoulder at Will.

  About the time Davis seemed to realize that the other man was big enough to break him in two, Will reached out, grabbed the reporter’s hand and forcibly pried away the fingers wrapped around Blythe’s arm.

  “The lady,” he said, emphasizing the term after hearing the disdain in the other man’s voice, “asked you to leave her alone.”

  Blythe rubbed at her arm; Slade’s fingers tightened around the other man’s hand.

  “I believe she also told you she had nothing to say to you.”

  “But she’s news!” Davis cried, wincing and trying to wrench free. “I’ve come all the way from Boston to see what she does next.”

  “I don’t care if she’s good news, old news or bad news back in Boston, mister, or what she does next. She’s in Wolf Creek now, and we don’t hassle women here. If a lady tells you she doesn’t want to talk to you, you go away. Got that?”

  Blythe saw Slade’s hand tighten a bit more before he released his hold on Davis. She almost smiled when she saw him massaging his bruised fingers.

  “Now,” Will said, giving a negligent flick of his fingers toward the hotel and boardinghouse, “I suggest you go check yourself into Hattie’s and have a nice breakfast somewhere. If you’re smart, and I really think that’s debatable, you’ll get on the first train headed back east and find yourself some other news.”

  “It’s a free country,” Davis snapped.

  “It is that,” Will agreed with a slight shrug. “And the choice is yours.”

  “And what do you plan to do if I don’t do as you say?” Davis challenged.

  A cold smile lifted one corner of Will Slade’s mouth. “Like I said, it’s your choice.”

  The newspaperman looked into Will’s hard face for a moment longer. Then, straightening his tie and smoothing the front of his suit coat, Turner Davis threw back his shoulders and started down the street as if the whole incident had never happened.

  “Thank you, Mr. Slade,” Blythe said when the other man was out of earshot. “I appreciate your help.”

  Will Slade had turned toward her. There had not been one iota of emotion in his dark eyes; they’d looked as empty as her heart felt.

  “It was nothing,” he’d told her, and without a word, he’d turned and walked away.

  Looking back at the brief exchange now, there was no way she could say he had treated her kindly, but he had not been harsh, either. He had at least championed her to the obnoxious reporter.

  Recalling that day, she wondered if her memory of that incident had somehow influenced her spur-of-the-moment decision to agree to marry him. All she knew was that she had to tell her family what was going on. It wasn’t a conversation that she was eager to have.

  Later that evening, Blythe waited until they were all seated at the supper table before she broke the news of her upcoming marriage. Win was passing her the peas when she pasted what she hoped was a reasonable replica of a smile on her face and said, “I spoke with Will Slade this afternoon and we’ve agreed to get married, after all.”

  “What?” Libby exclaimed. Under other circumstances the expression on her face would have been comical.

  Win threw his hands into the air and said, “Hallelujah!”

  Blythe wanted to reach over and give her brother a shake. She’d known he would be pleased, but she hadn’t expected him to be quite so elated to be rid of her. She glanced at her mother, but Libby’s surprised expression had become more thoughtful.

  Win lifted his coffee cup. “How did you get him to change his mind?”

  “More to the point, why did you change your mind?” Libby queried.

  Blythe put a spoonful of the green peas on her plate, passed the china bowl to Libby and looked from her to Win. “Initially we’d decided against it, but I took Banjo to see him this afternoon, and his previous wife showed up. She said something rather unkind to me, and the next thing I knew, Will was telling her that she could be the first one to congratulate us, that we’d decided to marry, after all.”

  Her face wore a puzzled expression and she lifted her shoulders in a slight shrug. “I was so shocked I could barely think, much less speak, but the next thing I knew, I heard myself saying yes.”

  Her mother was momentarily speechless. Blythe was about to offer an explanation when Win intervened. “I’d heard the wife was back in town,” he told them. “Colt says she got off the train the first of the week and set out to talk Slade into taking her back.”

  “It’s true,” Blythe said. “He told me she’s been by every day trying to get him to change his mind. It seems she’s tried everything from sweet talk to pleading and even seduction to convince him, but he’s told her he isn’t interested. She really is an odious woman.”

  “Oh, Blythe!” Libby lamented. “This is not a good situation.”

  “What’s not a good situation?” Win asked, forking up a bite of potatoes.

  “This marriage you insisted on!” Libby exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at him. “You’ve succeeded in getting what you wanted, but your poor sister is condemning herself to life with a man who only wants to marry her to get rid of his previous spouse.”

  Her troubled gaze returned to Blythe. “You do understand that’s why he suggested it, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do, Mother,” she said a bit sharply, switching from the affectionate “Mama” to “Mother,” something she did when she was upset with Libby. “I may be naïve, but I’m not stupid.”

  “Indeed,” Libby said. “Personally I don’t think it’s very smart for you to agree to marry a man because you find his first wife disagreeable. That’s no way to start a lifelong relationship.”

  “I understand your concern, but Will and I had a long talk about it.”

  Libby leaned forward, resting her elbows on the edge of the table and her chin in her hands. “I can’t wait to hear this.”

  “I haven’t explained things very well, have I?” Blythe said. “In a nutshell, Will and I are looking at the whole thing as more of a business arrangement that has mutual benefits than a conventional marriage.”

  “Heaven help us! Why on earth would you agree to something like that?” Libby asked.

  “It’s pretty basic, really,” Blythe said. “And in a strange way, it makes sense. We’ve both been hurt so badly we don’t think we’ll fall in love again. He wants Martha out of his life for good and I need to find some sort of respectability, some way to fix the hash I’ve made of my life.”

  “Those are dreadful reasons to go into a marriage,” Libby said.

  “It isn’t,” Blythe insisted, though in her heart she agreed. Still, she was about to convince herself that marriage to a stranger was far preferable to life as a social pariah. “It makes a lot of sense, really. And just to ease your mind, we’ve decided that the marriage will last no matter what comes along, and we’d both like to have a child someday.” She drew in a deep breath and let it out. “I’m not sure when that might happen.”

  “Oh, Blythe! You’re settling.” There were tears in Libby’s eyes.

  Settling. It was something she and her mother had talked about often and was one reason Blythe had waited so long to marry. Libby had told her time and again not to agree to a lifetime with someone unless that man sent her heart to racing by just walking into a room. Not to say “I do” unless his smile made her toes curl.

  “Perhaps I am, Mama, but I tried the love thing with Devon and that was a total travesty. I believed he was everything I’d waited for. I tho
ught I loved him, even though there were things about him that troubled me from the beginning.”

  “Like what?” Libby asked.

  “Like the fact that I knew he wasn’t a Christian, something you told me to consider carefully before I decided on a husband. That should have been my first indication that he was wrong for me.

  “The second hint that I should have sent him packing was when he told me he didn’t want me to start my own business He thought I should stay at home and just be his wife. I wanted to please him, so I gave up on my dream of opening the boutique.”

  She gave a deep sigh. “I had such vivid images of us as the perfect couple. We would have a lovely home, beautiful children and live happily-ever-after, just like the princes and princesses in the fairy tales you used to read to me.”

  Libby smiled sorrowfully and gave a slight shake of her head. “Love can cause us all to make bad choices. You can’t blame yourself for loving someone. If you made any mistake, it was rushing into the marriage. Then again, a lot of us fall for the idea of love. I suspect that’s what happened with you and Devon.”

  Blythe knew her mother was referring to her first disastrous marriage to Lucas Gentry, Caleb and Gabe’s father. “Maybe so, but I did fancy myself in love, and I was lonely and on the shelf and the last in my circle of friends to find a husband.”

  Her defeated look encompassed both her mother and brother. “I thought I was marrying Devon for all the right reasons, and look what happened.”

  She forced bravado into her voice. “This agreement between me and Will should be a much better situation. We neither have any expectations, so there shouldn’t be any pressure. We’ll just live together peaceably without all the ups and downs that come with loving someone, and everything should be just fine,” she said.

  Libby cast an exasperated look at her son, who had barely said a word since Blythe had launched into her tale. “Win, say something!”

  Win actually looked a little pale. He speared a bite of the pork chop with his fork, dragged it through the gravy and finally looked up to meet his mother’s gaze. “What can I say? It seems they’ve made their choice.”