Rebecca Hagan Lee - [Borrowed Brides 02]

by Harvest Moon

  “David…”

  “I love you, Tessa Mary Catherine Roarke,” he said finally, offering her the sapphire ring. “I love you with all my heart.”

  “Oh, David…” She bent down to hug him, but he lost his balance and sprawled in the dirt. “I love you, too!” Tessa knelt to kiss him.

  David groaned. This wasn’t the way he’d planned to deliver his proposal.

  Tessa broke off the kiss. “I’ve loved you for the longest time. Ever since we—”

  David kissed her again to keep her from incriminating herself. And him. He kissed her until they both needed to come up for air. “You are going to marry me,” David said. “Aren’t you?”

  “Of course.” Tessa flung her arms around his neck. “I may need a good lawyer again someday.”

  David wiped the sapphire and diamond ring against the fabric of his trousers, then slipped it onto her hand.

  Tessa looked down at her finger, admiring it. “It’s beautiful!”

  “It matches your eyes,” David said. “That’s why I bought it.”

  Then she whispered, “Was it awfully expensive?” She winced as she asked the question, afraid of his answer. At the rate he spent money, they’d never have a house.

  “Awfully,” he answered.

  “Oh.” She frowned, sounding disappointed.

  “What’s wrong?” He pressed a kiss against the worry lines on her brow. “Don’t you like it?”

  “I love it.” She managed to smile at him. “But after we get married, I plan to save money for a house with a yard and some flowers”—she broke off when David hugged her to him—“and a small flock of sheep.”

  “No sheep,” David said. He got to his feet and pulled Tessa up with him.

  “Why not?” Tessa asked. “I like sheep. I thought maybe merinos.”

  “No sheep,” David repeated. “They won’t go too well with five hundred head of beef cattle.” He draped an arm over her shoulder and picked up her suitcase with his other hand. She placed one arm around his waist. “Tessa, do you remember Coalie telling you about the ranch?”

  Tessa raised a hand to her mouth. “Coalie.” She glanced around. “Where is he?” She looked up at the hotel window. Mary was alone.

  Sensing Tessa’s concern, David glanced up at his sister. “Where’s Coalie?” he shouted.

  “There.” Mary pointed to Coalie, who was dragging his feet down the street, following her instructions, taking his time. “Coalie,” she yelled from the window. “You can run now. David asked her to marry him!”

  “What did Tessa say?” Coalie looked up at Mary, cupping his hand around his mouth to make himself heard.

  “She said yes!” David and Tessa shouted in unison. “Yes!”

  “Yippee!” Coalie’s whoop of joy echoed through Peaceable.

  David dropped the suitcase, knelt, and opened his free arm. Tessa went with him, opening her free arm, too. “Come on, son!” David encouraged as Coalie caught sight of them and raced forward. “Let’s go home!”

  Coalie ran into their arms.

  Tessa pulled Coalie against her heart. David pulled Tessa to his.

  Coalie hugged them both. The two people he loved most in all the world, David and Tessa. His family.

  The people of Peaceable roared their approval.

  “I told you something was going on between those two.” Margaret Jeffers whispered to her employee as they stood in front of the mercantile watching the family scene.

  Lorna Taylor sniffed into her handkerchief and wiped her eyes before she delivered a vicious elbow to Margaret’s rib cage. “Shut up, Margaret. Stop being such a prig! Then maybe one day somebody will love you like that.”

  Epilogue

  Peaceable, Wyoming Territory

  Three days later

  “I hope Coalie’s all right,” Tessa said. “I hated to leave him.”

  “He’s fine,” David told her. “He was having a great time when we left the ranch.” They’d been married that morning in the church in Cheyenne, then gone to the Trail T ranch to celebrate with David’s family. “I thought you said you wanted to honeymoon here in Peaceable.”

  “I do,” Tessa replied. “I was just thinking about the wedding. It’s a shame Lee couldn’t stay a little longer after the ceremony.” She snuggled into her husband’s arms in the big bed where they’d spent the last few hours exploring the joys of marriage.

  “Not for me.” David kissed the corner of Tessa’s mouth. He wasn’t sure he was ready to forgive his friend.

  “It was a nice wedding, wasn’t it?” Tessa asked.

  “The best,” David agreed, “the absolute best I’ve ever attended.”

  Her white satin wedding dress was draped across a chair. On top of it perched an enormous white satin hat decorated with artificial roses, orange blossoms, and a stuffed white dove, all of it covered with an Irish lace veil. The hat had been a wedding gift from David, who had shuddered every time he looked at it. But Tessa loved it, and that was what mattered. He kissed Tessa’s shiny red hair, preferring it to any hat ever created.

  Tessa raised herself on her elbow and leaned over him, bracing her hand against David’s wide chest for balance. A thin gold band had joined the sapphire and diamond ring on the third finger of her left hand. Tessa never tired of looking at it. “I think Mary likes him.”

  “Who? Lee?” David laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding. She’s the one who told me to break his nose.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t.”

  “I tried.” David smiled, planting a kiss on her nose. He lifted his swollen right hand for her to see.

  Tessa wiggled against him, moving to kiss it. “Better?” she asked.

  “Much better.”

  “I’ll bet Mary’s glad you didn’t really break Lee’s nose.” Tessa continued her train of thought.

  “Where’d he go in such a hurry?” David asked, humoring Tessa. She wouldn’t drop the subject of Lee and Mary until she was ready, anyway.

  “He had a train to catch,” she told him. “To Chicago and then to Washington and Baltimore.”

  “How do you know that?” David wondered aloud. “Did Mary tell you?”

  Tessa smiled at her lawyer husband. Now she had his interest. “No, Lee did. He read me a copy of his”—she searched for the word Lee had used—“itinerary.”

  David moved her aside, sat up, and looked at her. They’d been married almost five hours, and he wondered just what she was up to. “Why would he do that?”

  “I asked him to keep me informed of his progress,” Tessa answered.

  “Progress? On what?”

  “On finding my wedding gift to you.”

  “Which is…?” David prompted. “I thought I got my gift when I got you and Coalie.”

  “I thought you might like a daughter to round out the family. A very special daughter.”

  David was almost afraid to ask. “Lily Catherine?”

  Tessa nodded. “I’ve always wanted a big family, and I think it would be nice to have a head start with a boy and a girl before the others come along. Don’t you?”

  “I think it’s a splendid idea.” David hugged her close against his heart. For an articulate man, he found it difficult to speak. He couldn’t find enough words to tell her how much he loved her. All he could do was show her. For the rest of his life.

  “Sweetheart,” he whispered, “do you remember when I talked about making a baby?”

  “I’ll never forget it.” She wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her body against him. She kissed him. “Do you remember?”

  “As a matter of fact,” David teased, “it’s been so long, I think I may have forgotten how.”

  Tessa pushed him back against the pillows and climbed on top of him. “Then we need to refresh your memory.”

  Outside on the front door of the office of David Alexander, attorney-at-law, hung a freshly painted sign: Closed for Honeymoon. Will Reopen…Sometime.

  The End

  * * *


  Read Chapter One of Something Borrowed

  Book 3 in the Borrowed Brides Series

  Buy Something Borrowed

  Golden Chances, Book 1 in the Borrowed Brides Series

  Buy Golden Chances

  Enjoy a Special Bonus Sneak Peek at A Wanted Man

  About the Author

  After arming herself with a degree in fine arts and experience in radio, television, and film, Rebecca Hagan Lee wrote her first novel Golden Chances. Since then, she’s published numerous bestselling and award-winning novels and three novellas.

  She’s won a Waldenbooks Award, a Georgia Romance Writers Maggie Award, several Romantic Times awards, been nominated for an RWA Rita Award and has been published in nine languages.

  She currently lives in Georgia with her husband, her two beloved Quarter Horses, and a miniature schnauzer named after literary icon Harper Lee.

  Visit Rebecca’s website http://www.rhaganlee.com

  Join Rebecca on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/rebeccahaganleeauthor

  Books by Rebecca Hagan Lee

  Golden Chances

  Harvest Moon

  Something Borrowed

  A Wanted Man

  Taking Chances

  Gossamer

  Whisper Always

  A Hint of Heather

  Once a Mistress

  Ever a Princess

  Always a Lady

  Barely a Bride

  Merely the Groom

  Hardly a Husband

  Truly a Wife

  Twice Blessed (Homespun Mother’s Day anthology)

  Clearly a Couple (Talk of the Ton anthology)

  Coventry’s Chrismas (A Regency Holiday anthology)

  Something Borrowed

  Sneak Peek

  Chapter One

  Trail T Ranch, Wyoming Territory

  April 1873

  “Mary, Mrs. Russo is here for your fitting.”

  Mary Alexander turned from the simple fractions she was copying on the blackboard to find her mother, Sarah, standing at the back entrance to the small one-room schoolhouse. “I’ll be there shortly. Let me finish this assignment and dismiss the children.”

  Sarah nodded, then turned and walked back down the path around Mary’s cabin to the main house of the ranch.

  The Trail T ranch had been purchased and the main house built by Mary’s uncle, Benjamin Jordan, her cousin Reese’s father, back in 1862. Reese, his wife, Faith, and their girls, Joy and Hope, lived in the main house now. Legally, Reese was the owner of the huge spread, having inherited the vast acreage and a fortune to operate it, from his father, but the Trail T was a family operation. Cabins around the main ranch housed Mary, her parents, Charlie and Sarah, and her younger brother Sam along with Mary and Reese’s mutual grandparents, Duncan and Elizabeth Alexander.

  The Trail T was also home to Joe, a cousin by marriage, his children, Jimmy and Kate, and his second wife, Ruth, and her son, Daniel. Mary’s older brother, David, lived with his bride of four months, Tessa, and their adopted son, nine-year-old Coalie, several miles away in the small railroad town of Peaceable, Wyoming, where David practiced law.

  She finished copying the last fraction, then walked to the open door and watched as her mother made her way back to the big house. Mary would miss having family nearby all the time. She would miss sharing the happy, noisy communal family meals with her parents and grandparents, and Reese and Faith—miss the ranch talk and Reese’s discussions of business. But she would miss teaching the children most of all.

  Mary walked back into the classroom and faced her pupils—Joy, Jimmy, Kate, Daniel, and Coalie, who was spending the week at the ranch along with Tessa and David.

  She lifted a wooden ruler from the top of her desk and gripped it tightly for strength. “Class,” she addressed her students, “as all of you know, I’ll be getting married Tuesday morning. This is my last day as your teacher.” The children groaned.

  Kate raised her hand. “Aren’t you coming back after you get married?”

  “No,” Mary answered. “I’ll be living in Cheyenne. Faith will continue your lessons until the end of the term.”

  “Can’t you come back to the ranch to teach us?” Kate’s fifteen-year-old twin brother, Jimmy, asked. “We’re not that far from Cheyenne.”

  “I’d like to,” Mary admitted. “But my husband doesn’t want me to continue my teaching.”

  “Why not?” nine-year-old Joy demanded. “Doesn’t your husband want you to be happy?”

  Out of the mouths of babes. Mary gazed at Joy, marveling at the little girl’s perception. “Of course Mr. Cosgrove wants me to be happy, Joy. What makes you think he doesn’t?”

  Joy shrugged. “Reese says that we should encourage the people we care about to do the things they love so they’ll be happy. And you always tell us how much you love teaching us. So I thought Mr. Cosgrove would want you to keep on doing what you love to do.”

  “Ideally,” Mary agreed, “that would be the case, but Mr. Cosgrove is a banker at the Cheyenne Stockholders’ Bank, and his position in society demands quite a bit of entertaining. He needs his wife to be free to socialize—to serve on women’s committees and host teas and receptions for prospective customers. Mr. Cosgrove feels that, in order for me to be the kind of partner he needs, I’ll have to devote the majority of my day to those kinds of things. He doesn’t think I’ll have the time to entertain and continue to come to the ranch and teach.” Mary did her best to explain the situation without casting a bad light on her future husband. The children wouldn’t understand the fact that Mr. Pelham Everhardt Cosgrove III felt that teaching the children on the ranch paled in comparison to the charms of being his wife.

  “I don’t understand,” Coalie told her. “Tessa is learning to read and write so she can clerk in David’s law office, and David’s real proud of her. We both are,” he added.

  “And Faith runs the ranch house, orders all the supplies, helps Reese with the business accounts, and still has time to take care of Hope and Reese and me,” Joy reminded Mary. “And she’s real happy.”

  “My mother gets paid for cleaning the main house and doing the washing for everybody on the ranch,” Daniel contributed. “She earns money just like Joe does. She’s proud that she can work and still to be a good wife to Joe and a mother to Jimmy, Kate, and me.”

  “And Aunt Sarah cooks for all of us,” Kate said.

  “And she and Faith and Tessa serve on almost every women’s committee in Cheyenne,” Jimmy added. “Why can’t you keep teaching us?”

  “I’d like to,” Mary told them, trying hard to keep from crying. “I really would. But sometimes we have to compromise. Sometimes we have to give up things we’d rather not give up for the sake of the people we care about.”

  “But this is Wyoming,” Coalie announced. “This is a territory where women have just as many rights as men. David says so.”

  “My future husband doesn’t want me to work and, well, in spite of the rights that the territory of Wyoming gives me, I feel I have a personal, marital, and moral duty to try to please my new husband…” She let her words trail off. At least in the beginning, she promised herself, until she could convince Pelham that she would be a better, happier wife if she continued to teach.

  “Why don’t you marry someone else?” Joy asked. “Someone who wouldn’t mind your coming out to the ranch to teach us.”

  “Yeah,” Daniel agreed.

  Mary managed a small smile. “I can’t marry anyone else. I’ve given my promise to Mr. Cosgrove. And even if I hadn’t promised Mr. Cosgrove,” she reminded them, “I couldn’t marry anyone here on the ranch, and I don’t know any other eligible gentlemen.”

  “What about Detective Kincaid?” Coalie asked.

  Mary stopped suddenly and felt the blood rush to her face at the mention of Pinkerton detective Lee Kincaid. Her voice came out in a high-pitched squeak when she focused her attention on Coalie. “What about him?”

  Coalie
ran a hand through his hair, then shrugged his shoulders in a nonchalant gesture. “He seemed to like you back in Peaceable.”

  Four months earlier, Mary had come face to face with the devilishly handsome detective in her brother David’s law office. She remembered his thick blond hair, his broad shoulders, the way his mustache framed his sensuous mouth, and the humor sparkling in the depths of his deep gray eyes. There had been a definite spark of something between them, but it hadn’t been like. It was more dislike. Intense dislike. She and Lee Kincaid simply rubbed each other the wrong way. And it was a shame really, when Mary thought about it, because Detective Lee Kincaid was definitely the most handsome and exciting man she had ever met.

  She shook her head and faced Coalie’s intense green-eyed gaze. “Oh, no, Coalie, you’re mistaken. Detective Kincaid isn’t interested in me. And even if he were,” she paused, her expression wistful. “He leads such an adventurous life, he would probably be bored to tears with the slow pace of life on the Trail T.”

  “Mr. Kincaid didn’t dance with anyone except you at David and Tessa’s wedding party,” Kate pointed out. “I thought it most romantic.”

  Mary frowned. At fifteen, Kate found everything romantic. “Mr. Kincaid only danced one dance because he left for Baltimore on business immediately after he danced with me. He simply couldn’t spare the time for further dances.”

  “But still, he danced with you,” Kate persisted.

  “Nevertheless,” Mary struggled to dismiss the foolish romantic notions Kate brought to mind. “It’s all neither here nor there. I’m engaged to marry Mr. Cosgrove on Tuesday, and that’s the end of it.”

  “So you don’t really want to continue teaching us?” Joy asked, on the verge of tears.