Eve rescued him. She went to his side and clasped his hand. "I tried to tell you, Poppa. But you never would listen to anything you didn't want to hear. I loved your son, Mr. MacCade. I loved him enough to have his child. But he's gone now. He's not coming back, and Bruce..." She smiled up into his face. "Bruce has asked me to be his wife. He wants to be a husband to me and a father to Jamie. And I accepted."
"But Shaw..." Rebecca's father began.
"Shaw has been a brother to me," Eve said. "Better than my own brothers here lately. He helped me out when I needed a friend, but that's all there is between us." She looked at Jarrell. "If you'd say the words for us..."
"Yes, yes, of course," the minister said, hurrying toward the altar.
Rebecca glanced at her father. He looked so ashamed that she could almost feel compassion for him.
"Better make that a double wedding, Reverend," Rebecca's Uncle Quinn said. "If Shaw MacCade didn't ruin one of our girls, he sure took liberties with the other."
"Rebecca told you that we're already married," Shaw said.
"That's right," Fiona put in. "Shaw told me the same thing, before he went off to find Laird's boy."
"Married by some judge?" Rebecca's father said. "I don't count that as a—"
"I'll marry her again, anytime, anyplace," Shaw said. "Becca?"
"No! Not like this. Not in a muddy dress with rifles piled in the pews and our families at each other's throats. You'll not force me into making a mockery of my wedding," she said. Then she looked at her sister. "Eve, I didn't mean—"
"It's all right, Becca," Eve said with a smile. "I've always done things my own way." She turned back to Jarrell. "Best you get this over with," she said to the minister. "A girl has to take what she can get, when she can get it."
"Yes," Reverend Jarrell agreed. It was clear to Rebecca that the parson was spooked, but he managed the swift ceremony with only a few stops and starts. He stammered through the part about if anyone knew good reason why the marriage should not take place. And when he asked who gave this woman to be married to this man, her father didn't answer and didn't move from his place by the window.
Still holding tightly to Rebecca's hand, Shaw quickly moved up the aisle between the pews. "I do," he said. "I'll give her to be married." His mother pulled her own wedding ring off her finger and passed it to Shaw, who handed it to the groom. Bruce slipped the gold band onto Eve's finger, and Noah let out a loud shout of excitement.
Bruce kissed his bride, then turned to face their families. "First, I want to say that I married Eve because I love her. I've loved her for a long time, even before her and Laird..." He stopped, and sweat broke out on his brow. "You... might want to get that rope ready for me," he said."'Cause I'm... I'm the one who..." He covered his face with his hands. "Oh, God, this... is hard," he managed.
Eve slipped her arm around his waist. "Go ahead," she urged. "Tell them."
"Laird and me... we were hunting deer. He had..."
"Laird had been to see me twice that week, Poppa," Eve said. "And when he left the first time, he must have borrowed your gun. You were away. He would have brung it back. Laird wasn't a thief. He'd heard people saying how far you could shoot with it, and he wanted to try his hand at a deer."
"We... we..." Bruce gripped the back of a pew like a drowning man. "Laird lost a bet to me that morning. So I made him let me take first try with the rifle." His voice cracked. "It was an accident. He must have been playing a joke on me, sneaking up behind... and thrashing in the brush. You know how he liked to trick you. I shot him, Uncle Murdoch. I killed Laird."
"And you let me take the blame for it?" Rebecca's father shouted. He lunged toward Bruce, but Corbett and Drum caught hold of his arms.
"You killed him?" Murdoch rasped. "You killed my boy?"
"It was an accident," Fiona said. "He didn't mean for it to happen, and it's near broke his heart ever since."
Rebecca's grandmother spoke up. "You knew? You knew he did it?"
"Didn't know for certain. Suspected it," Fiona said. "I never saw a man grieve so for his cousin. Then, a few weeks ago, I asked him, and he told me what really happened."
"You son of a bitch," Rebecca's father swore. "You let me go to trial—"
"I knew you'd never be found guilty," Bruce said. "It was wrong, but I couldn't tell that..." He sank down on a bench and hung his head. Rebecca had to strain to hear him. "You took me in, treated me like your own blood, and I killed your son."
Eve stood over him protectively.
"What about Campbell's horse you saw that night?" Uncle Quinn demanded. "You didn't see any horse, did you?"
"No. No, I didn't," Bruce admitted. "The sheriff asked me if I saw Campbell's horse, and I must have said I did. I don't even remember much of that night. I was tore up over Laird. I never meant for Eve's father... for it to go that far."
"You shoulda told me," Murdoch said. "A huntin' accident. A damned huntin' accident, and I made it out to be murder."
"An accident," Shaw murmured half under his breath. "All this time, I been looking for a killer and it was an accident."
"I told you it wasn't Poppa," Rebecca whispered. Shaw put his arm around her protectively, and she laid her head on his shoulder. "Can you forgive Bruce?"
"I can try," he rasped.
"None here is fit to judge," Fiona said, pushing past Shaw to stand beside Eve. "None of you. What Bruce did was wrong, but it wasn't mean-hearted, and he's paid for it. Bruce is as much my son as all the rest of you MacCade boys, and I mean to keep on lovin' him the way I have since he was a sprout."
Dagmar went to Campbell's side and murmured softly to him in broken English. After a moment or two, Rebecca's father nodded, and Corbett and Drum released him.
Rebecca glanced up at Shaw, puzzled. "Why is Dagmar..."
Shaw shook his head. "Guess there's more than a few secrets under this roof."
The widow leaned close and whispered in Rebecca's father's ear. He shook his head, but she cried, "Ya! Now ist time." She raised her ample chin and put out her hand to Noah. "Something I vould say," she declared. "Noah." She took Noah's hand. "Noah ist mine boy. Vhen he ist born..." Frustrated, she looked to Rebecca's grandmother.
"What she's trying to say is that Noah wasn't her husband's child. Because he was born the way he is, she didn't think she could take care of him. She was frightened and had other children to care for."
"I t'ink to give him to his fadder."
"But Poppa found Noah tied to a—"
"Ya, I tie him," Dagmar agreed. "But I vatch. I love t'is boy. I am vidow. T'ink I cannot find..."
"She thought she couldn't find another husband to raise her children if she had Noah," Grandma explained.
Rebecca shook her head and whispered to Shaw. "But Noah's father..."
"Shhh," he said, putting a finger to his lips.
"Noah's father already had a wife," Fiona said, looking at her husband.
Murdoch's face paled to the color of bone. "I didn't know," he said in a cracking voice. "Dagmar and me... I never knew she was with child. Or that she got rid of it."
"Is true," Dagmar said. "Murdoch ist goot man. I am goot vooman, but foolish. I vas lonely vidow. Just two times, ve vast veak."
"And you let Raeburn raise my son?" Murdoch bellowed. "Why didn't you tell me? I would have—"
"Vat, Murdoch? Vat you do?" Dagmar asked. "Vat ist done, ist done. I leave my Noah for you to..."
"To find," Grandma finished. "But instead of Murdoch, my Campbell came on the boy. He brought him home and raised him like a son."
"My son?" Murdoch managed. "All these years?"
"All these years," Fiona said. "A good man and a good neighbor like Campbell Raeburn takes your woods colt, a boy touched by God, and cares for him. And all you do is cause trouble for the man. You should be ashamed."
"If you knew, why didn't you tell me?" he demanded.
Fiona flushed. "I was too full of pride to have folks know that my husband skipped
the traces. And I was ashamed that I'd been too busy that year to give my husband what he needed. I didn't want Noah then. I didn't want to look at his face every day, and know that you... to know that you had been with someone else."
She shook her head. "I was wrong, too. I was younger then, and quick to judge. I had my hands full with our own crew, and I'd miscarried of a little girl that winter."
Fiona MacCade smiled at Noah. "I wish I had gone and brought you home. I'd be proud to have you call me mother."
Murdoch's eyes were haunted as he searched the room, lingering on the faces of his sons and neighbors. Then he took two steps forward and stood staring at Rebecca's father. "Did you know who Noah's sire was?"
"Known it for years," he answered. "Dagmar told me. But it makes no difference. The Lord gave Noah to me. He's my son, and a Raeburn, heart and soul."
Murdoch nodded and extended his hand. "I owe you some long overdue thanks, Campbell Raeburn."
At first Rebecca's father didn't respond. No one in the church uttered a sound. She clung to Shaw's hand and waited, her heart in her throat.
Then, slowly, Poppa moved to meet Murdoch. "Guess we're a little long in the tooth to keep up this bickerin'," he said as they clasped hands. "Are we about even?"
"Even. If you quit cuttin' my fences and drivin' off my stock," Murdoch rumbled. "And give back Angel Crossing."
"You're never gettin' my place, Murdoch. Not you, not any of your kin. But it wasn't Raeburns that caused you trouble," her father protested. "I'll swear to it. Not me, nor none of my sons ever raided your place."
"Me!" Noah grinned broadly.
"He did it," Welsh said. "Me and Drum put him up to it. He cut fences, chased their cows. And once, he flung a skunk in their well, and another time he started a fire in Mr. MacCade's wheat."
"You, Noah?" Rebecca cried. "You rode over to the MacCades' and caused trouble?"
Beaming, he nodded. "Never catch Noah."
Rebecca whirled on the twins. "How could you? It's worse than if you did it yourselves."
Drummond and Welsh hung their heads.
Her father looked at Murdoch. "That apology goes both ways, I'm afraid. All I can say in my defense is that I didn't know. And I promise you, these boys of mine and I will have a little conversation about this matter."
Murdoch's broad face twitched; then he smiled, and the grin became a loud guffaw as he slapped Noah on the back. "What can you expect from a MacCade?" he howled. "My own pappy was born with horns and a tail!"
Chapter 26
Three weeks later, Shaw MacCade stood waiting at the front of the church while the organist played the same hymn a second time. Outside, the first snow of the season was falling, but the house of worship was packed with relatives, friends, and neighbors. Shaw was overly warm. At any moment he knew he was going to break into a sweat.
His boiled shirt was starched so heavily that it could have stood alone, and his collar and stock felt as though they were choking him. There'd been no time to order a coat from Saint Louis, so he'd been forced to borrow one from his brother Tom. The length was right in the arms, but Tom's wasn't as wide across the chest, and Shaw was afraid to take too deep of a breath.
Steeling himself, he glanced out over the crowded pews. Bruce, Eve, Jamie, and Dewey were sitting in the second row directly behind Rebecca's grandmother. Dewey had come with Bruce and Eve from Saint Louis, and Shaw had discovered that, short of nailing the kid in a barrel and sending him floating down the river, there was no way to get rid of him.
As soon as he saw Shaw looking at him, Dewey rocked back in the pew, put his thumbs in his ears, stuck out his tongue, and wiggled his fingers. It was clear that the boy had no idea of how to behave in church. Not that he knew how to do much of anything but survive. He couldn't ride a horse, couldn't swim, didn't know how to read or write, and didn't have the faintest idea how to fish. Shaw figured teaching the rascal how to be a country boy would be a full-time job for both him and Becca. Becca said she liked him. Dewey had gotten under her skin as much as the kid had his own.
His mother and father were in the front pew, what Nigel liked to call the "amen corner." Ma mouthed the word handkerchief, and dutifully, Shaw dug one out of his pocket and wiped his forehead.
Where the hell was Becca? His belly felt like he'd swallowed a porcupine and the critter was trying to tunnel its way out.
The organist finished the song, played a few wailing notes, then charged into a third rendition. Shaw gritted his teeth. Then, by the grace of God, the door opened and the widow Dagmar Hedger came in on Noah's arm.
Dagmar was all in black, with a black straw bonnet and a black fishnet-looking swath hanging over her smiling face. In her hands, she carried a black Bible with dried flowers tied to the top and white ribbons dangling off the sides.
Shaw wondered if the rest of the community was as surprised as he was that the twice-widowed Dagmar was about to tie the knot for a third time—and that her intended was Campbell Raeburn.
Rebecca's father cleared his throat and stepped forward. The parson opened his book, and Mrs. Baker stopped the song in mids tanza.
"I've something to say," the groom declared. "What's happening here between Mrs. Hedger and I today should have taken place a long time ago. If there's blame to be cast, I'm the one who deserves it." He clasped Dagmar's hand and squeezed it tightly. "The woman I'm about to take in marriage is a lot wiser than I am. She finally agreed to have me, and I'm grateful to have you all here—" Campbell flushed and glanced at Shaw's parents in the front pew. "—every one of you, to bear witness that I intend to be a better father and grandfather and a better neighbor than I've been in the past."
Dagmar whispered something to him and he nodded. "She says I'm doing all the talking when I should be letting the Reverend Jarrell do his job."
The onlookers chuckled, and the minister began to speak. "We are gathered here..."
Shaw cast another anxious look toward the door. His new boots pinched, and his mouth was drier than a California sinkhole. His heart thumped against his chest. What if Becca had changed her mind? What if she wasn't coming?
"The ring, Quinn. Where's the ring?" Shaw heard Campbell hiss to his brother. Quinn must have produced the ring, because the minister went on with the ceremony.
Shaw gritted his teeth and tried to make the time pass quicker.
"...pronounce you man and wife," Preacher Jarrell said.
Campbell Raeburn gave his new bride a hasty peck on the cheek. The congregation chuckled, then broke into laughter as the bride shoved aside her veil, threw her arms around his neck, and gave him a hearty kiss full on the mouth. Rebecca's father reddened, grinned sheepishly, and led Dagmar back down the aisle amid a chorus of unasked-for advice from the wedding guests.
The new couple took a seat in the back of the church, and someone handed baby Annika to Dagmar. Mary Barker began another hymn.
Either you come now, Becca, or I'm bolting for the hills, Shaw thought. Then his racing heart slammed into his throat, and a tide of heat washed through him as the door opened again.
Sam bounced in. She was wearing a blue dress, white stockings, and black kid boots. A basket of greenery was looped over one arm, and nestled in the center was a knot of dried yarrow in sunshine yellow. Sam's hair was plaited into two tight braids and tied with ribbons the same shade as the yarrow.
But right behind Sam was Becca. And it was Becca that stole his breath and made his knees go weak as honey. She was all in blue, with a length of Raeburn tartan pinned to one shoulder. Around her neck, she wore a silver chain. And fastened to the necklace was the rose-colored arrowhead he'd given her so long ago. Becca's shining hair had been braided into a crown, and her gray eyes glowed with inner light.
He knew she was the most beautiful sight he'd ever seen.
Becca's father stood to take her arm, but Shaw couldn't wait. He strode down the aisle to meet her. Sam giggled as he went past. Then he caught Becca in his arms and kissed her.
"Guess you're really a MacCade now," he whispered to her as he bent to kiss her again at the end of the ritual. "A judge and a minister said so."
"I suppose I am," she agreed.
From the corner of his eye, he saw his mother tug Sam into the pew beside her. Ma had volunteered to keep both Dewey and Samantha for a few days so that he and Becca could have a real honeymoon.
Becca stopped midway down the aisle and tossed her flowers. Shaw thought one of his sisters caught them, but it might have been his brother Leslie's common-law wife, Janie. Eve pushed through the crowd to drop a hooded cape around Becca's shoulders. One of his brothers tossed him a coat and his hat.
Outside in the falling snow, a horse and buggy waited. The congregation spilled outside to toss handfuls of wheat and to call good wishes. He lifted Becca onto the carriage seat and climbed in beside her. He slapped the reins over Echo's back, and they raced away to cheers and laughter.
"Happy?" Becca asked him.
"Happy that's over." He put an arm around her. "If looks could kill, your brothers would have murdered me a dozen times over."
"You'll have to get used to it," she said. "I go to church every Sunday, and I'll expect you to go with me. In time, they'll get used to your face."
"Church?" He groaned. "A boiled shirt and stock every Sunday?"
"You've got to set a good example for Dewey, don't you?"
"I suppose," he grumbled.
Becca snuggled next to him. The bells on Echo's harness jingled as the carriage wheels whirled along the snowy track. Shaw thought that this must be the closest he'd ever get to heaven.
"Where are we going?" she asked, when he'd taken the turn to Angel Crossing.
"Home."
She hadn't asked where they'd live, leaving that up to him.
The Taming of Shaw MacCade Page 29