"Nope. She's already married…" Lee stopped abruptly and slowly repeated his thought aloud. "Married. Mary. By God, that's it!" He slapped his open palm against his forehead. "Mary Alexander. She's perfect—-beautiful, intelligent, honest, practical, and loyal. Very loyal." Her strong sense of loyalty would work to his advantage. She would understand why he had to accept the terms of Tabby's will—why he couldn't allow little Madeline Gray to grow up in the Methodist Foundling Home.
And she lived in Cheyenne at the Trail T ranch—the place to which he'd been ordered to report. She was part of the family. Lee smiled. Mary Alexander was the sister of one and the first cousin of the other of his closest friends, David Alexander and Reese Jordan. She was a perfect choice. Hell, he and David and Reese were as close as any three men could be. He was practically part of the Jordan-Alexander family himself. Marrying Mary would make it official.
Lee thought back to the first time he met Mary Alexander.
He had known Reese Jordan and David Alexander since the early days of the war, when the three of them had worked as spies for the Union under Allan Pinkerton. He hadn't met David's younger sister, Mary, until the morning he walked into David's law office in Peaceable, Wyoming, and been unexpectedly attacked. It hadn't been funny at the time, but Lee could now smile at the memory of Tessa Roarke swinging a pot of hot coffee at his head while Mary Alexander backed him out the front door of the law office with a loaded two-shot derringer in her hand. Just thinking about that made him grin. Mary—slender, elegant woman that she was—had been able to do what few men had ever accomplished. She had taken him by surprise and gotten the drop on him.
She was the only woman he had ever met who hadn't fallen for his easy charm and Irish blarney. On their first meeting, Lee had stared down the short barrel of her silver pocket pistol and decided death could very easily come in the form of a beautiful woman. At their second meeting, he'd been facing her brother's fists while Mary leaned out a two-story window and loudly encouraged David to break his perfect nose. Lee traced the contours of his mustache with his index finger. And the last time he saw Mary, at David and Tessa's wedding, she had threatened to break his nose herself—or shoot him full of holes—if he didn't watch his wandering hands and quit trying to kiss her every few minutes. And damned if he hadn't thought the pleasure of kissing her might be worth a couple of holes.
Mary Alexander had matched him move for move every time he'd met her. She had enough courage to sustain an army, a fierce love of home and family, an unshakable definition of right and wrong, and an incredible sense of loyalty. As far as Lee was concerned, she had all the immediate qualities he required in a wife: she understood family loyalty and she was available. And she was beautiful.
Very beautiful. Just looking at her set his pulse racing. And the thought of holding, of kissing her… Lee grinned, supremely confident now that he'd made his decision. "Mary will agree with me. She'll understand." Yeah, the more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. Mary was the perfect woman for him to marry. The only woman.
He grabbed McLeary's right hand and began to pump it. "Thanks, Tom. You're a genius." His mind began to whirl with the list of things he needed to do before he reached Cheyenne. "Look McLeary, I hate to impose on you further, but would you please stay with them for a couple of hours while I run some errands'?" Lee hurried to the table and grabbed his hat and coat.
"You're not going to leave us?" Judah asked, an edge of panic in his quavery voice.
"Only for a couple of hours," he answered, "and only if you'll agree to stay here until I get back." He turned to McLeary.
McLeary nodded. "I'll stay for an hour. No longer. Agreed?"
"Okay," Lee agreed. "But if I've only got an hour, you'd better tell me where I can find the nearest jewelry store."
"Jewelry store?"
"Yeah. Since I don't have time to court the 'bride of my choice,'" he quoted Tabby's phrase, "then I sure as hell better have a nice ring in my pocket when I propose."
"Are you going to take us with you when you go?" Judah asked.
"I suppose so," Lee told him, staring at the striped chambray nightshirt Judah wore beneath his waistcoat, wondering what Mary would say when she saw them. "I can't leave you alone here in Denver, any more than I can let that little girl grow up in some damned St. Louis orphanage."
"You're going through with it?" McLeary was amazed.
"What choice do I have?"
"None. You want me to telegraph our friend in Chicago for you?" McLeary offered, carefully referring to William Pinkerton.
"You might as well," Lee said. "He'll find out soon enough anyway."
"What should I tell him?"
"Tell him congratulations are in order. Tell him I'm getting married."
Lee couldn't disguise his sigh of relief as the train rolled to a stop at the station in Cheyenne at seven-thirty the following morning. He stuffed Maddy's doll into the deep pocket of his duster and gently lifted the little girl from her place on the seat beside him back into his arms. During the past few hours, he'd learned quite a bit more than he ever wanted to know about the needs and demands of a two-and-a-half-year-old child and added a couple of very important "Maddy-talk" translations to his vocabulary.
Lee sighed and raked his fingers through his hair. He wasn't thinking straight. He was tired and irritable from an another long train ride and another sleepless night, and his right arm was numb from holding Madeline most of the night. He wanted to hand the little girl to Judah for a while, but one look at the elderly attorney told Lee that Judah was not at his best. Shifting Maddy to his left side, Lee ushered a sleepy, disoriented Judah into the crowded aisle as the passengers began to disembark from the train. A hired porter followed behind them with Lee's leather satchel and the heavy trunk containing Judah and Maddy's belongings.
"Mama," Madeline whined, turning and twisting against Lee's chest.
"Easy now, sweetheart," Lee soothed, "we'll be at the ranch in less than an hour and I promise you a nice big breakfast and plenty of nice ladies to take care of you."
It was a promise Lee couldn't keep. As he drove up the circle drive leading to the two-story log and stone main house of the Trail T, the first thing Lee noticed was the quiet. There were no people about the place: no ranch hands, no children, and no chatter of women going about their chores. Handing the buggy reins to Judah, Lee jumped down from hack, bounded up the stone steps of the front porch, and pounded on the front door. He slipped his hand beneath his duster and rested it against the comforting grip of his Colt. He pulled the gun free of its holster as the front door swung open, then re-holstered it just as quickly. "Ruth," he breathed at the startled Indian woman standing in the doorway. "Thank goodness you're here."
"We were looking for you to get here sooner, Mr. Kincaid," Ruth told him. "They left without you. Tessa said they didn't dare wait any longer."
"Who left without me?" Lee asked.
"The whole family."
"Where did they go?"
"To the church in Cheyenne. Tessa said that if you got here I was to tell you to hurry."
Lee thought for a moment, mentally counting the days. "Today isn't Sunday, it's Tuesday. What's everybody doing at church?"
"They're at Mary's wedding."
"What did you say?" The blood seemed to roar through Lee's brain.
"Everybody is at Mary's wedding except those of us who stayed to prepare the wedding breakfast and a couple of the older boys."
"Mary? Mary Alexander?" He managed to get her name out.
"Yes."
"Christ!" Lee swore, glancing over his shoulder at Judah and Maddy in the hired buggy. "What time is the wedding?"
"Nine-thirty."
He pulled out his pocket watch and flicked open the lid.
If he hurried, he could make it to the church in time, but not in the buggy. He turned back to Ruth. "I need the fastest horse on the place and somebody to drive the buggy for the old man."
Ruth looked
over at the elderly man and the child. The little girl was crying, while the gentleman tried awkwardly to comfort her. "They can stay here until you get back."
Lee shook his head. "They have to go with me."
Ruth shrugged. "My son, Daniel, is in the stables. He can drive the buggy. I'll get some sweet bread for the little girl."
Lee leaned over, placed his hands on either side of Ruth's face, and kissed her. "Thanks, Ruth," he said as he sprinted toward the stables.
"The fastest horse on the ranch is Reese's white stallion, Pegasus," Ruth called after him.
As he galloped toward Cheyenne on Pegasus' back, Lee called himself ten kinds of a fool for even considering doing what he was about to do. It was a crazy idea. And Lee knew he would never had thought of it if he hadn't been desperate and suffering from the effects of too little sleep.
He couldn't really be riding into Cheyenne for the sole purpose of asking Mary Alexander to marry him. He didn't want to marry again. He had been married once before for a few idyllic months before the war had intervened—before the war had cost him his beloved wife.
And although he occasionally toyed with the idea of marrying again and settling down, of raising a family of tow-headed children, when the demands of his job had become too much to tolerate. Lee knew he wasn't ready for the responsibility. It had taken him years to come to terms with his wife's senseless death. It had taken him years to recover from the heartache. Jeannie's death had nearly killed him. And Lee knew he couldn't withstand another loss like Jeannie.
He'd be better off to keep to himself, and to his bachelor ways. He didn't need a wife or a little girl. He couldn't risk losing his heart again. And Lee was very much afraid that Mary Alexander and little Madeline Gray might work their way inside that vulnerable organ before he had a chance to stop them.
It was crazy. He was crazy. He ought to turn Pegasus around and head back to the Trail T. He ought to wait for Tessa and David there. He had no business riding hell-bent for leather toward the Catholic church in Cheyenne… no business at all. But, Lee reminded himself, lately all his plans had been derailed by unexpected events. What was one more?
He gripped the reins tightly, then squeezed his eyes shut, muttered a heartfelt expletive, loosened his grips on the reins, and let the white stallion have his head, praying all the while that he'd make it in time to stop the wedding.
* * *
Chapter Four
"Do you, Mary Amanda, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?"
"No, she doesn't!" Lee flung open the doors of the church.
"What?!" The couple at the altar, along with the entire congregation, turned to stare at the intruder.
"May I ask the meaning of this interruption?" the priest demanded.
Mary Alexander paled beneath her bridal veil and clutched the nosegay of white roses and orange blossoms in a death grip. She couldn't see the face of the man standing just inside the church entrance but she recognized the voice—the faint, but familiar Irish lilt that belonged to Pinkerton detective Liam Kincaid. Her pulse seemed to flutter. It was as if by thinking about him the other day, she had conjured him up today. Mary swayed on her feet, suddenly dizzy, and was afraid she might swoon. Her groom gripped her elbow to keep her upright. She closed her eyes, counted to ten, then opened them again to see if the Irish rogue was real or a figment of her imagination.
"I told you, I object to this wedding," Lee announced, stepping out of the dark foyer and into the light. He fixed his gaze on Mary and started down the aisle.
A loud murmur echoed through the church as the wedding guests realized that a strange man was intervening in the marriage of Mary Alexander to Pelham Cosgrove III. Somewhere close behind her, Mary heard Reese say, "What's he doing? We can't let him do this." And heard her brother David answer, "Stay out of it. Mary can handle him without our interfering."
And suddenly she realized he was real. If Reese and David could see and hear him he had to be real, very real, and about to ruin her last chance of marrying a respectable gentleman while she was still young enough and pretty enough to get one. "Stop right there!" Mary ordered, holding out her hand to ward him off, even as she feasted on the sight of him.—his expressive gray eyes, the intriguing mustache, the calf-length canvas duster covering his suit, lending him an air of mystery. "Don't come any closer." Her knees were quaking with nerves. It was one thing to wish, in an abstract way, for Prince Charming to come and save her but it was quite another thing to have him actually try to do it, especially just as she was about to become another man's wife. "You can't object."
"But I do," Lee said softly, continuing to move closer.
"We've already done that part," Mary protested, nodding toward the priest. "He's already asked if anyone objected. Nobody did."
"I may be a little late, but I'm in time to object," Lee told her.
"All right, then," Mary challenged him. "Why?"
"Why what?" Lee paused for a moment, stunned. He hadn't expected her to demand a reason.
"Why do you object to my getting married?" She handed her mangled nosegay to her sister-in-law and chief brides-maid, Tessa, and placed her hands at her sides, bracing herself for a showdown with Liam Kincaid.
"I don't object to you getting married," Lee told her, "I just object to your marrying him." He eyed Mary's tender-foot groom, staring as Pelham Cosgrove III sucked in a deep breath, then let it out. Lee noticed that Cosgrove's nostrils flared with the effort. Lee continued to stare. Something about Mary's bridegroom looked familiar—as if he'd seen him before.
"Why?" Mary asked again. "What business is it of yours who I marry?"
Dammit, Lee thought, she would have to make him explain things in front of God and everybody. He took a deep breath. "You can't marry him. Not when…"
Mary held her breath, waiting for Liam Kincaid to admit he had feelings for her, and had had feelings for her from the moment they met in David's office four months ago. "Go on."
"Not when," he searched furiously for the correct phrase. "Not when I have a prior claim."
"Prior claim?" Mary's voice rose an octave. "Since when have you had a prior claim on me?"
"I've known you longer."
"How do you know?" she challenged him again. "How do you know Pelham's not a long-standing family friend?"
Lee turned his fierce gaze on Pelham Cosgrove HI. "How long have you known her?"
"A-almost three months," Pelham stammered, as Lee reached the altar and stood towering over him.
Lee grinned in satisfaction. "There. I've known you much longer."
A whole thirty days longer, and that was in calendar days, not in time spent together. Mary opened her mouth to point out the fact that one month did not equal much longer, but Pelham interrupted her.
"Is that true?" Pelham Cosgrove III turned to his bride. "Does he have a prior claim on you?"
"He…" Mary began.
"Yes, it's true," Lee answered. "We've known each other for quite a while. One might even say she knows me intimately, since we've been together in a few very interesting"—he drawled the word, giving it a different meaning—"situations."
Mary thought she heard someone chuckle nearby. It sounded like a man—it sounded like her brother, David! Her face colored a deep angry shade of red. She had been alone with Lee Kincaid only once, when they danced together at the celebration following her brother David's marriage to Tessa Roarke four months ago. Lee had tried to charm her with his Irish blarney and steal a kiss or two, and he hadn't been successful on either account. Mary turned to Pelham, "You must believe me when I say I've never heard such outrageous lies and insinuations."
Pelham Cosgrove pushed Mary out of the way and stepped forward in front of Lee. "What kind of situations?"
"Pelham—" Mary reached for her intended's arm and turned to the priest. "Father, go on with the ceremony."
"Not until he explains what he means," Pelham balked.
"Liam Kincaid, I'm warning you…"
Lee watched as Mary shoved her right hand into her skirt pocket. He'd seen her make a move to her skirt pocket twice before—and both times she'd withdrawn a deadly little silver two-shot derringer and aimed it at him.
"Not this time, Mary Two-shot!" Lee reacted like a flash. He grabbed hold of Mary's arm and pulled her to his side. He held her around the waist with one arm, in a firm but gentle grip, as he patted her right skirt pocket, searching for the little silver weapon.
"Let go of me," she hissed at him as he moved on to her left side. "I didn't bring it into the church."
Lee pretended to be shocked when in fact, he was more than a bit relieved. "What?" he asked. "Nothing old, nothing new, nothing silver, nothing blue for your wedding?"
"It's at home with my other personal belongings," Mary informed him. "And the rhyme is: something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue."
"What did you do? Pack it in your luggage as a little wedding night surprise for your groom?" Lee asked sarcastically.
"Not at all," she replied sweetly, kicking him in the shin as hard as she could. "I put it in a safe place. You might say I was saving it for a special meeting with a charming rogue like you." Mary hadn't felt it right to bring her gun into church on her wedding day, but after carrying it for protection since she was a girl, she wasn't accustomed to being without it for any length of time either, and had carefully slipped it into the skirt pocket of the traveling suit she intended to wear on her honeymoon.
Lee had sucked in a breath when her foot connected with his leg. He tightened his grip around her waist, ducked his head, and whispered, "So you do find me charming. Oh, Mary-girl, I love it when you whisper sweet nothings in my ear."
Mary shivered at the touch of his warm breath against her neck. She let out a low gasp at the sound of his voice—as smooth and slow and sweet as warm honey—so close to her ear. She leaned back against him, forgetting for the moment everything but the pleasure of simply enjoying the wonderful feel of the strong, warm chest and arms that surrounded her.
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