Bartered Bride Romance Collection (38 page)

At least for the moment, she was in the house and safe. He found a scrap of relief in that fact as he waited for Bess to plow ahead and propel Bertie into the kitchen. Josiah stopped Bess for a moment. Now there was a handsome man who had land and money enough to support her—but Bess gave him a look that would curdle milk and kept Bertie marching.

Males couldn’t leave the Craig females alone. Why, even stupid Ramon had managed to get into Rhubarb’s stall and dragged in scraps from the pig trough for the mama cat. The kitchen door banged shut, and Jim refocused his attention.

“Men.” Then he whistled loudly and fleetingly recalled Matty had done the same thing back at the train station the day she’d arrived. “Listen up.” He curled his hands around the porch railing, scanned the crowd, and waited for them to grow quiet.

“How’s the little lady?” Chico asked. “Heard she swooned.”

“Matilda is tucking the widow in for a nap.” Jim narrowed his eyes at a man nursing a bloody bandana over his nose. “I suspect by now, you’ve all heard tell the Widow Taylor is in the family way. After just burying her husband and finding out she’s got a little one on the way, she’s in no condition to take on a new husband.”

“That still leaves three!”

“Jones, you always were fast with your figurin’ at the mercantile.” Jim hoped to lighten the tone for a moment so they’d take his news better. “Since you’re so good with numbers, let me give you another one: seventeen. Bertie isn’t even out of the schoolroom, and I won’t let her wed for a full year yet.”

“Her kin sent her out here. That’s consent enough,” Mr. Smit shouted.

“That would be the same lazy, no-good brother-in-law who stole their dairy farm.”

The men began to scuffle their boots in the dirt.

Amos let out a gust of a sigh. “I got a good look at the youngest, fellas. She’s got a crop of freckles that make her look cute as a speckled pup. We’d be robbin’ a cradle if we took her to wife.”

Relief threaded through Jim. Men might well argue with him over the issue because he looked downright selfish over the whole matter, but few men were foolish enough to cross the hulking blacksmith. Matty’s kid sister ought to be safe for a while. Now he could concentrate on sweet little Matty.

Luke stomped out of the house. He didn’t even come to a stop before he thundered, “There are women, then there are ladies. The Rough Cs only has ladies. Do I make myself clear?”

“Well,” Jones finally said, “that leaves two ladies. Now what’re you gonna say, Jim?”

“I’m gonna say that since you’re so good at sums and differences, I’ll graduate to fractions.” Jim widened his stance and lifted his chin. “Possession is nine-tenths of the law. The women are here. I sent for ’em, and they’re mine.”

Later that night, Jim slipped one last little bit of barbecued beef to Rhubarb and kicked hay into a pile for his bed. “Luke, you made quite a scene today.”

“I was just protecting the gals.”

“You went far past protective and hit possessive.”

Luke folded his arms over the wall of the stall and gave him an amused look. “I did? You’re not one to cast stones.”

“Knock it off. I’m doing what Ma always taught us from the Bible—you know: taking care of the widows and orphans.”

The stable rang with Luke’s laughter. “If you’re going to start quoting the Bible, I hope you don’t hearken back to the Old Testament. Men back then had multiple wives, and I distinctly heard you announce the women were all yours.”

Matty looked at the neat rows of vegetables they’d planted and felt a twinge. Jim declared nothing would grow in the sandy soil, but for all of his grousing, he’d come out and plowed a nice patch for her. Soon the seeds Bess brought from home sprouted. If only love would flower so easily.

“Wonder if we’ll be here for harvest,” Bertie said as she leaned on her hoe.

“I don’t know. Still, Jim and Luke have been so good to us; the least we can do is keep a garden.”

Bertie snorted. “You pointed out how good they’ve been, so we’re gardening and making cheese. Corrie felt thankful, so she had us making them shirts. Bess is glad, so we’re going berrying and making jam. The only thing I’m grateful for is the fact that I don’t have more sisters out here, or I’d have to do more work!”

“Cheer up. Jim said Rhubarb is ready to be moved back into the house. Ask Corrie for a feed sack. You can stuff it, put it in a box, and make a bed for the kittens.”

Bertie started hoeing again. “Betcha she gives me that one with the purple zigzags on it. It’s the only one of that pattern.”

“Good thing, too. I’ve never seen an uglier pattern.” Just last week, Jim had led Matty into the stable, opened the door on a huge wooden bin, and five years of empty feed sacks tumbled out. The memory of his generosity warmed her heart.

Bess and she had sneaked away with a few sweet little prints so they could sew baby clothes as a surprise and a few darker solids that would make much-needed maternity clothes for Corrie, who now wore her dresses unbuttoned beneath her loosely tied apron. Jim and Buckwheat carried the rest of the feed sacks over to the porch. It took a whole morning to wash them, but it felt like Christmas.

After all of the sacks were dry, Jim carried them into the house and watched for a while as the sisters matched up all of the patterns. He shook his head at what a production they made of it, but Matty laughed and said, “You started this!”

“Doesn’t take much to make you happy,” he said.

“After watching you eat almost half a jar of gooseberry jam this morning, I could say the same thing.”

“Thanks for reminding me.” He paced off to the kitchen and started banging around. Matty knew to expect the jar to be scraped clean. Jim’s mother must have brought jars when they started up the ranch, and as fast as Matty could fill jars with jam, he’d empty them.

Each sister had selected fabric to make a shirt for each of the brothers; then she chose a pattern to make a new dress for herself. Word was, the town planned to throw a celebration for Wyoming being declared a territory, and the Craig sisters figured it would be a good excuse for new dresses. Several feed sacks remained, earmarked for dish towels, quilts, and more clothing. Still, that purple zigzag didn’t have a match.

Bertie managed to strike a small stone with her hoe and made it flip into the air. It hit Matty’s skirt and pulled her back to the present.

“For all of the feed sacks I’ve ever seen, I never saw one like that purple one,” Bertie said.

“I haven’t either.”

God, am I like that feed sack—so peculiar that I’ll never have a mate? Could it be that when You designed me, You had a specific pattern in mind so I’d suit only one special man? If that man were Jim Collingswood—

“So do we have a deal?” Bertie asked.

“Huh?”
I really need to stop daydreaming
. Matty stopped musing and gave her sister a questioning look.

“For true, Matty, you know how much I hate to sew. If I do the dishes for you for the next month, will you sew both of the shirts for me?”

“Laundry, not dishes.”

Bertie glowered from beneath her brown felt hat.

“I’m being more than fair, and you know it.”

“You? Fair?” a familiar nasal whine said from behind her.

Matty spun around. “Ellis! What are you doing here?”

His beady eyes scanned the ranch. “I’m here, dear sisters-in-law, to collect on a debt.”

Chapter 9

A
saloon wasn’t the most suitable location for a trial, but it was the biggest room in town. In honor of the auspicious occasion, Gideon Riker allowed all of the tables to be removed. Row upon row of benches and chairs filled the establishment.

Now that Wyoming had become a territory, no one was quite certain if the old circuit judge would be around next month. Then, too, Ellis Stack adamantly demanded money or the women at once. He had a return ticket on the next train. Due to his unyielding insistence, the town’s only attorney, Donald Potter, now sat on a barstool behind the bar and acted as judge.

Jim winced. Whoever had draped a cloth over the oil painting didn’t do a thorough job of it, so a delicate, bare foot peeped out from the right bottom corner. This was no place for a lady … and he had four of them sitting directly behind him. He didn’t care what it took—he’d resolved before he got here that he’d do whatever it took to keep his sweet little Matty and her sisters.

A dozen men—all striving to look their best in hopes of catching the eye of one of the Craig sisters—sat off to the side. None of them wanted Stack to cart them off; then again, everyone knew those men weren’t exactly pleased with the fact that Jim had claimed them as his own. He couldn’t decide whether they might have a slight leaning for or against him.

The “judge” didn’t have a gavel, so he settled for pounding on the bar with the handle of a Navy Colt. The gun promptly discharged, shattering a glass on the shelf just off to the judge’s left.

“Oscar, I thought you told me this thing wasn’t loaded.”

“He was probably loaded when he tol’ you that,” someone drawled.

It took the judge a moment to regain order in the court. He then raised his brows at Ellis. “Mr. Stack, suppose you tell us why you’ve dragged us all away from our work today.”

Ellis Stack was a contradiction—a large, rawboned man, he possessed a high-pitched, whining nasal voice. He dressed with great precision and style, yet his motions were singularly ungainly. Jim couldn’t help wondering if that duplicity extended toward his version of the “truth.”

“Your Honor, sir, I’m missing work myself. It took me five days to get here from my dairy farm in Rhode Island. I’ve been waiting four days for this trial. Even catching the train back tomorrow, I’ll have missed two solid weeks. You know what a loss that represents to a businessman.”

“Nobody dragged you out here,” Luke said.

Stack turned toward them. “I had to come because I’ve been cheated out of more money than any man can afford to write off. I have a contract with James Collingswood for six hunnerd dollars. He ain’t paid a cent.”

“You have a copy of that contract?”

Stack pulled a sheet of paper from a leather satchel. “This is the telegram he sent. He agrees to my price and says to send them at once.”

“Them?”

“The brides.” Ellis jerked his thumb toward the ladies. “Just like he ordered: plain, sturdy, dependable ones who could do hard work.”

The judge inspected the telegram then looked over the rim of his glasses at the jurors. “To my recollection, about four of you had schooling. I’ll read this aloud so everyone in the jury and courtroom has the same information.” He proceeded to do so and then passed the telegram down to the jurors.

Jim fought the urge to jump out of his seat and throttle Ellis Stack. The man twisted things about and slanted them something awful.

“Now, Collingswood, suppose you give us your version of the events,” the judge finally invited.

Jim rose. “I’m calling Linus Hatch as my first witness.”

Lickwind’s telegraph operator came forward carrying a thick book. At Jim’s urging, he produced the original telegraph message. “It says bridle here. B-R-I-D-L-E. The kind you use for a horse. A man who wants a mail-order woman spells it B-R-I-D-A-L. I looked it up in my dictionary before I sent it off, just to make sure I got it right.”

Jim hummed approvingly. He wanted to be careful not to offend the jurors who were illiterate. Stack’s mistakes were ones someone who couldn’t read well would make.

Linus tilted his head to the side and studiously pointed toward the top of the page in his book. “I got it all right here. James Collingswood’s telegram was addressed to L. S. Stocks in Rhode Island. A few of the ranchers hereabouts order gear from that company. Anybody can see right away that Mr. Stack blundered and botched things up on his end.”

Bess testified that Ellis made the mail-order arrangements before consulting with any of the sisters. Jim thanked her then observed, “It’s illegal in the United States of America to buy or sell human beings. By setting a price for each of these women and coming to claim the money, Stack is putting forth that he owned them and can treat them like chattel.”