Last Promise (29 page)

She laughed, but she didn't stop caressing him. “I love all of the things you purchased for me, but I didn't need so many things.”

“Not everything was for you,” he replied.

She furrowed her brows at him. “Are you talking about the cloth? I wondered about that.”

“That's for Lillian. I thought you might want to take something to her on our way back home. She told me to tell you I saw her in one of her new dresses. It was very pretty.”

“Oh Luke, that is so thoughtful of you!” She started to cry again.

“Honey, I don't want you to cry.” He rolled off of her and pulled her to his chest.

“They are happy tears,” she said, and hugged him.

His mouth tilted in a grin. “Am I wonderful enough that you'll let me see that other corset on you? It sure is a pretty color.”

“It's called heliotrope and I love it.” She ran her fingers through the hair on his chest. “I think you can see it anytime you want.”

Her fingers were driving him crazy. “Well, maybe later.” He lowered his lips to hers.

Chapter Thirty-One

Luke was flanked by his brothers and his nephews while he waited for the ceremony to begin. His brothers were as excited as he was to see him repeat his vows in church. His sisters-in-law were busy fussing over the bride's dress outside the church door. Luke didn't mind having another ceremony, he wanted to share this special moment in his life with his brothers.

“You are a very lucky man,” Jake told Luke.

“We are all lucky men,” Colt added.

“Absolutely,” Luke said.

The pastor approached and told them the bride was ready. Victoria and Promise hurried to their husbands and everyone took their seats. Luke stood by the pastor and watched as his beautiful bride walked down the aisle with George. Cade and Cody clapped excitedly when they saw Mary Ann.

The pastor completed the ceremony and told Luke he could kiss his bride.

Luke took Mary Ann in his arms, his eyes filled with love, but before he kissed her he said, “ ‘
My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep, the more I give to thee, The more I have, for both are infinite.
'” He then kissed his bride, sealing their union for the second time.

Jake leaned over to Colt. “Shakespeare?”

“Yep.”

“Did you tell him that?”

“Nope.”

“Did you lend him one of your books?”

“Nope.”

Victoria and Promise cried at Luke's romantic words to his bride.

“He's making us look bad,” Jake said to Colt.

Colt chuckled. “We'll just have to work harder.”

George invited the group back to the hotel for a celebration dinner. The couple didn't have a wedding cake on the ship, so George had asked Mrs. Howe to bake one for this wedding. He had planned a special dinner and when they arrived at the hotel, Eb had the wine and the whiskey on the table.

George filled the wineglasses as Colt poured whiskey for the men. He held the bottle toward the women. “Would you ladies prefer whiskey?”

“No!” they said in unison.

Colt made the first toast. “To the beautiful bride and the groom smart enough to cross an ocean to bring her home.”

“I always told you two I was the smart one,” Luke replied.

“Uncle Luke, does this mean you narrowed it down to Aunt Mary Ann?” Cody asked.

Mary Ann gave Luke a quizzical look. “What does that mean?”

Luke laughed. “Yes, Cody, that is what I did.” He leaned over and whispered in Mary Ann's ear. “I'll explain later.”

“Are you gonna have boys now?”

“I'm trying.” Luke looked at his wife and chuckled when he saw her cheeks turning a lovely shade of pink.

“When did you start reading Shakespeare, little brother?” Jake asked.

“The captain of the ship seemed to enjoy Shakespeare, so I read some of his volumes on the voyage to England. I figured it couldn't hurt if Colt liked him so much. I wanted to see what makes him so special.” He smiled at Mary Ann. “I've found there are times when his words come in handy.”

“Today was one of them.” Mary Ann had learned there was a very romantic side to her new husband. He'd often quoted Shakespeare to her on the voyage back to America.

“If you're the smart one, tell me why you had to travel halfway around the world when she was right here in front of you for months?” Jake was pleased with himself for coming up with this question.

“Uncle Luke had to narrow it down,” Cade reminded him.

Everyone turned their attention on the twins who were nodding at each other in agreement.

Luke laughed. “I'm glad you boys understand.”

“I guess we don't have nobody else to get married,” Cody said.

“What about you two?” Luke teased.

“No way!” they chorused.

“Pa, I don't understand. Don't girls have to narrow it down too?” Cody asked.

“I suppose they do,” Colt responded. “I think that's a question for your ma.” He looked at Victoria. “How many men were in the running before you decided on me?”

Victoria smiled at Colt. “That's my secret to keep.”

“Come on, Ma, tell us,” the boys chorused.

“I think it was too many to count.” Colt remembered his wife saying she had received over one hundred replies to her advertisement for a husband.

“Then you must be real special, Pa,” Cade said.

“He certainly is,” Victoria agreed.

“How many did you have, Aunt Promise?”

Before Promise responded, Jake said, “She had every man on the cattle drive in line for her.”

“That many!” Cody remembered the many men who brought the cattle to the ranch.

“That's a lot,” Cade said.

“What about your uncle Jake?” Promise asked sweetly. “Aren't you going to ask him how many girls wanted to marry him?”

“Yeah, Uncle Jake, how many brides did you narrow it down to?” Cody asked.

“I only had eyes for your aunt Promise from the start.”

“Good answer.” Promise leaned over and kissed Jake's cheek.

“Aunt Mary Ann, how many did you have to narrow it down to?” Cade asked.

Mary Ann finally figured out what the boys were asking by everyone's response. “It was your uncle Luke who had his choice of brides.”

“Me?” Luke said in feigned innocence.

Mary Ann furrowed her brow at him. “Yes, you. And you very well know what I am talking about.”

Luke winked at her. “Don't let her fool you, boys. When I went to England to go get her you should have seen what I had to go through. I walked into this castle where there was this grand ball in this big room and all of the ladies were wearing these huge, colorful dresses.” He held his arms wide as he described the dresses causing the boys to giggle. “They looked like dancing flowers. And there was your aunt Mary Ann in her yellow gown surrounded by a thousand beaus in their formal attire. When I saw her she looked so beautiful I was sure she was a princess. I thought I was going to have to fight my way out of the ballroom.”

Their eyes widened. “Really, Uncle Luke, what happened?”

“I grabbed her hand and made a run for it through the garden.”

Mary Ann smiled at his tale. No one at that ball was looking at her, they only had eyes for the big handsome cowboy from America. “Don't let him fool you, boys, all of the ladies in their lovely gowns were staring at your uncle Luke.”

“Did you have to punch that man again, Uncle Luke?” The boys remembered that man who had shoved Cody.

Luke knew they were referring to Stafford. “No, but it was close.” That wasn't much of an exaggeration, he was close to giving him a thrashing.

Colt and Jake were as curious as the boys about what had transpired in England. Luke hadn't mentioned his confrontation with Hardwicke and Stafford, but they didn't think everything went as smoothly as he seemed to indicate.

“Aunt Mary Ann, did you punch other brides?” Cade asked.

If only they knew how much she might have enjoyed punching some of those women Luke had been squiring around town. “Well, I must say if I had to listen to your uncle Luke promise one more thing to the other ladies I was going to give it serious consideration.”

“What kind of promises are you talking about?” Luke asked, failing to look as innocent as he sounded.

Mary Ann gave him an indignant frown. “Why, Luke McBride! You were the one making all sorts of promises to women from the first moment I got off that stagecoach. Every time I turned around you were making a promise to a different woman. Most of the time you were promising to show them a good time!”

Luke grinned at her. He knew exactly what she was talking about.

“I think she had you figured out from the start,” Jake said. “And you're right, Mary Ann, Luke was real popular with the ladies, a renowned flirt who was always making promises.”

“Shut up, Jake,” Luke said. “You're not helping.”

“You don't want me to lie to your wife, do you?”

“What's a flirt?” Cade asked.

“Luke, why don't you explain to the boys what a flirt is, you've had so much more experience than the rest of us,” Colt said.

Jake was enjoying this exchange. “Yeah, Uncle Luke, explain that.”

If his brothers thought he wasn't up to the challenge, they didn't know him as well as they thought. “Well, boys, before you narrow it down to the one woman you want to marry, you need to pay attention to all the ladies until you find the right one. Some people might call that being a flirt, I call it good sense. You sure don't want to pick the wrong one.”

“So when you went swimming with that other lady you wanted to see if you narrowed it down to her?” Cody asked.

That comment shocked Luke to his boots. “How did you know about me going swimming?”
And what did they see?

The boys glanced at each other and put their hands over their mouths as though they had revealed a secret.

“Whom were you swimming with?” Mary Ann asked Luke. “And when was this?”

“I want to know why you boys were at the river without me,” Colt said.

“We went riding with Cole and we saw Uncle Luke at the lake with that lady,” Cade responded.

“Yeah, and she wasn't wearing a dress,” Cody said.

“She was wearing those things Ma wears under her dresses,” Cade said. “'Cept she was all wet.”

Colt and Jake both turned to look at Luke and in spite of grinning like fools they did feel some sympathy for him. Unbeknownst to the boys, they'd just given everyone at the table a visual of what happened at that lake.

“It's not easy to swim in a dress,” Colt said.

Heaven help me
, Luke thought, not daring to look at his wife. This was to be his second wedding night, but he had a bad feeling it wasn't going to go as good as the first one.

Mary Ann remembered on her second day in Wyoming Luke was dining in the hotel with his family and she'd overheard him talking with some women about swimming with Sally Detrick. “That must have been Sally Detrick,” she commented. She wasn't angry, she was well aware of her husband's philandering ways before they married.

When Luke didn't deny he was swimming with Sally, Mary Ann said, “I wonder who
swims
with Sally now.”

Victoria glared at her husband. “She had set her sights on Colt at one time. Did you
swim
with her too?”

Colt wasn't sure if the women were talking about swimming or something else. Either way, the answer to both questions was a definite no. “Not me.” Actually, Sally had invited him to go swimming at the lake several times, but he was always too busy at the ranch. Plus the fact that he was smart enough to know when a woman was trying to rope him into marriage.

“What about you, Jake?” Promise asked. “Did you ever
swim
with Sally?”

“No way.” Jake was the only brother Sally hadn't tempted, and right now he was thanking God for that favor.

“Jake wasn't here long enough,” Victoria said. “If he had been, Sally would have jumped on him too.”

With his brothers glaring at him like the direction of the conversation was all his fault, Luke tried to think of something to say on a different topic. Before he could come up with anything, the boys asked another question.

“Uncle Luke, how come you didn't take your pants off? Ain't it hard to swim in pants?” Cade asked.

Luke looked up and muttered, “Thank you, Lord.” He glanced at the boys and answered in a serious tone, “It's not polite for a man to take his pants off in front of a lady.”

“You boys remember that,” Colt instructed. He was pleased to know his brother hadn't been as reckless as he feared with Sally.

“We don't swim with girls!” Cade answered.

“At least not until you are thirty years old,” Victoria told them. “And definitely not with Sally or her offspring.”

“Thank goodness Sally will be very old by then,” Mary Ann added primly.

“Uncle Luke, you're real lucky Aunt Mary Ann narrowed it down to you 'cause she rides real good and she is the prettiest,” Cody said, and Cade nodded his agreement.

“The true test for a bride,” Colt teased.

“I am a lucky man for many reasons.” Luke stood and held his glass in the air to make a toast to his beautiful wife. Taking her hand in his, he looked into her eyes. “To my wife, my last promise is to love you forever.”