Shotgun Bride (18 page)

“F
ine,” Kade said without apparent rancor. “If you won’t marry me, then I guess I’d better get myself hitched to one of those brides as soon we can round up a preacher.”

Mandy’s mouth dropped open. She didn’t know what she’d expected Kade’s reaction to her refusal to be, but it certainly wasn’t this instant and apparently easy shift of plans. “You’re not serious,” she said.

He got to his feet, his expression implacable in the relative darkness of the street. “Oh, yes,” he said, sighing the words. “I reckon I’m about as serious as anybody has ever been about anything. I want that ranch.”

“But Rafe and Emmeline are already expecting a baby. Emmeline told me about the contest.”

“Until there actually
is
a baby,” Kade said, “this game isn’t over. I’m not taking any chances. I should have married one of those women first thing, but I thought—”

Mandy felt as though a mule had just bunched its haunches and kicked her square in the belly with both hind legs. She stood. “You thought what?” she asked, in a stricken whisper.

His voice was flat, void of all emotion. Mandy would have preferred fire, or even ice, to this bland resignation. “I thought you and I might be able to build something together. Something nobody’s ever had before.” He paused, the moonlight framing his broad shoulders and his hair, putting Mandy in mind of Saint George, the dragon slayer. Inwardly, she flinched. “Guess I was wrong.”

With that, he walked back into the hotel, leaving Mandy to watch him go, feeling broken and furious, fighting an unbecoming urge to rush after him, say she’d changed her mind, anything to stop him from leaving her.

It was the memory of her mother, doing the same thing with Gig, begging, willing to pay any price for peace, that stopped her.

Inside the hotel, Kade stopped, wanting to go back. Ask for Mandy’s hand again, this time using pretty words. Damnation, he was a fool. Jeb would have known better than to state his case so bluntly; he would have quoted poetry, gazed into Mandy’s eyes, told her he loved her, whether it was true or not. Hell, even Rafe, with all his brawling and blundering ways, could have shown him up in the romance department.

He might have turned on his heel and tried another proposal out on Mandy if it hadn’t been for Marvella. She materialized out of the crowd, looking all warm and curvy and willing, and slipped an arm through his.

“You look lonely,” she said.

She had that right. Just then, Kade felt as though the whole universe had dissolved, leaving him with nowhere to stand. “I’d be obliged if you’d dance with me.” The words came out gravelly, making him wish he’d cleared his throat before speaking. Something curdled in the pit of his stomach.

Marvella batted her thick eyelashes and smiled. “Best offer I’ve had all evening,” she said, and pulled him into the flow of dancers.

It wasn’t so bad, squiring Marvella around the floor, and it got better when he caught sight of Mandy out of the corner of his eye, standing just inside the doors and watching him as though she’d never seen him before.

After Marvella, he danced with Abigail, and after that, he lost track, but he was always conscious of Mandy, as if the two of them were linked by an invisible cord. He noticed when she danced with Jeb and seethed with private rage when one soldier after another offered her his arm, but he never once glanced in her direction.

He finally decided on the redhead, Jeanette. He liked her hair, and she made a decent pie.

“Will you marry me?” he asked at the end of a waltz.

She stared at him, flustered at first, then visibly pleased. “Well,” she said. “Yes.”

He squeezed her hand and smiled, wondering why he didn’t just go out behind the hotel and cut his throat. It would have been more direct, and less painful. “Good,” he said. “Let’s get it over with.”

Jeanette blinked. “Now?”

“Why not? I need a wife and a baby, in that order.”

She paled. “What about a courtship?”

“I don’t have time for a courtship.” He could feel Mandy watching him; a flush crept up his neck. He took a firmer grip on Jeanette’s hand and half-dragged her toward the stairway.

She resisted, but only a little. “Mr. McKettrick—”

He looked back at her. “What?” he snapped.

“Where are we going?”

He realized then that she thought he was hauling her straight to bed, and softened slightly. “I’m going to make the announcement.”

“Oh,” she said, and followed more willingly.

It seemed like everybody in the room took note of their progress; Rafe stopped right in the middle of a dance with Emmeline, his eyes watchful, and Angus, Concepcion glowing beside him, wore a curious, faintly amused expression. Kade came to a halt in the middle of the stairs, Jeanette breathless and blushing beside him.

The music stumbled to a tinny halt.

“Jeanette and I are getting married,” Kade said bluntly. “Soon as we can round up the padre.”

The silence was ominous.

Angus frowned and sought Mandy with a piercing gaze. Rafe glowered and raised his eyebrows, and Holt shook his head, looking bewildered. Jeb stood with his arms folded and his face set in stone.

Kade didn’t dare look at any of the other brides. He just hoped none of them were armed.

Somebody clapped, tentatively, and stopped when no one else joined in.

Mandy made her way through the party to stand at the base of the stairs, staring up at Kade.

“All right.” Her voice was quiet, but it seemed to ring from the walls. “You win.”

Jeanette began to fidget. “I don’t think—”

Kade was watching Mandy, unable to look away. He let go of Jeanette’s small, sweaty hand, and she made a dash for it.

As far as Kade was concerned, there was no one else in the world besides him and Mandy. The whole party receded into a dizzying blur of featureless faces and dim colors. “You mean it?” he asked. “You’ll marry me?”

“Fifty horses and whatever you’ve got in your bank account,” Mandy said, looking neither to left nor right, her chin at an obstinate angle. “That’s the deal.”

“What about the baby?”

Her chin rose another notch, her eyes flashed. “That’s something separate.” It didn’t sound as if she meant to give any ground. “If I go, any children we have go with me.”

Kade swallowed. He’d met his match in this woman; life with her would be an up-and-down proposition. Anything could happen. “All right,” he conceded. Somehow, someway, he’d win out over the Wild West shows of the world and make her want to stay. He’d worry about the how part of it later. “All right.” He put out his hand.

Mandy hesitated, then mounted the steps and put her hand in his. Side by side, they faced their baffled audience. Angus’s face came into focus first, and it was at once rigid and hopeful. Plainly, the old man was torn between offering his congratulations and taking a horse whip to his middle son, then and there.

Concepcion, her eyes shining, gave Angus a little push in their direction, but Becky was the first to reach them, hugging Mandy and then Kade. “You got it right after all,” she told Kade. “For a minute there, I was worried.”

Kade waited for his tongue to climb back up out of his throat, then glanced down at Mandy, standing stiffly, her hand hot in his. She indicated Jeanette, cloistered in the center of the little band of brides, with a nod of her head.

“Apologize to that woman,” she said in an undertone, “or I’ll skin you alive.”

“Now?” Kade asked, taken aback. In point of fact, he’d intended to do just that, but it stung that Mandy thought she had to goad him into it.

“Now,” Mandy said.

Kade squared his shoulders, let go of Mandy’s hand, and excused himself as he edged past Becky to do as he was bidden.

The brides, all of them flushed and flashing, planted their feet and wouldn’t have parted to let him through if Jeanette hadn’t pushed her way to the fore.

“I’m sorry,” Kade said. The words were inadequate, but they were all he had to offer at the moment.

To his chagrin, Jeanette smiled. “T hat’s all right.”

“It
isn’t
‘all right,’” Mandy put in from somewhere near Kade’s right elbow. “He used you. He deserves to be put in his place!”

Jeanette’s smile was steady, and Kade wished the floorboards would part so he could drop through. “Looks like you can manage that just fine,” Jeanette said. “Anyway, I want a man who wants me. It’s obvious that Mr. McKettrick prefers you.”

The brides turned away as one, in a sniffing huff. Jeanette lingered a moment, saying nothing, her gracious manner filling Kade with shame, then Holt asked her for a dance, and she let him lead her away into a busy, determined resurrection of music.

“You’re a skunk,” Mandy said, and marched off to dance with a soldier.

A brisk tap on Kade’s shoulder brought him back from the haze.

“May I have a word with you?” Jeb asked amiably. “Outside?”

“Sure,” Kade said, confused.

Jeb made for the doors, and Kade followed. On the sidewalk, in a wash of light from inside, the two brothers faced each other.

“What?” Kade asked, feeling peevish and, at the same time, grateful for a timely rescue.

“This.” And then Jeb landed a haymaker in the middle of Kade’s face, dropping him to his knees.

Kade shook his head, one hand to his bleeding mouth, confused. “What was that for?” he asked, as Jeb helped him to his feet.

“For being an asshole, that’s what,” Jeb hissed back. Then he just stood there, waiting for the fight to begin. “You had no call to shame that woman in front of a whole town.”

“I reckon I had it coming then.” Kade had been wanting a row, and here was his chance, but he couldn’t seem to work up the steam. In Jeb’s place, he would have done the same thing.

Just then, Rafe joined them, coatless and pushing up his sleeves. He stopped when he saw Kade was already bleeding.

“Well, hell,” he said, shifting his narrowed gaze to Jeb for a moment. “You beat me to it.”

“Damned if I didn’t,” Jeb said with grim satisfaction, rubbing his scraped knuckles.

Rafe was never one to leave well enough alone. He jabbed an index finger into the middle of Kade’s chest. “You know better than to treat a lady like that,” he growled. This from a man who had made his wife’s acquaintance while lying on his back in front of a saloon.

“I said I was sorry,” Kade retorted, feeling indignant. It was one thing to take a punch, and another to stand still for a tirade.

“Not sorry enough,” Rafe replied. And then, with no more warning than Jeb had given, he set the heels of both palms against Kade’s chest and shoved him backward into the horse trough.

He came up sputtering, wet to the skin, covered with scum, and mad as a newly castrated bull. Shaking the water from his face, he gripped the sides of the trough and started to thrust himself out, only to be knocked smartly down again, this time by the sole of somebody’s boot making contact with his chest.

He expected to see Rafe when he surfaced again, but the frame looming at the foot of the trough was Holt’s.

“If I were you,” came the familiar Texas drawl, “I’d just stay right there awhile and consider the error of my ways.”

Speechless, Kade looked from Holt to Rafe to Jeb. They all stared back at him, their arms folded, their expressions hard.

“Shit,” he said.

One by one, his brothers turned their backs on him and went into the hotel to rejoin the festivities.

Kade rose slowly out of the water, dripping and cursing under his breath. The bottom of the trough was slippery with algae, and his boots were full. Pride demanded that he follow the three of them inside and have an accounting, but reason protested that he’d already made enough of a fool of himself for one night.

He went to the jailhouse instead, where he had another set of clothes.

Harry and Old Billy stared at him, opened their mouths to ask what had happened. He glared them both into silence.

Gig Curry was not so easily intimidated. Gripping the bars and grinning, he looked Kade up and down. “Looks like you got your comeuppance from somebody,” he said, pleased. “Wish I’d been there to see it.”

Kade peeled off his ruined coat and threw it on the floor with a splat. “Shut the hell up.”

Harry fetched him a dry shirt and trousers from the trunk in the second cell.

“You and Billy can go now,” he told the boy.

Harry’s eyes were wide. “You sure?”

“Just go.”

Reluctantly, they obeyed.

“All these doings have something to do with Mandy?” Gig speculated, when Kade had exchanged wet clothes for dry and commenced to building up the fire in the stove.

Kade ignored him. Slammed the door on the blaze he’d just fed.

“She’s trouble, that little gal,” Curry warned gleefully.

“You’ll get no argument from me, not on that score, at least.”

Wisely, perhaps reading a warning in Kade’s bearing, Curry subsided, but he sat humming in his cell, pleased.