Shotgun Groom (11 page)

doubtful, she muttered, “Blowhard,” and headed for the

steps, figuring it best to leave the conversation on that note.

It was just as wel Joel didn’t have a treat in the kitchen.

Now she could tel Sep about the latest developments.

Chapter Nine

Joel couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling in the pit of his

stomach that something bad was about to happen. The

problem was, he didn’t know what it was or when it would

happen. April and Sep were even quieter than usual during

lunch, and he didn’t think they could get any more quiet than

they already were. If it weren’t for Nora, the entire house

would have been stuck in a strained silence.

Since he’d taken care of Sep’s room, he thought he’d

check out April’s room but didn’t dare without her

permission. So after lunch, he waited until she cleaned up

the kitchen before he approached her. “Do you have

anything that needs fixing in your room?”

“No, the wal s and windows are fine,” she replied from

where she sat in the rocker with Nora settled on her lap.

“What about the furniture?”

Blinking, she directed her attention to him. “Furniture?”

“I can fix more than wal s and windows. I figure before I

leave, I’d get you and your brother’s things in good shape.

Then I’l see the deputy about taking care of that brother-in-

law of yours.”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“Don’t know what? Whether you got furniture that needs

fixing or about the deputy?”

“The deputy. I don’t suppose this is someone who’d be

wil ing to marry me?”

For some reason, the notion that she’d marry anyone—not

just him—bothered him, but he shoved the concern aside.

What did it matter to him? He wasn’t marrying her anyway.

“The deputy is married to my sister.”

She frowned in disappointment.

Resisting the urge to rol his eyes, he added, “I meant that I

can get you some help.”

“You wil get me some help. That help wil be a husband.”

“So I keep hearing, but up until now, you’ve been pretty

insistent that it’s going to be me.”

“That’s because you’re the only one here.” She looked at

him then, and there was no denying the chal enge in her

eyes. “You’ve made it perfectly clear how you feel about the

arrangement, and I agree with you. It’s not ideal. But when

you’re backed into a corner, you take what you can get. If

you know of another man I can marry, preferably one who is

more agreeable, then I’l be happy to swap you two.”

His jaw dropped. “One who is more agreeable?”

“Yes. One who doesn’t feel the need to make clever little

retorts about how my scheming ways won’t win him over.

Not that I’m trying to win you over, mind you. As far as I’m

concerned, you’re like my brother, except I actual y like

him.”

He stared at her for a long moment, unable to believe she

—someone who needed his help in the worst possible way

—would have the nerve to talk to him like this. Then he

recal ed what he said upstairs when she offered him some

cookies and chuckled in disbelief. “Is this because I

wouldn’t eat cookies earlier today?”

“What? Oh, good heavens, no. It has nothing to do with

cookies. It has to do with the games you’re playing.”

“Games?”

“Yes. Games. You keep saying you want to get out of here,

but when you get the chance, you don’t. Then you spend the

day grumbling about how miserable it is to be here while

you go around the place fixing everything you can find that

needs repairing.”

He crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at her. “Wel ,

it’s nice to know my hard work has been appreciated

around here.”

“I do appreciate you fixing things. Sep can only do so much.

He’s got his hands ful around here. But I can only take so

much bel yaching from a grown man before I start to wish

Doctor Adams had someone helping him who was a little

more accepting of marriage.”

“Wel , isn’t that a fine how-d’ye-do! I get forced out here with

a kid who keeps pointing a gun in my direction if he so

much as thinks I’m heading out of here. Even now!” Rushing

to the window, he pul ed aside the curtain and saw Sep

pacing up and down the porch with a rifle in his hand. “Even

now, your irrational brother is out there making sure I can’t

leave. I might be older than him, but I can’t outrun a bul et

and I’ve seen him hit a moving target with that coyote

yesterday. I’m not here because I want to be. I’m here

because I have no choice.”

She let out a slight chuckle and shook her head.

“I don’t care what you believe. It’s the truth.” Deciding he’d

had enough of this conversation, he stormed up the stairs,

muttering, “This is the thanks I get for helping people.

Unbelievable.”

No wonder he thought it was smart to avoid marriage

completely during the whole fiasco when his sister Jenny

married the wrong man. Sure, it turned out wel for them in

the end, but what a bunch of grief it caused in the

meantime. The whole family went into an uproar when they

thought their new brother-in-law was a wanted man. Then,

as if Jenny’s fiasco wasn’t bad enough, there was his

brother Tom who ended up with a fril y pink buggy after he

got married to Jessica, and now his life was run by al

things feminine. He had four children, and every last one of

them were girls. What were the chances? And now Tom

talked about his feelings from time to time. Joel shook his

head as he reached the top of the stairs. Why would he

want to end up tearing up because his daughter said she

loved him?

Then there was Sal y, his other sister, who pretty much

schemed and lied to Rick to get him to marry her. Why Rick

didn’t catch onto what she was doing, Joel never

understood. And his brother Dave had to go across state

lines when his wife was abducted. Who needed that

headache? It just seemed to Joel, with the exception of his

brother Richard’s wife, women brought too many problems

or made men weak. That was something he didn’t need.

Nope. He was happy being a bachelor. Life was less

messy that way, and if nothing else, the situation he was

now stuck in proved it. He’d have to be insane to want to

stick around here for the rest of his life.

Satisfied at the reminder of why he decided to avoid

marriage two years ago, he glanced at his surroundings

and tried to decide what he might do to pass the time until

enough snow melted so he could slip on out of this prison.

His gaze went to the third bedroom. No one ever went in it.

It was always locked. He knew that because he checked on

it from time to time, just to see if anyone did anything with it.

And sure enough, they didn’t. What was in there? Grunting,

he shook his head. What did he care? The third bedroom

only meant this family wasn’t right in the head. No one

locked up a room in their house.

He turned to April’s bedroom and figured he might as wel

go in there and see if there was anything he could fix. If he

didn’t, he’d end up resting on the flimsy second bed in

Sep’s room, and if there was one thing he hated, it was

doing nothing. Granted, he pretended to be lazy while he

was growing up, but that was for a good cause. There was

no reason for him to go into farming so why waste time

doing any more chores than he had to? And that was

another excel ent reason why he shouldn’t marry April. This

house was on a farm, and if he married her, he’d be

expected to farm. Grimacing, he pushed that notion far from

his mind and examined her room.

After a casual inspection of the place, he started

hammering in the side of the loose headboard of April’s

bed when April entered the room with a sleepy Nora. “I

don’t need you to do anything in here.”

Biting his tongue, he finished hammering in the last nail. He

glanced at April who set Nora into the crib and bundled her

up with a blanket. Nora let out a soft, contented sigh and

shut her eyes. April smiled at her and gently rubbed her

back before she added more coal to the box stove. He

hated to admit it, but he did enjoy watching women take

care of their children. There was a certain tenderness in

their actions that reminded him of his childhood when his

mother took care of him.

From downstairs, the front door opened and Sep cal ed out

to April. April jerked and turned her startled gaze in Joel’s

direction. Furrowing his eyebrows, Joel strode toward the

door. Something was going on, and by the anxious look on

her face, he gathered it wasn’t something good.

Before he made it to the door, she blocked his exit. “Wait. I

need to tel you something.”

Sep cal ed out, “They’re here, April!”

“Who’s here?” Joel asked her.

“Look, I know this isn’t something you want, but Lou’s a bad

man and I can’t have him coming back here to hurt us.”

“Lou?” Was that the name of the man whose bloody

handprint was on the railing outside? “Is Lou down there?”

“No.”

He made a move to get by her, but she put her hands on his

chest. Surprised, he stopped. She wasn’t strong enough to

detain him, of course, but he hadn’t expected her to touch

him. “Wel , who’s down there?”

“Come on down, Joel,” Tom yel ed. “Rick came al the way

in from the courthouse to oversee this blessed event.”

Glaring at April, Joel pushed her aside and ran down the

stairs where his brother Tom was standing next to their

brother-in-law who held a book with a piece of paper

sticking partly out of it. Sep stood at the closed door with

his rifle in hand, ready to use it if he had to. Tom had an

annoyingly huge smile on his face. Rick, at least, had the

sense to look serious.

“What are you doing?” Joel demanded as he headed for

Tom.

“Making things easier for you,” Tom replied, stil grinning

like a fool. “Why go through the trouble of finding a preacher

when Rick here can perform the ceremony? There’s no

need to thank me.”

“Thank you?” Joel shouted. “You want me to thank you?”

Tom shrugged. “Once is enough.”

“I don’t believe this!” Joel turned to Rick. “My idiot brother I

understand. Ma dropped him on his head when he was

young.”

“Hey!” Tom protested. “That’s not true. I was only one and

lost my balance while climbing out of Ma’s lap. Besides,

she caught me before anything got hurt.”

“Fine. Maybe if you bumped your head, you would’ve gotten

some common sense in there.” Joel poked Tom’s forehead

before he looked at Rick. “You’re here to get me out of this

house, right? I mean, you can see that the foolish kid over

there keeps pointing that gun at me. He’s been shoving that

thing in my face ever since I got here Tuesday morning to

check on Nora.”

With a sympathetic expression on his face, Rick shook his

head. “I’m sorry, Joel. I can’t do it.”

“What? Why?” Joel glanced over his shoulder as April

stepped into the parlor, her face pale while her eyes darted

from one person to another. Eyes wide, he turned back to

Rick and put his hands up in the air. “It’s not what it looks

like. I was upstairs fixing her headboard. She set Nora in

the crib to take a nap. I wasn’t doing anything up there that I

shouldn’t.”

“I believe you, Joel,” Rick said.

Relieved, Joel put his hands back down at his sides.

“Good. Then there isn’t a problem.”

Wincing, Rick shook his head again. “It’s not as simple as

that. This is the Edwards residence.”

“So?”

“So Harvey Edwards kil ed a man right before he got what

was coming to him. There’s suspicion that his brother was

an accomplice to the murder.”

April rushed forward and shoved Joel aside so she could

stand in front of Rick. “I never heard this.”

“There’s nothing we can do to Harvey now that he’s dead.

“There’s nothing we can do to Harvey now that he’s dead.

The man he kil ed was a wealthy merchant. Lou got away,

but Harvey was shot in a saloon not too long after the

murder. The sheriff is on the lookout for Lou, but no one’s

seen him.”

Tom snapped his suspenders and grinned. “I thought I

recognized the name Lou from somewhere. Owen was

talking about him the other day. I just couldn’t remember the

last name or what he’s suspected of doing.”