Twilight in Texas (9 page)

“You all right?” Wolf yelled to the thin man at his side. The preacher’s clothes flapped like sails in the wind.

“March on, Brother Hayward. March on.” Ford looked like a man who’d never let a little storm slow him from doing the Lord’s work. Or collecting the ten-dollar fee he charged for unplanned weddings after dark.

Wolf smiled. He enjoyed preachers. He considered himself kin to the McLain family his sister, Nichole, married into after the war. One of the McLains was a preacher. Daniel McLain, the kindest man he’d ever met. Who knows, if Molly agreed, he might take her to meet Daniel’s little family. Daniel taught at a college not more than a hard day’s ride from Austin. His wife, Karlee, had just given birth to the second set of McLain twins.

Wolf had always considered his sister, Nichole, his only kin. But that was before he met the McLain brothers. Adam, Wes, and Daniel had sworn him into their family, and he knew he’d always be thought of as blood related.

When he had time, Wolf would set Molly down and tell her about them. She’d understand Adam with his skilled, healing hands. And Wes would charm her as soon as she got past his scarred face. She’d like the McLain women, too. They were all strong like his Molly. Nichole had strapped on a gun belt more than once to stand beside her husband in a fight.

Wolf smiled, thinking of the children, some adopted, some born into the McLains. They made family get-togethers ring with laughter.

The thought of him and Molly not having any children made Wolf forget the rain. She might have done the asking, but she’d made it plain she didn’t want anything but his name. She wasn’t offering her bed. All she needed was a temporary solution to a serious problem.

She probably wouldn’t be around long enough to even meet the friends he thought of as family. There’d be no children, no holidays in a marriage measured in weeks.

He told himself he didn’t care. He’d take his Molly on whatever terms she offered. He told himself nothing mattered but keeping her safe. No one would dare bother her while she wore his ring.

His ring! Damn, he didn’t have a ring.

“You want to slow down some?” Reverend Ford yelled. “I ain’t never seen a man in such a hurry to
get married.”

Wolf stopped so suddenly, the preacher ran into him.

“I forgot the ring!” he yelled over the storm.

Before the preacher could stop him, Wolf waded across the street, now floating a foot deep in mud. “I’ll be right back!” he yelled as he glanced back to see Ford huddle underneath a tin awning over a law office window. The rain wasn’t cold, just wet. Which made it all the more bothersome, to Wolf’s way of thinking. A man would have sense enough to come in out of a cold rain, but a rain like this didn’t stop anyone.

Three businesses down the street, he found a mercantile advertising everything from feed to spectacles. He pounded on the door until the owner answered. Ten minutes later, with a ring in his pocket and mud caked halfway up his legs, Wolf rejoined the pastor.

They continued down the street without a word until they reached Molly’s place.

When Wolf stomped into the drugstore, shedding water like a fully primed pump, she didn’t say a word. She stood at the foot of the stairs in parade dress. Her tailored red jacket and matching gloves could have been a uniform, for there was no softness of lace or gathering. She wore a hat that reminded Wolf of a drawing he saw once of Napoleon. She looked a general’s daughter from the top of her head to the shine on her black boots. He wasn’t sure whether she planned to wed or go to war.

He glanced down at his clothes in comparison. The leather jacket he wore had turned dark brown with rain and smelled somewhat of the animal who first wore it. His hair and beard were thick with natural curl when dry and downright bushy when wet. Mud clung to him by the pound.

He glanced at Molly, who silently stared at him. She was probably wondering whether to marry him or plant him.

Wolf took out his handkerchief and wiped his face as he introduced his future wife to the preacher.

She shook hands nervously then turned to face Wolf. “Will you shave before we marry?”

Wolf watched her closely. He could see the anxiety in her eyes, blended with determination. She was going through with this wedding because she saw no other road to take. He shouldn’t try to fool himself into believing it was for any different reason. “I will not,” he answered. “Does that change your mind about the ceremony?”

“It does not.” She lifted her chin. “Only there will be no kissing afterward. I’ll never kiss a man who isn’t clean-shaven.”

“Fair enough,” he decided. Right now all he wanted to do was marry her and know that she’d be safe. If he shaved before the service, she might refuse to marry him on other grounds. “I’ll do without a kiss.”

The preacher removed his Bible from a pouch beneath his coat and cleared his throat. “We’ll need two witnesses before we start.”

Josh stepped from the kitchen with Callie Ann in tow. “I’ll witness,” he offered as he finished off a biscuit.

Ford nodded. “And one more.”

“I want to be a witness too,” Callie Ann said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “If Mr. Josh is one, I want to be one.”

“I’m afraid you’re too young,” the preacher answered sternly.

“Then Uncle Orson will,” she said. “He’s older than dirt.”

Wolf left the room with Molly trying to explain to Callie Ann why Uncle Orson couldn’t witness and Callie Ann threatening to cry if she didn’t get her way. The preacher muttered what sounded like Bible verses about children. No one, including the child, seemed to be listening.

Walking out the back door of the store onto a small screened-in porch, Wolf grinned as he looked through the rain. Just as he’d hoped, he saw Charlie Filmore huddled beneath the undertaker’s woodshed. He could see the little man’s holey boots propped at one end of a long line of lumber.

“Charlie! Charlie Filmore!” Wolf yelled. “Come here a minute.”

A man less than five feet tall staggered from beneath the wood, dusting shavings from his unruly hair. “I ain’t done nothing, Captain. I swear I ain’t.”

“I didn’t say you had.” Wolf waved him in. “I just need you to witness a wedding.”

Charlie stared at the distance between his warm hiding place and the back porch of Molly’s store. “Does it pay?”

“Two drinks,” Wolf yelled.

“A bottle.”

“Three drinks.” Wolf swore beneath his breath. He was one of the few people in town who didn’t buy Charlie drinks, but the man considered nothing else worth bargaining for. Most men in the saloons would buy him a shot just to have the little man move on down the bar and not linger too long at their side.

“A bottle.” Charlie must have been able to tell even through the rain that he had the upper hand.

“All right. Get over here.”

The drunk wrapped his only blanket over him and limped toward the drugstore’s back entrance.

When he entered, he hung the blanket on a hook meant for coats.

Wolf tried not to react to the shock of seeing Charlie close up. But the damage three bullets had done to his face always startled Wolf at first glance.

Charlie told folks he considered himself the luckiest man alive. He’d fought in four battles of the war and been shot and left among the dead three times. Death certificates had already been signed before he managed to convince them he still lived. The fourth time he went into battle he’d made it through the day without a scratch and drank himself to sleep to celebrate. An hour later, a supply wagon loaded down with wounded drove over his legs, breaking the bones in so many places they never healed completely. After that, Charlie quit the war and went on to his chosen career of town drunk.

“Where’s the bottle?” When Charlie smiled, his face looked even more distorted. He was a walking reminder to every man who fought off the nightmares of war.

“You’ll get it after you witness. You can write your name on the marriage certificate, can’t you?”

Charlie looked insulted. “I went to fourth grade. Not all my brains splattered out. I can write my name forward and backward.” He lifted his chin. “Besides, I know all about certificates. I got three death certificates with my name on them. I reckon I was the dyingest man in the war.”

“Forward will do. Come on.” Wolf had to wonder about a man whose only source of pride lay in dying.

Wolf hoped he looked apologetic as he brought Charlie in. He probably should have taken the time to find someone respectable, or at least a person who bathed yearly, but he was afraid Molly might change her mind if there were many more delays. He hoped she’d seen the man before or she might scream. Charlie had caused more than one woman around town to faint when he’d appeared during daylight hours.

To Molly’s credit, she only blinked as Charlie stepped from behind Wolf.

Wolf thought the preacher might break into a full round of fire-and-brimstone preaching when he took one look at Charlie. He shook like he might be the one to turn and run, but Callie Ann broke Pastor Ford’s trance by hurrying over to Charlie and shaking his hand.

“Evening, Mr. Charlie. I’m glad you came inside. Uncle Orson worried about you being out there
in the rain.”

Charlie patted the child’s head. “I’m dry enough. Tell Orson thanks for the worry, though.”

“Did you come in to be a witness?”

Charlie stood a little taller. “I reckon I did.”

“They wouldn’t let me. Uncle Orson and I are the watchers. Which is a very important thing to have at a wedding. But not as important as being a witness.”

Charlie’s grin sent one side of his face into a thousand wrinkles. “Maybe you’ll grow up to be a witness if you do a good job as a watcher.”

“Maybe.” Callie Ann moved to the counter and climbed atop Molly’s work stool. “I’m ready,” she said as if they’d all been waiting for her to start watching.

The preacher cleared his throat and positioned himself so he didn’t have to look at Charlie during the service. “Shall we begin? Captain Hayward, Miss Donivan, are you both ready?”

Charlie snorted. “Captain, you the one getting married?”

Wolf glared at the little man in what he hoped was a threat-of-death stare. “I am, and I’ll remind you, Charlie Filmore, you are a witness, not a participant.”

Charlie nodded and tried his best to stand straight and sober.

“We’re ready,” Molly answered the preacher as she placed her gloved hand on Wolf’s arm.

Wolf didn’t hear most of the words. He kept saying over and over in his mind that he was marrying Molly. His Molly. It didn’t matter about his clothes or how he looked; she was standing up with him.

The preacher stopped to ask their given names, but Wolf just said Wolf would do and Ford didn’t argue, saying only that as long as he used proper names on the paper that was enough.

When it came time to put the ring on, Wolf’s hand shook for the first time in his life. The plain gold band looked perfect on Molly’s long slender finger and she smiled that he’d thought of such a detail.

“It’s lovely,” she whispered. “I’ll give it back whenever you ask.”

“Promise you’ll wear it until then,” Wolf answered, ignoring the preacher’s shocked expression at her comment.

“I promise.”

Brother Ford collected the signatures of Charlie and Josh while Wolf and Molly faced one another. He wasn’t sure what to do. She’d said there would be no kissing, and he had a feeling Molly usually meant every word she said. But he thought they should do something, and shaking hands seemed a little odd for two people who’d just said they would “love, honor and obey.”

“Mrs. Hayward,” he said close to her ear, “would you have any objection to a hug?”

She lifted her gaze to his. “I would not.” Her hands rose to rest on his shoulders.

Wolf closed the distance between them, lifting her off the ground and into his embrace. She laughed as he hugged her, twirling her around as though she were weightless.

His Molly felt as she had all those years ago. A perfect fit in his arms.

M
OLLY DRESSED
C
ALLIE
A
NN FOR BED
and sat beside her long after the child drifted off to sleep. The little princess had been in Molly’s life only a few days, yet somehow she and her strange ways had become a part of Molly’s routine. She’d be sad when Wolf put the child, and her invisible uncle, on the stage to another stop. Another relative.

Moonlight filtered in through the designs in the lace curtains of the windows, making the walls a gallery of pale shapes and forms. All that had happened during the day circled around Molly amid the shadowy patterns.

“What have I done?” she whispered to the empty bunk below the girl’s bed.

Uncle Orson didn’t seem any more inclined to answer than he did to appear.

Leaning against the wall, Molly closed her eyes. She was a rational woman, never given to unpredictability or foolishness. She liked everything organized and planned. Even during the war, when traveling with her father, they’d always functioned with rules and routine. Molly knew what to do. What was expected of her.

But these past few days something had happened in her world…something far more than the threats against her and the store and even greater than finding herself truly alone for the first time.