Three Times a Bride

Catherine Anderson
Loretta Chase
Samantha James

Contents

Catherine Anderson

Fancy Free

In Pursuit of a Scandalous Lady

About the Authors

Other Romances

Copyright

About the Publisher

Fancy Free

Catherine Anderson

Prologue

Clint Rafferty strode across the worn boardwalk in front of the Golden Goose Saloon and shoved open the bat-wing doors. It was hot and noisy inside, reminding him of the bowels of hell that Preacher Wells thundered about on Sunday. As he’d expected, the place was full, a usual occurrence at half past ten Saturday night, and the hazy, lantern-lit interior reeked of tobacco smoke, unwashed bodies, and cheap perfume.

A girl in a blue gown stood nearby, as though placed there to greet patrons. As soon as she spied Clint, her painted mouth curved into a smile and her glittering blue eyes narrowed. “Looking for company, cowboy?” she asked, sidling his way.

Clint inclined his head politely, his mother’s teachings still strong in him even at the age of twenty-seven. “No, ma’am,” he drawled. “I’m lookin’ for my brother.”

“Is that a fact?”

Clint reined in his impatience. Though he had no quarrel with how this soiled dove or any other made her living, he’d never felt the need to pay for a woman’s attention—especially when he was tired and hungry and had a good two hours of chores awaiting him at home. “That is a fact.”

He glanced past her toward the bar. Sure enough, there stood Matthew leaning against the polished top as if for support, his thick ebony hair lying in sweat-damp waves over his high forehead. From the looks of the kid, he was already sloppy drunk.

Clint muttered an oath under his breath.

“Are you two twins or something?” she asked, glancing back and forth between the two Rafferty men.

Folks had claimed for years that he and Matt were dead ringers for each other, and Clint guessed there were similarities. They shared the same square chin, high cheekbones, smoky eyes and black hair. But there the similarities ended. When Clint smiled, which wasn’t often, no one seemed to care. But when Matt flashed that lopsided, lazy grin of his, the whole world seemed to smile with him, especially the female half, many of whom tended to go weak at the knees as well. Even now there was a woman hanging on Matt’s opposite arm—a cute little redhead with big green eyes. She went by the name of Dora Faye, if Clint recollected right.

“I’ve got seven years on him,” he explained to the soiled dove, a fact that seemed to surprise her. No sense adding that he’d spent those seven years trying to be both mother and father to Matthew and all his other brothers.

“Then this is your lucky night, sugar,” she muttered, “because I just happen to be extra partial to older men.”

“Thanks for the offer, but I’ve got hungry horses to feed and a ledger to balance yet to night,” Clint cut in before she could suggest he buy them both a drink.

She gave him a look of disappointment before shrugging one bare white shoulder. “The offer’s always open. Just ask for Maydeen.”

“I just might do that sometime.”

Picking his way through the milling bodies, Clint headed in Matthew’s direction. Here lately, Matt’s drinking sprees had become a weekly occurrence. Damn the kid’s hide. He knew about the Rafferty weakness for alcohol. Hadn’t he stood at Clint’s side when they’d lowered their pa into his grave five years past? The old man had drunk himself to death, for Christ’s sake, not to mention that his drinking had left his sons penniless. Unable to make the mortgage payments, they had lost the old home place back in Ohio and wouldn’t have had a roof over their heads if not for their moving west to find land they could homestead. By the sweat of all their brows, they were finally starting to get ahead, no thanks to their father, and now here was Matt following in the old man’s footsteps.

Clint’s first impulse was to grab his brother by the collar and shake him. Instead he elbowed his way in beside him and propped a heel on the boot rail. “Matt, the cattlemen’s meetin’ is over. I reckon it’s about time we thought about headin’ home.”

Matt turned slowly, his gray blue eyes slightly out of focus, his usually firm mouth lax at the corners. “Clint?” he asked, his tone indicating that he was none too sure.

“Who else?” Clint couldn’t stifle a smile as he slowly waved a hand in front of his brother’s nose. “You in there, Matthew?”

“Last time I checked, I was.” Matt hiccupped, then grinned down at the woman on his other side. “This here pretty lady has been kind enough to buy me a drink, haven’t you, darlin’?”

Dora Faye darted a look at Clint’s face. “Evenin’, Mr. Rafferty,” she said in a surprisingly subdued tone. “I didn’t realize that you were in town, too.”

“Old Clint here, he came in for a meeting with the other big boys,” Matt joked, his voice slurring. “Ain’t that right, Brother?”

“Right.”

Matt licked his lips, then frowned. “I di’n’t think you frequented places like this.”

“I don’t usually. That doesn’t mean I never do.” Clint glanced at the glass of whiskey in front of his brother. Not a jigger but a tumbler, for Christ’s sake, and half full at that. The last thing Matt needed was more liquor.

Moving quickly so his brother wouldn’t anticipate what he meant to do, he reached for the glass. “You don’t mind sharin’, do you? The old whistle’s a little dry.”

As Clint curled his hand around the tumbler, Dora Faye caught hold of his wrist. “Say, there, Mr. Rafferty.” She inclined her head at the whiskey jug. “Let me pour you your own drink. We’ve got plenty, and more where this came from.”

Wasn’t that just the problem? Casting a jaundiced eye at the whiskey jug, Clint saw that the container was three-quarters empty. Little wonder Matt was drunk.

“I don’t mind drinking after my brother,” he informed the soiled dove, forcing a grin. “Besides, it looks to me like he’s had about enough.”

For just an instant, her grip seemed to tighten on his wrist. Then, with a nervous smile and a flash of her green eyes, she released him, muttering something under her breath that he couldn’t quite catch. Tipping the glass to her in a mock toast, Clint tossed down the liquor, then clenched his teeth at the burn. “Not bad.”

Grabbing the bottle, Matt poured another measure of whiskey, some of which sloshed over the edge of the glass onto the bar. “Go ahead, Clint. Enjoy. Like Dora Faye says, there’s always more where this came from.”

Though Clint could have done without another drink, he didn’t want his brother to consume what remained in the bottle, either. Making no objection, he drained the glass a second time and said nothing when Matt filled it with liquor yet again. Unfortunately, as he set the tumbler down for the third time, Matt signaled the bartender for a new jug.

“Forget it, Matt—you’ve had enough,” Clint suggested softly. “Let’s just call it a night, pard, and head on home.”

“Don’t go tryin’ to play mama, big brother. I’m a little old for coddlin’.”

“Coddlin’ is the last thing on my mind.” Clint clamped a hand over his brother’s shoulder and gave him a jostle. “It’s late, and we’ve both had a full day. It’s best we go home now, okay? Build us a fire, brew us some coffee. It’ll be nice for a change.”

“You go ahead.” Matt slipped an arm around Dora Faye’s waist. “As the old sayin’ goes, the night is still young.” The slightly built barmaid caught him from stumbling as he shifted his weight toward her and released his hold on the bar. “I’ll be home in the mornin’, Clint. Bright ’n’ early, and none the worse for wear, I promise.”

Clint knew better. After a few more drinks, Matt would pass out and sleep until late tomorrow, whereupon he would awaken sick to his stomach and with a terrible headache.

“I guess I was just hopin’ to have some company on the ride home,” Clint tried. “We hardly ever get any time together when we’re not working anymore.”

“Maybe next time,” Matt suggested. With that, he bent to nuzzle Dora Faye’s ear. To keep them both from falling, she leaned into him with all her weight. “Hey, honeybee,” he said. “How’s about we go upstairs?”

Clint drew his hand from his brother’s shoulder. “Well, I guess I’ll be moseyin’.”

Matt, who had abandoned Dora Faye’s ear to nibble on her neck, didn’t bother to respond. Heavy of heart, Clint stood there, reluctant to leave, yet knowing Matt was old enough to make his own choices. He finally turned away when he saw his brother signal the barkeep for another jug. For better or worse, Matt was on his own.

Pushing the bat-wing doors open with one shoulder, Clint spilled out onto the boardwalk and took a bracing breath. Instead of clearing, however, his head seemed to fog over even more, a result of the whiskey he rarely consumed, he decided sourly.

Letting the doors swing shut behind him, he turned left along the boardwalk, his heels tapping out a hollow-sounding tattoo on the weathered wood. From between the buildings, stripes of silvery moonlight spilled across the walkway, marking his progress.

Glancing up Main, he saw lights at only a few windows. It was almost midnight. Most families had settled in for the night. The thought made him feel sad and hollow inside. Not long ago, all the Raffertys would have been home in bed as well.

Not long ago? He squeezed his eyes closed, remembering what it had been like when his folks were alive. Wonderful, home-cooked meals. Lace curtains at the windows. The sound of laughter. Six years had passed since his ma’s death, five since his da had joined her. In actuality, it wasn’t so very long a time, yet to Clint, who’d shouldered the responsibility for his younger brothers, it seemed an eternity.

Pausing in front of the mercantile, he gazed with an ache of yearning at the window display, illuminated by the moon. Bess Harrison, the proprietor’s wife, who was very talented with her hands, had fashioned a miniature kitchen on the opposite side of the glass. The cheery scene made him think of the drab, austere atmosphere awaiting him at home. No cheery kitchen, no place settings, no flowers, no lace curtains. It took a woman’s touch to make a house cozy, and that the Raffertys sorely lacked.

Not for the first time, Clint found himself wondering if he shouldn’t get married. Maybe Matt wouldn’t find it necessary to stay in town so much if his home were more pleasant. Since moving to Shady Corners, Clint had accomplished a lot, but most of the improvements he’d made were on the land. The house needed fixing, and six-year-old Cody needed a mother. Even Daniel, next youngest at fourteen, was showing signs of growing up uncivilized, a result, Clint figured, of his own inadequate parenting skills.

But damn! He was a rancher, not a nursemaid. He knew cows and horses, and on occasion, how to prod his lazy brothers into pulling their own weight. But Cody and Daniel still had bad dreams about their parents’ deaths that Clint didn’t know how to soothe and temper tantrums he didn’t understand. Worst of all were the nights Cody cried himself to sleep from sheer misery because Clint didn’t know how to comfort him.

That was one of the main reasons Clint had written to his great-aunt Hester a few months back. She was a kindly woman who’d never been blessed with children of her own. Now that she was widowed, he was hoping she’d be interested in leaving Ohio and starting a new life with them here in Oregon. So far, though, she hadn’t answered his letter, and now so much time had gone by that he was beginning to doubt she ever would. Which led him right back to his original thought, that maybe he should get married.

Resuming his pace along the boardwalk, he tried to imagine what it would be like to have a female in the house again. Better, he guessed. Probably a lot better. It would definitely be nice to come in of an evening to a hot, home-cooked meal, and it sure couldn’t hurt to have someone around to keep up with the laundry. With eight people contributing, the pile of unwashed clothes seemed mountainous. Yep. No question about it; having a woman around the house would be a big improvement.

The way his luck had been running lately, however, none of the pretty, sought-after young ladies hereabouts would be interested in taking on such a large, ready-made, and admittedly rowdy family of males, and he’d be forced to settle for some homely girl no one else wanted.

It was a singularly unappealing thought.

One

Heart pounding in her throat, Rachel Constantine stared at her intended victim as he drew abreast of her on the opposite boardwalk. She would have been pleased to see him stagger just a little, anything to assure her he had indeed been drugged. As it was, it was difficult to tell he’d even had anything to drink.

With a sigh, she plucked her wire-framed spectacles from her nose and stashed them in her skirt pocket. From here on, she would have to settle for looking at Rafferty through a blur. Better that than risk being seen wearing eyeglasses. Most men didn’t find ladies with poor eyesight attractive, and for to night, at least, it was vitally important that Rachel be a femme fatale. Drat! Why did he look so sober? Had something gone wrong inside the saloon? Maybe he wasn’t drugged, after all. Just the thought made her pulse race even faster and her knees go weak.

Biting her lip, she cast a glance at the saloon. To her relief, she saw Dora Faye standing inside the doors, signaling just as they had planned, to let her know everything had gone smoothly. Unless Matt Rafferty had the constitution of an ox, he would be unconscious in a few minutes. Rachel smiled into the darkness. From her hiding place in the shadows, it would do no good to wave back at her friend, so she made a mental note to stop by the saloon tomorrow to thank Dora Faye profusely. None of this would have been possible without her help.

As Rafferty moved past the mercantile, he slowed to a stop, standing in silhouette against the moon-washed glass. Rachel squinted to see him better, then wished she hadn’t. He seemed taller than she remembered, maybe a little broader across the chest and shoulders as well. Just a trick of moonlight and shadow, she assured herself. Don’t go letting your nerves get the best of you.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t that simple. Matt Rafferty was walking, talking trouble, definitely not the type a decent young woman approached without some measure of trepidation. Nevertheless, the man couldn’t be allowed to go around humiliating young girls and breaking their hearts. At the very least, he deserved to be taken to task. Because her fourteen-year-old sister Molly was his latest victim, Rachel felt that it was her job to do just that. Hence, the plan she’d concocted with Dora Faye’s assistance.

As surefooted as a prospector’s mule, Rafferty stepped off the boardwalk to cross the street. Watching him come toward her, Rachel felt her mouth go dry. This was it. Going down the list of dos and don’ts Dora Faye had given her, she stepped out from the shadow of the general store. “Well, hello, Mr. Rafferty!” she called, trying for a flirtatious twitter. “What a pleasant surprise!”

Evidently taken off guard, he broke stride and came to a slow stop. Without her eyeglasses, Rachel knew she tended to look a bit owlish, so she tried not to open her eyes too wide. As she closed the distance between them, his blurry edges took on better definition. No doubt about it, the man was bigger than she cared to admit.

“Rachel Constantine? Rachel Constantine, the marshal’s daughter?”

Giving a throaty laugh, just as Dora Faye had taught her, she said, “How many Rachel Constantines do you think there are in Shady Corners, a baker’s dozen?”

He seemed baffled by the question. Clearly, his thought processes were muddled, a sign the valerian Dora Faye had put in his whiskey was taking effect.

She drew up a few feet shy of him and struck a seductive pose. It was hard to remember all that Dora Faye had taught her—how to move, stand, and smile.

“Trust me, sir,” she informed him in a twittery little voice, “there is only one Rachel Constantine. My pa says that after me, they broke the mold.”

She immediately wanted to call back the words. Irresistible temptresses did not talk about their fathers. Even she knew that.

Though the eight Rafferty brothers had been living in the area for nearly a year now, her eyesight was such that she’d never gotten close enough to get a good look at any of them. It seemed to her that tongues had been buzzing forever about how handsome they all were. She was absolutely dying to see what all the fuss was about.

Not that she was personally interested. Goodness, no. She had her eye on Lawson Wells, the minister’s son. Tall, painfully thin, and nearly as blind as she, he was about as far from handsome as a body could get. Consequently, he was sweet and thoughtful and caring, all the things Matt Rafferty obviously wasn’t, no doubt because he was so handsome he felt he had no need to be. A pox on handsome men: that was Rachel’s motto.

Even so, she was curious. At the risk of appearing myopic, she leaned closer so she could see his face more clearly and judge his looks for herself. No question about it, he was handsome. A bit older looking than expected, but she imagined working outdoors and drinking heavily would make anyone look older than he actually was.

Even shaded by his hat, his smoky blue eyes glistened in the moonlight like raindrops shot through with lightning. Thick waves of ebony hair fell lazily across his forehead, and whether it was a trick of light or an actual cast to his skin, he looked to be deeply tanned. Oh, yes, he was handsome, but not in the usual way. There was something about him, a lethal edge, that made her wary. Dangerous. Matt Rafferty wasn’t merely dreamy, as rumor painted him, but dangerous. Little wonder poor Molly had come away lacerated and heartsick.

Rachel didn’t like the way he studied her—a lazy appraisal, his eyes glinting as if at some private joke. It seemed at odds with the stories she’d heard, namely that he was a charmer. Instead, he was making her feel awkward and more than a little frightened, which seemed more in keeping with the stories she had heard about his older brother, Clint. Now there was a man to avoid, always serious, never smiling. His gray-blue eyes could sear right through a woman, according to her friends.

After completing the slow appraisal of her person, Matt flicked his gaze to hers and said in a deep, silken voice, “That must’ve been quite some mold, sweetheart.”

Mentally, Rachel stumbled about, trying to make sense of his comment. In her bewilderment, she forgot all about looking owlish. Lands, he was attractive. No wonder poor little Molly had gotten a crush on him. “Pardon?”

A smile flickered across his firm mouth. “The mold that got broke after they made you? Judging by the results, it must’ve been quite some mold.”

“Oh!” Rachel gave a horrified little laugh. “That mold. So much time passed that—well, I totally forgot—” She realized she was babbling and waving her hands like a lunatic. She punctuated the inanity with another shrill laugh.

“What are you doing out at this time of night? Good little girls like you should be home in bed with the covers tucked up to their chins.”

Coming from any other man, the appellation “little girl” would have infuriated her. At eighteen, she was still new enough to womanhood to be easily offended if someone insinuated she wasn’t yet an adult. Not so with Matt Rafferty. Compared to him, she’d be a child at ninety. In the silvery gloom, his features, sharp, uncompromising, and blatantly male, looked as if they had been carved from polished mahogany, giving his face a hardness that made her pulse skitter.

“Maybe I’m not the good little girl you think I am.”

Touching a fingertip to the edge of his hat, he nudged back the brim and arched one black eyebrow. “Is that so?”

Shoving her hand into her skirt pocket, she curled her fingers around her spectacles and raised her chin a notch. Swamped with old resentments, she glared at him through the gloom, remembering another man who had laughed at her.

“It’s been my observation that good little girls don’t have very much fun.”

“True,” he agreed with a slow grin, “but, then, most good little girls don’t realize what they’re missing.”

“Well, I do.”

Judging by the way one corner of his mouth twitched, that proclamation amused him. “Oh, really? And who was the lucky fellow?”

Rachel couldn’t see how any one fellow played into it. “Pardon?”

He chuckled, the sound a low murmur from deep in his chest.

“Is it a private joke, Mr. Rafferty, or will you share it with me?”

“It’s nothing, really. Just that you answered my question.”

“What question?”

“As to whether or not you realize what you’re missing. I have a hunch you don’t.”

Rachel’s chin went up another notch. “If not, why would I be here?”

“Good point. Care to enlighten me?”

“Because I’m tired of living a dull existence, that’s why.”

His full but firm mouth tipped up at one corner again. The grin had scarcely left his lips when he yawned. He pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. When he looked at her again, his eyes were a little unfocused. “So you’re tired of a dull existence, are you? Why do I have this feelin’ you’re hopin’ I’ll remedy that?”

“Possibly because I am.” Rachel affected a sultry smile and tried not to think about the seconds that were racing by. “Who better than you when a girl’s lookin’ for an exciting experience? I hear tell you’re a carefree fellow and always game.”

“You must have me confused with someone else, darlin’. Carefree isn’t in my vocabulary, especially not when it comes to you. I have an aversion to bein’ locked up, you see. A man’d have to be crazy to mess with Big Jim Constantine’s daughter.”

“Don’t tell me you’re scared of my pa?”

“Damned straight.” His mouth tipped into another teasing grin that flashed perfectly straight white teeth. “And scared I’ll stay as long as he’s wearin’ that badge.”

“But, Mr. Rafferty, my pa’s never gonna know about this. You have my word.”

“He ain’t gonna know because there ain’t gonna be a this,” he said with a laugh.

Driven to brazenness by sheer desperation, Rachel stepped closer to him. Recalling Dora’s instructions, she hooked a finger under the front placket of his shirt. She couldn’t help but notice how iron hard his flat belly felt against her knuckles.

Trying to remember all that her friend had told her to say, she crooned, “I know this is going to sound terribly forward, but I can’t help myself, Mr. Rafferty. I want you.”

His smile deepened. “Say what?”

Rachel wiggled closer, not at all sure she liked the tingling sensation in her nipples as she grazed his shirt with her bodice. “I want you.” She paused, trying to remember the other things Dora had suggested she say. “I’ll do whatever I have to. Deep and slow, or hard and fast, however suits you, I’m yours for the taking.”

He gave another low laugh. “All right. I’ll bite. Why?”

His response was so unexpected that Rachel’s heart leaped. “What?”

Stressing each word as if she were an imbecile, he said, “Why do you want me?”

Of all the questions she and Dora had anticipated he might ask, this wasn’t one of them. The truth was, Rachel didn’t have a clue why any female would be attracted to him. Oh, he was handsome, she’d give him that, but he was also a little terrifying.

“Because you fascinate me,” she blurted, which was the unvarnished truth. She was fascinated by him—in a morbid sort of way.

“Why are you fascinated?”

“Because you’re exciting.”

Even in the moonlight, she saw his eyes twinkling. He chucked her under the chin. “More exciting than you can handle. Go home, honey. If you want to cut your teeth on some poor fellow, go gnaw on your little friend Lowry, the minister’s son. He won’t bite back. I just might.”

“Lawson, his name is Lawson. And he’s not the one I’m interested in.”

He touched the brim of his hat. “G’night, sweet cheeks. I appreciate the offer. It’s mighty generous and about as sweet a proposition as I’ve ever had. But, unfortunately, I’m going to have to pass.”

With that, he started to walk away. Rachel saw him sway slightly before he caught himself. Filled with a sense of urgency, knowing that this chance would be forever lost unless she acted fast, she grabbed his arm. “Please, don’t go! Please?”

He swung back around. In a tone that was suddenly serious, he said, “Rachel, I told you to go home.” He paused for a moment as if to let that sink in. “If you’re smart, you’ll run, not walk. From the way I’m startin’ to feel, I’d say I’ve had a little too much to drink, and you’re too tempting by half. My head isn’t real clear. When a man can’t think straight, he doesn’t have as much willpower as he ought. Keep on, and I’m liable to accept your offer. We’ll both regret it come morning, you more so than me.”

Rachel had news for him: he would be the one with regrets. “What can I do to make you change your mind?” She pressed her body against his. “I’ve already thrown myself at your feet. Don’t humiliate me more by walking away.”

“Christ!” Teeth clenched, jaw muscle twitching, he squeezed his eyes shut.

Rachel rubbed herself against him more insistently. “Please?”

“Damn it, girl,” he said in a gravelly voice, “go home. Play with fire and you’re bound to get burned.”

“Oh, yes, if you’re the fire, I want to be burned. Please, I wan—”

He vised an arm around her waist and settled his mouth over hers. For an instant, she wasn’t sure what had happened. Slowly, measure by measure, her stunned mind began to register sensations: his mouth, hot and silken, pressed firmly against hers; his arm cinched around her waist; his hand splayed over her back; his fingertips curled over her side; his steely thighs bracing hers. Fire didn’t describe Matt Rafferty. A blazing inferno, more like. She felt as though she were being consumed.

Just last week, she’d finally permitted Lawson to kiss her. The techniques of the two men were about as much alike as warm milk and jalapeño juice. In Lawson’s arms, Rachel had felt safe and faintly bored. In Matt’s, she felt as if she were dangling from a cliff, he her only anchor. His kiss was hard and demanding. There was no shyness in him, no hesitation, only steely determination. Beneath her hands, which she’d instinctively brought up to push him away, his chest was roped with muscle that lay rigid under a layer of firm yet resilient male flesh. His torso was like an unyielding wall of granite, crushing her breasts, making her intensely aware that her body was far more sensitive and vulnerable than his.

When he finally drew back, Rachel gasped for breath, her gaze startled. “Are you still sure you want to be burned?” he demanded gruffly. “I’m warnin’ you—think carefully before you answer. There comes a point where there is no turnin’ back, you know, and I’ve about reached it.”

It occurred to Rachel in that moment that he had deliberately kissed her roughly to frighten her away and that now he expected her to bolt. Well, she didn’t scare quite that easily. He burned hot, all right, but thanks to some whiskey laced with valerian, his flame would soon flicker out. The most he could do in the time he had left was singe her edges a bit.

“Oh, yes,” she whispered, “I still want to be burned.”

For just an instant, he hesitated, his gaze delving deeply into hers as if he searched for answers. Then, as if he’d found them, he bent his head and settled his mouth over hers again, more gently this time, but with even more devastating impact.

Two

Wet silk. Cool fire. Icy flames licked Rachel’s skin, making her burn and shiver.

“Part your lips, sweetheart,” Matt Rafferty whispered urgently against her mouth.

Afraid to deny him for fear he’d guess that her seductive act was all a ruse, she did as he told her. The next thing she knew, his tongue slipped past her teeth. Shock snapped her body taut. She made fists on his shirt front. As if he sensed her startlement, he drew back to nibble lightly at her lower lip. “It’s all right. Just trust me.”

Rachel would have sooner trusted a snake, but deep within her, everything that was feminine responded to the husky timber of his voice. When he kissed her again, she parted her lips, allowing him to taste her mouth. He plundered the sensitive flesh, tickling the roof of her mouth and drawing sharply on her tongue, forcing it to dance with his in a rhythmic thrust that made her belly tighten and tingle in a strange way.

The unfamiliar sensation frightened her, but when she tried to end the kiss, she discovered that he’d curled a hand over the back of her head. She remembered his warning, that after a certain point, there was no turning back. Fighting down panic, she reminded herself he’d lose consciousness soon. But somehow that wasn’t very reassuring. A flash fire could cover a lot of ground in a few short minutes.

His breathing was uneven with need, and when she writhed to disengage herself from his embrace, he moaned, the sound catching and quivering at the base of his throat. Another wave of panic surged within her when he slid his hand from her back to her side, his fingertips searching out the shape of her breast and homing in on its peak. She jerked at the contact and managed, finally, to draw her mouth from under his.

“Christ,” he whispered against her cheek, each huff of his breath as hot and moist against her skin as the steam from coffee. Through the layers of her clothing, he staked claim to the hardened tip of her nipple, tugging and rolling the sensitive flesh. Rachel was so stunned by the feelings that rocked her, she couldn’t breathe, let alone protest. “Ah, sweetheart,” he rasped against her temple. “I want that in my mouth.”

Given the location of his hand, there was little doubt in Rachel’s mind what part of her anatomy he referred to. The very thought appalled her.

“I bet you’re as sweet there as sun-warmed honey.”

The picture that had begun to form in Rachel’s mind was so indecent she nearly kicked him. How dare he even suggest—well, no woman, lady or otherwise, would engage in such outrageous conduct. She jerked his hand from her breast. Because she didn’t dare reveal what was actually on her mind, she settled for saying, “Mr. Rafferty, we are standing in the middle of the street where anyone might see us.”

“Then let’s find someplace private,” he murmured near her ear. “It’s not every day I have Rachel Constantine beggin’ me to make love to her.”

He had that much correct, at least. With careful maneuvering, she managed to get some space between their bodies. Cheeks afire, she found it difficult to meet his gaze, so instead she focused on his nose. Even in the dim light, she noticed that there was a knot along its bridge. She wondered if he’d broken it in a fight. Given his reputation as a scrapper, he probably had.

“How about if we go to the church?” she suggested shakily.

“Where?”

By his shocked tone, she guessed he had understood her perfectly. “The church,” she repeated. “It’s as private a place as we’re likely to find.”

“The church?” He gave a sharp laugh. “I’m not usually what you’d call a finicky man, but that’s not exactly my idea of a suitable spot, darlin’.”

“Of course it’s suitable. One might even say perfect! Just think. Who ever goes there at this hour on a Saturday night? Even Preacher Wells is home in bed.”

“That’s true, but—”

“Just think of all those pews, those lovely pews, empty and waiting. It’ll be dark in there. We can have hours and hours of uninterrupted privacy.” On that last word, Rachel squeezed her eyes closed for a second and sent up a quick, frantic prayer that he wasn’t going to be difficult. “It’ll be wonderful, just wait and see.”

He traced the shape of her ear with the tip of his tongue. “It just doesn’t seem right somehow, fornicating in a holy place.”

Of all the things she had planned on, Matt Rafferty having scruples wasn’t one of them. Thinking quickly, she said, “Oh, pshaw. Paint and wood, that’s all. It’s the folks gathering inside the building that makes it holy, not the structure itself. A barn would be just as sacred if people gathered there to worship.”

“A barn?”

“Or any other building. Trust me, if we use the church, God won’t mind a bit.”

He laughed again, more mellowly. “Why do I have this feelin’ you’re bent on doin’ it on a church pew?”

Rachel assumed an impish smile and leaned back. “It’s a wonderfully wicked idea, isn’t it? And, oh, I do so want to be wicked. Deliciously wicked…with you.”

It seemed to her that he was beginning to lean his weight more heavily against her. “Then let’s go,” he said. “Oh, and by the way, hard and fast.”

“What?”

“Hard and fast,” he repeated, bringing his face closer to hers as he spoke. “You gave me a choice, remember? Deep and slow or hard and fast. I’ll take hard and fast.”

Rachel shoved against his shoulders, but it was like trying to hold back a mountain. “Um…Mr. Rafferty?” She twisted her face to one side so that his hot, silken lips landed harmlessly on her ear again. Or maybe not so harmlessly. He caught her lobe between his teeth and—Rachel gulped. Oh, dear God. He was sucking on her earlobe. “Mr. Rafferty?” she tried again, fighting off panic. “Not out here. We have to go to the church, remember?”

“Oh, yeah…”

He straightened so abruptly that he staggered, carrying her along with him. She hugged his waist and struggled to regain her balance, terrified he might fall. If he landed on top of her—well, she’d be in a pickle, and no mistake. He was well over six feet tall, and probably outweighed her by close to a hundred pounds.

“Lead the way, ma’am.” He stepped aside and swept his hat from his head in an unsteady bow. “Believe me, makin’ love to such a pretty lady will be my pleasure.”

Rachel grabbed his arm, helped him get his hat back on, and then struck off for the church, an endeavor she quickly learned was going to take far longer than she had estimated. For every step Matt Rafferty took forward, he executed anywhere from two to a dozen in either direction sideways, dragging Rachel with him.

The possibility that he might collapse in the street became more of a threat with each passing moment. If that happened, she could still steal his trousers and leave him where he lay to sleep it off, but it wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying as having him wake up in church. After his public rejection of Molly, he deserved to be repaid with the ultimate humiliation. On that thought, Rachel felt him sway again. She was a little amazed at how suddenly the sedative seemed to be hitting him now.

He draped his arm over her shoulders for support. “I think I’m drunk. Not just a little, but real drunk.”

“Really?” she asked, feigning incredulity.

“My senti—sendimun—well, shit. I can’t even talk straight.”

“Sentiments?” she supplied.

He snapped his fingers, nearly taking off the end of her nose in the process, and then started to laugh. “Sent—uh—ments. My sent—uh—ments exack-ly. Only now I can’t remember what I was sent-uh-mentin’ about.”

Looking up at him, Rachel smiled in spite of herself. For a low-down, dangerous, heartless scoundrel, he had a way about him. She decided it was partly that lopsided grin of his, so boyishly disarming in contrast to his harshly planed features. Then, of course, there were his eyes, which always seemed to be twinkling.

“You were just making the observation you might be drunk,” she reminded him.

“Boy, howdy.” He snapped his fingers again. “On three measly drinks.”

“You must have lost count and had more than that.”

“Nope. Never have more’n that.”

That came as a surprise. Unless the stories she’d heard were totally false, Matt Rafferty frequented the Golden Goose every Saturday night and drank all evening, playing cards and cavorting shamelessly. A man of moderation, he definitely wasn’t.

“Oh, come on, you can tell me. You drink the well dry, right?”

He shook his head. “Nope. I don’t cotton much to drinkin’.”

“Since when?” she asked, curious in spite of herself.

“Since forever. Outa respe—respect for my ma. She didn’t cotton to drunkenness, not in her boys. Claimed liquor ’n’ Irish was a bad mix. I reckon she was right, ’cause whiskey killed my da.”

“Then why drink at all?”

He started to laugh. “Now there’s a plan.”

She couldn’t see what he found so humorous. “I take it you’ve considered that.”

He held up a finger. “But, as you can see, plans have a way of not always working out.” He reeled to a sudden stop, focused blearily on something ahead of them in the darkness, and said, “I can’t hold the damned things still long enough to get a good count, but they look like too many.”

She realized they had reached the church and that he was referring to the front steps. Like him, she had to squint to see them, albeit for different reasons. “Too many for what?”

“To climb.” As if he found that hysterically funny, he began to laugh again. Then, with no warning, he leaned down, thumping his forehead sharply against hers. “Jesus…” He exhaled in a great rush. “I don’t know, honey. I hate to disappoint a lady, but this is one time my good friend Henry may fail to rise to the occasion.”

Thinking that he might have made arrangements to meet with his friend Henry after leaving the saloon, Rachel glanced worriedly over her shoulder. “Who’s that?”

“Who’s what?”

“Henry. Who is he?”

“Henry is—” He broke off and started to laugh again. When he caught his breath, he said, “Dear God, you are sweet. Honest to goodness, pure as an angel, genuine sweet. It’s been so long, I’d forgotten girls like you exist.”

Rachel couldn’t see what her disposition had to do with anything. “Thank you,” she said distractedly. “But you didn’t answer my question. Who is Henry? You didn’t mention that he was going to come.”

His shoulders jerked with mirth again. “He isn’t. That’s the whole damned problem. Ain’t that a hell of a note?”

Growing impatient with his nonsensical responses, Rachel steered him toward the steps. “We shall do quite well without him, I assure you.”

“Lord, help me.”

A chance for revenge beckoning sweetly, she endeavored to help him up the flight of steps. So what if Matt Rafferty seemed kind of nice? She knew he wasn’t, that he couldn’t possibly be. If he were, he wouldn’t have done something so reprehensible to her sister. Why should she show him any mercy when he’d shown Molly none?

All of a sudden, Matt reeled backward. Taken off guard, Rachel tumbled with him. Luckily, they had scaled only a few levels. Dust mushrooming around them, they landed in an ungainly heap at the bottom of the steps, Rachel’s skirts and petticoats around her waist, Matt’s long legs crisscrossing hers.

“Damn.” After taking one look at her, he sat up and brushed at her clothing. “I apologize. There seems to be a slight hitch in my get along. Are you all right?”

With her skirts tossed up as they were, Rachel was too flustered to feel any pain, if indeed she was injured somewhere. He flashed one of those disarming grins at her. “Lucky for you, no one but me is here to see.”

She shoved at his shoulder. “I’d prefer that no one see, you included.”

“I’m gonna see more’n that before all is said and done.”

He attempted to get up, but only made it as far as his knees before losing his balance again. He waved away another plume of dust. “Well, hell.”

Rachel read the defeat in his expression and was determined to have none of it. She would get him inside that church, she vowed, even if she had to carry him every inch of the way. “You can do it,” she said in an encouraging voice.

“It doesn’t look like it to me.”

“Yes, well, you’re drunk and therefore no judge.” She pushed to her feet, grabbed him under the arms, and strained to lift him. “Get up, Mr. Rafferty.”

“I’m tryin’.”

“Try harder!” Her throat burning from the dirt particles she had inhaled, Rachel groaned with frustration when, after utilizing nearly all her strength, he still hadn’t gained his feet. “You have to make it. After getting you this far, I can’t quit now.”

He jerked his arms from her grasp. “Stop strainin’ to lift me,” he ordered gruffly. “You’re gonna keep on until you hurt yourself.”

After making that assessment, he just sat there. Rachel bent over him, hands braced on her knees. “Well, then? Are you going to try or not?”

He smiled blearily up at her. “You know, darlin’, I don’t believe I’ve ever run across such an eager little swatch of calico.”

Rachel felt like jerking him up by his ears. “Please, Mr. Rafferty, at least try.”

“Mr. Rafferty? If we’re gonna get cozy”—he rose to his knees again—“then you oughta at least call me by my first name.” With a great heave, he stood and started up the steps again, this time with no assistance, calling back over his shoulder, “You better get your little fanny up here and make hay while the sun’s shinin’. I feel a little sick.”

Rachel hurried after him. Once at the landing, she caught his arm so he wouldn’t fall again. Drawing him toward the doors, she said, “Just a few more steps.”

“I hate to tell you this, but gettin’ there may prove to be the easy part.” He chuckled as though he’d said something hysterically funny.

She wrenched one of the double doors open and entered the church rump first, his hands clasped in hers so she could tug him along after her. When the door swung shut, an intense blackness swooped over them. The smell of varnish and beeswax assailed her nostrils. Groping blindly, she located the last row of seats and maneuvered Matt around until she could prop him up against the back of the pew.

Now all she had to do was wait for him to pass out.

That thought no sooner crossed Rachel’s mind than his hands settled at her waist. With a gentle strength that, given his condition, surprised her, he drew her toward him. Even in the darkness, she had no difficulty determining that he’d parted his booted feet to pull her between his legs. No more than a black outline, he seemed to loom over her, a threatening wall of masculinity. The brim of his Stetson bumped her forehead. The next instant, his hot, oh-so-soft mouth had taken command of hers and his hands were busily unfastening her bodice.

Rachel tried to scream, but her breath was stolen by his kisses and any sound she might have made was muffled by his mouth. Grabbing his wrists, she arched away from him. Panic welled within her when she felt cool air touch her breasts. Just that quickly, he had opened her bodice. Now only the thin cloth of her chemise shielded her nipples from his searching fingers. His hard palms cupped her fullness, the contact snatching the oxygen from her lungs in a whining rush. A heartbeat later, he firmly captured the peaks of her nipples between thumb and forefinger. Rivulets of fire ran through Rachel, warming her deep within, making her pulse escalate, kindling a need for something indefinable that soon grew to an ache.

Dimly she realized she had completely lost control, that Matt had taken over. He knew his way around a woman’s body, that much was clear, and he was pummeling her senses with an onslaught of feelings she’d never dreamed existed.

Struggling to clear her head, Rachel knew she had to get away from him. For some reason, he hadn’t passed out on schedule, and now it was anybody’s guess when he might. Even so, she had no intention of abandoning her plan, not after having gone through so much to get him here.

Before she left, she had to get his trousers off him.

Trying not to feel what he was doing to her breasts—and failing—she fumbled with his gun belt. When the buckle finally came loose, one holster swung free and the butt of the revolver smacked the pew. She winced and bent at the knees to lower the weapons to the floor before turning her attention to his trouser belt. Luckily, it was easier to unfasten. She groped for the brass buttons of his fly. At her touch in so private a place, he stiffened and sucked in his breath.

“Jesus…” he whispered raggedly. “Slow down, sweetheart; you’re gettin’ ahead of me here.”

There was no way that Rachel intended to slow down. She jerked frenziedly at his trousers, her face beading with sweat, her heart thudding wildly, her breasts electrified with unfamiliar sensations where his masterful fingers toyed with her.

To her relief, he finally abandoned her breasts. A heartbeat later, however, she felt his hands at the fastenings of her skirt. She jerked more urgently at his pants, determined to see this through. Once she got away from him, she could refasten her own clothing. He was so sozzled, he wouldn’t remember anything that was happening. It would be her guilty secret that he’d touched her so intimately.

Suddenly he leaned forward to press his forehead against her shoulder. “Whoa,” he said in a slurred, rather faint voice. “I don’t feel so good.”

Still intent on getting his trousers down, Rachel strained to bear his weight.

“Oh, Christ,” he whispered raggedly.

With that, he slumped toward her. Before Rachel could react, the breadth of his shoulders struck her squarely, the full force of his considerable weight knocking her backward. She screamed, the sound echoing in the darkness as she fell. Pain exploded at the base of her skull, and a brilliant white light flashed inside her head. Then, as though severed by a sharp knife, all sensation stopped and she spun away into nothingness.

Three

Beeswax and varnish. Sun-dried cotton and leather. As she came awake, Rachel only vaguely registered the scents. When she started to stretch and yawn, however, she realized something was wrong. A massive weight was pressing upon her body. Not only was she unable to move, but she found it difficult to breathe.

Confused and disoriented, she fluttered her lashes, becoming more aware with each passing second that her head ached. Not just a teeny-weeny ache, but a giant, skull-crushing pain that radiated up from the back of her neck.

“For shame!” a woman whispered from somewhere close by. The unexpected sound made Rachel jerk. Before she could move or get her eyes open, another feminine voice said, “I’m telling you, Clara, the young people today have no respect.”

Still trapped in a sleepy fog, Rachel frowned in total bewilderment. She didn’t recognize the voices as belonging to her sister Molly or to Mrs. Radcliff, the house keeper. What on earth were strange people doing in her bedroom?

She passed a hand over her face. A blur of multicolored light swam before her eyes. Without her spectacles, she was pretty much accustomed to everything beyond the end of her nose being indistinct, but for some reason, this morning it seemed worse than usual. Determined to clear away the cobwebs, she blinked, but her brain refused to cooperate. Objects around her went in and out of focus, rushing at her as they took on clarity, then receding a bit. Gleaming oak pews? People’s faces and stained glass windows? She wasn’t in her bedroom at home, that was a certainty.

“This is an abomination,” some other woman cried.

“A sin against all that is holy, that’s what it is!” another exclaimed.

All that was holy? Rachel had already determined she must be in the church. The question was, what was she doing there? She squeezed her eyes closed again to keep from being sick. Her head…Oh, God, her head felt as if it had been split by a sledge. Had she been stricken with a sudden illness? Maybe she had fainted. That would explain the oppressive weight that seemed to be holding her down. Olivia Harrington, a local matron, claimed that a lady’s limbs felt heavy and useless immediately after she regained consciousness from a swoon.

Forcing her eyes back open, Rachel tried to ignore the pain and concentrate on her surroundings. Yes, she was definitely inside the church. A vague sense of alarm coursed through her. She remembered something about the church—something important—but for the life of her, she couldn’t think what. She only knew she had an awful feeling that something was dreadfully wrong.

The weight that held her anchored to the floor shifted suddenly. The movement was followed by a moan, unmistakably that of a man. The sound, deep and raspy, vibrated through her torso, transforming her sense of alarm into full-blown panic. Someone was lying on her? A male someone? Oh, God. Now that she was coming more awake, she could feel his hand, large and warm, cupped over her breast. It felt as if there was next to nothing by way of clothing between his fingers and her skin.

Forgetting the pain in her head, Rachel gave a thin cry and pushed at the man’s shoulders. Despite all her shoving, he didn’t so much as budge. Tucking in her chin, she glimpsed wavy black hair and darkly bronzed skin. In a twinkling, her memory of the previous night came rushing back to her.

Matt Rafferty! She threw a horrified look at the sunlight streaming through the stained glass windows.

So close to her ear that his voice seemed a part of her thoughts, he whispered, “What the hell am I doing here?”

That was Rachel’s question. “Off,” she croaked. “Get off me!”

Not nearly as fast as she would have liked, he rose on one elbow. “What the—” When he glanced around them, his body snapped taut. “Oh, Christ!”

She followed his gaze and saw that a crowd of people had entered the church. She had planned for this to happen—for him to awaken, surrounded by onlookers, and feel so humiliated he wanted to die. Only she wasn’t supposed to be here with him!

So many people…Without her spectacles, she couldn’t see their faces very clearly, but even so, she couldn’t shake the feeling that they were all staring at her. A prickly sensation crawled over her skin. Like vultures waiting to feed on carrion, they pressed in around her, the different shades of their clothing a kaleidoscopic blur of color beneath the pale ovals of their faces. Filled with a mounting sense of dread, she touched a tremulous hand to her throat. Her bare throat?

Startled, she looked down. To her dismay, she saw that the only thing covering her breasts was the thin cotton of her chemise. She gasped and brought up both hands to hide herself.

When Matt noticed the state of her clothing, he glanced down at himself. Judging by the look that crossed his face when he saw that his gun belt was gone and that his trousers had been unfastened, he remembered little of what had happened.

In a voice gone gravelly with sleep, he said, “What the hell?” As he scrambled off her, he began buttoning his blue jeans. “How did I—when did we—?”

Before he could finish, one of the church doors swung open and struck the interior wall. The bang was almost deafening. “Where is she? Rachel Marie!” Clothing rustled and shoe leather creaked as the crowd moved aside to clear a path. “Get back, folks. Out of my way!”

Even in a nearsighted blur, Rachel recognized the buckskin vest, white shirt, and shiny star that were her father’s trademarks. His voice, pitched to a loud roar, was unmistakable as well. It didn’t take a genius to determine that someone had gone to fetch him when she and Matt were found inside the church.

She rushed to finish fastening the buttons of her bodice before he saw her. She was only about halfway done when Big Jim Constantine finally managed to fight his way to the front of the crowd. He took one look at her and said, “Oh, Rachel…”

“It’s not the way it looks, Daddy. Truly! Just give me a chance to explain!”

Rachel had every reason to believe her father would do exactly that. He was an easygoing and fair-minded man who always asked plenty of questions and listened to the answers before he passed judgement.

She reached up a hand. Instead of helping her up, though, her father took one look at her partially unbuttoned shirtwaist and lunged at Matt Rafferty. “You low-down miserable son of a—!”

“Daddy!” Rachel shrieked. “What are you—oh, my God! Stop it!”

Rachel may as well have saved her breath, for her father seemed not to hear her. A tall individual of considerable breadth and girth, he landed on the younger man like a diver doing a belly flop. Matt, evidently still feeling the effects of the valerian, fell back under the onslaught, his breath rushing from his lungs in a loud whoosh. Before he could even start to defend himself, Big Jim wrapped both hands around his throat.

“You miserable little worm! You conscienceless son of a bitch! I’ll kill you for this. I’ll kill you with my bare hands!”

From that point on, everything took on a nightmarish quality for Rachel. She had the oddest feeling she was hovering somewhere above herself, that she watched everything through a plate of breath-fogged glass.

“Daddy, stop this!” She clung futilely to her father’s arm. “You have to stop this. He’s been drugged and can’t defend himself. Oh, dear God, you’ll kill him!”

Her father tried to shake her off. “Let go, girl. Dammit, let go!”

Nothing could have induced Rachel to do that. This was her fault. All her fault. Nearsighted though she was, she could tell Matt’s face was turning crimson. As bitter as her feelings toward him had been last night, she didn’t want him dead.

“Daddy, for heaven’s sake! Look what you’re doing!”

Rachel nearly wept with relief when three men rushed forward to assist her. After several attempts, the trio managed to drag Big Jim off. Judging by the way Matt choked and gasped for air afterward, he hadn’t been released a second too soon.

The instant the three men turned her father loose, Rachel flung herself against him. “Daddy, you have to listen to me. This isn’t his fault. I swear it. Please, you have to give me a chance to explain.”

His chest heaving with exertion, her father shrugged to straighten his shirt. “All right, so explain.”

Before Rachel could speak, the church doors banged open again, indicating that yet another person had entered. Bodies shuffled. The next instant, Rachel heard a horrified gasp. There was no mistaking Molly’s voice, even when the noises she made were inarticulate. Rachel’s heart caught. She had meant to avenge her sister, not force her to endure yet more heartbreak.

“Rachel?” Molly whispered, clearly aghast. “Oh, lands, what’ve you gone and done?”

Rachel thought the answer to that was fairly obvious. She’d brought Matt Rafferty down a few notches, never mind the fact that she was going down with him.

“Oh, Molly.” Rachel bit her lip, wishing with all her might that her sister hadn’t come into the church.

Molly shook her head. “Oh, Rachel! You did this for me. I know you did!” She pressed her hands over her cheeks. “Oh, this is awful! You got the wrong one!”

Rachel couldn’t imagine what Molly meant by that, and before she had time to think about it, her father interrupted with a sharp command to explain herself. As briefly as she could, Rachel recounted the events that had led to this moment, trying her best to leave nothing out, no matter how bad it made her look. The only concession she made to that was by neglecting to mention Dora Faye. Her father could assume what ever he wished, that she had bribed one of the saloon’s regular patrons to drug Matt Rafferty’s whiskey or that one of the upstairs girls had done it as a favor to Rachel. It really didn’t matter as long as Dora Faye didn’t get into trouble.

As Rachel wound down, she watched Big Jim closely, trying without success to read his expression. “So, you see, Daddy, it really wasn’t his fault. I tricked Mr. Rafferty into coming here. I would have been long gone this morning if I hadn’t fallen and hit my head.”

Molly wailed forlornly, which prompted Big Jim to cast her a glare. “Enough out of you, young lady! If not for your theatrics, your sister wouldn’t be in this pickle.”

Rachel, always Molly’s champion, leaped to her defense. “Now, Daddy, that isn’t fair. Molly can’t be blamed—”

“You be quiet!” Big Jim cried, cutting her off short. He pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes closed for an instant. “All right, Rachel Marie, run all of that by me again. A little slower this time.”

Resisting the urge to remind him he’d just ordered her to be quiet, Rachel cautiously asked, “Which part?”

“All of it!” her father ground out.

“All of it? Daddy, didn’t you—”

Her father cut her off again, this time with a sharp jab of his finger. “All of it! And don’t give me any of your sass, dammit. I’m in no mood for it!”

Rachel could see that he was perilously close to losing his temper. Forcing herself to speak more slowly this time, she once again explained how she’d come to be in the church this morning with Matt Rafferty. When she had given her father a full explanation for the second time and he still looked confused, she raised her hands in helpless bewilderment. “Which part aren’t you clear on, Daddy? He callously broke Molly’s heart, and I wanted to get even. With that end in mind, I had him drugged and lured him to the church, my plan being that he’d wake up this morning wearing no trousers in a packed church.” When her father still looked befuddled, Rachel cried, “He humiliated my sister!” At that, Molly wailed again, more loudly this time. To be heard over the din, Rachel increased her own volume. “Is it so difficult to understand why I wanted to give him a taste of his own medicine? That’s it, end of story.”

“Rachel, if, as you say, all of this is about Molly and that silly crush she got on Matt Rafferty, then what the hell”—he pointed a finger at the man on the floor—“is he doing here?”

“I told you, I—” An awful prickly feeling crawled over Rachel’s skin. She glanced uneasily toward Molly, who was still moaning and wailing, and then at the man sprawled near her feet. “Oh, God. This isn’t Matt Rafferty?” It wasn’t really a question. Rachel knew by Molly’s behavior and the tone of her father’s voice that she had guessed correctly. “Oh, dear,” she whispered. “Oh, dear…oh, dear.”

“Oh, dear?” her father repeated. “Is that all you can say for yourself, Rachel Marie? Oh, dear?” With each word he spoke, his voice seemed to go up another octave. “You’ve shanghaied the wrong man, and all you can say is ‘oh, dear’?”

As the ramifications of what she’d done began to sink in, Rachel threw another look at her victim. “If not Matt Rafferty, then who is he?” she asked in a quavery voice.

“Who is he? I almost kill the man, and you’re standin’ there, askin’ me who he is? I’m tellin’ you, girl, this is one time I could wear the hide off your behind with my razor strop and never feel a second’s regret.”

“Big Jim, let’s try to stay calm,” the man on the floor inserted. Though his voice still sounded a little groggy, Rachel could tell by the way he spoke that he was fast coming awake.

“Calm? I haven’t known a moment’s calm since the day she was born, I swear to God. I’m sorry about this, Rafferty. I truly am.”

Rachel couldn’t tear her gaze from the man she had believed to be Matt Rafferty until only a few seconds ago. Without her spectacles, which she never wore in public, he was little more than a blur to her. Rafferty, her father had called him. That had to mean he was one of Matt’s brothers. Long, denim-clad legs, ebony hair, gray-blue eyes. Given her poor eyesight, she supposed she could have made a mistake. All the Rafferty brothers were tall, raven-haired and dark-skinned.

Recalling the nonsensical observation that Molly had made earlier, Rachel nearly cringed. You got the wrong one! her sister had cried. A few minutes ago that had made no sense. Now Rachel understood all too clearly.

“If you’re not Matt, then which brother are you?” she asked her victim shakily.

“Clint.”

For an awful moment, Rachel felt as if her heart stopped beating. Since Clint Rafferty, the eldest of the brothers, seldom even came to town, let alone patronized the saloon, she thought she must have misunderstood him. “Pardon?”

“Clint!” he repeated a little more loudly, his voice still slightly hoarse with sleep.

Four

Clint Rafferty? Feeling suddenly faint, Rachel pressed a hand to her waist. Of all the Rafferty brothers she might have chosen to cross, Clint had to be the most intimidating. Even the other men in town gave him a wide berth.

“Clint…?” she said inanely. “But you never go to the Golden Goose. There must be some mistake!”

“Oh, there was a mistake made, all right,” he agreed in the same hoarse voice. “It just wasn’t me who made it.”

A thought suddenly occurred to Rachel. “Wait a minute! You have to be Matt Rafferty. Otherwise, why did Dora Faye—” Catching herself at the last possible second, Rachel stood there, mentally swinging her arms to keep from falling in. The last thing she wanted was to get her friend in trouble.

Clint flashed her a slow, knowing smile. “Dora Faye did try to keep me from drinking the drugged whiskey, if that was your question. At the time, I wondered why. Now I know.” With that, he rolled to one knee and reached for his hat. “The only mystery, as far as I’m concerned, is why she didn’t step to the saloon doors and signal to you that she’d drugged the wrong man. It would’ve saved us both a lot of trouble.”

In Rachel’s mind’s eye, she saw Dora Faye as she’d been last night, blurry and indistinct, standing just inside the saloon and waving her arms. Without benefit of her spectacles, Rachel had believed her friend was signaling that all was well. Instead, she’d been signaling that nothing had gone according to plan? That Rachel should retreat? If it hadn’t been so awful, it might have been funny.

Gaining his feet, Rafferty said, “I hope you folks’ll forgive me, but I think I’ll be moseyin’ along. As entertainin’ as all of this has been, I’ve got a little brother at home to take care of and a ranch to run.”

Rachel certainly had no objection to his leaving. The sooner the better, as far as she was concerned. But her father seemed to have other ideas. “Hold up there just one minute, son.”

Clint dusted his hat on his pant leg. “Hold up? Don’t tell me you’re arrestin’ me. If so, what for? Bein’ in the wrong place at the right time?”

Considering the fact that her father had almost choked him to death, Rachel couldn’t blame Clint Rafferty for feeling a little less than charitable.

“I wouldn’t go so far as to arrest you,” Big Jim said, “but there is one small wrinkle we need to iron out.”

“Wrinkle?”

Big Jim inclined his head toward Rachel. “My little girl spent the night here with you unchaperoned. It don’t look good. Don’t look good at all.”

Rachel’s heart caught. “Daddy?”

Big Jim seemed not to hear her. “The way I see it—”

“Daddy!”

“Shut up, Rachel Marie,” her father said with a wave of his hand, his gaze fixed on Clint. “The way I see it, Rafferty, my little girl’s good name has been ruined. Plumb ruined. And only you can set things right.”

“Right?” Rachel echoed. “What ever do you mean?”

“Yeah, what exactly do you mean?” Clint asked.

Rachel didn’t need to see Rafferty’s face all that clearly to know he was fast regaining his senses. Unless she missed her guess, he was only inches away from losing his temper. The heels of his boots hit the floor in a sharp stacatto as he stepped over to retrieve his Colt revolvers. She watched in horrified silence as he strapped the crisscrossed gun belt around his hips and tied the holsters down to his lean, muscular thighs. In that moment, it began to occur to her that it might end up being her father, not Clint Rafferty, who was in danger of losing his life during this confrontation. The younger man had the devil’s own reputation as being fast with those guns.

Without consciously making the decision to do so, Rachel inched closer to her sire. “Daddy, this entire situation should be simple enough to resolve. I mean, as I’ve just explained, none of this was Mr. Rafferty’s fault. The way I see it, we should all just go home and forget it happened.”

“Be quiet, Rachel.”

Afraid for her father, Rachel turned an imploring gaze on Clint. “Don’t you agree? That we should just forget any of this happened, I mean?” With a nervous little laugh, she added, “Big uh-oh, end of story. Right?”

“Rachel Marie,” her father said with exaggerated patience, “this is a far sight more serious than that. Your reputation is destroyed. Mr. Rafferty understands the implications, even if you don’t.”

Rachel understood far more than her father gave her credit for, and she, for one, had an awful feeling this situation was getting out of control. Gesturing toward the church members, she said, “But, Daddy, everyone here heard my explanation. They all know now that nothing untoward happened.”

“It’s not that simple, Rachel. When a young lady spends the night with a man unchaperoned, there’s only one thing that can save her good name, and that’s marriage. It don’t matter if anything actually happened or not. All that counts is how it looks.”

“Marriage?” Molly cried. “You can’t mean it!”

“Marriage?” Rachel echoed weakly. “Did you say marriage?”

“Marriage,” Big Jim affirmed.

With that proclamation still ringing in the air, Big Jim caught both Clint and Rachel by the arms and, ignoring Rachel’s shrill protests, hauled them to the front of the church. Once there, he immediately began hollering for the preacher. Meanwhile, Rachel tried to talk sense to him, a task that proved impossible. Her father wasn’t just big and tall; he was mule-headed. When he got it into his head to do something, no one, not even his daughters were going to stop him.

Reverend Wells, a tall, rawboned man with thinning gray hair, kindly brown eyes, and a beak nose, fought his way free of the throng and rushed to his pulpit, prayer book in hand. “Big Jim, this is highly irregular. We haven’t even posted any banns.”

“To hell with banns: just get them married.”

The minister gave an eloquent shrug. “I was just making an observation.”

“Daddy, have you lost your mind? I can’t marry this man!” Rachel turned on Clint. “Don’t just stand there! Do something!”

Apparently unperturbed, he shrugged a muscular shoulder. “Like what? Shoot him? Sorry, darlin’, but I’m not that adverse to the idea of gettin’ married.”

“Not adverse? How can you say that? We’re talking about marriage here!”

“The way I see it, I was thinkin’ along these lines, anyway.”

She couldn’t believe he was being so cavalier. “You’re as crazy as my father is.”

Big Jim motioned to the minister. “Forget all the fancy stuff, Reverend. All we care about is that it’s legal.”

Rachel caught her father’s arm. “Daddy, stop this! It’s absolute madness! What ever are you thinking?”

“This is all my fault!” Molly cried somewhere behind them. “All my fault.”

The preacher chose that moment to say in a booming voice, “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today…”

Shaking his arm free, Big Jim grasped the chancel rail and leaned toward the pulpit. “Dammit, William, I said to skip all the folderol. Just get to the important parts.”

Wells coughed and cleared his throat. “As I already pointed out, this is all highly out of the ordinary.”

“Just do it,” Big Jim shot back. “If I want ordinary, I’ll ask for ordinary.”

The flustered minister ran a finger down the page to relocate his place. “All right, fine. But, mark my words, it will probably take me longer to locate the important sections than it would to simply recite the entire—”

“Good grief!” Big Jim interrupted. “Are you tellin’ me you don’t know the words by heart?” He threw up his hands. “You’ve been marrying people for the last twenty years, for God’s sake! How can you not know the words, William?”

Taking advantage of her father’s distraction, Rachel turned to Clint. Leaning close so she might clearly see his face, she whispered, “You can’t honestly intend to just stand there and do nothing to stop this.”

“Who says?”

“I say!”

He stood with his hands clasped behind him, gaze fixed on the minister, expression deadpan. At the corner of his mouth, she thought she glimpsed a smile and wanted to give him a good kick for not putting a halt to the proceedings. Before she carried through on the idea, she thought better of it. Last night he’d been charming, but he’d been silly with drink and mellow from the valerian. This morning, all boyishness had been wiped from his face. If asked to describe him, she would have said he looked stern and more than a little intimidating, not at all the kind to provoke.

She jerked her gaze away and scanned the church, dismayed to see that the crowd at the back had dispersed to take their usual places in the pews, not for Sunday services as usual, but to witness a wedding. Her wedding.

That thought drove Rachel to desperate measures. Straightening her shoulders and lifting her chin to a stubborn angle, she faced her father. “Daddy, I cannot marry this man,” she said, slowly and distinctly. “I absolutely can’t. Nothing you can say or do will convince me otherwise.”

“Of course you can,” her father replied and, without so much as a pause, he drew his Colt revolver from its holster and pressed the barrel to Clint Rafferty’s temple. “It’s the only thing you can do, honey. Whether he meant to or not, Mr. Rafferty here ruined my little girl. Honor demands that I kill him if he don’t marry you. It’s the way things are, sort of an unspoken code among men. Ain’t that right, Mr. Rafferty?”

“Christ,” Rafferty said hoarsely.

Rachel watched her father with mounting horror, an emotion she made every effort to conceal by smiling and folding her arms. “Right. You’re just going to shoot him in cold blood. After a lifetime of upholding the law? Come on, Daddy. I realize I’m a little gullible, but that’s just plain silly.”

With slow deliberateness, her father drew back the hammer of his gun. “You think I’m bluffin’? Think again, Rachel Marie. His fault or not, he has ruined any chance you have of making a decent marriage.”

“That isn’t so!” Rachel scanned the church and spotted Reverend Wells’s son, Lawson, who had been courting her these last three years. “Tell him, Lawson! Tell him it doesn’t matter, that you love me and won’t hesitate to marry me anyway!”

Looking as though his necktie was choking him, Lawson sprang up from his seat, swallowed spasmodically, and then just stood there looking bug-eyed.

“Well?” Rachel implored him. “Speak now, Lawson, or forever hold your peace!”

To her dismay, Lawson said nothing. She sent him a scathing glare, barely resisting the urge to call him a bad egg, plug ugly, and a bootlicker, just for starters. She settled for whispering the insults under her breath.

“I guess that proves my case,” her father said, gesturing toward Lawson. “Not even your own beau will step forward.”

Feeling a little less certain of herself, Rachel let her arms fall to her sides. “That still doesn’t mean you’ll shoot Mr. Rafferty. You’re only trying to frighten me into minding what you say.”

“Oh, I’ll shoot him,” her father assured her. “Before I let him walk off scot-free, I’ll blow his brains clear into next week.”

She winced at the picture his threat brought to mind. “You don’t mean it, Daddy. What about being marshal? You’d have to give up your badge if you shot somebody.”

“That’s why. Don’t you see? An upstandin’ man don’t let another man ruin his daughter and not do something about it. If you won’t marry him, Rachel Marie, I have to shoot the poor fellow. It’s just that simple.”

Preacher Wells chimed in with, “Do you, Clint Rafferty, take this woman, Rachel Marie Constantine, to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

Beads of sweat had sprung up on Clint’s dark face. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he tried to swallow. “I do,” he said without a second’s hesitation. Then, to Rachel, “If it’s all the same to you, argue with your father later. He’s got a gun held to my head, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Don’t worry. He won’t really shoot you,” Rachel assured him.

“Wanna bet?” Big Jim grinned broadly and curled his finger over the trigger.

Clint squeezed his eyes closed. “Jesus Christ! Do what he tells you, Rachel!”

Rachel’s stomach plummeted. “Daddy, this has ceased to be entertaining. What do you think you’re doing, threatening an innocent man’s life like this?”

“Innocent,” Clint inserted, “there’s the key word.”

The preacher cut in once more. “And, do you, Rachel Marie Constantine, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, to love, honor and obey until death do you part?”

Rachel rolled her eyes and smiled sweetly at the minister. “Mr. Rafferty may be quaking in his boots, but I certainly am not. Blizzards will fly in August before any of you hear me say ‘I do.’”

Big Jim smiled at the preacher. “You heard her. She just said ‘I do,’ clear as you please.”

“I did not!” Rachel said with a scandalized gasp.

“You did so!” Big Jim argued.

Glancing apologetically at Rachel, the preacher said, “I heard her, Big Jim, but I’m not entirely certain she meant—”

“Keep your opinions to yourself and just finish the ceremony,” Big Jim instructed.

“By the authority vested in me…” the preacher began.

Clint overrode him in a louder voice. “Marshal, would you mind pointing that gun somewhere else besides at my head?”

“Such tactics will never hold up in a court of law,” Rachel cried. “These are the nineties, I’ll have you know. You men can’t marry us women off against our wills anymore. We have legal recourse!”

As though to punctuate that pronouncement, the preacher said, “I now pronounce you man and wife!” and slapped his prayer book closed.

A sudden silence descended over the church. A silence so thick that Rachel felt as if she were drowning in it. She stared at her father, scarcely able to believe he’d betrayed her like this. Her father, who had always loved her so well. Ever since the death of her mother, he had been the only person she could trust.

With a sad smile, he finally drew the gun barrel from Clint’s temple. As he slowly let the hammer back down, he said, “Well, honey, for better or worse, you got yourself a husband.”

Five

Less than an hour later, Rachel found herself a mile outside of town, alone with a complete stranger who also happened to be her lawful husband. To complicate matters further, he’d chosen not to rent a wagon for the return trip to his ranch, which meant that she was ensconced on the saddle in front of him and forced to endure the intimacy of his touch for the duration of the ride. Her valise and satchel, joined together at the handles by a length of rope, were draped over the horse’s rump behind him like an ungainly pair of saddlebags.

Convinced he must be furious—she couldn’t imagine his being anything else, despite his denials inside the church—Rachel racked her brain for a way to defuse his anger before they reached his ranch and he did something they both might regret.

“Mr. Rafferty?”

At the sound of his name, he stiffened slightly, his hand on her midriff shifting position, the proximity of his fingertips to her breast a subtle reminder that she was now his wife and therefore his possession. “You can call me Clint now, Rachel. It’s more or less an accepted thing, the use of first names between husbands and wives.”

“Yes, of course, Clint.” The lump of anxiety in Rachel’s throat felt the size of a goose egg. “I, um…” She tried desperately to swallow. Tears of frustration filled her eyes, making the surrounding woods seem even more blurry. In the distance, she could see the craggy peaks of the Cascades, which, without her spectacles, looked like gigantic, indistinct lumps, their snow-swept slopes glistening brilliantly in the July morning sun. “I was just—well, I know you must be angry. Possibly even livid. I certainly can’t blame you for that, and I want you to know that I’ll do what ever I possibly can to resolve matters.”

“Really?” He hunched his broad shoulders around her and tipped his hat back so he might watch her face. “And tell me, Rachel, just how do you plan to resolve matters?” His smoky blue eyes twinkled warmly into hers. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought things were already pretty much settled.”

“Settled? We’re married, Mr. Rafferty! Don’t you realize what that means? I can’t believe you’ve agreed to this.”

He smiled slightly, his ebony lashes drifting low over his eyes to partially conceal his expression. “I guess maybe the situation is a little more frightening for you than it is for me.”

“Frightening? Why should I feel frightened?” she asked. “I think it would be more accurate to say I feel uneasy.”

The creases that bracketed his mouth became deep slashes as his firm lips drew into a smile. “All right, you probably feel more uneasy than I do, then. And I can’t blame you for that. You barely know me, and now I suddenly have control over your life. That has to be unsettling.”

Rachel could have gone all day without hearing him put it into words like that. Control over her life? Oh, God…She blinked and averted her face, uncomfortable with the silence that fell over them but uncertain how to break it. With nervous fingers, she plucked at the folds of her skirt, wishing she were anywhere but there.

“If it’s any comfort at all,” he finally added, “I’m not a mean-natured man. You don’t need to feel afrai—” He broke off and fell silent. “Uneasy, you don’t need to feel uneasy.”

Looking up at him, she felt breathless. To her frightened mind, he seemed taller and broader across the shoulders than he had earlier, a muscular wall of power that might at any moment be targeted at her. Control over her life? Oh, it was far more than that, she thought dismally. Far, far more.

Clint heaved a weary sigh and shifted his weight in the saddle. For just a moment his thoughts turned toward home, where his brothers, completely unsuspecting that they had a new sister-in-law, awaited his arrival. Because of them he hadn’t protested the marriage to Rachel, and for the life of him, he couldn’t regret that decision now. The Raffertys, Clint included, needed a woman in the house, and left to his own devices, Clint wasn’t at all sure he could have found one who compared to Rachel Constantine. She wasn’t just beautiful, which was a definite plus as far as he was concerned, but she had nice manners and was well-spoken. She’d be a good influence on his brothers, a real good influence. He pictured her in a bib apron with a streak of flour on her cheek. His stomach growled just at the thought. Lord, he couldn’t remember when he’d had a good home-cooked meal.

No, he couldn’t muster up any regret about marrying Rachel Constantine. The words “manna from heaven” kept popping into his mind. To him, that was what she was, a miracle that had accidentally dropped in his lap. Besides, it wasn’t as if this was his fault. He hadn’t set out to entrap her or anything. Far from it. And he wasn’t the only one benefitting. His own selfish reasons aside, Rachel would have been crucified by the so-called righteous citizens of Shady Corners if he hadn’t made an honest woman of her. This marriage was the best thing for her.

Glancing down at her, Clint saw that the bewildered, worried expression was still in her beautiful blue eyes. If they knew each other better, he might be able to guess what she was thinking. How did a young woman feel when she’d just married a man against her will? And a stranger, at that? Clint didn’t suppose she felt like whooping for joy.

For just a moment, he toyed with the idea of waiting until he exercised his conjugal rights. Just as swiftly, he discarded the idea. From the instant he’d said “I do,” he’d been determined to make the best of this marriage. With that aim in mind, he had no intention of sharing a bed with Rachel and refraining from touching her. Just the thought set his nerves on edge.

He already had enough on his plate without having to deal with sexual frustration. The way he saw it, intimacy between him and Rachel would only make it easier for them to forge a friendship. Some people might say he was going at things ass-backward, but so what. He was new to this marriage business and was making up the rules as he went along.

Though his recollections of last night were a little muddled, some parts were picture clear. He recalled how she had felt in his embrace, how unbelievably sweet she had been, as if God had made her especially for him. Her kiss, as he remembered, had been awkward and shy, definitely not that of an experienced woman, but even so, he knew there was passion within her to kindle. That had been apparent in the way she’d opened her mouth to him and molded her body to his. His main problem would be to get her back into his arms again. Once he had her there, he didn’t doubt his ability to arouse her. At the thought, a searing heat formed low in his belly.

Becoming more mindful by the moment that it was still morning and, therefore, a long while till nightfall, Clint forced his thoughts away from love making. “About your sister Molly,” he said softly. “If Matt truly did humiliate her in front of her friends and make her cry, I’m really sorry.”

“He didn’t just make her cry,” she corrected. “He broke her heart.” Her large blue eyes flashed to his. “Just because she’s only fourteen, that doesn’t mean she’s too young to fall in love, you know.”

“Of course not,” he agreed. “If anything, she’s probably capable of loving even more intensely because of her age. It’s my experience that we tend to guard our feelings a little more closely as we get older.”

She looked mildly surprised to hear him say that. “You aren’t going to say it’s all nonsense then? About Matt breaking her heart, I mean?”

Gazing down at her, Clint had an almost irresistible urge to kiss the little frown wrinkles from her brow. Why, he couldn’t say. True, he’d cast an admiring eye in Rachel Constantine’s direction more than once since moving to this area. But being a young and healthy bachelor, he’d cast an admiring eye in lots of girls’ directions. Maybe that was his trouble. He and his friend Henry hadn’t had the pleasure of a lady’s company in a good long while, and pent-up need was playing heck with his self-control. “No,” he said hoarsely, “I don’t think it’s nonsense. That isn’t to say I believe Matt meant to hurt her, or that he even knows he did.”

“How could he not know?”

Clint sighed. “Rachel, my brother has probably broken a dozen hearts, and I doubt he ever realized it. He’s a very handsome fellow with a charming way about him. More than one—”

For the first time that day, she smiled. Only slightly and very fleetingly, but it was a smile just the same. The brilliance of it cut him short and left him with absolutely no recollection of what he’d been about to say. “Handsome and charming, is he? Do you realize how much you two look alike?”

For a second, Clint couldn’t think how to reply. Then he decided to fall back on plain old honesty, which had never failed him yet. “Matt and I are like two identical chunks of agate, one polished and the other not. I have all the same surface, darlin’, but I’m missin’ the shine.”

Her large blue eyes moved slowly over his face. After looking her fill, she smiled again, still only slightly, but with devastating impact. Looking down at her, Clint decided he could probably become a millionaire if he could figure out a way to bottle that sweetness of hers. “I’ve never seen your brother, so I can’t say for sure, but I find it difficult to believe he outshines you by much.”

Uncertain how to accept the compliment graciously, Clint decided to ignore it. “What’ve you been doin’, girl? Walkin’ around town with your eyes shut?”

“Pardon?”

“How else could you miss seein’ my brother?”

Her cheeks turned an embarrassed pink. “I misspoke. Of course I’ve seen him, just never from up close.”

Clint found it rather incredible that Matt, who was attracted to pretty women like bees to honey, had never homed in on Rachel. She was one pretty little gal, make no mistake. “Well, trust me, honey, he doesn’t just outshine me. If women’s reactions to him are any indication, we’re talkin’ a total eclipse. Just you make sure you don’t fall for any of his blarney. Mistake or no, you’re married to me, not to him.”

He clicked his tongue to the horse and nudged it to a faster pace. At just that moment, a jackrabbit bounded out from a clump of brush onto the road. The unexpected flash of movement spooked Clint’s roan, and before he could react, the stallion reared to strike the air with its front hooves. Rachel had no stirrups with which to balance her weight, and the only thing anchoring her to the saddle was Clint’s hold on her. Fearful that she might get hurt, he tightened his arm around her waist as he struggled to regain control of the horse.

When the huge animal had finally quieted, Clint realized that in the confusion, he had moved his palm upward on Rachel’s ribs to partially cup her breast. She clearly didn’t appreciate the familiarity. Either that, or the stupid horse had scared her half to death. As near as he could tell, she had all but stopped breathing.

“Rachel?”

Very carefully, he slid his hand back down to its former resting place, then leaned slightly forward so he might see her face. His heart caught at her expression, her eyes squeezed tightly closed, her sweet mouth acquiver as she waged an obvious battle not to cry out.

“Rachel…” he said more softly. “It’s all right.”

“Did we smash it?”

The question took him totally off guard, and he slowly circled it, not entirely sure what she was talking about. “Did we smash what?”

“The poor bunny,” she asked thinly.

The poor bunny? Clint stared down at her pale face, still not convinced he was reading this correctly. True, the girl had been born and raised in town, but surely that hadn’t entirely insulated her from the realities of life, rabbit stew ranking high on the list. “No, we didn’t smash the rabbit,” he replied in a voice that had gone oddly tight. “He made it across without even getting his fur ruffled.”

Her breath rushed from her chest and her eyes fluttered open. Splaying a small hand over her throat, she swallowed audibly and gave a weak smile. “Oh, thank goodness. They’re such sweet little things, don’t you think? I particularly love the way they wiggle their noses.”

After studying her for a moment, Clint gave himself a hard mental shake. There was no point in thinking the worst. Just because the girl was worried about one wild bunny, that didn’t mean she would be squeamish about cooking up the occasional rabbit stew.

Surely not.

Six

The Rafferty ranch was nestled among a stand of tall pines in a grassy valley completely surrounded by forested mountains. As soon as she got close enough to see it clearly, Rachel found it breathtaking.

As Clint steered his stallion down to the house, she couldn’t shake the feeling of rightness that came over her. It was as if she’d been waiting all her life for this moment, and possibly for this man. Crazy, so crazy. She was making absolutely no sense. This marriage was a mockery and doomed to be dissolved. To entertain the notion that it might be otherwise was absolute madness.

As Clint drew the horse up at the edge of the porch, she saw a blur of white next to an odd-looking stump. Peering more intently, she realized she was seeing a chopping block, with chicken feathers strewn at the base. Instantly queasy, she jerked her gaze to the house itself. Anything to keep from imagining the blood and gore that must have accompanied the recent slaughter.

The house was simplicity itself, a sprawling structure of rough-hewn logs and a cedar shake roof. It wasn’t pretty by any stretch of the imagination, though it could have been charming if any attempt at all had been made to pretty it up.

To say that hadn’t happened struck her as a gross understatement. In fact, by the looks of things, just the opposite had occurred. Even without her glasses, she could make out a rusted old washtub on one side of the front porch with a weathered scrub board standing on end inside it and a pair of dirt-encrusted gray socks draped over its rim. Next to the tub lay a discarded flour sack, out of which had spilled some flour gone wet and gooey in the rain, then turned rock hard in the sun. Behind the flour sack, a partially used sack of spuds had been propped against the house within easy reach of the front door. All in all, the place looked as if a band of none-too-tidy squatters had taken up residence.

“Things could use some cleanin’ up,” Clint said apologetically.

“Oh, it’s lovely. Really. I like log houses. Don’t you?” In actuality, Rachel preferred clapboard, but she would never risk hurting his feelings by saying so.

Glancing back at him over her shoulder, her gaze caught on his firm mouth. She couldn’t help but recall how it had felt to be in his arms last night, how dizzily she had succumbed to his kisses. Thinking back on it, she wondered how it might feel to be kissed by him again. In the light of day, would she find his embrace boring and unexciting, as she had Lawson’s? Or as had happened last night, would the first touch of his lips on hers steal her breath away? It would probably be just as well if she never found out, she decided. Her sister Molly wasn’t the only young girl who’d ever gotten her heart broken. Rachel had as well, and if she’d learned anything from the experience, it was that handsome men didn’t find women like her attractive.

As he shifted forward to drape the horse’s reins over the saddle and get a grip on the saddle horn, she felt the powerful play of muscles in his chest and arms. A shiver of awareness went down her spine as he swung from the saddle and reached up to lift her down.

“I can manage by myself,” she said.

The protest came too late. Before she could so much as blink, he seized hold of her waist. Placing her hands on his shoulders, she kept her gaze locked with his as he lifted her easily from the saddle.

“I don’t want you managing by yourself,” he said huskily. “Not with eight of us here to help you. Just you remember that.”

She was glad to note that his solemn, almost stern expression was belied by a slight smile flirting at the corners of his mouth. She wondered if he was smiling because he’d somehow sensed she’d been wondering how it might feel if he kissed her again. At the thought, a flush began creeping up her neck.

He was standing with his back to the sun, and his Stetson cast a shadow over his burnished features. Even with the lack of light, however, his smoky eyes had a lustrous glow. As he drew his gaze over her, she felt powerless to move and wasn’t certain she wanted to. As she’d noted last night, there was something about Clint that captivated her. What or why was a true puzzle, but the moment he looked at her with those warm, gray-blue eyes of his, she felt sort of, well, boneless. But that was just plain silly.

Grasping her elbow in a large, capable hand, he helped her step up onto the porch. “We would’ve cleaned up if we’d’ve known company was comin’.” As though to emphasize the point, he gave the flour sack a kick. “With the ranch demand in’ so much of our time, things here at the house get sort of neglected.” He led her to the door, then leaned around her to boot it open. “Not that I’m sayin’ you should think of yourself as company, Rachel. Consider this to be your home.”

With that, he swung the door open on a kitchen so cluttered and disorganized it defied description. An unusually long plank table, the surface of which was buried under piles of mercifully blurred clutter, dominated the center of the room. If it hadn’t been for the occasional dirty dish mixed in, Rachel wouldn’t have believed anyone actually used the table for eating. “Oh, my…”

Clint’s hand tightened on her arm. “The boys and I will help you get things cleaned up,” he assured her. “And on down the road, maybe I can put up some planed wooden walls. I know ladies are fond of hangin’ wallpaper and pictures and such.”

Rachel squinted to see. The interior of the house seemed unusually dim, probably because the log walls had darkened with age. The kitchen, one half of which was partitioned off from the back of the house by a wall, opened into a parlor area at the unpartitioned end, creating an L-shaped living area over which a large loft loomed.

If Clint’s brothers were going to help her clean up, Rachel hoped they came bearing broad-blade shovels. On second thought, even shovels might not do it. In every corner, as far back into the house as she could see, there were piles of junk. Old newspapers, empty food tins, dirty laundry, school books, slates…It looked as if someone had tossed all the contents of the house onto the floor, given them a stir, and then kicked the mixture out of the way to create traffic paths. Never, not in all her born days, had she seen such a horrendous mess.

From out of the rubble, an ebony-haired little boy suddenly appeared. Rubbing one eye with his fist, he surveyed Rachel from his other.

“Who’re you?”

As he drew close enough for her to see him clearly, Rachel thought she’d never clapped eyes on a cuter little fellow. She guessed him to be about six, and he looked exactly how she imagined Clint must have at that age, compact and wiry, with burnished skin and an unruly shock of pitch-black hair.

“Well, hello,” she said, crouching to greet him at his eye level. “My name’s Rachel. What’s yours?”

“Cody.” When he drew his fist from his eye, he had to blink to get his sooty eyelashes untangled. She noticed that a streak of dirt angled across one of his cheeks. He regarded her for several moments, his expression more serious than a child’s his age should have been. With a pronounced lisp that distorted all his S’s, he added, “I’m almost seven.”

“Not for nine more months,” Clint corrected. “And what are you doin’, sleepin’ in the parlor, tyke? Not to mention it’s nigh onto noon.”

“Nobody woke me to go upstairs last night.” Cody dragged a suspender strap up over his shoulder. “And don’t call me ‘tyke,’ Clint. I’m too old for little kid names.”

Rachel couldn’t suppress a smile. “I thought you were at least eight,” she fibbed. “You must be very tall for your age.”

Cody rewarded her with a pleased grin that revealed large gaps where he was missing front teeth. “Clint says I’m only knee high.”

“Yes, well, considering how high his knees are, that’s rather tall for someone your age,” Rachel observed diplomatically. “I think lofty stature runs in your family.” She glanced up at Clint. “You didn’t mention having a brother so—” She nearly said “little” but stopped herself.

“Grown up?” he inserted quickly.

Rachel smiled and pushed to her feet. “Exactly.”

He flashed her a meaningful look. “Like I said, I have my reasons for wantin’ a wife.”

Now that Rachel had met Cody, she could understand Clint’s willingness to do nearly anything to ensure the little boy’s happiness, even playing groom to her bride in a shotgun wedding. The problem was, his feelings were bound to change, if not when he learned she was half blind, then when he saw her in spectacles. Given the severity of her eye problem, her glasses had unusually thick lenses that would have detracted from her looks even if she’d been the most beautiful woman in the world. Rachel had learned the hard way that handsome men wanted to be with equally handsome women, which she definitely was not when she had spectacles perched on the end of her nose.

Before Rachel could stand back up, an older boy came tearing down the loft ladder into the kitchen. In the process of buttoning his blue jeans, he froze when he spotted Rachel. “Well, dammit, Clint!” The youth hurried to get his pants fastened. “You could’ve hollered out that we had us some company.”

“Meet Daniel,” Clint said by way of introduction, glancing first at Rachel, then inclining his head at the boy. “Fourteen, goin’ on eighty. Excuse his language, but I ran low on soap.”

Since soap was clearly a commodity in short supply, Rachel had no difficulty believing that. Daniel’s undershirt, which had once been gray, was now more of a brown. Still hunkered in front of Cody, she bestowed a friendly smile on him. “Hello, Daniel. I’m pleased to meet you.”

He inclined his head. “Same here.”

Good manners, it seemed, were another area Clint had neglected. She stood and surveyed the kitchen, feeling overwhelmed. Clint had gone along with marrying her because he needed a woman around the house; he’d made no secret of that. He was, in short, offering her a life here in exchange for her skills as a house keeper and cook. It was just that simple.

Most women, Rachel knew, would be insulted. They wanted a man to be attracted to them for their looks, to love them for their personalities, to marry them for reasons of the heart. But Rachel had learned long ago not to expect any of those things. She wasn’t insulted by Clint’s offer. To the contrary, she was titillated, not to mention sorely tempted to take him up on it.

There was just one problem. A rather big problem. Since the death of Rachel’s mother when Rachel was four, Mrs. Radcliff, the house keeper her father had hired, had seen to the running of the Constantine house hold. A woman who resented any interference whatsoever, she had not encouraged Rachel or Molly to assist her with any of the chores. Consequently, Rachel’s knowledge of homemaking was limited. By closely following a recipe, she could cook simple dishes, and she figured common sense would see her through most of the house cleaning chores. But laundry? She’d rinsed out her ribbed cotton hose a few times, but other than that she’d never washed, starched, or ironed a single garment. As tempting as she found Clint’s proposition, she wasn’t at all sure she was equal to the challenge.

On the other hand, this was her chance—probably her one and only chance—to have the thing other girls took for granted, namely a handsome young husband who made her pulse race and her skin tingle. For so long now, Rachel had been resigned to settling for second or third best. Marrying Lawson. Playing the role of a minister’s wife. Pretending she didn’t want or need any excitement in her life. Now, through a quirk of fate, she had a chance for more. So much more. Every time she remembered the kiss she and Clint had shared, she fairly shivered with anticipation.

Madness! She should know better than to get her hopes up like this. Hadn’t she learned anything the last time she’d gotten her heart broken? Was she really so foolish that she was willing to risk that kind of pain again? It wasn’t as if she could keep her poor eyesight a secret from Clint and all his brothers permanently or even for any length of time at all. Sooner or later, one of them would catch her wearing her spectacles, and Clint would discover the truth—that she was half blind and, to rectify the problem, had to wear horribly ugly glasses. Once that happened, there’d be no more spine-tingling kisses. He would probably make up any excuse he could think of to get rid of her.

Unless…maybe…Oh, God, it was crazy to even consider it. But she’d heard tell of other marriages that had started shaky and ended up just fine. Why, even her own father had admitted once that her mother hadn’t been all that crazy about marrying him at first.

Of course, Mama hadn’t been blind as a bat, either. Still—what if she could keep her eyeglasses a secret? The only time she absolutely had to wear them was to read, and she could try to avoid doing that in front of anyone. If she was careful, really careful, it might be months before Clint learned the truth, and maybe by then he would like her so much for herself he’d no longer care if she wore spectacles.

As crazy a plan as it was, one glance at Clint cemented it in Rachel’s heart. He was, without question, one of the handsomest men she’d ever met. To a girl like her, who’d long since given up on dreaming, his offer was irresistible. She had to take a chance. If she got her heart broken again, so be it. At least she wouldn’t go to her grave wanting to kick herself for never trying at all.

Her decision made, Rachel quickly assessed the mess that surrounded her. Everywhere she looked, there seemed to be stacks of dirty dishes. She had an awful feeling that her ability to balance a book on her head while climbing a flight of stairs might not come in very handy around the Rafferty place.

“I, um, don’t know quite where to start…” She turned to look at Clint. “Did you say you had chores to do?”

“Only a few,” he assured her eagerly. “This bein’ Sunday, we set aside most of the day for indoor chores. As soon as I finish, I’ll come back inside and help.”

“Have you any bread baked?” Rachel prayed so, for she’d never turned out a loaf of bread in her life.

“No. We usually make up enough on Sundays to last us the whole week. Like I said, Sunday’s our indoor day.”

Rachel’s stomach tightened. “I hope you have a cookbook. I don’t know the ingredients for bread by heart.”

“No cookbook, exactly. But we do have a collection of recipes my grandma and ma wrote down over the years. Nothin’ fancy, just loose sheets of paper in a wood recipe box my pa made.”

“Do you have one for bread?”

“Sure do. Otherwise, I’d be lost. I don’t know the ingredients by heart, either.”

Rachel relaxed slightly. She’d be successful enough at culinary endeavors so long as she had recipes to follow. The cleaning would be a simple matter of following her nose. The main problem she would have was with the laundry. Then she would definitely need help. Maybe if she did pass-ably well at all the other things, Clint wouldn’t mind that too much, though.

So unexpectedly that it startled her, Clint yelled, “Everybody hit the deck up there! It’s nigh onto noon! Time to get to work!”

From the loft came the sounds of mattress ropes creaking and feet hitting the planked floor. In less than a minute, one dark head appeared at the top of the loft ladder. Then another. Before she knew it, four indistinct young men were standing above her. Taking turns, they came down to join ranks with Daniel and Cody.

With the arrival of each one, Clint called off his name and age. “Cole, seventeen. Jeremiah, twenty-four. Joshua, nineteen. Zack, twenty-two.”

As each young man was introduced to her, Rachel smiled and inclined her head. When Clint wound down, she said, “I’m pleased to meet all of you.”

“Not all,” Cody corrected her. “Matt ain’t here. He’s twenty.”

“Oh, yes, Matt,” Rachel said cautiously. “How could I have forgotten?”

Cody wrinkled his nose and regarded Clint speculatively. “You didn’t say how old you are,” he reminded his eldest brother.

To Rachel’s surprise, Clint stepped up beside her and draped an arm over her shoulders. “I’m twenty-seven, scamp, which makes me plenty old enough to settle down, and that’s just what I’ve decided to do. This morning, Rachel and I got married.”

“You what?” “Why didn’t you tell us?” “I thought I was gonna be your best man!” “Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat! You’ve gone and done what?” “I thought Lawson Wells was her beau.”

“I beat Lawson to the draw and asked her first,” Clint said. “Let it be a lesson to you. Don’t leave a pretty girl foot-loose and fancy free for too long a time, or the first thing you know, she may marry some other fellow.”

“I didn’t even know you knew Rachel that well,” Zach said.

“Why didn’t you tell us you were thinkin’ about marryin’ her?” Joshua demanded.

“Oh, wow!” Cody cried excitedly. “You mean she’s gonna stay here?”

Clint held up a hand. “Yes, she’s gonna stay,” he assured Cody. Then to the older boys, “As for all your questions, we just decided to get married, that’s all. I’m countin’ on all of you to make Rachel feel welcome.”

“You’re sure enough welcome!” Cody assured her. “Especially if’n you can bake cookies like the kind Clint brought home from the church social last year.”

Rachel blinked. Cookies? “Of course I can bake cookies,” she assured him. “As long as there’s a recipe included in those loose papers Clint mentioned.”

Marginally less enthusiastic, but warmly all the same, the older Raffertys expressed welcome, Jeremiah, the next oldest to Clint, finishing with, “We’ll be proud to call you sister, Rachel. Welcome to your new home.”

Sister. Hearing the word brought a stinging sensation to Rachel’s eyes that felt suspiciously like tears. She blinked a little frantically, convinced they would all think her crazy if she got weepy-eyed and sentimental over something so silly. It was just that she’d always wished for a brother, and now she had seven of them, four of them older than she. It was almost as though Clint had known how fiercely she’d wanted an older brother to look out for her.

“And I’ll be pleased to call all of you brother,” she said in an oddly tight voice.

The courtesies thus observed, Clint drew his arm from around Rachel and systematically began naming off his expectations.

“Rachel’s gonna be cleanin’ this place up,” he started. “I want each of you to help her in any way you can. Understand? Jer, you hightail it out to the porch and bring Rachel’s grips into the bedroom. Joshua, you haul her up some buckets of water to heat on the stove. No point in her havin’ to wear herself out at the pump. Zach, you gather up all the things she’ll need: a broom and mop, clean rags, and whatever else she wants. Cole, while they’re doin’ that, you and Daniel and Cody get busy pickin’ things up and puttin’ them away. In their proper places, mind you, not just any old place. And, Cody! Nothin’ under the bed, you understand?”

Rachel’s head was swimming by the time Clint stopped issuing orders. He drew to a close with, “Now all of you, listen up. From here on out, Rachel’s word is law inside this house. I’m sure she’ll be makin’ up some new rules around here, and I expect each of you to mind what she says, just like it was me. Got that? No sassin’ her, or I’ll kick your butts.”

Zach, who was standing close enough that Rachel could clearly see his face, turned a solemn regard on her. After a long moment, he smiled slightly and winked irreverently. He obviously wasn’t intimidated by his older brother.

Clint rubbed his hands together and turned to arch a questioning brow at her. “Did I leave out anything you’d like said?”

“Only thank you.” Rachel smiled. “For making me feel so welcome.”

Joshua piped up with, “Welcome? Rachel, it’s a wonder we ain’t on our knees in gratitude. It’s been so long since we had a decent meal around here, we’ve forgotten what good food tastes like.”

Rachel could only hope she didn’t disappoint them. First things first, though. Before she could try her hand at cooking, she had to muck out the kitchen. Luckily, she had plenty of helpers.

Seven

Two hours later, Rachel had the kitchen cleaned up enough to start mixing bread dough. After enlisting Cody’s help in locating the recipe box Clint had mentioned, she announced to all the older boys that it was time for them to take a much-deserved rest, preferably some place other than in the kitchen.

When they solicitously offered to help her with the cooking, Rachel waved them off, saying, “No, no! I’m funny that way, I guess. I like an empty kitchen when I cook. Too many cooks makes for oversalted porridge, you know.”

“I never heard that sayin’,” Joshua commented.

Neither had Rachel, but it served her purpose, which was to evacuate the kitchen so she could slip on her spectacles undetected to read the bread recipe.

As the last Rafferty trailed off, Rachel dived her hand into her pocket for her spectacles. Something sharp pricked her fingertip. “Ouch!” She jerked her hand back out, saw a bead of blood, and frowned in bewilderment. “What in heaven’s name?”

More gingerly this time, she reached into her pocket. As her fingers curled over the wire frames, her heart felt as though it dropped, not just to the region of her knees, which is how it usually felt when something awful happened, but clear to the floor. Her spectacles! The frames were hopelessly mangled, and as she lifted them from her pocket, she saw that both lenses were absent from their holes. Fishing more deeply in her pocket, she soon learned why. Each lens was shattered. It had been one of the jagged pieces of glass that pricked her finger.

Stunned, Rachel could only stand there for a moment, staring blankly down at her ruined spectacles. How had this happened? She no sooner asked herself that than she remembered falling in the church last night. Evidently her spectacles had been broken then.

As the first wave of shock subsided, she turned her gaze toward the recipe box. Panic rose within her. She quickly tamped it down. Reading without her spectacles was nearly impossible but not absolutely so. If she held the written material right in front of her nose, she could usually make out the letters. It would be tedious, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

“Oh, lands!” she whispered under her breath. “Why my glasses? Why not an arm or leg? I could better do without either.”

Returning her ruined spectacles to her pocket, she advanced determinedly on the recipe box, her chin raised high. It took some searching, but she finally located the bread recipe. Peering intently at every ingredient until she could bring the letters and amounts into focus, she managed to mix a triple batch of yeast bread. After letting the three bowls of dough rise once on the cookstove, which still held banked coals from the supper fire the boys had built last night, she punched it down and shaped six loaves. As she recalled, Mrs. Radcliff had always rubbed her loaves with melted lard, covered them with a towel, and left them on the slightly warm stove to double in size. After finding three clean linen towels—no easy feat—Rachel followed the house keeper’s example. When she could finally step back to admire the fruits of her labor, she felt as proud as if she’d given birth to six babies.

Returning to the recipe box, she applied herself to the task of finding something to fix for supper. Since she hated to eat meat, knowing that the practice caused some poor animal to suffer, she settled on venison stew—minus the venison, of course. Oh, yes. This was going to work famously, she assured herself as she began peeling vegetables. Delicious hot bread and stew for supper would make a good first impression on all the Rafferty men, young or old.

“Jesus Christ!”

Clint couldn’t quite believe his eyes when he entered the kitchen. His cookstove had been transformed into a huge, misshapen mushroom! At least, that was how it looked at first glance. At second glance, he saw that the mushroomy cap was actually some sort of dough. Mountains of the stuff oozed over the sides of the stove and dripped in gooey rivers toward the floor. Useless, the family’s scruffy, mixed-breed excuse for a cattle dog, was pulling off strips of the stuff and eating it.

“Rachel?”

Clint glanced around the kitchen, which had undergone a more favorable transformation than the stove, thank goodness. Even the window over the dry sink now sparkled. Sitting almost regally in the center of the otherwise bare table was a pot of peeled and quartered vegetables covered with water. The makings for a stew or soup, he guessed, and saw that he was right when he spotted the open recipe box. The uppermost recipe was for his ma’s venison stew.

Following the sound of voices, Clint went in search of his bride. He found her in the loft with his brothers. The only one of the Raffertys missing, Clint realized, was Matthew, who was still in town, more than likely nursing a hangover. Rachel sat in the center of Zach’s bed, her slender back to the log wall, her skirts tucked modestly around her crisscrossed legs. The six boys—no matter how old some of his brothers grew, Clint still thought of them all as boys—were gathered around her, four sitting Indian-style on the bed, two kneeling on the floor with their elbows on the mattress. At the center of their circle was an array of playing cards.

“Here they come, folks, down and dirty,” Cole said.

“Down and what?” Rachel asked with a giggle. To Jeremiah she queried, “Are you sure there’s such a thing as beginner’s luck? I’ll never manage to pay all this back to you fellows.”

The mess downstairs momentarily forgotten, Clint leaned a shoulder against the partition, one of two half walls that divided the loft into three proportional sleeping areas for his brothers. For a moment, he allowed his gaze to linger warmly on Rachel, then he glanced around at the boys. Apparently they were teaching her how to play poker and were fleecing her in the process. Normally he might have scolded, but it had been so long since he’d seen the six of them interacting this way and having a good time that he didn’t have the heart. Even though he didn’t hold much with gambling, Clint was a firm believer in having fun, and all of them seemed to be doing that.

“Pair of deuces showin’,” Cole said as he dealt a last, face-up card to Zach. “Holy Moly, look at that king. Possible straight!” he cried as he doled out cards to Cody. “And the lady draws a lady! Look at that pair of queens showin’,” he yelled as he slapped down Rachel’s last card. “Did I hear you askin’ if there’s such a thing as beginner’s luck? Darlin’, just look at that. Unless somebody’s got somethin’ really impressive hidin’ in the hole, you’re our biggest winner so far.”

Rachel touched a hand to her bodice, her big-eyed innocence too genuine to be feigned. “Truly?” She leaned forward to squint at a pile of rocks that lay on the bed. “How much will I win?”

Cody bounced forward to take a quick count. “Fifty dollars!” he said breathlessly. “Wow! If only it was real money, you’d be rich.”

Clint relaxed slightly. At least they weren’t gambling for actual money. He should be thankful for small blessings, he guessed. At just that moment, Rachel caught sight of him. “Clint? Is that you?”

He chuckled. “Damn, girl, are you stone blind? Of course it’s me.”

A faint flush touched her hollowed cheeks. “Your hat was shadowing your face,” she explained. “I couldn’t see you clearly. Besides”—she waved a hand at all his brothers—“just look at all of you. I’ve never seen so many people look so much alike.”

Thus reminded of his manners, Clint swept his hat from his head. “I hate to interrupt the game, but we have a hell of a mess downstairs. What is that stuff that’s all over the top of the stove?”

Her eyes went even wider, if that was possible. Tossing down her cards, she scrambled off the bed, elbowing boys out of the way en route. “My bread!”

“Bread? That’s bread?” Clint guffawed. “How much yeast did you use?”

Rachel raced by him. Clint caught her arm before she reached the ladder. “Whoa, there. Just slow it down. No point in takin’ a tumble.”

Setting her back a step, he went down the ladder first so he could ensure her safe descent. “Careful,” he cautioned, his gaze fixed anxiously on her small feet. “The rungs are tricky until you get used to them.”

After gaining the kitchen, she stood in frozen silence, staring at the stove. “Oh no! My beautiful babies! What on earth happened to them?”

Useless, whose hunger was apparently satisfied for the first time in his misbegotten life, licked his mottled chops, plopped down beside the stove, and whined. It suddenly occurred to Clint that perhaps he shouldn’t have allowed the dog to continue eating the dough.

“Christ,” he said under his breath, eyeing Useless’s belly, “I hope he doesn’t get sick.”

Rachel huffed indignantly. “Are you saying my bread may make him sick?”

“I was thinking of the yeast, that maybe it isn’t good for dogs.” Clint dragged his gaze from the canine. “It looks to me like maybe you put too much in.”

“Only what the recipe called for, one cup per batch.”

“A cup?” Clint whistled. “No wonder you have dough everywhere, honey. You must have misread the ingredients. My ma’s recipe calls for one quarter cup yeast per batch.”

At that moment, all the boys came spilling down the ladder. When they saw the mess on the stove, their eyes widened in amazement. “Wow!” Cody cried. “Will we cook all of it?”

“No, Cody, I don’t think it’ll be edible once we get it scraped up,” Clint replied. “Useless is the only one who gets bread to night.”

“Oh, darn!” Cody said. “I’ve had my mouth set for hot bread all day.”

Rachel looked so upset that Clint hastened to say, “It’s not that bad, Rachel. We can have biscuits to night, and you can make bread tomorrow.”

With that, he rolled back his shirt sleeves and set himself to the task of cleaning up the mess. Ten minutes later he had revised his earlier opinion that it wasn’t that bad. He’d never seen so much bread dough. Worse, damn near all of it had stuck to the warm cast iron, creating a mess that was nearly impossible to clean. In the end, he resorted to scraping the goo up with his knife.

“Are you sure you only put in a cup of yeast per batch?” he asked Rachel. “I gotta tell you, I’ve never seen fifteen cups of flour go so far in my life.”

“Nine,” she corrected. “The recipe called for three cups of flour per batch, nine if it was tripled.”

Clint paused in his scraping to regard her thoughtfully. “No, honey, the recipe calls for five cups of flour per batch, so a tripled amount would be fifteen. You misread more than just the amount of yeast, evidently. Do you have poor eyesight or something?”

At the suggestion, her cheeks flushed a pretty pink and her eyes took on a shimmer of indignation. “Lands, no, I don’t have poor eyesight!”

Judging by her expression, Clint could see that he’d made a mistake asking. Females were sensitive about things like that, he guessed. Thinking quickly, he endeavored to mend his fences, making mental note not to call her eyesight into question again. “You’re right. It was silly of me to suggest such a thing. No small wonder you misread the writing. Threes and fives look a lot alike, and I’ve used that recipe so many times, I’ve probably smeared ingredients all over the numbers, making them hard to see.”

Looking relieved to be let off the hook, she nodded decisively. “Yes, I’m sure that’s it. The recipe did have lots of smears on it.” She wrung out the rag she was using. “I’m so sorry about the mess, Clint. Truly, I am. You really don’t have to help me clean up. I can do it by myself.”

She looked so adorable standing there that Clint wouldn’t have left her to finish by herself for anything in the world. He would have to go out to the barn to do the milking later, but otherwise he was staying inside for the remainder of the day. There was no reason he could think of that he should be separated from his bride. The way he saw it, they had little enough time left before nightfall to get to know one another. If he hoped to make love to the girl before their marriage saw its first sunrise, he had his work cut out for him.

When Clint sat down to supper that night, he nearly broke a tooth on one of Rachel’s biscuits, and then he almost went blind looking for the meat in her stew. After taking several bites of the concoction, which was way too salty for his taste, he decided there must not be any meat in it. Regarding his wife the length of the long table, he smiled slightly. She was eating away, clearly oblivious to the fact that there was anything missing.

“Rachel, from now on when you need some meat, just ask the boys and one of them will go fetch you some. We have beef and venison aplenty in the smoke house.”

“Meat?” She fastened startled eyes on him, her spoon suspended partway to her lips. “What ever would I need meat for?”

Clint deepened his smile. “To cook?”

She returned her spoon to her bowl. “Oh, no, I couldn’t.”

“Couldn’t what?”

“Cook meat.”

Her response effectively brought to a halt every spoon at the table. Clint glanced around to see that all his brothers—excluding Matthew, who’d not yet come home—were staring at his bride, their expressions curiously blank. Not that he blamed them. He wasn’t sure he’d heard her right himself.

“Did I understand you to say you can’t cook meat?” he asked, hoping to clarify matters.

She daintily wiped each corner of her mouth with a fingertip, clearly at a loss without a proper napkin. “That’s right. I don’t eat meat.”

Clint barely managed to suppress a hoot of laughter. “Why ever not?”

Her already wide eyes seemed to grow even larger. “Well, because! It’s so cruel!” She looked around at his brothers. “I can’t believe a single one of you would be so mean as to actually go out into the woods and shoot an innocent deer just so you could have venison in your stew.” She smiled brilliantly. “Not when it tastes perfectly fine without it.”

Clint was convinced she was teasing. “Rachel, honey, everyone eats meat.”

“Not everyone. I certainly don’t. And if I’m to be the cook in this house, none of you shall, either.”

Stunned silence. Clint gave each of his brothers a meaningful look. Clearing his throat, he said, “Maybe we should discuss this later.”

“There’s nothing to discuss,” she said sweetly. “Unless, of course, someone else is volunteering to cook.” She looked around the table. “You all don’t mind, do you? Eating meatless meals, I mean?”

Clint could scarcely believe his eyes and ears when every last one of his brothers shook their heads and said, “No, we don’t mind!” almost simultaneously. He scowled his dis pleasure at each of them. “All of you know very well that you like meat. How can you sit there and say you won’t mind doing without it?”

Josh said, “Well, maybe a couple of times a week, one of us can cook, and on those nights, we can have meat.”

“Do we get to eat eggs?” Cody asked glumly.

“Yes, of course,” Rachel assured him. “And there’s no meat in cake or cookies.”

Cody brightened at that news. “We don’t gotta have meat, Clint. Not if it makes Rachel sad to cook it.”

Jeremiah looked as if he were about to bust with laughter. “We wouldn’t want to be cruel to animals. I guess eating them qualifies.”

Clint didn’t see the humor. “Might I remind you that we’re operating a cattle ranch here? We raise and sell beef.”

Rachel looked appalled. “Oh, my, I never thought about it like that. I suppose the cows are killed once they’re sold, aren’t they?”

“That’s how folks who live in town get their hands on steak, Rachel. They buy cows raised on cattle ranches and butcher them.” Clint set his teeth at the distress he read in her expression. Then, before he could stop himself, he added, “A lot of cows aren’t butchered, though.” He groped for another lie, anything to make her feel better about what he did for a living. “Dairies, for instance. Lots and lots of cows are sold to dairies.”

“And a bunch are sold for breeding purposes!” Cole inserted.

“That’s right,” Daniel agreed. “Without plenty of bulls and cows left to reproduce, we’d have no newborn calves each spring.”

Cody beamed a smile. “And they’re used to make shoes and boots, too! So, see, Rachel? Not all of ’em get sold for steak.”

Rachel touched a hand to her throat. “Oh, my…You know, I never stopped to think about it, but my opera pumps and high-button shoes are made out of leather.”

Afraid she might try to convince them they should all go barefoot next, Clint broke in with, “This really is good stew, Rachel. What’s that spice I taste?”

“Salt,” Jeremiah supplied.

Clint reached for his glass of water to wash down the taste. “Mmm-mmm.”

Eight

Shortly after the supper dishes were washed, Clint hustled the boys off to bed and maneuvered Rachel into the downstairs bedroom, which adjoined the parlor. With no lamp lit and only a few feeble moonbeams streaming through the double-hung window, he figured it was dark enough to undress without embarrassing her.

Rachel said nothing when he took off his shirt. But as he removed his gun belt and reached for his belt buckle, she let out a shrill squeak. “What’re you doing?”

Clint froze. “Undressing?”

“Why?”

He circled that carefully, not at all sure he knew how to reply. “Well…” He sent a loaded look at the bed. “I usually do before I go to sleep.” Not that he had any intention of sleeping. “Don’t you?”

“But where is your nightshirt?”

“My what?”

“Your nightshirt. Surely you don’t—” She broke off and swallowed. Even in the dimness, he saw her throat convulse. “Surely you don’t sleep in your altogether.”

Clint rubbed a hand over his face. It didn’t take a genius to realize she was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rockers. He abandoned his intention to undress and stepped slowly across the room to her, taking care not to make any sudden moves. Judging by her pallor, which made her look sort of luminous in the moonlight, she was already scared half to death.

“I don’t have a nightshirt,” he informed her cautiously.

She looked scandalized to hear that. “You don’t? Well…until you can purchase one, I suppose you’ll have to sleep in your…in your unmentionables.”

“My what?”

“Your”—she lowered her voice—“your underwear.”

In the summer, Clint wore knee-length cotton underdrawers. Somehow he didn’t think that was what she had in mind. “Rachel, honey, I’m not going to hurt you.” He smoothed a tendril of dark hair away from her cheek. “In fact, I’m hopin’ to make you feel real nice.”

Her gaze skittered from his. “That’s fine. I mean—well, I know about—well, you know.” She airily waved one hand and then leaned slightly toward him, gave a little laugh, and whispered conspiratorially, “It’s just that I’d rather not do it naked.”

An ache of tenderness swelled in Clint’s chest. He traced the hollow of her jaw with his thumb. “How are we going to manage, then?”

“With a minimum of fuss?”

He nearly chuckled. But gazing into her eyes, he read her fear and realized it wasn’t all that funny. With a minimum of fuss? He had a feeling the slower he went and the fussier he was, the better it would be for her. Of course, she didn’t know that.

She toyed nervously with the top button of her shirtwaist. “I also absolutely must insist that you buy a nightshirt, posthaste.”

Clint imagined how his brothers would tease him if they saw him wearing one.

“We’ll see. For now…” He caught her chin on the edge of his hand and tipped her face up for his kiss, confident that he could stir her to passion if only she would relax. Instead, she went as stiff as a twice-starched collar.

“Rachel,” he scolded huskily, “don’t be afraid.”

“I’m not.” She whispered the denial against his lips.

Settling a hand at her waist, Clint knew the instant he touched her that she was lying. Her body was rigid. Pressed close to her as he was, he could feel the rapidity of her breathing and imagined he could hear her heart pounding. He only hoped he could make her forget her girlish fears by kissing her.

He was about to try when a thump came from somewhere beyond the bedroom door. The next instant, an eerie wail echoed throughout the house. Then someone yelled, “Clint! Hurry! Somethin’s wrong with Useless!”

By the time Rachel and Clint arrived in the kitchen, the dog had worked himself up to a full-fledged cacophony, his howls resounding. Instantly aware that the canine’s belly was abnormally distended, Clint dropped to his knees.

“Oh, shit! The yeast dough! The poor bugger ate too much, and it wasn’t done rising.”

Cody gasped. “Is he gonna die?” he asked in a quavery voice.

“No,” Clint assured him. “But I bet he’s got one heck of a bellyache.”

He glanced over his shoulder at Rachel, wishing he could return with her to the bedroom and finish what he’d started. One look into her wary blue eyes told him that it was probably a good thing he couldn’t. It was too soon for a consummation of their marriage. She needed time to get to know him first, and it was his responsibility as her husband to see she got it. He might even have to give her as much as a month, perish the thought.

“It looks like I have to stay up and play nurse to Useless. Care to join me?”

She smiled, plainly grateful to be given a reprieve. “Sure.”

So it was that the two of them prepared to spend their wedding night fully clothed, playing nursemaid to a sick dog. A little after midnight, Matt finally wandered home. After Clint informed him of his marriage to Rachel, Matt joined them in their vigil, taking a spot beside the dog on the floor. Initially things were tense: Rachel openly hostile, Matt sullen. Clint decided then and there that the two of them had to discuss the bad feelings between them, all of which seemed to revolve around Rachel’s little sister Molly.

When encouraged to air her grievances against Matt, Rachel started off by accusing, “You deliberately led my sister on and then heartlessly humiliated her!”

Matt cried, “I did not!”

From there, the fight was on, with Clint playing referee. After the two combatants had vented their spleens, he was able to maneuver them into a more productive exchange, during which it was discovered that Molly had failed to tell Rachel the entire story.

“When she walked up to me on the boardwalk that afternoon, she had cotton stuffed into her dress,” Matt explained.

“Cotton?” Rachel repeated blankly.

“Yeah.” Matt gestured vaguely at his chest. “You know…to make herself look older.”

Rachel’s eyes went round with astonishment. “She didn’t!”

Matt nodded grimly. “Some of the cotton was poking out, only she didn’t know it,” he elaborated. “Above her neckline. Everyone saw it. A couple of the younger boys started laughing. When Molly looked down and saw what was amusing them so much, she started to cry.” In his earnestness, Matt stopped petting Useless and leaned forward to look her directly in the eye. “I did tell her to go home, Rachel, just like she says I did. But I didn’t do it to be mean, and I didn’t intend it to hurt her feelings. It was just—well, she was so embarrassed, I don’t think she’d have had the presence of mind to move otherwise.”

Clearly mortified, Rachel cupped a hand over her eyes. “Oh, dear…Cotton? Why would she do something so silly?” She shook her head. “No wonder she came home sobbing. She must have been humiliated to death. Why didn’t she just tell me the truth? I would’ve understood. Instead, I’ve been blaming you.”

“She was probably ashamed to tell you.” Matt smiled slightly. “When we’re that age, all of us do crazy things in the name of love. I even serenaded a girl under her bedroom window once.”

“That isn’t crazy, it’s sweet.”

Matt laughed. “You haven’t heard me sing!” He glanced at Clint. “Your turn to share, brother. What crazy stunt did you pull?”

Clint chuckled. “Leave me out of this.”

Rachel sighed and nibbled her lower lip. “I guess I owe you an apology, Matthew. I’m sorry my sister made such a pest of herself. It sounds as though she dogged your heels constantly.”

“Oh, she wasn’t that bad,” Matt said. “Not for the most part, anyhow. Except for when she followed me into the bathing house. Three men smoking cigars dived under the water when they saw her, and I had to buy them all new smokes. I  could’ve wrung her neck that time.”

“The bath house? She followed you into the bath house? Oh, just you wait until my father hears. She won’t be able to sit down for a week.”

Matt began to look worried. “Maybe you shouldn’t tell on her,” he suggested. “I don’t want her getting into trouble. She’s just a kid. Kids do dumb things.”

Matt’s attempt to intervene on Molly’s behalf completely won Rachel over. Her eyes took on a suspicious shine. “Maybe you’re right. Being embarrassed in front of her friends was probably punishment enough.” She glanced at Clint, then averted her face. “I feel really bad. After everything that’s happened, and now I learn that Molly brought all her heartache on herself.”

“All’s well that ends well,” Clint assured her.

“Ends well? You’ve suffered dearly for her antics. Here you are, married to me.”

Clint smiled. “Like I said, all’s well that ends well.”

By morning, Useless was much improved, if not completely recovered. Still a little worried, Clint allowed the dog to remain in the house while he and Jeremiah went out to milk the cows and gather the eggs.

When the two older brothers exited the house, Cole and Daniel were already out in the yard getting that day’s stove wood chopped and moved onto the porch. “What’s Rachel fixin’ for breakfast?” Cole called out as Clint passed by him en route to the barn.

“Biscuits!” Clint called back, hoping even as he spoke that Rachel’s second attempt proved more edible than her first. “Since she was up all night, I said we could make do with hot biscuits and sorghum.”

Cole made a face, but he took the disappointment in stride, accustomed as he was to eating what ever he could scrounge.

A few minutes later, as Clint made his way back to the house, Cole yelled, “Shouldn’t’ve left Useless inside! He reared up on Rachel and knocked the gallon of sorghum out of her hands.”

“It went all over everywhere,” Daniel elaborated. “Rachel, the floor, the table. Talk about a mess. To top it all off, she got sidetracked tryin’ to clean up the syrup and burned the biscuits.”

Clint groaned. He entered the kitchen to find Rachel still on her hands and knees. By the looks of her face, he guessed she’d been crying. He knelt to help her, and within a few minutes, the majority of the sorghum was mopped up. Unfortunately, the stickiness had seeped into the unvarnished planks, and their shoes stuck to the floor when they walked across that spot.

“Well, this day is off to a wonderful start,” Rachel said morosely. Then, out of the blue, she started to giggle.

Clint couldn’t see what was so funny. Nothing had gone right since her arrival, after all. Then he realized that was exactly why she was laughing: because they were off to such a bad start. Leave it to Rachel to find some humor in that.

With a weary chuckle, he sank down on a bench. “Well, I guess if we make it through this, we can make it through anything.”

Red in the face and holding her sides, she gave a breathless nod and then managed to squeak, “Oh, Clint! The bench. That’s where I spilled more sorghum, and it wasn’t wiped up yet!”

He reached back to feel and swore under his breath. “Well, hell.” This time it was his turn to dissolve into laughter. He laughed until he ached. Until tears rolled down his cheeks. Until he was weak.

“Things have to get better,” he finally managed to say. “They can’t get worse.”

Rachel could have told Clint that, around her, things could always get worse. Bad luck was to her what miracles had been to Jesus, and over the next few days, it seemed that fate was out to prove it. One morning as she walked from the chicken coop back to the house, she didn’t see a piece of firewood one of the boys had dropped on the steps. When she tripped over the wood, she smashed every one of the eggs she’d just collected for breakfast. Since eggs were one of the few things she seemed able to cook without disastrous consequence, it was no small matter.

Her cooking…It wasn’t just bad, it was awful. Since she still hadn’t worked up the courage to tell anyone how blind she was, Rachel had no idea what Clint must think. That she was the stupidest creature ever born, she supposed. And she couldn’t much blame him. One time she misread the labels on the storage barrels and accidentally used salt instead of sugar in an apple pie. Another time, she used three times the soda called for in a cookie recipe. It got so bad that Rachel wanted to duck every time anyone took a normal-sized bite of anything she cooked. Unless she remembered to taste things herself as she went along, she could never be sure she hadn’t misread a recipe or mistaken one ingredient for another.

Unfortunately, her failures didn’t occur only in the kitchen. In addition to being unable to follow a simple recipe accurately without her spectacles, Rachel soon discovered another flaw in her character: extreme absentmindedness. No matter how important the chore, if she allowed herself to be distracted midway, it was a sure bet she would forget whatever she had been doing, oftentimes with catastrophic results. On one such occasion, she had put a laundry tub full of white clothes on to boil over a fire out in the yard. As she stood there, stirring away and gazing off into a blur of nothingness, she heard Cody crying and abandoned her post to go find him. He was horribly upset, and she soon discovered why. Clint’s birthday was coming on July sixteenth, and Cody had nothing to give him as a present.

Unable to bear seeing the six-year-old cry, Rachel applied herself to the task of cheering him up. Since they had an oversupply of old newspapers and plenty of flour, she suggested they make Clint a gift from papier-mâché. They had decided that a bowl to hold his pocket change would be an ideal gift, and Rachel was just mopping up Cody’s last tears when a shout came from out in the yard. In a twinkling, she remembered her laundry. But by then it was too late. To say that it had gotten scorched was an understatement. Incinerated, more like.

Failure…It might not have been so hard to take if only she hadn’t come to care so deeply, not just about Clint, with whom she strongly suspected she was falling in love, but about Cody and Matt and all the others. Each of Clint’s brothers had become special to her in some way: Cody because he so desperately needed a mother, Matt because of his tendency to drink, and Cole because he needed help with his spelling, something Rachel was able to assist him with by having him spell out loud. The list went on and on. For the first time in her life, Rachel felt needed, truly needed. She wanted so badly to stay with the Raffertys, to feel as though she belonged with them, to know she wasn’t just a temporary fixture. Instead, because of her continual bungling, she half expected Clint to send her packing. She certainly wouldn’t have blamed him if he had.

To ensure that he didn’t, Rachel made plans to bake him a special cake for his birthday—chocolate with fudge frosting—according to Cody, his absolute favorite. On the big day, everything went perfectly. The cake came out of the oven looking divine. Her frosting was flawless, exactly the right consistency. When everyone gathered around the table to eat, Rachel was so proud of herself she had tears in her eyes.

Then Clint took his first bite of cake. Though he was far too polite to let on, Rachel knew something was wrong by the way his eyes darkened.

“What?” she cried.

He waved a hand and tried to smile. “It’s nothing,” he managed. “Really, Rachel.”

She didn’t believe that for a second. She took a bite to see for herself. Salt. The frosting was delicious, but the cake itself tasted awful. Rachel nearly gagged. She couldn’t imagine how Clint managed to sit there, pretending it wasn’t so bad.

Suddenly, it was all just too much. In a twinkling, she remembered every disastrous mistake she’d made since coming there. Now, to add insult to injury, she had ruined Clint’s birthday. Even Cody looked at her with accusing eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered to no one in particular. “I’m so—sorry.”

The final blow occurred when Rachel turned to flee the house. Useless was lying on the floor behind her, and with tears blurring her already poor vision, she mistook him for a rug, tripped over him, and sprawled face first on the floor. Matt reached her first. He was the one to help her stand, the one to check her hands for scrapes and brush her off. The others hovered around, all of them making sympathetic noises, none of them saying what she needed to hear. What that might have been, Rachel didn’t know. She just knew she was humiliated to the marrow of her bones.

Looking up at Matt through her tears, she remembered his saying that he’d once advised Molly to run along home, not because he wished to hurt her, but because she needed the prompting. For different reasons, Rachel wished he’d given her the same advice. Anything to have avoided this.

With agonized movements, she retreated toward the door. With each step she took, all their faces became less distinct. Except for Clint’s, of course. His, she decided, had been carved in her heart, never to be forgotten, never to blur, no matter how far away she was from him.

With a low sob she couldn’t stifle, she jerked open the door and fled. She couldn’t go on like this. It wasn’t just she who was suffering; all of them were.

Nine

For at least a full minute after Rachel fled from the house, no one spoke. Then everyone tried to say something at once. Clint held up his hands.

“I’ll go get her.”

Cody ran up to hug his leg. “Tell her it don’t matter. We can make another cake.”

“Sure we can!” Daniel agreed.

“She just needs more practice cooking,” Jeremiah insisted.

Glancing around at all their faces, Clint realized that his brothers were as hopelessly in love with Rachel as he was, albeit in a different way. He ruffled Cody’s hair. “I’ll bring her back, tyke. Don’t you worry.” Glancing at Jeremiah, he added, “This could take a spell. While you guys are waiting, why don’t you whip up another cake real fast?” He glanced meaningfully at Cody. “A birthday party just isn’t a birthday party without cake.”

Jeremiah nodded. “Sure, Clint. Just don’t expect much. My cake may not taste much better than Rachel’s.”

Clint nearly said that anybody’s cake would taste better than Rachel’s, but he bit back the words. The less said, the better, he decided.

He found Rachel hiding in the barn loft. She was weeping copiously, her sobs deep and tearing. Just listening to her was enough to break Clint’s heart. Swinging a leg over the top ladder rung, he stepped off into the loose hay and made his way toward her. Where bales were missing, there was no bottom to the softness, and he lurched. Dust particles seared his nostrils.

The instant Rachel sensed his presence, she held her breath to stop crying. Crossing his ankles, he dropped to a sitting position beside her, propping his elbows on his knees. After a long moment, he said, “You know, Rachel, none of us care if you can cook.”

With a catch in her voice, she cried, “What do you mean, you don’t care? That’s why you brought me here! To cook and clean and make the house nice.”

“And you’ve done that.” He recited a list of things she’d done. “Seeing Cody all cleaned up for supper every night, havin’ flowers on the table and the place all shiny clean, those are the things that matter. You bein’ a great cook doesn’t.”

“You’re just saying that!” she said shakily.

Clint turned his hands to gaze at his palms. As he listened to her stifled sobs, he curled his fingers into tight fists. “Rachel, I’m not just saying it. You’ve no idea what it was like around here for the boys before you came. Daniel and Cody used to have terrible dreams almost every night about our folks dyin’ and the hard times we went through after. Now they hardly ever wake up crying.” He waited for a moment to let that sink in. “Your bein’ here has given them a sense of security, that everything is okay in their world. And—” His throat went tight. “And, all that aside, I think I’m falling in love with you.”

She went instantly silent and turned to look at him. Clint met her gaze steadily.

“You’ll stop thinking so the minute you hear the truth,” she informed him in a tremulous voice. “I’m not just a bungler, like you think. I can’t see.”

“Can’t see what?”

“Anything! I’m nearly blind. To see, I have to wear spectacles over a half inch thick.”

“I thought you said you didn’t have poor eyesight.”

She cast him a look that spoke volumes. “That wasn’t a lie. My eyesight isn’t poor, it’s downright awful.”

Clint regarded her for several long seconds, remembering all the times she’d looked up at him just as she was doing now. Before, he’d always believed she was enthralled and hanging on his every word. Now he realized she looked at him with that wide-eyed intentness because she was trying to see him.

“My God…” he whispered. There had been so many signs. Now that she’d told him the truth, he couldn’t believe he’d been so blind. “Why haven’t you been wearing your glasses then, sweetheart?”

“They got broken. I always carry them hidden in my skirt pocket and only sneak them out when I have to. When I fell in the church, they got shattered. At home I have extra pairs, but here I don’t.”

“You should’ve told me! I would have gone to town and gotten your spare spectacles, honey. I can’t believe you’ve gone around all this time unable to see.” He sighed. “As soon as I can get away—let me see—Saturday, I reckon. That’s only four days. I’ll take you into town and we’ll get your spare spectacles. Can you wait that long?”

Her chin started to quiver, and her beautiful eyes filled with sparkling tears. “You wouldn’t mind?”

“Mind what?”

“My wear—” Her voice broke. “The spectacles? How ugly they make me look? You wouldn’t care?”

It hit Clint then, like a fist in his guts. This girl that he was coming to love so much had been badly hurt, and he had a nasty feeling it had been by a man. He caught her small chin in his hand. “Rachel, you couldn’t look ugly if you tried.”

“Yes,” she squeaked.

That single word imparted a wealth of pain. Clint bent to kiss the tears from her cheeks. “Not in spectacles a half inch thick or even an inch thick. You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen, Rachel, and I’d like to kill the bastard who told you otherwise. Who was he?”

“Nobody. Nobody important, anyhow. He left town after I told him about my eyes. He sort of eloped without me.”

Word by word, Clint dragged the story out of her and then pieced it all together. It sounded to him as though Rachel had come perilously close to being seduced by an opportunistic scoundrel. She’d been fifteen, only a year older than her sister Molly. The man, a Bible salesman who peddled tonics on the side, had reneged on his promise to marry her when he realized she had poor eyesight. The way Clint saw it, that had probably been Rachel’s lucky night. A man like that would have used her, then abandoned her along the wayside somewhere.

“No wonder you went after Matt with such vengeance when you thought he’d deliberately hurt Molly.” Clint drew her into his arms. “You were getting revenge for yourself as well.” He ran a hand up her back. “Ah, Rachel. So many wasted tears. Don’t cry any more, sweetheart. I’ll think you gorgeous in spectacles, I promise.”

“You will?”

“Absolutely.”

She sniffed. “I won’t wear them except for when I have to. Like when I’m cooking and stuff.” She drew back slightly. “I’m really not a bungler that often when I can see what I’m doing.”

Clint smiled slightly. “You can wear your eyeglasses all you want. I’ll be so busy thinking about other things when I look at you, I probably won’t notice.”

“What other things?”

“Let me show you.” It was all the opening Clint needed. Bending his head, he settled his mouth over hers. “Oh, yes, Rachel, girl,” he whispered against her lips. “Let me show you.”

Rachel…As their kiss deepened, her name was like a song in Clint’s mind. He peeled off his shirt and spread it over the hay to protect her from the scratchiness. Then, so sweetly he could scarcely credit it, she surrendered to him. Over the years, Clint had heard lovemaking described in every possible way, but this was the first time he had ever thought of it as sacred.

That was how it seemed with Rachel, sacred. She was like an angel in his arms. A silken, wonderfully warm little angel who made all his dreams come true. Never had he seen anyone so beautiful. Ivory skin. Full, perfectly shaped breasts with rosy tips that tasted like nectar. A slender waist, just perfect for his hands. Gently flared hips. Long, shapely legs. Clint went over every inch of her and decided there wasn’t a single thing about her he would change. Including her eyes…

He made love to her carefully, taking his time, lingering over her body to make certain she was as aroused as he was before he took her. It was the most incredible joining he had ever experienced, and judging by Rachel’s cries of elation, she felt the same way.

Contentment…Utter fulfillment. Afterward, Clint held her in his arms, wishing they could stay right where they were and make love again and again. Instead he would have to pluck the hay from her hair and take her back to the house for his birthday party. Wasn’t that a fine kettle of fish? The only present he really wanted was to make love to his wife again, which he probably wouldn’t be able to do until everyone in the family went to bed that night.

Ah, but then, what a birthday celebration he would have. Clint sighed and pressed his lips against Rachel’s temple, promising himself he would make love to her all night, that dawn would find her still whimpering with pleasure in his arms.

The sun was just peeking over the horizon when Rachel opened her eyes the next morning. As usual, Clint’s side of the bed was empty. Running her hand caressingly over the sheet, she found it still warm from the heat of his long, lean body. Even as the memory of last night’s coupling ran through her, the familiar sound of the rustling husks under her fingers made her smile. While making love to her, Clint had cursed the husks for the noise they made and suggested they get a feather-tick mattress as soon as possible. When she had pointed out how many chickens would have to die to fill a mattress with feathers, he’d nearly laughed until he cried. Then he’d settled back down to making love to her again. Sweet, wonderful love.

Finally, after a month of tension and nervous, sidelong glances, he’d decided to make love to her. And make love he had, taking her higher and higher until she was drenched in the purest bliss.

Even though her experience was admittedly limited, she was sure now that no wanton could have responded more totally. And, oh, how glorious it had felt to surrender to the man she loved.

She was well and truly a woman now. A woman desperately, totally, and forever in love with her husband. Her smile took on soft edges, and she let her eyes drift closed. Deep inside, where the sweetest of sensations still throbbed ever so gently, she felt different. Changed. And yes, beautiful.

All because Clint had touched her where she’d never been touched before. And kissed her. And fused his hard, strong body with hers until she’d nearly exploded with the pleasure and joy of it.

She’d expected pain, and he’d given her ecstasy. She’d be prepared for disappointment and found herself soaring. She’d feared a maidenly embarrassment, and instead had found herself entranced. Desire rose in her again like a river of warm honey, and, suddenly restless, she stretched out her legs. Beneath the faded quilt, her skin tingled, eager to feel again the slow stroking touch of Clint’s big hand.

Lifting drowsy lids, she looked toward the window where a blur of pink and gold promised a glorious sunrise and an even more glorious day. A good day for outside chores, she thought, pleased that she was beginning to think like a rancher’s wife.

After all, a rancher’s wife was just as involved with the successful functioning of the place as any hired hand. More so, she thought, thinking of the mountains of clean clothing required by eight men, not to mention the victuals they needed to fuel those active Rafferty bodies. Clint and Jeremiah had more fence wire to string today, and Zach needed to finish patching the roof on the chicken house. She herself had a mound of ironing to tackle right after breakfast, and she really should get to the mending today. And then there was bread to make, and while Cody was busy helping Daniel muck out the stable, she would try once more to bake him that mess of cookies he wanted so desperately.

An annulment? Not on her life. She threw off the quilt with a newfound confidence. So what if she wasn’t the greatest cook in the county and the kitchen floor always seemed to need sweeping? Clint smiled a lot more often than he frowned these days, and Cody was thriving. She’d even heard Josh whistling in the bathtub Saturday night, and Matt hadn’t spent a Sunday nursing a hangover for more than three weeks running. As for Daniel, that boy was going to break hearts someday.

All because there was a woman in the house. A married woman, she thought, reaching for her bloomers. A wife and mother.

A mother? Dear God, it was possible now. More than possible. Holding her breath, she reverently placed a hand over the slight swell of her belly. Oh, it would be so wonderful to know that a baby was already growing inside her. Clint’s baby.

Tears came to her eyes at the thought of giving him a child of his own, perhaps a dark-haired little girl with the lopsided Rafferty grin she adored. A sweet-smelling, pink-cheeked daughter, maybe even a whole passel of pigtailed little girls to spoil him rotten. After all he’d sacrificed for his brothers, all the backbreaking hours of labor he’d put in to keep them fed and clothed and safe, he deserved to be pampered a little.

As she dressed hurriedly, she envisioned this same house with cheery wallpaper covering the rough-hewn logs and the happy laughter of children mingling with the deeper chuckles of adoring uncles. At Christmastime, Clint would play Santa Claus. And on Easter Sunday, after they’d all trooped home from church, Cody and Daniel would hide the colored eggs while she prepared perfectly brewed coffee and feather-light biscuits. And then, they would watch as the little ones searched for the eggs, one huge, happy family of Raffertys. Later, when everyone was bedded down, she and Clint would come together in this same bed. Their marriage bed.

Still smiling, she tied her hair away from her face with a plaid taffeta ribbon as bright as her mood and headed for the kitchen. Her family needed her.

Ten

“Oh, no!”

Rachel raced across the kitchen, waving away smoke as she went. Using her apron as a pot holder, she jerked open the oven door and snatched the cookie sheet from the rack. She’d failed again. In place of the deliciously browned gingerbread men she’d envisioned as she’d mixed and rolled and formed the batter, she had contorted lumps of burned, foul-smelling dough.

After starting the day so positively, Rachel could scarcely believe things had gone sour so quickly. A ranch wife, was she? Sick with disappointment, she carried the ruined cookies to the open window and tossed them onto the dirt. At the same time, she saw Clint heading with long, impatient strides toward the porch. “Dammit, Rachel, are you trying to burn the house down?” he called teasingly when he caught sight of her at the window.

“It isn’t funny, Clint Rafferty!” she shouted back. “I swear I did everything right this time, and they just up and burned. I even had Cody read the recipe to me three times so I’d be sure not to make a mistake. I think it’s the dad-blamed stove, that’s what I think. I hate the darned old thing!”

“Now, darlin’,” Clint began as he entered the kitchen, only to stop dead when she whirled toward him, her eyes huge and wisps of soft brown hair curling against her neck where it had escaped the ribbon.

“It is the stove,” she declared, waving her hand toward the smoke that billowed from the oven. “Not even God himself could produce a decent meal on that…monster.”

Clint only just managed to keep from grinning. “Guess it is a mite old at that, but Sam Butts at the mercantile swore it was in good working order when he sold it to me.”

“Old,” she insisted, her slightly narrowed eyes darting blue daggers, first toward the stove and then toward him. “That contraption was old when Methuselah was still a boy.”

“Did you test the temperature by sprinkling flour on the bottom of the oven?”

“Of course I did! It’s the stove, I tell you.”

“And when you checked the flour to see how brown it was, could you see it clearly?”

She gestured vaguely with a hand. “Sort of.”

The smoke had cleared enough now that Clint could see her cheeks, and he couldn’t help but admire the lovely pink they were suddenly turning. And with each agitated breath she took, her breasts pushed against the thin material of her pretty blue shirtwaist.

He advanced slowly, careful to keep his expression sober. But Lord save his sorry hide, she was pretty when she got upset. And almost as pretty when she wasn’t, come to think of it. He could have done a lot worse for himself. Hell, he still couldn’t believe his luck.

“Well, if you’re right, I guess we’ll just have to add a new stove to our list,” he offered in as sincere a tone as he could manage. “Right after I buy a new pair of spectacles for my nearsighted little wife.” When she shot him another glare, he held up a staying hand. “Just on the off chance it’s your eyes that’s the problem and not the stove. If you can’t see to do a proper sprinkle test, honey, it’s a little hard to get the oven temperature just right. Not saying that’s the case.”

Her soft mouth firmed, and her chin hiked a little higher. “But I was so careful!”

Clint’s heart caught at the pain in her eyes. To him it was just a sheet of burned gingerbread, but to Rachel it obviously meant a lot more. “It isn’t your fault. Once we go to town and get your spare spectacles, stuff like this won’t happen anymore.”

“I promised Cody gingerbread and milk when he finished his chores.”

Her lips quivered ever so slightly before she turned away. In the past, Clint had had a busy man’s impatience with displays of emotion. Not only were they nonproductive and time-consuming, but he’d always considered them to be a surefire sign of weakness. With Rachel, however, he couldn’t quite manage to feel impatient. He guessed he should thank the good Lord he’d never had sisters. They would have all been spoiled rotten.

“Cody’ll understand,” he said, turning her toward him again. His breath caught when he saw tears dulling the vibrance of those out-of-focus blue eyes.

“No, he won’t, and I don’t blame him,” she murmured, lowering her gaze to the level of his chest. “A promise is a promise.”

Unable to resist, Clint slid his arms around her waist and pulled her closer, remembering as he did how soft and warm her skin felt against his palms. And how eagerly she’d welcomed him into the moist cradle of her thighs.

“Then we’ll make more,” he found himself promising, and in a voice so husky it sounded alien. “I’ll help you.”

She smiled a little at that before shaking her head. “There’s no more flour,” she murmured, bringing one hand up to rest against his midriff. “At least none I’d want to use.”

Cupping her face, he nudged her chin higher, waiting until her gaze found his before he gently asked, “What happened?”

She shook her head, and he found himself wanting to kiss her so badly he was all knotted up inside. All morning long he’d been looking for an excuse to ride back to the house. And her. Not so much to kiss her again, though that was on his mind, but more to make sure he hadn’t imagined the look of pure happiness he’d seen in her eyes over breakfast. It wasn’t every day a man found himself in danger of busting his buttons out of sheer male pride, but damn, he felt good. Just knowing he’d been the first to see that creamy skin in lamplight put a lump the size of an egg in his throat.

Damn, he loved her. Not that he was anywheres near ready to say that out loud. Last night he’d gone so far as to tell her he thought he was falling in love with her, but that was a far cry from admitting he was already a goner. A man had to consider the consequences before he gave up that much of himself, especially to a woman who’d been so reluctant to share his name—and so nervous about sharing his bed.

“Tell me what happened to the flour,” he urged, more to hear the music of her voice than from any burning curiosity.

“You’ll think I’m hopeless.”

Using his thumb, he brushed away a smudge of flour from her chin and felt her tremble. Her skin was supple and warm, her milk-white flesh rose-petal soft. Beneath the plain blue skirt that hid all but the toes of her shoes, her thighs were sleek and delectably plump, her calves perfectly formed, her ankles trim. To night, when the lamp was turned low and the door locked, he would lap every inch of her with his tongue, and she would make that little growling sound in her throat again.

His body swelled against the fly of his jeans. “I think you’re adorable.”

“No, I’m not. I’m clumsy and nearsighted and I can’t sew a straight seam.”

“You just need your glasses and a little practice, that’s all.”

Rachel felt a little flutter in the vicinity of her heart. Though it hurt to admit it, even to herself, she craved Clint’s approval. Almost as much as she craved his love.

Even so, she forced herself to be honest. Despite the fact that their marriage had been precipitated by trickery, or perhaps because it had, she desperately wanted their life together to be based on mutual trust. Still, it took her three gulping deep breaths before she was able to blurt out, “I tripped over the train you carved for Cody and, uh…dropped the flour crock.”

“It broke?”

She nodded and said, “It took me an hour to get the flour swept out of the floor cracks. And while I was busy doing that, Useless stole the chicken Daniel plucked for to night’s dinner.”

“You let Daniel kill a chicken?”

“Oh, no. The poor thing died of old age. That’s why it’s so awful that Useless stole it. I mean, it’s probably not very often that a chicken just up and dies like that.”

“Probably more often than you think. Every spring we buy batches of chicks, all at the same time, so when they get old and start keelin’ over, they tend to go one right after another. I wouldn’t be surprised if another one isn’t breathin’ its last right this minute. We might have chicken for supper yet.”

“Only if I don’t let Useless steal the meat!”

“Heaven help us,” Clint drawled, his eyes taking on a sudden twinkle within the frame of his sin-black lashes.

“That’s just it, Clint. I’m beginning to think that not even Gabriel and all his archangels can make me into the kind of wife you deserve.”

His firm mouth twitched at the corners. Then it curved slowly into a lopsided, boyish grin. The look in his eyes, however, was hot enough to heat her blood.

“Far as I’m concerned you can burn gingerbread from now till doomsday, Rachel, and I’ll not offer one word of complaint,” he said in that gravelly voice she had come to love. “Not so long as you keep snugglin’ that nice little fanny of yours up against me of a night.”

He skimmed a hand up her side to her breast. His fingers were hard, his touch gentle as he cupped her flesh. “As for the damned flour, it isn’t your fault Cody left his train layin’ out.”

Though two layers of clothing prevented skin from caressing skin, she began to burn where his hand pressed. “Mmm,” was all she could manage as a response.

“As for the stolen chicken, I guess I could shoot Useless,” he offered.

Unable to restrain herself, Rachel arched toward him and at the same time encircled his strong brown neck with her arms. “Just kiss me,” she whispered, drawing him down to her.

His groan shuddered against her parted lips a split second before his mouth closed over hers. His lips were hot, his breath moist, his tongue arrogantly demanding.

Rachel felt her heart begin to race and a dull roaring filled her ears, as eagerly, desperately, she arched against him, her body responding as though driven by a will of its own. She exulted in the harsh rasp of his breathing.

When his hands tugged her shirtwaist free, she gasped. When his fingertips sought her breast again, she moaned. Between hard, eager kisses, she tore at the buttons of the chambray shirt he’d plucked straight from the ironing basket that morning.

Just as her shirtwaist fell open, she heard a sound. A voice, calling Clint’s name. A woman’s voice. He jerked free, his hands instinctively drawing her against the protection of his big chest, even as he turned toward the sound.

Heart thundering, and lungs starved for air, Clint fought to clear his head. He knew that voice….

“Clinton? Is that you?”

“Aunt Hester?” he said in stunned disbelief, a split second before his aunt’s rotund form filled the doorway.

Like a plump blackbird spreading its wings, his aunt, dressed head to toe in mourning, held her arms out at her sides. “I got your letter, and here I am, come to keep your house and help raise those dear great-nephews of mine!”

Eleven

Rachel poked her fork forlornly at the stewed turnips remaining on her plate, unable to force another bite past the bitter lump lodged in her throat. To her right, Cody was busily gnawing the last few shreds of meat from his second chicken leg. To her left, Matt was shoveling down his third piece of sour lemon pie. Rachel had to admit that prior to Aunt Hester’s arrival two days ago, the boys had never eaten so heartily nor praised the food more fulsomely. Even Clint had taken to coming to the table with an eager glint in his eyes.

Oh, he never came right out and said he preferred Aunt Hester’s cooking to the pathetic offerings she’d put on the table, but the signs of his newfound contentment were so obvious that even she, blind as she was without her spectacles, could see them.

Take this morning, for example, she thought, stabbing her fork at another perfectly cooked turnip slice. Why, the man had actually waxed poetic over his portly aunt’s buttermilk biscuits. His brothers had been too busy to comment in kind, engaged as they had been, slathering on strawberry jam that Hester had brought with her from Ohio. The mound of biscuits had disappeared from the basket in a trice—unlike her biscuits, which generally lasted a good three days.

“There’s more pie, boys,” Aunt Hester sung out from her place to Clint’s right.

“I’ll have another piece,” Cole said eagerly, shoving his plate forward.

“Me, too, Aunt Hester,” Cody shouted. “I ain’t never tasted anything so good.”

Aunt Hester beamed as she slid huge slabs of pie onto each of their plates. “Clint? There’s one last piece of pie here with your name on it.”

“No, thanks, Aunt Hester.” Clint put down his fork and leaned back. “But like Cody said, that’s about as good as pie gets.”

“Why thank you, Nephew. That’s just about the nicest compliment a lady can get from a gentleman.”

At that, Matt leaned close to Rachel’s ear to whisper, “Remind me to use that line on Dora Faye next time I’m in the Golden Goose.”

Rachel gave his booted foot a good kick, which only served to widen his wicked grin. “Careful, Sis,” he whispered, offering her a broad wink. “That there’s the foot I use to prop up the bar of a Saturday night.”

Seeing his brother cozying up to Rachel like a stallion sniffing heat would normally put Clint into a foul mood, but with his belly full of his aunt’s good cooking he was too mellow to do more than scowl a warning in Matt’s direction.

For some reason he couldn’t fathom, Rachel seemed different since Aunt Hester’s sudden arrival. Though he wasn’t partial to analyzing emotions—his or anyone else’s—he couldn’t help noticing how quiet she’d turned, like an un-shielded lamp suddenly extinguished by an unexpected gust of wind.

Rubbing a hand across his belly, he thought back to the scolding Aunt Hester had given him her first night on the place. “Why, the poor girl is plumb worn to a nub,” she’d chastized. “Trying to handle a house full of rowdy men and deal with all their trappings is more than a new bride should have to do.”

Maybe Aunt Hester was right, Clint thought, staring the length of the table at his wife’s bowed head. Unlike other nights when she’d been slaving over steaming pots, her shiny brown hair was neatly tied back by a plain black ribbon, and her white shirtwaist was crisp with fresh starch and neatly tucked. Damned if she didn’t look as young and innocent as a school girl, he thought, covertly eyeing the swell of her breasts under the modest attire.

Guilt stabbed him hard, reminding him of all that he and his brothers had demanded of her these past weeks. Hell, he’d brought her home to a pigsty and all but insisted she turn it into a home. And without much help, if truth were told. At least, not much from him.

But that was about to change. Now that Aunt Hester had a good hold on the running of the house, Rachel would have more time for fun. In a day or two, the branding would be done and he’d be able to take some time off. If he got a decent price for the beef this year, he might be able to treat Rachel to a few days in San Francisco. He’d heard tell of some right fancy hotels, with beds soft enough even for her delicate skin.

Just thinking about the two of them stealing off alone had his blood heating. Aunt Hester’s arrival had put a crimp in his lovemaking, no doubt about it. This winter, he would build on another bedroom for himself and Rachel that would afford them a little more privacy, but for now he couldn’t help worrying about making noise. The boys had all moved into two of the sleeping areas upstairs, leaving the third empty for Aunt Hester. But that didn’t put the woman far enough away to suit Clint. Those damned corn husks! They crinkled every time a man so much as wiggled a toe.

Which was why Clint looked forward to a stay in San Francisco like a parched man did drink. Lord, but Rachel’d be a pretty sight with her hair spread out on one of those lacy hotel pillows.

“Aunt Hester’s promised to make me cookies after the dishes are done,” Cody piped up between bites. His announcement jerked Clint from his mental meanderings back to the present. “Didn’t you, Aunt Hester?”

“I recollect I did,” Hester acknowledged with a nod of her graying head.

“I’ll help,” Rachel volunteered, rising quickly to take up her still half-filled plate.

“No!” chorused Cody and Daniel before exchanging sheepish looks.

“Uh, that is, you’re lookin’ kind of tired to night,” Daniel amended quickly. “Ain’t that right, Clint?”

Still clutching her plate, Rachel squinted the length of the table at the blur she knew to be her husband.

“Actually, I was just thinkin’ she looked particularly tidy to night,” Clint drawled.

Tidy? Rachel glanced down at the plain black skirt more suited for a matron of advanced years than a bride. She’d worn it because the wide sash reduced her waist to a mere wisp, something she’d heard men found irresistible. Instead, Clint thought she looked tidy. Lord, he might as well stand up in church and declare her a miserable failure as a wife and lover.

The lump in her throat took on sharp edges. Just when she had finally begun to feel at home, the family she’d grown to love was letting her know how little they valued her. “I suppose I should really attend to the mending—”

“Bless your heart for offering, but there’s no need,” Aunt Hester interrupted in her hearty midwestern twang. “Since I had a few spare minutes, I managed to finish the last of it before supper.”

Rachel blinked, seeing the overloaded mending basket in her mind’s eye. It had always seemed like an unscalable mountain. “All of it? The socks, too?”

Though she couldn’t see Aunt Hester’s face, she could hear her answering chuckle. “Why, child, it wasn’t such a chore, not when a body knows what she’s doing.”

Which I don’t, Rachel thought, turning away from the table.

Just a few minutes before noon the following day, Clint came in from the fields in hopes of stealing Rachel away on a nice long ride for a picnic. For dessert, he planned to make wild and noisy love to her. As he entered the kitchen, he slapped the dust from his hat and tossed it onto the table. Aunt Hester was outside boiling linen, and the house seemed strangely quiet. Too quiet, come to think of it.

“Rachel? Where are you, girl?” Hearing no answer, he strode impatiently toward the master bedroom, his boot heels thudding noisily on the freshly waxed planks. “Rachel?”

The door stood open. Inside, where the knotty pine bedstead gleamed under a fresh coat of polish, the rag rugs were almost bright as new and the windows actually sparkled. Aunt Hester had worked her magic once more, and Clint allowed himself a rare moment of self-congratulation. Despite temporary inconveniences because of inadequate sleeping arrangements, writing to Aunt Hester had been a stroke of genius, sure enough. Finally, he had the smoothly running home he’d craved. Once he got a master bedroom built onto the existing house, everything would be perfect.

As Clint moved into the immaculate bedroom, he thought it seemed too empty. Even the dresser that had held Rachel’s female doodads looked a little too naked for his peace of mind. Alarm snaked through him, settling its coils around his gut and squeezing hard. Heart tripping, he strode to the armoire and tore open the door. Rachel’s side was empty. There wasn’t a fussy shirtwaist or leg-of-mutton sleeve or long skirt in sight. Even the jumble of small shoes in the bottom had disappeared.

“Shit!”

Leaving the armoire door open, he turned to the chiffonier and jerked open the drawers one by one. All empty, save for the last which held his long johns and socks. Damn the woman’s hide; she had a wagon load of explaining to do.

Seconds later Clint strode furiously across the yard toward his aunt. “Have you seen my wife?” he demanded, planting his feet wide and jamming hard fists on his hips.

Aunt Hester finished pinning one of Cody’s shirts to the line before turning her gaze in his direction. “Last I seen, she was riding out of here on a bay mare with all her belongings strapped on the rump,” she declared, her mouth tugged down by the weight of her glum mood. “Riding astride, I might add, with her petticoats hiked clear to her knees and her bloomers displayed for the whole county to see.”

Clint snapped a fast look at the rutted trail heading toward town. What ever dust Rachel had raised had long since settled, and the only thing moving between him and the distant horizon were swaying pine trees.

“Why?” he muttered, forgetting for a moment he wasn’t alone.

“Don’t know the why of it myself. I asked, mind. But all she gave me was a damned fool answer.”

“Which was?”

“That she kept up her end of the bargain, but now that I’m here, she don’t have to anymore.” Hester fastened worried eyes on him. “Nephew, never mistake it. I’d rather leave than cause trouble between you and your missus. I guess, in my eagerness to make myself needed, I might’ve started off a little strong. Maybe she felt like I was pushing her out.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Clint bit out. And he truly believed it was. “You’ve been nothin’ but sweet and kind since you’ve been here, Aunt Hester. If Rachel felt shoved out, it was because she wanted to feel that way.”

His aunt didn’t look reassured. “Sometimes we women see things a little different than you men.” She sighed, snapping the wrinkles from a shirt. “She said to tell you to pick up the mare at the livery, by the way, rather than at her house.”

That news only added more fuel to Clint’s mounting rage. So, she didn’t wish to see him, did she? Not even for the few short minutes it would take for him to pick up the horse? Well, fine. That was just fine.

He raked a hand through his hair, his temper aboil and his gut tight. Damn it to hell, no woman was worth this kind of aggravation, especially when he’d been as patient as a man could be.

“I expect you’re aiming to go after her,” Aunt Hester said.

Damn straight he was going after her, Clint thought, clenching his teeth so hard something popped alongside his jaw. She was his wife, wasn’t she? She belonged here with him. In his bed—

Shit! Maybe his lovemakin’ wasn’t as great as he liked to think. Could be he hadn’t been patient enough with her that first time. Or skilled enough, for that matter. Given his limited experience with women, he’d tried his best to do right by her. But maybe his best hadn’t been good enough. Especially not after those first nights, what with Aunt Hester listening in, and all.

Clint stared off into the distance, his throat stinging so sharply with unshed tears, he felt about as old as Cody. Was that the reason Rachel’d hightailed it back to her da at the first opportunity? Because he had disappointed her? Shame scalded his insides, burning deeper and deeper until he damn near doubled over. If a man couldn’t satisfy his woman in bed, he didn’t deserve to keep her.

“No, I’m not aimin’ to go after her,” he said in belated answer to his aunt’s question.

“But, Nephew, that’s just plain—”

“No buts, Aunt Hester. I’m not goin’ after her. I have better things to do.”

Squaring his shoulders, he turned away and headed for the barn. He was a Rafferty, damn it. Rafferty men had pride. Rafferty men didn’t beg any woman to stay if she really wanted to leave. But, damn, it hurt.

Clint shoved open the bat-wing doors and headed into the Golden Goose. The monthly cattlemen’s meeting had lasted longer than usual, and remembering how he’d met Rachel after the last meeting a little over two months ago, he’d been so tense all evening, his throat was raw with thirst. Squinting in the smoke and lamp oil haze, he cast a look-see toward the bar, half expecting to spot Matt or one of his other brothers bending an elbow. This time he saw only Dora Faye. Judging by her scowl, she wasn’t planning to lay out any welcome.

“You got your nerve comin’ here to night, Clint Rafferty,” she said when he drew up next to her.

“How so?” he asked before signaling the barkeep to bring him a bottle. “Rye,” he amplified. “The kind you keep on hand for bankers and politicians.” He flicked Dora Faye a glance. “And two glasses.”

“One,” she corrected in a trice. “I’m particular about who I drink with.”

Clint shoved back his hat. “Meaning you ain’t interested in drinkin’ with me?”

She turned her back to the bar and rested her elbows on the polished surface. Another time Clint might have enjoyed the snowy expanse of female bosom above the gaudy lace of her cheap green dress. To night, however, he had one thing on his mind, and one thing only—pouring enough whiskey down his throat to take away the empty feeling in his belly. Now he knew how his da must have felt after losing his ma. Hollow clear to his marrow. Not really caring if he lived or died. Rachel had been gone a month now, and every second had been an agony for him.

“Suit yourself,” he said to Dora Faye as he tipped the bottle over the glass. A second later, he slugged down the liquor. Five drinks later, some of the knots in his mood had come untangled, but not all.

“For someone claimin’ she’s not eager for my company, you sure are hangin’ fast to my shirttails,” he told the soiled dove sourly.

“Only so’s I can tell you what an ass I think you are. You broke Rachel’s heart, you bastard.”

Clint bit down hard. “The hell I did,” he retorted. This time when he poured, his hand wasn’t as steady as it should have been. And when he downed the triple shot, the whiskey had suddenly acquired a foul bite. Or was it loneliness he was tasting?

“She’s lost weight since she come home. Big Jim’s at his wit’s end.”

Clint tapped the bottle with a forefinger. “Sure you won’t have a drink?” he offered, trying to ignore what she said. “There’s plenty left.” A good half jug, by his reckoning. Too much to waste.

“Last time I saw her at the mercantile, her eyes were all red from crying.”

Clint poured faster this time, slopping the equivalent of a shot on the bar. Shrugging, he swiped his forearm across the spill, then downed the whiskey that had ended up in the jigger. No good. He could still see Rachel’s face on the pillow, her thick brown hair spread like a dark angel cap on the slightly singed linen.

“Nobody told her to go,” he muttered, his voice whiskey thick.

“Maybe not in so many words,” Dora Faye exclaimed in a low hissing whisper. “But a woman as sensitive as Rachel can read between the lines.”

“What the devil are you talkin’ about?” Clint demanded, his head beginning to swim ever so slightly.

“You jackass! I’m talkin’ about that bully of an aunt you imported.”

Clint drew his head back and squinted down his nose at his red-headed accuser. It took a full second to get her face in good focus, and then he realized he liked it better when he couldn’t see the green sparks shooting out of her eyes. Was this the way Rachel felt without her glasses? he wondered. Like the whole world was on the opposite side of fogged glass?

“Bully? Aunt H—Hester?” Damned if the whiskey hadn’t numbed his tongue instead of his head. “Is that what Ra—Rachel told you?”

“Not in so many words, but I could tell she was hurting.” She poked a finger at his chest. “Rachel gave everything she had to that ungrateful family of yours, and what did she get back? Not so much as a ‘thank you, ma’am’ or a ‘don’t let the door hit you where the good Lord split you.’”

“Where the good Lord what? Now wait just a minute—”

She jabbed a finger at his nose this time. “So she can’t cook as good as a woman who’s been doing it for thirty years or more? She tried her best, didn’t she? And maybe she did singe a few underdrawers, but that don’t mean you boys didn’t have clean clothes when you needed ’em, along with a smile and a cheery word when you come home tired and hungry.”

“I never said—”

“That’s just it, you fool cowboy. You never said nothing she needed to hear, like how much you appreciated her tryin’ so hard. Or how nice it was that she was there when you come home, or how pretty she looked, or how sweet it was at night to pull her close.” She paused to haul in a breath. “Instead, you washed your hands of her the minute you didn’t need her any more. Even in the bedroom, behind closed doors, you worthless toad.”

Recalling the nights after his aunt’s arrival when he’d felt too self-conscious to make proper love to his wife, Clint felt heat sear his cheeks. “What occurs between a man and his wife behind closed doors is no concern of yours,” he muttered, staring at the amber liquid in the bottom of his glass.

“Pathetically little happened for you to keep secret, from what I heard! Crinkling corn husks, my hiney.”

Clint stared at her in amazement. “Is that why she left? Because I was worried about makin’ noise and wasn’t very—well, you know?”

“That and other things. Like maybe because you never told her you loved her. Don’t deny it. If you had, she never would of left, not in a million years.”

Clint bristled at that. “I did so! Plain as can be! I told her several times.”

“Not according to Rachel. She says you told her you thought maybe you did.”

Clint had no answer for that. Thinking back on it, he recalled now that he had skirted the issue, telling Rachel he thought he loved her, but never saying he knew it for certain. “That still didn’t give her any call to leave,” he said under his breath.

Dora Faye, who glared at him nearly nose to nose, caught the words. “Oh, really? And what would have convinced her to stay, you stubborn mule? You married her for her talents as a house keeper. As I understand it, you never made any bones about it, not from the very first, and Rachel feels like she failed you at every turn.” When Clint tried to protest, she waved him to silence. “Her words, not mine. After good old Aunt Hester showed up, she didn’t feel needed anymore. In fact, she felt like she’d done such a miserable job that you were all hoping she’d leave.”

“That is not so.”

A pulse throbbed in Dora Faye’s temple. “She thinks you wish you’d never married her in the first place.”

“That’s silly.”

“Is it? I don’t think so. And after you think about it, I don’t think you will, either.” She fixed him with those fiery green eyes of hers for a long moment. “She’s leavin’ on Monday, you know. Goin’ back east to stay with some relatives and go to some kind of school. And why wouldn’t she? Now that you’ve tossed her back, she has no hope for making a life here in Shady Corners.”

Twelve

The church seemed to be unusually crowded for early services. Rachel stood just outside the doors with her father and sister, held back by the press of people trying to move en masse into the church. Molly kept standing on tiptoe, craning her neck to see. “I wonder what’s happening?” she asked for at least the dozenth time.

“I have no idea,” Rachel replied.

“Well, I’m going to find out!” her father vowed.

He began shoving his way through the crowd, cutting a path for Rachel and Molly in his wake. They fell in after him like farmers behind a plow. Just inside the church doors, Rachel realized the interior of the building seemed oddly quiet. Once people got inside, they usually visited right up until the preacher stepped to his pulpit. She strained to see over the shoulders of men, wondering why the crowd seemed to have gathered at the back of the church.

When at last her father had worked his way through the throng, Rachel felt sure she would discover what was holding everyone back from finding their seats. But at first glance around the church, she saw nothing unusual.

“Hells bells, there she is. Took you long enough, darlin’. We were about to give up on you.”

Rachel’s heart leaped. She would have recognized Clint’s voice anywhere. She homed in on the sound and finally made out his blurry outline. He was sitting on the floor, almost precisely where the two of them had been discovered together that other ill-fated morning over two months ago. His back was supported by the rear church pew, one knee raised so he might rest his arm. Beside him sat a jug of liquor.

“Folks, may I present to you my wife?”

Her only thought to get out of there, Rachel pivoted to leave. But the crowd had closed ranks behind her, and there was no way out.

“You can’t run from me, Rachel. Hightail it, and I swear I’ll come after you.”

She turned back to find that he had pushed to his feet. “Why are you doing this?” she asked thinly.

“The way I hear it, you’re planning to leave town. I thought maybe I should clear up a few things before you take off.”

“What things?” she asked expressionlessly.

“Like the fact that I love you.” He took a step toward her.” And that I think you’re beautiful and sweet and absolutely wonderful. And that’s not to mention that I can’t live without you.”

Rachel felt her skin pinken, and she lowered her gaze to the floor. “Oh, Clint, don’t.”

“Oh, Clint, don’t? Why not? Do you think I want to lose you? Dammit, Rachel, you had no business runnin’ off without talkin’ to me. Do you think I care that much if Aunt Hester makes good pies? Hell, no. I like pie as much as the next man, but I can live without it, and so can my brothers. What we can’t do without is the heart of our family. The love and the laughter. Havin’ someone around who’ll leave the laundry tub to boil dry if we need her. Someone to tell stories. Hell, even Useless misses you.”

She squeezed her eyes closed. “You don’t need me. None of you do!”

“Matt’s drinkin’ again!” he bit out. “And last night I joined him. Cody’s got the nightmares again, too. To top that all off, there’s beef and venison hangin’ in the smoke house again, and I gotta tell you that neither the buck or the steer died of old age. And there’s chickens gettin’ their heads chopped off right and left. You gotta come back, Rachel. That’s all there is to it. To save the poor animals, if for no other reason.”

“You’ll just have to save them yourself.”

“The place is goin’ to rack and ruin without you.”

“Not with Aunt Hester there! I’m sure she has everything under control. She’s a paragon.”

“She’s someone to help you with the work, and nothin’ more. Someone to make life a little easier so you can have more fun with your family. When the babies start comin’, she’ll be an even bigger help. But the bottom line is, she’s just a side dish, Rachel, not our main meal. We need you, honey.” He broke off and swallowed hard. “I need you.”

Rachel gave a start when his scuffed boots suddenly came into view. The next instant, his large warm hand curled under her chin, and he forced her to look up at him. Rachel discovered that she was standing so close to him that she could see the sooty lashes that lined his eyes, the stormy gray-blue of his irises, the burnished tone of his skin. Her heart kicked hard against her ribs. He looked good enough to eat. He surely did.

“You have to come home,” he said huskily. “There aren’t any flowers on the table, and I love you so much, I can’t live without you.”

With no warning, he bent and began fishing in her skirt pocket. When he came up with nothing, he dived his hand into her other pocket as well. A satisfied gleam entered his eyes. The next thing Rachel knew, he was settling her spectacles on her nose. Bending slightly at the knees, he made a great show of looking her over. Then he flashed her a devastating grin.

“I knew it. You look adorable in spectacles.” He glanced around, as if to draw comment from others present.

Someone nearby said, “I didn’t know you wore spectacles, Rachel.”

Clint replied, “She darn sure does. She just doesn’t wear them in public because she has the fool notion they don’t look good on her. I disagree. I think she looks beautiful in them.”

Rachel cried, “Clint, stop it. You’re embarrassing me!”

“Then come home with me,” he demanded in an oddly gruff voice, “so I can tell you in private how beautiful I think you are.”

Tears filled Rachel’s eyes, and her spectacles began to fog over. Clint took hold of her hand.

“Please, Rachel. Come back home where you belong. Every hour I spend apart from you, I die a little more inside. Please…” When she didn’t immediately speak, he hastened to add, “I’m sorry you felt cast aside after Aunt Hester came. Lookin’ back, I can see how it must have seemed to you, me all of a sudden backin’ off and usin’ the corn husks as an excuse. But I swear it wasn’t that way. I truly was worried about her hearin’ us.”

Rachel shot a horrified look around. “Be quiet! Do you want everyone to hear!”

“See?” he said with a devilish grin. “It’s a private affair, isn’t it?”

She narrowed her eyes, but it was all she could do not to smile. “You’ve made your point.”

“Then come home,” he said huskily. “Where we can talk in private.”

“Oh, Clint. Are you certain you really want—”

He cut her off with a kiss that answered her question far more eloquently than words. A sweet, wonderful kiss that sent tingles down her spine and made her toes curl. Exactly the kind of kiss Rachel had always dreamed of and had never received. Until she met Clint Rafferty, of course.

“I love you,” he whispered against her cheek. “Please believe that, Rachel. I’ll love you forever.”

The throbbing timber of his voice, so packed with emotion, would have convinced Rachel. The way his hands shook when he touched her was added proof that he was sincere. Joy welled in her chest, nearly cutting off her breath, and she threw herself into his arms.

His arms…His wonderful strong arms. The instant they closed around her, Rachel knew she was where she belonged and where she would remain.

For the rest of her life.

CATHERINE ANDERSON, the award-winning author of both contemporary and historical fiction, lives with her husband and three canine friends—a mixed spaniel named Kibbles and two Rottweilers named Sam and Sassy, who seem to think they are teacup poodles and that obedience training is for people.

It was SAMANTHA JAMES’s love of reading as a child that steered her toward a writing career. Among her favorites in those days were the Trixie Belden and Cherry Ames series of books. She still loves a blend of mystery and romance, and, of course, a happily-ever-after ending. The award-wining, bestselling author of eighteen romances and one novella, her books have ranged from medieval to Regency to  the American West. Please visit her on the web at www.samanthajames.com.

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The biggest secret in London is about to be…revealed.

Every gentleman is wondering: Who is the beauty in the scandalous nude portrait hanging in one of London’s most fashionable clubs? Is it true that she’s a member of the ton? Who would be so daring? So reckless?

Julian Delane, Earl of Parkhurst, has a good idea. So good, in fact, that he’s willing to make a wager on it. If only the bet were all that’s at stake…

Determined to clear the family name from a scandal that claimed his father’s life, Julian believes the ravishing model will lead him to answers. Rebecca Leland—spirited, adventurous, with a bit of a wild streak—is just as determined to evade his questions. But when Julian finally corners his quarry, he may find Rebecca well worth the pursuit.

Rebecca felt a secret little thrill. She saw the way both women and men stepped out of Lord Parkhurst’s way. He ignored them all, his every focus on her. Awareness was a prickling flush that started at the nape of her neck and spread along her body. She barely felt Susanna’s fingers clasping hard on her arm, as she had to look up and up as the earl came closer and closer. Good lord, he made her feel positively dainty.

She’d been longing for something different to happen to her—and now here he was, large and bold and threatening beneath a veil of civility.

Lady Rosa beamed at her daughters. She had the same shade of dark brown hair as Rebecca, with only a little gray to betray her age. Susanna had inherited her warm brown eyes. She was a striking woman, displaying the easy elegance of her birth, yet at the same time showing her compassion and strength. She’d endured the fear of losing Rebecca to countless childhood illnesses and suffered through a year believing her son dead. Her marriage had almost floundered under the weight of a lifetime of scandal, but Lady Rosa had emerged victorious. Now the only triumph she seemed to truly want was to see her daughters well—and happily—married. And Rebecca almost regretted that she could not appease her mother in such a way.

“My dear girls, how pleased I am to find you together,” Lady Rosa said, beaming. “Lord Parkhurst, allow me to introduce my daughters, Miss Leland and Miss Rebecca Leland. Oh dear, I’ve already gone on so long about them, you probably feel as if you know everything there is to know!”

Rebecca’s smile stiffened. Everything there was to know, indeed. Lord Parkhurst probably did think such a thing, especially after the way he’d studied the painting for what seemed like forever.

And then it was as if she were in the dark, candlelit saloon again, standing too close to this giant of a man, meeting his intelligent, assessing gaze. He should seem out of place in this false garden, where people talked with little substance. Instead, she could imagine him one with the forest, hunting a beast of prey.

And she realized that she was the prey.

A flush of heat had her wondering if he could see her blush.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, ladies,” the earl said, bowing his head politely. His voice was mild rather than challenging, though still deep and rumbling.

She and her sister curtsied. Rebecca could feel some of Susanna’s tension subside. Up close and by the light of day, he seemed a bit…different. There were lines of strain across his forehead, as if he regularly frowned. His eyes were hooded, almost tired.

Had he spent much of the night thinking about her, as she’d thought about him?

No, she wasn’t worth that to him. He was a bored aristocrat who’d found something to amuse himself for a few days—a month at most, she reminded herself. Though he might look different, he was surely the same as every other man of her acquaintance.

“Is this truly the first time we’ve spoken, Lord Parkhurst?” Rebecca asked politely. “I feel like I’ve seen you at several events.”

“And I have seen you, Miss Leland.”

He spoke with all politeness, but she heard another meaning in his words, and barely withheld a shiver.

“I wish to congratulate you all on the miraculous return of Captain Leland,” he continued.

“Thank you, my lord,” Lady Rosa said with a happy sigh. “I was…quite devastated by the loss of my son. With his return, my husband and I are restored in spirit and in our hearts. The captain is spending time with his cousins this month.”

“Ah, so I heard,” he said, glancing at the Leland sisters. “The captain himself told me. We have had several shared investments recently.”

Why hadn’t he said that he knew her brother last night? Rebecca wondered with annoyance. She was feeling more and more deflated. The earl was not so removed from Society. She only wanted him to be.

“Did you meet my son at university?” Lady Rosa asked.

Lord Parkhurst linked his hands behind his back, his appearance casual—far too casual. Rebecca sensed…something beneath the surface.

“No, I did not, my lady.”

“Ah, then you must have gone to Oxford. My husband lectures at Cambridge.”

“I came into my title at eighteen,” Lord Parkhurst said. “I did not have time for much else.”

Lady Rosa’s expression turned momentarily pained. “Do forgive me, my lord. I had forgotten that your father died so many years ago.”

Rebecca looked between them, curious at what wasn’t being said. But if she asked her mother for details later, Lady Rosa would think her interested, and never let her hear the end of it.

To cover the vague unease she sensed in her mother, Rebecca said, “Our cousin, Madingley, did not attend university either, for exactly the same reason.”

He nodded. “I remember that.”

“Even though you are without an advanced education, my lord,” Lady Rosa said, “I hear men talking with much admiration of your knowledge and skill.”

“Admiration is it now?” His wide mouth quirked in a faint smile. “That is putting it kindly. But yes, there is education to be had, even if it is self-motivated. Yet formal education is something that should be taken advantage of—as I keep telling my brothers.”

“How many brothers do you have, my lord?” Rebecca asked.

He glanced at her, those gray eyes impassive. “Two, Miss Rebecca, eighteen-year-old twins.”

“Young then,” Susanna said, nodding. “I feel like my eighteenth birthday was so long ago.”

Lady Rosa flashed her a mortified frown, as if Susanna should never allude to her advanced, unmarried age of twenty-seven.

“Youth does not excuse common sense,” Lord Parkhurst said.

“Perhaps they see that you do not have a university education, my lord,” Rebecca said, “and yet you seem to have survived.”

They looked at each for a moment—a moment too long, for Lady Rosa’s brows rose.

“Susanna, do escort me to the dessert table,” Lady Rosa said. “I am suddenly quite famished. Enjoy your afternoon, my lord.”

Wearing an apologetic look, Susanna was led away.

Julian watched the gaze exchanged between the two sisters and withheld his amusement. Susanna thought she was leaving Rebecca with the devil himself—and who could blame her, after their evening together?

But Rebecca…he did not quite understand her mood. Last night, she’d been bold, in command, even fearless, though three men held her and her relatives practically captive. Today she was a subdued lady of the ton, patiently allowing her mother the lead, as any daughter who expected to be led to the altar would.

“Lady Rosa did that quite neatly,” Julian remarked.

“She has had much practice,” Rebecca said dryly.

“Then I suggest we reward her.” He held out his arm. “Would you care to walk?”

She eyed him, her eyes faintly devilish, her lips curved in a lovely smile. Then she placed her hand lightly on his arm. “I imagine I cannot come to harm in a conservatory.”

“You could always scream,” he countered.

“And find myself married before the week is out? I think not.”

“Ah, you are crushing my self-esteem. Would not many young ladies wish to be married to an earl?”

“Perhaps not many, for you are not married.”

“By choice. And neither are you.”

“Stating the obvious, my lord.”

They walked quietly for several minutes, weaving their way out of sight of the other guests, although the murmur of voices never quite went away. At the rear of the conservatory, the glass separated them from the walled garden outside. They paused as if to admire it, but Julian knew she must not be thinking of the view.

He was thinking of his view…of her. Her lovely rose-colored gown hugged her torso, revealing herself to be shaped much as she’d been painted. She was slender but not fragile, small, yet rounded. Her hair was styled artfully, curled, with carefully placed ribbons. Her bodice was high enough that he found himself wondering if she hid the Scandalous Lady beneath her garments.

Patience, he reminded himself. He’d spent the morning speaking with people about her family. Though he’d heard of several of the family scandals, the Lelands and the Cabots certainly did not seem like thieves. And Rebecca was far too young to have stolen the diamond herself almost ten years before. So how had she come by it?

He’d realized during the long night that the best way to discover answers to his questions was to earn her trust. He had diligently tried to be unassuming at the luncheon, wanting her to believe that his intensity of the previous evening was more about his overindulgence. And to some degree, that was true. He shouldn’t have intimidated her, standing too close, looking so menacing, which was always rather easy for him to do.

She didn’t seem intimidated. She inhaled the scents of the flowers all around them, then exhaled almost on a sigh—but not a sigh of resignation. There was something very…unusual about her nonplussed reaction to the wager.

But then again, only an unusual woman would pose for a nude portrait. He wondered how unfettered her morals truly were.

And that aroused him far too much, he realized. He could not let himself dwell on her nudity, her lack of inhibitions. He had to focus on the Scandalous Lady, and bringing it back to its rightful owner—him.

He began the hunt for information. “You and Miss Leland seem close to your cousin Lady Elizabeth.”

She eyed him, a smile touching her full lips. “We are of an age, and we were raised together at Madingley Court.”

“Your families all lived together?”

“Have you seen Madingley Court?” she asked, amused.

He nodded. “Ah, I see. The palace of a duke, of course. So you were not too crowded living together.”

“Not at all,” she answered, searching his face with the faintest confusion.

He knew she wondered at his motives, why he didn’t bring up the wager. And his talk of crowded living conditions revealed too much of his own childhood issues.

“So the three of you were like sisters,” he said.

“We still are,” she answered, her voice firm. “We support each other through anything.”

“Obviously,” he said. “They risked much for you with their declaration last night.”

“We would risk anything for each other.”

“You’d risk exposure and humiliation?”

He thought she’d drop her hand from his arm, but she didn’t, only looked up at him coolly.

“Are you threatening such a thing?” she asked. “I would have thought you a gentleman.”

“I am a gentleman, Miss Leland. But that painting does not make a gentleman remember the civilized part of his brain.”

He felt her stiffen.

“But then you knew that would happen when you posed,” he continued mildly. “Or did you not think beyond a momentary thrill? Why would you do such a thing?”

“Are you lecturing me, my lord? A true gentleman would protect a lady’s sensibilities, would forget the things he’d seen.”

“You have not displayed a lady’s sensibilities, have you?”

She dropped her hand and faced him now, speaking in a low voice, her hazel eyes flashing. “Now you’re offending me. You know nothing about me.”

“I would like to.”

“No, you wouldn’t. You want to win a wager with your silly friends.”

“Which you and your silly female relatives made possible by your behavior last night.”

“How disapproving you sound, my lord.”

“No, I am simply stating a fact. Your guilt makes you believe that everyone is censorious.”

“Guilt?” she cried, then looked down the path and lowered her voice. “I feel no guilt whatsoever.”

“Then why else would you attempt to steal the painting?”

“For the simple reason that it was supposed to be in France, not here where people who know me will see it.”

“Then why pose, Miss Leland? Why risk it?”

She paused, and in her mercurial eyes, he could see her weighing what to reveal. He waited almost impatiently—and he was never an impatient man. Then to his surprise, she stepped closer. He could feel the heat from her body, imagined how it would feel with just another step, as she pressed against him. His logical brain threatened to shut down, and that had never happened to him.

“Did you ever just want to be adventurous, my lord?” she asked softly.

IN PURSUIT OF A SCANDALOUS LADY
by Gayle Callen

On sale now from Avon Books

About the Authors

CATHERINE ANDERSON, the award-winning author of both contemporary and historical fiction, lives with her husband and three canine friends—a mixed spaniel named Kibbles and two Rottweilers named Sam and Sassy, who seem to think they are teacup poodles and that obedience training is for people.

LORETTA CHASE holds a B.A. from Clark University, where she majored in English and minored unofficially in visual art. Her past lives include clerical, administrative, and part-time teaching at Clark and a Dickensian six-month experience as a meter maid. In the course of moonlighting as a corporate video scriptwriter, she fell under the spell of a producer who lured her into writing novels…and marrying him. The union has resulted in more than a dozen books and a number of awards, including the Romance Writers of America’s Rita® Award. You can talk to Loretta via her email address Author@LorettaChase.com, visit her website at www.LorettaChase.com, and blog with her and six other authors at WordWenches.com.

It was SAMANTHA JAMES’s love of reading as a child that steered her toward a writing career. Among her favorites in those days were the Trixie Belden and Cherry Ames series of books. She still loves a blend of mystery and romance, and, of course, a happily-ever-after ending. The award-wining, bestselling author of eighteen romances and one novella, her books have ranged from medieval to Regency to  the American West. Please visit her on the web at www.samanthajames.com.

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Copyright

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are drawn from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

THREE TIMES A BRIDE. Copyright © 2010 by Avon Books. “Fancy Free” copyright © 1995 by Adeline Catherine Anderson. “The Mad Earl’s Bride” copyright © 1995 by Loretta Chekani. “Scandal’s Bride” copyright © 1996 by Sandra Kleinschmidt. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

First Avon Books paperback printing: May 2010

EPub Edition © April 2010 ISBN: 978-0-06-201175-6

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* See Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase, published by Avon Books.

Table of Contents

Fancy Free

In Pursuit of a Scandalous Lady

About the Authors

Other Romances

Copyright

About the Publisher

More Dazzling Romance from

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