Territorial Bride. Linda Castle

her voice to a respectable whisper. “And with all these folks squeezed in here there’s barely a breath of air left.” She forced herself to ignore the amusement etched in every line of his face. “So why don’t you quit jawing so much and using up what little air there is left?”

      He laughed.

      Damn him to hell and back. He had the gall to stand there and laugh. And then he raised a long-fingered, brown and roughened hand as if to touch her.

      The thought sent her belly dropping to her feet like a stone.

      “Rest easy, little lady. If you swoon, I promise I’ll do my best to catch you before you hit the floor in front of all these people.” Mercifully, his fingers stopped just short of touching her cheek.

      Her face grew hotter and all the shallow little breaths she was taking seemed to be hanging at the back of her throat. It took all her control to keep from yelling at him, or slapping his face, but she managed to keep her voice low and controlled and her hands clenched at her thighs.

      “I appreciate the offer, Brooks, but you’ll never see the day when I can’t stand on my own two feet around you.” Her long, unbound hair tickled her backside through the silky material of her dress as she emphasized her speech with a little nod of her head.

      Brooks did not laugh this time, but she felt his amusement sluice over her in a scalding wave. Her heart beat a tiny bit faster inside the sateen bodice of her dress.

       Damn him. Double damn him!

      He could affect her with just a look, or God forbid, the hint of a casual touch. And then, as if he had read her tortured thoughts, he reached out and took hold of her elbow with his bare fingertips. A myriad of peculiar and uncontrollable emotions ripped through her middle when his fingers tightened around her arm. She promised herself that she would not react, but she stiffened in spite of herself.

      “Don’t make a bigger fuss, Missy. Everyone is watching.” His low warning rumbled over her while his gaze slid around the interior of the crowded Catholic mission, the closest house of God they could find.

      Missy followed his line of vision. Just as he had said, the tiny adobe building was full to overflowing, and while not everyone was staring at her, more than enough curious eyes were looking her way.

      She died a little inside, knowing that her confrontation with Brooks had been the object of their attention.

      “Come on, Missy, I won’t bite you—” he leaned close enough to whisper in her ear, tightening that possessive hold on her arm “—but I might nibble a bit around the edges.” His breath fanned her earlobe. For one terrifying moment she was afraid he would nip her flesh.

       Was she afraid he would—or that he wouldn’t?

      “It is time we took our places, Brooks,” she managed to croak. “Stop all this foolishness.”

      Brooks grinned widely, flashing a glimpse of straight teeth, then he deftly maneuvered her and the wide ruffles of peacock blue sateen up through the narrow aisle. Missy marveled that he got them where they needed to be without tripping either one of them.

      She shook herself and blinked. Without quite knowing how time was moving so fast and disjointedly, she realized she was now standing opposite Brooks in front of the slat-thin minister with the too-large Adam’s apple.

      Missy allowed herself one backward glance. Now every single person seated in the small chapel was watching her as she stood at the front of the church, twisting her fingers and plucking at the too-tight, unforgiving waist of her dress.

      She whirled back around, staring at the shiny worn knees of the minister’s trousers. She felt like a complete jackass—and she blamed Brooks for it and for making her feel things that confused and befuddled her.

      A murmur of restrained voices, like a cooling breeze over dried leaves, moved through the chapel. Missy turned to see what had caused the stir, grateful that something, anything, had distracted the group’s interest from her. Then she saw Trace, and all of her thoughts were for him alone.

      He looked happy, healthy and more handsome than she’d ever imagined. His dark hair reflected the flames of the candles on the altar; his face was flushed with excitement.

      The organ groaned and wheezed again. Then, with a reverberating sound that tickled the bottoms of her feet, the “Wedding March” began. Missy followed Trace’s gaze to the side door.

      Moving with all the grace of an angel fallen to earth, Bellami appeared in her flowing ivory gown. A heavy lace veil trailed behind her on the red, Spanish-tiled floor.

      Throughout the long preparations for the wedding, Trace had made only one request: that Bellami wear nothing over her face. The operation had removed the bone sliver from his brain, but it had been Bellami’s love that had truly restored his sight and his life. He had told Missy that he wanted to look upon the face of the woman he loved, now and forever.

      Bellami shifted the bouquet of wild lavender and oxeye daisies to her empty hand while she stretched up to deposit an affectionate kiss on Brooks’s lean cheek, then she offered a reassuring smile to Missy. The gesture made the hot dry lump in Missy’s throat grow larger.

      “Let us all bow our heads for a moment of prayer…” the minister intoned “…and ask God’s blessing on this young couple as they embark on the road of life.”

      Brooks watched Missy’s eyes flutter shut. He half listened to the prayer while he continued to observe her from the corner of his eye. Looking at her now, a feminine vision in sateen, it was hard to believe she was the same razor-tongued shrew that had pestered him for the last year—except that he had the emotional bruises to prove it. The little vixen had drawn blood, in a manner of speaking, a time or two. She was feisty and headstrong, the exact opposite of the women he’d formerly pursued.

      A murmured amen brought Brooks’s head up. He focused on his twin. Bellami was lovely, as all brides are, but even more so because she held her head up proudly and did not care who gazed upon her face. She no longer hid herself from the pity people might feel for her. Trace’s love had been the spark needed for her to grow and change. For the first time in her life she seemed unaware of the scar.

      The scar. It had altered her life and saddled Brooks with guilt for years. But then it had brought Bellami James to the Territory to find her destiny, and in a peculiar sort of way it had done the same thing for him. Bellami’s scar and Violet Ashland’s fickle heart had been the catalyst for Brooks to leave the city and the pointless pursuits he had once thought of as manly.

      After Bellami left, Brooks had surrounded himself with a flock of beautiful ladies, but none had ever held his attention for more than a couple of weeks until he’d met Violet Ashland. The petite blonde had captured his interest in a way that no other woman had before…

      A nervous cough pulled his attention to the ravenhaired girl standing opposite him. Missy was a wildcat one minute and a siren the next. She could make him madder than any woman he knew, yet in the whole year he’d known her she had never shown the slightest interest in snaring him for his fortune—or any other reason, he thought with a smile.

       Not like Violet.

      He frowned and wondered where that thought had come from. It was probably the magic of the candles and the organ music and the lethargy of a Territorial afternoon. A man would have to be made of iron not to be influenced by the romantic promise of this moment. The trappings of matrimony had resurrected memories that had long been buried, reminding him of his own proposal of marriage.

      But that had been another man, in another life. Now his days were filled with work and with fending off Missy’s verbal arrows. Yes, he thought idly, Missy O’Bannion could strip the hide off a man with one look, but under all that bluff and bluster she was honest and true.

      The kind of woman to cross rivers and climb mountains with.

      Brooks blinked in amusement at his thoughts. He was beginning to sound, or at least to think,