An Unwilling Husband. Tera Shanley

murmur.

      Alone. She was completely alone.

      Lenny held Buck’s reins out to her. Thank the Lord, Garret hadn’t actually killed her horse in his efforts to get to Roy. She mounted and rode beside Lenny as the circuit preacher led them toward Roy’s homestead. Shaw, Burke and the other men rode behind them and Cookie drove the buggy. Though she couldn’t see Garret, she felt his gaze from behind. As if the tender place on the back of her neck was laid open to his prying eyes, the fine hairs there prickled and rose beneath her long tresses. More likely, he was glaring at her tattered state of dress, so she did her best to ignore him.

      The men dug the grave under a huge oak tree toward the back of Roy’s property. The climbing tree from her childhood. When she looked skyward to the branches, she could still see the remnants of the old rope that had long ago held a crude wooden swing. Roy swung her in it when she was little, and when she got older, Garret became her climbing partner. She traced a hesitant fingertip over the faint carving of Garret’s name in the trunk. Maggie turned to find him watching her with stormy eyes filled with some emotion she couldn’t fathom.

      The preacher read scripture over the grave, and though she was quiet about it, tears traveled down her cheeks, searching for solace in the ground beneath her feet. After he finished, the preacher nodded to Garret, who cleared his throat.

      “Roy was like a father to me when I needed one. He stuck up for me when my pa was being an ornery old cuss, and he showed me what it is to be a man. When I was little I used to imagine what life would have been like if God had seen fit to give me to a man like Roy. I’ve never met a better man.” He picked up a handful of black earth and tossed it into the grave. “I hope you know what you are doing, old man,” he mumbled then put his hat on and plodded off toward the house. The rest of the crowd followed shortly.

      What had he meant, that he hoped the old man knew what he was doing? Garret would likely forever be a mystery to her.

      Her full skirts puffed with air and slowly deflated around her as she took a seat next to the black hole that held her lifeless father. She’d stayed behind to mourn in private but, unable to look at the still, blanket wrapped form below, stared instead at the crude wooden cross serving as a headboard to Roy’s eternal bed. Lenny and Burke waited a short distance away.

      As the last of her sobs died and no more tears would come, Burke returned. As he shoveled dirt onto the grave, she ambled back to the house, Lenny beside her. The girl’s dark almond eyes looked as if she wanted to say something but couldn’t, and Maggie smiled and took her hand as they walked. That day, Lenny had shown her more kindness than anyone ever had except perhaps Roy, and she was grateful.

      They neared the house, and the others stood out front. Cookie and a couple of men were gathered around Garret, who, from the looks of it, was cussing fit to turn his mother in her grave. Lenny stared solemnly straight ahead of them. Did the girl understand the curses, or just Garret’s tone? Cookie dusted off Garret’s vest and shirt, as if in an effort to make him look presentable. Odd.

      Whatever the men were up to, she had no inclination to get involved. She wanted to be alone with Roy’s things, in the home that had built her. Lenny disappeared around the side of the house as quiet as a breath, and Maggie stepped through the back door to Roy’s cabin.

      Her luggage lay open and disheveled on the quilted bed. Dresses and petticoats spilled over the sides and even her small jar of rose salve had been tossed haphazardly onto the pillow. She could have sworn she’d packed her belongings neatly the morning before.

      The front door banged open, and she jumped. Garret barged in and tossed his hat on the table. From the disconcerting way he stared at her, she couldn’t tell if he was going to kiss or kill her. Heartbeat thundering away in her chest, she waited for him to speak.

      “You look different than you did when we were little,” he started, sounding almost angry.

      “So do you, Garret,” she said. What had offended him now?

      He stepped forward until he stood directly in front of her. Raw power seeped from his very being and the brush of it against her skin brought a delicate shiver across the back of her shoulders. Could he see how much he affected her?

      Neck stretched, she drank in his towering height. His brilliant, sky blue gaze touched places in her she hadn’t even known existed until that very moment. He stood so close, his warmth reached for her and she took an unintentional step closer. He was an intoxicating man, like the first sip of fine whiskey, and it left her dizzy to be this near him.

      “I remember you had this ridiculous fiery red hair when we were kids.” He gently lifted a long strand of her wavy hair, now dark as a redwood. A look of tenderness flickered across his face before it was replaced with one of disdain. Her breath caught at his touch. Even angry he was beautiful. Like an avenging angel.

      Garret pulled away and dropped her hair then rounded on the open luggage in two long strides and picked up the gaudy cream silk dress she had worn from the train station. “This one will do.” In his work-roughened hands, the shimmering material looked fragile, ridiculous. “It will remind me of exactly what I’m getting myself into.”

      As he tossed the dress in a billowing heap onto the bed and headed for the door, she put voice to her confusion. “Garret, I don’t understand what you are talking about most of the time, but today you have been speaking to me in puzzles. Why would I wear this dress for you?”

      He wheeled and faced her. “Because I aim to marry you. Today. Right now. I have to get the cattle to the train station tomorrow and the preacher has other engagements so this will be our last chance for a while.”

      He couldn’t be serious. Marry her? She barked a laugh.

      The determined expression on his face hadn’t changed. Peals of laughter burst from her, then more until the look in his eyes rivaled the coldest winter. At last, between gasps for breath, she could speak. “You don’t love me, Garret. Bloody hell, you don’t even like me.” Still chuckling, she wiped moisture from the corners of her eyes. “Why on God’s green earth would you want to marry me?”

      “Trust me, darlin’, there is nothing I want less. But Roy made it his last request. Said you didn’t have any other options. Said it had to be me to take care of his girl, that he didn’t trust anyone else. And I, the damned fool that I am! I gave him my word.”

      “Well that is very serious,” she said, hiccupping a laugh. She might actually be hysterical for the first time in her life.

      Roy had been trying to give her what he thought she wanted. She loved him even more for that, but a marriage of convenience to such a hardened man could never work.

      She tried not to smile. “I’m sure he would forgive you if you changed your mind.”

      “I’m an honorable man, Miss Flemming. I’ve never broken my word, and I don’t aim to start on a dyin’ man’s last wish. Do you have any other options? What about family? Do you have someone in the city you can live with? ’Cause if so, we can both get out of this, and I’ll go tether myself to some other half crazed woman. One who at least stands a chance of sticking around when things get tough.”

      Who did he think he was, speaking to her in such a manner?

      But she couldn’t beg her room back in Boston after she’d left Aunt Margaret so merrily to come to Rockdale. Even if she did, no way on earth would she be able to endure her aunt’s hellish tongue for a moment longer. She had been too happy to leave in hopes of finding a place to fit in. Go back to her old life and subject herself to begging an allowance off that horrid woman? Never! Her life would have to be in Rockdale to find peace.

      “Sorry, sir, no other options. I’m sure I can make it just fine on my own though. I’ll…learn how to run this place.” Even the words on her tongue sounded farfetched. She couldn’t cook or back a plow, and even if she were fast to learn, she still needed someone to show her how to do things first.

      “Ha!” he barked. “Even if you could somehow manage it, the bank is going to take this