Yukon Wedding. Allie Pleiter

the statement of value he’d intended it.

      “Out here?” She looked at the sad little jelly jar of wildflowers that sat on her frayed tablecloth as if it were evidence of how “nice” Treasure Creek was. “Yes, even out here,” he said sharply, mostly to defy the infuriating look in her eye. It was a sorry retort, but she had a gift for driving him to that. “And Georgie, too. He’ll be provided for. You both will.” He’d promised Jed and Lana a bright future, and he was going to make that future possible, even if it made his present miserable.

      It took exactly two hours for word to get out. By the time Lana arrived at the home of the Tucker sisters, a trio of spinsters who held marriage—and men in general—in low esteem, it was obvious they’d already heard the news. Frankie, the oldest and arguably the prickliest of the trio, planted her hands on her hips the moment Lana stepped in their door. “Well, now I know why you was in such a huff earlier. Mack, huh? I suppose if you felt you had to go and marry someone…” She made it sound like even worse of a necessary evil than it was. While Lana admired their spunk—and coming from somewhere in Oklahoma, they had spunk and drawls to spare—they were far too rough for her liking. They’d come to Treasure Creek not long after she and Jed, but more for the adventure of a free life than any greed for gold. More like lumberjacks than any of Seattle’s society ladies, the Tuckers spent their days building the town’s tiny almost-up-and-running schoolhouse. They may have built the school, but Lana found them the furthest thing from “schoolmarms” she could imagine.

      Not that they weren’t friendly; they were kind and bighearted as the day was long, but “rough around the edges” was putting it mildly. Of course, Georgie loved the shocking, free-wheeling trio, and they adored him. Even though some part of her brain worried that the sisters’ appetite for mischief out-paced even Georgie’s, Mack had been smart in his idea to ask them to watch the toddler. They’d accept in a heartbeat, and Treasure Creek wasn’t boasting a whole lot of families able to take in a toddler on short notice. Besides, three-on-one was barely fair odds when it came to Georgie.

      Once inside, Georgie headed straight for the “cookie jar” the sisters kept on their table. The Tuckers often gave Georgie what they believed passed for “cookies.” Lana thought they were closer to sailor’s hardtack than anything that would pass in Seattle for a cookie. That hardly mattered to Georgie; he gladly accepted every one they doled out.

      “Mack is a fine man,” Lana said, defending him to the now glowering Frankie, as the small, wiry woman reached into the cookie jar. Frankie replied by shaking her head and making a derisive snort as she plunked a dense beige circle into Georgie’s chubby palm.

      “Well, I suppose he is,” Frankie’s sister Margie conceded as she stood against the mantel and stuffed her hands into the pockets of the odd split skirt she wore tucked into huge black boots. “But that don’t mean you have to marry him. Not up here.”

      Most especially up here, Lana thought. She’d been so taken up with making the painful decision, she hadn’t had time to think about the fact that other people would actually have to know. How ridiculous, she chastised herself as she felt her cheeks flush, of course everyone will know. Mack had been kind enough to keep his relentless marital campaign a secret, so she hadn’t had to deal with the public consequences of becoming Mrs. Mack Tanner until this moment. It made her feel foolish to be blind-sided by something so obvious.

      Lucy, the youngest of the trio, came in from the other room scratching her short dark hair. Lana had the unkind thought that that was probably the closest that her hair ever came to being brushed. Lucy had a gift for getting under Lana’s skin, far more than the other two. Perhaps it was her age as the youngest, but it might also be the lovely woman Lana expected Lucy might really be under all that bawdy demeanor. “I guess we’ll have us a wedding! That’ll be fun.” She turned to her sisters. “We ever had a wedding in Treasure Creek before?”

      Margie twisted her mouth up in thought. “Can’t recall one. Should be a hoot!”

      “Well actually, that’s what I came to talk to you about. I was hoping you could watch Georgie while Mack and I go into Skaguay to make it official.”

      “Skaguay?” Lucy balked. “You’re not marrying here? Mack built that church. First off even, practically before he built his own home. Why, he and Jed…” Her voice trailed off as she realized why marrying Mack in the church Jed helped build might pose a problem. Lana began to wonder if this could get more awkward. “Still, you’d think…”

      Lana didn’t want to get into this with anyone, much less the Tuckers. “We haven’t got a real preacher here to do it, Lucy. And we need to buy things for the house.” It irked her that she’d had to resort to Mack’s reasoning—or was it Mack’s excuses?—but she was stumped for a better answer. “He wants us to have a fancy time of it. You know, as a gift and all.”

      The sisters all raised eyebrows, clearly showing what they thought of that idea.

      “It’s the only place we can order books and such for the school, too. I walked past the schoolhouse this morning. It’s nearly done, thanks to you.” Lana hoped the compliment would divert their attentions.

      Nothing doing. “Oh, we saw you walk past the schoolhouse,” Frankie cackled. “Lovebirds, the pair of you.”

      This was going to be harder than Lana thought. “Can you watch him?” she asked, in the sweetest version of her we’re not going to have that conversation voice.

      Lucy bent down and ruffled Georgie’s hair, something that always bothered Lana but sent Georgie into fits of giggles. “Of course we can watch the little fellow. Think of it as a wedding present. A little privacy for the happy couple, hmm?”

      Her bawdy tone sent the trio into laughter, elbowing each other like a crowd of sailors. Worse yet, Georgie laughed right along with them. Lana began to wonder if the next boat back to Seattle might not be so horrible after all.

      Chapter Three

      As it was, the next boat Lana boarded was the ferry to Skaguay, beside her soon-to-be husband. While difficult to endure, the short burst of congratulations from everyone in Treasure Creek only proved Mack’s insight correct—this really was best done out of town.

      And as Mack had declared, best done right. If one can’t have a nice marriage, one can at least have a nice wedding, Lana thought to herself as she admired her fetching new dress in the big mirror of her hotel room. It was so elegant a thing, for being done on such short notice. A smart lavender shirtwaist with just enough ruffle to make it fussy skimmed over a tiered skirt of the same pale hue. As a widow, she needn’t bother with either train or veil, so she’d get to wear the dress again for formal occasions back in Treasure Creek.

      The phrase made her laugh. Formal occasions didn’t really happen back in Treasure Creek. Folks were too busy surviving to think of such things. Still, if Mack was “Mr. Treasure Creek,” as the Tucker sisters jokingly called him, then that meant she was about to become Mrs. Treasure Creek. It was too long since she’d thought of any “social” event. How wonderful it would be to create a town festival or a church social. Surely she could find time in the nearly twenty hours of daylight Alaskan summer days brought.

      They’d spent the full day yesterday buying things. Cloth and linens, not just one but three new tablecloths and curtains—real curtains, not just make-do ones like she had back in her cabin. New shoes and pants for Georgie, and a little wooden train set Mack had picked out himself. And books. Nearly a dozen books sat in the corner of her hotel room now. Two novels, two cookery books and a whole set of sample schoolbooks Mack had ordered crates of for the schoolhouse back home. The real surprise had come when she’d stopped to admire a pair of pearl earrings in a store window and Mack had taken her inside and bought them for her. Then he’d deposited her at a dressmaker’s while he went off to do “some business,” telling her to get any dress she wanted to wear today. And any shoes and any hat to match.

      Lana Bristow, you are too easily bought, she chided herself, her thoughts snagging on the truth that she would only bear that name for perhaps