Читать книгу: «Territorial Bride»

Chapter One

New Mexico Territory, 1889

Missy sighed and watched Clell run his fingers around the inside of his high, stiffly starched white collar. His Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed hard, and he gave her a why-am-I-being-tortured-like-this? grimace. It was plain as the nose on his face that he was as uncomfortable in his fancy duds as Missy was in her maid of honor dress. Still, they had all agreed to get gussied up for this occasion. And when she thought about it, she had to smile. All the fuss and wearing of stiff lace, starched petticoats and pinching corsets was worth it, because Trace and Bellami were getting married.

The surgeon had cautioned them to wait until Trace was fully recovered from his surgery. Then Donovan and Patricia James, Bellami’s parents, had insisted the wedding wait until the winter weather cleared. They had arrived only a week past, with Bellami’s eldest brother, Rod, her cousin Ellen and an assortment of distant relatives in tow. After so many obstacles, Bell and Trace were finally going to be wed.

The spinster who had played the organ for every wedding in the Territory for the last twenty years suddenly changed tempo. The ancient instrument droned and wheezed, announcing that the time was growing short and all should find a seat.

“Are you ready?” A resonant voice rippled over Missy like a warm summer breeze.

When she turned and looked up at the hardened visage of Brooks James, her middle tightened even more. Ranch life and the thick mustache he now sported had transformed his easy-on-the-eyes appearance into the lean, uncompromising visage of a true cowboy. His pale blue eyes gazed out at her from skin bronzed by more than a year in the Territorial sun and wind. Now he had the determined never-give-an-inch look of a work-hardened Western man and the elegant manners of an Eastern dude.

A deadly combination, Missy thought to herself.

She would be hard-pressed to pick him out of a crowd of Circle B ranch hands without taking a second look. He had learned to rope and ride with the best of them. When he walked, his body spoke of strength and economy of motion. He had succeeded in doing what she’d been sure he could not. But a funny thing had happened to her along the way: instead of becoming accustomed to Brooks over the long months, she had found herself growing awkward around him. At one time she had needled and picked at him, but as he settled in and learned to handle himself on the ranch, the situation between them had flip-flopped like a fish stranded out of water.

Brooks had slowly begun to get the upper hand at every confrontation. Now he openly teased her with a wicked twinkle in his eye. And every time it happened, she got all tongued-tied and fluttery. Her only defense was her sharp O’Bannion tongue, but even that weapon had failed her under the heat of that cool blue gaze.

“Missy?” he asked again. “Are you ready?”

“Yes—I am ready.”

“You seem a little jumpy.”

“Only like a torn turkey before Thanksgivin’,” Missy admitted in a whisper. She tugged at the snug waist of her dress, trying to give herself enough room to take a deep breath. Bellami and Trace both had said she looked fine in the form-fitting, peacock blue sateen, but with Brooks’s critical gaze skimming over her, Missy now doubted the truth of their words.

Damnation. She wished she could’ve worn chaps and boots. At least then she could be herself and would be able to inhale normally instead of taking panting little breaths.

This had been a dunderheaded notion. She wasn’t a lady. Putting fancy duds on her skinny form wasn’t going to change her. It was like putting a candelabra in an outhouse: it didn’t change what was on the inside one little bit.

A deep, throaty chuckle drew her attention back to Brooks. He was staring at her, grinning like a fox who had found a way into the henhouse.

“It is customary for the bride to be nervous, not the maid of honor,” he advised her in an easy tone. It could have been friendly teasing, or it could be that he was mocking her. “I didn’t think the princess of the O’Bannion clan ever had a moment of fear about anything. Could it be you are only human like the rest of us, Missy?” His eyes glittered with the challenge of his words, while a devilish half smile peeked from under his cookie-duster mustache.

Now there was no doubt. He was poking fun at her—again. Sure as God made little green apples, he’d keep on doing it until she flew off the handle and said or did something she’d regret, and she couldn’t allow herself the luxury smack-dab in the middle of Trace’s wedding.

Consarn him, she thought sourly.

What was it about this Easterner that got under her skin? She knew enough to walk away from a coiled rattler or a porcupine, so why couldn’t she just turn her back on him? He was as prickly as a porky, and the way her belly knotted and her pulse was racing, he must be as deadly as any sidewinder—deadly to her, anyway.

She wondered for the twentieth time how he could just open his mouth and rile her up like an old range bull with a thorn in his rump. It didn’t make a lick of sense. All she had to do was use the brains God gave her and ignore the grinning varmint, but somehow it never worked out that way.

“Well, Missy?” Brooks leaned a little nearer.

One thick brow rose over his crystalline eyes. She caught a whiff of bay rum clinging to hard-cut jaws that had been scraped bare less than an hour ago.

“Are you—afraid?” Brooks gazed at her with his seductive eyes. “Are you?”

“No, I am not afraid,” she snapped. Several heads turned to stare in her direction because of the volume of her reply. “My—my dress is just tight as a narrow cinch, th-that’s all.” She lowered 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, like Clell. The idea that he had learned some wisdom from the irascible cowboy pleased him, and he caught himself grinning.

By accident he and Missy looked at each other in the same moment. Their gazes caught and held. Her dark eyes reflected the candlelight like a deep, shimmering stream in the first rays of morning.

Funny that he’d never noticed how wide and luminous her eyes were until now, Brooks mused.

“Dearly beloved…” the tall, lanky preacher’s baritone voice filled the chapel. “In the sight of God and this company…”

Brooks adjusted the shoulders and front of his black broadcloth frock coat and tried to focus on the preacher’s words. Missy fidgeted once more, and his attention became riveted upon her.

Was she nervous?

Naw. The answer came quickly into his head. Missy O’Bannion was as steady a woman as ever walked God’s earth. But if she wasn’t nervous, then why was her softly rounded bosom rising and falling so rapidly inside the sateen bodice?

He frowned at her in speculation. Then, as if she felt his attention on her, she looked at him again. Her eyes were darker than bottomless pools, and for a moment he felt himself drowning in their depths. She wore an expression so poignant that he nearly reached out and touched her.

He shook himself and looked back toward the preacher. He shouldn’t give a hoot in hell about how she felt. If she was frightened it was poetic justice. She had given him undiluted misery this past year. It would serve her right if she was stewing in her own juices.

No, he didn’t care how she felt. He couldn’t give a tinker’s damn about Missy’s feelings—or any woman’s, for that matter. Life in the Territory had let him see that a lone wolf survived as well as one with a mate.

That was what he wanted now—to remain alone. A lone wolf, free, unattached and pleasantly sane. None of this madness called love for him, thank you. Brooks intended to remain a bachelor, like Clell. Clell was a man who knew what was what. He had helped Brooks learn to rope and ride and how to laugh at Missy’s sharp barbs.

“Trace Liam O’Bannion…” The clergyman’s deep voice gained volume. “Do you…”

The nearest group of candles flickered. Trace leaned over and gave Bellami a little peck on the cheek, quite improper when he was taking his vows, but the kind of thing that Brooks had grown to expect in this half-tamed place. Here men made their own rules to live by. Now that he had become accustomed to it, he liked it.

Missy shifted on her feet and Brooks glanced at her again. She was smiling. It was an angel’s smile, full of love and innocence. Something hot and liquid coursed through his veins while he watched her face.

“Bellami Irene James, do you take…”

The image of Violet Ashland flitted unbidden into Brooks’s head. The memory of that cold, elegant woman filled his mind. Then he glanced at Missy. Where Violet had been cold, Missy ran red-hot.

“And her hot tongue will sear flesh, as well,” he whispered to himself.

Brooks caught himself smiling at the memory of Missy’s frequent outbursts and his determination to prove himself. If he was honest with himself, he’d have to admit that he had come to enjoy their verbal sparring. His taste in women had changed, or maybe he had changed in the rowdy environment of the Territory. One thing for certain, Brooks was not the same man he had been when he’d stepped off the train. Besides, if the time came that he wanted to settle down—and he wasn’t thinking that it would—but if it did, then Missy would be here. He cast a furtive glance at her.

Yep, he could count on Missy O’Bannion to be constant and unchanging. She would always be Missy and she would always be tied to the Circle B Ranch.

It was a comforting thought, and one that Brooks tucked away in the corner of his mind for safekeeping.

“The ring, if you please…” The minister’s voice snapped Brooks back to attention. He forced himself to quit woolgathering. He pulled the ring, from the watch pocket of his brocade vest and gave it to Trace.

Bellami handed her spray of flowers to Missy and allowed Trace to claim her hand. Work-roughened fingers held hers within a protective grasp. In a few more years Brooks’s hands would be as rough. He thought of his old life in New York—the champagne suppers, buggy rides through the park and trips to the athletic club. He glanced back at his parents, sitting side by side in the nearest pew. Brooks grinned. He had withstood Miss Hell-for-leather O’Bannion. He turned back around in time to see Trace slip the ring on his sister’s finger. A smile still curled Brooks’s lips. He couldn’t think of anything or anybody that would force him to return to New York City—not ever again.