“I want you to marry me.”

A wedding in Smoke River, Oregon...

Marianne Collingwood has inherited a business, the perfect escape from her life of drudgery. There’s one condition: to claim the business, she must be married! Her coworker, handsome Lance Burnside, will have to be the groom—this marriage of convenience will help them both. Only once it’s too late does she consider the question of the marriage bed they must share...

“Banning’s talent for crafting warm, delightful tales once again wins.”

—RT Book Reviews on Marianne’s Marriage of Convenience

“A sweet, heartwarming traditional western romance.”

—RT Book Reviews on The Hired Man

LYNNA BANNING combines her lifelong love of history and literature in a satisfying career as a writer. Born in Oregon, she graduated from Scripps College and embarked on a career as an editor and technical writer, and later as a high school English teacher. She enjoys hearing from her readers. You may write to her directly at PO Box 324, Felton, CA 95018, USA, email her at carowoolston@att.net or visit Lynna’s website at lynnabanning.net.

Also by Lynna Banning

The Lone Sheriff

Wild West Christmas

Dreaming of a Western Christmas

Smoke River Family

Western Spring Weddings

Printer in Petticoats

Her Sheriff Bodyguard

Baby on the Oregon Trail

Western Christmas Brides

The Hired Man

Miss Murray on the Cattle Trail

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Marianne’s Marriage of Convenience

Lynna Banning

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07388-2

MARIANNE’S MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE

© 2018 The Woolston Family Trust

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, 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 publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

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For my daughter-in-law, Yvonne Mandarino Woolston

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Extract

About the Publisher

Chapter One

Marianne Collingwood propped her wet mop on the back porch of the boardinghouse and staggered down the steps with the heavy bucket of dirty water. She’d been up since before dawn, cooking breakfast for the seven boarders, and she hadn’t yet eaten herself; there had been no time. She could hear her stomach growling. She was headachy, hot and sticky in the humid summer air and thoroughly miserable.

She stepped into the spotless kitchen and watched Lance Burnside drop his last armload of oak logs into the now overflowing wood box. He topped up the kindling supply, then halted and closed his eyes. “Man, something sure smells good!” he murmured.

“Close the door,” she ordered. “You’re letting in all the hot air!”

“Uh...isn’t it about time for breakfast?”

“No,” she said shortly.

He sent her a long look, closed the back door and tramped back down the steps into the yard where he took refuge in the shade of a leafy maple tree, drew in a deep breath and shut his eyes. Hell’s bells. In the four years Lance had worked at the boardinghouse, Marianne Collingwood had never once thanked him for anything. His momma had taught him to always say please and thank-you; he guessed Marianne’s momma hadn’t. Or maybe Marianne just didn’t like him.

Most days he had to admit the feeling was mutual. Sure, there were other days when he had to admire the boardinghouse cook and housekeeper, but when he was hot and tired they didn’t come to mind. He knew Mrs. Schneiderman kept Marianne plenty busy; the stern German woman kept her housekeeper peeling pounds of potatoes and shelling dishpans full of green pea pods and baking endless pans of gingerbread and layer cakes and oatmeal cookies all day long and most of the night, too. He figured Marianne was as overworked and as tired as he was.

But she could squeeze out a few seconds for at least one please or thank-you, couldn’t she?

Nah, not Marianne. She ordered him to fix the henhouse, muck out the barn, curry the horses, lug baskets of wet laundry into the backyard, wash acres of rain-splattered windows, weed the vegetable garden, tie up the sprangly red roses that covered the porch trellis...the list went on and on. But send a thank-you his way? Nothing doing. Most days, Marianne Collingwood was the wicked witch in the fairy tales his momma used to read to him at night.

He gazed around the well-kept backyard with its plum trees and neat vegetable patch and sent up a silent prayer of thanks. Even if it did come with an endless list of chores, Mrs. Schneiderman’s boardinghouse here on a peaceful street in the middle of St. Louis was a safe place to hide out. Every day he gobbled down three of Marianne’s delicious meals, and each night he slept in a nice quiet barn and nobody cared where he came from or what he’d done before. And he wasn’t about to tell them, either. Secrets were best kept to oneself.

The back door slapped open, and Marianne leaned out to shake a crumb-covered tablecloth over the steps. At least he thought it was crumb-covered; sometimes he figured she shook out perfectly clean tablecloths just to be shaking the life out of something.

Watching her, he suppressed a groan. There were two problems with Marianne. Two big problems. First, she never stopped snapping out orders at him. And second, she was so darn pretty his heart stopped beating every time he looked at her. Whenever she stopped working long enough to stand still for sixty seconds, he feasted his eyes on a body that curved in and out in places that made his hands itch, hair so shiny it looked like molasses-colored satin, and eyes the color of spring grass.

He’d hate her if she wasn’t so beautiful.

He levered himself off the back step and angled across to the woodpile to decide how much more wood Marianne would want in the next hour, then stood with one foot propped on the chopping block. He had just started to sharpen his axe when her voice cut into his consciousness.

“Lance!”

He jerked at the sound. Jumping Jupiter, she did nothing all day long but order him around. But, when she wasn’t yelling at him, he had to admit he liked her voice, low and throaty and kinda murmury. Made him think of a breeze rustling through a dry cornfield. He heard that voice whispering in his dreams at night, and he woke up every single morning highly aroused.

“Lance! Where are you?”

“Hiding,” he said under his breath. This wasn’t the nighttime voice he heard in his dreams. This was the voice that sent a chill up his backbone.

“Lance, I need you! Right now!”

“Coming, ma’am.” He stepped around the corner of the house to see her flapping her ruffly blue apron at the red hen pecking at insects in the garden. The feisty bird fluffed up its feathers, and Marianne edged away until her back was against the fence.

“Shoo! Shoo! Lance, come and get Lucinda back in the henhouse.”

Please, he muttered inside his head. He advanced on the offending chicken. “How’d she get out?”

Marianne shot him an exasperated look. “How should I know?” she retorted.

He studied the rickety chicken coop in the far corner of the yard. A section of lath had slipped sideways off the front of the structure, and the chickens were venturing through the opening. He cornered the hen, pounced on her and grabbed the scaly yellow legs. While the hen flapped and squawked he flipped her upside down, kicked the lath back in place and tossed the hen inside.

He waited for a thank-you, which didn’t come. He sighed. “Anything else, ma’am?”

She propped her hands on her hips. “Yes. Repair the henhouse.”

“Right now?”

“Of course right now!”

“Uh...couldn’t it wait until after I’ve had my breakfast?”

“Don’t argue. I’ll save you some scrambled eggs.”

“Couldn’t I eat first?” he said through gritted teeth. “Lucinda won’t care.”

Marianne drew herself up so stiff the buttons on her blue shirtwaist threatened to pop off. “If you value your job here, Mr. Burnside, you will fix the henhouse. Now.”

He gritted his teeth. “Are you sayin’ you’ll fire me if I don’t?”

“Well, not me, exactly. But if I speak to Mrs. Schneiderman, you won’t last five more minutes here.”

Lance cleared his throat. “Miss Collingwood, you order me around almost twenty-four hours a day, and I do every darn thing you ask, even when it doesn’t make much sense. Sometimes I wonder if you really want me around here.”

“Well, yes, I do.” She swallowed. “Actually, the boardinghouse couldn’t function without you. I... That is, Mrs. Schneiderman and I, would be lost without your services.”

“Sure am glad to hear that, ma’am. And just in time, too.”

She shot him an apprehensive look. “Surely you were not thinking of leaving?”

He clenched his jaw. He would if he could. He’d thought about it often enough. But he couldn’t. The boardinghouse was a safe refuge for a man on the run.

* * *

Marianne closed the back door with a sigh. She really, really hated working at the boardinghouse. But when both her parents died of cholera when she was thirteen she’d found herself alone and penniless with no other choice. An orphan girl in a city like St. Louis was lucky to be respectably employed at all.

She was frightened at first, frightened of being hungry and cold and alone. And then she realized if she didn’t want to be hungry and cold, she would have to do something about it. She, and she alone. And so she had set out to look for work.

Mrs. Schneiderman had taken her in, and for the last eleven years she had dealt with the elderly woman’s crotchets, her short temper and her constant criticism. Every morning she dragged herself out of bed to slice bacon and scramble eggs and brew gallons of coffee for the boarders, and the rest of the day she spent scrubbing floors, beating the dirt out of the parlor carpets, scouring dirty kettles and polishing the silverware.

She had felt driven by the fear of being hungry, of not making it. In all these years she’d never had time to attend a church social or read any of the books she kept in her trunk or sit on the veranda on a warm summer evening and think about her life.

She bit her lip and walked back into the kitchen. She would be twenty-four years old on her next birthday. A spinster. On the shelf, her mother would have said. The life she saw stretching before her was totally without joy. Worse, it was without hope.

She studied the pile of dirty breakfast dishes stacked in the kitchen sink and groaned. She had no time to waste feeling sorry for herself. She had bread to bake and floors to wax and a dozen other chores to finish before she could even sit down to eat breakfast herself! She gritted her teeth and got out the mixing bowl.

She was kneading dough on the flour-dusted wooden breadboard when a messenger boy pounded up the porch steps, rapped on the front door and thrust a telegram into her hand. She stuffed it into her apron pocket until she could plop the bread dough into the greased bowl to rise, and then she sat down on the back porch step, unfolded the square of paper and smoothed it out on her lap.

REGRET TO INFORM YOU OF MATTHEW COLLINGWOOD’S DEATH STOP YOU ARE SOLE HEIR OF BUSINESS ESTABLISHMENT IN SMOKE RIVER OREGON STOP INQUIRE SMOKE RIVER BANK STOP WILL STIPULATES HEIR MUST BE OF GOOD CHARACTER, OVER TWENTY-ONE YEARS, AND MARRIED STOP MYERS & WALDRIP, ATTORNEYS-AT-LAW STOP

She let out a hoarse cry. Surely she was dreaming! Sole heir? Oh, my stars and little chickens, she couldn’t believe it! She had always dreamed of being free of Mrs. Schneiderman, of being in charge of her own life. Of even having a life to be in charge of!

She read the telegram again, and tears swam into her eyes. Great Uncle Matty was her grandfather’s younger brother, but all she knew about the man was what Papa had told her. Uncle Matty was eccentric, and he was rich.

She read the telegram a third time. Where on earth was Smoke River, Oregon? Probably in the middle of some desert with no trees or flowers or houses or people or anything even remotely civilized. Oh, pooh, what did that matter? It was a chance to leave the endless drudgery of Mrs. Schneiderman’s boardinghouse! She had dreamed of leaving for years, dreamed of striking out on her own, but no matter how carefully she hoarded her meager earnings, it was never enough.

Could this one single telegram really change my life?

She scanned the message a fourth time and clapped her hand over her mouth. Married! The heir to Matthew Collingwood’s business had to be married.

“But I am not married,” she muttered. “I have never even been engaged.”

She gazed into the backyard where Lance was hammering new pickets on to the front of the henhouse. Suddenly she couldn’t take her eyes off him.

She shut them and groaned. Oh, mercy, no. Not in a million years would he consider such an idea.

Then she popped open her lids and bit her lip.

Or would he?

Chapter Two

Marianne waited until Lance finished hammering the last picket on the henhouse, and then she slowly stood up. He pounded in one last nail and turned to go, then looked up and caught sight of her.

“It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?” she called.

He gave her a startled look. “Yeah, I guess so. Been so busy I hardly noticed.”

“I see that you have already repaired the henhouse.”

“Yeah. Wasn’t difficult.”

“Thank you.”

He stared at her for so long she wondered if she had carrots growing out of her ears. Finally he shifted his stance and ran one hand over his tanned face. “Is there something else you want done?”

“No. I mean, not exactly.”

He frowned. “What does that mean, ‘not exactly’?”

She looked everywhere but at him: the plum tree drooping with ripe fruit waiting to be preserved, the yellow rose rambling along the back fence, the clothesline strung from the corner of the house to the walnut tree ready for her to hang up the laundry.

He waited, his arms folded over his midriff. Finally she worked up her courage and drew in a long breath.

“Yes, Lance, as a matter of fact there is something I want you to do.”

“Okay. What is it?”

Marianne bit her lip again and pulled in a deep breath. “I want you to marry me.”

The hammer slipped out of his hand and thunked on to the grass. “Say that again? You want me to... What’d you say?”

“Marry me.”

“Huh?” His voice was so full of disbelief she almost laughed.

She swallowed. “Yes, that is correct. I want you to marry me.”

He combed his fingers through his unruly dark hair while the frown between his eyebrows grew deeper. Finally he licked his lips and opened his mouth.

“What the hell for?”

Deflated, she plopped down on the back step. “What do you mean, what for? I am making you a perfectly good offer of marriage. I should think ‘what for’ would be, well, obvious.”

He rocked back on his heels. “You mean married as in...husband and wife?”

“Yes.”

“As in...uh...living together under the same roof?”

“Yes.”

He hesitated. “As in...” he cleared his throat “...sleeping in the same bed?”

“Um...well, yes, I suppose so.” She hadn’t thought that far ahead, but no matter. She would work out the details later.

He gave her a long, skeptical look and advanced two steps closer to where she sat. “To be honest, Marianne, I never thought you liked me very much.”

Marianne blinked. “Why, whatever made you think that?”

“Maybe because you’re always ordering me around. Because you never say please or thank-you. Because in all the years I’ve been working for you, you never once even smiled at me.”

She shifted her gaze to the henhouse in the back corner of the yard. “I guess I was too busy cooking and ironing and polishing furniture to smile at anyone.”

Actually, it’s more than being too busy. I was too...well, unhappy to smile at anybody.

He was staring at her with the strangest expression on his face. And he hadn’t spoken a single word.

“Well?” she queried.

His lips pressed into a thin line. “Well, what?”

“Lance, I have inherited a business out in Oregon,” she said rapidly. “But I have to be married in order to claim it. So I need to know if you will marry me.”

The frown deepened. “What kind of business?”

“I don’t know what kind yet, but it doesn’t matter. It will be mine. All mine.”

He gave her a long look. “And mine,” he pointed out, “if we get married.”

“Oh. Yes, I suppose so.”

He pinned her with penetrating blue eyes. “You really want to go to Oregon? I hear it’s a pretty wild frontier out there.”

“Yes, I most certainly do want to go to Oregon. And,” she added quickly before she lost her nerve, “as I said, I must be married to claim my great-uncle’s business.”

He planted himself in front of her and stuffed both hands in the back pockets of his jeans. She waited, holding her breath until she thought she would pop.

Finally, finally, his lips opened. “The answer is no.”

Her breath whooshed out. “But—”

He moved a step closer and gave her a look that was definitely not friendly. “Why,” he asked in a strained voice, “would I want to marry a bad-tempered, bossy woman who hasn’t appreciated one damn thing I’ve done around here for the last four years?”

“But—”

“Marianne, I guess you didn’t hear me. I said no.”

She stared up at him for a full minute. “Well,” she said, her voice quiet. “In that case I have something to show you that may change your mind.”

“Oh, yeah? What is it?”

She reached into her apron pocket and unfolded the poster she’d kept hidden in her bureau drawer. “This.” She thrust it under his nose.

Lawrence Burnside Wanted For

Wells Fargo Stagecoach Robbery

There was a picture of him at the top.

He took one look at the yellowed sheet of paper, and his skin turned pasty under his tan. “Where’d you get this?”

“From the Wells Fargo office. I’ve kept it hidden since soon after you came to work here.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t want Mrs. Schneiderman to see it. And because I didn’t really believe you were a stagecoach robber.”

He frowned again. “Why not?”

She sent him a long, level look. “Because you have never shown the slightest interest in all the money the boardinghouse residents leave lying around. If you were a thief, you would have taken it, but you never did. Instead, you’ve worked hard and kept your head down.”

His eyes narrowed into hard blue slits. “Why are you showing me this Wanted poster now?”

She laughed. “I should think that is obvious. How else can I get you to marry me so I can go to Oregon and claim my inheritance?”

His mouth tightened. “That, Miss Marianne, is blackmail.”

Her cheeks grew warm. “Well, yes, I suppose it is.”

“Blackmail!” he repeated firmly.

After an awkward silence she glanced up at him. “Oh, all right, I admit it’s blackmail,” she said quietly. “Is it working?” She sucked in her breath and held it.

For a long, long moment he just looked at her. Then he lifted his hands out of his pockets and leaned toward her.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “It sure as hell is.”

Chapter Three

The train rounded a curve and picked up speed, and the passenger car began to sway from side to side. Marianne watched grassland flash by outside the window, admired the drifts of red and yellow wildflowers and studied placid-looking cows dotting the meadows. This was Oregon. It seemed the territory had no people, only cows and wildflowers.

She caught her lower lip between her teeth and tried to tame the cadre of butterflies in her stomach. Am I doing the right thing? Giving up my safe, secure life at Mrs. Schneiderman’s and haring off into the unknown? And am I crazy to do it with Lance Burnside by my side?

With fingers that were slick with perspiration, she folded new creases in her green bombazine travel skirt, smoothed them flat and then carefully re-creased them again. What would the Oregon frontier be like? Were there bears? Wolves? Outlaws?

What would it be like living in a small town after the hustle and bustle of St. Louis?

Her heart gave a little skip. An even more unnerving question was what would it be like to marry Lance Burnside, a man she didn’t really know anything about other than that he was a hardworking, reliable, entirely predictable man who may or may not have been a stagecoach robber. At least he had been predictable and honest at Mrs. Schneiderman’s. How he would be in Oregon she couldn’t begin to guess.

She clenched her hands together in her lap and breathed in the stale, cigar-smoky air of the coach. There was only one thing she knew for sure; for the rest of her life she would be grateful to Great Uncle Matty for naming her his heir. From what her father had said, Uncle Matty thought the Collingwood women were flighty and frivolous. That must be why his will stipulated she had to be over twenty-one and married in order to inherit.

She ran her hand over the maroon velvet upholstery she sat on and closed her fingers into a tight fist. She could scarcely believe what she was doing, traveling to a remote corner of Oregon with this man. With a twinge of guilt she thought about the blackmail she had resorted to. But when she recalled the desperation she’d felt for the last eleven years, she had to admit she wasn’t that sorry. She was willing to do anything to start a new life on her own, away from Mrs. Schneiderman’s boardinghouse. Anything, she thought with a gulp. Even join her life to Lance Burnside’s.

At odd hours of the night, when she tried to get comfortable in the train seat, she wondered at her audacity. But every morning when she woke up things were once again clear; she knew exactly what she wanted. Independence. She wouldn’t have done one single thing differently.

She cast a surreptitious glance at Lance in the seat next to her, calmly eating a sandwich. He was a good man. At least she hoped he was. When she took the time to look at him, really look at him, she had to admit he was quite attractive with dark, slightly wavy hair that usually flopped into his eyes. And those eyes were such a dark, smoky blue they looked like ripe blueberries. Sometimes the expression in them gave her pause.

She knew he was not really a thief, no matter what any Wanted poster said. The sheriff in St. Louis said Wells Fargo was always printing up such posters. Every time they lost someone’s luggage they claimed it was a robbery.

But what else Lance Burnside was she hadn’t a clue. One thing she knew for certain; he was as anxious to leave Mrs. Schneiderman’s and St. Louis as she was. “I have no future here,” he admitted. “Might as well gamble that Oregon will be better.”

And, Marianne thought with a stab of conscience, he was gambling that marrying her would not turn out to be a disaster. They were both gambling. They might not like Oregon. They might discover Uncle Matty’s business was something awful, like laying railroad track or running a slaughterhouse. Worse, after they were married, they might find they didn’t really like each other, at least not in the married sense. She already liked what she knew of Lance, she acknowledged. But maybe that wouldn’t be enough.

He leaned toward her. “You want half my sandwich? It’s meat loaf.” He waved it beneath her nose. He had purchased it somewhere in Idaho, and while her stomach rumbled with hunger, and the smell of meat and mayonnaise was enticing, she knew she couldn’t eat a bite.

“No, thank you, Lance. I’m too nervous to eat anything.”

“Nervous about what?”

“About what Uncle Matty’s business will turn out to be. Maybe it’s a house full of shady ladies or a coal mine or a rowdy saloon.”

And she was extremely apprehensive about marrying Lance, but she need not mention that.

He stretched out his long legs and bit into his sandwich. She glanced at his squashed-up-looking lunch and wrinkled her nose.

“Still not hungry?”

She sighed. “My stomach is too jumpy. Besides, we’ve eaten nothing but sandwiches for the past three days.”

“I’m tired of sandwiches, too,” he said. “Eat it anyway.”

At that moment her stomach gurgled, and when he grinned at her she reluctantly accepted it. “Thank you, Lance.”

His eyes widened. “You’re welcome.” He bit into his half and chewed quietly while she studied the gray-looking bread in her hand. “Never in all my years at Mrs. Schneiderman’s have I seen a sorrier-looking sandwich.”

Lance nodded and took another bite. Things sure did seem unreal. He could understand Marianne’s feelings of anxiety. The last thing he ever thought he’d do in life was get married. A man on the run, a member of the notorious Sackler gang robbing stagecoaches, had no time to think about marriage, let alone court a woman. And the last woman he’d ever think of marrying would be Marianne Collingwood. Marianne acted more like a drill sergeant than a flesh and blood woman, and that was on her good days!

But the prospect of starting a new life two thousand miles away from St. Louis and an incriminating Wells Fargo poster was worth a gamble.

Maybe they didn’t like each other much. He didn’t want to marry her any more than she truly wanted to marry him, but she had that Wanted poster folded up in her reticule, so he figured she had him over a barrel.

After his mother died, he’d run away from Pa and joined the gang when he was just fourteen, too young to know what he was doing. But the only time he’d really done anything for them, acting as a lookout, had dictated his life from then on because his face had appeared on that poster. He’d done nothing else in his life but sweat over being found out.

Maybe the chance to get away from St. Louis and make something of himself would be worth it. And getting married looked like the price of admission. Well, so be it.

He gave her a sidelong look. “We’ll be pulling into Smoke River sometime today. What’s the first thing we should do when we get there?”

She groaned. “After three days and nights on this train, all I want to do is take a long, hot bath and sleep for twenty-four hours. After that, I want to visit the mercantile and find a dressmaker.”

“What for?” He gave her green traveling outfit a quick once-over. “You look okay to me.”

Inexplicably, her cheeks turned pink. “Um, well, a woman only gets married once in her life. I want to have a real wedding dress.”

A real wedding dress, huh? He wondered if she’d thought through all the ramifications of getting married, spending all day in each other’s company. And all night. He felt his face heat up. Actually, he admitted, it was more than just his face that felt hot.

He took a long look at the woman beside him, now gazing out the train window at a herd of grazing horses. Everything in life was a gamble, he figured; but this was sure one of the biggest.

On the other hand, he pondered, finally feeling his face cool down somewhat, maybe getting married to Marianne wouldn’t be so bad.

Maybe.

Chapter Four

With a puff of billowy white steam the locomotive engine chugged past the Smoke River station house, and the single passenger car gradually rolled to a stop. The uniformed conductor clunked down an iron step, and the first person to descend was Marianne Collingwood. She set one foot on the wooden platform, then two, and immediately spun in a circle to take in the view of her new home.

“Green,” she murmured. “Everything is so green. And the trees are so tall.” She had never seen such towers of pine and sugar maple. And the smell! She inhaled deeply and shut her eyes. The air smelled like Christmas trees!

Behind her, two elderly women in matching navy blue travel suits stepped down, followed by a tall man with a tan, weathered face wearing a wide-brimmed gray hat. A shiny silver badge was pinned to his leather vest. Only when the sheriff strode off down the street toward town did Lance step off the train, and Marianne noticed he had tipped his black felt hat down to hide his face.

“For heaven’s sake,” she whispered, “no sheriff out here in this wilderness will be the slightest bit interested in you.”

“Yeah, how do you know that?”

“Because I’ve been reading the newspapers. With all the murders and barroom brawls law officers in the West have to keep up with, a five-year-old robbery back in Missouri isn’t important. You are perfectly safe.”

“Speak for yourself,” he grumbled. “I feel like there’s a big sign around my neck with thief printed in big black letters.”

She drew in a tired breath of the hot afternoon air and turned toward him. “Lance, go inside and arrange for my trunk to be delivered.”

He dropped both their travel bags at her feet, propped one hand on his hip and sent her a reproving look. “Marianne,” he said firmly, “it’s not too late for you to learn how to say ‘please.’”

Out of habit she opened her mouth to berate him, but after a moment she gave a quick nod. “Oh, all right, ‘please.’”

He flashed her a grin and disappeared into the station house. She began to pace up and down the wooden platform, studying the few one-story buildings close by. Dingy, she observed with a sniff. Badly in need of fresh paint.

It was so hot she thought her shoes would melt. And there was no shade. Even with all these trees, the sun was straight up overhead, blazing down like a big copper frying pan in the sky. Her head pounded, and she could feel perspiration soaking her camisole. She fervently hoped the worst thing about Smoke River was the heat and the run-down wooden structures with dilapidated false fronts. At the moment she felt perilously close to crying.

Lance emerged from the white-painted station house and smiled at her. “Fellow inside says he’s rustled up a wagon to take us into town.”

“A wagon? Not a carriage?”

“This is the frontier, Marianne. A town this small probably doesn’t have carriages for hire.” As he spoke a wooden wagon rattled up to the platform and the driver reined a huge gray horse to a stop. He seemed very young, olive-skinned and nice-looking, with a red bandana tied low on his forehead.

Marianne stared at him. “Is that... Is that boy an Indian?” she murmured.

“Probably.” Lance hoisted her travel bag and his leather duffel in one hand and took her elbow. “Come on, Marianne. And don’t stare.”

The boy hopped off the driver’s bench and lifted both bags out of Lance’s hand. “Howdy, folks. My name’s Sammy Greywolf.” He swung the luggage up into the wagon bed. “Welcome to Smoke River.”

“How does he know we’re strangers in town?” Marianne whispered.

“Just common sense. He probably knows everybody in town by sight, and he’s never laid eyes on us before.”

The boy approached and offered her a hand. “Put your foot on the wheel hub right there, ma’am.” He guided Marianne up onto the wooden driver’s bench, then climbed up beside her. Her eyes widened. He wore moccasins that laced all the way up to his knees! He was most definitely an Indian.

The boy waited for Lance to scramble up beside her, released the brake and flapped the reins over the horse’s back. The wagon jolted forward.

Marianne clapped one hand on her feather-bedecked hat and peered at the dusty street. A barbershop. A newspaper office—no, two newspaper offices, one across the street from the other. Ness’s Mercantile, which sported a shocking fuchsia-pink storefront. Uncle Charlie’s Bakery. And, thank the Lord, right next door was a dressmaker’s shop. On the opposite side of the street she spied the sheriff’s office, a feed store, The Golden Partridge saloon, the Smoke River Hotel and a restaurant.

“You visitin’ somebody in town?” the boy inquired. “Or maybe you want to go to the hotel?”

“Hotel,” Lance said quickly. He averted his head as the wagon rolled past the sheriff’s office.

The hotel was only two blocks from the train station. My goodness, Marianne had never imagined that a town could be this small! She studied the restaurant next to the hotel with unconcealed interest. Could that be Uncle Matty’s business establishment? She caught her breath. Oh, Lordy, it couldn’t be the saloon next door, could it? What on earth would I do with a saloon?

The boy pulled the wagon to a halt in front of a white two-story building with wide steps up to the glass-paned entrance door. “Here y’are, folks.” He scrambled down, grabbed both bags and escorted them up the wooden steps into the hotel. “Got customers for you, Hal!” he called out. He gave Lance a grin and a two-fingered salute and disappeared.

The hotel foyer was minuscule, scarcely larger than Mrs. Schneiderman’s front parlor. A red velvet settee and two matching armchairs sat opposite the scarred registration desk, which was deserted. The hot, still air smelled faintly of something cinnamony. Apple pie, maybe.

Lance stepped forward and jingled the bell beside the leather-bound sign-in register, and after a long moment a short man with a shiny bald head and a startled expression popped up from behind the counter.

“How do, folks!” He slapped the book he’d apparently been reading down beside the hotel register. Marianne craned her neck to see the title. The Plays of William Shakespeare. What a surprising choice way out here in this tiny Western town!

The clerk flashed her a tentative smile. “You folks new in town?”

“Yes,” Lance answered. “We just got off the train from St. Louis.”

“Ah, I see. What can I do for you?”

“Uh...we need hotel rooms.”

“Rooms plural, as in two rooms? Aren’t you two together?” The clerk’s curious gaze shifted to Marianne. “Or not?”

“Not!” Marianne said decisively. She felt her cheeks grow warm and prayed she wasn’t blushing.

“Not yet,” Lance added.

Oh, dear, she was definitely blushing now.

The clerk’s gray eyebrows rose. “Ah.” He bent over the register. “Not together, then,” he murmured, scanning the open page.

Lance cleared his throat. “We...uh...we plan to get married day after tomorrow.”

“Ah!” He handed Marianne a pen. “Sign here, please, ma’am.”

She scrawled her name with a hand that shook embarrassingly. “Could you send a bath up to my room? I—We have been on the train from St. Louis for the past three days and—”

“Oh, sure, ma’am, I quite understand. I’ll send one up right away.”

Lance nudged his elbow into her ribs. “Thank you,” she said quickly.

The clerk grinned at her and turned to Lance. “And for you, sir?”

“Just a single room, thanks.”

“No bath?” The man studied Lance’s shadowed chin. “Maybe a visit to the barber?”

A faint flush spread over Lance’s cheeks, and Marianne stared in surprise. Was it possible that Lance was a bit vain about his appearance? She had seen him dirty and disheveled, with sweat sheening his forehead and his chin all bristly after hours spent repairing a fence in the hot sun; he hadn’t minded looking unshaven then. Or maybe, she thought with a twinge of guilt, she’d kept him too busy to shave.

The clerk coughed and turned to consult the wooden rack behind him, then presented her with a shiny brass key. Number Six.

Lance accepted a second key, Number Seven, then noticed that Marianne’s penetrating green eyes were glued to his face. Hot damn, she was staring at him like she’d never seen him before. Well, hell, maybe in all the years he’d worked for her she hadn’t really looked at him.

He had sure looked at her, though. Whenever he’d been near her he’d tried hard to shut his ears so he wouldn’t have to listen to the endless stream of commands coming out of her mouth. But he had looked at her. Couldn’t help it, if he was honest. Marianne had a lot of annoying habits, but he had to admit she was one delicious-looking female.

All at once it hit him. He had a pretty good idea who Marianne was, but she didn’t know diddly-squat about who he was. Outside of that Wanted poster she carried around with her, she didn’t really know one cotton-picking thing about him. At the moment Miss Stiffer-than-Starch-Know-All-the-Answers Collingwood was actually facing something she didn’t know anything about. Him!

For some reason that thought made him smile.

They lugged their bags up the staircase to the second floor and located their rooms. Lance took the key from Marianne’s hand, unlocked the door to Number Six and pushed it open. The room looked dim and cool, and he caught sight of a big double bed under one window. That made him smile, too.

“Day after tomorrow we’ll only need one room,” he said in what he hoped was a matter-of-fact tone.

“Oh,” she said. “Yes, I suppose so.”

And that was all? No pre-wedding jitters? No I’m glad we’re finally here? Nothing?

He set her travel bag inside the door and turned to go. “After you’ve had a bath and a chance to rest, let’s meet up for supper at the restaurant, say around seven o’clock?”

She looked up, gave him an unsmiling nod and closed the door in his face.

Three hours later, after a visit to Poletti’s Barbershop down the street for a bath and a shave, Lance walked into the restaurant and was shown to a table by the front window. The white-aproned waitress laid a menu in front of him and slid an order pad out of her apron pocket.

“You new in town?”

“Yeah,” Lance said. “Came in on the train from St. Louis this afternoon.”

“You stayin’?”

“Yeah.”

“Alone?”

“Uh...not exactly. My fiancée is upstairs taking a—She’ll be joining me shortly.”

“Fiancée, huh?” The waitress laid another menu on the table and glanced toward the entrance. “That her?”

Lance followed her gaze and half rose from his chair at the sight of Marianne. She looked so fresh and pretty his thoughts froze for a minute. “Yeah. At least I think so.”

The waitress laughed aloud. “You think so? How long have you two been engaged?”

“Three days,” he murmured.

“Not long enough,” she said. “How long have you known each other?”

He watched Marianne gliding across the dining room toward him. “Not long enough,” he said.

The woman nodded. “Most men think that after the wedding,” she said with a wink.

Marianne settled into the chair across from him and sent him a tentative smile. She wore a striped shirtwaist and a flouncy blue skirt he’d never seen before. Her hair, loosely gathered at her neck and tied with a blue ribbon, looked even shinier than molasses. And he’d never seen her wear a ribbon before. Maybe he didn’t know Marianne as well as he thought.

Her skin glowed. Even after three nights with little sleep, breathing dusty air and eating nothing but stale sandwiches and cold coffee, Marianne Collingwood looked downright beautiful.

She spread out her skirt, and Lance caught a whiff of something that smelled like lilacs. He inhaled appreciatively. She’d never worn scent before, either.

“Good evening, ma’am,” the waitress said.

“Yes, it is, isn’t it?” Marianne replied. “I hope you have steak on your menu tonight. I am positively famished.”

“This is cattle ranching country, ma’am. We have steak on the menu every night.”

Marianne smiled. “Oh, of course. I’ll have mine rare, please. With lots of very crispy fried potatoes.”

The woman scribbled something on her order pad. “And for you, sir?”

“The same,” he said. When the waitress marched off to the kitchen, Marianne leaned toward him. “Lance, I didn’t know you liked your steak rare.”

“Maybe that’s because you never asked,” he said shortly.

She gave him a long look. “I never had time to ask. I was too busy in the kitchen frying steaks for all the boarders to ask, so I fried them all the same way, even my own.”

“And I always ate last,” Lance reminded her. “After everyone else had finished.”

Marianne pursed her lips. “You ate next to last,” she corrected. “I was the one who always ate last.”

“Gosh, I never realized that. Bet you were plenty hungry by the time all the boarders and then me had finished their supper.”

“To be honest, I was too tired to be hungry,” she said quietly. “In fact, never in the last eleven years have I eaten a meal that someone else has cooked.”

Her answer stopped him in his tracks. He’d never thought about working for Mrs. Schneiderman from Marianne’s point of view. Eleven years? She’d been at that boardinghouse for eleven years? Lord God in heaven, no wonder she was so desperate to get away.

He fiddled with the pepper shaker, then began folding his linen napkin into smaller and smaller squares, but he wouldn’t look at her. “I guess there’s a whole lot of things we don’t know about each other,” he said at last. “Maybe we should spend time getting acquainted some before we, uh, get married.”

Marianne gave him a short nod. “In a civilized world like St. Louis, an engaged couple would be expected to wait at least a year before the wedding, perhaps more, getting to know each other. But out here in the wilds of nowhere isn’t exactly a civilized world.”

“Maybe not,” he conceded. “But we’re civilized, aren’t we?”

She leveled an appraising look at him. “Lance, we cannot afford to wait a year before marrying. When I call on Mr. Myers and Mr. Waldrip at the bank to take possession of my inheritance, I must already be married.”

“Oh. Right.”

“You’re not reneging on our bargain, are you?”

“Nope. You still have that Wanted poster in your pocket, and that means I’m still gonna marry you.”

She pressed her lips into a line and turned pink just as the waitress set two huge plates loaded with thick steaks and fried potatoes in front of them.

Marianne attacked her supper with a determined jab of her fork and watched the waitress march back toward the kitchen. She sent Lance an assessing look. Was it her imagination, or did he sound less than enthusiastic about the prospect of marrying her? An unfamiliar little dart of pain niggled into her heart. Was he unsure because she was forcing him into it? Or...she caught her breath. Maybe it was because she was past her prime? Was she too old and work-worn and unattractive to be of any interest to a man?

She glanced down at her bare forearm. Her skin was tan because she rolled up her sleeves and ignored the sun’s rays when she worked outdoors for Mrs. Schneiderman. But her arm still looked plump, even girlish, didn’t it? She hoped the rest of her did, too. At least it had the last time she’d had the chance to stop and really look at herself in the full-length mirror in her room. Except for her tanned cheeks and forearms, she still looked young.

Didn’t she? A paralyzing sense of inadequacy suddenly swept through her. Over the years she had made no attempt whatsoever to look closely at her appearance, let alone enhance it as other young women did. By the time she’d crawled into bed at night she was so exhausted she’d simply unpinned her hair, gave it a cursory swipe with her worn hairbrush and closed her eyes.

All at once a crushing doubt overwhelmed her. She scarcely knew who she was, other than a boardinghouse cook and housekeeper. Worse, she had no idea who this man now sitting across from her really was. She was about to jump into a life-changing venture, and she suddenly realized she was truly frightened. She grimaced and laid down her fork.

“Lance, before we get married, perhaps we should become better acquainted. More than just the polite conversation we had on the train, I mean.”

“Maybe,” he conceded. “Sure don’t have much time, though. We’re getting married day after tomorrow.”

“Well, perhaps we could start with our supper,” she suggested.

“Yeah,” he said, staring at her dinner plate. “We both like rare steaks.”

“And we both like lots of fried potatoes,” she said. Talking about steak and potatoes was snatching at a straw, but it was a start.

“I like lots of any kind of potatoes,” he offered with a grin. “I like peas, too.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I have shelled so many mountains of pea pods I am sick sick sick of peas!”

“Carrots?” he asked, his voice hopeful.

She shook her head. “What about cabbage?”

“Chewy,” he pronounced. “Tastes like grass.”

She sat up straighter. “My coleslaw does not taste like grass!”

His cheeks turned pink. “Nah, you’re right, it doesn’t. You put some kinda fancy dressing on it, so your coleslaw tastes okay, I guess. What about apples?”

She nodded. “Yes, I like apples.” She picked up her knife and cut a bite of steak. “What about pears?”

“Pears are mushy.”

“Really?” She laid the knife back on her plate with a sharp click. “You think my ginger-poached pears are mushy?”

“Marianne, after they’ve sat around for an hour or two waitin’ for all the boarders to finish eatin’ so I could finally sit down for supper, your pears are plenty mushy, yeah.”

She frowned. She realized that neither of them had ever eaten a meal when it should be eaten, when the dishes were piping hot and bubbly from the oven and the salad greens were crisp. Even her layer cakes and cobblers tasted stale after sitting in a hot kitchen all afternoon and half the evening. Or maybe it was because she was so exhausted by the time she forked a bite past her lips she couldn’t taste anything. And they had never before eaten a meal, a real meal, together.

“What about...houses?” he asked. “I like brown houses with white trim.”

“I like big houses. I have never owned anything before, certainly not a house. So I want a great big house! I know Uncle Matty was rich, so I’m quite sure my inheritance will include one. I don’t care what color it is. I just hope it’s the biggest house in Smoke River.”

Lance studied her. “Do you think this business you’ve inherited is real prosperous then?”

“Of course. Uncle Matty could afford to live in New York City half the time. Out here in this little town he must have been the wealthiest man in the county.”

“Maybe we should talk about—” he paused to fork a slice of fried potato into his mouth “—religion. What church should we get married in?”

“Not Lutheran,” she said decisively.

“Why not?”

“Because Mrs. Schneiderman was Lutheran. She made everyone say a long fancy grace before every single meal, even breakfast.”

“Okay, not Lutheran.”

“And not Catholic,” she added. “The priest at St. Timothy’s in St. Louis refused to let one of the boarder’s daughters attend Sunday school just because they were Russian. Lance, you’re not Catholic, are you?”

“Don’t know. But I’ve got nothing against them. I don’t think I’m Catholic, anyway. My folks never said.”

“Oh? Where were you brought up? In St. Louis?”

“Nah. Little tiny town in Indiana called Tulip Flat.”

She put down her knife. “How did you—?”

“Come to rob a stagecoach?”

“Well...not exactly.” She could tell her cheeks were flushing. She hadn’t wanted to embarrass him; the question just slipped out. “I mean, how did your picture get on that Wanted poster? I told you before I don’t really think you’re an actual thief.”

“Yeah, well, you’re wrong there. I am a thief.”

Her fork clattered on to her plate. “What? Good heavens, Lance, I can’t go into business with someone who’s dishonest! And I certainly can’t marry someone who is really a thief. Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“You didn’t ask,” he said drily. “You just said all the reasons why I couldn’t be a thief.”

“You mean you really did rob a stagecoach?”

He looked up and held her gaze. “Yeah, I really did. I stole a piggy bank from a snotty ten-year-old kid because he was acting like an ass, braggin’ about how smart he was. Been sorry about it ever since.”

She stared at him. “But why did they think—?”

“Because his momma complained to the sheriff and said I was the only other passenger so it had to be me.”

“So it wasn’t a Wells Fargo gold shipment?”

“Yeah, it was. But it wasn’t me that stole it. I got off at the next stop, in Valdez. The robbery happened somewhere between Valdez and St. Louis.”

“But they blamed you? Why?”

He sighed. “Because nobody would believe that a proper-looking momma with a ten-year-old kid would rob a stagecoach. I’d left the Sackler gang by then because they’d shot a stage driver, but it kept me on the run until I landed at Mrs. Schneiderman’s.”

Marianne bit her lip. That meant the Wanted poster in her reticule was not only outdated, it was based on a false assumption. She felt her hold over Lance Burnside slipping away.

“Marianne, listen.” Lance leaned across the table toward her and lowered his voice. “There’s two reasons why you could pressure me into marrying you. One is that it’d take me a lot of time and money to prove I’m innocent of that Well Fargo robbery, and I’ve never had a lot of time or money.”

“Oh,” she said with a nod. “I can understand that.”

“The second reason is that by marrying you I get to own half of some kind of business. It’s my chance to make a different life for myself, and I’d have to be soft in the head not to see the advantage in that.”

Again she nodded.

And the third reason is that, even with all your starchy manners, I’ve lusted after you for years.

Chapter Five

Marianne found the dressmaker, Verena Forester, next to Uncle Charlie’s Bakery. The shop was a small establishment whose display window had seven outlandish ribbon-bedecked summer hats and an elegant green crepe gown with ruffles around the hem. Too fancy for a working girl, she thought.

She walked through the shop entrance with trepidation. Never in her entire life had she ordered anything from a dressmaker. Ever since she was a girl, all her clothes had been hand-me-downs; even her camisoles and underdrawers had been given to her by Mrs. Schneiderman’s boarders or donated by the St. Timothy’s church ladies. Now here she was entering a dressmaking establishment for the very first time in her life, and her hands felt sweaty.

Verena Forester turned out to be a tall, fortyish woman with gray streaks in her once dark hair and a sour expression on her narrow face. Marianne introduced herself and explained what she needed.

“A wedding dress,” the dressmaker said, her tone disapproving. “By tomorrow.” She sniffed and cast an accusing look at Marianne’s waistline. “Some reason you’re in such a hurry?”

“Well, yes, there is a reason, but it is a legal matter, not a physical one.”

“Hmm.” The dressmaker sounded unconvinced. “What kind of wedding dress did you have in mind for a hurry-up ceremony that’s going to happen just twenty-four hours from now?”

Marianne bit her lip. “A very simple one. No fancy flounces or bustles or—”

“You mean plain,” Verena inserted.

“Oh, not too plain,” Marianne said. “I’d like it to be attractive, but I would also like it to be useful later on, something I can wear after the wedding. I am a businesswoman, you see, and—”

“Come with me,” Verena snapped. She led the way to the tall shelves along the wall where bolts of fabric were stacked up as high as the ceiling. “Pale green lawn, perhaps?” She pointed to a bolt halfway up the stack. “That’d go nice with your dark hair, Miss.”

Marianne shook her head. Lawn was so light and summery. It wouldn’t do for year-round wear.

“Then there’s that pale green peau de soie up there next to it. Bring out your eyes. You havin’ a reception?”

Marianne blinked. “Why, no, we’re not. My fiancé and I are new in Smoke River. We don’t know anyone in town.”

The dressmaker pinned her with beady eyes. “That’s too bad, Miss. This here’s a real friendly town.”

“I’m sure it is, Miss Forester. But you see, as I explained before, we are in somewhat of a hurry. Arranging for a wedding reception takes time, and—”

“So?” Verena’s thick eyebrows went up.

She gulped. Were people in small towns like this always so nosy? She didn’t want to confide everything about Lance and herself to a perfect stranger, at least not within her first twenty-four hours in Smoke River. Especially since she was beginning to feel just a tad frightened at the prospect now staring her in the face, getting married to a man she didn’t know all that well and then taking on her inherited business establishment, which was still a mystery.

At the moment, Marianne admitted, she was most nervous about the getting married part. Somehow when she was back in St. Louis it had all seemed like a perfectly straightforward matter; she would get married and then she could claim her inheritance. But now that it was actually right around the corner, she was...well, terrified.

The dressmaker poked a bony forefinger at a fat bolt of fabric at eye level. “How about a nice practical—”

“Yellow gingham,” Marianne finished. “Yes, that one.” She pointed at the bolt. “Gingham will get lots more wear than a fancy silk or a sheer lawn.”

Verena sniffed again, manhandled the bolt of yellow gingham onto the counter and flipped out her tape measure. “Twenty-four hours, you say?”

“Y-yes. Can you do that?”

The dressmaker’s thin face broke into a grin. “You just watch me, Miss, I am the best dressmaker in the county. I have accomplished miracles before, and I can certainly do so again.”

“Oh, I have no doubt—”

“Now,” Verena ordered, “raise your arms so I can take your measurements.”

* * *

Lance paced up and down in front of Ness’s Mercantile, past bushel baskets of ripe peaches and apricots, crates of apples and burlap sacks bulging with potatoes. Inside, the air smelled enticingly of lavender. Lavender? This must be the only mercantile in the world that didn’t smell of pickles or coffee beans or aged cheese. Then he noticed beribboned bundles of the fragrant herb hanging from a rafter.

The store had neatly arranged aisles with displays of garden rakes and boys’ leather boots, even a rack of flower seeds. Fat glass jars of caramels and lemon drops and jelly beans lined one shelf.

The proprietor looked up from the newspaper spread on the wooden counter and surveyed him with a scowl.

“Good morning,” Lance said. “My name is Lawrence Burnside, I just arrived in town yesterday from St. Louis, and I’m looking for a new shirt and a church.”

The man, owner Carl Ness, jerked his head to the left. “Gents’ shirts are down that aisle,” he said shortly. “And we only got one church in town.”

Lance stared at the mercantile owner’s face. “Smoke River has just one church? What denomination is it?”

Ness frowned. “Look, mister...Burnside, is it? This ain’t a big city like St. Louis. Here we got the Smoke River Community Church and that’s it. Suited Smoke River folks for the last forty years. Doesn’t really have a ‘denomination’ so to speak.”

“Do they marry people, Mr. Ness?”

“Well, whaddya think, son? How else are people out here gonna get hitched?”

Lance grunted. “Yeah, I see what you mean.”

“You gettin’ yourself married, are ya?”

“Yes, Mr. Ness, I am. Tomorrow, in fact.”

The mercantile owner gave him an assessing look. “You know this girl for a long time?”

“About four years,” Lance said.

“How long you been engaged?”

Lance blinked. “Um...four days.”

Carl Ness slapped his palm down on the counter. “Four days? Son, are you crazy? That’s not even long enough to learn a gal’s middle name.”

Lance took a step back and nervously ran his fingers through the hair flopping into his eyes. Well, that much was true. He had no idea what Marianne’s middle name might be. Adelaide? Nah, too old-maidish. Samantha? Too fussy. What about Euphemia? Nope. Too fancy.

“Look, Mr. Ness, all I need is a shirt so I can get married tomorrow.”

The proprietor rolled his eyes, but the frown went away and his eyes lit up. “Second aisle, next to the fly swatters.”

Lance chose a long-sleeved blue chambray shirt with white pearl buttons on the cuffs and added a tan leather vest with two pockets and a secret one on the inside. When Lance reached the counter, Mr. Ness had another question for him.

“You got a wedding ring?”

He stared at the paunchy man behind the cash register. A wedding ring? Heck, no, he didn’t have a wedding ring. Until four days ago he’d never had a single thought about a wedding, or a wedding ring. Ever since the prospect of marrying Marianne had presented itself, he’d been on a train chugging its way across the prairie toward Smoke River. But... He gulped. No doubt about it, he was getting married tomorrow, so maybe a wedding ring was a good idea.

“Uh, I don’t suppose you have a jewelry store in town, do you?”

“Nope. Got a tray of gold rings, though. You want to see ’em?”

Lance hesitated. He had exactly seven dollars in his pocket, and that had to cover their hotel room and all their meals until Marianne took over her business and they would have a steady income. “Um...”

Before he could come up with a coherent answer, the proprietor slid a velvet case of shiny gold rings on to the counter. Lance studied them and frowned. What kind of ring would Marianne like? A plain band or one with curlicues engraved all over it? She had never struck him as being a curlicue type of woman, so he moved his gaze over to the plain gold rings on the tray.

“Take yer time, son,” Ness said. “A man only gets married once. If he’s lucky, that is.”

“You married, Mr. Ness?”

The proprietor rolled his eyes. “Huh! You see the front of my store? That’s the most god-awful pink I’ve ever laid eyes on. Last week it was apple-green, and the week before that it was purple.”

“Does your wife paint your storefront?”

“Nope. My daughter does. For years my wife’s been tellin’ my Edith that she’s artistic and that her father’s a mean old fuddy-duddy with no sense of adventure. I’m so married I can’t look my wife in the face and tell her she’s crazy.”

“Yeah, I see your problem, Mr. Ness. I couldn’t tell my fiancée she’s crazy, either.”

“I’m tellin’ ya, a man’s gotta think real careful about gettin’ himself tied down to a woman. It’s kinda like Russian roulette, if you know what I mean.”

Lance bit back a chuckle. “Seems to me if you’re married you could say that to your wife, couldn’t you? You know, just be honest with her?”

“Oh, well, maybe I could. And maybe I’d sleep in the barn for the next twenty years. You got a lot to learn about women, son.”

Lance sighed. What did he know about Marianne, apart from her tendency to give orders and never say thank-you? But he liked what he did know about her. She was sensible and hardworking and generally fair-minded. And darn good-looking.

He continued to mull carefully over the tray of rings until his eye fell on a medium-wide gold band with some design carved on the surface, some kind of flowers, roses, maybe. He bent to look at it close up. “How much is that one?”

“Four dollars.”

He hesitated.

“I got cheaper rings, son.”

Still he hesitated. But for some reason he wanted the one with the roses engraved on it. Something about it just felt like Marianne. He spilled four silver dollars on to the counter and slipped the ring into his pocket. No matter what her middle name was, he liked Marianne, and he wanted her to have a pretty wedding ring.

* * *

Marianne was late to supper, so Lance took a seat in the dining room and gave the waitress a grin.

“Where’s your girl tonight?” the woman asked.

“Still over at the dressmaker’s, I guess.”

The woman laughed softly. “Is she ordering a dress to be made up?”

“Yeah. A wedding dress.”

She snorted. “If I know Verena Forester, that could take most of the night. You probably won’t see your girl ’til morning, so you might as well have some supper.” She slapped down a menu.

But before he could study it, Marianne appeared. She was out of breath, and her face looked kinda shiny, like she was lit up from the inside. His heart gave a horse-sized kick.

Before he could stand up even halfway, she plopped on to the chair across from him. “I have had the most trying afternoon!”

“Me, too,” he admitted.

“I’ve just spent three hours at the dressmaker’s.” She leaned across the table and lowered her voice. “Lance, I’ve never even been inside a dressmaker’s shop before. I had no idea about... Anyway, Verena Forester, she’s the dressmaker, helped me choose a dress pattern and took my measurements and everything. I felt like Cinderella.”

Lance chuckled. “Well, Cinderella, I found out there’s only one church in town. Not Lutheran and not Catholic, just a plain old church. Smoke River Community Church.” He didn’t mention the two hours he’d spent at Ness’s Mercantile, poring over the tray of wedding rings.

The waitress tapped her pencil on her order pad. “We have chicken tonight. Fried, baked or stewed.”

“Fried,” they said together.

“Potatoes?”

“Fried,” they chorused again.

The waitress laughed. “Is there anything you two disagree about?”

“Not so far,” Lance said.

“Wait,” Marianne countered. “We do disagree on something, Lance. My ginger-poached pears, remember?”

“Got peach pie tonight,” the waitress said. “You agree on that?”

“Sure,” Lance said.

“With ice cream,” Marianne added.

“Yeah. Chocolate ice cream,” he said.

“Chocolate!” Marianne blurted out. “Ick!”

The waitress grinned and headed for the kitchen. When she had disappeared, Marianne reached over and caught his sleeve.

“Lance, I... I have a confession to make.”

His belly flip-flopped. “What about? You don’t like chocolate ice cream?”

“It’s not about ice cream. It’s about...well, I’m getting nervous.”

Another flip-flop. “What are you nervous about, Marianne?”

“About tomorrow. Getting married. I’ve never been married before.”

He released the breath he’d been holding. Bridal jitters. What made her think a man didn’t get the jitters, too?

“Marianne, I’ve never been married before, either. What exactly are you nervous about?”

“The next forty years,” she said in a subdued voice.

“Oh.” Relief made his voice sound strained. He’d thought maybe it was him she was nervous about. Or maybe their—he swallowed hard—wedding night. Oh, God, she had to be a virgin. Funny, he’d never thought about it before. He’d just assumed...

“Could you be more specific?” he ventured. “What about the next forty years makes you nervous?”

She dropped her forehead on to her palm. “The forty years part. Marriage is such a, well, a permanent thing. Do you think we will like each other for the next forty years?”

“There’s no way to know that now,” he said with a smile. “Ask me again in forty years.”

She lifted her head and tried to smile at him. Her mouth wasn’t working quite right because it looked like something halfway between a lopsided grimace and a shaky O.

“I’m also worried about my wedding dress,” she said.

“Huh? You mean whether it’ll be ready in time?”

She shook her head. “No. I mean whether you will like it.”

All at once he felt warm all over. She cares about whether I will like her wedding dress? He started to smile, and then another thought popped into his brain. Maybe that meant she was worried about how she would look in her wedding dress? Maybe she really cared about how she would look to him?

Or maybe he wasn’t the least bit important in this business. She needed him only because she needed to marry somebody, and he was the handiest somebody around.

The waitress reappeared. “Two fried chicken dinners and two coffees, right?” She plopped down both plates and the coffee cups. “Gonna have to wait on the peach pie. It’s not out of the oven yet.”

An uneasy silence fell. Marianne picked up her fork to stab a slice of fried potato, then set it back down on the table. She’d lost her appetite. An entire afternoon spent answering dressmaker Verena Forester’s questions and trying to calm the butterflies careening around her stomach was taking its toll. The last thing she needed to do was add a fried potato to the battle going on inside of her.

“Marianne? You look like a ghost just up and poked you in the chest. What’s wrong?”

“N-nothing.” She hadn’t the foggiest notion what was wrong.

His blue eyes held hers in an extra-penetrating look. “Yeah? Nothing is wrong?”

“Of course not,” she said shakily.

Of course something is wrong! In exactly twenty-four hours I am going to promise to spend the rest of my life with someone I scarcely know. Anyone with an ounce of intelligence and a lick of good sense would be frightened half to death.

He reached over and lifted the salt shaker out of her hand. “Then how come you just salted your coffee?”

She bit her lip. “Oh. Well, perhaps I am a bit unnerved. Actually—” she lowered her voice “—I am, um, well, I am getting downright scared.”

“Thank God,” he muttered. “I was beginning to think getting married didn’t matter enough to you to ruffle even one feather.”

A choked laugh burst out of her mouth. “Oh, I have a feather ruffled, all right,” she said in a shaky voice. “It isn’t every day a woman gets married.”

Lance quickly switched their coffee cups and signaled the waitress. “Could you bring me another cup of coffee?”

The woman studied the full cup of coffee at his elbow. “Something wrong with this one?”

“I...um...I accidentally added too much...sugar,” he said. “Wedding jitters, I guess.”

The waitress grinned at him and whisked the cup away.

“Thank you,” Marianne murmured.

Lance blinked. An unprompted thank you from the queen of orders that must be obeyed? He found himself staring at her, and his heart gave a little jump. Did he really know this woman at all?

“Marianne?”

“Yes, Lance?”

“I have something to ask you.”

Her face changed. “Yes? What is it?”

“Marianne, what is your middle name?”

Her eyes widened. “My middle name? It’s Jane,” she said. “I was christened Marianne Jane. Why on earth is that important?”

Jane! It was a simple name. Unaffected, straightforward and honest. “It’s not important, really. I was just curious.”

He addressed his fried chicken, but all during their supper he could think of nothing else but Marianne’s middle name. Jane. He liked it. He liked it a lot.

Then she startled him with a question of her own. “Lance, what is your middle name?”

Oh, God, he’d do anything to avoid telling her that. The waitress saved him by bringing a fresh cup of coffee and setting it down in front of him. He stared at it.

“Lance?” Marianne persisted. “I asked you a question.”

“Yeah, I heard you.”

Her hand hovered over her cup. “Well, what is it? Your middle name?”

He grimaced. “Rockefeller.”

“What?” she cried.

Every diner in the crowded restaurant stopped talking and stared at them. After a long, awkward pause, she leaned toward him. “What?” she repeated in a whisper.

“Not the rich Rockefeller,” he whispered back. “The poor one.”

“I didn’t know there was a poor one,” she murmured.

“Oh, yeah. Your Great-Uncle Matty was rich. My great-uncle was poor. Ignatius M. Rockefeller. Ever heard of him?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Neither has anyone else. Great-Uncle Iggy died in a gold mining accident in Montana thirty years ago. He didn’t have a dime.”

She started to laugh and the buzz of conversation in the dining room resumed.

“Marianne, what’s so funny?”

“You,” she sputtered. “Me. Us. We’re getting married tomorrow and here we are, asking each other about our middle names.”

“Yeah. Maybe it’s because we’re both a little bit nervous about tomorrow.”

“Oh, Lance,” she whispered. “I am more than just a ‘little bit’ nervous. I have to confess I am a lot nervous!”

He reached across the table and covered her hand with his. He was apprehensive, too. But never in a million years would he admit that to Marianne.

Chapter Six

After supper they climbed the stairs to the second floor and stopped before the door to Marianne’s room. Lance cleared his throat.

“Tomorrow...”

“Yes?” Marianne looked up expectantly.

“Well, uh, tomorrow I guess we’re getting married.”

“Yes. Are you getting cold feet?”

He slid his gaze to the closed door. “Nope. Just thinking ahead. Tomorrow we’ll only need one room, and I was wondering, um, well, whether you wanted to move into my room or...”

“Oh.”

He pressed on through a dry mouth. “My room just has a single bed, and I noticed that yours has a...”

“Oh,” she said again. “Yes, I see.”

“See what?” he ventured. Suddenly he wondered if Marianne knew the first thing about being married, that after tomorrow they would only need one bed. At least he assumed they would need only one bed. Or did she have some kind of funny idea about marriage that she hadn’t told him?

“I realize that when we’re married we will need only one hotel room,” she acknowledged. “That is obvious.”

“Oh, yeah. Obvious.” It was also obvious that one bed and two people meant... He frowned. Did she really understand the implications of only one hotel room and only one bed? Marianne was a lot of things, but she was not dumb.

But it did make him wonder.

“Occupying one room instead of two will save us some money,” she said. She dug in her reticule for her room key, stuffed it into the lock and turned the knob. The door swung open, and once again he glimpsed the double bed in the center of the room.

He stopped dead. Jumping jennies, it was the bride who was supposed to be nervous about getting married, not the groom!

She looked up at him. “Lance, are you... Well, I mean, are you absolutely sure you want to marry me?”

Sure? Hell, no, he wasn’t sure. And neither was she if she had any smarts. But a promise was a promise.

“Yeah, I’m sure. I’ll meet you at the church tomorrow, Marianne. Three o’clock, right?”

“Yes, three o’clock. Good night, Lance.”

Before he could reply, she disappeared inside and closed the door. He stood stock still for a long minute, shaking his head. Was he imagining it, or did Marianne now not seem anxious or scared or even the least bit ruffled, as if getting married was something she did every day, like washing up the dishes? Well it sure wasn’t something he did every day! His nerves were strung up tight as a new barbed wire fence.

Still shaking his head he moved down the hall to Number Seven and unlocked the door to his room.

* * *

At half past two the next afternoon Lance slowly made his way toward the small white-painted church that sat on top of the hill at the far end of town. Puffs of frothy white mayweed and swaths of golden buttercups carpeted the ground, and three large maple trees shaded the building. It looked like a picture in a storybook. His pulse sped up.

Tall, gray-haired Reverend Pollock stood on the church steps, a black leather-bound Bible in his hands, and surveyed Lance with sympathetic brown eyes. Lance’s already tight chest got tighter. Why would the minister be feeling sorry for a man on his wedding day? There must be a whole lot of things about marriage that nobody was telling him.

The warm summer air was sweet with the scent of honeysuckle. As he reached the bottom step of the sanctuary, he tried to breathe normally, but for some reason he felt like he was drowning.

The minister stepped forward and extended his hand. “Mr. Burnside, welcome. This is an important day.”

Lance returned the reverend’s firm grip, then found he couldn’t utter a word.

“Nervous?” the reverend asked.

“Yeah. Didn’t expect to be, either.”

The minister grinned. “Most men are terrified when they get married. Or they should be.”

Lance stared at the man. “Dammit, Reverend, you tryin’ to scare me off?”

Pollock shook his head. “Certainly not, son. You look like a man who doesn’t scare easy.”

Lance groaned quietly. “Up until this morning I’d have agreed with you. Right now I’m not so sure.”

“Come on inside, Mr. Burnside. Your two witnesses are already here.”

He stopped short. “What two witnesses?”

“The waitress at the Smoke River Restaurant, Rita Sheltonburg. And Verena Forester, the town dressmaker.”

He had forgotten that they would need witnesses. Marianne must have organized them. Actually he was so tightly strung all he could remember was the gold wedding band he’d slipped into his inside pocket.

He hadn’t seen Marianne yet today. Maybe that was just as well. He hadn’t been able to eat a single forkful of his scrambled eggs, and his breakfast toast had tasted like a buttered pot holder. At the moment he figured he wasn’t the best of company.

He followed the minister into the small church, and the two middle-aged women sitting in the first pew twisted their heads to stare at him. He nodded at the waitress, Rita, and she sent him an encouraging smile. The other woman pinned him with hard blue eyes and a sour look.

Reverend Pollock guided him to the front of the church and turned to him. “Your bride seems to be a little late,” he intoned.

Lance groaned inwardly. Had Marianne chickened out at the last minute? Maybe she’d decided she didn’t want to stay in a pokey little town like Smoke River. Maybe she’d decided she didn’t want to marry him after all. Maybe...

He closed his fists convulsively, then concentrated on slowly opening his fingers one by one. Before he was aware of it he’d tightened his hands into fists again.

The two women bent their heads together and began talking in low tones. Their voices sounded like a hive full of honeybees. Lance closed his eyes involuntarily, then opened them when Reverend Pollock jostled his arm. He pointed to the pew across the aisle from the witnesses. “Sit.”

“Can’t,” he murmured. “I’m scared I won’t be able to stand up again.” To his credit the minister nodded, then took up a position beside him. It seemed like hours crept by while Lance sweated and tried not to think.

“Want to change your mind about this, son?”

He jerked. No, he didn’t. That thought had never occurred to him. He shook his head, and the minister smiled and ran his pale hands over the Bible.

Lance watched him for a few minutes, then began to pace back and forth in front of the wooden altar. The two witnesses followed him with their eyes, moving their heads from left to right and back again. At one point he thought he saw the waitress, Rita, smile, but when she caught him looking at her, her face went carefully blank.

He established a route from Reverend Pollock on one side to Rita and the dressmaker on the other, and every time he made a turn he glanced toward the back of the church. Where is Marianne?

He thought only brides got left standing at the altar, not grooms. Well, here he was, standing at the altar feeling like a lost puppy.

Where is she?

He made one more circuit and had just started another when suddenly he saw a movement. Marianne.

At the sight of her his eyes widened. She wore a simple yellow dress, the hem just brushing the tops of her shoes, and the late afternoon light bathed her in a warm golden glow. She looked like a shaft of summer sunshine.

His mouth went dry. Both witnesses stood up, and Reverend Pollock drew him into position in front of the altar. Marianne started down the aisle toward him, hesitated and then resolutely stepped forward. All at once Verena Forester moved into her path and held out a bouquet of yellow roses.

Marianne paused to accept the flowers, then watched Verena’s gaze run over the yellow gingham wedding dress she had cobbled together in such a hurry. The woman’s narrow face beamed.

At the altar, Lance was staring at her as if he’d never laid eyes on her before. She gripped her bouquet of roses and continued on down the aisle toward him. Dear God, was she really doing this? Marrying a man she had blackmailed into taking her as his wife? She should feel a huge measure of guilty shame, but for some strange reason she didn’t. Instead she felt as if she had just swallowed a bolt of lightning.

She caught Lance’s gaze and her heart stopped. Goodness, he looked so serious! Not a hint of a smile touched his mouth. His usually unruly dark hair was neatly combed, and as she watched, his smoky blue eyes went wide.

Was he as scared as she was? Worse, did he regret agreeing to marry her?

Her heart thumped erratically. Why was she so frightened? This man, Lance Burnside, meant nothing to her, wasn’t that true? She was simply using him for her own ends, wasn’t she? Why should she be frightened?

The answer brought her to an abrupt halt halfway down the aisle. I am frightened because this really does matter!

She took another step toward the man waiting at the altar, and he moved toward her and held out his hand. He had the strangest look on his face, as if he’d just seen a ghost. He enfolded her hand in his, and she noticed that his eyes looked shiny and they never left hers.

Verena Forester came to stand on her left; Rita positioned herself beside Lance. Then the minister stepped forward and opened his Bible.

“Dearly beloved...”

She could feel Lance trembling. Even so, his grip on her hand remained steady and his eyes continued to look into hers. All at once the reverend’s words leaped into her consciousness.

“Lawrence Burnside, do you take this woman...?”

Lance gave her hand a little squeeze. “I do.” His voice was steady, but she noticed that his shirtfront was fluttering.

Then the minister’s question was directed to her.

“Marianne Jane Collingwood, do you take this man...?”

Merciful God in heaven, can I really promise to love a man I scarcely know? She closed her eyes.

Lance waited. Did he understand her hesitation?

The gentle pressure of his fingers told her that he did understand, but he was waiting for her answer anyway.

Her mind cleared and she opened her eyes. No, she did not really know this man. But she had worked side by side with him for four years. She had watched him. For some reason she trusted him. And, she had to admit, she liked him.

“I—I do,” she breathed.

Reverend Pollock looked from Lance to Marianne and smiled. “I now pronounce you husband and wife.” Then his smile broadened into a grin. “Mr. Burnside, you may kiss your bride.”

Lance gulped. He released the hand he held in his own and reached to curve his fingers about Marianne’s shoulders. Damn, she was shaking like an aspen leaf in a summer breeze. He tried to smile at her, but his mouth wasn’t working right.

She was still staring up at him, a dazed expression on her face. Maybe she was waiting for him to kiss her, like the reverend said. She didn’t look scared or apprehensive; she was just waiting.

Outside the open sanctuary door he could hear some crazy bird singing its heart out. He became aware of his breath pulling in and out of his lungs, and then all at once he was aware of everything, the long silence, Reverend Pollock drumming his fingers on the Bible, even the occasional sniffing of Rita and the dressmaker. Good God, those two ladies were actually crying!

He felt like crying, too.

Marianne was still staring at him, waiting for him to kiss her, he guessed. Okay, he’d better do it and get it over with. He tightened his hands on her shoulders and drew her toward him.

She lifted her face to his, and in that instant he saw that her eyes were wet. His heart soared up and then thunked into his stomach. He pulled her close enough that the ruffle around the neck of her yellow dress touched his shirtfront, bent his head and brushed his lips against hers.

She closed her eyes, but she didn’t move. Her lips were soft, and she smelled faintly of roses, and unexpectedly his heart gave another thump as he moved slightly away from her. She felt sweet and unguarded in his arms, and suddenly he wanted to really kiss her.

And then she did something he would remember for the rest of his life. She opened her eyes, smiled at him and rose up on her tiptoes and pressed her mouth to his.

A locomotive ploughed into his chest and starbursts of hot light exploded in his brain. Some part of him felt the earth stop spinning on its axis, and then he lost himself in a big bubble of a fine new place he’d never been before. He tightened his arms around her and just held on.

After a long moment, a very long moment, he heard the minister cough politely, and he opened his eyes. What had just happened? Why were his eyelids stinging?

The two witnesses descended on them, mopping at their faces with lacy handkerchiefs and saying something. He couldn’t hear the words because of the roaring noise inside his head, but Rita’s face was one big grin and even the sobersides dressmaker was all smiles.

Reverend Pollock shook his hand. “Congratulations, Mr. Burnside,” he said loudly. He released his hand and then shook it again, pecked Marianne’s cheek and shook her hand, too.

Rita advanced and threw her arms around him, then turned to Marianne and smacked a kiss on her cheek. “Now, my dear, we have a little surprise for you. Sarah and Rooney Cloudman are giving you a wedding reception at Rose Cottage. That’s Sarah’s boardinghouse over on Maple Street.”

“Wedding reception!” Marianne gasped. “But we don’t know anyone in town.”

“Well,” Verena Forester announced, “pretty quick you’re gonna know everybody.”

Suddenly Lance stiffened. “Wait! I forgot the ring!”

Marianne blinked. “What ring?”

“The wedding ring I bought for you at the mercantile yesterday.”

Reverend Pollock laughed aloud. “Well, now,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes, “maybe you’d better get this ring on her finger before your wedding reception.”

Lance fumbled inside his vest and drew out an engraved gold band. “Give me your hand, Marianne.”

Shyly, she held out her hand. He lifted it in his and slipped the gold wedding band on to her fourth finger.

Marianne looked down at her hand and the lovely gold ring Lance had placed there. She couldn’t stop staring at it. Tiny roses were engraved all over it, like the roses she still carried in one hand. “Oh, it’s beautiful! It’s p-perfectly beauti—” She burst into tears.

Lance folded her into his arms. “Thank you,” she said against his chest. “Oh, Lance, thank you!”

“You’re welcome, Marianne. I wanted you to have a wedding ring.”

They stood in each other’s arms until he felt a gentle touch at his back.

“Come on, you two,” Rita said. “We’ll walk you over to Rose Cottage.”

* * *

Rose Cottage turned out to be the prettiest house Marianne had yet seen in Smoke River, a three-story structure with a wide front porch and a trellis covered with yellow rambling roses. Townspeople were spilling out the open front door and down the porch steps, calling out their congratulations. Marianne felt Lance check his stride.

“Whoa,” he said under his breath. “This is kinda scary.”

Marianne nodded. “I feel like I used to when Mrs. Schneiderman had a bad day.”

“Well, we lived through that,” he murmured. “I guess we’ll live through this, too.”

The first person to reach them was a plump, attractive older woman in a full-skirted green dress. “Welcome!” she called. “I’m Sarah Cloudman.” She grasped Marianne’s hands in hers and pulled her up the porch steps onto the veranda. “And congratulations.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Cloudman. And thank you for inviting us to your home.”

“You’re welcome, my dear. It isn’t every day a girl gets married, and we all know you’re both new in Smoke River, so we thought you should celebrate with friends.”

A lean, grizzled-looking man with a salt-and-pepper beard slapped out the screen door and shook Lance’s hand. “Every man deserves a good woman,” he boomed. He turned to Marianne and kissed both her cheeks. “Don’t know if I’ve ever seen a prettier bride ’less it was my Sarah, but you sure do come close.”

People swirled onto the front porch, and in no time she and Lance were surrounded by townspeople. Sarah Cloudman took her arm. “Come inside, both of you. We have wedding cake and lemonade waiting.”

“And some whiskey for the gentlemen,” Rooney Cloudman added.

Marianne knew she would never forget this afternoon, even if she lived to be a hundred. She and Lance must have received the good wishes of everyone in town from Carl Ness’s wife, Linda-Lou, and their twin daughters, Edith and Noralee, to tall, tanned sheriff Hawk Rivera, who looked straight into Lance’s face without a flicker of recognition. The two newspaper editors, Cole and Jessamine Sanders, welcomed them and asked all kinds of questions, and then there were the rotund barber Whitey Poletti, the old doctor, Samuel Graham, who lived at Rose Cottage, and the new doctor, Zane Dougherty and his wife Winifred, who lived in the big house at the top of the steepest hill in town. So many townspeople came to offer congratulations, Marianne was sure she would never remember all their names.

She recognized the young Indian boy Sammy Greywolf and met his handsome mother, Rosie Greywolf. Cattle ranchers, wheat farmers, the pretty young schoolteacher, Mrs. Panovsky, even a crusty old sheepherder who camped in the hills all stopped by Rose Cottage to wish them well.

But the highlight of the afternoon for Marianne was her introduction to a grinning Chinese man everyone called Uncle Charlie, the baker who had made the elegant four-tier wedding cake resting on Sarah’s walnut dining table. His wife, Iris, confided that his Chinese name was actually Ming Cha.

Marianne also met Uncle Charlie’s niece, Leah MacAllister, her husband Thad, and their nine-year-old son, Teddy, along with Judge Jericho Silver and his wife, Maddie, and their twin boys. Of all things, Maddie turned out to be a Pinkerton agent! My, the population of Smoke River was certainly interesting. And, Marianne noted with relief, the Pinkerton agent also didn’t give Lance a second look.

All afternoon Marianne couldn’t help wondering which business establishment it was that Uncle Matty had willed to her. It wouldn’t be Sarah Cloudman’s boardinghouse. Or the barbershop. Or the Smoke River Hotel or the restaurant. And she prayed again that it wasn’t the Golden Partridge saloon next to the hotel.

Lance shook so many hands and downed so many shots of Rooney Cloudman’s whiskey that by suppertime he was struggling to focus his thoughts. Marianne had long since disappeared into a chattering circle of women well-wishers. He wondered if she felt half as dizzy as he did. Probably not, unless she was lacing her lemonade with shots of Rooney Cloudman’s whiskey.

What a day! He couldn’t wait for it to be over so he could enjoy a quiet supper with Marianne at the restaurant. He caught her eye across the dining room where she was cutting more slices of Uncle Charlie’s applesauce spice wedding cake, but as he watched she was quickly drawn into another conversation with more chattering ladies.

He escaped to the veranda and sank on to the porch swing to rest a while. After some minutes, Rooney Cloudman joined him.

“Had enough?”

“Of what?” Lance said tiredly.

“Enough of all this fuss and folderol,” the older man said with a grin. “All a man really wants is to get the I-do over with and start the honeymoon.”

Lance suddenly jerked upright. Honeymoon! Oh, God, there was that double bed in Marianne’s hotel room, but he hadn’t really thought about it until this moment. Now he had to seriously consider what a honeymoon would mean.

For the first time he wondered if Marianne was planning to have a marriage of convenience.

Was she?

Well, he sure as hell wasn’t!

“What’s the matter, son? You look like you just swallowed a fishhook the size of a pick-ax.”

“Rooney, how long have you been married?”

The older man laughed. “Not near long enough.”

“You recall how you, uh, ended up gettin’ married in the first place?”

Rooney leaned back and pushed the swing into motion with his foot. “Yeah, I sure do. I was married before, see. ’Cept it wasn’t in a church or anything ’cuz I’m half Cherokee. My wife, she was full-blooded Cherokee. Anyway, she died before I came to Smoke River, and when I met my Sarah I was mighty leery about gettin’ hitched up again.”

“What changed your mind?”

“Well, hell, I went and fell in love. Sarah, now, she didn’t feel that way about me fer a lotta years. So...I waited.”

Lance nodded. “What do you think changed her mind?”

Rooney slapped a gnarled hand on his knee. “Son, if I knew the answer to that, I’d be a rich man.”

Lance could think of nothing to say to that.

Rooney stuck an elbow into his ribs. “Chances are you’re not gonna understand a whole lotta things about yer wife, even if you both live to a ripe old age. But that’s not what’s important, see? Understandin’ her, I mean. What’s important is real simple. Just keep on lovin’ her.”

“That’s it? That’s all?”

“Yep, that’s pretty much it. And,” Rooney added with a chuckle, “don’t ask too many questions.”

Lance nodded his head. “Thanks, Rooney. I’ll remember that.”

“And remember them real smart words ‘for better or worse.’”

At that moment Lance made himself a solemn promise. For better or worse, no matter what came, he would do everything in his power to be a good husband to Marianne.

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