Mckenna's Bartered Bride
highlight_author
Sandra Steffen
highlight_reads
17,4K
highlight_chapters
11
Chapter 1
Jake McKenna felt a vibration beneath the soles of his worn cowboy boots. He lowered the tip of the pitchfork to the floor and held very still, his ears straining, his gaze trained on the patch of McKenna land visible through the wide barn door. The vibration increased. It was either a tornado, a stampede, or...
Aw, hell. He threw down the pitchfork and tore out of the barn. It was a storm, all right. A human cyclone. Sky Buchanan was racing up the lane on his horse, shoulders and head hunkered down, his hat whipping behind him, held to his body only by the cord around his neck.
Swearing under his breath, Jake rushed to the gate and swung it open five seconds before Sky rode through at breakneck speed. “Dammit all, Buchanan!” he growled as Sky pulled to a stop a few feet short of the broad side of the barn. “One of these days I’m not going to get here fast enough and I’ll end up scraping you off that wood with a chisel.”
Skyler Buchanan dismounted neatly, then turned on his
heels in one fluid movement. Jake narrowed his eyes and sneered. “You ever decide to turn in your cowboy boots for ballet slippers, you got the turns down pat.”
Sky’s smile grated on Jake’s already frayed nerves. Leading his horse by the reins, Sky said, “You’re trying to pick a fight That means it’s either a day that ends in y, or the reading of your old man’s will didn’t go so well.”
Inside the barn Jake swiped his black Stetson off his head and kept the string of four-letter words running through his head to himself. Cramming his hat back on again, he retrieved the pitchfork and picked up where he’d left off.
“Jake?”
Jake’s reply had a lot in common with a snort.
“What did the will say?”
The barn was quiet except for the creak of leather, the scuffle of hooves and the scrape and rustle of straw.
“Well?” Sky prodded. “Did Isaac leave the ranch to you or didn’t he?”
Jake scooped up another forkful of straw and sent it sailing into one of the stalls. “More or less.”
A horse whinnied; a saddle creaked. Jake knew Sky was watching him, just as he knew his best friend wouldn’t ask any more questions until Jake was ready to answer. Where Sky had patiepce, Jake had purpose. Both would trust the other with his life.
When he’d worked the edge off his temper, Jake stuck the pitchfork into the pile of straw and looped his hands over the top of the handle. “It’s pretty much black-and-white.”
“Then why do you look as if you’re seeing red?”
Jake shrugged, scowled. “Got me. With the exception of the hundred acres that spans Sugar Creek, my father left everything to me.”
“What the hell do you—”
Finally Jake turned to face his friend. “The hundred acres that spans Sugar Creek will be mine. Providing I’m a married man by my next birthday.”
“And if you’re not a married man come July?”
Jake’s eyes darkened. “Then the most fertile soil on McKenna land will go to the O’Gradys.”
Sky rarely used four-letter words. He claimed he rarely needed to. He uttered one now. Jake thought it pretty much said it all. “Should have known the old cowpoke would find a way to run your life from the grave,” Sky insisted.
Jake squeezed his fingers so hard into fists his square fingernails dug into the calluses on his palms. The O‘Gradys owned the biggest spread in a two-hundred-mile radius and never missed an opportunity to remind the McKennas that theirs was second. Jake hated being second. In anything. But he hated being second to the O’Oradys most of all.
Jake looked over his shoulder. “Did you hear something?” he asked.
Sky made a show of listening intently. The ranch hands had all gone into Pierre to raise a little Friday night hell. A horse nickered, and the wind was picking up. The wind was always picking up in South Dakota. With a shake of his head, he primed the hand pump and said, “Are you trying to change the subject?”
Jake grunted.
“Relax. You’ve got some time here. It’s only the first of May. You take everything so seriously.”
“This is serious, dammit. Maybe you could try it yourself for ten seconds.”
“I’m plenty serious. About my horse. About that calf I just helped into the world. And I’m seriously glad Isaac McKenna wasn’t my rather.”
With the grace Skyler Buchanan had been born with and
had learned to use to his best advantage years ago, he turned on his heel and headed for the door. Watching him saunter away, Jake called, “Where are you going?”
“Thought I’d mosey on up to the house and bring back some of your old man’s favorite rum While we polish off the bottle, we can come up with a plan.”
“Getting blind drunk isn’t going to make me a happily married man.”
“You didn’t say the will stipulated that you had to be happy. I’ll be right back with that bottle. I’d say you’ve earned it, wouldn’t you?”
Jake strode as far as the door. He could see the big house from here. Isaac McKenna had purchased it and the surrounding land right after he’d gotten married almost forty years ago. He’d added a wing and the porch ten years later, just before Jake’s mother had decided to run away with a man she liked better. Isaac had bought more land, but the house had remained the same as it had been for thirty years. There were no welcome mats by the doors, no flowers by the steps, no flowering bushes, nothing that added warmth or that said home.
It was Jake’s now, the house, the land, the animals. He would have to do something about the stipulation in his father’s will, but not tonight. Tonight, he and Sky would tie one on and try to forget about the rest
He walked around to one side of the barn. Hitching a boot on the lowest rung of the fence, he stared at the land he’d inherited. On the horizon a herd of some of the best cattle in the West moved toward the watering hole just over the hill where they would settle down for the night. The cows whose calves were old enough to wander lowed, their offspring bawling frantically until they were reunited with their mothers. In late summer when the clouds forgot how to rain, the herds would settle on the hundred acres that
spanned Sugar Creek. The hundred acres that would belong to the O’Gradys unless Jake found a wife by July.
He hoped Sky got back with that bottle soon.
Swiping bis hat off his head, he let the wind blow through his hair. There were always fences to mend, machinery to fix, crops to tend. Branding was just around the corner. Except for fall, winter and summer, spring was the busiest time of the year out here. How in the hell was he supposed to free up enough time to find a wife?
Even if he had the time, Jasper Gulch had no single women. Or almost none. It wasn’t a new problem for the area. Women had started leaving Jasper Gulch fifty years ago. They’d been leaving in droves the past twenty. No one could blame them. Ranch life just couldn’t compete with the lure of the city and better job prospects. A few years back the town council had taken it upon themselves to advertise for women. Small newspapers had run the story. Larger papers had picked it up. Before long, Jasper Gulch had been dubbed Bachelor Gulch, and busloads of women had flocked here to check out the shy but willing men of Jasper Gulch. Most of those women had taken one look at the meager stores, the dusty roads and the even dustier ranchers and cowboys and had kept right on going. A few had stayed. Most of those had bit the dust in another way and were now married to a few of those former so-called eligible bachelors, the Jasper Gents.
Who was left?
Gravel crunched beneath Sky’s boots. Choosing a section of fence a foot from Jake’s elbow. Sky uncapped the rum and handed Jake a glass. “To Captain Morgan.”
Glasses clinked. Both men downed the first shot
Sky poured again. “To Isaac McKenna.”
This time Jake didn’t clink his glass against Sky’s. He didn’t waste his breath damning his father to hell, either.
Surely Isaac McKenna had found his way there all by himself.
Taking the time to appreciate the slow burn that made its way to the bottom of his stomach, Jake held out his empty glass. Sky obliged him by filling it to the rim.
“I’ve been thinking,” Sky said.
“I’ll alert the press.”
“Be my guest.” Sky’s grin was downright wicked. “I always like a little publicity.”
“What have you been thinking, Buchanan?”
“This situation of yours isn’t as hopeless as you thought.”
“How do you figure?”
Jake was aware of the up-and-down look Sky cast him. “I don’t see it, myself,” the lanky cowhand with the shock of black hair and piercing green eyes said, “but women have been known to find you attractive. I’ve heard more than one woman say you wear your hair a little too long to be civilized. And they weren’t complaining. ’Course, there are those who think you’re coldhearted like your old man. I know better, but it would help if you smiled once in a while.”
“I smile.”
Sky stared straight ahead. “Sure you do.”
“I smile, dammit.”
“When?” Sky said quietly. “When was the last time you smiled and meant it?”
Jake stared at the liquid in his glass. “It’s been a while since I’ve had something to smile about, that’s all.”
Sky cocked one eyebrow just enough to make his point, and Jake said, “I think you’re wrong, Sky. I think the situation really is hopeless. And so am I.”
“Naw. There are still a handful of single women in Jasper Gulch.”
“A small handful.”
“There’s Crystal Galloway.”
“Crystal Galloway has as much use for men as she does for another degree.”
“That’s true,” Sky said thoughtfully. “I can’t figure that out, either. She’s a looker, that’s for sure. But why did she come to a town that advertised for women if she had no intention of looking for a man?”
“Who knows,” Jake answered. “You were saying?”
“Oh, yeah. There’s Tracy Gentry.”
“She’s barely out of diapers.”
“She’s twenty-one. For a desperate man, you’re mighty choosy, McKenna. I probably shouldn’t even mention Brandy Schafer, since lately she seems to have hooked up with Jason Tucker. There’s that gorgeous, far-removed relative of Wes Stryker’s, Meridith Warner, but to tell you the truth, I’ve been keeping my eye on her myself.”
Jake turned his head slowly. Or at least it felt that way to him. Ah, yes, the rum was doing its job. “You finished?”
“Not quite. I suppose I could be noble and give you first dibs on Meridith.”
Oh, no. Jake didn’t live by many rules, but an honorable man didn’t move in on another man’s territory. Besides, Jake happened to know that Meridith had been keeping an eye on Sky, too. “You want her,” Jake said slowly, “you go for her.”
Sky looked relieved. “There is one other single woman.”
“Who?” Jake downed another good portion of the spiced rum in his glass.
“Josie Callahan.”
“Jo—” Jake sputtered, choked and sputtered some more.
“Well looky there. You’re already out of breath just hearing her name.”
Jake wheezed. He coughed. “Josephine Callahan? That’s the best you can do?”
“What’s wrong with Josie Callahan?”
“She’s as shy as a church mouse and about as appealing. Besides, she’s been in Jasper Gulch for more than a year. If she wanted to be married, she would be by now.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
Jake thought about the pale little redhead who would sooner study her shoe than look at him. “Yeah,” he said, shoving his glass toward Sky. “As a matter of fact I do. Fill ’er up.”
Josie Callahan, indeed.
“Please let there be a mistake. Please.” Josie Callahan added the column of numbers in her ledger a second time. A third time. Figuring had always been her strong suit, and today was no exception. There was no mistake. Her income didn’t add up to her expenses. It was as plain as the freckles on her nose.
Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot.
She squeezed the pencil and tried not to panic. There wasn’t going to be enough money to buy much food this month, let alone enough money to pay her rent and the rest of her bills. Josie could have gone hungry, but her little girl needed to eat. Kelsey also needed a roof over her head and security, something Josie had strived to give her daughter since she’d laid big, robust Tom Callahan to rest two years ago.
Think, Josie, think.
She was good at adding and subtracting. Planning was something else again. Tom used to tell her she planned with her heart, not her mind. That’s what had landed her at the
altar when she was barely nineteen. It had brought her to this quaint little town in South Dakota a year ago, too.
She wasn’t sorry about either of those things. No sir, she wasn’t. Marrying Tom had been the best thing she’d ever done, unless she counted having Kelsey nine months to the day later. And moving to Jasper Gulch hadn’t been a mistake. It couldn’t have been.
“Isn’t that right, Tom?” she whispered.
That’s right, Josie.
She smiled the whole time she was wrapping up the loaves of homemade bread she’d baked earlier. She just couldn’t help it, Unlike other widows who grew sad because they couldn’t remember the sound of their husbands’ voices, Josie knew exactly how Tom’s voice sounded. She heard it all the time. Sometimes he only mumbled a word or two, but just the other day he’d gone on and on about how it was time for her to find another husband. He’d even told her he was going to help. She’d rolled her eyes toward the ceiling and told him she would prefer it if he would help her choose the winning lottery numbers. His laughter had carried to her ears all the way from heaven.
She was still smiling when she set the cellophane-wrapped loaves of bread in the window. Oh, she wasn’t sure it was possible for a man to help a woman find a new husband, especially from the other side. She didn’t want another husband, anyway. But darned if she hadn’t been watching the door to her little shop on Main Street more than usual these past two days.
Several people had stopped in. Unfortunately it seemed that most of the fine folks in Jasper Gulch only wandered into the combination dime store, bakery and flower shop to hear the floor creak. If only she could come up with a way to charge for that, she wouldn’t be in so much trouble right now. She’d waited on the fine folks, listened to the town
gossip and tried not to worry about the future. She had to admit she’d rather enjoyed trying to figure out who Tom might pick out for her. Some of the people she’d waited on had been men. A few were even single men. But so far, not one of them was anybody she would want to marry—not that she wanted to marry anybody ever again.
The bell over the door jingled, and a broad-shouldered, muscularly built man paused just inside the door. Josie swallowed and quickly averted her gaze. She especially wouldn’t want to marry him.
Jake McKenna. His name was as hard as the rest of him; his eyes were dark brown, his hair darker still. Although he wore it a little longer than the other men in the area, it did nothing to soften his angular face. It did nothing to alleviate the nerves that crawled up her spine every time she came face-to-face with him, either.
“Afrernoon,” he said, tugging once on the brim of his black Stetson.
“Hello. Can I—” She cleared her throat quietly. “That is, can I help you?” she asked, sliding her accounting underneath the counter.
“As a matter of fact, I’m hoping you can.”
She didn’t know what made her more nervous: his answer or the fact that he was staring at her in a very deliberate, very assessing sort of way.
“What would you like?” she asked, striving for a cheery tone. “Something baked? A bouquet of flowers? Or something from the five-and-dime end of the store?”
What did he want? Jake thought, glancing around. Now there was a question. Stalling, he peered at the glass-fronted cooler where a few scraggly bouquets of flowers sat in glass pitchers. Next he cast a glance at the bread in the window, and finally at a bin at the end of the counter containing kites and rubber balls.
“Mr. McKenna?”
He eased closer and was about to try on the smile he’d been practicing when a young voice called, “I’m all done with my painting, Mama, what can I...”
A little scrap of a girl slipped around a curtain separating the back room from the rest of the store, her question trailing away the instant she noticed Jake. “Hello,” she said, smiling sweetly.
The girl looked about five or six. She wasn’t pretty, exactly, but she was female all the way down to the holes in her shabby tennis shoes.
“Mama,” she said without taking her eyes off Jake. “I have a joke.”
“I have a customer, sweet pea.”
The little girl all but batted her eyelashes. Jake knew women who could have taken lessons. One of them was in this very room.
“Wanna hear my joke, mister?”
Jake shrugged, and the little femme fatale sashayed closer. “What’s Irish and stays out all summer?”
“Kelsey, honey,” Josie admonished gently. “I don’t think Mr. McKenna has time for jokes.”
“Do you have time?” Kelsey asked.
“How long is your joke?” he asked.
“Not long.”
“Okay. What’s Irish and stays out all summer?”
“Patti O’Furniture.”
Kelsey raised her eyebrows in silent expectation. Jake felt a strange compulsion to laugh. He would have, too, if a deep, sultry chuckle hadn’t drawn his attention. Josie was bent at the waist, her face angled down toward her daughter, a shock of unruly red hair skimming her cheek. He’d thought she was shy and plain. Her laughter was neither of those things. It was uninhibited, and it filled the quiet store
like a song, undiluted, marvelous, catching. A woman who could laugh like that could probably curl a man’s toes in bed.
He felt a tightening in his throat and a chugging in his chest Neither were particularly pleasurable sensations, but the strumming, thickening surge taking place slightly lower felt pretty damn good, so good in fact that he took a second look at Josephine Callahan. He still thought she was on the plain side, but now he wondered if it was the result of a lack of adornment. She wore no makeup, no jewelry, nothing that might call attention to the features of the woman inside the loose-fitting, faded dress. Her eyes were green and pretty enough, he decided, her hair a shade of red he’d never seen before. It was unusual, yes, but he’d be willing to stake his ranch that it was natural.
The ranch. That was why he was here. That, and the harebrained idea Sky had come up with to keep all of it in one piece. Suddenly it didn’t seem like such a harebrained idea after all.
Josie wasn’t sure why she was laughing. The joke had been silly, and yet it had struck her funny bone. Kelsey thought so, too, and was giggling for all she was worth. Her brown eyes were crinkled, her shoulders hunched forward, her head tipped back. Why, it was as if she believed the change in the atmosphere was all her doing.
The change in atmosphere? Josie straightened. The atmosphere in the tiny store had changed. She raised her eyes to Jaloe’s and caught him looking. She averted her gaze hurriedly, but it seemed her traitorous eyes had minds of their own. She found herself staring up at him. She swallowed and had to force herself not to take a backward step. He was looking at her as only a man could look at a woman. And she was responding to that look.
She wasn’t well.
In an attempt to tear her gaze away, she gestured to the baked goods on display beneath the glass-topped counter. “Can I interest you in a homemade pie, Mr. McKenna?”
He shifted closer. “Actually, I came in to talk to you about something.” His gaze settled to her mouth, to her neck, to her shoulders. “Something important.”
Josie’s breath hitched. She definitely wasn’t well.
“Well,” she said, clearing her throat of the bothersome little frog that seemed to have gotten stuck there. “I mean, what did you want to talk about?”
“It’s a private matter.”
She gestured to her empty store. “It doesn’t get much more private than this, Mr. McKenna.”
His gaze swung to Kelsey, and Josie understood. Trying on a smile that felt a little stiff, she said, “I’m afraid I don’t get complete privacy until after Kelsey goes to bed at eight.”
He gave her that assessing, calculated look again. And then he said, “I’ll come back later. After she’s in bed. You live in the apartment above the store, right?”
“Er, I mean, yes. Yes, I do, but I don’t think—” For heaven’s sake, she was staring into his eyes again, wondering if he ever smiled. Her cheeks grew warm. If she wasn’t careful, a blush was going to rise to her face. It might help if he would look someplace else.
As if in answer to her prayers, he reached into his back pocket and drew out his wallet. “I’ll take all four loaves.”
“Pardon me?”
“That homemade bread. It is for sale, isn’t it?”
Jasie came to her senses with a start. “Yes. Yes, of course.” She scrried around the counter and took the bread from the window display. Pleased to have something constructive to do, she placed the loaves in a bag and pressed the appropriate keys on her old cash register.
“That’ll be...”
He handed her a twenty before she could name the total. With a tug on the brim of his hat, he headed for the door.
“Don’t forget your change, Mr. McKenna.”
He tnrned around slowly, moving with an easy grace, a kind of loose-jointedness one automatically associated with a cowboy of old. Her breath hitched all over again.
“Keep it.”
He stood half in, half out of the store, his gaze holding hers. Josie had a feeling that somewhere in the dark recesses of his mind, he knew exactly what he was doing. It was disconcerting, because she didn’t have a clue.
His Stetson was well-worn and faded, and his boots looked as if they’d walked a thousand miles. Whether the man preferred to wear broken-in boots or not, they’d been expensive, and so was his hat. The McKennas could afford nice things. She couldn’t even afford to buy Kelsey a new pair of shoes. That didn’t mean she would accept charity.
“I can’t do that. It just wouldn’t be right.” Luckily she was good at math and was able to draw the correct change from the drawer. She hurried around the counter and handed him his money with nimble fingers, more careful than usual, to keep contact at a minimum. “Enjoy your bread. Good day, Mr. McKenna.”
“Bye, mister,” Kelsey called.
He glanced at the little girl as if he’d forgotten she was in the room. And then he did what Josie had wanted him to do. He smiled. It did crazy things to her heart rate, not to mention her breathing, but it did nothing to relieve the tension filling the store.
“I’ll see you later,” he said. “And call me Jake.”
Josie’s heart thudded once, twice, three times. As one second followed another, it seemed to stop beating altogether.
She didn’t know how long she stared at the door after he’d gone. She might have studied it forever if Kelsey hadn’t said, “Do you think that’s the man Daddy’s sending to be my new father?”
Josie swung around. Goodness gracious. She placed her hands on her cheeks and told herself to stop being silly. Wondering if it might have been wiser if she’d kept that particular tidbit of information from Kelsey until Josie had had more time to think about it, she glanced over her shoulder where she could see Jake McKenna pulling out of his parking space in front of her store.
His truck was black and shiny and expensive looking. She thought it suited him. He rested one arm along his open window and steered with the other hand, maneuvering out of the tight spot with ease. Josie turned her back on the view. He might have had the looks, the style, and oh, yes, the moves to unsettle a feminine heart, but that didn’t mean he had unsettled hers.
“Do you, Mama?” Kelsey prodded.
“I’m afraid not, sweet pea. Surely the man Daddy would like us to find will be more like Daddy.”
Kelsey stared into Josie’s eyes for a long time. Sighing, she lowered her chin forlornly and murmured, “I hope Daddy hurries.”
The nerves that had been clamoring the past few hours stilled. Tenderness filled her heart and thickened her throat. She and Kelsey might have been down on their luck. They might have even been a little desperate. But she thanked her lucky stars for her blessings, especially for this sweet, inquisitive, adorable child.
Josie reached beneath the counter for her ledger and quickly jotted down the amount of money she’d just received from Mr.—er, Jake McKenna. Maybe she couldn’t give her child another father, and Lord only knew what she
was going to do about her bills, but she would use the money she’d just received to pick up a few groceries and prepare her daughter a nutritious meal.
That sense of calm had started to wane by seven-thirty. Now, an hour later, it was completely gone. Josie took a deep breath, trying to blame the queazy sensation in her stomach on the peanut butter sandwich she’d eaten when Kelsey hadn’t been looking. Josie strode to the refrigerator and peered inside. Even the sight of the half gallon of milk and the leftover spaghetti and meatballs Kelsey would eat tomorrow didn’t chase her unease away. This unease had nothing to do with money. It had to do with...
Josie gulped.
It had to do with the knowledge that Jake McKenna was due to arrive any minute. At the sound of footsteps on the stairs, her nerves clamored even more. Make that any second.
She knew the knock on her door was forthcoming. She still jumped when it sounded. She didn’t understand it. She was never this high-strung. Lifting her eyes to the ceiling, she whispered, “If this is your idea of a joke, Thomas Callahan, it isn’t funny.”
Waiting until the old clock that had belonged to her parents had finished chiming the half hour, she took a deep breath for courage and opened the door just in time to see Rory O’Grady stepping off the bottom step and Jake McKenna standing on the top one.
“Mr. McKen—”
“What the bell was he doing here?”
The anger glittering in Jake’s eyes sent her heart to her throat and her stomach into a tailspin. This time there was no stopping her backward step.
Pushing the door all the way open, he marched inside, turning the inch her tiny retreat had given him into a mile.
