Lucky Bride

“We dragged you out of Copper Canyon in time to save you from that,” Molly added, pointing at the window where the snow still whipped against the glass. “What in tarnation were you doing out there in weather like that?”

Parker looked sheepish. “I…ah…didn’t know it was going to storm.”

“Haven’t you got eyes in your head, man?” Molly asked. “It was building up in the western sky since daybreak yesterday.”

“Maybe he’s not used to Wyoming weather, Molly,” Susannah told her sister in a tone of reproach. Then she turned to Parker. “Anyway, Mr. Prescott, the important thing is that we found you, and you’re going to be all right.”

“I reckon if you saved my life you better call me Parker, Miss Hanks,” he said with another of his justfor-the-ladies smiles.

“And I’m Susannah,” she said with a nod.

Suddenly Molly felt invisible. Parker and her sister were looking at each other as if the rest of the room had faded from view. That panicky feeling came back. Susannah was too darn pretty for her own good. And even Molly had to admit that the stranger was the handsomest male who’d come their way in quite some time. His eyes, gleaming now as they locked with Susannah’s, were nearly the same rich chestnut color of his hair.

Molly couldn’t blame Susannah for her interest. She’d have to act quickly to scare the man off before problems could develop. “The storm should lift by noon, Mr. Prescott,” she said loudly. “If you’re feeling all right, you can be on your way.”

Both Parker and Susannah looked over at her as if surprised to find her still standing there.

“Don’t be churlish, Molly,” Susannah chided. “We need to give Mr., ah, Parker—” she paused to flash him a smile “—time to recover.”

Molly’s frown deepened. “He’s looking pretty darn healthy to me,” she said. The coverlet had slipped down again, revealing their guest’s well-sculpted chest with its sprinkling of chestnut-colored hair.

“Actually,” Parker said slowly, “I was on my way out here to your place when I got lost in the canyon.”

“Out here?” Susannah and Mary Beth chimed in unison. Mary Beth had not moved away from the door.

“What for?” Molly asked curtly at the same time.

“I heard you might be hiring.” Parker turned to address Molly with his answer. Though he would prefer to continue looking at Susannah’s dazzling smile, it was obvious that the oldest sister was the one he would have to deal with on matters of business. Her sisters might talk sweetly and smile at him, but if he wanted work he’d have to convince the unsociable Miss Molly.

Molly looked down at him in disbelief. “Hiring what?”

“Hands. Cowboys,” Parker said, meeting her eyes with a steady man-to-man gaze.

“You’re a wrangler?” she asked with a scornful laugh.

Damn, but the woman had an abrasive way about her. He kept his voice even. “No, ma’am, I don’t reckon I am. But I can ride and I can shoot. When I’m not lying in bed after being half-frozen, I’ve got a strong back and two strong arms and I’m not afraid to work. I guess that qualifies me just about as well as any of the other men you got working here.”

Molly suspected that Parker Prescott already knew that there were no other men working at the Lucky Stars. As he looked up at her with just a hint of challenge in those velvety eyes of his, she suspected he knew exactly how badly she needed an extra rider and an extra pair of strong arms. But she wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of telling him so. And she wasn’t about to let him think that just because they needed a man around the place, he was free to come in here and seduce her sister right under her nose.

“Susannah, Mary Beth,” she said in a tone that brooked no argument, “you two go downstairs. Mr. Prescott has obviously recovered, and I don’t want to see either of you back in this room until he’s left it.”

“Are you going to let him work for us, Molly?” Susannah asked, ignoring her sister’s threatening expression.

“When Mr. Prescott feels well enough to get up and… put some clothes on, he and I will discuss the matter. Now go on, get out of here.”

“Your sisters are lovely,” Parker observed, watching them leave. He knew at once that he’d said the wrong thing. Molly Hanks had probably had that thrown in her face more than once over the years—the contrast between the younger girls’ grace and beauty and her own rather plain appearance and masculine ways. He could try to rectify his error by making up a compliment about Molly herself. But he had the feeling that she would detect the falsehood immediately and scorn him for it. He decided that frankness and honesty were the best approaches to the eldest Hanks sister.

“They’re lovely, but I can assure you, I’m not here to corrupt them in any way. I’m just looking for somewhere to work through the winter, then I’ll be on my way to California.”

Molly had backed up several steps from the bed. Without looking at him, she said reluctantly, “Spring’s when we need help the most. Roundup time.”

She looked as if she would rather be eating a keg of nails than talking with him, but he sensed that she couldn’t afford to let an able-bodied man go. “I’ll stay through the spring if you need me,” he said. “I have no particular schedule.”

“Do you know anything about cattle?” she asked. Her voice took on a slightly wistful note. If her expression hadn’t been so forbidding, he would have felt a touch of compassion. As Max McClanahan had said, Molly had had quite a burden thrust on her. She couldn’t be more than early twenties, though it was hard to tell for sure behind that stern face and those oversize clothes.

He answered honestly with a shake of his head. “I’m willing to learn.”

Molly sighed. “I reckon you already know that we need the help, Mr. Prescott.” She turned to leave the room. “You can sleep here through the rest of the storm, then you’re to move on out to the bunkhouse.”

“Much obliged,” he said. “And thank you for saving my hide yesterday.”

As she reached the door, she spun around to face him. “Just don’t make me regret it, mister. If I find you with your hands on my sisters, I’ll personally toss you right back down that canyon and leave you there for buzzard meat.”

Parker looked across the room at the girl who stood glaring at him from the doorway. He was tempted for a moment to make some kind of joking reply, as he would have with his own sister. When Amelia had been riled up about one of his childhood antics she had scolded him with the same brave scowl he now saw on Molly Hanks’s face. But Amelia had never run a cattle ranch, and she had never cradled a buffalo rifle in her arms the way Molly had back in Canyon City. No, Molly Hanks was not Amelia. And he didn’t think she would be teased into a good humor.

“I’ll remember that, ma’am,” he said, keeping his face serious.

“See that you do,” she snapped, then disappeared down the hall.

Chapter Three (#ulink_b2250e7c-63ae-5bcc-b129-4b75b5fd81a5)

For the rest of the day Molly avoided the room where their visitor still rested. At the noon meal Smokey had reported that Prescott had been weak and dizzy when he’d gotten up that morning. Smokey had told him to get a few more hours of sleep. Molly busied herself in her father’s office going over the ranch ledgers, hoping that the numbers would somehow have changed from the last time she had looked at them.

Every few minutes she found herself walking over to the window and staring outside. The snow had finally stopped, leaving a rolling landscape of white, dotted here and there by dark green firs. She usually found the first thick snow cover exhilarating, but today it just looked frozen and desolate. She didn’t know if her restlessness and her strange mood were due to the bleak financial picture or to the knowledge that a strange man was sleeping in her father’s bed.

After losing her place in a column of numbers for the fourth time, she slammed shut her father’s big leather account book and let loose with one of his favorite expletives. “Hell’s bells!”

“Are you all right, Miss Molly?” Smokey’s head peeked cautiously around the office door.

Molly ducked her chin in embarrassment. “Ah…of course. I’ve just finished up with the books.”

Smokey looked reproachful as he entered the room, but made no comment.

“Did you want something, Smokey?”

The old cook nodded. “It’s your friend upstairs.”

“He’s not my friend…” Molly began indignantly, but she stopped as she saw concern on Smokey’s face. “What’s the matter?”

“I reckon it’s the chilblains, settling into his ears. They’ve swelled up something fierce and turned a color I ain’t never seen before.”

Molly got up quickly. Frostbite was not a light matter on the prairie. Frozen areas could get putrid within hours. People died of it. Damnation. She’d checked the man’s hands. But she hadn’t thought about the ears, hadn’t noticed them under all that curly hair.

She followed Smokey up the stairs. There was no doctor in Canyon City, and even if there had been, it would have been hard work slogging through the drifts to get word to him. Most of the cowboys hereabouts did their own doctoring. They stitched their gashes with the same needles they used on their saddle leather. Molly had wanted to send for a doctor when her father had taken sick, but he’d refused. He’d lived fine without one, and he vowed he could die just as fine without one.

Susannah was sitting on the bed next to their visitor, her skirt fluffed up around her with at least a foot of petticoat showing plain as day. She held one of Parker Prescott’s hands in the two of hers, just as Molly had the previous evening.

“Susannah!” Molly admonished.