The Cowboy's Surprise Bride

“I will not sleep with them.”

His words had a familiar, unwelcome ring to them. “Does it offend your sensibilities to share quarters with the men who work for you?”

“Not at all, but it would be awkward for them. I’m the boss. They deserve a chance to relax without thinking I’m watching them.”

His reply both surprised and pleased her. She admired a man who thought of others. But her admiration did not solve what he perceived to be a quandary. She didn’t see a problem. “I believe the cabin has two rooms. You can sleep on the floor in the other room.”

“You are too generous.” The look on his face made her want to laugh, but she sensed he did not share her amusement.

“Eddie boy,” the driver called. “I’d like to get on my way before nightfall.”

Eddie and Linette did silent duel with their eyes. Although their weapons were invisible she understood her life and her future hung on the outcome of this battle. Finally he sighed. “Come along. Let’s get your things.”

“There’s something I better tell you first.”

“You mean there are more surprises? Let me guess. Another child? A brother or sister? A—”

“My chaperone is a woman I met in Montreal. Her husband died and she has no family.”

“You traveled from England without a chaperone?”

She flicked him an impatient glance. It was easy to see that rules meant a lot to him. She’d prayed he wasn’t like her father. Now he seemed frighteningly so. “Of course not, but Miss Snodgrass was eager to return, and when she saw I intended for Cassie to accompany me, she got on the next boat home.”

He waited, aware there was more.

“Cassie is a little...well, I suppose you could say she’s having trouble dealing with her grief.”

“Trouble? In what way?”

Words came quickly to her mind, but none of them seemed the sort to make him kindly disposed toward Cassie. Perhaps the less she said the better. “Let’s just say she’s a bit sharp.” She hastened to add, “I’m sure she’ll settle down once the edge of her grief has passed.”

He scrubbed at his neck again. “Let’s see what you have.”

She hurried past him, fearing if he thrust his head in the door and ordered the pair out, the ensuing reaction would give them all cause for regret. The kind gentleman who had assisted her from the coach watched for her return, doubtless listening with ears cocked. She wondered how much he’d heard. Not that it mattered. He’d already managed to get most of the story from her as they bounced along for several days with nothing to do but stare at each other. He held the door for her and with a quirk of his eyebrows silently asked if things had gone well.

She gave a quick nod, grateful for his kindly interest, then turned to the other occupants. “Cassie, we’re here. Come out. Grady, come here.” She reached to take the four-year-old from Cassie’s lap.

Grady seemed to shrivel into himself. Only at Cassie’s gentle insistence did he let Linette take his hand and lift him to the ground. He took one look at Eddie and buried his face in her skirts. She knew he would stay there until she pried him free.

Cassie grabbed her small travel valise and paused in the open doorway. The look she gave Eddie blazed with anger.

Please, God. Keep her from saying something that will give him a reason to put us on the stage again without any regard for where we’ll end.

“He’s passable, I suppose.”

Linette’s breath stuck halfway to her lungs. She stole a glance at Eddie. Surprise flashed in his eyes and then he grinned. He had a nice face when he smiled, but more than that, his smile made her feel he would be patient with Cassie, who often expressed her pain in meanness. Relief poured through Linette like a warming drink.

“Thanks,” Eddie said.

“Wasn’t meant as a compliment,” Cassie murmured.

“I’ve been told worse.” He held his hand out to assist Cassie, but she pointedly ignored him and accepted help from their traveling companion.

Linette’s attention was diverted as the driver handed down the two trunks she’d brought. Grady had only a grip bag.

Eddie whistled sharply, causing Grady to sob. Two men stepped from the building across the way.

“Yeah, boss?” one called.

“Boys, take these trunks to my house.”

Linette watched the two cross the roadway in long, rolling strides. Their gait reminded her of the sailors on the ship. They had on Stetson hats, worn and rolled, unlike the new, uniformly shaped ones she’d studied back at the trading post in Fort Benton where she’d exchanged her fine English silks and bustles for frocks she considered more appropriate for living in the wilds—simple-cut dresses of calico or wool. She’d procured a dress for Cassie too but the woman refused to wear it. “I am who I am and I’m not about to pretend otherwise,” she’d said. Linette hadn’t pressed the point. Sooner or later the old garment Cassie wore would fall apart and then she’d be glad for what Linette offered.

She glanced at her own dress. A little the worse for wear after crossing the prairie. She’d clean up once they got settled in case Eddie took note of her rumpled state.

As they walked, the men jingled from the spurs on their boots. They yanked their hats off and squirmed inside their buffalo coats. “Ma’am.” They nodded to Linette and Cassie.

“Miss Edwards, may I present two of my men, Slim—” he indicated the taller, thinner man. “And Roper.” The other man was heavier built. Solid. Younger. And he watched Cassie with guarded interest.

Linette realized she hadn’t introduced her companion and did so. “Cassie Godfrey.” Then she indicated the boy half-buried in her skirts. “This is Grady Farris. He’s four years old.” He shivered enough to make her leg vibrate.

The men nodded then jammed their hats back on and took the trunks into the house.

Eddie spoke privately to the driver who then swung up to his seat and drove from the yard. Linette stared after the coach, knowing she now had no escape. She was at Eddie’s mercy. Her resolve hardened. Only so far as she chose to be. She’d be no man’s slave. Nor his chattel. Any arrangement between them would be based on mutual benefit. No emotions involved to turn her weak.

The stagecoach no longer blocked her view and she saw, on the hill overlooking the ranch, a big two-story house, gleaming in its newness. It had the unfinished look of raw lumber and naked windows. They must be expecting neighbors. People who put more value in their abode than Eddie. When would these people finish the house and move in?

“I suppose you would like to see your quarters.” Eddie indicated they should step toward the low dwelling.

She turned from studying the house on the hill to closer inspection of the cabin. It looked even smaller than she expected. But she didn’t care. She’d escaped her father’s plans and the future beckoned.

* * *

Eddie resisted the urge to squeeze his neck. It was tight enough to withstand a hanging. He’d expected the mail would contain a message to meet Margaret. He’d planned to marry her at the fort before bringing her to his home. He’d thought of her every day as he worked on the new house. He’d counted the days until she joined him.

Margaret was the ideal young lady for him. He remembered many a pleasant afternoon sharing her company in her family home in London before he’d left for the British Territories. He’d grown quite fond of her and she of him. Or so he thought. In time their affection would grow. He anticipated the day she would arrive and marry him. Margaret would grace the big house he would have completed by now except for the necessity of making sure the breeding stock he’d had shipped from Chicago was herded safely from Fort Benton to the nearby pens.

Instead, a ragamuffin of a woman stood before him in a black woolen coat that practically swallowed her. As it flapped open he saw a crude dress much like those he’d seen worn by wives on hopeful dirt farms and the half-breed women in the forts. She looked ready to live in a tepee or log hut, which was likely a good thing because the latter was all he had to offer her.

The cold wind reminded him he’d hurried outside without a coat. “We might as well go indoors.”

How Linette managed to make her way to the house with the boy clinging to her side like a giant burr amazed him.

She was an Edwards daughter if he believed what she said. He wasn’t prepared to believe anything about her at the moment. How had he ended up in such an awkward position? And with an Edwards woman! His father had had some business dealings with Mr. Edwards years ago and had expressed distaste for the other man. “A churlish man,” he’d said. “Thinks because he inherited money through his wife it makes him an aristocrat, but he lacks any sense of decorum or decency. I vow I will never have business dealings with him again and I intend to avoid any social contact.” Eddie couldn’t think the Edwards daughter would warrant any better opinion from his father.

Slim and Roper hurried out and jogged back to work. Not, he noted, without a backward glance at the women. They’d be filled with curiosity for sure and spend the rest of the day speculating about this turn of events.

Eddie had always done his best to live up to his father’s expectations. After all, he owed the man so much. Coming West and starting a ranch to add to the Gardiner holdings, establishing a home that would make his father proud provided him an opportunity to repay his father for giving him the Gardiner name. Randolph Gardiner had married Eddie’s mother when Eddie was an infant. If not for that, Eddie would have been an outcast bastard child and his mother would have lived in shame and disgrace.