Carol Arens - The Rancher’s Inconvenient Bride

In the end she’d turned him down and married Travis Murphy instead.

She was right to have done so. For all that she would have suited his needs, she was a woman who deserved being loved. And Travis loved her to his bones.

The problem with having befriended Ivy was that it complicated his bride hunt. Eligible ladies who would suit his needs in every way threw themselves in his path daily.

An availability of suitable woman was not the trouble.

The trouble was knowing how Ivy loved her man. Having seen it with his own eyes, well—he wanted that now. Or at least something close to it.

He wanted a woman who sparkled for him. But he also wanted to be governor one day. For that he would need a wife and, God willing, children.

Little girls to bounce upon his knee and little boys to play ball with. He wanted them, governorship or not.

“I’d have voted for your man, Mayor English.” William gazed down into the face of a pretty young woman who smiled up at him with a winking dimple. “May I call you William?”

One day he hoped to be as lucky as Travis Murphy.

Gazing down at the woman preening beside him, he doubted it would be today.

* * *

Agatha reread the first three lines of the book on her lap, unable to concentrate. Here in camp, all was peaceful, although the wind swayed the trailer like a cradle.

Everything added up for a cozy evening in the company of fictional characters whom she knew quite well, having read the book four times already.

But just there, beyond the solitude of the nearly abandoned camp, she could hear a crowd of voices raised in merriment.

A part of her longed to be out there, laughing and enjoying the thrills. But the nightly customers were loud and lively—there were just so many people.

She ought to force herself to go out, she knew that, but the adventures of Miss Maudie O’Hurley would do for tonight. Indeed, the beleaguered Maudie was about to be carried off by her true love. What could be more thrilling than that?

Being carried off by her own true love, of course.

“You aren’t going to meet him sitting here,” she mumbled.

Still, it was windy outside.

“What if the man of your dreams is visiting the circus at this moment?”

What if the man of her dreams was walking about out there with his dark hair glinting in the torchlight that illuminated the shadowed paths? What if his blue eyes...she’d long known them to be the color of the sky just before sunrise...were sparkling with pleasure at all he was seeing?

What if William was here and she missed him because she was sitting in her safe chair reliving Maudie’s happiness...once again.

Now there was a silly thought. William here? If she was going to indulge in daydreams she might just as soon dwell on something that really happened.

She could at the very least relive the time that William had danced with her at a party hosted at the Lucky Clover. He had only asked her to dance because she was Ivy’s sister, she was certain, but nonetheless it had been magical—the stuff of her dreams.

At the time she hadn’t even had strength enough to stand on her own so that handsome man—that prince—had taken her hand, lifted her with an arm around her back and supported her through a very brief dance.

Nothing that Maudie O’Hurely had experienced came close to that!

Agatha snapped the book closed then crossed the small space to stare out the window. Moonlight cast shadows of tree branches on the roof of the trailer across from hers. They looked like malevolent fingers all twisted and spooky.

“Idiot,” she murmured. “They are shadows and you need to go out.”

Not to find her prince, but to find her strength. The very last thing she needed at the moment was to find a royal protector—or the Wyoming equivalent.

One day that would be a fine thing. Loving a man and having him watch over her, while she in turn watched over him.

At the moment, finding that companion was the very last thing she needed to do. If she fell into a life of being protected, it might be akin to seeking relief in a small blue bottle of laudanum. She would gain strength by standing on her own two feet and no other way.

Plucking her wrap from its hook on the wall, she tugged it tight about her. If she was to become a woman whom men would respect, she had to be a woman that she respected first.

Surely she could be as brave as Ivy’s pet mouse. That sweet creature ventured out nightly.

The moment she stepped outside a small shaggy dog met her at the bottom of the steps.

“Where were you at feeding time, Miss Valentine?” A short time ago the dog had been star of the show, well-groomed and pampered. Now that she was beginning to show her age she’d been cast off, left to fend for herself or die.

As far as Agatha could tell, no one cared about her fate one way or another. It was the same for the other mutts Agatha fed with the scraps left over from dinner.

“Come along. We’ll stop by the chuck wagon and see what’s left.”

Valentine wagged her curly tail and limped along after Agatha. The poor creature hadn’t been limping yesterday. Perhaps that was why she didn’t show up with the other dogs to be fed.

Bending low, she scooped Valentine up. “It’s a crime how they tossed you out. Why, if you were earning them money I reckon they would have the veterinarian look at your foot right off.”

The distance to the cook trailer was not so far, maybe a couple of hundred yards. But the path was dark, isolated and a bit unnerving. The shifting light cast by the torches seemed creepy rather than reassuring.

This was a challenge, nothing more. The shadows at her back didn’t really cry her name. The rush of leaves across the ground was only that. It was her imagination turning them into light, quick footsteps pursuing her.

Hilda Brunne was dead. Everyone believed it. There was no reason not to. Because her body hadn’t been found, Ivy and Travis had hired the Pinkerton agency to search for her.

Even the professionals presumed Hilda was dead. The moaning presence pursuing her was nothing but a dark, emotionless wind.

Agatha no longer needed to fear her. What she did need to fear was what her nurse had tried to make her. A girl afraid of everyone—believing she could only trust one, twisted woman.

Until she became be strong enough to live among strangers, she would never be free of Hilda Brunne’s ominous ghost.

All at once the shadows gave way to bright light, crowds and laughing people.

Tattooed Joe stood on a stage flexing the tiger emblazoned on his back. Near him, Sword-Swallowing Smithy consumed red-hot flames.

From inside a tent Agatha heard the guffaws of the Fat Lady.

Couples strolled arm in arm, gazing more at each other than the bizarre things happening around them. Parents covered their children’s eyes at every turn while their own eyes popped wide open.

Over to the right, a group of young men gathered around a painting of three-breasted Josie. It seemed they could not hand over their quarters fast enough for the chance to see the oddity. They were, of course, being duped. Josie was as two-breasted as any other woman. But the fool boys would see what they expected to see in the dim light of the tent.

Valentine wriggled in Agatha’s arms, trying to lick her face.

The distraction nearly caused her to slam into the back of a tall gentleman who had stopped at the fortune-teller’s stall. A finely dressed woman clung to his arm.

“I see your future, young people.” Leah Madrigal, the fortune-teller, tapped her red fingernail on a glass globe filled with colored water. “For a penny, I’ll share it with you.”

“Oh, yes—please do tell.” The lady clapped her hands. “Mr. English, do you have a penny?”