Renee Ryan - The Marshal Takes a Bride

Trey had the presence of mind to cast his gaze to the sky before he responded. “Maybe.”

Marc joined them on the porch, turning into the voice of reason. “It’s over, Trey.”

Trey looked from Katherine to Marc to Laney, then back to Katherine again. Ignoring the satisfied expressions on the faces of the three other adults, he crouched down to the five-year-old little girl’s level. Plucking at one of Molly’s braids, he said, “Sorry, kitten. Looks like you’re taking that bath today.”

Her eyelashes fluttered, and one fat tear rolled down her cheek.

Before he gave in to the pleading look, Trey squeezed his eyes shut, rose and shifted out of the way. He opened his lids in time for Katherine to link her disapproving gaze with his. “Stick around…Marshal. I’m not through with you.”

With that, she spun around and marched inside the house, Molly in tow.

Laney poked him in the chest. “You just made a big mistake, my friend. Big mistake.”

With her resolve firmly in place, Katherine marched up the back stairs of the twenty-year-old mansion turned orphanage, tugging a reluctant little girl along with her. The moment her gaze landed on Molly’s tear-streaked face, Katherine’s determination turned into heart-wrenching guilt.

By engaging in that senseless battle with Marshal Scott, she’d hurt the very person she’d set out to protect.

What kind of big sister did that make her? Usually, she turned to God to help her with the overwhelming task of raising her newfound sister.

Today she’d allowed emotion to get the best of her.

Sighing, she caressed Molly’s hair and steered her into the recently refurbished bathroom, where Marc had installed multiple basins for the home’s many children to wash up for the evening. On the outside, Charity House looked identical to the rest of the fancy homes on Larimer Street. But inside, the mansion had been perfectly altered to house forty special children and the adults who cared for them.

“Come on, Moll.” Katherine clicked the door shut behind them. “Let’s get you out of those filthy clothes.”

Molly crossed her tiny arms over her chest. “I was having fun, Katherine.”

Inhaling a deep, calming breath, Katherine knelt on the floor and cupped the child’s cheek. “I know you were. And you can go back outside—”

Molly darted away from the claw-foot tub, but Katherine caught her by the sleeve. “After we get you cleaned up.”

“But Mr. Trey said playtime was more important than a bath.”

“I just bet he did.” Frustration speared Katherine’s previous remorse into something deeper, darker. Uglier…

Take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ.

Katherine swallowed back her rising annoyance and forced her voice into an even tone. “Let’s leave Marshal Scott out of this for now.”

Molly scrunched her face into a frown, her expression reminiscent of one Katherine had seen in her own mirror often enough before she’d made peace with her past, the same one permanently stuck on their mother’s face every day before she’d finally succumbed to tuberculosis.

“Don’t you like Mr. Trey?” Molly asked.

Katherine’s throat tightened. Her feelings for the U.S. marshal could never be classified as something so benign as “like.” Explosive, precarious, frightening—those were far better descriptions for the disturbing emotions the man brought out in her.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

Perhaps he’d had good intentions at first. But there was no question in her mind that Marshal Scott was a difficult man, with his own personal demons to battle. Katherine knew, to devastating ends, what such a man was capable of doing when a woman let down her guard. She absently touched the top button of her blouse, made sure it was fastened.

Truth be told, Trey Scott was too dangerous. Too bold. Too everything to trust. He simply had to go. Especially now that God had given Katherine the gift of finding the little sister she hadn’t known existed until six months ago.

Straightening her shoulders, Katherine turned her attention back to Molly. “Let’s get you into the tub, pumpkin.”

Molly arranged her face in an expression identical to the one Trey had leveled on her just moments ago on the back porch. “Don’t wanna.”

Katherine was long past being amused. “Well, sometimes we have to do things we don’t want.”

“That’s not fair to me.”

“Life’s not fair,” Katherine said, with a sigh.

A heart-wrenching sob flew out of Molly. “I wish you’d never come for me. I hate you.”

Holding back a sob of her own, Katherine prayed for the right words to ease Molly’s resentment. The set of the child’s jaw was so similar to the look on her face the day Katherine had found her in that bleak mining camp, with only a threadbare blanket on a dirt floor as her bed. The child had been so quiet, so…alone and scared, having been left to fend for herself after her father’s fatal accident in the mine.

Katherine pushed a lock of hair off her sister’s forehead, praying she could offer her sister a good life here at Charity House. “I know you think you hate me now, but I’ll always love you, Molly. You’re my sister.”

The five-year-old responded with a hiccuping sigh.

To keep from speaking out in anger, Katherine bit down on her lower lip. The realization that her sister blamed her for what had happened today wounded her far more than the child’s hurtful words. Before Trey Scott had entered their lives, Molly had never openly challenged her authority.

As though sensing her misery, Laney chose that moment to duck her head into the room. “Want me to take over?”

Katherine peered at her friend. The sympathy she saw staring back at her clogged the air in her throat, reminding her of the dark night when Laney had wrapped Katherine in her arms and held her until the tears had eventually stopped flowing.

Her friend had made things easier for Katherine then, and she wished she could give in to the offer of help now. “I have to do this myself.”

Angling her head to the side, Laney looked at Molly’s mutinous expression. “Are you sure?”

Katherine focused on her little sister. The childish rebellion brewing in her gaze warned Katherine the fight wasn’t over yet. Perhaps taking a moment to strengthen her resolve would do them both some good.

“Molly, I’m going to step in the hall with Laney for a few minutes. When I return, I want to see you completely undressed and sitting in that tub.”

The little girl opened her mouth to protest.

Katherine stopped her with a warning look.

The angry child paused, made a face and then stomped her foot. Hard.

“Molly. Grace. Taylor. That’s enough. Get undressed, now,” ordered Katherine.

Two scrawny shoulders hunched forward, and tears began pouring down the dirt-smudged cheeks. Sniffing loudly between sobs, Molly plopped onto the floor and started tugging off her shoes.

Katherine winced at the pitiful sight her sister made, but she wouldn’t give in to the tantrum. Molly needed to learn respect for the new life she had at Charity House. How could Katherine explain to the child just how blessed they were to be living at the orphanage, instead of above some filthy saloon? Or worse.

With unshed tears burning in her own eyes, Katherine motioned Laney into the long hallway that led to five bedrooms and a sitting chamber, then shut the door behind them.

As Katherine turned to look at her ally, her heart swelled with renewed gratitude for Laney’s kindness. The woman had virtually saved Katherine from the life that could have been her legacy as the daughter of the most notorious madam in town.