Sandra Steffen - McKenna's Bartered Bride

“Would you have dinner with me tomorrow, Josephine?”

Nobody, but nobody, called her Josephine. She’d always hated her full name. And yet when he said it, it sounded sensual, feminine, alluring. “Dinner?” she heard herself asking.

“Yes. You do like to eat, don’t you?”

Her gaze caught on his mouth, and she found it wasn’t easy to speak. “I’ve already made plans to have dinner with Rory tomorrow night.”

The room, all at once, was very quiet.

Jake took a very large, very deliberate step toward her. “I thought you said you didn’t agree to marry him.”

“I said I don’t even know him. I didn’t say I wouldn’t have dinner with him.”

Jake’s face hardened, and suddenly Josie was glad she’d made other plans. Oh, she had a feeling he was right about Rory O’Grady. The man was smooth and attractive and just cocky enough to be a bit of a rogue. She wasn’t worried about handling him. Handling Jake McKenna would have been another story.

“You’re seeing O’Grady now, is that it?”

“Does that bother you?”

Bother him? He’d passed bothered the instant he’d met O’Grady on the stairs. Hell, Jake was well on his way to full-scale frustration.

“Now why on earth would that bother me?” He reached the table in three strides, cramming his hat on his head while he headed for the door. “Like you said, you’re a grown woman.”

And O’Grady was a grown man. Jake swore under his breath. At this rate, Rory was going to end up with Jake’s hundred acres and one of the few single women left in Jasper Gulch. Anger crashed through Jake, straight as a shot of whisky right out of the bottle. He supposed he could put up a fight, but he’d be damned if he would be second.

Josie watched him go, flinching when the door closed just short of a slam. Whew. She was lucky to have escaped without having her ears singed. She locked the door, then stood leaning against it, thinking. Jake McKenna was a very formidable, intimidating man. His face was too hard, and he smiled too little.

And he’d left without saying goodbye.

The crowd at the Crazy Horse Saloon was typical for a Tuesday night. It consisted of a dozen men who moved slow, drank slow, and were slowly driving Jake nuts. Their outlook was gloomy, their small talk annoying. Which was why he normally preferred to drink alone. He might have done that, too, if Sky hadn’t given him a lecture about the dangers of that kind of drinking and that kind of thinking

Sky Buchanan would make a good old woman. Unfortunately, or was it fortunately, Jake wondered, staring into his untouched beer, Sky was also the best cowhand he’d ever had, not to mention the closest thing to a brother Jake had had in a long, long time.

Jake had listened to Sky. As a result he’d wound up at a table for one in the Crazy Horse Saloon, nursing a beer and trying not to pay attention to the only topic of conversation the local boys seemed interested in. Josie Callahan and Rory O’Grady.

“I hear tell Rory sweet-talked her into having dinner with him in Pierre.”

“I know. And she agreed. Shoot. I shouldn’t have waited so long.”

“That Rory sure has a way with women.”

“That’s true, but I can’t quite picture him and Josie, eh, you know what I mean.”

Jake tipped his head back and let the beer drizzle down his throat, trying not to listen.

“You holler when you’re ready for another, okay sugar?” DoraLee Brown asked the instant he lowered the half-empty bottle to the table. He nodded, and she winked. Jake felt a little better. Leave it to DoraLee to know what he needed.

He’d always liked DoraLee. All the men in Jasper Gulch did. Most of them had had a crush on her at one time or another. Forget the fact that she was twenty years older than half the men in the room. There was just something about a voluptuous, bleached blonde serving up beer and whisky with a smile that instilled romance in the hearts of men of all ages. A couple of years back, one of those men, Boomer Brown, had finally talked her into romancing him. Boomer and DoraLee had eloped soon after, which was good for Boomer, and DoraLee had never looked happier. Now there was one less single woman in town.

“I don’t know,” Forest Wilkie complained from a table up front “Josie doesn’t seem like Rory’s type to me.”

Great. They hadn’t gone on to another topic.

“Every female is Rory’s type.”

DoraLee clucked her tongue. “Can’t you boys think about anything else?”

Yes, Jake thought, reaching for the ice-cold bottle of beer in front of him. That DoraLee was all right.

“What else is there?” Neil Anderson grumbled.

A few other men mumbled in agreement, and Forest continued in the same vein. “It’s just that Rory and Josie are complete opposites. I mean, nobody was surprised when our very own Melody McCully married Clayt Carson. ’Cepting maybe Clayt. And do you know why? Because they’re two peas in a pod.”

“Sometimes opposites attract,” Cletus McCully, Melody’s grandfather said, his thumbs hooked around his navy blue suspenders.

“That’s true,” Forest agreed. “Look at Lisa and Wyatt. He’s one of the leaders of our fine community, and he up and married a girl who had a reputation.”

“A reputation Lisa didn’t earn,” DoraLee admonished.

“Yes,” Forest said, “but Rory’s earned his. That man’s a hound dog if there ever was one.”

“Anybody hear a weather report lately?” Jake asked.

Forest looked at him in an abstract, absent sort of way. “There’s a chance of rain all week. The point I’m tryin’ to make is this.”

Jake scowled into his beer. Nobody took longer to make a point than Forest Wilkie.

“I can’t see Rory settling down with sweet, shy Josie Callahan. He’s sown some pretty wild oats, and—”

“He’s probably sowing a few more tonight,” Neil cut in.

Jake rose to his feet so fast his chair shot out behind him. He was aware of the gazes following him as he dropped a few bills on the counter and headed for the door. He’d reached the sidewalk out front when one of the other Anderson brothers’ voices carried through the open door.

“Guess we scraped a raw nerve.”

“It ain’t hard to do. Jake’s got more raw nerves than an open wound.”

Jake scowled as he opened the door on his truck. Hiking one boot on the dusty running board, he happened to glance up at the window over the dime store next door. The upstairs apartment was dark. Must be Rory and Josie weren’t back yet. Unless they were back and hadn’t bothered turning on the lights.

He hauled himself into his seat, slammed the door and started the engine. The patch of rubber he laid squealing away from the curb didn’t curtain his frustration in the least. He rounded the corner, opened his window and cranked up the volume on the radio. The village limit sign was up ahead. Beyond it stretched miles and miles of empty highway. He pressed his foot to the accelerator and headed for the open road where he could drive until he’d taken the edge off his agitation. He figured a hundred miles might do it.

The wind was warm, the music was loud, his truck was running like a well-tuned machine. Ah. This was more like it. Those rough edges were already starting to dissolve.

His mind wandered to the ranch, the herd, his horse, the conversation he’d overheard in the Crazy Horse. That man’s a hound dog if there ever was one. Jake imagined O’Grady putting the moves on Josie. Rory had always been a smooth talker. He’d been known to brag that he could get a woman out of her clothes in fifteen seconds or less. Jake imagined Rory trying to get Josie out of hers. He slammed on the brakes and made a U-turn before he could wipe the image from his brain.