Dallas Schulze - Short Straw Bride

“Are you in a hurry, Miss Eleanor?”

“Not at all. Please take care of your other customers, Mr. Webb. I’ll find plenty to occupy myself.” She was relieved when he hurried back toward the front of the store. Perhaps if she didn’t have to look at him she’d be able to bolster her determination a little.

She heard Mr. Webb greet Cora Danvers, heard Cora’s son Horace offer some whined complaint, the words indistinguishable. She reached out to finger the blue grenadine again. She had a little money, but it would be wildly foolish to spend it on a bolt of cloth when she already had four dresses hanging in her room. But wouldn’t it be wonderful to wear something that suited her, she thought wistfully. In a dress like the one she’d envisioned, she wouldn’t feel like such a little dab of a female. She’d feel elegant and almost pretty. Maybe even pretty enough to draw the eye of a man as handsome as Luke McLain.

At the sound of someone approaching, she snatched her hand back from the fabric and turned, annoyed to feel herself flushing as if she were guilty of some crime. Luke McLain stood not three feet from her, and Eleanor felt her breath catch and her cheeks blush fiery red. She pressed one hand to her bosom, as if to physically still the sudden pounding of her heart.

Luke wondered why he’d thought of her as plain. The face beneath that god-awful hat was not beautiful, by any means, but it was certainly not plain. Not with those big brown eyes that made him think of a fawn and that full mouth that seemed just about made for a man to kiss. Her flush deepened and he realized he’d been staring at her without speaking.

“Miss Williams. Reverend Mulligan introduced us at church last Sunday.”

“I remember, Mr. McLain.” As if I could forget.

“A new spring dress?” he asked, gesturing to the bolt of grenadine.

“Oh, no.” She glanced guiltily at the beautiful fabric. “I’m here to buy new toweling for my aunt. We just finished spring cleaning and she wanted fresh towels.”

“Spring cleaning.” Luke remembered his mother’s annual frenzy of cleaning when every rug had to be taken out and hung on a line to have the dirt beat from it. Then fresh straw had to be spread on the floor before the rug was tacked back into place. The memory was superseded by an image of the layers of dust and dirt that covered her once tidy home, and he winced.

“If you’ll excuse me, Mr. McLain.”

Eleanor started to step around him and Luke saw his opportunity to talk to her vanishing.

“I was wondering if I might ask your advice, Miss Williams.”

“My advice?” She raised her dark brows in surprise. “I can’t imagine a topic on which you could possibly need my advice, Mr. McLain.”

Neither could he, but it had been the only thing he could think to say to keep her from leaving. Now she’d actually expect him to ask her something. He shot a quick glance around, looking for inspiration. He found it, more or less, in the bolts of fabric stacked beside them. He could hardly claim to have come in to buy new toweling. The coincidence would be too great.

“Curtains,” he said abruptly, remembering the graying rags that hung at the kitchen windows in the ranch house. “I…ah…wanted to buy fabric for curtains. I was hoping you could offer some suggestions.”

“Curtains?” She looked surprised. “What kind of curtains?”

“For the kitchen,” Luke answered with a promptness that concealed the fact that the idea had just occurred to him. “To tell the truth, since our mother died, my brother and I have sort of let the place go a bit and I was just thinking it was time we put a little work into it.”

At the mention of his mother’s death, Eleanor’s face softened. It wasn’t really proper for her to talk to a stranger like this, but she knew how difficult it was to lose a parent. And the idea that he cared enough about his mother’s home to buy new curtains for it went straight to her tender heart. She didn’t think most men would even have noticed worn curtains.

“How big are the windows?” she asked briskly, deciding that propriety could be pushed aside, just this once.

Luke held out his hands to estimate the size, but Eleanor’s attention was drawn to the width of his chest. He was wearing a plain blue shirt tucked into denim pants, and the soft cotton clung to muscles no decent woman should be noticing. She blushed and dragged her eyes away from the broad strength of his body. What on earth had gotten into her? she wondered as she forced her attention to the task at hand and began looking for something suitable to make curtains.

“Do you enjoy living in town, Miss Williams?”

“It’s certainly convenient,” she said. She frowned at a bolt of blue calico before setting it aside. “But I’ve no particular fondness for it. When I was a child, I always longed to settle in one place where I could have a garden and a real home.” She stopped abruptly, embarrassed at having revealed so much of herself. But when she slid a quick glance at him, he didn’t look as if there was anything unusual in what she’d said.

“You traveled a great deal?”

“My father did, and I traveled with him. I tried to make a home wherever we stopped, but there’s not a great deal one can do with a hotel room.” Her mouth curved in a rueful little smile.

So her father had traveled a lot, Luke thought. And she’d always longed to settle in one place. Well, he could certainly offer her a home and room for the garden she’d said she wanted. From the sound of it, those might be powerful arguments, if and when he proposed.

“I think plain muslin might be best, after all,” she said, drawing Luke’s attention to a bolt of the stuff.

“I’ll have to find someone to make the curtains,” he said.

Eleanor opened her mouth to offer to do the work but closed it without speaking. She’d already been bold enough. If her aunt heard that she’d been talking with a man in Webb’s, particularly a man like Luke McLain, whom her aunt had already earmarked as a possible suitor for Anabel, she’d never hear the end of it.

“Mrs. Larkins does sewing,” she said instead. “She has the little house on the north edge of town and she does good work for a reasonable price.” It had to be her overactive imagination that made her think he looked disappointed.

Behind them, the bell over the door tinkled, announcing the departure of Cora Danvers and her obstreperous son. Though Eleanor couldn’t see past Luke McLain’s large frame, she could hear Andrew hurrying in their direction and she felt a totally irrational resentment toward him for interrupting. Not that there was really anything to interrupt, she reminded herself.

“Are you finding everything you need, Miss Eleanor?” At Webb’s question, Luke reluctantly stepped aside to allow the other man to pass him. Webb moved to stand next to Eleanor, his weak eyes darting from her to Luke with suspicion. There was a certain possessiveness in the way he stood, a look only another man would recognize.

Luke’s gaze sharpened on Eleanor’s face, but if there was reason for Webb to feel possessive, he couldn’t read anything in her expression. Something told him that any feelings of possession were strictly on Webb’s side. The thought pleased him.

“If you’ll cut some of the linen for me, Mr. Webb, I’ll be on my way,” she said, giving him a quick, impersonal smile.

“I’ll be with you in just a minute, Mr. McLain,” Webb said as he and Eleanor walked past.

“I’m in no rush.”

The storekeeper’s hand hovered a moment, almost touching the small of Eleanor’s back, and Luke was surprised by the annoyance he felt at the idea of the other man touching her. When Webb’s hand dropped away without making contact, Luke felt a satisfaction out of proportion to the moment. He followed them to the front of the store.