Bushedwhacked Groom (7 page)

“I’m not your damn affianced!” Lucky yelled from the tub.

Molly glared back.

“Now look what you done,” Grandma scolded Molly.
“You went and got him all worked up again. How’s he
going to skedaddle, anyhow, him in the altogether and
nekkid as a jaybird? You’re just a wicked girl aiming to
have yourself a peek before the parson blesses your
union.”

To Lucky’s immense satisfaction, Molly blushed. “I
am not!”

Grandma switched her legs with the broom. “Get
yourself inside, Granddaughter, before I give you a se
rious brooming.”

“Oh!” She dashed inside, chased by the broom-
wielding Grandma.

Before Lucky could even absorb this ridiculous
happening, Jessica stepped outside again, expression
contrite. “Lucky, I’m so sorry about the intrusion. I’ve tried to raise my daughter properly, but she has her fa
ther’s blood flowing in her veins as well, I’m afraid.
You know, when I first arrived here, back in the year
1888—”

“Eighteen eighty-eight!” Lucky gasped.

“—Mr. Reklaw interrupted my bath, too.” She
winked. “Could be that Destiny does have something in mind for you and my daughter.”

Lucky could only stare at her.

With a knowing smile, Jessica turned to leave, and
Lucky shook his head. So much for Jessica being a kin
dred spirit. These folks were all sky western crazy.

Then Grandma lumbered out with a steamy bucket—
a
very
steamy bucket. Who in hell would charge in
next? A welcoming committee from town—wherever
that was?

“Sorry ‘bout my granddaughter’s manners,”
Grandma muttered, wiping her sweaty brow.

“She has manners?” Lucky scoffed.

She offered a crooked grin. “Thought you could use
a mite more hot water as a sort of peace offering.”

Lucky half-panicked. That water looked
really
hot.
“No, ma’am, I’m fine, I’m
. . .
aaaaaaaah! Sheeeeeat
!”

After pouring out the scorching brew, Grandma was
already happily plodding away. “Told you it would
make you feel better, young fella.”

Lucky was gasping, struggling to recover from his
near scalding, when a large calico cat, obviously quite
pregnant, crept out onto the porch and meowed at
him plaintively, swishing her tail and beseeching him
with large green eyes.

“You, too, eh?” he drawled. “Can’t a man take a bath
in peace around here?”

The cat mewed again; then Molly dashed back onto the porch, scooping her up. “This is Jezebel the fifth,” she told him pertly. “She’s about to have . . .
babies,
if
you know what I mean.”

With a saucy grin and a wink, she was gone.

Chapter Five

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“So, Pa, are you going to go fetch the preacher now so Handsome and me can get hitched?” Molly demanded.

Sitting in the parlor an hour later, amid a family
powwow, Lucky could scarcely believe his ears. Did
this crazy woman still actually believe he would marry
her—after all the hell she’d put him through?

And as if her wacko assumptions weren’t enough to
deal with, he was still reeling from trying to take in his
bizarre, antiquated surroundings—like the ancient
horsehair sofa where he sat with the madwoman’s
brothers, the old rocking chairs where the women
were settled, the primitive stone fireplace where
Molly’s father stood brooding, with several old Win
chester rifles hanging above the mantel in blatant menace.
Lucky felt as if he’d stepped right into a rerun of
Lone
some Dove.
Nowhere had he spotted a telephone, a
television, a computer or any other signs of modern
civilization.
On top of all this, the four brothers—whom he’d learned were named Zach, Vance, Matt and Cory—
kept shooting surly glances his way, although Cory, the
auburn-haired one, didn’t seem quite as antagonistic
as his siblings. Why were they all so pissed off at him?
He was the one who’d been hurled into a ravine, then kidnapped by their loco bird of a sister. They clearly weren’t motivated by brotherly protectiveness, given
the fierce rivalry he’d already observed between Molly
and her brothers.

Even as Lucky glowered at the maddening female,
her pa glanced grimly from her to Lucky. “Look, young
lady, you can’t just drag home any old saddle tramp
and assume your ma and I will let you marry him.”

As Lucky bristled at being called a saddle tramp,
Molly wheedled, “But Pa, he’s the one I’ve waited for—my destiny from the future.”

“Not that
future
hokum again,” scoffed Vance.

“Yeah, not that,” seconded Matt.

“Yeah,” Lucky rejoined. “And does anyone care to ask
me whether I want to be here, much less marry
her?”

His tone was not missed by Molly’s father, who
shook a finger at him. “Young man, you watch your lip
around my daughter and stay out of this discussion. It’s
family business.”

“But your haywire daughter wants to make me part
of your crazy family!” Lucky retorted.

As Cole took an aggressive step forward, Jessica
stood and touched his arm. “Cole, Lucky has a point.
He’s a part of this, too, now.”

“Yeah,” put in Zach from next to Lucky. “And if he
don’t want to marry her, you shouldn’t force him,
Pa.
”

“Yeah,” seconded Vance and Cory.

“But he has to marry me,” protested Molly.

“Why?” sneered Matt. “So you can win the land?”

“Sure, why not?” she shot back.

“What land?” demanded Lucky.

For a moment no one spoke; then Grandma took the
reins. “You see, sonny boy, my Cole here set up a con
test to help his rambunctious brood grow up. The first
one of ‘em to wed—and produce a grandchild—will
win a prime parcel of ranch land, the lower five hun
dred.”

Lucky was stunned. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You mean after being shanghaied by this wildcat, I’ve
become some kind of prize in a g’damned contest?”

At his profanity, the boys guffawed, Jessica gasped
and Ma frowned massively. “You watch your mouth,
sonny, or I’m fetching my broom to teach you some
manners,” she scolded. “I’ll have you know this is a
genu-wine
contest, just like the one Cole and his brothers fought over Jessie here, twenty-odd years ago.”

With a horrified glance at Jessica’s smiling face,
Lucky shot to his feet, then winced at the pain. “Why—
why, that’s downright sick. What’s wrong with you
folks? You can’t just go around using men and women in contests, like studs or brood mares.”

Now Cole did charge forward, his face livid, his fist clenched at Lucky. “You heed your tongue around my
wife or I’ll hang you by it.”

Lucky faced him down with a sneer. “Go ahead, sir.
Actually, I’d prefer a healthy lynching to dealing with a
bunch of psychos like you.”

For a moment there was a tense silence as the two men confronted each other. Then Grandma laughed
and clapped her hands. “Got grit, don’t he, son?”

Surprisingly, Cole grinned back. “Yeah, he does. But
that doesn’t mean he’s the right man to marry my
Molly.”

“My God—when will you people get it through your
heads that I don’t
want
to marry her?” Lucky all but
shouted. “I don’t even want to be here.”

Grandma waved him off. “0h, you’re just the bride
groom. You don’t count.”

“What?”

Shooting Lucky a rebellious glance, Molly firmly set
her jaw. “Shucks, I don’t know what we’re arguing about,
anyhow. The deed is done—and old Handsome here
has already compromised my virtue.”

Lucky was appalled. “Quit calling me Handsome.
And quit lying, too.”

But Cole frowned darkly as he stepped toward his
daughter. “Daughter, what do you mean, this man com
promised your virtue?”

Molly appeared smug enough to burst. “Well, when
we pulled Handsome here from the rubble of the stagecoach, he pinched my butt.”

At this, the boys split their sides laughing, and
Lucky’s jaw fell open.

“He did what?” thundered Cole.

“I did no such thing!” Lucky exclaimed. “Lady, I was
half-dead, too puny to pinch a petunia.”

Cole glanced in consternation from Lucky to Molly. “What’s going on here? One of you has to be lying.”

“Well, it’s not me,” Molly swore, “cross my heart and
hope to die.”

“She’ll be dead by sundown,” drawled Lucky, “‘cause
I’m gonna murder her.”

“You shut up,” barked Cole.

Zach jumped up and into the fray. “Pa, can’t you tell
baby sister here is fibbing a blue streak, just to get her way and win the land?”

“Yeah!” agreed Matt and Vance.

“You’re just being sore losers,” Molly accused her
brothers.

“Stop it, all of you.” Cole stood rubbing his forehead
in obvious frustration. “Heck, I don’t know what to be
lieve. I’ll have to ask Sanchez whether this insult ever
occurred.”

“But he didn’t see it, Daddy,” Molly quickly put in.

“Because it didn’t happen!” yelled Lucky.

Cole held up a hand. “All right, enough, all of you.
We’ll discuss this matter again later when everyone
cools down. We’re not going to act hastily—”

“Meaning you’re not going to go get the parson?”
Molly wailed.

“Not right this minute, daughter. And definitely not until we get some things straight around here.”

By now Lucky’s temper was boiling over. “Look,
people, I’ve had enough of this hogwash. I’m not
gonna marry the squirrel lady here, do you under
stand? So, if someone will please just take me back to
Buck Hollow—”

“Buck Hollow?” repeated Cole with a mystified look. “I’ve heard of
Broken
Buck
Mountain
, but never a Buck
Hollow.”

With an expression of awe, Jessica stepped up to
join them. “But Cole, there was a town called Buck Hol
low,
Colorado
, in the world I left behind. It was a
tourist town, built in the nineteen-forties, beneath
Bro
ken
Buck
Mountain
.” She flashed Lucky a smile. “You
know, Lucky, maybe Molly’s right that there’s a reason you’ve come here.”

He rolled his eyes. “Lady, I got nothing against you,
but every time you and your daughter start up with
that destiny hogwash, you sound about ten beans
short of a burrito.”

“Hey, don’t talk about my womenfolk that way,” scolded Cole.

“It’s all right, dear,” Jessica reassured him with a wise
look. “Obviously it’s going to take Lucky a while to accept his—well, what the Fates have in mind for him.”

Lucky ground his jaw. “Is someone going to take me to town or not?”

“I’ll take you to Mariposa,” volunteered Cory.

“Yeah, sure you will,” mocked Lucky. “It’ll do me one
helluva lot of good to be dropped off at a ghost town.”

“But Mariposa’s not a ghost town,” protested Matt.

“Like hell it isn’t.”

“Silence, all of you,” scolded Grandma. She turned
to Lucky. “Young fella, Matthew and Jessie are right.
Mariposa ain’t no ghost town, and Buck Hollow ain’t been hatched yet. But the truth is, you’re in no condi
tion to travel. Now, if you’ll just rest up a spell and try to
ease your mind a mite—”

“Right, you folks have such a soothing manner
about you,” Lucky mocked.

“Then maybe in a week or so, we’ll take you on in to
Mariposa.”

Lucky waved his hands.

“And in the meantime, we can plan our wedding,”
added Molly gaily.

“When hell freezes over,” Lucky retorted.

“Pa, are you going to keep allowing her to do this?”
demanded Vance. “Just assuming she’ll get to wed
this stranger, and against his will?”

“Yeah,” seconded Matt. “Ain’t that contrary to the
rules—I mean, forcing him and all? What if us boys
tried to hog-tie our brides and drag ‘em to the altar?
You’d never allow that, right? So how come she gets to
have her way with this drifter without a ‘by-your-
leave’?”

Drifter,
Lucky thought ironically. Now, that was an
apt description. He’d drifted about as far from civiliza
tion—and reality—as a man could get.

Cole smiled wisely. “Sons, you’re right. I’m not going
to force Lucky here to wed Molly.” He glanced from the
fiercely glowering Lucky to the smirking Molly, then
chuckled. “But knowing my daughter as well as I do, I
fear this whole marriage idea won’t be
against his will
for long.”

***

After the family war council, Cory and Matt helped
Lucky hobble to the necessary out back. By now he
was exhausted and in terrible pain, a fact not lost on Grandma, who poured half a bottle of foul-tasting
patent medicine down his throat on his return. Fortu
nately, the snake oil concoction was at least two-thirds
alcohol, and within moments after collapsing on the
soft feather bed, he had blissfully passed out.

“Just a song at twilight
. . .”

The next thing Lucky heard were the lilting strains of
a woman’s voice, singing “Love’s Old Sweet Song.” He
grimaced in the half-light and creaked out of bed, wrapping himself in a quilt to cover his ridiculous drawers—
a garment that resembled a gauzy nineteenth-century
version of warm-up pants. A cool evening breeze
wafted over him, ripe with honeysuckle.

Then he saw her, and his heart quickened. Molly, the
hellcat and temptress, sitting there pretty as a picture
on the porch swing, dressed in a low-cut yellow ging
ham gown that showed off her flawless curves. Her
rich auburn hair was caught back with a pale blue rib
bon, the strands catching gold fire from the setting
sun. Swinging gently, she was petting the pregnant cat,
Jezebel.

What a vision she was, perched there just like an an
gel, when he knew she was the devil in a yellow dress. In her
own way, she was every bit as treacherous as Misti.

Still, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. His loins
twinged in potent response, just as they had when
she’d interrupted his bath earlier. Damn, that was the
last thing he needed—to be lusting after a crazy
woman when he should be running like hell.