Mary Connealy (67 page)

Sarah said pertly, “I want to perform the ceremony. I’m more religiouser than Emma.”

Emma slapped Sarah on the arm. “You’re not religiouser than me. Why, I’m the most Bible-believin’ person in this family by far. And I’m oldest.”

“You’re not oldest. Lindsay’s oldest.”

“Lindsay’s not oldest no more, ‘cuz Lindsay’s not here. In a family where the ma and pa ain’t married, it’s the oldest child’s job to do everything she can to fetch ’em both around to doing the right thing.”

Belle interrupted, “Emma, you shouldn’t say your ma and pa ain’t married.”

Emma said, “I know, I know. My ma and pa
aren’t
married. I knows grammar rightly enough.”

“No, it’s not the
grammar.
It’s saying Silas is your pa but I’m not married to him. That makes it sound like I’ve got a twelve-year-old child and have had …” Belle shut up before she dug herself in any deeper.

Emma went back to fighting with Sarah.

Silas dug a few forgotten, beat-up pieces of jerky out of one of the packs, picked the horse hair off of them, and gave them to Sarah and Emma.

The girls still bickered as the family started down the trail.

It occurred to Belle that the girls didn’t fight much. The good-natured sniping seemed childish to her. Her daughters had never had much chance to be children. Maybe with Silas to carry part of the load, her girls could have a little taste of being young before they found themselves married with adult responsibilities to shoulder.

Belle thought of Lindsay and had a wave of loneliness for her oldest child. Lindsay had been forced to grow up far too soon. But on the other hand, if ever a fifteen-year-old was mature enough for marriage, Lindsay was.

Belle breathed in and out evenly until any risk of sentimental tears passed. Th en she spurred her horse into a trot and passed Silas on the trail. As she went by him, she grinned. “A woman might think you’re not in that all-fired of a hurry to get married, the way you’re doggin’ it.”

He laughed. “Don’t you believe it, woman.” He urged his horse to a faster pace to keep up with her.

She set her horse to a ground-eating trot, and proving Silas didn’t know her range as well as he thought he did, they were home in two and a half hours.

Silas told all his girls to get in the cabin and go to sleep. He’d be back before nightfall with a preacher if he had to crawl a hundred miles on his hands and knees across bitter cold snow.

Belle said, “No, I’ll just go along. But I’ll have to take Betsy. She’ll need to eat.”

Silas dragged Belle out of hearing distance of the girls. “Here’s how it is, Belle. If we go together, there is a chance we won’t get back and the girls could spend the winter alone. They’d probably survive it because they’re good strong girls, but neither of us wants to test that. If we take the girls, there’s a chance the whole family won’t get back and the cattle won’t survive the winter, which wipes out your years of work, and I won’t let our marriage cost you so much.”

Then Silas lifted Belle onto her tiptoes. “If I don’t go, there is no way I can spend the winter here with you and not…not be…be with you as a husband. It would be better if I go alone, and if I can’t get back, at least the snow would preserve your honor. If I
can
get back, we’ll be married and I’ll hustle the preacher out of here the minute the ceremony is over. You can ride out to the low pass and meet me and the parson. Figuring a six-hour ride, I should be back about midafternoon. Me going alone is the only thing that makes sense.”

“But what if you get to the pass and can’t get out?” Belle asked worriedly. “I love you, and I don’t want you to risk your life trying to get us married.”

It was all Silas could do not to drag her into his arms and kiss her, but he just didn’t have the time. Instead, he tugged his hat low on his forehead. “I’ll be back before nightfall with a preacher. Be waiting at the pass so we can send the poor man straightaway back to Divide. If I don’t make it, I’ll be in here the minute the pass opens up in the spring. Whatever it takes, however long I have to wait, I’m marrying you.”

He gave her one hard kiss because he couldn’t resist; then he turned his back, grabbed up a horse, saddled it, and was running it at a full gallop before he was out of the ranch yard.

She’d had a lot of men eager to marry her. Dozens. Hundreds! But none more so than Silas Harden. And for a fact, she’d never been anywhere near so eager to marry one of them.

She shooed the girls into the house and started heating water for baths. One by one she dunked her girls in the water and scrubbed a month’s worth of trail dust off of them. By the time she was done, their nails were clean, their hair squeaked, and even the tips of their toes were shining. They all went to sleep with very little urging, even though it was the middle of the day.

Then Belle, knowing she had hours before the time came to leave for the south pass, rode out and inspected her herd. She rounded up the horses Silas had sent running ahead and herded them into the corral. She found the milk cow and roped her and coaxed her back to the barn so the animal would gentle down some before her baby came and she needed milking again. She found a goodly number of the chickens brooding in the barn. She moved the ones who weren’t nesting back to the chicken coop so she could be sure any eggs they laid were fresh. She found enough work to do to keep her busy all afternoon and into the next week, but finally she had to turn her back on it and take her own bath and get the girls moving, because she wanted them at the wedding.

She dressed all of them, including herself, in their prettiest dresses—which weren’t all that pretty, but it was all they had—and headed out. They were just starting the steep climb toward the snow line when she saw Silas coming down the hill with another man. A thrill of excitement made Belle shiver, and she tried to control the smile that kept breaking out on her face.

“You really love him, don’t ya, Ma?” Emma asked with hushed pleasure.

Belle watched him come, still over a mile away on the winding path. She knew the minute he spotted her, because his horse broke into a trot. It warmed her heart till she thought it might catch on fire. She said quietly, “I think I finally got it right, girls. I think I’ve found a husband to be proud of and a father for the lot of you to love.”

“I hope it’s the other way around, Ma,” Sarah said. “I want him to be a husband for you to love and a father for us to be proud of.”

Belle laughed. “Maybe we can have it all.”

She saw Sarah nodding with quiet satisfaction, and at the same instant, all three of them, with Betsy on Emma’s back, started trotting forward.

The two parties met at an unlikely spot on the trail. Th ere wasn’t a spot wide enough for them to dismount and stand before the preacher. And the preacher had a disgruntled, kidnapped look to him. The horses looked exhausted, and there was snow clinging to the preacher’s boots.

“It’s snowing in the highlands. Let’s make this quick so the man can get back through the pass,” Silas said.

It might not have been the shortest wedding ceremony on record, but that’s only because no one kept records of such things. It had to be in contention.

The preacher was still pulling his horse to a stop when he said, “Silas Harden, do you take this woman to be your lawful-wedded wife?”

Silas grinned as he dragged his Stetson off his head, “Well, why else did I drag you all the way up here?”

“Just answer, ‘I do.’” The preacher glared at him in a way that didn’t strike Belle as all that holy.

“I do.”

“And do you, Belle Tanner, take this man to be your lawful-wedded husband?” The preacher wheeled his horse to face Belle who was just riding up and turning her horse so she was beside Silas. She’d heard the first question put to Silas, though, so it counted.

Before she could answer, Silas reached over and grabbed her hand. “Aren’t you gonna tell her to obey me? I think you oughta say it ‘cuz she’s a headstrong little thing.”

The preacher snapped at Belle, “Are you gonna obey him?” His horse danced sideways toward the edge of a fifty-foot drop-off at the unusually testy voice coming from the peaceful, God-loving man who sat on his back.

Belle leaned across her horse and subdued the fractious mount before they lost their parson. “Not likely, unless he orders me to do something I was gonna do anyway.”

The preacher looked at Silas. “I’ve known Belle for a while now. I could have told you that.”

“But it’s a promise before God, isn’t it?” Silas asked in astonishment. “It’s required.”

Since Belle had his horse, the preacher felt safe enough to take off his broad-brimmed felt hat as was due respect for the current occasion. He tapped it impatiently on his Bible. “Now there’s no sense making Belle take a vow before God that she doesn’t have a ghost of a chance of keeping. It’d be a sin to my way of thinking. So, if you want her so all-fired bad—and the way you as good as stole me out of the diner in Divide tells me you do—then take her without ‘obey’ and shut up about it. It’s all the same to me, and I’m leaving here in thirty seconds whether you’re hitched or not. Now, no offense, folks, but I don’t want to spend my winter with you. Do you know I’ve got a wife expecting a baby in January?”

“I already said I’d take her,” Silas protested. “It’s her vows we’re speaking of now.”

Belle said, “I do.”

“I do what?” Silas growled. “I do take this man, or I do know about his wife having a baby?”

The preacher slapped his hat back on his head, leaned over, and wrested his reins out of Belle’s hand. “Thank you kindly for holding Blackie, Belle. Much obliged. Try to keep this one alive for a while. Th ese weddings are wearing me out.” The preacher turned his horse and started up the trail. After about twenty yards, he stopped and turned around and yelled, “I almost forgot. I now pronounce you man and wife!” He wheeled his horse around and headed at a gallop for the summit.

“Will he make it? How bad is the pass?” Belle worried. “We should follow him and make sure he’s all right.”

“It’s not bad and the snow’s not real heavy. With the trail we broke, he’ll be fine. Besides, his wife found out I was hauling him out of town, and she was after me with a posse before we were out of sight. We stayed ahead of her, but she’ll be waiting to haul him down off the mountain if he should run into trouble. That is one tough woman!” Silas leaned across the space between his horse and Belle’s. Sliding one hand firmly behind Belle’s neck, he said, “You may now kiss the bride.” And he did just that.

Sarah yelled, “Hurray!”

Betsy clapped her hands together and yelled, “Papa.”

“High time,” Emma said. “We got evening chores. Let’s get back to the ranch.”

Silas let go of Belle, and she touched her lips to keep the warmth in them. “Yeah,” Silas said with a sparkle in his eye. “Let’s go home, girls.”

Belle smiled at him with a heart that felt younger and a spirit that felt lighter than it had since before her pa had given her to William. “Yes, girls, let’s take the new husband and go home.”

Silas laughed and kissed her again. When he was close enough that only she could hear, he said, “You’re gonna forget you ever had another husband ‘sides me before I’m done with you, Mrs. Harden.”

“I already have,” Belle said peacefully.

They all turned their horses for home, and the animals were anxious to get out of the sharp winter weather in the highlands, so they moved along willingly.

It was the happiest day of Belle’s life.

B
elle was furious.

She’d been cheated. She had been done so wrong she thought she might dig up all three of her no-account husbands and beat the daylights out of whatever was left of their worthless hides.

Nestling closer to Silas as he slept, she knew, after three earlier marriages, she’d never known what went on between a man and a woman!

Silas’s eye flickered open when she moved, and she forgot all about being mad. “Good morning, wife. You enjoying our honeymoon?” He’d made up a warm little bed for them in the barn and teased the girls that he was taking their ma on a honeymoon. Now they lay here, toasty warm, wrapped in blankets, wrapped in each other.

“Morning, Silas.”

He pulled her closer till her cheek rested on his shoulder, close enough that when he looked into her eyes there was nothing else in the world. Then he leaned close and kissed her. No whiskers. He’d looked like a wild man when she married him. He hadn’t taken a second to bathe or shave or even change into clean clothes before the wedding. But he’d done all that later, after that poor excuse for a ceremony but long before the wedding night. He’d cleaned up real good.

Wrapping one strong arm around her shoulders, he pulled her still closer. “You’re not ready to plant me under the Husband Tree yet, are you?” He kissed her, probably to help get the answer he wanted.

He needn’t have bothered.

“Nope, I’m going to keep you above ground. I like you all warm and—” Their eyes met and her nonsense suddenly seemed unworthy. The smile melted off her face. “Don’t speak of such things, Silas.” She slid one hand into his overly long hair. “I want you with me for the rest of my life. I can’t bear to think of that tree right now.”