The Maverick's Accidental Bride

* * *

Feeling pretty damn bad about everything, Will drove the two blocks to Crawford’s General Store to get a copy of the Rust Creek Falls Gazette. The coin-operated rack by the entrance was empty, so he went inside to ask where else to get a paper.

Mrs. Crawford had a stack of them by the register. She took his money and congratulated him on his marriage. “I hope you and Jordyn Leigh will be very happy together.” She seemed sincere enough.

Will thanked her, stuck the paper under his arm and turned to go. But he just happened to walk down the center aisle on his way out, the one lined with canned goods of every variety.

Two middle-aged ladies stood chatting in that aisle. One was tall and heavyset, the other thin with gray hair pulled back into a tight little bun. They didn’t see him coming, they were so wrapped up in gossiping together.

The tall one clucked her tongue. “It’s a disgrace is what it is. Two virtual strangers, that’s what I heard.” Will hesitated several feet away, dread creeping like a spider down his spine. Neither lady turned to see him standing there. The tall one went on, “They got married in a drunken stupor right there in Rust Creek Park at eleven o’clock last night.”

The thin one said, “I heard that the blushing bride is one of those desperate Gal Rush women. Came to town looking for a husband during reconstruction after the flood.”

“Well, and now she’s caught one.”

“Hah. But not for long, I’ll bet. My guess is the groom’s probably already running for the hills like his hair’s on fire.”

The tall one chortled merrily.

And Will knew he couldn’t let that stand. So what if he and Jordyn were planning to end their unexpected marriage ASAP? Didn’t matter. He wasn’t standing by and having the sweet, spunky girl he’d grown up with disrespected.

“It’s a disgrace to the institution of marriage,” declared the thin one with an angry sniff.

That did it. Will walked right up to them. “Excuse me, ladies.” He tipped his hat. Looking startled, they both turned to stare at him. He said, “It so happens that you are misinformed.”

“Well, I never...” said the tall one.

“Really?” The thin one sneered.

“Yes,” he said. “Really. You see, I’m the groom you were just now discussing.” He offered the tall one his hand. “Will Clifton.” She took it limply then quickly let go. “Pleased to meet you.” He gave her his warmest smile and turned to the skinny one. “Ma’am.” The thin one blinked several times in rapid succession before briefly taking his offered hand.

As soon as she released his fingers, Will swept off his hat and pressed it to his heart. “Have a good look now, ladies.” He tipped his chin down so they had a clear view of every hair on his head. “Not a spark, not an ember, not one whiff of smoke. My hair is not on fire, so you got that all wrong. As a matter of fact, I’m a local now. I’ve bought the old Dodson place east of town. I’m going nowhere. Why would I want to? Rust Creek Falls is my home. And that’s not all. I don’t know where you’ve been getting your information, but someone has been telling you lies. Because my new wife and I did not marry impulsively.”

Well, who was to say about that? Neither he nor Jordyn remembered their exact states of mind at the time they’d said their vows.

He continued, “Jordyn Leigh and I are both from Thunder Canyon. We are by no means strangers to one another. In fact, we’ve known each other since we were children. Our families are very good friends. I’m the happiest man in the world right now, because I love my wife with all my heart, and the day has finally come when she is mine.” Yeah, all right. The love stuff was total crap. But so what?

It worked.

The tall lady sputtered out, “Well, I...erm...” and then couldn’t figure out what to say next.

The thin one looked like she’d swallowed a lemon.

Will put his hat back on. “Real nice to meet you ladies. Have a great day, now.” He took his Gazette out from under his arm, gave them a final wave with it and headed for the door.

Once back in his quad cab, he dropped the paper on the passenger seat and got the hell out of there. A few minutes later, he was pulling into the parking lot at Maverick Manor a few miles down the highway, southeast of town. He didn’t open that paper until he was safe in his room.

The gossip column was a long one. It covered a lot more strange goings-on than what had happened between him and Jordyn. Others had behaved badly last night, and the mystery columnist hadn’t hesitated to lay it all out there in black-and-white, including the waitress who went swimming in the park fountain and ended up in jail for it, and also a poker game at the local watering hole, where one of the Crawford boys won somebody’s ranch.

The part about Will and Jordyn came last. Unlike those two awful ladies in Crawford’s, the column was not cruel. Looked at objectively, he supposed the story of his spur-of-the-moment marriage might even seem romantic. But the fact remained that he hated to have a spotlight shone on the night he could barely remember—and he knew that Jordyn would hate it, too. In the end, what were they but two moonstruck idiots who’d lost their heads and tied the knot?

Frankly, reading it pissed Will off. No, it wasn’t mean-spirited. But come on. Whoever wrote it should at least have had the guts to put their name to it. And didn’t that columnist even wonder what had gotten into everyone last night?

Will did. He still suspected that cowboy in the white hat of spiking their punch. And beyond the issue of who put what in Jordyn’s punch, the column and the encounter with the two ladies in Crawford’s store had him rethinking what to do next.

Because they were married, and everyone seemed to know it. And in a town like Rust Creek Falls, people took their wedding vows seriously. If he and Jordyn didn’t find the right way to deal with this accidental marriage of theirs, she would be shamed before the whole town, and he wouldn’t look like much of a man.

The more he reconsidered their situation, the more certain he became that he and Jordyn needed a better plan than just to race off to Kalispell to see if they could call the whole thing off. Because it was too damn late for that.

Chapter Three (#ucb3b8ac7-fbb6-5d70-96b9-b389c55a2096)

In the morning, when Will pulled up in front of the boardinghouse, Jordyn Leigh was waiting on the front steps wearing faded jeans and a little white T-shirt. She jumped up and ran down the steps to meet him, the morning sun picking up glints of bronze and auburn in her pale gold hair.

“Hey.” She gave him a nod and a wobbly attempt at a smile as she pulled the passenger door shut. A hint of her scent came to him, that pleasing perfume he remembered from Saturday night, like flowers and spring grass and ripe, perfect peaches.

“Mornin’,” he said.

She plunked her bag at her feet, hooked up her seat belt and stared straight ahead.

He put it in gear and off they went. “You sleep okay?”

She sent him a look that said, Are you kidding? And then she went back to her intense study of the street ahead of them.

Once they got to the highway, he tried to get her talking—about harmless things. About the weather and her job at the local day care. But she was having none of it. Her answers consisted of as few words as possible. She volunteered nothing.

He went ahead and asked her if she’d seen the Gazette.

“I saw it,” she answered. That was it. Nothing more.

He kept trying. “I talked to Craig again last night. He had more on the Brad Crawford story—Brad’s the guy who won that ranch in the poker game.” He waited for a nod or a grunt from her to tell him she was listening. Nothing. He soldiered on. “Well, now the ranch belongs to Brad, and the former owner has vanished into thin air. Nobody’s seen him since Saturday night. Some folks are thinking there’s been foul play.”

Jordyn only shrugged and stared out the windshield.

Will gave it up. For the time being, anyway. They rode the rest of the way in silence.

In Kalispell, it only took a few minutes to get to the county justice center. Will parked in the lot, and they went in together. The county clerk’s office was on the third floor. They waited their turn in line and quickly learned that the clerk himself wasn’t in the office right then.

At that news, Jordyn muttered, “Thanks a bunch, Elbert.”

The woman who helped them told them that yes, their license was on file and they were indeed married. As Jordyn stood wide-eyed and silent at his side, Will went ahead with the original plan and asked about the possibility of an annulment.

The woman clucked her tongue as if in sympathy and then patiently explained that it would actually be very difficult for them to get an annulment. “In Montana, an annulment requires proof that there has been no sexual intercourse between the married couple. You can imagine how complicated proving that can be.”

Jordyn made a strangled sound. Will fully expected her to burst into tears, and he braced to deal with that.

But somehow she held it together, and the woman went right on, “What you want is a joint dissolution—joint dissolution meaning that you two file jointly for your divorce. It’s simple and straightforward and also fair.” She gave them the large packet of documents they would need and said that the same documents were also available to print off online.

“Fill them out completely and bring them back,” she said. “When you return all the needed documentation—in person, together—you’ll be given a hearing date a maximum of twenty days out. The hearing is a formality. Bottom line, twenty days from filing jointly, you will be divorced.”