Montana Bride

“A love match?” She didn’t believe it. She’d read of them as a girl, building the idea up like a fairy tale. The lonely child she’d been had ached for such a match, with the hopes that perhaps someday in the future she would be finally loved and have a family of her own, a husband who cherished her.

Evelyn seemed so happy. How could she actually like being married? Willa slipped her arms into her coat. Maybe Evelyn was just a very optimistic sort, making the best out of a difficult situation.

I’ve done the same, too. Willa finished her last button and pulled up her hood. She watched as Evelyn looked her up and down again, sympathy on her face.

“I’m glad Austin found you, Willa, dear.” Evelyn held out her gloved hand. “I have a hunch that no one could deserve him more.”

“He’s been very kind to me.” She laid her hand in Evelyn’s and no longer felt alone. When her baby came, it would have cousins to play with. Friends. A normal childhood because it would not be born out of wedlock. Her baby would have the kind of life she never knew.

Oh, how she owed Austin for that. With a smile, she let her sister-in-law pull her out the door and into the lightly falling snow.

“How’s it feel to be a married man?” Wallace Pole asked as he gave his big Clydesdale a pat, framed by the open double doors of the livery barn. Behind him, snow drifted down like pieces of heaven onto the frosty street. The mercantile owner tugged out his pocket watch to check the hour. Probably worried about getting his deliveries out on time.

No problem there. Austin buckled the last harness. The horses were ready to go. “Not much different,” he admitted. “It hasn’t been twenty-four hours yet. Ask me after I get home for supper. That will be a nice change.”

“There’s nothing like a woman’s cookin’ after you’ve been making do for yourself. And as for the other kind of comforts a wife can give a man.” Wallace winked. “No need to say more, my boy. I’m not so old I can’t remember what it was like to be a newlywed.”

Heat inched across Austin’s face as he handed over the reins. He thought of Willa and how charming she’d looked in the morning’s light. The memory of her lush, rosebud lips sent shivers of heat into his blood. He desired her, no doubt about that, but he couldn’t forget how hard she’d trembled last night in their bed, afraid in the one place she should always be safe.

“There she is.” Wallace took the reins, nodding over his shoulder in the direction of the store across the street. For an instant in the gleam of the wide front windows he caught sight of Willa’s dark hair in the lamplight, shimmering like ebony silk.

The warmth in his blood spread from simply watching her. Slim and willowy in her faded dress. Her hair swept across her back as she shook her head, no. His sister marched into view, displeasure twisting her mouth into a frown. Evelyn’s eagle eyes caught sight of him across the street; she stalked toward the window and crooked her finger in an unmistakable “come here” gesture.

“Uh-oh.” Wallace climbed up into his sled and plopped onto his cushioned seat. “That sister of yours don’t look happy.”

“No, and I’m afraid she’s about to take it out on me.” He grabbed his hat from the peg by the door and waited until Mr. Pole’s delivery sled lumbered out of the straw and into the snow.

What on earth could be wrong? Austin glanced over his shoulder, checking to make sure all the stall gates were secure before he crossed the street. Not many were out in this weather, where the wind blew like the arctic north through the trees and barreled straight down Main with a mean howl. If Willa hadn’t been in such need, he wouldn’t have wanted her out in this, either.

Willa. He caught sight of her through the glass in the door. With her head bent to study the bolts of fabric in a display, she didn’t see him coming. Her profile might be the prettiest he’d ever seen, a finely sculpted work of art with a sloping dainty nose, those soft lips and a dear little chin.

His very own wife. Tenderness took over as he made his way into the store. He hardly noticed the ring of the bell overhead or Mrs. Pole’s cheerful greeting. All he saw was Willa. He could barely breathe drinking her in. How he’d gotten so lucky, he didn’t know.

“Your bride is not cooperating.” A sharp hammer-strike of a heel sounded near his elbow. Evelyn paraded into his view, her hands on her hips. “I don’t know what to do with her. She’s stubborn.”

“Is that so?” Amusement tripped through him as he watched Willa lift her gaze, turning her attention to him. Once she spotted him, tension crept in. A line of worry furrowed across her porcelain forehead and quirked the corners of her kissable mouth.

How he wanted to kiss that mouth. “What exactly isn’t Willa doing?”

“She’s not picking out a single dress or a scrap of fabric to make one. For that matter, not even yarn for a pair of gloves.” Evelyn looked perplexed. “She doesn’t want to spend your money.”

“I see the problem. A frugal wife. It’s a travesty, all right.” He understood Evelyn’s upset. Anyone taking a good look at Willa would see she needed new clothes two years ago, something her first husband had failed to provide for her.

But not this one. His boots rang hollowly on the wood floor as he circled around the pickle barrel and toward his bride. Anxiety carved lines into her face and she bit her bottom lip, her teeth white against the pink. A question resonated in her expressive eyes. Are you upset with me? she asked without a word.

He shook his head. No. If nothing, her reluctance to charge anything she wanted made him like her more.

“That’s pretty.” He nodded toward the butter-yellow fabric she’d been fingering when he’d walked into the store. It was dotted with brighter yellow flowers and blue blossoms. “It would make something nice for you.”

“It’s for the curtains.”

“Nice. It’s just what the house needs. I hope you get plenty of material so you can make them up real nice, the way you want. I’d like that. Do you know what else I’d like?”

“No. Is there something you need?”

“Yes. I need you to come here.” He laid a hand on her shoulder, ignoring the hard ridge of bone beneath his palm. “These ready-made dresses are nice and I want you to choose three.”

“Three?” She could not be hearing him correctly. She looked into his eyes, somber and kind, and saw he meant what he said. Three new dresses. She couldn’t believe it. “I don’t need anything.”

“A coat, too. Mrs. Pole, get her the warmest gloves you have in this store. And the fabric she wants for the curtains.”

“Will do,” the shopkeeper’s wife promised, bustling around the counter to fetch and measure the material. “You might want to get your bride new shoes. Honestly, Austin, you’re a businessman in this town. What will folks think?”

“New shoes it is.” Austin’s hand remained on her shoulder, a reassuring pressure that seared through fabric and skin to the bone beneath.

Was he embarrassed by her? She bit her bottom lip, gazing down at her dress. The patches were neat. The dress had been a hand-me-down her mother had found for her years ago, and though worn, it was serviceable. But he didn’t seem to think so. This was another sign that Austin may have hoped for more in his mail-order bride. A businessman like him might have wished for someone fancier and not so plain.

“I want you to have what you need, Willa.”

I’m not in need, she wanted to argue but Austin’s hand skimmed down her arm, leaving a warm trail on flesh and bone. She shivered, not at all sure why his touch affected her like this, as if fire burned on her skin. That fire scattered her thoughts, making it impossible to think. She stared down at the toes of her patched shoes, remembering the day her mother had brought them home.

“They were left behind at the hotel.” Ma had slapped the pair of shoes down with the look of disdain she always had for her daughter. “They ain’t much, but they’re about your size. Not that you deserve ‘em. Patch the hole in the toe and wear ‘em, girl, cuz that’s all you’ll be gettin’ from me.”

The vestiges of the past whirled around her, threatening to drain the light from the cheerful store. Willa blinked, bringing the present back into focus and fighting down the memories and the shame that still clung to her, the shame of being the ruination of her mother’s life. She did not want Austin to be ashamed of her, too. His fingers curved around hers to lift her hand, and he drew the pad of his thumb across the golden sheen of her wedding band.

“I ask this for me.” His sculpted face turned thoughtful before he fixed his gaze on hers. “I want this for you. No more patches, Willa. I think you deserve more.”

He really was a nice man. He surprised her with his gentle blue eyes and dimpled smile, with the friendly squeeze of his strong fingers around her hand as if to say things really were all right.

“It’s still too expensive,” she leaned in to tell him, aware of Mrs. Pole and Evelyn nearby. “A good wife doesn’t spend all her husband’s money on the first day of their marriage.”

“I’ve waited a long time to find a bride.” Something glimmered deep and private in his words, something that reflected in his eyes and whispered in his voice. “For better of worse, you are it. Three dresses, do you hear me? This one is pretty. It matches your eyes.”

She couldn’t look at the garment he’d taken from the shelf, caught up by the man. She’d been too afraid of being a bride again to truly consider what he’d been telling her. But standing in the cheerful store, with Evelyn’s and Mrs. Pole’s merry conversation in the background and with handsome Austin towering beside her, holding the nicest dress she’d ever seen, she understood the look in his eyes. She heard the silent question he asked.

She knew what loneliness was. She’d grown up in a home where she had to blend in to the background because the sight of her upset her mother. She’d married a man whose best friend was a whiskey bottle. She’d been lonesome as a daughter and as a wife, and she knew how loneliness could eat at you, leaving you longing for a place to really belong, where your heart could be safe.

She couldn’t see how that place existed, but she could read the hope for it in Austin’s eyes as he held the dress up to her, a dress far too fine for her. She did not want to be an embarrassment to him. Clearly his sister did not have a single patch on her dress, so Willa found herself nodding. The garment would be fine.

“And it’s the right size for her.” Evelyn bustled over, eager to help now that the problem had been solved. Now that the man had put down his foot—kindly, but it had been done all the same. “You’re right, Austin, look what it does to her eyes. I can take over now. Stop staring at her like you’ll never see her again. You’ll get her back when I’m done with her.”

“You make sure to take care of her.” He handed the dress to Mrs. Pole, who had rushed over to make the sale, but he didn’t move away. “You brought so little with you, Willa. You need to buy here what you left behind. Knitting needles, an embroidery hoop. Whatever makes you happy.”