In Name Only

“Daddy, please—” Shelby began.

He waved away her plea with an angry swipe of his hand. “You told your mother and I that you were going to Denver to spend Labor Day weekend with your cousin. I suppose that was a lie, as were the buying trips you’ve been taking for the past several months.”

When Shelby guiltily dropped her gaze, he swelled his chest, his face a furious red as he turned his glare on Troy. Obviously he didn’t like what he saw. “Is that your truck and trailer parked in the alley, and your horse tied to it?”

Troy refused to be cowed and met the man’s eyes squarely. “Yes sir, it is.”

“Am I to assume, then, that you are a cowboy?”

“I like to think so.”

Troy’s flippant response seemed to anger the man even more. He whirled to face his daughter. “I’ll have the marriage annulled.”

“Daddy!” Shelby cried in horror. “You can’t!”

The preacher stared at her a long, gut-clenching moment, his eyes narrowing to suspicious slits. “And may I ask why not?”

Troy glanced at Shelby and watched the blood drain from her face.

“B-because—” She faltered for a moment, then gave her chin a stubborn lift. “Because I’m an adult and responsible for my own actions.”

“Responsible?” her father said contemptuously. “And eloping with this—this cowboy is what you consider acting responsibly?”

Though the slight was directed at him, Troy ignored it, more concerned with the effect the man’s words were having on Shelby. Her face had gone from ghostly pale to beet-red in a matter of seconds, and she was trembling like a leaf. Though he’d had very little experience with pregnant women, he suspected emotional scenes like the current one being played out couldn’t be good for her or her baby.

Hoping to intercede before any damage was done, he swung his legs across the bed and rose to his feet to stand beside her. Though the Reverend Daniel Cannon was tall, Troy was taller, and broader as well, a fact that he thought, for some stupid reason, might count in his favor.

But he’d failed to remember that he’d grown uncomfortable in the night and unfastened the waist of his jeans.

“For God’s sake, man,” the preacher cried, whirling away from the sight and covering his eyes. “Have you no sense of decency?”

Troy turned and quickly snagged up his zipper, shooting an apologetic look Shelby’s way before turning back around.

“Mr. Cannon—”

The preacher stiffened, but kept his back to the two. “Reverend Cannon,” he clarified with an imperious lift of his chin.

Troy set his jaw. “Reverend Cannon,” he amended, putting the same inflection on the title the preacher had. “I’d appreciate it if you would lower your voice. You’re upsetting my wife.”

The man turned then, and the look of contempt in his eye was so strong Troy felt it like acid against his skin.

“In God’s eyes, and my eyes, she isn’t your wife and won’t be,” he added, turning to glower at Shelby, “until you are properly married in a church.”

“But, Daddy—” Shelby cried.

He held up a hand, cutting her off. “I don’t have time to discuss this further. I have a men’s Bible class to teach.” He gave his waistcoat a tug, then marched for the door. At the threshold he stopped and looked back, singeing them both with a last, contemptuous look. “We’ll discuss this at dinner tonight. Seven sharp. Don’t be late.” Before either could form a response, he slammed the door behind him with enough force to rattle the windows and set the art on the wall askew.

With the slam of the door reverberating in the small room, Troy crossed to the window, braced a wide hand on its frame and looked down below. Shelby knew by his frown that he was monitoring her father’s departure.

She wanted desperately to throw something, anything. Rant, scream, chase down the stairs after her father and rail at him until she’d freed herself of the anger that burned through her.

But she didn’t.

Instead she did as she’d learned to do years before—she took a deep breath…another…then yet another…suppressing the anger, the frustration, until it was nothing but a knot of burning tension in her stomach.

“I’m sorry, Troy. You didn’t deserve that.”

He lifted a shoulder. “Doesn’t matter.”

But it did matter. More, she suspected, than he would ever admit. “Yes, it does,” she insisted. “He had no right to speak to you in that way.”

His scowl deepening, he closed his hand into a fist on the window frame, making the muscles cord across his bare back. “He was angry. I was the natural target.”