Short Straw Bride (Harlequin Historical) Read online

  “Eleanor.” He eased his hold, reaching out to draw her up, intending to apologize, to offer comfort.

  The moment his grip loosened, Eleanor twisted with the speed of a striking snake and fastened her teeth in the first portion of his anatomy that presented itself, which happened to be his thigh.

  If it hadn’t been for the protective denim of his jeans, Luke thought she might have drawn blood, which was what she seemed to be after. Denied that, she still managed to inflict considerable discomfort.

  With a howl of mingled outrage and pain, Luke shot to his feet. Since Eleanor was still sprawled across his lap, his sudden move dumped her onto the floor, breaking her grip on his leg at the same time.

  For the space of several heartbeats they stared at each other, Luke’s eyes almost coal black, Eleanor’s brown eyes snapping with a mixture of anger and a touch of fear. Luke was savagely pleased to see the latter. The guilt he’d felt a moment before at striking her had shifted to regret that he hadn’t continued the spanking. The little witch had bitten him!

  He bent, reaching for her. Eleanor scrambled backward and stumbled to her feet, hampered by the enveloping layers of muslin. She darted toward the door but his hand closed around her upper arm, spinning her around and tumbling her back onto the bed.

  This time Luke felt less hesitant about using his strength against her. The struggle was brief, the outcome clear from the start. In a matter of seconds he’d pinned her to the bed, holding her there with the hard length of his body.

  Panting and breathless, she lay beneath him, taut as a fence wire and nearly as full of barbs, Luke thought, feeling the bruises she’d managed to inflict. Her hair had come loose during the wild struggle and now it covered her face, blinding her. She huffed, trying to blow it out of the way.

  Seeing her dilemma, Luke caught her wrists in one hand and pinned them against the tangled covers over her head. He used his free hand to brush the hair away from her face. She gave him a glare by way of a thank-you, her eyes no longer the soft brown of a fawn’s but almost black with rage instead.

  “Now you’re going to listen to me,” he said sternly.

  “You hit me!”

  “You deserved it,” he retorted, ignoring the niggling twinge of guilt. “You damn near took my leg off with your teeth.”

  “Too bad it wasn’t your head,” she snapped, showing no repentance.

  “You’re acting like a child. I don’t know what you’re so fired up about in the first place.”

  “Did you draw straws to see which of you had to get married?” she demanded.

  “Yes.” There was no sense in denying that much.

  “And did you draw the short straw and have to marry me because of it?”

  “I didn’t have to marry you. I just had to marry someone.” If he’d thought that bit of information would cool her ire, he was mistaken.

  “You married me because you lost.” She all but spit the last word at him.

  “It wasn’t like that. It didn’t have anything to do with you personally. We just figured one of us ought to get married and—”

  “Why?” she interrupted without apology.

  “Why what?” With her stretched out beneath him, it wasn’t easy to keep his mind on the conversation. His body, tuned to fever pitch by the fight, was starting to occupy itself in other directions.

  “Why did one of you have to get married?” Obviously, Eleanor was not having the same problem with her concentration.

  “Well, there was the house. It needed a woman’s touch.”

  “It needed blasting powder. It looked like a bunch of hogs had been living here.”

  Luke didn’t think that was quite fair, but she was angry and he’d allow her the exaggeration. With her eyes shooting sparks at him the way they were and the length of her body pressed to his, he was willing to allow her just about anything she wanted.

  “We knew the place needed a woman,” he said, bringing his mind back to the conversation at hand with an effort.

  “Why not hire a housekeeper?”

  “We thought of that. But we’d had trouble with the last couple of women we hired. A wife seemed a better idea,” he admitted—a mistake, apparently.

  “Ooooo!” The sound was somewhere between a wildcat’s scream and a steam whistle, and it was the only warning she gave. She arched abruptly, trying to dislodge his weight. The movement was sudden enough and he’d been distracted enough that she nearly succeeded.

  There was a frantic scramble for control with Luke hampered by the need to avoid hurting her. Eleanor felt no such need. A pained grunt escaped him as her knee caught him on the thigh. Considering where she’d been aiming, Luke considered himself fortunate to escape with a bruise. By the time he’d managed to regain control, they were both breathless.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” he demanded furiously.

  “Get off me!”

  “Are you going to stop trying to kill me?” Her eyes gave him the answer and he judiciously tightened his hold on her wrists.

  How could he have thought she didn’t have a temper? he wondered, staring down at her flushed face. He’d seen rabid coyotes look friendlier—less dangerous, too, he thought, feeling the assorted bruises she’d managed to deliver. He’d been in barroom brawls and come out with fewer injuries. But then, in a barroom brawl, he’d never had to concern himself with protecting his opponent.

  “I don’t know what you’re so riled about,” he said, his exasperation plain. “It isn’t as if we married for love.”

  Eleanor had been straining her arms against his hold but, at his words, she stilled. She stared up at him for a moment, her eyes unreadable. And then her lashes lowered, shielding her expression from him.

  “No, we didn’t marry for love,” she murmured, the first sign of reasonableness that Luke had seen since he entered the room.

  “Then why are you so angry?”

  Instead of answering his question, she asked one of her own. “Why didn’t you hire a housekeeper?”

  Luke considered the question, wondering if the truth was going to set her off again. But since he didn’t have a plausible lie, the truth was going to have to do. Besides, it wasn’t as if there was anything wrong with the truth, dammit!

  “A housekeeper couldn’t give me a son,” he said. “I told you I wanted children, and that takes a wife.”

  He waited, wishing he could read something in her expression. But she kept her eyes lowered and her face utterly still, leaving him to guess what might be going on in that female head of hers.

  Angry or not, she felt remarkably good beneath him. His body, oblivious to the taut atmosphere, was reacting to the feel of her stretched out against him. Hardly conscious of moving, Luke shifted, his hips nudging more firmly between her thighs so that she cradled his growing arousal against her feminine softness.

  He wanted her in a way he couldn’t ever remember wanting a woman before. Dammit all, he didn’t even know what they were fighting about! What difference did it make how she’d come to be his wife? She was, and that was what mattered.

  Feeling his hardness, sensing the change in his mood, Eleanor went utterly still, like a rabbit sensing the nearness of a hunter. Her eyes met his and she saw the hunger in the tightness of the skin stretched over his cheekbones, in the way his eyes had darkened to the color of smoke.

  “No.” She gasped the word out, turning her head to the side as he bent to kiss her. Deprived of her mouth, Luke settled for nuzzling the taut line of her neck instead.

  “You’re my wife.” His breath whispered over her skin. The light touch sent a shiver of awareness through her. He’d taught her too well these past two weeks, she thought bitterly. Her body responded to his touch like a finely tuned instrument to the hands of a master. But she’d rather die than give in to him now.

  “You’ll have to force me.” Her voice was hard as tempered steel, not an inch of give in it.

  Luke lifted his head to stare down at her, reading the de
termination in her face. He could make her give in to him, even wring a response from her, whether she was willing to admit it or not. Hell, she was his wife; there’d be no one to blame him if he took what he wanted, willing or not.

  But he’d never forced a woman in his life and had nothing but contempt for a man who would do so, whether she was his wife or not. With a curse he released his hold on her, rolling off the bed and out of reach as he did so. If she took another swing at him, he couldn’t vouch for his temper. The next time she hit him, he’d either turn her over his knee again or flip her skirts over her head and bury himself in the sweet warmth of her.

  But Eleanor didn’t try to renew her attack. She was more concerned with pulling her nightdress down over her bare legs as she scrambled off the bed on the side opposite him. She watched him without speaking, her dark eyes wary. With her hair lying in tangled curls on her shoulders and her breasts still heaving with exertion, she might have been a painting labeled Temptation. The thought put an extra edge to his voice.

  “Let me know when you’re through with your temper tantrum,” he said coldly. Without another word he turned and stalked from the room, his boot heels ringing on the wooden floor.

  He snatched his hat up on the way out the front door, slapping it on his head as he strode across the yard to the barn. There were lights on in the bunkhouse and he briefly considered Daniel’s suggestion that there was room for him to sleep there. But he discarded the thought as soon as it came. He’d be damned before he’d have every cowboy on the place knowing that his wife had thrown him out of their bed.

  The barn was warm and smelled of fresh hay and animals. The gray gelding recognized the sound of Luke’s footsteps and put his head over the stall door to snort a greeting. At least my horse is happy to see me, Luke thought sourly. He stopped to rub the gelding’s forehead.

  He still couldn’t believe Eleanor’s display of temper—a temper he’d have just about bet the ranch she didn’t possess. It seemed Daniel was right—there wasn’t a woman born who didn’t throw fits.

  He wasn’t an unreasonable man, Luke thought, feeling somewhat aggrieved. He could understand how a woman might not much like to hear that she’d been married because her husband had drawn a short straw. Not that it seemed to him that it should matter all that much. They were married, and that was all there was to it. But a woman might not see it that way and he could understand Eleanor being upset. If she’d cried, he would have been more than willing to dry her tears.

  But instead of tears, she’d tried to kill him. Might have succeeded, too, if he’d been a little slower. Luke fingered the shallow cut on his forehead. It was little more than a scrape but the severity of the injury was not the point. The point was that Eleanor had inflicted it, along with more bruises than he could count.

  Eleanor—his quiet, biddable bride.

  He still couldn’t believe the display of temper he’d witnessed. Damned if she hadn’t looked as if she’d have been happy to see him dead.

  “She could have killed me,” he said aloud.

  The gelding nodded his head in sympathy. Or maybe he was just trying to make sure Luke’s scratching fingers reached a particular itch.

  “How was I supposed to know that she had a temper like a catamount with its tail caught in a trap?”

  The gelding snorted.

  “Females,” Luke muttered in a tone laced with disgust. “I should have stayed single.”

  She should never have married Luke McLain. That was the one thought that penetrated Eleanor’s storm of weeping. She’d have been better off staying with her aunt and uncle. At least they hadn’t drawn straws for her as if she was a…an unwanted package that someone had to take.

  She caught her breath on a sob. No, that wasn’t true. They’d never made much secret of not wanting her. If they could have drawn straws to get rid of her, they might have done so, despite Uncle Zeb’s aversion to gambling. So she’d gone from a home where she wasn’t wanted to a husband gained because he’d lost a silly, childish gamble.

  Gulping to stem the flow of tears, Eleanor rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. Her chest ached with a mixture of hurt and anger. Was there something wrong with her? Had she committed some sin, that she should be punished by being forced to live where she wasn’t wanted?

  But Luke hadn’t said he didn’t want her. He hadn’t said that at all. She sat up, her breath hitching in her chest with residual sobs. What was it he’d said?

  I didn’t have to marry you. I just had to marry someone.

  So once he’d drawn the short straw, he’d still had to choose a bride. And he’d chosen her.

  Eleanor slid off the bed and padded across the room to get a clean handkerchief. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose. Her breath still catching a little, she sat down on the wooden rocking chair in the corner next to the window and drew her bare feet up under the edge of her nightgown.

  Luke had married her by choice.

  She rolled that thought around and felt some of the tightness in her chest ease. However he’d gone about deciding to get married, he hadn’t married her as a result of drawing a short straw. And as he’d pointed out, it wasn’t as if they’d married for love.

  The reminder had been painful but she couldn’t deny the truth of it. Luke had never said he loved her. And if she had been foolish enough to fall in love with him—and she wasn’t entirely ready to admit that she had—then she couldn’t blame him for her change of heart.

  The problem was, she’d gone into this marriage with too many stars in her eyes. She’d told herself that she was being practical but she’d really been a romantic child, dreaming about happily ever after. The past two weeks should have beaten that out of her. Hadn’t Luke made it abundantly clear that he’d wanted a wife for cooking and cleaning and not much else?

  Well, for a few other things, she admitted as her glance fell on the bed. Now the covers were rumpled from their struggle, but most mornings their tousled condition was caused by something else entirely. Certainly, she had no complaints about that part of her marriage. And she didn’t think Luke did, either.

  A short straw! Eleanor winced at the thought. It was a far cry from her romantic fantasies. But it was done and they were married and she was simply going to have to make the best of it. Now that her temper had cooled a bit and she was able to think a little more clearly, she had to admit that things could have been worse.

  Whatever his reasons for marrying her, Luke had proved to be a kind husband so far. He’d treated her gently. Most of the time, she amended, aware of a tenderness in her nether regions. She shifted uncomfortably in the hard rocker, her eyes darkening with renewed anger at the remembered abuse he’d delivered.

  Of course, he had been provoked, she admitted, thinking of the bloody scrape on his forehead. Perhaps she shouldn’t have thrown that shoe. Eleanor considered that possibility for a moment and then shook her head. He’d deserved that—and worse. Her only real regret was that she hadn’t managed to inflict more damage. Luke should never have drawn straws over something as important as marriage.

  No doubt he’d been congratulating himself on having gotten a docile bride, one who’d cause him little trouble while providing the sons he wanted. She’d given him little enough reason to think she was anything other than that these past two weeks.

  “If you act like a doormat, you’ve no cause for complaint if people treat you as such,” she muttered to herself. She stood, putting one hand to her bruised derriere, her small chin firming in a way that might have made Luke nervous if he’d been witness to it.

  She couldn’t change the past. She was married and that was all there was to it. And marriage to Luke McLain, no matter how it had come about, was certainly better than being an unpaid and unwelcome drudge in her aunt’s home. It was even, though she’d admit it only to herself, better than finding herself married to Andrew Webb and his four children.

  No, she couldn’t say, even with anger still churning inside her, t
hat she was sorry she’d married Luke, But it was time and past that she made a few changes around here. More than simply dusting and cleaning. Luke might have got himself a bride and, God willing, he’d have the sons he wanted, too, she thought, setting a hand against her stomach. But he was going to find out that she wasn’t quite the biddable girl he might have thought her.

  Of course, considering the encounter just past, he might already have a hint of that. Eleanor smiled at the thought and crawled into bed, feeling better than she’d have thought possible an hour ago.

  Chapter Eleven

  Luke wasn’t sure what to expect from Eleanor when he saw her at breakfast. But since a pile of hay had proved a scratchy and uncomfortable bed, he’d had plenty of time during the night to contemplate the possibilities.

  His favorite image was of Eleanor repentant over her display of temper the night before. He’d walk into the kitchen and find his breakfast laid out for him—mounds of fluffy biscuits, bacon sizzling on the stove, fried potatoes in the warming oven and Eleanor poised to cook his eggs. Those big dark eyes of hers would be soft and warm—and just a little red from crying tears of regret. Her smile would be a little trembly around the edges—her look asking for forgiveness.

  He might not give it right away, he decided, touching the wound on his forehead gingerly. But eventually, he’d forgive her and they’d make up. A faint smile curved Luke’s mouth as he considered just what form that making up might take. When he was a boy, he’d once heard his pa say that making up was the best part of having a quarrel. He hadn’t understood it then, but he could certainly understand it now.

  Maybe Eleanor would offer to kiss every bruise she’d inflicted, he thought, letting his imagination run wild. She could start with the scrape on his forehead and work her way down to the bite on his thigh. The image brought a new ache to join the ones he already had.

  The hay rustled under Luke as he shifted uncomfortably on his scratchy bed. Dammit all, he didn’t see why making up had to wait until morning. What was he giving her time to think about, anyway? He was her husband. He had certain rights, and the least of them was the right to sleep in his own bed. If Eleanor didn’t want to share it with him, let her spend the night in the barn.