Short Straw Bride (Harlequin Historical) Read online

  Luke had been standing in front of the bookcase, his head tilted to read the titles on the rows of leather-bound books. He turned as she entered the room, and Eleanor was helpless to control the color that rose in her cheeks. Nor could she prevent her heartbeat from accelerating beyond all reason.

  “Miss Williams.”

  “Mr. McLain. Uncle Zeb said you wished to speak to me?” She was pleased to hear the steadiness of her voice.

  “Yes.” He cleared his throat and gestured to the small sofa that sat against one wall. “Perhaps we could sit down?”

  They were barely seated when a piercing shriek issued from the direction of the parlor. “I won’t have it! I won’t, I won’t, I won’t!” Anabel’s voice rose in a crescendo of rage, peaking in another shriek that ended abruptly in the sound of a slap. Eleanor’s eyes widened in shock. In the six years she’d lived here, she’d never once seen anyone raise a hand to Anabel, no matter how uncontrolled her behavior.

  “My cousin is, uh, terrified of mice,” she murmured in response to Luke’s inquiring look. Other than lifting one dark brow, he didn’t comment, but something in his eyes suggested that he had his doubts about the outburst having been caused by a mouse.

  She folded her hands neatly in her lap in a ladylike pose that served to conceal her trembling fingers. She gave Luke McLain a look of polite inquiry and hoped he couldn’t see the way her heart pounded beneath her bodice.

  “I, ah, wished to speak with you, Miss Williams.” Now that the moment was here, Luke wished himself anywhere but where he was. It had all seemed so straightforward and simple when he’d thought about it. He’d propose. She’d accept because there was no good reason for her not to. They’d set a date, he’d be on his way and it would be settled.

  “Yes, Mr. McLain?” She tilted her head, those big brown eyes looking at him inquiringly, and Luke suddenly realized that his collar was too tight. He resisted the urge to run his finger underneath the starched linen. He cleared his throat.

  “My mother has been dead these past three years,” he began, groping for words.

  “I know. You must miss her a great deal.”

  “Yes.” He found his eyes drawn to Eleanor’s mouth. He hadn’t realized what a soft, kissable mouth she had. Her lower lip was fuller than the upper, giving her mouth a sensual pout that seemed to invite a man to taste it. Had that stick Webb kissed her? The thought was more irritating than it had any business being.

  He realized that she was still looking at him, waiting for him to get to the point of his visit. He wanted nothing more than to oblige, but dammit all, he hadn’t expected the point to be so hard to get to!

  “The fact is, with my brother and I living alone and all the work that’s required to run a ranch, we don’t have much time to put into taking care of a house. Cooking and cleaning and suchlike.” He gestured vaguely to indicate the myriad tasks that went into running a house.

  “I can understand that. You must have a great many responsibilities.” Is he going to offer me a job?

  “Yes. And more than just the responsibilities on the ranch. There’s the future to think of.” Now where did I come up with a pompous piece like that? But Eleanor was looking at him with those big brown eyes, seeming to hang on his every word, and Luke found himself continuing. “When a man works to build something up, he has to think toward the future, provide for its care.”

  “That’s very true, Mr. McLain.” Good heavens, he is going to offer me a job! Eleanor was torn between excitement and uncertainty. She couldn’t possibly go to work for him and his brother. The whole town would be scandalized.

  “When I saw you at church, you seemed like just what I had in mind,” Luke said, starting to feel a little more at ease. “I realize this is kind of sudden and that we don’t know each other all that well but there’d be plenty of time for getting to know each other afterward.”

  After what? Eleanor felt as if she’d lost some vital thread of the conversation. After he hired her? And what difference did it make if they knew each other? Hiring a housekeeper didn’t require an intimate acquaintance.

  “I didn’t mean to rush things so much but, what with spring being a busy time of year and not wanting to put things off till summer or even fall, and you seeming a sensible girl, I thought you might not be offended by me taking a few shortcuts.”

  “Shortcuts?” Eleanor blinked in confusion. What on earth is he talking about?

  “Your uncle said he’d give his permission, so there’d be no problem there.”

  Uncle Zeb had given his permission for her to live on an isolated ranch with two bachelors?

  “He said it was up to you.” Luke looked at her expectantly and Eleanor found herself wanting to agree to anything he asked. But if she went to live with the McLain brothers, her reputation would be in shreds before the buggy made it to the edge of town. Was Uncle Zeb so anxious to get rid of her that he’d throw his precious propriety completely to the winds?

  “Mr. McLain, I’m afraid I don’t know exactly what it is I’m to make a decision about,” she said finally.

  Luke stared at her in surprise. What did she mean, she didn’t know? Hadn’t he just asked her to marry him? He went over the conversation in his mind and felt color creep over his cheekbones as he realized that he’d talked around the question without ever once actually saying the words. He cleared his throat, annoyed to find himself nervous.

  “I’m asking you to be my wife, Miss Williams.”

  The words fell like stones into a pool, spreading ripples of silence in their wake. Eleanor stared at him, her dark eyes round with shock, that soft mouth of hers ever so slightly open. The sound of Anabel sobbing could be heard from another room.

  “Your wife?” Eleanor’s voice rose in a squeak. She lifted one shaking hand and pressed it to her bosom, wondering if it was possible that a heart could beat so hard it actually jumped right out of a body. “You want to marry me?”

  “That’s the idea.”

  She was going to turn him down. He could see it in her face, in the stunned look in her eyes. She was going to say no, which was no more than he deserved, rushing into this like a thirsty bull heading for water.

  Luke gave in to the urge to tug at his collar. This had been a damn fool idea from the start. When he got back to the ranch he was going to find Daniel and punch him right in the nose. It had been his damn fool notion that one of them had to get married in the first place. If it wasn’t just like his little brother to get him into a situation like this. He’d knock him into next Sunday. He’d—

  “Yes.” Luke was so absorbed in his plans for revenging himself on Daniel that it took a moment for Eleanor’s breathless response to penetrate.

  “What?”

  “I said yes. I’d be most honored to be your wife, Mr. McLain.”

  “You would?”

  “Yes.” She flushed and lowered her eyes to stare at the fingers she’d twisted together in her lap. “Of course, if you regret your proposal, I’d not—”

  “No. No, of course not.” There was more conviction in his voice than in his heart. Now that it had come right down to it and he’d found himself an engaged man, Luke was less sure than ever that this was a good idea. But he’d proposed and she’d accepted and that’s all there was to it.

  He stared at her downbent head, wondering what he was supposed to do or say now. Should he kiss her? The thought held considerable appeal, but from the way she was all but tying her fingers in a knot, he thought she might jump like a scalded cat if he touched her.

  Now what? Eleanor wondered, staring at her fingers. Was he going to kiss her? The thought made her tremble with an emotion somewhere between terror and delight. It was one thing to imagine what it might be like to have Luke McLain kiss her. It was something else altogether to actually contemplate it happening.

  “I’m honored, Miss Williams,” Luke said as the silence threatened to stretch awkwardly.

  “The honor is mine, Mr. McLain.” She couldn’t
bring herself to look at him.

  There was another period of silence.

  “Maybe we should talk to your aunt and uncle,” he said finally. “Make arrangements about dates and such.”

  Torn between disappointment that he wasn’t going to kiss her and relief about the same, Eleanor could only nod, her eyes still on her hands. It was only when he rose and went to the door that she dared to steal a quick look at him. She felt dizzy, her thoughts tumbling wildly. The only one that came clear was that Luke McLain had just asked her to marry him. Incredible, unbelievable as it seemed, she was actually going to marry him.

  The idea didn’t become much more real, even when Uncle Zeb and Aunt Dorinda joined them in the study. Dorinda’s eyes, a faded version of her daughter’s, reflected such dazed disbelief that Eleanor wanted to giggle. There was no sign of Anabel. She was probably lying in her room with a damp cloth over her forehead, trying to absorb the reality that, not only was her despised cousin going to make it to the altar before she did, but she was marrying a man Anabel had set her own sights on. The thought made Eleanor smile, the first time she’d done so since Luke’s proposal.

  Luke didn’t know what had made his affianced wife smile, but he was glad to see a little color creep back into her face. She’d been so pale that he’d wondered if she might not just keel over right where she was sitting. Her eyes skittered past his and her cheeks took on a bit more color before she looked back down at her hands. She really was a shy little thing, he thought, feeling almost indulgent.

  “I guess you’ll be wanting to set a date,” Zeb Williams said grudgingly. He’d offered the appropriate good wishes in a flat tone that drained any meaning from them.

  “I think I could manage by the end of summer,” Dorinda said reluctantly.

  “I had in mind two weeks from this next Saturday,” Luke said.

  “Two weeks!” Her voice rose sharply. “Impossible!”

  “I don’t see why,” Luke said. “Unless the preacher isn’t going to be around. Spring calving should be just about over by then. Seems to me like a good time for a wedding.”

  “It’s obvious that you’ve never been married before, Mr. McLain,” Dorinda said with heavy-handed humor. “Weddings take time to arrange. There are things to be done.”

  “What kind of things?” Luke asked, starting to feel impatient. Dammit, this whole business of finding a wife had already taken enough of his time.

  “Since this has been so sudden, I think we should have a small party to announce the engagement and introduce the two of you.”

  “Introduce us?” Luke raised his brows. “To who? Unless there’s been a sudden rush of immigrants, there’s not many people in this town that don’t already know each other.”

  “Introduce you as a couple, Mr. McLain,” Dorinda said, with just a touch of condescension. “We need people to get used to the idea that you and Eleanor are…seeing one another.” The words seemed to stick in her throat. “Then we can announce your engagement. There’ll be a few parties. We’ll have invitations to write and Eleanor will need a wedding dress. These things may not seem important to you, Mr. McLain,” Dorinda said, anticipating his objections, “but this sort of thing is dear to the female heart. God willing, a woman only has one wedding in her life. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to deny Eleanor the opportunity to enjoy all the little traditions that go along with it.”

  Luke swallowed the urge to argue. If this sort of feminine fussing was what a woman considered necessary for her wedding day, he supposed he had no choice but to go along with it. He could hardly start his marriage off by denying his bride her heart’s desire. But the thought of spending the summer traipsing back and forth to town, attending the sort of gatherings Dorinda Williams thought appropriate…He barely restrained a shudder.

  “Two weeks sounds just fine to me.” It was the first time Eleanor had spoken since the discussion began, and three pairs of eyes immediately swiveled in her direction, reflecting varying degrees of surprise, as if her presence had been all but forgotten.

  “Don’t be absurd, Eleanor.” Dorinda was the first to speak, her voice sharp. “You have no idea the amount of work that goes into a proper wedding.”

  “I can’t think of anything that can’t be done in two weeks,” Eleanor said mildly.

  Dorinda recognized the set of her niece’s chin and knew there’d be no budging her. How such a quiet girl could have such a stubborn streak, she’d never understand. Heaven knew, she’d done her best to break her of it and there’d been times when she thought she’d succeeded. Then something would come up and the girl would set her chin in that particular way and Dorinda would know that nothing less than a team of wild horses would be able to change her mind.

  Eleanor ignored the knot in her stomach and met her aunt’s angry gaze. If Luke wanted to get married in two weeks, then two weeks it would be. It wasn’t as if she were leaving behind a happy home, she thought. Besides, two weeks gave Luke less time to change his mind and decide that hiring a housekeeper would be better than taking a wife.

  Luke smiled at his fiancée, thinking that he’d made a wise choice. They weren’t even married yet and she was already anxious to please him.

  “It’s not possible,” Dorinda said, but there was defeat in her tone.

  “We’ll manage.” Eleanor’s tone was quiet but implacable. She wondered if her aunt’s desire to delay the wedding wasn’t based on the hope that Luke would come to his senses and choose Anabel, after all.

  “A rushed wedding is bound to cause talk. People will wonder if there isn’t a reason for hurrying things along.” Dorinda’s tone was concerned, but the look she shot between the two of them was suspicious, as if she were wondering if they knew each other better than she’d thought. “There’ll be talk.”

  “Not in my hearing,” Luke said. “Not more than once.” The cool threat in the flat statement was enough to silence even Dorinda Williams.

  So the date was set for two weeks from the coming Saturday. Not long after, Luke took his leave. As a newly engaged woman, Eleanor was allowed to walk him out to the front porch without a chaperon. Though, engaged or not, she couldn’t see why she’d need a chaperon, not when the porch was in full view of anyone riding by.

  Luke’s horse stood in front of the house, reins looped through the iron handle that an enterprising blacksmith had attached to an old cannonball. The gray stood on three legs, drowsing in the late-afternoon sun, switching his tail occasionally to discourage flies.

  Eleanor linked her hands together in front of her and tried to think of something to say. She’d just become engaged to this man. There must be a great many things that needed to be said, but not a one came to mind.

  “I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it back to town between now and the wedding,” Luke said.

  “That’s all right. I know you’ve a great deal of work to do and I’ll be busy with the wedding preparations and suchlike.” She risked lifting her eyes to his face and found him watching her with an unreadable expression.

  “You’re sure about this?” he asked abruptly. “About marrying me?”

  “I’m sure. Unless…unless you’ve changed your mind.” She had to force the words out through a throat that suddenly felt much too dry. If he’d changed his mind…

  “I haven’t.” The flat reassurance slowed the pounding of her heart.

  “I’ll do my best to be a good wife to you, Mr. McLain.”

  “Don’t try too hard. I don’t want too high a standard to live up to.” His crooked grin made her breathless all over again. “And I’d guess you’d better start calling me Luke.”

  “Is it short for Lucas?”

  “Yes. But the only person ever called me Lucas was my mother, and that was only when she was scolding me.”

  “I’ll try to keep that in mind. It might come in handy to have a way to let you know when I’m upset with you.”

  The quick, teasing smile surprised him and so did his reaction to it. He had
the urge to pull her into his arms and press his mouth to hers, to see if that smile tasted as sweet as it looked. And probably scare her to death in the process.

  He looked away from temptation, squinting out into the sunlight instead. When he looked at her again, her smile had faded but a trace of it still lingered around her mouth. She was looking at him with those big brown eyes, innocent as a newborn fawn. But the thoughts she inspired in him were far from innocent. The slight fullness of her lower lip drew his attention. He probably wouldn’t see her until the wedding, which was over two weeks away, and it suddenly seemed impossible that he should leave without even a taste of her.

  Eleanor’s eyes widened as Luke’s hand came up, his fingers cupping her cheek. The only other time he’d touched her had been when she’d spilled cherry pie all over his shirt. Then, the quick acceleration of her pulse might have been caused by the disastrous circumstances. But her pulse was beating just as rapidly now and there wasn’t a disaster in sight.

  She could feel the roughness of calluses on his hand and she suddenly thought of Andrew Webb’s hand, pressing hers in greeting, soft and vaguely damp, lacking the work-roughened strength of Luke’s.

  “Do you suppose there’d be any objection to a man kissing his future wife?” His voice was husky, his face close enough that she could feel the brush of his breath against her skin.

  Eleanor tried to find her voice, swallowed and tried again, but nervous anticipation had closed her throat, stealing her voice. She settled for an almost imperceptible shake of her head, not certain herself whether it was permission or protest.

  And then it was too late for either. His mouth was touching hers, and all her innocent imaginings about what a kiss would be disappeared in a rush of heat.

  She closed her eyes, lost in sensation. His mouth was warm and dry, softer than she’d imagined it would be. Even as she thought that, Luke’s lips firmed against hers, his hand cupping the back of her neck as he tilted her face up to his, deepening the kiss. Drawn off-balance, Eleanor set her palm against his chest to steady herself and was immediately aware of the strong beat of his heart beneath her hand.