A Wicked Woman (Mail Order Bride of Slate Springs 3)

Instead of them coming to the house where I had two very overprotective husbands, husbands who were hovering over me as if I were a piece of china that might fall and break, I was at the mercantile the next day when they approached. It had taken an hour of cajoling to get Jed and Knox to agree I could go on my own. I wasn’t delivering the baby today and I wasn’t nauseous at all. If this was the way it was going to be for the next nine months, it was going to be a long winter.

Like two looming black crows, Marina and Tara swooped in and began to pick.

“That color will make your complexion even more sallow.”

I was facing the table with the bolts of fabric. I’d just picked up a yellow color that would work well to make sacks for the miners, easily visible within the dark tunnels to find tools and their lunches. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath, let it out. No, I wasn’t sick—at least, not yet.

Where was Piper’s bravery or my husbands’ protectiveness? I was alone and had to face them, knowing they’d be angry at me for something I’d done, or not done. For anything, really.

It was time. I’d had enough, so I adjusted my glasses, then turned to face them.

Mr. Beebe was keeping himself busy at the counter but I could see he was listening intently. Thomas slipped out the front door. One of the ladies from church, her name I didn’t recall, was by the premade dresses. Three miners were toward the back scooping nails from a barrel and into a tin bucket.

“Marina, Tara. A lovely day, isn’t it?” It was, but that was irrelevant.

“You sent us to a house that had been destroyed in a mudslide.”

I shook my head. “No, I didn’t. You were adamant about staying in my late husband’s home and I had no opportunity to tell you otherwise.”

“We spent the night in the boarding house,” Tara said, as if the idea was so far beneath her.

I gave a pleasant smile. “That’s nice. Mrs. Byrne has a lovely home and I’ve heard she makes delicious biscuits.”

“We will stay with you tonight,” Marina exclaimed.

I pushed my glasses up, lifted my chin. “No, you will not.”

Both of them narrowed their eyes. “You have no say.”

“It is my home. I have all the say,” I countered.

Tara sniffed and played with the lace edging of her sleeve. “Then we will tell your husband about your behavior in Clancy. How you lost your job.”

Her voice carried so others in the store could hear her blackmail. I would have cowered, before, but not now. Instead, I shrugged and pretended to have Piper’s spine and devil-may-care attitude.

“Tell my husband. Tell both of them.” They stared at me, clearly confused. Good. For the first time in my life, I felt as if I was the one in control with these two. “Ladies, you’re frowning. Remember what that does to your face.” I leaned in and whispered, “No man likes a dour woman.”

They smoothed out their expressions immediately while I tried to hide a smile. I was enjoying this. Immensely.

“Both husbands?” Marina turned to Tara. “It’s worse than I thought. You’re a schemer. A swindler. A… a hussy!”

I looked up in the air as if deep in thought. “As to the first two, I don’t believe so, but as to being a hussy, I will admit, Knox and Jed like me that way.”

The churchwoman stifled a laugh with a cough, but moved a foot closer.

“Jed and Knox, the Dare brothers?”

I nodded once. “Yes, my husbands.”

“You can’t have two husbands,” Marina screeched.

I winced, completely for effect. “Of course I can. You don’t know about the law?” Shrugging, I continued. “Oh, dear. A woman in Slate Springs is legally allowed to have two husbands.”

While stunned, they looked completely doubtful. “You’re a liar, out to make us look poorly.”

“Mr. Beebe,” I called. The man stopped pretending to be busy and looked my way. “The marriage law. It is fact, is it not?”

“Yes, it is. The mayor himself shares a wife with his brother.”