The Unexpected Wife

Even the animals on the ranch seemed to have no need of her company.

She wasn’t sure how long she stood there, watching the mare and her colt. The creak of the barn door opening had her turning.

Mr. Barrington stood in the doorway. Abby turned back to the horse.

“You going to stay out here all night?” Mr. Barrington’s deep rich voice echoed in the barn.

Her stomach tightened and her skin grew hot. “Maybe. I like it out here. It’s peaceful.”

He strode up to the stall. When he stood next to her she realized just how tall he was. Abby had been taller than a good many men in her family, but Mr. Barrington stood at least five inches taller.

So close his shoulder nearly brushed hers. His masculine scent, a mixture of sweat and fresh air, spun around her. Annoyed by her reaction to him, she tightened her fingers into fists. She’d have left, but where would she go? Back to her loft where she could lie awake listening to him move about the cabin?

Neither spoke as he held out his hand to the mare. The animal approached instantly.

Stupid to feel a stab of jealousy over a horse, but she did. Every square inch of the homestead from the roughly hewn logs of the house, to the split-rail fences of the corral bore Mr. Barrington’s mark. Elise’s presence was all over the house and yard as well. Today, she’d wanted to make her mark, if only a small one, on the ranch.

“I put the boys to bed.”

“Thank you.” She’d imagined she’d be the one putting them down—saying their prayers, giving them a kiss good-night as she tucked the covers under their chins. Dreams. There she went again letting her dreams set her up for sadness.

“Temperature is going to drop off quickly,” he said.

She’d never been good at small talk or ignoring a problem when it was staring her right in the face. “What does the temperature have to do with the fact that you were rude to me just now in front of the boys?”

He stared at her, no apology in his gaze. “This situation is awkward.”

She tipped back her head, hysterical laughter bubbling inside her. “I’ve never heard a greater understatement spoken, Mr. Barrington.”

“You’re very direct,” he said. His voice was as hard as his gaze.

“So I’ve been told.” Her forthright manner had gotten her in trouble with her uncle and aunt more than once.

“I can take you back to town.”

A bitter smile twisted her lips. “I didn’t come this far for a twenty-four-hour stay on a ranch. I came out here to marry you.”

He tightened his fingers on the stall doors until the faint sound of wood cracking had him loosening his hold. “A lie brought you here, not me. And the truth is, I’d make you or any woman a lousy husband. Loving Elise—” He paused as if just mentioning her name hurt. “Well, loving her used up all the love that was in me. There’s just none left.”

The admission had cost him and as much as it hurt to hear his words, she appreciated his honesty.

Her aunt and uncle hadn’t loved her. She supposed loving Joanne had used up all their love as well. Then there’d been Douglas. He’d had a fiancée back east. “I have a talent for attaching myself to people who can’t love.”

His eyes narrowed a fraction. “You’ve been married before?”

“No.” Her penchant for honesty grated her own nerves. She wasn’t interested in talking about her past, especially Douglas. “Just a family who didn’t quite know what to do with me.”

A slight breeze blew through the open door, teasing his thick black hair. She inhaled the scent of leather and fresh air.

He was a powerful man, who commanded the space he occupied. No wonder she felt a tug when he was close.

She wished she had a bag full of eloquent words that could magically make his pain and hers go away. Instead, she spoke plainly as she always did. “Elise is gone, Mr. Barrington, and for your sake and the boys, I am sorry.”

His folded his arms over his chest, his face a rigid mask.

She should have taken his expression as warning that he didn’t want to hear what she had to say. She didn’t. “But the fact remains, until your herd brings in enough money to pay my return ticket, we are bound together. So how do you propose we make the best of it?”

Chapter Eight

“We don’t,” Mr. Barrington snapped.

His eyes blazed with anger and she could see he was spoiling for a fight.

Abby folded her arms over her chest but instead of getting angry, she switched tactics. Drawing in a breath, she forced her taut muscles to relax.

“Tell me about your wife,” she said boldly. This was a risk. Elise’s death was a raw wound that had not healed. But to save her future she had to understand his past.

Stiffening, he lowered his dark brows. “She’s dead and buried—gone—and I don’t like to talk about her.”

Only feet separated them but it might have well have been a million miles. “I saw traces of her all over the cabin. Like it or not, she is still very present.”

His jaw clenched so tightly a muscle spasmed in his cheek. “She is gone!”

“No, she’s not. The aprons, curtains, the hash marks on the walls showing how tall Quinn was on his second birthday and Tommy on his first.”

Mr. Barrington swallowed as a ghost of a smile touched his lips. “Quinn was standing on his toes that day. No matter how hard Elise tried to coax him into standing flat-footed, he wouldn’t.”

“I see the comment marks she made in her cookbook and the batter stains on the zucchini bread page.”

His muscles were bunched so tight they looked ready to snap. “She wasn’t a natural cook. But she was trying to learn. She wanted to please me.”

Abby wanted to take his hand in hers as comfort, but didn’t dare, certain he’d recoil. “Is that why she followed you out here?”

He drew in a deep breath and expelled it. “It was my idea to move west.”

“Why?”

“The war devastated the south and for those who fought against the Union the bitterness was too great.”

“Did you meet her in Missouri?”

“Yes, Elise grew up in St. Louis. After the war I made my way west. I’d been a sharpshooter in the rebel army. After the war, I discovered that there was a market for men like me out west. For ten years, I made my money bounty hunting. Six years ago, I tracked down a bank robber and drug him back to St. Louis for trial. This fella was well known and when I dropped him at the jailhouse word spread fast and a crowd gathered. Elise was in the crowd.” He closed his eyes, as if summoning the moment. “She wore a blue bonnet that day. I knew the minute I saw her we’d marry one day.”

Abby felt a stab of jealousy. She’d never been swept off her feet. “And then you moved west.”

Her voice brought him back from the past. “I wanted a place of our own. After my years out west, St. Louis was too crowded for me. I’d been to Montana a couple of times and loved it. I figured it would be the perfect place for us to start our new life.”

“Did Elise like it?”

His expression reflected sadness. “We arrived in the spring. It was an unusually warm spring in ’74. The first few days were like a great adventure. We camped in a tent while I began to build our cabin. But as the days turned to weeks, her excitement soured. She never complained but I knew. And then late that summer she got pregnant with Quinn. She was sick a lot those first few months.” He shook his head. “I should have pulled us out then. But after Quinn’s birth we were in our cabin and her health rallied.”

“How did she die?”

“Pregnancy was hard on her. It took a lot out of her carrying Tommy. But again she rallied. I didn’t want any more children after Tommy was born, but Elise had other ideas. She wanted a girl. From the moment she got pregnant the third time it was a disaster. She was so sick that winter she couldn’t lift her head off the pillow. I sent for Frank and he came in the early spring. A week after Frank arrived, she went into labor. The baby was a girl, but too early, too small. Elise never recovered from the birthing. She died the next day.”

His story broke her heart. Unexpected death could rip lives apart. Her parents’ deaths had changed her forever. “Montana had nothing to do with her death.”

He shook his head. “She hated this place.”

“She couldn’t have hated it that much or there wouldn’t be so many personal touches around the cabin. A woman who hates a place doesn’t make curtains for it.”

He stabbed his fingers through his hair. “She missed the city.”

“Missing one place doesn’t mean you hate another.”

Lantern light shadowed the high slash of his cheekbones. He looked at her, his blue eyes almost black with anger born in sadness. “We’ve talked enough for one night.”

Abby knew she’d pushed him. Though there were a thousand other questions to ask, she knew they’d made a start tonight. And she understood she’d have more luck carving granite with a butter knife than getting him to say another word.

“It is getting late. And it’s been a long day,” she agreed.

Lifting her lantern, she moved past him to the barn door. He trailed silently behind her, closing the barn door after they stepped out into the cold night air.