Our Desperate Bride (Treasure Falls Brides 2)

“But if we go busting in there, then we give him what he wants. Let’s look around a moment, check the windows and doors. Follow me.”

How many times had Ellis helped Arianna sneak out of the house and escape her father? How many times had they met in the middle of the night? How many times had they gone to the pond where they spent the night together?

Right up until he’d asked her father for her hand.

They scurried around the side of the house and he peeked in the window.

“She’s here,” Ellis told Lee. Stunned, he watched his woman. “It looks like she’s fixing him dinner.”

“What? No, she wouldn’t do that.”

“There are potatoes boiling and a steak in a frying pan that she’s searing.”

Wondering what the hell was going on, he watched as she took a knife and a cast iron frying pan in her other hand and hid it behind her skirt.

“Oh, no. Our Daisy is about to get her revenge,” he said. “Come on.”

They ran back around the house to the front door and Ellis pulled out his Colt, kicked in the door, just in time to see Daisy raise the frying pan.

“Stop,” he called.

Henry raised his gun and with a grin pointed it at Ellis. “I knew you’d come. You’re a little earlier than planned. But I’ll kill you and then eat my supper.”

Ellis heard the gun cock and knew that he should feel a bullet enter his body at any moment, but he couldn’t let Daisy kill Henry. As much as he hated the man for what he’d done, he was still Arianna’s father. She’d loved him.

“You fire that gun, and I’m going to smack you with this frying pan,” Daisy said. “I was just about to hit you when Ellis burst through the door and told me to stop.”

The old man frowned. “No, I don’t believe you. He would let me die.”

“Henry, I loved Arianna. You’re her father and I can’t hurt you. If you want to shoot me, that’s your choice, though I don’t think Lee and Daisy are going to be happy.”

Tears appeared in the old man’s eyes. “She would have been twenty-five today. I would have grandchildren.”

“I know,” Ellis said. “I should have been there with her. But your hate kept us apart. She wouldn’t marry me because you told me no.”

The man began to sob. “I didn’t know she was pregnant.”

“I didn’t either,” Ellis said, feeling the tears well in his eyes. “If I had known, we would have married against your wishes.”

The man buried his face in his hands. “Why did you get her pregnant?”

“We loved each other very much,” Ellis said, softly walking over to the man and taking his weapon. “When she refused to marry me, it just about killed me.”

Daisy slowly lowered the frying pan and wiped tears from her eyes.

“I lost Arianna and then my son to that damn mine. There’s no reason left to live. Shoot me and put me out of my misery, so I can go be with them.”

Ellis didn’t believe in superstitions. Or tales or anything else, but sometimes that didn’t matter. Sometimes you just needed a little extra help. And today, maybe they needed to take a chance on a myth, he’d never believed in.

“I can’t do that. But there is something we can do,” Ellis said. “Maybe it would be good for both of us.”

Lee walked around and pulled Daisy into his arms. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “Oh, I have to check on the steak.”

“Wait here and I’ll be back in just a few minutes,” Ellis said, leaving Lee to protect their wife and keep an eye on Henry.

He ran back to the house and hitched a wagon and the team of horses. When he returned to Henry’s house, the old man looked dejected but ate his steak and potatoes.

Ellis tried to imagine how he must feel after losing everyone he loved but couldn’t imagine. He glanced at Daisy fearful that she would be angry. He’d broken his promise of no more secrets between them.

As soon as Henry finished eating, they all loaded into the wagon. Lee and Daisy sat on the back bench while Henry sat next to him. Just before sundown, they pulled into the area that gave the town its name.

“Why are we here?” Henry asked.

“You know the legend?”

“No,” Henry said. “All I know is that a lot of animals visit here at sundown.”

Ellis told him the legend of Treasure Falls.

Henry stepped down from the wagon and walked to the pond. Lee helped Daisy out of the wagon and then they walked behind him.

Slowly Ellis approached the pond, his chest tightened when he thought of Arianna. She’d been his first love. And he would have happily married her, except she refused him once Henry told them no. But he hadn’t known she was pregnant.

With a heavy heart, he moved next to Henry. “Henry, stop hating me. I loved your daughter with all my heart. I’m sorry about your son. It was a tragic accident. When you hate, you can never heal.”

Suddenly a fish flounced and a ripple spread across the pond and then Arianna appeared as a reflection in the pond. Ellis stared in amazement.

Henry broke down and cried and reached his hands toward his loved one.

Arianna blew him a kiss before the reflection disappeared.

“Come back,” he cried.

A shimmer appeared above the pond and the reflection shone bright like a nighttime star.

“Marianna,” he said softly. “My love.”

She held out her hand and Henry placed his palm in hers. She wrapped her arms around him, a glowing light shimmered about the couple.

There was a bright burst of radiance, and suddenly they both disappeared.