“I guess we can wait if you want to—”
“No, tonight is just fine.” There was no reason to put it off. She might as well get it over with so she could move on with her life and provide a home for Astrid.
“You sure?” His voice wavered. Who was he asking: himself or her?
“Mr. McQuaid, I haven’t been sure about anything for a long time. But that hasn’t stopped me yet.”
He was quiet for several steps, so that their squeaking boots sounded too loud against the wet grass and gravel. “I’ll go get the preacher.”
Chapter 6
Steele’s front parlor was hotter than the scorching sun on a Kansas prairie. Wyatt tugged at his neckerchief and collar. Even with every window wide open in the sparsely furnished room, allowing in the cool night air, he was perspiring worse than a pack mule at midday.
“You’re doing the right thing,” Steele said again, as he had a dozen times since Wyatt had found him at Hotel Windsor reclining in a chair, smoking a cigar, and waiting for him.
The Methodist minister, Reverend Zieber, stood with Judd across the room and had been carrying on a mostly one-sided conversation since he’d arrived. Although Wyatt considered both of the older and wiser men to be friends, their personalities were about as different as a columbine and a cactus.
Reverend Zieber was ruggedly built, sturdy, and had only a smattering of gray in his hair. He’d moved to Colorado from Wisconsin the previous year and had been traveling from one mining camp to another preaching, tending the sick, and burying the dead. He always had news to share as well as plenty of godly advice. While he had a cabin in Buckskin Joe, he spent a heap of time in Fairplay now that Steele had built a church.
Judd, on the other hand, was short and wiry with hair as white as a fresh winter snowfall. Judd had come up from Texas to mine for gold and had saved Wyatt from getting killed in a gunfight over a claim the first week he’d been in the Rockies. Ever since then, they’d been friends. Judd had given up on finding gold about the same time as Wyatt and had taken his offer to stay and help him build the ranch. Judd rarely spoke unless he had something important to say, but Wyatt had come to rely upon his friend for just about everything.
When Wyatt had returned to town after the storm and told Judd about his decision to marry Miss Nilsson in exchange for Steele’s investment in a herd of Shorthorns, Judd had shaken his head. Wyatt hadn’t been able to interpret whether Judd thought his decision was good or bad, and he hadn’t had the time to ask.
And now it was too late. Sure as a gun, he was getting hitched to Miss Nilsson.
If only she’d hurry it up and get on down to the parlor.
He tugged his neckerchief again. He’d taken Steele up on the offer to borrow a clean, dry shirt. Even if his trousers were still damp and dirty, at least he was halfway decent for his wedding day.
Wedding day. The very thought made his head itch. Marrying had been the last thing on his mind when he’d ridden into town today. In fact, marrying had been the last thing on his mind since the day his ma had married Rusty. Their neighbor had always been mean and hardfisted, but Wyatt had been barkin’ at a knot trying to convince his ma of that. After she’d married the lowlife, Wyatt hadn’t been surprised when the marriage had gone sour.
That didn’t mean he’d never planned on getting married. A part of him wanted a family and a place to belong. But he’d moved around too much to make any real connections with the women who’d paid him attention. The handful who lived in the high country were already married and worked alongside their husbands. The rest lived in the dance halls and taverns catering to the lusts of the miners. They were the kind of women Wyatt had decided long ago to steer away from, no matter how tempting they might be.
Instead, he’d stayed busy and focused.
Until today . . . Until he’d met Miss Nilsson.
How in the name of all that was holy had he gotten roped into marrying a woman he hardly knew?
He glanced through the parlor door into the hallway. Did he have time to make an escape?
At just that moment, Miss Nilsson stepped into the entrance, and he froze at her image of perfection. Somehow over the past hour, she’d transformed herself from pretty to stunningly beautiful, and he could only stare stupidly at her like the other men were doing.
She’d changed out of her wet blue gown into a dark green one that contrasted with her light skin and made her eyes more blue than gray. The bell-shaped skirt hugged her hips and emphasized her tiny waist, and a matching bodice was formfitting over her curves. A simple but elegant pendant on a chain graced her neck. And she’d transformed her rain-soaked tangles of hair into a stylish knot.
She searched the room until she found him. As her gaze connected with his, he couldn’t look away. She was so wide eyed and innocent. And yet her gaze was also intense, fanning a strange new heat to life low in his gut.
Something in her expression asked him whether he really wanted to go through with this wedding. A moment ago, he’d been about to bolt from the house. But now he wasn’t sure he could move his feet even if the place began to burn down around him.
Wyatt sucked in a lungful of air, and his breathing felt shallow and quick, like it had when he’d first moved to the area and had to get used to the high altitude.
“The flowers I picked earlier today all wilted,” came Astrid’s childish voice as she sidled past her sister into the parlor. “But I managed to find these for the wedding. Aren’t they pretty?”
The girl was attired in fresh garments, too, and her hair neatly brushed and plaited. Miss Nilsson had spent as much time cleaning up Astrid as she had herself. And if the girl’s shenanigans were any indication of how things usually went, then Miss Nilsson was nigh on to becoming a saint for her patience.
“What do you think, Mr. McQuaid?” Astrid crossed toward him, holding out the handful of weeds with a few flowering cow parsnip in the bunch.
He gave her plait a gentle tug. “I think it’s mighty sweet of you to be giving your sister flowers, that’s what.”
The compliment earned him one of her impish smiles, one he suspected she’d used to get herself out of trouble plenty of times.
As Miss Nilsson drew farther into the room, Wyatt was suddenly in tune to her every movement in a way he hadn’t been with a woman in a mighty long time, if ever. Each soft step, the quick intake of her breath, a tilt of her head, the way she fingered the pendant against her neck.
He fumbled through introducing her to Reverend Zieber and Judd. For a short while, Reverend Zieber yammered on with both Steele and Miss Nilsson about the stagecoach ride as well as the robbery, before finally getting to the ceremony.
Reverend Zieber led them through Scripture readings and prayers. When he instructed Wyatt to face Miss Nilsson and hold her right hand, Wyatt hesitated to touch her. Thankfully, she offered up her hand, and he situated her fingers within his and then spoke his vows.
A moment later, as Miss Nilsson began to recite her vows, she abruptly stopped. “I take thee—”
Wyatt waited.
“I don’t remember your given name,” she whispered, her cheeks flushing.
“Wyatt,” he whispered back, embarrassment stealing through him, tightening his muscles, and reminding him of the foolishness of so hasty a marriage. They hardly knew anything about each other for crying-in-the-rain. She didn’t even know his first name and was standing here vowing to marry him. Were they making a mistake?