Cinderfella (13 page)

His boot.

Fortunately for Oswald, he had tiny feet for a tall man.

“I told you.”

Ash spun around at the sound of Charmaine's soft voice, and saw her practically hiding in the corner. Primly dressed today in a pale green gown, she was as beautiful as ever, but there was none of the laughter and brightness he'd enjoyed last night. Not even a smile. In fact, Charmaine looked as if she'd passed a sleepless night, just as he had.

She wasn't looking at him, but was staring at her father, the angry man with a boot clutched in his hand.

Haley's eyes passed over Ash quickly and then settled on his daughter. “Let's go.”

Charmaine looked at him then, smiled weakly, and muttered a low, “Hello, Ash.” As she passed him, without even glancing up, she spoke again. “You should have been there last night. It was very interesting.”

I was there.
He wanted to say it, wanted to force her to look at him, but as always he kept his mouth shut.

She was apparently moving too slowly to suit Stuart Haley, so he took her arm and propelled her toward the door. The boot swung in one hand, and Charmaine was pulled roughly with the other, and Ash saw red. Daughter or not, Haley had no call to treat her that way.

It all happened at once. Ash reached out and knocked Stuart's hand away from Charmaine. As Haley spun around, Nathan appeared at the top of the stairs, dressed and groomed but yawning as if he'd just left his bed.

“What are you doing with Ash's boot?”

One could have heard a pin drop. No one moved, no one said a word. Charmaine stepped forward slowly, her head cocked to peer beneath the hat that was shading most of Ash's face. The jig was up. He took the hat off, looked her square in the eye, and she stopped in her tracks.

“You!” she whispered harshly, and the horror on her face was all too clear.

“This . . . this
sodbuster?
” Haley shouted.

Ash didn't even look at the man. His eyes remained on Charmaine's face, on the surprise and revulsion he saw there. Those emotions were quickly replaced with anger.

“You tricked me,” she hissed. “You
lied
to me.”

“You let this sodbuster
touch
you?” Haley shouted.

“Ash, what's going on here?” Verna demanded.

“Did I say something wrong?” Nathan asked innocently as he descended the stairs. “I merely wanted to know why this gentleman was leaving the house with one of Ash's good boots.”

Everyone was talking at once, everyone but Ash and Charmaine. Noise, that's all it was, senseless, irritating noise that washed over and past. Charmaine hadn't taken her eyes off of him, and he could see the calculating way she studied his chin and his jaw, his mouth and his hands, and finally his eyes. Oh yes, she recognized him, all right.

The rush of noise stopped when Haley pulled his gun, nudged Charmaine aside, and poked the barrel of that gun smack into Ash's chest.

Ash looked calmly at the spot where steel met cotton. “Be hard to miss, this time,” he said calmly.

“You sonofabitch,” Haley muttered, and he cocked the trigger back with his thumb.

“Oh Daddy, stop it.” Charmaine reached out and placed her small, pale hand beneath her father's forearm, forcing the arm and the weapon gently upward and to the side. The barrel passed perilously close to Ash's face before swinging away. “You're not going to shoot anyone.”

He wanted to, Ash could see it in the older man's eyes. He wanted nothing more than to see Ash dead. For kissing his daughter?

“You're right, sweetheart,” Haley said coldly. “I won't be shooting anyone today. At least, not until
after
the wedding.”

“Who's getting married?”

Ash's simple question angered Haley even more, and the man waved his pistol wildly. “You are, you sonofabitch!”

“Not to
her?
” Ash shouted.

“Of course to her, you dimwit!”

Ash shook his head slowly. This made no sense, no sense at all.

“Daddy,” Charmaine said softly. “You don't understand.” She cut her eyes from Haley to Ash and back again.

Ash tried to help. “Look, Haley, it was just a prank. A stupid joke. It didn't mean anything.” He looked to Charmaine for confirmation, but she just flinched, wincing and closing her eyes. When Ash turned back to Haley all he saw was the fist flying at his face.

 

It wasn't fair. Surely someone would jump up before this went any further and state the obvious, that this
wasn't fair!

The ceremony was taking place in the parlor of the Haley house, since her father had rightly guessed that the preacher would object to the pistol and the threat of bloodshed in his church.

She and Ash stood side by side before Reverend Howell, a good two feet of space between them. Her father stood at Ash's other side, and held that six-shooter pointed at his ribs. Her mother sat calmly by, there on her favorite sofa, not saying a word.

Ash's family had followed them to town. Verna was absolutely giddy, Oswald was smug, and Elmo was passing his time whispering and laughing with Ruth. That odd Nathan Sweet, Ash's godfather, watched the entire proceeding with detached interest.

The minister directed his questions to Ash first. When he hesitated, just before his final
I do,
her father nudged him with the pistol.

When the preacher turned to Charmaine with her vows, she was ready to refuse, to shout out a loud
I don't!
and stalk away. Her father moved to stand behind and between her and her groom. Ha! He wouldn't dare shoot her, probably wouldn't even dare to point that nasty weapon in her direction. There was nothing he could do.

Reverend Howell waited for her
I do,
as did everyone else in the room. Her father smiled at her, waited almost patiently, and cocked the hammer of the pistol that was pointed at Ash's back.

“You wouldn't!” she hissed.

“With pleasure,” he whispered.

Ash didn't turn to her, didn't beg her to say
I do
or
I don't.
He stared straight ahead, in the preacher's direction but not exactly at the preacher. In fact, he hadn't really looked at her since they'd left his farm.

“I can't go on.” Reverend Howell slammed his Bible shut. “This makes a mockery of the sacred institution of marriage, and no amount of money directed to the good work of the church can make me participate. . . . ”

“So you'd rather I shoot him, too?”

Reverend Howell did have the good manners to look horrified at the suggestion. “Of course not.”

“He compromised my daughter. He marries her and makes an honest woman of her, or I kill him here and now. It's as simple as that.”

“Ash.” The reverend turned his most serious face to the reluctant groom. “Is this true?”

“No.” The single syllable was short, low, and decisive.

Charmaine backed away as her father leaned insistently between her and Ash to face the preacher. “He's a no-good lying sack o' —”

“Stuart,” Maureen Haley's soft voice intruded.

“She admitted it to me herself,” he continued. “Said that they . . . they . . . ” he sputtered.

“Dallied.”

Charmaine shot her mother a quick and harsh glance. She was
not
helping matters!

Ash leaned forward slightly to see past the insistent father of the bride and lock his accusing eyes on her.

Should she admit that it was all a lie? Goodness, what would her father do to her then? How utterly embarrassing! But what choice did she have?

“I might have exaggerated just a tad,” she whispered.

“Don't embarrass yourself by lying to me now,” her father snapped.

He lifted the cocked and loaded weapon so that the barrel touched the base of Ash's skull. His finger was on the trigger.

The sight of that weapon touching Ash's hair and flesh made her heart pound. “Get that away from him right this minute,” she ordered, but it did no good. “Nothing happened, this is all a huge misunderstanding.”

Her father was deadly calm, and the muscles in his hand tightened and twitched. He didn't believe her, and he was apparently more than willing to carry out his threat to Ash. “You know what you have to do.”

“I do! I do, I do, I do!” She stomped her foot.

The gun swung down and away, and with an easy movement he released the hammer.

The reverend pronounced them man and wife. Papers were signed. Verna Coleman beamed. Nathan Sweet looked oddly satisfied. Her mother was serene and her father was mollified.

Charmaine was having a difficult time accepting this as real. This didn't happen, not in this day and age! Yet none of the guests seemed to realize that any part of the ceremony was out of the ordinary. She was the only one. Well, Ash, certainly, but she didn't dare look at him to see for herself.

While everyone else was occupied congratulating themselves on a job well done, she made her way to the hallway and to the staircase. All she wanted to do was close herself in her room and cry for hours. Everything was ruined, now. Her father would make her stay here, he'd put Ash to work on the ranch and, after tempers cooled, he'd mold Ash into the son he'd always wanted.

And where would that leave her? Exactly where she did
not
want to be. Married, enslaved, stuck here in Salley Creek for the rest of her life!

“Where do you think you're going?” She was just a few steps up the staircase, weary to the bone and in no mood to face Ash Coleman.

“I'm going to my room,” she said primly. “It's been a difficult day.”

“Your room?” he repeated. “Honey, your room isn't up there.”

“Of course it is,” she snipped. “I don't know where Mother will put you, but I'm sure —”

“You don't get it, Charmaine.” It was the touch of humor in that angry, husky voice that alarmed her. “We're not living
here
.”

“Of course we're living here.” She took a few steps down to face the dolt.

A crowd was gathering behind him, her parents and the rest of the guests at their so-called wedding standing in the doorway to the parlor where they'd been married. So many smiles! How on earth could they be so obviously happy over this debacle?

“You're free to return to your farm of course,” she said with a sharp glance to her treacherous father. “With your name on a piece of paper my reputation is restored and I am bound in some archaic way to this barbaric town. My father should be satisfied with that. You don't have to stay here at all.”

Ash didn't say a word, but as she reached him he lifted his long arms, grabbed her, and launched her up and over his shoulder.

“Put me down! What do you think you're doing!”

“Taking you home,” he said calmly.

“Wait right there.” Her father, thank goodness. He'd put a stop to this nonsense.

She couldn't see what was going on. All she could see was Ash's back against her nose.

“Mr. Haley,” Ash said calmly. “You're going to have to quit pulling that gun on me every time we disagree.”

“I intended for you to stay here.”

“I intend to go home,” Ash said just as adamantly. “Now, I'm damn tired of looking down the barrel of that gun. Shoot me, or get out of the way.”

Evidently her father decided to get out of the way, because Ash moved forward and there was no resulting explosion.

She grabbed a handful of Ash's cotton shirt and lifted her head. “Daddy!”

Her father was shaking his head, holstering his gun with more than a hint of resignation. He'd gotten his way! What was he moping about? Verna stepped away from the knot of onlookers to follow Ash, and she motioned for Elmo and Oswald to join her. Nathan Sweet joined the parade as well.

“You're not going to allow him to . . . to . . . to do this to me, are you?” Her words shook unsteadily with each jarring step that carried her toward the front door.

“You made your choice last night, Charmaine,” her father said solemnly. “I've done all I can.”

“My
choice?
” she screeched. With each step Ash took she was jostled, shaken until her vision blurred and a long strand of hair came loose and fell over her face. “You call this a
choice?
”

With his newly freed hand, her father waved good-bye.

 

 

 

 

Ten

 

“Is she coming down to supper, Ash?” Verna asked as she placed the plates and silverware neatly on the table. Supper was late, but Verna was actually cooking something that smelled and appeared edible. Stew and biscuits, and a small lopsided cake for desert.

Verna was so impressed, so thrilled to be connected — however tenuously — to the Haley family, that she was practically giddy. It was a side of her Ash would have been content never to have seen, but here she was — giggling and fussing over the details of the evening meal.

Of course, she would have preferred that Charmaine had married Elmo or Oswald, but a relation was a relation, and Verna's social standing in Salley Creek had just risen considerably.

“I don't know,” he said, glancing toward the stairs. How was he supposed to know what Charmaine intended to do? He hadn't seen or heard a word from her for hours, since they'd arrived home and she'd closed herself in her room. Their room.

Married. He'd known that one day he would take a wife, but he'd never expected it to come about this way. He'd been prepared to court, when the time came, and he had very specific ideas about the kind of woman he'd eventually marry. An even-tempered woman who was accustomed to hard work. Someone who could cook and sew and help with the animals. Someone practical.

Charmaine wasn't practical or even-tempered, and she knew nothing about farm life. She was pretty and bright, and for a short time he'd believed he could fall in love with her. It was the kiss, he supposed — the dance, perhaps. A fantasy no more real than Nathan's theater.