Deborah Camp (3 page)

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Grandy Adams mumbled, casting Zanna a wary glance.

“There’s more,” the sheriff said cheerily and continued, “‘Getting the harness on the mules, he is to start by seven to his work and keep at it ’til between two or three in the afternoon. Then he shall bring the team in, clean them and give them their food, dine himself, and at four go back to the mules and give them more fodder, and
getting into the barn, make ready their food for the next day, not forgetting to see them again before going to his own supper at six.’”

“Oh, so I get three meals a day? Well, that’s more than I got in this fleabag.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Sheriff Warwick shot back, then focused his attention on the paper again. “‘After supper, he is to mend his shoes and other clothing by the fireside, or repair bridles and harnesses, or stamp apples or crabs for cider or verjuice, or else grind corn and the like, or some husbandly office within doors ’til it befall eight o’clock.’”

“Sounds like you need a slave instead of a husband.” He shot her a vicious glare. “A war was fought that abolished slavery. Were you out of the country during that time?”

Zanna avoided his eyes, but felt a twinge of guilt. Maybe he was right. Perhaps Theo Booker had been overly zealous in listing the duties of her contracted husband.

“There’s more,” the sheriff said with a wicked grin. “‘Then he shall take his lantern, visit the mules once more, and go to the barn to rest for the night.’”

“The barn? I’m supposed to work my butt off all day and then sleep in the barn with the animals? You’re plumb nuts, lady.”

“You shut your trap before I backhand you,” the sheriff warned. “Mrs. Hathaway, he’s got a point. This law provides for husbands and he’s not one according to this. Husbands don’t sleep in barns, ma’am.”

“Right,” Grandy Adams spoke up with a jaunty grin. “Husbands don’t—Hey!” He ducked from the sheriff’s arcing hand, but the hand still made contact with the top of his head.

“Don’t strike him!”

Zanna’s shrill command acted like an arctic wind freezing everything in its path. The sheriff’s hand remained suspended. Grandy Adams’s arms were up, shielding his
face from further blows, but his gaze moved unerringly to Zanna and there was curiosity in his greenish-gold eyes. Zanna pulled herself upright and forced her jumbled nerves to settle.

“Please, sheriff, don’t hit him. It’s entirely uncalled for.” She directed her attention to the other man. “Will you sign or won’t you?”

“I don’t like the sleeping arrangements,” he told her, a questioning glint still lingering in his eyes.

“Very well.” She stepped closer, trailing invisible violets after her. “I’ll omit that part, but the rest remains as is.” She took the pen, dipped it into the well, and drew a line through the offending section. “Now please sign it. Preacher Timmons is waiting for us.”

He took the pen, dipped it again, and signed his name in bold fashion. Zanna looked at the name before she handed the document and pen to the sheriff for his witnessing signature.

“Grandville Quincy Adams,” Zanna said as she tucked the signed agreement into her purse. “That’s a grandiose name.”

“My friends call me Grandy. What do your friends call you?”

“Mrs. Hathaway,” the sheriff butted in.

“My name is Suzanna,” Zanna answered. “Most of my close acquaintances call me Zanna.”

He noted her deliberate avoidance of the word
friends
and it intrigued him. What intrigued him more was her taking his side when the sheriff had cuffed him. She was a puzzle; insisting that he sign a paper that promised harsh treatment while she complained heatedly when the sheriff threatened the same. His head began to swim and he cast aside the dilemma for a time when he had food in his belly and iron in his muscles.

“Are you ready to go, Mr. Adams?” she asked.

“Grandy will do. Yes, I’m ready.” It took every bit of strength to force himself up from the chair. He glanced
down at his bloody, dirty body and tattered clothes. “It’s not proper wedding attire, but beggars can’t be choosers, right, sheriff?” He couldn’t help but smirk at the portly lawman.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Sheriff Warwick asked. “You really think you can stick to them rules?”

“All I know for sure is that I don’t have much choice.” He glanced at the woman. “We might be born to die, but I’m not ready to cash in my chips just yet.” His smile was charmingly lopsided. “You see, ma’am, I’m a gambling man, and if you’re willing to gamble on me, then I’m willing to gamble on you.”

“I do.”

Grandy glanced sideways at the woman who had just pledged to love, honor, and cherish him. The veil hid the lie he knew he would find in her green eyes. He’d lied prettily, too, when Preacher Timmons had asked it of him. The preacher frowned mightily at Suzanna Sullivan Hathaway, making it clear that he thought her marriage to Grandville Quincy Adams was heresy. The church was as quiet as death and it seemed an eternity before Preacher Timmons drew a great, shuddering breath to release the final words of misjoinder.

“By the power vested in me, I pronounce you man and wife.” The preacher looked down the bridge of his long, skinny nose at the filthy bridegroom. “I’ll not ask you to kiss the bride out of respect to her and her late husband.”

“Fine by me,” Grandy said with an insolent shrug. He glanced back at the empty pew and edged backward to it. “I’ve got to sit down before I fall down,” he said, dropping like a stone onto the highly varnished wood.

“Well, you’ve done it,” the town doctor said. “I’m glad to stand up for you at this wedding, but I wish you hadn’t been so all-fired eager to take on another husband.” Doc Pepperidge scratched his sparsely covered pate. “For the life of me, I don’t understand why you’d want to get married again so quick.” He turned to the other witness.
“Theo, I’m amazed at you for giving Zanna such poor advice.”

“Since when are you so concerned about Zanna’s welfare?” Theodore Booker asked with a cutting edge in his tone. “As Zanna’s attorney and good friend, I believe she’s done the right thing. A woman can’t run a ranch by herself. She needs a man around.”

“She’s not by herself,” Doc Pepperidge argued. “She’s got a fine ranch foreman and Duncan.”

“Would you two stop fussing over me? It seems that my … my hus—” Zanna stopped, unable to go on. “He needs your services, doctor.” She pointed to the man she’d just married.

Grandy eyed her with curiosity. There she goes again coming to my defense, he thought. What cards did she have up her sleeve? What was her game and how did he fit in?

“Nothing wrong with him that a good meal and a hot bath won’t fix,” the attorney said, but the doctor stepped closer to give the exhausted bridegroom a thorough once-over with his beady brown eyes.

“Looks like you’ve been dragged behind a horse, son,” the doctor said, his voice as graveled as a country road.

Grandy smiled wryly. “How astute.”

“Huh?” The doctor grunted with a shrewd squint.

Something akin to pride stirred within Zanna as she stepped around the attorney and the doctor to see her groom. He was school-learned, she thought with relief. At least she hadn’t married a dummy with a vocabulary as blue as the sky above. Suddenly, the import of his answer slammed into her.

“You mean that you
have
been dragged behind a horse?” she asked, lifting her veil to get an unfiltered look at him. Her green eyes grew large and luminous in the chapel’s dim interior as they took in his scraped and bruised condition. “When … how … why … Weren’t you treated by a doctor?”

“Does it look like it?” Grandy asked, spreading out his hands and looking down at himself. Her face paled and Grandy was afraid she might keel over. “Actually, the counselor is correct. A good meal and a hot bath will do wonders for my disposition.”

Zanna couldn’t help but smile at his perfect English, so she turned her back to him, not wanting him to witness it. “Doc, couldn’t you look him over before we set off for Primrose?”

“I suppose so,” the doctor grumbled. “But let’s do this in my office. I don’t think a church is the proper place.”

“Yes, of course.” Zanna faced the preacher as she reached into her purse for a few coins. “Thank you kindly for your services, Preacher Timmons,” she said as she offered the money to him.

“No, I can’t take a reward for presiding over this union,” the preacher said with a stern shake of his head. He peered over his half-moon glasses at her. “It wouldn’t be right.”

“For the church,” Zanna urged softly, tipping her head to one side in a gentle appeal.

For a few moments, Grandy was mesmerized by the vision of her. The tilt of her head, the hazy sunlight streaming across her face, the contrast of her pale skin against the black cotton and lace she wore, all combined to pique his interest. She had a nobility in her carriage and in the angle of her round, short chin. It would be hard to deny her anything when she used that tender tone of voice, Grandy thought as the preacher accepted her money.

The doctor pushed a rough hand under Grandy’s arm and hauled him to his feet. Although the doctor was in his sixties, he had a wealth of strength in his scrawny arms and big-boned hands. He ran his sharp gaze up and down Grandy again before tugging Grandy into a staggering walk.

“Come on, young man. My office is just down the street.” He kept a firm hand around Grandy’s forearm as
he led him from the chapel and out into the morning sun that almost blinded Grandy.

Grandy looked over his shoulder to check on Zanna and the attorney. They walked side by side in easy familiarity and Grandy could tell that they were good friends. Why hadn’t she married her lawyer? he wondered as he stumbled along the street toward a sign that proclaimed, “Finis Pepperidge, Doctor of Medicine.” The sign swung from a pole outside a modest house painted white with navy-blue shutters.

“Here we are, son.” Doc Pepperidge threw open the door and pushed Grandy inside the entry. He hung his hat on the hall tree and peered down the dark corridor alongside a staircase. “Mrs. Brimstone, where the devil are you?”

“Back here, doctor,” a sweetly chiming voice called from the dark end of the hallway.

“I’ve brought company. Bring a coffee tray, if you please.” The doctor looked at Zanna and Theo Booker. “Go on into the parlor and have some coffee while I examine this fella.” Then he manhandled Grandy into a room opposite the parlor and closed the door behind him. “Take off your clothes and sit on that table, son.”

“That’s really not necessary,” Grandy said as he sat on the long, narrow table. “If you’ll clean these scratches, I’ll be fine. My ribs are cracked but not broken, so you can wrap—”

“Hey, boy.” The doctor placed his hands at his hips and craned his neck forward to glare at Grandy. “Where’d you learn about cracked ribs and the like?”

Grandy shrugged. “I didn’t fall off a cotton wagon. I’ve been around and I’ve picked up a few things.”

“Well,
I’m
the doctor in this house, so you do as I say. Take off that shirt and those trousers and I’ll find some fresh clothes for you. I’ll not have you looking like a scarecrow when you accompany Zanna back to Primrose.”

“Primrose.” He sounded the name with heavy dread as he began removing his tattered clothing. “My head’s still spinning. I’m not sure this all isn’t a dream. I’ll wake up and be back in that cell and that angel in black will be a figment of a wild fantasy brought on by my own fear of dying.”

Doc Pepperidge stood back to listen and watch. He’d assumed this mangy convict was just another bad apple, but he was having second thoughts. Underneath the dirt and grime, there was some polish to this one, he decided, which made him feel a mite easier about Zanna getting married and all.

“Son, if you think
your
head is spinning, then you should see what’s going on inside mine. Suzanna Hathaway is a good woman, a respected woman around here. For the life of me, I can’t understand why she’s done such a fool thing.” The doctor approached his patient with cotton balls and a strong antiseptic. “She’s got a lot of friends in this town, and if you so much as threaten her, they’ll hunt you down and beat the living hell out of you.”

Grandy angled a vigilant glance at the physician, then sucked in his breath to keep from crying out when the doctor applied the stinging medicine to his wounds.

“Might have to stitch up a place or two.” Doc Pepperidge examined the scar beneath the man’s frown. “Looks like somebody did a bad sewing job on your chin.”

“That happened back when I was a boy. I got in the way of a plow blade.”

“So you’re a farm boy?”

“
Was
a farm boy. I haven’t been around a farm for years and years and I like it that way.”

“Then you’re in for a rough time, son. Zanna owns Primrose ranch outside of town. Why, for the love of God, did you agree to marry her if you didn’t want to live in the country?”

“Because I didn’t have any choice. It was either marriage to her or a gal named Miss Agatha or I could keep
a date with a hangman’s noose. What would you have done?”

Doc Pepperidge leaned back to eye the younger man. “Well,” he said with a slow drawl, “in that case, you done good. Dying young is a damned shame and marriage to Agatha Daryrimple is a damned nuisance.” He chuckled and drew a short laugh from his patient. “So who dragged you behind his horse, boy?”

“A couple of Texas Rangers and three other guys I’d played poker with the night before.”

“Before what?”

“Before they all decided they’d lost too much money and wanted it back.” Grandy straightened to let the doctor examine his tender ribs. “I knew I should have stayed on the riverboats.”

“What you should have done was to stay on the farm and out of trouble,” the doctor said with a chastising frown. “None of those cuts looks to be infected, but if they start paining you, then you’d better come see me again.”

“I’ll do it,” Grandy held his breath as the doctor wound white gauze around his ribs, pulling so tight that his bones were squeezed and sent into spasms of pain. Tears blurred his vision and he bit down so hard on his lower lip that it started bleeding. “Ease up, doc, or you’ll crush the ones that aren’t already busted.”