Liz Ireland (25 page)

I
t was easier to go to a preacher than get a preacher to come to Possum Trot, but Paulie persuaded Maudie to bring one down with her from San Antonio. It wasn’t often that five people from one town got married on one day—especially when the town was no more than a little dusty burg with a store and a saloon. It would have seemed a shame to have the ceremony anywhere else but the Dry Wallow.

Paulie had festooned the old place with as much ribbon as could be had at Dwight’s store, and decked the tables and doors and bar With cedar boughs. “Looks festive, doesn’t it?” she asked Maudie as all the participants were assembled for the big day.

Hands on hips, the other woman gave the room a long considering glance. Of course, she’d never seen the Dry Wallow before, so she couldn’t know how many sand dunes Paulie had swept out just the previous day.

“It looks…” Maudie paused to think, then smiled. “Well, it looks just right for a Christmas wedding.” She sidled nearer to Paulie, nodded toward the preacher standing forlornly by the long bar ogling the half-empty bottles
of spirits, and lowered her voice. “I didn’t tell him he would be performing a ceremony in a barroom, Paulette.”

Paulie laughed. “The Dry Wallow’s my home.
Used
to be my home,” she said, correcting herself. “Trip’s taking over the saloon, but he’s going to live at Tessie’s house.” She glanced over at Trip, stiff in his new suit, and pulled her own husband-to-be closer to her.

Will looked unbearably handsome in his wedding duds, and she could tell Maudie thought so too by the way she blushed when she looked into his eyes. Paulie knew that feeling well.

She and Will were going to start that horse ranch he’d always wanted, and would live above the saloon until they built their new house on Oat’s land, which they had bought from Mary Ann. It seemed right, somehow, taking over that property. After all, in a strange way, Oat and Mary Ann’s ill-fated union had been what finally brought her and Will together. If they hadn’t hunted down Mary Ann together, they might still be what they had been for so long—frustrated friends.

Trip, hearing his name, hurried over and nearly knocked down four chairs in the process. “Ain’t we gonna start this thing anytime soon?” he said, his weathered face contorted anxiously. “I don’t want to give Tessie any time to change her mind.”

Paulie hooted at that idea. “I guess if she hasn’t changed her mind about you in twenty years, she won’t in the time it takes Mary Ann to primp in front of a mirror on her wedding day.” In fact the woman who was soon to be Tessie Peabody looked perfectly serene standing by a table with refreshments as she talked to the third groom, Oren Tyler. Tessie, a widow, had on her old wedding dress,
which had stood the test of time a little better than Paulie’s mother’s had.

But in the week prior to the wedding, Tessie had helped Paulie fix her dress up so that it looked a mite less odd than the last time she had tried it on. Gone was the hoop skirt, and Tessie had gathered up the excess material into a swag in the back, creating a kind of bustle. The change made Paulie feel just as ridiculous, but a little more stylish. Her hair was pulled up simply this time, styled by Maudie, so she didn’t have to worry about her groom making jokes about her head being caught in a cactus. On this day when Will looked at her, she saw only sincere admiration and love in his eyes—emotions she returned tenfold.

“I must say,” Maudie whispered fervently, “Mr. Tyler certainly is handsome, even after his little accident.”

Paulie found her gaze drawn, as so many of her guests’ were, to the stranger in their midst. Tyler’s more superficial cuts had mostly healed in the weeks since their run-in with Night Bird, but he had lost the use of his left eye, which now was covered with a black patch.

“He looks dashing—almost like a pirate,” Maudie observed with a sigh. “It’ll be nice to have a man around the house again, especially one so good-looking.”

Paulie chuckled. She had been surprised when Maudie had offered to let Mary Ann and her one-eyed gambler stay on at the boardinghouse, but now that she thought about it, she shouldn’t have been. Now Maudie would always have someone to play cards with.

“Say…” Will said, taking Paulie’s arm and drawing her aside. “The way you’re ogling that gambler fellow is making me mighty jealous.”

Paulie smiled. “You? You don’t have anything to be jealous of.”

He shrugged immodestly. “I guess not, when I’ve got the prettiest girl in the room about to marry me.”

She shook her head, brimming with love for her soonto-be husband. Standing across the room from Mary Ann, who had just swept into the room in a burst of bridal glory, beautiful in a new white dress dripping with lace, her curls looking neater and blonder than ever, and her blue eyes shining with excitement, Paulie knew Will’s compliment was grossly exaggerated. “Not the prettiest,” she corrected.

He wasn’t giving up. “The prettiest and the best.”

She looked across the room at Tessie, and smiled. “No woman’s better than Tessie. She’s never said a bad thing about anybody.”

But Will still wouldn’t cede Paulie’s superiority. “You’re prettiest and best,
and
you’ve got the most freckles.”

As if from instinct, Paulie whirled on her groom and practically hopped up and down in agitation. “Will Brockett, you better just drop
that
subject for the next fifty years.”

The stubborn man shook his head and pulled her a little closer. “You might have been able to argue the point once,” he allowed. “But that was before I had seen
all
your freckles.”

Paulie gasped and felt a blush creeping up her face. During the past few weeks, they had made love enough times for Will to have counted every mark on her body. “Hush, Will!” she whispered frantically. “There’s a preacher here!”

He shamelessly used her embarrassment to win his argument. “Then you’ll admit that you’re the most superlative bride in the room?”

Happily, she relented. As arguments went, it was not
such a bad one to lose. “All right,” she said, standing on tiptoe to plant a kiss on his cheek. “How can I bicker, when I certainly have the best groom?”

* * * * *