Stolen Little Thing (Little Thing Series Book 1) (6 page)

Esme leaned against the railing and studied him. “You think for one minute my father would allow me to stay here with you? You truly believe that?”

Luke’s expression softened and he gazed at her for a moment before speaking. “I know what would solve everything,” he said softly. “The two of us could get married.”

Esme gasped. “Married?”

Luke fought to keep from smiling. He stretched out his hands to her. “It would solve everything. It’s a very practical solution. I’ll even pay to have your roof fixed as a wedding present, seeing as you’re penniless.”

He knew there was a good chance she had some money of her own. When he found out how much Simon had in his bank account, he’d tell her about it, but not until he cinched the deal he’d proposed.

“Is this your idea of courting? Aren’t men supposed to recite poetry, give flowers and candy? Something like that?”

“Tell me you’ll have me, and I’ll get the pastor from Honey Creek over here tomorrow. He can marry us.”

Esme stared wide-eyed. “Tomorrow?”

Luke reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope. The handwriting was instantly recognizable to Esme, and by the light of the moon she read the letter. Her father offered a reward for news of her whereabouts. She didn’t read every word, just enough to understand that her father had handed Luke the trump card he’d most wanted. Her hand shook as she handed the letter back to him. The look of satisfaction on Luke’s face told her everything she needed to know.

There would be no courtship. No poetry.

He shook his head, feigning sorrow. “Looks like you’re stuck with me. Do you suppose that’s what your Uncle Simon had in mind all along?”

Esme snorted contemptuously. “A marriage arranged from the grave?”

Luke ignored her barb. “You have something to wear?”

“I don’t travel with a wedding gown in case I get strong armed into marriage, Luke.”

He grinned. She was as furious as he imagined she would be, but it couldn’t be helped. Sweet words and romance would have to happen after the ink on the marriage contract was dry. Her father was the one who raised the stakes in this game by writing the letter in the first place. Not that Luke was complaining. He was happy to marry her sooner rather than later, and he needed to close the deal before Randolph’s boys came back to the ranch. Luke could hardly wait to see the looks on their faces when he presented them with his lovely bride. The only thing that would be better would be to see old Randolph’s bloated face when he heard the news.

“Let’s go back inside before those boys eat everything in sight,” Luke said.

Esme turned back to the door, dazed by what had transpired. “Tomorrow?” she asked once more.

“Tomorrow,” Luke said as he opened the front door for her.

“Dear Lord,” she whispered.

Luke laughed. “I’ll assume that means yes, you’ll have me.”

“This is all too fast.” She wandered across the foyer in a daze. Luke drew her to face him. He stroked a finger down her cheek. His jaw was clenched, his eyes burned with intensity.

Esme wondered if he might be preparing to offer a tender word, something to comfort her and ease her frantic thoughts.

“You and me will be fine,” he said. “You still have big eyes for me, like you always did.” He lowered his head to kiss her, but she stopped him by placing her hand on his chest.

She was suddenly aware of tears stinging her eyes, threatening to fall. Her father played her mother like a marionette, always assuring her of his devotion one minute, then using her family money without shame or apology the next. Some of Luke’s tactics were uncomfortably similar to her father’s, yet who better to shield her from her father than the one person who had always looked out for her. She searched his eyes for some sign that this wasn’t a matter of pragmatics. She searched for a sign of affection.

“Tell me you’re not doing this so you can get your hands on Simon’s ranch?”

“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t care about your ranch, but this is also good for you.” He gave her a slow grin. “You’ve gotten yourself into a bind. Stuck between your father, the devil you know, and me, the devil you haven’t known for a long time.”

Seeing her distress, he added quietly, with an air of ceremony, “You have to know how I feel about you, Esme. How could you not?”

There, he’d said it, he thought. He bared his heart to her. While it wasn’t exactly poetry, she should figure out from that statement that he’d always loved her. Did he need to spell out that there’d never been anyone else that he wanted, needed or dreamt about like her, his sweet Esme? She didn’t look at all convinced by his words. They were words he had never uttered to another woman in his life, and yet they had little effect on her. If anything, she appeared to be regarding him with the same misgivings.

“Say yes, Esme.” He took her hand and kissed it. “You would be better off with me here in Honey Creek than you would be back in San Antonio. Besides, you can barely keep your hands off me.”

“You should talk!” She tried to duck away from him, but he grasped her waist. He nuzzled her neck.

“Say yes, Esme,” he whispered. Desire shivered up her spine. If the boys hadn’t been just a few steps away, she might have wrapped her arms around his neck. Instead she pushed his hands away from her.

“I need to think it over.” She tried to regain her composure. When she had been just a girl, his self-assurance, his directness made her feel cared for, but now it didn’t feel quite so comforting. He was giving her a mandate, or that was what it felt like. He gave her orders and manipulated her with his touch. A touch that made her hunger for more of him.

Gazing at him in the moonlight, she found herself drawn to him as strongly as ever before. If she took away his arrogance, subtracted his bossiness, and looked at him anew, she had no trouble seeing that he added up to exactly what she had always wanted.

“I need to sleep on it,” she said, her eyes wide with innocence. She knew her answer, had known it from the moment he’d uttered the proposal, but it would serve him right to think that she needed to consider the options and contingencies. He was just a trifle too self-assured, a little too certain that she would snap up his offer.

Luke’s gaze drifted from her eyes to her mouth. “Fine, while you’re thinking about it, I’ll write Randolph a letter, and tell him to bring my check when he comes. I’d like to get Henry a pretty little buckskin.”

“Oh, all right then.”

The sound of a belch echoed down the hallway. Low, deep and prolonged, it was greeted with a round of applause.

Luke grinned. “Sounds as if the circus troop has already moved on to dessert. They’re having the burping contest to see who gets the biggest piece.”

“How charming.” Esme swept past him.

He followed a few paces behind, his gaze drawn to the nape of her neck appealingly bared beneath a tight chignon. “I’m sorry they started without me,” he said. “I’m used to winning that biggest piece. You’re not planning on giving me any competition, are you Miss Duval?”

Before entering the dining room, Esme paused and gazed over her shoulder. “I’m tired of getting the smallest piece, or worse, none at all. I plan on giving you a run for your money every chance I get, Mr. Crosby.”

Chattering with excitement, dresses heaped in their arms, Loretta and Maria invaded Esme’s room the next morning in the pre-dawn hours. They roused her from bed and told her there wasn’t a minute to spare. Esme wasn’t allowed to go down for breakfast for fear she would be seen by her groom. Her bath was tepid and rushed. The two women were not to be reasoned with; they were battlefield generals planning every detail of the impending campaign.

Loretta and Maria scrutinized the dress Esme wore, the third she tried on, circling her like cattle bidders at an auction. The dress was a mother-of-pearl debutante dress, one that had belonged to Maria’s youngest daughter. Perched on a wooden crate, Esme tried her best to be still to avoid the pins that Loretta poked in the folds of the taffeta gown in an attempt to fit the billowing material around the bride’s slender frame. Esme was hungry and exhausted, even though the sun had just crested the horizon a mere half-hour before.

“It’s pure luck that you have anything remotely resembling a wedding dress to wear,” Loretta told her.

Maria’s daughter celebrated her coming out party the Christmas before, trying on and promptly discarding several of Maria’s creations before deciding upon the perfect dress. It was the girl’s castoffs that Maria and Loretta insisted Esme try. Both of them refused to hear of Esme wearing any of her own dresses. Only a white dress would do.

To Esme it seemed half the countryside had been mobilized in the aftermath of Luke’s proposal. The more she heard of the plans unfolding, the more Esme fretted that word might somehow reach her father, and he would appear as though materializing from some terrible dream and put an end to all the preparations.

She heard wagons arriving outside bringing provisions for the dinner. Men shouted instructions in Spanish and English. Roberto, Consuelo’s husband, tended a smoke pit somewhere outside, the aroma of slow cooking meats wafted through the window. Luke had enlisted everyone’s help, but judging from the silence from his room, he still lay in bed.

“The groom won’t be needed until it is time to say the vows,” Loretta explained. Besides, all plans are already in motion. She listed the more important details. The pastor, Ted Crosby, Luke’s uncle, would officiate. He was expected to arrive at noon; musicians, extra cooks, and servants were on the way. Nolan had left early on an errand, and the boys were running to and fro doing chores for Consuelo and her contingency of cooks, a trio of sisters drafted into service in the wee hours of the morning.

Esme’s emotions careened between terror and joy, leaving her exhausted and almost tearful. Thankfully, the warmth behind her eyes didn’t turn to real tears in front of Maria and Loretta. Her marriage to Luke, and the speed with which it was happening, shocked her. She, Esme Duval, after what seemed like a lifetime of loving Luke Crosby, was going to become his wife in a few hours.

Loretta shook her head and drew a tragic sigh as she studied Esme’s gown.

“It’s not perfect. A little snug in the bodice, but I think that makes it even more becoming. I’ll let the hem down a little more. Margarita must be a good two inches shorter than her.” Loretta spoke to Maria as though Esme weren’t standing a mere four feet away.

“We could add an extra crinoline,” Maria suggested. “Make it a little more full.”

“Good Lord, no,” Loretta fussed. “That skirt already takes up half the county. Can you meet with your sister to talk about the bouquet?”

“I could take care of the bouquet,” Esme offered.

“Did Roberto check to see if we have enough tables and chairs?” Loretta ignored Esme’s offer. “If so, he could tell the boys to start setting up. Tell him I’m sorry Nolan can’t help since he’s in Honey Creek picking out the ring.”

“Nolan?” Esme asked in bewilderment. “Nolan is selecting my wedding ring?”

“Luke asked him to. He didn’t have time,” Loretta said.

“He’s lying in his bed right now,” Esme grumbled. “I haven’t heard any sign of movement from next door.”

Loretta shrugged. “Don’t worry. Nolan has great taste.”

Esme shifted her weight on the crate making the taffeta rustle. Her legs ached. A pin scratched the tender skin on her wrist and she pouted. She was ready to take off the dress and put her nightgown back on. The rumpled sheets of her bed looked inviting after having been awakened before five in the morning.

“I just want to go to back to bed,” she grumbled.

Loretta repositioned the pin Esme had displaced. “Speaking of which, are you ready for your wedding night? Your mother’s not here. Is there anything you want to ask Maria or me?” The woman batted her long eyelashes, smoke grey eyes glinting with humor. Maria giggled.

Esme shook her head, her face heating with embarrassment.

There was a knock at the door. Henry, the youngest of the lost boys, strolled in carrying a tray with a coffee pot and some sweet rolls. Esme sighed with impatience, and shifted as she balanced on the crate. The women made a fuss over the child. They doted on all the boys, but it seemed that Loretta and Maria were being especially affectionate with Henry this morning. They made a fuss over the tray he’d brought, how sweet it was of him to bring it all the way upstairs and what a good boy he was to help Consuelo in the kitchen.

They went back to fitting the dress as Henry leaned against a chair and watched them work. When the older ladies’ backs were turned, he ate one sweet roll and then another. Hunger made Esme petulant and she made a face at him. He stared back at her impudently and with deliberate ease took the next-to- last roll. The black eye Sal had given him in the corral had faded to a purplish hue. Esme wanted to chastise him for wolfing down the pastries as though they were all for him, but something stopped her. She noticed with dismay that his collarbones jutted out from his neck like spokes of a wagon wheel. He was small but he was a scrapper. The defiance in the boy’s eyes reminded her of Luke’s belligerent nature when he was a child. Henry’s idle lingering in the room told her he had no desire to return to peeling potatoes in Consuelo’s kitchen. It dawned on her that his having to help in the kitchen while the other boys did chores outside was some sort of dressing down. That was the reason; Maria and Loretta praised and coddled him at every opportunity, even now as he devoured their breakfast. They were soothing his bruised ego.

For her part, Esme would just as soon not have any child around so early in the morning. They were trying enough during waking hours. “Thank you, Henry,” Esme said in a tone she hoped sounded dismissive.

But he didn’t move. “My mama had red hair too.”

Esme patted her copper locks wondering what a mess they must be after trying on so many dresses. “How delightful. Please tell Consuelo thank you for the sweet rolls.”

The boy rolled his eyes, snatched the last roll, and slipped out of the room.

“Are you ready to be a Mama to all of those
muchachos
?” Maria asked.

“I like children,” Esme replied. “Some of them anyway.”

Loretta laughed. She took the pins she had clasped between her lips. “We believe you, don’t we, Maria?”

“One thing’s for certain,” Esme said. “Boys are not nearly as bad as girls. They don’t sulk or shriek like teenaged girls. I was never so glad to leave a place as when I gave my notice at St. Adelaide’s.”

Maria straightened the skirt of the dress and tugged at the hem. “Don’t worry, the boys aren’t so bad after a while. Luke’s mother came to love them, even though, in the beginning what she really wanted was a house full of girls in ribbons. It was Luke who changed her mind. He was the first orphan to come, and she loved him best of all, like he was her own flesh and blood. Let me tell you he was the worst
cabron
that ever stepped foot on the ranch.”

Esme didn’t know what a
cabron
was, but knowing Luke, she suspected Maria was insulting him, and the word
cabron
sounded like she was calling him a goat. It made her smile. Luke had been a rascal. While she might not relish the idea of nightly meals with a table full of rambunctious young men, she had to appreciate that they had no one else to care for them. It hurt her like nothing else, a deep splinter in her heart to think of Luke as such a child, an orphan, a lost boy. One day, perhaps he would tell her the story of his life before he came to the Crosby Ranch.

While the ladies toiled in the next room, Luke lay awake, listening to low hum of their voices. He imagined them fretting over Esme, trying their best to make everything perfect for the wedding. It wouldn’t matter what she wore. He was sure she would look like an angel. His angel.

In the night, he woke up with a start from a terrible dream. In it, Esme left him, vanished from the house, fleeing from her wedding day.

Sweat beading his brow, heart pounding, he had crept like a thief down the hallway to her room. Outside her door, he listened.

Wind was blowing around the house, and downstairs the grandfather clock chimed softly, but he heard no sound from Esme. He waited, anxiety tightening his chest until he was ready to burst through her door. Then he heard her shift in the bed. The breath Luke hadn’t realized he’d been holding blew from his constricted lungs. He leaned against her door, remaining there until his heartbeat slowed.

The rest of the night Luke passed in a deep sleep. He did not wake until he heard the women talking in Esme’s room. He smiled to hear Esme’s voice. He couldn’t make out what she said, but it pleased him to hear her first thing in the morning.

There was much to do to prepare for the wedding, and naturally, the women had the lion’s share of the tasks on their shoulders. It couldn’t be helped that his bride had to get up early. He had it easy. He could wear any good suit. Her dress was what everyone would notice, not his duds. Tomorrow, she could sleep in until noon if she wanted.

Satisfaction warmed his heart. Everything had worked out perfectly. She’d readily agreed to the marriage, maybe because of the letter from her father. But, maybe the letter had nothing to do with it. After all, Esme had always been wrapped around his little finger. Once, when she was just a little girl, he’d sold her an orange kitten, a mangy stray, for a nickel. His mother had made him return the money to the “poor gullible Duval girl.”

He never thought of Esme as gullible, but she was certainly willing to do anything for him. Any time she visited Blanco with her uncle, to go to church or the mercantile, she would arrive at the livery, her eyes bright, looking for him. No matter where he was working, grooming a horse, tacking on a horse’s shoe, or repairing a bridle, she would seek him out to say hello and offer him some small gift, a bag of candy or a bit of copied verse. She was devoted to him from the start, and it didn’t take long for the devotion to become mutual. The affection he felt for her was brotherly at first, demonstrated with teasing and tormenting. Out of earshot of the adults, he could have talked her into paying for a barrel of monkeys.

Luke smiled at those memories, like the time he’d sold her a ticket to a swimming hole in Honey Creek, one that didn’t really exist. She’d been thirteen then, and he’d charged her another nickel, telling her he was selling it half-price on account of her being a pretty girl. This time his own conscience made him return the coin, and she’d smacked him soundly on the shoulder when he confessed his ruse. Unable to resist tormenting her just a little more, he told her no one paid to swim there anymore – ever since they’d discovered the man-eating sharks, and she’d believed that too.

Over time, Luke’s feelings grew from brotherly to something quite different, and that had been the beginning of all the trouble. Once Randolph Duval got wind of the young romance, he put a stop to his daughter’s visits.

When Luke first heard Esme was returning to Honey Creek after so many years, he was incensed. It was a painful reminder of the threats Randolph Duval made when Luke was nineteen. He promised to “send some boys to pay him a visit.” None of Duval’s threats had concerned Luke since he’d always relished a good brawl, but the possibility that the old man would make Esme’s life difficult did concern him. That was when Luke stopped writing to her.

Years later the idea that the one woman forbidden to him would be returning to Honey Creek, and would be living next to him, just out of his reach, was more than he could bear. Now, thanks to Randolph, it all worked out better than Luke could have hoped.

Luke folded his hands behind his head and smiled. He would marry today at noon, share a wedding night with his sweet Esme, the only one he’d dreamed of, and in a day or two, set off for San Antonio to pay a visit to Randolph Duval. The bastard wouldn’t know what hit him when Luke Crosby strolled into town offering him a deal.