Wildflower (3 page)

“Doc says my lungs are
fillin
’ up fast. Could be any time.”

She didn’t look up. A tear dribbled down her nose and splattered to the floor between her boot tips. “Doc’s sure?”

“Yeah, he’s sure.”

“But everyone else has gotten better.”

“Everyone else ain’t as old as me.”

“Doc might be wrong.”

“He ain’t wrong, girl.”

No, she supposed he wasn’t. More tears gathered at the end of her nose and she hastily swiped them away with the back of her hand. “Logan agreed to marry me?”

“He did.”

Inhaling a breath, she lifted her head to look at her father. With luck, the dim lighting would mask her tears. “Why?”

Wizened eyebrows snapped together. “Why what?”

“Why’d Logan agree to marry me?”

Her father shifted his gaze from hers. “Because the ranch is your dowry.”

Matt nodded. She’d expected as much. Maybe she should feel wounded Pa was bartering away her home. As it was, she only felt relief that the ranch would be cared for. Logan had talked about heading to the Dakotas after the cattle drive. Now he wouldn’t have to go anywhere. She was glad for that. She stuffed her hands into her pockets. “This changes nothing. I can still leave.”

Her father’s mouth pulled tight. “Stop being mule-headed. Can’t you see I’m looking out for what’s best for you? Cartwright’s a damn fine man.”

Matt switched her gaze back to the floor, her mind churning. She knew just how
fine
a man Logan was ever since that summer he arrived at the Standing T and she’d accidently caught him skinny dipping in the pasture pond. She’d hidden behind a clump of berry bushes, watching his body, honed from years of hard work and sitting in a saddle, rip through the water with easy grace and power.

And then he’d gotten out of the water. Her skin still burned hot at the memory. She should’ve looked away, but couldn’t. Not even when she saw his manhood nestled in a thatch of darker blond hair…

Matt wanted to slap
herself
. None of that matter now. Not the odd twinges low in her belly or the nights she’d laid awake yearning for something she couldn’t name. Though Logan had always been kind to her—unlike the other ranch hands, never mind her pa was their boss—that didn’t mean anything past him being kind. Her fancying him was just an infatuation born from a fantasy.

Early in her life, she understood she wasn’t the kind of woman a cowboy would want as a wife. Cowboys preferred soft-spoken, pretty women. She was neither soft-spoken nor pretty.

And Logan wanted to stay on the prairie. Not her. She’d dreamed of going to Kansas City long before Logan Cartwright showed up. She wanted to discover if all the adventures she’d read about in her magazines and penny novels were true. Discover if she could finally find a place where she’d belong. Because she sure didn’t belong on the prairie. Here she was too much a woman to be a cowboy and too much a cowboy to be a woman.

No. While she might favor Logan, even hanker for him, marriage to him wasn’t worth her freedom. Or her pride. And he’d only be marrying her to get the ranch.

“Matilda.”

Her heart pinched and more tears stung her eyes. She couldn’t remember the last time her father had use of her given name. She crawled her gaze to his.

“Do this for me, girl. I’ve never asked anything of you before, but I’m asking now. Promise me you’ll marry Cartwright.”

She averted her gaze again, her willpower waning. It was true her father had never asked anything of her. Demanded and ordered, yes. But never had he asked.

But he wasn’t asking for something simple like plucking a star from the sky. He was asking her to marry Logan Cartwright. To give up her freedom. Her chance to leave Indian Territory.

She glanced at the shadow of a man lying in bed. Her father didn’t look like the fierce ranch owner able to strike fear and loyalty in all who worked for him. He looked frail, brittle. Like a strong wind would snap him in two.

He was dying.

So what would be the harm in agreeing? Didn’t mean she had to stay. Wasn’t like Logan actually wanted her for his wife. He only wanted the Standing T. She could give her father peace in his final days without compromising her dream of freedom. Once he passed, she’d go to Kansas City, just like she planned. She notched up her chin. “All right.”

Distrust narrowed his eyes. “All right?”

“Yes. I’ll marry Logan Cartwright.”

“I have your word?”

“You do.”

Chapter Two

Tears scalded Matt’s eyes and her heart wrenched.

Flanked by Logan and Roscoe, she stood in the small family graveyard listening to Reverend Wilson speak about ashes to ashes and dust to dust. She welcomed the numbing wind as it worked to shred the skin from her face. It gave her something to focus on rather than the gaping hole in her chest.

She couldn’t believe her father was dead. But he was. He’d lapsed into a coma shortly after signing the paper which gave Logan the Standing T ranch once they were married. Pa never saw daylight again. His coffin lay on the frozen ground, next to her mother’s grave, with the worn quilt from his bed nailed on top. He wouldn’t be buried until the spring thaw.

More tears pooled and she fought to keep them from falling. She couldn’t remember the last time she cried and here she’d done it twice in almost as many days. But then she’d never felt this lost before. This adrift. In much the same way she imagined Captain Ahab had felt in
Moby Dick
. Her mooring was gone. Her father, the only constant for her entire life—albeit a stern and demanding constant—was gone.

She bowed her head. The force with which she missed her father shocked her. She’d never been more than a passing nuisance to him because she was a girl. Boys were valued, girls were not. Yet there was no mistaking the anguish she felt.

Glancing at the shivering group of mourners gathered around the coffin, she pitied them all. A smattering of neighbors had braved the blustery weather to show their respects while the drovers had been ordered to stay with the herd. Roscoe wasn’t the kind of foreman to let something small, like the ranch owner’s funeral, stand in the way of work. She shivered. Even the afternoon sun quaked behind the dark curtain of clouds, afraid to come out on such a woeful day.

She clenched her gloved hands on the brim of her worn cowboy hat in a useless attempt to warm them. Through hooded lashes, she observed the one man she’d pointedly avoided. Logan.

Her soon-to-be-husband stood to her right, clasping his hat in front of him. He appeared unaffected by the temperature as he stared at the casket, tufts of his blond hair lifting with each blast of wind. How he could stand the cold gusting past his reddening ears?

Her grief clashed with sudden uncertainty.

Though going to Kansas City had been her dream for as long as she could remember, she’d always thought her father would be here, at the ranch, in case she ever wanted to come home. But Pa wasn’t here any longer.

Logan was. And once they married, he’d be the new owner of the Standing T. Would he allow her return? Wasn’t like he was marrying her because he wanted her. He was going only doing it to get the ranch. He’d probably be glad to be rid of her once she left. Her heart did another slow twist in her chest.

She flinched when the preacher closed the Bible with a muffled thump. “You have my sincere condolences, Miss Townsend,” Wilson said, a light hand on her arm.

She nodded, forcing down the sob in her throat. “Thank you, Reverend. Please stay and share an early supper with us. Chuck has outdone himself.”

A half-smile lifted the preacher’s mouth. “Thank you for the invite. I believe I will.”

The other consolation wishers passed her in a painful procession. She hoped she made the proper responses. It took all her strength right then to hang onto her sanity. Finally it was just her, Logan and Roscoe.

Logan placed a hand on her shoulder. “You all right?”

Staring at the coffin, she nodded even though she doubted she’d ever be all right again. Her father was dead. A profound sense of forlornness gripped her soul. She fingered the edge of the quilt. “I remember my mother knitting this when I was a little girl,” she whispered.

Logan’s hand squeezed. “It’s okay to cry, you know.”

She scoffed. “No, it isn’t.” With a determined toss of her head, she gazed at the wind-swept prairie and stepped from his comforting hand. She jammed her hat low onto her head. She wouldn’t be pitied. Not by Logan, and not by herself.

Roscoe sidled in next to her. “Cartwright, ride to the herd.” He clamped his hand on her shoulder. His touch lacked any of the warmth and solace of Logan’s.

She moved away from the foreman as well and faced Logan. “As long as Reverend Wilson is here, we might as well get married.”

Shame speared her dignity at his shocked expression. Her father had claimed Logan would marry her, if for no reason than to get the ranch. Had Pa been wrong?

“What the hell are you talking about, Matt?” Roscoe demanded.

She ignored the foreman and held Logan’s gaze. “You did agree to marry me, didn’t you?” She forced her voice not to shake.

“Now hold on one goddamn minute,” Roscoe sputtered. “You need to tell me what in the
tarnation
you’re talking about here.”

Logan shot him a hard glare. “This is none of your business, Turner.”

“I’m the goddamn foreman so anything to do with this ranch
is
my business.”

Matt glanced at Roscoe. “Pa’s dying request was that Logan and I marry.” She looked back at Logan. “So I’ll ask again, did you agree?”

For a long heartbeat, he chewed on the inside of his cheek, the sure sign he was thinking on something serious. His eyes, darker than snow-laden clouds, never wavered from hers. Would he say no? And why did that thought roil in her stomach like sour meat? The need to turn tail and run from this humiliation burned through her. As it was, she hardened her resolve and continued to stare him down.

At last, Logan’s head made a slow move up and down. “I did.”

She fought the relief which flooded her veins. “Why didn’t you just say so then?”

He tucked his chin back at her surly tone. “Thought maybe you’d want to wait a bit. Out of respect for your father.”

She shook her head. “Pa wanted us to marry. Besides, it doesn’t make sense to have the reverend come all the way out here twice. Might as well get it done.” She walked toward the cookhouse.

Logan fell into step beside her. “If you’re sure.”

“Goddamn it!”

The outburst turned them both back around to face the forgotten foreman. Roscoe stood, hands on his hips, his face redder than a cockscomb. “What the fuck is going on, Matt?”

Logan stiffened, but she shrugged off the crude remark. “I explained it. Pa wanted me to marry Logan.”

“And you agreed to this?”

“I did.”

Roscoe swung his gaze to Logan. “And you agreed?”

Logan nodded once. “Yep.”