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Besides, he was the last male in the Macready line. He would hate to pass from this world without leaving an heir.
And in addition, you damned fool, you gave Mrs. Landsfelter your word.
Underneath he knew there was more to it than Dora Mae’s persuasive powers. Lately he’d been hungry for something more in his life. Something to fill the void yawning before him as he grew yet another year older. It was the one thing Kellen could not admit to anyone else. He was lonely. He wanted someone to talk to. Someone to laugh with.
Lolly’s heart plunked into her stomach like a bucket full of rocks. The receiving line stretched from the ballroom entrance halfway around the huge ballroom to the cloth-covered refreshment table, a distance of maybe twenty feet. To her, it seemed like the Great Wall of China.
And all those people!
She liked people, but she preferred them one at a time. In big crowds, her throat went dry as a dust dolly and even when she could think of something to say, she couldn’t push a single word past her paralyzed tongue. In Kansas, she had let her newspaper editorials and Papa’s revolver speak for her. Out here in Oregon she felt tongue-tied. A flatland country weed in a citified rose garden.
The line of faces turned toward her, waiting. In the glow of the huge gaslight chandelier overhead they looked like a row of smiling hard-boiled eggs.
“Thank heavens you’re finally heah,” a voice hissed in her ear. “They cain’t staht the reception until all three of us go through the receivin’ line together.” Fleurette stepped to the head of their little procession and signaled for Carrie to follow.
The young schoolteacher looked sweet in a high-necked mint-green dotted muslin with no trimming other than covered buttons to the hem of a softly pleated skirt. Fleurette’s frothy puff-sleeved concoction of yellow taffeta engulfed her slim figure in layers of ruffles and frills, swirled into a train at the back, punctuated with a large silk rosette.
“Are we-all ready?”
“Leora, you look just lovely,” Carrie whispered as Fleurette’s hand reached out to snag the young schoolteacher’s sleeve. “But…” Carrie paused as Fleurette pulled her into position. “Somehow you seem…shorter.”
“I changed my shoes.” Unable to trust her voice further, Lolly brought up the rear in silence, her lips twitching into a smile. What a picture they must make: The Three Musketeers turned out in full battle regalia.
She knew she must look like a gypsy, and she’d removed her shoes because they pinched her toes like an iron vise. But at the moment she couldn’t let herself think about it.
A hand reached out, clasped hers and pumped it up and down. The next thing she knew she was being introduced to the mayor, Cyrus Bowman.
Then the mayor’s imperious-looking wife, Hortense, and the banker and his wife and, next to her, his mother-in-law, all named something that sounded like Shumaker. Next came the head of the school board; the town doctor and his twin daughters; a mill owner named Hickmeyer; the newspaper editor, Orven Tillotsen; a retired railroad builder; and more wives and daughters and mothers-in-law than any one town deserved. The blur of names and faces made Lolly’s head ache.
Another outstretched hand grasped hers just as Carrie, one step ahead of her, made a little moaning sound. “There he is,” she murmured. “At the very end of the line.”
Lolly could see nothing beyond Carrie except great clouds of yellow taffeta, but over the next mumbled introduction, Fleurette’s voice rang out.
“Why, Colonel Macready, Ah have heard so much about you. So charmin’ to meet you at last. Ah, too, am a Southerner.”
Carrie turned her head toward Lolly and rolled her eyes before stepping up to the next person in line. “Mrs. Whipple, may I present Miss Leora Mayfield?”
Lolly tried to smile. “Mrs. Whipple.”
The old woman in plum sateen shot her a keen look and nodded brusquely. “My dear.”
At her side, Carrie heaved another sigh, and Lolly heard her quavery voice. “Good evening, C-Colonel.”
After Carrie, Lolly was next in line. Great balls of brimstone, she was but one step away from the moment she had agonized about ever since she left Kansas—meeting a perfect stranger who would marry her.
Kellen watched the three guests of honor unknot themselves from the circle they had formed and step up to the Meet and Greet Trail, as he termed it. Barbarous custom, receiving lines. An uncivilized way to trot out the goods for inspection before the fair.
He knew Careen Gundersen from many previous occasions over the years, mostly birthday parties her parents had hosted. Careen had turned out to be a very capable young woman. Prim, maybe. And a tad…flat, somehow. The girl had always had a sensible head on her shoulders; it was beyond his understanding why on earth she, of all people, would want to enter this matrimonial charade.
Gliding down the line ahead of Careen was a meticulously groomed lady in a voluminous flounced skirt that was wound up in the back like a beehive. Quite a lot of baggage resting on that derriere. He watched her navigate from Sol Stanton to Mrs. Whipple and on toward him, her posture so rigid that her golden-blond corkscrew curls didn’t bob but hung stiffly in place, even when she tossed her head. Sugar water and rag rollers, he guessed. Females put up with the damnedest things.
The women looked somewhat like curious birds, though of different species. Careen resembled a baby wren, her folded wings yet untried. The lady with the curls reminded him of a yellow silk peacock.
His gaze drifted beyond the peacock to the next person in the line, but he couldn’t get a clear view of her. All he could see was the gracefully flared black skirt she wore, which, now that he studied it over the bare shoulder of Miss—what was peacock’s name again?—struck him with its simplicity. Not a wren. Not a peacock, then. An elegant black swan.
“Why, Colonel Macready…” The peacock’s voice chirped on. “…am a Southerner.”
Kellen tore his gaze from the woman in black and focused on the beaming heart-shaped face before him. “I beg your pardon?”
“Ah said Ah am also a Southerner, like yourself.”
“Actually, after nearly fifteen years in Maple Falls, I now consider myself an Oregonian.”
“Oh, now, Colonel. Ah don’t believe that for one li’l minute.”
He made polite noises while she gushed on until he saw an opportunity to pass her on to the refreshment table, where Ruth Underwood and her husband were pouring champagne.
And applejack, he remembered from his earlier conversation with the hotel bartender. He licked his lips. He couldn’t get there soon enough.
Then Careen stood before him, sighing like a spring wind through the aspen grove.
“Careen, it’s nice to see you.”
“Good evening, C-Colonel. I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks and weeks.”
“As have I,” he lied. “It’s a bit like one of your birthday parties, isn’t it? Except for the champagne, of course.”
And the applejack.
“Oh, Colonel, you will dance with me later?”
“Why, of course. I’ve danced with you at every party since you were five years old. Remember how you used to stand on my shoe tops?”
Why was she looking at him like that?
“I remember,” Careen murmured.
But Kellen was no longer listening. He found himself watching the woman in black, now speaking to old Mrs. Whipple.
Her chin tipped forward, allowing a waterfall of loose, dark curls to tumble over her bare shoulders. And God in heaven, what shoulders! Some kind of rich-looking lace festooned them, allowing glimpses of creamy flesh through the open cut-work. He tried not to stare. The way her body curved in and out made his neck burn.
She held on to Mrs. Whipple’s hand for an extra-long minute, and then Careen reached out and drew her away, toward him. The woman lifted her head, and her thick, dark hair danced against those satiny shoulders.
And then she did something so completely unexpected he wondered if he was dreaming. She shut her eyes tight and stretched out her hand toward him.
“Miss Leora Mayfield,” Mrs. Whipple intoned.
“Please, please,” she whispered. “Hold on to my hand. I am having a nervous reaction.”
Kellen clasped her hand in both of his and peered into her face. The woman was attractive. Extraordinarily attractive. He studied her wide mouth, the dark lashes against her cheeks. My God, she’s beautiful.
“Reaction to what?” he managed.
“To…this. All of these people.” Her lids opened and her eyes locked with his. They were so blue and clear they made his throat ache.
“Crowds terrify me.”
“Your nervous reaction is not to me, then?”
She shook her head. “Oh, no. At least not yet.”
Relief coursed through him, followed by a gut-tightening unease. Not yet?
Kellen stood motionless, steadying her trembling hand in his. The receiving line broke up, reforming in twos and threes at the refreshment table to his right.
“I was about to have a glass of something to drink,” he said gently.
“Oh, thank heaven. Could you possibly bring me one, as well? I’m so glad this is over, I feel like celebrating.”
He laughed without thinking. His opinion exactly.
“But it is not over. It has just begun.”
“For me it’s over. The hard part, anyway. The rest is up to the Ladies Helpful Society.”
Kellen winced. At this moment he didn’t want to be reminded of the corner Dora Mae Landsfelter and her cadre of Helpful Ladies had backed him into. All he wanted to do was enjoy this moment for as long as he could.
“Come.” He turned her toward the refreshment table. “I think we’ll both need a drink before this evening is over.”
Chapter Four
At the refreshment table, Kellen watched Ruth Underwood pour fizzing champagne into two glasses while her husband glugged dark gold applejack from a ceramic jug into teacups. He reached for a glass of the champagne for Miss Mayfield. Miss Mayfield, however, lifted a brimming cup of the applejack and brought it to her lips.
He kept his eyebrows from rising by sheer force of will. “You ever taste applejack before?”
She looked at him over the rim of the cup. “Never.”
“Would you care to sit down first?”
“Most definitely. As soon as I drink some of this.” She downed a big swallow, and he watched her eyes widen and then tear up. He lifted the cup from her fingers and steered her to the green velvet settee against the wall.
She sat down. Then jumped up. Sat down once more and bent forward as if to inspect the hem of her skirt. When she raised her head, Kellen presented the glass of champagne. She reached instead for the cup of applejack in his other hand.
A single-minded swan. “It’s pretty potent,” he cautioned. “More than ninety proof the way Josh Bodwin makes it.”
“Good,” she said. She took another swallow. “You’re quite right—lots of proof.” Her voice sounded raspy. Kellen drank half the glass of champagne while she gulped another mouthful of the brandy.
“Do you do this often?” he inquired. The only woman he’d ever known who could put away liquor like this was Great-Aunt Henrietta, and she’d had years of practice.
“No, I have never taken spirits before. It tastes rather like—” she thought for a moment “—crushed oak leaves.”
He couldn’t let her swill down any more; she’d fizzle out like a spent match. He had to think of something to distract her.
“Would you care to dance?”
Lolly looked up at him. She would give the moon to dance with this man, tall and elegant in his black dress coat and knotted silk tie. He moved without making a single extra motion, like a mountain cat. A panther, that was it. And his eyes were positively hypnotic, an odd gray-green, and twinkly, as if he were amused at something.
“I’m afraid I can’t.”
“Can’t?” His dark brows arched upward for a split second. “As in, you don’t know how? Or you are already spoken for? Or…you don’t wish to?”
“Oh, I do wish to, but…” No, she couldn’t possibly tell him the truth. He would think her a complete ninny.
Or would he?
“The truth is,” she heard her voice say, “I cannot raise my arms that high. My…that is, the top half of me will come undone.”
Colonel Macready stared at her. Completely unnerved by her admission, Lolly fiddled with the loose knot at her bosom. He swept his gaze over the gauzy lace covering her chest and shoulders, and suddenly his face changed.
“Your trunk went on to the next stop! Is that it?”
“How on earth would you know that?”
“Happens all the time. The Russell Steam Engine Line prides itself on two-minute station stops. They’ll bring it back tomorrow afternoon.”
“I am relieved to hear that. In the meantime…” She sent a surreptitious glance down her front.
“In the meantime, you could waltz without raising your arms. I will simply lower mine.”
She took another gulp of the interesting-tasting cider and rose unsteadily. “Very well. If you will promise not to laugh if, well, if shomeshing…that is, something…untoward occurs.”
Kellen swung her away to the band’s raucous rendition of “The Blue Bell of Scotland.” Not a waltz, but he didn’t care. He just wanted to put his arms around her and keep her talking.
They danced in silence for half a chorus, and then his black swan opened her mouth. What came out shocked him into a complete standstill.
“Colonel Macready, do you really, truly want to get married?”
He tightened his hand at her waist. She felt warm and soft under his fingers. No corset. Interesting.
“You want an honest answer, I assume?”
“Honest? Why, of course I want an honest answer. It is an honest question.”
“Well, then, yes.” He swallowed hard. “I do want to marry.”
“But why?”
“Why! What kind of question is that? Most men want to marry at some time or other.”
