The Wedding Cake War

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“Miss…” He caught himself just in time. Had the black swan had time to conquer her hiccups? He bent forward on the pretext of flicking a speck off his trouser leg and sent a surreptitious glance at Miss Mayfield.

She sat straight as a queen, her hands clasped in her lap—or what he could see of her lap under Miss Peacock’s voluminous skirt. And she was looking him straight in the eye. A challenge.

Ask me, her expression said. Get it over with.

“Miss Mayfield?”

“Flowers,” she blurted. “Flowers make me happy. Yellow ones. And sunsets and bread-baking smells and peach ice cream and running barefoot in long green grass and lovingsomeonelikeIlovedmyfather….” She paused for air. “There’s much more, but that’s all I can think of at the moment.”

So there, her gaze said.

Well-done. He congratulated her with a silent nod.

And just in time, too. Miss Mayfield’s eyelids were beginning to droop. The applejack had caught up with her.

“And now,” Dora Mae announced with a flourish, “the Last Question. Colonel?”

Kellen crumpled his notes in his fist and took a deep breath. The question he really wanted to ask wasn’t on his list. In fact he hadn’t thought of it until this moment.

He shouldn’t inquire about something so personal. But he had to know. He had to.

He took in a deep lungful of air and plunged. “The last question is, Why on earth are you interested in marrying me?”

All three women gaped at him.

Careen recovered first. “Every eligible female in this town would simply die to marry you, Colonel. Surely you don’t find that surprising?”

Miss LeClair responded as Kellen would have predicted. “Ah have heard on good authority that yoah a brave military officer and a Southern gentlemen. And that is exactly what Ah am lookin’ for.”

And his swan?

Miss Mayfield’s head nodded toward the yellow-silk-clad shoulder on her right.

“Miss Mayfield?” He sent her an urgent unspoken message. Wake up. Hoping the sound of his voice would rouse her, he repeated the question in a louder tone. “Why are you interested in marrying me?”

The blue eyes popped open. “Why? My gracious, I think that would be obvious. I don’t want to be an old maid!”

Laughter. Then the humming of animated conversation rose and eddied about the room; it sounded exactly like a hive of bees beginning to swarm. Kellen was too stunned to respond.

Squeezed between the settee arm and Fleurette’s voluminous skirts, Lolly decided she had to stand up. Either that or fall asleep right where she sat. Already her toes were numb and the tingly feeling was beginning to move up her calves toward her knees.

She tried to rise, but she couldn’t struggle past the enveloping mountain of yellow silk. “Ahem,” she murmured.

Fleurette chattered away without dropping a beat.

Lolly shifted her weight. “Excuse me,” she murmured. She tried to press down the puffs of skirt material.

No reaction. Fleurette’s voice drawled on. And on.

Lolly didn’t want to make a scene, but she had to get out of there. Now. She could feel the lace shawl pulling away from the top of her camisole; two more minutes and it would unwind completely and she would be sitting here in nothing but her camisole!

Clasping one hand to her bosom to hold things together, she poked the other under the yellow silk, aimed for solid flesh and pinched.

“Oo-ooooh!” Fleurette sprang to her feet. “Well, really,” she huffed. “Ah do declare…” Her voice trailed off when the colonel stepped forward.

“Is something wrong?”

Lolly flinched. Had he seen what she did?

“N-no,” Fleurette stammered. She sent Lolly a venomous look. “Ah guess Ah was mistaken.”

But from the glint of amusement in the colonel’s eyes, Lolly would wager he knew very well what she’d done.

Now that she was unencumbered, she would try again to stand up and make as polite an exit as she could manage, considering that her head felt light and kind of swirly. She would rock her weight forward and straighten to a standing position, despite her dizziness.

She commanded her knees to flex. Nothing happened.

She stiffened her spine. On the count of three, then.

“Leora?” Carrie peered at her from the other end of the green settee.

“One,” Lolly said.

“One what? Are you all right? You look…”

“Two,” Lolly muttered under her breath.

“Leora?” A hand stretched toward her.

Three.

She tried. She really tried. But ever so slowly, she began to tip sideways. Oh, mercy and botherment. Her cheek touched the velvet. My, it felt so good to close her eyes and…

The next thing she knew, someone—a man she guessed from his strength and his piney-musky scent—was lifting her upright. She opened her eyes to see Kellen Macready’s face much closer to hers than seemed proper.

“Oh, h’lo,” she murmured. “You smell good.”

Kellen’s voice vibrated against her ear. “Miss Mayfield, put your arms around my neck.”

“I would if I could,” she whispered. “But they have stopped working.”

“In that case…” He lifted her off the settee, rolled her against his chest and began moving.

“Oh, please,” she moaned. “Not sho fast. I feel like I’ve sprouted wings and I’ll fly right up to the ceiling.”

“You won’t,” he assured her.

“How do you know?”

This time an unmistakable laugh rumbled in his chest. “Gravity is on my side.”

His voice sounded near her temple. “Close your eyes, Miss Mayfield. And don’t talk.”

Lolly obeyed. Oh, but it felt lovely to be held in his arms. Her head pressed against his neck; the silk tie he wore tickled her chin. He did smell good. So good she wanted to lick his skin and taste it.

“Miss Mayfield has fainted, I believe.” His deep voice resonated against her ear.

Oh, no, I haven’t fainted, an inner voice reminded. I never faint. Even if I think I might die, I don’t faint. At this moment she might be floating with the angels near the ceiling, but she certainly had not lost reason or consciousness.

Voices ebbed and sighed around her. One in particular cut through the woolly-bear feeling in her brain. “Well, Ah never…”

A door banged open and a rush of cooler air blew against her face and shoulders. As he descended the stairs, the colonel’s body sent a little jolt into hers at every step. She counted all eighteen.

“Miss Mayfield, where is your room?”

The sweet, drowsy feeling was spreading through her limbs. It was so delicious she didn’t want it to end. She shook her head.

He groaned. “You can talk now.”

“Dowanna,” she mumbled. “Wanna stay right here.”

He made the funny noise inside his chest and then groaned again. “You can’t.”

“Why not?”

“For one thing, it would cause talk.”

“Don’t care. Been there before.”

A short silence. “For another, it would upset Dora Mae Landsfelter and the Ladies Helpful Society.”

Her lids flew open. “Oh! I forgot all about Dora Mae and…that. Tha’s why I was so scared all evening. Tha’s why I came to Maple Falls in th’ first plash. Place.”

“What is your room number?” he asked again.

“Ish room number…” Her mind went blank.

Kellen waited, breathing less steadily. “Yes?”

“Jush look for my shoes. I left them jush inside the door. Have pointy toes and they pinch.”

He guessed he had no choice. He stepped along the hallway with his burden in his arms, testing doorknobs, until he found one that opened. Sure enough, a pair of black leather pumps leaned against the baseboard. He kicked the door shut behind him, walked to the bed and laid her on top of the quilt. She curled up like a kitten, folded her hands under her chin and was asleep in an instant.

Kellen’s chest did something funny, as if a ripple had zigzagged from his throat to his belly. What the devil?

He spent a good five minutes just staring at her, noticing the scattering of freckles across her nose, the loose dark hair, sneaking from the bun at the back of her neck, the faint laugh lines in the outer corners of her eyes. She sure looked different from Careen and The Peacock.

And she sure felt different when he held her.

Damn. He had to get out of here. Now. Either that or risk a scandal that would destroy Miss Mayfield’s reputation.

He’d send Careen down to check on her. And tomorrow…

Oh, God, the Helpful Ladies and their bride competition! Tomorrow it would all start in earnest. How adept could a newspaper editor from dry, windswept Kansas be at greensward croquet?

Chapter Five

Shielding her eyes from the bright sunlight, Lolly moved along the board sidewalk keeping each footstep as smooth as possible to avoid jarring her head. This morning, the mere tap of her shoes on the wood planks sounded like cannon fire.

There it was. Bodwin’s Mercantile. She pushed open the door and bypassed a bushel basket of apples perched on top of a pickle barrel. The thought of food, even a tiny bite of apple, sent her stomach into rebellion.

“Something I can do for you, miss?” The lanky man behind the counter wiped his hands on his denim apron and leaned toward her. He had a breakfasty smell about him, as if he had a grilled sausage in his pocket.

Lolly gulped. “Yes, I—”

“Got just about everything in stock ’cept skunk traps and silver-tipped walking sticks.”

“Do you carry ladies’ outerwear?”

He surveyed her with penetrating blue eyes. “New in town, aren’tcha?”

Lolly swallowed. “Why do you say that?”

“Well, now, ma’am. Anybody’s lived here more’n twenty-four hours knows Dora Mae Landsfelter.”

“Yes, I am acquainted with Mrs. Landsfelter.”

“Well, then, you know why we don’t carry ladies’ outerwear. Or un-outerwear, neither.”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow,” Lolly said. “What has your mercantile stock to do with Mrs. Landsfelter?” She sensed a story here, maybe an amusing one, if she could worm it out of the shopkeeper. She could use a bit of levity this morning; her head buzzed as if it were crammed full of angry grasshoppers.

The lean man chuckled. “Name’s Joshua Bodwin, ma’am. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“Leora Mayfield.”

“Oh, yes. You’re one of the brides. I recognize you from the reception last night.”

“You do?” She desperately hoped it was the first part of the evening, and not the last, which she had spent dangling from the arms of Colonel Macready.

“Yep. Kellen Macready pointed you out.”

“He did? What did he s-say?” Lolly’s voice cracked.

Mr. Bodwin grinned. “That you were partial to my applejack. I make it myself, don’tcha know. And deliver it to the hotel for their fancy do’s. I was hopin’ ’tweren’t too potent for womenfolk.”

“Oh, no,” Lolly fibbed. “It tasted quite wonderful. So…relaxing for a social gathering.”