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June sunshine and summer-fresh air poured in from the window, rustling the gauze drapes.
“Don’t throw it all away, Jack.” Hugh Logan was more than an attorney; he was slated to be best man at the wedding. Jack had come to trust him as a dependable friend in the three years he’d been living and working in the valley.
Hugh, in his mid-thirties and a few years older than Jack, rose from behind his mahogany desk to allow his tailor to mark his new suit. The tailor, a rotund man from eastern Europe who didn’t speak or understand English well, quietly pinned the gray sleeves.
“I’m not throwing anything away,” Jack insisted.
“A new ranch. Two dozen horses. A veterinarian practice. Neighbors who would like nothing more than for you to marry one of their daughters.” Hugh’s red hair glistened from a recent cut at the barber’s.
“I was intending to find a suitable wife in Napa Valley, but things don’t always work out the way you plan.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s time to throw away the plan.”
“I know this girl.”
“You mean you knew her five years ago.”
Jack, many inches taller with broader shoulders than his friend, disagreed. “I’ve got to go.”
“Reconsider, Jack. Take your time with this. Court her all over again. Then get married if you still want to. Maybe what she’s truly attracted to is that big ranch of yours.”
Jack scoffed.
“That’s the attorney in me speaking.” Hugh’s gaze flashed down to the tailor, who was kneeling and making his way round the edge of the waistcoat, giving no indication that he was intrigued by the conversation. Even so, Hugh lowered his voice. “You know it’s fair advice, Jack. Hell, last night in the saloon you told me yourself she spurned you when you were livin’ in Chicago. Now that my head has cleared, I’d like to bring it to your attention, for the record, that the only thing that’s changed since her rejection then and her acceptance now is your net worth.”
Jack frowned. “It’s not the only thing.” Yet the comments cut deep into his pride. Cassandra had never been the easiest woman to deal with; in fact, she’d been downright spoiled by her father. But she’d suffered through a hell of a lot since Jack had last seen her. Both physically and emotionally.
And five years ago, he hadn’t proposed marriage to her. Damn, at the time when he’d approached her, she was engaged to someone else. It had all been so complicated and convoluted.
Yet, he did recall that her rejection hadn’t been a gentle one.
Jack rubbed his jaw.
The tailor asked Hugh to turn, then continued pinning.
Mail-order brides weren’t uncommon in these parts. Jack didn’t know any personally, but he’d heard tales. There were so few women in the West that many men used any means necessary to procure a bride and start a family. Jack imagined that some of the women were desperate—as were the men—but some of the ladies were adventurous and wished to travel West. It was less restrictive here than in the East, for lots of women owned their own property and ran businesses, or worked just as long and hard on the ranches and vineyards as their husbands. At least, that’s what Cassandra had written—that in addition to the compatible marriage, she was looking forward to the freedom in choosing her own occupations to fill her time.
She’d always been ladylike and restrained, and had listened quietly to her father’s advice. Jack imagined she’d be just as respectful of his opinions, and that she likely only wished to start up a library, perhaps, here in town. Or a knitting group, or work with him in some capacity on the ranch.
The ground outside rumbled. A team of horses pulling a stagecoach suddenly thundered past the window. She was here.
Jack took a deep breath.
“See you at the wedding, Hugh.” He planted his Stetson back on his head and strode out of the office, trying not to let on that the words still bothered him.
* * *
Sitting in the cramped stagecoach, Cassandra peered up from the book she was discreetly reading, Tales of Bounty Hunters and Criminals. Through the dusty windowpane, she observed vineyards on the slopes and palm trees among the town’s buildings, and worried again how very late they were. She tried to suppress her rush of nerves. It was Wednesday afternoon at fifteen minutes past two—more than two hours behind schedule.
Would her soon-to-be groom still be here, waiting for her, or had Jack tired of it and left?
She opened her large satchel and slid the book in among her other things. There was a Chicago newspaper, another text entitled California Courts and the Legal Code, a silver-inlaid derringer pistol and a small box of .41 Rimfire cartridges.
The driver pulled the team of horses into a green valley and the pretty town called Sundial, and careened to a stop. The three other passengers with her—an elderly couple and a young cowboy—gathered their belongings as she quickly disembarked.
“Good traveling with you, miss,” said the old gent, blinking at Cassandra’s scarred cheek.
“Enjoy the last leg of your journey,” she replied, turning her injured side away.
The young cowboy nodded goodbye. Although she and he were roughly the same age—mid-twenties—in all the hours they’d spent together, he’d never once gazed at her with any masculine interest in his eyes. Not that she wished him to; only that she noticed self-consciously that since her injury, most men silently dismissed her in that way.
Wearing a wide-brimmed sun hat with a chiffon scarf pushed through the top and hanging at her temples as ties, Cassandra instinctively pulled the dangling fabric over her marred cheek. She slid into the awaiting crowd and searched the faces.
What would Jack think when he saw her? She’d explained the injury to him in her letters. He’d responded that it was irrelevant to him, that he simply wished her good health and was relieved that she hadn’t been seriously injured.
Of course, he had written those words thousands of miles away. Things might be different up close. He was about to marry her, and what man didn’t wish to be sexually attracted to his bride?
Normally, being outdoors under the blue sky and sun calmed her, but not today. She searched the assortment of faces for someone who might resemble the man who’d walked out of her world five years ago. Back then their relationship had been strained, for it was a time when she had been engaged to someone else.
No Jack McColton.
Cassandra twirled around to study more faces. She was looking for someone tall, on the skinny side, with black hair. He was a veterinarian now, he’d written, working with horses in the vineyards, lumber mills and ranches of Napa Valley. He’d studied veterinary science in Chicago and she’d often seen him with a textbook in his hands. He’d always had a love of animals, she recalled, more interested in the livestock people owned than who might be knocking at the front door.
Searching the eager faces looking back at her, Cassandra dusted her threadbare skirts and adjusted her plumed hat to shield herself from the gleaming California sun.
So much hotter and drier than Chicago.
So much more hopeful and filled with promise.
So much more anxiety-inducing than she’d thought possible when she’d agreed to become a mail-order bride at Mrs. Pepik’s Boarding House for Desolate Women. In the return address she’d given Jack, she’d left off the desolate part.
No need to tell him how far she’d fallen.
Besides, he’d see it in one glance, wouldn’t he?
Stop that, she told herself, and straightened her posture with dignity and pride.
She was here to start a new life with a man she had known to be hardworking and law-abiding. In choosing Jack over the other prospects, she was at least going with a known quantity. She knew his flaws as well as his strengths. Surely that was an advantage, wasn’t it?
But perhaps she’d been hasty, rushing to marry him because of past memories and his recollections of her late sister and father. Five years had passed. For all she knew, he might now be reckless and unfeeling. And back then, she hadn’t spent that much time alone with him. Sometimes a person’s behavior was totally different in private than in public.
“Cassandra?” said a deep male voice behind her.
Feeling a stab of terror mixed with excitement, she wheeled around and nearly bumped into him.
She got an eyeful of a very broad chest wearing a neatly pressed white shirt and leather vest. Holding on to her hat, she craned her neck and peered way, way up. Her scarf draped against her scar.
Those familiar deep brown eyes flashed at her with curiosity. Her first impression was that everything about Jack McColton was incredibly dark. Tanned skin, black hair, black eyebrows, black leather vest, black cowboy hat. And no longer thin. His shoulders were as wide as forever. Obviously, his work in the vineyards had seasoned his physique.
He reminded her of a Thoroughbred racehorse, muscled and built for speed. Her pulse tripped over itself in response to his powerful presence. Wavy hair, longer than the men wore in Chicago, touched his collar. A sheen of moisture from the heat of the sun dampened his brow. He was clean-shaven, but already a dark shadow underlined his firm jaw and cast shadows in the dimple of his chin.
“Cassandra,” he repeated in a rich baritone. “Good to see you.” And then her scarf came away from her cheek, exposing the ugly ripple of flesh four inches in diameter, and his studious eyes flickered over it.
The burning heat of embarrassment and shame, and an overriding wish to flee, overtook her. This is what you ordered, she thought. How terribly disappointed you must be.
He fumbled for barely a moment, almost imperceptibly, then glanced back up into her eyes with a smile. “You look lovely.”
She took in a deep breath, touched by his kindness.
Why did the rhythm of her breathing still break when she was around him? Why had it always been like this? She nodded and smiled in a confusion of emotions.
She hadn’t realized how parched her mouth was. “Well, I...Jack...this climate certainly agrees with you.” Clumsily, she reached out to shake his hand at the same instant he held out a bouquet of pink wild roses.
She took the flowers, mumbled a thank-you that got muffled when he leaned forward, planted a large warm hand on her wrist and pulled her forward over the roses in an awkward semihug that two distant relations might share. It was a wonderful display of strain and discomfort, the same awkwardness that had existed between them when she’d been engaged to his cousin, Troy.
Only now she was engaged to Jack, and all the witty and charming things she’d practiced to say on their first meeting flew out of her head.
“Sorry you got delayed,” he said. “The coach is never on time.”
“Thank you for waiting,” she replied, still flustered.
“May I take your bag?” He extended his hand, and before she could stop him, took her woven satchel. Due to the weight of her books and gun, it thudded against his side. “What on earth are you carrying? Cannonballs?”
She smiled at his quip. She hadn’t written to him about her desire to be a detective. She wanted to prepare herself first, to scope out the town and its facilities, and break the news to him gently, in the event he had any objections.
“How was your trip?”
“Long and dusty. But it is exciting to see this part of the country.”
He gave her another one of those sweeping glances that seemed to sum her up. “I almost didn’t recognize you.”
Because of the massive scar?
He awkwardly tried to make it right. “I mean because you used to be a touch heavier, remember?” Then he groaned. Perhaps that wasn’t quite what he’d meant to vocalize, either.
In her efforts to recall what he might look like, she’d forgotten that she herself had been on the plump side, last time they’d seen each other on the night of their ripping argument.
But if he’d had any decency at all, if he’d truly cared for her as he’d confessed that evening, why had he packed his things and left in the middle of the night?
Not a word goodbye.
He had tried to kiss her, but how on earth could he have expected her to react, when she was engaged to his cousin? What more could any decent man expect but a slap on the face?
Anger flashed through her. She was surprised by it and tried to hide it. She thought she’d feel a hundred different things when she saw him again, but never suspected she still hadn’t gotten over the callous way he’d left. Those buried feelings of betrayal surged up and stung her. She didn’t wish to be resentful. What she’d hoped to be when she arrived, had fantasized being, was a pleasant and optimistic bride.
Perhaps what she was truly indignant about were the circumstances she had found herself in, in Chicago—no way to support herself immediately after the fire, no family to help, relying on the mercy of a man to marry her.
“I guess we’ve both been through a lot of change.” She smiled faintly, trying to overcome her emotions.
The artery at the base of his dark throat pulsed. He seemed to sense her discomfort as he watched her. “And how is Troy?”
Her lashes flicked as she averted her gaze. “Fine, I suppose. In England somewhere, last I heard.”
She hadn’t spoken to that turncoat for five years, either, but how would Jack know that? All she’d told him in her letters, when he’d asked, was that their engagement had been over for quite some time. The truth was, after that huge row with Jack, she’d gone to Troy and had discovered that all the terrible things Jack had said about him—his drinking and his carousing with painted ladies—were true. Cassandra had severed her engagement that very night. Yet when she’d gone to tell Jack that he was right about his cousin, he’d been nowhere to be found.
Over the course of the next few days and weeks, she had realized that she hadn’t really loved either man.
And then out of the blue had come Jack’s response to her ad as a bride.
He frowned, as if trying to read her expression, and any residue of sentiment she might still have for Troy. She pressed her lips together and tried to express nothing.
My, how good she’d become at that game.
The moment stretched and stretched. Then two young ladies walked by, whispering something about him with admiration in their tone. Jack didn’t pay them attention; his dark eyebrows flickered at Cassandra. He rubbed the tense muscles in his jaw and tilted his mouth in an expression of friendliness.
“Welcome to my valley.”
There went her nerves again. She couldn’t get enough of looking at the new Jack. Goodness. Wasn’t he handsome? Perhaps he knew it. Perhaps this new confidence she sensed in him came from being aware of how he was perceived by the women around him. And those women...they had such fine features and beautiful skin.
It hurt to remember that she’d once looked like that. That she’d once turned heads and garnered male attention.
She composed herself and tried to remain positive. Jack hadn’t asked anyone else to marry him; he had asked her. So Cassandra focused on what the future with him might bring, and gave him a cheerful nod. “Nice to be here, finally.”
“Yes, finally,” he said, as if he were thinking about something more.
She swooped down to inhale the perfume of the roses, hoping the color heating up her cheeks didn’t show.
Finally, after all these years, Jack McColton would be taking her virginity.
Chapter Two
“My horse and buggy’s up this way,” Jack said to Cassandra as he found her larger piece of luggage and led her away from the crowd.
He tried to restrain the sorrow he felt when he gazed at her and the injury to her face. God. It had nearly felled him when he’d first seen her.
He took a deep breath, but his muscles were still tense.
The pocked flesh covered her entire right cheek. It wasn’t that her beauty was affected, for he saw the lovely woman she was and always would be. It was that he felt such guilt in seeing the scar. If he had been there in Chicago, he damn well could’ve prevented her injury. He likely would’ve been living nearby, could’ve helped her and her family escape the fire, could’ve removed Cassandra from the burning timbers of her home.
But he hadn’t been there for her, and not only had she lost her family, she had to live with the scar and the turning heads wherever she walked. Even now, men and women caught sight of her and followed her with inquisitive eyes. He tried to ignore them, and the ones shouting their hellos at him to give Cassandra time to adjust. He was ashamed at how much they were staring, and just wanted to get her the hell out of there.
He placed her suitcase and satchel in his shiny buggy and held out his hand to help her onto the seat.
She slid her palm into his. Was he imagining it, or was her touch slightly shaky? She hopped up onto the polished leather and quickly released her grip, before he could tell for sure.
“I thought we’d get married tomorrow evening,” he said, trying to break the strain between them.
“Tomorrow? My, oh my.” Her soft expression flashed with surprise.
