"Well, I never … " Esther spouted. "You're going to marry up without any fuss at all, Johanna?"
Marjorie set her jaw. "Don't know why your friends can't be here, too."
Selena Phillips bent closer to where Johanna stood. "Perhaps you'd rather do this privately, Johanna. You've always been a quiet girl."
Johanna shook her head. "Yes … I mean, no, I don't mind if you want to be here for the wedding, Miss Marjorie. You too, Miss Esther. And you," she said finally, reaching to touch Selena's arm.
"Kinda sudden, isn't it?" Marjorie asked, her eyes narrowing as she turned to the man who'd set tongues wagging' for the past hour or so.
"I'm Tate Montgomery, ma'am. And I've been known to make quick decisions in my life. This one promises to be the best idea I've ever had. Miss Johanna has agreed to be my wife, and I'd like to invite you and your friends here to watch us do the deed."
"You new in town, Mr. Montgomery?" Esther Turner chirped.
"Pretty much so, ma'am. But I'm well established already. The bank has my money, so I guess I'm on my way to being a solid citizen. I've got an account started at your husband's store, Mrs. Turner. And here I am in church. What more could you ask of a man?"
Behind them, boots clumped up the aisle, and an impatient voice heralded a new arrival to the group. "Mrs. Jones, I've got your boys in the wagon. If you don't want to walk home, you'd better be on your way."
Marjorie turned to face her husband. "There's to be a wedding, Hardy. Bring the boys back on in and wait, why don't you?"
His keen eyes scanned the small group. "You the groom?" he asked sharply, pinning Tate with his stare. "You marrying up with Fred Patterson's girl?"
At Tate's smile, he nodded vigorously. "About time she found herself a man. She's too young to be wearin' herself to a frazzle out there."
Tate swallowed a chuckle. If nothing else, Hardy Jones was blunt. "I'm honored to be marrying the lady. She's agreed to be a mother to my boys."
From her other side, Johanna heard a hushed sound that sounded dreadfully like words she'd never dared to allow past her lips. She darted a glance at Timmy and Pete. Timmy's head was nodding, and his one foot swinging several inches above the floor. Pete was glaring at the floor, his lower lip stuck out, his face flushed and darkened with anger.
"Pete?" she whispered. Surely Tate had told him the wedding would be today, hadn't he?
Dark eyes met hers and Pete's mouth twisted into a pout. "I don't need a mother," he whispered. "I got my pa."
"Oh, Pete!" She bit her lip. Whatever Tate had told him, it hadn't prepared him for this. "Can we talk about this after a while?" she asked softly, leaving the security of Tate's arm to bend closer to the boy.
"Won't do any good."
Johanna's heart beat faster as she lowered herself to the pew. Careful not to touch the child, she blocked him from view of the others. "Maybe we can be friends, Pete."
"I don't need any friends."
"I do." The words were faint, spoken on an indrawn breath. Johanna had let them slip from her mouth without thinking, and only after they had been uttered did she realize the truth they held. She didn't have a close friend to her name. Selena Phillips had always been kind to her. The other ladies in town had greeted her nicely and spoken to her politely. But never had she had a real friend.
From the far side of Pete's sturdy body, a small, warm hand crept to touch her palm as it rested on her lap. Timmy leaned forward, in peril of falling to the floor, balancing himself oh the very edge of the seat, and smiled at her sleepily. "I'll be your friend, Miss Johanna."
Her heart skipped a beat. Her throat ached with unshed tears, and she blinked her eyes vigorously, lest she allow even one teardrop to fall. "I'd like that," she whispered.
Pete roughly pushed his brother's arm aside. "I'm your friend, Timmy."
Johanna smiled at the younger boy, and then the smile faded as she looked up at the children's father. His brow pulling into a frown, he bent to view the three of them.
"Everything all right, Johanna? The preacher's coming back in. Are you about ready?"
Was she ready? Heaven knew she needed a boost of strength from somewhere. She'd just been rejected by Tate's eldest boy, and that on top of the nervous stomach she'd been struggling with all morning. And now it didn't feel as if her legs were going to hold her upright.
Her lips curved into a shaky smile. "I'm fine, Tate." Liar, her heart cried.
His hand enclosed hers, and he tugged her gently to her feet, then led her to the altar where the minister waited.
"Last chance to back out, Johanna," he said so that no one else could hear.
Johanna thought of the cows he'd milked this morning, the hay he'd forked into the mangers. She remembered the easy way he'd carried furniture yesterday, his words of thanks as she served his supper. She envisioned the task of climbing a ladder to pick apples, imagined trying to tend to the herd of cattle all winter, when the west wind blew snow from the big lake. And then she swallowed her doubts as she accepted the hand he offered her.
His arm slid from around her waist, and he clasped her fingers within his own. It would be all right, she decided. It was a good bargain, this marriage she'd agreed to. Taking a deep breath, she fixed her gaze on Theodore Hughes, watching him open the small book he'd drawn from his pocket. His smile was encouraging as he lifted the cover and turned carefully to a page he'd marked beforehand. With one more long look at the couple facing him, he took a breath and began.
"Dearly beloved … "
Chapter Five
"I thought you'd told Pete we were going to be married today." She hadn't been able to look Tate fully in the face since the ceremony, and now she spoke with her back to him, her hands busy with stirring the gravy and tending the simmering kettle of beans. The vision of the small boy's sullen face had been in the forefront of her mind, a surprise she hadn't planned on.
"Pete's kinda hard to sort out sometimes," Tate said quietly. "He listened while I told him you and I were to be married, but it wasn't what he wanted to hear, and I suspect he just pretended to himself it wasn't going to happen."
"Did he think you were just going to stay here?"
Tate shook his head. "Who knows what a child thinks? He seemed happy enough with being here, I agree. I doubt he'd thought about my marrying again. We'd talked before about finding someone to watch after both boys." His voice softened. "To tell the truth, Johanna, till I caught sight of you, I hadn't worried too much about remarriage. I was willing to settle for a housekeeper."
"Until you saw me, or my farm?"
"Both, maybe. I just knew this was the place I was willing to put down roots. Don't ask me how I knew. I couldn't tell you. Any more than I could say why I knew you'd be a woman I could marry. I gave you a whole string of reasons why you appealed to me as a mother for my boys." He tilted his head and eyed her knowingly. "Maybe I just wanted to make it permanent, like you said, so you couldn't change your mind and skin out if the going got tough."
Johanna's spoon circled the skillet slowly, swirling the thickening gravy in a methodical fashion, a task she could manage without a whole lot of concentration. It was a good thing, too, because her thoughts had been in a swivet since the moment Tate Montgomery planted his mouth against hers, sealing their bargain before God and man.
She'd expected him to graze her cheek, or maybe the corner of her mouth. Just to make things look right. What she hadn't expected was the warmth of his lips, or the soft brush of them against her own before he found the spot he wanted to land on, or the impact of the male scent of him in her nostrils. She'd inhaled sharply when his mouth touched hers, thereby stamping the smell of his shaving soap and the aroma of freshly washed hair and skin on her mind.
It had only lasted a second or two, that kiss he'd given her with such ease and assurance, but the memory of it was still causing her to doubt her sanity.
She'd been kissed before, more thoroughly and at greater length. She'd been seduced by a man who was fairly knowledgable at the game. Her body had known the possession of that man, had shrunk from his greater strength at the end, had endured the rending of her flesh as her innocence surrendered to his taking.