High Country Bride by Linda Lael Miller Read Free Book Online Page A

“You done real well for yourself, Rafe.”
    Rafe straightened. An awful feeling settled heavily in his belly. “What the hell are you getting at?” he demanded.
    “Name on the ticket was Mrs. Rafe McKettrick,” Charlie told him. “Came all the way from Kansas City. I didn’t know you’d taken yourself a wife.”
    Rafe muttered, slapped payment for his drink on the bar, and started for the door.
    “No hurry,” Charlie called benignly.“Jeb loaded up her things and the two of them set off for the Triple M half an hour ago.”
    Rafe stopped, turned. Jake sat up on the billiard table, hawked, and spat out a tooth.
    “You dirty sum’bitch, McKettrick,” the sodbuster growled,“I ought to carve out your gizzard.”
    “What did you say?” Rafe rasped, and he wasn’t talking to Jake Fink.
    Charlie chuckled. “I reckon old Jake here must have loosened your eardrums,” he said. Charlie considered himself a wit, and nobody enjoyed his jokes quite as much as he did. “I said Jeb took your mail-order bride on home, since you was otherwise occupied. Right brotherly of him, I’d say.”
    Rafe cursed. He’d sent for a wife nearly two months before and forgotten all about her. The least those people at the Happy Home Matrimonial Service could have done was notify him that they’d filled his order.
    “Come on back here and fight!” Jake said, swinging both legs over the edge of the table and promptly crumpling to the sawdust floor.
    Rafe peeled off a couple of bills and thrust them at Jake’s partner, Pootie Callahan.“Get him over to the doc’s office,” he said, distracted. Then he turned and hurried out of the saloon.
    He was halfway to the livery stable when he realized he couldn’t ride after his bride looking the way he did. He was filthy, his clothes were torn and bloodied, and he needed barbering. He’d made a hell of a first impression as it was; she was a city girl, most likely, and if he didn’t take the time to clean up a little, he’d scare the devil out of her.
    No, sir, everything was riding on this, and he had to handle it right.
    Charlie Biggam had a mouth on him, and it soon became obvious that most of the town knew about his new wife, who was even now riding toward the ranch with Jeb. No doubt he was pouring on the charm, Jeb was, and the thought made Rafe’s collar feel tight. He was legally married to that woman, whatever her name was, but he knew enough about the law to figure out that the deal wouldn’t be bolted down until he’d bedded her, and so did Jeb. All she’d have to do, if she changed her mind, was see a lawyer and ask for an annulment.
    Rafe wasn’t going to let that happen. Though he didn’t have Jeb’s charm or Kade’s talent for spouting pretty words, there were things to recommend him. He’d just have to ponder awhile, that was all, and figure out what they were.
    He stormed across the road, and people parted for him, those afoot and those on horseback alike, accurately reading the expression on his face. Anyone who trifled with Rafe McKettrick now did so at his own peril.
    Over at the general store, he exhausted his line of credit, buying a new black suit, a white shirt with a celluloid collar, a derby hat, a pair of gold wedding bands, and a frilly white nightgown that would look just fine on his wife.
    He ignored the chuckles and whispered speculations as he left the store and headed down the road to the hotel, where he bought himself a bath, a shave, and a room to change clothes in. By the time he’d done all that, and was ready to set out for home, the sun was low in the western sky and a chilly breeze was sweeping down from the high country, up there above the timberline.
    Rafe knew that Jeb and the new Mrs. McKettrick would have covered considerable ground by then, nearing the ranch if they hadn’t broken an axle or had a horse go lame. He stewed, imagining Jeb’s fancy talk. Words came so easily to him, and to Kade, but they generally caught in Rafe’s