The Bad Luck Wedding Dress by Geralyn Dawson Read Free Book Online Page A

Line Saloon, Trace had a shot of rye whiskey poured and waiting for him. He preferred bourbon himself.
    Courtright drained his glass before he spoke. “You’re going to have to do something, McBride.”
    He had done something. In seven days he’d been through three more housekeepers. This morning he’d hauled his girls across the street so the nuns could deal with them. He should have known holy women had no chance of controlling holy terrors. All this nonsense was playing hell with his plans to go respectable. Making a place for his daughters in Fort Worth society would be difficult enough considering his soon-to-be-former occupation. No way would the good women of Fort Worth accept his daughters as one of their own if they continued with these pranks. Trace closed his eyes and asked, “What did they do today?”
    “They’ve crossed the line this time. This ain’t no pickle swiping or even turning mice loose at the Baptist Ladies’ Benevolent Society meeting. This is out-and-out criminal activity. Punishable, I might add, by—” he pulled a paper from his pocket, donned his spectacles, and read “‘branding, lashing, a one-thousand-dollar fine, one-year imprisonment, and restoration.’“
    Trace, having a passing acquaintance with the laws of crime and punishment in Texas, took a long swig of bourbon, then croaked, “Are you telling me my girls stole a horse?”
    “Two of ‘em.” Courtright took off his spectacles and returned them and the paper to his pocket. “From the nuns at Saint Stanislaus Kostka Church.”
    “Good God.”
    “I reckon you’d better hope so. We did recover the horses, at least. Little Katrina told us where to find ‘em.” A reluctant grin tugged at his lips. “They tied them up over behind First Baptist.”
    Trace dropped his chin and shook his head in defeat as Courtright continued, “You’re gonna have to do something and fast. Folks around here won’t put up with that sort of behavior out of young’uns. Especially girls. You’ve been living on borrowed time as it is, all the mischief they’ve caused in the past year or so.”
    Trace clamped his mouth shut as anger—at the marshal, his daughters, the entire world—threatened to burst into words. But how could he be mad at Courtright? The man was right. The girls were out of hand. Horse thieves, by God!
    He finished off his drink and asked, “Where are they?”
    “Jail.”
    “What?” Trace shouted, shoving to his feet, heedless of the chair that clattered to the floor.
    “I had to do something with them, McBride. Only have one prisoner today, and he’s sleeping off his drunk. Figured a dose of cell time might get through to ‘em. You sure as hell haven’t.”
    Trace was out of the front door in a flash. His long strides ate up the ground as he hurried toward the jail-house, conveniently located at the far end of the Acre. That sonofabitch had put his little girls in jail!
    That sonofabitch had put his little hoodlums in jail.
    “What am I doing wrong with those girls?” he muttered. If they were boys, he’d know what to do. Same thing his father used to do to him—the three Ws. Words, work, and woodshed. In the past week or so, Trace had served up the first two on a regular basis. He’d worn out his tongue lecturing and worked his girls until the house sparkled. But he simply couldn’t bring himself to haul them to the woodshed. He didn’t believe a man should ever hit a woman, no matter how young that woman might be.
    So what did a father do with daughters who stole horses from nuns?
    The summer heat bore down relentlessly as he made his way toward the calaboose. The odor of whiskey slapped at his senses and made him think of the locked-up drunk. He silently cursed the marshal. What had the man been thinking of, putting three little girls in jail? They’d be frightened. Kat would have nightmares for weeks. What if one of the deputies brought in a criminal before he got there? Trace sprinted the last