Chapter 1 - The Bride He Didn't Want
Winifred swung the cast-iron skillet and shouted:
“Get away from me!”
Judson McIntyre stopped in the cabin doorway and saw a revolver lying beside the stranger on his floor.
One chamber was empty.
Judson looked at the smoke curling from the barrel.
This man had not come for supper.
For three long seconds, nobody moved.
Winifred Hayes stood beside the kitchen table with both hands wrapped around the skillet handle. Her chest rose and fell beneath the faded burgundy dress she had changed into after arriving in the mountains. Several curls had fallen from the loose knot at the back of her head. One clung to her damp cheek.
The stranger sat against a wooden chair he had apparently knocked over when he fell.
His face was dirty.
His lower lip was bleeding where he had bitten it.
But his eyes remained alert.
His right hand began creeping toward the revolver.
Judson crossed the room in two strides and kicked the weapon beneath the table.
“Try it,” he said.
The stranger froze.
Judson looked at Winifred.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
Only then did Winifred lower the skillet.
Judson stared at it.
Then at the man.
Then back at her.
“What happened?”
“He came through that door without knocking.”
“That all?”
“He demanded food.”
Judson's expression hardened.
Winifred continued.
“I gave him bread.”
The stranger laughed bitterly.
“She gave me yesterday's bread.”
Winifred glanced at him.
“You're fortunate I didn't give you tomorrow's.”
Judson almost smiled.
Almost.
It surprised him enough that the expression disappeared immediately.
The stranger noticed.
“So that's her?” he asked. “The bride?”
Judson's gaze snapped toward him.
“You know about her?”
“Everybody from here to Silver Creek knows McIntyre ordered himself a wife.”
Winifred's fingers tightened around the skillet.
Ordered.
She had heard variations of that word since stepping from the stagecoach.
Bought.
Sent for.
Delivered.
As if she had arrived in a wooden crate.
Judson noticed her expression but said nothing.
The stranger pushed himself upright.
“I'll leave.”
“You'll sit,” Judson said.
The man sat.
Judson reached beneath the table and retrieved the revolver. He opened the cylinder.
Five cartridges remained.
One had been fired.
His gaze moved to a dark mark in the log wall.
The bullet had struck less than three feet from where Winifred stood.
Something changed in Judson's face.
“Who fired?”
The stranger didn't answer.
Winifred did.
“He did.”
Judson turned slowly.
“At you?”
“He said women should know when to stop talking.”
Judson stepped toward the man.
Winifred immediately moved between them.
“Don't.”
Judson stared at her.
“He fired a gun at you.”
“And missed.”
“That doesn't improve matters.”
“No. But beating him senseless won't improve them either.”
The stranger looked from one to the other.
Judson's jaw tightened.
Winifred saw something she had already begun to understand about the man she had crossed half a country to marry.
Judson McIntyre was not cruel.
Cruelty would have been easier.
He was hard.
Hard from years of cold winters, failed crops, dangerous work, and burying people before he was ready to lose them.
He had learned to judge everything by usefulness.
A horse pulled or it didn't.
An axe cut or it didn't.
A roof held snow or it collapsed.
And apparently a wife survived the Rockies or she didn't.
Winifred had known what he thought of her from the moment she stepped off the stagecoach.
She remembered it too clearly.
Judson had been waiting beside a mud-splashed wagon in Silver Creek.
She had climbed down wearing the green wool traveling dress she had carefully repaired three times during her journey west.
The stationmaster handed down her trunk.
Judson had stared.
Not with admiration.
Not even disappointment at first.
Confusion.
“You're Winifred Hayes?”
“Yes.”
He looked behind her.
She had almost done the same.
“Yes,” she repeated.
Judson removed his hat.
“You're alone?”
“I certainly hope so. I paid for one ticket.”
The stationmaster laughed.
Judson didn't.
His gaze traveled from her polished shoes to her soft hands, her round figure, and the small hat pinned carefully over her curls.
“You told the agency you could manage a household.”
“I can.”
“In the mountains?”
“I assumed households worked roughly the same above sea level.”
That earned the faintest twitch near his mouth.
Then he looked at her trunk.
“That everything?”
“Yes.”
“Get in.”
Not welcome.
Not pleased to meet you.
Get in.
During the wagon ride, Judson explained the cabin, livestock, distance to town, winter stores, and dangers of mountain weather as though interviewing an employee he already intended to dismiss.
Finally Winifred asked, “Are you always this cheerful?”
He looked at her.
“No.”
“At least you're consistent.”
That time, she definitely saw the beginning of a smile.
But it disappeared.
When they reached the cabin, he carried her trunk inside and stood awkwardly beside the table.
“I should say something.”
“That would be encouraging.”
“I expected someone different.”
Winifred removed her gloves.
“Different how?”
Judson hesitated.
“Tougher.”
There it was.
She had traveled weeks for a man who needed perhaps ten seconds to decide she was inadequate.
She placed her gloves carefully on the table.
“What does a tough woman look like?”
“I didn't mean—”
“Tall?”
“No.”
“Thin?”
“Winifred.”
“Should I have arrived carrying an elk over my shoulder?”
His brow furrowed.
She smiled.
“You may answer whenever you're ready.”
Judson exhaled.
“I asked for a woman who could survive here.”
“And you've concluded I can't.”
He looked uncomfortable.
That was answer enough.
The following weeks had become a quiet contest neither admitted they were fighting.
Judson expected complaints.
Winifred gave him none.
The stove smoked.
She repaired the flue.
The pantry shelves leaned.
She leveled them.
A sack of flour developed weevils.
She salvaged what she could, cleaned every container, and reorganized their stores.
Judson returned one evening to discover that the cabin he had inhabited for six years no longer smelled of damp wool and old coffee.
“You moved my coffee.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you stored it beside lamp oil.”
“I always kept it there.”
“That explains the coffee.”
He stared at her.
She stared back.
The next morning, the coffee remained in its new location.
Then came the biscuits.
Judson ate four.
He complained that they were too soft.
Winifred said nothing.
The next morning, she served the same biscuits.
He ate five.
Yet none of it seemed to change his opinion.
Cooking was not surviving.
Cleaning was not surviving.
Making the cabin feel less like an abandoned hunting shelter was not surviving.
At least, that was what Winifred believed he thought.
Until the stranger came through the door.
Now Judson stood looking at her differently.
The man on the floor finally spoke.
“I said I'd leave.”
Judson took his coat from a peg.
“You will.”
He opened the door.
“But you're walking.”
The stranger glanced outside.
“My horse—”
“Stays.”
“You can't take my horse.”
“You fired at my wife.”
The words landed harder on Winifred than she expected.
My wife.
Judson said it naturally.
Possessively perhaps, but not dismissively.
The stranger apparently heard something else in Judson's voice because he stopped arguing.
He stood.
Before leaving, he looked at Winifred.
“That skillet won't save you next time.”
Judson moved.
Winifred caught his arm.
“Let him go.”
The stranger disappeared outside.
Judson waited until the footsteps faded.
Then he closed the door.
“You shouldn't have stopped me.”
“You shouldn't have needed stopping.”
“He threatened you.”
“He wanted you angry.”
“He succeeded.”
“I noticed.”
Judson placed the revolver on the table.
“Where did you learn to do that?”
“Do what?”
“Stand your ground when somebody fires a gun.”
Winifred looked at the skillet.
“You think because I cook, I scare easily?”
“I didn't say that.”
“You didn't need to.”
Judson's face tightened.
“I asked for a wife, not a cook.”
The moment the words left his mouth, he regretted them.
Winifred became perfectly still.
Judson tried again.
“That came out wrong.”
“No.”
She placed the skillet on the stove.
“I think it came out exactly as you intended.”
“Winifred.”
“You wanted a wife tough enough for the Rockies.”
“Yes.”
“You got one.”
She walked past him.
Judson caught her wrist gently.
She looked down at his hand.
He released her immediately.
“I know.”
Those two words surprised them both.
Winifred looked at him.
“What?”
Judson glanced toward the bullet mark in the wall.
“I said I know.”
For the first time since she arrived, there was no skepticism in his expression.
Only uncertainty.
And perhaps shame.
Before either could say more, hoofbeats sounded outside.
Judson turned.
The stranger's horse was still tied beside the shed.
These were different horses.
Several.
Judson reached for the revolver.
Winifred moved toward the window.
Three riders appeared between the trees.
Then four.
The lead rider wore a silver badge.
Judson relaxed slightly.
“Sheriff.”
Winifred didn't.
She had gone pale.
Judson noticed.
“You know him?”
“No.”
But her answer came too quickly.
The riders stopped outside.
A fist struck the door.
“McIntyre!”
Judson opened it.
Sheriff Amos Bell stood on the porch with two deputies and an older man in a black coat.
The sheriff looked past Judson.
Straight at Winifred.
“Ma'am,” he said, “I need your full name.”
Judson frowned.
“You know her name.”
The sheriff removed a folded telegram from his pocket.
“I'm afraid I know another one.”
Winifred's face lost all color.
Judson turned toward her.
The sheriff unfolded the telegram.
He read the first line.
Then he looked up.
“Winifred Hayes isn't the name they're looking for.”
Judson stared at his bride.
May you like
The older man stepped into the doorway.
And quietly called her by another name.
