The Bride Wore Spurs (The Inconvenient Bride Series, Book 1) Read Free Page B

about that. My memory'd make a better sieve these days."
    Hawke, who'd shed his thigh-length leather jacket and dropped it on a kitchen chair, strode over to the couch, coffee in hand. "I'm having a hell of a time figuring out just which neighbor asked you to get him a wife. Willard over at Box-T swore off women after that squaw of his went crazy and cut him up with his own knife, and if I remember correctly, Big Jim at Dirt Creek not only has a wife, but she's swollen up with their eighth child. That just leaves those moth-eaten miners around Centennial, and I can't imagine—"
    "She's for you," said Caleb, plain and simple.
    Hawke froze in mid-sip. Then in slow, molasses-like movements, the coffee cup slipped off the ends of his fingers and shattered against the shiny floor. The hot brew splattered his boots and leggings, soaking through to his skin, but Hawke didn't even flinch.
    " Me? " he said, incredulous. "I never ordered me a bride! What in hell's wrong with you, Caleb? Have you lost your feeble mind?"
    Caleb stretched himself up as tall as he could, although sitting there with his leg splinted from boot to butt, the gesture didn't add much to his squat stature. "Now don't go getting yourself all riled up," he said, working to calm his friend. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
    "It did?" Hawke's gruff voice was booming. "And what time might that have been, friend ? I wrote all of your courtship letters for you, but I don't recall scribbling down anything to suggest that I might be on the lookout for a bride!"
    Blushing a little, Caleb admitted, "Well, I kinda added the suggestion to the last letter we wrote cause I know what you're a needing even if you don't. I figured what you're a needing, is a wife:"
    "Like hell, I am!"
    "Ah, if ye'll be excusing me, gentlemen?" Kate's tentative brogue cut into their conversation. "Me thinks I best go have a little chat with me companion so ye can have some privacy."
    Pinning his half-breed friend with a purposeful gaze, Caleb said to his intended, "Thank you kindly, Miss Kate. That sounds like a fine idea. Me and Hawke got some straightening out to do."
    With that, she maneuvered around the far end of the couch—the end which didn't feature the formidable obstacle in the shape of one Mr. John Winterhawke—and hurried over to where Lacey stood. "I canna believe what a dreadful affair I've got ye into, lass." With one eye on the Men as they argued in hushed tones, she kept her voice to a whisper. "Yer only hope is that my dear Mr. Weatherspoon will sport ye the passage back to Ireland."
    "Ireland?" Lacey dug in for a fight. "I'm not going back to the homeland, no matter what happens here."
    "But girl!" Kate stared over at the men, her eyes huge. "Haven't ye noticed something... different about Mr. Winterhawke? Me thinks he's one of those wild Indians ye know of 'em, heathens who'd just as soon peel the hair from yer head as pluck the bloom of a fuchsia to trim it."
    " You really... think so? " Tremors of both awe and fear raced up her spine. "How can you be so sure?"
    "Take a good look at him, lass, see for yerself!"
    Needing no further encouragement as she'd been sneaking brief glimpses of the intensely mesmerizing man anyway since the moment they first stepped into the tidy little cottage, Lacey cast a furtive, glance his way. Now that he'd removed the coat from his tall, lean body to reveal a rawhide shirt with fringe which swung down from his elbows, she could see how that, added to his rawhide trousers, colorfully-embroidered leggings, and hat which featured a pair of eagle feathers hanging over the brim, might give credence to Kate's theory.
    Lacey had certainly never seen a man dressed in such a manner before, but something more supported the notion that this man might indeed be a wild Indian; his skin was reddish-brown, looking bronzed by the firelight, and he possessed a rather reckless, uncivilized countenance. John Winterhawke had a way of moving which all but