Shotgun Bride by Linda Lael Miller Page B

committee?”
    The door sprang open before Mandy could reply, and Kade counted five disgruntled brides clustered in the gap. They were wearing war paint, carrying parasols for spears, and they looked ready to use them, with little or no provocation.
    Marvella, the voluptuous blonde, had evidently been elected spokeswoman. “Kade McKettrick,” she said, pushing past Mandy, “we’re tired of waiting. You’re going to marry one of us, and that’s that.”
    Kade’s mouth dropped open, and he nearly spilled his coffee.
    “Yes,” agreed the one he remembered as Abigail, flushed with righteous indignation, as they all rushed inside, a human flash-flood of ruffles and ribbons and flowery scents. “We’re not leaving until you make a decision and abide by it!”
    For a moment, Kade seriously considered shutting himself up in the jail cell where he’d passed what had remained of the night before, once he’d seen to John, but he didn’t figure that would save him.
    “I do need a wife,” he agreed thoughtfully. Rafe might be ahead in the race, with Emmeline wearing his wedding band and carrying their child, but he wasn’t ready to quit on the idea of winning the Triple M, though he allowedas how that would have been the sensible thing to do. The place and the dream simply meant too much to him, and for all the things Angus had taught his sons, he’d left out the fine art of giving up.
    Marvella took in the poor surroundings—John’s beat-up old desk, the rough plank floors, the two narrow cells at the back, with their cots and bare mattresses, chipped basins, and slop buckets. “Of course we wouldn’t be living here —would we?”
    Kade hid another smile behind the rim of his coffee mug. “I reckon the mayor might spring for a room over at Mamie Sussex’s boardinghouse,” he said, knowing the brides were already housed in that unprepossessing establishment, and running up a bill that honor would require him to pay. “The ranch is too far from my work.”
    Abigail looked around, assessing. Then, spotting a broom, she commenced sweeping up. “A woman belongs at her husband’s side,” she announced with a churchy little sniff. “No matter where he happens to be.”
    Mandy put a hand over her mouth, maybe to stifle a burst of laughter, but wisely said nothing. The glance Kade sent her way was intended to wilt, but it didn’t seem to take.
    “It’s going to be a hard matter, deciding between such fine ladies as yourselves,” he said, taking the broom forcibly from Abigail, who was making him nervous with her fussing, and setting it back in the corner. “Maybe there ought to be some sort of—contest.”
    Mandy’s eyes widened at that, and Kade knew, sure as Sunday came around once a week, that she’d have told him what he could do with his “contest,” had she been in the running. Which, of course, she wasn’t, what with her claiming to be a nun and all.
    “Contest?” Marvella echoed.
    “Any wife of mine,” Kade said, riding a crest of foolish inspiration, “will have to be a good cook. I believe we ought to start with pies, since I particularly favor them.”
    “Pies,” echoed a rather fetching little redhead with freckles. He didn’t recollect her name. Penny would have suited her, with that coloring.
    “Just put the foodstuffs you need on my account at the general store,” Kade said with a generous wave of his hand. “I guess you could use the boardinghouse kitchen, or the one over at the Arizona Hotel.”
    The brides looked at each other in silent consultation, then made a herd decision and practically stampeded out the door, making for the mercantile across the street.
    “Kade McKettrick,” Mandy said, lingering on the threshold, framed in the light of a glowing spring morning, “you’re either the bravest man alive, or the stupidest.”

Chapter 16
     
     
    M andy paused on the board sidewalk outside the mercantile, watching as the prospective brides placed their separate orders for