Chapter 2   

Ben Heywood groaned as he tried sitting up in bed. Of all the dumb things that could have happened. Getting shot by a woman he didn’t know—didn’t care to know.

Doc Evans told him he was a lucky man. The bullet had hit him in the upper arm. Although it had hit an artery, causing him to lose a lot of blood, he could just as easily have been shot in a vital organ. Still, Ben didn’t feel all that lucky.

The day had gone from bad to worse, starting with his parents’ confession that they had meddled with his life—yet again!

Until that morning, he had no idea that he was betrothed, let alone to a mail-order bride. He had been furious upon learning that his parents had written letters on his behalf to a woman—a stranger, no less—they’d expected him to marry. He still couldn’t believe it.

All he’d done was stop the stage to tell his so-called bride-to-be that there had been a terrible mistake and he had no intention of marrying her. To pay her for her trouble, he’d purchased a train ticket so she could travel back home in style.

A bullet to his arm changed all that.

“Take it easy,” Doc Evans said as he straightened the pillow behind Ben’s back. “With all the blood you lost, you’re lucky you survived. You can thank the stagecoach driver for that. Fortunately, he was a medic during the war.”

“I’m much obliged to him. To both of you,” Ben said. After being shot, he remembered nothing until waking up at Doc Evans’s medical infirmary. “I still can’t believe what happened.”

The doctor chuckled. “You’re not the first of my patients to have female troubles, but you’re the first to have been shot by one.”

“Don’t remind me,” Ben said with a grimace.

The doctor stepped back and tossed a nod at the door. “Are you up to receiving visitors?”

Ben groaned. “Are they all here?”

The doctor’s eyes crinkled at the corners as if amused by the question. “You know they are. It’s not every day that Prickly Pear’s favorite son gets himself shot.”

Ben laid his head back on his pillow and shifted his legs, but trying to get comfortable was out of the question. The doctor had to remove broken bone pieces before stitching Ben up, and every move sent pain shooting through his bandaged arm.

What the doc said about him being the town’s favorite son was no exaggeration. Ben had been left on the church steps as an infant, and three childless couples had taken it upon themselves to adopt him. He didn’t know what was worse: the hole in his arm or what awaited him behind the door.

As grateful as he was for the love and care showered upon him through the years, it hadn’t been easy growing up with three sets of parents.

Everything he did or had wanted to do in his youth had been debated at length and decided by parental committee.

His parents weren’t happy with his decision to accept an apprenticeship with a lawyer, and that was putting it mildly.

Pa Baer had wanted to teach Ben his family blacksmith trade, but Pa Edwards had insisted that banking was a nobler profession. Then there was Pa Norton, who had his heart set on Ben taking over the Norton General Store. The raging arguments that had followed Ben’s announcement had his adoptive mothers in tears. All except Mama Baer, who never cried.

Ben had hated to disappoint his six parents, but there comes a time when a man has to stand on his own two feet and follow his heart. He couldn’t explain it, but he’d always been fascinated by the law.

“So, what do you want to do?” the doctor asked, breaking into Ben’s thoughts.

Ben sighed. His head ached, his arm hurt, and his brain felt like mush. All he wanted to do was sleep. “Might as well get it over with,” he muttered.

“Whatever you say.” The doctor braced himself with a deep breath before reaching for the doorknob. He barely managed to keep from getting trampled as Ben’s parents stormed into the room.

As sure on foot as she was in her opinions, Ma Baer reached his bed first. “Oh you poor dear,” she said in her thick German accent. Clucking like an old hen, she leaned her bulky form over Ben, the feathers of her three-story hat brushing against his face. “You gave us quiet a scare.”

“You most certainly did,” Ma Edwards said, wringing her hands. Her small size and modest demeanor were deceiving. A former schoolmarm, Ma Edwards ran her house as rigidly as she had run her classroom and had taught Ben to read even before he’d been old enough to attend the town’s one-room schoolhouse.

Pa Norton thumbed his suspenders. “I knew you’d regret becomin’ a pettifogger.”

Ben clenched his jaw. It wasn’t the first time Pa Norton had used the derogatory term to describe Ben’s chosen profession, but it still stung.

“I’ll say,” Pa Baer said. “All those criminals—”

Ma Norton leaned on her cane and nodded. “You should have listened to your pa and worked at the shop with him.”

No sooner were the words out of her mouth than the other two couples protested. The argument that followed made Ben’s head spin. He lifted his one good arm to gain his parents’ attention.

“My being a lawyer had nothing to do with this,” he said. “I was shot by … the woman you wanted me to wed.”

Six pairs of rounded eyes stared at him, and a stunned silence filled the room.

Ma Edwards was the first to recover or at least find her voice. “Good heavens!” she exclaimed, her face as full and round as a powder puff. “What did you say to make her shoot you?”

Ben blinked. “Say?” The memory of being shot was foggy, at best. All he could remember with any clarity was the alarm in the woman’s big blue eyes after she’d fired her gun. He’d blacked out soon after.

“I didn’t have a chance to say anything. She shot me before I could open my mouth.”

Ma Norton tutted. “Well, I do declare,” she said in her southern twang. “And to think she claimed to be a fine Christian woman.”

Pa Baer made an impatient gesture with his arm, and his thick nose flared. “I told you that sending away for a bride out of a catalogue was a bad idea.”

Ma Baer glared up at him, arms folded across her ample chest. “Our son is about to turn thirty and has yet to find a suitable wife. I don’t see you coming up with a better plan.”

Pa Edwards stroked his graying beard and sniffed. “I still don’t know what’s wrong with the local girls.” He went on to name several who’d earned his favor as a possible daughter-in-law.

Not to be outdone, Pa Norton added, “And don’t forget the pastor’s daughter.”

Ben had no argument with any of them. All the women came from fine families and would probably make some men fine wives. Unfortunately, no woman in her right mind wanted to marry a man with six parents. If Miss Mail-Order Bride had known what she was getting herself into, she probably wouldn’t have wanted to marry him either.

“Did she know that you contacted her behind my back?” Ben asked. The silence that greeted his question made him groan. “She didn’t know.”

Ma Baer stared at him from beneath the stack of feathers on her head. “When she got here, we intended to tell her that we wanted to surprise you.”

“That’s right,” Ma Norton said with a nod of her head. “How were we supposed to know she’d come gunning for you before we had a chance to tell her about the surprise?”

Ben furrowed his forehead. “What made you think I would marry a complete stranger?”

“She sent a photograph,” Ma Baer said. “And she’s very pretty.”

Ben’s frowned deepened. “That’s it? You expected me to marry her based solely on looks?”

“She also cooks and sews,” Ma Norton said, looking at the other two women for confirmation.

Pa Baer glanced at his wife with a look of impatience. “There’s no sense rehashing this. What’s done is done. The question is, where do we go from here?”

The lively discussion that followed made Ben’s head hurt as much as the wound in his arm.

Pa Baer stopped the discussion with a wave of his arms. “If you ask me, Miss Cotton needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” He looked at his son. “You tell them, Ben. You’re the lawyer.”

“Colton,” his wife said.

Pa Baer’s eyebrows drew together. “What?”

“Her name is Colton. Elizabeth Colton.”

“So where do you suppose she is now?” Pa Norton asked.

Ma Baer crossed her arms, and the lines on her face deepened. “If she knows what’s good for her, she’s on the way back to Ohio.”

Doc Evans cleared his throat, drawing all eyes in his direction. “According to the sheriff, she’s in jail.”

Ben stiffened. Until that moment he’d not thought of the legal ramifications of Miss Cotton—Colton’s—actions. Now that he had, his mind went to work. Shooting an unarmed man could get her some serious cell time.

Ma Norton scoffed. “If you ask me, it serves her right.”

Miss Colton’s punishment seemed to be the only thing his six parents agreed upon. Nodding heads circled Ben’s bed.

While Ben wasn’t feeling particularly sympathetic toward the woman who’d shot him, he couldn’t ignore the fact that she appeared to be as much of a victim as he was.

Doc Evans checked the bandage on Ben’s shoulder. “Our patient needs to get some rest,” he said.

Ma Edwards clasped her hands to her chest. “Will he be all right?”

The doctor cast a meaningful glance at Ben. “We have to watch for infection, but I expect him to make a full recovery. Providing, of course, that he follows my orders.”

Ma Norton took Ben’s hand. “You heard what the doctor said.”

Not to be outdone, Ma Baer reached for Ben’s other hand. “I’ll bring you some riffle soup,” she said.

Her German riffle soup was an old family recipe, but right now the thought of eating made Ben feel sick to his stomach. “Much obliged,” he said. Declining an offer of food would only subject him to one of Ma Baer’s lectures on keeping up his strength.

Ma Norton said she’d make his favorite berry pie. Not to be outdone, Ma Edwards told him she’d whip up the brownies he liked so much.

“And I’ll make Bauernbrot,” Ma Baer quickly added, calling the bread by its German name and signaling the beginning of round two of Can you top this?

Pa Baer rolled his eyes and yanked open the door. “After you, ladies,” he said in a voice meant to discourage further discussion or argument.

After the other five had filed past him, Pa Baer lifted his gaze to the ceiling and muttered something beneath his breath that sounded like, “Why me, God? Why me?” He then followed the others out the door.