“ Don’t be bull-headed,” Christy said the following afternoon, when she and Bridget came by to give the wedding dress a final fitting. Megan was standing on a chair in the center of the kitchen, while Bridget knelt, pinning the hem into place, and Christy adjusted the seams. She had just explained her quandary concerning Lil and the new show house, describing her promise and Webb’s ultimatum.
Bridget looked up. “Just tell Miss Colefield you made a mistake.”
Megan’s conscience was giving her as much trouble as the slivers in her backside had done, maybe more, and she expected she’d be a lot longer in the healing if she made the wrong choice. She heaved a frustrated sigh.
“Hold still,” Christy scolded, giving her a pinch on one side of her waist to make the point. Her gray eyes were direct and perhaps a little fierce. “What do you really want to do, Megan?”
Megan bit her lower lip and willed the tears burning behind her eyes into full retreat. “I want to marry Webb,” she said. “I want to live in this house with him until I’m an old, old lady. I want a flock of babies. But a part of me wants what Lil’s offering, too.”
Bridget tugged hard at the elegant, rustling skirts of the magnificent dress. Between her touches of lace and the dozens of tiny pearls Christy had stitched to the bodice and the cuffs of the full, billowing sleeves, that gown was as fine as any she could have bought in Richmond before the Great Strife. “All of us have to make choices sometimes,” she said. “Nobody can do everything.”
“Do you have any idea how busy you’ll be, once you have children?” Christy argued. “Good heavens, Megan, you’re already responsible for cooking meals and cleaning the place, not to mention everything else that goes with being a wife. You purely won’t have the time to do a proper job in either place. And if I know you, you’d wear yourself to a nub trying, all the same.”
“He’s never said he loved me,” Megan confided in a small voice.
Bridget and Christy looked at each other before focusing their gazes on Megan’s face. “Have you ever told Webb you love him?” Christy asked.
Megan swallowed. “No,” she said.
“Why not?” Bridget wanted to know.
Megan sniffled and barely caught herself from touching the back of one hand to her nose. “I’m not sure it would be honest.”
They both stopped working. Bridget got to her feet, and Christy stepped back, frowning. “What?” Christy demanded.
“What I mean is,” Megan began, wincing once and wringing her hands, “I feel all sorts of things for Webb Stratton, but I don’t know if it’s love. It’s not like anything I’ve ever felt before.”
Again, a cryptic glance passed between the two elder sisters. “What, exactly, is it like?” Bridget asked.
Megan felt much the way she had when she’d been bent over the kitchen table with her bare bottom in the air, but she needed Bridget and Christy’s help, so she bore it with as much grace as possible. Nonetheless, her face was hot, and there were grasshoppers springing about in her stomach. “Sometimes it’s like nothing and nobody else exists, except for Webb and me,” she said in a whisper, though the three of them were quite alone, except for Augustus, who was snoozing on the hearth. “I know I can live without him, but I also know it would be a darker, thinner, more hollow life. And when he kisses me—”
Both Bridget and Christy leaned forward, the better to listen.
“When he kisses me,” Megan went on, “I always feel as if I’m going to faint. My insides catch fire just like dry timber, and I ache to beat all.”
A smile crept across Christy’s mouth. “You love him,” she said with quiet confidence.
Bridget’s cornflower-blue eyes sparkled. “Oh, yes,” she agreed. “You most definitely do.”
“What do I know?” Megan wailed. “I thought I loved Davy Trent!”
Bridget raised one eyebrow and folded her arms. Obviously, she had no idea who Davy was and what had happened between him and Megan. Just as obviously, she had her suspicions. She didn’t ask, though. She just stood there with her usual authority, waiting to be enlightened.
“Did he make you feel the same things Webb does?” Christy asked carefully. “This Davy person, I mean?”
Megan felt as though Christy had just flung a bucket full of dirty mop water all over her, unprovoked. “Of course he didn’t!” she hissed.
“There you have it,” Bridget said solemnly, addressing Christy rather than Megan. The pair had been embattled for much of their lives, and yet they shared an alliance that set them apart from the rest of the family in a subtle and unique way. “Webb is the one for her.”
“Yes,” Christy agreed. “I think you’re right.”
“Does it matter at all here what I think?” Megan cried softly, and Augustus whimpered and got to his feet, as though he thought she might need rescuing.
“What do you think?” Christy reiterated.
Megan burst into tears. “I won’t be able to bear it,” she sobbed, “if he calls off the wedding. It’s bad enough that Caney won’t be there!”
“The dilemma seems simple enough to me,” Bridget said. Sometimes it made a body want to stick pins in her, the way she was always so damnably certain of everything. “Marry him, Megan. What does the Good Book say? ‘It’s better to marry than to burn’?” She paused for effect, and Megan remembered that she wasn’t the only one in the family with a sense of drama. “If you ask me, you’re about to go up in flames right now. As for Caney, she’ll come back when she’s ready. Just you wait and see.”
“You really think so?” Skye asked softly.
Bridget nodded. “We’re her family,” she said.
Despite Bridget’s claim that the matter of Webb’s decree was settled, Megan felt like a hound who’s just chased a rabbit round and round the same bush for half an hour without catching it. She was as confused as ever; they hadn’t settled anything. Still, she was comforted by the prospect of Caney’s eventual return.
Christy handed her a dish towel, that being the first thing that came to hand for the purpose. “Here. Dry your face and blow your nose before you ruin that dress,” she ordered.
Megan wiped her eyes, but that was as far as she was willing to go. After all, she had to use that dish towel. “You two were absolutely no help at all,” she accused.
Bridget smiled. “You don’t need our help anyhow,” she said. “You already know what you have to do.”
Megan realized that indeed she did know. She was going to have to choose between love and honor, in this case, and she would follow her heart and choose love. She would tell Webb what she’d decided, as humbling as that would be, then go to town and make her apologies to Diamond Lil. No doubt the saloon mistress would want her four-poster pineapple bedstead back.
She nodded. “You’re right,” she said. “Both of you. Jupiter and Zeus, I hate that.”
Christy and Bridget laughed out loud, their voices as beautiful as distant bells on a Sunday morning, and returned to the task at hand.
* * *
He’d been unreasonable, Webb thought, saddle-sore and sick to death of looking at cows and cowboys. Sure, it was unusual for a married woman to be in business, but Megan was no ordinary female. That was one of the many reasons he loved her.
He sighed. Yep, he loved her. What he’d felt for Ellie had been mere infatuation; he’d known that for a long time. It was Megan he wanted to share his life with, Megan he wanted to bear his children, Megan he wanted to lie down beside, every night until he died. Still, he was a proud man, and it would be a bitter pill, having his wife go into business with the town madam. Sweet heaven, he’d be joshed damn near to death over that, and he might even have to take up fighting again.
“Rider!” the lookout—one of Jake Vigil’s lumberjacks, borrowed until more men could be hired—shouted to Webb, pointing up the ravine.
Webb lifted his gaze and knew immediately that the visitor was Megan. He spurred the gelding into a trot and headed straight uphill.
He and Megan met midway.
“Webb—” she began.
“Megan—” he started.
They laughed. “You go first,” Webb said. It was good just to look at her, just to hear her voice. A homecoming of sorts.
“No,” she said. “You.”
He sighed, the reins lying easy in his gloved hands, which rested on the pommel of his saddle. “I still hate the idea of your working in town,” he said. “It’s going to look like I can’t provide for my own wife, and God knows what the gossips will say. All the same, I had no right forcing you to choose.” He paused, searched the horizon for inspiration, and looked back at her. “What it comes down to is, I’ll take you any way I can get you.”
She blushed prettily, and joy shone in her eyes. “Webb,” she said, in a tone so tender that it had the effect of a caress. Then she shook her head. “I won’t be working with Lil, not unless she runs into a real emergency,” she said. “Part of this ranch will be mine, and that will be more than enough to keep me busy, when you figure in a husband and babies.”
Something leaped inside him. He almost said it then, almost said right out that he loved her. It didn’t seem like the proper place to make such a declaration, though, there in the middle of noplace, with cows and a few saddle bums for witnesses. His voice came out hoarse. “I’m for starting that first baby as soon as possible,” he said.
She went even pinker, but the tears were gone, and her eyes were still shining. “That’s something we can agree on. Will you be home for supper tonight?”
Webb knew he shouldn’t leave the herd. He was short-handed as it was, and the weather was still uncertain. If he lost any more cattle, he’d have a problem, and not a slight one. “I’ll be there,” he heard himself say.
His reward was a smile, that sweet, sassy Megan McQuarry smile that always made his gizzard shimmy up into his windpipe. “I’ll be waiting,” she said.
Lordy, he thought, and sat there in the saddle like a lump on a log, watching her ride away.
When, resigned, he reined his horse around to go back to work, he saw Trace and Zachary coming toward him on horseback, with Jake Vigil and Malcolm Hicks close behind.
When they got within shouting distance, he saw that Trace and Zachary were grinning from ear to ear. Damn pleased with themselves.
“Figured you could use some more help with these dogies,” Zachary said, indicating the cattle with a toss of his head.
Webb was at a loss for words. He’d been on his own a long time, even before he’d left the Southern Star, in many ways, and now he was going to have brothers, the kind a man could count on in good times and bad.
“You do want some help, don’t you?” Trace inquired, still smiling.
“God, yes,” Webb said at last.
Jake rode forward, put out a hand. “I hope you appreciate this,” he said, his eyes bright with amusement. “Malcolm here got up out of his marriage bed to lend a hand.”
Webb had never seen a black man blush, but he reckoned that was what Malcolm did just then. He sure did curse.
“He and Caney got themselves hitched in secret,” Zachary said, standing in the stirrups to stretch his legs. “I’ll allow that I envy him her cooking.”
Malcolm smiled at that. He did look happy, Webb thought. “My missus can spare me for a little while,” Hicks said. “But it don’t work the other way.”
“What we need to do,” Webb said, his voice a little unsteady, “is drive these cattle closer to the house. Now that twenty or so of them are gone for good, the high meadow will serve as grazing land, at least for a few weeks.”
“Makes sense,” Zachary agreed.
Within half an hour, with four extra hands to help, Webb’s herd was on its way up out of the ravine, toward higher ground, and Webb himself was on his way home.
* * *
To say walking straight into Diamond Lil’s infamous saloon in broad daylight drew stares and whispers would be an understatement, but Megan did so with her shoulders squared and her head held high. She had something to say to the woman, and it had to be said face-to-face.
Just past the swinging doors, Megan paused and waited, blinking, for her eyes to adjust to the dimmer light. She saw a long, narrow room with sawdust-covered floors and high, murky windows. The bar seemed as long as the railroad tracks between New York and Philadelphia, laid out straight as the crow flies, and the mirror behind it must have cost as much as the rest of the building. There were tables with green felt tops, and a few early customers were hunkered over glasses of whiskey, like freezing men trying to absorb the heat of a faltering bonfire. The infamous “girls” who worked upstairs were nowhere to be seen, somewhat to Megan’s disappointment.
The bartender stopped wiping the glass in his hands, and his mouth dropped open. “I’ll be jiggered,” he said.
“I’m looking for Lillian Colefield,” Megan said clearly, though her voice was shaking. The McQuarry women had a reputation for boldness, but this was new ground, even for them.
“Well, here I am,” Lil said, appearing in a doorway at the back of the room. It looked like three miles, the distance between where Megan stood and that door. “Come on back to my office, and we’ll jaw awhile.” She took in the staring patrons of the bar. “You fellas just shove your eyeballs back in your heads and go on about your business. Haven’t you ever seen a decent woman before?”
Megan might have been walking in knee-deep mud as she made her way through that saloon. If word ever got back to Caney, wherever she was, she’d get a lecture that would blister both her ears. On the other hand, what else could she have done? Stood in the street and yelled for Lil to come out?
Lil’s office surprised Megan; she’d expected silk and satin, sumptuous cushions and fainting couches, perhaps, and velvet draperies with tassels. Instead, the place was utterly plain, with just a desk, a couple of chairs, and shelves full of books and ledgers. A little stove stood in the corner.
“Sit down,” Lil said, taking her own seat behind the desk and folding her hands loosely. She wasn’t dressed like a madam, either, Megan noted. Her dress was brown bombazine, unadorned, and without cosmetics, her face reflected the hard life she’d led. A smile tipped up the corner of her mouth. “What brings you here, Miss McQuarry?”
Not for the first time in her life, Megan wished she could be two women, one of them Webb’s wife and the mother of his children, the other helping to build the Primrose Creek Playhouse into something the community would be proud to claim. She sat up very straight and took the plunge. “I’m afraid I cannot be your partner after all. I’m sorry.”
Lil arched one eyebrow. “Webb put his foot down, did he?”
Megan’s face flared, and her backbone lengthened another notch, as if she’d grown an extra vertebra. “I made the decision myself,” she said firmly. It wasn’t entirely true, of course, but that was beside the point. “Thank you for the beautiful bed. I suppose you’ll be wanting it back now.”
Lil laughed. “You keep the bed,” she said. “It’s my gift to the both of you.”
Megan didn’t know what to say, now that she’d stated her intentions regarding the partnership. She hadn’t had much experience conversing with brothel owners, her scandalous career as an actress notwithstanding. “Th-thank you,” she faltered, and then realized that she’d repeated herself.
Lil took a cheroot out of a box on her desk and, before lighting up, offered one to Megan, who refused with a shake of her head. The older woman sat back in her chair and regarded her visitor through a haze of blue-gray smoke. “You’ve got a good mind and a lot of gumption. Not many women would walk right into Diamond Lil’s saloon in the middle of the afternoon.”
Megan’s smile was rueful. “I was an actress. I’m accustomed to being talked about.”
“Are you?” Lil countered quietly. “I never did get used to it, myself.”
Megan wanted to ask Lillian Colefield how she’d become Diamond Lil, but it would have been prying, and, like the other McQuarrys, she did her best to confine snooping to members of her own family. She sighed. “It’s hard. I’d like to be like them—the ‘good women’ of Primrose Creek—but I can’t seem to get the knack of it.”
Lil smiled. “Oh, they’ll come around in time, once you’re safely settled down. You won’t be such a threat to them then.”
Megan frowned. “A threat?”
“Yes,” Lil drawled, drawing on her cheroot with frank enjoyment and exhaling the smoke in a way that seemed almost elegant. “They look at you, pretty as a flower garden after a long winter, and smart to boot, and they see all the things they’ll never have or be. Once you’re married, they’ll be able to convince themselves that you’ll end up just like them, sooner or later. I don’t think that will happen, though.”
Megan’s eyes were wide. “You don’t?” she asked in a hopeful voice.
Lil smiled. “You’re different. Like the other women in your family. Challenges only make you stronger. Somebody breaks your heart, you’ll learn to love more, and better. Your grandfather would have been proud of you.”
Megan’s breath caught in her throat, fairly choking her. Everything in this woman’s tone and bearing implied that she’d known Granddaddy, but that was impossible, wasn’t it?
“I was born and raised in Richmond,” Lil went on. “I met your grandfather only twice, and not under pleasant circumstances either time, but I could tell he was worth ten of that son of his, charming as my Thayer was. I adored him, even though he did me wrong more than once.”
Megan could barely speak. The coattails of an idea flickered at the edge of her thoughts, but she couldn’t quite grasp them. “You knew—?”
“Your granddaddy paid me to leave the state of Virginia forever after Christy was born, and I did. He’d come to claim Bridget when she was a week old, and I let her go, too. Thayer was long gone by the time Christy came along—I heard he’d gone to New Orleans, one jump ahead of somebody’s husband.” Lil paused, and her eyes were fixed on something in the invisible distance. “I knew I couldn’t give my babies the kind of life I wanted them to have, not the way I lived, but it was hard to let them go all the same.”
Megan closed her eyes. “Why are you telling me this?”
“I’ve kept my secret for twenty-odd years. I reckon I’m just tired of carrying the load.”
“Why did you come here—to Primrose Creek?”
“I knew your granddaddy had a tract of land out here. He’d taken it as security for a debt, I believe. I worked my way west and decided to take a look at the place before heading on to San Francisco. I liked it here, saw the potential, and stayed instead.”
“Bridget and Christy are—are you daughters.” Megan was still trying to absorb the fact.
“Yes,” Lil said. She looked so weary, so beaten down, in that moment that Megan felt sorry for her. “Imagine my delight when the four of you showed up here.”
“Didn’t you ever want to tell them? To see them?”
“I do see them, all the time. Primrose Creek is a small town. As for telling them about myself, well, I couldn’t quite bring myself to look them in the face and say their mama was a saloon keeper and, once, a whore. Besides, that was what your granddaddy paid me for—to stay out of their lives. In spite of what most folks think of me, I’m not without honor.”
Megan felt dizzy. “You’re the secret Caney’s been keeping all this time,” she said.
Lil nodded. “She wasn’t pleased when she realized who I was, but she and I weren’t entirely in disagreement. She thought, as I did, that my daughters ought to be left to believe what they’d been told all their lives.”
Megan rose shakily to her feet. “And now?”
Lil spread her elegant, long-fingered hands. Close up, Megan could see things in her countenance and her appearance that reminded her of both Christy and Bridget—grace, for example, and courage and intelligence as well. “I guess that’s up to you,” she said.
All too aware of the burden that had been laid on her shoulders, Megan rose shakily to her feet. “You’ve put me in a fine position,” she said. “Do you expect me to explain everything to Christy and Bridget, so you don’t have to do it?”
Lil looked sad. “Think what you like,” she said.
Megan had no answer for that, no answer for anything. She simply nodded in farewell, turned around, and walked out of the office and straight through the saloon without looking to either side.
She’d been home less than half an hour, still moving in a daze, when Caney showed up, driving one of Jake Vigil’s rigs. If she hadn’t already been in a state of shock, seeing her dear friend would have done the job.
“You came back!” she cried in relief and delight, standing in the doorway and gripping the framework with one hand. Caney would attend her wedding after all. Maybe she’d even changed her mind about leaving Primrose Creek to start over someplace else.
Caney smiled as she set the wagon brake and climbed down. “Mr. Malcolm Hicks came to his senses, right enough,” she said, holding out her left hand to show a narrow gold band. “We got ourselves married. Been honeymoonin’ ever since.”
Megan shouted for joy, and the two women embraced, but when they went inside, Caney’s aspect changed.
“What was you doin’ in Diamond Lil’s this afternoon?” she demanded, taking Megan by the upper arms.
“You know about that?” Megan asked, and gulped. “A-already?”
“The whole town knows!” Caney snapped. Despite her flaring nostrils and narrowed eyes, Megan realized, Caney wasn’t so much angry as frightened. “Place is buzzin’ like a hive full of scalded bees. What in the world was you thinkin’ of?”
Megan wouldn’t have explained herself to anyone else on earth, not even Webb. “I was going to be Lil’s partner.” At the look on Caney’s face, she hurried on. “She’s building a show house. Anyhow, I had to tell her I’d changed my mind.”
“That’s all?” Caney asked. “That’s all that happened?”
Megan couldn’t lie, especially not to this woman who had been a second mother to her. “No,” she said. “She told me about—about Bridget and Christy.”
“Lord have mercy!” Caney gasped, and spread one hand over her heart in such a way that Megan was momentarily terrified for her. “I got to sit myself right down!”
Megan took Caney’s arm and ushered her to a chair at the table. Then she brought her a cup of cold water and watched protectively while she sipped. When Caney looked up, her eyes were dark with pain.
“I suppose you plan to tell them.”
“I think they ought to know,” Megan said quietly. “But I’m not sure it’s my place to tell them, or yours, either.”
“How you gonna keep a secret like this?” Caney asked anxiously. “It’ll chew you up inside.”
Megan sat down in the chair next to Caney’s and took the other woman’s strong hands into her own. “What about you? This must have been a terrible burden for you to carry all these years.”
“It wasn’t so hard at first. I believed it was best. But now you’re grown women, the four of you.” She let out a long, shaky sigh. “It’s my place to tell them the truth,” she said after a brief silence, during which a myriad of emotions crossed her face. “Christy and Bridget deserve to know. It’s goin’ to throw them some, though.”
Megan nodded. “Yes,” she said. “But the truth is always better than a lie, isn’t it? And they have Trace and Zachary to lean on. Frankly, I think they’ll be glad to finally know, once they get over the initial shock.”
Caney pulled free and covered her mouth with one hand, clearly fighting back sobs, maybe even hysteria. Her eyes were huge and round, and she looked ashen. “Glad?” she mocked, but not unkindly, when she’d gained some control. “To find out they have a whore for a mama?”
Megan stiffened. “Lillian is a lot more than a—a woman of the evening, Caney. She’s strong, and she’s smart, too. Just look at all she’s accomplished.” She stopped, remembering the interview in Diamond Lil’s plain office, revelation by revelation. “She gave Christy and Bridget to Granddaddy because she wanted them to have a real family and a home.”
Caney lowered her eyes, raised them again. They were filled with fire. “We’ve all had hard times,” she said. “And we didn’t take to whorin’ to put food on the table!”
Megan stroked Caney’s cheek, so glad to have her back that she couldn’t begin to express what she felt. “Who knows what made her what she is? Maybe she thought Thayer was going to marry her, in the beginning. Maybe she loved him.”
Caney laughed and sniffled at the same time. “You suppose they’ll forgive me, my Christy and Bridget?”
“I don’t think there’s anything to forgive,” Megan said softly. “We all know you were merely trying to protect us.”
Caney rallied significantly after that. “What kind of manners you got, girl? You ain’t even offered me a cup of tea, and here I am, back to stay.”
Megan kissed her friend’s forehead. “Thank heaven,” she said. “I don’t know what any of us would do without you.”
“Stop your carryin’ on,” Caney commanded, bluffing, “and make that tea.”
* * *
Megan lay in her narrow bed in the small spare room downstairs, off the kitchen, staring at the ceiling and thinking of her wedding day. Her splendid dress, carefully pressed and hung on the wall, seemed to glow in the moonlight, like the garb of an angel.
“I found him, Granddaddy,” she whispered. “I found the man I know you always wanted for me, and we’re going to make a family, right here at Primrose Creek.”
There was no reply, of course, but Megan still felt a sense of Gideon McQuarry’s presence. He’d be there, the next afternoon, when she and Webb were married, she was sure of that.
Smiling, she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
* * *
The new bed felt as if it was an acre across, Webb reflected, as he lay with his hands behind his head, smiling into the darkness. Come tomorrow night, Megan would be there with him, and that would make all the difference.
He wanted her, there was no question of that, and he wanted her soon. But he knew she was going to bring a lot more to his life than pleasure; she already had. She’d brought laughter and hope and feelings Webb had never experienced. Before she came, his life had stretched before him, vast and empty. Now, it looked like the land of milk and honey.
* * *
Saturday morning arrived, right on schedule.
At long, long last, Megan’s wedding day had come, and she had the dress and the bridegroom to prove it.
Christy and Bridget and Skye fussed over her happily, upstairs in the room she would share with Webb after that night. Clearly, Caney had not yet told the two elder sisters about their mother; Megan would have been able to see signs of it if she had, and there would not have been this sense of merry chaos.
“You are beautiful,” Christy said, and smiled. Her eyes glittered with joy and pride. “It just doesn’t seem possible—our little Megan, a bride.”
Bridget assessed Megan proudly. She’d arranged her hair, weaving in baby’s breath and buttercups, and Skye’s contribution was the bouquet of daisies, bluebells, and wild tiger lilies she carried, gathered from the meadow above the stream bank only minutes before. “Lovely,” she agreed.
A knock sounded at the bedroom door, and Skye hurried over to open it just a crack, peering out into the hallway. “Webb Stratton, you know perfectly well you aren’t allowed to see the bride!” she scolded, but there was a smile in her voice.
“I just wanted to make sure she hadn’t climbed out the window and headed for the hills,” he replied. “Reverend Taylor’s here, by the way, and he keeps pulling out his pocket watch and saying he’s got a salvation sermon to give this afternoon.”
Skye looked back at Megan, who nodded.
“We’ll be right down,” she said.
“Bring Megan,” Webb replied, and then Megan heard his boot heels on the wooden stairs just down the hall.
“Are you ready?” Christy asked.
Megan nodded. Each of her sisters embraced her, Christy first, then Bridget, then Skye, who threw in a kiss on the cheek for good measure.
“Let’s go,” Megan said after drawing one more deep breath.
Skye descended the stairs first, then Bridget, then Christy, who was to stand up for Megan as a witness. Megan followed slowly, relishing the moment, wanting this day to last forever. The house gleamed, and the people she loved best in the world were gathered in the parlor, including Caney. Her new husband, Malcolm, stood proudly at her side.
Megan’s gaze ricocheted to Webb’s face. Standing with Zachary at his right side, he watched her with frank admiration and a sort of wonder that caused her heart to overflow. She loved him. She loved him! First chance she got, she’d say so, right out, too. Something that personal had to be said in private, that was all.
Reverend Taylor cleared his throat, and Megan took her place shoulder-to-shoulder with Webb, there in front of the fireplace. The preacher began to read, and Megan answered when she was called upon, her voice whisper-soft. So did Webb, though he sounded gruff instead. He was, Megan suspected, as nervous as she was, and somehow that was comforting.
Finally, the reverend pronounced them man and wife, and Megan was overwhelmed by the enormity of it all. It was a good thing Webb turned and took her into his arms then to kiss her, because she figured she would have swooned dead away if he hadn’t been holding on to her.
The touch of his mouth on hers was as gentle as the brush of a feather and, at the same time, as hot as fire. When the kiss ended, she looked up at him, blinking and a little stunned, and everyone else in the wedding party laughed and applauded.
Congratulations rained down on the bride and groom, and there were more hugs, more kisses, more tears and laughter. Megan set her wilting bouquet aside on a table, and Augustus, always one to observe any occasion to excess, snatched it and ran furiously around and around the parlor. Then he dropped the flowers in a colorful tumble at Megan’s feet and looked up at her with so much unreserved adoration that she couldn’t resist bending down to kiss the top of his furry head and ruffle his silly ears.
When the cake—Bridget’s famous recipe with coconut frosting—was served, Megan made sure Augustus got a good-sized piece, like every other guest at the wedding.
It was nearly sunset when the well-wishers left, tearing themselves away, family by family, until Webb and Megan were completely alone.
Webb cupped her chin in one hand. “If it isn’t Mrs. Webb Stratton,” he said, and grinned. Then he took out his pocket watch, flipped open the case, and considered the time.
“What are you doing?”
“Calculating when our first child will be born. I put it at nine months and two hours.”
He lifted her up into his arms. “That soon,” he confirmed, and headed toward the stairs. Augustus padded after them and whimpered once, disconsolately, when the door of the master bedroom closed in his face.