Mortification was the only way to describe how Jude felt when she stared at the man across the mercantile from her. She hadn’t known he was going to be there, but the way her day was going, it shouldn’t have surprised her.
It had been all of three days since the Barratt men had stolen her girls, changing everything forever. And since he had left them his two youngest sons instead.
Mick and Jackson were hard workers, and there was no chore they weren’t willing to do. She’d give them that. They were quiet, intelligent, well-read and as different from the men they’d left behind in their old place as night and day.
But that Mick, preacher though he was, was proving relentless with her Janie. Girl could barely turn around without him right there. It was going to be difficult for her girl when Janie finally figured out what that man was all about.
Jude knew, though. She’d seen hunger like that in a man’s eyes before. And Janie didn’t have a clue how he felt. Yet.
Hughes Barratt looked up from where he stood near the counter. Those dark eyes of his latched onto her, and he refused to look away. He was a fine, strong-looking, healthy man who had a commanding presence about him.
Nothing at all like that devil Wharton. Wharton had been so much like a rat, it had shown in his outward countenance.
Jude raised her chin and met that Barratt man eye for eye. Her hand tightened around her eldest daughter’s. She and Emma walked deeper into the mercantile. It was the first time she’d ever been there; usually, Jacob and Jessi did all the marketing.
Jessie would dress up like a boy, so as not to invite trouble, when she went to town with her father. But Jacob was working twice as hard now, thanks to that darn Barratt man, even with those two sons of Barratt’s there to help.
It was a busy time for all of them. So that left her, Emma, and Ally to get the flour and the lard and some cloth goods. While Janie handled the rest of the chores back at the house. And the younger kids.
“May I help you, ma’am?” the man behind the counter asked. He was about her brother’s age, and had the look of that Barratt man, too.
No doubt another one of his relations.
They seemed to be everywhere. She pulled in a deep breath. She supposed that was why it was called Barrattville.
She knew what Hughes Barratt was up to. Knew exactly what he was up to.
He straightened and waited. She didn’t say so much as a word to him. Instead, she gave a listing of what she needed to the other Barratt man watching her.
“On whose account, ma’am? I’m Hollis, Hollis Barratt. This is my store. Mine and my brother Hughes’s.”
She swallowed. There was curiosity in his eyes. The same interest that burned bright in his brother’s. It was in the way a man looked at a woman he had a hankering for.
She wasn’t a fool.
Jude wasn’t in the market for any man at all. But there were plenty of them around, she suspected.
“On my brother’s account. Jacob Finley.”
“Hollis, meet Jude. She’ll be your new sister-in-law before the month is out,” that Barratt man said in a drawl designed to taunt her.
Jude spun to face him, clutching her eldest’s hand in her own. Had he seriously said when she just thought he had? “You…you…you…urgh.”
There were no words for how angry she was right now. None.
“Oh, will she now?” the merchant asked, an identical smirk on his too handsome face, as well. “How do you know it’s not your sister-in-law she’ll end up being, Hughes? Maybe she’ll like me—or Warren or Archer—more?”
Jude spun to face him next. It was easier to face the brother than that damned Barratt man who’d caused them so much trouble.
“No doubt you’re just as arrogant as he is. Well, mark my words, I wouldn’t have either of you if you were wearing gold boots. A woman can make up her own mind about what man she wants.”
Her nemesis shifted again, straightening, puffing out his chest. It was a fine chest, broad and hard from years of hard work, no doubt. He’d lifted her like she weighed nothing at all. But just because he could lift her like he had the right to didn’t mean he had that right.
Not unless she told him he did.
“Well, you just decide, little bird. Just make certain it’s made up in my direction.”
He tipped his hat to her, threw a piece of penny candy on the counter, then grabbed another, and handed it to Emma. Her daughter took it with a shy smile, after a nod from Jude.
“Hollis, you put Jacob Finley’s accounts at the family prices. Seeing as how four of his daughters are my daughters-in-law now, and no doubt, two more will be within the month. You see that Jude here is well taken care of. And see that she gets back to her wagon with no problem.”
His brother nodded as if Jude had no darned say in her own life.
And then Hughes Barratt turned to her.