She’d always been ladylike and restrained, and had listened quietly to her father’s advice. Jack imagined she’d be just as respectful of his opinions, and that she likely only wished to start up a library, perhaps, here in town. Or a knitting group, or work with him in some capacity on the ranch.
The ground outside rumbled. A team of horses pulling a stagecoach suddenly thundered past the window. She was here.
Jack took a deep breath.
“See you at the wedding, Hugh.” He planted his Stetson back on his head and strode out of the office, trying not to let on that the words still bothered him.
* * *
Sitting in the cramped stagecoach, Cassandra peered up from the book she was discreetly reading, Tales of Bounty Hunters and Criminals. Through the dusty windowpane, she observed vineyards on the slopes and palm trees among the town’s buildings, and worried again how very late they were. She tried to suppress her rush of nerves. It was Wednesday afternoon at fifteen minutes past two—more than two hours behind schedule.
Would her soon-to-be groom still be here, waiting for her, or had Jack tired of it and left?
She opened her large satchel and slid the book in among her other things. There was a Chicago newspaper, another text entitled California Courts and the Legal Code, a silver-inlaid derringer pistol and a small box of .41 Rimfire cartridges.
The driver pulled the team of horses into a green valley and the pretty town called Sundial, and careened to a stop. The three other passengers with her—an elderly couple and a young cowboy—gathered their belongings as she quickly disembarked.
“Good traveling with you, miss,” said the old gent, blinking at Cassandra’s scarred cheek.
“Enjoy the last leg of your journey,” she replied, turning her injured side away.
The young cowboy nodded goodbye. Although she and he were roughly the same age—mid-twenties—in all the hours they’d spent together, he’d never once gazed at her with any masculine interest in his eyes. Not that she wished him to; only that she noticed self-consciously that since her injury, most men silently dismissed her in that way.
Wearing a wide-brimmed sun hat with a chiffon scarf pushed through the top and hanging at her temples as ties, Cassandra instinctively pulled the dangling fabric over her marred cheek. She slid into the awaiting crowd and searched the faces.
What would Jack think when he saw her? She’d explained the injury to him in her letters. He’d responded that it was irrelevant to him, that he simply wished her good health and was relieved that she hadn’t been seriously injured.
Of course, he had written those words thousands of miles away. Things might be different up close. He was about to marry her, and what man didn’t wish to be sexually attracted to his bride?
Normally, being outdoors under the blue sky and sun calmed her, but not today. She searched the assortment of faces for someone who might resemble the man who’d walked out of her world five years ago. Back then their relationship had been strained, for it was a time when she had been engaged to someone else.
No Jack McColton.
Cassandra twirled around to study more faces. She was looking for someone tall, on the skinny side, with black hair. He was a veterinarian now, he’d written, working with horses in the vineyards, lumber mills and ranches of Napa Valley. He’d studied veterinary science in Chicago and she’d often seen him with a textbook in his hands. He’d always had a love of animals, she recalled, more interested in the livestock people owned than who might be knocking at the front door.
Searching the eager faces looking back at her, Cassandra dusted her threadbare skirts and adjusted her plumed hat to shield herself from the gleaming California sun.
So much hotter and drier than Chicago.
So much more hopeful and filled with promise.
So much more anxiety-inducing than she’d thought possible when she’d agreed to become a mail-order bride at Mrs. Pepik’s Boarding House for Desolate Women. In the return address she’d given Jack, she’d left off the desolate part.
No need to tell him how far she’d fallen.
Besides, he’d see it in one glance, wouldn’t he?
Stop that, she told herself, and straightened her posture with dignity and pride.
She was here to start a new life with a man she had known to be hardworking and law-abiding. In choosing Jack over the other prospects, she was at least going with a known quantity. She knew his flaws as well as his strengths. Surely that was an advantage, wasn’t it?
But perhaps she’d been hasty, rushing to marry him because of past memories and his recollections of her late sister and father. Five years had passed. For all she knew, he might now be reckless and unfeeling. And back then, she hadn’t spent that much time alone with him. Sometimes a person’s behavior was totally different in private than in public.
“Cassandra?” said a deep male voice behind her.
Feeling a stab of terror mixed with excitement, she wheeled around and nearly bumped into him.
She got an eyeful of a very broad chest wearing a neatly pressed white shirt and leather vest. Holding on to her hat, she craned her neck and peered way, way up. Her scarf draped against her scar.
Those familiar deep brown eyes flashed at her with curiosity. Her first impression was that everything about Jack McColton was incredibly dark. Tanned skin, black hair, black eyebrows, black leather vest, black cowboy hat. And no longer thin. His shoulders were as wide as forever. Obviously, his work in the vineyards had seasoned his physique.
He reminded her of a Thoroughbred racehorse, muscled and built for speed. Her pulse tripped over itself in response to his powerful presence. Wavy hair, longer than the men wore in Chicago, touched his collar. A sheen of moisture from the heat of the sun dampened his brow. He was clean-shaven, but already a dark shadow underlined his firm jaw and cast shadows in the dimple of his chin.
“Cassandra,” he repeated in a rich baritone. “Good to see you.” And then her scarf came away from her cheek, exposing the ugly ripple of flesh four inches in diameter, and his studious eyes flickered over it.
The burning heat of embarrassment and shame, and an overriding wish to flee, overtook her. This is what you ordered, she thought. How terribly disappointed you must be.
He fumbled for barely a moment, almost imperceptibly, then glanced back up into her eyes with a smile. “You look lovely.”
She took in a deep breath, touched by his kindness.
Why did the rhythm of her breathing still break when she was around him? Why had it always been like this? She nodded and smiled in a confusion of emotions.
She hadn’t realized how parched her mouth was. “Well, I...Jack...this climate certainly agrees with you.” Clumsily, she reached out to shake his hand at the same instant he held out a bouquet of pink wild roses.
She took the flowers, mumbled a thank-you that got muffled when he leaned forward, planted a large warm hand on her wrist and pulled her forward over the roses in an awkward semihug that two distant relations might share. It was a wonderful display of strain and discomfort, the same awkwardness that had existed between them when she’d been engaged to his cousin, Troy.
Only now she was engaged to Jack, and all the witty and charming things she’d practiced to say on their first meeting flew out of her head.