An Unwilling Husband. Tera Shanley

all. Probably born to extortion.

      Maggie looked like she wanted to kick his almost-betrothed in the shin. It was time to go, before that redheaded little hellion did something unwise. Again.

      Somehow, he’d managed to dodge one bullet by standing directly in front of another. He sighed with tiredness and tipped his hat. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out, Miss Jennings. It was nice to see you again.”

      And by nice, he meant grating.

      When he grabbed Maggie’s hand again, she yelped, but he led her around the fuming Anna Jennings and toward the direction of the stables.

      “It was nice to have met you!” Maggie called back behind her. No doubt she’d said that to piss Anna off more than to be polite. From the ear-maiming shriek that sounded from behind them, she had likely succeeded.

      Garrett tossed the stable boy a nickel and brought their horses out. Lenny followed closely with hers. Once mounted, he had to wait for Maggie to hoist her skirts over the buckskin’s back. How dadburned long did it take the woman to settle into a saddle? In the time it took to preen her skirts to adorn her horse’s backside just so, he could’ve ambled back into the saloon and taken a road shot to prepare him for whatever obnoxious conversation she’d foist on him next.

      “What? You try riding in these blasted skirts!” she exclaimed.

      His patience back in the shot glass at the Brass Buckle, he held his breath for a five count then said, “Lenny, can you take her to the dressmaker? Get a few readymade dresses and have them put it on my account.” He glared at Maggie. “I can’t stand watching you flounce around in that get-up anymore.”

      Her chin lifted and she leveled a fiery look at him. “I don’t flounce. And anyway, I don’t need your money. I have a bit of my own. It’s not much but it should cover a few dresses.”

      “Suit yourself,” he said. “I’ve got to talk to Burke and try to find Cookie. You ladies go on ahead and I’ll catch up. I’m taking you home.”

      * * * *

      Sitting outside the dress shop astride his restless mount and watching through the large window, Garret fumed. He’d mistaken how long it took women to shop for dresses, and by a long shot. He’d already talked to Burke and Cookie about heading home, which should have given Maggie plenty of time to be in and out of the dressmaker’s shop. They should have been on the road already. Long ago, damn it.

      She saw him waiting, by the furtive looks she darted at the window, and if the way she stuck her prim little chin in the air as she spoke to the dressmaker was any indication, chose to ignore his glares. Thunderous looks, if his reflection in the window had any merit.

      Lenny had escaped to her horse shortly after he’d arrived, which likely had more to do with her withering under the portly dressmaker’s cold stare, and less to do with the tedium of dress shopping. Did Maggie think the same? From the way she snapped peevish, one-word sentences at the woman who was trying to extract gossip from her, she must have.

      When Maggie finally came out of the dressmaker’s shop with three brown paper wrapped dresses, he was minutes from losing his mind and dragging her from the shop. If she’d thought to teach him patience, she hadn’t succeeded.

      “Took you long enough,” he muttered while she untied her horse from the hitching post.

      She ignored him and mounted Buck. While he put the wrapped dresses into their saddle bags, she waited, lips pressed in a line. Now she had nothing to say?

      Without another word, he kicked his horse and turned him down Main Street toward the Lazy S.

      “Your manners really are atrocious,” Maggie sang after him.

      Though he couldn’t resist throwing her a steely glare, he held his tongue. The woman was a burr under his skin, and maybe it would annoy her. No woman had ever been so irritating. “Only fifty years to go,” he groused.