An Unwilling Husband by Tera Shanley

Author:Tera Shanley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp.
Published: 2014-05-04T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

“Now where has that blasted woman run off to?” Garret grumbled. He scanned the tables but failed to find neither hide nor hair of Lenny or Maggie.

He’d convinced Burke they needed to take a break to eat something and check on Lenny, but really he wanted to see Maggie. For all her irritating qualities—and she had many—she was a beautiful woman. Difficult to ignore in such a dress, which seemed to have been made to accentuate her dark auburn hair and startlingly bright green eyes. He’d even grown fond of the freckles gracing her nose and cheeks.

His plan to make her fall out of love with him crumbled by the minute as he found his thoughts maddeningly consumed with her. Maybe if she wasn’t so damned pretty he could resume his relentless battering at any semblance of a relationship with her. The worst part was she didn’t know she was pretty, which only made him like her more. He growled in frustration as he scanned the tables one last time.

Gunshots sounded. He surged to his feet, headed toward the side of the house, Burke following with a worried look on his face.

Worry curled in the pit of his stomach, and he lengthened his strides. What if something had happened when he wasn’t there? He’d thought the girls safe enough in such a public setting, but what if they hadn’t been? He shouldn’t have left them there unprotected, especially with the amount of danger Maggie was in and the promise he’d made to Cookie about protecting Lenny. That old Injun would shoot him dead the minute he found out anything happened to Lenny and not give another thought to his rotting corpse.

He and Burke rounded the corner of the house and stopped short. There she was. Leave it to Maggie to initiate a shooting competition a few hours into a barn raising. Lenny was competing against a growing line of young men waiting to take a crack at out-shooting her.

Garret laughed loudly. He couldn’t help it. Maggie had found a way to integrate Lenny seamlessly into the party. A growing group of young women cheered Lenny on, and Maggie jumped excitedly up and down, pride evident in every facet of her expression.

Burke snickered behind him. “You have to hand it to her. She’s a clever woman.”

He wished he could disagree. “Where are you going?” he asked Burke’s retreating back.

“I’m gettin’ in line!” he yelled back at Garret.

“Oh hell, why not?” he muttered and followed Burke.

Never would he forget the sight of Lenny and Maggie standing side by side, easily the most beautiful and sought-after women at the barn raising, in their fine gowns, hefting rifles. Each held their breath, waiting to steady the sights on their target before they pulled the trigger. Lenny easily out-shot Maggie, who was the second-best female marksman. Hell, she even shot better than some of the men.

Despite his attempts to hide how impressed he was with her, a grin crept onto his face. When Maggie saw it her face lit up like the sun.

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