Clayton's Made-Over Mrs. by Sandra Steffen

Author:Sandra Steffen [Sandra Steffen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781459273122
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

“Please join your right hands.”

The seventy-year-old justice of the peace looked expectantly at Melody over the top of his reading glasses. Too bad she couldn’t drag her eyes any farther than the old light fixture on the wall directly behind his right shoulder. She supposed there was nothing wrong with the courthouse in Murdo. It looked like a hundred other courthouses in a hundred other small towns throughout the West. It just wasn’t where she’d planned to utter the most important words of her life, that’s all.

She’d been dreaming of marrying Clayt for as long as she could remember, but in her dreams she’d been wearing her mother’s gown, candles flickered and the air was heavy with the scent of carnations and mums. Today there were no candles, no flowers, no long white dress. The old light fixtures did little to detract from the gloominess of the brown paneling. This should have been the happiest day of her life, yet she felt as if she were renewing her driver’s license.

The justice of the peace cleared his throat, but it was the sound of Clayt’s voice as he called her name that drew her gaze. His face was clean shaven, his hair freshly cut. He was wearing his best suit, and although the inherent determination in the set of his chin was the essence of the man, himself, the tender, almost wistful look of entreaty in his eyes was something she’d rarely seen.

She knew he’d always been at his best when he was on the edge, when beef prices were horrid and the weather was worse. His parents’ extended stay in Oregon had left him in charge of the ranch, following the worst drought in more than twenty years. Haley’s arrival on his doorstep was an even bigger responsibility. The deep groove in one cheek and the new lines beside his eyes were testimony to the weight he now carried single-handedly.

Melody wanted romance. Heaven help her, she wanted love. In that instant she realized that although Clayt wasn’t offering her either of those things, he was offering her his hand, and the opportunity to be a part of his life. All she could do was take it and hope that she could lure him into love.

“Is everything all right?” he asked quietly.

She nodded and slowly placed her hand in his. The stoop-shouldered justice of the peace read from his frayed book, while a plump woman with blue hair and trifocals sniffled into a lace handkerchief. Melody answered when appropriate and repeated the proper phrases when it was her turn. She supposed she should have paid closer attention to the words being spoken, but the words themselves didn’t matter any more than the setting did. What mattered was the fact that she was finally going to marry the man she loved.

“With the power vested in me by the state of South Dakota, I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

She looked up at Clayt. And he looked at her. Amazed and slightly shaken by the simplicity and profoundness of that statement, she tilted her head to one side.

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