Shotgun Groom (6 page)

Who else could she marry? She and Sep didn’t know

anyone. They’d been isolated for so long. Harvey had

pushed away the friends they used to have. There was no

one else. She was trapped. Horribly and truly trapped.

***

Joel stirred on the couch and yawned. For a moment, he

didn’t know where he was, but as he came out of the

blissful ignorance of sleep, he recal ed everything that

happened to him that morning. He grimaced. He didn’t care

what April and Sep thought. There was no way he was

going to marry her. It didn’t matter if she was pretty or that

they seemed to need a man to step in and take care of the

place. He was
not
interested.

With a weary sigh, he sat up and stretched to work out the

kinks in his muscles. His body was stiff, but he’d live.

Scanning the parlor, he noticed the fire wasn’t as strong as

before, so he stood up and threw a piece of wood into the

pile. He told himself he did it for his own comfort, not

because he wanted to help out. The last thing he wanted to

do, after al , was make himself useful.

His stomach growled and he glanced at the clock on the

wal . It was half past two. Frowning, he went to the kitchen

and saw that lunch was official y over. He rol ed his eyes.

Apparently, his ploy worked a little too wel . He knew April

was upset, but letting him go hungry was overdoing it. This

was exactly why he didn’t want to get married. Women

were far too emotional, and no man could figure out what

would upset them. Like he needed this hassle for the rest of

his life!

Wel , he wasn’t going to let this deter him. Little did his

captors know he could actual y fend for himself in the

kitchen, and since they were determined to keep him here

for as long as possible, he’d get his own meals if he had to.

Pausing on his way to the shelves, he peered out the

window and groaned. He wasn’t going anywhere any time

soon. The snow might have stopped, but the wind was

howling and blowing the snow into high drifts.

“Just my luck,” he muttered.

Standing stil , he suddenly wondered where April, Sep, and

Nora were. They couldn’t be too far. He noticed the sounds

of someone scooting furniture upstairs. Relieved, he turned

back to the shelves. He told himself the only reason he was

relieved was because being stuck in an old, rundown house

with floorboards that creaked was a creepy sensation.

After checking out his options, he settled on making a

sandwich. He ate at the table, aware that someone was

moving around quite a bit up there. He wondered if it was

Sep or April. It couldn’t be Nora. Her footsteps would be too

light. Perhaps they decided to prepare that third bedroom

for him. Now that would be interesting. Then he’d find out

what was in there that bothered April so much.

When he finished his sandwich, he thought about cleaning

up but then decided April might like that and left the mess.

The more of a pest he was, the better. For good measure,

he spil ed some coffee on the table and left several pieces

of broken up bread in a trail on the floor. He glanced at the

kitchen door and decided to open it so some snow would

blow in. There. His mother hated it when he tracked snow

through the house when he was growing up, and this would

make an even bigger mess for April to clean up.

Satisfied, he shut the door, slipped on his boots, and

walked over the snow, tracking it down the hal way. He

stopped at the bottom of the stairs and wondered if he

should go up there. Who was he kidding? He had nothing

to say to these people until they agreed to let him go. When

he returned to the parlor, he plopped back down on the

couch and picked up the dime novel he’d been reading

when he fel asleep.

He read three pages when footsteps coming down the

stairs alerted him that April, Sep and Nora were about to

bother him. Putting his wet boots on the couch, he

pretended he was engrossed in the novel.

“What the…?” came April’s astonished unfinished question.

“Snow!” Nora cal ed out in excitement.

“Nora, don’t,” April said.

“I’l get the mop,” Sep replied.

Grinning, Joel rubbed his feet on the couch, making sure

they saw the wet seat when they came into the parlor.

April stormed into the room, holding Nora’s hand. “If you

think letting snow into the house is getting you out of

marriage, you have another thing coming.”

“What snow?” Joel asked, not bothering to look up from the

dime novel in his hands.

She swatted at his feet. “Get those boots off my couch!”

“I’m making myself comfortable.” He yawned and rubbed

the soles of the boots on the couch. “If I’m getting married,

I’m going to make this house my castle. Last time I

checked, the head of the house can do whatever he wants.”

That wasn’t total y true. His mother, after al , had given his

father an earful on occasion, but why let April know that?

She set Nora down on her rocking chair and stomped back

over to him. “You are being disrespectful. We can’t afford

another couch.”

Shrugging, he yawned and kept his eyes on the novel in

front of him. “The best kind of wife is one who knows how to

keep her trap shut. Just like a kid. Best seen and not

heard.”

She gasped.

Looking up at her, he frowned. “I heard you. That’s not

permissible.”

She grunted and left the parlor.

He smirked. It was only a matter of time before she tossed

He smirked. It was only a matter of time before she tossed

him out.

Nora rocked back and forth in the chair and squealed in

delight.

With a glance over his shoulder, he darted over to the

rocker and stil ed it. “Not so fast,” he whispered. “You don’t

want to fal out and get hurt.”

Then he returned to the couch, making sure his feet were

back on it since it bothered April. Seeing that Nora was

rocking softly in the chair, he turned his attention back to the

dime novel and pretended to read it.

Angry footsteps came back from the kitchen and he hid his

laughter. She must have seen the mess in that room, too.

Keeping his eyes on the novel, he wasn’t prepared for the

bucket of cold water that descended upon him. He bolted

from the couch, his hair and shirt dripping wet.

“What are you doing?” he yel ed, wiping his eyes.

April placed the empty bucket on her hip and gave him a

satisfied smile. “I thought since you wanted to get the place

wet, I’d help.”

From where she sat in the rocking chair, Nora giggled.

Figures. Leave it to a child to think this was amusing.

“That’s just great,” he told April as he rubbed his arms in an

effort to keep warm. “What am I supposed to do in wet

clothes?”

“I don’t care. Why don’t you track more snow into the house

and rol around in it?”

“Oh, so now you’re funny?”

“Not as funny as you,” April said with a smirk. “You’re

forming an icicle on the end of your nose.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I am not.” To be sure, he rubbed his

nose.

“You’re not getting out of this marriage. It’s going to

happen, no matter what you spil or track into the house or

how important you think you are.”

“You think Sep is the only one in this house who knows how

to use a gun? I can, too. He might have caught me off

guard, but as soon as I can manage it, I’m out of here.”

Not seeming the least bit disturbed, she turned to Nora.

“You want to help mama make supper?”

“Gee, do I get any or must I fend for myself?”

She made a big show of looking him up and down. “I don’t

think I got a highchair big enough for you.”

“Ha ha.” Shivering, he rol ed his eyes. “So, am I going to

find some dry clothes around here or am I going to freeze to

death?”

With a loud sigh, she said, “Unfortunately, you’re no good to

me dead. Fol ow me and I’l take you to your room and see

about getting you something dry to wear.” She held her

hand to Nora. “Come on, sweetie.”

Nora waddled over to April and took her hand.

Interest piqued, he fol owed them down the hal way. “My

room? You mean the third bedroom upstairs?”

Helping Nora up the steps, April shook her head. “You’l be

staying in Sep’s room. He got Pa’s old bed in there, so

you’re al set. And for al I care, you can stay there after we

get married.”

“I don’t think so. If I’m going to be miserable, you’re going to

be miserable, too. And that means we’re sharing a bed.”

“Wouldn’t be any worse than what I’ve gone through with my

first husband.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her what she meant by

that, but on second thought, he figured he already

understood her meaning. Granted, he didn’t know the

specifics of what happened between a husband and wife in

the bedroom, but he got the gist of it and if the wife didn’t

enjoy it, then it probably meant the husband wasn’t

considerate. And if he wasn’t considerate in the bedroom,

it was doubtful he was considerate outside the bedroom.

Pushing aside the urge to be sympathetic, he turned his

attention to the hal way at the top of the steps.

“Sep’s bedroom is over there,” she said, pointing to the

room across from hers. “After we get married, we’l get your

clothes and other belongings to bring back here. In the

meantime, you can wear either Sep’s clothes or our pa’s.”

“You don’t have any from your first husband?”

“Those are what I use for cleaning.”

Joel’s eyebrows rose in interest, but he kept his thoughts to

himself. A woman who made rags out of her husband’s

clothes definitely wasn’t sorry to see her husband gone.

“Pa’s clothes are in the trunk in the corner of Sep’s room,”

April said, “and your bed is the one closest to the door.

There’s not much room, but you two wil manage.” Nora

whimpered, so April picked her up. “I’l leave you to get

dressed. I don’t need to tel you what I’l do if you so much

as put one foot in my bedroom, do I?”

Picking up on the chal enge, he looked squarely at her.

“Actual y, you do.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I won’t let you move in there

on the wedding night.”

At that, he laughed. “You’l have to do better than that. You

have to deny me something I actual y want.”

“You just said you were going to be in my bedroom when

“You just said you were going to be in my bedroom when

we married so you could make me miserable.”

“Oh, that’s so you can be kept up al night with my snoring.

My brothers assured me that I’m unpleasant to listen to at

night. Why, they got used to stuffing up their ears with al

kinds of odd things to get some peace and quiet. Too bad

nothing worked. I’m as loud as a train rol ing right on by.

Right now, you’re punishing Sep, which is fine with me

since he’s the one who held me at gunpoint. I’m not exactly

happy with either one of you. Nora, however, is a sweet little

girl. It’s not her fault the people in her life belong to the loony

bin.”

She rol ed her eyes. “Sep can sleep through anything, and

I’l take obnoxious snoring over the horrible smel of

moonshine any day of the week.”

He groaned. If her life hadn’t been so awful before he met

her, then his attempts to get her to give up on this horrible

idea of a marriage might work.

She turned to head down the stairs but paused. “You want

supper? Stay out of my room. Fair?”

He grudgingly indicated his agreement and went into Sep’s

room. After a look out the window which showed him he

had no chance of getting into town that night, he went to the

trunk and opened it. The few clothes in there were neatly

folded, evidence that even if April hadn’t loved her husband,

she’d loved her father. Joel chose a pair of denim pants

and a faded plaid red and black shirt.

Once he was dressed in dry clothes, he took his wet

clothes and draped them around the room to air dry. It

wasn’t an ideal setup, but it’d work for now.

Joel left the bedroom and couldn’t resist checking out the

third bedroom. The door was stil closed. He listened for the

sound of April’s and Sep’s voices and was assured the two

were in the kitchen. Nora squealed and giggled. Good. He

was alone. Careful to not attract attention, he tiptoed to the

door. Wrapping his hand around the doorknob, he tried to