McKenna's Bartered Bride

She wasn’t well.

In an attempt to tear her gaze away, she gestured to the baked goods on display beneath the glass-topped counter. “Can I interest you in a homemade pie, Mr. McKenna?”

He shifted closer. “Actually, I came in to talk to you about something.” His gaze settled to her mouth, to her neck, to her shoulders. “Something important.”

Josie’s breath hitched. She definitely wasn’t well.

“Well,” she said, clearing her throat of the bothersome little frog that seemed to have gotten stuck there. “I mean, what did you want to talk about?”

“It’s a private matter.”

She gestured to her empty store. “It doesn’t get much more private than this, Mr. McKenna.”

His gaze swung to Kelsey, and Josie understood. Trying on a smile that felt a little stiff, she said, “I’m afraid I don’t get complete privacy until after Kelsey goes to bed at eight.”

He gave her that assessing, calculated look again. And then he said, “I’ll come back later. After she’s in bed. You live in the apartment above the store, right?”

“Er, I mean, yes. Yes, I do, but I don’t think—” For heaven’s sake, she was staring into his eyes again, wondering if he ever smiled. Her cheeks grew warm. If she wasn’t careful, a blush was going to rise to her face. It might help if he would look someplace else.

As if in answer to her prayers, he reached into his back pocket and drew out his wallet. “I’ll take all four loaves.”

“Pardon me?”

“That homemade bread. It is for sale, isn’t it?”

Jasie came to her senses with a start. “Yes. Yes, of course.” She scrried around the counter and took the bread from the window display. Pleased to have something constructive to do, she placed the loaves in a bag and pressed the appropriate keys on her old cash register.

“That’ll be...”

He handed her a twenty before she could name the total. With a tug on the brim of his hat, he headed for the door.

“Don’t forget your change, Mr. McKenna.”

He tnrned around slowly, moving with an easy grace, a kind of loose-jointedness one automatically associated with a cowboy of old. Her breath hitched all over again.

“Keep it.”

He stood half in, half out of the store, his gaze holding hers. Josie had a feeling that somewhere in the dark recesses of his mind, he knew exactly what he was doing. It was disconcerting, because she didn’t have a clue.

His Stetson was well-worn and faded, and his boots looked as if they’d walked a thousand miles. Whether the man preferred to wear broken-in boots or not, they’d been expensive, and so was his hat. The McKennas could afford nice things. She couldn’t even afford to buy Kelsey a new pair of shoes. That didn’t mean she would accept charity.

“I can’t do that. It just wouldn’t be right.” Luckily she was good at math and was able to draw the correct change from the drawer. She hurried around the counter and handed him his money with nimble fingers, more careful than usual, to keep contact at a minimum. “Enjoy your bread. Good day, Mr. McKenna.”

“Bye, mister,” Kelsey called.

He glanced at the little girl as if he’d forgotten she was in the room. And then he did what Josie had wanted him to do. He smiled. It did crazy things to her heart rate, not to mention her breathing, but it did nothing to relieve the tension filling the store.

“I’ll see you later,” he said. “And call me Jake.”

Josie’s heart thudded once, twice, three times. As one second followed another, it seemed to stop beating altogether.

She didn’t know how long she stared at the door after he’d gone. She might have studied it forever if Kelsey hadn’t said, “Do you think that’s the man Daddy’s sending to be my new father?”

Josie swung around. Goodness gracious. She placed her hands on her cheeks and told herself to stop being silly. Wondering if it might have been wiser if she’d kept that particular tidbit of information from Kelsey until Josie had had more time to think about it, she glanced over her shoulder where she could see Jake McKenna pulling out of his parking space in front of her store.

His truck was black and shiny and expensive looking. She thought it suited him. He rested one arm along his open window and steered with the other hand, maneuvering out of the tight spot with ease. Josie turned her back on the view. He might have had the looks, the style, and oh, yes, the moves to unsettle a feminine heart, but that didn’t mean he had unsettled hers.

“Do you, Mama?” Kelsey prodded.

“I’m afraid not, sweet pea. Surely the man Daddy would like us to find will be more like Daddy.”

Kelsey stared into Josie’s eyes for a long time. Sighing, she lowered her chin forlornly and murmured, “I hope Daddy hurries.”

The nerves that had been clamoring the past few hours stilled. Tenderness filled her heart and thickened her throat. She and Kelsey might have been down on their luck. They might have even been a little desperate. But she thanked her lucky stars for her blessings, especially for this sweet, inquisitive, adorable child.

Josie reached beneath the counter for her ledger and quickly jotted down the amount of money she’d just received from Mr.—er, Jake McKenna. Maybe she couldn’t give her child another father, and Lord only knew what she was going to do about her bills, but she would use the money she’d just received to pick up a few groceries and prepare her daughter a nutritious meal.

That sense of calm had started to wane by seven-thirty. Now, an hour later, it was completely gone. Josie took a deep breath, trying to blame the queazy sensation in her stomach on the peanut butter sandwich she’d eaten when Kelsey hadn’t been looking. Josie strode to the refrigerator and peered inside. Even the sight of the half gallon of milk and the leftover spaghetti and meatballs Kelsey would eat tomorrow didn’t chase her unease away. This unease had nothing to do with money. It had to do with...

Josie gulped.

It had to do with the knowledge that Jake McKenna was due to arrive any minute. At the sound of footsteps on the stairs, her nerves clamored even more. Make that any second.

She knew the knock on her door was forthcoming. She still jumped when it sounded. She didn’t understand it. She was never this high-strung. Lifting her eyes to the ceiling, she whispered, “If this is your idea of a joke, Thomas Callahan, it isn’t funny.”

Waiting until the old clock that had belonged to her parents had finished chiming the half hour, she took a deep breath for courage and opened the door just in time to see Rory O’Grady stepping off the bottom step and Jake McKenna standing on the top one.

“Mr. McKen—”

“What the bell was he doing here?”

The anger glittering in Jake’s eyes sent her heart to her throat and her stomach into a tailspin. This time there was no stopping her backward step.

Pushing the door all the way open, he marched inside, turning the inch her tiny retreat had given him into a mile.

Chapter Two

Jake stormed past Josie so quickly the hem of her dress ruffled in his wake.

“Won’t you come in, Mr. McKenna?”

He got as far as the middle of her living room before he swung around and glared at her. At least her sarcasm hadn’t been wasted on him. She reached for the doorknob to close the door, glancing down the stairs at the last minute. Rory was looking up at her, a big old smile on his friendly face. Josie couldn’t help smiling right back. That smile slipped a full two notches when she turned her attention back to the angry man in her living room.

She didn’t have a lot of experience dealing with angry men. Her father had died when she was small, and Tom had had an easygoing, pleasant disposition. She folded her arms and stood as tall as her five-foot, three-inch frame would allow. “Would you like to sit down, Mr. McKenna?”

“I asked you to call me Jake.”

Josie met his stare head-on. “You told me to call you Jake.”

His eyebrows rose slightly, then lowered, a muscle working in his jaw. There was inherent determination in the set of his chin, and more than a hint of impatience everywhere else. As one second followed another, his expression changed in the subtlest of ways. He didn’t smile, exactly, but he unclenched his teeth and removed his hat.

“A friend of mine keeps telling me that my people skills need a little work.”

Josie tried to square her shoulders against his allure. It worked, for about five seconds, and then she had the most amazing urge to grin. She didn’t, of course. She’d read somewhere that loss and pain and suffering built character. At least it had been good for something.

“Would you mind telling me what Rory O’Grady was doing here, Josephine?”

His use of her given name was nearly her undoing. “I might, if you can show me what it has to do with you.”

Jake considered several replies, discarding them one after the other. For the first time since setting foot inside the apartment, he took note of his surroundings. Green curtains, the kind that never wore out, hung at the windows. The couch was threadbare, the pictures on the wall were cheap prints. Even the afghan folded over the back of the couch looked as if it had seen better days. The same could have been said for Josie’s dress. Shy, plain Josie Callahan. That was how people described her. She was quiet, he decided, not shy. And it was amazing how that little flare of temper transformed her common face into something so uncommon.

He placed his hat on the table and settled his hands on his hips. If his plan had a snowball’s chance in hell, he was going to have to make amends. It was something the McKennas had never been very good at. “Maybe it isn’t any of my business, but Rory O’Grady is a noted wonanizer, and you wouldn’t be the first woman he took for a ride.”

“I’m a grown-up,” she said, head held high. “Besides, something tells me I’m the first woman he’s asked to marry him.”

Jake blinked as if she’d flung ice water in his face. Outwardly he remained calm. Inside, his stomach roiled. Suddenly the noise he’d thought he’d heard Friday night and the fact that the drifter he’d hired last week hadn’t shown up for work on Saturday and was now working for O‘Grady made sense. The cowhand must have been eavesdropping and had run straight to O’Grady with his information. Damn. Jake had intended to ease into this, maybe take Josie out a few times, get to know her and vice versa before springing his marriage proposal on her. Leave it to that stinking O’Grady to beat him to it.

He hadn’t been aware that he’d paced to the window until he caught sight of his reflection in the glass. “Did you say yes?”

“I don’t even know him.”

He drew in a deep breath and forbade himself to appear too relieved. There wasn’t much he could do about the smug feeling of satisfaction settling in where his agitation had been. He turned slowly and said, “Of course you don’t.”

Josie regarded Jake quizzically for a moment. His voice had been calm, his gaze steady, but his smile made her suspicious. He wasn’t a man prone to smiling. In a strange way, she felt honored to be on the receiving end of such a rare occurrence. It forced her to take a closer look at him. On the outside he was all planes and angles and five o’clock shadow, but there was more to him than appearances. Underneath, he was a man. Not just any man, but a lonely one.

That got to her, because Josie Callahan was on a first-name basis with loneliness. However, it wasn’t loneliness that had her eyelids lowering, her breath catching in the back of her throat, and something she barely recognized shifting low in her belly. She bit her lip and tried to avert her gaze. Strangely, she couldn’t move.

“Would you have dinner with me tomorrow, Josephine?”

Nobody, but nobody, called her Josephine. She’d always hated her full name. And yet when he said it, it sounded sensual, feminine, alluring. “Dinner?” she heard herself asking.

“Yes. You do like to eat, don’t you?”

Her gaze caught on his mouth, and she found it wasn’t easy to speak. “I’ve already made plans to have dinner with Rory tomorrow night.”

The room, all at once, was very quiet.

Jake took a very large, very deliberate step toward her. “I thought you said you didn’t agree to marry him.”

“I said I don’t even know him. I didn’t say I wouldn’t have dinner with him.”

Jake’s face hardened, and suddenly Josie was glad she’d made other plans. Oh, she had a feeling he was right about Rory O’Grady. The man was smooth and attractive and just cocky enough to be a bit of a rogue. She wasn’t worried about handling him. Handling Jake McKenna would have been another story.

“You’re seeing O’Grady now, is that it?”

“Does that bother you?”

Bother him? He’d passed bothered the instant he’d met O’Grady on the stairs. Hell, Jake was well on his way to full-scale frustration.

“Now why on earth would that bother me?” He reached the table in three strides, cramming his hat on his head while he headed for the door. “Like you said, you’re a grown woman.”

And O’Grady was a grown man. Jake swore under his breath. At this rate, Rory was going to end up with Jake’s hundred acres and one of the few single women left in Jasper Gulch. Anger crashed through Jake, straight as a shot of whisky right out of the bottle. He supposed he could put up a fight, but he’d be damned if he would be second.

Josie watched him go, flinching when the door closed just short of a slam. Whew. She was lucky to have escaped without having her ears singed. She locked the door, then stood leaning against it, thinking. Jake McKenna was a very formidable, intimidating man. His face was too hard, and he smiled too little.

And he’d left without saying goodbye.

The crowd at the Crazy Horse Saloon was typical for a Tuesday night. It consisted of a dozen men who moved slow, drank slow, and were slowly driving Jake nuts. Their outlook was gloomy, their small talk annoying. Which was why he normally preferred to drink alone. He might have done that, too, if Sky hadn’t given him a lecture about the dangers of that kind of drinking and that kind of thinking

Sky Buchanan would make a good old woman. Unfortunately, or was it fortunately, Jake wondered, staring into his untouched beer, Sky was also the best cowhand he’d ever had, not to mention the closest thing to a brother Jake had had in a long, long time.

Jake had listened to Sky. As a result he’d wound up at a table for one in the Crazy Horse Saloon, nursing a beer and trying not to pay attention to the only topic of conversation the local boys seemed interested in. Josie Callahan and Rory O’Grady.

“I hear tell Rory sweet-talked her into having dinner with him in Pierre.”

“I know. And she agreed. Shoot. I shouldn’t have waited so long.”

“That Rory sure has a way with women.”

“That’s true, but I can’t quite picture him and Josie, eh, you know what I mean.”

Jake tipped his head back and let the beer drizzle down his throat, trying not to listen.

“You holler when you’re ready for another, okay sugar?” DoraLee Brown asked the instant he lowered the half-empty bottle to the table. He nodded, and she winked. Jake felt a little better. Leave it to DoraLee to know what he needed.

He’d always liked DoraLee. All the men in Jasper Gulch did. Most of them had had a crush on her at one time or another. Forget the fact that she was twenty years older than half the men in the room. There was just something about a voluptuous, bleached blonde serving up beer and whisky with a smile that instilled romance in the hearts of men of all ages. A couple of years back, one of those men, Boomer Brown, had finally talked her into romancing him. Boomer and DoraLee had eloped soon after, which was good for Boomer, and DoraLee had never looked happier. Now there was one less single woman in town.

“I don’t know,” Forest Wilkie complained from a table up front “Josie doesn’t seem like Rory’s type to me.”

Great. They hadn’t gone on to another topic.

“Every female is Rory’s type.”

DoraLee clucked her tongue. “Can’t you boys think about anything else?”

Yes, Jake thought, reaching for the ice-cold bottle of beer in front of him. That DoraLee was all right.

“What else is there?” Neil Anderson grumbled.

A few other men mumbled in agreement, and Forest continued in the same vein. “It’s just that Rory and Josie are complete opposites. I mean, nobody was surprised when our very own Melody McCully married Clayt Carson. ’Cepting maybe Clayt. And do you know why? Because they’re two peas in a pod.”

“Sometimes opposites attract,” Cletus McCully, Melody’s grandfather said, his thumbs hooked around his navy blue suspenders.

“That’s true,” Forest agreed. “Look at Lisa and Wyatt. He’s one of the leaders of our fine community, and he up and married a girl who had a reputation.”

“A reputation Lisa didn’t earn,” DoraLee admonished.

“Yes,” Forest said, “but Rory’s earned his. That man’s a hound dog if there ever was one.”

“Anybody hear a weather report lately?” Jake asked.

Forest looked at him in an abstract, absent sort of way. “There’s a chance of rain all week. The point I’m tryin’ to make is this.”

Jake scowled into his beer. Nobody took longer to make a point than Forest Wilkie.

“I can’t see Rory settling down with sweet, shy Josie Callahan. He’s sown some pretty wild oats, and—”

“He’s probably sowing a few more tonight,” Neil cut in.

Jake rose to his feet so fast his chair shot out behind him. He was aware of the gazes following him as he dropped a few bills on the counter and headed for the door. He’d reached the sidewalk out front when one of the other Anderson brothers’ voices carried through the open door.

“Guess we scraped a raw nerve.”

“It ain’t hard to do. Jake’s got more raw nerves than an open wound.”

Jake scowled as he opened the door on his truck. Hiking one boot on the dusty running board, he happened to glance up at the window over the dime store next door. The upstairs apartment was dark. Must be Rory and Josie weren’t back yet. Unless they were back and hadn’t bothered turning on the lights.

He hauled himself into his seat, slammed the door and started the engine. The patch of rubber he laid squealing away from the curb didn’t curtain his frustration in the least. He rounded the corner, opened his window and cranked up the volume on the radio. The village limit sign was up ahead. Beyond it stretched miles and miles of empty highway. He pressed his foot to the accelerator and headed for the open road where he could drive until he’d taken the edge off his agitation. He figured a hundred miles might do it.

The wind was warm, the music was loud, his truck was running like a well-tuned machine. Ah. This was more like it. Those rough edges were already starting to dissolve.

His mind wandered to the ranch, the herd, his horse, the conversation he’d overheard in the Crazy Horse. That man’s a hound dog if there ever was one. Jake imagined O’Grady putting the moves on Josie. Rory had always been a smooth talker. He’d been known to brag that he could get a woman out of her clothes in fifteen seconds or less. Jake imagined Rory trying to get Josie out of hers. He slammed on the brakes and made a U-turn before he could wipe the image from his brain.

He killed the radio and drove back into town in silence, his agitation mom prickly than ever. The first thing he noticed when he pulled into the alley that ran behind the buildings on the east side of Main Street was the shiny red truck parked near Josie’s back stairs. The second thing he noticed was the light in the window overlooking the alley. Had they just gotten back? Or had they just turned on the light?

Jake pulled into the shadows behind the Crazy Horse Saloon. Strumming his fingers on the steering wheel, he told himself he was only there to make sure O’Grady brought Josie home safe and sound.

He turned off the engine and heaved a deep sigh. He was no better at lying to himself than he was at lying to anybody else.

He and Rory had always been rivals. Jake didn’t know how it had started, but he distinctly remembered the day it had come to a head. He and Rory had both been twelve. They’d buried Jake’s brother a few weeks earlier, and Jake was feeling surly. Mrs. Fergusson had just announced that parents’ night was coming up. Rory had leaned over and whispered, “Guess your mother won’t wanna leave her rich boyfriend down in Texas to come. My father says a woman who takes money for sex is a whore whether she’s on a street corner or in a penthouse.”

Jake had gotten a week’s detention for breaking Rory’s nose. Neither of them had ever apologized, and they’d never been friends since.

Rory O‘Grady had always been cocky and arrogant and conceited. But he wasn’t an ax murderer or a rapist. The O’Gradys were braggarts, not bad people, annoying, but not evil. Jake peered at the lit window, uncomfortable, because that meant he couldn’t pretend that he was hiding in the shadows out of some noble responsibility to make sure Josie was safe. He couldn’t even blame it on his aversion to coming in second. Okay, part of it might have been jealousy. Most of it was Josie. That was where it got complicated. He hadn’t been able to get her out of his head ever since he’d heard her laugh. For crying out loud, he’d found himself saying her name every time he thought about those hundred acres over by Sugar Creek. It was almost as if someone was tampering with his thoughts.

Catching a movement out of the corner of his eye, he turned his head just as Rory ambled down the steps. He was whistling, but his steps didn’t appear any more jaunty than usual. Jake took that as a good sign.

While Rory got in his truck and drove away, Jake tried to decide what to do. There wouldn’t be any harm in sauntering on up to her place and saying hello. Jake peered around. The voice had been in his head, but it hadn’t sounded like his conscience. It was the damnedest thing. But it wasn’t a bad idea.

Maybe he and Josie could talk awhile. Maybe she would laugh again.

He eased out of the truck, looked all around and set off for the stairs. His tread was light, and a pleasant breeze wafted through his shirt as he raised his fist and knocked softly on the glass.

Josie was smiling when she opened the door. He could hardly blame her smile for slipping away. His arrival was a surprise.

“Evening, Josephine.”

“Jake!”

He noticed how nice she looked in her light green dress. “Nice night,” he said.

“Yes, I guess it is.” Her eyes were shining and her lips formed another smile, this one for him. It was amazing, the way she made smiling look so easy. She appeared to have had a good time with Rory. She didn’t, however, appear to have been kissed. It was a shame, too, because she had such a kissable mouth.

He would never know what made him swoop down, covering her mouth with his. Her lips parted on a gasp. He brought his hand to her face, threading his fingers through her hair. His mouth moved over hers even as he tipped her head back, deepening the kiss, her surprise slowly turning into pleasure. A soft groan sounded in her throat, and her lips opened beneath his. Lord, she tasted sweet, her lips moist and warm and giving.

Her fingertips fluttered to the back of his hand, brushing his knuckles. Her hand was small, her touch soft, her kiss so heady it was as if something that had been tightly coiled deep inside him was starting to unravel. Ah, Jake thought. He’d been too long without a woman.

Josie knew she should open her eyes, but she lacked the strength. All she could do was strain toward Jake’s warmth. One second his kiss was as tender and light as the summer breeze. The next it was deep and searing, lingering, savoring, devouring. She’d been kissed a thousand times, but she’d never been kissed quite like this.

Tom’s mouth had always become softer as he’d kissed her. There was nothing soft in this kiss. It was possessive, demanding, the tiniest bit savage. It made her feel naughty, and nice, and young, and free. And very, very single.