The Barefoot Bride Page 4

  It wasn't that she thought Whit would purposely provoke a scene if he greeted Doctor Kendrick on his own. But it couldn't hurt if she was there by her son's side the first time the two males stood face to face.

  Molly pulled Nessie close as the Viola Belle bumped against the levee at Fort Benton. Within moments she would be meeting the man with whom she had determined to spend the rest of her life. What would the kindly country doctor do when he realized she had not been entirely honest with him?

  If he gave her a chance, she would explain everything. Molly thought of what her children had endured over the past year and vowed she would make him listen. Besides, the last of her savings had been spent getting here. She had no money to make the return trip.

  There was little time to ponder her transgressions as the gangplank was lowered and people and cargo began moving from the main deck of the steamboat onto dry land.

  Molly took her daughter's hand and led her downstairs to the main deck to join Whit.

  “Can we go ashore now?” Whit asked.

  “I wrote Doctor Kendrick that we would wait for him here.”

  Whit glowered and turned away to stare at the bustle of activity along the levee.

  Molly set Nessie down, and the little girl grabbed hold of the narrow railing beside Whit and held on. “Be careful!” Molly cautioned. “Hang on tight so you don't fall in.”

  “I don't know why we had to come here,” Whit complained. “It's dirty. And ugly. And there aren't even any trees. I hate it! And I hate him!”

  “That will be enough of that, young man,” Molly snapped. “Now stand there and be quiet. When Doctor Kendrick comes, I expect you to greet him politely. Do you understand me?”

  Whit's sullen voice was barely respectful when he answered, “Yes, Mother.”

  Molly fought the nerves that had her hands trembling. Whit had clearly made up his mind that he was going to hate Seth Kendrick. Maybe she had been wrong. Maybe this wasn't the best choice after all. But it was too late now. In a matter of moments Doctor Seth Kendrick would be here to claim his mail-order bride—and her two children— from the main deck of the Viola Belle.

  “Stay close, Patch,” Seth admonished his daughter as they stepped onto the deck of the Viola Belle. “I want to introduce you to Mrs. Gallagher when I find her.”

  “I don't want to meet her, Pa.”

  Seth ushered Patch into a quiet corner where they could stand without being buffeted by the crowd. He put a forefinger under his daughter's chin and raised her eyes to meet his. “I want you to be on your best behavior today. We don't want to scare Mrs. Gallagher off before she even gets her feet on solid ground,” he said with a smile. ‘I'm expecting you to make her feel welcome.”

  Patch's eyes flared with rebellion before her lids lowered, hiding her enmity for the dreaded Mrs. Gallagher.

  But Seth didn't see. He was already searching the foredeck of the Viola Belle for the woman who had agreed to become his wife.

  Snatches of Molly Gallagher's last letter came back to him as he examined each of the women standing there. She had given him just enough information to identify her, without actually saying what color dress she would be wearing when she arrived.

  I have long black hair. James said it was my crowning glory. However, I usually cover it with a hat to keep the sun off my nose. Otherwise I get freckles.

  He eliminated every female who wasn't wearing a hat. That took care of a goodly number. Unfortunately, it was difficult to tell the hair color of those whose heads were covered. He wished he knew whether she wore her hair up or down.

  I've become a mite too thin, but somehow food lost its taste after James died.

  That left him only four women to choose from.

  I hope you're not too tall, because I'm barely shoulder high to a grasshopper. Well, perhaps that is a slight exaggeration. But not much! James called me his “little darling.”

  He narrowed it down to two women.

  Oh, yes. I have a small mole near my mouth. James said it was becoming. I hope you'll think so too.

  Neither woman was looking at him at the moment. He marched up to the closest one and tapped her on the shoulder. She turned, and he exhaled the expectant breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. It wasn't her.

  As he approached the other woman, she turned toward him. Seth stopped in his tracks, stunned by her elegant beauty. Why hadn't she warned him? Her face was framed by a black straw bonnet trimmed with a fringe of black crystal beads that caught and reflected the sunlight.

  He had an impression of anxious doe-brown eyes and alabaster skin—freckled across the nose—that flushed when she met his gaze. Even white teeth worried her full lower lip, but she held her chin in a defiant tilt. The mole was there near her mouth, just as she had described it. But it was more than merely becoming. It tempted. It tantalized. It invited.

  His body tautened, hardening with desire that he had no wish to feel. This wasn't what he had wanted from a mail-order bride. Not a woman who made him long to possess her. Not a woman to make feelings he had thought long dead spring to demanding life. Especially since they had both agreed this was to be very much a marriage of convenience.

  Seth took two steps toward her. As he reached out, she laid a delicate hand in his.

  “Mrs. Gallagher?” he managed in a raw voice. When she nodded, he felt his gut tighten.

  “Yes. Doctor Kendrick?”

  “Yes.”

  He wasn't at all what Molly had been expecting. A doctor shouldn't have such disturbing gray eyes or such shaggy black hair. A doctor shouldn't be so fierce-looking or have such a powerful frame. A doctor shouldn't remind her of the savage on horseback she had seen along the river, or cause her whole body to shiver at the touch of his surprisingly callused hand.

  Molly thought the crow's-feet at the edges of his eyes and the deep creases that bracketed his mouth gave his face character. She approved of his straight nose, his cleft chin, and his wide, sharp cheekbones. He was wearing a kind of hat she hadn't seen much in the east. It mostly covered his wavy black hair, except where it curled down over his collar in back. But it was his eyes—enigmatic, smoky-gray eyes—that drew her to him and held her in thrall.

  One second they were standing on the main deck of the Viola Belle staring into each other's eyes. The next, Molly's hand was torn from Seth's as someone stumbled hard against her, forcing her over the short rail into the icy waters of the Missouri. She caught a fleeting glimpse of an impish face peering down at her before the breath was knocked out of her and her mouth was filled with muddy water.

  Seth had a split second to register that Patch had knocked Molly Gallagher overboard before he too was shoved from behind and felt himself falling into space. He gave fleeting thought to wringing his daughter's neck before he hit the water with a resounding splash. He came up sputtering and quickly blinked his eyes, trying to clear them enough to spy the culprit who had shoved him over the rail.

  Before he could get a good look, Molly broke the surface choking and cried, “Help! I can't swim!” and promptly sank again.

  Molly's lungs felt as if they might burst, but she daren't take a breath. Was this what James had felt? This awful burning pain in the chest? The frigid cold of the water? Had he thought of her and Whit and Nessie in his last moments, as she was doing now? Molly struggled against her fate, her splayed fingers moving desperately through the murky water for the light at the surface. But the immense weight of her many layers of fashionable clothing forced her inexorably down. She felt dizzy. She couldn't last much longer. Soon she would have to breathe. Then her lungs would fill with water, and she would drown.

  She couldn't give up. Her children needed her. She must live! She fought against the pull on her clothing, refusing to give up her life to the river.

  Something tugged on her skirt and just as quickly let go. Someone had jumped in after her! Save me! Don't leave me here. She reached out blindly to grab hold of her rescuer's neck and promptly had her hands
torn away. Which made her even more desperate.

  A muscular arm snaked around her from behind, grasping her firmly across her breasts. She was so shocked at the intimacy of such a hold that she froze for an instant— which was time enough for her to realize that they had begun moving upward. She forced herself to remain calm, which was the only way she could aid her own rescue.

  Molly gasped as she broke the surface of the water and immediately began coughing.

  “You're safe now, Mrs. Gallagher,” Seth said in her ear. “Just relax, and I'll swim you to shore.”

  By now, those on board the Viola Belle had been alerted to the fact that two passengers had fallen overboard. There were hands ready to take Molly from Seth as he lifted her up onto the levee, and to drag him out of the water as well.

  Seth spied Ethan in the crowd that had gathered and said, “Take care of her while I get my medical bag from the buggy.”

  Molly lay on the ground with her eyes closed, grateful to be alive. The sun felt so warm, and she was so tired. She had no desire to move from this spot anytime soon.

  “Step aside. Get out of the way. Give her some room to breathe,” Ethan said.

  When Molly opened her eyes, she saw a handsome man with sandy brown hair and bright green eyes kneeling beside her. He untied the soggy ribbons from under her chin and removed what was left of her best Sunday bonnet.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  Molly's mouth formed the words, “I'm fine,” but nothing came out. She closed her eyes again. She felt the heat of a second body beside her just before she heard Seth's deep, rumbling voice.

  “How is she, Ethan?”

  “I can't tell, Seth. You better check her over.”

  Molly felt the buttons of her dress being undone and managed to drag a hand up to try and stop whoever it was.

  “It's all right, Mrs. Gallagher,” Seth said, moving her hand back down to her side. “It's me. Seth Kendrick. I'm a doctor, remember?”

  “No.” She didn't care if he was a doctor. He was a stranger. But his practiced hands made short work of the buttons on her bodice. Molly gasped as smooth, cool metal touched the skin above her left breast. The gasp set off a fit of coughing. Seth turned her over and patted her back. When she quieted, he laid her back down flat and once again placed the stethoscope so he could hear her heart.

  Molly shivered at the slight touch of his fingers on her skin around the edges of the instrument. He moved the metal disc around as he checked her lungs. His fingertips left a spot of heat everywhere they touched. This had to stop. She didn't want to feel so—so— much.

  “Doctor Kendrick,” she managed to whisper, “please stop.”

  “I'm almost finished,” he said, and continued what he was doing. “I don't think any permanent damage has been done,” he announced at last. “Can you open your eyes, Mrs. Gallagher?”

  Molly squinted her eyes open and quickly closed them to shut out the bright sun.

  “Let me help you up.”

  Seth's arm surrounded her shoulders, and in short order she was nestled in the cleft created between his thighs as he knelt on the levee. As soon as she was upright, the bodice of her dress, which was still unbuttoned, fell open. She grabbed awkwardly to save her modesty, only to have Seth reach over her shoulders and matter-of-factly begin to button her back up again.

  Molly closed her eyes, but she could do nothing about the flush that pinkened her skin and raced his buttoning fingers to her neck. There was no respite even when he removed his hands, for the heat kept on rising right up her neck to her cheeks.

  “I … I think I can get up now,” she said, anxious to remove herself from the embarrassing position between his legs.

  Once again that muscular arm slipped around her. At the same time Seth rose, he lifted her effortlessly to her feet. Once they were standing, she saw that his sodden clothes—black broadcloth suit, white shirt, and string tie—conformed revealingly to the shape of his body. And she realized her wet bodice must be clinging to her like a second skin.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, crossing her arms protectively to cover herself.

  “Fine,” he said with a brief, reassuring smile.

  The smile softened his face but was too quickly gone. “It was courageous of you to jump in after me,” she said. “You saved my life. I can't thank you—”

  “I didn't jump in after you.”

  “You didn't?”

  “I was pushed.”

  “Are you sure? Whoever would do such a thing?” But Molly had an awful, sinking feeling who it might have been. Suddenly she realized her children must be worried about her. She searched the spot on the main deck where she had been standing with the doctor. Sure enough, Whit was leaning over the rail with a smug look on his face. Well, he wasn't going to be looking quite so pleased with himself when he had to apologize to the doctor. She cringed at the thought of introducing them to each other. But of course it must be done. And the sooner the better.

  Molly had already opened her mouth to speak when it dawned on her that she hadn't seen Nessie standing anywhere near Whit. She whirled around to look again. The little girl was gone. Her heart began to pound when another look did not reveal her daughter. Where was Nessie? Had she wandered off the Viola Belle alone? Was she now lost in the crowd?

  Immediately, all thoughts of conciliating the man beside her fled. Molly didn't bother to explain where she was going, just lifted her soggy skirts in both hands and shoved her way through the gathered crowd toward where she had left her children.

  “Wait!” Seth called. When Molly didn't even slow down, he hurried after her.

  Molly hadn't a thought to spare for the towheaded waif in baggy trousers standing on the foredeck glaring daggers at her. She headed straight for the boy neatly dressed in knee-length trousers and a jacket, standing nearby.

  “Where's Nessie?” she demanded of her son.

  Surprised at his mother's question, Whit looked around in genuine consternation. “She was right here a minute ago.”

  “Was that before or after you pushed Doctor Kendrick into the river?” Molly demanded angrily.

  “Before.” Whit grimaced as he realized what he had just admitted. “I don't know where Nessie—” The boy snapped his mouth shut, scowling at something over his mother's shoulder.

  Molly turned to discover that her husband-to-be had joined her. Had he heard Whit's confession? Her face paled when she saw the white lines of fury around his mouth. A quick look revealed bunched fists. For a moment she thought he was going to lay violent hands on her son. Every muscle in her body tensed to stop him.

  But when his powerful hand closed around cloth, it was the small towheaded child dressed in a wrinkled cotton shirt and baggy corduroy pants that he held in his grasp.

  “Would you like to explain what happened here?” he demanded of the child.

  “It was an accident!” the urchin said. “I tripped.”

  “And just happened to fall against this particular woman?” the doctor asked in a sarcastic voice.

  Molly suddenly recognized the impish face as the one she had seen leaning over the rail when she landed in the river. In the same moment she realized that the child was not a boy, as she had first thought, but a girl with her hair tied back with a string at her nape. She put a calming hand on Seth's sleeve. “I'm sure it must have been an accident, as she claims.”

  “You are, are you?” he snarled.

  Molly drew back, astounded by the violence in his eyes and the harshness of his voice. She opened her mouth to tell him it was only a little water and that she would dry, but sneezed instead.

  She watched through watery eyes as Seth turned his fierce look back on the rumpled girl and demanded, “Apologize to the lady.”

  The girl's chin came up pugnaciously. “No.”

  Seth's face was both furious and incredulous. “No?”

  “I won't apologize.” The girl's voice rose in distress as she cried, “I'm not sorry I did it.
I hope she catches pneumonia and dies. She should go back where she came from. I don't need a mother!”

  Confused, Molly turned to Seth for an explanation.

  “This devil's helpmate is my daughter, Patricia,” Seth admitted through clenched teeth.

  “My name is Patch,” the girl muttered.

  “You have a daughter?” Molly asked in amazement. “But you never said a word about having children.”

  “It's why I need a wife,” he admitted in a gruff voice. “You can see she needs a woman's influence.”

  “It appears so,” Molly agreed with alacrity. “Even so—”

  Whit interrupted with, “She's the one who gave me the idea to push him into the water, Mother.”

  Molly felt her heart miss a beat as Seth turned his steely gray eyes on her.

  “Did I hear the boy right?” he demanded.

  “That depends,” she hedged, lowering her lashes so she wouldn't have to deal with those piercing eyes of his. “What did you hear?”

  “Are you the boy's mother?” Seth demanded with asperity.

  Molly's chin came up, and her eyes met his. “And what if I am?” She shot a quick glance at his daughter. “Surely what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.”

  “Look, lady—”

  “Watch how you talk to my mother,” Whit warned.

  “Yeah, well you watch how you talk to my pa!” Patch retorted, putting herself toe to toe with Whit.

  “Whit!”

  “Patch!”

  Both parents grabbed hold of their respective children.

  “I'm sorry Whit pushed you in,” Molly said.

  “Out here a man speaks for himself,” Seth said, his eyes meeting Whit's. “What have you got to say for yourself, son?”

  “I'm not your son,” Whit retorted. “And I'm not sorry. I'd do it again! I wish you'd drowned. I wish we'd never come here. You'll never be my father!”

  Seth's steely gaze never left Whit's face.

  Molly's dark brown eyes flashed at Seth.

  Patch focused glaring blue eyes on Molly.

  Whit's sea-green eyes shot daggers at Patch.