Rugged Hunter, Delicate Heiress

Chapter 1: The Wedding Bargain

I told Cal Mercer he smelled like sweat before the minister had even put away his Bible.

The ceremony had taken place in a chapel with a leaky roof, twelve miles from the estate where I'd grown up. Rain tapped the windows. My silk shoes were already ruined by the muddy path, and my wedding dress, altered from a gown I'd worn to my cousin's debutante ball, was two inches too long.

Cal glanced down at himself. He wore a clean white shirt, a dark jacket, and the expression of a man who had expected a complaint and received one on schedule.

"I washed," he said.

"Then I'm afraid the effort wasn't sufficient."

The minister coughed into his fist. My aunt, seated in the front row, stared fixedly at her handbag.

Cal didn't answer. He held out his arm for me to take, and I did, because the entire point of marrying him was to make sure the people watching believed I meant it.

A week earlier, my father's lawyer had read the terms of the estate in a room that smelled of lemon oil and old paper. My father's debts had eaten nearly everything. The bank would take the house, the surrounding acres, and the timber rights unless someone paid the outstanding loan by October first.

I had no money. My aunt had no money. Cal, who'd worked as a hunting guide on our land since he was nineteen, had the one thing the bank would accept: a long-term lease on the hunting grounds and enough savings to pay the overdue taxes.

He offered to marry me and pool our legal claims. My father's will gave his widow—and, if I married, my husband—the right to contest the foreclosure for one year. The lawyer believed that year was enough to raise funds or sell the property on better terms.

I had heard the offer and thought of a man who lived in a cabin and knew how to split wood.

Then I had looked at the foreclosure notice and said yes.

Our carriage wasn't waiting outside. Cal had a horse and a two-wheeled cart. He helped me climb up without commenting when I fumbled with the skirt.

The drive to his cabin took more than an hour. We passed the estate's western gate, where the black iron crest had been taken down. I watched the empty posts disappear behind us.

"Your father trusted me with the north trail," Cal said after a long silence. "I'll keep my end of the bargain."

"I'm sure you will. You'll have the benefit of being married to me."

His jaw tightened. "I won't ask you to pretend this is more than it is."

That was not the reassurance I wanted. I had expected a crude joke or a boast. Instead, he sounded as if he were warning me not to mistake his kindness for affection.

His cabin sat beneath a ridge, a sturdy one-story place with a stone chimney and a stack of wood under the eaves. The inside was clean, if plainly furnished. A rifle hung above the door. A washbasin sat on a table by the window.

Cal carried my trunk inside and set it beside the bed.

"One bed," I said.

"I can take the floor."

"I wasn't suggesting you couldn't."

He turned to me. His eyes were gray, his hair dark, and his hands were rough enough to make the clean shirt seem like a disguise. "I'll sleep by the stove. You can have the bed."

I looked at the quilt. "I'll need clean sheets."

"They're clean."

"I'll need them washed."

"I'll wash them."

"And you'll bathe before you come near the bed."

"I heard you the first time."

I should have apologized. I didn't. My pride was the only possession I had left that no bank could take, and I held on to it with both hands.

Cal went outside. Through the window, I watched him pull off his jacket and carry a bucket to the well. He returned with water, heated it over the stove, and left the room without making a show of it.

When he was gone, I sat on the edge of the bed and pressed my hands together until the shaking stopped.

I had a husband, a cabin, and a year to save a house I might never live in again.

For the first time since my father died, nobody was coming to tell me what happened next.