Julianne MacLean Read online

  Sarah’s breath caught in her lungs.

  A long-haired man had stepped out from behind the team. Had he forgotten this was his wedding day? He wore a brown buckskin coat with a long, swinging fringe along each sleeve and a necklace made of animal claws. Animal claws?

  She felt suddenly rooted to the spot, but managed another tentative step forward. Briggs bent forward to check a hoof on one of the horses.

  He dropped the horse’s hoof and looked up. Sarah’s gaze met his sea-green eyes and a shiver of trepidation skittered through her. He seemed disappointed, as if she was not at all what he had expected.

  The sun moved behind a cloud, bathing Briggs in shade as he sauntered slowly toward her. Tall and muscular, he moved with surprising grace. “You’re Sarah MacFarland?” he said.

  She swallowed nervously, then struggled to keep her voice from quivering. “Yes.”

  Dear Reader,

  Have you ever been tempted to turn Mr. Wrong into Mr. Right? In each of our books this month, you’ll delight in the ways these least-likely-to-marry men change their tune for the right woman!

  We are thrilled to introduce debut author Julianne MacLean, who has written a fast-paced and sexy Western, Prairie Bride. Recently jilted, angry Kansas farmer Arthur “Briggs” Brigman was the last person anyone suspected would advertise for a wife. Not surprising, though, when his beautiful Eastern bride shows up, determined to hide her past, Briggs is far from a charming groom. Don’t miss the sparks that fly between these two under the wide-open prairie skies!

  Ruth Langan returns with The Sea Witch, book one of her medieval miniseries SIRENS OF THE SEA. Here, a female privateer and a dashing sea captain team up—in more ways than one!—to thwart a villain’s plot against the king. In The Paper Marriage by mainstream historical author Bronwyn Williams, a tough-as-nails American mariner marries—sight unseen—a young widow in financial trouble in exchange for help raising his adopted daughter. Don’t miss what happens when he begins to fall in love with his aunt’s friend while waiting for his “wife”!

  And be sure to look for Prince of Hearts, a wonderful medieval novel by talented newcomer Katy Cooper. In this emotional story, Edmund Tudor, the king of England’s youngest brother, must choose between his love for a noblewoman and his duty to his brother’s kingdom.

  Enjoy! And come back again next month for four more choices of the best in historical romance.

  Sincerely,

  Tracy Farrell,

  Senior Editor

  Prairie Bride

  JULIANNE MACLEAN

  Available from Harlequin Historicals and JULIANNE MACLEAN

  Prairie Bride #526

  For my wonderful husband, Stephen.

  Acknowledgments:

  To The Kansas State Historical Society and The Kansas Heritage Center.

  To my agent, Paige Wheeler, and editors Melissa Endlich, Margaret O’Neill Marbury and Tracy Farrell.

  To Jo Beverley, Lorraine Coyle, Joyce David, Deborah Hale, Cheryl Leger, Susanne MacDonald-Boyce, Ruth MacLean, Jackie Manning, Georgie Phillips, Janelle Schneider, Julia Smith and Norah Wilson.

  To Tory Leblanc, for your wisdom and encouragement.

  To Mom and Dad, for being great parents.

  Finally, to my cousin, Michelle Phillips, who writes as Michelle McMaster, thank you for being my lifetime soul-sister.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  Kansas, 1882

  Exhausted, knowing she would not sleep for many hours, Sarah MacFarland leaned forward to peer from the train window. The shrill steam whistle blew. Heavy iron wheels chugged and squealed beneath the soles of her feet, faster and faster, mimicking the rhythm of her heart.

  Tonight she would lose her virginity. For the second time.

  Sarah sank back in her seat and massaged her pounding temples. She prayed silently that it would all go well, that she had done the right thing, coming out west. Searching for reassurance, she pulled open the drawstring on her black purse and withdrew the newspaper advertisement.

  Farmer, Arthur Brigman, seeks gentle and peaceful wife for simple life on Kansas prairie. Must agree to daily toil and plain home.

  Marriage and a simple life was what she’d always wanted, she reminded herself, as she watched two children chase each other up the aisle, screeching with laughter. A troublesome guilt slithered up Sarah’s spine. Never in all her dreams had she believed she would reach her goal of marriage through deceit. But she had no choice, really.

  She folded the wrinkled piece of paper and slid her fingers along the crease. If only she knew what to expect of her future husband. If only she knew what he looked like.

  Stuffing the ad back into her purse, accidentally elbowing the sleeping woman beside her, Sarah decided with conviction that a man’s looks were of little importance to her now. She had learned her lesson in Boston. This time she would act with common sense. She gazed out the window at the ocean of golden prairie grass. The rippling land seemed to stretch on and on forever, colliding violently with the cloudless sky.

  A person could easily disappear in it.

  She tilted her head back, closed her weary eyes, and imagined her new husband. Perhaps Arthur would be waiting for her with a black buggy and a handsome black horse. He would touch the brim of his hat when their eyes first met. Surely he would know her the moment he saw her. She envisioned him wearing a new wedding suit—a gray one with a matching fedora—something similar to the one her father used to wear to church on Sundays. She wondered if Arthur was clean shaven. Papa had always worn a wide, bristly mustache with the ends waxed into a curl. And gold spectacles. She smiled as she remembered how he used to smoke a pipe on Saturdays after supper. Perhaps Arthur would do the same.

  All of a sudden, that tenacious guilt returned and stabbed at her dreamy thoughts. She had not been completely honest with her future husband. She had kept many things from him. Sarah had come here in search of more than a simple home. She had come in search of safety. Sanctuary.

  A baby at the back of the train began to cry. Sarah opened her eyes. She hoped Arthur would never know how far she had plunged from her father’s virtuous pedestal. And she hoped her husband would forgive her for deceiving him on their wedding day.

  “I still think you’re making a big mistake,” George Brigman said, his eyes perusing the dark, damp interior of the sod house.

  Arthur “Briggs” Brigman glared with irritation at his brother, who brushed at the top of a wooden box before sitting down. Heaven forbid he should soil his new suit while he handed out his opinions.

  Trying to ignore George’s advice, Briggs looked around his one-room dwelling. Rain from the day before had soaked through the walls to the inside. Mud dripped from the ceiling with a tedious tat-tat-tat. The smell of wet earth wafted
out of every crevice, the dampness seeping under his clothing.

  What a fine mess for his new wife to come home to.

  George stomped his foot on a grasshopper, kneading it into the dirt floor. “You’re not over Isabelle yet.”

  Shrugging into his fringed buckskin coat, Briggs winced at the sound of Isabelle’s name. He hoped after today he wouldn’t hear it again.

  His gaze searched the dugout for his worn leather gloves. Taking three easy strides, he swept them up from the nail keg by the door and tapped them against his thigh. He wondered if he should have shaved. Too late now, he decided. He’d been working since dawn in the cornfield and hadn’t realized the time.

  “You’re not listening to me,” George continued. “It’s only been three months, and you’re hardly set up for marriage.”

  “I’m set up fine. I have land and I have a house.” He spread his arms wide so the fringe on his sleeves dangled. “What more could I need?”

  “You call this a house?” George walked to the sod wall and plucked out a long blade of limp, brown grass. “You advertise in a city paper for a wife and you expect her to live here?”

  Briggs clamped his jaw at the insult. He was proud of what he’d accomplished over the past year. He owned this land and all the corn and wheat and other crops planted on it. As soon as the harvest machine came, he’d make a handsome profit off his wheat and rye.

  “I said I was looking for someone who could handle the prairie. That someone answered, so there’s nothing else to talk about. I need help around here. I need a wife. And I’m done sitting alone on my land like the hermit everyone thinks I am, pining away over…” Still uncomfortable speaking her name, he reached up to rub the back of his neck, warm under the blanket of his thick, shoulder-length hair.

  “You were never one to care what other people thought,” George pointed out, a little too perceptively for Briggs’s present mood.

  He took a deep breath, searching for patience. He succeeded only in reminding himself of the ever present smell of dirt and grass. Everything was so darn wet.

  “I am over Isabelle,” he said. “I was over her the moment she took me for a fool and broke our engagement.” He turned his back on his brother. He didn’t need this. Not today. They had a long drive ahead of them and he had vows to think about.

  “Look at you,” George snorted. “You’re covered with dust. You look like you just walked off the field. Why don’t you at least borrow one of my suits?”

  Briggs looked down at his faded beige trousers and shabby leather boots. “I did just walk off the field. This is the way I dress and your suits would never fit me. You know that.”

  “We could stop off at the clothier—”

  Briggs raised an eyebrow, wishing George would stop making suggestions about his wedding attire. Briggs had never intended the ceremony to be anything more than what it was. A legality.

  A moment of silence passed while Briggs threw an old gray blanket over the narrow bed and fluffed up the single pillow. Suddenly, his gut wrenched. He was in the habit of living alone. Soon he’d be sleeping here—sharing his bed—with a complete stranger.

  “You don’t have to marry this girl today,” George continued. “You don’t even know what she looks like.”

  “It’s not about looks, George. In fact, a pretty face clouds a man’s judgment. What I need is a capable woman who’s not so concerned with fancy clothes and hats and all that other stuff women like.” Briggs flipped his hair out of his face. “She’s going to live out here, miles from town, lighting fires with dry cow dung.”

  George’s disapproving gaze swept the room, then he pushed his gold spectacles farther up the bridge of his nose. “It’s not too late to change your mind. You could get to know her first, maybe court her a little.”

  “I don’t have time to court. I’m thirty years old. Besides, if I felt like courting, I’d court someone here in Kansas, instead of bringing her all the way from…uh…” Briggs drew his eyebrows together, trying to remember which newspaper advertisement she’d answered.

  “Boston!” George finished for him. “You brought her from Boston!”

  “Right. Boston.” He rubbed his stubbled chin between his thumb and forefinger. “Now let’s get on the road or we’ll be late and she’ll be standing around at the station wondering if she got off in the wrong town.”

  Briggs followed George through the narrow door, watching his brother duck so his gray fedora wouldn’t graze the low frame. “I’m sure she’ll be wondering that, regardless, when she sees this place,” George commented.

  The two walked into the wind toward the unpainted wagon, aged the color of a thundercloud. Hoisting himself into the hard seat, Briggs flicked the reins and they lurched ominously into motion. He turned the wagon through the yard toward town with George’s horse in tow.

  Briggs sighed. Maybe George was right. Maybe he should have waited—at least until the harvest was in. But what was done was done. He’d made an agreement and he wouldn’t go back on his word. The girl had insisted on coming right away. She’d traveled across the country and he had promised her a marriage certificate the day she arrived.

  Briggs squinted up at the blue sky, removed his well-worn Stetson hat and swabbed his forehead with a sleeve. Marriage. He’d never imagined it would come about like this. But recalling his first proposal, he decided it was better this way. He’d made a mistake in choosing Isabelle. She was completely wrong for the kind of life he’d always wanted, but he’d been struck blind by her beauty and charm. Isabelle could never have been a farmer’s wife. He should have known that from the start.

  Perhaps things turned out for the best, he thought, absentmindedly steering the wagon through a deep rut. There was no denying he’d suffered when Isabelle left him. Anger had beaten the drive out of him for days, but it was anger directed at himself for being so foolish. His brain had been in his trousers when he’d proposed.

  Not this time, he thought proudly, watching one of the horses swat its long tail at a bee. This time, Briggs had a clear set of newspaper-print requirements and a pretty face was not among them. This time, the marriage would be built on respect and a mutual desire for companionship—things that would last through the years.

  George’s voice penetrated Briggs’s thoughts. “Did you get her a wedding gift?”

  “A wedding gift? Isn’t it enough that I paid her fare all the way from Boston?”

  George shook his head in that slow way of his. “A woman likes something she can hold on to. A gift that’ll mean something in twenty years when she digs it out of the closet. Why don’t you give her the necklace?”

  “Are you out of your mind?” Briggs exclaimed. “What would I do about the engraving on the back? Draw a line through Isabelle and write in the other one’s name?”

  “Sarah.”

  “I know her name.”

  “It would be nice if you could use it when you meet her.”

  “I will. I will.”

  “And I don’t want to hear you complaining if she’s not the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen. You like the pretty ones and that’s why you fell so hard for Isabelle when she wasn’t—”

  Briggs shot his brother a glare. “I hope my wife’s got hips as big as a barn and arms stronger than Big Joe MacKaskill’s. She’ll need ’em if she’s going to haul water from the creek till I get a well dug.”

  “And when do you plan on doing that?”

  Briggs clicked his tongue at the horses. “When I get around to it.” George didn’t respond, and Briggs could feel his disapproval like a pesky fly. Being a city person and a lawyer, George could never understand how much work went into farming. Or how rewarding it could be.

  “I just hope you’re nice to her today.”

  “I will be,” Briggs replied defensively. “And I don’t want to hear any more about it.” The wagon lurched and swayed over a bump in the road. “Yah,” he called to the cumbersome horses, flicking the reins and realizing that, co
me sundown, he’d be a married man.

  His chest tightened at the thought of meeting this strange woman. He sure hoped he knew what he was getting into.

  “Next stop, Dodge City!” the conductor called out, whisking his fingers over the back of each seat as he staggered down the aisle.

  Knots twisted inside Sarah’s slender body. She sat forward to see, for the first time, the place that would become her home. It was real now, no longer a fantasy. She checked to ensure her dark hair was neat and tidy, all her buttons were fastened, then pinched her cheeks to summon some color.

  “You look lovely,” the woman beside her said. “I’m sure he’ll fall in love with you the moment he sees you.”

  Sarah forced a smile. “How did you know?”

  “I saw you reading that ad, and it’s not hard to tell how nervous you are. But don’t worry. You’re a beautiful young woman. He’ll be pleased, to be sure.”

  Sarah watched the dust-covered wooden buildings pass by the window as the train chugged into Dodge City. Sagging boardwalks sighed with fatigue under the persistent eddy of cowboys and townsfolk. The wide main street, muddy from a recent rainfall, lay battered with deep hoofprints and wagon tracks.

  The train screeched to a tuckered-out halt at the station. Outside the window, a crowd was gathered on the platform, mostly men puffing pockets of cigar smoke out from under their hats. Sarah took one last quick look, swallowed her apprehension, then reached for her valise.

  Inching into the aisle, Sarah carried her bag toward the door. When she reached the steps, she squinted into bright sunlight, then quickly raised a hand to shade her eyes. She searched the unfamiliar faces looking up at her. Where was the man who had promised to meet her? The man who would soon be her husband?

  She took an uneasy step down. Just then, a gust of wind blew into her face and sucked her hat off her head, sending it somersaulting across the muddy station yard. “Oh, dear!” she cried, as she clumsily reached up to hold her knotted hair in place.