Page 2 of May I Kiss the Bride

REYNOLD CHRISTENSEN WENT BY REY. Sheriff Rey.

Or just Rey. Didn’t matter to him. But never by Mr. Christensen, which now interrupted a rather sweet dream he was having about a certain blonde woman who’d just baked him a pie and presented it to him at the town social.

He’d been hungry when he boarded the train to Cheyenne, but now he was ravenous.

He was just about to slice himself a piece of the still-warm dream pie when someone blurted in his ear “Mr. Christensen!”

This was no dream.

He shoved his hat back and opened his eyes to see not one, but two men in uniform glaring at him. One of them was probably the conductor. The other was the red-faced attendant he hadn’t the pleasure of formally meeting yet.

Rey gave up on his dream of pie and pulled his legs in, straightening to face his visitors.

“If you’ve paid first-class passage, then you can stay here,” the conductor said, his steely gaze quite impressive. “If not, the attendant will escort you to a different car.”

Rey should have known it would come to this; he was just hoping to get a nap in first. He reached into his shirt pocket and drew out a folded and partially crumpled telegram from the governor of Wyoming, then handed it over.

Rey had only had to read it once to know that he must answer the call, even though it meant cutting his visit short with his mother.

He didn’t love leaving his eight-year-old daughter behind in San Francisco, but she’d never forgive him if he ended their vacation so soon.

So, here he was, hopping on this train at the request of the governor.

The conductor’s face had gone chalk white at reading the telegram. “Is this true? And how does the governor know?”

Rey lifted a shoulder. “Received threats, I guess. Might not be this exact train though. Other lawmen are jumping on all trains headed to Cheyenne this week. Your luck is getting me.” He took the paper back, folded it, and tucked it into his pocket.

“Now, if you don’t mind, I have sleep to catch up on. ”

He thought that tugging down the brim of his hat and closing his eyes would be hint enough, but apparently, the conductor had more questions.

“There’s only one of you?” the conductor said in a near whisper. “If what’s in that telegram is true, we need more than just one lawman to defend—”

Rey snapped his eyes open. “Hush. You want panic from your passengers? Believe me, I can get the job done. Now, you do your job, and if— if the time comes, I’ll do mine.”

Still, the conductor and the attendant didn’t move.

“Off with you,” Rey muttered. “There’s nothing to worry about until we cross into Wyoming territory. I’ll be wide awake and keeping watch by then.” He motioned toward the windows. “First class has the best view. We might not even have to stop the train.”

Rey kept his voice low so the other passengers wouldn’t overhear—but he knew the woman on the bench across from him clutching that infernal hatbox could hear every word. To her credit, she kept her gaze averted, focused on the passing landscape.

The conductor’s eyes were wide, but the attendant’s eyes were even wider.

Rey again tugged his brim down and closed his eyes. After a hushed debate, the men left. The sound of their retreating footsteps was a welcome sound—almost like a lullaby melody.

Now, back to his pie dream. But his mind wouldn’t settle.

He could truly smell food somewhere—likely in the adjacent dining car—so mealtime must be close.

He wasn’t exactly interested in mingling with any other passengers and engaging in small talk over a meal, so he’d wait until the last possible moment before entering the dining car.

Sure enough, a bell jangled and the passengers in the first-class car began to file into the dining car.

If Rey’s stomach would just be quiet, he could get a decent nap in, but it wasn’t to be.

Because it seemed that everyone in the first-class car, except for the woman with the hatbox, had left. Rey’s eyes might have been closed, but it wasn’t hard to sense these things. First of all, she’d have to move past his legs and possibly step over them. She did neither.

In fact, she cleared her throat and spoke.

“Mr. Christensen?”

He opened his eyes. He might try to ignore a conductor and an attendant, but he’d never ignore a woman. “Rey.”

“Rey?”

“Short for Reynold. I don’t stand on ceremony, ma’am, and I don’t expect others to.”

She blinked. Slow. Her gray eyes reminded him of the stormy Pacific. Bits of her blonde hair had escaped the confines of the hat she wore atop her head, and he wondered what she’d look like with those locks unpinned.

“My name is Viola Delany.” She extended her gloved hand across the space between them.

Rey could have been knocked over by a gust of wind. This was no wilting flower of a woman. He shook her hand. Her fingers were delicate, but her grip was firm—something the hatbox was a witness to.

When they released hands, Viola continued, “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but it was quite impossible not to overhear your conversation with the conductor.

” She drew in a breath that fluttered the ruffles of her blouse about her neck.

“I couldn’t help overhearing you mention that something is going to happen when our train crosses into Wyoming territory? ”

Her accent was prim. Her voice soft yet forceful as if she were a woman who was used to giving orders and having them carried out. She had to be in her mid-twenties, he guessed, yet she had the directness of a matron much older.

“You heard right, ma’am.”

Viola folded her gloved hands atop her hatbox, her gray eyes not leaving his. “What is going to happen?”

Well, her question was direct, he’d give her that. But the question he had was whether he’d answer it as directly. He didn’t take this woman for someone who’d get hysterical—but no one really knew until one was put into a dire situation. Was her backbone as strong as she acted it was?

“I can’t predict the future, ma’am, I’m only here at the request of someone, just in case there is an incident.”

Viola’s dark brow raised. It was a bit of juxtaposition with her face—to have such light-colored hair along with dark eyebrows. He found it quite pleasing, he decided. She was pretty, yes, but not in the conventional sense.

“I’m not asking you to predict the future,” she said in her prim voice. “If that someone is the governor of Wyoming, like you indicated to the conductor, then I’d like to know the contents of your telegram.”

Something stuck in Rey’s throat, and he coughed. “It’s confidential.”

Viola’s eyes widened slightly, but she said in a completely calm voice, “It wasn’t confidential when you handed it to the conductor.”

“He’s …” Rey paused.

“A man?”

“A man in authority,” Rey corrected quickly.

Viola’s brow raised a titch higher. Then, with precise movements, she set her beloved hatbox onto the bench at her side and gathered her skirts about her. She rose and walked two steps, turned, and sat right next to him.

So close that he caught her scent of something fancy. Perfume, likely. It wasn’t displeasing.

Her hand appeared in front of him, palm upturned, fingers extended. “May I read the telegram, Rey?”

Perhaps it was the way his name sounded in her prim tone, but he found himself drawing out the telegram once again and unfolding it.

She took the paper and read through the few short lines. When she raised her gaze to meet his, he saw the expected wariness mixed with surprise in her eyes.

“We’re going to be robbed?” she whispered.

“We don’t know for sure,” Rey said. “The governor received threats and has ordered lawmen on all trains heading into Wyoming this week. We might be lucky. Seems that the governor refused to let one of their friends out of jail, so this group of thieves have threatened revenge.”

Viola drew in a slow breath, neatly folded the telegram, and handed it over.

She didn’t move, didn’t speak for a long moment.

It was a strange thing for this woman to be sitting so close to him.

They somehow breathed in tandem, or maybe Rey was just aware of her every inhale, exhale, and the way her fingers interlocked as they sat upon her lap.

“What’s your prediction, Rey?”

“Truth?”

“Truth.”

“This train has a first-class car, which means more wealth packed into suitcases.” He paused and glanced down at her. Viola kept her gaze straightforward. “There’s a high chance this train will be robbed tomorrow morning by dawn.”

Her intake of breath was sharp, but still, she didn’t move. “And you’re going to stop it how?”

“By shooting first.”

She turned to look at him then, her chin lifting, her gray eyes flickering to his. “You think you can hold off a posse of train robbers by yourself?”

“I don’t have a choice. Unless you want to take over one of my pistols. Would you shoot a man, Viola?”