Page 17 of Seven Brides for Beau McBride (The McBrides of Montana #3)

Five

This was an unholy nightmare. Beau regarded the room full of women in silent consternation.

They were crammed in the front parlor of the Bellevue hotel, an overwhelm of pretty dresses and bright eyes and loud chatter.

One by one they fell silent as they noticed him standing there in the doorway, his derby hat in his hands.

The air was full of scent: roses and lavender and orange water and musk.

Was it hot in here? He was sweating like a pig on a spit.

“Well, what did I tell you, ladies? Ain’t he pretty as a picture?” Junebug was crowing like a damn rooster. She even had the nerve to clap him on the back.

“You can’t be serious,” he heard Ellie Neale, Junebug’s sixth and final calamity, mutter at his elbow. “How many women does one man need?”

On the way to the hotel, Beau had stopped by Martha Colfax’s house, which was a new pine cabin smack bang in the middle of town.

He’d left Diana there, drinking coffee with Martha, his sister-in-law Pip’s grandmother.

Diana didn’t deserve to be dragged further into Junebug’s insanity.

He’d much rather she was welcomed into Martha’s cozy two-room cabin than have her walk into a nest of Junebug’s brides.

The last thing he wanted was his striking new bride witnessing his humiliation as he explained Junebug’s deception to all those poor women.

It had taken Beau a solid hour of talking to convince Diana that he’d had no part in Junebug’s scheme. In the end, it was Martha’s support that swung her.

“Junebug has a history of causing matrimonial havoc,” Martha had assured Diana and her friend as she poured them tea.

They’d all turned to look at the window, where Junebug was glaring in at them from the porch.

Beau had locked her out there, like a badly behaved puppy, not wanting her to snarl up his explanations.

“I promise there’s no trafficking going on,” Martha told Diana’s discombobulated friend. She put extra sugar in the girl’s tea. “For the shock,” she said dryly, as she passed her the cup.

“Don’t worry,” Beau assured Diana fervently. “I’ll sort this out and be back to collect you and we can continue as planned.”

Diana hadn’t lost her icy composure once; she seemed unflappable, which was a novelty around here.

His own family did nothing but flap. He didn’t know a woman could be so beautiful, either.

She was flawless. Better even than her photograph, if such a thing was possible.

She had a kind of elegance that was out of place in Bitterroot; she’d sunk into a chair at Martha’s table, like a dandelion seed settling, and regarded him with cool blue eyes.

“It’s all rather confusing,” she said diplomatically.

“I’ll be back,” he kept repeating idiotically, his thoughts quite scrambled by both her beauty and her poise.

He wished her friend Ellie had stayed behind too, as she was unpleasantly hot under the collar, but she flat-out refused.

“You don’t know if you can trust him,” she’d told Diana, giving Beau a lethal stare.

“I’ll go and listen firsthand and let you know what he says to them.

If I don’t come back, alert the sheriff. ”

“We don’t have a sheriff,” Martha told her, amused.

“Then send for the National Guard.”

“I don’t think they trade in lost women,” Martha said mildly.

“You’re not going missing.” Diana was calm. “You’re only going down the road to the hotel. I can see it from the front window there.”

Beau watched as Ellie drained her tea and straightened her shoulders, adopting a mien of quiet, brittle bravery. Like she was going to the guillotine.

“It’s only right you come with us,” Junebug told Ellie when she found out the plan. She’d been on them like a tick on a dog the minute they stepped foot outside. “Given you’re with me.”

“I most certainly am not with you . I never would have crossed the country for a meddlesome girl like you.” The quiet bravery fell away the moment Ellie saw Junebug, transforming to spiky irritation.

She had been incensed by Junebug’s scheme.

While Beau couldn’t blame her, he didn’t appreciate sharing the brunt of her displeasure.

She kept giving him lethal looks, like she wanted to thwack him with her carpetbag.

He hadn’t done anything wrong. If she had to be glaring at people, she should keep the glaring to Junebug.

Ellie looked significantly worse for wear from her travels.

Unlike her poised and polished friend, she was a scrappy mess.

Her hair was escaping from her looped braids in a tangle of loose strands, which made her look like a spaniel, and her ugly brown dress was creased and travel worn.

She was far more of a pain in the ass than her friend too.

She might be tired from her journey, but it certainly didn’t stop her talking the whole way to the hotel.

She rivalled Junebug for loquaciousness.

“How far is this hotel? Is it deep in the woods? Is it a long walk? Don’t you worry there might be bears?” She pranced nervously over the little creek that ran through town, eyeing the bronzed fall woods.

“Stop fussing, or he’ll think you don’t want to marry him,” Junebug scolded her.

The ridiculous little dog was trotting along beside her, occasionally letting out a harsh yap of agreement.

It splashed through the creek, ruining its fluffy clean fur.

Now it was mud-splashed it was more the Beast Junebug had named it after.

“Besides, I ain’t never seen a bear yet and I’ve lived here all my life.

It’s one of my primary disappointments.”

“I don’t want to marry him,” Ellie Neale insisted.

“He’s Diana’s. And there’s always a first time, even for bears.

You’ve really never seen one? I read in a book once that some bears can live more than thirty years.

That, coupled with the fact Montana supposedly has lots of them, should mean the woods are crawling with the things.

Although crawling doesn’t seem the right word, does it?

Hulking with them? Lumbering with them? Oh, I know, bearing them. ”

Beau sincerely wished there was a bear, to put him out of his misery.

He took a deep breath of the woodsmoke spiced air, which carried the chill edge of the season, and told himself everything would be okay.

But he wished for a bear even harder once he got inside the hotel and came face to face with all of Junebug’s brides.

How was he going to let these women down?

Look at them all. He felt a bit queasy as he stood in the parlor doorway.

They stared at him with frank and unsettling curiosity. “Uh…” he stuttered, “hi.”

There were so many of them. He couldn’t take it in.

It was like staring directly into the sun.

They were all shapes and sizes—and all of them appealing.

He cleared his throat. “Ladies…” His voice cracked a little.

He cleared it and took care to speak in a deeper register.

“Uh… Junebug says she’s explained… what… I mean, how… I mean…”

“She gave a very thorough speech,” the woman sitting closest to him said, a touch dryly. She was a plump brunette in a dress the color of wild violets; she had unsettling eyes the bright pale blue of a winter sky. She also had copious and symmetrical attractions…

“It was kind of a relief,” said another girl in spring green, her accent twangy. She had expressive hazel eyes and a playfulness that made Beau feel… overwhelmed. “I was a bit worried about marrying someone I’d never met. It will be good to see if we’re suited first.”

“There are a lot of us, though,” another brunette chipped in.

She looked more spirited than the rest. She was tall, in sprigged orange cotton with a flounced hem.

“How’s he going to spend enough time with us, to decide who to choose?

And I can’t say I would have come all this way if I’d known I was going to be part of a cattle auction.

” She put her hands on her hips. Beau wished she wouldn’t, as it drew attention to the lines of her body.

Which was also impressively symmetrical.

“I think it was very clever inviting so many girls.” A more mature girl with sloe eyes and shining dark hair gave Beau a provoking smile.

She was in a blue-green dress that cut low across her shoulders, showing a distracting amount of skin.

“When you live in a town without women, I suppose you want to meet a few before you settle down.”

There were a lot of brunettes, Beau noted, fiddling with his collar, which felt very tight. Junebug clearly had a type…

“I assume you’ll take your time to get to know us,” the sloe-eyed girl purred.

Good God. He was in trouble here.

“Now,” Beau cautioned. “I don’t plan to—ow!”

Junebug had pinched him, hard.

The girls kept staring at him. He tried to continue, turning his hat in his sweaty hands. “Ah… I don’t plan to—”

“He don’t plan to rush things,” Junebug jumped in.

“Now that’s not it, exactly…” Beau trailed off as he realized they were hanging on his every word. Damn there were a lot of them. And they were so darn pretty…

He felt a sharp finger poke him in the back. This time it wasn’t Junebug. It was Ellie Neale jabbing at him. “Diana,” she hissed quietly, so only he could hear.

Yes. Diana. He conjured up the image of her silvery blonde beauty. She was waiting for him back at Martha’s. He had to get this, ah, unpleasant task over and get back to her.

But somehow, as he stared at all these women, the words dried up in his throat. He felt like a spooked stallion.

“I can’t,” he blurted.

There was a flutter, like a flock of birds had taken wing. Beau flinched.