Page 25 of Seven Brides for Beau McBride (The McBrides of Montana #3)

Seven

Beau had to give it to his sister. She’d found some disconcertingly high-quality women. In any other circumstance he would have enjoyed getting to know them. A lot. But with Diana watching, it was torturous.

As he drank coffee in the kitchen while Miss Mabel from Wisconsin demonstrated her apple pie recipe, he was painfully aware of Diana sitting at the table behind him with her needlework.

She was pretending to be absorbed, but he knew she was eavesdropping madly.

Ellie was with her, as always, only she didn’t hide the fact she was watching him like a hawk.

Her book wasn’t even open in front of her.

“Usually I use green apples,” Mabel said brightly, dragging his attention back to the bench.

“But there don’t seem to be any in the whole of Bitterroot.

” Her accent was cheerfully hickish. Dere don’t seem to be any-uh.

She had sparkling hazel eyes and a dimpling smile.

And she was enthusiastic in the kitchen, her knife making quick work of peeling a basket of mottled red apples.

“But Mrs. Langer at the shop says these are Montana-grown and superior to any green apples from elsewhere,” Mabel assured them with a laugh.

“Our brother’s wife just planted a whole mess of apple trees around their house,” Junebug said with satisfaction, watching hungrily as the apples were chopped. “So there’ll plenty for you to be turning into pies.”

Mabel gave Beau a shy look and he flushed.

“You ever baked an apple pie?” Junebug turned to ask Diana pointedly. She was annoyed they were intruding on his time with Mabel. Junebug had been militant about Beau spending equal time with each girl.

“Of course she’s baked a pie,” Ellie said swiftly. She also had an accent. Of cawse she has. He was noticing accents all the time now that he was surrounded by such a mix of pretty girls with pretty voices.

Diana gave Ellie a sharp look. “No, I can’t say I have.” No I cahn’t.

“She could if she wanted to,” Ellie insisted.

“But does she want to?” Junebug asked dryly.

“The only time I ever cooked a pie the bottom fell out it was so wet,” Beau laughed, jumping in to rescue Diana from Ellie’s bristling and Junebug’s poking.

“Just as well, as it was so sour it near about made my face collapse,” Junebug said. “You got more pie recipes, Mabel, other than apple?”

Mabel happily started listing her pie recipes and Beau could tell Junebug was already smitten with her. Ellie, meanwhile, looked like she might throw her book at her.

“I think I need better light to see my needlework by,” Diana said cooly, rising to her feet and gliding from the room.

“Ain’t you going with her?” Junebug asked Ellie. “She might stick herself with a needle or something if you ain’t there to protect her.”

Beau could see Ellie was torn between following her friend and staying in the kitchen to spy for her. He rolled his eyes. He’d told her a million times that he was marrying Diana and that they had nothing to worry about. But Ellie Neale was like a hound on the scent.

“Come join us,” Mabel invited her. She was the friendly sort. Beau appreciated that in a woman. “There’s plenty more coffee in the pot.”

“Have you ever baked a pie?” Beau asked Ellie, snagging a mug and pouring her a coffee.

“I’ve read about it,” she said stiffly, unable to resist joining them, the little spy.

“Well, I’d be happy to teach you,” Mabel offered.

“Ain’t that nice of Mabel, Beau?” Junebug said pointedly.

“It sure is.”

Ellie glowered. Beau grinned at her.

Ellie was still glowering later that afternoon when Beau escorted Flora to the post office, to post a letter home to her folks. Ellie insisted on coming along and dragging Diana along too, saying it would be good to pick up stamps. Just in case.

“I’d be happy to buy stamps for you,” Flora had offered. She was sweetness itself. Old Bascom hadn’t been wrong about that.

“Oh no. We need to stretch our legs anyway.” Ellie had hooked her arm through Diana’s and kept hot on Beau’s heels as he and Flora ambled the short distance to the post office.

“You got a big family, Miss Flora?” Beau felt like he had a target on his back and Ellie was steadying her weapon. He sure felt hunted. He wished she’d stop, as she was only making Diana more miserable. The poor girl didn’t want to watch him serving his time with all Junebug’s brides.

“I do,” Flora said. Her accent was southern, with a Spanish twist. “But my sisters are all married now. My mother lives with my older sister, Maria, and I was living with my next oldest sister Ana. I helped with the children and the housework, but I got tired of being a third wheel, you know?”

Beau nodded. He did know.

“Your family seems… close,” Flora said carefully. She glanced over her shoulder at Ellie and Diana and forced a smile. “Don’t you both think?”

“Your sister is certainly getting closer by the minute,” Ellie observed, pointing.

Junebug was cantering up on her fat little pony. “I wondered where you got to!”

“My family’s more than just close,” Beau said dryly. “They’re the eye of the storm.”

“Diana and Ellie, you’re needed back at the hotel,” Junebug ordered, inserting her pony between them and Beau.

“What on earth for?” Ellie snapped.

“Pie eating.” Junebug started herding them, using the animal to force them back. “I need opinions on Mabel’s baking.”

“Don’t you want Beau’s opinion?”

“Not particularly.”

“But isn’t he the one…”

“He’s busy. He can eat pie later.”

“She’s bossy, your sister,” Flora said as they watched Junebug herd Ellie and Diana to the hotel. “But I am glad to have a moment alone with you.” Diana pulled her arm away from Ellie, shot Beau a haughty, embarrassed look and strode ahead.

Beau felt guilt crash into him as he watched Diana disappear into the hotel.

She didn’t deserve this. He’d tried to explain, he really had.

He didn’t blame her for thinking less of him and he resolved to make it up to her.

He’d be charming and find a way to romance himself back into her good graces…

Only…

The thing was, he couldn’t relax around Diana.

She was too… perfect. When he was around her his palms sweated, his mouth went dry, and his head emptied out of thoughts.

He didn’t have that problem with Mabel, or with Flora.

Or with Frances, who joined him in the yard as he chopped wood for Mrs. Champion’s stove.

Frances kept a conversation moving at such a pace that he never had to scrabble for a thought.

“I honestly thought fall couldn’t be prettier than it is in Maryland,” she said, as she gathered the kindling into a stack by the door for him.

Merrilin, she said, her accent blurring the word.

She was industrious, he noted approvingly.

Not like his sister, who was supposed to be gathering eggs in Mrs. Champion’s chicken coop, but who was actually yawing away to Thunderhead Bill while he stuffed his pipe on the back porch and filled Junebug’s head with nonsense about gunslingers and high noon shootouts.

“But Montana gives home a run for its money. This place is beautiful,” Frances chattered. “I love fall, don’t you?”

She kind of looked like fall embodied, Beau thought as he paused in his chopping to wipe the sweat from his brow.

She had earth brown hair and lively reddish brown eyes and was in an autumnal sprigged orange dress.

Against the backdrop of the fall woods at the end of the yard, she made a charming picture.

“I don’t know that many people would wax so lyrical about old Bitterroot,” Beau laughed. “I’ve heard it called a mudhole and a wild nowhere, but never beautiful before.”

“Oh, I like things wild.” And then she gave him a look that made his toes just about curl.

She wasn’t the only one to give his toes a curl neither.

Nancy also just about curled them into knots when he helped her haul water for her bath.

It was the silky robe she slung over the back of the chair in the washroom that started it.

It was a shiny slip of a thing, in bright springtime colors.

It didn’t look big enough to cover a body, which got his mind whirling.

And then she’d gone and poured a heady fragrance into the tub as he emptied a pail of hot water into it and the steaming perfume of musky flowers made him lightheaded in the extreme.

“Whoops,” she’d giggled. “I might have added a bit much.” Her Irish lilt was as heady as the fragrance.

Nancy was a lush blonde with a rosebud mouth and a captivating laugh in her voice.

The thought of her sitting in that bath, in all those perfumed bubbles, made Beau a little unsteady.

He’d beat a quick retreat, her laughter following him.

The problem was that there was nowhere to go to restore his equilibrium.

Even when he headed for the stable, he ran smack bang into a discombobulating woman.

Kate Burrell was reclining on a hay bale in a shaft of dusty sunlight, reading a book.

Worst of all, she’d pulled her boots and stockings off and her bare feet and ankles were stretched out into the sunshine that fell through the open door, the first thing he saw when he blundered in.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he blurted, halting. He averted his eyes. For a moment anyway. But she didn’t seem bothered by his fluster.

She sat up and closed her book, keeping her place with her finger.

“That’s okay, I was slogging through a boring bit.

I’m quite glad to be interrupted.” Gracefully, she pulled her feet beneath her skirts and crossed her legs.

She did it calmly and subtly and he appreciated it.

Kate had a knack for managing situations to keep people comfortable, he’d noticed.

She’d steered conversations at dinner the night before, keeping everything genial and smooth.

And yet she was forthright too.

Beau was also appreciative of her, uh, symmetry.