Page 38 of Seven Brides for Beau McBride (The McBrides of Montana #3)

“Don’t be rude,” Junebug scolded her. “The lady’s only trying to help.”

“I don’t need help.”

“Trust me, you do.”

“The kid’s right,” the woman chipped in. “You won’t be winning Beau McBride looking like that.”

“I’m not trying to win Beau McBride,” Ellie said through her gritted teeth.

Junebug sighed. She’d really picked a dud with this one.

The woman took issue with Ellie’s attitude. “Why on earth not? He’s a stunner.”

“He’s not for the likes of me,” Ellie said stiffly.

“She’s got confidence problems,” Junebug confided in the whore. “I mean, look at the state of her.”

“You’re not a bad looking girl,” the woman told Ellie. “You just need a bit of fancying up.”

“Thank you!” Junebug said. “I’ve been trying to tell her just that. So how much for the two bolts?” Junebug haggled hard but the woman stuck to her price.

“The pink and yellow would work on her. The red is too bold. She ain’t the bold sort.”

“Don’t pay it,” Ellie said tightly. “I don’t want them.”

“Yes, you do,” the woman told her. “You can’t go to a Christmas dance in that old thing. Go on, take them and make something nice. Go enjoy the dance for those of us who can’t go.”

Junebug was startled. It hadn’t occurred to her that the girls at the cathouse would want to come to her dance. “What’s your name?” she asked the woman as she paid her an exorbitant price for the fabric.

“Not Mary, Jane, Sarah or Hortense.” The woman handed over the fabrics. “I’m Pearl.”

“Nice doing business with you, Pearl.” Junebug grinned at her. “I’d ask you to my dance, but I don’t want to distract my idiot brother from my brides. But maybe I’ll ask you to my next convivialities.”

“Maybe I’ll come.”

“I’d hope so. My dances are legendary.”

“Are they?”

“Well, they will be.” Junebug unloaded the bolts of fabric on Ellie and gave Pearl a wave. Now that she’d made her acquaintance, Junebug figured she could pop by for a visit when she did her rounds in Bitterroot.

“Make it low cut,” Junebug ordered. She circled Ellie, who was standing on a stool, draped in the rose-pink fabric.

“I was going to,” Diana told her irritably through a mouthful of pins. “She’s got wonderful collarbones.”

“Forget her collarbones, men don’t care about collarbones. It’s shoulders they like. And the other bits.”

Diana sat back on her heels and took the pins out of her mouth. She was frowning. “Why exactly are you so keen to show off Ellie’s bits?”

“You know why. She’s one of my brides.”

“I’m not, ” Ellie exploded. “How many times do I have to tell you!”

“Look, I know it’s strange,” Junebug told Diana. “Getting you to help one of your competitors, but you’re the only one she’d let me ask.” Junebug threw up her hands.

“I’m not one of her competitors!” Ellie was red-faced and hot under the collar. She’d been increasingly edgy ever since they got back to the hotel.

“Well, you should be!”

“No, I shouldn’t. Diana is my friend. And she’s going to marry Beau.”

“Well, Diana,” Junebug said, turning to Miss Moonglow. “Ellie here is your friend as much as you’re hers. Surely you want the best for her too? Because it seems to me Ellie bends over backwards to make you happy.”

“Diana makes me happy too,” Ellie insisted.

“Only because making Diana happy makes you happy.”

Diana was very still and very quiet.

“Look, my idiot brother has been raised in the mountains and can count the number of women he knows on two hands. He went and proposed to the first woman who responded to his advertisement—you.”

“I was the first?” Diana seemed surprised.

“The first, and the only one he wrote to. Which is why I asked all these girls here.” Junebug figured this was a moment for the bald truth.

“How’s he going to know if he likes a specific girl, or just the fact it’s a girl, any girl?

I figured if he experiences a bunch of females, he won’t be choosing an idea of a girl—he’ll be picking an actual girl. ”

“That’s absurd.” Ellie was giving Junebug a dark look. “He likes Diana. They corresponded. He saw her photo. She is an actual girl !”

“But if he marries you,” Junebug kept her attention fixed on Diana, “you’ll be the only girl he ever wrote to. The only girl he ever kissed—”

Ellie made a strangled noise.

“The only girl he damn well courted. Is that what you want?” Junebug could see Diana’s mind whirring behind her icy composure.

“The least you can do is let Ellie compete,” Junebug said smoothly.

“What if Beau likes her more than he likes you? Wouldn’t you want to know?

And wouldn’t you be happy for her, the way she’s happy for you?

Of course you would,” Junebug continued.

She often found if you kept the conversation moving, it gave people an increased opportunity to agree with you.

“And I’m sure you don’t want my brother by default.

You want to know he chose you without a shadow of a doubt. If I were you—”

“Which you’re not,” Ellie snapped.

“If I were you,” Junebug went on as though Ellie hadn’t spoken, “I’d want to know he had zero interest in anyone but me.”

“He does have zero interest in anyone but her!”

“Then you have nothing to worry about, do you?” Junebug gave Diana a blithe smile. “You can cut that dress low, and cinch that waist tight, and show off all Ellie’s attractions without concern.”

“My attractions are nothing compared to Diana’s,” Ellie said hotly.

“You’ve made your point, Junebug.” Diana was as cool as Ellie was hot. “You can leave us now.” She turned her back and fussed with the drape of pink fabric across Ellie’s chest.

“Great.” Junebug whistled loudly as she went down the hall to her own room.

Then she crept back to Diana’s door, quiet as a hunter. She bent down to listen at the keyhole.

“I’m not interested in Beau McBride!” Ellie was saying. She sounded flustered.

“Are you sure?” Diana didn’t sound so cool anymore. “You enjoyed writing my letters to him.”

Junebug jumped like she’d been pinched. What did she mean, Ellie wrote her letters? The letters Beau had raved about? The ones he wouldn’t let Junebug read? Ellie had written them?

Did Beau know?

“They were your letters,” Ellie was speaking so fast all her words ran together. “I only helped get the ideas on the page. Diana, he wants to marry you—he’s never said otherwise. And I have no interest in competing. I don’t want him! Trust me.”

“I do trust you. It’s not that…” There was a brief silence. “It’s just Junebug might be right…”

Junebug heard Ellie groan. “Don’t let her in your head, Diana!”

“I want him to choose me without doubts.”

Of course she did, Junebug thought. That was only smart.

“Maybe… maybe I should encourage him to spend more time with all those girls…”

“What?!”

Junebug bet Ellie was turning red.

“Well, he hasn’t been doing it,” Diana sighed. “Because he promised me he wouldn’t.”

Junebug rolled her eyes. Bloody Beau.

“But Junebug’s right. I don’t want to wonder for the rest of my life if he only married me because he had no real experience of women.”

“Trust me, that man’s had experience!”

“Not enough to know.”

“Diana, that’s plain wrong. When you know, you know. ”

“Do you?”

“Yes!”

Junebug took note of Diana’s doubt. And Ellie’s vehemence. Well. This bet was still in play, as far as Junebug could see.