KATHLEEN E. WOODIWISS.

Three Weddings and a Kiss.

Fancy Free.

Catherine Anderson.

Prologue.

Clint Rafferty strode across the worn boardwalk in front of the Golden Goose Saloon and shoved open the bat-wing doors. It was hot and noisy inside, reminding him of the bowels of h.e.l.l that Preacher Wells thundered about on Sunday. As he"d expected, the place was full, a usual occurrence at half past ten Sat.u.r.day night, and the hazy, lantern-lit interior reeked of tobacco smoke, unwashed bodies, and cheap perfume.

A girl in a blue gown stood nearby, as though placed there to greet patrons. As soon as she spied Clint, her painted mouth curved into a smile and her glittering blue eyes narrowed. "Looking for company, cowboy?" she asked, sidling his way.

Clint inclined his head politely, his mother"s teachings still strong in him even at the age of twenty-seven. "No, ma"am," he drawled. "I"m lookin" for my brother."

"Is that a fact?"

Clint reined in his impatience. Though he had no quarrel with how this soiled dove or any other made her living, he"d never felt the need to pay for a woman"s attention-especially when he was tired and hungry and had a good two hours of ch.o.r.es awaiting him at home. "That is a fact."

He glanced past her toward the bar. Sure enough, there stood Matthew leaning against the polished top as if for support, his thick ebony hair lying in sweat-damp waves over his high forehead. From the looks of the kid, he was already sloppy drunk.

Clint muttered an oath under his breath.

"Are you two twins or something?" she asked, glancing back and forth between the two Rafferty men.

Folks had claimed for years that he and Matt were dead ringers for each other, and Clint guessed there were similarities. They shared the same square chin, high cheekbones, smoky eyes and black hair. But there the similarities ended. When Clint smiled, which wasn"t often, no one seemed to care. But when Matt flashed that lopsided, lazy grin of his, the whole world seemed to smile with him, especially the female half, many of whom tended to go weak at the knees as well. Even now there was a woman hanging on Matt"s opposite arm-a cute little redhead with big green eyes. She went by the name of Dora Faye, if Clint recollected right.

"I"ve got seven years on him," he explained to the soiled dove, a fact that seemed to surprise her. No sense adding that he"d spent those seven years trying to be both mother and father to Matthew and all his other brothers.

"Then this is your lucky night, sugar," she muttered, "because I just happen to be extra partial to older men."

"Thanks for the offer, but I"ve got hungry horses to feed and a ledger to balance yet tonight," Clint cut in before she could suggest he buy them both a drink.

She gave him a look of disappointment before shrugging one bare white shoulder. "The offer"s always open. Just ask for Maydeen."

"I just might do that sometime."

Picking his way through the milling bodies, Clint headed in Matthew"s direction. Here lately, Matt"s drinking sprees had become a weekly occurrence. d.a.m.n the kid"s hide. He knew about the Rafferty weakness for alcohol. Hadn"t he stood at Clint"s side when they"d lowered their pa into his grave five years past? The old man had drunk himself to death, for Christ"s sake, not to mention that his drinking had left his sons penniless. Unable to make the mortgage payments, they had lost the old home place back in Ohio and wouldn"t have had a roof over their heads if not for their moving west to find land they could homestead. By the sweat of all their brows, they were finally starting to get ahead, no thanks to their father, and now here was Matt following in the old man"s footsteps.

Clint"s first impulse was to grab his brother by the collar and shake him. Instead he elbowed his way in beside him and propped a heel on the boot rail. "Matt, the cattlemen"s meetin" is over. I reckon it"s about time we thought about headin" home."

Matt turned slowly, his gray blue eyes slightly out of focus, his usually firm mouth lax at the corners. "Clint?" he asked, his tone indicating that he was none too sure.

"Who else?" Clint couldn"t stifle a smile as he slowly waved a hand in front of his brother"s nose. "You in there, Matthew?"

"Last time I checked, I was." Matt hiccupped, then grinned down at the woman on his other side. "This here pretty lady has been kind enough to buy me a drink, haven"t you, darlin"?"

Dora Faye darted a look at Clint"s face. "Evenin", Mr. Rafferty," she said in a surprisingly subdued tone. "I didn"t realize that you were in town, too."

"Old Clint here, he came in for a meeting with the other big boys," Matt joked, his voice slurring. "Ain"t that right, Brother?"

"Right."

Matt licked his lips, then frowned. "I di"n"t think you frequented places like this."

"I don"t usually. That doesn"t mean I never do." Clint glanced at the gla.s.s of whiskey in front of his brother. Not a jigger but a tumbler, for Christ"s sake, and half full at that. The last thing Matt needed was more liquor.

Moving quickly so his brother wouldn"t antic.i.p.ate what he meant to do, he reached for the gla.s.s. "You don"t mind sharin", do you? The old whistle"s a little dry."

As Clint curled his hand around the tumbler, Dora Faye caught hold of his wrist. "Say, there, Mr. Rafferty." She inclined her head at the whiskey jug. "Let me pour you your own drink. We"ve got plenty, and more where this came from."

Wasn"t that just the problem? Casting a jaundiced eye at the whiskey jug, Clint saw that the container was three-quarters empty. Little wonder Matt was drunk.

"I don"t mind drinking after my brother," he informed the soiled dove, forcing a grin. "Besides, it looks to me like he"s had about enough."

For just an instant, her grip seemed to tighten on his wrist. Then, with a nervous smile and a flash of her green eyes, she released him, muttering something under her breath that he couldn"t quite catch. Tipping the gla.s.s to her in a mock toast, Clint tossed down the liquor, then clenched his teeth at the burn. "Not bad."

Grabbing the bottle, Matt poured another measure of whiskey, some of which sloshed over the edge of the gla.s.s onto the bar. "Go ahead, Clint. Enjoy. Like Dora Faye says, there"s always more where this came from."

Though Clint could have done without another drink, he didn"t want his brother to consume what remained in the bottle, either. Making no objection, he drained the gla.s.s a second time and said nothing when Matt filled it with liquor yet again. Unfortunately, as he set the tumbler down for the third time, Matt signaled the bartender for a new jug.

"Forget it, Matt-you"ve had enough," Clint suggested softly. "Let"s just call it a night, pard, and head on home."

"Don"t go tryin" to play mama, big brother. I"m a little old for coddlin"."

"Coddlin" is the last thing on my mind." Clint clamped a hand over his brother"s shoulder and gave him a jostle. "It"s late, and we"ve both had a full day. It"s best we go home now, okay? Build us a fire, brew us some coffee. It"ll be nice for a change."

"You go ahead." Matt slipped an arm around Dora Faye"s waist. "As the old sayin" goes, the night is still young." The slightly built barmaid caught him from stumbling as he shifted his weight toward her and released his hold on the bar. "I"ll be home in the mornin", Clint. Bright "n" early, and none the worse for wear, I promise."

Clint knew better. After a few more drinks, Matt would pa.s.s out and sleep until late tomorrow, whereupon he would awaken sick to his stomach and with a terrible headache.

"I guess I was just hopin" to have some company on the ride home," Clint tried. "We hardly ever get any time together when we"re not working anymore."

"Maybe next time," Matt suggested. With that, he bent to nuzzle Dora Faye"s ear. To keep them both from falling, she leaned into him with all her weight. "Hey, honeybee," he said. "How"s about we go upstairs?"

Clint drew his hand from his brother"s shoulder. "Well, I guess I"ll be moseyin"."

Matt, who had abandoned Dora Faye"s ear to nibble on her neck, didn"t bother to respond. Heavy of heart, Clint stood there, reluctant to leave, yet knowing Matt was old enough to make his own choices. He finally turned away when he saw his brother signal the barkeep for another jug. For better or worse, Matt was on his own.

Pushing the bat-wing doors open with one shoulder, Clint spilled out onto the boardwalk and took a bracing breath. Instead of clearing, however, his head seemed to fog over even more, a result of the whiskey he rarely consumed, he decided sourly.

Letting the doors swing shut behind him, he turned left along the boardwalk, his heels tapping out a hollow-sounding tattoo on the weathered wood. From between the buildings, stripes of silvery moonlight spilled across the walkway, marking his progress.

Glancing up Main, he saw lights at only a few windows. It was almost midnight. Most families had settled in for the night. The thought made him feel sad and hollow inside. Not long ago, all the Raffertys would have been home in bed as well.

Not long ago? He squeezed his eyes closed, remembering what it had been like when his folks were alive. Wonderful, home-cooked meals. Lace curtains at the windows. The sound of laughter. Six years had pa.s.sed since his ma"s death, five since his da had joined her. In actuality, it wasn"t so very long a time, yet to Clint, who"d shouldered the responsibility for his younger brothers, it seemed an eternity.

Pausing in front of the mercantile, he gazed with an ache of yearning at the window display, illuminated by the moon. Bess Harrison, the proprietor"s wife, who was very talented with her hands, had fashioned a miniature kitchen on the opposite side of the gla.s.s. The cheery scene made him think of the drab, austere atmosphere awaiting him at home. No cheery kitchen, no place settings, no flowers, no lace curtains. It took a woman"s touch to make a house cozy, and that the Raffertys sorely lacked.

Not for the first time, Clint found himself wondering if he shouldn"t get married. Maybe Matt wouldn"t find it necessary to stay in town so much if his home were more pleasant. Since moving to Shady Corners, Clint had accomplished a lot, but most of the improvements he"d made were on the land. The house needed fixing, and six-year-old Cody needed a mother. Even Daniel, next youngest at fourteen, was showing signs of growing up uncivilized, a result, Clint figured, of his own inadequate parenting skills.

But d.a.m.n! He was a rancher, not a nursemaid. He knew cows and horses, and on occasion, how to prod his lazy brothers into pulling their own weight. But Cody and Daniel still had bad dreams about their parents" deaths that Clint didn"t know how to soothe and temper tantrums he didn"t understand. Worst of all were the nights Cody cried himself to sleep from sheer misery because Clint didn"t know how to comfort him.

That was one of the main reasons Clint had written to his great-aunt Hester a few months back. She was a kindly woman who"d never been blessed with children of her own. Now that she was widowed, he was hoping she"d be interested in leaving Ohio and starting a new life with them here in Oregon. So far, though, she hadn"t answered his letter, and now so much time had gone by that he was beginning to doubt she ever would. Which led him right back to his original thought, that maybe he should get married.

Resuming his pace along the boardwalk, he tried to imagine what it would be like to have a female in the house again. Better, he guessed. Probably a lot better. It would definitely be nice to come in of an evening to a hot, home-cooked meal, and it sure couldn"t hurt to have someone around to keep up with the laundry. With eight people contributing, the pile of unwashed clothes seemed mountainous. Yep. No question about it; having a woman around the house would be a big improvement.

The way his luck had been running lately, however, none of the pretty, sought-after young ladies hereabouts would be interested in taking on such a large, ready-made, and admittedly rowdy family of males, and he"d be forced to settle for some homely girl no one else wanted.

It was a singularly unappealing thought.

1.

Heart pounding in her throat, Rachel Constantine stared at her intended victim as he drew abreast of her on the opposite boardwalk. She would have been pleased to see him stagger just a little, anything to a.s.sure her he had indeed been drugged. As it was, it was difficult to tell he"d even had anything to drink.

With a sigh, she plucked her wire-framed spectacles from her nose and stashed them in her skirt pocket. From here on, she would have to settle for looking at Rafferty through a blur. Better that than risk being seen wearing eyegla.s.ses. Most men didn"t find ladies with poor eyesight attractive, and for tonight, at least, it was vitally important that Rachel be a femme fatale. Drat! Why did he look so sober? Had something gone wrong inside the saloon? Maybe he wasn"t drugged, after all. Just the thought made her pulse race even faster and her knees go weak.

Biting her lip, she cast a glance at the saloon. To her relief, she saw Dora Faye standing inside the doors, signaling just as they had planned, to let her know everything had gone smoothly. Unless Matt Rafferty had the const.i.tution of an ox, he would be unconscious in a few minutes. Rachel smiled into the darkness. From her hiding place in the shadows, it would do no good to wave back at her friend, so she made a mental note to stop by the saloon tomorrow to thank Dora Faye profusely. None of this would have been possible without her help.

As Rafferty moved past the mercantile, he slowed to a stop, standing in silhouette against the moon-washed gla.s.s. Rachel squinted to see him better, then wished she hadn"t. He seemed taller than she remembered, maybe a little broader across the chest and shoulders as well. Just a trick of moonlight and shadow, she a.s.sured herself. Don"t go letting your nerves get the best of you.

Unfortunately, it wasn"t that simple. Matt Rafferty was walking, talking trouble, definitely not the type a decent young woman approached without some measure of trepidation. Nevertheless, the man couldn"t be allowed to go around humiliating young girls and breaking their hearts. At the very least, he deserved to be taken to task. Because her fourteen-year-old sister Molly was his latest victim, Rachel felt that it was her job to do just that. Hence, the plan she"d concocted with Dora Faye"s a.s.sistance.

As surefooted as a prospector"s mule, Rafferty stepped off the boardwalk to cross the street. Watching him come toward her, Rachel felt her mouth go dry. This was it. Going down the list of dos and don"ts Dora Faye had given her, she stepped out from the shadow of the general store. "Well, h.e.l.lo, Mr. Rafferty!" she called, trying for a flirtatious twitter. "What a pleasant surprise!"

Evidently taken off guard, he broke stride and came to a slow stop. Without her eyegla.s.ses, Rachel knew she tended to look a bit owlish, so she tried not to open her eyes too wide. As she closed the distance between them, his blurry edges took on better definition. No doubt about it, the man was bigger than she cared to admit.

"Rachel Constantine? Rachel Constantine, the marshal"s daughter?"

Giving a throaty laugh, just as Dora Faye had taught her, she said, "How many Rachel Constantines do you think there are in Shady Corners, a baker"s dozen?"

He seemed baffled by the question. Clearly, his thought processes were muddled, a sign the valerian Dora Faye had put in his whiskey was taking effect.

She drew up a few feet shy of him and struck a seductive pose. It was hard to remember all that Dora Faye had taught her-how to move, stand, and smile.

"Trust me, sir," she informed him in a twittery little voice, "there is only one Rachel Constantine. My pa says that after me, they broke the mold."

She immediately wanted to call back the words. Irresistible temptresses did not talk about their fathers. Even she knew that.

Though the eight Rafferty brothers had been living in the area for nearly a year now, her eyesight was such that she"d never gotten close enough to get a good look at any of them. It seemed to her that tongues had been buzzing forever about how handsome they all were. She was absolutely dying to see what all the fuss was about.

Not that she was personally interested. Goodness, no. She had her eye on Lawson Wells, the minister"s son. Tall, painfully thin, and nearly as blind as she, he was about as far from handsome as a body could get. Consequently, he was sweet and thoughtful and caring, all the things Matt Rafferty obviously wasn"t, no doubt because he was so handsome he felt he had no need to be. A pox on handsome men: that was Rachel"s motto.

Even so, she was curious. At the risk of appearing myopic, she leaned closer so she could see his face more clearly and judge his looks for herself.

No question about it, he was handsome. A bit older looking than expected, but she imagined working outdoors and drinking heavily would make any one look older than he actually was.

Even shaded by his hat, his smoky blue eyes glistened in the moonlight like raindrops shot through with lightning. Thick waves of ebony hair fell lazily across his forehead, and whether it was a trick of light or an actual cast to his skin, he looked to be deeply tanned. Oh, yes, he was handsome, but not in the usual way. There was something about him a lethal edge, that made her wary. Dangerous. Matt Rafferty wasn"t merely dreamy, as rumor painted him, but dangerous. Little wonder poor Molly had come away lacerated and heartsick.

Rachel didn"t like the way he studied her-a lazy appraisal, his eyes glinting as if at some private joke. It seemed at odds with the stories she"d heard, namely that he was a charmer. Instead, he was making her feel awkward and more than a little frightened, which seemed more in keeping with the stories she had heard about his older brother, Clint. Now there was a man to avoid, always serious, never smiling. His gray-blue eyes could sear right through a woman, according to her friends.

After completing the slow appraisal of her person, Matt flicked his gaze to hers and said in a deep, silken voice, "That must"ve been quite some mold, sweetheart."

Mentally, Rachel stumbled about, trying to make sense of his comment. In her bewilderment, she forgot all about looking owlish. Lands, he was attractive. No wonder poor little Molly had gotten a crush on him. "Pardon?"

A smile flickered across his firm mouth. "The mold that got broke after they made you? Judging by the results, it must"ve been quite some mold."

"Oh!" Rachel gave a horrified little laugh. "That mold. So much time pa.s.sed that-well, I totally forgot-" She realized she was babbling and waving her hands like a lunatic. She punctuated the inanity with another shrill laugh.

"What are you doing out at this time of night? Good little girls like you should be home in bed with the covers tucked up to their chins."

Coming from any other man, the appellation "little girl" would have infuriated her. At eighteen, she was still new enough to womanhood to be easily offended if someone insinuated she wasn"t yet an adult. Not so with Matt Rafferty. Compared to him, she"d be a child at ninety. In the silvery gloom, his features, sharp, uncompromising, and blatantly male, looked as if they had been carved from polished mahogany, giving his face a hardness that made her pulse skitter.

"Maybe I"m not the good little girl you think I am."

Touching a fingertip to the edge of his hat, he nudged back the brim and arched one black eyebrow. "Is that so?"

Shoving her hand into her skirt pocket, she curled her fingers around her spectacles and raised her chin a notch. Swamped with old resentments, she glared at him through the gloom, remembering another man who had laughed at her.

"It"s been my observation that good little girls don"t have very much fun."

"True," he agreed with a slow grin, "but, then, most good little girls don"t realize what they"re missing."

"Well, I do."

Judging by the way one corner of his mouth twitched, that proclamation amused him. "Oh, really? And who was the lucky fellow?"

Rachel couldn"t see how any one fellow played into it. "Pardon?"

He chuckled, the sound a low murmur from deep in his chest.

"Is it a private joke, Mr. Rafferty, or will you share it with me?"