Page 28 of Short-Straw Bride

Hayes retreated toward the wall. “Tomorrow’s not good enough, Archer! I demand—”

“You’re in no position to demand anything,” Travis snapped, his patience depleted. “My brother will show you to your horse.”

“This way, Mr. Hayes.” Crockett spoke through clenched teeth as he gripped the man’s shoulder and firmly steered him toward the door.

Meredith’s uncle grabbed for his hat as he dragged his feet and twisted his neck to glare at Travis. “What of my niece?”

“She’s not well enough to travel. She stays with us.”

The man frowned but offered no argument as Crockett shoved him out into the hall. “Mark my words, Archer.” Hayes latched onto the doorframe, momentarily halting his exit. “I’ll be back in the morning. And I’m bringing a preacher.”

Travis said nothing, just stared the man down until he finally released his hold on the wall and submitted to Crockett’s not-so-gentle guidance.

“Travis?” Meredith’s quiet voice drew his head around and had him fortifying his resolve. She might not like the way he’d treated her uncle, but courtesy could only be stretched so far. He refused to be polite to a man who would insult his own niece and try to fob her off on a virtual stranger. She should be grateful that he—

“My uncle will need his coat.” Meredith undid the buttons and shrugged out of the heavy overcoat. Then she handed it up to him with a smile that offered no censure.

When he took the coat from her, she adjusted the too-long sleeves of his brown plaid shirt, the one he’d lent her the night before, and hugged her arms to her middle. She gave him a brief nod, and all he could think was that she had just removed herself from her uncle’s protection and entrusted herself to his.

He stared at her a moment, then nodded in return.

“Neill.” Travis pivoted away from Meredith. “See that Hayes gets his coat.” He tossed the garment, and his kid brother snagged it out of the air. “Jim, follow our guest to the road. We wouldn’t want him to have a mishap on the way home.”

Jim nodded, his expression assuring Travis there’d be no more surprises that day.

When the two men left, Travis turned back to Meredith a final time. Her eyelids were drooping, and her shoulders seemed to sag against the pillows. The strain of her uncle’s visit had obviously depleted her strength.

“Get some sleep, Meri,” he said, moving closer to the bed.

Meri. He liked the nickname. It reminded him of the young girl he’d encountered in the woods a dozen years ago, a girl with a brave spirit and trusting eyes, a girl who had grown into a woman of conviction and courage with a quiet beauty that awakened things in him he didn’t quite understand.

Lifting the covers, he helped her lie down. “The boys and I will see to things.”

She smiled sleepily. “I know.”

He tucked the blankets around her, then crept out of the room and met Crockett on the porch. The two stood silently for several minutes as they watched Everett Hayes ride away, Neill at his side, Jim somewhere in the trees. Crockett never turned to face him, but Travis could hear his question before the words hit the air.

“You know one of us is gonna have to marry her, right?”

Travis inhaled a deep breath, prolonging the final moment before his world changed irrevocably. Then with a sigh, he let it go. “Yep.”

All through dinner, Everett Hayes’s demand hung over the Archer table like a boulder perched on an eroding precipice. No one spoke of it, as if fearful that doing so would bring a rockslide down on their heads, but everyone knew it was there.

Travis scraped the last of the rabbit stew from his bowl, mentally rehearsing how to relay his decision to his brothers.

As the oldest, it was his duty to do what was best for the family. It always had been. Therefore, he was the logical choice to marry Meredith. After all, it was because of him that she’d come to their land in the first place. None of his brothers should have to sacrifice his freedom for an unexpected bride just because—

“I’ll do it.” Crockett’s proclamation slammed into Travis’s carefully formulated rationale and shattered it like a stone hitting window glass.

Travis gulped down his mouthful of stew, his empty bowl thunking onto the table as he pierced his brother with a hard glare. “What do you mean, you’ll do it?”

“I’ll marry up with her.” Crockett shrugged and glanced around the table, his palms turned upward before him. “What? She’s decent enough to look at and handles herself well in a crisis. A man could do worse.”

A man could do worse? That was his reasoning? Travis could just imagine the kind of husband Crock would make with that attitude. What was he thinking? There was no way—

“I’ll wrestle you for her.” Jim propped his elbow on the table, his open hand extended in challenge.

“Hold on!” Travis pushed out of his chair and braced his arms on the edge of the table next to Crockett, his heated blood pumping hard through his veins. “No one is going to wrestle over Meredith as if she were the last piece of Christmas pie. Show some sense. Besides, I’ve already decided that I’m the one to marry her. It’s my fault she’s here. She’s my responsibility.”