Part 3 (2/2)

Rachel caught her father's arm. ”Daddy, stop this! It's absolute madness! Whatever are you thinking?”

”This is all my fault!” Molly cried somewhere behind them. ”All my fault.”

The preacher chose that moment to say in a booming voice, ”Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today...”

Shaking his arm free, Big Jim grasped the chancel rail and leaned toward the pulpit. ”Dammit, William, I said to skip all the folderol. Just get to the important parts.”

Wells coughed and cleared his throat. ”As I already pointed out, this is all highly out of the ordinary.”

”Just do it,” Big Jim shot back. ”If I want ordinary, I'll ask for ordinary.”

The fl.u.s.tered minister ran a finger down the page to relocate his place. ”All right, fine. But, mark my words, it will probably take me longer to locate the important sections than it would to simply recite the entire-”

”Good grief!” Big Jim interrupted. ”Are you tellin' me you don't know the words by heart?” He threw up his hands. ”You've been marrying people for the last twenty years, for G.o.d's sake! How can you not know the words, William?”

Taking advantage of her father's distraction, Rachel turned to Clint. Leaning close so she might clearly see his face, she whispered, ”You can't honestly intend to just stand there and do nothing to stop this.”

”Who says?”

”I say!”

He stood with his hands clasped behind him, gaze fixed on the minister, expression deadpan. At the corner of his mouth, she thought she glimpsed a smile and wanted to give him a good kick for not putting a halt to the proceedings. Before she carried through on the idea, she thought better of it. Last night he'd been charming, but he'd been silly with drink and mellow from the valerian. This morning all boyishness had been wiped from his face, If asked to describe him, she would have said he looked stern and more than a little intimidating, not at all the kind to provoke.

She jerked her gaze away and scanned the church, dismayed to see that the crowd at the back had dispersed to take their usual places in the pews, not for Sunday services as usual, but to witness a wedding. Her wedding.

That thought drove Rachel to desperate measures. Straightening her shoulders and lifting her chin to a stubborn angle, she faced her father. ”Daddy, I cannot marry this man,” she said, slowly and distinctly. ”I absolutely can't. Nothing you can say or do will convince me otherwise.”

”Of course you can,” her father replied and, without so much as a pause, he drew his Colt revolver from its holster and pressed the barrel to Clint Rafferty's temple. ”It's the only thing you can do, honey. Whether he meant to or not, Mr. Rafferty here ruined my little girl. Honor demands that I kill him if he don't marry you. It's the way things are, sort of an unspoken code among men. Ain't that right, Mr. Rafferty?”

”Christ,” Rafferty said hoa.r.s.ely.

Rachel watched her father with mounting horror, an emotion she made every effort to conceal by smiling and folding her arms. ”Right. You're just going to shoot him in cold blood. After a lifetime of upholding the law? Come on, Daddy. I realize I'm a little gullible, but that's just plain silly.”

With slow deliberateness, her father drew back the hammer of his gun. ”You think I'm bluffin'? Think again, Rachel Marie. His fault or not, he has ruined any chance you have of making a decent marriage.”

”That isn't so!” Rachel scanned the church and spotted Reverend Wells's son, Lawson, who had been courting her these last three years. ”Tell him, Lawson! Tell him it doesn't matter, that you love me and won't hesitate to marry me anyway!”

Looking as though his necktie was choking him, Lawson sprang up from his seat, swallowed spasmodically, and then just stood there looking bugeyes.

”Well?” Rachel implored him. ”Speak now, Lawson, or forever hold your peace!”

To her dismay, Lawson said nothing. She sent him a scathing glare, barely resisting the urge to call him a bad egg, plug ugly, and a bootlicker, just for starters. She settled for whispering the insults under her breath.

”I guess that proves my case,” her father said, gesturing toward Lawson. ”Not even your own beau will step forward.”

Feeling a little less certain of herself, Rachel let her arms fall to her sides. ”That still doesn't mean you'll shoot Mr. Rafferty. You're only trying to frighten me into minding what you say.”

”Oh, I'll shoot him,” her father a.s.sured her. ”Before I let him walk off scot-free, I'll blow his brains clear into next week.”

She winced at the picture his threat brought to mind. ”You don't mean it, Daddy. What about being marshal? You'd have to give up your badge if you shot somebody.”

”That's why. Don't you see? An upstandin' man don't let another man ruin his daughter and not do something about it. If you won't marry him, Rachel Marie, I have to shoot the poor fellow. It's just that simple.”

Preacher Wells chimed in with, ”Do you, Clint Rafferty, take this woman, Rachel Marie Constantine, to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

Beads of sweat had sprung up on Clint't dark face. His Adam's apple bobbed as he tried to swallow. ”I do,” he said without a second's hesitation. Then, to Rachel, ”If it's all the same to you, argue with your father later. He's got a gun held to my head, in case you haven't noticed.”

”Don't worry. He won't really shoot you,” Rachel a.s.sured him.

”Wanna bet?” Big Jim grinned broadly and curled his finger over the trigger.

Clint squeezed his eyes closed. ”Jesus Christ! Do what he tells you, Rachel!”

Rachel's stomach plummeted. ”Daddy, this has ceased to be entertaining. What do you think you're doing, threatening an innocent man's life like this?”

”Innocent,” Clint inserted, ”there's the key word.”

The preacher cut in once more. ”And, do you, Rachel Marie Constantine, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, to love, honor and obey until death do you part?”

Rachel rolled her eyes and smiled sweetly at the minister. ”Mr. Rafferty may be quaking in his boots, but I certainly am not. Blizzards will fly in August before any of you hear me say 'I do.'”

Big Jim smiled at the preacher. ”You heard her. She just said 'I do,' clear as you please.”

”I did not!” Rachel said with a scandalized gasp.

”You did so!” Big Jim argued.

Glancing apologetically at Rachel, the preacher said, ”I heard her, Big Jim, but I'm not entirely certain she meant-”

”Keep your opinions to yourself and just finish the ceremony,” Big Jim instructed.

”By the authority vested in me...” the preacher began.

Clint overrode him in a louder voice. ”Marshal, would you mind pointing that gun somewhere else besides at my head?”

”Such tactics will never hold up in a court of law,” Rachel cried. ”These are the nineties, I'll have you know. You men can't marry us women off against our wills anymore. We have legal recourse!”

As though to punctuate that p.r.o.nouncement, the preacher said, ”I now p.r.o.nounce you man and wife!” and slapped his prayer book closed.

A sudden silence descended over the church. A silence so thick that Rachel felt as if she were drowning in it. She stared at her father, scarcely able to believe he'd betrayed her like this. Her father, who had always loved her so well. Ever since the death of her mother, he had been the only person she could trust.

With a sad smile, he finally drew the gun barrel from Clint's temple. As he slowly let the hammer back down, he said, ”Well, honey, for better or worse, you got yourself a husband.”

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