Cloudman. And thank you for inviting us to your home.”
“You’re welcome, my dear. It isn’t every day a girl gets married, and we all know you’re both new in Smoke River, so we thought you should celebrate with friends.”
A lean, grizzled-looking man with a salt-and-pepper beard slapped out the screen door and shook Lance’s hand. “Every man deserves a good woman,” he boomed. He turned to Marianne and kissed both her cheeks. “Don’t know if I’ve ever seen a prettier bride ’less it was my Sarah, but you sure do come close.”
People swirled onto the front porch, and in no time she and Lance were surrounded by townspeople. Sarah Cloudman took her arm. “Come inside, both of you. We have wedding cake and lemonade waiting.”
“And some whiskey for the gentlemen,” Rooney Cloudman added.
Marianne knew she would never forget this afternoon, even if she lived to be a hundred. She and Lance must have received the good wishes of everyone in town from Carl Ness’s wife, Linda-Lou, and their twin daughters, Edith and Noralee, to tall, tanned sheriff Hawk Rivera, who looked straight into Lance’s face without a flicker of recognition. The two newspaper editors, Cole and Jessamine Sanders, welcomed them and asked all kinds of questions, and then there were the rotund barber Whitey Poletti, the old doctor, Samuel Graham, who lived at Rose Cottage, and the new doctor, Zane Dougherty and his wife Winifred, who lived in the big house at the top of the steepest hill in town. So many townspeople came to offer congratulations, Marianne was sure she would never remember all their names.
She recognized the young Indian boy Sammy Greywolf and met his handsome mother, Rosie Greywolf. Cattle ranchers, wheat farmers, the pretty young schoolteacher, Mrs. Panovsky, even a crusty old sheepherder who camped in the hills all stopped by Rose Cottage to wish them well.
But the highlight of the afternoon for Marianne was her introduction to a grinning Chinese man everyone called Uncle Charlie, the baker who had made the elegant four-tier wedding cake resting on Sarah’s walnut dining table. His wife, Iris, confided that his Chinese name was actually Ming Cha.
Marianne also met Uncle Charlie’s niece, Leah MacAllister, her husband Thad, and their nine-year-old son, Teddy, along with Judge Jericho Silver and his wife, Maddie, and their twin boys. Of all things, Maddie turned out to be a Pinkerton agent! My, the population of Smoke River was certainly interesting. And, Marianne noted with relief, the Pinkerton agent also didn’t give Lance a second look.
All afternoon Marianne couldn’t help wondering which business establishment it was that Uncle Matty had willed to her. It wouldn’t be Sarah Cloudman’s boardinghouse. Or the barbershop. Or the Smoke River Hotel or the restaurant. And she prayed again that it wasn’t the Golden Partridge saloon next to the hotel.
Lance shook so many hands and downed so many shots of Rooney Cloudman’s whiskey that by suppertime he was struggling to focus his thoughts. Marianne had long since disappeared into a chattering circle of women well-wishers. He wondered if she felt half as dizzy as he did. Probably not, unless she was lacing her lemonade with shots of Rooney Cloudman’s whiskey.
What a day! He couldn’t wait for it to be over so he could enjoy a quiet supper with Marianne at the restaurant. He caught her eye across the dining room where she was cutting more slices of Uncle Charlie’s applesauce spice wedding cake, but as he watched she was quickly drawn into another conversation with more chattering ladies.
He escaped to the veranda and sank on to the porch swing to rest a while. After some minutes, Rooney Cloudman joined him.
“Had enough?”
“Of what?” Lance said tiredly.
“Enough of all this fuss and folderol,” the older man said with a grin. “All a man really wants is to get the I-do over with and start the honeymoon.”
Lance suddenly jerked upright. Honeymoon! Oh, God, there was that double bed in Marianne’s hotel room, but he hadn’t really thought about it until this moment. Now he had to seriously consider what a honeymoon would mean.
For the first time he wondered if Marianne was planning to have a marriage of convenience.
Was she?
Well, he sure as hell wasn’t!
“What’s the matter, son? You look like you just swallowed a fishhook the size of a pick-ax.”
“Rooney, how long have you been married?”
The older man laughed. “Not near long enough.”
“You recall how you, uh, ended up gettin’ married in the first place?”
Rooney leaned back and pushed the swing into motion with his foot. “Yeah, I sure do. I was married before, see. ’Cept it wasn’t in a church or anything ’cuz I’m half Cherokee. My wife, she was full-blooded Cherokee. Anyway, she died before I came to Smoke River, and when I met my Sarah I was mighty leery about gettin’ hitched up again.”
“What changed your mind?”
“Well, hell, I went and fell in love. Sarah, now, she didn’t feel that way about me fer a lotta years. So...I waited.”
Lance nodded. “What do you think changed her mind?”
Rooney slapped a gnarled hand on his knee. “Son, if I knew the answer to that, I’d be a rich man.”
Lance could think of nothing to say to that.
Rooney stuck an elbow into his ribs. “Chances are you’re not gonna understand a whole lotta things about yer wife, even if you both live to a ripe old age. But that’s not what’s important, see? Understandin’ her, I mean. What’s important is real simple. Just keep on lovin’ her.”
“That’s it? That’s all?”
“Yep, that’s pretty much it. And,” Rooney added with a chuckle, “don’t ask too many questions.”
Lance nodded his head. “Thanks, Rooney. I’ll remember that.”
“And remember them real smart words ‘for better or worse.’”
At that moment Lance made himself a solemn promise. For better or worse, no matter what came, he would do everything in his power to be a good husband to Marianne.
By the time Lance and Marianne made their way back to the hotel, the entire day seemed like a dream. A good dream, Lance thought. Unexpectedly satisfying, even sweet, a word he never thought he’d use in regard to Marianne.
“You hungry?” Lance asked when they reached the foyer.
Marianne looked up at him. “After all that wedding cake and lemonade?”
“And whiskey,” he reminded her.
“Actually,” she said with a soft laugh, “I am starving. I hope Rita hasn’t taken steak off the menu tonight.”
They walked to the restaurant, and the beaming waitress headed
