The Cowboy & The Shotgun Bride (The Brides of Grazer's Corners #1) Read online

  In her wedding dress, Kate was the most prominent figure in the church

  Letter to Reader

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Copyright

  In her wedding dress, Kate was the most prominent figure in the church

  The guests gasped and, at the altar, Kate froze. Then someone grabbed her from behind and dragged her toward the open door. She knew those strong arms, that spicy cedar smell. Mitch Connery had rescued her. Again.

  Outside, sunshine turned his amber eyes to molten gold as he set her down and moved away. She felt a tug—not a delicate inner tug, but a sharp yank near her waistline.

  They both glanced down and saw that somehow, during their close encounter, his belt buckle had tangled itself in the lace of her gown.

  His hips swiveled tantalizingly close to her, and Kate could feel his heat reflecting...in places she’d never dared to associate with a man.

  Dear Reader,

  In the tiny Western town of Grazer’s Corners, something is happening.... Weddings are in the air—and the town’s most eligible bachelors are running for cover!

  Three popular American Romance authors have put together a rollicking good time in THE BRIDES OF GRAZER’S CORNERS. This month it’s Jacqueline Diamond’s The Cowboy & the Shotgun Bride, then Mindy Neff with A Bachelor for the Bride and then Charlotte Maclay with The Hog-Tied Groom.

  You’re invited to all three weddings.... Who’ll catch the bouquet next?

  Happy reading!

  Debra Matteucci

  Senior Editor & Editorial Coordinator

  Harlequin Books

  300 East 42nd Street

  New York, NY 10017

  The Cowboy & The Shotgun Bride

  JACQUELINE DIAMOND

  TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

  AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

  STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID

  PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

  Chapter One

  “Aren’t you glad nothing ever happens in Grazer’s Corners?” asked the mayor, Moose Harmon, as he stood beaming at the town’s only signal light. “You don’t even have to risk getting shot.”

  The light, set into one corner of the town square, was positioned so as to halt traffic directly in front of Moose’s department store. Lengthy delays in all directions gave motorists plenty of time to examine his display windows.

  However, although Moose was gazing fondly at the signal, his words were not addressed to it. Kate Bingham wished that they were, so she could have him declared insane, break off their engagement, and get herself unelected sheriff.

  “I know nothing about law enforcement,” she growled through gritted teeth. “I’m an elementary school principal, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “Oh, come on, Kate.” Her fiancé favored her with a forlorn, puppylike gaze, which looked ridiculous on a hulking ex-linebacker. “After all the trouble I went to organizing a write-in vote, you’ve got to go along with this. Everybody knows old Sneed can’t investigate his way out of a paper bag.”

  Kate opened her mouth to reply, then snapped it shut. She was familiar with Moose’s plan, because he’d been yammering about it for months. He wanted to elect a figurehead, then hire a professional deputy to enforce the law in this small central California town.

  Grazer’s Corners was growing, with its agriculture-related businesses now augmented by a candy company, a toy manufacturer and a microprocessing firm. The old mom-and-pop grocery store had been replaced by two rival supermarkets, and yuppy housing developments were springing up on the outskirts. Could crime be far behind?

  But why did Moose have to pick on her? And why had he chosen the June election, less than a week before their wedding?

  Because, Kate told herself grimly, he couldn’t find anyone else to run. Besides, you can’t bear to let people down, and he knows it.

  “You must have heard about the write-in campaign,” Moose wheedled. “You never objected.”

  If the man hadn’t towered more than a foot above her, Kate might have been tempted to give him a poke in the eye. She doubted a kick in the kneecap would vent her frustration sufficiently.

  Instead, she pulled herself up to her full five feet two inches and glared at him. “I heard a rumor but I figured it was a joke. I had end-of-the-year awards to hand out, the fourth grade Sacramento trip to supervise, and a few other details occupying my mind. Like our wedding!”

  “But now you’ll have all summer to hire a deputy,” Moose murmured. “After the honeymoon, of course.”

  Kate was almost tempted to tell him there wasn’t going to be a honeymoon. Moose had a kind and lovably daffy side, but sometimes he was downright infuriating.

  Before she could frame a reply, he spoke again. “I’ve told you all the trouble we’ve been having with shoplifters. Do you want my store—our store—to go broke?”

  It was true that Harmon’s Department Store had suffered significant losses the previous quarter, mostly from out-of-towners passing through. Sheriff Sneed Brockner hadn’t done anything beyond taking a report.

  He preferred spending every spare minute in his heirloom garden, coaxing cabbage roses into bloom. It was Sneed himself, ten minutes ago, who had sarcastically congratulated Kate on her victory in yesterday’s election and said he planned to celebrate by taking a tour of the state’s botanical gardens. Starting immediately.

  Then he’d slammed the door on his motor home and headed out of town. How childish, Kate thought, and how irresponsible.

  He knew perfectly well that her term of office hadn’t started yet. Besides, she didn’t have a clue how to run a sheriffs department.

  Moose was right about one thing: Grazer’s Corners needed to hire a professional lawman. But he’d had no right to run her for office without permission.

  She ought to tell him off and tender her resignation. But Kate knew she wouldn’t.

  Without hesitation, she would fight for a student with disabilities or go to bat for a teacher who needed compassionate leave. But when it came to herself, Kate Bingham was a thirty-one-year-old, powersuited, master’s-degree-holding pushover.

  “Besides,” Moose teased, “didn’t you always want to rule the world? Here’s your big chance.”

  In spite of herself, Kate started to laugh. Okay, she was ambitious, for her students, anyway. She had almost single-handedly persuaded the board of education to let her upgrade the curriculum. She’d won the trust of the teaching staff, shanghaied parents into volunteering and already seen test scores begin to rise.

  If she could handle the school board, she could certainly handle this nonsense about being elected sheriff. Kate brushed back a strand of straight, chin-length blond hair, and squared her shoulders.

  “I suppose we could advertise for a deputy,” she conceded. “If you cheapskates on the town council will spring for a decent salary.”

  “I was thinking of maybe a percentage,” said Moose.

  “A percentage of what?”

  “What he saves us,” said the mayor. “You know, in shoplifting losses and so forth.”

  Kate st
ared at Moose to see if he was joking. The man’s tendency to be a skinflint was one of his less appealing qualities, but this was going a bit far. Maybe not all that far, though, for him.

  Two years ago, right after he was elected mayor, Moose’s store had stopped underwriting the cost of a professional band to play summer concerts in the park. The “local talent” who took its place had created a run on earplugs at the drugstore, but Moose still contended they added a down-home flavor.

  Still, expecting law enforcement to work on commission was ridiculous. “Any deputy who would come here on that basis would have to be either crazy, incompetent or crooked,” she said.

  Moose sighed. “Well, maybe we can come up with a salary.”

  Down the block, Razz Fiddle placed a placard with today’s specials in the window of the Good Eats Diner. The greasy spoon was unpopular among the owners of neighboring, more upscale shops, but when the graying ex-hippie waved at the mayor, Moose had no choice but to reply with his best running-for-reelection-in-November smile.

  “Don’t forget the benefits,” said Kate.

  The smile faded into a long-suffering look. She wondered whether it would wear better in ten or twenty years, and doubted it.

  But he was hardworking and, like Kate, committed to their hometown. Grazer’s Corners would be a perfect place to raise children, and she hadn’t run across any better candidates for Daddy than her old high school boyfriend, Bledsoe Harmon, nicknamed Moose since his football days.

  She lost her train of thought as a rusty brown van bearing Texas plates zipped along Raisin Road, next to the department store. It ran a red light and swerved directly in front of them.

  A pickup truck carrying a small camper veered to avoid a collision and squealed to a halt with one tire on the sidewalk. The van stopped, but not before kicking up a breeze that etched a dust mote into one of Kate’s contact lenses and sent her eye into an itchy fit.

  “Well, sheriff?” boomed Moose. “Aren’t you going to give them a ticket?”

  Kate started to point out that her term of office wouldn’t start until...well, she wasn’t sure exactly. But Sneed’s hasty departure had left her as the only law in town, and she took her duties seriously.

  “I haven’t got a ticket book. I don’t even know what one looks like. Still, that van could have hurt somebody.” She rubbed her smarting eye, but that just made it water more. “I’ll give them Lecture Number Five, the one about the same rules applying to everyone. If you insist.”

  “Uh...” Moose seemed to have gotten something stuck in his throat, but she doubted a mere dust mote would have done the trick. “Uh, maybe you better forget it, Kate.” He backed away.

  “Make up your mind, will you?” She turned toward the van, but a film of moisture obscured her vision.

  “Kate, for heaven’s sake...”

  “I can handle this, Moose! You got me elected, so let me do my job!”

  In front of her, three men formed blurs in the middle of the street. She couldn’t tell much about them; in fact, their faces appeared almost featureless except for the eyes.

  “Oh, for crying out loud!” Kate called to them. “You can’t leave your van there. You’re blocking the road!”

  She heard Moose thump across the sidewalk behind her, scampering toward his store as if it had just caught fire and the year’s profits were still inside. What was wrong with that man?

  Trying to maintain her dignity despite the rapid blinking of her eyelids, Kate started toward the out-of-towners. “All right, which of you is the driver? I’ll need to see your license and proof of insurance.”

  “Mah license?” came a voice with a twangy accent and a note of sheer disbelief.

  Something else occurred to her. The men had piled out awfully fast. “I don’t think you were wearing your seat belts, either. We’re very strict about that in California.”

  All three men shifted slightly to the left and raised their right arms. They couldn’t be holding up their hands to go to the bathroom, but what were they doing?

  Someone rushed at Kate from the direction of the pickup truck, off to her left. Someone large and muscular, who caught her around the waist and yanked her out of the street just as a series of firecrackers went off.

  At least, they sounded like firecrackers, but the Fourth of July was still a month away. Besides, Kate could have sworn she heard one of them whistle past her ear.

  Across the square, a woman screamed. Up the block, a shop door slammed, and she could hear one of the Grand brothers who ran Grandma’s Bakery yelling for people to get down.

  The dust mote chose that moment, finally, to relinquish its perch on Kate’s contact lens. She got one clear, heart-stopping glimpse of three men with bandannas over their faces and shotguns in their hands before she was jerked behind the truck.

  “Oh, my gosh,” she gasped. “They were shooting at me!”

  “I was beginning to wonder if you had a death wish, ma’am,” drawled a masculine voice. It was deep and melodic and definitely did not belong to Moose.

  “Oh, my gosh,” Kate repeated, and felt herself starting to shake. This wouldn’t do, she told herself sternly. “Who are those guys?” She remembered she’d never seen her rescuer before, either. “And who the heck are you?”

  “Doesn’t matter. If you’ll just keep your head down, ma’am, I’ll have them out of the way in no time.”

  Although the stranger probably stood no more than six feet tall, there was a calm intensity about his manner that made him seem larger than life. Perhaps that was due to his broad shoulders and muscular, home-on-the-range build, but Kate suspected it owed more to his personality.

  “Do you have a cell phone?” she asked. “We need to call the—” The who?

  “Sorry, I’m fresh out of phones.” The man had the shaggy brown hair and deep tan of a cowboy. He wore a Stetson, a yoked shirt and leather vest, and, on the belt through his jeans, an ornate silver buckle. “But I’ve got something better.”

  “Better?” Hearing no more gunfire, Kate peered around the hood. To her dismay, the three men had fanned out and were closing in on the truck.

  One was a big fellow who hulked forward. The second bandit, a thin grizzled man, limped as he walked. The third and youngest of the trio loped toward them with Ichabod Crane gawkiness and a triumphant leer on his bony face.

  She couldn’t believe they actually meant to shoot her, or anyone. Things like this didn’t happen in Grazer’s Comers.

  Then, from inside the vest, her companion produced a sleek gun that looked high-tech, maybe even rapid-fire. It couldn’t possibly be legal.

  “Do you have a permit for that weapon?” she demanded.

  “Do you care?”

  Come to think of, she didn’t.

  He waited another moment, then bolted from the shelter of the truck and fired a rapid sequence of shots. Cursing, the three men scattered, and by the time they got their shotguns aimed, her rescuer had disappeared around the comer.

  After a moment’s consultation, two of the bandits ran after him. The third leaped into the van, wrenched it into gear and whipped around the corner in their wake.

  Why hadn’t the cowboy stayed here and shot them from the cover of the truck? Kate wondered. It would have been easier and safer.

  But if he had, the men would have fired back in her direction. It was hard to imagine that this total stranger had intentionally drawn their fire away from Kate when her own fiancé had thought only of saving his own hide, but she supposed it was possible.

  On the other hand, she’d gotten the impression that her rescuer didn’t especially want to kill the bandits. With such a clear shot, he should have hit at least one of them. What was going on here?

  From the building behind her, Moose called, “Kate! Come in, quick!” By sheer force of will, she managed to stand up, but her legs shook so badly she immediately grabbed the truck for support.

  She felt like an idiot. Kate Bingham never displayed weakness. She was sup
posed to be a tower of strength, unfazed by education faddists and upchucking first graders alike.

  What would the townspeople think? But then, the central park had fallen eerily quiet for a weekday morning. She doubted anyone other than Moose could see her, and he was in no position to criticize.

  Kate was still hanging on to the reinforced bar of the side-view mirror when she heard the click of cowboy boots. Before she could turn, a hand clapped over her mouth, silencing her instinctive gasp of alarm.

  It was a large hand, firm but gentle. It smelled faintly of cologne and cedar.

  The man moved alongside her, and his concerned, amber-colored gaze met hers. The hand transferred itself to her elbow, steadying her tremors. “Didn’t want you to scream, ma’am,” said the cowboy. “Those varmints may be too stupid to keep an eye on my truck, but they aren’t deaf.”

  Hearing his mellifluous baritone and feeling his touch blaze along her arm made Kate’s knees quiver even harder. She wanted to retort that she never screamed, but then, her legs had never refused to obey her commands before, either.

  “I’m—fine.” To her chagrin, her voice came out quavery, like that of a little kid sent to the principal’s office for throwing paper airplanes in class. “Shouldn’t you—I mean, won’t those guys...” She had to clamp her teeth together to keep them from chattering.

  The man leaned against the truck as if trying to decide what to do with her. “You might be going into shock, ma’am. Is there a hospital in town?”

  Of course there was, a few miles south on Almond Grove Avenue, but she didn’t intend to tell him that. Kate Bingham being treated for shock? Never!

  “I’m just—a little shaken.” She took a couple of deep breaths. “Are those guys—after you? We should notify...” That was all she could squeeze out.

  The creak of hinges told her Moose was prying open the department store’s double doors at last. He must have decided it was safe to come out, or else he was afraid of what people would think.