Her Bodyguard Read online

  HER BODYGUARD

  by

  Geralyn Dawson

  Copyright 2005, 2011 by Geralyn Dawson

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this work may be reproduced in any fashion without the express, written consent of the copyright holder.

  The Bad Luck Wedding Dress is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed herein are fictitious and are not based on any real persons living or dead.

  Cover art by Stephanie Knautz

  Dedication

  For Mary Dickerson

  I’ll always treasure your friendship

  PROLOGUE

  Fort Worth, Texas 1888

  MARI MCBRIDE HADN’T VISITED a whorehouse after dark in years, but as she passed the gilded front door of Rachel Warden’s Social Emporium, she was tempted to stop in and say hello. Rachel and her girls had always been particularly kind to Mari and her two sisters before their father, Trace McBride, went respectable and moved his family out of the infamous section of town known as Hell’s Half Acre. The madam had insisted that the McBride girls were always welcome to visit. Of course, ten o’clock on a Saturday night probably wasn’t the best time for three virginal young women to go socializing at a brothel.

  Yet Mari had the feeling that she and her two sisters might be safer fighting off lusty cowboys at Rachel Warden’s Social Emporium than where they were headed.

  “We shouldn’t be here,” she said to her sisters as they walked along the lantern-lit boardwalk, the tinny music of a poorly tuned piano swirling around them. “This was an exceptionally bad idea.”

  Her older sister Emma tore her attention away from an upstairs window across the street, where a half-naked couple stood locked in an embrace. “Don’t be a spoilsport, Mari.”

  “That’s right,” her younger sister Kat chimed in, wrinkling her nose as they passed a saloon door and the scent of stale bodies and old beer wafted over them. “Next week this time, Emma will be a respectable married woman. This is our last chance to be true McBride Menaces.”

  “Hallelujah,” Mari muttered as she lifted her skirts and stepped carefully over a missing board on the boardwalk. At twenty, eighteen and sixteen, respectively, the McBride Menaces were plenty old enough to retire from the business of mischief making. Mari had plans for herself, for her future, that her reputation negatively affected. Banks were slow to loan any woman money to establish a business, and there wasn’t a banker in all of north Texas who’d sit down to talk business with a McBride Menace. Never mind that Mari had learned at the knees of one of the most successful female entrepreneurs in the state— her beloved stepmother, Jenny. If Mari ever wanted to achieve her dream, she’d need to put her menacing ways behind her and establish a respectable reputation.

  “Actually,” Kat continued, “visiting a fortune-teller isn’t even all that terrible a thing to do. If not for the fact that we’re alone in the Acre after dark on a Saturday night, it wouldn’t even be worthy of the Menaces.”

  As they walked by the open doorway of the Palace Saloon, a gunshot rang out inside. All three girls glanced into the saloon to see an obviously inebriated cowboy taking aim at a billiard ball. “Pistol pool,” Emma said on a sigh. “I always hated when they started playing that at Papa’s place.”

  “Papa didn’t mind,” Mari recalled. He’d earned good money from adding a surcharge to the bill of cowboys who shot even worse with their six-shooters than they did with their pool cues.

  “Remember that time a couple of men from the Double R shot up three pool tables in one night?”

  Emma nodded. “Papa bought us each a new doll the next day.”

  The girls shared a smile. Back in the days when Trace ran the End of the Line Saloon, money was tight for the McBride family. Gifts presented at a time other than Christmas or a birthday made an impression upon them all.

  They continued up Houston Street ignoring catcalls, declining invitations, and veering around three separate brawls between men who tumbled through the swinging doors of saloons and rolled into the dusty street trading punches and spitting insults. With every step closer to their destination, Mari’s trepidation built. Something about this escapade tonight felt bad in her bones.

  She couldn’t pinpoint exactly what the problem was. She wasn’t worried about what the fortune-teller might tell them. Despite having a family history full of legends like the Bad Luck Wedding Dress and the Bad Luck Wedding Cake, along with a fond memory of a childhood pet christened Spike the Fortune-Teller Fish, Mari didn’t believe in such nonsense. Crystal balls and tarot cards were nothing more than a charlatan’s props. Her sisters might set store in what Madame Valentina had to say, but Mari knew better.

  At least, that’s what she tried to tell herself.

  “She’s full of nonsense, you know,” Mari said, her tone defiant as she reacted to the unease seeping through her. “Madame Valentina read tea leaves at the Literary Society’s spring social and predicted that Pauline Johnston would marry Bobbie Ellison by the end of the year. Two days later, Pauline eloped with Jimmy Talbot.”

  “Oh, stop it,” Emma said, giving her sister’s shoulder a light backhanded slap. “I know Madame Valentina is probably a fake, but this adventure is all in good fun.”

  “We’re in Hell’s Half Acre on a Saturday night!” Mari protested.

  Emma’s eyes gleamed. “Yes, and we all brought our guns, didn’t we? We’re safe enough.”

  “Emma!”

  “Kat is right, Mari. We needed one last McBride Menace escapade. I needed it. As much as I can’t wait to become Mrs. Casey Tate, it’s difficult for me to think that I’m leaving the McBride name behind. You must admit, there are times when it’s fun to be infamous.”

  “Perhaps on rare occasions,” Mari agreed. “Very rare.”

  Kat sighed. “You worry me, Mari. You’ve become such a stick-in-the-mud ever since Wendell Hapsburg told Johnny Walton that he wouldn’t ask you to the Harvest Dance because you’re too wild.”

  “Pardon me?” Mari halted abruptly. “I am not a stick-in-the-mud, and my behavior has nothing at all to do with that smug Wendell Hapsburg.” Liar. Angry with herself, she added starch to her voice when she continued, “Katrina, have you forgotten that I am the one who sneaked into Uncle Tye’s house and hid all his shoes in the attic just two weeks ago?”

  Kat tilted her head, reconsidering. “That was a good prank, and he did have it coming after his remark about our fondness for dancing slippers. All right, I take back the stick-in-the-mud remark.”

  “Thank you. Also, allow me to point out that caution isn’t necessarily something to disparage. Drunken cowboys can be vicious animals.”

  “You’re right, Mari.” Kat eyed the middle-aged man weaving his way down the middle of the street with new respect. “However, you have to admit that the thought of what Madame Valentine has to tell us is exciting.” Kat pulled a folded sheet of paper from her skirt pocket and quoted, ‘“I will share with you news of the man you are destined to marry.’”

  Mari sighed at her sister’s naïveté .

  Eyes shining with excitement, Kat added, “I hope she tells me he’s tall and blond and blue-eyed.”

  Emma’s mouth twitched with a grin. “More likely she’ll tell you he won’t pick up his dirty socks.”

  Kat laughed and Mari’s mouth twisted in a wry smile as they continued on their way. The abandoned sock argument was an ongoing issue between their father and stepmother. Not a week went by that Jenny didn’t snap at Trace for leaving his socks somewhere other than where they belonged. He always apologized, then proceeded to melt her pique with kisses. The girls had long suspected he left his socks on the floor on purpose.

  Reaching the intersection of Rusk and First streets, the girls skirt
ed a large group of men making bets on the eventual victor of the fistfight taking place in the center of the street. From the frequency of whacks and grunts and thuds, Mari predicted that within minutes, a doctor would be required to provide treatment to the two battling cowboys.

  “Look,” Kat said, pointing toward a wooden plaque attached to the side of a building. “There’s the sign.”

  The small, painted wooden sign read Madame Valentina, Seer Extraordinare. An arrow pointed the way down a deeply shadowed alley. “Wonderful.” Mari halted abruptly. “A dark alley in Hell’s Half Acre. This is an exceptionally poor idea.”

  For the first time, Emma appeared less that certain of their course of action. Addressing Kat, she said, “Maybe Mari’s right. Maybe we should come back another time. In daylight.”

  “Listen to you two old hens clucking away. Don’t be sissies. We’ve come this far. If you simply must leave, then go. I’m not about to display a yellow stripe now.” Then Kat took off down the alley, leaving her sisters little choice but to follow.

  Halfway down the narrow passage, an old tin stable lantern hung from a nail pounded into the wooden wall and illuminated a doorway draped in strings of glass beads. Kat pushed aside the beads and ducked her head inside. “Hello? Is anyone there?”

  Standing right behind Kat and beside Emma, Mari’s sense of foreboding returned in force. “No one is here. Let’s go. We can come back another time.”

  From directly behind Mari, an ethereal voice said, “Welcome, Misses McBride. I have been waiting for you.”

  Mari all but jumped out of her stockings.

  The woman was tall and lithe and…perfect. Thick, honey-blond hair spilled like a waterfall down her back. Eyes the color of bluebonnets in springtime gleamed with warmth, and rose-red lips curved in a welcoming smile. Her cheekbones were high and defined, her nose thin and straight. She wore a flowing gown of ice-blue silk and a long gold chain around her neck from which dangled a clear crystal the size of a robin’s egg.

  “You’re not Madame Valentina,” Kat said.

  “I am Roslin of Strathardle. The gypsy fortune-teller has graciously offered me her hospitality for the evening.”

  “Strathardle?” Kat repeated, testing the unfamiliar word on her tongue. To Mari, she said softly, “I think that’s down near San Antonio.”

  “Strathardle is in Scotland,” the woman replied, amusement sparkling in her eyes.

  “You know our names,” Emma observed. “Have we met?”

  “Not directly, no.”

  Mari waited for her to elaborate, but instead, the woman reached out and cupped Emma’s cheek. Staring deeply into her eyes, she said, “You have a nurturing soul.”

  Kat’s mouth rounded and she breathed, “Oh…that’s right. She does. Ma’am, can you tell us about the men we’ll marry, like Madame Valentina?”

  Roslin’s smile widened. “Come inside, my adventurous one.”

  She swept past them through the beads, and Kat fell right in behind the woman. Following her younger sister, Mari ducked her head toward Emma and murmured, “Said the spider to the fly.”

  Candles and oil lamps lit the small, square room, and the scent of jasmine hung in the air. Shelves filled with books, and candles and uniquely decorated boxes lined three of the four walls. Plush pillows lay scattered around the wooden floor. At the center of the room sat a round table draped in a midnight-blue cloth surrounded by three stools and a graceful thronelike chair. At the center of the table sat the expected crystal ball.

  “You have come to me for knowledge.” Roslin gestured for them to take seats on the stools set around the table.

  “Yes,” Kat said, her gaze going dreamy. “I would like to know about the ma—”

  “We’d like to know who you are,” Mari interrupted, shooting her younger sister a quelling look. “And how you know about us.”

  “I am a seer.” An enigmatic smile played about the woman’s face. “While all in Fort Worth know of the McBride Menaces, I have, shall we say, a special knowledge. We are connected. In times past, my…family…knew yours.”

  Emma leaned forward. “You’re from the Carolinas?”

  “Mmm…further back. In keeping with tradition, on the eve of the first marriage in a new generation, I offer you my talents.”

  Mari folded her arms. “What talents?”

  The lady’s eyes twinkled at Mari, before she turned to Emma. “You wish for knowledge?”

  “Her wedding,” Kat piped up. “I convinced her to come to find out about her wedding. It’s next week and we want everything to be perfect, only our family has a bit of a history regarding bad luck and weddings.”

  Emma cleared her throat. “My fiancé and I are very much in love, and I have no doubt at all about the marriage, but the wedding itself is making both of us a little nervous.”

  “Wool socks,” a pragmatic Mari said. “That’s what both you and Casey need. Wool socks warm cold feet quite nicely.”

  “We’re not having cold feet,” Emma insisted. “It’s not that.”

  “I think it’s the boys, our brothers,” Kat told the seer. “I think they’re planning some shenanigans and Emma can sense it and that’s why she’s feeling jumpy about the wedding. So, if you could give us a hint about what the Monsters might be up to?”

  Despite the fact that Mari didn’t believe this woman possessed supernatural abilities, she nevertheless leaned forward to listen closely to the woman’s response. Billy, Tommy and Bobby McBride caused more trouble in one month than their sisters had in an entire year at their ages.

  “You misunderstand.” Roslin motioned for the McBrides to take seats on the stools, then shifted three large pillar candles from the shelf to the center of the table. “You’ll witness no parlor tricks from me. I suggest if you wish to learn what your brothers have planned, you eavesdrop beneath their tree house on an afternoon after school.”

  Taking a seat to Emma’s right, Mari shot her a significant look. That was her suggestion exactly. Though how did this woman know about the tree house? Had she been spying on the McBrides? Was that what Mari’s intuition had picked up on?

  The seer continued, “I can, however, explain your inheritance to you.”

  “Our inheritance?” Mari’s sisters asked simultaneously.

  Roslin lit the candles, then took a seat in her queen’s chair. As the melting wax released a scent of sandalwood, she closed her eyes and made three wide circles above the flickering flames. She murmured words in a language that sounded to Mari like the Gaelic heard during visits with their Scottish cousins, the Rosses.

  It was as if a light went on in Mari’s brain. “Are you related to the Rosses of Rowanclere? They’ve come for the wedding. Are you with them?”

  The seer gave Mari an approving smile. “Not exactly, no. I have sent young Melanie a letter. I hope to visit with her quite soon. In the meantime, shall we proceed?”

  “Yes, please,” Kat said.

  No, let’s not. Mari’s pulse began to race. Let’s go home. Now. Before it’s too late.

  “Emmaline Suzanne, your right hand, please?”

  Emma glanced at Mari, then extended her hand across the table. “Hmm…” The seer studied Emma’s palm. Pursing her lips, she traced the lines on Emma’s hand with her index finger.

  “What is it?” Kat asked, staring at her sister’s hand, excitement painting a rose stain on her creamy complexion.

  “Patience would be a helpmate to you, Katrina,” said Roslin. “Your hand, please.”

  Kat plopped her right hand on the table, palm up. The seer bent over it intently, then went completely still. “Maribeth? I’ll see yours.”

  Mari hesitated. Her teeth tugged at her bottom lip and her palm literally itched. She did not want to do this. “No thank you.”

  The candle flames flared and outside, the wind began to howl.

  “You better show her, Mari,” Kat said.

  “I’d rather not.”

  “Your sisters need you, ch
ild,” the Scotswoman said quietly. “You literally hold their happiness in the palm of your hand.”

  Kat reached over, grabbed Mari’s hand and shoved it across the table for Roslin to see. “I’ll work on my impatience, Mari,” Kat said, “but you need to do something about your stubbornness.”

  “I’m not—” Mari’s sputtering protest died the moment Roslin took Mari’s hand in hers. A warm, gentle peace flowed into her body, totally banishing the tension that had dwelled within her since the moment her sisters proposed this trip to Hell’s Half Acre.

  Having studied Mari’s palm, the seer released her hand and sat back in her chair. “’Tis as foretold. A circle of three in the thirty-third generation. Emmaline, Maribeth, and Katrina McBride, you are the Chosen.”

  The sisters exchanged uneasy looks. Though Mari’s newfound sense of peace continued to linger, foreboding once more gnawed at its edges. “I knew we should have gone to the Literary Society meeting instead,” she muttered.

  “The Chosen?” Emma asked.

  “’Tis about opportunity, my dear. The opportunity for you and your sisters to be of invaluable service to those who follow. ‘Tis about ending the Curse of Clan McBride.”

  “The Curse of Clan McBride?” Kat repeated.

  Mari sat back in her chair. This. This was the news she’d been trying to avoid. A family curse. It fit.

  “Wait a minute,” she murmured, rejecting the notion despite the sense of rightness it engendered. “I don’t believe in curses. It’s nonsense.”

  The Scotswoman ignored her. “In ancient days, a fairy prince fell in love with a mortal woman. As fate would have it, she gave her heart to another, a McBride.”

  “Of course.” Mari rolled her eyes.

  “The prince was mightily displeased, and in an effort to prove the mortal unworthy of the maiden’s love, he put McBride to a series of fearsome tests. To the prince’s dismay, the McBride withstood every challenge, though at great physical cost. Finally, fearful for her beloved’s safety and at substantial risk to herself, the fair Ariel called upon the prince and demanded he recognize that the love she and McBride shared was powerful, vigilant and true, and that no trial or challenge would change it.”