The Shepherd's Daughter (Dry Bayou Brides Book 1) (8 page)

Ray took in every word Rebecca said, sifting through the painful bits about the wedding and latching on to the last part.

Billy isn’t excited about the weddin’?

Rebecca let out a soft sigh. “I’m sorry for unleashing that on you. I just feel, since you’re Billy’s friend, you’d understand. I know we’re not well acquainted, but I hope to be.” Rebecca offered a friendly smile and Ray couldn’t help but smile back.

Ray sat back, suddenly feeling like the world’s biggest heel. While she’d stayed up all night, hating the rock by the creek, hating the tears, thinking up ways to make Rebecca hightail it from Dry Bayou, Rebecca was reaching out to her. Rebecca didn’t know that Ray was secretly longing for the man she planned to marry.

The heat of guilt and embarrassment rose up her neck and ears.

Rebecca accepted a tea cup and saucer from Tilly who was acting the hostess now that her ma and sister had gone out.

“Thank you, Tilly.”

“It’s no bother. I hope you’ll think of me as your friend as well. We don’t get many refined ladies who settle down in Dry Bayou. I think the only other real lady is Mrs. Piers—she’s the school teacher.”

Rebecca blushed a lovely pink, took a sip, hummed her appreciation, and then set the tea on the table beside her.

“I would love to be your friend, Tilly,” Rebecca replied, honest to goodness sweetness dripping from each word.

She’s even pretty when she blushes. How can I compete with that?

“Ray, Billy and his mother both tell me that you’ve been friends with him a long time.”

Ray sat up straight. “
Best
friends.”

Rebecca smiled and tipped her head. “I see. I can understand why you two connected so easily. You seem like a unique woman and Billy, as much pressure as there is on him with the ranch and the new horse operation, needs that sort of strength in his life. He’s a wonderful man.”

Tension rose into Ray’s shoulders and she gripped the arms of the chair harder than she’d intended. “Yeah, so?” Ray didn’t mean for that to come out all ornery like that, but she was tired of wrestling with her emotions. The need to jump from her seat and claim Billy as hers was overwhelming.

“I care for Billy, too. And I am being honest when I say that I only want what’s best for him.”

“You mean marrying you.” Ray already knew what Rebecca and Billy’s parents thought was best. And she couldn’t agree less.

“Well, I don’t know.” Rebecca looked down at her hands.

“What do you mean?” Was Rebecca having second thoughts about marrying Billy?

“After you left the creek last night, Billy and I had a discussion about…well…”

Ray’s patience was wearing thin. “Well, what?”

Rebecca took another slow sip from her tea before answering. “What he was looking for in a wife.”

All the air left Ray’s body in a single breath. “W-what did he say?”

Rebecca looked Ray square in the face. It seemed as though she wanted to gauge Ray’s reaction to what she would say next.

“He said he wasn’t as picky as his parents, that he’d be happy married to a woman he could talk to about anything, a woman he’d long to come home to after a long day’s work. A woman who could make him laugh, make him think, and make him…well, happy.”

Ray fought the urge to slink under her chair. Rebecca just described herself. Ray remembered how Rebecca and Billy seemed so happy standing there beside the creek. They’d laughed, Billy smiled at her, and then he seemed pretty upset when Ray arrived to ruin their moment.

“Not picky,” Tilly chimed in. “I can’t think of a single woman in the world who meets those requirements.”

Rebecca pinned Ray with her deep brown gaze. “I can.”

Ray swallowed and managed not to choke. “That seems like a pointless conversation to have with him. You’re here, ain’t you?”

Rebecca nodded and offered a dainty smile. “Well, yes, but we’ve agreed to a short courtship before he decides if I am to be Mrs. Willem Ducharme.”

Ray flinched at the other woman’s use of
that
name. A name she wanted for herself.

“I know about that. Thanks to Billy’s ma, the whole town does. But why did you agree to it? You came all the way out here to get married. If the groom hesitates, why don’t you go back home?”

Please go!

Rebecca looked up at Ray from under her long, thick lashes. “Can I be honest with you, Ray? Tilly?”

Both women nodded. Ray couldn’t possibly begin to wonder what Rebecca was going to say, but she sure as sugar wanted to hear it.

“When I first contacted Mr. Ducharme, he required me to sign a contract.”

Ray blinked, then frowned. “Contract? What sort of contract?”

“It states that if I fail to marry Willem Ducharme by the end of the summer, I will return to New York immediately.” Rebecca’s usually clear voice had turned to a whisper as she spoke the words “
return to New York
” with a haunted look in her eyes.

“Oh,” was all Ray could say.

So, Billy’s perfect woman was required by law to marry Billy or return to New York—effectively dashing her dreams to start over in Dry Bayou. That made matters so much worse.

She’s obviously a much better choice for Billy. He’s already fallin’ in lo…lo…love with her.

She couldn’t even bring the voice in her head to say the words.

Who am I kiddin’? I’ll fight tooth and nail for Billy—I don’t care if the fool thinks he’s in love with Miss Rebecca DuCastille.
She’d changed his mind about wearing fringed shirts, she could change his mind about marrying Rebecca. She could, with a little help from Tilly and Mrs. Piers, also find a way for Rebecca to stay in Dry Bayou without having to fulfill that ridiculous contract.

She just had to figure out how.

I
t was late
when Ray finally returned to the house she shared with her ma and the memory of her pa. When she’d left that morning, she’d only meant to visit Tilly and give back all the dresses she and Dora had given her. She was ready to give up on the silly plan to entice Billy by being as refined as Rebecca.

Now, she knew better. Trying to be like Rebecca wasn’t going to win Billy. She had to become something else. She had to become a woman Billy had never seen before. She had to be a better
Ray
.

“Yer finally home, I see. Missed supper, but I left ye some taters and mutton in the oven.” Ray’s ma was seated in the living area near a small, crackling fire. She was mending a pair of socks.

Mrs. Moira MacAdams was born and raised in Fraserburgh, Scotland, but left home at seventeen when she married a local farmer’s son with a desire to make his own way in America.

Ray took a moment to study her mother. Her once bright, auburn hair was now a dull light brown, fringed with grey at the temples. She seemed to have aged ten years overnight.

They both had since her pa died.

“Sorry, Ma. I didn’t mean to be gone so long. Did you have trouble with my chores?” Ray was so wrapped up in Rebecca and Billy and trying to figure out how to get Billy to love her, she’d plain forgotten about her responsibilities.

Her ma placed the mending in the basket beside her chair and winced as she sat back. “Oh, aye, I had trouble, but Pedro helped.”

Feeling like a thoughtless, selfish brat, Ray knelt at her ma’s feet and gripped her calloused hands in hers. “I promise I won’t forget ever again, Ma. I didn’t want you to do those chores.”

Ma cupped her face. “I ken what’s goin’ on, bairn. I ken Billy’s gettin’ betrothed to that new girl, the one his ma and pa ordered from a catalog, as if she were a new set of pots. I ken ye’re havin’ a hard time wrappin’ yer mind around Billy leavin’ ye and being wit another woman.”

Her ma was speaking truth.

“I ken ye’re in love with the rancher’s son, bairn, and I ken yer heart is achin’ somethin’ fierce. But what I don’t ken, is how I’m gonna make all that go away.”

Tears streamed down her face. “Ma, you don’t need to worry about me. I’ll be fine. I need to find a way to get him back, that’s all.”

“I ken ye will. Ye’re a fighter, just like yer pa. He asked me to marry him near forty times before I finally gave in. It was his persistence that won me.” Her ma’s sorrow-filled smile warmed her heart.

“Ack, lookit me, gettin’ maudlin in my auld age. Here, take this. Billy stopped by right before supper and left this for ye.” Her ma pulled a folded sheet of paper from her breast pocket and handed it to her.

“Billy was here?” Ray asked and her mother nodded. “Did he say what he wanted?”

She shook her head. “Nay, but I’m assumin’ an explanation is in the letter.”

Ray thanked her ma, gave her a kiss, then practically ran to her room.

Heart in her throat, she unfolded the paper and read it.

MEET ME AT THE CREEK AFTER SUNDOWN. WE NEED TO TALK.

–BILLY

A thrill zapped through her.
He wants to meet me?

“It’s already an hour past sundown, so I’ll have to get goin’ right now to make it to our spot before he gets tired of waitin’,” she muttered to herself as she turned to head right back out the door.

It wasn’t
their
spot, anymore. He’d taken
Rebecca
there, smiled and laughed with her there, and called Ray the
shepherd’s daughter
there.

No longer their special place, Billy was out of his mind if he thought she was going to meet him there. Besides, he was getting married to another woman in a few short weeks. If his parents and Rebecca had their way. Ray knew she meant no more to him than someone who worked for his pa.

She threw herself back on the bed and stared up at the knotholes in the ceiling.

Whatever Billy wanted to talk about would have to wait until the bright light of day.

The creek was the worst place to meet a man betrothed to another woman.

But what did he want to talk to her about?

She groaned. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not goin’.” It took all the strength left within her to change into her night clothes and douse the candle on the bedside table.

Her stomach growled for the food her ma had left for her, but the thought of eating only made her ill.

She didn’t know how long she laid there, watching the shadows dance across the ceiling as they mocked her, sniggering at her that she’d never dance with Billy like that, that she’d never get to kiss him in the dark, or touch him as she so wanted to. As the minutes ticked by on the clock beside her bed, she wondered if she’d ever be happy again.

*

Billy rounded the
bend toward Ray’s house and stopped for a moment. “What am I doing?” He kicked at the dirt and groaned.

He’d written her the note and waited like a fool down at the creek. But he’d guessed she wouldn’t come.

Why would she after what he’d said to her, after how he’d treated her in front of Rebecca? After not telling her that she was the most important thing in his life?

He’d spent the last three days in pain—somewhere between living and dying. With everything in him, he wished he could go back to the day of the fishing derby, kiss the taste right off of Ray’s lips, and then ignore his ma’s calls to come to the house. He just wanted to go back to the way things were before Rebecca arrived and his world became so complicated.

No, maybe he didn’t want to go back to the way things were. He didn’t want to be Ray’s best friend; a friend who was more brother than actual man. He was a man who wanted Ray to be with him as much as he wanted to be with her.

With that thought in mind, he continued walking to Ray’s house. He knew which window belonged to her because of all the times they had snuck to the creek at night over the years. Tonight wouldn’t be much different, except he didn’t want to hunt frogs with her.

Thankful for the light of a nearly full moon, he sucked in a deep breath and tapped on the glass. He waited.

Would she come to the window? Would she come with him? Or, would she ignore him as he knew he deserved?

The questions in his mind came to an abrupt halt when he picked out movement in the shadows of her room.

She’s coming…

Ray snapped the lock and opened the window.