Miriam sputtered, orange juice dribbling down her chin.
Gran slowly set down her mug of black coffee. She dabbed at her mouth with a napkin. “Do you have something you need to tell us?”
“Like what in the world you’re thinking?” Nate rested his palms on top of the table as if preparing himself to jump up at any moment.
“Okay…” I said slowly. Obviously something had been lost in translation because, even though I knew what had come out of my mouth, my family was reacting like I’d said something completely different. “I’m thinking about the amount of traffic a wedding would create on the property. The work it would add to all of us. The livestock and where we’ll be in production at that time—although a date hasn’t been decided, as far as I know. And I’m thinking about revenue. What should we charge or whether we should let the land be used as a sort of wedding present?”
“You were thinking of charging her?” Miriam asked, outraged.
I shrugged. “Jocelyn said something about payment, but like I said, maybe we want to let the ranch be used as a wedding gift.”
Miriam gaped at me.
Nate gawked.
Gran studied.
“Why are you all looking at me like that?”
“We’re wondering how you went from barely being able to talk to Jocelyn a few weeks ago to planning a wedding with her.” Nate shook his head.
“I wouldn’t say I’m doing any of the planning.” I shrugged. The girls had that covered. They just needed a place, hence the powwow with my family.
“Of course not.” Miriam’s lips twisted. “Just like a guy to let the woman do all the work in these matters.”
Why was I being attacked for a simple question? “She didn’t really ask me to help, just wanted to know if we’d be open to the wedding taking place here.”
Gran patted my hand. “Of course the wedding can happen here. And we all really like Jocelyn, Malachi. We’re happy for you. Just a little surprised.”
“Great,” I said slowly. “I like her too…” Bits of the conversation came back to me, aligning themselves to make a different picture than I’d presented. “Wait. Do you guys think…” I stood up so fast the chair fell backward. “I didn’t ask Jocelyn to marry me! I’m not crazy!”
“Oh, thank goodness,” Nate breathed. “I thought you’d lost your ever-lovin’ mind.”
“We’ve only known each other for a little over three weeks, and two of those have been long distance. I like her a lot, I really do, but no one is jumping the gun and galloping to the finish line.” I righted my chair and settled back down. “Let me enjoy the journey for a bit longer. Sheesh.”
Gran picked her fork up and stabbed at her pile of scrambled eggs. “Well, now you know that when the time is right, we’ll all be thrilled to add her to the family and y’all can get hitched right here at the Double B.” A particular glint entered her eye, and she set her fork down then stood and excused herself.
“What do you think that was about?” Nate asked.
“Beats me.”
Miriam took her plate to the sink. “Then who is getting married?”
“Oh, you remember Molly? She was one of Jocelyn’s friends that was here a couple of weeks ago with her boyfriend—or fiancé now, I guess—in tow.”
“I remember. She was really nice.”
I’d have to take Miriam’s word for it. Out of everyone in the group, I’d gotten to know the young girl the best. Although, if things kept going with Jocelyn, I’d need to better acquaint myself with her friends. Those four women seemed really important to her, and though the prospect of that many females all in one place scared the tar out of me, knowing them would give me a glimpse at another side of Jocelyn, and I found there wasn’t anything aboutherI wanted to hide from.
“Here it is.” Gran walked back into the kitchen carrying a large book, its edges frayed and cover banged up. She sat down and turned the pages, the ancient spine crackling with the movement. She flipped the book around to show us. A couple in a black-and-white photograph stared back at us, unsmiling. The man wore a three-piece suit with a starched collar, and the woman on his arm was dressed in a white dress with a crown of flowers circling her head and a gauzy veil cascading down her back.
Miriam inched closer. “Is that great-great-granddad?”
“Mmhmm.” Gran tapped the picture. “And his mail-order bride.”
“I don’t recall you ever telling us this before.” Nate angled his head to better scrutinize the couple in the photo.
“All this talk of weddings brought it back to me. See, Clement Thomas and Esther King were the first couple to marry on this stretch of land. After the Civil War, newly freed slaves were looking for a better life, but even in the north they faced oppression and violence. Some, like Clement here, looked to the west for his future. After a few years of fighting as a Buffalo soldier, he grew tired of the bloodshed and injustice done to the Native American tribes and thought to take advantage of the Homestead Act that allowed anyone to become a landowner. Of course, there weren’t many women out in these wild parts back then except the working kind that followed the mining camps around. Some of the married women in the area didn’t appreciate the rowdiness of the men and organized a campaign to write to newspapers back east to find women who wanted to leave behind their lives of poverty and tragedy for the chance of love and a new life.”
