Ched? She must mean Jed.
“I did?” A thread of amusement purses my lips.
“Yes,” Dove says through a giggle. “From Old Widow Hester.”
The thought is so absurd that a short, rusty laugh—my first true one in years—slips from me. “From her pinching fingers!”
Eleanor shakes her head at our antics but laughs along with us. “Lord help, but she does have wandering hands. I imagine she needs the attention since Mr. Hester passed.The man doted on her day and night, bless his soul, so it can’t be easy for her to be alone.”
Warren dotes on me and Emmaline, as well. And the thought of being alone now isn’t as appealing as it was before. Blinking to clear my thoughts, I glance down and find two dark blue jewels staring up at me. “All done, my darling?” I kiss her forehead and adjust my clothing.
“Can I burp her?”
I stare at Dove. “You really want to?”
“I do!” She pats her belly. “I need practice.”
“If you’re sure…”
“Emmaline needs meet her Auntie Dove.” She holds out her arms, and after a brief hesitation, I relinquish my baby.
“Hello, sweet girl,” she croons, holding her close as she steps to the sofa. “I love you already.”
Another piece of the cage around my heart crumbles at the complete and utter acceptance we’ve been given, not only from Warren, but also from these two women. Eleanor rubs my shoulder just how I imagine a loving mother would do, and when I look up, it’s through a haze of unshed tears. “How can you receive us into your family so easily?” I ask unsteadily.
“You’re a Shay now, Mara.” Warren’s mother winks at me. “And once you’ve been claimed by one of us, you’ve been claimed by all of us. Didn’t Warren tell you about our tradition?”
“Only that his family would send workers here for the next year…” My voice fades as I ward off the warmth of a blush. “So we could learn to be a family of our own.”
“That’s certainly true, but there’s more. And there’s no other way to explain it but to come right out and say it. When a Shay gets married, it’s because he’s gone out and taken a woman he’s had a hankering for.”
Confusion is no doubt written all over my furrowed brow. “Taken how?”
Eleanor blithely waves a hand. “Whatever the situation calls for. Cornelius stole me from my bed in the early morning hours.”
“What?” I cover my mouth. “Why?”
“Because he loved me and wanted me for himself. My father refused to allow him to court me, so Cornelius took matters into his own hands. Threw me onto the back of his horse and took off, intending to take me as far away as possible.” Her face softens as if recalling a fond memory instead of the horror of a kidnapping. “Once we stopped to relieve ourselves, I stole his gun.”
I didn’t think my eyes could open any wider, but I’m proven wrong. “You shot him?”
“Oh, I threatened to,” Eleanor says smugly. “But he just swaggered up to me all cockylike until the barrel was pressed right up to his chest, and then he up and kissed me. Told me to aim for his heart if I really intended on shooting him because then at least the pain of living without me would stop.”
Stop it, Mara. Don’t you dare think of that as romantic.
“I could never do that, and he knew it.” Eyes uncannily similar to her son’s twinkle with mischief at me, and I can’t help but to wryly smile. I think I like this whirlwind of a woman. “So I poked him with the gun and told him I wasn’t traveling all over God knows where as an unmarried woman alone with a man. That he’d better find a judge to marry us before sunrise so my father wouldn’t kill him.”
“And he found one?”
“A drunk one that he had to hold up.” Eleanor laughs. “But by the time dawn broke, I was Mrs. Cornelius Shay.”
Good Lord. I turn to Dove. “And you?” Her husbandseems so protective of her that I can’t imagine him doing something like that. “Did your husband do anything to you?”
Dove blushes and looks away sheepishly. “Ched bought me.”
“Bought you?” Immediately, my lips curl in disgust. How could she want to be with a man who did that?
“To rescue me from my father.”
