Free Twilight in Texas by Jodi Thomas Page A

in black, even if the marriage is in name only.”
    Wolf smiled. “I’d better hurry. After all, I’ve already seen your feet.”
    Molly didn’t laugh as she turned and marched back into her store.
    Wolf didn’t even notice the rain as he stepped into the mud and headed for the church. After all, he was marrying his Molly for as long as he wanted. Out of the blue, she’d made the offer and he had no intention of giving her time to change her mind.

SEVEN

    W OLF FELT HE WAS PLOWING UPSTREAM IN TEN FEET of water as he fought the rain, trying to get back to Molly’s place. He’d had to wake up three preachers before he found one who’d brave the weather for a wedding. Reverend Ford was Baptist. He should be used to services under water, Wolf laughed to himself. Ford probably figured he could count this as both a wedding and a baptism at the same time.
    “You all right?” Wolf yelled to the thin man at his side. The preacher’s clothes flapped like sails in the wind.
    “March on, Brother Hayward. March on.” Ford looked like a man who’d never let a little storm slow him from doing the Lord’s work. Or collecting the ten-dollar fee he charged for unplanned weddings after dark.
    Wolf smiled. He enjoyed preachers. He considered himself kin to the McLain family his sister, Nichole, married into after the war. One of the McLains was a preacher. Daniel McLain, the kindest man he’d ever met. Who knows, if Molly agreed, he might take her to meet Daniel’s little family. Daniel taught at a college not more than a hard day’s ride from Austin. His wife, Karlee, had just given birth to the second set of McLain twins.
    Wolf had always considered his sister, Nichole, his only kin. But that was before he met the McLain brothers. Adam, Wes, and Daniel had sworn him into their family, and he knew he’d always be thought of as blood related.
    When he had time, Wolf would set Molly down and tell her about them. She’d understand Adam with his skilled, healing hands. And Wes would charm her as soon as she got past his scarred face. She’d like the McLain women, too. They were all strong like his Molly. Nichole had strapped on a gun belt more than once to stand beside her husband in a fight.
    Wolf smiled, thinking of the children, some adopted, some born into the McLains. They made family get-togethers ring with laughter.
    The thought of him and Molly not having any children made Wolf forget the rain. She might have done the asking, but she’d made it plain she didn’t want anything but his name. She wasn’t offering her bed. All she needed was a temporary solution to a serious problem.
    She probably wouldn’t be around long enough to even meet the friends he thought of as family. There’d be no children, no holidays in a marriage measured in weeks.
    He told himself he didn’t care. He’d take his Molly on whatever terms she offered. He told himself nothing mattered but keeping her safe. No one would dare bother her while she wore his ring.
    His ring! Damn, he didn’t have a ring.
    “You want to slow down some?” Reverend Ford yelled. “I ain’t never seen a man in such a hurry toget married.”
    Wolf stopped so suddenly, the preacher ran into him.
    “I forgot the ring!” he yelled over the storm.
    Before the preacher could stop him, Wolf waded across the street, now floating a foot deep in mud. “I’ll be right back!” he yelled as he glanced back to see Ford huddle underneath a tin awning over a law office window. The rain wasn’t cold, just wet. Which made it all the more bothersome, to Wolf’s way of thinking. A man would have sense enough to come in out of a cold rain, but a rain like this didn’t stop anyone.
    Three businesses down the street, he found a mercantile advertising everything from feed to spectacles. He pounded on the door until the owner answered. Ten minutes later, with a ring in his pocket and mud caked halfway up his legs, Wolf rejoined the pastor.
    They continued down the street