Of course, everybody in Oestend, from miners and trappers to the inn-keepers and blacksmiths, had to eat, and that was where the ranches came in. By accepting a position at one of them, Aren had committed himself to a life that was considered downright primitive by most of his colleagues.
Ex-colleagues, he reminded himself. It was time he stopped thinking of himself as a bourgeois university student from the most cosmopolitan city on the continent. He was now a bookkeeper for an Oestend rancher.
“You work for Jeremiah?” Aren asked Deacon.
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Deacon frowned at the question. “Guess so.”
“Are you his son?”
“Nope.”
“Are you the foreman?”
Deacon tipped his head a bit to the side, squinting as if the question confused him.
“Guess I’m the closest thing we got.” He glanced over at Aren, looking him up and down in an appraising way—though not as if he were interested in Aren sexually. Aren thought it was probably closer to the way he might have examined a cow he was taking to market.
“You’re not married, are you?” Deacon asked.
It seemed like such a strange question, completely out of nowhere, and it surprised Aren. “No,” he said. “Why?”
“Possible Fred McAllen’ll be throwing one of his daughters at you tonight.”
Aren found that alarming. It was bad enough he might have to face women who wanted sex, but if his host was expecting it for some reason, things were going to be even more uncomfortable than he’d imagined. “You mean he encourages his daughters to ‘tuck in’
the guests?”
Deacon laughed. “Hell, no! He catches one of them doing that, he might take a shotgun to you.”
That was something of a relief. “Then what—?”
“I mean a bride.”
Any fleeting sense of relief Aren had felt disappeared. “A what? ”
“The McAllens have a lot of daughters, and not many eligible sons around here to marry them off to.”
“I’m not getting married!”
Deacon laughed. “No, not tonight you ain’t. I’m just saying, they’ll likely be sizing you up as a possible husband.”
“Holy Saints, that’s the last thing I need.”
“It’s possible they’ll hold off. Wait to see if you pan out before letting one of their girls marry you.”
“Is there anything I can do to discourage them?”
Deacon laughed, and somehow the look he turned on Aren seemed far more congenial than it had been before. “Make yourself look like bad husband material, I guess.”
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“How do I do that?”
“I don’t know. Never thought about it before. I suppose act stupid. Or mean.”
Nobody in the world would believe Aren if he tried to act mean. Stupid, though?
Stupid he thought he could do.
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About the Author
Marie Sexton lives in Colorado. She’s a fan of just about anything that involves muscular young men piling on top of each other. In particular, she loves the Denver Broncos and enjoys going to the games with her husband. Her imaginary friends often tag along. Marie has one daughter, two cats, and one dog, all of whom seem bent on destroying what remains of her sanity. She loves them anyway.
Email: msexton.author@gmail.com
Marie loves to hear from readers. You can find her contact information, website and author biography at http://www.total-e-bound.com.
Also by Marie Sexton
Song of Oestend
Saviours of Oestend
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Document Outline
A Runaway Reef
The Pros and Cons
As Master Wishes
Ned Land
At Random!
At Full Steam
A Whale of Unknown Species
‘Mobilis in Mobili’
The Tantrums of Ned Land
The Man of the Waters
The Nautilus
Everything through Electricity
Some Figures
The Black Current
An Invitation in Writing
Strolling the Plains
An Underwater Forest
Four Thousand Leagues Under the Pacific
Vanikoro
The Torres Strait
Some Days Ashore
The Lightning Bolts of Captain Nemo
“Aegri Somnia”
The Coral Realm
The Indian Ocean
A New Proposition from Captain Nemo
A Pearl Worth Ten Million
Arabian Tunnel
The Greek Islands
The Mediterranean in Forty-Eight Hours
The Bay of Vigo
A Lost Continent
The Underwater Coalfields
The Sargasso Sea
Sperm Whales and Baleen Whales
The Ice Bank
The South Pole
Accident or Incident?
Shortage of Air
From Cape Horn to the Amazon
The Devilfish
The Gulf Stream
In Latitude 47 degrees 24’ and Longitude 17 degrees 28’
A Mass Execution
The Last Words of Captain Nemo
Conclusion
Table of Contents
A Runaway Reef
The Pros and Cons
As Master Wishes
Ned Land
At Random!
At Full Steam
A Whale of Unknown Species
‘Mobilis in Mobili’
The Tantrums of Ned Land
The Man of the Waters
The Nautilus
Everything through Electricity
Some Figures
The Black Current
An Invitation in Writing
Strolling the Plains
An Underwater Forest
Four Thousand Leagues Under the Pacific
Vanikoro
The Torres Strait
Some Days Ashore
The Lightning Bolts of Captain Nemo
“Aegri Somnia”
The Coral Realm
The Indian Ocean
A New Proposition from Captain Nemo
A Pearl Worth Ten Million
The Red Sea
Arabian Tunnel
The Greek Islands
The Mediterranean in Forty-Eight Hours
The Bay of Vigo
A Lost Continent
The Underwater Coalfields
The Sargasso Sea
Sperm Whales and Baleen Whales
The Ice Bank
The South Pole
Accident or Incident?
Shortage of Air
From Cape Horn to the Amazon
The Devilfish
The Gulf Stream
In Latitude 47 degrees 24’ and Longitude 17 degrees 28’
A Mass Execution
The Last Words of Captain Nemo
Conclusion