Page 14 of The Rancher Who Swore Off Love
“On a train. Four days of it. Because somebody,” she jabbed a finger past the rifle toward the younger man, “put an advertisement in the paper for a mail-order bride and I answered it.”
Logan blinked. “A mail-orderwhat?”
“Bride. A bride. As in a wife. As in the thing you advertised for in the newspaper, Mr. Foster, or did you forget you did that?”
“I sure as Sunday didn’t advertise for no—” He stopped. His mouth tightened, and then he turned on the old man. “Pa. You know anything about this?”
The old man lowered the rifle a few inches, which put the barrel at Grace’s collarbone instead of her cheekbone. Progress, she supposed, if she could call that progress.
“Don’t look at me, boy. First I’m hearin’ of it.”
“Then who in the Sam Hill—”
And then the baby screamed.Screamed.The sound tore through the doorway, bounced off the porch roof, and rattled something deep in Grace’s chest, some instinct that had nothing to do with rifles or advertisements or the fact that she’d just walked three miles on a blister the size of a silver dollar.
She frowned. “That child needs tendin’ to.”
“The child isfine.”
Logan hitched the baby higher against his shoulder, which only made it arch its back and wail harder. And of course, ontop of everything, a glob of something that could’ve been milk dribbled from the corner of its mouth onto his collar.
“The child is just fussy on account of it bein’ dropped on my property this mornin’ by Lord knows who, and now you show up on my doorstep spinnin’ some yarn about—”
“I ain’t spinnin’nothin’! I’ve got the letter right here in my pocket, and I’ve got the train ticket your brother bought me… and if you’d stop hollerin’ for half a second and let me show you—”
“My brother? Which brother?”
“Mason.”
“Mason?” Every syllable came out of Logan like he’d chipped it off a block of ice with a pick. “Mason bought you a ticket.”
“He did. Sent it right to my address in New York along with two pages of very nice penmanship explainin’ how y’all can’t cook worth a lick and your kitchen needs a woman’s touch. His words, not mine.”
At that, the old man made a sound somewhere between a cough and a laugh and covered it by stroking his mustache. Next to him, Logan ground his teeth so hard the muscle jumped beneath his skin.
From behind Grace, boots pounded up the porch steps.
“Hold on, hold on, hold on now, everybody justhold on!”
Two men scrambled into view, both of them gulping air and dripping sweat as they crowded onto the porch on either side of Grace in a tangle of hats and spurs.
The stocky one with the round face planted himself between Grace and the rifle with both palms raised, while the taller one, all jaw and dark hair and looking like he’d rather be anywhere else on God’s green earth, stepped up behind the old man and put a hand on his arm, guiding the gun barrel toward the floor.
“Pa, for the love of—she ain’t a trespasser. Logan, stop growlin’. Everybody just simmer down a minute.”
“Mason,” Logan said the name the way a preacher sayssin.“You got aboutten secondsto explain to me why this woman is standin’ on our porch claimin’ I sent for a bride.”
The stocky one, Mason, pulled off his hat and wrung the brim between both hands. Up close, he looked even younger than his years.
“Well, now, see, here’s the thing.” He shot a look at the taller brother, who responded by examining the porch railing as if he’djust discovered it for the first time. “Thomas and I, we might’ve... taken some initiative.”
“Initiative.”
“We placed the ad, Logan.” The taller one, Thomas, delivered it flat, like ripping a bandage. “A couple months back. In the New York papers. For a mail-order bride.”
“Why—”
“For you.”
