Page 3 of The Rancher Who Swore Off Love
The tightness around Jonah’s jaw loosened, and he broke into that crooked grin of his, the one that’d gotten him out of more trouble than any man had a right to escape. He squeezed her shoulder and pulled a stub of pencil from the same pocket the advertisement had come from, like he’d known all along she’d say yes.
Of course, he knew.
“Right.” He smoothed the advertisement against his knee and flipped it over to the blank side. “Let’s see.Dear Mr. Foster.No. Too stiff.”
“That’s how letters start, Jonah.”
“Hush.” He chewed the end of the pencil. “To the rancher seeking a wife.Sounds like a dime novel.Sir.JustSir?”
“That’s worse. I’m not writing to a schoolmaster.”
“Fair enough. Keep it simple, then.Dear Mr. Foster, my name is Grace Linton, and I am writing in response to your advertisement.Straight to business. Man like that’ll appreciate a woman who don’t beat around the bush.”
Grace tugged the pencil from his grip. “Let me do it.”
She pressed the paper flat against the cot’s thin mattress and started writing.
Dear Mr. Foster,
My name is Grace Linton. I am twenty-one years of age and currently reside in New York. I am responding to your advertisement for a wife and housekeeper.
“Tell him you can cook.”
“Icancook.”
“Well then, put it down! Man’s livin’ on a ranch with who knows how many hands. They’re probably eatin’ beans coldoutta the tin and callin’ it supper. You gotta sell yourself here, Gracie.”
She swatted at him with the back of her free hand and kept writing.
Dear Mr. Foster,
My name is Grace Linton, and I am writing in response to your advertisement for a bride. I will not waste your time pretending to be anything fancy or particularly accomplished. I can cook plain food and keep a house clean and mend clothes so they hold together for another season. I have no fortune and no family name worth mentioning.
But I will tell you what I do have.
I have a brother who is the only soul left in this world that shares my blood, and keeping him safe and fed has been the purpose of my days since I was ten years old. So I understand what it means to hold a family together when everything around you tries to pull it apart. I know what it costs, and I know what it’s worth, and I would not trade it for all the comfort money can buy.
If you will have me, Mr. Foster, I promise you this. I will not just keep your house. I will make it a home. I will bring what happiness I can to your family, and I will treat your people as my own, because I know what it is to lose the people you love, and I would give anything to belong to a family again.
Yours respectfully, Grace Linton.
She held the scrap up. “Anything else?”
Jonah took it from her gently, holding it by the edges the way a person holds something precious, and read through her words with his lips moving just slightly. He’d learned to read later than she had, and the habit had stuck. After a moment, he nodded.
“That’ll do just fine. Real fine, Gracie.”
“Now what?”
“Now we scrape together the postage.” He folded the letter with careful creases and tucked it into his shirt pocket. “And then we wait.”
Grace pulled the quilt around her shoulders and looked toward the window. The morning had brightened enough to show the roofline of the building next door, the rusted gutters, the gray sky pressing low over the city like a lid. Somewhere below, the docks groaned and clanked as the early workers started loading freight, and the smell of brine and tar filtered through the gap in the glass.
Pitkin, Colorado.
A place she couldn’t picture. A man she’d never met. A life assembled from a scrap of newsprint and a prayer, which, cometo think of it, described just about every life her family had ever built.
She turned from the window.
