Page 26 of A Bride for Brodie

Brodie stoppedat the General Store before heading home. He needed some ribbons for Lottie…and he needed to tell her the trouble he was in…if he could tell her at all. He’d told her she could tell him anything, but was he willing to do the same and tell her? He didn’t have much choice now. Soon the whole family would know what a failure he was.

A bell rang as he entered, and the screen door slammed behind him.

“Brodie, what are you doing in town?”

Efrem Diggs, the grocer, was a short, stout man in a white shirt, black pants and a long white apron tied at his waist. Brodie had never seen him wear anything else.

“I need some ribbons for my wife.”

Efrem chuckled. “I’ve never sold so many fripperies and candy as I have since you boys began courting your wives. Best thing for my business in years.”

“I’m glad we’ve been able to help. I’m even more glad you’ve been able to help us. Those women are purely vindictive if they don’t get their courtin’ gifts.” He remembered the first night when Lottie had told him she wanted to be courted. Then she was going to withhold having relations until she got her present. That didn’t last. He smiled.

Laughing harder, Efrem clasped his arms over his stomach. “Women are always that way. Yours aren’t any different from mine. To this day, she still expects me to bring little gifts home occasionally. And if I’ve waited too long, she lets me know.”

“Well, darn. I was hoping Lottie would grow out of this.”

“Nope. And when you have children, you better get something really special to thank her for each child because your wife goes through Hell when she gives birth. Trust me on this.”

Brodie raised his hands. “Stop. You’ve already told me more than I want to know.” He looked into the glass case he and Efrem stood in front of. Pretty colored bottles sparkled in the sunshine coming through the window.

Efrem chuckled again. “Okay. I’ll stop scaring you. What ribbons do you want?”

“Actually, I’ve changed my mind.” He pointed at the pretty bottles. “Do you have any lilac water?”

“Sure do. Always keep it in stock. It’s the wife’s favorite.”

“Apparently, for my wife, too.”

Brodie paid for the purchase and headed home to Lottie. To tell her what, he wasn’t sure.

* * *

Lottie was alonein the kitchen. Gwen and Clay were upstairs. Fiona, Ross and the girls were on a picnic. Maisie and Frank were gone somewhere, but Lottie didn’t know where. And Ivy and Tucker went to check out their house.

She thought everything was going well with Brodie. Too well. He didn’t know her real background, but he didn’t care she was a bank robber. Would he care that she was a gambler and a card sharp?

He wanted to have relations with her all the time, but she couldn’t do that as much as she would like to. She had chores to do, and so did he.

What did he want with a girl like her? She wasn’t typical ranch wife material. The only reason she knew how to do things like milk a cow was because she’d learned in prison.

She’d been good in school, what little of it she could attend. Her father made her quit after the seventh grade because he sold Maisie and wanted Lottie to himself. She never understood her father or what he really wanted from her. She could guess, but he never let himself go that far. Maybe that was the reason he beat her so often. She supposed she should be thankful for that. What she was thankful for were the bullets he always kept in the pistol, regardless of how poor they were. Thankful she was an excellent shot. She squeezed her eyes shut to rid herself of the memory.

Lottie heard Brodie ride in and ran to greet him. The afternoon was cool for a change. She thought they might even get some much needed rain. She was tired of watering the garden.

She met him in the barn just as he was removing the saddle and putting it away.

“Hi. I’m glad you’re back.”

“I told you I’d be back. Come here.” He opened his arms.

She went into them willingly and absorbed his warmth, without even realizing she was cold. Good grief, it was July in Arizona Territory. She should not be cold but it was cooler by a few degrees, anyway.

“I’m glad you miss me. Lottie, there’s something I have to talk to you about. Take a walk with me. Let’s go see the house. I’ve been able to do quite a bit of work on it with the help of a couple of the cowboys. When the cattle are out to pasture like they are now, the cowboys aren’t as busy with mending fences or branding, or anything else much, so we use them for other projects.”

She unwound herself from him. “Okay. I’ve been wanting to see how you were doing. I haven’t been out there since we first got married, and that’s nearly a month ago.”

He tucked her hand in the crook of his arm. “All right then, let’s go see our new home.”