A Valentine's Choice: A Montana Sky Series Holiday Novella (The Montana Sky Series) Read Online Free PDF Page B

hadn’t warmed him enough from the long sleigh ride. The barn was dim and cold, lit only by lantern light and weak sunlight filtering through cracks, but not nearly as bad as out in the open. He inhaled the familiar smell of horse and hay, feeling an odd sense of contentment and excitement. With the arrival of Miss Bridget O’Donnell, his life had just changed, and he was impatient to get on with the business of courting her.
    In one stall, Deuce was busy rubbing Dusty down.
    Patrick Gallagher worked on the same task with Thunder.
    As usual, James stopped to eye the stallion, as fine a piece of horseflesh as he’d ever seen but with an unexpectedly gentle temperament. You’d think a Thoroughbred as black as the night would have a devil temper to match. Gallagher had sure lucked out with this stud. James checked his thoughts. No, to give the man his due, the horse was well-trained.
    Gallagher caught him eyeing the stallion. His hand on the currycomb didn’t stop, but he gave James a friendly nod. “So how did you end up bringing two unexpected lady visitors to the ranch?”
    “Found them at the train station. They were planning to go to the O’Donnell’s out on the prairie. But I’d stopped to speak to Erik Muth, a neighbor who was delivering milk to the mercantile, who told me of the illness of Mrs. O’Donnell. The ladies could hardly descend on a house of illness, so I suggested bringing them to their cousin, Sally.”
    “Quick thinking on your part.”
    James remained silent. He hadn’t acted out of self-interest. The two women needed a place to stay, and he’d had a solution. But then he thought of his attraction to Bridget. Well, at least mostly from unselfish motives.
    “I do like Miss Bridget, although it probably doesn’t matter which one I’d chose…if I were to chose. They’re alike as two peas in a pod.” Patrick hesitated and appeared to think. “Well, the glimpse I had of Miss Alana, she was thinner, and I do like a woman with more meat on her bones.”
    James bristled. “You make Miss Bridget sound like a pig to fatten up for dinner.”
    “That’s one way to put it. But I sure look forward to seeing her cleaned up and not wearing a coat and hat.”
    “She’s pretty, just the way she is,” James muttered, gripping the stall.
    “Well, I’ll wait and see. I have certain standards of what I require in a wife.”
    Wife. James’s heart sank. He knew Gallagher traveled all over with his stud and had plenty of opportunities to meet women.
    Why did he have to settle on the one I’ve chosen?
    * * *
    Clean from head to toe from their bath and wrapped in borrowed robes, Bridget and Alana sat with their backs to the stove, drying their long hair. Bridget had never seen such a big kitchen, replete with a table covered with a red-and-white checked cloth that matched the curtains, as well as an icebox, pie safe, china hutch, and great black cast-iron stove with its pipe angling up through the ceiling. Why, the whole main room of our cottage at home could fit in here with space to spare.
    Alana swayed in a rocking chair, petting the head of Matilda, the elderly black and tan dog.
    Bridget had chosen a straight chair. The red seat cushion made it comfortable.
    They chatted with Mrs. Toffels as she alternated between ironing their wrinkled Sunday dresses and cooking dinner. The short, plump housekeeper, with a cheerful round face and gray hair, had refused to let them help with the tasks, insisting they take their ease after such a long, arduous journey. Mrs. Toffels had washed their undergarments, which now hung over the stove, the water drips just missing the pot of beef stew and an iron heating up to be switched out with the one she currently wielded. The simmering stew filled the room with a rich scent.
    “There.” The housekeeper set down the second iron on the stovetop next to the other one and held up the blue dress. “You can go change, Miss Alana.” She glanced out the window. “The