Bride School: Mary (The Brides of Diamond Springs Ranch 4) Read Online Free PDF

destroy the wall
between himself and his father, and those would-be bridegrooms would be able to
start the ground shaking.
    Surely such a plan would make up for abandoning
his parents for the night.
    He looked at the teacher again and wondered if the
man might be part of his penance. He forced a smile. “That sounds fine, sir,”
he said. “But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. These fine ladies have been
promised a night of dancing, and we’d better do our part.”
    Jarvis turned to look over the females who waited
patiently for their promised punch, and he frowned slightly as if he’d
forgotten they were even there. “You’re right of course.”
    “You’ll excuse me.” John stepped around the
shorter man and headed toward Miss Campbell. As he wove through the other
dancers he was struck, once again, by how old the rest of the men seemed. Well,
not old so much as… not young . During conversations over cards,
and then again while waiting for the women to arrive, John had never once
considered their ages. But business was business. Money was money. Age played
no part.
    However, after meeting Alexandra Campbell—knowing
she’d been sent to Sage River as a potential bride for one of these men—every
whisker, every gray hair and shining pate was an insult to her youth. How dare
they suppose a pretty, intelligent young girl should be robbed of an equally
young man at her side? The idea was akin to pouring new milk in with sour.
    The girl deserved better. She deserved younger.
She deserved to see the world a little—to have the chance to meet men with
different-colored eyes, different shades of hair. How could a woman of her age
and limited experience possibly have the sense to know which man in twelve
would be the best husband for her? And what a horrible waste if her life’s
experience was limited to little more than a dirt road between Sage River and a
homestead where she would choke on dust until the day she was laid low beneath
it.
    Once again he thought of the mountain girl and
that fateful kiss. And though that kiss had cost him a friend and ruined the
remainder of a very fine summer, he wouldn’t have changed a thing. Mary
would’ve been about 17 years old by now. But she was probably tucked safely
under her father’s roof, far away from any man that wasn’t family.
    Mary.
    If he saddled a horse in the morning and headed up
through the snow, would he find Fritz and his family again? He’d looked before.
When he was sixteen, he’d gone back up the mountain, but the house had been
empty. The horse was gone, the other animals too. There had been no word in
town of what might have happened to the Radleys. For all he knew they could
have caught a fever and died. She might be lying in a grave marked with nothing
more than a pretty rock, or a clumsy cross.
    Or maybe they had returned to that house…
    Mary Radley was with him still. Everywhere he went
he took her along. The symbol he used as his signature on all his work may as
well have been a portrait of her face. And he thought of her each and every
time he used it. In fact, if not for that mountain girl he might have never
discovered his talent and his love for art.
    A week after that fateful kiss, he’d been unable
to sleep, restless with regrets. He’d wandered into the shop and found his
father’s tools, and on a piece of scrap leather, he’d used those tools to give
form to his memory of Mary. That was the beginning. And now, seven years later,
that little emblem was as much a part of him as his own name. More, maybe.
    John handed Alexandra her cup of punch and tried
to ignore his imagination. The female fiddle player climbed back upon her box.
The dances had gone in the same order as the week before, and his heart lurched
when he realized what the woman was about to say.
    He quickly turned to the girl. “You’ll have to
dance with the others now. Everyone will be forced to dance with everyone else.
If we try to stay together, someone will get