Brides of the West Read Online Free PDF

composure with what she hoped was
an inaudible sniff, she slid one hand along the rail for a guide
until her foot encountered the seat’s solid leg. “Thank you.”
    “You’re welcome.” He lowered himself onto the
other end and swung his booted heels up on the rail with a deep
sigh of contentment. “I reckon I favor this end of the day.”
    She ought to be looking at the stars, at the
beauty of nature, but sight of his muscled thighs in tight black
pants held her fixated. Oh great heavens. If she could see him...
She glanced down at her nightgown and was relieved to discover that
while a shaft of light from her room fell across him, she remained
cloaked in the deeper shadow of the porch.
    The silence lingered comfortably along with
his cigar smoke. Now, sitting still, she could once more feel the
breeze on her face. It fluttered her gown around her ankles.
Delicious. Cooling.
    “Have you lived here long?” she asked.
    “All my life.”
    “It is...” She struggled for a word to
describe her awe. Big did not seem nearly expressive enough.
“Magnificent. Grand.” She laughed softly. “Beautiful.”
    “Different to where you come from?
England?”
    “Very. I lived in London, near Cheapside. You
can barely see the sky for smoke and chimney pots.”
    “Don’t sound like my kinda place.”
    Not in her wildest dreams could she imagine
this loose-limbed cowboy in a top hat and a starched white cravat.
“I like it there,” she said firmly. Exactly who did she hope to
convince?
    “Then what brought you all the way out here
to be married?”
    She hesitated, unwilling to reveal too much
of the truth. Her body might ache to throw itself into his arms
instead of sitting all prim and proper on the chair at his side,
but she had no reason at all to make him a gift of her trust.
    “It’s a long story,” she said. “And of very
little interest.”
    ***
    The husky, almost scratchy, timbre of her
voice set Jake’s blood alight in a ribbon of fire every time she
opened her mouth. Listening to her, inhaling the smell of his soap
on her skin laced with her uniquely female scent was almost as good
as sex. Almost.
    Hell. He’d been semi-aroused since the moment
he’d seen her dozing in the sun. But her avoidance of his question
piqued another kind of emotion. Curiosity. A desire to know her
better. Something he rarely felt about women anymore.
    “I’ve got all night,” he said.
    Again she gave that low hoarse chuckle with
its sharp edge. Blood rushed to his groin as if he was sixteen
instead of going on thirty. If this continued, his balls’d be bluer than Uncle Raven’s warpaint by
morning. Cuss it, he’d have to make a trip to the privy to take
care of the matter before he tried to sleep with her not four feet
from his head. And in his bed, no less. Dammit.
    “It really isn’t a very interesting tale.”
She gazed out into the night. Against the lamplight, her profile
looked sharp, pointy, nervous, like a fox or a wild cat with its
claws barely sheathed.
    “You don’t look old enough to be a widow,” he
said speculatively.
    Her head shot around to look in his direction
as if she sought his expression. Could she see his face in the
shadows? He thought not, but kept it noncommittal.
    “I married young. My husband was an older
gentleman. A friend of the family. A businessman interested in putting money in our family business. It
seemed like a good arrangement at the time.” She spoke quickly,
then paused as if expecting his comment.
    “Not so different from a mail order bride,”
he said, feeling just a mite uncomfortable.
    “No,” she murmured. “Not so very different,
except that I had known him all my life. He was a good, kind man.
It was the perfect solution to some money problems my parents had
at the time.”
    “What happened to your husband?”
    “Influenza. Two years ago. It killed a few
people in our neighborhood, mostly the very young and the elderly,
including my husband and my father. I did my