Deborah Camp Read Online Free PDF

your acquaintance,” he said, and his voice was the same as old, husky and soft, so that it always seemed he was whispering.
    His lips touched hers, cool and light, like a snowflake. She knew a moment’s madness when she wanted to fling her arms around him, open to him, and press her beating heart against his. Shocked, she moved backward with a jerk and touched her fingertips to her stinging lips. He smiled at her reaction, as if he had read her thoughts, had tracked the restlessness of her soul.
    “This is a sham,” Adele stated, then turned quickly away when she noticed that Pastor Simons had heard her and was looking at her with concern. “I mean … Oh, never mind. Thank you, Pastor. I do appreciate you marrying us on such short notice.”
    “Why, I’m pleased to do it, Sister Adele, but you sure have stirred up a hornet’s nest with this marriage of yours.” Pastor Simons craned his neck to see out onto the sunlit porch steps of the small chapel. Disgruntled voices floated in from outside. “Some of themen don’t think too kindly of you sending off for a husband when any number of them would have been all too willing to wed you.”
    “Yes, I know.” She clutched the bouquet of wildflowers Reno had presented to her when he’d collected her at the depot restaurant. “And they could marry the available women in this town as well.”
    “Not many of those,” the pastor noted.
    “Oh?” Adele arched a brow. “From what I understand, the saloons are full of them.”
    “Well, yes, but those women are sinners, Sister Adele!” The pastor’s eyes grew large behind the thick lenses of his glasses.
    “So are the men who pay for their pleasures, Pastor Simons. You should know that.”
    Reno gripped Adele firmly by the elbow and ushered her toward the door. “I’m sure the preacher doesn’t have time for a sermon this morning, Dellie.” He pressed a shiny coin into the man’s hand. “Much obliged.”
    Pastor Simons glanced at the coin and smiled. “Bless you, Mr. Gold. I trust you will be a member of our congregation, beginning this Sunday.”
    Reno gave a wink. “I’ll be honeymooning this Sunday, I reckon.”
    Adele felt her face flame. She twisted out of Reno’s grasp and headed swiftly for the arched doorway, her shoes tapping smartly on the plank floor.
    The first face she saw outside belonged to Yancy Stummer. He jeered at her, then flapped a hand in sheer disgust. Beside him Willie Halderon skulked, his lower lip pushed out and his eyes small and moist.
    “I woulda married ya,” Willie muttered. “Didn’thafta join up with that there drunken coyote.”
    Adele tried to ignore them as she positioned her bonnet over her black hair and tied a big bow under her chin. What was done was done, she told herself, and it was too late to wallow in regrets.
    Of course, deep down she knew she had married Reno not to prove anything so much as to appease the call of her own womanhood. Reno Gold had meant something to her back when she was a girl, and now that she was a woman, she had a better understanding of those feelings. When she was in his presence she felt sublimely feminine and supremely attractive. If Reno could make her feel such wondrous things, then she owed it to him to make him realize his true magnificence. He needed someone to love him, and she felt certain she could do that—quite easily, if he proved to be an enthusiastic student.
    Her mother would have been proud of her for having the fortitude to carry through with the wedding and help Reno reach his potential. Besides, her mother had always liked Reno.
    “That young Reno is like a sunrise,” her mother had once said of him. “Colorful and chock-full of possibilities.”
    Smiling to herself, Adele slipped on her gloves and turned a deaf ear to the angry voices both inside and out that were telling her that her marriage was wrong.
    Reno savored the shape of Adele’s body against the sunlight pouring through the doorway. God, she was a