Happy Is The Bride Read Online Free PDF

intention of disappointing her husband. Would being a good wife be as impossible as being a good daughter?
     
    ****
    Mason watched the women until they made the bend in the road. Then he grabbed his pitchfork. The sun still shone and the stifling heat slowed them, but he and Rowdy spread straw in low spots where no grass grew and at the base of the steps so folks alight ing from buggies could step on it instead of damp ground.
    Mason wondered why his soon-to-be mother-in-law was so impossible to please. How had Beth endured constant criticism without becoming hard and cyni cal? He didn't know, but somehow she had. He knew his bride helped many less fortunate citizens in the community, and she tried to be kind to everyone. Thank goodness she'd finally be his wife.
    When they'd finished, Mason looked inside the chapel. Unwilling to enter with dirty boots, he stood in the doorway. He visualized Beth and him standing at the altar. The day he'd secretly dreamed of for years had finally become reality. Damned if he wasn't the luckiest man in the state.
    Rowdy climbed the steps and stood beside him. "Looks purty, don't it, boss? Reckon if you're deter mined to go through with this, there ain't a more fitting place."
    Mason ignored Rowdy's remark as he carefully de scended the stairs. He sure wasn't looking to break his leg like George Denby had. "Wait until you see it this evening with the candles lit and the prettiest woman in all of Texas standing next to me."
    Rowdy followed. "She's a looker all right and seems nice to boot, but danged if that mother of hers isn't a snippy old biddy. Couldn't please her with a blessing."
    'Yeah, but the lucky thing is that Beth isn't turned like either of her parents." And Mason could hardly wait to get her in his bed. From the way she had responded just now, she would be a willing lover, not anything like the cold Ice Queen the gossips had labeled her.
    Secretly, he'd suspected that all along. He knew for certain that she was a warm and compassionate woman who loved children and longed for a home of her own. Each time she had been promised to some one else had been hell for him. He'd fought with himself each time, told himself over and over that the man chosen for her would be a better husband than he ever could be. After all, he had this bum leg and lived on a ranch away from town and all the niceties she was accustomed to.
    The relief he had experienced as each wedding fell through sawed at his conscience. He had rejoiced in his heart that Beth wouldn't spend the night in bed with another man who had made her his woman. But every one of those occasions had torn a little piece of Mason's heart away that she hadn't stood up to her parents and chosen him. He knew how the Pendletons deviled her, nagged until they bent her to their will. Just once, he wished she'd stand up to them and speak her own mind.
    Mason smiled. She had in a way, by asking him to marry her. Darned if that didn't stick in her pompous parents' craw. But they'd given reluctant permission because they believed the gossip that had grown with each cancelled wedding. He'd have thought the par ents of such a wonderful woman would have more faith in her.
    "If it don't rain, you're gonna be mad as hell we went to all this trouble." Rowdy tossed his fork into the wagon.
    Mason peered at the horizon. “Those clouds build ing in the southwest haven't turned threatening, but the ache in my leg never lies. It's gonna rain." He laid his pitchfork next to Rowdy's.
    "Well, then I believe it. 'Pears to me that leg of yours is better than any barometer for predicting a change in the weather."
    When he'd climbed up on the wagon seat, Mason rubbed his temples. "Dang, my head's pounding like a sonofabitch."
    "Reckon you shouldn't a been in the sun like this so soon after banging your head."
    "Likely not." Mason handed the reins to Rowdy. "Maybe you'd better drive. Drop me at my folks' place, then you can take the wagon back to the ranch."
    "Sure