Here Comes the Bride Read Online Free PDF Page A

and Gabe knew it full well, but he wasn’t sure he could handle the whole truth in one fell swoop anyway, so he decided not to push his luck. There was one thing he couldn’t quite get a handle on though.
    “So how is it if you’re worth almost three hundred dollars to my brother, he just up and let you walk away?” His face darkened like an August storm. “Or did he exact payment from you in some other way?”
    “Oh, no, nothing like that!” Tess’s eyes skittered over his and then back down to her lap. “I just left. Well, to be perfectly honest, I didn’t just leave, I borrowed some of his winnings before I left—just to get me out here, you see, and then I was going to wire it all back to him.”
    A huge smile spread across Gabe’s face. This story just kept getting better.
    “You stole from my brother?”
    “Well, I wouldn’t exactly call it stealing, Mr. Calloway.”
    “Did you ask if you could take it?”
    “N-no, I didn’t.”
    “Did he offer it to you?”
    “No.”
    “Then that, Miss Kinley, is stealing. You’re a thief!”
    “I most certainly am not! I fully intend to repay your brother—with interest—once I am able.”
    Gabe chuckled. “You know what they say about good intentions.”
    Tess was on her feet in an instant, her fists clenching and unclenching on her hips.
    “Mr. Calloway, I assure you—”
    “Now don’t go getting your knickers all in a bunch, I’m not going to turn you in. Fact is, nothing makes me happier than when someone does a turn to Bart he probably would’ve done to them if the opportunity presented itself. You were smart to get away when you had the chance.”
    Tess sunk down into her chair, looking twice as weary than when she first arrived. Gabe watched her fingers twitch in her lap and her teeth chew on her bottom lip.
    “How old are you, Miss Kinley?”
    “Old enough to know that is not a question a gentleman asks a lady.”
    He chuckled again, low in his throat. “I never claimed to be a gentleman, Miss Kinley, and you have yet to prove to me you are indeed a lady.”
    “Why I . . .”
    “You what?” he asked, enjoying all too much the way her neck flushed when she became angry. “All I’ve learned about you is your father should have taken you over his knee and prevented this whole mess from happening. But instead, you’ve bounced from one man to another to another until you landed here. You know nothing about me and yet here you are, sitting on my porch—only half dressed—and you claim to be a lady? I think the real ladies here in town would have a different opinion, don’t you?”
    “But I’ve done nothing wrong,” she hurriedly explained. “I am a good, virtuous woman who . . .”
    “Who happens to be a thief and who doesn’t mind sitting here, in make-do night clothes, with a man you’ve just met and not a chaperone in sight. Hell, the only other woman for miles is Rosa, and since she’s not even married to Miguel, she doesn’t count either!”
    Tess gasped. “She told me he was her husband!”
    That piece of news always seemed to cause a stir. “They’ve lived as man and wife for as long as I’ve known them, but they are not legally married.”
    “Oh my!” Shocked at the revelation, Tess thought no less of either Rosa or Miguel. In fact, she actually admired them—it was such a daring thing to do.
    They sat in the evening silence, both lost in their own thoughts, both sneaking glances at the other as if sizing each other up. It was very distracting to Tess having him sit so close to her. He did not frighten her in any way, even when he yelled like a maddened bear, but the smell of leather and sunshine that clung to him was more than she could possibly be expected to take and not lose her train of thought. It was no wonder she rambled on like a crazy woman.
    Gabe’s mind couldn’t have been more muddled. She couldn’t stay here. He would send her back, but there was something about her. She pulled him in every time she