Jane Goodger Read Online Free PDF

thought she’d give him—guilt, shame, defiance—he had least expected her to begin laughing.
    “I’m what?” she asked between perfectly unladylike guffaws.
    “Is it possible?” he asked, for some reason praying it was not so.
    “Are you telling me that the only reason for a woman to faint is because she is pregnant? What sort of doctor are you?” she said, giggling. “Unless my name is Mary and my husband is Joseph, I do believe I am not with child.”
    Boone felt his cheeks flush. “It seemed likely, given you came all the way from England chasing after my brother.”
    Now it was Amelia’s turn to flush. “I was not ‘chasing after’ your brother. He is my fiancé and we planned for me to come to Texas. Next time you make such a prognosis, Doctor, perhaps you should get more information. That sort of erroneous diagnosis could ruin a girl. Even the hint of such a thing. But perhaps Texas is so far removed from polite society, you were unaware of that.”
    “It seems to me that if Carson had a fiancée, he might have mentioned it to me,” Boone said, feeling his temper inexplicably rise. He rarely showed his anger and he disliked people intensely who did. Taking a calming breath, he stood.
    “I did mention her,” Carson said, smiling from the doorway.
    Carson had mentioned many women he’d met in England, Boone knew. It was that he’d failed to mention he had a fiancée.
    “Now what are you two fightin’ about?” Carson asked. “You look like a couple of cats vyin’ for the same mouse.” Boone and Amelia both glared darkly at Carson.
    “Your brother insulted me,” Amelia said, lifting her chin. Carson gave Boone a sharp look, and Amelia hastened to add, “Well, not in a calculated way.”
    “She fainted, and I thought she might be pregnant,” Boone admitted.
    Carson’s eyes widened, and he let out a whistle. “If there’s one thing Amelia aims to protect, it’s her virtue.”
    “As it should be,” Amelia said.
    “She did faint.”
    “It’s hot here,” she said. “Neither of you seem to notice. In fact, other than that mangy dog in front of your store, no one seems to notice.”
    “It’s not hot,” the men said in unison.
    “And the dog’s not mangy. He’s just old,” Boone said.
    Amelia picked up the wet cloth and pressed it against her cheek. She looked like she was about to cry, and Boone wouldn’t have blamed her if she did. He couldn’t imagine traveling all that way, expecting a happy fiancé and a prosperous ranch, and finding his brother instead.
    “You should lie here and rest,” Boone said. “You’re not used to the heat. It gets cool at night, don’t worry.”
    “Cool?” Amelia asked, with rather a pathetic amount of hope.
    “Temperatures can drop to the sixties.”
    “That sounds purely delightful,” she said, looking at Carson with such love it made Boone want to leave the room.
    He did, followed by Carson, and went down the hall to the store. He’d always planned to have Carson help out and eventually run the store, but his younger brother had never shown any interest in doing so. Some days Boone was so busy with his practice and running the emporium, it was near impossible. If it wasn’t for Agatha, he wouldn’t have been able to manage. When the ranches were getting ready to drive the cattle to Abilene, they went through Small Fork and both his mercantile and doctor’s office were busy. But all the ranches had already begun their drives, leaving Small Fork sedate and quiet for a time.
    When they reached the relative privacy of the store, Carson let out a foul curse. “What the hell am I gonna do?” he said, looking to Boone for answers as he always had.
    “The way I see it, you either marry her or you don’t.”
    Carson gave him a dark look, but Boone had little patience for his brother’s dilemma. It was just one in a long line of dilemmas Carson had gotten himself into, and this one, he decided, his little brother was just going to have