Jillian Hart Read Online Free PDF Page B

handsome in a pampered sort of way. "Will you ask me if you need help?"
    She'd asked him to chase off the rustlers, but he hadn't made good on his promise—not like John Murray.
    "Lissa!" Susan Russell called above the sounds of the street and the gathering crowd outside the white peaked church.
    "Good-bye, Ike." She walked away with some sadness. Once, before she'd met Michael, she'd had a brief crush on Palmer. Of course, she was a schoolgirl then who had no idea what she wanted in a husband, in a man.
    "Lissa." Jeremiah's hand felt cool in hers as he met her on the top step. "Blanche is in the front row watching over Chad. She thought you would want to sit next to her today."
    "I will." Lissa swallowed hard, uncertain how to walk through that door. Her decision to marry a man from so far away, a man she'd never met, had sent tongues wagging all through Sweetwater Gulch. Now she would have to meet their judging gazes again.
    One step inside the church, and cold sweat dampened her palms. She looked up at the families crowding the rows and rows of handcarved pews, and saw more than one pitying gaze. Murmurs rose like a tidal wave, crashing over her.
    Embarrassed, Lissa lowered her eyes and somehow made it to the front of the church, next to her son and best friend.
    "You look nervous," Blanche said in her gentle voice. She reached over to pull one of her boys off the back of the neighboring pew. "Whatever happens, it's meant to be. You remember that. Everything will work out just fine. I can feel it in my heart."
    "I hope so." Pesky tears hurt in her throat and burned in her eyes. She hated being so vulnerable, that for all the struggling she did to make it, she couldn't do it alone— Not unless she learned how to outshoot cattle rustlers.
    Then, like a cold wind through a meadow, the congregation's chatter silenced. Lissa felt a prickle along the back of her neck. She turned.
    John Murray stood in the threshold, strong-shouldered and handsome in a white cotton shirt and dark trousers. A white bandage hugged his forehead, and a wave of dark blond hair swept over it.
    The air was squeezed in her chest. He shouldn't be out of bed. He shouldn't be standing. He looked ready to fall over in a dead faint.
    "It's him," Chad breathed at her elbow. "My new pa came."
    "He sure did." Lissa watched as John strode down the aisle enduring dozens of curious gazes, his chin up, his step sure, his dark blue eyes focused on her.
    Only on her.
    "I've come to marry you, Lissa," he said when he settled on the bench beside her. Up close she saw how pain lined his face and paled the tanned skin around his eyes.
    Marry her? "But you're too injured. You must recover first."
    "I've recovered enough. Let me show you I'm a man of my word. Will you be my wife?"

Chapter Four

    "My real concern is for you."
    Lissa's words made him look at her, truly look at her. Selflessness flickered in her blue eyes like sunlight on water, like the honesty of dawn and raindrops and a warm southern wind. John felt his throat fill. He could not swallow past the way she made him feel—valuable, worthy.
    "You must be in terrible pain." She laid her hand on his forearm, her touch gentle. "I don't see how you managed to get yourself out of bed."
    "I guess I'm a pretty tough man." He shrugged.
    Her gaze narrowed. "You forget I'm the one who found you unconscious on my road, bleeding and helpless. You're lucky to be alive, and you ought to be resting, John. I want to marry a well man, not one who can't remember the agreement he made with me."
    "I know why I'm here, and that's enough." It had to be. He had nothing but a mind full of darkness, and nowhere else to go.
    "It's not enough for me." Her voice low, she leaned toward him. "I don't want to take advantage of you."
    "You won't be."
    A little frown crinkled across her forehead. "You may not realize what I've asked of you—"
    "To be your husband," he interrupted. "To defend your ranch. To be a father to your son."
    That