Romance: Mail Order Bride "The Ideal Bride" Clean Christian Western Historical Romance (Western Mail Order Bride Short Shorties Series) Read Online Free PDF Page A

back and pulled another slip of paper from the pile that signaled his doom.
    “Don’t stand there and tell me that you didn’t hope for the exact same thing.”
    Nora’s breath came to a halt as she recognized her handwriting across the page rubbed raw by his fingers reading the same lines over and over again. The memory of taking pen to paper struck her to the core, and she waited for him to read her words, to throw them back in her face, when he suddenly recited them without looking.
    “ But even though we have yet to meet, I feel sure that I can find a new meaning for happiness if I am just given the chance to stand by your side .”
    Slipping back to the bed, Nora hung her head and tapped her fingers on her legs. She heard his sigh as he paced before the bed, and she felt his hands just brush against her face when she pulled back and moved away. Peering up through her fallen hair, Nora watched him at the window as he surveyed the land that was only his on borrowed time.
    “Henry, I… please look at me.”
    He obeyed her order, and his face seemed to have taken on ten years.
    “Maybe we… yes,” he started. “We promised our hopes to one another and thought that they would come to pass.”
    “And now it’s a brand new day,” Nora said. “We are seeing things so much more clearly now.”
    Struggling to leave the bed, she stepped back into her boots and saw her suitcase lingering in the corner. Not knowing how she would make her way back to the train, let alone purchase a ticket, she still started to pack her meager belongings when he rushed towards her and pried her hands away from the bag.
    “What does it really matter?” he demanded. “You’re here. And with a little bit of luck I’ll pay back the debt and make things right.”
    Wanting to believe him as she softly touched his face, Nora let their noses touch and felt the small puffs of air from his expectant sighs mingle with her own.
    “I wish that could be true,” she muttered. “But I saw those men. They won’t take no for an answer. And I… Henry, I’m sorry but I just can’t be a part of this.”
    She started to reach for her case when his hand was on hers even as he avoided her eyes.
    “Don’t leave me,” he pleaded. “Can’t you give me another chance?”
    Had he written as much down in a letter for her unsuspecting eyes, Nora might have excused his shortcomings and still left her life to see him up close. But the truth was too much to bear.
    “I think I’ll miss you,” she said. “And I’ll hope that you can find your way.”
    Expecting him to cut her off again with his words or his lips, Henry went stiff and kicked into the floor as he denied Nora the feel of his hands.
    “Fine!” he said. “I never wanted your pity. So we will forget.”
    Nora considered rushing back to ask after his next plan of action. But she no longer had the ring on her finger, and his last words burned their way into her soul as she looked around the ranch house one last time and started back, her head heavy with defeat as she wished that he could have been someone else.
    Or that she truly could have found a way to solve his problems and stay at his side.

Chapter 6
    The vastness of the land seemed almost insurmountable without the benefit of his horse to carry her across the grass or his arm in hers. Nora trudged forward as she glanced down at her dress. Making off with the gift seemed wrong, but when the wind picked up she knew that she needed the cover. She spied a stray oak tree and ducked behind the bark, looking every which way before she reached behind her back for the buttons and started to undress. The dress would stay with the land that wasn’t his, and she was nearly back in her traveling outfit when the sounds of harsh snickers hit her ears.
    “Hold up.”
    “We’re enjoying the show.”
    Nora clutched her blouse closer to her chest at the sight of Davis and Turner coming around the bend, and she looked over their shoulders in the