Tumbleweed Letters Read Online Free PDF Page A

“You…ah…you never mentioned sleeping arrangements.”
    His voice carried deep and quiet in the night. “I run a ranch, not a hotel. As my wife, you’ll be sleeping with me.”
    Her heart pounded in her ears and her breath came in shallow bursts. “Will…will you expect…”
    “Yes.”
    Merciful heavens. She twisted the ends of her shawl between her fingers. “Surely you’ll give me time to get to know you. I…I only met you today.”

Chapter Six
    He’d lost his mind.
    What else would prompt him to act so impulsively? He’d married a complete stranger. One look into those soft green eyes, and he was lost. They reminded him of springtime, of the fragile green of the first leaves on trees and of the grass as it turned emerald in the warmth of sunshine. He winced. God help me, the woman’s made me turn fanciful as a poet.
    When he’d stepped outside the store and seen Jethro with his hands on her, a red rage swept through him. Although he was sane enough to question his reaction, he was loath to stop it. In that instant, he knew no man would ever again put his hands on this woman—the woman who’d poured out her soul in tumbleweed letters—but him. So in a moment of awareness, tinged with lunacy, he’d laid claim to her.
    During his brief conversation with Madam Dora, he learned this spunky woman scrubbed the upstairs of the brothel, but did not work upstairs. He ran a hand over his face. That was one consolation; his new wife wasn’t a whore.
    Could he consummate the marriage tonight? The starving part of his body thickened and perked up at the possibility. Memories flooded of pulling his beloved Amanda into an embrace. He allowed the pain of grief to twist his gut, a pain so familiar he was intimate with the contours of it. In the year since her death, he’d lived an eternity of loneliness.
    Could this slip of a woman beside him ease the heartache that all but consumed him like a buzzard tearing at a dead animal? No doubt she could ease the ache in his loins, but could she diminish the anguish in his heart?
    “Cam, I can’t be your wife that way. Not…not until we know each other better.”
    His erection throbbed in painful protest, and he sighed with resignation. He wouldn’t force his new wife. “We’ll give ourselves time. When we come together, it’ll be your choice.”
    “Thank you.” Her voice sounded small in the darkness.
    She was a slender woman, but she had a regal bearing about her when she wasn’t scrapping and fighting for her dignity. He respected her for that. Yet on the other hand, something about her worried him. “Mind if I ask you something?”
    Her skirt rustled in the darkness. “I guess not.”
    “In one of your letters, you said you were alone, on the run, and without funds. If I’m going to entrust my son to you, I think I have a right to know who you were running from and why.” No doubt he should have asked these questions before he married her, but a sense of urgency had evidently dulled his common sense.
    Silence screamed between them like a howling wind. Wasn’t his new wife going to answer his question? He wouldn’t be put off; he had to know. “Sophie Catherine?”
    She cleared her throat. “Yes?”
    He could hear his son’s gentle snore as he slept in Sophie’s arms. “I asked you a civil question.”
    “Yes, you did. There’s so much, I barely know where to begin.”
    “It’s always best to start at the beginning. All I’m asking for is honesty.” He wished he could see her face, look into her green eyes and see emotions play out on her face. He could feel the power of her regard as she turned toward him.
    “I’m not a liar, Cam McBride.”
    He glanced in her direction. Even in the darkness softly illuminated by the full moon, he saw the flame of indignation. “I’m sorry if I offended you. We have a right to inquire about each other’s past, don’t you think?”
    “Yes, I suppose. You go first.”
    The woman was stalling. Apprehension