Wedding Night With the Ranger Read Online Free PDF Page B

Reverend Mitchell again was enough to make her jump for joy.
    Through the steady throbbing in her ears, faint sounds filtered in—murmured voices, the tinkling of silverware, the clatter of plates being gathered.
    A sigh escaped her lips. She should move. It was highly improper, married or not, for the two of them to embrace so tenderly in public, but Annalee wasn’t ready for it to end. Besides, she wasn’t embarrassed by their behavior. There was nothing about Colt Severson that could ever cause her shame, least of all loving him.
    He was the one who moved, gently lowered her to her chair. Then he twisted her chair and did the same as he sat in his. The corner of the table no longer separated them as they sat knee to knee in the corner of the restaurant. One of his big, warm hands clasped hers and his other rose to twist a curl hanging at the side of her face.
    His eyes looked deep into hers. Her senses soared. Heart pounding, her body tingled with such delight she wondered if it might take off in flight like a mourning dove.
    “Annalee,” he started, “I’m sorry you had to come find me at the Broken Spoke. I went there to give you some time to get used to the idea of us being married. It will never happen again.”
    She opened her mouth, ready to take the blame and admit her jealousy of another woman—any woman—being near him, but he shook his head.
    “Let me finish.” The warmth of his fingertip trailed along the side of her face. “I promise to spend the rest of my life taking care of you. I’ll do everything in my power to make sure you never want for anything.”
    She pinched her lips together to keep from screaming, It’s you I want, nothing more, nothing less.
    As if he read her mind, he added, “There is nothing I want more than to carry you upstairs and show you exactly how much I care for you. And I am going to do just that, but first we have a few things to talk about.”
    Annalee curled her toes and tightened the muscles in her inner thighs against the turmoil swirling there. The last thing on earth she wanted was to talk.
    “I came to town every week to check on you because you’ve been embedded in my mind since the first moment I met you. But I didn’t know what to do.”
    She tilted her head, let his palm wrap around her cheek. “What do you mean?”
    “Everything about you is pure and good. And there’s not one thing about me that’s good or pure.”
    “That’s not true—”
    “Yes, it is.” His eyes grew solemn. “I’ve killed men, Annalee.”
    “You were a Texas Ranger. You were upholding the law.”
    “Yes, that’s true. But the fact is, Ranger or not, I’d kill again to protect what’s mine, especially my family.”
    She nodded, fully accepting his statement. It was how every man and most every woman in the West felt.
    His gaze was dark and serious. “You’re my family now, and I won’t share you.”
    “Share me?”
    “I know you help out—” he paused, as if deciding what to say “—the townsfolk a great deal. It won’t be feasible for you to continue do so much for them, with the ranch being so far from town.”
    “All right,” she said, more than happy to comply.
    He looked a bit surprised. “I—uh—I don’t make it to town for church services very often.”
    “I have my Bible.” She added wryly, “Besides, I don’t think Reverend Mitchell would welcome us at Sunday services. Do you?”
    The crooked grin was back, and sent her heart tumbling about. “Probably not,” he agreed and then grew serious again. “What I’m saying, is that, well, that…you see, when your father…”
    With the way her heart, mind and body reacted to his nearness, the reason their marriage had occurred had completely eluded her, until this very minute. She did take a moment to consider her options, but in reality, there was only one. The truth. “My father,” she continued where he’d left off, “must have been at his wit’s end.”
    “Uh?” he said, looking