Where the Wild Rose Blooms Read Online Free PDF

day. Miss Bradley had no doubt that a session with the strap or ruler would be more than enough impetus to learn your lesson or alter your behavior.
    "Here's Clay," Milly said as the girls gained the warm afternoon sun. "He told me he'd come for me. Hey, Clay," Milly called as she approached, "can we give Danny and her sisters a ride home?"
    "Sure," the young man responded readily enough. "Hop in."
    Danny, Lexa, and Sammy scrambled aboard with Milly, but Jackie, who had just come upon the scene, stopped short. Claytons amused gaze swept over her affronted features.
    "Are you going to join us, Miss Fontaine?"
    That chin went into the air.
    "Come on, Jackie," Sammy urged hen "Get in."
    "No, thank you," she said with a regal air. "I'd rather walk." With that she turned, her skirts swirling around her, and started home.
    Clayton grinned and raised the reins to slap the team, but Paddy hailed him from the schoolhouse steps and he stopped. The younger man had a question and a message from his father that he'd forgotten to tell Milly. The two talked together for a few minutes. The girls took no notice but spoke of the day and made plans for the week.
    By the time Clayton moved his team down the road, Jackie was far ahead of them. He slowed the team ever so
slightly as they came abreast of her, and Clayton smiled to himself when he felt the wagon bounce slightly. The unapproachable Jackie Fontaine had climbed aboard. Clayton pulled up in front of the Fontaine home less than ten minutes later, and the three younger girls scrambled out with calls of thanks and goodbye. Jackie remained silent. Clayton deliberately turned his handsome blond head and watched her. Jackie caught his look and tossed her chestnut curls.
    "Not going to thank me?" he murmured softly and watched as she flounced into the house. She shut the front door a little too hard and said to the entryway at large, "I hate that Clayton Taggart. I tell you, I do."
    No one in her family commented, and Jackie stormed up the stairs telling herself that when her sisters saw what a colossal conceit he had, they would feel the same way.
    In the meantime, Milly had come up beside her brother on the wagon seat, and as they pulled away, she commented, "I don't think she spoke to anyone all day."
    "Jackie?"
    "Yes."
    "Maybe she was afraid."
    Milly shook her head. "I don't think so. She thinks she's better than the rest of us."
    "Her sisters aren't like that."
    Milly thought about that. The Fontaine sisters were all so much alike in looks, but like night and day in
temperament. Sammy and Danny were both warm and friendly, but not quite as lovely as Lexa and Jackie- They were the beauties of the family, their eyes rimmed by dark lashes and framed with perfect brows—a perfect foil for the burnished mahogany hair that was the hallmark of the family. Their attitudes, however, were much more guarded, making them seem standoffish and conceited.
    "No, they're not all like that," Milly finally agreed. "Which is something of a miracle, since they're all pretty."
    They fell silent, busy with their own thoughts, and the ride was quiet for the last hundred yards home—quiet, that is, until they spotted their fathers horse. Kevin Taggart had finally come home.

    Milly was in bed, and Clayton and his father sat together at the kitchen table. They had talked about the mine he'd been surveying and now they discussed the next jobs.
    "I've got a letter out to McBride about his newest mine, but Paddy O'Brien told me today that his father is laid up with a leg injury. I didn't have time to go see him, but that means the Moonbeam #3 is going to be open for a surveyor."
    "The Moonbeam is set in horrible terrain," Kevin commented.
    "That's probably why Cormac O'Brien is laid up."
    "At least it's close," Kevin put in. "I'm weary of the trail."
    "Tell me about it," Clayton said softly, and his father laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.
    "Still have that dream?"
    "I sure do. I think that's why I'm so eager to