Eddie’s Prize Read Online Free Page B

ten gold or the equivalent. Anyone can apply to enter, but me and the missus will have final say over who gets to fight. Applications gotta be turned in by nine tonight, and we’ll announce who gets to fight right before breakfast.”
    Ten gold? Eddie was startled but not displeased. He had the money, but that was a lot of cash for most men. It would cut the entries down considerably.
    “That’s pretty fast,” Steve said doubtfully, smoothing a brown hand over his long, silver-blond hair. “We won’t be able to get the word out to everyone.”
    “It’ll get out to enough,” Eddie’s dad declared. “I don’t want them gals in my house longer than they need to be. Don’t wanna tempt any outlaws to mount an attack to take them gals by force. Even if that didn’t happen, we’d have half the country traipsing through our yard to take a look at ’em if we keep them more than a day.”
    Faron Paulson folded his arms over his barrel chest with a frown. “That’s something else, Ray,” he pointed out. “Men will want to see what they’ll be fighting for.”
    “Uh-huh. Tell ’em they can come to my outer office from seven to eight tonight. They can look through that mirror-window and decide. Aright, get a move on and get the word out about the Bride Fight.”
    Eddie watched the men file through the gate to spread the news through Kearney. “Dad, what about the plane crash people? How are we going to help them?”
    Ray Madison turned. “We’re not. They ain’t no concern of ours. Unless you was wantin’ to go off and find them?”
    Not with the fight for Lisa to be won. But some of his friends didn’t have the money to enter the Bride Fight. They could go, and if there were more women there, maybe they could find wives they didn’t have to fight for.
    His father placed a heavy hand on his shoulder. “I know you’d like me to just give you Miss Anton. But I can’t do that. The whole town would think you didn’t deserve her, and they’d think I was playing favorites. You’ll fight for her, same as anyone else. Now, you go on and head out to spread the word. You got the west end of town and the farms out that way. Be back home by seven, hear?”
    Eddie saddled a horse and dutifully travelled all over the western section of town telling everyone he saw about the Bride Fight and the conditions his father had set. But while following his father’s orders, he dreamed about pale blonde hair and a delicate face with big blue eyes. Now, at nearly seven o’clock, he hurried up the steps to the back porch and into the kitchen, anxious to see Lisa. But the only person in the kitchen was his sister, emptying the tub she and their mother used to bathe.
    Bree let the empty tub settle on the floor and went to the stove to pull a plate of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and creamed corn out of the warming tray. “Here, eat your supper.”
    It smelled good, and normally Eddie would have lingered over it to savor his mother’s cooking, but now he bolted it down as quickly as he could so he could go find Lisa. Where was she?
    His sister must have seen the question on his face because she shrugged. “Lisa and Carla are in dad’s office, and they’re not happy. Dad told them about the Bride Fight, and for a minute I thought Carla was going to bite him.”
    “What about Lisa?” he asked quickly.
    “She cried. A lot.” Bree shook her head. “I don’t know how she manages to look so angelic when she cries. When I cry, my nose turns red and runs like a pump.”
    As he headed out of the kitchen to the office, his sister called, “You can’t go in there right now. Mom lit the fire in the stove, and they’re combing their hair to dry it. You better go into the outer office. Dad says he wants some men he trusts in there in case the men who apply to fight get out of hand.”
    Eddie set his jaw when he got to the well-lit outer office and saw half a dozen men there, all staring intensely at the one-way window behind the