ROMANCE: MAIL ORDER BRIDE: The Other Man’s Baby (A Clean Christian Historical Western) (New Adult Inspirational Pregnancy Romance) Read Online Free Page B
you that I won’t be a burden to you. I’m grateful to you for marrying me and I’m going to hold up my end of the bargain.”
“Marriage isn’t a bargain, Etta! I’m not asking you to do yourself or that baby harm as part of it!”
They stood there, glowering at each other. Her cheeks were flushed from the heat of the fire and the light in her dark eyes shone with the reflection of the flames. But there was no denying that she was in a temper.
“I’m doing what a wife should do,” she answered him. “I’ve made stew for lunch; I thought you would be hungry. I’ve heated the biscuits. I’m minded to be a proper wife to you.”
Except in one thing, he thought, knowing that his unspoken response was plain.
“Don’t be shoveling,” he said curtly. “I’ll finish it now.”
He went outside and shoveled the rest of the path at an ambitious rate. If the snow kept up, he reckoned humorlessly that he’d be able to shovel out all of Texas just from sheer frustration. What was wrong with him, desiring a woman who, for all that they were married, had been the possession of another man? He wasn’t some green lad, boiling with sap. He was thirty years old and he knew right from wrong, and right wasn’t lying with a woman who was carrying a child from another man.
He went back inside when he had finished shoveling, took up a handful of biscuits and said he had to get back to work. “No more shoveling, mind,” he said as he shut the door.
When he was gone, Etta sat down at the table where the bowls were set, waiting to be filled. She had hoped that he would enjoy her cooking so that their marriage could have some semblance of propriety. She wanted to be a good wife. She wanted to love and respect her husband. Jack Carruthers was a man she would find it easy to respect. He was considerate and hardworking; she had seen the evidence of his preparation for marriage in the way he’d stocked supplies for winter. The mirror in the bedroom hadn’t been for his benefit, she knew; it was a gesture that some men would have thought foolish, buying a mirror to suit a woman’s vanity. She’d looked in the mirror when she was alone in the cabin, reassured that there was still no visible sign of the baby within her.
But the memory of that night back in Oklahoma was still too raw in her mind for her to think of intimacy with any man, even if she was a married woman now. She realized that Jack wanted to know the truth about her pregnancy but she could not speak of it; she wouldn’t even let herself think about what had taken place on that terrible night when her innocence had been wrested from her and she had nowhere to turn for help or protection. How would Jack react if she told him the truth? Would he blame her? Would he think that she should have been smarter? That she should have protected herself better? He would have no way of knowing what it was like to be an orphan and alone, nothing but a burden to those around her who had their own household to maintain without the added expense of a girl who, no matter how hard she worked, was always reminded that she was taking food from the mouths of others.
For so long, she longed to have a house of her own where she would be the one who fed others, and she would do so joyfully, eager to share, not begrudging people their bread. When she read the advertisement seeking a mail-order bride, she wasted no time in responding, even though she had to send her letter in secret and receive the answer covertly. Her hopes of a new beginning had been shattered when she realized that she was leaving Oklahoma, not to start a new life, but to carry the remnant of the old life with her all the way to Texas.
Clearing away the dead, frozen cattle was a grim task and even the most jocular of the cowboys kept silent as they all worked in the cold. How much longer Big Jim could keep all his hands when it was apparent that, after the summer drought, this killing winter would reduce his
“Marriage isn’t a bargain, Etta! I’m not asking you to do yourself or that baby harm as part of it!”
They stood there, glowering at each other. Her cheeks were flushed from the heat of the fire and the light in her dark eyes shone with the reflection of the flames. But there was no denying that she was in a temper.
“I’m doing what a wife should do,” she answered him. “I’ve made stew for lunch; I thought you would be hungry. I’ve heated the biscuits. I’m minded to be a proper wife to you.”
Except in one thing, he thought, knowing that his unspoken response was plain.
“Don’t be shoveling,” he said curtly. “I’ll finish it now.”
He went outside and shoveled the rest of the path at an ambitious rate. If the snow kept up, he reckoned humorlessly that he’d be able to shovel out all of Texas just from sheer frustration. What was wrong with him, desiring a woman who, for all that they were married, had been the possession of another man? He wasn’t some green lad, boiling with sap. He was thirty years old and he knew right from wrong, and right wasn’t lying with a woman who was carrying a child from another man.
He went back inside when he had finished shoveling, took up a handful of biscuits and said he had to get back to work. “No more shoveling, mind,” he said as he shut the door.
When he was gone, Etta sat down at the table where the bowls were set, waiting to be filled. She had hoped that he would enjoy her cooking so that their marriage could have some semblance of propriety. She wanted to be a good wife. She wanted to love and respect her husband. Jack Carruthers was a man she would find it easy to respect. He was considerate and hardworking; she had seen the evidence of his preparation for marriage in the way he’d stocked supplies for winter. The mirror in the bedroom hadn’t been for his benefit, she knew; it was a gesture that some men would have thought foolish, buying a mirror to suit a woman’s vanity. She’d looked in the mirror when she was alone in the cabin, reassured that there was still no visible sign of the baby within her.
But the memory of that night back in Oklahoma was still too raw in her mind for her to think of intimacy with any man, even if she was a married woman now. She realized that Jack wanted to know the truth about her pregnancy but she could not speak of it; she wouldn’t even let herself think about what had taken place on that terrible night when her innocence had been wrested from her and she had nowhere to turn for help or protection. How would Jack react if she told him the truth? Would he blame her? Would he think that she should have been smarter? That she should have protected herself better? He would have no way of knowing what it was like to be an orphan and alone, nothing but a burden to those around her who had their own household to maintain without the added expense of a girl who, no matter how hard she worked, was always reminded that she was taking food from the mouths of others.
For so long, she longed to have a house of her own where she would be the one who fed others, and she would do so joyfully, eager to share, not begrudging people their bread. When she read the advertisement seeking a mail-order bride, she wasted no time in responding, even though she had to send her letter in secret and receive the answer covertly. Her hopes of a new beginning had been shattered when she realized that she was leaving Oklahoma, not to start a new life, but to carry the remnant of the old life with her all the way to Texas.
Clearing away the dead, frozen cattle was a grim task and even the most jocular of the cowboys kept silent as they all worked in the cold. How much longer Big Jim could keep all his hands when it was apparent that, after the summer drought, this killing winter would reduce his
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