To Wed in Texas Read Online Free Page A

overwhelmed her.
    An hour later the twins were tucked into bed and the kitchen was clean of all but the smells. Daniel had returned and talked to Wolf, but he hadn’t said a word to Karlee. By the time the men left, she was starting to believe she was invisible.
    She’d been a fool to hope, she thought. A fool to dream that this place would be where she’d stay for awhile. When would she learn that all places were temporary?
    She moved out the back door and welcomed the darkness of the moonless night. When she’d been a child, she really believed that she could stand in a room full of people and be unseen. After her parents died, she moved from relative to relative. A few, she soon realized, never took the time to learn her name, but simply counted the days until they could pass her on.
    Silent tears rolled unchecked down her cheeks as she remembered a Christmas when all the gifts had been passed out and none were for her. When someone noticed, they’d said it was all right because she’d be moving the next day. But there was nothing waiting for her at the next home. She was just the poor relative each family took in as part of their Christian duty. The relative never remembered at holidays. The child without a birthday.
    Karlee slipped to the darkest point at the corner of the house and pressed her body against the painted wood. She didn’t belong here either. There was no adventure waiting here. One night changed nothing. As always she was too different, too strange, too alone. She pushed harder as if she could move into the frame of the house and finally belong somewhere. Maybe being invisible wasn’t so bad. If she were invisible no one could hurt her.
    She could just vanish. No one would notice. No one would care. Maybe, years after she was gone, one of her relatives would wonder, “whatever happened to that funny little redhead who couldn’t do anything right?” But no one would answer, or think of her again.
    Karlee closed her eyes, wishing that there was a real place called “Nowhere” where people who were ” nobodies” could go. She’d go there and be happy with all the other invisible people.
    From house to house she was always given the chores no one wanted to do. The clothes no one wanted to wear. She’d been a fool to believe this time would be any different. The aunts had pushed her toward Texas not because they thought it would be better, but only to have her move on, out of their lives.
    Adventures only happened in books and belonging anywhere was too much to ask for.
    Fighting down a cry, Karlee faced the truth. Here was no different than anywhere else. She didn’t belong.
    “Miss Whitworth?” a voice said from behind her.
    She closed her eyes and concentrated on being invisible.
    “Karlee, are you all right?”
    Pushing harder into the side of the house, she tried not to think about having to face the reverend. Karlee knew what he was going to say. She’d heard good-bye a hundred times in her life. Maybe he’d tell her how much she was needed somewhere else. Or maybe he’d say he couldn’t afford to feed another. Or maybe he’d just tell her it was time for her to go, as if somewhere in the overall makeup of the world there existed a chart of when she had to leave a place.
    “Miss Whitworth?”
    She sensed him standing just behind her. He shifted nervously, but she couldn’t bring herself to make it easy for him. Not this time in her life. This man she barely knew would have to say what most had only hinted at when they handed her a ticket or loaded her suitcase in the back of a wagon.
    He’d have to tell her to go.
    Karlee waited, tears dripping off her face and onto the white frame of the house.
    But Daniel didn’t say a word. He waited, her short intakes in breath the only break in the silence of the darkness.
    Finally, he rested his hand on her shoulder, at first so lightly she wasn’t sure it was there, then firmer, comfortingly in an awkward way.
    She tried not to shake