Be My Texas Valentine Read Online Free Page A

carpenter and his daughter a few times. Brody knew she lived between the ranch and town, but he had no idea which place. Half the farms looked abandoned. The war had added a layer of poverty over almost every part of Texas, and taxes were drawing away any extra money for repairs. The cattle drives last summer had helped, but it would take years before people got back on their feet.
    The next Monday, when he went to town, Brody tried to figure out which farm was her place. A wrong guess could end up getting him shot. Finally, two weeks after the party, Earl Timmons gave him the answer.
    As usual, the men were playing cards and talking after supper.
    Brody climbed into his bunk at the back and pretended to read a book he’d already read five times while he listened to their talk.
    Two of the card players began to speculate on how the boss planned to enlarge his ranch. They talked of first one place bordering Double R land and then another with Brody only half listening until Earl said, “I tell you one place that Boss will never buy and that’s Widow Allen’s land.”
    Brody closed the book and made no pretense of reading.
    “Why wouldn’t he take her place on?” a new cowhand asked. “A widow without a man to run her farm would be easy land to pick up, I’d think.”
    Earl leaned his chair back and stared at his cards. “Oh, it’s a good little farm, but a natural wall of rocks separates her land from the Double R.”
    Montie Timmons nodded. “Boss likes his property to be as flat as possible for moving big herds.”
    “Don’t matter anyway,” Caleb said. “Nothin’ getting her off her place. Not even her father can talk her into spending a night away. She’s tied to it as sure as if she’s a ghost haunting Venny’s farm.”
    “You’re right, old man,” Earl added. “I remember years ago when Venny courted her. He was ten, maybe twelve years older than her and he didn’t waste much time courting before he asked her. She was still more kid than woman, as I remember. He promised her all kinds of things, but the minute he slipped the ring on, it might as well have been a yoke. He never let her off the place. Wouldn’t even let her go home to see her papa.”
    “I remember him. Always thought he was a bull of a man, big and rough,” Montie, as always, added to his brother’s rambling. “He told me once he didn’t have any family and planned to keep her pregnant until she had an even dozen.”
    Caleb laid down his cards and collected the pot as he continued the conversation, “That plan didn’t work. Five years of trying and not one kid. He left when the war started, knowing if he died, so did his family line.”
    “He must have ordered her to stay on the farm ’cause folks hardly saw her in town all those years he was gone.” Earl frowned at Caleb for winning and dealt another hand. “I swear, after her second husband died, I would have offered for her if it hadn’t been for the curse on her.”
    Caleb wiggled his eyebrows. “She’s one fine-looking woman, I’ll say that, but the risk is too high. I heard a while back a peddler stopped by her place and barely made it to town without bleeding to death. He claimed all he did was talk to her a minute and something flew out of the sky, nearly splitting his head open like a ripe watermelon.”
    The new cowhand snorted. “The widow must not be a caring person, ’cause I heard that story in town and the peddler claimed she stood on the porch and stared at him as he left. He said she didn’t even offer to help.”
    “That peddler’s nothing but trash if you ask me. Him losing his head wouldn’t be any great loss. I doubt I’d help him either,” Caleb added. “Boss’s wife says he gets a little too friendly with the ladies. She won’t even have him on the ranch.”
    The new cowhand asked the question Brody had been hoping to hear. “How’s this widow with a curse manage out there all alone?”
    Brody leaned forward so he wouldn’t miss