Kate Bridges - Rancher Wants a Wife

What would Jack think when he saw her? She’d explained the injury to him in her letters. He’d responded that it was irrelevant to him, that he simply wished her good health and was relieved that she hadn’t been seriously injured.

Of course, he had written those words thousands of miles away. Things might be different up close. He was about to marry her, and what man didn’t wish to be sexually attracted to his bride?

Normally, being outdoors under the blue sky and sun calmed her, but not today. She searched the assortment of faces for someone who might resemble the man who’d walked out of her world five years ago. Back then their relationship had been strained, for it was a time when she had been engaged to someone else.

No Jack McColton.

Cassandra twirled around to study more faces. She was looking for someone tall, on the skinny side, with black hair. He was a veterinarian now, he’d written, working with horses in the vineyards, lumber mills and ranches of Napa Valley. He’d studied veterinary science in Chicago and she’d often seen him with a textbook in his hands. He’d always had a love of animals, she recalled, more interested in the livestock people owned than who might be knocking at the front door.

Searching the eager faces looking back at her, Cassandra dusted her threadbare skirts and adjusted her plumed hat to shield herself from the gleaming California sun.

So much hotter and drier than Chicago.

So much more hopeful and filled with promise.

So much more anxiety-inducing than she’d thought possible when she’d agreed to become a mail-order bride at Mrs. Pepik’s Boarding House for Desolate Women. In the return address she’d given Jack, she’d left off the desolate part.

No need to tell him how far she’d fallen.

Besides, he’d see it in one glance, wouldn’t he?

Stop that, she told herself, and straightened her posture with dignity and pride.

She was here to start a new life with a man she had known to be hardworking and law-abiding. In choosing Jack over the other prospects, she was at least going with a known quantity. She knew his flaws as well as his strengths. Surely that was an advantage, wasn’t it?

But perhaps she’d been hasty, rushing to marry him because of past memories and his recollections of her late sister and father. Five years had passed. For all she knew, he might now be reckless and unfeeling. And back then, she hadn’t spent that much time alone with him. Sometimes a person’s behavior was totally different in private than in public.

“Cassandra?” said a deep male voice behind her.

Feeling a stab of terror mixed with excitement, she wheeled around and nearly bumped into him.

She got an eyeful of a very broad chest wearing a neatly pressed white shirt and leather vest. Holding on to her hat, she craned her neck and peered way, way up. Her scarf draped against her scar.

Those familiar deep brown eyes flashed at her with curiosity. Her first impression was that everything about Jack McColton was incredibly dark. Tanned skin, black hair, black eyebrows, black leather vest, black cowboy hat. And no longer thin. His shoulders were as wide as forever. Obviously, his work in the vineyards had seasoned his physique.

He reminded her of a Thoroughbred racehorse, muscled and built for speed. Her pulse tripped over itself in response to his powerful presence. Wavy hair, longer than the men wore in Chicago, touched his collar. A sheen of moisture from the heat of the sun dampened his brow. He was clean-shaven, but already a dark shadow underlined his firm jaw and cast shadows in the dimple of his chin.

“Cassandra,” he repeated in a rich baritone. “Good to see you.” And then her scarf came away from her cheek, exposing the ugly ripple of flesh four inches in diameter, and his studious eyes flickered over it.

The burning heat of embarrassment and shame, and an overriding wish to flee, overtook her. This is what you ordered, she thought. How terribly disappointed you must be.

He fumbled for barely a moment, almost imperceptibly, then glanced back up into her eyes with a smile. “You look lovely.”

She took in a deep breath, touched by his kindness.

Why did the rhythm of her breathing still break when she was around him? Why had it always been like this? She nodded and smiled in a confusion of emotions.

She hadn’t realized how parched her mouth was. “Well, I...Jack...this climate certainly agrees with you.” Clumsily, she reached out to shake his hand at the same instant he held out a bouquet of pink wild roses.

She took the flowers, mumbled a thank-you that got muffled when he leaned forward, planted a large warm hand on her wrist and pulled her forward over the roses in an awkward semihug that two distant relations might share. It was a wonderful display of strain and discomfort, the same awkwardness that had existed between them when she’d been engaged to his cousin, Troy.

Only now she was engaged to Jack, and all the witty and charming things she’d practiced to say on their first meeting flew out of her head.

“Sorry you got delayed,” he said. “The coach is never on time.”

“Thank you for waiting,” she replied, still flustered.

“May I take your bag?” He extended his hand, and before she could stop him, took her woven satchel. Due to the weight of her books and gun, it thudded against his side. “What on earth are you carrying? Cannonballs?”

She smiled at his quip. She hadn’t written to him about her desire to be a detective. She wanted to prepare herself first, to scope out the town and its facilities, and break the news to him gently, in the event he had any objections.

“How was your trip?”

“Long and dusty. But it is exciting to see this part of the country.”

He gave her another one of those sweeping glances that seemed to sum her up. “I almost didn’t recognize you.”

Because of the massive scar?

He awkwardly tried to make it right. “I mean because you used to be a touch heavier, remember?” Then he groaned. Perhaps that wasn’t quite what he’d meant to vocalize, either.

In her efforts to recall what he might look like, she’d forgotten that she herself had been on the plump side, last time they’d seen each other on the night of their ripping argument.

But if he’d had any decency at all, if he’d truly cared for her as he’d confessed that evening, why had he packed his things and left in the middle of the night?

Not a word goodbye.

He had tried to kiss her, but how on earth could he have expected her to react, when she was engaged to his cousin? What more could any decent man expect but a slap on the face?

Anger flashed through her. She was surprised by it and tried to hide it. She thought she’d feel a hundred different things when she saw him again, but never suspected she still hadn’t gotten over the callous way he’d left. Those buried feelings of betrayal surged up and stung her. She didn’t wish to be resentful. What she’d hoped to be when she arrived, had fantasized being, was a pleasant and optimistic bride.

Perhaps what she was truly indignant about were the circumstances she had found herself in, in Chicago—no way to support herself immediately after the fire, no family to help, relying on the mercy of a man to marry her.

“I guess we’ve both been through a lot of change.” She smiled faintly, trying to overcome her emotions.

The artery at the base of his dark throat pulsed. He seemed to sense her discomfort as he watched her. “And how is Troy?”

Her lashes flicked as she averted her gaze. “Fine, I suppose. In England somewhere, last I heard.”

She hadn’t spoken to that turncoat for five years, either, but how would Jack know that? All she’d told him in her letters, when he’d asked, was that their engagement had been over for quite some time. The truth was, after that huge row with Jack, she’d gone to Troy and had discovered that all the terrible things Jack had said about him—his drinking and his carousing with painted ladies—were true. Cassandra had severed her engagement that very night. Yet when she’d gone to tell Jack that he was right about his cousin, he’d been nowhere to be found.