Kate Bridges - Rancher Wants a Wife

Over the course of the next few days and weeks, she had realized that she hadn’t really loved either man.

And then out of the blue had come Jack’s response to her ad as a bride.

He frowned, as if trying to read her expression, and any residue of sentiment she might still have for Troy. She pressed her lips together and tried to express nothing.

My, how good she’d become at that game.

The moment stretched and stretched. Then two young ladies walked by, whispering something about him with admiration in their tone. Jack didn’t pay them attention; his dark eyebrows flickered at Cassandra. He rubbed the tense muscles in his jaw and tilted his mouth in an expression of friendliness.

“Welcome to my valley.”

There went her nerves again. She couldn’t get enough of looking at the new Jack. Goodness. Wasn’t he handsome? Perhaps he knew it. Perhaps this new confidence she sensed in him came from being aware of how he was perceived by the women around him. And those women...they had such fine features and beautiful skin.

It hurt to remember that she’d once looked like that. That she’d once turned heads and garnered male attention.

She composed herself and tried to remain positive. Jack hadn’t asked anyone else to marry him; he had asked her. So Cassandra focused on what the future with him might bring, and gave him a cheerful nod. “Nice to be here, finally.”

“Yes, finally,” he said, as if he were thinking about something more.

She swooped down to inhale the perfume of the roses, hoping the color heating up her cheeks didn’t show.

Finally, after all these years, Jack McColton would be taking her virginity.

Chapter Two

“My horse and buggy’s up this way,” Jack said to Cassandra as he found her larger piece of luggage and led her away from the crowd.

He tried to restrain the sorrow he felt when he gazed at her and the injury to her face. God. It had nearly felled him when he’d first seen her.

He took a deep breath, but his muscles were still tense.

The pocked flesh covered her entire right cheek. It wasn’t that her beauty was affected, for he saw the lovely woman she was and always would be. It was that he felt such guilt in seeing the scar. If he had been there in Chicago, he damn well could’ve prevented her injury. He likely would’ve been living nearby, could’ve helped her and her family escape the fire, could’ve removed Cassandra from the burning timbers of her home.

But he hadn’t been there for her, and not only had she lost her family, she had to live with the scar and the turning heads wherever she walked. Even now, men and women caught sight of her and followed her with inquisitive eyes. He tried to ignore them, and the ones shouting their hellos at him to give Cassandra time to adjust. He was ashamed at how much they were staring, and just wanted to get her the hell out of there.

He placed her suitcase and satchel in his shiny buggy and held out his hand to help her onto the seat.

She slid her palm into his. Was he imagining it, or was her touch slightly shaky? She hopped up onto the polished leather and quickly released her grip, before he could tell for sure.

“I thought we’d get married tomorrow evening,” he said, trying to break the strain between them.

“Tomorrow? My, oh my.” Her soft expression flashed with surprise.

Something flickered past her shoulder. When he looked to the two-story frame building across the street, he saw the white curtains shift in his attorney’s office. Cassandra followed his gaze and peered at the office, too, then to the courthouse and the land registry building, as if orienting herself to the town.

Jack tried to ignore Hugh’s warning all over again. He knew what he was doing. There were good solid reasons for doing this.

Lots of men got married. He was of the age. A wife would enhance his life, not detract from it.

“Is tomorrow too soon? Would you like more time to get to know...to get to know the place?” Standing on the street, Jack peered at her bunched-up skirts, over the lacy blouse peeking through her bodice, to the side of her left pretty pink cheek. A few strands of blond hair had trapped some beads of perspiration. The hot sun had already gotten to her face. Luckily, she was shaded now by the roof of the buggy. She was still wearing her hat with the billowing scarf ends covering her injury, and his heart buckled with tenderness and regret that she felt the need to hide behind it.

She inhaled, the tug of her breath making the feminine curves of her throat stand out. Her blue eyes shone. “Tomorrow’s fine.”

“Good. Reverend Darcy said he’d be available at six.”

“Six o’clock, then.” She rested her roses in her lap, as cool and unattached as if they were strangers.

He supposed so much time had passed, they were strangers.

“Just a simple ceremony, Cassandra. Then back to the ranch for a few days of...of rest before I get back to work.”

“Yes, that’s fine.”

They had agreed in their letters that simple arrangements were best. She preferred a small ceremony. There would be no reception, since she didn’t know anyone here and the arrangements would’ve been too difficult for her to schedule from Chicago. He had offered to do it but she had declined, and to tell the truth, he was relieved. The only thing she had asked for was a church wedding, and he was pleased to oblige.

The mare harnessed to his buggy craned her neck at him as if to say, “Hurry up. What’s taking you so long?”

Cassandra, perched on the edge of her seat, seemed disarmed by the animal’s antics and smiled.

He gave the mare a pat as he walked around to his side of the buggy. “Easy, there, River, we’re going.”

In Chicago, Cassandra had been full of life and energy, bouncing everywhere with her younger sister, Mary, in tow. Her eyes had sparkled with vitality, and she’d had a constant smile on her face. Cassandra was much quieter here. Less carefree. He couldn’t blame her, considering the sorrow she’d been through. Her clothes were much more drab, too, but they covered a curvy new figure that intrigued him.

Dark blond silky hair, pretty blue eyes. But she still had that thing about her, that way she had of putting up her guard. If she hadn’t recently accepted his marriage proposal, he’d swear by looking at her that she wanted nothing to do with him.

Would he ever be enough for her? Would this life in California come anywhere close to what she’d dreamed her life would be like in Chicago?

The last time they’d spoken in person, he’d tried to kiss her, and she’d been point-blank honest that she wanted nothing to do with him.

How could he ever erase those stinging words from his memory?

It hadn’t been the first time he’d tried to tell her that he had cared for her, but she’d always pushed him away. Black sheep of the family was what he’d been then, and no one would’ve been more against him as a possible suitor than her father.

And now, sadly, it was just the two of them trying to work things out on their own.

And still he couldn’t trust her.

Oh, he felt plenty for her, physically, but what surprised him most in seeing her was the guarded feeling that sprang up, the knowledge that he might be just as hurt by her now as he’d always been.

He stole another glance at her as he reached his side of the buggy. The contradiction in her demeanor—the almost-smile and the heated flush, contrasting with the reserve in her stiff posture, made him ache to touch her. In fact, he wouldn’t mind driving the buggy to the church right now, then taking her straight to the Valley Hotel, where they could share that room he intended on renting for her alone tonight. Where he’d strip her naked, starting with that silly hat, and that prim bodice, with its dozen little buttons, which was trying its best to hide the lovely profile of her breasts.