Abby Mail Order Bride by Verna Clay

Author:Verna Clay
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: M.O.I. Publishing
Published: 2012-06-09T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11: Tidings of Great Joy

Despite Luke's glowering presence, the next few weeks became heaven on earth for Abby. Brant insisted that she move into his room and, although it felt strange sharing a bedroom with a man, she welcomed his presence, even longed for it. Gradually, he became more affectionate in front of the children, lightly kissing her goodbye every morning. But at night—how she longed for her nights with him—his passion knew no bounds, and she found herself testing the limits of her own passion, doing things with a man she would never have imagined as her former self—Abigail.

Winter set in and many evenings Brant and Abby took turns reading stories to the children. On a blustery November night after they'd tucked Ty and Jenny in and Luke had climbed to the loft, she teased Brant, "In one of your letters, you said you were the son of a school teacher. Were you the teacher's pet?"

He chuckled, "Definitely, not. My mother went out of her way to make sure I never got preferential treatment. Even so, I was too mischievous to become teacher's pet."

Abby reached to pet Wally stretched out before the hearth and chanced another question. "Are your mother and father still living?"

His expression turned sad. "I never knew my father. He drowned shortly after I was born while fording a river after a heavy rain. My mother was well educated, having been born in Boston to a wealthy family. When she met my father, a cowpoke, and fell in love, her family cut ties with her. She came out west with my father and settled in East Texas. After a couple of years, I was born, and then she was alone after his death. She refused to ask for charity from her estranged family, and when a teaching position was advertised in Ft. Worth, she applied and got hired. She sold our small place and taught in Ft. Worth until I was about eleven. Then she heard about a school needing a teacher in Two Rivers. She said she was up for a challenge and we moved here."

"She never remarried?"

"No. She had a few gentleman callers, but she always told me she was a one-man woman, and no one could live up to my pa."

Abby glanced at her lap, his words hitting close to home and making her wonder if he was a one-woman man because he'd only remarried out of necessity.

He continued, "My mother died when I was twenty-one. Doc Henry said it was because she had a weak heart. We'd always lived in a small house near town provided for her because she was the teacher. After Molly and I married we lived with her while I worked cattle drives saving money to buy my own place. When my mother died, doc gave me a letter she'd written because she'd known her time was short. Seems she'd also been saving for years for me to buy a ranch. I used the money we'd both saved and put a down payment on this land.

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