His High-Stakes Bride by Martha Hix

Author:Martha Hix
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2017-05-04T13:23:33+00:00

Chapter 5

“Allow me to help you, darling.”

The Alington Pullman had been unlinked and was now berthed with other private cars at Union Station. Grant took her gloved fingers, his free hand steadying her elbow as Patty stepped down to a platform in a place she had yearned to be—had longed to be!—for what seemed like ages and ages, in an international city more Mexican than Anglo. El Paso, Texas.

Patty glanced around. The terrain was that of a desert. Earlier, Grant mentioned the altitude being over thirty-seven hundred feet in the only natural pass in the Sierra Madre Mountains, with that break being punctuated by the great river separating Mexico from the United States. To the south, they called it the Bravo, with Texans calling it the Rio Grande, but the river didn’t interest Patty.

For long moments, she simply stared at the serrated peaks. “Mountains. They always call my father to them.”

“Men are like that,” Grant said.

“I guess I understand why. It’s their majesty. And mystery. Papa always says ‘from mountains and caverns and the underground, comes the world’s riches.’ But why do they have to be more important than family?”

Grant stepped away for a moment to speak with the porter who handled their baggage. When he returned, he said, “It’s a great responsibility, Sweetness, supporting a family. When a man does that while pursuing a line of work speaking to his soul, it’s powerful.”

She let that sink in. “You do have a point. I just pray it hasn’t killed Papa.”

“That’s what we’re here to find out.”

She almost put her hand in his again. “What about you, Grant? Are you pursuing the profession that speaks to your heart?”

“Politicians are expected to follow the law.”

“What do you love?”

“Your pretty brown eyes.”

“Oh, silly. I’m talking about work.”

“When I was a boy, I hankered to grow up and run the Lerand cotton farm.”

After disclosing his gubernatorial ambitions, Grant had told her more about his mother’s family and their political interests, and he’d added the Kincaid connection. His mother inherited her father’s property, and she’d placed her elder sons in charge of it, since Grant’s father practiced medicine. “You said you’re the third son. I guess that’s why.”

“You guess right.”

He’d also mentioned his three younger sisters. Whereas the brothers had treated Grant in an unkind manner, as if he were a punching bag and the object of all pranks and jokes, the girls looked up to him. He’d got his wonderful attentiveness from looking out for those sisters, for which Patty now benefited.

“Kitten, we can’t stand here all day. We should secure our hotel rooms.”

They could have stayed the night in the Pullman. No. Grant had already decided on a nice hotel near the Western Union office. He’d stayed there on a previous visit to this city.

She couldn’t help but chuckle when she saw the mode of transportation that she and Grant would be taking into the heart of downtown. A donkey cart. The barefoot driver wore white and a straw hat, while the

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