Love Inspired Historical September 2017 Box Set by Regina Scott

Author:Regina Scott
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781488017858
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2017-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWO

Noah stifled a gasp. Thankfully, he had enough forethought not to race from the house and thus insult the woman he’d just proposed to. But that didn’t stop him from clamping shut his mouth as he stared, aghast, at Clare.

It wasn’t as though he was opposed to marriage. No, he simply hated the idea of marrying to appease a situation of someone else’s making. To subjugate a person so as to benefit another, as his father had tried to subjugate him.

But he wasn’t naive. He realized that for centuries marriages had been proposed with financial gain in mind. He just didn’t want to be a party to one, especially the one he’d flatly refused two years ago. Greed, his father’s mainly, had birthed the idea that Noah, as his eldest son, should marry a woman whose family business could be merged with the Livingstone’s. The other family involved would get a secure future for their only child, a young woman whose sole purpose in life appeared to be to remain in the lifestyle to which she’d become accustomed.

And, of course, Noah’s father would continue to rule all their lives how he saw fit, all the while expanding his wealth and power.

No. Marriage for someone else’s convenience was more than distasteful to him.

Resentment tightened Noah’s chest as he stared at Clare. He’d told himself years ago that he would not bow to his father’s wishes. He would marry only because he loved the woman and thanks to the scarcity of decent women in Colorado, marriage was unlikely to happen.

Noah paused. Had that been an unconscious reason for choosing to go west?

No. For as long as he could remember, he’d nursed a dream of building a special type of ranch in Colorado, one fed by the offer of free land if he worked it and filled it with livestock. In his case, horses and pack animals. They were as necessary as the railroad, yet many had been discarded, especially after the war, or left to turn feral and compete with cattle for water and food. As a result, ranchers who wanted no animals, save their own valuable cattle, to use their precious grass and water supplies rounded them up to sell or sometimes, if the horses got too close, they would shoot them. Abandoned horses and ponies didn’t provide the income that cattle could.

He had often thought of creating a program to relocate these magnificent beasts, away from the competition for food and water.

But for others that were caught, Noah knew he could rehabilitate them and other abandoned equine. The offer of free land given him would help. His job at the Recording Office would provide the funds to grow that dream. He’d even saved enough to hire a part-time ranch hand.

His father had been furious that Noah had considered pursuing this dream, even if it offered a chance to become a Recording Officer, the youngest in the state. Eventually the promise of the job had been fulfilled and he had his dream ranch as well as a prestigious position.

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