Outlaw's Bride by Lori Copeland

Author:Lori Copeland
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780736927512
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Judith Ramsey’s grave lay in a small grove of scrub oak behind Frank and Lucy Daniel’s homestead. Her son, Jacob, was on the right. Johnny stopped the wagon and helped Ragan down.

“Thank you. I won’t be long.”

“Take your time.”

He stepped to the shade and waited as she laid flowers on her grandparents’ graves, and then she moved to her mother’s mound to clear the weeds that had overtaken the simple wooden cross. Songbirds flittered in and out of the bushes. In the distance, a creek trickled peacefully along the edge of the property. The setting was so restful it was easy to see why Fulton wanted his wife and son laid to rest here.

He studied Ragan’s expression as she tidied the site with loving devotion, and he thought of his own mother’s grave, abandoned now. No one was left to bring her flowers or clear away weeds. Grandpa was gone, and he hadn’t been home in years. If he ever made it back, he promised himself he would cover his parents’ graves with flowers. And the little girls’ too. He’d buy all the flowers they deserved.

“I’m guessing you and your mother were close?”

Ragan got to her feet and brushed the grass off her skirt. “I suppose we were. I was her firstborn, so I had to help out more than the other girls did.” She wiped her forehead with her sleeve. The air was close, as if it might storm, but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. “I didn’t mind, but sometimes I feel like I never had a childhood.”

And not much of a life now. Johnny had heard the whispers around town, the well-meaning but careless remarks the women directed at her. Old maid? He found himself tensing when he heard the insinuations. Ragan outshone every woman in Barren Flats, and she should be applauded because she chose to accept responsibility for her father and younger siblings. Instead, the town hens reveled in discussing poor Ragan and her impossible situation.

“What about you? Are you close to your mother?” She returned to pulling weeds around the other graves.

Squatting on his haunches, he watched her work. “I don’t have any family.”

She yanked a particularly stubborn yucca root. “Everyone has family at one time or another. You didn’t just appear on earth one day a full-grown man, did you?”

“Could be.”

She turned to look at him. He tried to stop the slow grin that threatened to reveal itself.

“You most certainly did not appear from nowhere, so you have a mother.” Sitting back on her heels, she faced him.

“Had a mother.”

She waited.

“She’s dead.”

Ragan’s smile faded. “I’m sorry. She must have been very young.”

Nodding, he stood up. “Too young to die.”

“John.” It was the first time she’d ever called him by his given name.

“Yes?”

Her insistent gaze met his. “Did you rob that bank?”

Their gazes held. “Do you think I did?”

“I think you didn’t. I might be a fool, but I don’t believe you committed the crime.”

He could tell her the truth, but then that would make him more vulnerable to her.

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