Rancher Wants a Wife by Kate Bridges

Author:Kate Bridges
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarlequinUKLtd
Published: 2014-04-08T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

For Cassandra to storm out of the bedroom was unthinkable to Jack. How could a night filled with such pleasure and intimacy turn into such a battle?

He ate breakfast before she rose, then left to check on Finley’s sick cattle, and was relieved to see they were on the mend. He returned within two hours, entering his stables to give instructions on which of his men would stay to overlook the ranch, while the rest of them went to Dunleigh’s funeral. Two of the younger men who didn’t know the Englishman well volunteered.

When Jack returned to the house, Cassandra had eaten, cleared the dishes and was ready to leave. She wore a black jacket and long black skirt, both threadbare along the buttons and trim, as though she’d worn them many times before. She probably had at all the funerals she’d attended in Chicago.

The two of them remained cool and cordial to each other.

“Is there anything I can get you before we leave?” he asked.

“I’m fine. I feel for poor Mrs. Dunleigh this morning, and what she must be going through.”

“She’s not alone today.” Jack’s stance softened. “Yet she will likely feel more alone than she’s ever been.”

He went upstairs and changed into a black suit. When his dark cowboy boots thudded on the treads of the stairs, Cassandra slipped out of the parlor and joined him at the front door.

They stepped outside into a blanket of sunshine. Jack followed her shapely form toward the swaying oaks, and the buggies that’d been spiffed up and polished for the procession. Jack had a hard time forgetting the sensual night they’d spent together. It had started out slow and steamy and irresistible. She’d given him provocative looks that could melt an iceman from ten paces. The hours of pleasure had been followed by hours of stone-cold silence.

Why couldn’t she see that he was only looking out for her best interests? No man he knew would be pleased if his wife worked alongside lawmen and lawyers.

And for her to accuse him of hiring an investigator in order to guard his ranch and income from her was an insult.

He tried not to think about it as she climbed onto the front seat of the buggy—before he had an opportunity to help her. The foreman, Crawford, and the cook from the bunkhouse, Malcolm Pheebs, rode in the back. A stream of buggies—six of them—and eight more riders on horseback followed behind them, everyone dressed in their Sunday finest.

Mrs. Dunleigh was surrounded by her family when they got to the riverside ceremony. Her grandchildren, Julia and Ronald, were much quieter than usual, standing back from the newly dug gravesite and Finley’s pine casket, and squinting up at Reverend Darcy when he said a few words to the family beforehand.

“Good morning, Mrs. Dunleigh.” Cassandra embraced her.

The ceremony took place as the river rolled by, wide and blue and as deep as the sorrow felt by the more than one hundred people gathered. Yule had made a lot of friends in the twenty years since coming to Napa Valley, including Sheriff Leggett.

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