Short Straw Bride by Dallas Schulze

Author:Dallas Schulze [Schulze, Dallas]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Romance, General, Contemporary, Historical, Fiction
ISBN: 9780373289394
Google: vslZZ8-U1OQC
Amazon: 0373289391
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 1996-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

If Luke had suspected that Eleanor was less than content with their marriage, he would have been surprised. As far as he was concerned, marriage was a great deal better than he’d ever anticipated. When he’d listed the attributes he required in a wife, he’d had little hope of fulfilling them all, but he’d managed to do just that.

Dust no longer coated every surface. Meals were neither burned nor raw. In fact, if he had a complaint about his wife’s cooking, it was that it was too good. It took a considerable effort of will to drag himself from the table and climb back into the saddle. His clothes were clean and mended, he was well fed, the house was becoming a home again and, on top of all that, he’d married a woman who had all the sweet passion a man could possibly want.

He’d made a good choice, he thought now, his gaze pardonably smug as he looked around the parlor, admiring the gleaming surfaces and the renewed color of his mother’s treasured rug, which had been thoroughly beaten a few days ago and then relaid over a bed of fresh straw.

“Place looks like it used to,” Daniel commented, his thoughts moving along the same lines as his brother’s.

“Yup.” Luke noticed that the ashes on his cigar had grown dangerously long, and reached for the ashtray. The ash dropped off before he got there and he used the toe of his boot to rub it into the rug before tapping the remainder off in the ashtray.

Eleanor had already gone upstairs, so there was no possibility of her seeing him drop ashes on her freshly cleaned rug. Not that she would make a fuss, even if she did, he thought. Didn’t have a bad-tempered bone in her body, near as he could tell. He thought he heard a sound from upstairs, but Daniel spoke before he could decide whether or not he’d really heard something.

“Best pie I’ve ever laid a tooth to.” The ashtray was beyond Daniel’s reach, so he tapped his ashes into a cut-glass bowl that held decorative waxed fruit.

“She can cook.” Luke allowed a trace of smugness to color his words.

Hearing it, Daniel grinned. “Got just about everything you wanted.”

“Yup.”

“No regrets?”

“Nope.” He wondered if Eleanor was in bed yet. The thought of going up to join her held more interest than smoking another cigar with his brother, he decided, examining the tip of the one he held. He tilted his head toward the door, thinking he’d heard something but, again, Daniel spoke before he could decide for sure.

“I never thought I’d envy you for drawing the short straw when we decided one of us had to get married,” Daniel said ruefully.

He would have said more, but this time they both heard the same sound. A startled gasp, followed by a soft flurry of movement from the direction of the hall. Luke was on his feet and in the doorway in the space of a heartbeat. He caught only a glimpse of Eleanor’s ankles as she disappeared up the stairs in a swirl of muslin.

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