Sudden Mail-Order Bride by Regina Scott

Author:Regina Scott [Scott, Regina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: mail-order bride, frontier romance, historical romance, marriage of convenience, matchmaking family
Publisher: Edwards and Williams
Published: 2024-04-15T08:00:00+00:00

***

This family! At this rate, he and Caroline might manage to kiss on their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary!

Jeremy stalked down the corridor for the kitchen, nearly colliding with Jason as he came out. His younger brother held a handful of soft brown fur. “Thought you might want to give this to Caroline.”

“Because nothing says love like a dead animal?” Jeremy guessed.

His brother scowled. “It’s mink. I caught it in one of the traps the other day, and I skinned it. You can make something nice for her with the pelt, maybe a collar for her coat. Girls like that.”

Jeremy shook his head. “And how would you know what girls like?”

“There are four of them in this family alone,” Jason reminded him. “I listen. You should too.”

He stalked off down the corridor, carrying the pelt with him.

Oh, he was listening. He just had more thinking to do was all.

He had plenty of time to consider as he took his turn with Jack and Jane. They’d spotted nothing unusual, but Jack still insisted on a triple guard. In the cool darkness, cattle lowing, Jeremy came to a conclusion. He couldn’t do anything about his father’s illness or the strangers in the woods. He could do something about his courtship.

“It may rain later,” he told Caroline as Joshua and Joy brought in the porridge and bacon the next morning. “We should go for a ride. I want to show you the drop.”

She agreed readily, but then, she didn’t know what the drop meant. His brothers and sisters knew that he and Jacob had taken Deborah and Maisy there on their ill-fated visit, though not that Jeremy had made a fool of himself by proposing. When Jesse had led his Alice to see the drop on their first visit, the others had decided that’s what the view was for—courting your sweetheart and giving her a kiss.

He’d almost kissed Caroline last night. She’d looked up at him so sweetly, starlight sparkling in her hair, then closed her eyes, as if she wanted to feel his lips against hers. His own longing was welling up in him again now as they rode out. He managed to keep his hands on the reins even though all he wanted was to reach out and touch her.

As they neared the edge of the cliff that ran down to the Nisqually Delta, his muscles tensed, and he slowed Quicksilver. Caroline reined in as well, easier in the saddle than he had been the first few times Pa had put him on a horse. She seemed to acclimate to new situations quickly. Another reason to admire her.

“Oh, Jeremy,” she murmured, eyes shining as she gazed out over the delta. “It’s beautiful.”

She sounded awed. Though he’d seen the view dozens of times, he couldn’t help marveling a little himself. The tide was out. The wide grasslands of the delta were greening with spring, and the Nisqually cut through them in silver braided streams, with Medicine Creek a darker gray just below. Gulls swept the skies to wheel down toward the bluer waters of Puget Sound.

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