The Ranger's Bride by Laurie Grant

Author:Laurie Grant
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

Addy watched as the genial smile melted off the man’s face, so like Rede’s and yet not like his.

“No, ma’am. Guess ya saw right through me, didn’t ya?” His expression was serious now. “Fact is, I’m not John Edwards. I’m Jack…Jack Smith. I’m Rede Smith’s brother, and I need to find him. So’s I kin help him—I’m also a Texas Ranger, ma’am,” he added quickly. His tone was reassuring, but there was a coyote’s cunning in his eyes. “Where is he?”

The prickling she’d felt going up and down her spine became an icicle. She hadn’t trusted this man from the moment her eyes had first met his, but why did he look so much like Rede?

“How’d you know to come here?” she said, wishing again that Beatrice Morgan had not left, wishing her own hasty tongue hadn’t given away her suspicion just yet.

“Rede sent a telegram, ma’am. To headquarters, lettin’ us know he was stayin’ with ya and needed help to round up them outlaws.”

Addy’s mind raced. He could have sent a telegram, either from Connor’s Crossing or some nearby town, while he’d been out on Jessie—but wouldn’t he have mentioned it to her?

She went past him and looked out her window. “Where’s the rest of your help?” she said, pulling back the lace curtain and gesturing toward the empty road outside as she turned back to him. “You Rangers are famous for capturing outlaws, but surely they wouldn’t have sent just one of you?”

He gave her that easy, reassuring smile again. “Th’ rest of the boys are waitin’ a ways outside town. We didn’t want to attract no attention to ya, ma’am, by a large party of us seekin’ ya out.”

As casually as she could, Addy picked up her sewing scissors from beside the wheel of the sewing machine. They weren’t much of a weapon, if her instincts were right about him, but it was all she had to hand. She had to find a casual way to get to the desk drawer.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Smith—or whatever your name really is. I’m not sure I believe you. If you were really a Texas Ranger looking for your brother, why would you need that cock-and-bull story about needing a dress made for your wife?” she said, gesturing with the scissors at the calico fabric he still held.

“But ma’am,” he said, maddeningly patient. “I needed to find ya, but I wanted to protect ya from…shall we say…notoriety? You’re a widow still in mourning—half-mourning, anyway,” he said, with a nod toward her black-trimmed dove-gray dress. “I couldn’t speak plain t’ th’ store owner, or in front of that old woman! What would the town think of a widow giving secret shelter to a man—any man, even a Ranger, not related to her, when there are plenty of other places he could stay?”

Addy felt herself growing angry at his insinuating tone. She wanted to say, I don’t give a hoot what they’d think, but forced herself to smile apologetically.

“Perhaps I’ve been too hasty, sir.

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