White River Brides by Frances Devine

Author:Frances Devine [DEVINE, FRANCES]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-63058-542-6
Publisher: Barbour Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2011-09-17T04:00:00+00:00

Rafe swung the ax down hard, splitting the short logs for Ma’s cookstove. Some of the neighbors were using oil stoves to cook on, but Ma said absolutely not. They’d have to be a sight better than they were now before she’d give up her woodstove. Rafe chuckled. Fine with him. The smell of bacon and eggs frying on that old stove was about the most tantalizing thing he’d ever had a sniff of. Except maybe Ma’s fried chicken.

Horse’s hooves sounded on the lane leading to the house. Rafe looked up. Tuck was almost lying down on Sweet Pea’s neck as she urged her forward. That girl was going to break her neck one of these days if she didn’t stop riding so hard. She’d gone flying a few times before, luckily escaping with scrapes and bruises.

“You trying to kill yourself or something?” He frowned as Tuck jumped down and sauntered toward him, a big grin on her face.

“You should talk. Who’s the one who broke his collarbone twice and his arm three times, and what caused it?”

“Hey, one of those broken arms was from falling out of a tree. You know that.” But he grinned.

“Of course, I remember.” She cocked her head and grinned. “But you were practicing jumping into the saddle from the branch of the old oak in the middle of our pasture. So it still involved a reckless act with a horse.”

She had a point. “Okay, we’re both lucky to be alive with all the shenanigans we pulled.”

Laughing, she punched him on the arm. “Yep. You can say that again.”

“Where’s your fancy dress and hair geegaws?”

She shrugged. “No sense in torturing myself when Sam’s not around to see me, is there?”

“Oh, the fancy doctor’s gone again?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She planted her hands on her hips and glared. “He has a perfectly good reason for being gone. Just like he always does.”

Rafe snorted. “Listen to yourself, Tuck. Like he always does?”

“If you’re going to make insinuations about Sam, I’m leaving.” She spun around and stomped back to her horse.

Rafe exhaled loudly. Lately, all he seemed to do when they were together was to rile her up. “Come on, Tuck. Don’t leave. I’m sorry, okay?”

She jumped on her horse. “Sure you are. I can see it all over you. I guess you forgot I told you I’m going to marry him. If you dislike him that much, I guess we can’t be friends.” She wheeled Sweet Pea around then yelled back over her shoulder, “And for your information, he’s in Kansas City helping out his mother.”

Rafe loaded up his arms with logs and stalked toward the house. Fine. If she could sling their friendship away that easily, so could he. There was no way he could pretend to like Sam Fields. He dumped the logs in the wooden box by the stove.

His mother looked up from the pan of potatoes she was slicing. “I thought I heard Abby. Didn’t you invite her in?”

“She had to leave, Ma.

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