Harlequin Historical April 2015 - Box Set 1 of 2: A Ring from a Marquess\Bound by Duty\Promised by Post\From Wallflower to Countess by Christine Merrill

Author:Christine Merrill
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Harlequin Historical
Publisher: Harlequin

Chapter Three

We have six hands that work the spread and you’ll have my mother and a girl to help you with the house. A neighbor comes in twice a month to do laundry. Life is probably simpler out here than you are used to. The hands all live in the house with us and we share meals like one big family.

“Comfort?” Daniel Werner said.

Anna searched the dark eyes of the man before her. His hug had felt nothing like what one of her brothers might have given her, and it had set off a riot of sensation deep inside her. But he was to be her brother-in-law, not her husband.

She wanted to drop through the boards under her feet or to smack him. But she’d thrown herself at him, not the other way around.

“You went through a lot with a stagecoach robbery.” He screwed up his nose and had the grace to look slightly sheepish. He reached for his forehead as if to adjust a hat, but then ran his fingers through his uncovered dark hair. “You have a trunk?”

Grateful for the reprieve, she turned around and pointed to the lone bags left on the walkway. There was nothing to do but march to the wagon and climb onto the seat. Then, of course, she realized a gently bred lady would have waited for assistance. She tried to gather herself together and ignore that the past few minutes in Daniel’s arms had been like a homecoming.

The minute she’d seen him, a sense of familiarity had come over her like a soothing bath, but he was the wrong man. She’d gone easily into his arms and felt welcomed and wanted by a man who would be her brother-in-law. Could the day go any more wrong?

Then again, as she watched her soon-to-be brother-in-law lift her trunk as if it weighed nothing, her stomach did somersaults. She tried to draw her eyes away from his broad shoulders, his easy stride. For heaven’s sake, she couldn’t dwell on the solid breadth of his chest against hers, but the thoughts and prickly sensations wouldn’t leave her.

God help her, his brother had better be an older version of him. Surely he was. Surely it was just a brotherly familiarity that had her heart galloping. Or the relief of knowing she had a home to go to after thinking she might have been abandoned. Or rejected outright for shooting a man.

She tried to shift through a thousand different thoughts. “Why is Rafael not here?”

“He’s tracking horse thieves.” Daniel thumped the trunk down into the bed of the wagon, set her carpetbag beside it and scowled. “We had some stolen last night.”

Horse thieves and stagecoach robberies. A shudder passed through her. “Are we going to the hotel, then?”

“No. To the ranch. It’s only a little over three hours’ drive. We’ll be home by midnight. But first I have to tell the sheriff.”

“But there’s been an armed stagecoach robbery and horses stolen from your ranch. I don’t think it is safe to travel after dark.

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