Iris's Mail Order Husband (Montana Brides #2) by Kate Whitsby

Author:Kate Whitsby
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gold Crown

Chapter 17

After Mick left, Iris went up to her room. She knew where Violet was, but she wasn’t in much hurry to meet up with her older sister. She would get down there soon enough, and Violet would have no shortage of work to be done before the wedding tomorrow.

Iris closed her door and sat down on the edge of her bed. Unbearable fatigue crushed her under its weight, and her chin sank down on her chest. She felt the sting of tears in her eyes, aching to be shed.

But a light tap on her door made her blink her tears away, and Violet came into the room. “Here you are. I thought I heard you coming upstairs from the parlor. I suppose Mick went back out to the range.” Violet sat down on the bed next to Iris.

“Yes, he did,” Iris murmured.

Violet’s eyes snapped around, and she peered into Iris’s face. “What’s wrong? You look upset. It wasn’t the sheriff’s visit, was it?”

Iris shook her head. She didn’t trust herself to speak without bursting into tears.

Violet laid her hand on Iris’s knee. “Don’t pay any attention to what he says. I know you didn’t kill Cornell, and he’ll figure that out soon enough.”

“It isn’t that,” Iris croaked.

“It’s not Mick, is it?” Violet asked. “He didn’t get angry at you when he found out about you working the ranch, did he? I saw you two come in from the range together. You were holding hands the same as you were last night, so it must have gone well. I know you were worried about him seeing you for the first time in your work clothes.”

“It isn’t that.” Iris’s voice cracked, and her sobs threatened to overwhelm her.

Violet always knew whenever anything was bothering anyone. She detected the least distress in everyone and curled herself around them like a cat, trying to sooth them with her presence. “What is it, then?”

Iris couldn’t resist her delicate compassion. “He….understood. He understood about me working the ranch.”

“I should say he understood,” Violet shot back. “You told him he would understand when he saw it for himself. He wouldn’t be the man we thought he was if he didn’t.”

“It’s not that.” Iris turned to her sister, and the first tear fell. “He understood everything. He understood so much more than I ever realized. I was so worried about him finding out, and I was still worried about it when I just came up here. My heart is still pounding when I think about it.”

Violet stared at her. Of course Violet couldn’t understand, not the way a cowboy could.

“Don’t you see?” Iris continued. “But no, you couldn’t. You couldn’t know how many times I cried myself to sleep at night, wondering if I was doing the right thing by wearing a man’s clothes and doing a man’s work. You couldn’t know how many times I held myself together after arguing with Cornell about it, only to break down once I got back to my room.”

“But you told me you loved working out on the range,” Violet cried.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.