Unclaimed Bride by Lauri Robinson

Author:Lauri Robinson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance, Historical
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2012-11-01T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Ellis brushed the snow from his coat sleeves and stomped his boots before entering the house. The welcoming heat of the kitchen was a wonderful reprieve from the blizzard once again blanketing the ground. In the three weeks Constance had been at the ranch, it had snowed almost continuously. He pulled his hat from his head, and his heart started to drum as he wondered when he’d started marking time by her arrival. Seems lately everything he referred to was either before Constance arrived or after.

“Here, I’ll take that,” she said, holding her hand out. “You take your stuff off.” She frowned at the snow caked around his ankles. “Or do you have to go back out?”

“Thanks.” He gave her the hat, watching as she spun to hang it on one of the hooks beside the closed door. Her breasts strained against the material of her dress, and the chill the weather had instilled in his loins was instantly replaced by a bolt of heat. “No, I don’t have to go back out. What can be done in weather like this is done.”

She took his coat as he shrugged out of it, hanging it beside his hat while he sat down on the chair below the hooks to remove his boots, focusing his gaze on the rug that had been placed under the chair to catch the water that formed as the snow melted.

Graceful as always, she moved from his side, walking to the stove where the coffeepot perked merrily. He couldn’t help but wonder, in moments like this, how things had been before she’d come to live here. He and Angel had gotten along fine, never missing the little things like rugs and coffee already made.

There was always a pot brewing in the bunkhouse, and he’d consumed gallons of the black brew over the years, but now he didn’t. When the chores were done, he headed straight for the house, knowing Constance would have some of her delicious coffee ready, along with a cookie or other such treat to warm his insides.

The routine had started the day she’d read their contract, legally binding her to stay at the ranch for the next six months. Maybe that was when he’d started counting the days, for it certainly had been when his mind had started badgering him for not telling her about Ashton’s will. Could it be guilt sending his pulse racing?

One boot hit the rug with a thud, and Constance glanced his way. He stood the boots side by side, and brushed at the snow still clinging to his pant legs. She turned back to the stove and his mind took off again. That had been the reason he’d called her into his office that day—to tell her about her inheritance. But it hadn’t happened. And in the weeks that followed, it still hadn’t.

It wasn’t that he didn’t believe she had the right to know, he knew she did, but truth be told, he didn’t want her to leave. That, he told himself, trying to justify his thoughts, would break his daughter’s heart.

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