Page 3 of A Dangerous Heart (Wind River Mail-Order Brides #4)

W ith her finely tuned instincts, Clare felt a prickling awareness of the curious gazes from passengers on the boardwalk and the men they’d left behind at the station as Eli and Ben scrambled into the wagon box.

The wagon itself was loaded with supplies and waited outside the dry-goods store.

A few feet away, Isaac and a boy with a similar stubborn jawline, a little older than Eli, were engaged in an intense conversation. Every line of Isaac McGraw’s body conveyed suppressed anger and frustration.

The wind carried his last clipped words to the boy. “You ride ahead and start fixing this.”

“I’m hungry,” Ben muttered again.

Clare leaned over the wagon bed to pat his shoulder. “Try to take a nap,” she urged. “We don’t want to cause trouble in our first moments here.”

“Too late,” Eli mumbled.

Isaac stalked to the wagon, ignoring a lifted hat from a man passing by as he approached.

Clare quickly climbed onto the front seat. The trip would be tense at the start, just inches from him on the seat, but she knew how to calm angry men.

“You don’t happen to have children?” she asked, a hint of honey in her voice.

The wagon shifted as he settled on the bench. His hesitation lasted so long, she thought he wouldn’t answer.

“My nephew,” Isaac finally grumbled.

“I thought I could see the family resemblance.”

Another grunt, a flick of the reins, and the wheels began to turn.

“I know you weren’t expecting the boys,” she said with a tentative smile. “We hadn’t really gotten that far in our letters.”

They passed out of town as a lengthy silence settled between them.

“They’re good boys. Growing up on a farm, they’re no strangers to hard work. They can care for chickens or hogs. And they’re fast learners.”

Still no reply. It couldn’t be more obvious that he didn’t want to engage with her. And they hadn’t been married before they’d left town. This wasn’t a good start. At least the boys had settled in the back of the wagon, pulling their hats over their eyes.

From the corner of her eye, she took in Isaac’s profile. A half-day’s growth of dark-blond beard shadowed his hardened jaw. He kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead.

Her palms began to sweat. She rubbed them on her skirt, searching her mind for something from the letters to placate him. Yes. He had written he needed a cook.

“Your ad mentioned you were looking for someone to cook. I’m a great cook!” It was a slight exaggeration. Her mother had passed on when Clare was young, and Clare’s early instruction hadn’t been in cooking. It’d been pickpocketing.

“I didn’t mention anything,” he muttered.

He had. A whole paragraph listing his favorite meals. Didn’t he remember?

The wagon rattled along the two-track road over a slight hill.

Clare grasped for something to say as they rolled past the lodgepole pines and rocky outcrops that dotted the landscape.

A slight breeze swept across the grassy prairie.

The land was vast. She could see for miles in all directions.

The McGraws owned several homesteads they had already proved up.

From the few letters she’d received, she could tell they were proud of the land they owned.

“No wonder your family settled here. It feels like the land goes on and on forever.”

His shoulders tensed even more, if that were possible.

Clare grew agitated. Every attempt to chip away at the man’s icy demeanor failed. He remained as silent and unyielding as the distant mountains as he eyed a farmhouse set back off the road.

She breathed in a long, deep breath. Slowly released it. He doesn’t want you here. But if he didn’t want her, then why had he placed the ad? And written the letters?

She cast a glance at his grim profile again. Something Anne used to say passed through her mind.

Can’t deny the sun’s shining when it’s right there in the noonday sky.

Fine.

She turned on the hard seat and confronted him head-on. “Why did you write the letters?”

He sighed and rubbed the place where his nose met his forehead. A fine blush bloomed at the top of his cheeks. “I didn’t write any letters or place an ad. My brothers…”

“Your brothers?” Her voice had grown faint.

“My brothers cooked up a plan to get me a wife by placing one of those ads.” The red on his cheeks deepened. “It didn’t work out—for me.”

What did that mean?

“Then my nephew”—he nodded ahead to where the lanky boy was just visible on horseback—“and my niece decided to write back to one of the letters. Your letter.”

His nephew had written the letters. Everything she knew about him and the ranch, the life she had run to, had been written by a boy? Humiliation took root as she thought of the words she’d written back.

“I don’t understand. Why would your nephew do that?”

She recognized the angry set to his jaw as he muttered, “It’s complicated.”

“You didn’t put him up to it?” she pressed.

“I have no need for a wife,” he growled.

This was all a child’s prank? And she’d staked her future on it? She waited for more, but his mouth became a grim line.

“I’m real sorry,” he said, but his words didn’t make a real apology.

He didn’t sound sorry. He sounded annoyed.

“David and Jo finagled a way to buy the train ticket with their own money and send it with the adults none the wiser.” He shook his head with a humorless laugh.

His eyes rested on her. “They shouldn’t have done it. ”

Clare’s stomach sank. She pictured the short advertisement Anne had circled in the newspaper. Anne had called the ad “God’s providence.” Looking back now, Clare saw it for what it was. Too good to be true.

Her thoughts whirled, trying to find a solution for this disaster. “You sure you don’t want to get married?” Her mind went to the ads she’d scoured over and over. Men who listed ads seemed to want companionship and help with ranch work.

“No.” The curt word left no room for argument.

“So what am I supposed to do?”

“That’s not my problem.”

“You came all the way to town. That shows a sense of responsibility,” she argued.

“I came to make sure David didn’t do something foolish,” he snapped.

The words carried a sense of honor that she’d appreciate at another place and time—not when her careful plans were unraveling all around her.

“You can go back where you came from,” he said.

“The boys and I can’t go back. There’s nothing left to go back to—no home, no family, no farm.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the boys. Eli was awake, head propped on one elbow at the back corner of the wagon, staring at the passing scenery. Ben stirred from where he’d fallen asleep tucked between two crates.

The enormity of what she had done hit her.

Isaac let out a long-suffering sigh. “My brothers can regroup and help you figure out what to do, since David and Jo created this mess.”

Isaac scanned the horizon with a level of attention she didn’t expect from someone who claimed to be a simple rancher.

That made her even more curious about him—more so than the dozens of little mannerisms she’d noticed during the past half hour.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a small finger tapping her on the shoulder.

“I’m hungry.” Ben had crawled over some crates stacked at the back of the wagon and tried to whisper in her ear. She’d pushed off his needs back in town. She had nothing to feed the boys.

Isaac leaned forward and reached under the seat, rummaging.

He pulled out a shiny metal lunch pail that was overflowing with so much food that the red-and-white cloth tucked around its top strained to contain it all.

He handed it to her, his eyes on her only long enough for Clare to take it from him before setting it on her lap.

Under the cloth, she found biscuits, thick slices of ham, and two apples at the bottom.

“Looks like someone made fresh biscuits this morning. Would you mind if the boys shared one?”

“They can have all of it.”

The quick act of kindness seemed to contrast with the gruff, angry man next to her, but she wasn’t going to argue about this. Not when the boys needed food.

She turned to hand a fluffy biscuit to Ben. The wagon jostled, and her shoulder brushed against a hard, muscled bicep. A tingling sensation shot down her arm into her fingers. His jaw remained tight and his gaze miles ahead.

“What do you say?” she murmured.

The boys gave a chorus of awkward thank-yous.

No-no. No-no.

One of the wagon wheels squeaked. Instead of the hopeful message she’d heard on the train, worries cascaded in time with each turn of the wheel.

No husband.

No home.

No future.

What now?

Isaac shifted beside her. Suddenly, those sharp green eyes were turned on her, studying her. “I’ve got some questions of my own, you know.” His voice was low and raspy and deceptively calm. “Like why a woman like you would need to become a mail-order bride.”

She bristled, then caught herself. A woman like her. What did he mean by that?

In the back of the wagon, the boys were chattering in low voices. Something about a rabbit.

A woman like her would go to great lengths to protect the people she loved.

“What kind of woman is that?” She tipped her head artfully.

But his eyes were sharp, not curious. “You said you know about farming and cooking, and you have two boys to help. And you’re a looker. You couldn’t find a man in all of Missouri to take you on?”

Clare felt a subtle flutter inside as Isaac’s words registered. A woman like you and a looker . Her face warmed as she realized Isaac McGraw thought she was pretty.

“What happened to your husband?”

What husband? It was on the tip of her tongue, but she caught the words just in time. She flicked a glance back at the boys, who didn’t seem to have heard.

“He’s gone.” She tried for a note of sadness and finality. It was true. Victor had left town on a job—she hadn’t asked more. And when her brother returned to the farm, he would find her and the boys gone.