A New Mam for the Girls Read Free

door at the first little provocation.
    “Seth, we need to get this matter settled,” the Sheriff said bluntly.  “What do you intend to do about Miss O’Grady?”
    Seth gave the man an exasperated look, but walked over to pull out a chair for the petite redhead.  “Will you have a seat, Miss?” he offered as politely as he knew how.  He pulled out another chair for Mrs. Trimbull.  “Ma’am…?” he addressed her.  At least Mrs. Trimbull took a seat.  But not the redhead.  She was looking at him with murder in those green eyes!
    “I wasn’t talking about your manners, Seth.”  The Sheriff’s eyes were full of humor in spite of his stern demeanor.
    “Then what
are
you talking about, Bill?” Seth asked.  He was getting pissed off, and he was about to lose his temper… The one that Catherine had taught him to control, telling him he would need patience to be a father!  She was right about that, but these people were getting on his last nerve and if someone didn’t tell him what the hell they expected of him, he was going to throw them all out of his house!
    “I’m talking about your promise to marry Miss O’Grady,” Sheriff Bill Holmes stated clearly.
     
    Chapter Two
     
    “What the hell are you talking about, Bill?  I sure as shootin’ never promised to marry this woman!  I never even saw her before you come bringin’ her out here!”  Seth was enraged.  “Look, lady, I don’t know what you think you are doing, but it isn’t going to work.  I don’t know you, never met you before, and I’m not marrying you or any other female who takes a notion in her head she wants a husband at any price!”
    “Seth!  I am shocked by your behavior.  You made false promises to Bridget.”
    “Ma’am,” Seth forced himself to speak civilly to the Preacher’s wife.  “I made no promises to this woman, and if she tells you I did, then she is lying.”
    The redhead gasped in outrage, and in the next instant the palm of her hand cracked across his left cheek.  “I am no’ a liar, Seth Masterson!”
    Seth’s hand went to his cheek, and for one brief instant he indulged in the fantasy of turning the redhead over his knee, tossing up her skirts, and putting his hand to her cheeks!
    “I hope that hurt!” she declared.
    “It does,” Seth replied.  “A lot.  And you can thank your lucky stars that you are a woman and not a man.”
    “Exactly what I would expect from the likes o’ ye!” 
    “Seth, if you didn’t intend to wed this young woman, then why did you ask her here?”
    “Preacher, I did not ask this woman to come here!”  Seth maintained his innocence. 
    “I’ve seen the letters you wrote to her, young man.  You clearly asked Bridget to marry you.  She traveled all the way here from Boston, by herself, just to marry you.”
    “Ma’am, I didn’t write any letters.”
    “No?  And, I suppose you have no’ seen these before?” Bridget drew a packet of letters from her handbag and shoved them at Seth.
He gave her a puzzled look, but took them, and looked at the return address on the top one before opening it to read:
    Dear Miss O’Grady,

            It was a great pleasure to receive your letter in reply to my inquiry for a wife.  You asked me to

Tell you about myself, so I will.  I am a widower, thirty years of age.  I have two daughters, Sally, age ten,

and Susie, age nine.  We live on a small ranch.
    Seth opened the next one, and kept right on reading until he reached the letter asking Miss O’Grady, or ‘dearest Bridget’, to marry him.  He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, he looked Heavenward, begging God for patience.  Then he opened his mouth and yelled, “Sally, Susie!  Come here right this instant, and unless you want me to switch you daily for the next month, do
NOT
pretend you can’t hear me!”
    Bridget was surprised when the two little girls came out of their hiding place behind the huge cupboard in the corner of the parlor