Grace: Bride of Montana (American Mail-Order Bride 41) Read Free Page B

ear. “After everything that happened today—almost being parted forever—please…you wouldn’t deny us the closeness of intimacy?”
    I haven’t had a chance to tell him everything that happened. I need to talk as much as I need his embrace.
    Grace desperately wanted to fall onto her bed with him, spill out the whole story, and allow his caresses to take her away from today’s shock. But she didn’t dare.
    If Shirley awoke and saw them together, the woman would turn Grace out into the street. Without a job, paying for food and lodging would use up her savings—the money she’d worked so hard to earn and save in order to contribute to the house they planned to buy once they were wed.
    “You must go.” She tried to wiggle out of his arms.
    “Please, Grace.”
    A sound from the other bed made her shove against his chest.
    He stepped back, eyebrows raised in displeasure.
    She stabbed a finger toward the door.
    Victor pulled her with him. At the door, he bent to whisper in her ear. “I cut out the appointments I scheduled for today in order to get here as soon as I could. I won’t be back for ten days.”
    “Ten days?” Grace didn’t dare let her voice rise in disappointment, but oh, how she wanted to.
    “I’m sorry, darling.” He kissed her forehead. “But when I return, I’ll rent a hotel room for us so we can be together. Can you make an excuse to Shirley and be gone for the night?”
    For two years, Grace had insisted on marriage before intimacy, while Victor required them to have saved sufficient funds to establish themselves before they wed. The impasse had proved difficult for them both. But today, she almost died , and that changed everything.
    Victor brought her hands to his lips and kissed them. He touched her neck, his finger dipping under the material of her nightgown to catch on the thin gold necklace he’d given her with a tiny heart pendent engraved with a G and an L . With a hook of his finger, he lifted the necklace to rest on the outside of her nightgown.
    At his sweet gesture, she reached up and fingered the heart.
    “I have good news for you, dearest. Soon you’ll be able to wear this for all the world to see. For I just landed a big account! With that commission, we can afford to marry in two months, three at the most. So, you see, there’s no need to wait.”
    She bit back a gasp. Grace wanted to shriek with joy. Instead she bounced on her toes. “Oh, Victor,” she whispered, pulling her hands loose from his so she could throw her arms around his neck. “I’m so happy.” She squeezed tight to him.
    “Then you’ll meet me at The Brennen Hotel?”
    “Yes, oh, yes.”
    “Come at five o’clock. We’ll have dinner at this little romantic place around the corner, and then we’ll retreat to our bower of love, signing the hotel’s register as Mr. and Mrs. Jones.”
    * * *
    Throughout the week, Grace’s moods fluctuated between excitement about spending the night with Victor and their approaching wedding, to the nightmare memories of the fire that continued to plague her. She been teary and tired and jumpy, unlike her calm, practical self. Without a job, time weighed heavily on her hands, and she spent the first day cleaning every square inch of Shirley’s house.
    She received free room and board for looking after the elderly woman, which usually amounted to doing the heavy cleaning and laundry, as well as toting buckets of water, shopping, and running errands. Shirley still enjoyed cooking and doing some of the cleaning herself, so Grace didn’t feel her duties were too arduous, but she’d have to find someone responsible who could take her place when she married. Maybe one of the other seamstresses will want the position.
    After her cleaning frenzy, when Shirley was visiting a friend, Grace brought out her heirloom family wedding gown, first worn by her great-great-grandmother, Abigail Richmond, which Grace had stored under her bed in an ancient cedar box original to the