His Brother's Wife Read Free Page B

looking at anything but
her. It took Grace only moments for Rafe’s words to sink in. Jesse
Samuels was there. He just wasn’t who she
thought he was. “That’s Jesse?”
    “Yep.”
    Looking up at Rafe, Grace
could see amusement dancing in his eyes. He knew she’d mistaken him
for Jesse and he was enjoying her stupidity. And stupid is how she
felt. Not only had she agreed to marry sight-unseen, but she’d
somehow promised herself to a child. A boy who was too embarrassed
to even look her in the eye.

Chapter Three

     
     
     
    “He’s just a boy.” Grace
felt her chest tighten before her heart started thumping wildly. No
wonder everyone inside the station had laughed at her. Jesse
Samuels was a child and no one bothered to inform her. They said
nothing. Just stood there laughing at her while she made a fool of
herself.
    Grace glared at those she
could see. They had the decency to blush and look away before
snickering. She turned back to Jesse. The real Jesse. He was still
staring at his feet, his hands shoved into his pockets. The hat on
his head shielded his entire face but embarrassment tinted his ears
pink.
    She sighed, her shoulders
dropping before she shook her head. How had this happened? Grace
lifted her hand, laying it to her forehead and tried to think. What
did she do now? “How old is he?”
    Rafe cleared his throat
and shifted his weight to one leg. “He’s fourteen.”
    Her eyes widened.
“Fourteen?”
    “Almost fifteen,” Jesse
said, managing to look up then. He still didn’t look her in the eye
but he wasn’t a mute as she’d begun to think. He stepped up on the
sidewalk and shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. “Well, in
nine months I will be.”
    “Fourteen?” Grace mumbled
the number under her breath before her knees gave out and she sat
down hard on top of her trunk. She'd traveled across the entire
country to marry the man painted so eloquently in the pages of his
letter and here she sat, staring up at a child not even old enough
to shave the whiskers from his chin.
    When she woke this morning
her first thought had been of him, Jesse, the sweet, shy man she’d
come to know through the letter he'd sent. He owned his own ranch,
he’d said, with a herd of steer so large he lost count of them most
days. He worked hard, had a grand two-story home on five hundred
acres of prime Montana soil. But he was lonely. He wanted a wife.
Someone to share all his fortune with.
    And she’d been gullible
enough to fall for every single word.
    She realized now how
foolish she’d been. Her father often accused her of making rash
decisions. He was right, of course, and this mistake had cost her
everything. Every dime she owned.
    Looking up at Rafe, the
man she first thought she would marry, she noticed he fit the
description Jesse had painted of himself in his letter. But he’d
lied. Lied and led her to believe he was someone he wasn’t. Why
would he do such a thing? She’d been truthful with him. She'd held
nothing back from her history. She'd told him of her parents being
gone and how she had sell every possession she owned to pay her
father’s creditors.
    Rafe cleared his throat,
drawing Grace from her musings. “It’s a long way to the house. If
we want to make it before dark we’d best get a move on.”
    The house? Grace stared at
him for long moments before what he said registered. Home. He
wanted to go home. With her? She stood and looked between him and
Jesse. They were both staring at her. When she said nothing, or
made any attempt to move, Rafe said, “Grab her things,
Jesse.”
    She gaped at him before
turning toward Jesse again. He crossed the sidewalk and grabbed one
of her trunks, lifting it with a grunt before staggering with it to
the back of the wagon. She stared at him for long moments. He wore
a smug look on his face… until he looked at Rafe. Him, he glared at
before crossing the sidewalk to grab her other things.
    This can’t be happening,
she thought as she watched