His Heartbroken Bride (The Brides of Paradise Ranch - Spicy Version Book 4) Read Free

scramble past Libby and into the aisle.
    Libby had to deal with them, but she was wracked with guilt over what she’d done to Miriam…and Cody.
    “Please reconsider,” she begged Miriam as she stood, grabbing the boys’ hands to keep them from running wild. “Cody is a good man. He’s—”
    “We’re here, we’re here. Come on, Mama, let’s go.”
    “Be still for just one moment, sweethearts.” Exasperation warred with remorse for the chief place in Libby’s emotions. “Petey, take this bag, please.”
    She reached up to grab one of two carpetbags from the rack above Miriam’s head. Petey dutifully took it, but Matthew darted off down the aisle. The conductor caught him before he could escape the train, but Libby had to move.
    “You’ll have to tell him for me,” Miriam blurted before Libby could plead her case any more.
    “Me?”
    “Yes, you said that you know Cody, and his brothers.”
    Libby blinked fast. “I haven’t spoken to any of them in years, except through their sister. I’m not sure they would even remember my face if they saw it.”
    Miriam stood, grasping Libby’s free hand. “No one could forget you, Libby. Please tell Cody that I can’t marry him, but that I wish him well. Tell him I wish for him to find love somewhere out there in the vastness of life and the wilderness.” She was back to performing as if in front of an audience.
    “Ma’am,” the conductor called from the door, where he was now holding back two boys. “Sorry, but we ain’t got all day. Train’s gotta move on as soon as the luggage is unloaded.”
    “Yes, I’m sorry. Coming.” Libby gave the man a frazzled smile, then turned back to Miriam. “Are you sure you won’t reconsider?”
    “I absolutely will not.” Miriam tilted her chin up, striking a pose. That pose melted moments later. “But I will write to you, if that’s all right with you.”
    “Yes, certainly. I believe Haskell is small enough that if you address a letter to Libby Sims or Elizabeth Sims, it will find its way to me.”
    “Then that’s what I shall do.” Miriam let Libby go. Libby started down the aisle, to where her boys were jumping up and down in their eagerness to get off the train.
    “I see Grandma and Grandpa waiting,” Petey said.
    “And when I write,” Miriam went on, “will you write back to tell me how Cody Montrose took things?”
    “Yes, yes, of course,” Libby answered.
    It was all the answer she could give. A moment later, she was swept off the train by two bundles of energy in the form of boys who wanted to see their grandparents. Her stomach continued to lurch and roll as she stepped down onto the platform in Haskell, and her head spun and pounded.
    “Grandma! Grandpa!”
    She watched her two boys rush into the arms of their adoring, adoptive grandparents, and at last the twisted tangle of emotions that she’d lived with for the past six weeks began to ease. Josephine was so happy to see Petey and Matthew that she was near tears. Pete Evans, her little Petey’s namesake, wore a proud, mannish smile that barely disguised his own delight.
    Libby burst into a smile herself. Half a heartbeat later, her face contorted with tears. She’d come so far and struggled for so long. She’d lost Teddy and broken her heart as she laid him to rest in the rich, dark, Oregon earth. And then she’d shamed herself beyond reckoning. The only place she wanted to be was in the arms of her family, but as soon as she revealed what she’d done and the inescapable consequences of those actions, they would turn her out and treat her with all the disdain she deserved.
    “Libby? Libby Sims?”
    The voice that greeted her struck Libby like the crack and crash of a tree being felled. She hadn’t heard that voice for years, yet its vibrations shook the already-crumbling foundation on which she stood. Eyes wide, cheeks red, heart pounding, she turned to look for him.
    And there he was, at the far end of the platform, standing with