Judith Bowen - His Brother's Bride

“Listen to this—‘wanted, long-term partner, nonsmoker’—that’d be you, Noah—” Van Rijn glanced up, grinning, then returned to the newspaper column “—‘social drinker, enjoys dancing and going for walks in the country’—” The whole room erupted in a roar of male laughter.

“‘Loves Shania Twain and Garth Brooks’—” Another hoot. Noah smiled.

“‘Likes to cuddle on long winter nights.’ Oh, that’s good. ‘GWF’—say, what’s that mean? ‘G-W-F’?” Van Rijn glanced up, a puzzled expression on his broad good-natured face.

“Means she ain’t looking for no man, Wilf,” someone offered. The room erupted in laughter again.

“Well, he-ell,” the farmer finished ruefully, folding up the paper and setting it on the table in front of him. “It said ‘partner.’ Don’t say I didn’t try, Noah. I’m lookin’ out for your marital interests, like always....” He winked at the others and they all smiled and returned to their coffee mugs and plates of fried eggs and potatoes.

As did Noah. “Thanks, Wilf. I appreciate your interest—say. there’s Millard now.” The man he was meeting was just approaching the outer door.

Five minutes later, he was deep in conversation with Gene Millard, the operator he hoped to hire for some custom seeding next month, and the café banter was forgotten. It wasn’t as though that was the first time he’d been through that particular conversation. He got a version of it whenever he showed up in town early for coffee, about the time all the other farmers were having a café breakfast before starting their business in town.

WHEN NOAH GOT HOME, he noticed that Jesse’s pickup wasn’t in his driveway and there was no sign of activity at his bungalow, beyond the usual barking dogs. The blinds on the trailer were up.

It was after one o’clock. Maybe the lovebirds had gone out for lunch somewhere. Like Noah, Jesse wasn’t the world’s best cook.

Noah parked in his usual spot beside his house and got out, stretching first and then bending down to fondle Pat’s ears. Pat, his collie dog, was getting on, nearly twelve now, but still one of the best dogs for cattle know-how he’d ever owned. He walked up the steps to his kitchen door. The house wasn’t locked. He rarely locked it, unless no one else was at the ranch and he was going away for a few days. Carl was around somewhere, and wherever Jesse was, he’d be back soon.

The house was dim with no lights on and rather chilly, even at midday. He’d turned off the furnace at the beginning of the month, but he was beginning to think he’d been a little hasty. April had started off sunny and unseasonably warm, but that hadn’t lasted. The past few days had been windy, and wind sure chilled a place fast. He made a mental note to relight the furnace pilot when he came in for supper that evening. Speaking of supper...Noah walked over to the refrigerator and pulled a pound of ground beef out of the freezer compartment and tossed it into the sink to thaw.

These were the bits and pieces of his life, he thought gloomily as he began to climb the stairs to his bedroom to change into working clothes. They’d always been good enough before—why was he obsessing about them now? Because Jesse had landed himself a bride? Because he wasn’t going to be the main person in his brother’s life anymore? It was crazy; he and Jesse weren’t any closer, now that they were both grown, than any other pair of brothers. They’d been close as kids, but then farm and ranch kids usually were. There was work to do together and fun together in isolated circumstances. When Casey’d been alive...

And Macy, their mother.

Noah shook his head. No sense dwelling on the past. Macy’d never been in good health, and if she was alive today she’d be close to seventy. As for his father, no one knew what had happened to Jake. Most days, Noah was glad he was gone. Some days, he wished he at least knew if he was dead or alive.

Noah quickly changed into jeans and a well-washed flannel shirt, the sleeves of which he rolled up halfway to his elbows. He took his battered Stetson off the rack in the kitchen as he went out. It was lunchtime but he wasn’t hungry.

Pat didn’t get up, merely slapped her full-feathered tail slowly against the worn porch boards. Noah adjusted his hat against the sunshine. He’d go out to the machine shed and see how Carl was doing with the alternator part that had come in for the Massey Ferguson yesterday. Then there was that new colt he wanted to check on. He’d bred his favorite mare to one of Jeremiah Blake’s stallions over at the Diamond 8 last summer, and the foal was a beauty. He’d had a rheumy running eye, though, the past week, for which the vet had sold him ointment to administer twice a day. The eye seemed to be clearing up just fine.

Noah headed toward the barn, followed by a couple of the ranch dogs that generally hung around by the bunkhouse. Right now Carl was the only one in residence there, but at roundup and branding times and during the haying season, the bunkhouse would be full. He’d need a part-time cook then, too. Always something to do or think about on a ranch.

Noah rounded the corner by the barn, intent on his tasks for the afternoon. He stopped dead when one of the dogs froze, alert, one paw raised.

The east side of the paddock was mostly in shade from the big feed silos thirty feet farther to the east. Shafts of April sunlight stabbed through, between the silos. In one of those shafts of sunlight was a woman, leaning on the fence, holding out her hand to the curious foal, making small, soothing noises that Noah could barely hear. The dog must have heard her before he did.

His heart hammered. Damn it! This must be Jesse’s woman. Where in hell was his brother?

He stood still a few more seconds, rapidly taking in the medium height, the slim build, faded jeans, baggy T-shirt, sneakers, the long pale hair hanging loosely down her back. She was turned away from him and Noah didn’t think she was aware of his presence.

He cleared his throat and the dog bounded forward, released from his watch instincts. He saw the woman’s hands tighten on the top rail of the paddock, and the foal, snorting, raced back to his dam, his broom of a tail standing straight up. Noah’s mare whickered to him, but didn’t emerge from the shade of a big cottonwood where she stood swatting flies. \ Then the woman turned. She had a calm, pretty face—nothing fantastically beautiful—wide blue eyes and looked very, very young.

He stepped forward, clearing his throat again. “I’m, uh, Noah Winslow, Jesse’s brother.” He extended his hand automatically. She looked at it for a split second, then offered hers. Her hand was small and soft and, like his, tanned. A sensible hand, the nails trimmed short and unpolished. He dropped it like a hot potato. “You must be Abby.”

“Yes,” she said softly, her eyes meeting his and causing something to twist hard in his gut. He fought to hold her gaze, forcing himself to look at her face when his first instinct had been to glance at her belly. To see the swell there that was his brother’s child. The reason she was here in the first place.

“Yes, I’m Abby,” she repeated quietly. “Abby Steen.”

CHAPTER FOUR

“WHERE’S JESSE?” he demanded.

The man standing before her looked angry. Jesse had said his brother was difficult. The word he’d used was tough. This man was older than Jesse, and perhaps an inch taller. He was a big man, but where Jesse was broad and deep-chested, this man was lean and tough looking as nails. Right now he looked like he could chew the zinc coating off a few.

“He’s gone to town,” Abby said, twisting her hands behind her. She wasn’t afraid of him but she’d seen the way he’d fought to keep his eyes from her waist, and it had embarrassed her. Not enough to shelter her belly, though. She was proud of her pregnancy; she wanted this baby. Husband or no husband.

“He’s in town?” Noah Winslow glanced behind her, toward the paddock. “And he left you here?”

“Yes.” She didn’t feel she needed to add any reasons, or justify Jesse’s behavior. He’d done nothing wrong.

Abby could hear the soft pad-pad of the mare approaching across the grass. With the foal, she hoped. She loved horses and as a child growing up had often wished she could have one. Her father regarded a horse as a poor investment. She’d been involved with 4-H, as many farm children were, but she’d always bought and raised a Jersey heifer, one of her father’s animals. Her father had put the money she paid for the calf into a fund for her and her sister’s further education. Then, when she and her sister sold their animals, they were expected to add to the fund.

Noah shot her an odd questioning look, then stepped closer to the fence, with what she realized was a rare flash of tenderness on his grim face. For the foal. Perhaps he reserved all his feeling for animals. He held his hand out to the mare and scratched between her ears. He looked briefly toward Abby. “What did he go to town for?”

It was a simple, direct question. As though he’d half expected to find her here. As though he already knew who she was, where she fit in. That she belonged to Jesse. She supposed Jesse had told him. But did he know how scared she was? Did he know how many second thoughts she’d had since Jesse had picked her up at the bus station the night before?

“He said he wanted to get the marriage license. and make a few arrangements,” she said, explaining after all. She took a deep breath, for calm. “We’ve decided we should get married as soon as possible.”

Then he looked at her waist. Abby had the distinct feeling he’d wanted to all along and couldn’t stop himself now. His eyes immediately returned to the mare, but she hadn’t missed the tightened jaw, either. “Makes sense,” was his noncommittal comment.

He reached out and tried to touch the foal, which jumped back at the last moment and went to stand at his mama’s flank. “I thought maybe he’d have taken care of that by now. The license, I mean.”

She met his level questioning glance. His eyes were a greenish-hazel color, not blue like Jesse’s. “He said he was waiting until I got here. That I might have some papers he’d need.”

“Uh-huh.”

Noah stepped onto the lower rail of the fence and threw his left leg over the top rail. Then he was inside, approaching the foal with a low, soothing tone, his hand out. The foal stood nervously, ready to run. Expertly, with slow, steady movements, Noah wrapped his arm around the foal’s neck and held him firmly. He bent and drew the lower eyelid down with one thumb, while the foal struggled futilely in his grip.

“Is something wrong with him? With his eye?” Abby moved closer to the fence, curious, her hands in her jeans’ pockets.

Noah didn’t look up. “He’s had a bad eye for a few days. Seems to be cleared up now.” He stroked the foal’s white blaze and then scratched between his ears briefly before releasing him. With a high-pitched squeal, the foal wheeled and galloped awkwardly to the far side of the paddock. The mare merely turned her head and gave her offspring a mild wondering glance.

Abby smiled. “She doesn’t seem too concerned.”

“No.” Noah glanced her way and for a second or two, she thought he’d smile, too. At her. Then he returned his attention to the mare. “She’s a good old girl. One of the best.” He patted her neck affectionately and the mare tossed her head up and down vigorously, almost as though she were answering him.

“What’s her name?”

“Peg.”

“Peg?” Abby thought that was a very ordinary name for a horse. “What kind of horse is she?”