Cinderfella by Linda Winstead Jones Read Free Book Online Page A

included.
    Charmaine Haley had grown up nicely. More than nicely, he conceded, she had grown up beautifully. After she disappeared into the tree line, Ash’s eyes fell to his mud-encrusted hands and arms. What a fool he’d been to lift those arms to her, but for a moment he had forgotten about his fall in the mud, the manure on his boots. He had forgotten — for a moment — who he was.
    Oswald would probably suit Charmaine Haley just fine. She’d turned her nose up at his offered hands the same way Oswald turned his nose up a dozen times a day.
    He forgot about Charmaine Haley and headed for the barn and his tools. Apparently, there was a section of fence that needed to be repaired.
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    Stuart enjoyed his last cigar of the day, savoring every puff. He’d had another long, hard day, but there was great satisfaction in ending it here, in his comfortable study in his fine house with his family around him. Part of his family, anyway.
    Maureen had gone to bed early, and Charmaine was sulking in her room about one thing or another, but they were here and that was enough.
    His youngest daughter was being more difficult than he’d imagined. She visited with her friends, she helped her mother with the plans for the ball, she rode that mare he’d bought just for her . . . but there was an air of defiance in everything she did. Where did she get that quality from? Not from her mother. Maureen had always been sweet and rational and forgiving.
    It was Howard, he was sure, who had influenced her.
    â€œSmells divine,” the daughter in question said sweetly as she waltzed into his study with a deceptive smile on her face. Just a couple of hours ago she’d been sullen and silent. “May I?”
    She reached for the cigars he kept handy, there on his desk.
    â€œYou may not! ” he said, and her hand stilled and hovered above the engraved mahogany box.
    â€œAre you being selfish, Daddy, or is this simply another of your double standards?”
    She was trying to get his goat, and doing a fine job of it. “Proper young ladies don’t smoke,” he said with relative calm.
    Charmaine turned to face him and leaned against the desk. She didn’t want a cigar and never had. She was just being ornery. Where did she get that trait from? “You’ll never guess who I saw today,” she said with a wicked gleam in her eye.
    â€œThen you’ll have to tell me.” He leaned back in his chair and took another long draw on the cigar.
    â€œAsh Coleman.”
    The name Coleman still brought a bubble of bad temper to the surface. “At the mercantile? You’ve been spending an awful lot of time there.”
    â€œNot at the mercantile. I rode out to the farm to say hello.” Her voice and her pose were nonchalant, but he was sure this was a trick to get a rise out of him.
    â€œThat’s nice.”
    It was clear she was a little disappointed that he hadn’t bounded out of his chair with a demand that she stay away from the Coleman farm.
    â€œYes, we had a very nice visit.” Her smile faded, and for a moment she didn’t look like his little girl at all. She looked like a woman who had an awful lot on her mind. “Why didn’t you tell me about Mr. Coleman passing on?”
    He shrugged his shoulders. “Didn’t think of it, I suppose.”
    â€œHe was a good man,” she insisted.
    â€œFor a sodbuster.”
    Charmaine sighed dramatically. “You’re such a snob, Daddy. Just because Mr. Coleman was a farmer and not a cattleman, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve just as much respect as any other man.”
    â€œI didn’t know you’d taken up defense of the common man as one of your crusades.”
    She pouted, actually puffing out her lower lip just a little bit. “He bought me lemon drops, just like you did, and told me riddles.”
    If she knew what a picture she made she would surely be