Harper's Bride by Alexis Harrington Read Free Book Online Page A

found out there are no claims left to
stake." He scanned the vast emporium. "But I get the feeling that
for a lot of these people, the main goal was just to get here. Now
that they've done that, they don't know what else to do. They're
sort of lost." He lifted a hand and made a sweeping gesture at the
crowd. "They're selling everything they can to raise enough money
to go home. Rafe is right—this is folly."
    Aside from the brooms and newspaper, most of
the things here were inexpensive. Melissa chose two serviceable
dresses, two nightgowns, and a pair of shoes for herself. They were
the first clothes she'd ever owned that weren't hand-me-downs. She
bought some white muslin to make dresses for Jenny, and a ten-yard
length of real diaper fabric folded in a paper wrapper that read
Sears, Roebuck. She also bought two sets of ready-made sheets for
the bed. Dylan paid for the purchases as they went.
    "Thank you," she said. "I don't want to keep
you from your store, and I-I'm going to need to feed the baby
pretty soon."
    Dylan stared at her, and she worried that she
had spent too much or said the wrong thing. "Is that all you're
going to get?" Dylan asked. "Don't you want some other things, you
know, female doodads?"
    "Like what?" she asked, surprised.
    "Well, like—" He strode ahead of her and
stopped at a booth that had women's silver-backed mirrors, combs,
and brushes displayed on a plaid wool blanket. A few cut-crystal
perfume atomizers dotted the presentation. He gestured at the
assortment. "Like this."
    The man selling the vanity sets brightened.
"Step right over here, ma'am, and see. These fine brushes and
mirrors were made for Queen Victoria herself— " Dylan gave him a
skeptical look. "Well, they come a far piece to get here."
    Melissa shifted Jenny in her arms and
approached the booth. She did not want to be any more indentured to
Dylan Harper than she already was. How on earth would she ever pay
him back if she kept digging a deeper hole of debt? Reaching out
her free hand, she let her fingertips trace over the intricate
designs on the silver handles that gleamed with the blue sky
overhead. Still, she supposed a body had to have a hairbrush and
comb. They were such basic possessions.
    "Yes, they're very nice," she agreed with the
merchant. Glancing up, she noticed the man studying the bruise on
her cheek. Then he looked Dylan up and down with obvious
censure.
    Dylan saw it too, and he felt his own face
flush. Clearly, the peddler held the same low opinion as did Dylan
about a man who would raise a hand to a woman.
    Damn it, he hadn't wanted to get involved
with this washed-out female to begin with. But his sense of
honor—and Rafe's noble prodding—had put him in the role of her
protector. He wasn't the one who had hit her, and it irked him that
anyone would think he had. But what could he say about it? Nothing.
He picked up the most expensive vanity set and an atomizer, and
paid the man quickly to escape his silent criticism. Dylan wasn't
in the mood for it. Taking Melissa's elbow, he steered her onward
to a rack of dresses.
    Last night had been long and mostly
sleepless, although he thought he'd dozed for a while. Feeling like
the second biggest heel in Dawson—after all, he wasn't worse than
Coy Logan—Dylan had had trouble keeping his mind from straying to
the other side of his bed where Melissa lay. It was hard not to;
aside from a saloon girl or two, he hadn't slept with a woman since
Eliz— Here it was, two years later, and he couldn't say her name
aloud, or even think it without feeling a twisting viper of
betrayal gnaw at his gut. Even now, after everything that had
happened, in those twilight moments between wakefulness and sleep,
he still saw her face play across his eyelids, the sweet lushness
of her body, her ink-black hair. She had tried to change him, bend
him to her way of doing things. And when he would not yield—
    "Go ahead and find a couple more frocks," he
told Melissa gruffly. Whether he