High Country Bride by Jillian Hart Read Free Book Online Page A

blue eyes were as pretty as cornflowers and her mouth looked soft and cozy, as if she had spent a lot of her life smiling. Once upon a time.
    Her brows knit and her chin shot up. “Plenty of folks live out of their wagons when times get hard.”
    Pride. He knew something about that. “I wasn’t criticizing. Only saying that eventually winter is going to come. Maybe I can help you with that.”
    Her throat worked at the word help. Pain shot across her face. Whether she suspected his motives or wanted nothing to do with his help, he couldn’t know. She gave a nod of acknowledgment—not of agreement—and went on her way through the growing, seed-topped grasses.
    Painted with dawn’s soft golden light like that, framed as she was by the crisp lush green of the prairie, Aiden felt he was seeing her for the first time. She was a truly lovely woman. He might even say beautiful.
    He wasn’t proud of himself for noticing.

    Joanna kept swallowing against the painful burn in her throat as she whisked a dollop of milk into the egg batter. Eventually winter is going to come. Aiden McKaslin’s remembered words made that pain worse. Maybe I can help you with that. Charity. That’s what he saw when he looked at her. A woman to be pitied.
    Shame filled her, because it was the worst sort of criticism. She stopped whisking to flip the thick-cut bacon sizzling in one of the frying pans. Charity was all pretty and tidy and wrapped up real nice when you were the one giving it. It was different when you were on the other end. She’d been able to keep her chin up before, because she had been doing her best. There had been solace in that.
    Now he thought she expected his help, that she would accept it. He meant well, but she was afraid of being in a man’s debt. Even in a good man’s debt. Anyone could see that Aiden McKaslin was a good man.
    “Ma.” Daisy gave her rag doll a squeeze where she sat on a chair at the round oak table. “Can I get a drink of water?”
    “You just had one, baby.” Joanna knew the child wasn’t asking for water, but to be able to get down from the chair and move around. “This isn’t our home, so we have to mind our manners. I want you to please sit there a little while longer.”
    “Oh. Okay.” The little girl sighed and squeezed her doll harder.
    “Ma?” James fidgeted in his chair and swung his feet back and forth. “I’m awful hungry. Especially for some of that bacon.”
    There was no missing the hope on his face. Real bacon. They’d had such a luxury when they had their own little plot of land and their own pig to butcher. Joanna sighed, remembering those times, harder in some ways, better in others. “This is Mr. McKaslin’s breakfast. We ate in the shanty before we came here.”
    “I know, but I was hopin’…” He left the sentence dangling, as if afraid to ask the question he already knew the answer to, but wanting to hold on to that hope.
    She couldn’t blame him for that. “Maybe there will be a surprise for two good children later on. How about that?”
    “Yes, ma’am!” James stopped fidgeting and sat up soldier straight, eager at the thought of a surprise.
    “Oh, yes.” Daisy offered a dimpled smile.
    It took so little to please them. Joanna’s heart ached as she poured the eggs into the waiting skillet. If only there was something more than another few pieces of saved candy for them. They deserved more than she could give them—at least now, anyway. In a month’s time, there would be fieldwork to do. It was hard labor, and she still didn’t know what to do with her babies while she worked, but at least she could hope for real wages. Hope for a betterment of her children’s lives.
    The eggs sizzled and she whisked them around the pan, reaching for the salt and pepper. She surveyed her work in progress. The bacon was crisping up real nice, the tea was steeping and the buttermilk biscuits in the oven were smelling close to done. Cooking for the man wasn’t much of