Mail Order Prairie Bride: (A Western Historical Romance) (Dodge City Brides Book 1) by Julianne MacLean Read Free Book Online

so, she would ask him to take her back to Dodge, and she would agree to an annulment. How bad could that be? She’d been in worse situations. At least she was in the West now, far away from Boston.
    When she reached Briggs, she sat down beside him. Staring at the distant horizon where the rolling prairie met the sky, she steadied her voice. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you any of that.” Her heart felt like it was snapping in two. “But I’ve been on my own for four years now, and—”
    Briggs tossed the grass away. “You mean four months.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “Four months. Since your folks died.”
    Sarah felt her eyebrows pull together with a frown. “No, that was four years ago.”
    Briggs shot her a glare. “You wrote in your letter that it was four months.”
    “No, I couldn’t have. Perhaps my writing was a little—”
    “Your writing was fine.”
    “Are you sure that—”
    “I’m positive.” His tone was so sharp, she knew he was telling the truth. As she remembered the haste in which she wrote and sent the letter, she began to wonder if she might have made a mistake. A horrible, horrible mistake. Oh, how could she have been so careless?
    Then again, maybe it wasn’t a mistake, she thought miserably. Maybe she’d known that marrying Briggs was wrong—that she wasn’t fit to be an honest man’s bride—and she had purposefully tried to create a new identity for herself. It certainly seemed that way now.
    “You’ve been living on your own in Boston for four years?” he asked. “Has everything been a lie?”
    Sarah shook her head and spoke firmly. “No.”
    Briggs plucked a long blade of grass and wrapped it around his forefinger. His silence was more unnerving than any reprimand. He was so calm, when most men would be shouting at her.
    All she could do was sit in the tangled growth and suffer, knowing what he must think of her now—that she was completely unreliable and untrustworthy.
    But who was she trying to fool? She was unreliable and untrustworthy, because Briggs didn’t know the first thing about her, and she had no intention of revealing the whole truth to him, or to anyone. Ever . It was too dangerous. If she told him why she had needed to escape Garrison, Briggs might report him to the authorities and she might be implicated in his crimes. Besides that, she knew what Garrison would do if he ever found out she’d told someone. He’d made that more than clear. She couldn’t put herself or Briggs in that kind of danger.
    “What else did you tell me?” Briggs asked. “Oh, yes. That you went to church. And I suppose you’re about to tell me the church in your neighborhood burned down and you haven’t seen a Sunday worship in what, four years?”
    “No,” Sarah said. “I do go to church. I wouldn’t lie about that. ”
    He continued to stare coldly at the distant, rolling hills. “But you’d lie about everything else.”
    Briggs tossed the grass away. “Do you still love this man that you parted from only three weeks ago?”
    Sarah shut her eyes and faced the wind. “No, I don’t love him. I hope I never see him again. And I give you my word—for whatever it’s worth: That is the honest truth.”
    She met his gaze directly, with conviction.
    “And what will you wish for three weeks from today?” Briggs asked. “That you could be on your way again? Will you leave me when you get bored, and leap into another man’s bed to drive the one you really love from your heart?”
    His words were like a slap across the face. She deserved it, she knew, but it didn’t make it any easier. Rising to her feet, she spoke unwaveringly. “I’m sorry for all this, Briggs. Truly I am. And I understand if you regret bringing me here. We can go back to town right now if you want, and get a divorce or an annulment. I won’t argue, and you won’t have to worry about me. I’ll make my own way.”
    She turned and started walking back to the wagon, angry with herself for