Free Three Times a Bride by Loretta Chase Page A

fancy, just loose sheets of paper in a wood recipe box my pa made.”
    “Do you have one for bread?”
    “Sure do. Otherwise, I’d be lost. I don’t know the ingredients by heart, either.”
    Rachel relaxed slightly. She’d be successful enough at culinary endeavors so long as she had recipes to follow. The cleaning would be a simple matter of following her nose. The main problem she would have was with the laundry. Then she would definitely need help. Maybe if she did pass-ably well at all the other things, Clint wouldn’t mind that too much, though.
    So unexpectedly that it startled her, Clint yelled, “Everybody hit the deck up there! It’s nigh onto noon! Time to get to work!”
    From the loft came the sounds of mattress ropes creaking and feet hitting the planked floor. In less than a minute, one dark head appeared at the top of the loft ladder. Then another. Before she knew it, four indistinct young men were standing above her. Taking turns, they came down to join ranks with Daniel and Cody.
    With the arrival of each one, Clint called off his name and age. “Cole, seventeen. Jeremiah, twenty-four. Joshua, nineteen. Zack, twenty-two.”
    As each young man was introduced to her, Rachel smiled and inclined her head. When Clint wound down, she said, “I’m pleased to meet all of you.”
    “Not all,” Cody corrected her. “Matt ain’t here. He’s twenty.”
    “Oh, yes, Matt,” Rachel said cautiously. “How could I have forgotten?”
    Cody wrinkled his nose and regarded Clint speculatively. “You didn’t say how old you are,” he reminded his eldest brother.
    To Rachel’s surprise, Clint stepped up beside her and draped an arm over her shoulders. “I’m twenty-seven, scamp, which makes me plenty old enough to settle down, and that’s just what I’ve decided to do. This morning, Rachel and I got married.”
    “You what?” “Why didn’t you tell us?” “I thought I was gonna be your best man!” “Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat! You’ve gone and done what?” “I thought Lawson Wells was her beau.”
    “I beat Lawson to the draw and asked her first,” Clint said. “Let it be a lesson to you. Don’t leave a pretty girl foot-loose and fancy free for too long a time, or the first thing you know, she may marry some other fellow.”
    “I didn’t even know you knew Rachel that well,” Zach said.
    “Why didn’t you tell us you were thinkin’ about marryin’ her?” Joshua demanded.
    “Oh, wow!” Cody cried excitedly. “You mean she’s gonna stay here?”
    Clint held up a hand. “Yes, she’s gonna stay,” he assured Cody. Then to the older boys, “As for all your questions, we just decided to get married, that’s all. I’m countin’ on all of you to make Rachel feel welcome.”
    “You’re sure enough welcome!” Cody assured her. “Especially if’n you can bake cookies like the kind Clint brought home from the church social last year.”
    Rachel blinked. Cookies? “Of course I can bake cookies,” she assured him. “As long as there’s a recipe included in those loose papers Clint mentioned.”
    Marginally less enthusiastic, but warmly all the same, the older Raffertys expressed welcome, Jeremiah, the next oldest to Clint, finishing with, “We’ll be proud to call you sister, Rachel. Welcome to your new home.”
    Sister. Hearing the word brought a stinging sensation to Rachel’s eyes that felt suspiciously like tears. She blinked a little frantically, convinced they would all think her crazy ifshe got weepy-eyed and sentimental over something so silly. It was just that she’d always wished for a brother, and now she had seven of them, four of them older than she. It was almost as though Clint had known how fiercely she’d wanted an older brother to look out for her.
    “And I’ll be pleased to call all of you brother,” she said in an oddly tight voice.
    The courtesies thus observed, Clint drew his arm from around Rachel and systematically began naming off his