Free The Anonymous Bride by Vickie Mcdonough

nearly the whole cup, set it down, and reached for a cookie from the platter on the table. She lifted her brow at Rachel. “Well...”
     
    Rachel didn’t know what to say that Beebee couldn’t construe the wrong way. She rubbed her thumb back and forth on the cording of her seat cushion. “Luke and I merely have a business arrangement. As a benefit of his job as marshal, I cook for him and any prisoners he has and clean the Sunday house, and I receive some additional income for doing so. There is nothing personal about it.”
     
    Aunt Beebee snagged the final cookie, looking less than convinced. She waved a beefy hand in the air, scattering crumbs. “All of us who were in Lookout back then know that you two young folks were as tight as a tick on a hound dog. Now that that worthless James is gone, there’s nothing to keep you from marrying Luke.”
     
    Rachel and Agatha gasped in unison.
     
    “Bertha, that’s hardly any concern of yours,” Agatha protested.
     
    “It’s nobody’s concern.” Rachel grasped the edge of her chair as if she were on a runaway wagon. “All that is in the past. I’m a widow with a daughter now.”
     
    Beebee’s thick lips turned up. “That Luke Davis is a handsome man—and unmarried. If you don’t snatch him up soon, someone else will, mind my words.”
     
    Agatha lurched to her feet. “Uh ... thank you for your hospitality, but I’m afraid we must be going. Come along, Bertha.”
     
    “But I’m not done visiting yet.” Taking up her cup, she sipped her tea and gave her sister a pinched look.
     
    Rachel forced herself to stand. “I’m afraid I must head to the kitchen now, or I won’t have supper ready on time for my guests.”
     
    “Well, if you insist.” On the third attempt, Beebee managed to stand.
     
    “Please come again sometime.” The words nearly scalded Rachel’s throat as she uttered them, but she refused to be inhospitable, even if her guests made her uncomfortable. “Maybe around two,” she said, hoping the older ladies would be napping then. “That will give us more time.”
     
    Beebee nodded, making the rolls on her three chins jiggle like a turkey’s wattle. “We’ll just do that. Come along, Agatha. We best be getting out of Rachel’s way so she can get her cooking done. Do enjoy the pie, Rachel, and have that girl of yours bring the plate back when you’re done with it. Mind that she doesn’t break it.”
     
    “Thank you,” Rachel mumbled.
     
    As Beebee lumbered out the front door, Aggie stopped beside Rachel. “I’m terribly sorry. She means well.”
     
    Rachel nodded and stood in the open doorway, watching the two women make their way down the street. The bank president had the misfortune to step outside the bank just as the ladies approached.
     
    “Well, how do there, Mr. Castleby.” Bertha was so close the banker took a step back.
     
    Rachel held tight to the doorjamb. Had she kept her expression clear enough when Beebee had talked about Luke and her marrying? Would everyone in town expect Luke and her to get married? What would Rand think if he heard such talk?
     
    She thought of Luke’s cold expression the first few times she’d run into him and shook her head. Luke Davis no longer had designs on her. She was the last person he would consider marrying.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

CHAPTER 9
    The Bennett Farm near Carthage, Missouri
     
    Leah Bennett dumped the last of the dishwater out the kitchen door and rubbed her lower back. Only nineteen, and she felt done in already. Shaking her head, she turned back into the kitchen to see what else needed cleaning before she could start working on the huge mending pile that never seemed to have an end. Mabel and Molly, her fifteen-year-old twin sisters, dried the last of the supper dishes with their heads together, giggling and talking about which of the town’s boys they hoped to see at church on Sunday. The twins were the closest sisters to Leah in age, but they’d