Free Mail Order Minx: Fountain of Love (Brides of Beckham) by Kirsten Osbourne Page A

answer, her heart sinking.  She'd meant well with Pappy.  She really had.  Sometimes, though, it seemed like every time she meant well, she messed things up.  Today was just one of those days she guessed.  She'd find a way to make him love her tomorrow.  She knew there was something she could do that would make him realize she was the perfect wife for him.
    Connor held her close, so thankful that she'd been the one to travel west to be his bride.  There wasn't a woman who could be better for him on this whole planet.  He wasn't happy that she'd lied to start with, but he could see that they would be happy for the rest of their lives.  Someday soon, he was going to build her a house on the edge of town, and they'd live in it happily.
    He hadn't been able to propose marriage in a special way, but he would find a good way to tell her he loved her.  Someday soon, he'd take her on a picnic up into the mountains and tell her.  She was sweet and special, and she deserved it.  For a substitute wife, she was something really special.
    Millie fell asleep wondering how she'd convince him that she was worthy.  There had to be something special she could do to make the whole town see that she wasn't just a substitute wife.  She was the real thing. 
    She kissed his bare shoulder as she snuggled against him, happy to have him beside her.  She couldn't let him send her back to Massachusetts.  There had to be a way she could prove to him that she was worthy of staying.
     
    *****
     
    Millie was working on preparing the food for the restaurant to open the following morning when the owner of the mercantile, the pastor, and a couple of the other men from town came into the kitchen.  She wiped her hands on her apron and hurried over to where they were.  "May I help you gentlemen?" she asked, her voice more than a little nervous.
    The pastor shook his head slightly, looking at Connor.  "It's you we need to speak with if we may, Connor."
    Connor looked down at his hands, covered in dough.  "Let me just wash my hands.  I'll be out in a moment."  He washed his hands and left the kitchen, the door swinging shut behind him.
    Millie knew it was rude, but she went over to listen at the door.  She needed to know what the men wanted to talk to Connor about.  She was his wife, and they shouldn't have any secrets from one another anyway.  She stood with her ear to the door and listened. 
    She could hear the pastor's voice loud and clear.  "You've got to do something about your wife, Connor."
    Millie was startled.  She'd thought maybe they'd come to tell Connor about the good she'd been doing around town, but apparently that wasn't the case.  She frowned as she listened. 
    The mercantile owner complained about her rearranging his shelf.  "I don't know what came over her.  Everything was arranged perfectly, and the next thing I knew, she'd moved all the jars of canned goods to the bottom shelf, and before I had time to put everything back where it goes, little Timmy Jacobs had broken six jars of vegetables on the floor.  We're lucky the poor tyke didn't seriously injure himself."
    Millie bristled.  She'd only been helping.  It was the Timmy's mother's fault for not watching him.  Why didn't they see that?
    "I'm sure she was just trying to help," Connor said in her defense, and Millie smiled, glad that someone was on her side.
    "Do you think she was trying to help when she showed the Larson boys how to use a slingshot properly?  They shot out two of the stained glass windows on the church," the pastor complained.
    Millie frowned.  The boys had been holding the slingshots upside down.  Was she supposed to just walk away and let the other children laugh at them?
    "She gave old Pappy money yesterday, and he shot out one of my windows," someone else protested.
    "Did you know she tried to get Mary Sanders to marry John Bennett?  Those two have hated each other since they were knee high to a grasshopper.  What is the woman