Free Mail-Order Husband: The Millionaire's Debt by Rebecca Tilley Page B

her to pull together the money to bring them
home.  Now she had nothing left to fight for.  If only her new
husband had arrived one day earlier this would not have happened.  She no
longer had any excitement for the arrival of the stranger on the afternoon
train; she no longer needed a husband.  When he arrived she would inform
him that she was not going to marry, and he was welcome to her property if he
paid it off, but she was going to move on.  Where she was going she had no
idea, but it would be somewhere far away from this God forsaken place that had
swallowed up all of her hopes and dreams.

Chapter 3
    She was rehearsing
the speech she was going to deliver to her betrothed when she heard him pull up
out front.  It was a beautiful speech that explained everything and let
him down easy.  She steeled her resolve, put down the clothes she had been
packing, and headed to the front door to greet the man.  When she caught
sight of him her will to go through with the breakup started to
disintegrate.  He had come all this way and he must be exhausted.  I
will invite him in first and have a little small talk before I break the
news.  It is the least I can do; let him have a little rest before I tell
him his trip was in vain.
    Daphne drew in a
deep breath, plastered a smile on her face, and swung open the screen
door.  “Hello,” she said with a false excitement.  “I’m Daphne
Haynes, and unless you have stumbled onto the wrong farm I am assuming you are
Micah.”
    The man dismounted
his horse and tipped his hat to the lady casting his eyes to the ground as he
spoke.  “Yes ma’am I am.”  Daphne was surprised by the man’s deep
voice, and his height.  At five feet five inches she barely reached
Micah’s shoulder; as she walked toward him with her hand outstretched she was
forced to look almost straight up to look the man in the eye.  Daphne was
not expecting a man of such great proportions.  He was in no way fat, in
fact, he was the exact opposite.  He was lean, but extremely strong with a
neatly trimmed beard.  His cowboy hat was made of well-worn leather, and his
steel grey eyes peered out from underneath its brim.  He reached out his
hand to meet hers, gently taking hold of her fingers and turning her hand to
kiss the back of it.  “It is truly a pleasure to meet you ma’am.”
    Daphne gasped as
she tried to recover from the shock of this man gentlemanly behavior.  She
felt her cheeks flush and quickly looked away from his gaze.  She was
embarrassed by her feelings which were a mix of giddiness and
infatuation.  It had been a long time since a man had treated her so kindly
or any romantic gestures had found their way into her life, and this burly
cowboy was making her feel things she had not expected to feel ever again.
 She did not want these feelings to creep up on her, this was nothing more
than a business arrangement to save her farm, and besides, she was not going to
marry this man anyway.  Get a hold of yourself, this is simply
business.
    “The pleasure is
all mine .  I don’t see your baggage, did you
leave it behind?”
    “Yes ma’am, I left it
at the station.  It will be delivered later this afternoon.”
    “Well, you must be
exhausted after that long trip, why don’t you come on in and have a glass of
water and I will show you around.  After dinner we can talk about all of
the arrangements.”
    “Sounds wonderful,
but I was hoping we could ride back into town.  I need to return this
horse to the livery, and I made arrangements with the justice of the peace to
marry us this evening.”
    Daphne was
impressed by Micah’s go getter attitude.  He was really on top of things—a
characteristic not found in Hank.  But this complicated things as far as
breaking things off.  She had not anticipated being married before dinner,
and that was when she was going to deliver the blow.
    “Oh,
uh, hmmm.”
    “Is there a problem
ma’am?  If we get going now we can probably take