Free The Secret Brokers by Alexandrea Weis Page A

best of friends. I knew he never wanted anyone to find out about his lifestyle, but when he proposed marriage, at first, I was against it.”
    “And what changed your mind?” Dallas questioned, encouraging her to continue.
    She tossed the bucket back in the wheelbarrow beside her. “I thought about it and figured why not? It got me out of the house and away from my brothers. Doug promised to take care of me. And trust me, raising a father and two brothers most of my life, I was ready to be taken care of.”
    “So after your mother died, you were left to care for everyone?”
    “After she shot herself, my father withdrew from me and my brothers and…” She shook her head. “They were completely lost, so I stepped in. I got everyone back on track and started telling the men what to do to get their minds off the shooting.”
    “Six seems awfully young to take charge of a household. Wasn’t there anyone else around to help?”
    She snickered under her breath. “Ed Pioth is not the kind of man to accept help from anyone. Everyone who did come to offer assistance, he turned away.”
    “And when did you decide you wanted to get away from your father and brothers?”
    Gwen stepped behind the wheelbarrow. “Nice try, Dallas. Stop picking my brain and trying to find my weaknesses.” She pushed the wheelbarrow over to the next stall. “All you need to know is that it took me a few years to gather up the courage to walk away from my marriage, but I finally did.”
    Gwen made her way down the aisle, filling feed buckets, and saying hello to each and every horse along the way.
    “You got eight more stalls to hay and water, Dallas,” she brusquely said, snapping him out of his study of her.
    Dallas shook his head. “Just when I was beginning to believe you’re all warm and fuzzy on the inside, you turn into mega-bitch again,” he muttered under his breath as he carried the hose over to the next stall.
    ***
    The grocery store Gwen took him to wasn’t really a grocery but a super Walmart located not far out of town. On the drive over, Dallas noticed Gwen passed a smaller general store and another grocery store closer to the house.
    “Why didn’t you stop at the other stores closer in?” Dallas asked as he got out of her warm pickup truck.
    Gwen exited the truck and came around to his side. “And how am I going to explain you to the people I know in those stores? Better to go somewhere no one knows me.”
    Dallas pulled his brown leather jacket closer to his body. “I hate to admit it, but that does make a lot of sense.”
    “I think there is a compliment hidden in there somewhere,” Gwen mused as she buttoned up her blue jean jacket.
    He gazed about the cold and dreary Walmart parking lot, avoiding her eyes. “Yeah, well, don’t get cocky.”
    As Dallas escorted Gwen around the large grocery section of the store, he tried to teach her about the finer points of selecting fresh produce.
    “Always smell a pineapple on the bottom to see if it’s ripe,” Dallas told her as he held out two pineapples for her to test. “A ripe pineapple will have a sweet smell to it.”
    She put her nose to the base of each pineapple, and tried to tell the unripe or acrid smelling one against the sweeter smelling pineapple.
    “You learned all of this stuff when you worked in your mother’s restaurant?” Gwen asked as she took the ripe pineapple from him and placed it in their grocery cart.
    Dallas returned the unripe pineapple to a pile on his right. “She was a chef and I spent many a day after school and weekends watching her prepare meals in her restaurant.” He wiped his hands together as he turned back to Gwen. “I learned a lot about cooking, preparing food, and how using the best produce, meats, fish, and chicken, can add to the flavor of a meal.”
    “What do you mean she was a chef? What does she do now?”
    “She died a long time ago.”
    “Sorry,” Gwen offered. She noticed how some of the other woman in the