Free Giovanna: The Cowboy's Calabrese Mail Order Bride (Sweet Land of Liberty Brides Book 1) by Lorena Dove

Chapter One
    “What is your name, child?” asked the large, imposing woman towering over the small creature crouching at the edge of the street. “Goodness gracious, a person could break her ankle stumbling over you!” Mrs. Forsythe waved her handkerchief at her face and peered over her thick glasses.
    The small girl froze in place, her hand stretched out toward a dirty biscuit she was trying to scoop up off the sooty, mud-covered street.
    “R-R-Rosa,” she stammered, looking up with tears in her large brown eyes.
    The giant of a woman stood over Rosa, her thin lips set in a grim line, the flowers on her elaborate hat twitching disapproval in time to her shaking head. Rosa cowered beneath her, drawing herself into an even smaller bundle of calico and long black hair. The woman’s shadow grew over Rosa as she leaned down. Rosa trembled and closed her eyes tightly shut.
    “Rosa. Well then. Ahem,” said the woman. “Let me help you with those. Where’s your mother?”
    Rosa opened her eyes to see the thin lips curled into a genuine smile as Mrs. Forsythe reached across her to retrieve one of the errant biscuits. She burst into tears of relief and self-reproach.
    “M-m-mama’s inside the church, and I’ve dropped her basket!”
    “Did she buy you all these biscuits?” asked Mrs. Forsythe with one eyebrow raised.
    “No, Ma’am! Mama sells biscuits and today I’m helping. Or I’m supposed to be …” her words trailed off as she fumbled with the ruined goods. “She works hard to bake enough and now these are ruined,” Rosa paused to wipe off her tears. “She’ll be sad.”
    Mrs. Susan Forsythe was hardly accustomed to scrambling around in the dirt at the edge of the street. Her normal Sunday practice was to go directly home after church to rest up from her busy week at the milliner’s shop, paying no attention to the street vendors who didn’t have the money for a permanent stand in the market, much less a spacious storefront like hers.
    Whatsoever ye do for the least of these, ye do for Me. The pastor’s sermon text echoed in her mind as she considered the dark-haired waif.
    “Hand me the basket while you pick up the rest of them,” she directed.
    “Rosa? Rosa! Where are you?” The rising voice came to their ears across the church courtyard as a petite woman dressed in black rushed about looking this way and that for her daughter.
    “Over here!” Mrs. Forsythe waved and pointed down at Rosa.
    “What’s happened?” Giovanna said in her heavy Italian accent. “Are you hurt, Rosa? The biscuits are covered in soot! Che sfortun a! What bad luck!” Giovanna’s natural temper and talkativeness were winding up into a tirade.
    “I’m sorry, Mama. I stood by the steps liked you asked, but I saw a kitty and thought if I could catch it and bring it home, Pearl would have a friend. I didn’t mean to trip and drop the basket, Mama! I’m so very sorry.” The tip of Rosa’s nose was the only part of her face not streaked with soot or tears as she stood twisting her small hands in her dress.
    Giovanna’s heart went out to her daughter, so delicate and frail but always concerned about her kitten and any other animal she saw. “Don’t you worry now, Rosa, I can bake some more, and these we can feed to Pearl.” Giovanna wiped away Rosa’s tears with the apron of her skirt and kissed her tenderly on her forehead.
    Rosa buried her face in her mother’s black shirtfront, then smiled and looked up at the woman who had helped her.
    “Hello! I’m Susan Forsythe,” the woman said briskly with her hand outstretched. “When I wasn’t tripping over her, I was just helping your daughter with the fallen biscuits.”
    “Giovanna Ransoni.” Taking Mrs. Forsythe’s hand, Giovanna tried to make light of her losses even though she hadn’t the money for more flour with a day’s wages lost in the dirt. “I made these biscuits to sell, but I’m afraid they’ll have to be eaten by the animals