Free Brazos Bride by Caroline Clemmons

no idea you were signing on as nursemaid, did you?” Her eyes searched his face. If he was repulsed, he showed no sign.
    “ Actually, I figured it was like the judge started to say...’in sickness and in health’. You let me know if you feel sick again, okay.”
    “ Thank you, but I just need sleep.”
    After he surveyed the room, he scooted one chair near the other. He sat and rested his feet on the seat across from him. "Reckon I can sleep here well as the floor. I'm about used up."
    Fatigued as she was, curiosity prompted her to ask, "Do your brothers ranch with you?" She knew little about his day-to-day life compared to the large ranch she owned.
    “ No, although we share some things.” He wriggled in the hard wooden chair as if searching for a comfortable position. “Zach owns a sweet little valley west of here high up on that mountain you can see from your place.”
    “ I have looked at it a thousand times, but I do not even know if it has a name.”
    “ It does. Stone Mountain.”
    “ Oh.” Micah must think her unaware of her surroundings.. “You three look very much alike. You must be near in age.”
    “ I’m youngest by three years. Joel’s two years older than Zach.”
    “ But they are free to help you instead of their own places?”
    “ My brothers put their own lives on hold to help my two ranch hands and me dredge out the waterholes, haul water from Zach’s place for the cattle, and build dams in case it ever rains."
    “ You have worked hard.” Their hard work was partially because of her family, and it embarrassed her. She slid her hands up and down her arms to ward off the chills that plagued her.
    He rose and tugged the quilt up around her. "Been working sunup to sundown. Until today, I haven't taken any time off since the trial."
    "None? But it has been two months since you were acquitted."
    He raised an eyebrow. "Yep. If your uncle had honored my agreement with your father, we could have moved that fence and eased things a lot, saved some cattle."
    She sighed. "I tried to reason with him, but he refused to listen. He thinks of me as a child with no right to an opinion."
    The news she’d tried to appeal on his behalf appeared to please him. "Makes no difference now, does it?"
    For a minute she bit the corner of her lip, then answered, "Except that if you already had access to the water, you would never have agreed to marry me." She watched for his reaction.
    He met her gaze. "No telling because it didn't happen, and here we are married. And you're alone in your bed, and I'm alone on this chair."
    She looked at him. Perhaps she was unreasonable. Or maybe insane for sympathizing with a man who'd had to work harder because of her family.
    "I know it is an odd situation. If—if you wear your shirt and britches, I guess it would be all right if you slept on top of the cover here." She patted the bed beside her.
    He froze. Not a muscle moved, and he only stared at her. Had she misunderstood? Did he think her offer too forward?
    She babbled, "That is, if you want to. You said I should trust you. Well, maybe you would be more comfortable where you are." Why didn't he say something? Would he prefer sleeping in a chair to sharing the bed with a bag of bones like her?
    From the street below, she heard raucous laughter and someone called to a man named Ben. Music from a piano, she supposed in the saloon, drifted in through the open windows. A gust of breeze moved the curtains and slid across her skin. In this room, though, there was no sound.
    Slowly, he rose and extinguished the lamp as he moved across the room. She slid one of the pillows beside hers then scooted down. What had possessed her to offer him half her bed? Would he think she invited more?
    Too late to take it back now, for the mattress dipped as he stretched out. Quaking inside at the thought of him so near, she turned her back to him. She heard his weary sigh, as if he relaxed for the first time in a long while.
    "Good night," she