Free Alma's Mail Order Husband (Texas Brides Book 1) by Kate Whitsby

missed the most basic
companionship of their peers, even of other women. Alma couldn’t
remember the sound of her own mother’s voice, much less her unique
smell.
    And the most amazing part was that none of
them even knew what they were missing. If Amelia and Allegra
remained unmarried, they would never smell this male scent or feel
the heat of lying next to him. How poor their lives would be for
the loss, but they wouldn’t know they were poor. They would think
they’d gotten everything they needed from their sisters.
    Could a woman starve to death from the
absence of a man in her life? Could she shrivel and blow away in
the wind, without the essence of a man to breathe life into the
tissues of her body? Alma didn’t intend to find out. She clutched
Jude tighter than ever, drinking him into herself.
    The elixir of his essence would drive the
cattle puncher out of her. He would wash away the stiffened leather
from her arms and legs and the gunpowder from her fingers. His very
presence would strip the range away and leave the woman in its
place.

 
Chapter
16
     
     
    “I’m tired,” he whispered into her ear.
    “Don’t go to sleep now,” Alma told him. “It
will be time to get up soon.”
    He pulled back, but they still couldn’t see
each other in the darkness. “What time do you think it is?”
    “Look over there,” she replied. “You can see
light coming through the crack under the door.”
    “Don’t tell me we’ve been lying here awake
all night,” he growled.
    “What do you think we’ve been doing all this
time?” she asked.
    “Do you think anyone heard us?” Jude
whispered.
    “No,” she answered. “We didn’t make nearly as
much noise as Papa snoring. You heard him in his chair, and then we
heard him come over to bed and he started up again. It’s the same
every night. Amelia and Allegra usually sleep right through it. If
they didn’t, he surely drowned out any noise we made. But we didn’t
make any.”
    “I hope not,” Jude returned. “I wouldn’t be
able to look them in the eye, if they had heard us.”
    “Why not?” she asked. “We’re married. What do
they think we’re doing in bed together? Telling stories?”
    “You know what I mean,” he shot back. “It
would be better if we had our own house.”
    “And where are you going to build this
house?” she asked. “And who are you going to get to help you build
it? And where are you going to get the money to pay them? This is
the way people live around here. Every family I know for a hundred
miles in every direction has four or five generations living in one
room under one roof.”
    “I know,” Jude replied. “It’s just so…..”
    “Poor?” she offered.
    “I was going to say rustic,” he returned.
    “What alternative do you suggest?” Alma
asked.
    “I guess I can’t suggest one,” he replied.
“Because I don’t have one to suggest.  I have a couple dollars
in my wallet and the clothes on my back. I guess we’re stuck
here.”
     
    “Is it really so bad?” Alma asked.
    Jude sighed “I guess I’ll become used to it
in time. I guess I won’t be staying up all night with you forever.
After today, I’ll be too tired. I’ll be used to sleeping with you
in this tiny bed, and I’ll be more interested in rolling over and
going to sleep than anything else. We’ll just have to figure out a
way of sleeping here together without kicking each other out of
bed.”
    Alma giggled under the blanket. “I have to
get up now. It wouldn’t do for the others to wake up first and find
us still in bed together. I’ll get dressed and get the fire going
and get breakfast made. Do you want to relax here for a while?”
    “I’ll get up with you,” Jude told her.
“There’s no sense layin’ around, wasting good daylight.”
    Alma brought her face up out of the blankets.
Jude stroked the hair away from her face, and they kissed long and
leisurely. Alma drank the dew from his lips, the heady liquor of a
man.
    Some