Free Chevonne: Bride of Oklahoma (American Mail-Order Bride 46) by Leighann Dobbs Page A

bag along with the list when Trey was busy getting the tack for the horse and buggy.
    “Be sure to tell my parents that,” said Trey as he expertly hitched the horse to the buggy.
    “Why?”
    “They own it, and another in Guthrie, two in Missouri and one in Kansas.” He set a step by the buggy so she could climb up on her own.
    “I never thought to ask. I just thought they were part of the land runs.” Chevonne climbed aboard and held her handbag tightly closed on her lap.
    Trey climbed up and drove the horse and buggy out of the barn, then toward town. “They were. I work their claim while they run their businesses. Celia helps them out, and my cousin, too.”
    Chevonne admired the Garners more every hour. They were business people and homesteaders in half a dozen states and territories. What a brave, industrious and inventive family. She liked most that Trey had said his parents ran their businesses, not that his father ran them. The female Garners were very progressive.
    But how in the world was she was going to get into the post office to get her letter off without Trey knowing what she was up to?

Chapter 9
    T rey stole a look at Chevonne next to him in the buggy. The slant of the afternoon sun lit her hair in a coppery blaze of golden red. Her lips were set in grim determination.
    He had to admit he admired the fact that she was going to hook up the buggy and ride into town all on her own. He was learning a lot about his new wife and one of those things was that she was fiercely independent--a quality he admired. It was great that she was willing to head out on her own.
    However, he wondered why she hadn’t got the supplies she needed when she was there with Celia or with Luke? Was she scatterbrained? He hoped not, the last thing he wanted was to be saddled with a woman around who couldn’t think straight.
    No, he felt Chevonne wasn’t like that. She was just new at keeping a ranch house. Acquiring supplies was probably a lot easier back in Lawrence, Massachusetts. She just needed some time to get used to life in the west.
    The thought of Chevonne cooking mouthwatering food and making his ranch into a home sent a flood of warmth through him. It also annoyed him. He didn’t like the feelings for Chevonne that kept surfacing, because he didn’t want a real marriage. What he wanted was to be left alone so he could work on his project.
    A feeling of protectiveness suddenly surged through him at the thought of Chevonne going to town by herself. Though he knew women did go about on their own in this day and age, he felt that to be safe, she should be in company. Preferably him. The territory was still untamed and any number of nasty things could happen to a woman alone.
    Then a thought crossed his mind that maybe Chevonne had wanted to go to town alone so she could meet with Phinneas Gulch, but he pushed it away as quickly as it had came. He had no good reason to suspect Chevonne of spying. Trey considered himself to be a fair man and he would not condemn her without proof.
    He did intend to proceed with caution. “I admire you wanting to take the buggy and be independent, but I’m not sure you should go to town by yourself.”
    “Women need to be more independent, don’t you think? This is eighteen-ninety. We can hardly be expected to depend on a man for everything.”
    Chevonne’s green eyes held a challenge that stirred Trey’s blood. He wasn’t used to women with such forward thinking. Actually, he wasn’t used to women who did much independent thinking, except his sister and his mother. The women his mother kept trying to saddle him with, like Sarah Perkins, didn’t seem to have much going on inside their heads other than catching a man, having babies and baking pies. The idea of a woman with independent thoughts and ideas intrigued and excited him.
    Trey grimaced. He actually did agree with her—but for other women, not his own wife. “You have a point there but, unfortunately, bad things can