Free Heartland Wedding by Renee Ryan

“Pete, you can’t attack the Tully brothers right now. Rebecca needs you more.”
    Under Edward’s grip, Pete stood unmoving. Barely. His rage shuddered for release.
    “I can’t protect her, Pete.” Edward took a wheezing breath. “Not all broken up like this. I need you to stay strong so you can take care of my sister for me.”
    Fury so intense it left a tinny taste in his mouth burned through Pete, along with the savage need to wipe out the threat to Rebecca—literally—with his bare hands.
    There is another way, a still, small voice whispered in his head. Marry her, and this ends. She’ll be safe in your home, carrying your name.
    “Did you hear me?” Edward asked in a thick, frustrated tone.
    Pete nodded.
    “You’ll take care of my sister?”
    “Yes.”
    “Thank you.”
    Pete angled his head toward the boardinghouse. “Can you make it the rest of the way on your own?”
    “Ja.” Edward straightened to his full height, but he ruined the affect by wincing. “It’s not so far.”
    “Good. I have to go clean up.” Pete turned to go, then swung back around. “Once you’re bandaged, have Rebecca put on her prettiest dress.”
    Edward eyed him skeptically. “Why?”
    Pete glanced in the direction of the church. He and Rebecca were getting married. Tonight. But he’d learned his lesson. He would not tell Rebecca she was marrying him. He would ask her. Nicely.
    “Because,” he said, “I have a proper proposal to make to your sister.”
    And this time, he would do it right.

Chapter Five
    R ebecca tied off the bandage around Edward’s ribs with slow, careful movements. She tried to hold her fear at bay, but she couldn’t stop her heart from beating too fast and too hard, as if she were running a race without a finish line in sight.
    Something awful had happened to her brother, bad enough to put him in this injured condition. But he wasn’t revealing any specifics. After he’d assured her there’d been no accident at the livery, he’d become unusually reticent. Which could mean only one thing. He’d been in a fight.
    With trembling fingers, she ruffled his hair as though he were the younger sibling rather than the older. “There.” She dropped a kiss to his forehead. “You’re all patched up now.”
    “Takk,” he said in Norwegian, then took what looked like a painful breath and began again. “I mean, thanks.”
    Clicking her tongue, Mrs. Jennings scooted the bowl of water closer to where Rebecca stood over her brother. Sharing a worried look with the older woman, Rebecca dipped a rag into the cool liquid.
    “I’ll get more water for you, dear.” Mrs. Jennings lifted the bowl from the table.
    Rebecca gave her employer an appreciative smile before the woman trudged out the back door toward the pump. Watching her go, Rebecca sighed with gratitude. In her mid-fifties, Mrs. Jennings might appear overly formal to some in this town, but she’d always been kind to Rebecca. And she’d personally taken in one of the displaced children from the wagon train. Ten-year-old Alex seemed happy under Mrs. Jennings’s care.
    Rebecca was, too. The woman might tuck her brown hair into an ordinary bun at the nape of her neck, but there was nothing ordinary about her. Yes, she had plain brown eyes, unremarkable features and wore nondescript clothing, but her inner beauty and love of the Lord radiated out of her like a sunbeam splitting through a dingy cloud on a blustery day.
    Edward pulled in an audible, ragged breath, capturing Rebecca’s attention once again. She knew he was in pain, yet he kept tossing worried, determined glances at the back door. Did he think the threat had followed him here?
    Oh, Edward, what’s wrong with you? What’s happened to turn you into a stranger so quickly? The brother she knew would never get into a fistfight.
    Cautiously, she dabbed at his lip.
    He drew back with a hiss of pain.
    “That’s what comes from fighting.”
    He didn’t confirm or deny her suspicions.