Free The Brides Of Tombstone 01 Mail Order Outlaw by Cynthia Woolf Page A

always wanted more brothers and sisters when I was growing up, so yeah, I’d like a few kids. How about you?” Ed faced her lying like she was on one elbow with the mat cushioning their arms from the cold floor.
    “Hm…I think I’d like to have about four. That seems like a good round number.”
    “Four it is or maybe six or ten or…”
    “Stop.” She laughed. “You’re outrageous. You’d have me pregnant all the time and I don’t want to do that, so let’s hope four is enough.”
    He chuckled. “Get some sleep now.”
    “I will. Goodnight, Mal.”
    “Goodnight, sweet Lizzie.”
    What did he mean that he wanted her too much? What came next? What would lesson two be?

CHAPTER 6

    The next day they worked until about three in the afternoon. Lizzie called a halt and drove the wagon back to the line shack where they’d spent the night. And what a night it had been. Lizzie found herself aching every time she thought about kissing Mal and that was almost constantly. Would she feel this way after they finally made love? She sure hoped not. The sensation was disconcerting.
    They got back to the shack, unhitched the horses from the wagon and saddled them for the ride home. They were pretty far out and it would take a more than an hour to get home if they didn’t gallop. The horses had been mostly standing all day and so weren’t worn out, so a nice canter would do just fine.
    When they arrived home, Atina was finishing up dinner. She’d roasted both back haunches of the deer and served them with potatoes, pinto beans, fresh bread with butter, green beans from her garden out back and gravy she made from the meat drippings.
    Lizzie’s stomach growled as soon as she smelled the cooking meat.
    “I’m starving.” She turned to Mal. “How about you?”
    “I am. Apples and cheese for breakfast and a sandwich for lunch didn’t hardly take the edge off. My stomach thinks my throat’s been cut, it’s so empty.”
    Lizzie jerked her head around and stared at Mal. “That’s an old saying. Where did you hear it?” She thought it was just a saying in the west and was surprised when Mal said it.
    “Uh…a passenger on the stagecoach said it when we stopped at one of the way stations.”
    “Oh, well that makes sense. I didn’t think it would be something you would have heard in San Francisco.”
    “You’re right. No one there would have said something like that, except maybe some old sourdough from the gold fields.”
    “What does that mean ‘some old sourdough’?”
    “The old miners are called sourdoughs because that’s the kind of bread they made. It would last longer than regular bread before getting moldy.”
    “Tell me more about your life in the city.”
    “After dinner. Let’s get washed up.” He pointed to the basins on the long table on the porch outside the kitchen door. “I see that Atina is about to call everyone in.”
    She turned and looked.
    Sure enough Atina took the rod attached to the triangle with a string and ran it around the inside of the instrument several times. At the same time she shouted, “Supper’s on. Come and get it.”
    Why she bothered to shout, Lizzie didn’t know because no one could hear her over the noise the triangle made.
    “Let’s not say anything about buying the Abernathy place yet. We’ll wait until after the deed is done.” Lizzie rolled up her shirt sleeves, and then soaped up her hands and forearms before rinsing them in the hot water in the basin. “Then we’ll ask if some of the men want to come to work for us. I think that most will want to stay but we can ask.”
    “What about running this ranch?” Frowning, Mal washed, too, then dried, sharing his towel with Lizzie. “We can’t just up and leave Atina and Jamie, high and dry.”
    “We’re not leaving them high and dry.” She turned to him, hands on her hips. “How could you think I would do that? I propose that we split our time between the ranches for a little while. Boyd Dinkens is