Free Charlene Sands by Winning Jennas Heart Page A

Callahan, out here to claim her farm. The implications were pulling her apart. Her brother had betrayed her again, but this time, she hadn’t been the only one to suffer. Blue was dead because of it. And this man, this horrible gambler, whom she’d saved, then married, then bedded, oh, she couldn’t even face that fact as yet, but this man and her deceitful brother had been the cause of it all. “No,” she mumbled, her body sagging, defeated. She’d been duped once again.
    “I’m sorry, Jenna. It’s true.”
    Jenna lowered her lids, unable to bear the reality another second. She prayed for it all to go away. Like a bad dream, she’d awaken to find this man, this gambler gone. Blue would be by her side and he’d be smiling, taking her into his arms, speaking loving words to her. They’d set out to plow their fields and make a life together. Jenna wished it so. She desperately wanted to wake up from this nightmare.
    “Jenna.”
    The voice so familiar, yet strange to her now, broke into her hopeful thoughts. She just wanted him to go away. “You came here to take my farm away from me.”
    “No.”
    “You traveled quite some distance. You had the deed.”
    “I thought I won it fair and square.”
    Jenna put her head down. She ached with bone weary pain.
    “I wouldn’t have claimed the land. I wouldn’t have taken the farm you love. Once I’d learned the truth, I would have left. I’d never harm you, Jenna. You have to believe that.”
    “You’re a gambler. Why would I believe anything you said?”
    “Because…you know me.”
    Jenna laughed with grinding bitterness. She’d known one too many gamblers in her day, and all of them had brought her nothing but grief. “No, I don’t know you at all.”
    With a determined look, he stated, “I’ve lived here for weeks. Hell, Jenna, you’re my wife now.”
    Jenna shot up from the sofa and whirled around to face him. “No, I’m not. I married Blue Montgomery. You’re nothing like him. You never could be. I’m not your wife. ”
    But when he stood, towering over her, his close proximity was too much to take so she moved away, to the opposite end of the small parlor. She had to face the sorry fact that she’d lain with this man. She’d been betrayed by her brother, then bedded by a stranger.
    So much for her foolish notions of love and family.Jenna had had so little of both in her lifetime, how could she have held out hope that she’d attain either?
    “Jenna, please listen. We can make this right.”
    Jenna shook her head briskly. “No, nothing could make this right.” Heartache settled inside, a permanent part of her now, robbing her of any future joy. She knew now it would remain there, always, a reminder of a young girl’s silly thoughts of love, of wishful dreams that would never come true. “You used me, just like Bobby Joe, just like that other man, coming here ready to take away my farm. There is no way to make this right.”
    “Jenna, listen to reason here. I was nearly dead when you brought me in. Men who wanted revenge had bushwhacked me on that stage. I didn’t recall any of it. I didn’t remember.”
    “And they killed Blue because of you.” Jenna would never get over that. She viewed Cash Callahan with narrowed eyes, seeing him only as a low-bellied poisonous snake. Snakes sucked the life out of people. Gamblers did the same. She had no use for any of them. “What’d you do? Why were they after you?”
    “I shot a man dead.”
    Jenna gasped and backed away from Cash. His gut clenched, but he couldn’t say that he blamed her. The look on her face, the fear on her body, stuck like a knife in his heart. Regardless, he had to make her see the truth. “I caught him cheatingat cards and he pulled a gun. He was ready to kill me. It was him or me, Jenna. I had no choice.”
    “There’s always a choice,” she said in a whisper.
    “I defended myself, just like you did that day the gambler came here to take claim of your