“I want to get married, Lewis.”
“Are you sure about this, Phoebe?” he asked.
“Absolutely,” she answered. She looked at him. “Are you?”
He nodded. “Yes. I love you. I’d do anything for you. Anything.”
She’d lost him for years and now she’d found him again. She wasn’t letting him go back to Edmonton and maybe find some other woman. Besides, she was tired of always being the good girl in her family, tired of always having to be sensible.
But how to explain this sudden urgency? The sudden overwhelming desire she’d felt this morning, watching him sleep, to be his, really his. In the most sacred, profound way. Marriage. “I know it seems kind of crazy, but doing it like this cuts out a lot of trouble. You know what I mean?”
“Uh-huh. Your folks.” His dark eyes were steady on hers.
Phoebe glanced away. “Them. And everyone else. They don’t know you the way I do. They’d bring up all kinds of complications. They’d think we should get married in a church. All that fuss. Weddings are stupid, anyway! Being married is what counts.”
“Is it?” He turned to study her. “You know I’ll do anything you want, Phoebe, even sneak off like this and marry you. But we can’t hide forever.”
“It’ll just be a secret for a while,” she told him. “Ours!”
Dear Reader,
Writing a collection of books set in and around the small town of Glory, Alberta, has been a challenge and a source of joy for me. I have lived in so many small towns myself that Glory has come to reflect everything I like and dislike about small-town living. No one can say there aren’t disadvantages—lack of privacy, interfering neighbors, limited shopping. But there are great advantages, too—a sense of community, parents looking out for their neighbors’ children, knowing that you’ll always find help if you ask for it.
Lewis Hardin, a young man in trouble in my first MEN OF GLORY book, The Rancher’s Runaway Bride, has always longed for something we all cherish: a home of our own. In this story, with childhood sweetheart Phoebe Longquist’s help, Lewis discovers his special place in more ways than one.
I hope you’ll enjoy the love story between Lewis and Phoebe. It was a wonderful book to write, and brings the folks of Glory full circle, back to the beginning. The place we call home.
Judith Bowen
P.S. Let me know how you’ve enjoyed the MEN OF GLORY books and thank you for your many, many letters over the years. You can reach me at P.O. Box 2333, Point Roberts, WA 98281-2333. Or check out my MEN OF GLORY web page at www.judithbowen.com.
MEN OF GLORY titles in Superromance:
739—THE RANCHER’S RUNAWAY BRIDE
791—LIKE FATHER, LIKE DAUGHTER
814—O LITTLE TOWN OF GLORY
835—THE DOCTOR’S DAUGHTER
872—HIS BROTHER’S BRIDE
900—THE RANCHER TAKES A WIFE
A Home of His Own
Judith Bowen
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
THE FIRST TIME Phoebe saw Lewis Hardin she was maybe ten. She’d gone out to the Hardin place, at the top of Bearberry Hill, with her mother to deliver some parceled-up goods from the parish. The Hardins weren’t Catholic, as far as Phoebe was aware, but that didn’t matter: they were poor.
That afternoon, bored with the adults’ visiting, Phoebe had climbed a massive poplar in a copse near the Hardins’ old post-and-beam barn, then had daringly crawled onto a ledge that led to the loft. The loft contained very little hay. The roof, under the rafters, was thick with the nests of barn swallows; it echoed with the squeaky shrills of the parents swooping in to stuff their offspring’s bellies with mosquitoes, then out again. There were no animals in the barn, only a few badly rusted farm implements. She’d heard a rhythmic rap-rap sound below somewhere and had crept from one side of the loft to the other, peering through the square holes in the floor cut out for hay and straw to be thrown down to horses or cows.
She was afraid, but she was thrilled, too. This was an adventure. Even dangerous, up here with the stinky hay and the uncertain footing. By herself, too—no Jilly tagging along. The fun of having a new little sister had worn off long ago.
Finally, almost on top of the rap-rap sound, Phoebe cleared the hay cautiously from the place where the wall of the barn met the floor of the loft and peered down. She spotted a boy, about fourteen or fifteen, hammering on a homemade punching bag made from an old feed sack, it looked like, filled with straw. He jabbed at the bag, grunting at the effort, his skinny body gleaming with sweat in the shafts of afternoon sunlight that lazily probed the deep gloom of the barn’s interior. The punching bag hung in one corner of a box stall that had been fixed up with a bed and pallet and a rickety-looking table and bench. There were candles set into pop bottles, on the table, a knife, chunks of wood and several plastic bread bags. Was there food in them? It seemed that the boy lived in the stall, or at least slept there part of the time. A few boards pried out of the barn siding provided an exit.
Phoebe held her breath, rapt. Finally, with a last vicious series of jabs and a shout that thrilled her blood, he swung away from the bag