Levi looked over at her. “Probably for the same reason I won’t marry Lucille Lawson.” He kicked a stone and watched it skip across the ground.
When they got to the barn, Hannah knew he wasn’t going to elaborate without a little prodding. “And that would be because...”
“The girls around here are simpleminded and most of them are too young for us, anyway.” Levi’s face flushed the same shade of red that Daniel’s had a few minutes earlier. He hid his embarrassment by unhitching the wagon.
Hannah leaned against a stall door and inhaled the sweet fragrance of hay. A mama cat looked up from the corner of the barn, where three kittens nuzzled at her. Contentment could be found here on the Westland Ranch, if things were different.
The mama cat licked her babies’ faces.
When Hannah was a child she’d been content. Until the horse stepped on her ankle and shattered that contentment, along with the bones. She’d been saddling her horse to go for an afternoon ride when a snake spooked it and sent it sidestepping. Unfortunately for her, the animal had stepped on her ankle, shattering the bone. Hannah remembered the doctor and her parents whispering in the next room when she’d come to and the doctor telling her father that he should probably put her away. She wasn’t ranch life material anymore. Her world had changed that day. People’s behavior toward her changed.
Her father had no longer wanted his favorite child working beside him on the family farm. He’d swiftly made the decision she was a cripple and not good for farming. Horses were to be kept far away from her, and as soon as she was old enough, Hannah had been sent off to school, where she was trained to be a teacher. Feelings of hurt and anxiety filled her as she recalled being put on a stagecoach and sent as far away from home as one could go. After all these years, resentment and pain still lingered in her heart. Then she’d met Thomas, and he’d promised to marry her and create a home she could be proud of. Only that, too, had shattered with no more than a moment’s notice. She’d pretended like neither mattered, but as soon as she’d completed her education, Hannah had run to New Mexico, as far from Missouri as her money would take her. She’d found working for the school in Cottonwood Springs rewarding, but not having her own place had left her far from content.
Then Eliza had invited her to come live with her, and Hannah had been happy for a while. She felt sick to her stomach as she remembered the humiliation she’d felt when Mr. Miller entered the school and found his sixteen-year-old nephew, John Miller, trying to kiss her.
“Miss Young? Are you all right?” Levi stood in front of her with his hands on his hips, reminding her of his mother. His concerned green eyes studied her.
In a shaky voice Hannah answered, “I’m fine.” She straightened. Earlier, Daniel had said he was fine, too, but Hannah wondered again what had put that haunted look in his eyes.
His brother reached forward and brushed a strand of hair from her eyes. “You sure?” Levi’s gaze studied her.
“What’s going on in here?”
Hannah jerked her eyes from Levi’s. Daniel stood in the doorway, staring at them. Anger seemed to radiate from the man like hot sun off a flat rock. She sighed and looked back to Levi, who dropped his hand.
“Are you feeling any better?” he asked, just loudly enough for her to hear.
“Yes, thank you,” she whispered back.
Levi winked at her and then muttered, “Then time to have fun with my brother.” In a robust voice he said, “I’m sorry, big brother, I thought since you left Miss Young standing in front of the house, it was all right for me to get to know her a little better.”
Daniel stalked into the barn. He passed Levi and came to a stop at Hannah’s side. “Get to know her like a sister-in-law and not like a sweetheart and we’ll be just fine.”
Levi tilted his head. “And if I decide to give you a little competition and see if she’d rather marry me, what then?”
Hannah couldn’t believe what Levi was saying. She’d not led him to believe she’d choose him over his brother, but that’s what he was insinuating. The first time they were alone, she was going to set him straight. She refused to come between the brothers. Although from the looks of things, they didn’t seem very close. Still, Hannah planned on setting them both straight.
* * *
“I suppose that is up to Miss Young. She’ll have to decide the right thing to do.” Daniel directed Hannah to the barn door, leaving his brother standing there staring after them. Had he just called Levi’s bluff? Or ignited the flame of competition in him? He wasn’t sure.
And what about Hannah Young? She’d stared up at him like a newborn calf at its mother. Had she expected Daniel to fight his own flesh and blood over her? He continued propelling her across the yard toward the house. “Mother is waiting for you.”
Hannah pulled her elbow from his hand. Anger flashed in her pretty blue eyes. “And whose fault is that?”
“I didn’t say it was anyone’s fault.” If he lived to be a hundred, Daniel would never understand women. First his mother was angry with him for bringing home a mail-order bride, and now Hannah was angry with him, too.
She huffed. “No, you implied it was mine.”
Daniel straightened his shoulders. “Well, you did run off to the barn with Levi.”
“Because you left me standing in the front yard as if I was a stray puppy and not your fiancée. By the way...” she paused, then squared her shoulders, too, and tilted her head back to look him in the face “...I did not run.”
“You two stop that squabbling and get in here! You’re acting like children,” his mother called from the front door.
He had the satisfaction of watching mortification wash over Hannah’s face. His pleasure was brief as his mother continued, “Wipe that smirk off your face, young man.” She turned and stomped back inside the house, leaving the door open.
Daniel assumed that if she’d left the door ajar, his mother was getting over being mad. He’d known she wouldn’t be too happy about him marrying a girl from anywhere else but Granite, but he hadn’t expected her to be this angry.
His gaze moved from the door to Hannah. She looked ready to bolt. Once more he took her arm and propelled her toward the house. “Ma will be fine and so will you. You know, if we were already married, she wouldn’t be able to say much.”
Hannah seemed to ignore his comment. “You told her we aren’t married yet?”
He followed her up the porch steps. “Sure did.”
She sighed. “Good.”
Daniel followed her over the threshold and swung the door shut behind them. Hannah stopped suddenly, causing him to bump into her, almost knocking her to the floor. He reached out and pulled her back against his chest and stomach.
Bonnie Westland stood in front of them with Hannah’s suitcases propped in front of her. Her arms were crossed and her mouth was set in a hard line. She hadn’t looked at him like that since he was a little boy. And then it had been a baby skunk and not a girl he’d brought home. “Daniel, I suggest you take your future bride back to town. She’ll not be staying under my roof.”
Chapter Five
Hannah gasped at the venom in the older woman’s words. She thought Daniel’s mother would have been happy that her oldest son had brought home a prospective bride. Hadn’t she been the one to set up this contest? Hannah squared her shoulders and asked, “May I ask what you have against me, Mrs. Westland?”
Bonnie’s eyes narrowed. “No, you may not.” She looked over Hannah’s head at her son. “Get this woman out of my house now.” With