The Cowboy's Orphan Bride. Lauri Robinson

As Cecil’s eyes lightened up, Garth continued, “I’m not here to collect the cow or the calf. I wanted to say thank you for the trade. My cowboys were greatly pleased with the eggs and beans. We don’t get foodstuff along those lines too often while on the trail.”

      Cecil’s face had completely brightened and his chest puffed. “I told her that.”

      Satisfied there wasn’t trouble here, Garth reckoned he could head back to the herd, yet couldn’t stop from saying, “You seem to have told her a lot of things.”

      “Have to. A girl that uppity needs some direction or she’ll go flying around like a moth, flapping her wings and getting nowhere.”

      “Are you referring to your wife?”

      “No, no, no. My wife, Emma Sue, she’s the one having the baby. I’m talking about Bridgette. That girl...”

      Garth had started for his horse, but stopped as his stomach shot past his heart to land some place near his throat, where it dang near strangled him. After telling himself Chaney couldn’t be talking about his Bridgette several times, that his ears must be as swollen as his eye, he managed to catch enough breath to ask, “Bridgette who?”

      “Don’t rightly know her last name. Rodgers I guess. She’s the doc’s adopted daughter. He farms her out to folks needing doctoring. Costs plenty for what ya get, but—”

      “And she’s the one who traded for the cow and calf?” Garth asked, staring at the house. That couldn’t have been Bridgette; she’d have said something. Especially when he told her his name. Suddenly, the side of his face, where she’d slapped him, stung again, and irritation flared. Why the hell had she slapped him?

      “Where you going?”

      Garth had started for the house, and didn’t slow at the man’s question.

      “You can’t go in there! My wife’s having a baby.”

      That shout stopped him. At least it stopped his feet. With his insides gushing about like flood waters, Garth spun enough to see Cecil with his good eye. “Go get her.”

      “My wife?”

      “No,” he growled. “Bridgette.”

      Cecil shook his head. “I can’t. She told me not to open that door.” Wiping his lips with one hand, he added, “I thought the baby would come before she got back. I don’t know nothing about birthing babies and I don’t want to learn.”

      Garth spewed a mouthful of curse words as he swung back around to glare at the house. He didn’t want to learn about birthing babies either, but he did want to see Bridgette. Wanted to know why she’d smacked him and why she hadn’t told him who she was.

      “She swindle you out of that calf and cow?” Cecil asked. “She’s like that. Has you doing things you don’t know you’re doing ’til it’s done. She’s had me doing more work around here since—”

      With his head hurting and his guts twisting, Garth spun back to Cecil. “Give me that bottle.”

      Clamping his mouth shut midsentence, Cecil glanced around before asking, “What bottle?”

      “The one in your back pocket.” Garth took a step forward. “Now.”

      Cecil shuffled his feet while dipping his head. “Oh, that one.” He pulled a bottle out. “I was just calming my nerves. You know how it is. Had to get me a couple extra bottles lately, with Bridgette living here and all. That woman could drive a man batty.”

      Garth took the bottle and a long swig. It burned his throat, proving the whiskey—if that’s what it was supposed to be—was far from good, but that didn’t stop him from taking a second swallow. There was no reason, not a single one, for Bridgette not to have told him who she was.

      “I told her there ain’t nothing wrong with being an orphan, ain’t no one to blame, but she didn’t take to my...”

      Cecil kept talking. Garth wasn’t listening. There had been times in his life when he’d said those exact words. Events happened. Children were left without parents. Some, like him, were simply not wanted; others, like Bridgette knew of their beginning but no more; and others still, knew the exact moment they’d become an orphan. He’d spent a good amount of time being angry that he’d been an unwanted one and had spent a fair amount of time searching for a way to get back at life for that. At getting even. Until he’d decided to forget his past.

      The injustice of life, the unfairness, the inequality still got to him at times. Being older helped. Knowing life was life, that you got out of it what you put into it. But this, Bridgette treating him like a stranger, hit him almost as hard as learning his mother had run off all those years ago.

      Bridgette had been in the hallway when he’d arrived at the Children’s Home, on her hands and knees scrubbing the floors, and so skinny and scrawny the bucket of water had been bigger than her. He’d been mad, upset about being taken to the orphanage, and had been trying to get out of the constable’s hold. When the man had raised a hand to whack him, Bridgette had thrown her scrub brush toward them. It had missed the constable, and bounced off the wall. She’d run to retrieve it and prepared to throw the brush again.

      He’d known plenty of girls on the streets, but he’d never seen or heard of a girl who’d laid into a constable the way Bridgette had. Even while being carried down the hall by one of the nursemaids, she’d continued to rant about the wrongness of hitting a child.

      Later, when he’d seen her again, he’d pointed out that she was a child. She’d said exactly, who was better to know the wrongness of hitting a child than a child.

      He hadn’t been able to argue that point, but they hadn’t formed a friendship until after he’d been brought to the Children’s Home the second time, when she’d snuck food to him when he’d been forced to complete chores during mealtimes as punishment for running away. After that, they’d spent plenty of time in each other’s company.

      Until Kansas City, where he’d been distributed.

      “You, uh, gonna give that back?”

      Garth looked at the bottle and then Cecil before answering, “No.” He walked toward his horse.

      “You heading back to your herd?”

      Cecil was on his heels, and Garth barely paused to grab the reins of his mount. “No.” He led the horse to the side of the barn, into the shade, and loosened its girth.