Although she had no desire to be anyone’s bride, particularly in light of her current experience, she wondered if Clayton would be willing to take her in and at least provide temporary shelter for her and her daughter.
“I guess there’s only one good way to find out,” she mused, standing from the bench with Ellie in her arms as she collected her luggage and headed for the door.
Chapter three
At times in his life, the silence proved deafening.
Just returned from a long day’s labor as a deputy sheriff in a bustling Texas town, Clayton Townsend rested easy in the comfort of a luxurious cushioned chair; a centerpiece in a sitting room that featured polished wooden hand carved furniture, decorative buckskin wall hangings, and silver polished miniature statues adorning its interior.
Although always impressed by the simple beauty of his new home, part and parcel of an inheritance he had earned from a wealthy uncle who recently passed, he at this point found it impossible to enjoy its simple masculine beauty.
“Every day is the same to me. I get up at the crack of dawn to work my land, then head into town to help keep the peace,” he reasoned, adding as he came near close to collapsing in his chair, “Then I come home, complete another few hours of ranch work, and go to sleep.”
Sometimes. On a night like this, however, he reflected instead on the continuous cycle of work that his life had become.
“Sometimes I go to visit my brother at the ranch up on the road, just to hear the laughter and be a part of the family dinners and games; to feel just a little less alone,” he mused, adding with a hefty sigh, “As things stand though, my standard work day is too full to even make those visits.”
He knew that he always could hire a ranch hand to help out around the place; yet he’d far prefer to share his space with someone who could fill his home with the warmth, laughter and love that he experienced at his brother’s house. And while friends assured him that—with his ebony haired, crystal eyed good looks and tall muscular physique—Clayton could attract just about any female, he did not simply want any female.
“I want a wife,” he said aloud, the lonesome echo of his words resounding all too loud in the emptiness around him. “Someone to share with, not supervise. Someone to build a life and a family with—not just some random helper who will work the fields with me and heed my every command.”
And indeed, the responses that he’d gotten thus far to his mail order bride advertisement had supplied him with everything that he didn’t want in a wife; these letters coming from women who offered themselves up as submissive helpmates, revealing nothing about their true personalities beyond their abilities to cook, work the fields and look fetching in a frock.
“And if I happened to lose my money, these pretty, sweet little lasses would be gone with the wind, sweeping away like so many tumbleweeds across the Texas landscape,” he mused with a snort. “I have no need for some oversized doll that will decorate my home and serve me my meals in the role of a well-paid servant. I want a real woman; someone who will be a loving friend and companion, while still being strong enough to handle a life culled from the fat of the frontier.”
He jumped in his chair as his troubled meditation was disrupted by the sound of a loud knock on the door; one that brought him to his feet as it echoed endless throughout his home.
“I really don’t know of anyone who bears such a forceful knock,” he thought, rolling his eyes heavenward as he approached the door. “I certainly hope that it’s not the sheriff, here to tell me about another compelling case that needs my immediate attention—one that just couldn’t possibly wait until morning.”
Not eager to find out the answer to this question, he opened the door with a begrudging hand; eyes flying wide and thoughts scattering as he came face to face with an unexpected visitor.
In place of the stout, bulky six-foot-tall man with the receding hairline, the sheriff whose frequent and inconvenient visits he’d almost come to expect, stood a petite woman with the appearance of a china doll—all the while staring at him with a determined fire eyed expression that betrayed a soul of steel.
Dressed in a basic mint green dress of clean but worn calico, the woman’s simple unadorned radiance expressed itself in a sleek shoulder length mane of soft ebony hair, wide dark eyes, glowing ivory skin, and a slender but curvaceous form that—while short in stature—betrayed a certain strength reflected in her toned arms and firm, straight posture.
Clutched in the woman’s delicate but sturdy hands was an adorable little girl who shone as the mirror image of the woman who held her tight and protective in her grasp; a girl who now looked at him with wide blinking eyes that seemed to convey a certain defined question.