An Unconventional Bride For The Rancher (Historical Western Romance) Read online

  An Unconventional Bride for the Rancher

  A Western Historical Romance

  Cassidy Hanton

  Edited by

  Maggie Berry

  Contents

  A Thank You Gift

  About the book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  Extended Epilogue

  Finding the Broken Cowboy

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Also by Cassidy Hanton

  About the Author

  A Thank You Gift

  Thanks a lot for purchasing my book. It really means a lot to me, because this is the best way to show me your love.

  As a Thank You gift I have written a full length novel for you called Finding the Broken Cowboy. It’s only available to people who have downloaded one of my books and you can get your free copy by tapping this link here.

  Again, thank you ever so much for your continuous love and support!

  Cassidy Hanton

  About the book

  But he who dares not grasp the thorn, should never crave the rose...

  Losing in one blow both her family and their ranch, Charlene Quinn is finally more determined to live life on her own terms. Her fate takes an unprecedented turn when a mysterious but handsome rancher arrives in town.

  Tyler Price moves to Bandera to escape his haunting past. When he discovers a wounded young Comanche in his ranch, he knows he can trust only one person—the stubborn, fierce and independent Charlene Quinn.

  With the attackers on the loose, Charlene and Tyler join forces to protect the innocent...until Tyler’s past suddenly creeps into their lives, threatening to destroy them all.

  When Charlene is attacked, a realization strikes him as a thunder. The outlaws who keep coming at nights are not only closer but also more familiar than he thinks…

  Chapter One

  “Charlene!”

  Charlene Quinn glanced around and down from the short ladder she stood upon.

  “Hello, Jean. You look excited about something.”

  She continued her work, stacking neatly folded men’s shirts on the tall shelf behind the store’s counter. There hadn’t been a customer inside the general mercantile for an hour, but Charlene was seldom idle. If she had nothing to stack, she cleaned. If the store was clean, she worked the books. When customers entered the store, she waited on them, helped them find exactly what they needed, then took their money.

  Even now, as Jean Maple, her employer, stood inside the store gazing up at her, she didn’t pause in her work. “Have you heard the news?” Jean asked her. “The old Mill Ranch has been sold.”

  “No, I hadn’t heard,” Charlene replied. “I’m not surprised, though. It’s a very nice piece of property.”

  She heard Jean huff. “Nice, yes, but the exciting part is the new owner.”

  Charlene examined her handiwork, then nodded in satisfaction. Backing her way down the ladder, careful not to step on the hem of her skirt, she reached the wooden floor. Turning, she dusted her hands together, gazing at Jean, who stood watching her with an enigmatic smile.

  “So, what is so intriguing about this new owner?” Charlene asked.

  “Only that he is by far the best-looking man I have ever seen in my life,” Jean exclaimed, with an almost girlish giggle.

  “What am I?” called a voice from the office behind the curtain. “A piece of moldy bacon?”

  Jean waved her hands even though the speaker couldn’t see the dismissive gesture. “The best-looking man I have ever seen that I am not married to.”

  “Much better.”

  Charlene didn’t smile as she usually did at the exchange between Jean and her husband, Harold, who worked with the invoices and arranged for new orders to be shipped from the manufacturers in the store’s small office. She cared little for the gleam of anticipation in Jean’s eyes as the older woman still watched her closely.

  “I know that look, Jean,” she said, her tone a warning. “You’re about to tell me he’s single, aren’t you?”

  “How did you guess that?”

  Charlene shook her head, then went to the box on the counter to retrieve more shirts to add to the shelf above. “I am quite familiar with the look in your eyes when hatching your matchmaking plots.”

  Jean huffed again, indignant. “There are plenty of eligible men in this town, and you refuse to even look at them. If you are not going to think about catching a husband, then I will.”

  “Oh, so you’re going to marry a second husband?” Harold asked from the office. “What a novel idea. I thought it was men who were supposed to marry multiple wives.”

  “Harold Maple, mind your own affairs.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Charlene, come down that ladder this instant. I refuse to talk to your back.”

  Charlene sighed. While she didn’t exactly return down to the floor, she did turn halfway around to gaze down at Jean. “Thank you for worrying about my future, Jean, but I can’t be concerned with meeting new men or getting married. Mother needs me too much.”

  Jean set her hands on her ample hips, shaking her head. She pursed her lips in a moue of consternation. “I know your mother needs you. Just know there are others in this town, including myself and Harold.. ”

  “Speak for yourself.”

  “… who will help in looking after her. You must think of your future, dear. You are such a beautiful girl and would make some lucky man a wonderful wife.”

  “Thank you for worrying about us, Jean,” Charlene said, climbing back up the ladder with her bundle of merchandise. “You and Harold have done so much for us already.”

  “Aha! At last, I get some credit around here.”

  “Harold Maple, for the last time, mind your own business and stop eavesdropping. It’s the height of bad manners.”

  “It’s hardly eavesdropping when your voices are so loud.”

  Now, Charlene did grin as she piled the neatly folded shirts on the shelf. She loved the two of them, Harold and Jean Maple, who owned the general store, and who gave her employment when she desperately needed it. In return for their generosity and the salary she received, Charlene worked long hours six days a week, to the point that Jean occasionally complained of not having enough to do.

  Still, Jean had her two young sons to contend with and often told Charlene how grateful she was for the extra time Charlene’s work provided her to spend with them. At ages ten and twelve, both Matt and Ben kept her busy as they grew older, expanding their horizons and making new friends with the other children around the small town of Bandera, Texas.

  Jean picked up the box of shirts and handed them up to Charlene, enabling her to work faster without climbing up and down the ladder. “The new fellow in town is Tyler Price,�
�� Jean commented, giving her a pile of shirts.

  “That’s nice.”

  “I’m sure he will be dropping by the store. That Mill Ranch is a little run down, habitable, but could use some fixing up.”

  “Uh, huh.”

  “Did I mention he is single?”

  “Yep.”

  “Give it up, Jean,” Harold called. “Our little girl isn’t interested.”

  Charlene glanced down to see Jean glowering up at her. “He is quite the catch, missy. And plans to expand the ranch and raise cattle. You could do far worse.”

  “Are there any more shirts in that box?” Charlene inquired politely.

  In disgust, Jean set the box down on the counter. “It’s time for lunch. Go on home and eat, tell your mother I said hello.”

  “I will.”

  Charlene climbed back down, offering Jean a small grin as she headed toward the door. “Back in an hour.”

  The little bell over the door chimed musically as she went out, gently closing the door behind her. Early summer had arrived in the beautiful hill country of south Texas, along with its rising heat and humidity that tended to last from early April all the way to October. Even though the bright sunlight blasted down on her bare head as Charlene walked down the wooden sidewalk toward home, the heat level hadn’t risen to the point where it was uncomfortable to be outside.

  The street bustled with the comings and goings of people getting to their destinations. Some walked, some rode on horseback and some drove in wagons or small buggies. Some waved and called hello as they passed her, and Charlene returned their gestures. Several matrons admonished her for not wearing her sunbonnet outdoors. Charlene promised to put it on immediately.

  The small house she shared with her mother stood at the end of the street, a tidy white clapboard structure with blue trim and a tiny yard. They lived rent-free, a charity gift from Harold and Jean Maple, who owned the house.

  She opened the gate in the white picket fence and walked up the steps to the porch. Charlene stopped at the top, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath before she turned the knob on the door. It was the same greeting as any other day.

  Her mother, Olivia Quinn, sat in her rocking chair near the hearth, staring into the cold ashes. She had wrapped a shawl around her thin frame, her face was gaunt as though starved, her gray and brown hair was hanging in thin wisps to her shoulders. Charlene made certain she ate well, but nothing seemed to put weight on her mother’s skinny body.

  Kissing Olivia’s cheek, Charlene asked, “Are you hungry, Mother? I’ll make us some beef and bacon sandwiches. Why are you wearing a shawl? Are you cold?”

  Olivia glanced up, a tiny smile creasing her face. “I like it around me, dear. How are things at the store?”

  Striding toward the small kitchen, Charlene spoke over her shoulder. “Jean is playing matchmaker again.”

  “With whom?”

  She heard the chair creak as Olivia rose stiffly from it and shambled in Charlene’s wake. Her mother was not old by the years she had lived, yet she had become an aged woman under the weight of terrible, heart-wrenching grief. She hardly left the house, refused to attend church services, and performed only a few basic household chores. Charlene hadn’t the heart to demand more from her mother.

  “Some gentleman who bought the Mill place,” Charlene replied, retrieving plates from the cupboard, “and according to Jean, he is Adonis himself.”

  Shuffling to the table, Olivia sat down with a sigh. “You should think about getting married, dear.”

  “Don’t you start, Mother,” Charlene said, cutting slices from the leftover beef roast and from a loaf of bread. “Jean is like a dog fussing over a bone, she won’t stop.”

  “She just wants what is best for you. The Maples have been very kind to us.”

  Making the sandwiches, Charlene felt her own grief rise, close to her throat and wondered what might have been if their loved ones hadn’t died. “Then, there won’t be anyone to look after you.”

  “I will be all right, dear.”

  No, you won’t. You wouldn’t eat if I wasn’t here to supervise. Charlene would never speak that thought aloud to her mother and squashed her grief. “I guess I’m just not ready to be married.”

  Charlene set the plates on the table then filled two glasses of cold water from the hand pump at the sink. She handed one to Olivia, then sat down to her own lunch. Olivia nibbled at her meal, tears filling her brown eyes. “I am such a burden,” she whispered.

  “Never say that, Mother,” Charlene insisted, her fears for Olivia growing. “I like taking care of you.”

  “But you work so hard,” Olivia set her sandwich down and stared at it. “Nearly every day at the store, then you come home and look after the house, the laundry, the cooking. I should help more, but I have no energy for anything.”

  “It’s all right,” Charlene replied, gesturing toward her uneaten lunch. “Now, eat. Please.”

  Olivia nodded and picked it up to take a small bite. “What else did Jean say about the new member of our community?”

  “Not much. Just that he plans to run cattle, and she thought he might stop by the store.”

  Olivia nodded. “It is the only general store in the area. The next closest one is in San Antonio.”

  “Then I’m sure I’ll be meeting him soon enough,” Charlene said and took another bite of her sandwich. “If Mr. Price is searching for a wife, I bet some other girl in town will catch his interest.”

  Olivia smiled. “There are none as pretty as you.”

  Charlene waved her hand. “There’s more to a relationship than looks, Mother. One must be interested to qualify, and I, for one, do not have that qualification.”

  “Tsk, dear. I really must do something about that attitude of yours.”

  “I’m an adult,” Charlene replied crisply, finishing her lunch. “I can have an attitude if I want.”

  Picking up her empty plate, she set it in the sink, then drank her water and set the glass beside it. Turning, she found her mother had eaten most of her sandwich and nodded with satisfaction. “Jean mentioned sending an apple pie home with me,” she said. “We can have some for dessert tonight, how does that sound?’

  “Very good. Now you run along, and I will clean up.”

  “Thank you, Mother.”

  Charlene kissed Olivia’s cheek again, and strode out of the kitchen toward the door, knowing she may come home later to clean dishes or may find them just where she left them. It all depended upon how Olivia felt at any given moment. Though Charlene admitted to herself, her mother usually did do what she said she would do.

  Remembering to grab her sunbonnet before walking out the door, she donned it and tied the ribbon under her chin. Though she hadn’t used up the full hour the Maples gave her for her lunch, she strode quickly back to the store, ticking off in her mind the tasks she needed to accomplish that afternoon. Toying absently with her thick braid of red hair, Charlene glanced up to see an unusual sight in front of the Apple Tree, the Maples’ general store.

  A buckboard wagon, drawn by two mouse-colored mules, stood outside it in the street, a gaggle of women crowded around it. Charlene slowed her pace to watch. “Now what could they be staring at?” she wondered aloud.

  “It’s the new feller.”

  Charlene half turned to find Sheriff Victor Barker riding his dun gelding up beside her. A tall man with thick, iron-gray hair and a mustache that drooped to his chin, he tipped his hat to her. Then his sharp blue eyes flicked to the crowd. Turning his head, he spat a wad of tobacco on the far side of his horse. “Them gals seem to think he be a good lookin’ feller. Me, I wouldn’t know.”

  Charlene scoffed. “Handsome is as handsome does.”

  “That do be true, Miss Quinn. How’s your Ma doin’?”

  “Well enough, I suppose. She eats, but doesn’t gain an ounce of weight, still has no energy.”

  “Grief be an evil creature, young lady, and don’t you forget it. You b
oth have been through a lot.”

  “You are very kind, Sheriff. We both appreciate what you, the Maples and other folks in town have done for us.”

  “Just being neighborly.”