Read Online A Bride at Last by Melissa Jagears - Free Book Online

him?”
    “I’m not sure leaving you in the dust is a ladylike thing to do.”
    “Oh, I thought you weren’t giving chase because you can’t actually beat him.”
    Well, she’d show him. After one quick glance back to let him know she’d taken the dare, she picked up her skirts and took off.
    Anthony had skidded to a stop on the rocky bank before she caught up, but she’d gotten close. She ruffled his hair and looked over her shoulder expecting Silas to be making his waytoward the water, but he was still at the wagon, lifting out what must have been their supper in a basket.
    “Do we have to eat now or can I start looking for snakes?” Anthony danced around as if he couldn’t possibly sit.
    “I’m not sure what Mr. Jonesey wants to do, but I’m sure you can stop playing the moment we tell you to, right?” She gave him her teacher glare, the one that said she expected immediate obedience.
    “Sure.” He dropped onto the rocks and reached for his laces.
    She frowned at the state of his shoes. The leather and sole at his right heel had separated, and both toes were so scuffed that a hole would appear any day.
    “What do you think about setting up here?” Silas stood under a tree just starting to turn light yellow, the basket in one hand and a blanket draped over his arm. The sun filtering through the leaves played across his face. Scruff along his jaw had turned from a thick shadow into a full beard this past week.
    Though he’d asked her a question, his eyes were fastened behind her on Anthony, who was hooting after plunging his bare feet into the cold water.
    The half smile on Silas’s face made her heart trip. He might not have known the boy long enough to truly love him, but that expression was miles closer to love than the way Richard looked at him.
    Or even how Lucinda had looked at him.
    How would it feel if Silas looked at her like that?
    No, a man as handsome as Silas wouldn’t waste his time on her. Though quite a few years older than her, with a face like his, he could scoop up any young woman he desired. Certainly a woman with a fresher face and a more compliant disposition would snag his attention. He needn’t turn such a gaze onto a twenty-five-year-old spinster.
    Why did she care anyway? He’d not be around much longer to look at her in any manner.
    “I think that’s fine.” She picked her way over to the spot he’d chosen. “Do you want to eat now? I thought we could let Anthony play awhile.”
    “Aren’t you going to get in with him?”
    “Me?” She frowned. “It’s not exactly appropriate for me to wade.”
    “Didn’t stop you from running just now . . . and losing.”
    She scrunched up her face. If she’d known him better, she’d probably have picked up something soft to throw at him. “He had a huge lead.”
    “It put a flush in your cheeks.”
    She brushed away the hair that had fallen from her sloppy bun. “Red faced and sweaty. My sister always did tell me running made me look terrible.”
    Silas’s mouth twitched. “I wouldn’t say that.”
    What would you say? She pressed her lips together to keep from asking, and he turned to flick out the blanket.
    “He’s not going to be around much longer. He won’t remember you took your stockings off, but he will remember you played with him in the water.” Silas set the basket of food on top of the smoothed-down blanket.
    She hadn’t so much been put off by the idea of being stocking-less, but more so by the hooting Anthony was doing because of the cold water. Of course, that didn’t sound like a good excuse now.
    And where did all this child-rearing wisdom come from? “I suppose you had good memories like this from your childhood?”
    “No.”
    His dejected tone made her look back at him. Once again, he wasn’t looking at her but rather at something distant.
    “No good memories at all?”
    “I’m an orphan.”
    “Well, so am I.” And she certainly had her share of bad memories because of it. “But I