Read Online A Daring Proposal by Sandra S. Kerns - Free Book Online Page A

didn’t take that long to get from his uncle’s to her house.
    Nothing.
    Okay, that must mean she was so furious she couldn’t speak. A rarity for Chaney, Jed knew from experience.
    “I’m sorry, Chaney. It just seemed the right thing to do. After . . . well, I didn’t want to stop. There. Okay?”
    She stared out the passenger window. “Okay,” she said quietly without turning.
    “Okay? That’s all you’ve got to say?”
    Chaney shrugged her shoulders. “I didn’t exactly push you away,” she admitted. “Besides, people are going to expect us to kiss. We’re newlyweds.”
    Aiming the car down the long drive to Chaney’s house Jed decided this was going to be a very long year. Could a man honestly survive on only kisses from his wife? Jed seriously doubted it if that wife were Chaney. He swallowed the groan of frustration that threatened to erupt as he pulled up in front of the house.
    “Well. Here we are,” she said as the car stopped.
    “Anything I should know before we go inside?”
    “Like what?”
    “How about if anyone else knows why we got married? For example, will I be stepping on the toes of a hired hand? That will do for starters.”
    “If there were any toes to be stepped on, why would I have asked you instead of them?” she returned with a cocked eyebrow. “As to other people knowing, only Martha and Belle.”
    “Are you talking about the same Martha that chased me and Steve out of the house with a broom?”
    “The same,” Chaney answered, a slight smile turning up the corners of her lips.
    Jed was glad he’d asked if for no other reason than the banter had seemed to ease some of Chaney’s recurring nerves. “I’m dead.”
    “Martha’s mellowed,” Chaney told him reaching for the door handle.
    “Right.” He climbed out of the car and jogged around, catching hold of the door before Chaney fully opened it. “I believe that’s my job.”
    “I can’t believe you still insist on opening doors for women.”
    “From the time I was old enough to pull a door open by myself, my father told me it was the polite thing to do. I don’t think mom ever opened one herself if one of us was with her.”
    Chaney stared at her new husband. It surprised her that there were things she didn’t know about him. She and Jed had been close even before they dated. They had been best of friends. The only topic that had b een off limits was his parents.
    At the time, she’d thought maybe they’d had a bad relationship and he was dealing with typical childhood guilt that they were gone because he’d been bad. As they got older, she was so used to Jed being around it was as if he had always lived with his uncle. There didn’t seem to be a need to talk about his parents.
    Now she realized how much he must have missed them. That it had hurt t oo much to talk about them.
    “I wish I could thank him,” she heard herself saying.
    A grin pulled at his lips. “He would have liked you.”
    Chaney felt a blush rise on her skin. “Thank you.”
    Hooking her hand in his arm, she took a deep breath. Dusk was starting to fall. Most of the hands would be in the huge dining area they’d built to make it easier on Martha feeding such a crew. “We might as well get this over with.”
    They entered the house and started walking toward the back.
    “Where’s Chaney?” she heard her foreman ask. “I need to talk to her about something. She hasn’t been around all day.” Dave’s typical grumbling ground on her last nerve.
    “Chaney’s right here,” she told him as she and Jed stepped into the room.
    Whistles filled the air as every head turned. “Knock it off, boys. You’ve seen me in a dress before.”
    “Never,” several chorused.
    Chaney smiled at the good-natured teasing. Most of her hands were okay guys. They worked hard and played hard. As long as they didn’t get in trouble, she left them alone. Her foreman was the only difficult one.
    “Who’s that?” Dave asked, jutting his chin in