Read Online Bartered Bride Romance Collection by Cathy Marie Hake - Free Book Online

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    Edouard inhaled so fast his chest hurt. “It looks like—”
    “Someone might have slipped from the bridge.” Papa shook his head.
    He could hear Mama praying, “Notre Père qui est aux cieux! Be with our Josée. Deliver her from evil.”
    Papa turned to face him. “Your Josée is a smart girl and strong. We will go home and start searching for her by foot along the bayou. We will stop at every cabin and tell them to listen for someone and search for her.”
    “Or,” Jeanne spoke up, “maybe she made it home.”
    Edouard did not tell his sister he knew she was wrong. The one time he had walked Josée home after the wedding, she had not liked it, and it would have been worse for her in the dark. He would not rest until he found her and spent the rest of his life telling her how much she meant to him.
    They reached the LeBlanc house at last, and Edouard leaped from the wagon before it stopped moving. Yet even from here, he could see no light in the cabin window.
    “My son.” Mama touched his shoulder. “We will find her. We must believe.”
    “I do not know why I should. Le bon Dieu has taken from me once again my joy.”
    “You cannot make Josée your joy. Ah, she is joyful, but she is just a woman.” Mama ran her hand on his hair, a gesture which used to comfort him when he was a bébé. “Even if you have her safely in your home, you know she will disappoint you at times, and you her.”
    Edouard nodded at that. Mama had probably been talking to Papa. Fresh memories of Edouard and Josée’s silly fight from the day before swam through his head.
    “Trying to make her your joy is like trying to catch a fish with your hands. The harder you grasp, the more it struggles to get away.”
    “I must find her.” Edouard grabbed a lantern. He did not have time to stand talking. Why did women try to talk everything into the grave when a man could be doing something?
    “You will.” Mama nodded. “And I will wait up with warm blankets and hot coffee.”
    Edouard set out with Papa and Jacques to the bayou’s edge. Oh, my sweet Josée, I am so sorry to have caused you pain. Please, bon Dieu, do not take her away from me .

Chapter 9

    A pirogue. The boat smelled of fish, but at the moment Josée could not think of a better thing to find. She did not know whose boat it was or how it had come to be in her path in the water. She tore the encumbering skirt from the bodice and leaned onto the side of the pirogue. With a heave, she swung her legs in their waterlogged pantaloons onto the floor of the boat.
    She was out of the water, no longer feeling at its mercy as the rain drummed down. In the dark, she reached around to see if she could find an oar or even a pole she could use to maneuver to the shore. Nothing.
    Battered by rain, Josée hunkered in the bottom of the pirogue and cried.
    A wild thought struck her. You could float away to the next town. Start over… . She could go far away and teach in a school. Stop it .
    Acadians, with their language, were not welcome everywhere. If she stayed among her people, Edouard would find her. Did she want to be found? Oui, except …
    Le bon Dieu had let her marry Edouard. If He was all-wise and all-knowing, He knew this would happen, this fiasco with Celine. Josée found no joy in that knowledge. Despite their troubles and childish disagreements, she had begun to look forward to her future with Edouard. Until now.
    What had happened with Edouard and Celine? She could remember seeing Celine about to kiss him. She closed her eyes and turned on her side to keep the pelting rain from hitting her eyelids. Think harder . Edouard. He’d had his hands on Celine’s shoulders, his arms straight out in front of him.
    He’d been trying to hold her away.
    Josée sat up straight at the realization then screamed when a drape of Spanish moss touched her neck. She slapped at the air around her head and yanked the end of some moss from whatever tree she had passed under. The coarse,