Read Online Nora by Diana Palmer - Free Book Online

marry her, because Bruce needs a mother so badly.” She clenched her hands together. “I love him. But he feels nothing for me, nothing at all. He has never touched me, not even to shake my hand….”
    There was a wrenching sigh, and Nora felt so sorry for her cousin that she could have cried.
    â€œI am sorry,” she said gently. “Life has its tragedies, doesn’t it?” she added absently, thinking of Africa and the terrible changes it had brought to her life.
    â€œYours has been much different from mine, and certainly it has not been tragic,” her cousin argued. “You have wealth and position and you are traveled and sophisticated. You have everything.”
    â€œNot everything,” Nora said tersely.
    â€œYou could have. Mr. Barton is sweet on you,” sheteased, forgetting her own problems momentarily.
    â€œYou might marry him.”
    She couldn’t forget the harsh, cold farewell she’d received from Mr. Barton. She tensed indignantly.
    â€œMarry a cowboy!” Nora exclaimed haughtily.
    Melly glared at her. “And what, pray tell, is wrong with a hardworking man? Being poor is no sin.”
    â€œHe has no ambition. He is dirty and disheveled. I find him…offensive,” she lied.
    â€œThen why were you kissing him in the barn before he left?” Melly asked reasonably.
    Nora gasped. “What do you mean?”
    â€œI saw you from my window,” she said with a chuckle. “Don’t look so shocked, Nora, I knew you were human. He is very attractive, and when he shaves and cleans up, he would be a match for any of your European friends.”
    Nora shifted uncomfortably. “He is uncivilized.”
    â€œYou should spend more time out here. If you did, you would realize that clothes and a fine education do not always make a man a gentleman,” Melly said quietly. “There are men here in Texas who have no money, but who are courageous and kind and noble, in their way.”
    â€œLike the heroes in my dime novels?” Nora chided. “That is all fiction. I have discovered the truth since I have come West, and it is disillusioning.”
    â€œIt should not be, if you do not expect people to be perfect.”
    â€œI certainly do not expect it of Mr. Barton. He…accosted me,” she muttered.
    â€œHe kissed you,” Melly corrected, “which is hardly the same thing. Let me tell you, many of our unattached women in church would give much to have the elusive and stoic Mr. Barton kiss them!”
    Nora glared at her cousin. “I would prefer that, too. He may kiss any of them he likes, with my blessing. I have no desire to become the sweetheart of a common cowboy.”
    â€œOr of any man, it seems,” Melly murmured with a speaking glance. “You are very reluctant to discuss marriage and a family, Nora.”
    Nora wrapped her arms around her body. “I have no desire to marry.”
    â€œWhy?”
    She shifted. “It is something I cannot discuss,” she said, shivering with the memory of how ill she had been. How could she subject a man, any man, to a life of illnesses that would never end? How could she have a baby, and take care of it? “I shall never marry,” Nora said bitterly.
    â€œWith the right man, you might want to.”
    Nora thought of Cal Barton’s hot kisses, and her heart raced. She mustn’t remember, she mustn’t. She turned in time to see young Bruce Langhorn making a beeline for another young boy perched precariously on a rock, laughing.
    â€œOh, no!” Melly gasped, and before Nora couldopen her mouth, her cousin broke into a dead run toward the children.
    She hadn’t realized what was going on until she saw the Langhorn boy reach out to push the other little boy, immaculately dressed, into the stream face-first.
    â€œYou little heathen!” the boy’s mother cried, drawing everyone’s attention to Bruce. “You