Read Online The Cowboy Takes a Bride by Lori Wilde - Free Book Online Page A

her, his tanned hands competently holding the leather reins, guiding the horse. In that moment, she remembered feeling utterly safe and protected. As if nothing bad could ever happen as long as her daddy had her back. She’d lost that feeling when Dutch left, and she’d never experienced it again.
    She turned to go back to her car, but as she did, a brown pickup climbed the hill to the cemetery. It looked like Joe’s truck.
    Mariah didn’t know why she did what she did next. She just reacted without thinking, slipping behind the maintenance building, holding her breath, spying on Joe as he pulled to a stop on the opposite side of the cemetery from where she hid.
    He stepped from the truck, tall and lanky and easy-gaited. In his hand, he carried a wicker basket of yellow chrysanthemums. She assumed he was coming to pay his respects to Dutch, but instead of turning down the row where her father’s grave was located, he walked closer to the maintenance shed.
    Had he seen her?
    Her heart galloped. Why was she hiding from him? Why did she find the thought that he was coming after her so compelling? Twisted. She’d always known she wasn’t quite right.
    But no. He wasn’t coming for her. He walked on past the maintenance shed.
    Twin ghosts, relief and disappointment, hovered around her. Mariah edged to the other side of the building and peeked around the corner so she could follow where he went.
    He stopped at a grave, knelt down, and placed the basket of flowers near the headstone. He stood up, took off his Stetson, and bowed his head.
    Joe was praying.
    A lump formed in her throat. Feeling like the worst kind of voyeur, Mariah stepped back, glanced away, and gave the man his privacy. She stood with her spine pressed against the side door of the locked building, arms splayed against the wood.
    The sun dipped to the horizon. The air thickened. In the distance, she heard a dog bark.
    A minute passed.
    Then five.
    Whose grave was it? How long was he going to stay there?
    Her stomach rumbled. She couldn’t really come out now. He would know she’d hidden from him and she’d look stupid. Why had she hidden from him?
    She heard a car door slam. Was it he? Had he gone?
    The crunch of footsteps on fallen leaves echoed across the cemetery. Close.
    Very close.
    She shut her eyes. Prayed that Joe did not look behind the shed. Scrambled to come up with an excuse in case he did.
    “Hey, lady.”
    Mariah jumped and her eyes flew open.
    A middle-aged man dressed in blue jeans coveralls and rubber knee boots stood at the far corner of the building. He had a face like a glacier, flat, cold, and big. His salt and pepper hair thinned around his temples. He possessed eyes the size and color of watermelon seeds and an elongated, plankish mouth. “Hey, lady.”
    “Y-yes?” she stammered, caught completely off guard by this odd-looking stranger when she’d been expecting to see Joe.
    “You’re in my way.” He nodded at the door. “You shouldn’t be over here.”
    “What? Oh, sorry,” she mumbled, and scurried off.
    But instead of getting into her car, she found herself drawn to the gravesite with the basket of yellow chrysanthemums. She crept up on it, pushed her glasses up farther on her nose for a closer look.
    An upright granite headstone. That had cost someone a nice chunk of change. The wind quickened, whistling through the leaves of the red oak tree standing sentinel over the grave. The tombstone read:
    R EBECCA A NNE B RACKEEN D ANIELS
    A carving of two entwined hearts followed the information, and underneath the engraved twin hearts was the epitaph:
    A DORED WIFE OF J OSEPH
    T WO HEARTS WHO BELONG TOGETHER FOREVER
    Palm to her mouth, Mariah stepped back, her shoes sinking into the damp earth of the grave behind Rebecca’s. Unnerved that she’d trod on someone’s grave, she turned and fled to the safety of her car. She sat in the front seat, keys clutched in her hand, trying to make sense of what she’d just learned.