Homespun Bride

Noelle around the table. The whole house was fancy for his tastes, and he felt as discomfited by the surroundings as by the females watching him with unblinking gazes. “I’m a cattleman, mostly.”
    “Is that so?” Henrietta’s gaze narrowed. “Are you done with your wandering all over tarnation? Or is that the life you intend to return to?”
    He gulped, a little taken aback. Noelle had stopped at a chair beside the oldest Worthington girl, and he held her chair while she sank into it. “No, ma’am. I’ve come home to Montana to stay.”
    Noelle turned toward him, searching his face as if she could see him plainly.
    Was that hope he saw? Or sadness? So many uncomrtable emotions were muddying his mind, he couldn’t seem to tell up from down.
    “Very well then, I suppose that will do.” The way Henrietta said it, it didn’t sound good at all. Not at all. She gestured toward the empty chair beside her. “I’m determined to get at the truth of your character. You will sit next to me, young man.”
    Where she could keep a good close eye on him, no doubt. Thad swallowed hard at his murky emotions, but couldn’t seem to dislodge them. They were made worse by Noelle and the way her emerald gaze followed the sound of his steps around the table, sparkling with merriment. Good thing she was enjoying this because sweat was starting to bead up on the back of his neck.
    As he took his chair at the table, he couldn’t shake the notion that Henrietta was out to find his every flaw. She was bound to find quite a few.
    “When you went on those cattle drives, did you sleep on the ground with your saddle for a pillow?” the girl directly across from him burst out.
    “Y-yep.”
    “Do you really call the cows little dogies? Did you tell tall stories around the campfire like in the dime novels?”
    “Angelina!” Henrietta looked scandalized. “Those are hardly appropriate questions for a young lady to ask.” Henrietta’s oblong face looked severe, or maybe it was the tight way she’d pulled her hair back, so that her face looked drawn back, as well.
    Well, he should have expected that. He had no illusions. All he had to offer was a savings account that used to be bigger and an old shanty that was three times smaller than the dining room.
    Thad shifted again, and the chair wasn’t getting any more comfortable. He’d be more at ease sitting in a sticker bush facing down a porcupine bare-handed.
    It was a saving grace when Robert spoke. “Lord, bless this food we are about to receive.”
    Thad realized that hands were folded and heads bowed all around him and he did the same.
    “—keep us mindful of our many blessings. Thank you for bringing us together again, as friend and family, and teach us dear Lord to better love one another. Amen.”
    Thad looked up to a course of “amens” and where did his gaze naturally go? To Noelle.
    “So, where did you learn all of this horse knowlge?” Henrietta passed him a bowl of dinner rolls and she gave him a stern look over the crusty tops. “Did you attend some kind of training?”
    “Training? No, ma’am.” It sure looked as if he’d hit a rocky trail with this woman. He got the notion that the Worthington Inquisition was just getting started. “I learned what I know from growing up on my family’s homestead.”
    “I see. No formal education?”
    “Just the local school.”
    “No academy or college?”
    “Begging your pardon, ma’am, but do I look like I’ve been to college?”
    “No, but it was a hope.”
    He took a dinner roll and passed the bowl to the youngest girl, who looked at him as if he’d turned into a horse right there before her eyes.
    Yep, he was feeling mighty uncomfortable. As he accepted the bowl of creamed potatoes from a tight-lipped Henrietta, he caught Noelle’s amused expression across the table. She had to know that he was suffering. She didn’t seem to mind it at all.
    Well, she had warned him.
    “I got a good look at that mustang you ride.” The girl across the table—Angelina?—dumped a spoon of buttered peas on her plate. “Was he once wild? Did you catch him in a roundup? Did you break him?”
    “Yes,” Robert said from the head of the table. “Tell us about your mustang. A plucky breed, as I understand it.”
    “Sunny is a mustang?” Noelle asked breathlessly. His pulse ground to a halt. Regret bit him like barbed wire. He forked a helping of roast beef on his plate, knowing what no one else knew at the table.