The Rancher Takes A Bride (The Burnett Brides Book 1)

still believed the worst about her.
    "Rose, are you supposed to be at stage right or stage left?"
    The director's voice yanked her back to the present, and she glanced around at where everyone else was standing and realized she'd missed a cue. She was supposed to be on the other side of the stage. "Sorry, I missed a cue. I should be over on the other side of Katharina."
    She hurried across the stage, and the actress who was playing Katharina glared at her.
    "Okay, everyone, let's start again from the top of Act Two, scene one," the director yelled.
    Rose put her hands behind her back as if they were bound. " Good sister, wrong me not, nor wrong yourself, To make a bondmaid and a slave of me; That I disdain: but for these other gauds, Unbind my hands, I'll pull them off myself, Yea— "
    "Stop!" The director yelled, shaking his head. "Your sister is tormenting you, trying to find out about your suitors. Bianca is distraught, not whiny. Can you grasp that, Miss Severin?"
    Rose nodded. "Yes, sir."
    "From the top of act two again, please."
    Rose started her lines again, wanting only to be back at the ranch, with Travis and his family.
    Being with such a large family had been interesting as they sat around and spoke of years past and generally caught each other up on what was happening in their lives. She'd never belonged to a group of people who shared a common bond. Right up until the moment Travis dragged her away from the Burnetts, she had been enjoying herself.
    "Miss Severin!" The director screamed.
    Rose stopped and glanced out at the irritable man.
    "Yes?"
    "I'm sitting out in the audience and I can't hear you. Speak up! Make your voice vibrate with the emotions and feelings of your character. Once again, Bianca is not whiny!" He shook his head. "Begin again."
    For the third time, Rose started saying her lines and somehow, this time they made it all the way to the slap before the director screamed at the actress playing Katharina.
    Somewhere in these last few weeks, acting had suddenly ceased being a dream and had become a reality. A very real reality that was no longer fun, but hard work that was tiring and monotonous.
    And sometime during the last month, Rose had begun to enjoy living out on the Bar None, experiencing the ups and downs of ranch life. The cattle, even the horses, no longer seemed as frightful as they once had.
    Sometime she had learned to love the way she could stand on the front porch at night and see the stars twinkling above her in the sky, hear the crickets singing and the cows bawling.
    Somehow since her arrival at the Bar None, there had been a subtle change going on inside her. She felt more contented, more relaxed, and just a little mollified, despite being held against her will.
    But soon she would be moving on. Soon she and Isaiah would catch a stage out of town.

Chapter Fifteen

    A full moon hung in the eastern sky just above the horizon as Isaiah helped Rose from the wagon, while Bart, the man Travis insisted ride with her for protection, held the reins of the horses. She was so tired, she didn't know if she could make it across the yard to the house and up the stairs to bed.
    Whatever naive joy she'd found in acting, the director seemed to have killed these last few rehearsals. Tonight he'd kept them an extra two hours trying to perfect the scene. How had her mother done this day after day, rehearsing, giving up personal time, to be coerced, yelled, and screamed at?
    The extra two hours of rehearsal, then the long ride home, had gotten her and Isaiah back late. The reunion was long over, everyone had gone home, and the house was dark except for one lone lantern. She was tired, she was heartsick, and her bed upstairs beckoned invitingly.
    "Good night, Miss Rose. You get some rest," Isaiah said, unhitching the horse from the wagon.
    "Good night, Isaiah. I'll see you tomorrow." She nodded her head toward the driver. "Night, Bart."
    "Night," he mumbled.
    Rose trudged slowly toward the house, her legs leaden and heavy, her back aching, and her voice sounding scratchy and rough from repeating her lines over and over. Hopefully, the world would appear a better place in the morning, for tonight it seemed a dark, lonely locale. A site where her dreams appeared more like a nightmare than her heart's desire.
    She stepped onto the wooden porch, her hand on the rail, when she heard Travis's voice.
    "I was starting to get worried about you," he said, his voice deep and husky in the night