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

went to live with Mr. Severin."
    "So far you've not told me anything that Rose hasn't told me," Travis said, feeling frustrated. So far everything the detective had said didn't paint the picture he'd expected of Rose. In fact, it seemed rather tame.
    "So she's been telling you things about her past. Hmm." He fiddled with his pencil. "Let's continue. Isaiah was a black slave who belonged to her mother. He was given his freedom papers before Rose's mother died. But he chose to stay with Miss Rose and was her primary caretaker, since her father spent most of his time escorting ladies or playing cards."
    "What about Rose? What has she done?" Travis pointedly asked. He couldn't have been wrong about Rose, could he?
    "I'm getting to that. Several years ago, Mr. Severin met up with a woman who was just his type. Young and rich. He latched onto her quickly and married the woman. But the new Mrs. Severin didn't want any reminders of previous loves hanging around, and Rose was way too pretty. Mr. Severin abandoned his only child, so he could live with the new Mrs. Severin, leaving Rose to fend for herself. He left her stranded in Kansas City, Missouri, and she was barely eighteen at the time."
    "She told me her father was dead."
    "Well, I'm sure he probably is in her eyes. Far as we could find out, that was the last she heard from him. He was only married a short time before he died of heart consumption."
    "What happened to her after that?" Now he'd find out the bad stuff. Now he'd see that he'd never been wrong about Rose. He couldn't be wrong about Rose.
    "Isaiah was still with her, but they had no obvious source of income. I would assume she did what all young women must do when they have no man to provide for them, though I could never find any house of ill repute she had been associated with."
    Travis bristled.
    "Later, Miss Severin started her own con game. Séance parlors, where she called herself Miss Desirée Severin, Voice of the Dead. She traveled from town to town playing a medium."
    "That's all?" he questioned. "No stealing from little white-haired ladies? No being chased out of town or thrown in jail?"
    "Nope. Morally she's a little shady, but nothing on the wrong side of the law, yet. Of course it could be she's never been caught. Women get away with more than a man," the detective observed.
    Travis sat there stunned. She wasn't the person he thought she was, and he had kidnapped her and held her captive, believing the worst about her.
    "Are you sure you have the right person?" he asked, still certain of her guilt, puzzled by what the Pinkerton man was telling him.
    "We check and double check our sources, Mr. Burnett. This information is correct."
    "Oh." Travis stood, feeling the sudden urge to get out of there, to get away and think. He held out his hand. "Thanks."
    "Here's the report. You can take it with you and read it at your leisure."
    "Thanks," Travis managed to say as he took the report. His mind buzzed with the knowledge that the image he had carefully constructed for Rose no longer fit. Had probably never suited her.
    He rushed out of the man's office. Rose Severin was an innocent. She had never been the lying, stealing thief he thought her to be, but a woman trying to survive in a hard world.
    And he had treated her deplorably just because he thought he knew the type of person she was. He'd been wrong.
    What the hell was he going to do now?

Chapter Seventeen

    It was late when Rose returned to the ranch from town that night. Late enough that everyone had gone to bed, with the exception of Travis. Light poured from his bedroom window, a beacon in the otherwise inky sky. He was still awake, probably waiting up for her.
    She took off her hat and gloves, then climbed the stairs slowly. The house was silent except for the sound of her shoes hitting the wooden steps that led to her bedroom and the occasional creak of a floorboard giving beneath her feet. She'd hoped Travis would be downstairs waiting for her again, but not tonight. Tonight he was in his bedroom, and her news couldn't wait.
    The news of her departure would nag her until she told him the truth. She had thought briefly of simply leaving, but that was not how she wanted to depart. She was not a thief, and she refused to sneak off in the middle of the night, like the swindler he thought she was. She would walk out of there on Sunday and catch the stage like everyone else.
    At the top of the stairs she glanced over at his room. Light emanated