Page 108 of Conveniently Wed
“No!”
Emma wrapped her arms around her knees. “He sent you that package.” She nodded to the item sitting on the bed. Fran had forgotten about it until Emma’s reminder.
When she twisted and reached for it, Emma let out a gasp.
Chagrined, Fran realized her sister must’ve seen the blood on the back of her dress.
“I’m all right,” she reassured her sister. “It’s only a cut—the doctor said it wasn’t too deep. As long as I keep it clean it should heal in a week or two. And Edgar saved me from the second blow.”
“He’s the reason you were hurt in the first place,” Daniel muttered.
She shot her brother a look before she ripped the paper to reveal a pretty lavender dress, clearly store-bought and of fine quality.
“I would say Underhill and his obsession was the real reason,” she returned as she shook out the dress and stood up from the bed. She held it to her torso, fingering the lace-edged sleeve.
It was expensive. Edgar had sent it to her.
But why hadn’t he come himself?
“You really want to stay married to a cowboy like that?” Daniel asked. “Do you know what life is like out here in thewilds? You’ll have to work. Much harder than if you marry a businessman or some such.”
“I’mmarriedto Edgar.”
“He hasn’t been the most sensitive of men,” Emma reminded her.
Fran didn’t downplay their concern, but they didn’t know him like she did. “His mother abandoned him to an orphanage when he was very small,” she told them. She hoped he wouldn’t mind her sharing his story, but she would need to make them understand if she was going to have any hope of remaining in the marriage. “That one event has shaped much of his thinking about women.”
She shared what she felt she could without betraying Edgar’s privacy too much.
Daniel still looked skeptical, but Emma seemed to understand that Fran couldn’t just walk away.
“I’m in love with him,” she finally whispered. “Scars and all.”
Daniel just shook his head. “I’ll give you a week. If he hasn’t convinced me that he returns your feelings, I’ll insist on an annulment.”
One week.
It was longer than she and Edgar had known each other. But she didn’t need more time to be sure of her heart.
She just needed a plan to convince a stubborn cowboy that she was right.
“What do you mean, he’s gone?”
Seb’s pronouncement that Ricky had disappeared set Edgar’s teeth on edge.
Edgar had forced himself to leave the hotel and go out to meet the herd and his brothers as the sun was setting. Only to find his youngest brother as the lead rider. After eating trail dust and drawing the overnight watches, Seb had managed as trail boss for the last patch into town.
“There’s been a burr under his saddle for a long time,” Seb said.
But he’d ridden out with Edgar to save Fran. Hadn’t that meant anything?
How could Ricky have justleft? Abandoned the family?
It hurt.
And it quelled the plans that had been spinning in Edgar’s mind all afternoon. What to do about Fran?
“What am I supposed to do?” Edgar asked the mostly rhetorical question of the bovines as he scratched the back of his suddenly aching neck.
