Page 4 of Their Wanted Bride (Bridgewater Brides 1)

I took a quick detour to the general store for a newspaper. It wasn’t an accepted means of courtship, but finding a husband out west was looking like a wiser idea every day. One of the men advertising for a wife had to be a better choice than Nathan Bergman.

Hell, Toby Greer, the shopkeeper’s son and barely a day over seventeen would have been a better choice. I tucked the paper into my saddlebag and set off toward Dahlia’s farm a few miles north of town. She’d help me choose a man from this very paper.

2

CALEB

* * *

I grimaced and tried to bully my mare into good behavior. She spun a few times, nearly unseating me before I got her going in the right direction. Justin had a better hand with our range horses, but even he had trouble with the half-wild stock we’d gathered. We couldn’t afford better, or the time to train them. Not that either of us had the interest in the job.

Between caring for two hundred head of cattle, the fence meant to keep them penned, and running them to market, we barely had time to sleep, much less make our shared house into something acceptable for a bride. I wasn’t sure what I’d been thinking advertising for a wife, but I did it anyway. The desire for a woman of our own knocked the good sense clean out of my head.

Aside from that, it was almost April. I’d nigh on promised Justin our wife would be here before the weather turned.

Maybe Justin was right, and I’d been dropped on my head as a baby, although I couldn’t recall such an incident. I

wasn’t sure why, but something told me I was doing the right thing with that silly advertisement for a bride.

I decided to let him think I was crazy. We’d both spent too long watching the men of Bridgewater create families with their chosen women. We wanted what they had, a woman to please and care for. More than that, we needed her. We hadn’t had a woman between us in months, but I wanted more than a soiled dove. We would fuck her into bliss, and she’d wear the same self-satisfied smile all the Bridgewater ladies wore when they looked at their husbands.

Justin was my best friend, and my brother in all but blood. I didn’t give a damn what people thought about his ebony hide, or the wiry curls he kept almost shaved to his scalp. If the woman who answered my ad didn’t accept both of us, she could turn right around and get back on the train.

My advertisement would get us a wife. I was sure of it. I couldn’t explain the itches of premonition I got sometimes, but they’d never steered me astray. The one time I ignored my gut almost got me leg shackled to a woman who wouldn’t accept Justin in my life. Carrie Frye had been my daddy’s choice and was presentable enough, but her personality left much to be desired.

I followed Justin as he headed north out of town, his gelding settling into a lope under his gentle hand. When we reached our homestead, carved out of the space between a snowcapped peak and a sheer escarpment leading down into a verdant pasture, we got back to work on the chores we’d ignored in favor of going to town.

I climbed off my horse and grimaced at a section of broken fence. We’d lost nearly a third of our herd in the last few weeks—too many to be a natural predator—and more disappeared every day. Our cattle were gold on the hoof, and the loss irritated me to no end. Hopefully, we weren’t looking at a situation with a rustler. People in Bridgewater took care of their own and I’d have heard about it if that was the problem. Regardless of the culprit’s identity, we were no closer to finding our missing cows.

I mentally calculated the funds we had left to carry us until our next cattle drive. We’d be able to feed ourselves, but we didn’t have much saved up to support a wife. Instead of chewing on the problem, I finished fixing the fence and trusted my gut. The right woman would come, and she wouldn’t give two pennies about our finances.

As usual, my mare snapped at me when I made to mount her. I blocked her with an elbow, reminding her of her manners. When I finally gained a seat in the saddle, I scratched her withers in a half-hearted attempt to soothe her. “Be still, sweetheart. Your day is almost done.”

She bucked, nearly unseating me. I barked out a laugh and spurred her toward home. The sun was almost below the horizon when I arrived, and my stomach growled. What I wouldn’t give for a good steak supper from the hotel in town, but we’d have to make do with boiled beans and burnt biscuits.

Neither of us had ever learned to cook. With luck, our new wife would be able to make fluffy biscuits and juicy roasts, but it wasn’t a priority. I wanted a woman who would embrace both of us. She would love Justin as much as she loved me, and we would spend the rest of our lives making her too happy to leave. Despite his misgivings, Justin was as anxious as I was to claim a bride in the manner of Bridgewater grooms.

The thought reminded me I still needed to find a chunk of hardwood and some free time to carve a plug for our wife’s backside. She’d need to be well-prepared for taking both of us. I smiled to myself. We hadn’t even seen the woman yet, and I was already thinking of how her lush bottom would squeeze around my cock as we fucked her together.

“What’s for supper?” I asked, kicking my boots off at the door. We were both making a concerted effort to keep the cottage tidy in anticipation of our bride’s arrival. Once she got here, we’d be too busy making her scream our names to bother with cleaning.

“Same thing as always,” Justin replied, handing me a plate. “But I have a surprise for you.” He laid a sealed telegram on the table between us. It had been sent from St. Louis, but I didn’t know anyone out that way.

“What’s this?”

“Ezra Thompson from the mercantile dropped it by while you were taking care of the south fence. I’m hoping it’s an answer to our advertisement.” His cheeks darkened and he spooned beans to his plate. “I thought we’d read it together since it’s addressed to you.”

I broke the seal and almost fell out of my chair. “She’s coming,” I breathed, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. Lord have mercy, I was almost drooling at the thought of finally getting a wife of our own.

In just a few days, we’d have our woman in our arms. We’d set our every waking moment to ensuring her pleasure, and I couldn’t wait to taste her sweet pussy. I wanted her desperate cries in our ears as we saw to her wanton needs.

Handing the thin paper to Justin, I let him read it, wishing I’d taken the time to carve a plug for our new wife. Our fingers would have to do for now. We’d finally get to feel her squeeze our cocks like a vise as we fucked her. At least the big bed we’d share was finished, including a brand-new goose down mattress.

His eyes narrowed. “Arriving on noon train Wednesday in answer to your advert.” Laying it on the table, he pointed at the initials on the bottom. “Who’s MO?”

“Margaret?”

“Maybe Matilda?”

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