In Sandra Chastain’s deliciously spirited western romance, a headstrong Tennessee belle has her sights aimed at capturing the heart of a rugged Texas rancher.
Lily Towns is determined to marry Matt Logan, even if she has to use her shotgun to get him to the altar. She’d been a skinny little girl when she first boldly proposed. Matt had laughed and refused, telling Lily to ask him again when she grew up. So when Lily’s guardian receives a letter from Matt in Texas requesting a mail-order bride, Lily boards a stagecoach to bring him one—special delivery.
After his brother writes away for a wife and forges his signature, Matt knows that his days as a proud bachelor are numbered—and his troubles are only beginning. True, Lily may have filled out in all the right places, but one look at her tells Matt that she’s too delicate to survive for long on the frontier. It also tells him that resisting the sweet seductions of this wily beauty will be the hardest thing he’s ever done. But what Matt can’t yet see is that Lily’s devoted enough to fight for him with all the love in her heart.
Release date:
April 15, 2014
Publisher:
Loveswept
Print pages:
304
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Lily tapped her toe nervously on the shotgun beneath her feet. She felt like a gunfighter in one of those dime novels about the West. The chapter heading would read: “The Showdown Between Lily Towns and Matt Logan Was Set for High Noon.”
And the sun was almost overhead.
Chewing nervously on her bottom lip, Lily glanced out the stagecoach window at the endless prairie beyond. The countryside was nothing like home; neither were the people she’d traveled with. Was she making a mistake? Had she spent the past ten years of her life preparing for something that wasn’t to be?
No! She wouldn’t accept that. Matt’s letter was all the reason she needed to come. It was his request that Aunt Dolly send his bride. Lily brushed the dust from her dark green travel dress with the blue-and-white sash and leaned back against the cushions with a sigh.
Until she died, Lily’s mother had been the local laundrywoman and had worked for Aunt Dolly for many years. Lily had been a lanky eight-year-old orphan wise beyond her years when Aunt Dolly took pity on her and gave her a home. The first time Dolly’s nephews, Matt Logan and his younger brother, Jim, had come for Sunday dinner, it was Matt who’d tousled her hair, given her a smile, and told her not to worry, that everything would be all right.
A year later, Matt, sixteen and filled with passion and high ideals, had gone off to fight. He’d fought not for the South as his neighbors had, but for the North, leaving his mother, his younger sister, and Jim on their plantation. Three years later he returned to find their farm had been destroyed in a raid by the very army he had joined. His family was dead, except for Jim, who was living in Aunt Dolly’s hotel.
Matt had to accept his aunt’s offer of shelter and work. But he couldn’t take the scorn of the fine people of Memphis who turned their backs on him because he’d fought for the other side, and on his aunt, a southern woman whose Yankee husband had money when nobody else did.
Lily had understood Matt’s pain. They shared a common bond. She, too, had been orphaned. But Aunt Dolly had taken Lily in and made her the child Dolly had never had. She would have done that for Matt too, but he was determined to build a future on his own.
On Lily’s twelfth birthday, Aunt Dolly asked her what she wanted for her special day. She hadn’t wanted anything; she already had her adoptive aunt, Matt, and Jim. That was enough. Aunt Dolly had smiled and said a family celebration would be perfect.
That year Lily Towns had her first grown-up birthday celebration, a dress-up dinner with silly hats and a cake. She remembered it as if it were yesterday. They’d eaten Cook’s special fried chicken, corn, and okra. Afterward, Lily had tagged after Matt, joining him in the garden where he was sharing a smoke with Jim.
Lily entered the gazebo silently, certain they’d tell her to go back to the house. Matt saw her first.
“And did you like your birthday?” he asked.
“Oh yes. Fried chicken is my very favorite thing to eat.”
Matt nodded absently, as if his mind were somewhere else.
“I like cake,” Jim added enthusiastically.
Normally Lily considered the three of them a family, united against the people who said mean things about Aunt Dolly and her orphans. But today, Jim was in her way.
“I like birthday cake, too,” she said. “And I think we should have some more. Jim, why don’t you go to the house and ask cook to cut three more slices for us.”
“Cook won’t give us anymore,” he argued.
“Yes, she will,” Lily insisted. “It’s my birthday.”
Happily, Jim went off to ask.
As soon as he was out of earshot, Lily turned to Matt and launched into the speech she’d rehearsed for days. “I’ve been thinking about the future, Matt,” she began.
“That’s pretty serious for someone who’s only twelve.”
“It’s important. Aunt Dolly says that boys can look after themselves, but a girl needs security. So, she is leaving the hotel to me.”
Matt grinned. “Is that so?”
Lily stiffened but continued with her carefully planned explanation. “It is. But you shouldn’t worry about your future. I’ll need someone to look after things. And after careful consideration, I’ve decided that it would be best for both of us if we got married … not now, of course, but later, when I’m old enough.”
Matt burst out laughing. “Us? Get married? Grow up, sprout. If it weren’t for the freckles, a strong breeze would carry you off.”
Lily was stunned. She’d expected him to thank her for her generosity, not laugh.
Seeing her hurt, Matt smiled gently. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, Lily. That’s a very grand gesture on your part.” He gave her a brotherly kiss on the forehead. “And I thank you, but it wouldn’t be fair.”
“Why not? Aren’t I pretty enough?”
“That’s not it at all. It’s because you’re still a little girl and you might change your mind. Wait until you’re a grown-up lady and let me do the asking,” he’d said.
Matt’s rejection hurt. She’d come to expect it from the people of Memphis, but not from him. Other than Aunt Dolly, he was the only adult who’d ever been kind to her.
Then Matt added, “In a few years you’ll have every man in Memphis courting you. There’s time enough for you to pick a husband.”
“But I don’t want any of them, Matt,” she insisted stubbornly. “I’ll wait for you, no matter who else asks me.”
“I doubt it,” was Matt’s reply.
Her hurt deepened when Aunt Dolly told her that Matt and Jim had decided to go out west and make a new start. Then the blue-eyed boy she’d already fallen in love with left Tennessee so fast that Lily didn’t have a chance to grow up and prove she was perfect for him.
“He didn’t even tell me good-bye,” Lily had said in disbelief.
“They left too early to wake you,” Aunt Dolly said. “Matt told me to tell you to remember what he said.”
She’d done what Matt said. That was ten years ago and she’d done a lot of growing and perfecting since then. Not every man in Memphis had come to call, but enough of them had. Jim wrote that he’d taken a wife, but as long as Matt remained unwed, Lily’s determination to wait for him had led her to refuse every offer for her hand.
Aunt Dolly’s hotel was still in business, but each year newer and more luxurious establishments opened, taking away more of her business. Aunt Dolly was worried that Lily’s future was no longer secure.
Then Matt’s letter to Aunt Dolly had arrived. He was almost thirty and ready to marry. This time, he was the one issuing the proposal of marriage, and Lily was ready to be his bride.
When the marriage offer came, Aunt Dolly had surprised Lily by agreeing that she should go. She’d even had some sort of legal paper drawn up that made the arrangement binding. But leaving the old woman she’d grown to love had been hard, for Lily knew her adoptive aunt would be alone.
But Dolly had insisted, and so here she was in Texas, ready to marry the man she’d waited for. In spite of the unfulfilled threats of Indians and outlaws, in spite of having to travel alone after leaving her ill companion behind at Fort Smith, the end of her journey was in sight. Lily couldn’t wait to see Matt’s face when she stepped off the stage at Blue Station.
Lily glanced out the stage window at the position of the sun: directly overhead. If the stage was on time, they ought to be close to town. Nervously, she smoothed the wrinkles from her skirt and adjusted the perky hat with the tip of a peacock’s feather attached to its crown.
If her dark green traveling dress and sunshine-frosted sausage curls weren’t proof that she was more than matchsticks and freckles, she had other weapons available. She caressed the small handgun Aunt Dolly had insisted she carry in her pocket, and rocked her slippers impatiently on her aunt’s shotgun that she’d brought along for protection. Lily never expected to use either, but she was from the South where people had learned how to get what they wanted and carried the wherewithal to guarantee success.
This time Matt Logan would be hers, one way or another.
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