His Brother's Bride by Denise Hunter Page A

here and get everything ready.”
    In the fringes of her vision, she saw him stand to his feet. “Suit yourself.”
    It didn’t take long to set out the simple fixin’s of bread, apples, and cheese. Once she did, she watched Adam and Cade playing together in the water, reluctant to interrupt.
    When they walked downstream a ways, she laid back against the soft, worn quilt and closed her eyes. She could hear a bird chirping in a tree above her, and the wind sighing through the leaves. She drew in a breath and let the day’s worries and frustrations slide away. The last thing she remembered hearing was a squirrel chattering off in the distance.
    A faint tickling sensation on her nose tugged her from someplace warm and lazy. She brushed at her nose, drifting away once again.
    Again, something tickled her nose, and she reached up to swat it away. She gradually became aware of a cricket chirping somewhere nearby. Her eyes opened. Above her, Cade’s face hovered, and she could feel the heat from his body so near her own. She looked around.
    The picnic. I fell asleep. “Adam.” She started to sit up, but Cade put a hand on her shoulder.
    â€œHe’s fine. Just trying to catch tadpoles.”
    She noticed the willow twig in his hand, its feathery leaves dangling down toward her stomach. “You were tickling me.”
    His smile made her heart skip a beat. “Guilty.” But he didn’t look guilty at all. In fact, he looked completely unrepentant. His jaw was shadowed with a day’s worth of stubble, and she thought for the first time that it only added to his rugged good looks.
    â€œShame on you,” she said, studying for the first time the way the sun had tanned his skin, leaving only fine white lines bursting around the corners of his eyes.
    â€œYou’re pretty when you’re sleeping.”
    â€œOnly when I’m sleeping?” Did I just say that? She sat up and felt the heavy mane of hair fall onto her back. The pins had finally come loose. In her hair and her brain.
    She didn’t know how close she was to Cade until she felt the whisper of his breath across her face. “No,” he said.
    She looked him in the eye, and her heart stilled at his nearness. “What?”
    â€œYou’re right pretty all the time.”
    He picked up a length of her dark hair and ran it between his fingers. Chills shot down her neck and across her arm.
    â€œI’m hungry!” Adam called.
    She turned to see him running up the incline, his britches wet and soggy and splotches of darkness flecking his shirt.
    â€œI caught me a tadpole, Ma!”
    She gathered her wits. “Where is it?”
    â€œGot away. We eating soon?”
    Emily busied herself smoothing out the blanket. When she reached Cade’s corner, he remained unmoved, staring at her, a smile on his face that would melt ice. She moved to the center where Adam sat with a plate already filled with the picnic fixin’s.
    After they filled their bellies, Emily packed the basket and blanket while Cade untied the horses. The ride back seemed longer somehow than the ride here, but perhaps it was only because Adam was not separating them this time. Cade’s thick thigh rubbed up alongside hers until she could think of little else.
    By the time they’d arrived back at the farm, the sun had sunk from the sky, leaving only a sliver of moonlight to see by. Cade lifted Adam down from the wagon and handed him the basket and blanket. “Think you can carry all that?”
    â€œYes, Sir!” Adam swaggered into the house, clearly pleased to be a helper.
    Cade turned then and gave her a hand down. His hand felt large and warm in hers. It would have been comforting if not for the way it set her heart to racing. She turned to the house.
    â€œStay out here awhile.”
    She turned to look at him.
    â€œLight a lantern for me?” he asked.
    She moved into the barn where the lantern hung on a