Stephen’s Bride by Callie Hutton Page A

something to eat.”
    He shook his head. “No, Rosie, you go on to bed. I’ll find something.”
    “Just wait. I’ll be back.”
    He wandered to the kitchen, thinking how lucky his brother was with Rosemarie for a wife. This was her farm, left to her by her late husband, but Daniel was just as much a partner as she was. He laughed remembering the story Daniel had told him of how Rosemarie had held a gun on him when he’d first arrived and called him “Reb.”
    As a Confederate soldier, he had escaped from a Union prison and was making his way back to the south when he found Rosie near death from an infected wound in her leg. After patching her up, he stayed and helped her. That had all happened right at the end of the War Between the States. He and Rosie married and he adopted her children, and they had one of their own—little Lucy with the whiskey breath.
    “Stephen, I’m not kidding, you do look like hell. You can’t keep up with the chores around here and working a full shift in town.” Rosemarie came back into the kitchen and took out bread, meat and cheese and proceeded to fix him a sandwich.
    “I’m fine. This is heaven compared to what we went through during the war.”
    She didn’t reply, but merely nodded. He was certain his brother had shared enough stories about the war with his wife.
    He dove into the sandwich, along with a large piece of dried apple pie and a glass of cold milk. Rosemarie fixed herself a cup of tea and sat across from him at the table. “So tell me, Stephen, when are you coming to your senses and going home to your wife?”
    ***
    Calliope chewed her lower lip and stood with her hands on her hips in the center of the parlor. She slowly turned in a circle, looking at every shelf, every table, every piece of furniture in the room.
    Damn!
    She’d been scouring the house for two weeks, but she could not find the receipt for the last payment on the mortgage. Surprisingly enough, she couldn’t find any receipts. Which led her to believe someone had been in her house and taken the receipts. And she knew who that someone had been, just no way to prove it.
    In any event, she was in deep trouble. She gripped her middle and sat on the sofa, fighting tears. Why had she been so foolish to let Stephen leave? If she could only take back that last argument, and tell him she hadn’t meant it. He was not her employee, but her husband. She wanted him back, as a partner. She’d merely been scared after what they’d shared the night before. So afraid to lose her farm to him, and now she would lose it to Rupert.
    Because she had no doubt that as soon as the farm was repossessed, he would buy it. What she couldn’t understand was why he wanted it so much.
    She wiped away the tears with shaky hands and headed to the kitchen. Maybe a cup of tea would settle her nerves. Her eyes were drawn to the envelope on the kitchen table. She’d written a letter to Stephen three days before, but never had the nerve to mail it. It was an apology, but her conscience would not allow her to send it off. She needed him. Plain and simple. And not just for this latest debacle.
    She needed—indeed wanted—his laughter, his teasing, his warm, tender touch. She needed his strength to help her through the days. It wasn’t until he’d been here, by her side, that she’d realized how lonely and frightened she’d been since her papa had died. The same way she felt now that she’d driven him off.
    Taking a sip of her tea, her musings were interrupted by a knock on the front door. A door she’d kept locked after Stephen had left, just as he’d insisted on once he’d arrived. In fact there were a lot of things she’d continued to do that he had begun.
    “Good morning, Mrs. McCoy. I’d like a word with your husband, please.” Both Mr. Traynor and Rupert stood on her doorstep.
    She gritted her teeth. “He’s not at home right now, he’s working in the fields.” She began to close the door when once again Rupert