The Cowboy's Mail Order Bride by Carolyn Brown Page A

provide for her husband and him that she was alright. It was when she wasn’t needed that things fell apart.”
    “Sounds like he’s a smart man.”
    Greg nodded. “Real smart.”
    ***
    She looked across the table and reached out her hand. “Give me your glasses. There are rain smudges on them.”
    He handed them across the table and she blew warm breath on each lens before wiping it clean with a McDonald’s paper napkin. “There, that’s better.”
    “Thanks. I wish I could wear contacts, but my eyes are shaped funny. I could have that surgery, but I’m a big chicken when it comes to needles, so I’ll just wear my glasses.” He put them back on and took a sip of coffee. “Besides, there are some things I’d just as soon not see real plain and I can always take them off.”
    “Too bad we don’t have life glasses that we can take off and put on at will. When we had them on they’d show us what we needed to do with our lives and help us make hard decisions,” she said.
    He raised his coffee in a toast and nodded. “Amen! You invent them and I’ll pay for the patent. We’ll make a fortune.”
    She touched her cup with his and they both sipped at the same time.
    Yesterday they’d had a make-out session like a couple of high school kids. And today she’d mourned her grandfather all curled up in his arms during a vicious thunderstorm. If she believed in reincarnation, she’d swear that they were both old souls who had known each other in a past life.
    Right then she would give half her ranch for a pair of those glasses that she’d mentioned. She’d put them on and maybe she could get a clear vision of why her grandfather insisted she take some time away from Happy, and why she felt like he was really glad that she was where she was that day.
    “Earth to Emily.” Greg grinned. “Your phone is ringing.”
    She grabbed it out of her purse and answered without looking at the ID. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll be right there.” She touched the screen and tossed it back in her purse.
    “They must be all dolled up for the weekend and ready to go home,” Greg said.
    “Looks like it,” she said.
    “Don’t expect miracles. They’ll look the same, but they’ll have a new spring in their step because they feel all better when they’ve been to see Shelly,” he said. “At least it’s quit raining, so it won’t mess up their hairdos for Sunday. Did Nana tell you that if you live under her roof that you will go to church on Sunday morning?”
    She slid out of the booth and he followed her to the door.
    “She didn’t, but I’m not surprised. That’s exactly what Gramps preached all the time. When I first went to college I didn’t go home for two weekends just so I wouldn’t have to go to church, but then I missed him and the folks at church so much that I went home the next week.”
    Greg chuckled.
    She smiled. “You too?”
    “Oh, yeah! But don’t tell Nana. She thinks I just came home to raid the refrigerator and get my laundry done for free.”
    He drove to the park and walked with her to the van. At the door she turned around and wrapped her arms around his neck. She rolled up on her toes and kissed him hard. He tasted like coffee, smelled like a mixture of shaving lotion and rain, and the kiss came near to frying a hole in the ground.
    “Thank you for helping me get through the tears,” she mumbled when she pulled away.
    “Yes, ma’am,” he said hoarsely.

Chapter 6
    Rose was not a hoarder. Everything in her house was well dusted and arranged, which made her a serious collector. A small table flanked every one of the seven rocking chairs in her living room. Each one had a fancy lamp sitting on a snow-white crocheted doily and surrounded by a matching arrangement of ceramic or china ducks, pigs, chickens, fancy miniature shoes, or snowmen. And that was just at first glance. After she’d taken a seat on the sofa, Emily noticed even more collections on shelves, two corner cabinets, and there was