The Unexpected Bride by Debra Ullrick

each other.
    Rainee looked up at him with a slight smirk on her face. “Thank you for checking on me. I am fine, albeit quite embarrassed for my lack of strength.”
    “Lack of strength?” The words knocked him over like a team of runaway horses. “Why would you be embarrassed? All of us have weaknesses.”
    “Yes, but weakness is all you have seen of me.”
    “Nope—that’s not all I’ve seen.”
    She quirked her head to the side, the smirk not fully gone. “Really? Well, let us see. First, you had to rescue me from the guy at the stage stop. Then, I nearly fainted when we arrived and you had to help me in. And now, I have fainted again. Not once, but twice. No, make that three times if you count fainting twice within minutes.”
    He glanced at her for a moment, trying not to laugh. “Well, I guess you have a point.” For one moment he couldn’t believe he said that until she started laughing and his laughter blended with hers. “But I still don’t see you as weak. It took a lot of courage to travel to a strange place.”
    He noticed the appreciative smile in her eyes. “Well, I’d better get back to work. I’m glad you’re feeling better.”
    She started to rise, but he motioned for her to remain seated.
    He headed for the door and just as he got there, she said, “Be careful of those curly-tailed beasts.”
    Her laughter followed him out the door.
     
    Rainee was still laughing when Katherine and Leah came into the living room empty-handed.
    “It’s nice to see you feeling better.” Katherine looked lighter and maybe even happier than before. “Now, let’s go get you out of that thing and into something more practical and comfortable.”
    Rainee followed them up the stairs with a lighter, more joyful step than she had felt in two years. Perhaps God was in this after all. That thought brought joy singing through her heart.
    Inside Leah’s bedroom, without thinking, Rainee removed her gloves.
    Leah glanced down and gasped. “What happened to your hands?”
    Rainee’s gaze flew to Leah. The poor girl stood there staring in utter horror at her hands.
    Katherine came from behind Leah, and she too stared at them.
    Shame flooded Rainee. She buried them behind her back.
    Katherine and Leah’s questioning eyes bore through her. She knew she could not hide her hands forever. With a flushed face and trembling insides, she inched them upward for their inspection, trying to feel nothing as the two of them looked on with shock and horror.
    Katherine gently took one of Rainee’s hands in hers and studied the raised scars. She looked at Rainee with eyes of compassion. “Who did this to you?”
    She wanted to tell them they were from the pig attack, but that was an untruth. The pig had not touched her hands, only the back of her leg and her hips. With a heavy sigh, she answered, “My brother—”
    “I didn’t know you had a brother,” Leah blurted.
    Rainee looked at her and nodded. “I do.”
    “Is he—”
    “Leah, enough!” Katherine reprimanded her daughter. “Mind your manners.”
    “Sorry.” Leah lowered her head.
    Katherine’s words reminded her of her own mother. That would have been something Mother would have said. She envied Leah that she still had her mother to correct and love her. Rainee wished her mother were still alive. Homesickness feathered over her as it did so very often.
    “Please, go on.”
    Rainee lowered her eyes. In a nervous circular motion, she rubbed her fingertips over the welts near her wrists. Rainee looked up at them. “Please, I do not wish to talk about this for it is too painful. And if you would both be so kind, would you please not mention my hands to anyone?”
    She looked back and forth between Katherine and Leah, allowing her eyes to plead with them for their total secrecy.
    “There is no need for anything we’ve seen or talked about today to leave this room,” Katherine said, more to Leah than anyone else.
    “I won’t say a word, Mother.” Leah