Alma's Mail Order Husband (Texas Brides Book 1) by Kate Whitsby Page A

told you he was a Yankee,” Allegra growled
to Amelia.
    A chair screeching across the floor made them
all jump. Clarence kicked his chair back and left the table,
retreating to his usual position by the fire.
    The younger generation watched him depart and
then returned to talking among themselves. Allegra took the last
tortilla. “What’s eating him?”
    “Something,” Amelia mumbled. “He hasn’t said
a word since the church.”
    “Maybe he’s just emotional about our lives
changing,” Alma suggested.
    Amelia and Allegra drifted away from the
table toward their beds. Amelia sat cross-legged on top of her
quilt and started darning one of her socks. Allegra took off her
gun belt and started cleaning the cylinders of her revolvers. Jude
observed them. “Another work day tomorrow,” he remarked to
Alma.
    Alma nodded.
    “Is this what you normally get up to in the
evenings?” he asked.
    Alma nodded again. “This is it. It’s my turn
to clean up. What would you like to do?”
    Before Jude could answer, Clarence called to
him from the shadows. “Why don’t you pull up a chair over here by
the fire? I want to talk to you.”

 
Chapter
13
     
     
    Jude jumped at the sudden snap of his voice.
Alma brightened. “That’s a good idea. You two probably have a lot
to talk about.”
    Jude looked over his shoulder and back to
Alma, but she had already pushed her chair back and began gathering
up the plates.
    He took the chair Allegra loaned him and
settled himself across the fire from his new father-in-law. As soon
as he sat down, though, he had to move back to make room for Alma
to get to the kettle hanging over the fire. She squatted in front
of it and washed the dishes in the steaming water. Even with her
back to him, she sensed Jude’s eyes on her back. Every word her
husband said to her father, he said to her.
    “Alma says you come from Amarillo,” the old
man began.
    “That’s right,” Jude answered.
    “But you didn’t always live there, did you?”
Clarence asked. “You moved there from somewhere else. Where was
that?”
    Jude’s voice hardened. “No. I was born in
Amarillo. I was born in the house my parents live in now. My father
built that house with his own hands.”
    “I don’t think much of the mail-order
marriage system they have going now,” Clarence growled. “A man
could tell a woman any old thing he wanted, and she would have no
way to verify if he was telling the truth.”
    “I wouldn’t do that,” Jude told him.
    “Maybe you would and maybe you wouldn’t,”
Clarence shot back. “We have only your word for whatever you want
to tell us. We have only your word that you came from
Amarillo.”
    “I would have no reason to lie about that,”
Jude maintained. “It wouldn’t mean any more if I said I came from
Kansas City.”
    “Kansas City!” the old man thundered.
    “Or Galveston, or Baton Rouge, or any other
place,” Jude continued. “What difference would it make?”
    “It wouldn’t” Clarence returned. “Unless
someone knew someone from Amarillo, or if they knew something about
you because of it.”
    “Knew something,” Jude answered. “Like
what?”
    “Oh, I think you know very well what,” the
father-in-law shot back.
    Jude waved the accusation away. “I don’t see
how lying about it would profit me any. I’m marrying Alma. I could
only benefit me for her to know the truth about me from the
beginning. Marriages aren’t built to last on lies.”
    “I’m glad you realize that,” Clarence
replied. “And you aren’t marrying Alma. You already married her.
It’s over and done with. You’re married.”
    Jude lowered his eyes. “Okay. I married Alma.
But I didn’t lie about coming from Amarillo.”
    “Maybe you didn’t lie about that,” Clarence
replied. “But you could have lied about that or just about any
other thing.”
    “I just told you I wouldn’t do that,” Jude
insisted. “I married Alma in good faith. I could accuse you of the
same thing.