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

Alma could have lied to me about anything to do with
your family, and I wouldn’t know about it until after we were
married and I came back here and found out for myself.”
    “Maybe Alma doesn’t know everything there is
to know about her own family,” Clarence declared. “Like she said
before, her mother died before any of the girls really got to know
her, and they’ve never gotten to know either her family or mine.
But I’ll sit right here and tell you anything you want to know
about me. Come on. Just ask me and I’ll tell you.”
    “I don’t want to know anything,” Jude told
him. “I’m satisfied with what Alma told me about your family.
Everything she told me has been true so far. I trust her.”
    Clarence snorted. “Then you’re very trusting.
Well, I’ll tell you anyway, just so you won’t be able to accuse me
of withholding any important information.”
    “Are you accusing me of withholding important
information?” Jude asked.
    Clarence ignored him. “I was born in
Tuscaloosa, and I joined the Confederate Army at the age of
twenty-four. I fought with Robert E. Lee, and I even had the honor
of shaking his hand after the Battle of Little Crooked Ridge. So
what do you think of that?”
    “I don’t think anything of it,” Jude replied.
“I didn’t ask you to tell me. You don’t have to tell me
anything.”
    “Do you know,” Clarence asked. “About fifteen
hundred Confederate soldiers were massacred at Little Crooked
Ridge? Did you know that?”
    Alma detected a slight hesitation in Jude’s
voice before he answered. “No, I didn’t. I never heard of Little
Crooked Ridge until right now.”
    “A certain detachment of Union infantry
surprised a certain detachment of Confederate soldiers there,” the
old man continued. “They overran them while they ate their morning
porridge. They wiped out all but about five hundred of them. Did
you know that?”
    “I just told you I didn’t know,” Jude shot
back. “How many times do I have to tell you?”
    Clarence didn’t hear him. “I was there. I was
one of the survivors. Afterward, General Lee came down from
Arlington. That’s where I met him. He gave everyone of the
survivors of the attack an honorable discharge and a small pension.
He said we’d done our duty to the Confederacy. I took my pension
and came down here. I spent some time in Juarez, and that’s where I
met my wife.”
    “That sounds like a nice way to ride out the
rest of the war,” Jude returned.
    Clarence shot forward in his chair, gripping
the arms with white-knuckle fists. “You would think that. Now I
know I was right about you. Of all the things you’ve said so far,
that confirms what I knew about you from the very beginning.”
    Jude shifted in his chair. “Which is what?
What exactly are you accusing me of?”
    The old man turned his milky eyes back toward
the fire. “Now I know you’re not the man you claimed to be. Maybe
you could pull the wool over the eyes of some innocent girls from
the south Texas desert who’ve never had any dealings with men. But
you can’t pull the wool over my eyes. No sirree! I know you. Just
remember that.”
    “You know me,” Jude replied. “Because I’ve
told you everything about me. I haven’t kept anything hidden.”
    “Listen to me, Alma,” Clarence called out.
She turned around and wiped her hands on the towel. “This man is a
lying scoundrel. You can’t trust him further than you can throw
him. Mark my words. And now you’re married to him. This is what
comes of flouting the older generation.”
    Alma threw the towel onto the table. She drew
herself up to her full height and towered over her father. “What
exactly are you accusing Jude of? If you have something to say,
then say it and stop blowing smoke out of your ears.”
    Clarence wouldn’t say any more. He clamped
his mouth shut so tightly that his whiskers stuck straight out from
his face. He kept his face averted from his daughter and