Mail-Order Man by Martha Hix

father’s love, if it comes from Titus St. Clair or Dr. John Hale . Twice, a father figure had let him down. John deserted his family, damning them to hell as he left. Then Titus did his part to destroy the Hales.
    Not wishing to discuss either bastard, Brax reached for the handle of the big shoo-fly fan suspended from the ceiling. He tugged on the handle that moved the wide paddle from side to side; the motion fanned the heiress. “How’s that? Cooler?”
    â€œMuch.” She smiled her appreciation, then opened a canister of meal to begin preparing cornpones. “Thank you, Sergeant Hale.”
    â€œMy pleasure, ma’am.” He stared at the mourning clothes. “Forgive my forwardness, but are you a widow woman?”
    â€œNot.”
    â€œWhom do you mourn?”
    She took a moment to answer, “The death of innocence.”
    He chuckled dryly. He liked this lady. What a shame, her reduction to searching out a husband. The South might be hurting for eligible men, but a woman this lovely ought to get the pick of the paltry crop. “Do you mind if I call you Skylla?”
    She added sprinkles of salt to the cornmeal. “Not if you allow me to call you Braxton.”
    â€œMost folks call me Brax.”
    â€œAll the more reason to call you Braxton.” A rosy blush tinted cheeks of alabaster, an intake of breath harmonizing her appeal. “Please don’t stare at me.”
    He gave the fan three more swings before he said, “Couldn’t help myself.”
    â€œYou stared as if you’d never seen a cripple before.”
    â€œNo, ma’am.” The beans boiled over, juice sizzling onto the stove, and Brax got a sizzle in his loins that reminded him of how little her affliction bothered him. “I was looking at you because I was thinking how much I’d like to kiss you.”
    She studied the floor.
    His heart beat a tattoo. His blood started swirling to places it ought not to swirl in front of a maidenly lady. And his lips—damn! If he didn’t taste her delicious lips, and soon, he’d starve to death. Settle down. Ease into this .
    As he continued to fan her, she bolted her gaze to his. “Braxton, something’s troubling me. Why did you hit my uncle?”
    â€œHe refused to pay his marker.”
    â€œYou hit an elder over money?” Censure filtered into the open features that would never make it at the poker table. “That doesn’t bespeak the Southern gentleman.”
    â€œNeither does welshing on a debt.”
    It had been an eye-opener, the year and a half between the poker game here at the ranch and Major Titus St. Clair’s death. The night before a Yankee cannonball got him, Titus let it be known in jeering terms that he’d never pay his debt.
    Brax liked to keep the past close to his chest, but he decided the less intrigue in this relationship, the better it would be for not rousing suspicions. “I was out of my head that night. My brother’s brains were still wet on my grays.” The calmness of his tone belied the rank hurt and sorrow that still tore Brax’s heart. “I had my brother’s widow to think about, be responsible for. My sisters and my niece, too. My sisters were widowed at Shiloh, you see. But what could I do? I couldn’t desert. I couldn’t get Titus to give me the money to send to my womenfolk. So I pounded my fist into his laughing face.”
    Compassion in her expression, Skylla sat down on a chair and looked up at Brax. “How cruel of him not to understand your predicament. Did he give you a reason?”
    â€œSaid he didn’t have that much money on him, that he’d have to write to his banker in Galveston. That I was making a fool of myself by nagging him. Said that I should have made better provisions for my family before I left Vicksburg. He also said I was a fool for taking his marker in the first place, that I should have demanded the money