Southern Seduction [Bride Train 8] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) by Reece Butler Page A

up a stone. Since he dismounted immediately she should be fine in a couple days.
    Clouds covered the sun, dropping the temperature a few degrees as the wind picked up. At least he wasn’t all the way to Bannack Road when it happened. As it was he—
    He stopped, straining to hear. The mare nudged his shoulder and he automatically put one foot in front of the other again. The wind swirled into his face, drifting that tantalizing sound past his ears.
    Someone was singing. The more he walked, the clearer it was. An alto voice soared, sending a beacon of home. He hadn’t heard “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” since Grandma died. By then she was so old her voice wavered like a drunken sailor. But this voice was strong and pure. His throat clogged at its beauty.
    They’d lived in Montana Territory for a couple of years, playing the fiddle, gutbucket, and banjo at every dance and get-together. No one had ever sang so well. If it was Casey, the boy had the voice of an angel. He also spoke the words properly for once. Maybe keeping the boy wouldn’t be as bad as he thought. He’d be a great addition to their band.
    Cole slowed as he reached the yard, not wanting to interrupt. The voice soared louder, filling the yard with a powerful energy. Being twelve, Casey’s voice could break any day now, especially if he finally started growing. He might end up as a decent tenor, but he’d never sound like an angel again. Cole closed his eyes and let the music take him home to Grandma.
    It felt like he was there once more. A hungry boy, dirty from a long day’s work, scrubbing up before supper as Grandma shucked peas on the porch. She rocked back and forth, the creaking wood keeping time as she sang. Her cotton dress and white apron stretched over her spread knees, catching the peas as they fell from her knobby fingers. She kept her eyes closed, maybe thinking of when she was a girl being courted by wealthy beaus.
    She never hid the fact she’d been forced into marrying Grandpa after being caught in a compromising situation with her younger sister’s fiancé. Though it was totally innocent, her parents refused to listen. She’d refused many suitors and was getting long in the tooth. They solved both problems by bundling her off, far from the city, to marry a distant cousin on her father’s side.
    Grandpa said the first time he saw Grandma she was so beautiful his heart was like to break. But she was a city gal who knew nothing of working on an Upcountry North Carolina farm. He didn’t want her soft hands to become hard and callused like his own. Didn’t want her to resent being hitched to a farmer.
    But Grandma took Grandpa as he was, the son of a dirt-poor farmer. She’d insisted her papa give the same dowry as if she’d married into one of the top families in Charlotte. They’d bought land farther down the mountain, more suitable for growing crops, and made themselves a life. Grandma insisted she’d never have met a man half as good as Grandpa if she’d stayed in the city. She was a gal with an adventurous heart, and Grandpa respected her. He might not have money, but he was a Southern gentleman through and through.
    The mare tugged, bringing Cole back to the present.
    “I should thank you for coming up lame,” he said as he cross-tied her in the barn. “Casey might never have told us he could sing, especially like that.”
    As Cole worked, Casey sang a hymn he didn’t recognize. What other songs did the boy know? He smiled in anticipation. Wait until Byron and Marshall found out. If Casey could play the spoons and jaw harp, they’d have everything in their band.
    He was twenty feet from the kitchen, facing the front window, when the sun shot a beam through the side window. He stopped. A zap of fire shot from his head, through his body, and into the ground as he stared at a vision from his dreams. He must be so desperate for a woman that his imagination created one in the window’s reflection. She had her back to him. His