WESTERN ROMANCE: A Ranch to Call Home (Texas Romance, Mail Order Bride Romance, Clean Romance, Christian Romance) (Clean and Wholesome Romance) by Grace Warren Page A

in time to see Mary Anne tap a glass of
champagne with an eating utensil.
               
“Attention, everyone!” Mary Anne called out as she tapped the glass.
               
The band and then everyone else got quiet.
               
“Oh god,” Alton said, gaping at his wife. She hated crowds, so if she had the
courage—or the rage—to speak to—
               
“My husband would like to volunteer at the homeless shelter for the foreseeable
future to help those less fortunate than us, like the Bible tells us to do.”
Mary gave Alton a smug smirk. “And he wanted to do this privately, but I can’t
allow such a good man doing a good deed go unheard of. We need more people like
him, don’t we, everyone?!”
               
People clapped. Some seemed embarrassed by Mary Anne’s display, but most seemed
touched.
               
“Yes!” Mary Anne said happily. “Give my husband a round of applause. Or better
yet, join his cause to help the homeless every weekend, like God wants us to
do.” She clanged her utensil against her glass repeatedly, and the people
clapped and cheered.
               
Alton grinded his teeth together, even as he forced himself to smile at the
people staring at him.
               
“I’ll volunteer with you,” someone had said to his right.
               
Alton didn’t look at the man. “Great.”
     

 
    Mary Anne
     
               
The day after the dinner party, Mary Anne woke up to the sound of Alton and
many, many volunteers going into her study and taking out her books.
               
“We’re donating them to the homeless,” Alton told her with a grin. “You know,
help them get smart for work and what not.”
               

 
    Alton
     
               
Alton didn’t consider himself a vain person, but he did like the way he looked.
He liked his sideburns and the stubble over his lip, his chin, and his jaw.
               
When he woke up to much shorter hair and a bare face, he panicked. Then he saw
Mary Anne’s note beside his pillow. It said that he was starting to look shaggy
and, like any good dog, he needed to be groomed.
               
He crushed the note in his hand.
     

 
    Mary Anne
     
               
Alton went outside with his shirt untucked and his pants unbuttoned.
               
Mary Anne actually thought he looked funny, but the embarrassment he had caused
to her father…
     
     

 
    Alton
     
               
Mary Anne and his damn sisters pressured him into getting a tutor for English.
Apparently, he didn’t talk right, and Mary Anne’s father was unhappy or some
nonsense like that.
               
Alton wasn’t sure why he even agreed to it, other than it made his sisters
happy. And the idea that Mary Anne would use them like that—or, well, she didn’t
really use them, so much as team up with them to accomplish a common goal, he
supposed.
               
Either way, it got on his nerves.
               

 
    Mary Anne
     
               
Alton told a neighbor some pretty disgusting lies about what he and Mary Anne
did in the bedroom every night. Luckily, Mary Anne heard about this from Betty
before her father could hear about it from someone else.
               
“You need to fix this,” she growled at Alton in the kitchen. “What you said to
him—that, that just goes too far. Way too far!”
               
Alton had the audacity to look indifferent. “If you want this little feud to
end, all you need to do is back off. But I’m sure you won’t because you’re
stubborn as hell.”
               
“I’m stubborn?! You…” Rage enveloped her, and she couldn’t breathe properly.
Huffing, she backed away from and mimed strangling something; the act made her
feel a little better.
               
Alton blinked at her.