Read Matthew: The Circle Eight for Free Online

to think or feel that way, but there it was. He didn’t know how to deal with losing his parents so abruptly and violently. So he avoided thinking about it at all. There were so many other things to occupy his mind, after all. Excuses, of course.
    Perhaps marrying Hannah would let him confront the painful task of letting his parents go.
    Hannah was not a small girl, thank God, so perhaps his mother’s things would fit her. Most of the Graham children had taken after their father in height and slenderness, except Rebecca and Catherine. Matt knew his mother would approve of someone like Hannah wearing her clothes. She’d always altered clothes for the next sibling down, eek-ing out every last possible use from a garment before it was cut up into rags to be used for cleaning. Very rarely was anything thrown away.
    They were within ten minutes of the house when Livy finally decided to speak.
    “Are you going to tell me why you acted like such a jackass?” Olivia demanded.
    “I wasn’t acting like a jackass.” Matt kept his temper under control. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of seeing that she had riled him. “I was acting like the head of the family.”
    “Humph. That’ll be the day.”
    He turned to look at her. “Whether or not you like it, I am head of this family. Ma and Pa are gone and I’m the oldest. Sometimes you might not like what I have to say or do, but that’s just too bad.”
    Her brows drew together as he spoke, forming a brown caterpillar of annoyance. “I won’t accept that.”
    “Find yourself a husband then.”
    Caleb snickered while Nicholas sucked in a breath. Livy punched him in the arm. Hard.
    “Now don’t start something you can’t finish, sis.” His arm smarted from her knuckles.
    “I’ll finish it, all right. You can’t tell me what to do, and that’s that.”
    Matt’s sleeping temper rose and he pulled on the reins, stopping the wagon in the middle of the road. He turned to her. “No, you are wrong, Livy. I do have the right. I have to make hard decisions and our family can’t turn into an ant hill of insanity every time I do. I just asked a perfect stranger to marry me for this family. Don’t think for a second you have the right to do whatever you want. I certainly don’t have that right and neither do you.”
    The only sounds were the drone of bees nearby and the occasional chirp of a bird. Olivia’s mouth had fallen open. Everyone else stared at him with wide eyes.
    “What did you say?” Livy whispered.
    “You heard me. I found myself a wife.” He leveled a fierce stare at all of them. “Now shut up until we get home and I’ll tell you about her.”
    To his surprise, they did just that. He sat back to enjoy the minutes of peace before they reached home. The next week, hell, the next month, would be a whirlwind of chaos.

    Hannah’s hands shook so hard, she burned herself three times just trying to get the biscuits out of the oven. The day had started so badly, and now it seemed as though she had stepped into a dream, or perhaps a nightmare.
    A man she barely knew had asked to marry her. He was handsome, had a ranch and nice teeth. Yet the only reason he wanted to marry her was to make his ranch bigger and to hide his own lie.
    It wasn’t an especially good start to a marriage, by any stretch of the imagination. She should have said no, for that matter, she shouldn’t have even listened to what he had to say. He’d had the audacity to walk into the boardinghouse without being invited. But she hadn’t said no; instead, she had agreed to marry him.
    What was wrong with her? Was she that desperate for a husband she’d accept a total stranger? Something had compelled her to accept his sideways proposal and she didn’t know what.
    Granny had gone upstairs to take a nap, so Hannah was left alone with her whirling thoughts. Hours later, she poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down heavily in the chair to watch the setting sun paint the back of the