Read The Rancher Takes a Bride for Free Online

And now he had one. A girl named Lilly. And where did that leave Oregon, the mother of his child?
    Since yesterday he’d been forcing himself to remember, trying to recall that summer. Man, he’d been out of control that year. He’d watched his dad drinking his life away, Jake trying to be the man of the house and his younger siblings, Samantha and Brody, lost and alone. Duke had run wild, trying to make it all go away. But he remembered bits and pieces of a girl who thought she was having an adventure barrel racing.
    Yeah, he remembered. She’d flirted, riding past him, taking his hat. He’d forgotten. He shouldn’t have forgotten.
    He looked at the woman sitting across from him, worry over their daughter furrowing her brow. She was no longer that young girl. Duke saw her now as a mom, a woman with strength and faith.
    And the mother of his child.

Chapter Four
    O regon started packing the next morning. By noon she had already made a dent in the process. Not that she had a lot. She’d always known how to let go of possessions, to keep only what really mattered.
    An hour in, she’d sent Lilly across the street to talk to Duke. Since she’d been gone, Oregon had managed to go through twice as much, packing a lot and putting other things in boxes to be given away. She taped the top of a box she’d just filled and reached for another.
    She hated moving. It brought back too many memories. Of leaving towns she would have liked to remain in and people she wanted to know better. By the time she’d reached her teens, she had stopped getting attached. It made it easier to let go if she shrugged it all off and pretended it didn’t matter. A new home, a new life, a new opportunity, her mother had always said, as she had happily packed them off in some aging car she’d bought when the last aging car quit.
    Oregon had moved here with the intention of putting down roots.
    â€œDo you always talk to yourself?”
    Oregon smiled at the woman standing outside the screen door of the apartment she and Lilly had called home since moving to Martin’s Crossing. Apartment was a generous word for the small space, which was really just a living area with a bedroom in the loft.
    â€œIt stops me from saying things to the wrong people if I say them to myself.” She motioned Breezy Martin in. “Want a cup of tea?”
    â€œNo, I’m good. I stopped by to see if I could help.”
    â€œI’m almost packed.” She looked around her at the growing stacks of packed boxes. She didn’t want to leave this cramped, tiny space that had been her home, a place where she and her daughter had been happy.
    â€œI didn’t mean help with packing.” Breezy picked up a snow globe from the shelf and wrapped it in paper. “Although I will help pack. I meant, do you need a friend?”
    Friends. Yes, she and Breezy had become friends since the other woman arrived in Martin’s Crossing six months ago. And now Breezy would be Lilly’s aunt. Because Breezy was married to Duke’s brother, Jake Martin.
    â€œDuke is in the clouds over this situation, Oregon,” Breezy said.
    Oregon held a carved horse in her hands and stared at the wall. She ached inside, wishing away this situation and how it was changing all of their lives. “I know he is.”
    â€œHow is Lilly doing?”
    Oregon shrugged and placed the horse in a box. “She’s doing better physically. Getting used to the crutches and the fact that she won’t spend her summer vacation swimming.” She drew in a breath. “She’s angry. At me. At Duke. At the world. But she’s with him at the diner, because she’s still trying to save up money for a horse, and he offered to let her work the cash register today.”
    â€œHe wants to buy her a horse,” Breezy offered. “He’d buy her the moon if he could.”
    â€œShe doesn’t need that. Buying her