Montana Bride. Jillian Hart

aware of Mrs. Pole and Evelyn nearby. “A good wife doesn’t spend all her husband’s money on the first day of their marriage.”

      “I’ve waited a long time to find a bride.” Something glimmered deep and private in his words, something that reflected in his eyes and whispered in his voice. “For better of worse, you are it. Three dresses, do you hear me? This one is pretty. It matches your eyes.”

      She couldn’t look at the garment he’d taken from the shelf, caught up by the man. She’d been too afraid of being a bride again to truly consider what he’d been telling her. But standing in the cheerful store, with Evelyn’s and Mrs. Pole’s merry conversation in the background and with handsome Austin towering beside her, holding the nicest dress she’d ever seen, she understood the look in his eyes. She heard the silent question he asked.

      She knew what loneliness was. She’d grown up in a home where she had to blend in to the background because the sight of her upset her mother. She’d married a man whose best friend was a whiskey bottle. She’d been lonesome as a daughter and as a wife, and she knew how loneliness could eat at you, leaving you longing for a place to really belong, where your heart could be safe.

      She couldn’t see how that place existed, but she could read the hope for it in Austin’s eyes as he held the dress up to her, a dress far too fine for her. She did not want to be an embarrassment to him. Clearly his sister did not have a single patch on her dress, so Willa found herself nodding. The garment would be fine.

      “And it’s the right size for her.” Evelyn bustled over, eager to help now that the problem had been solved. Now that the man had put down his foot—kindly, but it had been done all the same. “You’re right, Austin, look what it does to her eyes. I can take over now. Stop staring at her like you’ll never see her again. You’ll get her back when I’m done with her.”

      “You make sure to take care of her.” He handed the dress to Mrs. Pole, who had rushed over to make the sale, but he didn’t move away. “You brought so little with you, Willa. You need to buy here what you left behind. Knitting needles, an embroidery hoop. Whatever makes you happy.”