Titled Texans: Educating Abbie Part 27

Thank you for reading Educating Abbie. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please help other readers find this book. Consider writing a review, or recommending the book to your friends. Follow me on Facebook, or on Twitter @CMyersTex. And thank you!

You might also enjoy these books by Cynthia Sterling:.

To Love a Lady t.i.tled Texans: Book One.

Educating Abbie t.i.tled Texans: Book Two.

The Runaway t.i.tled Texans: Book Three.

Patchwork Hearts A Quilting Romance.

The Christmas Quilt A Quilting Romance novella.

A Willing Spirit A Ghostly Romance.

Great Caesar's Ghost A Ghostly Romance.

San Antonio Rogue.

A Long, Sweet Ride.

Enjoy this excerpt from The Runaway:.

Camden Worthington was not a man who courted trouble, but sometimes trouble courted him. How else to explain the farmer with the shotgun who roused him from peaceful slumber in the hay-strewn horse stall? "Stand up, you lazy son of a b.i.t.c.h and take your punishment like the man you wish you were."

Rubbing sleep from his eyes, Cam shoved up out of the hay, gaze locked on the single unblinking orb that was the business end of a long-barreled shotgun. The moment had the irrational quality of a nightmare, and he might have believed he was dreaming, if not for the sunlight streaming through the open barn door behind the farmer, the fecund smell of straw and manure that filled the air, and the m.u.f.fled whiffling of his horse that punctuated the air with a familiarity too vivid for dreams.

He wet his lips and tried that favorite refuge of all Worthington men, fearless charm, "You ought to be careful where you point that thing, old chap. Someone might get hurt."

"Well it ain't going to be me, is it?" The farmer, a black-haired, black-eyed, and no doubt black-hearted Texan dressed in faded denim trousers and a blanket-plaid s.h.i.+rt, jabbed the gun barrel into Cam's chest. "Now move!"

With a pretense of more serenity than he felt at the moment, Cam picked up the suit coat he'd been using as a blanket and shrugged into it. He brushed hay from the coat, combed his fingers through his hair to neaten it as much as possible, then fished the celluloid cleric's collar from his front waistcoat pocket and fit it into place at his neck. Only then did he comply with the farmer's order and move out of his shadowed corner into the sunlit main aisle of the barn.

"Oh my!" The feminine gasp drew his attention to the doorway, and the two figures silhouetted there. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he could make out a tall man and a woman. He would have called her a girl, if not for the obvious pregnancy belling her gown out in front of her. She was strikingly pretty, with great dark eyes staring at him out of a china doll's face. He ventured a polite nod in her direction. Surely the crazed farmer wouldn't shoot him dead in front of a woman in such a delicate condition.

Her already wan face blanched further and a look of real alarm flitted into her eyes. Cam frowned. What kind of people were these that the sight of a harmless clergyman sleeping in a barn induced such anger and fear?

"Are you sure this is the one, Caroline?" the man with the gun asked.

The woman hesitated, her gaze fixed on Cam. One hand clutched and unclutched her skirt repeatedly, while the other cradled her belly protectively. "Y. . . yes," she said, voice wavering. "That's him."

"Let's get to it, then," the farmer barked. Cam stumbled forward as the gun shoved between his shoulder blades.

The tall man, who wore a dark suit and carried some sort of book, stepped forward to meet him, eyebrows drawn together in a scowl. "You are a disgrace to the calling, brother," he said in a funereal voice.

Cam could see now that the book was a Bible, and the dark-suited man a fellow clergyman. "I'd hardly call it a disgrace to seek shelter from a storm in a man's barn," Cam said. "If it's such a grave offense in these parts, I'll be happy to pay for the privilege." He started to reach into his waistcoat to retrieve his money pouch, but another sharp jab from the shotgun stopped him.

"You've insulted me enough, preacher," the farmer barked. "Don't try my patience further. Now, let's get on with it."

The black-coated preacher looked to the young woman, Caroline. Head down, she came to stand at Cam's side. Her whole body trembled. What did these brutes mean, alarming her this way? "Are you quite all right?" he asked.

"Please!" Her voice, though soft, rang with desperation. "Just do this. . . for me."

"Do what? I don't understand "

"Dearly beloved," The preacher opened his Bible and began to speak in a sing-song voice. "We are gathered here in the sight of G.o.d and man to unite this man and this woman in holy matrimony."

"Holy mat!" Cam tried to pull away, but the woman held his arm so tightly he could no longer feel his fingers, while the old man shoved the gun barrel up against his spine until he was sure he would break in two. Cam held up his free hand and did his best to quell the panic rising in his throat. "I believe you've made a bit of a mistake here, gentlemen. Why would I wish to marry this young woman?" He rolled his eyes toward the girl at his side. She was shaking again, clinging to his arm as if it were the only thing keeping her standing.

"By gum, you'll make an honest woman of her or I will shoot you." Eyes blazing with some crazed fever, the old man pulled back the trigger on the shotgun. Cam's knees turned to jelly. He closed his eyes and tried to think of some prayer. Despite his training, he wasn't certain he was ready to meet his maker just yet.

"Daddy says if we don't marry, he'll turn me out." The woman didn't look at him when she spoke, but her fingers tightened around his arm, and every word buried itself deep in his brain. "My baby needs a father." She rubbed her belly again, stretching the thin fabric of her dress tightly over her swollen womb. "A child ought to have two parents to raise it up right."

Her desperation tore at him. He knew all about being 'turned out' as it were, though his father had not been so coa.r.s.e as to threaten him with a shotgun. Wanting to comfort her, he slipped his arm around the girl's shoulders. She turned toward him, pressed against him, her head buried on his shoulder. She was soft, and smelled of mint and suns.h.i.+ne.

The other two men glared at him with eyes full of menace, but their hatred hardly seemed to matter in the face of the girl's helplessness and pain. "Why are you doing this to her?" he demanded. "Why are you putting her through this ordeal? She should be resting."

"You should have thought of that before you planted that baby in her." The farmer raised the shotgun and squinted down the barrel at him. "Now let's get to it."

The accusation had the impact of a blow. "You think I " He tried to pull away from the girl, but she buried her face more deeply into his shoulder.

"Please," she whispered. "Help me out of this and we'll work things out later."

Something nudged him in the side. With a start, he realized it was the baby - that innocent, fatherless being who'd never asked to be a part of any of this. Heart pounding, he tried again to pray, but words deserted him. The farmer and the preacher continued to glare at him as if he were the devil incarnate, while the girl clung to him as if to the holy Savior.

The preacher seemed to take his silence for acquiescence. The man opened the Bible again and began to read: "Do you, Caroline Allen, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, to honor and obey, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, 'til death do you part?"

Caroline raised her head and sniffed. "I do."

"What's your name, mister?"

Cam blinked. Could he really go through with this? He looked at the man with the shotgun, then at the woman at his side. Did he have any choice? "Camden Michael Worthington," he said, accenting every regal syllable for all it was worth.

"Hmmph!" The preacher narrowed his eyes at him. "Well, Reverend Worthington, do you take Caroline to be your lawfully wedded wife, to honor and cherish, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, so long as you both shall live?"

He took a deep breath and swallowed hard. In that respect, he supposed it wasn't much different from leaping off Magdalen Bridge at Oxford into the freezing water of the River Cherwell. He'd done that more than once and lived to tell the tale - who was to say he couldn't do the same now? "I do."

"Then by the power invested in me by the church and by the state of Texas, I now p.r.o.nounce you man and wife." The Bible snapped shut with a sound like a thunderclap and the preacher speared Cam with a withering look and spoke words that made his heart grow cold. "What G.o.d has joined together, let no man put asunder."

end.