Adela's Prairie Suitor (The Annex Mail-Order Brides Book 1) by Elaine Manders

ignorant. How could she let him know she thought he was as smart as any man she’d ever met? His face was so close, she got lost in his soft gray eyes. Without thinking, she stroked his cheek with her free hand. The bristles of a day’s growth sent tingles up her arm, and she dropped her hand, yet unable to break contact with those eyes.
    “You’d make any man a wonderful wife, Adela.” Was that his way of proposing?
    Byron leaned in. Her pulse raced. He was going to kiss her right here in the kitchen. She’d never been kissed. How was she supposed to act? She tilted her head so their noses wouldn’t bump together and ran her tongue over her lips to remove any remaining biscuit crumbs.
    The back door slammed open, and Byron jumped. He stood and looked over her head. She turned around to find Dick standing with a gunny sack in his hand. “What is it, Dick?” Byron asked, sounding irritated.
    “I found this hanging in the rafters. Are you sure you want it hanging there?”
    “What’s in the sack?
    Adela knew what it was. The popcorn she’d harvested last week.
    “Looks like corn,” Dick said.
    Looks like? Couldn’t he tell corn when he saw it? “That’s the popcorn I hung in the rafters to dry.” Adela couldn’t image why Dick thought it needed Byron’s attention.
    But Byron looked at her funny like he couldn’t believe it. “You hung it up? In the sack?”
    Dick pulled out an ear. “Thought it might be hog feed. A lot of the ears are bad.” He’d started to shuck one. Some of the kernels had popped on the cob.
    Something must have been wrong with the popcorn. “Maybe I should have taken them out of the sack,” she said, “but I thought if I hung it from the rafters, the mice wouldn’t get it.”
    “Mice could get it no matter what.” Byron ran his fingers through his hair. “We have four barn cats. Mice aren’t a big problem.” He addressed Dick. “Shuck the good ones and spread them out to dry, Dick.”
    Dick closed the bag and scratched his head. “I doubt there’s many good ones left.”
    “Well, however many there are, do it.” Byron’s annoyed tone didn’t brook any more argument. Adela didn’t know if he was annoyed with Dick or her, but it was obvious she’d ruined the popcorn.
    After Dick left, Adela drew in a deep breath. “I didn’t understand, but if I’d have thought about it… I seem to be doing one stupid thing after another.”
    Byron shook his head. “It’s my fault. I should have explained to you that you have to shuck the corn and lay it out in the air to dry. There was no reason for you to have known that.”
    No reason for anyone who didn’t use her brain. That beautiful moment when she’d thought he might kiss her was gone. She walked ahead of him to the parlor. Maybe she could finish her dress tonight while listening to Byron read. She loved to hear his voice, and at least she knew how to sew.

Chapter 13
    A week later, Dick ran off during the night, and Byron saddled up to go hunt him. He ought to be in the fields helping Lem, and here he was wasting time chasing after the boy. And what was he going to do with him when he found him?
    He’d rather think about Adela. If Dick hadn’t interrupted them in the kitchen last week, he’d have kissed that little gal. Darn Dick’s hide. Byron chided himself for not asking her to marry him by now. He wanted to in the worst way.
    There was only one thing stopping him. Ma. He couldn’t marry Adela without Ma’s blessing, though he’d thought so before Adela arrived.
    A gnarled cottonwood marked the turn in the road toward town, and Byron stopped under its pitiful shade to drink from his canteen and give the horse a rest. A low hanging branch jutted out from the tree like a bent elbow. Legend held that this was a hanging tree back when this was a territory.
    Byron felt like a noose was tightening around his neck, and maybe he’d put it there. Ma always said he was too willful, wanting to get his way no matter