Learning To Love (Contemporary Cowboy Romance) (Carson Hill Ranch series:Book 1) by Amelia Rose Page B

so myself. I actually know how to sew, and since it was looking like a good hour before a doctor could get here, I did it myself with the supplies in the medical kit. I was all for embroidering a lovely floral pattern, and I would have gotten away with it too, if your brothers had their way. But your father thought it might upset you to have a scar in the shape of a hyacinth.” She smiled down at Casey in the dark, and he relaxed somewhat.
                  “So why are you out here in Texas instead of embroidering hyacinths to wear to your fancy office somewhere back east?” Casey asked, his voice dropping again. Miranda looked at him for a moment, gauging whether or not that question was actually intended to ask, “Why don’t you go home?”. Deciding that it was borne out of genuine interest in what brought her here, she answered.
                  “If you must know, I wasn’t actually all that happy in my office back in Newark,” she began. “It was...not the best life, for me or for my sister. I...I told your father some of this, but I didn’t tell him everything. I didn’t want to worry him, but more importantly, I didn’t want to be here because he felt the need to take on a charity case.”
                  Miranda proceeded to tell Casey only the most important parts of the story where Mike was concerned. She told him how she heard Gracie crying and went into the living room to find him on top of her, trying to pull her nightgown up.
                  “And I snapped. I had taken every bit of abuse and anger he had dished out but when I saw him trying to hurt Gracie, I went for the baseball bat he kept in the closet.”
                  “And...”
                  “And I beat the crap out of him. I dragged him to the floor and beat him with that bat until he actually cried like a little girl. And then I got us the hell out of there. I called the police from a payphone and told them everything, then Gracie and I went to the bus station.”
                  “And just like that, you came out here?” Casey asked, a look of disbelief crossing his face.
                  “No, of course not. I didn’t know you—well, your dad—yet. We went to the bus station because we had to have a place to sleep that night. Yes, I parked my baby sister, the one a drunken man had just tried to rape, on a bench in the bus station and I sat watch over her all night, never closing my eyes for even a second, just in case someone far worse than Mike came along.
                  “So, rather than keep living in the apartment where she was attacked and I was beaten on a weekly basis, I answered your father’s ad. Only I discovered upon my arrival that you weren’t as excited about the idea as he was.”
                  Casey’s face fell as he remembered his harsh treatment of Miranda and her sister. Was that only a few days ago? He felt ashamed at having taken out his wrath meant for his father on this poor young woman who braved a cross-country trip to become a stranger’s wife—a ranch wife, at that— to exact some measure of independence.
                  “I apologize for my behavior when we met. I promise it had nothing to do with you. I just resented the fact that I didn’t have a choice.”
                  “I feel the pain of not having choices every day,” she answered softly.
                  “Yes, I suppose you do. But if it’s any consolation, it wasn’t you. I would have been an ugly jackass to anyone who had showed up after answering my father’s ad. Oh, wait, what was it you called me? A ‘brutish lout’? I can sort of figure out that it’s not a good thing to be called, but where did you even come up with a phrase like that?”
                  “Well, let’s just say I’m a big fan of British literature. Jane Austen, the Bronte