The Brides of Chance Collection by Cathy Marie Hake, Kelly Eileen Hake, Tracey V. Bateman

gritted teeth, “there’s no need to stretch the truth here.”
    “Oh, I’m not stretching it one bit. Two days out of port, Captain Raithly locked me into the first mate’s cabin. I didn’t see sky again until the day we docked.”
    “He didn’t do it unless you deserved to be punished,” Daniel snapped.
    Miriam recoiled as if his words packed a physical blow. Her eyes and voice radiated hurt. “Daniel, what did I ever do to deserve your judgment and condemnation?”
    Daniel glared at Gideon and slammed his fist down on the table. “I told you to get rid of her.”
    Polly climbed into her aunt’s lap. She managed to smear food across the slate bodice, and she clung to Miriam’s sleeve. Tears slipped down her cheeks. “Please don’t go, Auntie Miri-Em.”
    Miriam kissed Polly’s forehead, then gave Gideon a pleading look.
    The sight of her cuddling Polly close, the way she naturally smoothed and fingered her niece’s little curls, the spill of dainty white ruffles on a child who had never owned anything frilly—they tugged at his heart. He and his brothers had somehow slipped up and not tended to some of the finer points of rearing a girl. But now that we know, we can do it .
    “Auntie Miri-Em, I need you!”
    “I’ll stay just as long as you need me,” she pledged.
    “You’re going,” Gideon asserted. How dare she invite herself, then announce she is going to move in and take over matters and make decisions? That proved the point: Miriam Hancock had to leave before she tried to change and rule their comfortable world. “I said we’d buy the stupid ticket!”
    “Gideon Chance, you’ll watch your attitude and language!”
    He glowered at her. “The last thing I need is some prissy, holier-than-thou, missionary girl telling me what to do at my own table.”
    Miriam let out a long sigh. “Very well. I’ll give you options to fulfill that requirement. Either I’ll take possession of the cottage and take my meals there—”
    “Don’t you step foot in my home again.” Daniel’s voice rivaled a thunderclap.
    She lifted her chin. Her eyes didn’t snap with temper, and her jaw didn’t jut forward with stubbornness, either. Gideon had to give her credit, because her eyes didn’t even well up with tears. For being a woman, she had remarkable self-control. “Since that choice does not suit, I’ll simply take the girls back on the ship with me.”
    Daniel lurched to his feet with a loud roar. “No!” He kept hold of Ginny Mae in one arm and whisked Polly out of Miriam’s hold with the other. “We don’t want you, and we don’t need you. Get out of here. Get out of our home and lives.”
    Bryce hopped up. “Don’t you talk that way to her! If you wasn’t holding the girls right now, I’d bust your chops.”
    Gideon had been on his feet and about to say something similar. He caught himself before he made a buffoon of himself. Here I am, about to be her champion, yet I want her gone . The sight of his smallest brother, a mere teen, standing up to a full-grown man angered him. “Enough of this. We’re not coming to blows or having a brawl. I made a decision. It stands.”
    Awkward silence filled the room. Ginny Mae smacked her little hand over Daniel’s chest. “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.”
    Daniel’s expression qualified as purely malevolent as he spoke to Miriam. “She knows whom she belongs to, and it isn’t you.” He turned to Gideon. “Get rid of her. Today.”
    They watched Daniel as he stomped to the door, went out, and kicked it shut with a vengeance. Gideon managed not to wince.
    “Gideon,” Paul said.
    “What now?”
    Paul folded his arms across his chest. That move always warned Gideon his brother was about to render an unwanted opinion.
    “You’re not going to drain our savings to buy Miriam’s ticket on a ship. You have no right to make that kind of financial commitment without consulting us.”
    “Yeah,” Titus agreed. “We all do a fair share of the work. This is