Their Golden Bride
A Bridgewater Brides Novel
Ann Mayburn
Copyright © 2020 by Ann Mayburn
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author's imagination and used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover design: Bridger Media
Cover graphic: Hot Damn Stock; DepositPhotos: snehitdesign
Welcome to Bridgewater, where one cowboy is never enough! Their Golden Bride is published as part of the Bridgewater Brides World, which includes books by numerous authors inspired by Vanessa Vale’s USA Today bestselling series. This is a steamy standalone read. Enjoy!
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Bridgewater Brides World
About the Author
Also by Ann Mayburn
1
ROWAN
Despite the hard sun beating down on her, a little shiver ran down her spine as an icy wind gusted along the dusty street. The broad, faded brown hat she wore to hide her braided long hair also shaded her face, but her hands were getting darker every day as the sun tanned them a deep bronze. They were already rough from years of millwork while growing up in Chicago, but the time she’d unwillingly spent as a shoe shiner in this booming city in the Montana Territory had added another layer of callouses and dry skin.
At least it helped lend credibility to her disguise as a boy. Well, that and some ripped up bed sheets that she’d used to bind her already meager chest.
For the first time in her life, she’d been glad she didn’t have the abundant curves of most women had. She’d been traveling in disguise since Chicago, all too aware of the dangers of simply being female. Back home, she’d had the protection of friends and family, here she had no one.
No one at all.
Swallowing back her tears, she stood slowly and stretched out her back, not even attempting to shout her business like the other shoeshine kids. Her lungs still ached after her illness and the constant dust rising up from the dirt road, and she didn’t want to get beat up again. Many of the boys were orphans in the same situation as her—no money, no food, and no place to live. That made them as desperate as she was to earn the coin of passing men and women who wanted the grime of the wilderness polished off their shoes.
As she crouched back down to brush some dust off the top of her shoeshine box, she traced over the name etched onto the lid. Ted, her brother. Three years younger than herself, they’d been close for as long as she could remember. Rowan had practically raised him before she’d been forced to get a job at the mill in order to help provide for the family. Her mother tried the best she could, but it was hard for a woman who looked like her to find honest work as a seamstress that paid enough to house and feed two children. Out of the many names Rowan had heard her mother called, mulatto was among the nicest.
Dust puffed into the air as a wagon rumbled past, so she looked up, hoping to see someone she could talk into getting a shine.
The elevated sidewalks of Butte were always busy, and she was one of many trying to hustle the crowd. Some sold newspapers, some sold fruit from stands, but a good many had their own shoeshine kits that were in much better repair than hers. And most of them weren’t as dirty and undoubtedly smelly as her. For the past week, since she’d run out of money to stay in even the dingiest of boarding houses, she’d slept where she could. She was tired, beaten down on every level possible, and just about ready to give up.
For a moment, despair threatened to overwhelm her, and she had to bite her lower lip as she tried to take a deep breath. Unfortunately, the tight cloth she’d wrapped around her chest to hide her breasts made that impossible, but she didn’t dare loosen it. Without her brother at her side, she’d have a much better chance at survival if the low lifes in this city thought she was just another orphan boy trying to go West in search of fame and fortune, rather than a woman all alone without anyone or anything to protect her in a rough and tumble frontier city.
But Ted had promised he would come back for her.
He promised.
And he made her promise to stay here in Butte, where he could find her.
But, week after week, she waited at the train station, watched each car empty, and hoped to see his curly blond hair, so like her own.
And each week, she left the train station alone, returning to the cheap boarding house where she shared a room with a dozen equally poor people and cried herself to sleep.
“Hey, lad, can I get a shine?” a smooth, British accented voice said, interrupting her dark thoughts.
Sitting up quickly, she made sure her hat was still in place before she smiled up at the stranger, her chapped lips stinging slightly. “Sure thing, sir.”
Anything else she might have said died in her throat as she took in one of the most handsome men she’d ever seen. A hot burning rush burst through her—almost like the heat of a fever, but far more pleasant. The man, with his boot propped up on her box, wore a dark blue shirt that was lightly stained with sweat and clung to his hard, broad shoulders. His arms were equally impressive, and his pants molded to his heavily muscled thighs, highlighting a body
