Something Borrowed, Something True

By Lisa Plumley

When Everett Bannon’s ranch hands order him a mail-order bride, he plans to send her on the first train back home. Until he sees his beautiful bride-to-be and his wits go walkin’! But Nellie Trent isn’t in Morrow Creek for veils and vows-she’s an undercover journalist with an exposé to write! (a Morrow Creek novella)

This story is part of the Morrow Creek series, which includes: The Matchmaker (1), The Scoundrel (2), The Rascal (3), *Morrow Creek Marriage* (4); Mail-Order Groom (5), *Miss Wilson's Secret Seduction* (6), The Bride Raffle (7), *Something Borrowed, Something True* (8); The Honor-Bound Gambler (9), Notorious in the West (10), Morrow Creek Runaway (11), and Morrow Creek Marshal (12). (asterisks denote *novellas and short stories* included in the series)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lisa Plumley
• Release date: May 22, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463930236

Lisa Plumley

USA TODAY best-selling author Lisa Plumley has delighted readers worldwide with more than two dozen popular romances. Visit Lisa at www.lisaplumley.com, friend her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/lisaplumleybooks, or follow her on Twitter @LisaPlumley today!

Book preview

SOMETHING BORROWED, SOMETHING TRUE

by

Lisa Plumley

* * * * *

previously published by Harlequin Historical

as part of the Weddings Under A Western Sky anthology

When Everett Bannon’s ranch hands order him a mail-order bride, he plans to send her on the first train back home. Until he sees his beautiful bride-to-be and his wits go walkin’! But Nellie Trent isn’t in Morrow Creek for veils and vows-she’s an undercover journalist with an exposé to write!

* * * * *

Copyright © 2018 by Lisa Plumley

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, then please respect the hard work of this author by purchasing your own copy. Thank you!

* * * * *

USA TODAY best-selling author Lisa Plumley has delighted readers worldwide with more than three dozen popular novels. Her work has been translated into multiple languages and editions, and includes contemporary romances, western historical romances, paranormal romances, and a variety of stories in romance anthologies. Her fresh, funny style has been likened to such reader favorites as Rachel Gibson, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, LaVyrle Spencer, and Jennifer Crusie, but her unique characterization is all her own.

To sign up for new-book reminder e-mails, read first-chapter excerpts, catch sneak previews of upcoming books, and more, visit www.lisaplumley.com today.

Lisa also writes cozy mysteries as Colette London. Her Chocolate Whisperer series (featuring chocolate expert—and amateur sleuth!—Hayden Mundy Moore) kicked off with Criminal Confections and now includes Dangerously Dark, The Semisweet Hereafter, Dead and Ganache, and The Peppermint Mocha Murder, all from Kensington Books.

Visit www.colettelondon.com today to find fantastic chocolate recipes, sign up for new-book reminder e-mails, and catch sneak previews of upcoming books in the Chocolate Whisperer series.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter One

Note from the Author

Email Reminders

What People Are Saying...

Series Books by Lisa Plumley

Complete Book List: Lisa Plumley

Cozy Mysteries by Lisa Plumley (writing as Colette London)

Complete Book List: Colette London

SOMETHING BORROWED, SOMETHING TRUE

by

Lisa Plumley

"The first thing necessary to win the heart

of a woman is opportunity." —Honore de Balzac

April 1884

Morrow Creek, northern Arizona Territory

When a man couldn't pick out his own blasted fiancée from the crowd of people on a train platform, it was probably time to rethink a few things. Like the way he was living his life. The honorable intentions he clung to. And the damnable, meddlesome vaqueros he employed, depended on, and trusted…far too much.

Standing hip deep in confusion at the Morrow Creek train depot, Everett Bannon reckoned this was what he deserved for letting down his guard. He deserved cinders and sparks. He deserved hordes of travelers, cheery train whistles, and puffs of sooty coal smoke. He deserved a mail-order bride—arriving on today's 10:17 train from San Francisco—that he hadn't ordered.

The vaqueros at his ranch had ordered her. For him. Secretly. Giddily. Most of all, inconveniently. Now it was up to Everett to deal with the imminent arrival of one Miss Nellie Trent—and to squash her expectations that they were to be wed.

He hoped she didn't bawl. He couldn't cope with bawling.

Feeling altogether provoked by this unexpected turn of events, Everett paced the length of the depot platform. The springtime sun shone down on him. The morning breeze threatened to steal his hat. Travelers streamed past—but none of them wore the red hat with a jaunty blue ribbon that his hypothetical bride-to-be was supposed to be sporting. None of them gazed at him with knitted brows, trying to match his rugged face to his farcical written description. None of them brightened at his approach. None of them seemed hopeful…and therefore vulnerable.

Everett knew all about romantic hopefulness. He wanted no damn part of it. Not anymore. His calamitous experiences with his former ladylove, Miss Abbey O'Neill, had taught him that. He was better off without sentimental mush like loving. And needing. And hoping. So, he reckoned grumpily, was Miss Nellie Trent—wherever she was.

"Patrón! Casper—one of his interfering ranch hands—clomped his boots in Everett's wake. Wait! You forgot your armband!"

Turning, Everett was nearly blinded by the hank of blue fabric that Casper foolhardily waved at his face. It was frayed. It was spotted. It stank of saddle leather and stale tobacco.

It could have been worse. It could have been a sock.

Squinting at it, Everett wasn't entirely certain it wasn't a sock. It did have a particularly hard-used aspect to it—the same quality that every ranch hand's worldly goods acquired after some time in the bunkhouse. What's worse, Casper seemed—even more foolhardily—hell-bent on tying it on Everett's arm.

He jerked away. I'm not wearing that.

Casper blinked in surprise—something Everett should have expected. After all, the lanky boy was the newest, greenest, and—therefore—most reckless of all his ranch hands.

"You have to wear a blue armband, patrón! Casper said in a tone of earnest concern. How else will Miss Trent find you?"

I'll find her myself. Then I'll send her away.

Stubbornly, Everett set his jaw in silent confirmation of that plan. That was the reason he'd come to the depot at all. He intended to meet Miss Nellie Trent, explain the mistake his vaqueros had made, buy his fiancée a return train ticket…and hope she was a reasonable woman who wouldn't kick up too much of a fuss about canceling their impending wedding.

Heck, this will help with finding her! Not the least bit daunted by Everett's refusal to be earmarked for love, Casper fixed the length of blue fabric around his arm. He wrenched a firm knot with a yank of his cowpuncher's fist, all but brimming over with misguided optimism and youthful naïveté. There. Now you look the way you're s'pposed to look to meet your bride!

With a saint's forbearance—because Casper was too gullible to know any better, and because the older men had doubtless been the ringleaders in this whole imbroglio, even if they were letting Casper stick out his neck—Everett shook his head. He sighed. "For the twelfth time…I'm not getting married."

"I know you're fixin' to send her away, patrón. You told us so already this morning. Casper broke off to rub his nose with the heel of his hand, the gesture unaffectedly boyish. He grinned. If I recall correctly, you told us Miss Trent would be 'back on the train before her feet touched the ground.'"

Everett had said that. He'd also said a lot more during this morning's kerfuffle, when the men had revealed their unasked-for matchmaking. In rejecting their scheme, Everett hadn't bothered with mollycoddling. The words damn fools, pack your duffels, and several colorful profanities had been spoken.

I meant what I said. It was his way. Always had been. I don't want a wife. I don't need a wife. I won't have a wife.

You'll change your mind when you see her, Casper alleged with an imprudent grin. I bet five dollars you would!

Everett frowned. "You have a bet running? On me getting married?"

Casper and his compatriots nodded. Casper did so gleefully. The others… Hellfire. They nodded gleefully, too. Everett didn't know what the world was coming to when a man couldn't even trust his own vaqueros not to stab him in the back with Cupid's arrow.

Audaciously, a few of them had even followed him on horseback along the mountainous road between his sprawling ranch and the town of Morrow Creek. Presently, more than half his troublemaking ranch hands loitered between the train tracks and the bustling ticket office—hoping, he knew, to see the spectacle of their hard-nosed hacendado being overcome by love.

The odds of that happening were very long indeed. Once, Everett had thought he was a typical western male: gruff but affable. Now he knew he was not. Despite the longtime admiration of his men, he was…lacking. At least to the feminine mind, he was. The day he'd learned that had been one of his worst.

No right-thinking woman wants to live on a hardscrabble ranch with a burly, unrefined oaf for a husband, Everett.

Honestly. Did you think I would settle for this? For you?

Those had been Miss Abbey O'Neill's parting words to him. The memory of them still stung. Not long after that, she'd absconded from town to