Excerpt from "Marrying Minda" by Tanya Hanson

Norman Dale was simply not the charming father he’d presented in his letters. What other surprises did he have in store for her? Did he imagine her so besotted she wouldn’t mind?

No matter. She’d signed that register pure and simple. He’d made her his wife, and she’d willingly taken him on as her husband. For better or worse.

“Set yourself down. I’ll go get Silly and the rest of the kids,” he announced with slitted lips. He raised his brows at the blonde woman and she nodded, leaving them in private.

“The rest of what kids?” Minda’s skin prickled nervously. Deciding to obey him for the first and only time, she sat down.

“Our kids. Yours and mine.”

“Our kids? What in the world do you mean, Norman Dale? You wrote that you’ve got one daughter. Fourteen years old.” Minda’s voice rose and despite the heat, her shoulders tensed with a sudden chill as if a clump of snow had just fallen from the treetops. “What kids? What on earth are you saying, Norman Dale? Your letters didn’t say one single words about kids.”

He glared down at her. “You must’ve misread my brother.” The last two words slid from his tongue in slow deliberation.

His brother? For a moment, she sat helpless, hopeless, paralyzed against the back of the hard little chair. For a long moment, she had no air to speak.

“Your brother? Your brother? What do you mean?” she managed at last.

He leaned close to her again, like he had during their kiss, but at her ear he growled, low, “You promised to wed a Haynes today. Well, I’m the only one left. Your Norman Dale, my brother--” His fingers, calloused and hot, held her chin still so he could glare into her eyes, “--is dead.”