My Mate Cut My Brand Off, So the Outcast Wolf Claimed Me novel · Chapter 10 of 24
Chapter 10: Hold On
I sat down on the log beside Dell and did not say anything.
Frost was melting off the grass and the sun had just cleared the ridge.
Behind us the camp was waking up, with coffee pots banging and a man swearing at a mule.
"I wasn't spying," Dell said.
"All right," I said.
"I came down to the river to be alone. I couldn't stay in the tent. Then I saw you."
"Dell," I said.
"I'm not saying it to be mean.
"I was standing there, thirty yards away, and I thought, so that's what it's supposed to look like."
She kept her eyes on the dead fire.
Her hands were wrapped around a tin cup, and her knuckles were white.
"I've been called twice," she said. "At twenty-one, they paired me with a rancher.
"He was forty. He was kind. He died last winter under a bale wagon."
"I'm sorry," I said.
"Don't be," Dell said. "I wasn't sad enough, and that's the thing."
She finally looked at me.
Her eyes were red-rimmed and very clear.
"Every Sunday at supper for five years I said to the table, 'I feel him today.'
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of My Mate Cut My Brand Off, So the Outcast Wolf Claimed Me are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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