Read Grayson Brothers Series Boxed Set (4 books in 1) Online
Authors: Wendy Lindstrom
Tags: #Fredonia New York, #Brothers, #Anthology
Grayson Brothers Series Boxed Set (4 books in 1)
The Grayson Brothers
Wendy Lindstrom
“This entire series is absolutely epic. It should go down as classic lit.” ~ megga reader
“An excellent series…compelling enough to bring me back to Amazon again and again.” ~ Lorna Allison
“This series is FABULOUS! Captured me from the beginning... I laughed, I cried, I was completely enthralled with the Grayson’s and their path to finding love.” ~ Mmoore
“The most compelling series I have read in quite a while” ~ Arlean Crabtree
“The entire Grayson Brothers series is absolutely fantastic. How could you not love stories about four strong, brave, loving brothers? They are each so well written and just impossible to put down.” ~ Past Romance
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, business establishments, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Adult content: Explicit love scenes
Originally published by St. Martins Press 2002, 2003 and Leisure Books 2005
EBook copyright © 2012 Wendy Lindstrom
Published by Rustic Studio Publishing
Cover design by Kim Killion of
Hot Damn! Designs
EBook design by
A Thirsty Mind
All rights reserved. With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means whatsoever without written permission from the author.
Fredonia, New York
August 1870
He always knew he’d come back. Everything he’d ever wanted was here.
Radford Grayson inhaled pine-scented air deep into his lungs and listened to the whine of a saw blade chewing through dense wood. It echoed along Canadaway Creek, which cut a deep, winding path behind the sawmill and emptied into Lake Erie a few miles north of Fredonia. The sound made Radford’s legs tingle from the memory of standing on the vibrating sawmill table as a boy, feeding the huge whirring blade for his father.
He missed the rhythmic sound of saws and the gasp and belch of the old boiler. He missed the spongy feel of sawdust-littered earth beneath his feet and the constant squabbling of his three younger brothers.
He needed to stay this time. Even if it meant living a lie.
Rebecca was depending on him. Radford had let her down so often, his four-year-old daughter feared everything. Even now, he could feel her tremble as she clutched her blanket and cowered against his thigh.
“Let’s move over there,” Radford said then led her to the far end of the building where it was quieter. Kneeling, he cupped her face in his palms, vowing to himself that it would be the last time he uprooted her, that they would make a real home in this small village of Fredonia that held so many of his cherished memories. “I’ll tell Uncle Kyle to stop the noise then come get you,” he said, hoping it was Kyle running the saw.
Rebecca caught his hand. “You said you wouldn’t leave me.”
“I’m just going inside this building. I’ll only be gone a few seconds.”
As though she had expected his answer, Rebecca’s hand slipped from his. Eyes full of resignation, she sat on the mill steps, slowly drawing her knees up until her toes pointed and her heels rested against the back of the stair tread. She bunched her blanket on her knees and laid her head on it, staring silently at the swaying maple trees beside the barn.
Her dejection pierced Radford, but he knew the noise inside the building would panic her more than his momentary absence. “I’ll hurry, sprite.” He stroked her brown curls then started up the stairs.
“You promised, Daddy...”
Those three little words, spoken so softly to his back, stopped Radford mid-stride.
He had promised not to leave her again.
Rebecca’s fear of being without him was real. Radford’s last job with the railroad had taken him away too many times when she’d begged him not to leave her. In infancy, she’d been abandoned by her own mother. Olivia Jordon had refused to sacrifice her life as a ballerina for marriage and motherhood. Later, Rebecca’s nanny, the only woman Rebecca had grown to love, began her own family and moved away. The last nanny had abused Rebecca so badly that his daughter hadn’t spoken for a month after Radford dismissed the wretched woman. No wonder Rebecca was afraid to be left alone.
Though it would have only taken a moment to hail his brother, Radford turned back, unwilling to subject Rebecca to any more unnecessary doubt. He knelt down and offered his hand, melting at the sudden joy reflected in her eyes. “We’ll see if we can get Uncle Kyle’s attention another way.”
Radford carried his daughter around a stack of hewn trees, marveling at the size of his father’s once-small operation. Thrilled with the chance to work the sawmill again, he surveyed the new two-hundred-foot plank structure that had replaced his father’s old building. It boasted a slab-wood sign that read Grayson’s Lumber and Timber Works hanging proudly over a door made from several unmatched slats. Radford chuckled at the irony of a lumber mill displaying its scrap in such an obvious manner.
He knew immediately it had to be Kyle’s idea. Though only a year younger than Radford, Kyle had established himself as a businessman by the age of ten. Radford smiled, remembering how Kyle had started selling the sawdust from the mill as insulation around the foundation of homes and businesses, and how he’d wanted Radford to become his partner. But Radford had been busy learning to run the family sawmill for their father, who had grown too crippled to endure the long days. Radford expected to spend his life building their family sawmill, but the war came and he enlisted in the Union Army. After his first bloody battle, Radford was so ashamed of his actions, he’d lost the ability to come home and look his father in the eyes, or endure his brother’s misplaced admiration.
The thought of Kyle, and his two younger brothers, Duke and Boyd, filled Radford with an urgent need to see them. Tightening his arms around Rebecca, he turned a slow circle, drinking in the glorious feel and scent of home.
He lowered her to the ground then scooped up a handful of earth and wood fragments. “Smell that, sprite? That’s white pine and rich farming soil. Home, sweetheart.” He opened her hand and placed the sawdust-speckled soil in her palm then smiled when she sniffed it.
“It smells like...” Her brow furrowed and she sniffed again. “Like... Christmas.”
“It is, sweetheart.” He pressed her hand to his heart. “In here, it is.”
Rebecca’s gaze shifted and she pointed behind him. “Who’s that?”
Radford looked over his shoulder then stood. The yard was deserted except for a skinny boy in a wrinkled shirt and baggy brown britches who was dragging a thick iron chain from the barn. He watched with admiration as the determined lad struggled to pull the heavy iron rope toward his feed wagon. After a moment the boy paused, drew his shirtsleeve across his forehead, and glanced at the mill with an audible sigh.
That’s when Radford’s curiosity turned to true amazement. It wasn’t a lad at all. It was a girl.
Gads! It was Evie Tucker!
The sight of Kyle’s fiancée in boots and britches caught Radford off guard. He thought Evelyn would have outgrown her boyish ways at age twenty-one. The last time he’d seen her was four years earlier at his father’s funeral. Though she had worn a dress on that occasion, Radford had been too blinded by grief to notice more than Evelyn’s blossoming figure. Now she seemed taller and thinner, though far from feminine in her men’s clothing, especially with her long, black hair twisted in an unflattering braid. Why, he wondered, did females insist on hiding what men found most sensual in a woman?
Well, Evelyn’s figure, or lack of one, was Kyle’s concern. Not Radford’s. He took Rebecca’s hand. “Let’s go meet your future Aunt Evelyn,” he said, crossing the yard slowly to accommodate Rebecca’s short legs. Despite Evelyn’s disheveled appearance, Radford smiled to himself as they approached his old neighbor. To a man who had lived with constant change most of his twenty-five years, there was something welcoming in the familiar sight of Evelyn in boy’s clothing. It reminded him of his youth when he and his brothers had played with Evelyn, when his conscience was clear and he could sleep without malignant nightmares that ate his soul.
Radford ran his thumb over Rebecca’s small hand, the feel of her soft skin drawing his mind away from the past. He halted behind Evelyn. “Need some help, Tomboy?”
Evelyn froze with the chain clenched in her tired, callused hands. There was only one person who had ever called her Tomboy. The last time she’d heard that nickname was the day Radford left for Syracuse with her father to join the 149th NY Volunteers.
Slowly, Evelyn turned to view a man she hadn’t seen since she was seventeen. Tall, lean, and proud, Radford still stood like a soldier. Power radiated from him, but there was a compelling warmth in his smile that drew her eyes to his. A breeze played with the dark hair tangled in his collar while Evelyn’s wandering gaze reacquainted her with Radford Grayson.
“Have I changed so much that you don’t recognize me?”
She flinched. What a hen-witted female she was to be gawking at Radford as if he was a prince from one of her girlhood stories. All the Grayson men were handsome. She shouldn’t have expected Radford to be anything less, but merciful heaven, she hadn’t expected him to be so... changed.
Drawing a deep breath, she strove for a calm she couldn’t quite manage. “Kyle and I thought you were coming in tomorrow or we would have picked you up at the train station.”
He waved aside her concern. “I hailed an omnibus in Dunkirk that brought us to Fredonia.” He shook his head, his dark eyebrows raised. “I didn’t realize the town had changed so much. The only thing familiar was the Common. The maple trees and twin fountains are looking older, but the parks are the way I remember them.”
“You walked clear out Liberty Street with Rebecca?” Evelyn asked, telling herself to stop staring, but unable to obey her own command.
“It’s only a mile. I enjoyed the walk.”
“Did you stop to see Papa or your mother when you passed?”
Radford’s expression grew wistful as he surveyed the empty yard. “I wanted to come here first.” After seconds of silence, he turned back and frowned at the chain in her shaking hands. “Why isn’t Kyle helping you with this?”
“I can manage alone,” Evelyn said, though her hands ached from gripping the thick iron links.
“That doesn’t mean you should.” Radford took the burden from her and coiled it over his forearm with slow, measured movements that seemed to require little effort compared to her mighty struggle.
She flexed her stiff fingers. With the decline of her father’s health, she had, by necessity, found ways to manage their livery on her own. Though she realized she didn’t have the strength to lift a chain that size, she knew she could feed it into the wagon a few feet at a time. It wasn’t Kyle’s lack of consideration that had left her struggling on her own. He would have helped her had she only thought to ask him.
Still, Radford’s unsolicited assistance made Evelyn feel uncomfortable, as though he’d rescued some fair damsel from distress. The ridiculous image nearly made her laugh. She was far from being a fair damsel, and the source of her distress was standing right in front of her. She couldn’t drag her gaze away from Radford’s handsome face. Something in his voice seemed warmer, hopeful, not so brittle and angry anymore. His smile reached his eyes now. Maybe that’s why she couldn’t look away when he caught her staring.
With a small grunt, Radford heaved the chain onto the bed of the wagon then stepped back and dusted his hands against his trousers. “Who’s running the saw?”
“Kyle,” Evelyn answered. “Duke and Boyd left at six-thirty, but Kyle had a job he wanted to finish tonight. He’ll be a while, yet.” Evelyn glanced down at the little girl, who stood like a miniature statue beside Radford. “I assume this is Rebecca?”
A proud smile lifted Radford’s lips and he captured his daughter’s hand. “Can you say hello to your aunt?” he asked, but Rebecca hid her face behind the long length of his thigh. Radford gave Rebecca a comforting pat, his fingers spanning the breadth of her tiny shoulders. “I guess the trip wore her out.”
Noting gentleness in the hands that Radford once wore as fists, Evelyn trailed her gaze up his forearm. It was tanned and corded with muscle that shifted each time he stroked his daughter’s small back. Intrigued by the contradiction of strength and gentleness, Evelyn wondered if he’d finally escaped the demons that drove him away years earlier.
He met her eyes and smiled. A rush of warmth slammed into Evelyn’s chest and she glanced away. How unfair that Radford should be clean and handsome while she was covered with hay-dust and smelled like her livery. He probably thought Kyle was out of his mind to be marrying her.
To hide her unease, and to soothe Rebecca’s, Evelyn squatted to the child’s level. “I used to have a yellow blanket just like yours,” she said, giving it a friendly tug, “but your uncle Kyle tossed it in our well. I cried until your daddy brought his fishing pole over and tried to fish it out for me.” Evelyn left the story unfinished, thinking Rebecca would be curious enough to ask what happened; instead she tugged at her daddy’s hand until Radford picked her up.
Evelyn stood. “I take it Rebecca doesn’t like stories?”
“She’s just shy.”
“Well, we’ll get her over that, won’t we?” she said, giving Rebecca a soft pat on the leg.
Both Radford and Rebecca stiffened.
“Please don’t do that.”
The warning in Radford’s voice jerked Evelyn’s gaze to his face. “Do what?” she asked, confused by their odd response to a natural act of affection.
“Touch her. It frightens her.”
Though Evelyn knew firsthand a father’s protective instinct toward his daughter, Radford’s overreaction was unusual. So was Rebecca’s cowering.
“A friendly pat shouldn’t frighten any child.”
“I agree,” he said. “But Rebecca is too young to understand that you won’t hurt her. She’s afraid. That’s all that matters to me.”
“Then you should explain... that is, maybe I could help her if...” Evelyn’s sentence trailed off as she stepped away from them. “Never mind.”
Radford felt Rebecca relaxing as he rubbed her back. She was like this with everyone. Trouble was, she would eventually warm up to Evelyn and that would cause bigger problems.
He studied Evelyn with renewed curiosity and she met his gaze unflinchingly. Her quiet display of strength reminded Radford of her father, of the fierce pride that had sparked William’s eyes during the war.
Now Radford could understand what Kyle saw in Evelyn Tucker. A backbone of steel.
What sort of woman had she become? Though Radford had rarely thought of her over the years, the sparkle of an emerald ring or necklace had always conjured the vision of a wild girl with flashing green eyes. They were still the emeralds he remembered, but shadowed now. Yet, as Evelyn stood before him, dirty and disheveled, there was a restless energy that intrigued him, that made him want to know what she was thinking.
He gave himself a mental shake. He couldn’t afford to be interested in Evelyn. All he wanted was peace. To work an honest job that he could be proud of. To build a comfortable home where Rebecca could learn to laugh again. And to share an occasional mug with his brothers after a day of working beside them in the mill.
That was enough.
“I’d better go see Kyle then get over to Ma’s,” he said, aware of their growing mutual discomfort.
“Would you tell him I’ll be up in a minute?”