Breaking the Rules (1st in Breaking Series)

Breaking the Rules

Chapter One

"Elizabeth Francine McCready! Get your skinny little butt up to this house and clean all that mud off of you! Your father will whip you good and fire me too if he sees you looking like that!" Elizabeth rolled her eyes as she stomped her boots to clean some of the mud from them and walked up toward the house.

"See you later Frank." she said to the crusty old ranch hand she had helped wrangling steers. He gave her a dismissive wave and went back to work. Elizabeth looked down at her brown trousers and white blouse, all thoroughly caked with mud and then smiled up at Anita, the plump woman who had been like a mother to her growing up since her own mother had died when she had only been a baby.

"I'm nineteen years old Anita, a bit too old for pa to whip me just for getting muddy." Elizabeth said matter of factly. Anita shook her head as she looked the girl up and down.

"It's not just that you got muddy girl, it's that you got muddy when your father is on his way back with a man." Elizabeth rolled her eyes and took the brown leather, stetson hat from her head.

"Another one?" she asked as Anita ushered her into the house.

"Yes dear, another one." Anita led Elizabeth down the hall to the girls bedroom and waited patiently for her to undress and slide into the hot bath water Anita had just gotten done putting in the large metal tub.

"When is he going to realize that I'm not interested in having a husband? I won't marry just anybody." Elizabeth said as she began to wash the mud from her soft skin with the rose scented soap.

"He wouldn't bring you just anybody." Anita said patiently as she undid the long plait braid from Elizabeth's thick blond hair. "All the men he has brought here have been very good picks... They would have made good husbands." Anita smiled because she could practically 'hear' Elizabeth's eyes rolling.

"Well I don't want a good husband, I want a great husband. Besides aren't the days of arranged marriages over? I want to pick my own husband."

"You can. Just so long as you pick one your father likes." Anita replied as she grabbed the hairbrush off the vanity and handed it to Elizabeth who muttered some words under her breath that would have her dead Christian mother rolling over in her grave.

"Now finish getting cleaned up and put on that dress that I have lying on the bed. Do something pretty with your hair and don't come out until you look like a presentable lady."

"Why are you pushing me so hard to get married? I figured you'd be on my side seeing as how you've never been married." Anita sighed and put her hands on her plump hips.

"Not that it's any of your business missy, but I've never been married because I just couldn't find a cowboy worth my time. I was too picky and now I'm alone and couldn't turn a mans head if I walked buck naked down main street." Elizabeth laughed.

"Oh I think you'd definitely turn heads." she said matter of factly and then she ducked her head under the water. When she raised back up and wiped her eyes Anita was gone and so was her pile of dirty clothes and her boots.

She sighed as she wondered what kind of man her father was bringing home this time. Probably nobody she'd be interested in. She was finding that what she wanted in a man and what her father wanted for her in a man were two very different things. He wanted money and security. She wanted a pair of big warm hands and a heart stopping smile. Maybe she'd get lucky and he'd bring home a man that had all four!

"Yeah right." she muttered. "That'll be the day pigs fly." She wondered if it would be worth drowning herself as she sunk back down in the hot water.