Nelly's Mail Order Husband

by Ruth Ann Nordin

  She caught the way the corner of his mouth twitched and knew he had known about the rip in the fence. His mouth always twitched when he was hiding something.

  She gasped. “Why would you ruin your own fence?”

  “Who said I ruined my fence? It could have been anyone. Some vandal could have come by late at night and done it.” Again, his mouth twitched.

  She glared at him. “You’re despicable. I don’t know what you were hoping to accomplish by ruining your own fence, but you did it. My husband might not have grown up on a homestead, but he doesn’t go around lying. He certainly wouldn’t ruin something around here on purpose.”

  She didn’t know what Seth hoped to accomplish by making a large rip in his fence, but she knew it wasn’t for anything good. Nothing Seth ever did was good. He always had some ulterior motive.

  “I’m not lying,” Seth insisted, even as his mouth twitched. “I don’t know how the tear in my fence happened, but it wasn’t from neglect. I’m good at what I do. I did grow up on a homestead. You should think about that. I’m more than capable of doing all the work around here. Val’s going to require you to watch over him like some kind of child. What you need is a man. You need someone who can really help around here. Now that you’ve had a chance to play house with him, you can let him go. Fortunately for you, I don’t need a wife who’s a virgin.”

  “You’re an awful person,” she snapped. “I will never marry you. I don’t care if Val hinders the work around here. Which he doesn’t,” she quickly added before Seth got the wrong idea. Val freed her time up because he cooked the meals, and that in itself was a huge burden lifted off of her shoulders. But she wasn’t going to tell Seth that. Seth would only laugh. “Val is a wonderful person. He has integrity, decency, and humility. Those are all things you lack. Now, get out of here, and don’t come back.” She shooed him away with her hand.

  Seth sighed. “You and I are an ideal match. We were born and raised on farms. Homesteading is in our blood. If we combined our homesteads together—”

  “It’s never going to happen. I will never combine my homestead with yours.”

  “But we could make so much money.”

  “Money isn’t everything, Seth. It doesn’t buy the things that really matter. I’m not interested in making money. I’m here because I love working with the land.”

  After a moment, he shook his head. “I don’t know why you don’t see the logic in what I’m offering. Fine. You love to work on the land. I won’t take that away from you.”

  Probably picking up on her irritation, the horse shifted beneath her. She didn’t know what it was going to take to get Seth to stay away from her. No matter what she said or did, he refused to take no for an answer.

  “Someday, you’ll see that being with me makes more sense than holding onto your city boy,” Seth said. “I just hope we’re not both old and gray by the time that happens.”

  “I’ll sell my homestead before I end up with you,” she hissed.

  His eyes grew wide for a moment, but then he smiled. “No you won’t. You love homesteading too much. You’ll do anything to stay on the land.”

  She tightened the hold on her reins. If only she was on a bull… Then she would charge after him. Again, her horse shifted under her.

  “You’re a sensible woman,” Seth continued. “Once you bore of the man you’re currently with, you’ll see the wisdom in my words. The bed can only amuse a person for so long.”

  He jabbed his horse in the sides then finally—finally!—guided his horse off her property.

  She gritted her teeth. What was she going to do? No matter what she did, Seth just refused to leave her alone.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Three rambunctious dogs surrounded Nelly as soon as she arrived at her parents’ house. They pushed one another aside in order to be the one closest to her.

  Nelly tied her horse to the post then petted each dog. “You three need to learn to cooperate. You can’t keep shoving one another aside all the time,” she playfully scolded them.

  Patches moved his snout under her hand just as she reached to scratch Barney behind the ears.

  “Patches, didn’t you hear a thing I just said?” Chuckling, she gave Patches a quick kiss on the head and then scratched Barney behind the ears.

  Pirate barked, and she sighed.

  “I’ll get to you next,” she told Pirate.

  It was no wonder her family had put these three dogs in the fenced-in pasture when she brought Val over here. The dogs would have overwhelmed the poor man.

  Patricia and Daisy ran out of the house in unabashed enthusiasm.

  “Is Val here?” Patricia called out.

  Daisy scanned the area. “Yeah, did you bring our handsome brother-in-law over?”

  When Daisy started to head for the barn to look for him, Nelly called out, “Val’s at home. He took a bad fall and needs to rest.”

  “Oh, that’s right.” Patricia winced. “Pa said the poor thing took a tumble while you were rounding up cattle at Seth’s place. Is he alright? Does he need something like chicken noodle soup?”

  “Or some hot chocolate?” Daisy added.

  Erin hurried out of the house. “Where’s Val? Are we going to get a chance to see him again?”

  Nelly glared at them. “You three need to back off from Val. He’s mine. If you’re so eager to have a man around, go find your own husband.”

  Patricia gasped. “Well, I can’t believe what I’m hearing.”

  “Me neither,” Erin said. “This is completely unexpected.”

  “You were there when I married him,” Nelly replied. “It’s not my fault none of you protested when the preacher asked if there was any reason Val and I shouldn’t be married. In fact, if memory serves, you were all practically shoving me toward him.”

  Daisy giggled and gave Patricia and Erin a knowing look. “She loves him.”

  Patricia laughed and winked at Erin and Daisy. “I figured she couldn’t resist him. As soon as I saw him, I just about swooned. He’s got a sweet heart like Pa and is even more attractive than the Conner’s oldest boy.”

  “Eddie is only sixteen,” Nelly pointed out.

  “That’s why I called him a boy,” Patricia said. “But already, he’s the best looking one around. Just wait until he’s older.”

  Erin glanced at Daisy. “You’re the only one of us who’s young enough to be with him. Lucky girl.”

  Daisy wrinkled her nose. “I’m not interested in him. He knows he’s handsome. That’s why he acts like he’s God’s gift to the world. Val is just as handsome, but he doesn’t have a swelled head. It’s much easier to like him.”

  “I don’t mind if you like Val,” Nelly interrupted, “but you need to like him as a brother.” Nelly shook her head in irritation. “This whole nonsense of giggling as if you’re hoping he’ll come by to court you has got to stop. I’m not going to put up with it anymore.”

  “What a shame,” Erin said with a snicker. “It’s rather fun to see you get jealous.”

  “Yeah,” Patricia agreed. “We thought you were going to rip up the shirt we made for him when you two were here for dinner. You were so mad.”

  “I thought she was going to start throwing her food at us,” Daisy said. “Your face was brighter than a tomato.”

  Nelly put her hands on her hips. “It was not. I was just fine.”

  “Sure,” Erin chided. “You were as calm as an angry bull.”

  “We adore Val,” Patricia said. “He’s just as wonderful for you as we hoped he’d be. We got him for you, and we’re happy you two are together.”

  “It’s even better knowing you appreciate him,” Daisy added.

  Nelly felt herself relax…a little. While she could tell they were sincerely happy she was married to Val, she’d feel much better if they had men coming by to court them. “You three are good at finding men. Maybe you should direct your attention to answering some mail-order husband ads for yourselves.”

&n
bsp; “We thought about it,” Patricia began, “but they’re hard to find. Mostly, it’s women posting the ads.”

  “And the couple we did manage to find weren’t any good,” Erin said. “One of them was a forty-year-old man who wanted a woman to tend to his twelve children.”

  Nelly grimaced.

  “Exactly,” Erin said. “There’s no way I’m asking someone like that to come out here. I’ll find a husband some other way.”

  “You make sure you find one who’s not mine,” Nelly replied.

  Patricia grinned. “Oh seriously, Nelly. This is what’s wrong with you. You don’t know anything about a good joke. I can only hope that in time, Val will teach you it’s alright to laugh.”“Yeah, he seems like he has a good sense of humor,” Daisy said. “Especially since he married you.” She stuck her tongue out at Nelly in a teasing fashion.

  Nelly’s pa came out of the barn, wiping his hands on his bandana. “Is something wrong with Val?” he called out.

  Leaving her sisters, Nelly headed over to him. She thought they might go back into the house, but they insisted on following her. So did the dogs. Nelly almost stumbled on Barney since he jumped out in front of her in hopes of getting her attention. She quickly petted him but kept walking over to the barn.

  “I need help,” Nelly told her pa once she reached him. “I didn’t want to tell you this before because I was afraid you’d make me come back to live here, but Seth has been after me to marry him ever since I got my homestead.”

  Her pa’s eyebrows furrowed. “Well, you’re married now.”

  “I thought that would keep him away, too, but he was just over at my place trying to talk me into marrying him. I’ve never done anything to make him think I wanted to be with him, but he seems to think I’ll get bored with Val and divorce him.”

  “Oh, there’s no way any woman could get bored of Val,” Patricia said.

  Nelly rolled her eyes. Couldn’t her sisters give her and her pa some privacy?

  Her pa turned his gaze to her sisters. “Go help your ma.”

  “She doesn’t need help right now,” Patricia said. “We’re all done in the kitchen. She’s taking a nap.”

  “I’m sure there’s something you can do that doesn’t require you to stand out here and listen to me and Nelly,” he replied, shooting the three girls a look that let everyone know he meant business.

  Patricia’s shoulders slumped, and Erin and Daisy frowned in disappointment. Nelly wondered if they would try to argue that since they were responsible for Val coming out here, they had a right to know what was going on, but, thankfully, they left for the house.

  Nelly’s pa urged the dogs to run off and play. Good. It would be a lot easier to concentrate if there were no more distractions.

  “I know you didn’t ask for Val to come out here,” her pa began. “But you have to stick to the vows you made on your wedding day. If you wanted to be with Seth instead, you should have said something when Ben was there.”

  “I didn’t want to marry Seth. He’s awful!”

  He held his hand up apologetically. “I just had to be sure. It’s best if you aren’t harboring feelings for him. For all I know, you agreed to marry Val because the entire family brought him and a preacher over to your place.”

  “Well, that was partly why I married him,” she admitted after a moment. “I thought marrying Val would keep Seth away. I hate Seth. He’s not only a terrible person, but the only reason he wants to be with me is so that he can get ownership over my homestead.”

  Her pa’s eyes grew wide. “The owners mentioned that someone else had made an offer when I asked about purchasing the land. They didn’t say who it was. All they said was that they would rather see you have it.”

  “I’m glad they did. No one else was willing to sell land to me because I was a woman.” Even now, it irked her how very few people thought she could manage a homestead without a man to help her.

  “I know it’s tougher to get people to take you seriously because you’re a woman, but remember, you can’t change the way people think. All you can do is focus on what you’re doing. Besides, it seems like Val doesn’t have trouble letting you run things. He let you take the lead when we were getting those cattle earlier today.”

  “Yes, Val is good about that. He’s never once told me I shouldn’t do something on the farm. I appreciate that most about him. And that’s one of the reasons I would never have married Seth. He thinks he knows what’s best for me.” She rolled her eyes. “Even now, he’s trying to run my life for me, and I’m not even married to him. I don’t know how to get him to stop.”

  “I’ll have a talk with him.”

  “Do you think that will work?”

  “It can’t hurt. If he keeps on going to your place, you let me know. We have some people in the family who can help. I’d rather see if this can be handled with a threatening father talking some sense into him first.”

  “I don’t know how threatening you are, Pa. Ma says you have a soft heart.”

  “I might have a soft heart when it comes to your ma and you girls, but I can be tough when I need to be. I’ll finish up in the barn, and then I’ll take a ride out to Seth’s place.”

  “Thanks.” She gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I hope he’ll listen to you better than he listens to me.”

  He patted her shoulder. “You’re welcome. Next time you have a problem like this, don’t wait so long to tell me about it. Things are easier to solve when you can tackle them right away.”

  “Alright. I won’t wait so long next time.”

  She didn’t think anything else was going to pop up, but it was nice to know she could always depend on him. Feeling better, she headed for her horse, eager to see how Val was doing.

  ***

  When Val woke up, the horrible ache in his head was mercifully gone. He rubbed his eyes and tried to remember what he’d been doing earlier that day.

  After a moment, he remembered falling off a horse and being dragged through the bumpy grass for what seemed like hours before he came to a stop. Nelly had been there. Her father had been there. And…and…

  He grimaced. Seth and the other neighboring farmers had been there. How much did they see? Were they close enough to see what was happening? He didn’t suppose it was possible that they’d been too busy to notice him. That was probably hoping for too much. It would be a miracle if the only people who’d witnessed the whole embarrassing thing were Nelly and her father.

  With a groan, he sat up in the bed. His body ached, but overall, he was fine. The bedroom door was closed, and he was alone. He’d been eager to get to Nelly’s bed, but he didn’t envision getting there like this.

  He pushed the thought aside and called out Nelly’s name. She didn’t answer. In fact, the entire place seemed unusually quiet.

  Noting the glass of water by the bed, he took it and drank the entire thing. He hadn’t realized he’d been so thirsty. He saw the grass stains and some tears covering his clothes. He didn’t realize his trip through the grass had caused so much damage. Considering how little money Nelly had, he didn’t think she’d be all that happy to find out the shirt she’d just bought him was pretty much ruined. He doubted that her sisters would be able to mend the material, even though they were skilled with a needle and thread.

  He got out of the bed and opened his trunk to select another shirt. Once he slipped on the other shirt Nelly had bought for him, he put the ruined shirt on the dresser. He was sure Nelly could find something to do with old clothes. Since meeting her, she seemed diligent about making use out of everything she had. She wasn’t prone to throwing things out as soon as they lost their use like he had done while growing up. He shook his head. He’d really taken the ability to go out and buy new clothes at a moment’s notice for granted.

  He combed his hair and made sure he was presentable before he closed the trunk and left the room. As he’d surmised, the house was empty. Judging by the position of the sun, it was getting close to suppertim
e. That meant he’d probably been asleep for an hour. Hopefully, he’d be able to sleep tonight. Few things were as frustrating as lying awake knowing full well that he had to get up bright and early in the morning to work.

  He stepped out of the house and scanned the property. The sheets and blankets were still on the clothesline. The place looked just the way it’d been before he and Nelly headed for Seth’s land.

  “Nelly?” he called out.

  No one answered.

  He didn’t consider himself to be the type who got easily spooked, but a shiver of apprehension crawled up his spine. Waking up and finding no one around was proving to be a spooky experience.

  He hurried over to the barn with the hope she was tending to a horse or cow, or something, but when he got in there, she wasn’t there, either. He tried to remember the last thing that had happened to him. He knew she and her father had brought him back here. They’d put him on the bed and then left to talk. He recalled another man coming in to check on him. She’d referred to this person as “Uncle Joel”, and this person had given him something to drink for the pain in his head. After that, everything went dark. Then he woke up, and everyone was gone.

  Jim had read a story once about a man who woke up and was the last person on Earth. He’d described it to Val in detail, and at the time Val had had trouble sleeping for three nights because of it.

  A cow mooed, and Val jumped.

  A horse in another stall glanced over at him and neighed as if humored by Val’s response.

  Val was ready to tell the horse he wouldn’t think it was so funny if all the other animals around him suddenly disappeared, but then he saw that the stall next to the horse was empty. Nelly kept her favorite horse in there. He relaxed. Nelly was probably making the rounds on the property. She periodically went through the fields and made sure everything was alright.

  Feeling much better, he left the barn, and seeing the bedding blowing on the clothesline, he figured he might as well see if everything was dry.