Almost A Bride (Mail Order Matrimony Book 2)

by Sarah Banks

  They stood side by side, leaning back against the house in silence for several minutes before his aunt finally spoke.

  “I’ve been wondering all these weeks why you did what you did, refusing to marry Kate on account of the children and I just can’t make heads or tails of it. So I thought I would just up and ask you.”

  He didn’t make it any easier on her by acknowledging her question.

  She finally let out a huff of laughter. “Stubborn. Just like your mother.”

  He stiffened and her hand went to his arm. “Relax, it wasn’t an insult. Besides you and your father, no one loved your mother more than I did. She wasn’t only my sister, she was my best friend.” His aunt’s gaze grew distant. “I’ve never admitted this to anyone but when she died, not so long after your uncle, I—” It was a moment before she could speak again. “I wondered what there was left to live for. Everyone I loved the most was gone.”

  She waited until he looked at her and his heart ached at the unchecked tears on her cheeks. He had seen her tear up now and again over the years but he had never seen her cry as she was now. “You gave me something to live for David. You were the son I never had. You made getting up in the morning mean something again.”

  Oh God, now he felt like crying. He cleared his throat, blinking back tears. “Even on those days when I was a pain in the behind?”

  “Even on those days,” she returned with a watery smile. She reached for her handkerchief.

  After she composed herself she spoke again, “You have to take joy where you can find it and treat it like the precious gift it is. That’s why I don’t understand why you refused to marry Kate. Especially when it’s clear as day to me that you care for her. For heaven’s sake, a blind man could see that. Maybe even love her.”

  He did love her. He had fallen in love with her reading her second letter. In the weeks since he met her, that love had only become stronger, it almost overpowered him.

  “She’s a gift David. The children, they are a gift. Why?” She implored him. “Why would you throw those gifts away instead of holding them close to your heart?”

  “I told her I didn’t want to raise another man’s children,” he explained, his voice rough with emotion. He saw the confusion in her eyes followed by a flare of fury.

  “Why the devil does that matter? Pride?” She asked, her voice growing angry. “I would have never thought that was the type of person you were, David.”

  “No, not pride,” he insisted.

  “Then what?” She demanded.

  “I don’t know! Fear, maybe.”

  “David, I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t know how to take care of children,” he burst out. “I want children, I do, but I don’t know the first thing about them. I thought if I married Kate, they’d start out as babies and I’d have time to figure out how to be a good father, as good as my own was and if I screwed it up, maybe they’d be young enough that they wouldn’t remember until I started getting it more right than wrong.”

  “David, you idiot,” his aunt said affectionately before shaking her head. “No one is a perfect parent in the beginning, if ever. Sure, some people have a natural affinity with children but most of us are just learning as we go, including me, and believe me when I say, that works out just fine. It’s more than good enough. You practically run that mill, you built a house nearly entirely on your own, you watch over me, you’re patient, kind, loving, smart – more than qualified to raise two orphaned children.”

  “But…I was an orphan and I was a burden to you Aunt.” His voice was strained.

  “No David, you’re looking at it all wrong. You were a gift.” She drew him into his arms and hugged him in a way he hadn’t allowed since he was a child. “You’re a gift,” she repeated. “Kate’s a gift. The children are a gift. You all have the same power, to enrich each other’s lives, if only you would be willing to give it a chance. I don’t know how to make you see it David. It’s just something you’re going to have to have faith in if you’re brave enough to take that leap. It’s not too late David.”

  She left him on the porch with his thoughts. It was a few more minutes before he finally went down the porch steps to retrieve his horse. What he really wanted to do was go inside and wake up Kate. He wanted to talk with her, hold her in his arms. Tell her what he had told his aunt, about their entire conversation, about his fears and realizations. He had always thought he had been a burden to his aunt. And most of all he wanted to find out if Kate still had feelings for him because he finally realized that the feelings he had for her weren’t going anywhere. He loved her and he would tell her at the very next opportunity and see if there was a sliver of a chance that she might still be his wife.

  He gave one final look back at the house as he rode away. The last lamp had gone out and every window was dark. He would have to wait. But not until next Sunday. He would be back tomorrow morning at breakfast to see Kate. He smiled when he imagined how surprised she’d be. He’d ask her to walk with him and tell her his feelings. He would find out once and for all if it was too late.

  Chapter Ten

  David heard the galloping horse first and in the middle of the night knew it could only mean trouble. He was up and out of bed, pulling on his pants before the horse skidded to a stop. For a moment there was nothing but silence and then the sound of banging. Except not on his front door, the small one room cabin he still occupied, but on the door of the house he had built thirty yards away and still hadn’t brought himself to live in.

  He shoved his stockinged feet into his boots and pulled on his shirt, managing to button it halfway before he flung the door to the cabin open.

  “Kate!” He called. He recognized her silhouette immediately in the half light of the moon. He had never seen her with her hair completely down before although he had imagined it more times than he could count. Whether she hadn’t had time to pin it or it came down during her mad midnight horse ride he didn’t know. Her head swiveled at the sound of her name and she ran toward him with a sob.

  He met her halfway. “Kate,” he breathed as she rushed into his arms. He held her tightly to him for the briefest moment before pushing her back and searching her eyes. “What is it? Is it Aunt Susan? Is she unwell?”

  Not only was her hair down around her shoulders, but her clothes were wrinkled and disheveled and looked as if they had been thrown on. It was her eyes though that gave him a punch to the gut, they were wide and frantic with dried tear streaks down both cheeks.

  She shook her head, gripping his arms, her fingers biting into the muscle. “No, she’s fine. It’s the children! They’re missing!”

  “Missing?”

  “Yes! They took blankets, clothing, food. David, I think they’ve run away.” Her voice was pitched high with panic.

  He drew his brows together in confusion. “But why would they do that?” Rather he should say Lee. He knew Olive wasn’t old enough to concoct, let alone enact such a foolish plan.

  “I don’t know! David, I need you to help me find them. Please!”

  “Of course I’ll help. I’ll find them Kate, I swear it,” he promised her, pulling her into a quick, tight embrace. She rested her head on his chest, only for a moment, until her breathing steadied slightly and then she pulled away.

  “I’ve already checked with the O’Brien boys. They live two houses down from your aunt and Lee is always with them. We have to bribe him with food to get him to come in at night. But they’ve sworn up and down they don’t know where he went and I believe them. I truly have no idea where else to look.”

  “I’ll take care of it. Go back to Aunt Susan’s in case they return. Stay there. I’ll find them and bring them to you.”

  The blinding trust in her eyes clutched at his heart. She fully trusted him even though he hadn’t really given her any reason to. He wished he was worthy of the trust he saw in her eyes. But he would be. He couldn’t and wouldn’t let her down.

  “I’ll come back to town w
ith you and collect Leander. We’ll fan out and find them.”

  “But I want to go with you.”

  David knew she had limited experience on horseback. He cringed to think about her riding here in the middle of the night at such a breakneck pace. Thank God nothing had happened to her on the way out here. She could have gotten lost or worse, fallen from her horse and he wouldn’t have known she needed help until it was too late. He couldn’t have lived with that. But that hadn’t happened, thank God. He would make sure that she got back to his aunt’s safely before searching for the children. And once he found them and returned them safely to her, he would give her a stern lecture about her own foolishness in coming to get him.

  “You’ll only slow me down sweetheart. I need you to stay with Aunt Susan in case they come back. Promise me,” he said holding her gaze.

  “I promise.”

  He pressed a quick kiss to her temple. He returned to his cabin only long enough to grab his hat, jacket, gun and another lantern. She followed him to the barn where he saddled his horse in record time and they quickly rode back to town. He glanced at Kate multiple times throughout the journey. She was far from an expert horseback rider, completing the trip only out of sheer stubbornness and determination plus a mild-mannered horse. Had she tried to ride his own horse, he knew she wouldn’t have made it off his property before being thrown from the saddle. He thanked whomever it was that gave her such a gentle horse while cursing them for letting her ride out on her own in the middle of the night.

  Only once she was standing on the front porch of his aunt’s house with Aunt Susan’s arm around her did he leave her. But first he instructed her to search the house again, especially the large attic which ran the same length of the house. He knew firsthand it was full of hiding places from when he was a kid himself. “Every nook and cranny,” he told them. “I’m going to collect Leander first and then check with the O’Brien boys again. They might not know where he is but maybe they can give me a clue to where he might have gone.”

  David didn’t want to leave her, but he knew the only thing that would help her right now was finding the children, so he would find them.

  He returned the tired, borrowed horse to a sleepy stable boy first, before banging on the door to the boardinghouse Leander insisted on staying in despite having open invitations to stay with his parents or any of his sisters. The proprietress was less than happy with his pounding on her door but thankfully it was less than a minute before Leander came rushing down the stairs at the commotion, dressed and ready to ride. David knew he could always count on his best friend for help.

  Leander looked remarkably alert for being woken up in the middle of the night and after explaining the missing children and collecting Leander’s own horse from the livery stable, a horse as fast as his own, they set out in search of Lee and Olive.

  First they checked with the O’Brien boys again. It seemed like the obvious choice since all three boys seemed to spend most of their time together. Only after searching their house alongside their father and the younger of the boys bursting into tears was David convinced they had no idea where he was. They went to the schoolhouse next. Every door and window was still locked up tight. They briefly split up to search the large wooded area behind the school, meeting up again fifteen minutes later.

  “Anything?” David asked.

  Leander shook his head. “Nothing.”

  David rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know where else to look. He’s only been in town a few weeks. He arrived by train, spends all his time at my aunt’s house, at school or playing with the O’Brien boys. As far as I know, he hasn’t been anywhere else.” Noah was a small enough town that there wasn’t all that many places to go. “Maybe the mercantile or the livery stables? He loves horses.” David knew he was grasping at straws. “And there’s a swimming hole not too far from here.”

  “I rode past the swimming hole. No sign of them,” Leander said with a shake of his head.

  The swimming hole made David think of something. “Wait, he’s been to my place. I took him fishing.”

  “You think he’d go all the way out there?”

  “I have no idea if he could even find it again, especially in the dark. He walked halfway there the day of his ma’s funeral a few weeks back and I took him the rest of the way by wagon.”

  He tried not to think about the pair lost in the woods between town and his house.

  “I didn’t think to check the barn when I was in there saddling my horse. I suppose he could have been in the hayloft if he made it that far. That is if he could find it again. But I can’t imagine that, let alone with his little sister in tow.”

  “The boy’s determined. Could you have done it at that age?”

  “I suppose,” David conceded.

  “So could I. That means he can too. Let’s check the mercantile, livery stable and train station first, then we’ll ride out to your place.”

  David was grateful for his friend’s help. Together they traveled to the mercantile where every child in town spent some time staring through the picture window at the large display of candy Mr. Jensen kept in jars behind the counter. The man had a sweet tooth like none other, a paunch to go along with it and yet somehow still had all of his teeth.

  The mercantile sat undisturbed, so they headed to the train station next. David wouldn’t put it past the boy to get it into his head to stowaway on a train. That’s something he himself might have done at that age had the train been completed back then. But the train station stood empty, so they moved onto the livery, checking every stall, tack room and loft before riding on to his place.

  David wanted to ride quickly but forced himself to a slower pace to see if perhaps they could find any sign the children had headed this way. He prayed they wouldn’t have to search these woods between town and his house. They would need a bigger posse to do that and they’d have to wait until sun-up, hours from now, not to mention it would take some time to search the vast, thick woods even during the light of day.

  He wouldn’t think about that now. Maybe they were at his place although he couldn’t imagine they could make it that far even if Lee did remember how to get there, let alone that he wouldn’t have heard them or noticed any sign of them as he left with Kate earlier.

  Leander searched the barn while David searched in and around both the small cabin and the larger house, just in case. They met in between the barn and the newer house.

  “Anything?”

  Leander shook his head. “No sign.”

  David tried not to lose hope. “Then onto the swimming hole,” he said wearily.

  They rode their horses single file down the well-worn path that led to the fishing hole. The night had grown darker, the moon now cloud-covered with a storm rolling in. David had already seen a few flashes of lightning in the distant mountains. Soon it would be here, accompanied by thunder and heavy rain, making searching even more difficult. He hated to think of them anywhere outdoors in that. Lee chose a poor time to run away.

  A few hundred feet from the wooded area surrounding his favorite fishing hole, David saw a soft glow coming from the trees, like one from a lantern.

  “Do you see that?” He asked Leander, blinking hard to make sure he wasn’t seeing things.

  “I do.”

  David saw his horse’s ears flicker and a moment later his own ears picked up the faint sound of a girl crying softly and the quiet voice of a boy. He dismounted and dropped his reins to the ground. Leander dismounted as well but made no move to follow him.

  David called out to them before entering the clearing. He wasn’t sure if they heard the horses, but he didn’t want to scare them any more than they probably already were, especially Olive.

  “Lee, Olive,” he called. “It’s me, David.”

  The soft crying immediately stopped and he heard the pitter patter of feet. Olive burst through the trees and he found himself leaning down and swept her up into his arms. She immediately started crying again, the
volume increased tenfold. He sighed and awkwardly patted her back. “It’s okay Olive. I’ve found you. I’ll take you and your brother back to Kate and Aunt Susan.”

  He wasn’t sure if the girl heard him over the ruckus she was making so he didn’t bother to say anything else, just held her tightly against him.

  David looked up and realized Lee hadn’t followed his sister out of the trees so he walked into the clearing where he had taught the boy to fish a few weeks ago. Lee stood in the middle of the area, his entire body from head to toe poised in defiance. He apparently wasn’t as sorry as Olive that they had run away.

  David knew he should get the children back to Kate right away. She had been frantic when she pounded on his door earlier. Although some of her tension had ebbed when he promised her he would find them, her faith humbling him, it had been nearly three hours since then and even longer since she discovered they had run away. She must be in a full-blown panic by now. She had only known these children for a few short weeks, but it was clear she loved them like they were her own. But David wasn’t going anywhere until he found out why the foolish boy had run away in the first place, dragging his poor sister along with him.

  Olive finally started to quiet down, her sobs turning into snuffles as she buried her head into his shoulder and her thumb into her mouth. She was filthy and exhausted when she launched herself into his arms. It must be close to three in the morning by now. Several hours past their bedtime and instead of sleeping safe and sound in her bed, she had walked miles from home on her short little legs because there was no way Lee could have carried her. He didn’t know how she had managed it. David tightened his arms around her and rubbed her back. Her crying ebbed away completely and she released a final shuddering sigh. He had no doubt she would be fast asleep by the time they made it home. In fact, he could feel her body already becoming limp in his arms.