by Annie Boone
Pulling out an old box, she opened it to reveal an assortment of letters. It was a nice evening so Mary sat on the back step of her tiny house as she reviewed the articles. There were several papers folded up, such as her marriage license and the wanted poster for James. She also held a few letters that Selina had written to her. The two of them had chosen to stay in contact for though they weren’t close, they were still family.
She glanced through the keepsakes as old emotions arose. Mary read that first letter over again, the one where Selina had accepted her apologies for her mistakes. The young woman had forgiven her for not being the good mother figure she should have been, the one that she had deserved and never received. But the part that haunted Mary every day was that she hadn’t protected Selina. She regretted that more than anything else.
Selina was a bright girl, but she’d had a difficult life. Her mother, Mary’s sister, had been killed along with her husband when the girl was just a child. Since the child’s grandmother was closer, Mary’s mother had taken her in. But the woman had lived a harder life and passed away when Selina was only eleven. By that time, Ben was already with her and James. Having the young girl in their home—another mouth to feed—hadn’t made anything easier, but Mary had wanted a family so badly.
Though she begged James to work with her to raise them properly, he never approved and offered countless threats if she was too tender with them. For years, it had simply been easier to shout at them and convince herself that they could handle it, in the hopes of keeping them safe from him. Sometimes she’d rationalize that at least they had warm beds and food in their bellies.
Such ideas were absurd, but she had realized all this much too late. It still haunted her, the day she’d found Selina beaten up and bloody lying near the drying laundry. The girl had almost died, and it had been her fault. Mary was supposed to have taken care of her, and she had failed.
Mary shook her head and wiped away the tears. There were only so many apologies she could provide, but it would never change what had happened. As much as she wanted to move on, she simply didn’t know how. She was praying for guidance, but so far she wasn’t hearing much from God. She hoped that would change soon.
Cade
“But you said I could come with you.”
The whine trailed behind him from the kitchen to the backyard. Cade ignored it as he moved baby Caleb to his other arm. It wasn’t a very big garden, but the sunflowers were high enough to hide a little child or two. Frowning, he squinted and looked around.
“Father,” Hannah stomped her foot on the back step. “I want to work with you in the shop. Anne can watch the children but she doesn’t need to watch me. I’m old enough, I can work, and I can help. I want to help! Let me go with you, please? You said I could when I was older and that was months ago.”
She pulled on his arm, the one that wasn’t holding Caleb. The baby boy was babbling in his other ear and flailing his arms smacking Cade’s shoulder and chest. The father was being pulled in all directions and yet he still didn’t know where two of the four kids were.
“Cole and Savannah! Where are you?” He called out to them in annoyance, squinting and looking for movement. “Cole! You need to come inside and clean up. Grab your sister. Now, please. I’m not asking you again.” He added that for extra emphasis, hoping it would work.
But he wasn’t good at that, at making them do anything. That’s not what Cade was used to, playing the role of father and mother. For ten years, he’d been the one they ran to when he came home from work, for laughter and games. Now he needed to be there all the time, to wipe the tears from their sweet cheeks and the mud off their knees while making sure they ate all their meals and washed up frequently.
It’s not that he didn’t love being a parent, it’s just that it was hard to do the job alone. Everything was hard these days, from running his mercantile to making his children get out of bed in the morning. Cade glanced between his oldest and his youngest and then sighed.
“Today isn’t a good day,” he informed Hannah firmly. The girl pouted and let go of his arm as he had hoped. She had the dark hair that her mother had given her, long locks that tumbled over her shoulders and down her back. It was a bittersweet image how fast his baby girl was growing up. And she was just as bossy as Joanna. “Now take Caleb and change him, would you?”
She obeyed with a scowl, but at least that took care of one of this problem for him at the moment he needed a hand. Running his fingers through his light hair, the man made it into the garden. Only then he noticed the lettuce was dead and groaned. They’d already lost the tomatoes. All that work down the drain, and he dreaded the idea of trying to get the children to replant. Sighing, Cade set that problem aside as he went to the sunflowers.
They had been Joanna’s favorite flowers, and he’d started growing them for her twelve years ago when the two of them were wed. The bedroom window looked out to them, and he had often found her out there first thing in the morning just looking at the sunny colors of her favorite flowers. Swallowing hard, he couldn’t bring himself to even touch them.
“Cole! Savannah!” He raised his voice. “Out here, now! Or there’s going to be trouble.”
A moment of silence and then, “What kind of trouble?” Savannah’s high voice sounded nearby and he looked around. Only then he noticed a small patch of sunflowers moving where there was no wind.
Groaning, he went over and found his two missing children sitting on the ground surrounded by the tall flowers. Folding his arms, Cade gave them his best grumpy expression. Savannah stared at the ground and Cole looked away guiltily with his arm wrapped around the younger girl. He was nine years old but already taking on much more responsibility. They all were, since Joanna wasn’t around anymore.
Savannah sniffled and wiped away a tear. He hadn’t noticed she was crying. Cade’s arms fell by their sides and his stomach knotted up. She was an emotional little ball of energy, always laughing or crying. At six years old, sometimes she sounded wise and other times she was still the baby who had been ill for her first two years, the little one he’d stayed up with all night long so his wife could get some rest. Instantly he felt the guilt flood over his shoulders and he offered a halfhearted beckon. “Come here, my flower.”
As he squatted down, the little girl came running. Overhead the sun made the tinge of red in her hair sparkle, and he wondered for the hundredth time if he treated her too special over the others. She was the only one with his pale red-blonde hair. But as she wrapped her thin little arms around his neck, Cade told himself he was being ridiculous. He loved all four of his children equally, just as Joanna had.
“You, too,” he beckoned to Cole. The boy was as tall as Hannah but thinner as he sighed too heavily for a boy his age. “Miss Anne is going to be here any minute and I really need this to work. Is that understood?”
Hannah showed up in the kitchen as they stepped inside, and she was holding Cole in her arms. She gave her father a dark look, but he had to let it go. Anne was sixteen years old and lived next door with her parents. Her mother, Mrs. Jane Stentson, had been coming over to help put his house in order but had to stop when her husband fell ill with pneumonia. He was still ill but after some discussion, she had offered her daughter to help him out with the cooking and the children.
Though they were just two blocks from his mercantile, he couldn’t be in two places at once. The children needed to be cared for outside of school when he couldn’t be around, and he still burned nearly every meal he cooked. While they’d grown used to the taste of heavily charred food, he knew their life could be and had to be made better.
With all four of them beside him, Cade set Savannah down. “Listen here,” he instructed them firmly. “Anne is a good little lady who’s going to make sure you’re getting off to school and coming straight back. She’ll keep the house tidy and she’s making our suppers. This is a job for her to help her family, just like my job is to help our family. I don’t want to hear anymore grumbling
or complaining. I know it’s hard, but this is how it has to be for now. All right?”
None of them looked at him, but they slowly nodded. Caleb was sucking his thumb contentedly in Hannah’s arms, and flapping the other arm in the air. Cade glanced around, and then finished readying for the day as they ate their overdone eggs and too crispy bacon. Soon Anne arrived and he was finally able to get out of the house.
They were good kids, wonderful children, but it was a lot of responsibility and he felt the heavy weight of it on his shoulders. Cade walked quickly towards his shop, already late for opening. If his business did better, then he’d be able to keep on extra help but that was rare. Though he used to bring Hannah and even Cole sometimes to the shop to help, he wanted them to finish up in school and keep learning.
It was a decent life, he knew. The man ran his own shop and made enough to keep a living and care for his four children. But to come to terms that he was doing this alone for the rest of his life, that felt impossible. He pushed the sour thought away time after time but the truth always came back.
Cade still woke every morning expecting to see Joanna there beside him. Joanna, the little woman with the dark hair and the wide smile had been his true love. She made the best cornbread and knew what to say in every situation. She was born to be a mother if anyone was, and that’s what made it more painful to accept that she was gone. She’d died during childbirth. Savannah’s birth had been difficult and they hadn’t thought there would be another baby. But Caleb was a happy surprise and they were excited to have another babe in the house.
But towards the end there had been a lot of pain, and the midwife had done all she could to help Joanna. The delivery had taken two days and left his family exhausted and anxious. He had sent the children to the Stentsons and though a healthy baby boy was born, Joanna hadn’t done well. She hung on for another day, barely conscious. In that time, she’d managed to give the child a name but was never strong enough to hold him.
Cade paused at the back door of his shop, hesitating. Her face still came to mind so often, a gentle haunting of what he didn’t have any longer. A lump formed in his throat and he couldn’t swallow as he opened the shop and put things back into order. It had only been a few minutes until he heard the scratch of the door opening.
“Good morning, Cade!” Mitchell Powell whistled as he entered the shop. Fiddling with his hat, the man strolled in with a cheerful grin. With his face so bright, his birthmark was hardly noticable. “How are you today, Cade?” The young gentleman had never looked happier as he strolled towards the ribbons.
Looking up from the box of buttons he was trying to sort, he nodded. “Good morning. I’m doing fine. I’d say it’s nearly been a week since you last came around. Is that right?”
The man looked up with a sheepish grin. Even hiding beneath that hat, anyone could see those sparkling blue eyes. He nodded and turned away, probably self-conscious about that mark on his face. But a man could look a thousand different ways, Cade knew, and it only mattered what they were like on the inside. “That’s right. My wife told me she has too many ribbons. But I’ve seen the ladies around town, and they look like they have a new one every Sunday. She said I was spoiling her too much and said all she wanted was to have me home in time for supper.”
Cade tried to match the chuckle, but it only reminded him of the lump in his throat. The mention of a loving wife only brought up the pain again. “Well, that must be right. And you know how it is. The women tend to be right.”
Mitchell grabbed oats and then stopped by the ribbons again. “That’s true,” he said at last. “It certainly is with Christina. Sometimes I think she knows everything in the world. She was like that even when I met her, you know.”
“Oh? Been married long?” Cade eyed the man from the corner before opening and empty one box into another. “You only started looking at the ribbons recently.”
Now the man had set down the oats to pick up more ribbons. “That’s right, sir. We’ve been married a whole six months now.”
The older man paused thoughtfully, trying to remember. He’d been in Rocky Ridge for so long that he knew most of the folks in town. “You said her name was Christina?” He asked curiously. “Whereabouts is she from?”
“Oh, she’s from back east,” Mitchell offered. “I met her at the Jessup’s boarding house. You know the sheriff and his wife, don’t you? You can’t miss them,” he added and Cade nodded.
Everyone knew the Jessups, after all. Most likely everyone in Colorado knew those names. “I’ve heard about that boarding house. She has wives there or something?”
Mitchell grabbed a fourth ribbon spool and took them over to the counter. “Something like that. She fancies herself as a matchmaker. And that’s how I met Christina. Sort of, anyway.” He paused, looking at the spools. “I think she’ll give me the boot if I give her all four, though. Thinks we could put money towards more useful things, but I like seeing her face when I bring her a new one.”
Cade glanced at the young gentleman thoughtfully. Mitchell was happy, and there was a brightness to him that almost made Cade envious. After all, he’d had nearly twelve wonderful years with his own wife and he knew first hand how much happiness that brought.
But as he helped Mitchell pick out the right ribbon, he tried to shake off the jealous feeling. It would be nice to have that again, but he didn’t desire to become involved with any of the women in town that he already knew. He needed a wife almost as much as his children needed a mother, but Joanna wasn’t there anymore.
Cade took a deep breath and tried to smile as Mitchell made his purchase and left.
Also by Annie Boone
If you like stories like this one be sure to check out Annie’s other books including the newest book in the Cutter’s Creek Series, Committed, and dive deeper into the quirky historical world of Cutter’s Creek.
Annie’s sweet historical romance stories will help you step back in time to simpler days. Escape the stress of every day life and live in the past for a while through more than fifty books to carry you away.
Annie is a bestselling author with books in series and stand alone stories. Each series is a set of books with a common thread, but stories don’t have cliff hangers and every couple finds their own path to lasting and true love.
Find all of Annie’s books on her Amazon Author Page.
Cutter’s Creek Series
A collaboration with Kit Morgan, Vivi Holt, and Kari Trumbo – Read about the fun and quirky people of Cutter’s Creek, Montana, a fictional town where the residents have lots of stories to tell.
God Bless the Children Series
Children are often the heart of a home. Especially in the old west, children didn’t always join a family the typical way. Enjoy these heart warming stories of open hearts, open minds, and open arms as children enhance these sweet love stories.
Kansas Mail Order Brides Series
Set in Derby and Wichita, Kansas, these sweet stories tell of loss, tragedy, and disappointment and how the women and men triumphed over it all. Watching these couples find love in spite of difficulty will make you believe that love is worth the struggle.
The Parson’s Daughters Series
Be inspired as you come to love the three sisters who strike out to make their way in California after the Civil War. Though they’re different, these girls have a strong bond forged in faith and family. Go with them as they fall in love and make choices that will take them far away from their Georgia roots.
Hero Hearts Series
Heroes are all around us. Find sweet, Christian stories of heroes past and present in this collaboration series created with Kate Cambridge and Hayley Wescott.
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About Annie Bo
one
Bestselling author Annie Boone admits that sweet historical love stories are a passion for her. Writing about days gone by, the struggles and victories faced by people of an earlier era, and falling in love in spite of their circumstances, is a dream come true.
Annie has always had a quiet story teller hiding inside and now she has the time to put those stories on paper and share them. Her hope is that her stories will entertain readers and her words will inspire the ones who need it most. The Christian elements she includes often help remind her of her own faith as she writes.
Annie lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband and the two most wonderful cats in the world. She loves to travel, cook for her family and friends, and watch as much sports as possible. She also loves to read – of course!
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