Libby choked back tears, the cries catching in her throat. Lord, please keep mei familye safe.
It was the simplest of prayers, but it was all she had in her.
As they approached the edge of the farm, they could see more easily that the roof of the barn was engulfed in flames. Jonas’ horse whinnied and snorted as he weaved back and forth across the path, protesting drawing the sleigh nearer to the burning building.
Jonas pulled on the reigns realizing he would not get any closer with the horse. Jumping down from the sleigh, he helped Libby down quickly and held her hand as they sprinted across the yard toward the barn.
“Don’t get too close,” Jonas warned as they ran.
As they neared the corral close to the barn, Libby could hear the horses’ high-pitched whinnying, panic in their cries. But there was another cry that Libby had not expected. To the side of the corral, Libby’s mother paced and cried out to God to spare them.
Spare who?
Her mother spotted Libby and ran to her, pulling her daughter into her arms.
“What happened, mamm?”
“I don’t know,” her mother answered with a desperate cry. “Your vadder and Adam are in there getting the animals.”
“You stay here,” Jonas warned. “I’m going in to help.”
“Nee,” she begged between heavy sobs.
She watched Jonas put a hand up to her as if to let her know he’d be right back. She grabbed at the air toward him, but her mother held fast to her, holding her back to allow Jonas to leave her side.
Libby suddenly couldn’t breathe. The sobs in her throat choked her more than the smoke that billowed from the top floor of the barn.
Just then, the barn door burst open and her father and brother met Jonas at the entrance. Two of the horses ran from the open door, as the three men disappeared behind the smoke to get the rest of them.
Libby held her breath as she waited with her mother, both women praying furiously, while the animals trailed out of the barn one-by-one. Unfortunately, there was no sign of the men that meant everything to her.
Libby’s horse, Daisy, suddenly burst from the barn door, a trail of smoke following her out. The horse had gotten old and slow over the years, especially given the fact she was already quite old when her father had purchased the horse for her. It was her first horse, and her father had spent many hours teaching Libby how to properly ride the horse. She’d been only five years old, but Libby remembered it like it was just yesterday. Her father had been very patient with her constant complaining that the horse was too slow, and her persistent begging to ride a faster, younger horse.
Libby buried her head in her mother’s neck and sobbed. “Mamm, please tell me they’re going to come out of there alive.”
Her mother stroked her hair and stifled her own cries to pray over her daughter. “I love you.”
Libby lifted her head from her mother’s shoulder and looked her in the eye. All her memories of the woman suddenly tumbled into her mind like the force of the flames that heated her face. “I love you too, mamm. I’m so sorry for the way I’ve been acting.”
Her mother forced a weak smile around the tears that welled up in her eyes.
Soon, Butterball, their milking cow came strolling out with a protesting moo, followed by several squawking chickens flying out the open door. Libby was smart enough to know that as long as the animals were being pushed out the door, the flames had not gotten to the men in her life she cherished so much.
A sudden creaking added to the already noisy crackling of the fire. The creaking became louder until the right side of the barn began to collapse.
Libby’s sobs came out in a scream as she pulled away from her mother’s grasp and ran toward the barn.
CHAPTER 26
Libby ran toward the barn intending to go in and rescue the three men in her life she knew she couldn’t live without. As she reached the door, her father stumbled out coughing and choking. Libby threw her arms around him, sobbing tears of gratitude he was alive.
There was still no sign of Jonas or Adam.
Her mother rushed to her husband’s side, helping him toward the split-rail fence that enclosed the horse corral.
“I’m going in after Adam and Jonas,” Libby cried.
Her father coughed as he grabbed her arm, barely able to catch his breath. “You stay here. After I get a little air, I’ll go back in to look for them.”
“Please don’t make me stand here helplessly while they’re in there in danger. Let me help,” Libby begged.
The barn roof creaked loudly, sending Libby’s heart racing so fast her legs felt shaky and weak. “I love you, Daed, but I have to save them. Let me go!”
Sobs caught in her throat as the creaking yielded to the flames, sending another section of the roof into the second floor of the barn. If they didn’t come out of there soon, they would perish, and to Libby, that was not an option.
Pulling away from her other parent’s grasp, Libby ran toward the barn a second time. Adam suddenly burst through the door, choking and falling to the ground.
Libby rushed to his side, bawling. “Where’s Jonas?”
“I—don’t—know,” Adam barely got out between coughs.
As if under a spell, Libby raised from the ground and stepped through the open doors screaming for Jonas, and sobbing uncontrollably. Her father caught her arm just as she was about to enter the smoky barn.
“I’ll get him. You stay here,” her father scolded her.
She looked him in the eye for only a moment.
“Please save him,” she begged.
“I will,” he said over his shoulder, and then disappeared behind the thick smoke.
Libby paced and prayed outside the barn doors, choking on the smoke that billowed out, and not caring that the heat from the fire was so hot it made her sweat. With every creak and fallen board into the flames, Libby prayed harder and more desperately. She could hear her mother tending to her brother behind her, but she could not think past the danger her father and Jonas faced.
She had to help.
She had to save them.
Lord, help me, Libby whispered as she entered the smoky barn. Smoke burned her lungs as she stumbled a few feet. She called out weakly to her father and Jonas, unable to breathe. She choked and coughed, heaving in smoke instead of air. Blackness encompassed her as she fell to the floor. Her eyes closed, and her will to move escaped her.
CHAPTER 27
“Come on Darlin’, stay with me,” the muffled baritone spoke to her. Libby felt weightless as she drew in cool air. Reaching up to her nose, she fingered the plastic tube that brought her fresh air. Her thoughts were weak, but never were they as clear as they were at this moment.
“Daed,” she called faintly.
“He’s in the ambulance behind us, Miss,” a voice said to her.
Libby’s lashes fluttered. Sirens assaulted her ears, and she felt the motion of the moving vehicle beneath her lifeless body. She could not move, but she could think.
She was in an ambulance.
She was alive.
Someone had saved her.
Feeling a squeeze to her hand, she let her gaze follow the blurry path to a face she recognized; a face she trusted.
“Jonas,” she whispered. “I thought—you were—dead.”
Jonas pulled the hand he held to his lips and placed a soft kiss to the back of it. “I’m right here, and I’m not leaving you.”
“How did you…?”
He squeezed her hand tightly. “I kicked through the feed hatch of the chicken coop on the other side of the barn.”
“What about mei daed?” she asked weakly.
“Your daed followed me out. Since he went in after me, he breathed in a little more smoke than I did, so they are taking him to the hospital too. But you—you shouldn’t have gone into the barn. By the time we realized you’d gone in there, it was almost too…”
Jonas couldn’t finish his sentence.
&
nbsp; Libby could hear the emotion in his voice. She tightened the grip he had on her hand.
“I’m sorry I worried you, but I thought you and mei daed needed help. I was trying to save you.”
Jonas bent to kiss her on the forehead. “I need saving, but not from a burning barn. I need you to save me from having to spend the rest of my life without you as mei fraa.”
Tears welled up in Libby’s eyes. “I can do that.”
“I almost lost you three times in the last month, and I don’t think mei heart can take anymore. Promise me you won’t ever do anything like that again.”
“I promise,” she said with a cough.
The ambulance stopped and the back door flung open. Paramedics wheeled her out into the cold air. Snowflakes cooled her cheeks as she looked over and saw her father being wheeled from another ambulance. Paramedics pushed her through the doors of the emergency room, but she called out to her father.
He held up a hand, and made eye-contact with her only for a moment, but she knew he was alive, and that meant everything to her.
For now, everything was going to be alright.
CHAPTER 28
“It’s only two days,” Bethany said to Libby. “I can’t get married without you. I can wait until you get out of the hospital, and surely Benjamin can wait two more days for me.”
“I don’t want you to wait on my account.”
Libby’s throat was sore and her voice hoarse.
“You know I remember everything now, Bethany.” Libby admitted.
Bethany looked her in the eye hesitantly. “Even about Jonas?”
“I know why I broke up with him, jah.”
“Ach, what are you going to do? Are you going to break up with him again?”
Libby could see the genuine concern in Bethany’s eyes, but she intended to squelch her fears.
“Nee, I will have to move to Florida if that is what he wants. He is to be mei husband in less than a week, and I already promised to marry him—not that I would take back such a promise, but I love him enough to go wherever he goes.”
Bethany smiled. “You won’t have to. He came here to tell you he changed his mind about Florida.”
Libby sat up in her hospital bed. “You knew this the whole time and you didn’t tell me?”
“Quiet down,” Bethany scolded her. “I bet they heard you all the way to the nurse’s station.
Libby leered at her. “You and Jonas betrayed my trust. You both lied to me and led me to believe I was meeting Jonas for the first time. But then when I remembered, it was admitted that we indeed had a past, but not the past you both fed me. Was I going to marry him and not find out until it was too late that he was moving me to Florida?”
Bethany put a hand over Libby’s arm. “Calm down. We never meant to deceive you. We were trying to spare you too much because of the accident. The doctors told us not to upset you.”
“Didn’t you think lying to me would upset me?”
“We weren’t trying to lie to you. We were trying to spare you the pain of knowing you’d broken up with him for nothing. You love him and he loves you! And he intends to marry you and keep you here in this community, and that is why he came to Willow Creek right after your accident. It broke his heart that you didn’t remember him, and that is the only reason I went along with this.”
Libby turned toward the window, exposing her back side to Bethany.
“Don’t turn your back on me, Libby. Life is too short to spend it angry over things you can’t change. You almost lost your daed and Adam and Jonas last night, and we almost lost you too!”
As tough as it was for Libby to admit, she could not deny the truth Bethany spoke. The important thing was that she and Jonas were back together, and she remembered her family finally. Jonas no longer had intention of taking her away from her family or her community, and they would start a life together here.
CHAPTER 29
Jonas held fast to Libby’s hand as they skated around the pond one more time before rounding the curve where their family and friends waited for them at the B&B for their wedding meal.
“Just one more time around the pond,” Libby begged her new husband.
“How can I resist such a sweet request?” Jonas said with a proud smile.
He whisked her around the pond illuminated by the lanterns that lined the perimeter. Snowflakes fell from the heavens, and the moon occasionally peeked through a gap in the clouds. She couldn’t have asked for a more romantic setting for her wedding.
She was the happiest she thought she could ever be at this moment. She could stay out here skating with him for hours, but their families waited for them so they could share their special day.
Libby tipped her head up to the swirling snow remembering how much it had played a part in the return of her memory the day of her accident.
She had not forgotten Jonas.
He was the love of her life.
She’d heard his voice floating on the snowflakes that day. It had kept her from slipping away into the darkness that had tried to overtake her.
Even when she was lying on the floor of the burning barn, she’d remembered the snowflakes that tied her to her beloved Jonas. It was on the ice that they’d fallen in love, and it was on the ice now that they celebrated that love.
THE END
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Please enjoy the sample chapters of
Western Mail Order Brides
BOXED SET
Contains THREE stand-alone stories:
THE BRIDE DOWRY: Maddie Hawkins answers an advertisement posted at the General Store for silver mine shares being given away to women.
When she arrives in Tombstone in the spring of 1885, she is informed the only way she can collect those shares is to marry one of the miners in town, due to a shortage of women in Arizona Territory.
Broke, Maddie is unable to return home, so her only choice is to marry a complete stranger. Calamities unfold as a result of her decision, and she soon regrets putting her signature to the contract.
When all the available suitors meet her at the Founder's Day picnic, she is appalled by the choices, and the only man suitable is already promised to another bride. Wanting to marry for love, Maddie fears her dreams of a happy married life will not come to pass if she accepts the conditions of the Bride Dowry.
The Bride Dowry
Book One
CHAPTER 1
Tombstone Arizona, 1885
Maddie Hawkins stood on the platform in front of the mining office and crumpled the advertisement, stuffing it angrily into her reticule. It boasted shares in the silver mines to women who should come to Tombstone to help populate the town, but little had she known there were conditions upon the collection of those shares.
She’d been unsure of what they’d meant by populate the town.
She knew now!
“What do you mean I have to marry one of the miners in order to collect the shares?”
Her tone resonated across the mining yard, where several workers looked up at her outburst.
“In other words, the man gets the shares in the mine if I marry him, not the other way around.”
Maddie felt like she’d been tricked. Lured by a false advertisement.
“We prefer to call it a bonus in pay for your new husband,” the man behind the barred window said with a snicker.
She sneered at him, biting back tears.
“What did you say your name was, Miss? I don’t see you on the list,” the man said.
“List?”
“Yes, Miss…who did you correspond with?”
Maddie gulped. “Well, you’re the first one I’ve spoken to about this.”
“You were supposed to correspond with one of the eligible men, and then meet him at the Founder’s Day picnic this Saturday.”
Maddie lowered her gaze, hoping to avert his attention from her pinked cheeks. Reaching into her reticule, she smoothed out the advertisement and read the fine print at the bottom
of the page. She had been so anxious to get out of Texas Territory that she had not read those lines before planning her trip to Tombstone. She’d been so consumed with leaving her uncle’s home and getting away from her cousin, she hadn’t paid the proper amount of attention to the details of the offer.
Now she wished she had.
She lowered her gaze once again to the page in her hand. Sure enough, there were the instructions, plain as day. But what was she to do about it now? The trip had cost her every bit of the money she’d put aside from being a governess to the Wexler children for the past four years, minus the portion she’d paid to her uncle for room and board.
“You’re here a little earlier than we expected, but the others will be here by the end of the week.”
“Others?” she asked curiously. “How many women responded to this trickery?”
The man bit down on the cigar in his mouth, clenching it between his teeth as he perused the list. “I have twenty-three on my list who have their husbands lined up because they took the last three months to correspond like the notice says.”
She couldn’t help but feel humiliated, as if he was questioning her intelligence, but judging by his appearance, she didn’t suspect him of having as high an education as she’d had.
“If you’re still interested, you can attend the Founder’s Day picnic on Saturday, and one of the fellas who haven’t already been paired up with a bride will pick you.”
“Pick me? You mean I can’t do my own choosing?”
“No, Ma’am,” he said with a smile. “It’s the men who do the choosing.”
Maddie fanned herself with the lace fan that matched her dress as she held her parasol closer to her face to shield her cheeks from the sweltering, afternoon sun.
“In the meantime, here is a voucher for the hotel in town.”
Maddie looked at the slip of paper with the hotel logo on it as he slid it under the bars.
Amish Brides of Willow Creek 1-4 Omnibus Page 36
