No One's Bride (Escape to the West Book 1)

by Nerys Leigh

  She’d found out the previous night as they talked that in addition to being the postmaster he worked part time at Green Hill Creek’s only bank. With relatively sedentary occupations, she would have expected him to tend towards the plump, as so many of the upper class men did in New York. But Adam was as far away from those tepid fops as it was possible to be.

  If only he’d been unattractive. Boring. Dull. A few warts wouldn’t have gone amiss. She didn’t want to regret she wasn’t marrying him. She had a plan and she would rely on no man, even one as handsome and charming and funny and smart as Adam.

  Besides, even if she had changed her mind, which she hadn’t and wouldn’t, there was no way he’d want her after he knew what she’d done. The thought of having to tell him saddened her. He sounded so happy. She wanted the moment to never end, wanted to never have to disappoint him.

  But then he turned and saw her and the moment was gone.

  For a second he stood still, his eyes flicking down and back up to her face. She’d worn her dress, her only dress. It was blue, with white lace cuffs and a subtle vertical white stripe. It wasn’t anywhere near new and a hand-me-down several times over, but it fit her, more or less. And it was all she had.

  Now she wished she hadn’t worn it. It made her look like she was ready to get married.

  “Good morning,” Adam said, smiling. “I hope you slept well.”

  “I did, thank you,” she lied.

  “I hope you like eggs. I should have asked, but I didn’t want to wake you after yesterday. You look like you still need rest.” He winced. “I mean, well, I don’t mean you look terrible, just that you look, um, tired.” He gave a small laugh. “Please take from that mess of a sentence the good things and forget the rest.”

  She sat at the table, resisting the urge to cover her face with her hands. “I know what you mean. I looked in the mirror in the bedroom.” Her pale skin and the dark circles under her eyes had made her wish she could wear a sack over her head.

  Adam turned back to the eggs, taking them from the heat and sliding them onto two warmed plates with slices of buttered, toasted bread.

  “I didn’t mean it how it sounded,” he said, his back to her. “You look... very pretty.”

  Her breath caught in her throat. When he turned around to carry the plates to the table, she lowered her eyes. “Thank you.”

  Adam said the blessing, again holding her hands as he did so. His hands were smooth and warm and she berated herself for liking the feel of them so much. At her first taste of the food she almost rolled her eyes. Of course the eggs were delicious. Of course he’d be a good cook. Surely there was something bad about him? Something that would make her glad she wasn’t staying. She hadn’t even heard him snoring during the night. She’d even crept out of her bedroom and pressed her ear to his door during the dark, sleepless hours, hoping to hear snores so loud she’d be thanking the Lord they would never share a bed. But all was silent.

  “I thought I’d go and see the pastor after breakfast and find out what time he’ll be free to marry us,” he said as they ate. “Did you want any of the others to be there? I imagine you had time to get to know the other ladies on your journey.”

  Her heart started to pound. “I, um, no.” She stuffed another forkful of scrambled eggs into her suddenly dry mouth.

  “Then we could go over to the church whenever he’s free, I guess.”

  Amy closed her eyes. She had to tell him. It was cruel to go on like this. Placing her knife and fork down onto her half full plate, she took a deep breath.

  And held it.

  And held it.

  When she couldn’t hold it any longer, she blurted out, “I lied to you.”

  Adam’s fork paused halfway to his mouth. “About what?”

  She stared at her plate, unable to look him in the eye. Just say it. Just get it over with.

  “Everything.” She took another deep breath and spoke rapidly, before she lost her courage. “I tricked you. I never intended to marry you. I didn’t even read your letters; my friend read them for me so she could tell me if you’d asked a question I needed to answer. I had to get away from New York and the only way I could was to trick you into paying my fare. I meant to just buy another ticket and get back on the train as soon as we arrived yesterday, to carry on to San Francisco, or if I couldn’t do that I was going to buy a horse. Then I was going to send the money to repay you for the fare as soon as I had it. Even the fainting wasn’t real. I couldn’t think of anything else to do to stop going into the church. I lied about everything.” She gasped in another breath, blinking back tears.

  The silence was so complete she could hear the blood thumping in her ears. After a few seconds, she risked looking up. Adam was frozen in place, his fork still hanging in midair. Slowly, he lowered it to his plate, his eyes lowering with it.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  His neck bobbed as he swallowed. “I... um...” His eyes rose to hers. “So you never knew anything about me until yesterday?”

  She shook her head. “Not much. I didn’t want to know. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to go through with it if I got to know you.”

  “Why are you telling me this now?”

  “Because I can’t marry you,” she whispered.

  He pushed back his chair, the sound of it scraping on the floor sounding so harsh in the silence that Amy jumped. “I... I have to go and cancel the wedding.”

  Then he left. Seconds later, she heard the front door open and close.

  Dropping her head into her hands, Amy burst into tears.

  ~ ~ ~

  Adam stopped beneath the awning outside the post office and took a shuddering breath. It felt like the first air he’d drawn into his lungs since Amy had said...

  What had just happened?

  Yesterday, his emotions had cycled from fear as he’d waited for the train, through relief that his bride was so pretty coupled with shame at his unintended superficiality, to more relief that she didn’t seem disappointed with him, to more fear as she’d fainted, to a growing happiness as they talked and he discovered how much he liked her.

  It was enough to make him dizzy, but his worries had all melted away as they’d talked and laughed into the evening and Adam knew without a doubt that Amy was the one for him.

  He’d gone to bed feeling like he was riding on a wave of joy, filled with praise and thanks to God as he saw his whole future ahead of him. A future filled with happiness with the wonderful, beautiful Amy. And he’d been so sure she felt the same way he did.

  But now...

  He was numb. Shocked. How could things have gone so badly wrong? It didn’t feel real. He wanted to go back inside where she could tell him that she really was going to marry him today and that it had all been a mistake, a bad joke.

  “Why, Lord?” he whispered into the cool morning air. “What did I do wrong?”

  Pushing his hands into his pockets, he walked across the street and headed in the direction of the church, his feet dragging over the dry and dusty packed earth. He didn’t even know if Pastor Jones would be there this early. The truth was, he’d used cancelling the wedding as an excuse to get out of the house. To get away from the woman who had used him and torn his heart in two.

  A flash of anger coursed through him. She hadn’t even bothered to find out anything about him. She’d used him, stolen from him, and didn’t even care who he was. He glanced back at the post office, half expecting to see her leaving now that she had the chance. She’d seemed like such a caring, considerate woman last night. Maybe she was going to San Francisco to become an actress on the stage. She was certainly good at fooling others she was someone she wasn’t.

  He wiped at a tear rolling down his cheek, ashamed. How could he have been so gullible?

  When he reached the church building Pastor Jones was walking through the front door. Adam stopped. He wasn’t sure he wanted to tell anyone what had just happened. But he did need to cancel the wedding. Now he
was here, he might as well do that, then he could go for a walk and try to clear his mind. Or maybe he’d go and get Stride from the livery. Riding always helped calm him.

  “Good morning, Adam,” Pastor Jones said, looking up from the altar as he walked in. “Aren’t you a little early? Or are you that eager to be married?” He grinned.

  It was as if someone had reached into Adam’s chest and squeezed. He sank onto a chair, dropping his head into his hands. Seconds later, the pastor was beside him.

  “Adam, what’s wrong?”

  “I... she... Amy lied. She tricked me into paying her train fare so she could get to San Francisco. She never intended to marry me.”

  The pastor’s eyes widened. “She what?”

  In faltering words, Adam related everything that Amy had told him. He burned with humiliation as he broke down, but he couldn’t hold back the tears. At the end, he wiped at his eyes with his sleeve, ashamed of himself. He shouldn’t have allowed himself to have such high hopes. Even if Amy had come to marry him, there were any number of other things that could have gone wrong. Maybe he’d mistaken his own desire for an end to his loneliness for God’s prompting. He’d obviously been very wrong about Amy.

  “Oh, Adam, I’m so sorry,” Pastor Jones said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I feel like this was somehow my fault, as involved as I was in arranging with the agency to bring her here. And that poor girl.”

  He raised his head. “Poor girl? Are you talking about Amy?”

  The pastor nodded. “What kind of terrible situation must she have been in that forced her to do such a thing?”

  Adam’s jaw dropped. He hadn’t even considered that. “I... I didn’t think to ask.”

  “I know you may not want to hear this now,” Pastor Jones said, “but bad things happen to us for different reasons. Sometimes it’s to teach us something, sometimes to make us stronger, sometimes because we live in an imperfect world where many people don’t follow God’s will, and sometimes they just happen and we may never know why until we can ask God when we get up there to Heaven. But sometimes they may happen to us so we can help someone else.” He squeezed Adam’s shoulder. “I know how much you’ve been praying for the right woman to come into your life. I don’t believe God could have got it so badly wrong.”

  Adam drew in a breath and straightened, grasping at the tiny glimmer of hope. “Maybe you’re right. I should have asked before I thought the worst of her. It was just such a shock.”

  “I’ll make sure everyone who was going to come knows the wedding isn’t happening. You can work out what to tell them later. If you want to stay for a while, you can. Irene won’t be here for another hour. I warn you though, if you’re still here when she arrives you’ll find yourself cleaning windows before you know what’s happening and you won’t be able to work out how she made you do it.”

  Despite his sour mood, Adam smiled. He knew just how persuasive Mrs Jones could be. “No, I should go back. I at least want to know why Amy did it. Thank you, Pastor. You’ve helped.”

  He left the church feeling much better, but as he walked back to the post office his trepidation grew again. What if he got in there and Amy didn’t have a good reason for destroying his dreams? He tried to focus on what Pastor Jones had said. Even if he never knew the reason this had happened, God was still with him.

  And if Amy wasn’t the one for him, he’d just save up for another year for the train fare and find the woman who was.

  Adam’s heart was racing as he walked into the parlour behind the post office. He tried to ignore it. Amy was where he’d left her, her head resting on her crossed arms on the table, face hidden.

  Guilt stabbed at him. He didn’t know what to do with it. He could almost hear his father saying to him, She’s the one who used you, boy. Why are you the one feeling guilty? He hated it when he started thinking like his father.

  “Amy?”

  She lifted her head and wiped the back of her hand across her puffy, red eyes. Wordlessly, she pushed an envelope across the surface of the table towards him. Inside were banknotes totalling sixty-five dollars.

  “It’s all I have,” she said. “It’s the money I was going to use to buy a ticket and get a room once I got to San Francisco. I know it’s not even half what you paid to get me here, but I’ll find a job and pay back the rest as quickly as I can, I promise. I always intended to pay you back. I’ve packed my things. I’ll go to the boarding house.”

  Her bag was on the chair next to her. She didn’t have much to pack.

  Adam stared at the envelope. “Can you tell me why you did it?”

  She looked down at her lap. “There was a... situation in New York I had to get away from. Far away. I didn’t know what else to do.” Her eyes lifted to meet his. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. You have to believe me.”

  He hated himself for not answering, but he wasn’t sure if he did believe her. He’d gone from being certain she was the most wonderful woman in the world to not knowing her at all. But maybe that was the problem. How could he possibly know her in less than a day? His desire for someone to love had clouded his judgement.

  She stood and picked up her bag. “I’m sorry, Ad... Mr Emerson.”

  As she turned, the handle of the bag caught on the top of the chair, causing it to jerk from her grasp and fall to the floor. Something tumbled onto the wood, bouncing a couple of times before coming to a halt against Adam’s shoe. He bent to pick it up, a shudder going through him as he did so. Pulling at the groove in the metal, he watched the blade slide free from the handle of the folding knife.

  Had she meant to harm him?

  But then he saw the fear in her eyes, her shoulders trembling, and realisation dawned. “Amy, were you in danger in New York? Did someone hurt you?”

  She shook her head, not meeting his eyes.

  “Did someone try to hurt you?”

  She didn’t answer, but a tear caught the light as it fell from her chin to the floor. In an instant, all his anger drained away. He took a step towards her, reaching out a hand before thinking better of it and folding the knife back into its handle and holding that out instead. She took it from his hand and looked up at him. The fear and vulnerability he saw in her eyes almost knocked him flat.

  “I won’t let anyone hurt you.” The words came out before he even knew what he was saying, but he meant them, maybe more than he’d ever meant anything in his life.

  She wiped her eyes again and sighed. “You don’t have to do anything. I meant what I said, I’ll get the money to pay you back, I swear.” She picked her bag up from the floor. “Which way is the boarding house? I don’t remember seeing it yesterday.”

  Suddenly, the thought of Amy staying in Trenchard’s Room & Board terrified him. Mrs Trenchard, the widow who ran it, wasn’t a bad person, but she did have a tendency to overindulge with the wine in the evenings. In addition, the boarding house wasn’t far from the saloon with its drunken patrons and noise and other activities that went on upstairs. It wasn’t a safe place for a woman on her own.

  “You can stay here,” he blurted, before he could think it through.

  She looked up at him, startled.

  “I mean in the room you stayed in last night. The boarding house, it’s not... What I mean to say is, it’s near the saloon and the noise could be... distracting.” He breathed out, trying to unscramble his mind. “I don’t want you to feel afraid anymore.”

  She stared at him for a few seconds before lowering her gaze. “What do you want?”

  He frowned, confused. “What do I want?”

  “In exchange for me staying here. I can’t pay you straight away, until I find a job. I can clean and cook, but if you want more than that...” She swallowed, still not looking at him. Her trembling fingers clutched the knife against her stomach.

  Adam still didn’t know what she meant. “More than...?” And then understanding came like a punch to the chest. He took a step back, stumbled against one of the chairs, and dropped onto
it with a thud. “You think I would... No! I would never... I meant you can stay here for free. I don’t expect anything from you, and certainly not... I just want to help.”

  Her eyes were wide as she looked down at him. “Why would you do that? After what I did to you?”

  He was about to answer it was because he was a good man, unlike whoever had tried to hurt her, when he remembered something. He chuckled, rubbing one hand across his eyes.

  “Why are you laughing?” Amy said. She looked as if she was undecided if she should run.

  “Last night I picked up my Bible to read, like I do every night, and I dropped it and my bookmark fell out. I couldn’t remember exactly where I was, just that it was somewhere near the start of 1 Peter. But instead I ended up in James, on the verse where it says if there is a brother or sister in need it’s no good to just wish them well without doing anything to help them. I’ve read that verse so many times before, but last night it seemed to stick in my mind.” He smiled, shaking his head. “It seems God was making me clumsy to teach me something for today.”

  Amy moved back to the table, taking a seat opposite him. “Sometimes I think God speaks to me. Not out loud, like I hear you now, but in my mind. Do you ever get that?”

  The only voice he ever heard in his head telling him what to do was his father’s. “Not that I can recall.”

  “But you think He made you drop your Bible?”

  He shrugged and smiled. “Maybe He knows I don’t listen hard enough and so He has to do things I can’t ignore.”

  She smiled back at him. For a moment, Adam could only stare. She had such a beautiful smile.

  “So will you stay?” he said. He really wanted her to stay.

  She lowered her eyes to the tablecloth, took a shaking breath and let it out slowly. Adam waited, holding his breath.

  “If you truly don’t mind after what I’ve done.” Her eyes found his, fear mingling with hope in their depths.

  He breathed out. “I can’t say I don’t feel hurt, but what kind of man would I be if I turned you away when you need my help?”