Those big brown eyes she had, framed in by those thick brown locks of hair. She was captivating, and she was his bride. He wanted to treat her well. He wanted to make her happy, but he didn’t know why he couldn’t get her off of his mind. It was getting harder and harder to concentrate on the work he had to do.
Every move he made, he saw her. He could see her in the flowers that were along the path to the house, and in the sunrise he watched every morning as he did the chores. He thought about her as he milked the cow, and when he actually got to see her, his heart pounded inside his chest so strong he wondered if she could hear it, too.
With each passing day he wanted to be with her more and more, and that feeling terrified him. He had promised himself he wasn’t going to feel this way about anyone, but the more he saw her, the harder it was to not feel anything.
She is having a baby that I am not the father of. How could you feel this strongly about her? She came out here to marry you out of sheer need. If she had been in a different situation, you never would have had a chance with her.
Toby yawned and rubbed his eyes. He rolled over, his back to the fire. With thoughts of Jessie still running through his mind, he desperately tried to fall asleep. Whether he got any rest or not, the morning was coming, and he was going to have to do the chores no matter how tired he was.
He didn’t know when sleep finally claimed him, all he knew was it only felt like a few minutes before the rooster was crowing outside.
Chapter 8 – A New Start
Fall leaves crowned the tree line at the edge of the field now. Jessie walked slowly, a basked in one hand, the other hand wrapping her shawl around her shoulders. The air was getting chillier, and she rarely left the house without her shawl or a coat.
This morning, Jessie wanted to take a stroll in the field she had gone to with Toby a couple months before. There was a peacefulness there that she couldn’t find anywhere else. Toby was busy most of the time now, doing something out in the barn.
He spent almost all of this free time out there, working with the wood he had left over from the extra room he had built on to the house. It had taken him nearly a month to complete it, but was finally done. As soon as that project had been finished, he spent every spare minute he had in the barn.
Jessie missed Toby. She had grown used to the business like nature of their marriage, and was enjoying the companionship she found with Toby around. She still felt that twinge of emptiness in her heart every now and then, but for the most part she was happy.
After all, her baby was to be born in just over a month, and she would have her hands full. Every now and then she wanted to go out to the barn and talk to Toby while he worked, but he told her she wouldn’t want to be in that dirty old barn, breathing in the dust in the condition she was in, so she spent her days alone in the house.
In her free time, Jessie spent hours knitting things for the baby. She had made a scarf for Toby for the turning weather, but she hadn’t seen him wear it. Now she worked diligently on a baby blanket for her little one. It was a bright blue, like the sky had been the first day she had arrived in California.
Suddenly, she heard a shout, and turned. Toby was calling for her, and hurried to catch up to her.
“There you are Missy! I have been looking all over for you… come here, I want to show you something.” Toby reached for her hand, and Jessie looked at him in surprise.
She reluctantly agreed and hurried as best she could beside his lively steps. There was something different about him, something she couldn’t put her finger on, but something that made her heart pound.
Was it the way he looked at her? Normally, he would speak looking away from her, or just give her a glance when he finished. Now, he looked at her full on, gazing into her eyes. She felt vulnerable when he did that, but excited at the same time.
They hurried to the barn, and Toby suddenly turned to face her.
“Now, I want you to go in front of me, and I am going to cover your eyes. Don’t worry, there’s nothing in the way for you to trip on, just walk in a few steps, and stop when I say.”
“Toby?” She asked, but he shushed her and walked behind her, covering her eyes from behind.
They walked into the barn, and Toby stopped.
“Are you ready?” He asked, and she nodded.
“Look!”
He lifted his hands off of her eyes, and Jessie blinked, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness of the barn. There, right in front of her, stood the most beautiful cradle she had ever seen. It was carved out of mahogany, and stained with a chestnut stain.
“Oh Toby!” She cried.
“Do you like it?” He asked, concerned, then continued. “I wanted to make you something special for your little one, Jess.
Listen to me. This is hard for me to say, mostly because I don’t understand it myself, but I love you Jessie. I really do. When I was young, and I saw the pain my father felt when my mother passed away, I promised myself I wouldn’t fall in love.
I wanted to save myself that pain, until I met you. You changed everything for me, Jessie. You are so beautiful and so kind and so charming. I just couldn’t help it. I fell in love.”
Jessie felt her throat get tight as he spoke. She had never dreamed this is what he was doing out here in the barn, and the fact that he told her how much he loved her made her feel like she was on top of the world. All she had wanted when she came out here was to find love, and now she had.
“Toby I-“ She began, but he interrupted her.
“Don’t anything. I don’t want to hear you say anything. All I want is the truth. I know I haven’t been the kind of husband you deserve, and I know I wasn’t the man you thought I was when you moved out here, but I have to know… Do you love me?”
He looked anxiously into her eyes, and waited.
A smile slowly spread across Jessie’s face, and she had tears in her eyes as she nodded.
“Yes, I do love you Toby. I do!”
Jessie threw her arms around his neck and kissed him, and he gently lifted her up off the floor. She felt complete at last. Her child was going to be born into a home filled with love. A home that was happy. A home that was ready for a baby.
Toby paced back and forth in the living room. Jessie had gone into labor earlier that day, and now the doctor was in the room with her, and all he could do was wait for the news. He wished there was more he could do to help, this waiting was driving him crazy.
He could hear Jessie making noise in the other room, and he prayed she would be ok. He couldn’t shake the fear of losing her out of his mind no matter how hard he tried, and he wouldn’t feel better until he knew she was ok.
After what felt like hours, the doctor finally appeared in the door. Toby turned quickly, though he stayed in the middle of the room.
“You should be very proud, Mr. Mathews,” the doctor said as he wiped his hands on a towel.
“You have a new son. Mother and child are both just fine, would you like to see them?”
Toby hurried into the room to find Jessie holding a small bundle in her arms. She looked up and smiled as he came into the room, and he kissed her. He reached out and took the little baby in his arms, and kissed his son on the forehead.
Jessie smiled at the sight, and laid back on the pillow. She had never been so happy in her whole life, and she knew no matter what happened next, she was going to be ok. She had her son, she had Toby, and she had love. Everything in life was absolutely perfect.
She wouldn’t change a thing.
THE END.
A Rancher’s Love
Mail Order Bride
By: Christian Michael
Chapter One: Party Favors
Massachusetts, 1859
“Gracie Noel!” Angela Curtis called from the foyer of the main residence. The foyer stretched the length of the home, from the front entrance to the back staircase that led out to the gardens. On either side of the room, a set of curving staircases led to the second floor where th
e bedrooms were. The six-bedroom mini-mansion was laid out elaborately with rooms big enough to easily put a large four-poster bed, a chair or two and a dresser and armoire. Each room had its own balcony that overlooked portions of the gardens or the large pond that sat over a large expanse of the property. With four girls to a room, however, it could become unbelievably cramped when everyone was awake together. It made Gracie ever more thankful for the just over five acres of land outside what the house sat on, which allowed for plenty of beauty to behold.
“Coming, Miss Curtis,” Gracie replied, stepping into the hallway from her room. She walked lightly down the staircase that was closest to her room and met her mother at the bottom.
“We have company, dear.”
Gracie looked toward the sitting room to see John Jacobsen and his parents being served by Nelson, the butler. She barely stifled the sigh as she rolled her eyes. John Jacobsen wasn’t any happier to be sitting there, than she was to see him. “Lovely,” she replied sarcastically. She plowed through her dinner just this side of ungraciously and nearly groaned when John asked if she’d like to walk in the gardens. “Certainly.”
Gracie took John’s arm and as soon as they were outside her family’s residence she dropped her hand to her side. “Thank you.”
“For?” she asked.
“For agreeing to this walk. If you’re agreeable, we can talk and tell my parents honestly that we’re just not right for each other.”
Gracie grinned. Still, she wasn’t sure whether to be offended that he wasn’t interested, or simply relieved. “We’re not?”
“No offense, Gracie,” he said, his somber brown eyes meeting her pretty gray ones. “But you’re like a hurricane, blowing through and stirring everything up. I’m like a tree, solid, stately, boring. We just don’t fit well together.”
“Who do you have your eye on?”
“Marissa Peterson,” he said, his face flushing.
Gracie knew Marissa well. “She’ll make you a good wife, John.” Taking his arm again they walked and talked, laughing about his parent’s schemes and grinning at each other over past and present loves. After more than an hour though, it seemed appropriate to end the night. “Thank you, John. Contrary to what I first thought, I had a nice time walking with you. Give Marissa my best.”
“Thank you, Gracie Noel,” John said, kissing her hand in farewell when his parents showed themselves to the door. “I will.” He gave her a wink before turning toward his parents.
Grinning, Gracie turned to see Angela standing behind her. “Well?”
“Well what?” she asked, even though she knew where her caretaker was going with her first question.
“You and John walked for quite a while out in the gardens.”
“He’s great company,” she said, not committing to more. A tactic she knew would almost instantly rile Angela.
“And?”
“And a good friend.”
“I can’t take this anymore, Gracie. You can’t keep acting as if you’ve got gold coming out of your bottom. You need the security that a man, a marriage and children can provide for you.”
“Perhaps I’m not meant to marry the gentlemen that come sniffing around me.”
“Oh, please. As if there are any other appropriate suiters to be found.”
***
Trent Baxter ran a hand through his thick, black hair. He swiped a hand across his sweaty brow, slapping his hat back on his head. Picking up the handles to his plow, he reset the leather reigns over his shoulders and braced himself against the pull of Babe and Blue, his team of huge oxen. They pull the plow easily through the rough ground, ripping it up. This was his third pass today through the freshly ground dirt and hopefully would be his last before he could plant the corn that needed to seed off by the following month if he was going to have a harvest to gather.
When the team took their last run through the dirt with the plow, Trent found that the planting came easily and by the time the sun dipped below the horizon, he’d managed to plant the entire field of corn. Tomorrow he’d start on green beans and peas. The following would be carrots and potatoes. His ranch wasn’t the biggest or most ostentatious in Midland, Texas, but he made good and adequate use of what God had blessed him with.
He couldn’t necessarily brag about how he’d acquired the ranch, considering he’d won it in a poker game three years before, but he’d turned the land into a beautiful horse and cattle ranch, with enough land in excess to plant crops that would sustain him through the winter months. Looking out over things, he knew he’d have to hire some hands to help him. His business was expanding so fast that keeping up with it was impossible for a man to do on his own.
Sighing, Trent knew that his choice was either to hire immigrants from Mexico or freed men of color. Being a person not in favor of slavery, the choice seemed clear. Although, needing to hire more than one person, he might just hire a freed man and a Mexican immigrant. He knew the sentiment of the community in which he lived. Slavery was a huge part of what made the southern states successful, but it was something that Trent just couldn’t abide by. No man should have the right to own another in his way of thinking.
The following morning, Trent made his way into town on Rusty, his bay mare who was nearly at retirement age. She’d been his since he was little and had taken him on more rides than he could remember, always returning him safely home. Arriving just past noon, Trent hitched Rusty to a post outside the post office.
“Hey Tommy,” he called out, greeting the clerk.
“Hey Mr. Baxter.” No matter how many times Trent had said to call him by his given name, the young man never did. Engrained manners he supposed. They weren’t always easy for young ones to let go of, even when they became grownups themselves. “What can I do for you today?”
“I’m looking to hire some freed men of color, maybe some Mexican immigrants as well.”
“Oh,” Tommy said, his cheeks going crimson. “Well I wouldn’t go around advertising that, but if you’re looking to hire some folks I can help you out. Is there anything else you need?”
“You know anyone who’s advertised for a wife?”
“You mean like a flyer around town or one of those high finagled newspaper ones that go back east?”
“Which one works better?”
“Honestly I have no idea, but if I was a betting man I’d put money back east. The women around here, if they are single, just seem less than what a man might want in a wife. No offense to the weaker sex or anything.”
“Alright. I’ll do an advertisement for some newspapers back east.”
“Fill out what you want to say and leave it there. I’ll take care of it from there.”
“Thanks Tommy,” Trent said, heading out to contact the man Tommy had given him information on.
Later that afternoon, he’d been able to hire two freed men and one Mexican immigrant who he hoped would work well, thanks to the information Tommy had provided. If things went well, and he thought they would, Trent figured he’d give Tommy a first pick of his harvest and a new horse as well. Swinging up into the saddle, he rode home with a lighter, more expectant heart.
Chapter Two: New Horizons
Gracie sat at the kitchen table two weeks after walking in the gardens with John and knew she had to come up with a plan. If she didn’t, Angela would marry her off to the first even slightly interested party.
“You really need to start taking this seriously,” Angela Curtis was saying, pouring coffee into her husband’s cup. “It isn’t like you’re going to have a lot of options left if you turn down every suiter that comes your way.”
“So I should marry for the sake of marrying?”
“You should marry so that you have some security in the future,” she huffed, clearly exasperated. “Or is it your hope to live at the orphanage forever?”
“You know I want to marry someday,” Gracie said, a little bit perturbed. “I don’t, however, feel that I should swoon for every man who show
s an interest. Do you know how many of them are only looking to make a profit through an alliance with me? I won’t be used as a pawn to make some man even richer than the silver spoon in his mouth.”
“I give up,” Angela said, tossing up her hands. “Rupert, please tell young lady the sense in picking a husband now versus later.”
“Listen to her, Gracie. Your money won’t last forever outside the walls of this orphanage. And if you think it’s bad now, just wait until there’s no one to filter those men for you,” Rupert Curtis said. Putting his pipe back in his mouth, he returned to the paper he was reading.
Gracie sat there for a minute staring at the paper. She skimmed the small print to ease her mind before landing on an interesting advertisement. Apparently a man out west was in need of a wife and mother for his daughter. Gracie couldn’t help the way his plight squeezed her heart. A single man trying to raise a little girl all on his own. When the idea first hit her, she shoved it away as ludicrous. But the more she thought about that man and the little girl who’d lost her mother, the more she felt her heart pull toward them.
After a week of trying to ignore the way she felt, she nervously approached her father. “Hello, Rupert.”
“Hello, Gracie.”
“Do you have a minute?”
“Sure, sweetheart.”
“You always told us that you’d set aside funds for our marriages when our time came.”
“Your parents did, thankfully,” Rupert replied, sitting against the edge of his desk.
“I was wondering if I could have mine early?” she said, as if the words would explode from her if she didn’t get them out. “We both know that the men here hold no appeal to me. If I don’t do something now, for myself, mother will marry me off most unhappily.”
“What do you plan to do?”
“Travel, some.”
“Where to?”
“Texas. There’s a rancher there who needs a teacher for his daughter. I’d have steady employment and with my inheritance I’d be able to settle down nicely. I need to do something that makes me feel as if I have a purpose beyond trying to snag the most eligible bachelor.”
[2016] Finding My Cowboy Page 3
