[2016] Finding My Cowboy

by Christian Michael

  Afternoon turned quickly into evening as Sarah’s contractions started to tumble into each other. She’d done her best to tell him the things they’d need and eventually she’d crawled onto his bed, her hair now undone and braided long behind her back. “You have to check for the baby,” she said, hurriedly when her contraction passed. “Please Bernd.”

  “Sarah,” he stuttered. “I can’t do this, it’s indecent.”

  “It’s a baby!” she screamed, her body wracked by another contraction. Her back arched and she drew her knees up as a moan tore from her. Bernd’s hands were shaking as he lifted the hem of her dress to see a sweet, squalling baby lying on the towels he’d spread out earlier that day.

  “He’s here, Sarah. You have a beautiful son.” Bernd, couldn’t barely contain his own joy as Sarah readjusted her body. Bernd secured the cord just as Sarah said, and once it stopped pulsing, cut it with a pair of sharp scissors. He quickly wrapped the baby in two thick towels and handed the baby to Sarah who looked like a goddess, holding her new baby. Overcome by the ordeal, Bernd sat down close to Sarah and pressed a kiss to her brow. “I love you Sarah Dickerson. I love you and your son.”

  ***

  Sarah felt tears fall onto her cheeks as she cuddled her new baby. Bernd had been an amazing partner, helping her deliver her healthy, sweet-faced baby boy. At Bernd’s urging she’d named him Bernd Benjamin Dickerson. The doctor had come and given both her and baby Bernd clean bills of health. “You did an amazing job Mrs. Dickerson,” he said, smiling. “Congratulations on your little boy.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “How’s the weather outside?”

  “It’s cold and we got our first snow this morning, but other than that it’s splendid.”

  “Maybe we’ll get out sometime this week,” she said, cuddling her baby, while he slept.

  “Just be sure to bundle him up well,” the doctor advised before congratulating her again and heading out.

  Having moved back to the hotel two days after delivering her son in Bernd’s home, Sarah felt her heart ache in a completely new way. Bernd hadn’t been by to see her and she missed him. To her it felt as if having her baby had created a rift between them that she didn’t know how to close. After a week, however, she bundled little Bernd up and hired a coach to take her to Bernd’s home.

  When she arrived, she saw him working with the horses and smiled. He looked right there, working alongside beautiful animals that he worked hard to train and subdue. Come spring she was sure he’d have a foal on his hands and the thought thrilled her. Finding that she’d like to be around to see it, coupled with how much she missed him and the joy that rushed through her just seeing him, made Sarah realize that her heart had indeed moved on. Just as Ben had asked, she’d learned to love again.

  “Bernd!” she called, waving her hand. He turned around as she was helped down from the buggy. He walked slowly toward her and she could see by the look in his eyes that something was wrong. “Are you alright? When you didn’t come to see us I thought perhaps I had angered you somehow.”

  “You didn’t anger me,” Bernd said, taking a peek at the new baby. “He’s beautiful.”

  “Yes he is,” she smiled. “Can we talk?”

  “Sure,” he said, helping her to a seat on the porch. “I’ll be right back with some tea for you. I left it warming on the stove.” When he returned Sarah took a sip and sighed, a blissful smile crossing her face.

  “What did you want to talk about?” Bernd said, his voice strained, pensive.

  “You and me,” Sarah said, her green eyes challenging him with quiet censure. “The night Bernd was born you told me you loved me, you said you loved my son, yet you haven’t once come to see us since we went back to the hotel.”

  “Sarah,” Bernd sighed, swiping a hand over his face. “I can’t…I don’t know the first thing about being a husband, let alone a father. I don’t have anything to offer you, either of you.”

  “And what was I asking for?” Sarah demanded, standing up to pace the porch, little Bernd in her arms. “Nine months ago if you, or anyone had asked me if I would find love after losing my husband I would have given you an adamant no. I wouldn’t have believed it possible, ever. God opened a door for me to come here, to make a friend. Then he saw fit to make room in my heart for you. To experience all the joy and wonder of falling in love again. I don’t want to throw all that away just because you’re scared.”

  “I’m not scared, Sarah,” Bernd said, realizing for the first time that he was indeed afraid. He was afraid of hurting her, doing something terribly wrong that would harm her baby.

  “Then you’re prideful,” Sarah said, her voice full of hurt. “You’d turn us away because you can’t get past your own ego. I don’t like comparing you to my late husband because I think it an unfair practice. You are completely different in so many ways, but I can tell you that he never would have turned a woman away, a woman he professed to love; just to save face. I’ll be leaving at the end of the week to travel back to Virginia. There is nothing to keep me in Texas anymore, especially with annexation likely to happen in the next year or so.”

  ***

  Bernd watched her go and felt as if his heart would fall straight from his chest. Still, he couldn’t get his feet to move or his voice to call her back. The ache in his heart couldn’t subdue his own pride and that only made things worse.

  The next three days were miserable, as they had been since Sarah had left his house after having Bernd. He’d stayed away because he’d truly thought himself unworthy of such an amazing woman. Who was he that a woman like Sarah Dickerson should fall in love with him? He wasn’t worthy to converse with her, let alone have her in his life permanently. The thought of her leaving Texas for good burned in his gut like acid and Bernd found himself saddling Jeb, the faster of his two cart horses, and heading to town. He made it to the inn in good time, only to find that Sarah had already left for the station to meet the wagon train.

  Turning his horse around, Bernd wove his way through the streets, avoiding buggies, wagons, and pedestrians on his way. When he neared the station, Bernd slid off Jeb’s back and hurried toward the platform, not even stopping to tie Jeb to a post. “Sarah!” he called, “Sarah Dickerson!”

  “You don’t have to yell,” she said, stepping onto the platform, little Bernd nestled against her shoulder. “I can hear you just fine.”

  Bernd breathed a sigh of relief as he took in the sight of the woman who’d taken him by surprise and completely undone his guarded heart. “I’m sorry,” Bernd said, stumbling. “I’m sorry that I let you think for one minute that I didn’t care about you. I don’t do well with emotions, especially inside myself. That’s not an excuse, I’m just saying so you’d know. I never saw myself as the marrying type. I figured that if marriage had been for me it would have come much sooner in my life. I didn’t stop to think that perhaps God was saving me for a woman who’d need me. I wouldn’t blame you for leaving, Sarah, but I’m be much obliged if you’d reconsider.”

  “Have you changed your mind then, on not having anything to offer me?”

  “I don’t see it as much, not when I think about you and that sweet baby. I think of all the things I’d like to give you and what I have just doesn’t seem like much. However, I’d be willing to give you everything I have, everything I ever will have, if you’d stay.”

  “I need that said in clearer terms, Mr. Blindow.”

  “If you’ll have me, Sarah Dickerson, I want to spend the rest of my life loving you and Bernd. Finding a way to provide you with the life I think you deserve and living the life God has blessed us with.”

  “Are you asking me to marry you then?” Sarah asked, a grin growing on her face. Bernd smiled too and dropping to one knee held his arms open.

  “I’m begging you to stay and fill in all the gaps I never even knew I had in my life, until I found you.”

  “Alright,” Sarah smiled. “Then I guess for starters we had better get s
ome adoption papers made so this little man can be Bernd Benjamin Dickerson-Blindow. After all, his name should match that of his parents.”

  The adoption papers took less than two weeks to go through once Sarah and Bernd were married. Sarah had to provide Ben’s death certificate and a part of her heart hurt for the man she’d loved who would never see his son on this side of heaven. Still, she knew she’d always remember him when she looked at her son and that would always put a smile on her face.

  THE END.

  The Christmas Bride

  Mail Order Bride

  CHRISTIAN MICHAEL

  Hoboken, New Jersey 1890

  Kayla Anderson sat in her parent’s home looking at all the empty rooms where her memories were stored. Tears welled in her eyes and spilled past her lashes as she wept for the life that had been uselessly ripped from her hands. Two weeks ago she’d been happy, the well-loved child of doting parents. Now she was parentless and heartbroken, her only thread of hope, an advertisement for a mail-order bride.

  She scoffed at the idea. Just barely eighteen she couldn’t imagine being someone’s wife, but what other choice did she have? She’d spent every penny she’d had burying her parents. The advertisement said the man would pay her travel expenses and for a hotel when she arrived before any permanent decisions were made. The promise of security, even if the arrangement didn’t work out, was enough to have her sending the man a wire to see if he still needed a bride.

  Stopping by the post office, Kayla sent the wire, with a special request to hurry the reply. She had two more days and her parent’s house would be rented to a couple who’d just moved to the area. Sighing, Kayla headed for the grocery store. She had ten dollars left to her name to make the next two days livable. She returned home with some bread and peanut butter. It’d go the furthest in feeding her for the next few days as Kayla clung to the hope that her answers lay in Texas.

  ***

  Curt Langley breathed in the smell of fresh coffee as he sat on his porch. He watched the pretty purples and pinks of the sunrise spread over the horizon and wondered how anyone could question the existence of God. Just looking at his ranch, spread out across the plains of Texas, he could see the obvious fingerprints of a loving creator.

  It’d been a week since he’d posted an ad in all the East Coast newspapers. Desperate for a friend and someone to take care of him, Curt had decided that placing an ad for a mail-order bride was the quickest way to find someone to fill the position he had open. Being a fairly new state, Texas had nearly ten men for every woman. While he wasn’t looking for a wife, it was easier said than done to find a woman who’d stay on his ranch and cook and clean for him. Tired of eating hard tack and biscuits, Curt had put an ad in the papers back east for a woman who could cook and clean to come to his town.

  He’d thought about specifying an age, but wasn’t sure that was the best way to find capable candidates. He was so desperate he figured the more women who applied the better.

  “Senor Langley!” Curt’s foreman Tomas said, holding up a yellow slip of paper. “The post office man bring this by senor.”

  “Thank you Tomas,” Curt said, taking the paper. Convinced his workers should speak, write and read English, he never spoke to them in their native language, even though he knew it fluently. Looking down at his notice, it seemed a woman was more than willing to come to Texas and asked that he rush his reply if he was still in the market for a wife. Grinning, Curt had Tomas saddle his horse.

  “I need to go take care of this,” he told him. “I’ll be back as soon as it’s done.”

  “Yes sir,” Tomas said with a shake of his head.

  Curt wheeled his stallion around and took off for town. Forty minutes later he sat in the post office awaiting a wire answer from Miss Anderson. He mulled her name over in his mind. Kayla Anderson. He wondered how her parents had chosen her name. Was it just one they heard and liked or did it have a more sentimental tone to it than that. He’d wired enough funds to more than pay for her travel. He hoped she’d answer quickly. Once he knew for sure that she would come, he’d head over to Rose McClaire’s boarding house and rent a room for the month. That should be ample enough time for both Miss Anderson and himself to decide whether or not their arrangement would work out.

  ***

  Kayla had awoken for the first time in two weeks with a clear mind. She wouldn’t call it hope really, but there was a certain amount of anticipation in her step as she headed for the post office. She stepped through the door, thankful to be out of the chilly October air.

  “Hi Charlie,” she said, greeting the clerk who was on duty. “I don’t suppose there’s been an answer to my wire?”

  “Actually, I just received a wire answer and a transfer of nearly five hundred dollars. To be given to you should you read the answer and agree.”

  Kayla didn’t want to show her surprise, but it wasn’t an easy thing to hide. “May I have the wire first please?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Charlie said, handing over the common yellow paper.

  Dear Miss Anderson Stop Thank you very much for answering my ad Stop So far you’re the first woman to do so Stop I suppose this is because of its unusual nature Stop I hope this letter finds you well and that you still plan to come to Texas Stop If so, please find enclosed a sum of five hundred U.S. Dollars Stop Come with all haste Stop I will be ready when you get here Stop Please send reply of confirmation or declination Stop Truly Yours, Curt Leopold Langley Lubbock Texas Stop

  “Charlie, will you please send this in reply to Mr. Curt Langley,” Kayla said. “Dear Mr. Langley Stop I gladly accept your invitation to come to Texas Stop I greatly appreciate your paying my passage Stop Please expect me within the week as I plan to leave this very afternoon Stop I’m hopeful this arrangement will benefit us both Stop Kindly Yours, Kayla Anderson Stop”

  “Sure will ma’am,” Charlie smiled. “Although it’ll cost quite a sum to send that much wordage.”

  “That’s fine,” Kayla smiled. “Please deduct it from the sum Mr. Langley sent.” After waiting for the message to be sent, Kayla took the leftover funds and headed for the train depot.

  “May I help you Miss?”

  “Yes, sir. I’d like a one way ticket to Lubbock, Texas.”

  “Are you traveling alone ma’am?” the depot master asked, obviously concerned.

  “Technically yes, but I’ll have plenty of company on the train.”

  “Oh, I don’t doubt that ma’am. You just be sure to find a nice woman or couple to travel with most of the way you hear?”

  “The Lord will carry me through and guide me where I need to be, when I need to be there.”

  “Well good luck to you ma’am,” the depot master smiled as he handed Kayla her ticket.

  “Thank you.”

  ***

  Curt waited anxiously the following Saturday as the hour drew near for Kayla’s train to come in. She’d sent a reply within minutes a week ago to tell him she’d be on the next train. Now he was pacing up and down the boardwalk, awaiting a woman he’d never even seen. He just hoped she could cook and clean.

  The train whistle blew and Curt looked down the tracks to see the huge steam engine leading the passenger cars, one of which carried Kayla Lynette Anderson. He’d wondered about her ever since he’d gotten her response to his ad. He’d inquired about her travel arrangements but hadn’t expected the surprise of her traveling alone. It wasn’t entirely unheard of, but it was an odd and extremely concerning path, especially when he’d sent for her personally.

  The train came to a stop and passengers filed off in droves. It seemed more and more people every day were coming to stake their claims on the land of Texas. It was sort of nice knowing a woman would be coming to his home. He waited patiently for everyone to clear out, figuring he’d know the woman he was looking for when she was the only one left there.

  As the massive crowd began to thin, Curt caught site of a woman who mesmerized him and took his breath away. The mixture
of her platinum blonde hair and pretty blue eyes enchanted him. He thought about asking her what her name was, but he knew it’d be rude to the woman he was actually waiting for. As the crowd thinned even more however, Curt realized that this stunningly beautiful woman had yet to meet anyone who might be waiting for her.

  “Ma’am, might you be Miss Kayla Anderson?”

  “I am,” the beautiful woman smiled. Curt knew that if she’d taken his breath away earlier, he’d be completely tongue-tied if he spent too much time thinking about her and her future at his home. “I take it you’re Mr. Langley?”

  “I am,” Curt said, extending his hand. He shook Kayla’s hand, picked up all of her belongings and seeing what else needed to be toted to his carriage. “Please call me Curt. I hope you don’t mind not having some of the modern conveniences.”

  “It’s not a problem,” Kayla reassured him. “I’ve cooked on everything from a fire outside to a hearth fire to a wood stove. Whatever you might have I’ll make do with.”

  Curt couldn’t believe that the woman talking to him would be cooking and cleaning for him. If he were going on looks alone, he might rethink getting married. Still, she was here and he’d promised to put her up until she decided if this arrangement would work for her.

  “May I take your bag?”

  “Yes please. Thank you.”

  “You’re most welcome,” Curt smiled. “Do you have a trunk as well?”

  “I don’t. I didn’t want to spend too much of the funds you sent so I only brought my satchel.”

  “Alright,” Curt said. “We’ll get you settled and then we can go to the café, if you’d like, and discuss our arrangement.”

  “Okay,” Kayla agreed.

  ***

  She’d never have imagined that Curt Langley would be so handsome. The contrast between his dark, curly hair and his beautiful and bright blue eyes was shocking to say the least. She imagined plenty of women stopped and stared at him. She wondered, not for the first time, why he hadn’t been able to find a wife here in his hometown. Then she stepped into the street and realized that the number of available women was scarce, to say the least.