Bride School: Genevieve (The Brides of Diamond Springs Ranch 1)

by Bella Bowen

  She raised a pleasant brow toward the newcomer and waited.

  “It will be a good day,” he said carefully, “just as soon as you give me back what’s mine.”

  Ah, so. He did mean to goad her into an argument and not just retrieve his daughter.

  She only paused long enough to widen her smile. Without looking down, she asked, “Have I taken something from you, sir? How rude of me. We haven’t even been properly introduced and I have offended you. My name is Genevieve Carnegie. And you are?” She raised her white-gloved hand toward his dusty person. He sneered at it, so she lowered it, taking no offense at all, smiling the entire time.

  “Un-hitch my daughter from your skirts, ma’am. And if she ever seeks you out again, I expect you to send her home. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Perfectly clear, sir.” She gave him a look then that let him no with a certainty that she would never knowingly do anything that would win his approval. “How old is this daughter of yours?”

  He snorted. “Un-hitch—”

  “Sixteen! I’m sixteen!”

  Finally, Gen looked down and feigned surprised at finding the young woman at her feet. She offered both hands. The girl took them and stood but was careful to skirt around to place Gen between her father and herself. The man seemed oblivious to her, glaring instead at everyone else.

  “I’m so sorry, young lady,” Gen began. “The ranch won’t be ready for brides for some time. And I doubt you can afford the program.”

  “Program?”

  “Yes. You see, the women who come to Diamond Springs will receive a specialized education that will make them the most acceptable and most desirable brides in the Western Territories. I cannot offer that service for free, of course. And there is a limit to how many brides I can take on at any given time.”

  She could see the desperation welling in the form of tears in those brown button eyes. She could almost read the child’s thoughts.

  If you let him take me back, I will suffer. I will die.

  She’d read such thoughts before, both in New York and in all the cities to which Bartie had taken her. Poverty, surely. But there was something else. Sometimes, there were those who yearned more desperately than the rest, to escape the lives Fate had granted them. They had been misplaced by God himself, it seemed, and sought their rightful place in the world. It was a yearning she herself had felt at a very young age. It never left her. It had made her who she was, had delivered her to stand on that very spot that day. And it had brought this girl to her.

  It frightened her to consider what might have happened to her if David hadn’t noticed her and come to pay court to her, to offer her an adventure in the wildness of the West, and everything that had come after.

  Whenever she’d come across these kindred spirits, she’d always tried to do something to help them on their way. And she’d found yet another one right there in Sage River! Her own town. Her home.

  How could she turn her away?

  But what she’d said was true. There was only so much room. And if she offered her program for free, the place would be overrun and of no use to anyone. There had to be rules, and they could not be broken on a whim.

  “I suppose you could work for me until the ranch was ready,” she mused aloud.

  The girl leapt into the air and began dancing around. Her father reached for her and missed, which only made him more angry. He slid off the horse and took two steps before he ran into a wall.

  Devlin was that wall.

  “I’m the temporary sheriff here, Radley. Or hadn’t you heard?”

  The man’s jaw jumped beneath his unshaven skin. “No, I ain’t heard.”

  “Well, you know now.”

  The two men looked at each other, eyes jumping back and forth, waiting for the other man to step back. No one moved.

  Finally, the older man relaxed and nodded over Devlin’s shoulder. “Mary’s coming home with me. It ain’t against the law that I take my own daughter home, away from the evil temptations of the city, now is it?”

  “Sure you can take her.”

  The other man nodded once and moved to collect the girl, but Devlin stopped him with a hand to his forearm.

  “You can take her,” he continued, “if Mary wants to go along. She’s sixteen now, Jeb. Old enough to get married if she wants.”

  The ornery man snorted again. “But there ain’t no one asking for her, Devlin.”

  Gen doubted she’d ever see the girl again if her father was allowed to take her away. So she just had to think of some way to get him to want her to stay.

  “Of course there are rules, Mr. Radley, is it? There is the bride price…”

  “I ain’t paying no dowry!” He rolled his eyes and tried to get past Devlin. The latter sent a look Gen’s way that said he hoped to hell she had a plan because he wasn’t going to be able to wrestle with the man all day.

  Gen laughed. “You misunderstand, Jeb. May I call you Jeb?” She stepped forward and placed one of those white gloves on the man’s shoulder. “The groom pays me. And I…pay you.”

  Jeb stopped fighting and narrowed his eyes. He wasn’t a stupid man. When he glanced around, he was noting the faces of those who were witnesses. When his mouth moved, she believed he was trying to memorize names.

  “How much?”

  The entire mob leaned in a little, anxious to hear what kind of money was involved in a dowry that worked backward.

  “Well, depending on the man who offers for her—and the man she chooses—you could expect anywhere from ten dollars on up.”

  Jeb swallowed. “And if I get ten dollars, how much do you get?”

  Gen didn’t so much as blink. “Forty.”

  He folded his arms. “Twenty-five and she’s your’n.”

  “Twenty-five it is.” She stuck out her gloved hand.

  Jeb grabbed her wrist, ripped off the glove and threw it on the ground, then shook her bare hand—after spitting in his own, of course.

  “These are witnesses,” he said slyly.

  Gen grinned up into his face. “They certainly are.”

  The old phony cried when he bid his daughter farewell. The girl cried too. Gen’s eyes stayed dry primarily from all the rolling they did. And she wondered, when it was all said and done, if father and daughter hadn’t planned it all from the beginning, because it was clear the daughter was of two minds about letting her papa leave without her.

  Devlin nodded at Jeb’s disappearing figure as he led his own horse toward the well and the road beyond. “You’d cry too…if you knew you’d never again eat a decent meal.” He chuckled, but Gen had the impression Dev felt genuinely sorry for the older man. She only hoped that someday he would explain why.

  “Are you hinting around for an invitation to Sunday supper?” she called out.

  Devlin stopped and stood still. After a minute, he dropped the reins, turned, and stomped back to her, his face hard. He took hold of Gen’s upper arm and backed her up a few steps, then turned to make sure no one was listening. The girl was talking to Mrs. Miller. Everyone else had wandered away.

  “Listen to me, Mrs. Carnegie. I know what goes on in that head of yours. I know the folks of Sage River are no more than little dolls to you—dolls you can play with and move around where you want them to go, do what you want them to do. But I’m not one of them, do you hear?” He shook her gently. “I’m not one of them. I’m here to protect them. From the little girl with the big doll house.”

  He let go of her then, took off his hat, pushed his hand up into his hair, then replaced his hat. Finally, he looked back at her face. All she could do was watch, listen, and try to understand why the man she loved, who had to know how she felt about him, had decided she was the enemy again.

  “I’ll make you a deal, Mrs. Carnegie. You play with your dolls, with your brides and grooms, with the people of this town, but I’m not one of them. Do you hear? You don’t get to tell me where to go or what to do. And you sure as hell won’t be telling me what
to eat.”

  He turned and stalked away.

  She stood quaking in her slippers and didn’t know if it was because the man had finally come close enough she could gaze into his eyes and almost taste him in the air, or if she was just shaken by his contempt for her. Perhaps a little of both.

  The girl, Mary, walked up and stood before her, giving her no more time to wonder over her reactions to the man. She was just about to speak when the girl sunk into a deep curtsy.

  She straightened sharply. “Is that how it’s done, Mrs. Carnegie?”

  So anxious for reassurance. How could she deny her?

  “Yes, Mary. That was very well done of you. It’s a fine start.” She gestured toward the wagon where Fontaine waited to drive her back the ranch. Mary ran ahead. Wood slapped against wood and Gen turned to find Charlie Willot coming out of Carnegie Hall. He looked over his head at the little sign the Old Al had made. The blood stain was still there. Three fingers clearly visible.

  Then Willot did the strangest thing.

  He spit on his own fingers and wiped them on the sign, then he turned for home. When he noticed Gen staring, he touched his hand to his forehead, to the brim of a hat he never wore, and hurried for home with a wide smile.

  For good and bad, she thought, looking back at the sign, she had touched the lives of Sage River. The old man was gone. Mary was saved from whatever it was she thought she’d needed saving. Mr. Willot seemed to be the happiest man in town, which made Mrs. Willot the happiest woman, which was a stark contrast to the day Gen had arrived. The female ragamuffins that now ran her portion of the ranch had a permanent home and a job they could take pride in. And a steady stream of young women were headed to town who would have a hand in shaping the Territories. Gen was just happy to have a hand in training those hands. And hearts.

  The Brides of Diamond Springs would be educated in finding their own happiness, besides that of their husbands and children. Hopefully they would go to their marriages in the knowledge that they had a right to speak their minds and a reasonable expectation to be heard. And if their husbands ever thought to abuse them, then heaven help those men.

  Gen paused beside the wagon and pulled her notebook from her small purse. On a blank page she wrote: Class: How to kill a man. Beneath that, she wrote: Let the preacher worry about teaching them to forgive one.

  She took a deep breath of sweet summer air and sighed.

  Yes. She was content to help these people who had landed in her life, or were about to land in her life. They needed her. And she needed to be needed, she supposed.

  And maybe one day, Devlin would need her more than they did. But he couldn’t need her much at the moment. Not if he was willing to leave her playing with her dollhouse and just walk away.

  Gen was content knowing that he wouldn’t go far. Because she needed him. She was determined not to need him often, but she did need him. What he didn’t realize was that she was setting up her little dollhouse—both the ranch and town—so they could exist without her. And when that day came, when they didn’t need her anymore, she and Devlin could ride out into the sunset together.

  She climbed into the wagon and Fontaine dropped a ball of paper in her lap.

  “What’s this?” Gen picked up the paper and started unraveling it.

  “An application. Found it on the ground.”

  “A groom? He must have reconsidered, hmn?”

  “Just read the signature, ma’am.”

  Gen looked closely and frowned. The handwriting looked familiar. The evening light was fading and it was hard to see, but she thought it said…

  Devlin Zollinger!

  She sat straight and schooled her features. Somewhere, around some corner, Devlin was no doubt watching her reaction and she refused to give it.

  She signaled for Fontaine to get moving. As they passed the sheriff’s office, she glanced in the opposite direction and gave a little laugh.

  “He said he wasn’t going to play,” she muttered to herself. “He’d already been tempted to fill out a form when he stood there and insisted that he wasn’t going to play.”

  Silly puppet, she thought.

  I’m still in charge of the strings…

  THE END

  If you enjoyed this first book in The Brides of Diamond Springs Ranch, please go to Goodreads or Amazon and leave a review. Then send me an email and let me know so I can thank you in person. You can reach me through my website, www.bellabowen.weebly.com.

  And thank you for spending your precious reading time with my characters!

  Excerpt from Book 2 of the Brides of Diamond Springs Ranch

  Lizzy tried to see if there were any gaps in the blindfold, but it looked like Connor McGee couldn’t see anything, even if he looked down.

  “Now, you hold good and tight to that rope, Connor. If you let go, even with one hand, I’m going to leave you here to explain yourself to my pa.”

  “I won’t let go, Lizzy,” he breathed solemnly. “I swear it.”

  “Down on your knees, then.”

  The young buck lowered himself to his knees. Easily done while holding onto the rope above his head.

  “You want a drink of milk? I just love warm milk, don’t you?” She pressed a mug to his lips before he had a chance to refuse it. A generous tip, a generous gulp, and a little bit of splashing. “Sorry, Connor. But don’t worry. I’ll lick it off.”

  The boy gasped and held still, trying to hide the slyest smile.

  Satisfied, Lizzy stepped back to the pen and led Bessie’s little calf forward. She hummed to disguise the sound of the little animal shuffling forward until it stood directly before Connor. Then she dropped to her knees beside it.

  “Lower your head, laddie. I can’t quite reach your lips.”

  Conner scooted his hands down the rope a bit and dropped his head. The little calf smelled its mother’s milk and lifted its head to find it. A sniff, a lick, and the little beast latched onto Connor’s upper lip.

  Lizzy was so surprised at how long it took the boy to realize it wasn’t her sucking on his face, she nearly forgot to run. The lad hollered enough to wake the dead. The calf cried for its mother, and Bessie started kicking at the wall before she got clean out the back barn door. Then she dissolved into a giggling fit while she wondered how long the boy was going to hold onto that rope.

  “Lizzy!” Connor bellowed.

  She stood straight and listened, watching the door so closely she didn’t notice the figure sneaking up on her. Someone grabbed her hand and she gasped as she was spun around to land against the broad chest of Robbie Shaw. Or at least she thought it was Robbie until she realized the chest was a bit too wide and far too high to belong to that lad.

  Good heavens! It was Robbie’s older brother! The one who’d just arrived on the train. The one they’d thrown the party for.

  Lizzy had only had a glance at the man before Connor had asked her to dance. Then she’d been too busy teasing him and Robbie to notice much else.

  “I just found my brother tied to a tree,” the man said. His voice was deep and it poured over her shoulder like a bucket of chills. He didn’t sound angry about Robbie being tied up. “And now you’ve done something to poor Connor? Busy girl.”

  She wiggled, but he held her tight. He still held her hand and his other arm was wrapped tightly around her waist. She chose to use the same tactic that worked on the younger boys because that’s all she knew to use.

  “I’ll thank you to unhand me, Mr. Shaw. It’s highly inappropriate for you to speak to me at all until we’re properly introduced, let alone touch me.”

  She breathed steadily, in and out, in and out, while she waited for him to understand. The man was definitely a bit slower witted than his brother because it took a good long while for him to let her go.

  Finally, she was able to step back and brush her skirts. She lifted her nose into the air and took a step, intending to walk around him.

  “Just a moment, Miss.” He held up a hand. “
Forgive me for speaking, strangers as we are, but I must ask what you’ve done to Connor. And if you’ll be so kind as to indulge my curiosity, how did you lure the boys into your little traps?”

  Lizzy considered that Mr. Shaw might not be as slow witted as she’d thought. And he was well-mannered when he wasn’t holding on to her, so answering his questions couldn’t hurt.

  “I blindfolded him and tricked him into kissing a calf.”

  The man grinned. He wasn’t nearly as old as she thought he was. And little dimples appeared at the corners of his smile.

  “And how did you get these boys to do your bidding?”

  She answered carefully. “I promised them a kiss.”

  He took her hand again and tugged her gently toward him. She resisted, so he took a small step to close the distance himself. He smelled rather wonderful, which was distracting her, otherwise she was certain she wouldn’t have allowed it.

  “Then on behalf of my brother and Connor McGee, who is as good as a brother to me, I demand to collect their payments for them. After all, they obviously did as you asked.”

  She laughed. “I can’t argue that. They certainly did…” Her words fell off when she realized what he was asking. On the inside, she was all a’ panic, but she refused to show it. “I cannot possibly oblige you, sir.”

  “And why not? I’m collecting for family, after all.”

  “Still impossible. I’m soon to be engaged, you see. And I will not allow such liberties.” She was determined to share her first kiss with the man she married and no other. It didn’t keep her from teasing young men with promises because she never intended to keep them.

  He leaned close in the bright moonlight and searched her face. “Say it isn’t true, Elizabeth. I’ve only just arrived. I’ve only just learned the name of the most beautiful girl in town. You cannot say I have no chance to court her. You’ll break my heart. To whom are you promised?”