by Sarah Thorn
“If I drink wine, I won’t make it to the room you have prepared for me.”
Hannah laughed softly for a moment and then turned to go into another room down the hall. Olive looked back at Eric before following. He lifted one hand to indicate she should go.
“I’ll be right behind you,” he said. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Olive was surprised to hear those words. Why would Eric care what happened to her? He hadn’t been the one to send for her. She walked slowly so that he was right behind her and whispered back to him, “Why did she say I would be a part of the family when Henry is not here now?”
When Eric responded, he leaned close behind her, she could feel his soft breath on her ear. It sent violent chills down her arms and thighs, and she almost felt like fainting. She held it together, though, drawing in a deep breath as quietly as she could and straightening her spine.
“I think she’s already decided your fate, my dear. Welcome to the family.”
Olive’s eyes widened at him, and she hurried to catch up with Hannah. He straightened up again, clasped his hands behind his back and continued to walk at a normal pace, watching Olive get further away from him before turning into the room the Wake was being held. He was in no hurry. The room wouldn’t be packed with people attending a get-together in his brother’s honor. He wasn’t a well-liked man.
When he turned into the room, there were even fewer people than he expected. Then he remembered the late hour and assumed if more were here, they had already left. There was no body to look at and that suited everyone just fine. The sour look that had dominated Henry’s face would not have been something for Olive to have in her mind of the man she almost married.
Eric went immediately to a high backed cushioned chair in the corner by a large indoor plant his mother was so fond of growing. She took care of her plants as she had taken care of her children, with gentle love and firm discipline. The plants were trimmed and watered on a regular schedule that never wavered or faltered. She was a woman who liked to keep things in order, looking presentable and, in the case of her children, physically and mentally healthy. He sat there, watching Hannah take Olive around the room.
Hannah introduced her to Eric’s other brother and his sisters and brothers-in-law one by one. The older woman made no immediate mention of her being Henry’s intended bride, simply introduced her as a new friend in town. The siblings weren’t fooled, however, and began to question Eric about Olive’s sudden appearance as soon as Hannah took the girl to the kitchen to retrieve some real food and drink.
“What’s going on, Eric? Where did you find her? Where have you been hiding her?” Helen was the first one to quiz him, coming over to stand directly in front of him. She had her arms crossed in front of her chest as if she was upset but her voice and face said she was more curious than anything.
“You’re going overload the poor man, Hellie. Just let him answer one before you ask another.”
“I wasn’t speaking to you, William Lewis. And don’t call me Hellie. You know I hate that. I am just wondering where she came from, that’s all.”
Eric nodded, lifted his hands and gestured for them to calm down.
“She looks really nice, Eric.” His youngest sister smiled at him, approaching slowly to sit on the floor next to him. She ran her fingers through the carpeting, looking up at him with large brown eyes. “Did you meet her in town?”
Eric touched her nose before answering. “I did, yes. But not the way you are all thinking. It seems our eldest brother was up to something before his accident today.”
His statement was met with widespread frowns of confusion. It wasn’t until that moment that he realized how much he and his siblings looked alike. They all looked like they were frowning with the same mouth. The thought amused him, and he smiled wide.
“I know that smile, Eric!” Helen said, sternly. “You are playing with us. What are you hiding?”
Eric shook his head. “No, no, Helen. You are mistaken. It isn’t me who was hiding. It was Henry.”
“I don’t understand.” Jane spoke up for the first time from her seat on the couch. She had been wrapped in her thoughts of Henry and just realized that she had been introduced to a strange woman in her mother’s home. “What’s going on?”
Her siblings glanced at her before turning their eyes back to Eric. She was just being her typical self. There was no need to inform her what the conversation was about because she would be back into her own world within moments anyway and they would have to explain it all again later.
“Eric, you need to come forth with the truth. What are you saying?”
“Our brother sent for a bride from the East.”
He was met with silent stares from his brother and sisters. He had even succeeded in making his youngest sister’s face register shock and bewilderment.
“Pardon me?” William took a step closer to him, and Eric lifted his hand in a stop motion.
“I’m telling you, that’s where Olive is from. She is from a small town in Virginia. Henry sent for her.”
“What could possibly make any woman want to do that?” Helen sounded belligerent. “I can’t imagine! Leaving your family and your home and traveling all the way…”
“That’s just the thing.” Eric interrupted her. It was uncommon for him to do such a thing so Helen’s mouth snapped shut and she stared at him with wide eyes. “She is escaping an unhappy home life, and I think you should give her a chance. She is not some wild woman who was looking for a man with money, and she has not shown herself to be loose or impudent in any way. I would appreciate it if you would give her the chance to show you who she is.”
“You don’t even know who she is, Eric,” William said. “Yet you defend her as if you are the one who called for her.”
Eric shook his head. “No, my brother. I didn’t call for her. It was Henry.”
“How do you know?”
“She showed me the letter he had sent most recently. She has others. They are in his handwriting. I would recognize it anywhere.”
“I… I don’t believe it.” Helen finally looked away and took a step back from him, her aggressiveness dissolved. She moved to the couch and let herself drop on it next to Jane.
Jane looked at her.
“What’s happening, Helen? What’s going on?”
“I’ll tell you later, Jane.” Helen patted her sister’s hand softly. “Don’t you worry about it.”
Chapter Four
The house was extremely long. It was obvious that Mr. Lewis, who built it in the first place, continued to add rooms as he saw fit. He never expanded the upper level, leaving the house looking very odd from the outside. The rooms he built on were comfortable, solid and very nicely decorated. He’d felt the need to add another room when his daughters married, in case they and their husbands wanted to visit at the same time. Then he had added two more rooms for the children he knew they would eventually have.
He was an extremely boisterous and fun man in his late 60’s. He was fit and trim, ready to take on the world. Olive enjoyed being around him whenever he was there.
Over the course of a week, she learned many things about the new life she was living and the people she was living it with. She learned that Helen and Matthew were daily visitors, that William and his wife were rarely seen and that Henry had not been a visitor more often than holidays. She couldn’t understand that, considering the kind of family he’d had. Eric was also there more often than not.
She took the time to wonder if his visits were more frequent now that she was here. She tried hard not to think about Eric all day. He was the brother of the man she was supposed to marry. She hadn’t corresponded with him, and he hadn’t paid for her ticket to come. He was under no obligation to her. She was someone else’s intended. She could only imagine what he thought of her decision to marry a stranger across the country.
But when he visited, her doubts and fears seemed to disappear. He was so friendly and k
ind; she had no time to think negative thoughts. He took her on a tour of the house and surrounding land a few days after her arrival and had been thoughtful enough to bring along a basket with fresh fruit, cornbread and small jars of a delicious strawberry drink Hannah had been making for her children since they were very young.
“This is a concoction my mother is famous for.” Eric had boasted.
She remembered laughing and saying, “Famous where? I’ve never heard of her strawberry drink before.” and not even caring that it sounded blunt and a little rude. Eric never took it that way. Her conversations with him were always smooth, flowing naturally from one topic to another, with a lot of laughing along the way.
They had spent that entire day together. The only possibly negative thing she noticed of the day was that he always steered the conversation away from Henry if the topic was broached. Olive had seen very little grieving of the brother that had so recently passed, not just by Eric but by his siblings, as well. Helen did not seem to be naturally friendly, but the rest of Eric’s siblings were.
Still she had not seen one shed tear from any of them. Their mother was the only one she had ever seen show emotion about her deceased son.
Nevertheless, the rest of the day proved to be a true blessing from God. It was one of the most wonderful days she had ever had in her entire lifetime. She couldn’t imagine a day in her future that could make her feel as comfortable and happy as that day.
Since then, she’d found it nearly impossible to keep him off her mind. She wanted to be with him wherever he was, no matter what time of day or night it was. She wanted to feel his hands and his lips against hers.
It was during these times of elation that her mind would begin to fill with doubts. It was wrong for her to feel that way about him. He was Henry’s brother. She still felt some kind of obligation to the deceased man, and she didn’t know why. She wondered what his family must think of her. They hadn’t once asked where she’d come from, but she suspected they talked about it when she wasn’t around.
It was with those thoughts that she woke that morning, exactly one week since her arrival. She looked around the small room, stretching her arms out wide and breathing in the fresh scent of coffee brewing.
She sat up and let her small legs hang over the side. Her feet touched the cold floor for just a moment before she slid them into the little soft slippers Amy had given her. Wrapping her robe around her, she stopped in front of the mirror and poured some water from the pitcher into a pretty ceramic bowl. As always, she hesitated before dipping her hands into the water and washing her face. It had become a habit when she was in Virginia to hesitate because oftentimes the water was very cold.
It was rarely cold here in Nevada. The weather was completely different. But she still hesitated.
Five minutes later, face clean, hair brushed and pulled back behind her to fall loose and curly down her back, Olive walked out of the room and down the hall toward the kitchen and dining room. There was a very long carved wooden table with matching chairs that took up an entire room size. The kitchen was open to the table, doubling the size of the room. Henry had made the table for his family several years past.
She heard voices and stopped, standing silently, listening to what they were saying.
“I still don’t see the point in all of this.” It was Helen she heard first, and the tone of her voice is what had made Olive stop.
“What do you mean by ‘point’?” It was Eric that responded. Olive’s heart skipped a beat, and she berated herself for eavesdropping but didn’t continue to the kitchen. “Why does there have to be a point in helping someone?”
“She’s a complete stranger. Maybe the letters were forged, and she found a way to move into a home when she did not have one?”
“I don’t understand why you think that way.” It wasn’t Eric that was talking this time. Olive was surprised to hear William’s voice. “She has given no indication that she is anything other than she said she is. A woman who promised to marry a man that is deceased. She had nowhere to go.”
“I read those letters. They don’t sound anything like Henry. Nothing like him!” Helen snapped back at her brother. “I think she found a way to…to forge them!”
“That’s nonsense.” Eric spoke up. “She is who she says she is. However…” The way he said the word made Olive think Helen had been about to speak again. “I agree that the letters do not sound like Henry wrote them. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him use some of the words I read in those letters. That is, indeed, a mystery. But that is not a reflection on Olive. She would be a victim if this were some type of prank someone was playing on Henry.”
Olive distracted herself with thoughts about the letters and the man she thought she was coming to meet. The way they made it sound, Henry was not the kind of man she would have wanted to be married to. He sounded harsh, negative and mean. That would have been a living nightmare.
“You are right, Eric.” Helen’s voice had changed. Olive heard the shuffling of feet and the sound of someone sitting. Helen sighed. “I don’t want to see ma and pa taken advantage of, though. She shouldn’t just stay here forever. She isn’t kin. We don’t know her. She could be anyone…”
“I think I know why she was sent here, Helen.” Eric said, and Olive’s ears perked up, drinking in the sound of his voice. She sighed quietly.
“Oh? And why is that? For you to marry?”
The room was silent.
Olive’s breath caught in her throat, and she lifted one hand to it as if that would help. Her heart was hammering in her chest. Marrying Eric would be the most wonderful thing she could ever imagine.
But was it the wrong thing? What if that was never in God’s plan to begin with? She hadn’t been praying as much as she should have but she was worried that such a thing might not look good to Him or to the people she was living with. What would they think of her?
She was confused by the long pause and wondered if Eric would ever answer. She pressed her lips together and let out a breath when she finally heard his voice.
“I am not the one to say what is in God’s plan, Helen.” His words almost directly matched her thoughts. It only made her more nervous. Her hands were shaking, and she pressed them against her lips firmly. “But I can tell you that I’ve prayed every single morning for Him to send me a sign that I will have a happy life, and, until she came, there was no answer.”
Tears filled Olive’s eyes. She felt guilty for eavesdropping, even if it meant she had heard such words. She began a fierce internal battle with herself, wanting to burst through the door and go to him and also wanting to run back to her room and fall into a crying mess on the floor.
She reached out with one shaking hand and pushed the door open to reveal herself. As it swung open, she blinked away her tears and let her eyes fall on Eric.
When he saw her flushed face, he jumped up from his chair, knocking it back.
“Olive!” He said her name almost fearfully as if he had said something wrong. “I was…I don’t…”
She took a few steps toward him. It was as if there was no one else in the room when she approached him. She shook her head and held one hand out to him.
He pulled in a deep breath, his chest swelling magnificently. Her face flushed a deeper pink. When she was only a few inches from him, she stopped and looked up into his soft brown eyes. “You were praying for me?”
“I was praying for you before and after you arrived, Olive,” he responded, his voice sweet music in her ears. “And I will until the day I die, I swear.”
“Is it truly the right thing to do? Is it?” Olive wanted the answer to be yes more than anything in the world.
“Yes.”
She melted into his arms, and he held her against him as tight as he could. “Will you marry me, Olive? Will you be my bride?”
She didn’t separate herself from his grasp when she answered. She lifted her head and whispered it in his ear. “Yes, Eric. I will marry you. I love y
ou with all my heart.”
Eric closed his eyes, praying thanks to God. “And I love you, sweet Olive Kelsey. I love you.”
****
THE END
A Bride’s Home – A Clean Western Romance
Chapter One
Frustrated and hot, Claire “Gabby” O’Reilly threw a blue sheet over the line and roughly straightened one side, then the other. She coughed once or twice and cleared her throat. She didn’t like the way her anger was growing. She didn’t want to be miserable all her life, either.
She repeated her earlier motions with another sheet, tossing it and straightening it just as roughly as she had the first. Her brothers, Aeden and Donovan, were also tossing something – a ball. They were able-bodied. Why didn’t they have chores to do?
The more she thought about it, the angrier she became. She was 23 years old and had never experienced a true day of her life. There was only cleaning, cooking, laundry, when would it end? It would never end, as far as she was concerned.
Her brothers were not little children. She picked up a towel and looked at them as she shook it straight. Aeden wasn’t wearing a shirt and his muscles bulged when he caught the small ball and sent it flying back to Donovan, who was affectionately called “Donnie” by everyone in their little New York country town. The population was mostly Irish and many were kin to each other. She herself had many relatives nearby. It was like they had just brought Ireland over to New York and claimed a bit of land.
But the officials in town weren’t Irish. They were Americans and they let all the Irish people know it. She didn’t like it. She didn’t like the way they treated her relatives one bit.
Gabby’s thoughts ran in roundabout fashion, coming back to her personal situation when her eyes focused on her brothers again. They had stopped throwing the ball and were wrestling all over the lawn. Donnie’s shirt was also off and their tan bodies were sweaty. She reached up, pulling her apron up to her forehead and wiping her own sweat away.
