Mail Order Bride 22 Book Boxed set: 22 Brides Ride West :CLEAN Western Historical Romance Series Bundle

by Faye Sonja

  Rosella shook her head.

  "Lost in her own world like usual," he stated, not even waiting for an answer. He could imagine exactly what had happened. "I told her to be more careful." He dropped his head and his hat came tumbling off, hitting the dusty road beneath him, before blowing away. He didn't even bother to retrieve it.

  "Nicolas..." Rosella said gently, pointing behind him towards Luanna. "Look, she's waking up..."

  He spun around, his heart racing. There, Luanna, with the aid of Doc, was gently sitting up, her eyes open. Nicolas pushed past the crowd to get back to her, telling everyone to back off as he did so. "Give her some space, please!" he said, agitated. He just wanted everyone else to leave. "Why can't everyone in this town just mind their own business for once? Don't they have anything better to do with their time?"

  "Luanna..." he said, kneeling down beside her again. He turned her face up so that she could see him and understand what he was saying. He saw that her eyes looked groggy and unfocused as he tried to get her head steady. Turning to Doc for a second he asked, "Is she okay? Is this normal?"

  "She hit her head very badly. But she seems okay. If she can open her eyes and keep them open, that is a good sign. Try talking to her."

  "I can try," Nicolas said, still feeling exasperated. "But she can't hear me unless she is looking at me, and she can't seem to focus her eyes." He tried anyway. "Luanna, please stay with me. We need to get you home." He held her face in position so that it was still, focused directly on his own face. "I am going to get you on your feet, and then we need to get home. Do you think you can walk?"

  She nodded her head gently. "Yes..." she whispered. "I am okay... you don't need to fuss so much."

  "Don't need to fuss so much? You almost died out here," Nicolas thought, but he didn't say anything. He was just focused on getting Luanna home safe and sound. He pulled her up to the ground and placed her right arm over his shoulder, so that he could support her weight as they walked. "Move back," he said to the crowd, and they obliged. Rosella helped out, making sure the path was clear as Nicolas carried Luanna home.

  "Is she okay?" Rosella whispered as they passed, her voice still shaking.

  "We'll have to wait and see," Nicolas replied, shortly. He didn't care about anyone else right then, he just wanted to get his wife away from all of them. Away from the throng of spectators, Luanna started to recover a little, and was able to speak. "I'm okay, really, I think I just had a knock." She reached up and felt her head, noticed the bump and the cut. "Oh goodness, am I bleeding?"

  "Yes," Nicolas said quickly, not wishing to focus on that. "Just one reason we need to get you home as quickly as possible."

  "What happened?" she asked, still feeling the bump on her head.

  "You don't remember?" Nicolas asked, shocked. "You were knocked clear out by that wagon."

  "I can't...I can't remember it happening," she said, drowsily. "One second I was just walking down the street, the next I was waking up on the ground, with Doc staring at me. Oh my, it must have been so embarrassing..." she said, wondering at the scene she must have caused. "Oh, everyone will be talking about this, won't they?"

  "That's the least of your troubles," Nicolas replied gruffly.

  Though Luanna couldn't hear the tone in his voice she could read the look on his face. "Are you angry at me?" she asked, dismayed. "Nicolas, I've had a bad accident, how can you be cross like this?"

  "Another accident, yes. That's the trouble, right there."

  She opened her mouth in shock, still unable to process what had happened to her, or why her husband was displaying such anger over the incident. "Why are you…?"

  "All you're worried about is that it may have been embarrassing," Nicolas snapped. "When I was worried you might have died. Luanna, I told you time and time again to be more careful, and you promised you would be." He stopped walking and stared at her for a long second. "You promised."

  He turned his head away and kept walking.

  * * *

  Luanna lay awake, with worries on her mind. Doc had been by the house to check that she was okay, and had prescribed her a week's worth of bed rest. It sounded terrible to her. "So boring," she thought. "A week of lying down! What will I do to amuse myself? I will have my books I suppose..." But this was far from the only thing on her mind. She couldn't bear to go to sleep with Nicolas mad at her.

  "This isn't the way to handle things," she thought. "Not speaking about them." But the sun was just about to set and it would be difficult for her to lip read in the fading light. She continued to lie there, worrying about things. One of the downsides of having a good imagination was that those imaginings could turn bad. "What if Nicolas is so mad with me he never wants to speak to me again?" She quickly put the thought aside as silly, but there was a bad feeling in her stomach that wouldn't leave her. Eventually she threw the covers of her and stood up.

  "Oh, who cares what Doc says...I feel alright, and I can't sleep anyway. What good will resting do for a sore head?" she thought, putting her slippers on and shuffling out to the room where Nicolas was sitting up, going over his lessons and reading.

  He started at the sight of her and took off his reading spectacles.

  He slowly got to his feet. "Luanna, you're not supposed to be up." He had candles lit on the table, to help him read, and Luanna was able to make out his words in the dim light. "Doc said you're supposed to stay in bed."

  "Oh, I feel fine," she said. "I can't sleep anyway."

  "Is your head alright?" he asked, concerned, walking over to her. He squinted and looked up at the cut, which had been bandaged up by Doc.

  "My head is a little sore, but that's not why I couldn't sleep," she explained.

  "What is it then?"

  "Don't you know? Don't you understand?"

  "Understand what?"

  Luanna shook her head. "You don't understand that I can't sleep when I feel like things are bad between us? I keep thinking that you're so mad that you might...that you might run off in the middle of the night or something!" As she said it she started to realize how ridiculous it sounded and she ended with a little laugh. Across from her Nicolas also let out a little laugh.

  "Luanna, I would never do that. That...that's madness to think that."

  She reached up and touched her head. "Yes, you're right. It does sound a little silly, doesn't it?" She sighed. "That's my imagination again, running wild." She stopped and looked up at him with sorrowful eyes. "That's what happened today, you were right. It's coming back to me a little bit, and I can remember what happened. I was day-dreaming, of course, and I didn't hear the wagon coming towards me." She swallowed, the emotion taking over her. "Nicolas, I'm so sorry. I know I promised to be extra careful, and I've let you down so badly." Tears flashed in her eyes. "Can you forgive me?"

  He reached out his arms and took her in his warm embrace. "Shh, of course I do," he said gently. "I was just scared before. When I saw you laying there on the ground, with your body lifeless, I thought the life might leave me as well. It was the worst thing I have ever seen."

  She broke the embrace and stood back. "Did you say something?"

  "Oh," he said, taking his arms away. "I...forgot. Sorry. I forgive you, Luanna, of course I do. Do you forgive me? I didn't mean to get so cross, or speak to you shortly. I was terrified that you could have been killed."

  She nodded. "I understand. It must have been very frightening for you, to see me like that. I can't imagine. If it had been you I would have been cross as well, in my own way. If you could have done something to avoid it, like I could have. Really, Nicolas, I have learned my lesson now. Today was a terrible shock, and a grave lesson. I know, with my condition, that I need to take extra care to avoid disaster."

  They embraced again before Luanna finally returned to bed, this time able to sleep soundly, her mind calm and her body exhausted.

  * * *

  6

  A Discovery

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  “ No. They were real. Someone

  wanted to marry her,”

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  Six Weeks Later, 1851.

  Things had settles down a bit for Luanna during the next couple of months, but the more sensible that she tried to be, the more bored she became. She was spending all her time reading and sewing, making lots of things, but she longed for more adventure. She wished deep down that she could be more 'free', that her deafness wasn't holding her back so much. She also wished that that Nicolas could realize that she longed to be a bit freer. Longed for more adventure in her life.

  Every day she stood and watched as Nicolas went off to his teaching job, wondering if she could ever be the perfect woman that a man like him deserved. Though she was trying, deep down she still felt like a failure, felt like her deafness, her clumsiness and her absentmindedness were all scars that she wore on the surface. So no matter how hard she tried, it was obvious that she wasn't good enough.

  "Have a wonderful day today," Luanna said, giving her husband a peck on the cheek. "I hope those children don't give you too much trouble today."

  "Nothing that I can't handle."

  "I know."

  "What do you have planned for the day?" Nicolas asked, picking up his bag full of books. "I hope you're still taking a bit of rest."

  Luanna sighed inwardly, but she didn't wish to let her frustration show on the surface. It had been six weeks since her accident and still Nicolas was wrapping her in cotton wool. Why did he have to be so sensible all the dang time?

  "A bit of spring cleaning, perhaps," Luanna said. She was still supposed to be on light duties, so no farm work was allowed. But she intended on giving the house a thorough cleaning from top to bottom as a bit of a surprise for Nicolas when he returned home. "Nothing too strenuous, I promise."

  He gave her a peck on the cheek and nodded. "Just take it easy, then."

  She waved goodbye as he went up the path and then set about getting to work. "He won't know how hard I'm working, if I get it all done before he gets home. Then it will be a wonderful surprise for when he returns."

  There was one dusty area of the house she couldn't wait to get her hands on - an old cupboard full of drawers where Nicolas kept all the boring documents and items, like bank details that Luanna wasn't much interested in. So the area got a little neglected, unlike the parts of the house she found far more interesting, like the bookshelf. She started pulling out drawers, moving aside mountains of paper and books till she got to a small gold tin box.

  Shaking it, she picked it up and listened to it, wondering what the contents might be. "Strange, it seems to be locked."

  She put it down and fiddled with the lock for a moment before it sprang open. "Oh," she exclaimed, not expecting it to be that easy. "Well, I suppose it can't be that private if the lock doesn't work. Besides, I am Nicolas's wife, and we shouldn't have any secrets between us. We don't have secrets, as far as I am aware..."

  She opened the box and took out the photograph on top, an old faded picture of a man in cowboy boots and black leather, with longish sandy-blonde hair, two holsters on each side.

  She dropped it like it was boiling hot. "Noooo..." she murmured. "This can't be?"

  She picked the photo back up and turned it over. "Big Nicky", it said.

  "Is Big Nicky...Nicolas?" she thought, turning the photo back over in disbelief. The man on the other side of the photo was both completely familiar yet totally foreign at the same time.

  She sifted through the rest of the tin. It was full of all kinds of documents, photos, letters and journals, documenting Nicolas' previous life as a wild cowboy. Luanna's eyes almost popped out of her head as she read the letters and journals. "Why, this is more exciting than anything I have ever read in a novel!" she thought to herself, reading over the pages as quickly as her eyes could move. When she got to the bottom of the tin she just sat there, dumbstruck.

  "How is any of this possible?" she thought, in awe. "My husband, the mild mannered school teacher. Why, it's like he has a secret identity."

  She flipped through the papers again, trying to get her mind around it all. "I wonder if I should be mad at him, for keeping this all from me..." But she didn't feel mad. After all, Nicolas hadn't lied about his past, just avoided mentioning it whenever it got brought up. If anything, she felt secretly pleased that her husband had this wild past.

  "But I wonder..." she thought, placing the tin beside her, "if he still has this wild streak? Can he really be happy here in Gold Creek, as a school teacher, when he is used to this sort of life?”

  She had to ponder the matter for a good while. She decided there must have been a good reason that he kept his past a secret, from her and from everyone else in the town. Surely he wouldn’t want his students knowing about any of it? They’d be scared. And if the parents found out they’d lose all trust in the new teacher. Nicolas was a respectable member of a small community now, and people would be shocked to find out about his past.

  But perhaps it was more than that…

  Luanna had a bad feeling that she just cou’dn't shake. It was one thing to be a little embarrassed about a past, and to want to put it behind you to make a fresh start. But keeping it such a secret? With all evidence of it in a locked box? And never mentioning it at all?

  Maybe there was some deeper reason he was keeping it all a secret.

  Maybe he was in trouble. Maybe they both were.

  Luanna picked the tin box up and quickly put it back where she had found it. "There, it's safe where I found it, it's as though I never discovered it," she thought, pushing the drawer shut, as though that would keep the secrets safe and locked away, and would keep the past from coming back to haunt them. She had a feeling there was more to the story.

  "He must have had a good reason for not telling me..."

  Luanna wandered into the kitchen, but as she chopped and prepared for the dinner her old friend, her runaway imagination, returned to keep her company. "What if one of these men returns, tracks Nicolas down? What if they find him here in Gold Creek...?"

  She shook her head to try to clear her thoughts. "Luanna, you're being silly again," she said out loud, returning to the vegetables she was preparing to boil on the stove. "Now you really are talking like this is something out of a novel. Surely Nicolas isn't on the run, or anything like that! He's not hiding out here in Gold Creek, he just moved here. For a fresh start. No, nothing bad is going to happen."

  But as the water boiled over and Luanna almost scalded her hand while distracted, she wasn't so sure.

  Was it just her over-active imagination? Or could her husband really be in some sort of trouble?

  * * *

  "You're looking very excitable," Nicolas commented to Luanna as he entered the house that night. Glancing around, he noticed that the house was sparkling clean. "Wow," he said, admiring her hard work. "I hope you didn't go to too much trouble though, or strain yourself."

  "Don't be silly," Luanna replied, glad that her husband was pleased. "It wasn't much trouble, and besides, the house needed a thorough cleaning."

  "Thorough?" Nicolas asked, setting his bag down and walking around the house. "Just...how thorough?" He tried to act casual, as though he wasn't too bothered, but all he could think about was his cabinet, and the box he kept hidden in the bottom drawer.

  "Fairly thorough," Luanna replied, following Nicolas so that she could see him talk.

  "Did you clean everything?" Nicolas asked, still trying to keep his voice casual.

  "Pretty much." She looked up at him and grinned, in a way like she had a little secret she was longing to tell.

  Nicolas felt a pang in his stomach. "She can't have found the tin box, can she?" He wondered for a second, then decided, no, she can't have. That wasn't the kind of thing a person could discover and then keep quiet about. It would have been the first thing she'd said when he'd burst through the door.


  But there was that strange grin on her lips...

  Nicolas gulped and decided to drop the subject. After all, bringing it up would only raise more questions than it would answer. And he already had enough to worry about. Clancy was back, and he wanted his money, the share he thought he was owed from their time together. When Nicolas had sold up all his old property - or, the little he'd owned – including his horse, his guns, and his old Stetson, Clancy considered half the money his, as he'd taken Nicolas under his wing when Nicolas had been just a boy. But that had been before Nicolas knew any better. Clancy had taken him in when he'd had nowhere to go, yes, but as Nicolas had grown up, he'd realized that Clancy didn't do everything by the law, and Nicolas had to get away. He'd left that life, and Clancy, behind, to start over in Gold Creek.

  But now Clancy was threatening to tell everyone: the students, their parents, and Luanna, about the life Nicolas had escaped from, unless he paid up. That, or, he'd given Nicolas a second option: return to the land with him, return to his old life.

  Nicolas had been raised wild, but he was no outlaw, and he didn't want to live that way anymore. Still, deep down, he had to wonder if he was only pretending, here in this nice house, with his nice wife. Sometimes he felt like a fraud, and didn't know if he even deserved to start over.

  But he had Luanna to worry about now. So he had to put thoughts like that aside, and look ahead.

  He just prayed she hadn't found that box.

  * * *

  7

  A Confrontation

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  “ No. They were real. Someone

  wanted to marry her,”

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  One Month Later, 1851