Slowly memory returned. She had gotten married yesterday and the man was her husband. Oh Lord, what had she done? Easing from under the blanket, she stood. The bed was nestled in the corner of a very messy room. It seemed that every flat surface was covered by something. It would be a challenge, but for the first time in weeks, if not months, she felt rested and more like her old self.
But first things first. Slipping her feet into her boots, she didn’t bother buttoning them before hurrying to the door. She had yet to get used to the ever more frequent need to visit the privy. From the stories she had heard from other women, it would get worse. She stepped down from the porch to find the necessary pathway when she stopped and stared in wonder.
A deep blue sky arched above her head like an inverted bowl. Right before her, rugged mountains thrust up into that blue expanse as if carrying the weight of the sky. Everywhere else, rolling hills covered by a sea of grass undulated under a strong breeze.
She had grown up surrounded by the mountains of New England, but this was so much bigger. Her mind couldn’t seem to take it in. her body gave an urgent reminder about her purpose out here, but Jillian was reluctant to tear her gaze away. It felt like home, but even better.
When she was back in the house, Jillian pulled a fresh dress from her bag. As she undid the buttons of her dress, she thought about the man who had undone the first three. She was torn between embarrassment, and gratitude that he had made an effort to make her comfortable. She wished she had met him before Clarence had stolen her innocence. If nothing else, she had a second chance.
* * *
Twilight settled over the land as David pulled the saddle from the gelding and released it into the corral. He hadn’t slept much and his mind was fuzzy with weariness. Another cow had been bogged down in the mud beside the waterhole and he had spent the afternoon trying to pull her out.
Dried mud flaked off his clothes with every step toward the house. He had waded in up to his knees to rescue the calf that had tried to follow his mother only to become mired up to its belly. By the time David had reunited the two, thick mud covered him head to toe. He wanted nothing more than to shed the filth and fall into bed for a week.
He was three steps into the house before it hit him. The room was clean. David blinked the haze of exhaustion from his eyes. The clutter and mess were gone as was the smell of dust and dirty socks. Jillian stood beside the table with her hands clasped at her waist. Only the white of her knuckles betrayed her nervousness.
“Welcome home, Husband.” She approached shyly to greet him. “Supper is ready if you would like to wash up.”
To her credit, she barely flinched at the mud he was shedding on the freshly swept floor. “I should have thought to clean up before coming in.” David backed toward the door trying to minimize the damage. “I’ll be back.”
The horse trough stood on the far side of the corral and sheltered behind the barn. David stripped to his waist and dunked head and shoulders into the cold water. If she had gone to all that trouble to clean his house and make dinner, the least he could do was wash up. The memory of her quiet smile lingered as he hurried to rejoin her.
Chapter Seven
Six months later …
Jillian rubbed impatiently at her lower back but the nagging ache refused to go away. She already lumbered around the house like one of David’s cows, she didn’t need any more disruptions to her day. Between trips to the privy, swollen ankles, and a stomach that resembled an over ripe watermelon, she already had trouble getting through her day.
David was a sweetheart about it though. Jillian smiled as she set the table. He had begun helping with some of the housework soon after she moved in. His awkward attempts at sweeping and washing dishes generally made more work for her in the end, but considering the state of his house when she first arrived, it was an effort he had never made before.
Pausing beside a window, Jillian searched the horizon for his familiar form. It was too early for him to come home, but she couldn’t seem to stop watching and hoping. She did well enough during the day by herself, but there always seemed to be something missing until he walked through the doorway.
Jillian rubbed her soothingly over her belly, her skin was stretched so tight it seemed that some of the baby’s kicks would poke right through. It wouldn’t be long now. A small cradle stood beside the fireplace waiting. David had surprised her with it a few days ago.
Sometimes Jillian thought her husband was even more eager for the baby than she was. And it wasn’t even his child. It didn’t stop the wonder from showing on his face when felt the baby moving. For herself, Jillian felt something very different when her husband’s hand rested on her belly. Something she had never expected to feel.
Love.
* * *
David rode into the yard. The sun was high overhead and he hadn’t expected to be home for hours yet, but something pulled at him. He glanced down at the clump of wildflowers clutched in his hand and nearly dropped them into the dust of the yard. Instead, he swung down from the saddle and took a deep breath.
He had come to a decision in the wee hours of the morning. Jillian had come to him looking for a safe refuge for her and her baby. David had merely been looking for someone to keep house for him. She had done all that and more.
The baby would be born soon and David couldn’t wait. He had long ago ceased to think of it as another man’s child. It seemed like his own child already, even though he had never touched the mother in that way.
Not that he hadn’t wanted to.
David pushed that thought away and stepped into the house. Jillian stood beside the table as she had that first night but this time her hands rested on the swollen mound of her stomach with no sign of nervousness. Instead, a warm smile of welcome spread across her face.
“You’re home early.” Jillian crossed the room with a rolling gait. “I’m glad you are though. I have something to tell you.”
“Me first.” David thrust the wilted flowers into her hands. “Jillian, I know we agreed that that neither of us was looking for love or romance, but I’ve changed my mind. Over the months I have come to know you and well …” pulling off his hat, David ran his fingers through his hair. “Well, I just want you to know that I love you and would like to ….” His face heated until if felt as if it would burst into flame. He was messing this up.
Jillian placed a slender hand on his arm and David looked up to meet her eyes. “Oh David, I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear you say that. I have loved you for months, almost since that first day. That was what I wanted to tell you. I want this to be a real marriage, a real home, with a husband and wife who love each other and a whole passel of children.”
“Children?” David looked down at her belly and touched the hard bump with reverence. The child within moved against his hand. A burst of warmth flooded his heart. “You want more children?”
Jillian laughed, the sound shivering over him like a caress. “Well, after this one comes, anyway.” She laid her hands over David’s. “Will you be the father of my children, David? All of my children?”
Raising his eyes to meet her earnest ones, David could only nod. Then he did as he had longed to do for weeks, he pulled her into his arms and held her close. He closed his eyes and savored the feel of her heart beating against his. A spasm rippled across the hard mound pressed between them and Jillian gasped.
“I think you will get your chance, a little sooner than we thought.” Jillian pulled away and laughed although her face had gone pale. “My dearest husband, I think you may need to ride for the doctor.”
THE END.
Included with this purchase is a collection of Christian Michael Mail Order Bride short stories. I do hope you take the time to read them! Enjoy!
The Cowboy’s Bride
Mail Order Bride
CHRISTIAN MICHAEL
1876 Minnesota
John stood on the hill overlooking his home and smiled. It had been five years since he
had left his small Minnesota town for the war and he had never thought he would have made it back alive. To be frank, he had all but prepared himself to come home in a body bag or box. His fiancé would have been the one to be handed the flag that would have been used to cover the box he arrived in and the theatrical sounds of sixty-one guns would have rung out as he was buried.
“Home sweet home,” he whispered on the cold winds that whipped around him. Oh, how he had missed being here. He had missed everything about being home, everything including the cold winters and early autumn winds that had always cut his summers short. He had missed it all.
With glee in abundance he slowly skipped his way down to the hillside and to the sprawling mansion that had been his family home. As an only child he had inherited it, but unsure carrying on his family’s legacy was what he had wanted to do for the rest of his life he had opted to go off to war. The family’s caretaker, Clive, had been the one left in charge of it all and by the looks of things as he walked onto the compound; he had done a fine job.
His father had died the year he had gone off to war and it had been the catalyst for his decision but that wasn’t the only thing that had made him go off. His mother’s refusal to accept the woman he loved had also been a motivating factor. Now five years later she had sent him a letter begging his forgiveness and stating that she had remarried, moved south and wanted nothing more than for him to be happy. It had been a burden lifted from his shoulders in a time when parental approval was necessary for almost everything.
“John!” An overjoyed Clive flung the brass doors to his house open and rushed out to him. The older man who walked with a limp covered ground faster than John would have thought was possible and his burly figure near knocked him on his rump. He dropped his duffel bag and embraced him with the kind of love that only family could share. His family had been many things, from cantankerous to deceitful and even downright filthy but the one bond that had held them together all these years was the fact that they valued loyalty. They valued every single bit of it and Clive had been heavily rewarded for his. This was a man who had been a friend, brother and a father to him and John could have been no happier than he was now at seeing him.
“I woke this morning and felt I was in for a change! For a grand surprise!” Clive said with happy laughs punctuating his every word. “I woke this morning and I felt in my bones that I would be in for some wonderful news and here you are!”
John laughed and pulled him in for a hug. “I am happy to see you too Clive. I have never been happier.”
“Welcome home Sir,” the man who had been his butler for years answered with respect. John would have told him that he needed not call him Sir, but he knew it would do no good. He had been telling the man that ever since he was a child and here he was twenty-nine years later still doing the same thing.
“How have you been?” he asked him as they walked into the foyer of the mansion and the familiar scents of family and home assaulted his nostril. He smelt the lavender incense his mother always burned filling the house and the paintings decorating the walls were the same. An old woman who was supposed to be his grandmother smiling down at him from the entrance and as always he wondered what it would have been like to know her. His father had been a gentle soul but a conniving one. He had always wondered if those were mannerisms he had learnt from his mother.
Maybe....maybe not, and he would never know for sure given that they were both dead.
“I have been good,” Clive was answering his question. “The last couple winters were horrible and I suspect this one will be just as cold but it has been wonderful.”
“And the estate?” he asked taking on a serious tone as he queried his finances. He wasn’t a superficial man but he would honour his father’s legacy.
“It has grown,” Clive said with a smile. “We have procured more lands to the east and we have bought a couple of the local businesses that were suffering and built them up. I have done as best as I could and I hope you will be pleased,” the man said and John could see he was searching for some sort of approval.
“I am sure I will be,” he said. “Have you married yet, Clive?” he asked with a smiled.
The man, whose neat sideburns were greying just the smallest bit, blushed in the most vulnerable of ways. “There was someone about two years after you left but she could not understand my dedication to this estate and so it did not work out.”
“Your dedication?” John asked, a bit surprised at the reason and worried his love with whom he had conversed every month would feel the same way. He got nervous at the prospect seeing that he was to be visiting her before the day’s end to put an end to the long wait for marriage to happen.
“Yes, she didn’t think it was healthy,” Clive said sadly. “I understood early out that we would not work and I ended it before we got too entangled.”
“So you have been alone in this big ole house?”
Clive laughed. He was good looking and a gentleman so his response was not a surprising one. “I have had the occasional company but nothing too serious.”
Marin smiled. “At least you weren’t alone. Maybe now that I am home and intend to be married within the fortnight you will find more time on your hands to go wow the women who must no doubt be clamouring for your attentions.”
The solemn look that flashed across Clive’s face and stayed there was enough to tell him that something was wrong. “What is it?” he asked.
Clive walked to the bar in the foyer and poured them two very large shots of bourbon. “I think you will need to take a seat.”
“Tell me what it is!” he demanded ignoring the drink the man offered him but Clive would not be coerced into responding until he was ready.
“Drink your drink and let’s have a seat out front.”
John took the glass from the older man and waited until he exited the house to take a seat on the front steps. “What is it?” John asked him again and this time he dug for all the patience he had left in the deepest part of his soul and tried to wait on the response.
Clive’s grey eyes bore into the dark brown of his and he could feel the arrival of bad news before it even got to him. “She has taken up with someone else,” he said softly, looking away to the trees that swayed gently in the late summer winds.
“What?!”
“Emma, your betrothed. She has taken up with another man,” he repeated.
“Impossible! I wrote to her just three weeks ago saying I was coming home and we spoke for every single month that I was away.”
Clive looked at him in surprise. “But she has been married for two years and is now carrying his second child,” he said confused.
John lost all control of his fingers and the glass slipped from his hand breaking in echo to his heart in a million pieces. “Impossible...” he croaked around his throat that was tightening painfully.
“Do you wish to go see for yourself?” Clive asked and it took him a minute before he could nod. If it hurt this much hearing the news then he could only imagine how much more devastated he would be at seeing its reality.
“Take me,” he said calmly, knowing he would never be able to believe it until he saw it and even more was the fact that he would need closure. How could she? He had professed his love for her in each letter of every month that he had been away and she had echoed his every sentiment in her elegant hand writing that had been a solace to his aching soul. He had loved Emma for years and had been willing to defy the love of his other to be with her. Clive must be mistaken for there was no way she could have done him such a wrong.
They saddled their horses in silence and rode out at a gallop towards the town with Clive warning him to be calm and not create a scene when he found what he was being told to be true. Less than an hour later they hitched their horses to the post outside what was supposed to be her husband’s saloon and when he entered he would have fallen to his knees had Clive not stood shoulder to shoulder with him.
“Emma?” he questioned to the
woman sporting a baby bum and a smile as gorgeous as he had remembered. Her long flowing hair that used to whip around when she walked was cut into a short bob and her eyes were now strangers to his soul.
“John?” she asked in shock, setting the tray she carried aside. Her smile disappeared and her eyes filled up with water. The whole diner went silent.
“Why?” he asked her around the tears in throat, forgetting to breathe as his heart broke yet again. “Why did you lie to me?”
She took a step towards him but he stepped away. “I didn’t want to hurt you,” she said sadly and a tear he did not believe in slipped down her face.
“So you lie to a man longing to come home to you, only to know I would return to this?”
“I am sorry,” she said and took another step towards him.
He held a hand up to stop her. “I have known that people could be cruel, but this...this tops them all,” he said and walked out of the diner.
Somewhere in the back of his head he heard her calling out to him but he could not make out the words she was saying and he was certain he did not want to hear them either. As fast as he had rode into town he made his way back home with Clive hot on his heels. When he got to the house he wasted no time grabbing his duffel bag and heading right back out.
“Where are you going?” Clive asked him saddened.
He hugged the man. “I cannot stay. Not now. You can give me a couple more months, can’t you?” he asked
Sadness filled the man’s eyes but he nodded. “Take all the time you need. Where will you go?”
“I think I will head to Texas. I have a friend there, Lenard Collard.”
“I don’t know of him,” Clive said.
John sighed. “We met in the war, he was a part of my platoon but he went home last year after a horrible accident. I think I will go see him and figure out if maybe Texas is as nice as they say it is.”
[2016] Alone and Pregnant Page 3
