Brides of Grasshopper Creek

by Faith-Ann Smith

“Beth Anne Perkins,” Lewis said desperately. “Where is she? Where is my wife?”

  The doctor took hold of his shoulders and gazed into his eyes intently. “Breathe. Please, try to relax. Lewis, is it? I’m Dr. Hayes. Stay calm.”

  But the fact that Dr. Hayes wouldn’t answer his question only strengthened his panic. “What happened? I’m too late, aren’t I?” His heart was splitting apart in his chest, and he felt the sensation leave his legs again. “Oh, Beth…Beth!”

  Dr. Hayes opened his mouth—but somehow, Beth’s voice came reaching toward him.

  “Lewis!”

  Lewis froze and stared at the doctor for a moment before he realized that it wasn’t coming from his mouth—it was coming from a cordoned-off section to his right. He started to run toward the bed that was hidden by a thick white curtain, ignoring Dr. Hayes’ orders to stop as he pulled it back.

  Beth was staring at him in shock, her right hand heavily bandaged and her skin white as the bedding surrounding her, but otherwise very much alive. Lewis rushed over to her and cradled her face between his hands, kissing the tears away from her cheeks before finally resting his lips on hers. She tasted sweeter than ever, and he felt his heart respond with its familiar double beat, his head dizzy from the rush of love he got when their mouths melded together.

  When he pulled back, Beth rested her fingers on his cheek, and he realized he was crying, too.

  “Lewis, I’m so sorry. But—” she said, but he hushed her before she could continue.

  “I’m sorry. You don’t need to apologize anymore, Beth. I love you, and we’re getting married. I don’t care about children. I thought I knew what the perfect life was—filling the house up with babies after years of daring adventures and lively travel. But that’s not what I need. I need what you give me—real love. You’re all I need, Beth. You’re perfect. You make my life perfect. You’re a work of art.”

  Her sapphire eyes were glittering with unshed tears, and she smiled brilliantly enough to crack his heart in two. “That’s wonderful. I…I don’t know what to say.”

  “You don’t have to say anything,” Lewis said earnestly, leaning close to her and smoothing her hair back from her forehead. “We can take some time off. We can have some relaxing time together, have a nice long honeymoon, if you like. Finally go see some of those plays we talked about. I’d love to see you sketch some of the other beaches in California.”

  Beth laughed. “What will you do about the spot I’m leaving open on the farm?”

  “I’ll find someone else,” Lewis insisted. “It was always going to happen, anyway, whether we had children or not. But now that it won’t happen, and considering…I think I can deal with finding a permanent replacement.” He smiled at her, feeling utterly complete.

  Her smile widened, and she started to cry again. “Lewis, there’s something I have to tell you.”

  His heart jumped to his throat again. “What?”

  Beth took one of his hands in hers. “Dr. Hayes did some tests, and it turns out the other doctor was wrong. He didn’t look at all of my symptoms. I don’t have a heart condition; it’s actually a much more treatable condition called anemia.”

  Lewis’ heart started to race. “What does that mean?”

  Beth laughed, and it was the most joyous sound he’d ever heard. “You don’t have to put those wild adventures out of your mind…or the children. I can take pills and watch my diet, and there’s no reason we can’t have both.”

  A surprised laugh exploded from Lewis, and he felt relief flood his body. She was going to live—and they could have a full life together, after all, and not fear for watching a clock. Lewis kissed her again, covering her face with his lips until she dissolved into giggles, and Dr. Hayes came over to check on her again, still clearly annoyed with Lewis.

  Beth was discharged later that evening, and returned home to an impromptu party thrown by the farmhands. Lewis didn’t know what touched him more—seeing them treat her like family so readily, or seeing her glow from happiness with every fiber of his being.

  They were married two months later, and they took the long honeymoon they dreamed of—traveling to the French countryside after sailing to Europe to visit her relatives. Lewis contemplated buying a second home there—Beth had enough saved, and Lewis could pitch in; they talked about raising children there, and Beth daydreamed of painting on the balcony of their little cottage, which would inevitably be on the hillside. At night, they drifted off to sleep talking about the adventures they would go on, though they were often forgotten in the morning.

  But no matter where they woke up—even after they returned to the familiar land of Sutter Creek—Lewis found several things to be consistent: the skip in his heartbeat when he first laid eyes on Beth in the morning; the lilt in her voice after he stole a kiss before work; and the ever-changing nature of life in the very presence of the woman who made the world new with every breath she took. Everything in life was an adventure with Beth—even if they never left America again.

  THE END

  A Mail Order Bride For Isaac

  Brides Of Sutter Creek

  Charity Phillips

  A Mail Order Bride For Isaac

  Sutter Creek, California – 1852

  Isaac Walters is used to working his fingers to the bone, but he’s never had to work for much else. He inherits his business after his father’s retirement, and also manages to acquire his charming Sutter Creek home when his sister marries an oil tycoon on the East Coast. But when he nearly loses everything he has in a single act of carelessness, he’s finally pushed to consider how lucky he’s been.

  Tired of depending on the kindness of fate, Isaac decides to get serious about one thing at a time, starting with marriage; after all, what could be so difficult about forging a new way of life?

  Chapter 1

  The streets were emptying by the time Isaac exited the Knight Foundry, and he was glad for the moment of solitude. The setting sun shone on the river, turning the meandering trail of water into a silvery snake that curled through the whole of Sutter Creek. Some days he took a paddle boat and let the waves speed him toward Boone’s General store, if he didn’t feel like braving the chaos of Ida’s; today he was heading straight home, however, and the walk would do him some good. He’d have just enough time to wash and set the table before Caroline’s train pulled into the station. I can’t believe it’s already been six months since the fire. Time flies, I guess.

  Half a year ago, Isaac had nearly run out his own clock. After a long night of gin and card games in his living room, he’d settled onto his overstuffed sofa to enjoy a pipe overflowing with the most pungent tobacco he could find, his vision even more wobbly than his hands. Isaac had enough time to light a match before the spirits overtook him and dragged him down into a deep sleep; when he woke up, his friend Jeremiah was pulling him from his burning living room as six men beat the flames back with hoses. He was in the hospital for three days from the smoke inhalation, and after all his friends all came by to comfort him with a steady stream of vague, supportive sentences, Isaac realized something: he was the only person left in his little circle of friends who didn’t have a wife to stand behind him. If Jeremiah hadn’t forgotten his favorite hat, Isaac would have been dead—because even Jeremiah had been hurrying home to his wife when he decided to double back for his cap.

  Thomas Shepherd, his best employee, was the first one to state the obvious.

  “Now’s the time to marry, ‘Zac,” he intoned as he pulled the thick leather gloves from his hands. His voice was soft and high pitched, but the seven-foot man was far too imposing to ever be ridiculed for it. “More brides than fish these days. And you’ve got a house. And a business. Lass will like that.”

  “Yeah, but she won’t like me,” Isaac grumbled.

  Thomas raised his eyebrows in surprise. “What do you mean? You’re not violent. You can read. You even clean yourself up every day. You think these ladies are waiting for the King of England?”
r />   Thomas had a point. Many of these women were ones who were trying to flee mistakes of their own, and they could hardly afford to be picky. Thomas was married, but you would hardly ever know it from talking to him; Isaac found out a year after hiring him, and a year later he found out the marriage had been one of convenience. Mrs. Shepherd was a pretty woman, but she almost never showed the man any affection, and Thomas said on more than one occasion that she seemed to be planning an escape—he found a suitcase in their basement, and a roll of coins wrapped in stockings stashed next to a wad of crisp looking bills. Isaac listened to his employee tell him this with a horrified expression; he couldn’t bear it if someone who agreed to marry him behaved with such open indifference toward him. He wanted a friend, at the very least, and was alarmed that his massive employee was so unfazed by this discovery. Thomas wasn’t bothered by it, because, as he put it, there were more brides to be had—and he firmly believed Isaac would see it his way.

  Ida, the black woman who worked Ida’s Supplies, was similarly skeptical of him.

  “Do you really want a marriage, though?” She asked him, smiling wryly as she planted one hand on her hip. “Being married means you gotta prioritize different things. Plan stuff out. You’re more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of guy, like my husband.”

  “But don’t you and Douglass get along okay?”

  Ida chuckled and shook her head, warm brown eyes sparkling with amusement. “Took us a while to get there, and we were…a little different. Wasn’t no arrangement, but no courtship either, cause of the stigma. East Coasters ain’t quiet about wanting people to stay with their own kind. Hell, we had to move to California just to be left alone by his family. We’re molded together by circumstance and shared experience, and that works for us. But, if you have a choice, you don’t want your love to be born in a crucible.”

  “So, what are you saying?”

  “Just be careful.” She grinned. “I know that don’t come easy to you men folk sometimes.”

  He’d laughed then, but Isaac took her words to heart. He really was a careless man—that fact had nearly gotten him killed, and it had gotten him in more trouble than he liked to admit. But if Isaac was careless, he was also passionate, and it was something that often brought out the best in him and other people. Passion and loyalty had earned him his group of friends, his house—even the Foundry that had been passed to him by a father figure who had no son of his own. His house was almost completely filled with gifted furniture and clothing, and nearly every meal he ate was cooked by someone else. Most of the town could recall one favor or another he’d done for him, and they would all swear that he’d do them earnestly and without thinking; he’d written to Caroline that he was considerate and warm hearted, but the truth was that his heart was a furnace that burned so fiercely that there were times when the fire just went out for lack of fuel. Isaac told himself that this was why he was getting married—he needed a second shovel to make sure he didn’t simmer down to nothing.

  Isaac lived on a street where the houses were spaced further apart than on the main roads; this wasn’t an intended luxury, but a result of building the first couple hundred of houses closer together than they ought to have done. The older houses were always the biggest—besides the three mansions on top of Sutter and Ivy Hills—but the south side of town had wider, more verdant lawns, lush and fertile and perfect for small patches of fruit, vegetable and flower growing. Isaac pulled two tomatoes from a vine to lay atop the casserole Mrs. Johnson from next door would be bringing over; it was the only culinary quirk he really possessed, a vestige of his fervent love for the seedy fruit left over from childhood. His mother joked they’d sprout in his body and he’d never stop growing whenever she saw him eating them whole as a snack, and Isaac secretly believed his mother was right until he turned twenty. Now he just liked to slice tomatoes to liven up the casseroles and sandwiches everyone made him, but he always thought of his mother when he did it.

  He had grown abnormally fast; Isaac was half a foot taller than his six-foot tall mother by the time he was fourteen. When he turned sixteen, he’d grown into his lanky body until he resembled an Earthly version of some fearsome Greek deity—rippling muscles wrapped around a long, sturdy frame, olive toned skin, sandy blonde hair, a square jaw to match his shoulders, and vivid blue eyes the exact color of the ocean hugging the coast of California.

  The first woman to tell him he could have anyone he wanted was also the daughter of the man who would become his mentor. Lila Evans— with her snow-white skin, long red curls, and cherubic cheeks—was the prettiest girl in school, and also the richest. Unbelievably, she began to pay special attention to him for some reason, and she was all he ever thought about from that moment on. She seemed important and desirable in a way he didn’t quite understand, so he’d agreed to walk home with her one day, because her house was down the road from his. She smelled like grass and pine needles, and she insisted he kiss her to prove he wasn’t a chicken, and then he could be her boyfriend. He’d been thirteen years old, and Isaac was working himself up to plant a kiss on her rosy cheek behind a huge red barn on her property, his heart beating so fast he could barely feel it; then her father had strode around the corner and lifted him away from Lila with both hands, carrying him into the barn through the back door, where’d he’d been watching them both silently.

  “You want to lay hands on my daughter? On my precious girl?” Willis Evans towered over him like giant, even though he was only five and a half feet tall. Isaac was sitting on the ground, looking around the barn with frantic eyes, noticing it was filled with scary looking equipment and a boiling hot stove. Willis pointed to a table where he’d been working iron into horse shoes.

  “Prove to me you’re worth a damn. Prove your hands ain’t already useless, or I’ll break them both.”

  Frightened teenage Isaac would have done anything he’d been told to do at that moment; luckily, he was only being instructed to beat at a hot piece of metal until it was ready to be plunged into freezing water. Then he hung up the horse shoe to dry with Willis, and did another under his guidance from scratch. Isaac found the work thrilling and calming at the same time; it engaged him in a way nothing else ever had. In class, he often couldn’t sit still long enough to focus, but working with metal and heat was so mesmerizing he could even ignore the ache in his legs and feet from standing so long. When they finished, it was two hours later, and Lila was in the house, eating dinner with her mother. Isaac was surprised to find that Willis was pleased by his work, but not shocked by his strength and attention; about a year later, he found out that Willis had asked Lila to bring him by. It occurred to him that he’d been used, and this made him so furious he briefly pondered attacking Willis at work—but it also occurred to him that he’d been scouted, and because of that, he was being groomed to be a man of real importance, and not a con man like his own father had been. By that time, Lila had lost interest in Isaac, but he didn’t mind; Willis eventually moved up from horseshoes and started his own Foundry, and working there turned out to be more fun than spending time with a snooty girl who never liked getting her dresses dirty.

  Despite his undeniable good looks, Isaac had never managed to find anyone he felt remotely serious about; then, when Willis had given him the Foundry, it had been ten dizzying years of adjusting to the change that unexpected but incredible gift had brought. Willis’ death had been harder on him than it had even been on Lila, so the first year after the funeral was spent drifting between seclusion and self-destruction while Lila moved her father’s things from his house. Now he was thirty-three, and he had a house full of the relics of his past—but not much else to show for his hard work. Even Lila was married, and her own house was slowly filling up with children.

  Isaac washed quickly, anxiously eying the time as he worried over what to wear. He’d never dressed for anyone before; as he pulled on a crisp white shirt and thick, ebony colored dress pants, Isaac thought he looked a little like a gorilla i
n fancy dress. He combed his hair back from his face and ran a razor over his jaw, thankful that he only had a small burning mark below his collarbone to remind him of the blaze. His pipe had slipped behind the couch when his head tipped back, but some of the flames had started up the sofa when Jeremiah burst in the door. Thank God for that man, he thought fiercely. Then a flurry of sound floated toward him from the front of the house, and he remembered the casserole.

  “Mrs. Johnson, thank you so much for—”

  The words dropped out of his mind as he emerged into his living room and saw a woman standing next to two brown trunks and a pristine-looking duffel bag. She was already facing him when he stopped before her, but he saw her eyes widen in shock as he appeared, and he was struck by how warm and alive they were—like milk chocolate slowly melting in a pot, with spots of gold like fresh butter waiting to be blended in. Her face was slim and somewhat pointed, and her auburn hair fell to her neck in a series of complicated ringlets that heightened the rest of her beauty, but made her plain grey dress look dull in comparison. The waist of her dress was pulled tightly around her, but her shapely figure only highlighted the wear in the fabric. One hand fluttered to her throat, and her sharp cheekbones darkened with pinkish tint at the same moment that he realized he was staring. Isaac dropped his eyes, and when he pulled them up again, the woman’s gaze was below his—and it occurred to him that she was scandalized not by his staring, but by the bareness of his body.

  Isaac pulled his shirt closed over his torso and backed away. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I’ll—”

  “Wait,” the woman said, her color returning to normal. “Wait, it’s me who should apologize—the door was open, but I should have knocked, or called out at least.”