Texas Bride: A Bitter Creek Novel

by Joan Johnston

  “I’ll see if the minister is available earlier and get back to you.” He set his hat back on his head, tugged it low, then touched a finger to the wide, flat brim as he said, “Until later, Miss Wentworth.”

  “Until later, Mr. Creed.”

  He watched her walk away and noticed her left foot dragged slightly on the carpet. He called out to her, “Miss Wentworth?”

  She stopped in her tracks. When she angled her head around to face him, her blue eyes looked haunted. “What is it?”

  He closed the distance between them, and she turned completely around to face him. “You’re limping,” he said quietly. “Are you hurt?”

  Her cheeks flushed, turning her alabaster complexion bright pink. “It’s an old injury, long since healed. I’m afraid the limp is permanent. It doesn’t hinder me, I assure you.”

  “Oh.” He was embarrassed for having noticed the flaw. He wondered how she’d been hurt, but he didn’t want to embarrass himself—or her—by asking.

  When he didn’t speak again she said, “Was there anything else?”

  “No. I’ve got a few more supplies to load on my wagon at Franklin’s Mercantile before the wedding, so we can leave right afterward.” He turned abruptly and left. He wished he hadn’t noticed the limp. It made Miss Wentworth vulnerable, more worthy of his care and concern. He couldn’t help marveling how that strange, imperfect creature was going to be his wife.

  But not his lover. Never his lover.

  He had to keep reminding himself why he’d made the decision he had. If he made love to her, sooner or later she was going to get pregnant. Pregnant women died in childbirth. Not always, but often enough for it to be a real threat to her survival. If he didn’t want to find himself back at this hotel in a year or so meeting another bride, he had to stick to his guns. He had to keep his distance in bed.

  It ought to be easy, certainly easier than making love to a woman he’d only known for a couple of hours, especially with his former father-in-law in the same house. Besides, how could you even call it “making love”? He felt no love for Miss Miranda Wentworth. He missed the pleasures of the marriage bed, but the brief satisfaction of sex with his wife was not enough to balance the certain pain of losing her in childbirth.

  He’d lived with enough pain in his twenty-seven years to want to avoid it. The betrayal by his mother, when she’d married Blackthorne despite his warnings about the Englishman’s true intentions, had been bad enough. Losing Priss and their newborn son had been almost more than he could bear. If the old man hadn’t been so insistent, he wouldn’t be here now.

  He needed to be home rounding up cattle for market. He’d taken advantage of being in San Antonio for the day to buy supplies, since he’d needed a wagon to carry home his bride. The hotel room had been a luxury, especially when he didn’t plan to spend the night, but it had seemed the least he could do for his bride after her long journey. Even though he could ill afford it. He’d spent more than he’d intended on those first-class tickets.

  As he headed for the minister’s home, he couldn’t help wondering what Miss Wentworth was going to think when he didn’t consummate the marriage. Of course, there was always the possibility that she was ignorant of what happened between married folk. In that case, she wouldn’t know any better if all they did together in bed was sleep.

  He had no idea how to find out how much she knew, other than to ask her. The prospect was daunting. He would just have to take things one step at a time. Tonight, when they were in bed together in the dark, would be soon enough to answer any questions she might have.

  Miranda still couldn’t breathe right. One look at Jacob Creed was all it had taken. He was so handsome! Of course, his straight black hair needed a trim, and his face bore a stubble of black beard. His dark brown eyes had been inscrutable, and he’d been so somber—not even the hint of a smile. But he’d been polite and he didn’t seem to mind about her limp.

  She no longer feared that Mr. Creed would be unkind. He’d been more than kind, providing a room where she could refresh herself and agreeing to move up the time of the wedding. She was delighted to know he’d brought a wagon and that he was filling it with supplies. Surely there was space somewhere in the back, amidst all those bags of flour and sugar and boxes of fruit and vegetable tins she imagined he’d bought, where two little boys could hide.

  Miranda felt sure that if she could just get her brothers to Jacob Creed’s ranch, she could convince him to keep them long enough to let them prove their worth.

  The bellman directed her up an elegant stairway to the second floor of the hotel, where she found the room number shown on the key. When she opened the door, the room had a simple elegance that reminded her painfully of her bedroom at home in Chicago, before the fire. She dropped her carpetbag and headed for the pitcher and bowl on the chest next to the window.

  She stopped abruptly when she got a look at herself in the mirror hanging above the chest. “Oh, no!” She poured a little water into the bowl, wet the towel she found beside the bowl and scrubbed at the dirt on her cheek. She’d washed her face as best she could before she’d set out on the stage that morning. The sweat and dust had combined to leave her looking not at all like the princess in a fairy tale.

  From the nearby window she could see Mrs. Swenson’s boarding house at the end of the busy street, which reminded her she had to get word to the boys. She could also see the Alamo, just north of the hotel, where James Bowie and the other defenders had fought to the death. It seemed strange to find the famous Spanish mission on a dusty street in the middle of downtown. She hoped someday she’d get to pay her respects to the dead.

  But it wasn’t going to be today.

  She dropped the towel and looked for paper and pen to write a note to Nick. She found both in a small writing desk. She wrote:

  Dear Nick,

  Mr. Creed has a wagon full of supplies at Franklin’s Mercantile. We’ll be leaving right after the wedding. The minute you get this note, take Harry and hide in the back of the wagon. Keep Harry quiet until we arrive at Mr. Creed’s ranch.

  Your sister, Miranda

  Miranda sealed the note with wax and hurried back downstairs to the front desk, keeping an eye out to make sure Mr. Creed was nowhere in sight. “Could you please deliver this note to Mrs. Swenson at the Happy Trails boarding house and ask her to give it immediately to Nick.”

  “Is there a last name for this Nick?” the desk clerk asked.

  “She’ll know who I mean,” Miranda said, unwilling to reveal to the clerk that Nick was her brother.

  “Very well.” The desk clerk held out his hand and Miranda realized he expected some compensation.

  She smiled and said, “I thank you so much for your help.”

  The clerk brushed his open hand over hair slicked back with pomade and smiled ruefully back at her. “Very well, miss.”

  Miranda hurried back upstairs. She’d used ten minutes of her half hour on the note. She needed to get herself cleaned up and changed into her one cotton dress. It was hard to believe this was her wedding day, that in a very few minutes she would be a wife.

  Her stomach was full of butterflies, all trying to get out. She hoped Mr. Creed wouldn’t be too angry when he realized that two little boys were part of the bargain. His advertisement had indicated that he liked children. If he hadn’t lied, things would be fine.

  Miranda poured more water from the pitcher into the porcelain bowl and filled her hands to rinse her face. The water felt wonderfully cool. She found soap hidden under the towel she’d dropped and realized she wanted to wash more than her face. She undid the line of buttons on the bodice of her dress and tried sliding it down her arms.

  To her horror, she discovered the material was stuck tight to her skin with dried blood. It must have oozed from the welts low on her back that kept breaking open. The cuts were deep and hadn’t healed as fast as she’d hoped. Fortunately, the dark dress concealed the bloodstains, but this prison of wool was the result.<
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  She moaned. She couldn’t wear this awful dress for her wedding. She just couldn’t! The simple calico dress in her carpetbag wasn’t the white wedding gown she’d imagined when she was a girl growing up in Chicago, but it was better than the awful wool thing she’d worn for the entire journey from Chicago.

  She tugged a little and felt warm blood ooze where the wool pulled a scab loose. It hurt. Maybe she could soak the dress free of her wounds. But she didn’t have enough water left in the pitcher to do the job, and she was running out of time. Besides, she might rip open more of the scabs, and the stains would show through the light-colored calico dress.

  There was no help for it. She was going to have to get married in this appalling, filthy, travel-stained dress.

  Miranda felt tears welling in her eyes. She’d dreamed of being married in a white satin gown with a lace veil, with her mother and father and sisters and brothers there to help her celebrate the joyful day. None of that was going to happen.

  Her heart sank as she heard a knock on the door. She quickly patted the tears from her face with the drying cloth and shoved a stray curl behind her ear. She plucked at her thin cheeks with her thumb and forefinger to add color, then turned and headed toward the door … and her future.

  “Do you, Jacob Andrew Creed, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward as long as you both shall live?”

  “I do,” the groom said in a gruff voice.

  “And do you, Miranda Elizabeth Wentworth, take this man to be your husband, to love, honor, and obey, from this day forward as long as you both shall live?”

  Miranda tried to speak but nothing came out. She cleared her throat and croaked, “I do.”

  “Do you have a ring for the bride?” the minister asked.

  “No.”

  Miranda felt her heart sinking even further than it had when she’d seen the disappointed look on Jacob Creed’s face at the hotel, when he’d found her still wearing the navy wool dress with the stained white collar. She’d explained that her only other dress was too wrinkled to wear and there hadn’t been time to iron it.

  His lips had pressed flat, but he hadn’t criticized or complained. He’d simply said, “The minister is waiting.”

  Miranda was only beginning to realize that her almost-husband didn’t seem very happy to be getting married, which made her wonder whether she’d failed to measure up to some picture he’d had in his mind of what his mail-order bride would look like.

  Certainly she wasn’t dressed like a bride. She didn’t smell sweet or have a bow in her hair. Nor was she smiling like a bride. Instead, her eyes were brimmed with scalding tears, and she was struggling to hold back a sob that had been threatening to break free ever since the ceremony began.

  The minister took her hand and Mr. Creed’s, which were by their sides, held them together in his large palms and said, “I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss your bride.”

  When the minister released their hands, they fell apart.

  Miranda could sense her new husband’s reluctance to kiss her. She met his somber, dark-eyed gaze and waited. Nothing about this ceremony had seemed real, and it had been cut to its barest bones in the interest of saving time. She pleaded with her eyes for the kiss that would make this farce seem more real.

  But she said nothing.

  At last, her new husband leaned down and gently pressed his lips against the side of her mouth. The warmth of his touch lingered on her skin for a moment after his lips were gone.

  “Come on,” he said brusquely. “Time to go.”

  That was the moment Miranda panicked. She was committed in the eyes of God and the State of Texas to a stranger who didn’t seem the least bit happy with the bargain he’d made. And he didn’t even know yet about the two little boys she hoped were hiding in his wagon, waiting to make their appearance when they arrived at his ranch.

  “Mr. Creed,” she began.

  “We’re married now. Call me Jake,” he said, his long strides eating up the distance across the wooden floor of the meeting hall that was used on Sundays—and for this wedding—as a church. “What should I call you?”

  “Miranda, I guess,” she said as she hurried after him. Her gait was awkward because the burn scars kept her left knee from bending easily. “Jake, could you please slow down? I can’t keep up with you.”

  He stopped and turned and frowned as he observed how she was walking. “I forgot about your limp,” he said. “Just how bad were you hurt?”

  The question, so abrupt, so apparently unfeeling, reminding Miranda of all she’d lost three years ago and how different this day would have been if her parents had lived, finally released the desperate sob she’d been restraining.

  Her wedding had been awful. No beautiful white wedding gown. No flowers. No music. No happy mother to cry tears of joy. No proud father to walk her down the aisle. No aisle, for that matter. No brothers and sisters to kiss her and hug her and send her on her way. Not even a ring to prove that she was a married woman.

  And the groom … the groom was a blunt, brusque, beautiful, beastly stranger. Miranda covered her face with her hands and broke into tears.

  She heard Jake’s footsteps on the wooden floor and then felt two strong arms close around her. At first she struggled, but Jake was murmuring words that sounded like comfort. So she gave up and laid her cheek against his smooth leather vest and clung to him as she cried her heart out. She felt his arms tighten around her, as though they could keep her from shattering into a million pieces.

  She couldn’t stop babbling, “I want to go home. I want to go home. I want to go home.” But her home was gone, burned down. There was no way to go back. She could only go forward. She had to pull herself together. She couldn’t afford to lose control. Nick and Harry were depending on her. Hannah and Hetty and Josie were stuck in Chicago. She had to please this man who held her life in his hands in order to save her family.

  She was eighteen. She was a wife. She had to dry her tears and get on with her new life.

  “Shh. Shh,” he murmured.

  As she quieted, Miranda made out the rest of what Jake Creed was saying.

  “This was a bad idea. I’ll figure out some way to send you home.”

  She drew back abruptly, pulling free of his embrace, and swiped at her wet eyes. “No! I can’t go back. I mean, I have to stay here with you.” She realized after the words were out that it sounded like being with him was a choice only slightly better than the plague. “That isn’t what I meant. I meant—”

  “If you don’t want to be married to me, we can have this thing annulled,” he said flatly.

  Miranda realized that if she wasn’t careful, she would end up getting sent back to Chicago whether she wanted to go or not. There was nothing left for her there. She hoped, somehow, to get the rest of her family moved here to Texas, which was only going to happen if she was married and had a home of her own.

  “I’m sorry I broke down like that,” she said past a throat that felt raw. She reached into the pocket of her dress for the new handkerchief she’d put there when she’d washed up at the hotel. She dabbed at her eyes and her cheeks, swiping away tears as fast as she could. Then her throat squeezed tight again. “It’s just …”

  “It wasn’t much of a wedding,” he finished in a curt voice. “I’m sorry. I know women set a lot of store by that sort of thing. I just … didn’t think.”

  It was amazing how much better she felt hearing him say he understood her feelings. Hearing him admit he could—and probably should—have done more to make their wedding special. Miranda dabbed at her face again. “It’s all right,” she said.

  “No, it isn’t,” he said angrily.

  She stared at her new husband, wide-eyed. She watched a muscle in his jaw work, as though he were clenching his teeth.

  Finally he said, “It’s done now, for better or worse. What do you want to do?”

  “I want to go home.”

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nbsp; He closed his eyes and grimaced.

  She put a gentle hand on his arm. When he opened his eyes, she said, “I meant, I want to go to your home.”

  “Our home,” he corrected.

  She smiled as another tear slipped onto her cheek and said, “Our home.”

  “Shall we go, then, Miranda?”

  This time, instead of hurrying off ahead of her, he offered his arm like a gentleman. She slipped hers through it and walked beside him into the hot Texas sunshine.

  “You’re very tall,” Miranda said, looking up at him as they headed down the boardwalk.

  He smiled ruefully down at her. “You’re barely knee-high to a grasshopper.”

  She laughed at the quaint expression. “My—” She was about to say her sisters were all taller than she was, but she didn’t want to reveal too much too soon. “I’m stronger than I look,” she said instead.

  He muttered what she thought was, “I hope so,” but that sounded so ominous, she didn’t ask him to repeat it.

  When they got to his wagon, he was about to help her up when she said, “Oh, uh, I need to use the necessary before we leave.” She needed a way to examine the back of the wagon, to be sure her brothers were on board.

  “Good idea,” he said. “There’s an outhouse behind the mercantile.”

  Miranda headed down the alley between establishments to the back of the mercantile, then scampered along the back alley toward the Happy Trails boarding house. She knocked hard on the back door. When it opened, her eyes went wide at the sight of a dark-eyed, dark-skinned man with a flat nose and thin lips, whose long black hair was tied in two braids decorated with feathers.

  Miranda felt certain she was seeing her first red savage. She would have been terrified, except he was wearing a linsey-woolsey shirt and trousers instead of the buckskins and breechclout she’d seen in bookplates of Indians in the library.

  “Who you want?” he said in a harsh, guttural voice.

  A savage who spoke English.