by Gina Welborn
“Mother!” Luanne exclaimed. “You didn’t!”
Mother waved this away as if it were no consequence.
Yancey’s mouth gaped. Then closed. Then came—“I should be embarrassed, and yet I am oddly impressed.”
Mother gave Yancey a slant-eyed glare. “Do not take this as permission for any illicit behavior.”
Yancey mimicked the glare. “Oh, please, Mother. Even if I were to try anything illicit—not that I would,” she hastened to add—“Hale would never participate. The man has never done anything inappropriate, illegal, or immoral in his life . . . or even given the appearance of inappropriateness, illegality, or immorality.”
“This is true. There is not a more virtuous man in all of Helena.” Mrs. Hollenbeck leaned forward and squeezed Luanne’s shoulder. “I am curious to know why you turned down Mr. Bennett’s gallant proposal. I suspect it was about more than being forced to marry.”
“It’s not for lack of love,” Yancey muttered.
“I must say,” Mother said, studying Luanne with a curious expression, “I was surprised by your refusal. Your father and I have long suspected your feelings for Roy.”
Luanne stared absently at the flickering lamp atop the church organ. It was well past the eight P.M. curfew, and for the first time in nine years, it didn’t matter that she had broken it. “Helena is my home. My community of friends and family.” She looked to her mother and Mrs. Hollenbeck. “It’s not Roy’s. He chases stories and adventures. In the last ten years, he’s never stayed longer than three months in one location. I can’t live like that. I can’t raise a family like that.”
“Twenty years ago,” Mother said, “I left everyone I knew in Pennsylvania and moved halfway across the country to a tiny mining town in a valley surrounded by mountains. I did it because I loved your father more than I loved having my own way.” She gripped Mrs. Hollenbeck’s hand. “God blessed me with the dearest friends I have ever had.”
Mrs. Hollenbeck’s eyes filled with tears. She sniffed, then said to Luanne, “My offer still stands.”
“What offer?” Mother asked before Yancey could speak.
Mrs. Hollenbeck’s brows rose as she eyed Luanne. “You did not tell them?”
“It didn’t—” Matter. Luanne shook her head. It hadn’t mattered then, but now becoming Mrs. Hollenbeck’s paid companion was her best option. “I need to speak with my parents first.”
Mrs. Hollenbeck nodded with understanding.
With the best smile she could muster, Luanne stood. “We should go if we want to enjoy the last few hours of the Fall Festival. Father said to meet him there.”
One by one they filed down the aisle toward the door. Luanne held it open while they walked down the steps, into the cool late afternoon. Orange and gold streaked the blue, cloudless sky. The sun would be setting soon.
Mrs. Hollenbeck and Mother climbed into Mrs. Hollenbeck’s surrey.
Yancey stopped midway between the church and the street. “Lu, you coming?”
Luanne hovered on the top step, feeling strange. “No, I changed my mind. I think I’ll walk home.”
“People will talk if you don’t go.”
“People will talk regardless.”
Yancey nodded. She walked back to the steps. “If anything, Mother and Father have taught us that love requires sacrifices. Is there nothing you would not do for love? Nothing you would give up to be with Roy? I know I’d tear down Mount Helena if that’s what it took for Hale to love me.”
Luanne’s lips could not form a response.
Yancey whirled around and dashed to the surrey, climbing in next to the driver.
As the surrey rolled away, Luanne walked down the steps. South was home. North was the fair. Granted it was a good mile up the road. Like the rest of the race competitors, Roy would be at the fair giving balloon rides to every penny-paying customer. She couldn’t let him leave Helena on a sour note.
Is there nothing you would not do for love?
She didn’t know.
Until she talked to Roy, she would never know.
Luanne turned left, increasing her pace as she walked. Most of Main Street was empty. Everyone was probably at the fair. She’d overheard Judge Forsythe mention having fireworks to rival those at the Independence Day Social.
Once she reached the intersection of Main and Eleventh streets, she drew in a cleansing breath. A black one-horse surrey was coming south, in her direction. How strange. It looked like—
Luanne shielded her face with her hand, blocking the western sun streaming between the buildings. Geddes? Or was it Father?
The surrey drew up next to her. Instead of Geddes or Father driving, it was Roy.
Her heart tightened.
Roy shifted on the bench to face her, tucking his right leg under him. He tipped his hat and grinned. “Evening, ma’am.”
“Why aren’t you at the fair?”
“Geddes is tending to the balloon.”
“Oh.” Luanne glanced around. “Did Father send you to fetch me?”
He regarded her with some concern. “Actually I’m here on my own compulsion.” He looped the reins, then climbed out of the surrey. “I’m sorry I cost you your job. I behaved badly, and that was never my intention.”
Luanne crossed her arms, rubbing them even though she wasn’t cold. “Even if you hadn’t built the fire, Tate would have found something else to use to force me into marrying him.” Something had changed in his face. Not jealousy. Pain. Heartbreak. She couldn’t help but say, “You know why I had to turn you down, too.”
“I didn’t at first. Your father has a way of making a man see the truth and admit his flaws.” The recriminatory look left his eyes, replaced by something confident. “When you marry me, it will be willfully and wholeheartedly done.”
Luanne chuckled. The man was persistent, she had to grant him that. “When I? Mr. Bennett, aren’t you being a bit presumptuous?”
“Optimistic.”
He reached for her hand, only to grab it and gently draw her to the surrey. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner.” His hands encircled her waist, warming the air between them, yet he didn’t lift her to the bench. He held her close. He held her still. “I had to track down the editor of the Helena Independent to see about filling that reporter position.”
Luanne blinked. “You’re taking a job here? In Helena?”
He nodded.
She didn’t ask why. She could see the answer in his gaze . . . and she could hear her sister’s words invading her thoughts.
Is there nothing you would not do for love? Nothing you would give up to be with Roy?
Nothing. She’d given up nothing for him. A healthy partnership, Father often said, was when both parties knew how to give and take. Compromise. Once again, Roy was sacrificing for her.
“Roy,” she said softly, “if you were to take that job—”
“It’s already taken,” he interrupted.
“Oh.” Luanne moistened her lips, which wasn’t the wisest action because it drew Roy’s attention. Her stomach flipped, and her heart was pounding. He wouldn’t kiss her on a public street. Surely he wouldn’t. “Since, uhh, since you will be settling down in Helena, and seeing that I am no longer under a contract—”
“A ridiculous contract.”
“—with the school district,” Luanne continued, despite agreeing with his description, “I would be open to being courted by you.”
The corner of his mouth indented. “I would be open to courting you.”
“It doesn’t have to be forever.”
He groaned. “I hope not.”
She laughed. “No, I don’t mean the courting lasting forever.” She touched his bearded cheek. “I mean living here, Roy. In Helena. I won’t say I’m not frightened about leaving everyone I know, but I want us to figure out what we want our future to look like, not what I always expected my future to be.”
He kissed her gloved palm. “If there weren’t so many windows in these bui
ldings . . .” His gaze shifted to the western horizon. “Sun’s setting. It’s the perfect time for a balloon ride.” He gave her a slow smile. “Come fly with me?”
Luanne’s cheeks warmed. “All of Helena will see us.”
He smiled.
And she smiled back.
“I don’t mind,” he said.
“Well, then . . .” Because the sun was setting and (most likely) all of Helena was at the fair, Luanne stood on her tiptoes and gave him a quick kiss. “I don’t mind either.”
Author’s Note
In Chapter Five, Roy tells Luanne’s class about a revolutionary new camera invented by Mr. George Eastman, the founder of Eastman Kodak Company. This small camera that contained rolls of film wasn’t introduced to the market—nor was the company founded—until 1888, at least six months after our story takes place, but we couldn’t resist adding it. Well . . . Becca couldn’t. Her brother-in-law used to work for Eastman Kodak in their Research and Development Department.
The 1888 camera that allowed ordinary people to take pictures and send them off to be developed completely replaced the cumbersome glass plate cameras the same way digital cameras have made film a thing of the past.
COMING SOON
In a booming frontier town, a heavenly match may be in store for mail-order brides seeking a fresh start . . . women of strength and spirit who embrace the challenges of life and love in the wild Montana Territory.
THE PROMISE BRIDE
Book 1 in the Montana Brides Series
Enjoy the following excerpt from
The Promise Bride . . .
Chicago, Illinois
Saturday, April 2, 1887
Fortune favored the persistent.
Emilia Stanek smiled, climbed into the cable car, and found her usual spot on the second bench on the left. She adjusted her father’s old leather army haversack from her side onto her lap and noticed a brass button on the blue woolen coat she wore over her Spiegel uniform was, literally, hanging by a thread. She tugged it off. Rolled the tarnished metal with her fingers. The balls of her feet throbbed from so many hours standing behind the customer-service counter, and her fingers ached from filling out complaint forms and bill-paid receipts. She’d lost too much sleep, spent too little time with her siblings during the last nine months. And her cheeks were cold from the wind. Still . . .
She smiled.
The extra dollar a day she’d earned from volunteering for a Saturday shift made the inconveniences all worth it.
The cable car bumped up and down as people continued to load.
Emilia lifted the haversack’s top flap and dropped the button in where it rested against her week’s wages. She settled against the seat. With what she’d saved since she’d begun corresponding with Finn, in three short months she would have the rest of the funds needed to purchase train fare for Roch, Luci, and Da to move with her to Montana. Montana. Her heart warmed at the thought of the heavenly word. Once they were settled, her dear Finn would spend a month courting her properly before he proposed. His last letter mentioned how perfectly he believed they suited. Oh, she agreed.
Mrs. Phineas Collins.
Emilia Stanek Collins.
Emilia Collins.
She closed her eyes. How perfect her name sounded with his. Finn’s soon-to-be proposal would be more than she’d ever dreamed. More than a mail-order bride could ever hope for. She adored him. She relished knowing God had answered her prayer for a good man. She loved the future they’d have together on his ranch. Luci needed time to enjoy the remaining years of her childhood. Roch needed to escape the gang he was running with. Da’s lungs needed fresh, healing air, the kind found out west.
Montana was the land of many opportunities.
Chicago—
Her upper lip curled. Chicago wasn’t the land of any opportunity, despite the buildings rising along the street. The noisy city smelled of industry, sewage, and slaughtered pigs. If only they could leave now, before the summer heat blanketed the area with the stench that gave her headaches, made her nauseated, and interfered with her sleep. No sense bemoaning her circumstances, though. Finances and Da’s health dictated they wait until the dry air of July to leave. She could endure three and a half more months in Chicago.
Mrs. Phineas David Collins.
Emilia Stanek—
The cable car bell rang.
“Hold the car!” two familiar voices called out.
Emilia looked to her left. Jonny and Harv, two of Spiegel’s weekend stockmen and her self-appointed guardians, shoved their way through the pedestrian traffic, waving their newsboy caps. They jumped onto the car next to her. As they did every Saturday. Harv scrambled over Emilia’s legs to take a spot to her left, while Jonny sat on her right. The pair smelled of bratwurst, beer, and sweat. The packed cable car gathered speed, leaving the State Street stop and heading west toward the gold-and-pink sunset.
West. She sighed. Thank you, God, thank you for bringing Finn into my life.
With each bump and turn, the wooden slats of the bench pressed into Emilia’s back. Jonny and Harv squashed her shoulders. The chilly, late-afternoon breeze caused by the car’s twelve-mile-per-hour speed blew wisps of hair onto Emilia’s face, despite the black straw hat she wore. She shivered, yet continued to smile. Hope warmed her soul. Joy flooded her heart.
Someday soon . . .
“Anything exciting arrive today?” Emilia asked after giving them time to catch their breaths.
Harv shifted to face her. “Teak tables from Burma.”
Now that was interesting. Emilia scrambled through her haversack for a pencil and her historical research journal. She’d already investigated Venice, but Burma was an unknown. “Burma”—she printed the letters—“as in B-u-r-m-a?”
Harv nodded. “It was what were stamped on the crates.”
The car stopped, and passengers unloaded and loaded.
Emilia swayed her shoulders, nudging the male bookends to give her space. Just because she barely weighed a hundred pounds, was a good twelve inches shorter than them, and looked more fifteen than twenty-one, it didn’t mean she had less of a right to equal space on the bench.
Jonny bumped her shoulder. “What’d ya learn about the fifth King Henry?”
“One of these days,” she warned, “I won’t be around to do the studying for you.”
Harv eased up the tip of his news cap. “You don’t look like yer dying.” For all the disbelief in his tone, concern flickered in his blue eyes.
Emilia patted his arm. “I’m not dying.” And because she couldn’t contain the joy she felt, she grinned. “I’m moving to Montana this summer.”
Silence.
The cable car’s bell rang.
Harv’s laughter began a split-second before Jonny’s.
Emilia pursed her lips to hold back a retort. Whether they believed her or not, she was leaving Chicago on July 16th, once the public school’s summer term ended. She and her family were moving to a cattle ranch on the magnificent grasslands of Montana. Where the air smelled of wildflowers and sunshine, where she could sing at the top of her lungs. Where Roch would learn to smile again. Responding to Finn’s mail-order bride advertisement had been the best decision of her life.
As their laughter mellowed, and since she had sunlight, she flipped several pages back in her history journal. “Henry of Monmouth became king of England in 1413 . . .”
By the time the cable car reached the tenement stop, she’d given them a decent lecture on the young medieval monarch and his nine-year reign. They debarked the cable car and continued to talk as they headed down the uneven sidewalk passing decrepit two- and three-story wood frame and brick buildings that lined the unpaved streets. Clothes hung from windows. Dogs barked incessantly. Family fights were neighborhood fodder. Compliments of the factories within walking distance and the slaughterhouses farther south, not even the smells roasted pork and fresh-baked bread could cover the neighborhood sewage stench.
Soon,
though, this would all be a distant memory.
Emilia refocused on her notes. “In 1599 William Shakespeare wrote his play about King Henry’s—”
“Ahh, Miss Stanek,” a craggy voice called out.
Emilia looked ahead. Her stride slowed, Jonny’s and Harv’s following suit. Her landlord descended the outside steps to the wooden tenement’s second floor where her family lived. For all Mr. Deegan’s three-piece suits and oiled mustache, the man who owned the entire block was as grimy as Chicago. The only times he visited were when he came to collect rent, which wasn’t due for another month. But he’d clearly been upstairs. In the last year, from the moment Da returned home from the cotton mill on Friday, he never left the house, save for attending Sunday worship. Deegan had to know Da’s pattern. This could only mean the two had talked. For how long?
Emilia shoved her journal inside the haversack. Her grip tightened on the bag’s strap across her chest. Pulse skittered.
Mr. Deegan’s chestnut mare, tied at the post, looked fairly rested. Thirty minutes? An hour?
Heartbeat pounding, Emilia met Mr. Deegan at the bottom of the stairs. “Can I help you with something?”
Jonny and Harv towered behind her like the archangels they weren’t.
Mr. Deegan’s narrowed gaze shifted from her to Jonny and Harv, then back to her. “I expect you can.” He withdrew a folded sheet of paper from inside his suit coat and held it out to her.
Jonny and Harv didn’t move.
Emilia nodded to the four-story brownstone across the street to where Mr. Bello, standing on a ladder, had begun his round of lighting the tenement streetlamps. “Go on,” she ordered. “Please. Mama Bello has dinner waiting for you two.” She paused until her erstwhile guardians crossed the street to their boardinghouse before she turned back to Mr. Deegan’s beady gaze. She took the paper he offered. “What’s this?”
“List of repairs needed.”
Emilia scanned the words from the Health Department compiled after their latest—and humiliating—round of inspections of heating, lighting, ventilation, plumbing, and drainage. How can you live in this? had been the inspector’s silent question each time he’d glanced her way. It wasn’t as if anyone in the tenements had a choice . . . as long as they stayed in Chicago. Both hands on the letter, she crumpled the sides, her mouth sour over the inspector’s findings.
