Mail Order Bride: JUMBO Mail Order Bride 20 Book Box Set

by Hope Sinclair

  “Who’s that?” April asked, slightly concerned.

  George didn’t answer her, but addressed the man instead.

  “So, brother,” George said, “you’re back.”

  “Indeed, I am,” Miles Crawford said, rising to his feet.

  April’s heart fluttered, and she was at a loss for words.

  “Where’s that woman you ran away with?” George asked, progressing toward his brother. “Where’s your wife?”

  “We never married,” Miles responded, looking at April curiously. “As soon as we got to Sunny Peak, she robbed my coin purse and ran off with another man.”

  “Serves you right,” George chuckled.

  “And, who’s that you’ve got there with you?” Miles asked, softening his voice into a dulcet tone.

  “Another one of the women you were supposed to marry,” George replied. “April Sanders, from Pennsylvania.”

  “April?” Miles asked. His eyes lit up and were all aglow. “Oh, my precious, sweet love, I’m so glad you’re here... I don’t know what my brother—or anyone else—has told you. But, I can explain everything, if you’ll just give me the chance. You see, I met this other woman, at a tavern, and she tricked me into—”

  “Enough,” April said, shaking her head and raising her hand. “I don’t want to hear about how the woman from the tavern ‘tricked’ you—or about how the woman from New York, or the one from Delaware, must have done the same type of thing.”

  Miles recoiled, then bowed his head. “Listen,” he said. “I’m sorry about all of that. But, seeing as how we never met, I wanted to keep my options open. I didn’t want to marry just anyone.”

  Miles looked up again and flashed April a charming, toothy smile. “But, now that you’re here, and I’ve seen you face to face, I realize what a keeper you are,” he added. “So, if you’re still willing, I’ll gladly marry you… You did come out to Texas looking for a husband, remember.”

  “You’re right,” April said, flashing a different kind of smile back at Miles. “I did come out here looking for a husband…. And, I’d be honored to marry him. I’d be honored to become Mrs. Crawford.”

  Miles’ smile widened even more, until he was grinning from ear to ear.

  “Mrs. George Crawford, that is,” April clarified, turning her gaze toward the older of the Crawford men. Now it was George who was grinning from ear to ear.

  “If your proposal still stands, I’d love to be your wife,” she told George.

  “It still stands,” he beamed back.

  “But—” Miles started.

  “But nothing, brother,” George interrupted. His words were directed at Miles, but his eyes were fixed on April. “I’ve spent the greater part of 20 years cleaning up your messes and taking care of you… Now it’s time for me to take care of myself—and the woman I love.”

  “But—” Miles tried to go on. But, both George and April seemed oblivious to his words as they turned and walked off into the moonlight.

  Ten days later, April and George were married. Their wedding celebration occurred on a Saturday afternoon, with ample music and dancing and not a drop of whiskey to be found. Since the next day was Sunday, a day of rest in any event, even George enjoyed the merriment well into the late evening, which delighted April to no end.

  And… eight months later, April was delighted again, when she found out that, against all odds, she was with child. Her daughter, Elizabeth, was born a few months thereafter, and Miles and his new wife stood as godparents. In the time since George married, Miles had stopped drinking, gambling, and pursuing his other vices and had made good on his promise to marry the woman from New York, and she and April had become firm friends.

  The End

  3. A Broken Cowboy for the War Nurse

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ONE

  “There was so much suffering,” she said, bowing her head woefully and shaking it from side to side. “There was so much agony, terror, and pain. It was like nothing I could have ever imagined—or dreamed.”

  When Mary Ann Grace decided to become a nurse, she envisioned a happy, helpful life serving her community and contributing to the greater good. She saw herself tending to expectant mothers and bringing new life into the world; caring for sick children and giving them the strength they needed to go on; and comforting the elderly as they breathed their last breathes, left their earthly bodies, and made their way back to their Divine Maker and Lord.

  Naturally, Mary Ann knew that there would be blood, sweat, and tears involved in the process, and she understood that sickness and death, in any form, would not be a pretty sight. But, she truly never expected what she saw over the last two years of her employment.

  “It was brutal,” she added, drawing her hand upwards to cover her weeping eyes. “But, I abided it as best I could, because they needed me.”

  As the tears flowed down Mary Ann’s face, she tried desperately to ignore the images that flooded her mind—images of strong, capable men laid out on gurneys, battered and broken, coughing up blood, and begging God to spare their lives and limbs.

  “Our country was divided,” she went on. “So, I stepped up to serve it and mend what I could mend. I did my part as a nurse and cared for the soldiers who were injured in the battlefields. I gave medical attention and support to those who had fallen on the front lines.

  “Now, the war is over, and, sadly, many of those men did not make it home alive. But I did. I came back here to Pennsylvania in one piece—though, that one piece is riddled with unseen wounds and scars.”

  Mary Ann’s parents stared back at her from across the table. They’d just finished supper—a meager meal of bread, broth, and boiled eggs—but the food was the least of what they had to digest.

  “The Civil War was a viscous thing,” Mary Ann’s father said, glancing down at his empty bowl. “It took its toll on all of us.” His stomach growled and nearly drowned out the playful, carefree sound of his two young sons—ages 8 and 10—as they played with their homemade ragdolls in the far end of the room.

  “But, we must move on,” Mr. Grace furthered. He reached his hand out across the table, gesturing or his daughter to take hold of it.

  “We must find the courage,” he said as she slipped her wet hand into his. “We must find the will.”

  “I can’t,” Mary Ann cried, looking him dead in the eye. “I tried and tried, but I just can’t. I no longer have the ability to do what I once did.”

  “Nor do we,” Mr. Grace lamented. “For the last ten-odd years, our family’s livelihood has depended on our investments in the local steel industry. Before the war, we did well enough. But, when the Confederates revolted, the Union intervened in the industry and seized the steel for ‘public use,’ which meant we were producing it for them, not for our own profit or gain.

  “Your mother and I exhausted our savings to keep this roof over our heads and put clothes on our backs and food on our table while you were away. We have nothing left now, and have very little money coming in—and, what we do have coming in, we must use very prudently and stretch as far as we can to make ends meet.”

  Mary Ann glanced over at her mother. Once vivacious, full-figured, and full of spirit, the older woman now appeared drained. Her skin was sallow and sagged a bit, especially around her face and eyes, and she looked like a shadow of her former self.

  “We’ve both taken to odd jobs to fill in the gaps,” Mr. Grace continued, drawing Mary Ann’s attention back to him. “But, since your return home, we have been even more hard pressed, and we simply cannot go on this way.

  “It pains me greatly to say this, but your mother and I do not have the resources—or will—to support you any longer. We must think of ourselves, and of your brothers.”

  Mary Ann’s heart
sunk down into her stomach, and her head inadvertently turned toward her two siblings, still at play in the corner. They, too, like their mother, looked like shadows of their former selves, and their skin was also slightly sagging and sallow.

  “You are 24 years old,” Mr. Grace said, clearing his throat and leaning forward over the table. “You are a nurse, and are fully capable of earning an adequate income. You can support yourself… and, you must.”

  Mary Ann’s eyes were still fixed on her brothers. She watched as the younger one, Edgar, bent down and made his ragdoll dance near his feet. His arms strained against the fabric of his shirt, and the garment slid more than halfway up his back. It was obviously too small for him, even though he was considerably small for his age.

  Mr. Grace squeezed Mary Ann’s hand, and a feeling of sadness swept over her body. The hand he squeezed had helped scores of injured men during her two years of wartime service, and had helped dozens more in Pennsylvania during the two years prior, when Mary Ann worked in the infirmary located near a cluster of coal mines. She’d attempted to resume working at the infirmary when she returned home, but her hands were unable to help the way the once did. Like her heart and mind, they were no longer equipped for nursing.

  “I can’t go back to work at the infirmary,” Mary Ann said softly, shifting in her seat a little and letting go of her father’s hand.

  Again, Mary Ann’s mind flooded with images she tried desperately to ignore—images of wounded men from the war, alongside images of men wounded in the mines. The latter had injuries from rockslides, cave-ins, and mishaps with tools and equipment, but their bloodied bodies and plaintive cries weren’t that different from those of Mary Ann’s front line patients, and they stirred in her the same nervousness, despondency, and fear. Caring for the mineworkers was too much like caring for the soldiers, and she was not up for something so gruesome.

  “But,” Mary Ann added, reaching down to her skirt pocket, “I do have another, better option.” She slid her hand into her pocket and removed its contents.

  “My friend and sister nurse, Julia Montgomery, has written me, in search of a suitable nurse to care for her brother,” she went on, setting a tattered envelope down on the table. Her parents looked at it, then at her, curiously.

  “He is a prospector in Bright Valley, a mining settlement outside of San Jose, California,” Mary Ann explained. “He had an accident a few months back, and he faces persistent, reoccurring problems.”

  Mary Ann reached out and ran her fingers along the edge of the envelope. “Julia thinks it is necessary that he be under steady supervision until the Lord heals him completely,” she continued. “And, given all you’ve just told me, I think my becoming his nurse is the remedy we all need.”

  TWO

  Three months later, Mary Ann packed all of her belongings into one suitcase and once satchel, said goodbye to her family, and left her home, headed for the train station. On her way down the front steps, her brother Edgar ran out and stopped her.

  He grabbed her by the arm, wrapped himself around Mary Ann’s waist, and tucked something underneath her elbow. As soon as he pulled away, she looked down and saw that it was his favorite ragdoll.

  “I can’t take this,” she said, trying to shake the thing free from her body.

  “Please, Sissy,” Edgar replied. “Keep it… for when you get married and have your babies.”

  Mary Ann was very touched by her 8-year-old brother’s gesture, yet it made her a little uneasy. In planning for her future, she’d thought only about her support and survival, and had put her desires to find a spouse on the backburner. At 24, she didn’t have much time ahead of her before she’d have to acquiesce to living as a spinster, and the prospect of that, alone, greatly depressed her. She secretly hoped that her trip to California might also prove rewarding in this regard, that it would bring her not only a job but also a partner.

  Without further ado or opposition, Mary Ann took the doll from her baby brother and placed it in her satchel. She bid the boy farewell and made her way to the train station, where she boarded the massive locomotive and began her journey across the country.

  The train ride was long, tedious, and exhausting, but otherwise uneventful. But for the occasional unscheduled stop and occasional suspicious character, nothing remarkable happened, and Mary Ann spent the bulk of her time in quiet thought and reflection.

  Though Mary Ann’s mind traveled back and forth between a variety of topics—from fond memories of the family she was leaving to unpleasant ones about her wartime service—she mostly thought about her future and her impending “assignment” caring for Julia Montgomery’s brother.

  According to Julia’s first letter, her brother, Jack, was a 31-year-old veteran of the Civil War—a former Union soldier—who survived the war intact, only to fall off of his horse and suffer a severe injury a few months later.

  The horse’s hind hoof hit him square in the head, Julia had written in one of her letters. It caused a great wound on his skin and knocked him unconscious. He remained unconscious, in an unresponsive slumber, for four days thereafter. When he awoke again, he seemed alright, though he later began to experience other, related problems.

  Julia’s letter went on to detail Jack’s condition, listing his impairments and symptoms. He suffers from frequent headaches and occasional memory loss, it said, and often complains of sensitivity to both light and sound. He has an aversion to crowds of people and can be rather short in conversation, and he sometimes takes to periods of isolation and seclusion.

  I have tried my best to address his ailments, Julia wrote, and have done everything within my power to help rehabilitate him and further assess his needs. But, alas, I have been unsuccessful. He refuses to take my treatment and aid seriously, and has little faith in my recommendations. Whenever I suggest he do this or that, he brings up the past and reminds me of my youthful errors, such as when I made pudding with sour milk and destroyed his best dress shirt while doing the laundry, both of which happened in my teen years.

  Jack simply will not respond to me, Julia’s letter concluded. Yet, he is in dire need of steady attention. I pray that you will consider coming out to California to serve as his nurse. If so, you will be given room, board, and a reasonable spending stipend.

  When Mary Ann initially received Julia’s letter, she briefly entertained the idea of going to California, out of the spirit of adventure. But, she swiftly dismissed it when she considered the complications of starting life anew in a vastly different region of the country, tending to a man who had impairments and symptoms she’d never dealt with.

  But, when Mary Ann’s father explained her family’s predicament to her, the idea of going to California took on a new appeal, and her natural instinct trumped all other considerations. What was once a daydream of adventure became a necessary plan for survival, and going out west to care for a stubborn man who would provide her with room, board, and a stipend was far more an appealing option than starving on the streets of Pennsylvania.

  The only hitch was that they had to pretend Mary Ann was there to be a nursemaid for Julia’s son Simon. Julia did not believe her brother would ever accept hiring a nurse to come take care of him. She suggested that they ease him into it, by lying. Although Mary Ann was very uncomfortable being less than honest with a patient, she assumed Julia knew her brother better than she did. And for the money she was about to receive and the opportunity for a new life in a new place, she could live with the small deception…for a while.

  When Mary Ann wrote to tell Julia that she accepted her offer, Julia replied with another letter, which expressed her joy and gratitude and further went on to explain Jack’s character:

  He is a bit jaded, perhaps, and, at times, he can be somewhat confrontational. He is not of ill-spirit, however, and has never been violent or outwardly hostile. He is just stubborn and set in his ways, and he does not like it when others challenge him or his standards.

  Mary Ann had no intention of challeng
ing Jack, or his standards, and, although Julia’s description of the man seemed a little intimidating, she was not deterred by it. After all the carnage she’d seen and encountered in her time on the front lines, she was confident that she could handle one pigheaded patient.

  Still, Mary Ann felt as though she needed to “prepare” herself for her new assignment, and, what time she didn’t spend in thought and reflection during the train ride, she spent in prayer to do so. She prayed to God, asking Him to give her the strength to overcome her fears and deal with her patient’s obstinacy, and asking Him to guide her toward the cure for whatever it was the ailed Jack Montgomery.

  THREE

  Mary Ann took the train to the end of the line in California, to the unnamed stop most recently built by the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad. From there, she was to take a day-long journey to Bright Valley, via a covered wagon—and, she was not to take it alone.

  There were approximately two dozen other travelers destined for Bright Valley, and they all were expected to crowd into the same wagon. The four men among them were ushered to the front of the contraption, while the 20 or so women and children were sent to the back, tarp-covered portion.

  As Mary Ann squeezed in and sat amongst the other passengers, she gazed out of a slit in the fabric and took in her surroundings. She had traveled before, during her wartime employ, but she’d never seen anything like this place. California was much more open and empty than anywhere she’d ever been before, and that openness and emptiness both excited and scared her.

  Soon enough, the wagon set into motion, and Mary Ann continued to gaze out of the slit. Within a very short space of time, the sun was setting on the horizon, and she strained to better see the swarm of warm colors in the distance.

  Just as the orange, red, and purple of the sunset were coming into clearer focus, however, a faint noise provided a distraction. It sounded like a bird chirping, or a rat squeaking, and it put Mary Ann on guard. But, when she turned to see the source of the sound, she smiled and realized that she need not have been so defensive.