“I’m ready now.” He flattened the letter on his lap—in case he needed it—and crossed his arms atop the desk. “Tell me what you think at the end.”
Her lips pressed together so tight they quivered. She shook her head but said nothing.
He took a deep breath and plowed forward. “To the woman I’ve only dreamed of. I figured you’d look down on me when you heard me read and saw how terribly I wrote. And yet you didn’t. I’ve lived my whole life hiding my difficulties from everyone. Especially you. I never believed myself worthy of your beauty or intelligence. But then, in a matter of days, I realized how much of a fool I was.” He waited until she caught up, hoping she’d look at him, but she didn’t.
“How could I have thought you’d think poorly of me when you’ve done nothing but care for the people around you? You’ve never given up on a person. Why, most people around here believe you’re a saint for not abandoning that one widow who died as bitter as ever, despite the constant vigil you kept by her deathbed.”
Rachel’s pen froze in the middle of the word bitter.
He swallowed against the tightness in his throat. She knew he was talking about her now, though she’d yet to look at him.
Leaning closer, he softened his voice. “How could a man not wish to live the rest of his life with you? Wake up to those rich-honey eyes, run his hands through that glossy hair, appreciate the mind God gifted you with, and be ministered to by the hands always ready to help. But when I realized I’d been wrong and that you might care for a simpleton like me, I couldn’t ask you to exchange your dream for years of rough farming. So I thought I’d try to woo you with my terrible handwriting, maybe have a good home ready when you graduated, but now . . .”
He bit the inside of his cheek and waited for her to look up. When she finally lifted her glistening lashes, he couldn’t help but smile despite the crazy question he was about to ask.
“But now that you’ve given up school on your own, do I have any chance of convincing you to marry me?” He rubbed his hands on his legs. “Um, now?”
Rachel’s eyes moved back and forth as if reviewing everything he’d said. “What about the bride you wrote to. Where’s she?”
“Miss Pratt’s heading west with the wagon train, but not with me. I never asked her to come, though she must have had reasons of her own for making it look that way.”
“Would you really marry me the day you proposed?”
He leaned closer. “Could you marry a man who can’t promise he’ll be able to spell your name correctly . . . well, ever?”
“If he can dictate a letter like that,” she whispered, “absolutely.”
He took each of her hands in his and rubbed the backs with his thumbs. Everything in him begged to kiss her senseless, but he had to make sure she knew what he could and couldn’t offer. “I can’t promise I’ll be prosperous. I can’t promise you’ll get to see your parents again, or—”
Rachel placed a firm finger on his lips. “You don’t have to be perfect to make me love you. I already do.”
He clasped her hands in his. “Enough to pack a trunk, hop in my wagon, and drive all night if the moon is bright enough?” He swept a strand of hair off her rosy cheek. “But I don’t know if a judge would marry us on a Sunday. If we can’t get anyone until tomorrow morning, we’re going to have a lot of hard riding to do.”
“Harold Avery’s a preacher, right?” Her eyes twinkled.
His smile grew slowly. He’d been grateful someone in the wagon train could ramble off a decent sermon while they traveled, but he hadn’t considered that perk. “Right. I’m so glad you’re smart.”
“I’m kissable too.” The flash in her eyes and the pout of her lips made him chuckle.
“Yes, very kissable.”
She leaned forward, and he nearly pulled her across the desk. Her eyelids drooped, and he cupped the back of her head, her hair softer than luxurious silk. His gaze roved over the freckles he hadn’t known she had, and he kissed the beauty mark near her lips before her mouth sought his. The world swirled about him, nothing but the taste of her existed. How could he ever feel worthless again if she created this much fire in his arms?
Her hands shot around his neck, and she pressed closer.
Too much fire. He broke away enough to whisper against her lips. “Save that for tonight.” If his team ran half as fast as his pulse raced, they’d have no problem catching up with the wagon train by nightfall.
She hummed, eyes closed. “Much better kiss than last time.”
Laughing, he supported her upper arms as he set his blushing bride back behind the desk. “And you don’t even taste like butterscotch at the moment.”
She opened her dreamy eyes and gave him a lazy smile. “I’ve waited for you for twelve years.”
Twelve years? She’d loved him that long? The depth in her eyes proved her soft statement. “I truly am a fool, if that’s how long you’ve loved me.”
She shrugged and walked around the desk to him. “Fool or not, I don’t want to wait another day.”
“Neither do I.” He held out his hand and her fingers entwined with his, spreading warmth through the rest of his body. Why had he forced himself to stop dreaming of this woman at night when she’d been dreaming of him all along?
He should have trusted God long ago with his heart’s desire. “Let’s ride, my love.”
Keep reading for an extended sneak peek at Melissa Jagears’s debut full-length novel!
Chapter 1
KANSAS
SPRING 1876
Everett Cline loosened his grip on the mercantile’s doorknob and let the door shut behind him. Kathleen Hampden waddled straight toward him, the white feathers in her hat dancing like bluestem grass in the late March breeze. In the three years she’d been married to the store’s owner instead of him, couldn’t she have bought a new hat?
He hadn’t talked to her alone since the day she arrived in Salt Flatts with those identifying white feathers he’d been told to expect, but he hadn’t anticipated her being married to Carl before she stepped off the train. Why hadn’t she thrown her hat out a passenger car window and pretended she’d never been his mail-order bride?
“Afternoon, ma’am. Is your husband around?”
He glanced behind the long glossy counter cluttered with candy jars and sundry items and saw that the door to the empty back room stood ajar. The two overflowing shelves that cut the store into thirds kept him from being able to see into every corner. The fabric table was a jumbled mess, and a few potatoes lay on the floor in the corner, escaped from their bin. Were they the only ones in the store?
Mrs. Hampden stopped three feet from him, the tang of the wood polish on her rag warring with the leather and tobacco smell permeating the room. She was such a tiny thing, even large with child. Perhaps it was a good thing she married Carl. If she worked outside as Everett did every day, the wind would have blown her away sooner or later.
“Mr. Hampden’s away on business, otherwise he’d have rushed out at the bell. Especially since it’s you.” Her cheeks pinked.
Carl needn’t worry about him. Stealing someone’s mail-order bride was different than stealing someone’s wife.
Everett fidgeted. “He has no reason to be concerned.”
“I know.” She rubbed her swollen stomach. “But he’s still worried your good looks might make me wish I’d chosen differently.”
The skin under his collar grew warm, and he pulled at the strangling fabric. He might be a decent-looking sort of man, but a lot of good that did him.
“I hope you have better luck today than you did with me, and you know . . . the others.” She bit her lip. “I’m sure this time it will be for keeps.”
He swallowed hard and eyed her. What was she talking about? Surely another rumor about him ordering a bride again wasn’t circulating. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“It’s all right. Rachel told me.” Her voice was hushed, as if someone might hear.
; He leaned down and whispered back. “Told you what?”
“About the lady coming on the afternoon train. She said you’d need prayer.”
Rachel.
He ran his tongue along his teeth and nodded absently. Surely his best friend’s wife wasn’t pulling another one of her matchmaking schemes. She’d tried to set him up with every girl in the county since the day her sister, Patricia, had left him for someone else. When matchmaking failed, she’d pushed him into mail-order bride advertisements.
If she’d gone and ordered another one for him, by golly—
“I hope I haven’t upset you.” Mrs. Hampden’s concerned tone reminded him of her presence. “I haven’t told anyone since . . .well, you know how they are.”
Yes, the townsfolk. Everett clenched his teeth. Every unescorted woman who stepped off the train was asked if she belonged to Everett Cline. When she answered negatively, some young man in the gathered crowd would drop to his knee and propose.
He stared at the saddle soap on the shelf beside him. What had he come in here for?
“I wish you luck.” Mrs. Hampden’s eyes looked dewy.
Everett squashed the felt brim of his hat in his clammy hands. Third time’s a charm hadn’t worked for him, and he’d never heard anything like the fourth’s a keeper. There wouldn’t be a fourth time for him. Well, fifth, if he added being jilted by Patricia so long ago. Was there a saying akin to five failures prove a fool? He was a hairsbreadth away from confirming himself a dunce. “You have nothing to wish me luck for.”
“Oh, Everett, surely this time it will work.”
“Really, Mrs. Hampden, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I can understand why you don’t want to say anything, but I’m the last person in Salt Flatts who would tease you.”
He’d let her believe whatever she wanted, because nothing would happen. “Thanks just the same.” He smashed his hat back on and hightailed it out the door, down the steps, and toward the weathered wagon belonging to his neighbors. Was this why Rachel insisted they needed him in town even though any train porter could have helped her husband load the shipment she was waiting on?
He wouldn’t believe it. She wouldn’t do that.
“Come on now, Everett,” she’d said. “You can’t avoid town forever. Surely you have supplies to get.”
He reached into his pocket, clasped his scribbled list, and stopped in the middle of the road. Rachel wouldn’t have gone so far as to invite another woman to Salt Flatts to marry him without even telling him. Would she?
A horse sidestepped beside him, the boot of its rider grazing his arm. “Hey, watch what you’re doing.” The cowboy glared down at him, the stench of bovine overpowering the scent of the cheap cigar wiggling between his lips.
Everett turned and scurried across the dusty road and onto the boardwalk. He glanced at his list. Should he return to the mercantile and face Kathleen again or confront Rachel? Neither would be pleasant.
“Got me a letter to send, Everett?” Jedidiah Langston stepped out of the false-front post office and stood next to his son, eighteen-year-old Axel, who perched on a stool absently whittling a stick. A smirk twitched the corners of the younger man’s mouth.
Everett’s hand itched to swipe the boy’s lips clean off his face, but he shook his head instead. He hadn’t personally posted something for over a year—always sent his mail in with the Stantons—but it seemed as if Rachel had decided to mail some correspondence for him.
“Surely you’re hankerin’ for another bride by now. Helga’s been Mrs. Parker for plumb near a year. Seems to me it’s about time you up and tried again.”
Axel chuckled at his father’s joke, and Everett scowled at the mention of his third—and absolutely last—mail-order bride.
He crammed the shopping list back into his pocket. “No letter, gentlemen.”
“Axel needs a wife about as bad as I need him off of my porch.” Jedidiah glared at his lazy son, who only rolled his eyes. “Maybe your next one can marry him.”
Axel sliced the tip off his pointy stick. “Only if he orders a stunner this time.”
Any woman dumb enough to marry that boy would have to work to support them both. Everett tipped his hat. “Good day, gentlemen.”
He’d been Axel’s age eighteen years ago, but he’d at least had some gumption, a promising future, and an adoring girl on his arm. Yet he was still single. A mail-order bride was probably the boy’s only hope, though Everett doubted he’d ever try for one. Axel’s ma had once been a mail-order bride, and when her marriage plans hadn’t worked out, she’d wooed Jedidiah over real fast.
Mrs. Langston was hardly ever seen in town, and Jedidiah never talked about her but in disdain. Axel’s parents’ animosity toward each other didn’t help the boy’s disposition—as prickly as a cocklebur and as useful as one too.
Everett marched over to the train platform and scanned the crowd. Rachel was nowhere in sight, but her husband, Dex, reclined on his wagon’s bench seat, hat pulled over his face. His soft snores jostled the brim resting on his nose. He couldn’t know his wife had hatched another scheme. That joker wouldn’t have been able to keep a straight face when Rachel insisted they needed help. And he’d be too antsy to tease the daylights out of Everett now to be sleeping.
Perhaps Mrs. Hampden had made a mistake and assumed too much. The town loved to conspire, and though Dex was a joker, the Stantons wouldn’t plot against him like that. No, Mrs. Hampden had to be mistaken.
Everett stopped at the depot’s window and perused the station’s chalkboard schedule. Thirty minutes until the train arrived. The bunch of wild flowers he’d picked before leaving home lay piled in his wagon bed. He snatched them and headed for the cemetery.
“Everett!” a voice called out, and he turned to see Carl Hampden hotfooting it from the livery straight toward him. The tilt of his head and the look in his eyes reminded Everett of a charging bull.
He stopped and tensed, half expecting the man to reach for a sidearm. “Carl?”
“Where are you going with those?” He pointed to the flowers.
Everett released his stranglehold on the prairie bouquet and kept his lips from twitching up into a smile. He stood but ten feet from the mercantile entrance. “They’re not for your wife, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Who are they for, then?” Carl backed up, but the heat hadn’t left his gaze.
“I don’t exactly believe that’s your business.”
Carl leaned closer. He’d evidently had garlic for lunch.
What did it really matter if Carl knew? “They’re for Adelaide Gooding.”
“Who?” Carl cocked an eyebrow.
Everett sighed. “My first bride.”
“Ah, I see . . . I guess.” Carl relaxed. “Well, carry on.”
As if he needed the man’s permission. He snatched Carl’s sleeve and dug out his list. “Would you gather these items for me? I’ll return within an hour.”
Carl folded the note and tipped his hat.
Everett strolled through town, keeping the jonquils tucked by his side. Why did he keep taking her flowers anyway? He looked at the sad, flaccid mess in his hands. Because no one else would—and that was his fault.
He stepped through the gap in the waist-high stone wall, marched straight up to Adelaide’s grave, and laid the flowers at her feet. “I’m afraid they’re wilted, but they’re better than what you have.” Which was nothing. He lowered himself to the ground and stared at her headstone. He hadn’t even known what birth date to engrave for his first mail-order bride, but he’d done his best. Even wrote an epitaph: Long-awaited and Missed.
Everett glanced around to make certain no one else was near. “Have you heard any talk about me lately? Seems Mrs. Hampden thinks I’m crazy enough to try marrying up again.” He grabbed a twig and scratched at the dirt. “I wish you’d held on for a few more hours. At least so I could have told you that I . . .” He tossed his stick. Had he loved her
? He would have. But he no longer had any stir of feelings for this woman he’d never met.
Closing his eyes, he conjured up the one image he had of Adelaide. Wrapped in a rough woolen blanket, her face white as clouds, hair dark as a raven’s wing, and her mouth, crooked and stiff as a fence post. The fever had stolen her breath and his hope.
The low hum of metal wheels against iron track rumbled from far off. With the toe of his boot, he shoved a stray jonquil back into his jumbled pile. “Maybe if I’d lived along the Mississippi I’d have had better luck ordering brides by steamboat.” He snorted, and a gray-green pigeon above him fussed. “So you don’t think so?”
A whistle sounded. “Rachel’s always wanted a pianoforte. Please let it be a piano.” But she’d asked Mrs. Hampden for prayer . . . and surely nothing she could order would be so heavy she’d beseech God’s assistance. The tremor of the approaching train pulsed through the soles of his feet.
What if there was another woman on that train coming for him? He clenched his trembling fingers. Patricia had jilted him. Then Adelaide arrived dead, Kathleen disembarked married to the shopkeeper, and Helga left him for another man with a better farm within a week of arriving. He couldn’t begin to imagine what a fourth mail-order bride might do. But he wouldn’t allow another bride to make a fool of him again.
She’d made a mistake. A huge, irrevocable mistake.
Julia Lockwood stared out the train’s window, watching the flat Kansas land sail behind her, mile after mile. Nothing but waving grasses, clumps of trees, and a few outcroppings of rocks. The vacant prairie lands wouldn’t conceal the past she ran from, and the man awaiting her wouldn’t make it better—only worse. What had possessed her to believe this was a good idea? She set her bag aside to stand.
“Young lady, you are making me queasy with your ups and downs, to-and-fros.” The buxom woman across from her swished a fan violently. “Please, for once sit still.”
Julia hesitated, hovering above her seat. Her nerves wouldn’t obey the woman’s pinched-mouthed decree. “I’m sorry. When I return, I’ll try not to get up again.”
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