Thinking of the woman that Bridgette would pick for him, he wondered what she’d be like. Young and full of life, or some little farm girl looking for a way out of poverty. He hoped she knew how to read. Then again, he could still back out.
Yet, it wasn’t like he had much to offer. No work skills other than back-breaking work. That was all Chad had ever done. Nothing like what he or his mother had thought possible before that horrible day.
Chad couldn’t even think of what he wanted to do, but he’d wait until Bridgette showed up and gave him instructions. He owed her that.
Chapter 3
Hannah woke early and put on a new outfit. If she didn’t say so herself, she looked beautiful the way her shiny dark hair contrasted with the blue dress. She should be meeting Bridgette today. Hannah wondered if the woman was one of leisure or a fervent well-dressed woman who made the world move.
Her door rattled with someone knocking.
Hannah opened the door and saw a woman who could only be Bridgette. Her dress was well-made and a beautiful shade of red that contrasted with the woman’s bright blue eyes that sparkled with life.
“Hannah Durand?”
“Yes, you must be Bridgette Merritt. Come in.” Hannah opened the door and waved her in while being thankful that she’d gotten up and dressed earlier than usual. She’d have to keep on her toes around Bridgette.
Bridgette marched into the room as if she owned it. “I hope you found the room accommodating.”
“Yes, very nice, and the view is perfect.”
Bridgette looked at the window. “Oh yes, it’s a glorious view of the mountain.”
Hannah sat on the settee and looked expectantly at the matchmaker. “Well, have you found a match for me?”
“Yes, yes, I did as I said so in the letter.” Bridgette turned to her, pulled a chair from the small table, and sat across from her. “I don’t know how to say this, other than to come out and say it. I’m not sure either of you is set on the match. I did some checking on you, and your father sent me a telegram and said to keep you here until he comes.”
Hannah gasped. “Why would you do that? I wrote to you. I am the age of consent.”
“So, you will marry the groom I have selected for you?”
Words were ready to come out of her mouth, but Hannah stopped them. “I don’t know.”
“I don’t intend to hurt the man I have selected for you. I won’t play with his heart by matching him with a young woman who is having a tantrum with her father.” Bridgette’s eyes fired up with fierce determination.
Not wanting to be found lacking in character, but knowing she was in this instance, Hannah looked down to avoid Bridgette’s glare. “I honestly don’t know. I haven’t met him yet. I suppose if I felt the lightning bolt of love, I’d marry him.”
“Oh, so you think falling in love is like in some of the silly books. Love is hard work. At first, it’s thrilling and makes your heart race, but eventually, it comes down to are you willing to work out differences with the man you married. You have to want to make a marriage work. It’s not a fairytale love that instantly appears and makes everything right.”
Hannah nodded. “I know that. My father wants to marry me off to some Frenchman that I don’t even know.”
“What do you think a mail-order bride is?” Bridgette stood and began pacing the room. “I don’t know if I will even introduce you to him.”
Hannah stood. “Why not?”
“Frankly, I find you lacking in character. You ran away from your father and the man he intended you to marry without even giving that man a chance.”
Hannah squared her shoulders and faced Bridgette. “I don’t think you’re the kind of woman who would have married a man because your father arranged it.”
That made the matchmaker think, but after a moment, Bridgette nodded. “No, I wouldn’t have, but I wouldn’t have run away and then under false pretense agreed to marry a man I didn’t know either.”
“It was on a whim. My father told me about Pierre, I ran out, saw your ad in the paper, and here I am.” Hannah folded her arms and dared Bridgette to tell her where she’d been wrong.
“You stay here at the hotel. I’ll talk to the man I had picked out for you and see what he’s like. It could be this was a bad match from the beginning.”
Hannah felt slighted, and she didn’t like the feeling. “If it’s all right, I traveled all this way, could I at least meet him?”
Bridgette folded her arms. “I’m not sure. Let me talk to him and see what he thinks. Then I’ll get back to you.”
“How long will that take?”
Bridgette grinned. “Not long at all. He’s here in the hotel.”
“When is my father coming?”
“I just got the telegram today, and he was leaving yesterday. So, they should be here by the weekend.”
Hannah put a hand to her head. “I can’t believe you told him where I was. Did you know he has detectives following me?”
Bridgette smirked. “That tells me you have caused him grief in the past. I just had a little girl of my own. She’s all of six months old now, and I can’t imagine her growing up and being so rebellious.”
Hannah smirked back. “Really, because I look at you and see a woman that has gone rogue compared to the normal life of a wife and mother. You said you’re a lawyer. Let me see how many women lawyers do I know? Oh, it’s one. You.”
“Ha, perhaps you will become a lawyer yourself.” Bridgette smiled. “Truce?”
Hannah nodded.
“Let me check on the groom, and I’ll get back to you. Hannah Durand, you intrigue me. You’re not the usual kind of woman a matchmaker gets. Then again, you are only my third one.”
Hannah held out a hand to her. “Only the third one. So, you’re not an expert on the matters of love.”
Bridgette shook Hannah’s hand. “Well, you’ll have to ask my husband that when you meet him. Sterling Merritt, the town’s mayor.”
“I will.” Hannah grinned. She liked Bridgette and felt they’d come to some sort of understanding. “I’ll see you again soon?”
“Yes, you will. Perhaps with a young man at my side. Stay here.”
“I am hungry.”
“Oh, yes. I suppose you might be. I’ll see you either in your room or down in the dining room.” Without another word, but with a friendly smile, Bridgette left the room.
Hannah sat on the bed. Whew, Bridgette was a cyclone in her own right. Never had Hannah met a woman that could match her own feisty spirit. Well, Hannah believed she’d met her match. And worse, her father was coming.
She briefly thought about taking a stagecoach to wherever it would take her but knew she owed Bridgette and the man she’d chosen for her at least a day. That would leave her another day or two before Father could get into town.
A cold dread crept up her spine. That is unless Father had contacted the detectives and sent them on ahead. They could have already been in Chicago or even Wyoming.
Hannah was glad the diner was in the same building because all this mountain air had left her with an appetite. She took her shawl and reticule and ran down the steps, keeping her wits about her just in case she happened to see Bridgette with a man.
She didn’t and went into the diner and ordered a breakfast fit for a queen. She might as well eat if she might be on the run again. Hannah waited for the food and wondered what her match must be like.
Bridgette hadn’t said his name. Would he be tall and strong? A cowboy with a big hat and covered in dust? A mine owner with gold on his fingers? A lawyer like Bridgette?
Hannah had given up wondering what her Mr. Right would look like. In the past, she’d rejected all of the young men her parents brought to their house. Not that they were lacking, but she didn’t want to settle for someone just because her parents liked them.
She wanted the lightning. If it was in the books, it had to be real. For someone anyway. At least, that is what she’d told herself. Hannah wanted
a man who made her heart race. A man who left her feeling as if a thunderstorm had struck her with a bolt of fire.
It just had to be that way. Mother had tried to persuade her it was usual to choose a man that Hannah could admire and like and to let the love follow. Like Mother said she’d done with her father.
Hannah was still tempted to cry when thinking her mother and father married because they were introduced by their parents, and each thought the other was merely acceptable.
Hannah didn’t want acceptable, nor did she want to wait for the love to come. She wanted it to be the reason to begin her life with her husband. Whoever he may be. She wondered about Pierre. What if he was the one to hold the lightning for her, and she’d run away from him?
She put her hands to her head. “What have I done? I should have waited to meet him. Then I could have run away if I didn’t like him.”
And what if she fell madly in love with a no-account man. She’d heard of that happening before. As her mother told her often, “Love doesn’t feed the children. A man needs to have a good vocation to support a family.”
Hannah had heard that since she was little. Had her mother seen a vision of her little girl running off to Montana to meet some no-account and wanted to warn her?
Hannah lost her taste for the food. She would tell Bridgette sorry, but she’d made a mistake. Hannah would take the first train back after she sent her father a telegram.
She hoped Pierre would be a forgiving man, and if he was acceptable, she would learn to love him. Just like her mother and father wanted her to.
Hannah sipped the last of her coffee, looked up, and coughed out some of the liquid. There was her man. The lightning. Her heart was racing. Then he looked at her, and she thought she might fall out of her chair.
***
Chad went down for breakfast. He might as well eat well before he lit out of town. Bridgette said she’d meet with him soon, but so far, he’d not heard from her. And he was hungry. He walked into the diner and saw a woman sitting alone.
There was something about her that took his focus and kept it. She was pretty. Dark hair, lively eyes, and smile. But then she coughed out whatever she was drinking and had to wipe her mouth and face.
He laughed. With his luck, that was probably the woman Bridgette had picked out for him. Pretty, but not well-mannered. He picked a table near the front and sat with his back to the woman.
He really didn’t want to look at her. It wouldn’t do if Bridgette found him sitting with a woman and making eyes at her. And that one, despite dribbling out her drink, was one that he could look at. Besides, he didn’t want a wife.
No, sir. He sat back in his chair and stared at the menu and then ordered the works. Right now, he was more interested in bacon and eggs and pancakes than a woman. Even a pretty one like that one behind him.
Annoyed that he kept thinking about her, Chad stared out the window and watched the people walk by. He wondered how many single women there were in this town because the women he saw all had a man beside them. Well, he wasn’t looking for one anyway. The saloon held the kind he wanted to get to know right now.
He was still grinning when the food came. After a few bites, he didn’t care about any women. This was what he wanted. Food in his belly and money in his pocket, so he could move on.
Chad paused. The idea of moving on left him empty. At twenty-five, it was time to settle down and do something of worth. His mother would have wanted him to have a family. Father would have wanted him to be a good man. He owed his parents that much.
This was his second chance. He needed to put away his old life of a roving drifter and see what kind of man he could be. Bridgette believed in him. Or at least that was what she’d said when she interviewed him in the jail cell.
The sheriff had told him that Bridgette didn’t take every outlaw that came to her. Some she sat down, talked a few minutes, and then left, telling the sheriff that they wouldn’t change. With him, she’d sat for over an hour and talked about how life could be good and how she was offering him a second chance.
He remembered the fire she lit in him that day. The one he felt right now as he thought back. Chad put away thoughts of moving on. He’d stay. See what she had for him. Bridgette had said she’d help him with a job. A good job.
What could he do? He’d driven cattle a few times. Broke a few horses. Mostly dirty hard work. Not the kind of work that a good woman would want to tie herself to. He was smart. If things had been different, who knows what he might have been.
Not an outlaw, that’s for sure. He hadn’t been raised to break the law. He sat back in his chair, leaning on its back legs when she walked past him. The woman turned and looked at him before moving on. Chad felt as if the world tilted, and he leaned back, causing the chair to fall.
He scrambled to get up and watched as she went out the door. The lavender aroma of her still wafted around him. Well, who knew, if the mail-order bride Bridgette had for him didn’t work out, he’d find out who she was. That was a woman worth pursuing. Well worth taking a second chance at life.
Chapter 4
Bridgette left Hannah’s room and, instead of looking for Chad, went to her husband’s office. She needed his opinion. Hannah was something else. Reminded her a little of herself, and that was a bit hard to take.
While she found the young woman hard-to-handle, Bridgette liked Hannah. Though she hadn’t seen Chad in over a year, she remembered him as a bit of an insolent young man who wasn’t going to be easily tamed.
Well, either they would make a great match, or they’d be at each other’s throats. Sterling could help her. He was always the level-headed one who thought things through. They were so different. Bridgette would go full speed at a problem without taking time to see if she was making it worse. Her wonderful husband had saved her on more than on one occasion.
She went into the courthouse and found Sterling buried in mounds of papers. Sitting in the chair in front of his desk, she took his hand. “Dear, I need your help.”
Concern lined his face as he put down a document and looked at her. “What is wrong? The baby?”
“No, Charlotte is fine. Margaret is taking care of her for me today. I just met with Hannah Durand.”
“Who?”
“My mail-order bride, Hannah. I told you about her last week.”
“Oh, Bridgette. I told you to stop matchmaking. Of course, I know I said that about the Bounty Brigade, and you’re still doing that. I am wasting my breath. What happened? Did she not show up?”
“Oh, she’s here all right. She is a force to be reckoned with—”
Sterling burst out laughing. “Oh, my sweet wife. You’ve found someone as wonderful, exciting, and exasperating as yourself. Do you know how many people say those exact words about you?”
Feeling that she was being made fun of, Bridgette bristled. “That is not funny. Please, I need your help.”
“All right. Tell me the trouble with Hannah.”
Bridgette pulled her chair beside him. “Hannah is on the run from her father and a man that he wants her to marry. Hannah only contacted me so she could get away.” She sat back and waited for Sterling to acknowledge how right she was.
“I see. So, you got hold of a tiger by the tail, and you don’t know what to do with her. Is that it?”
“Well, I guess so. Should I introduce Chad to her?”
“Chad Dawson. He’s a fiery one himself. They might be a good match. I’d say go ahead with this scheme of yours and see how it works out. All you’re going to do is introduce them, right?”
Bridgette nodded. “Yes, I can’t make them get married. I don’t want them to get hurt.”
Sterling hugged her to him. “Sweetheart, you can’t protect people in matters of the heart, but you do need to be careful in what you do. That’s why I told you not to get involved with the matchmaking.”
“But the young men need a woman to help them with their new chance at life. I want them all to succeed.”
“All right, Bridgette. I say you should introduce them to each other and let them work it out. I don’t want you hurt. For all your bluster, you have such a big heart, and I love you for it.” He kissed her. “Now, go and introduce them. Do you need me there with you?”
“No, I see that you’re busy. I can do this. I have to talk to Chad first. Thank you, dear.” She kissed her husband and left his office.
Walking to the hotel, Bridgette prayed that things would go well and work out for the best. Her first match had a rocky start when Del found out that Jericho had been a prostitute, but they’d worked things out.
Florence and Jay had an easier time getting along. Still, they encountered such hardship in establishing their home and then getting the four orphans, but they were doing well now.
With determination, Bridgette walked into the hotel and went up the stairs to Chad’s room and knocked.
***
Chad opened the door and stood back as Bridgette walked in. “Chad, I hope you’re doing well.”
“If you mean, have I broken the law yet, then I’m doing great. What do I have to do to get my portion of the bounty?”
Bridgette glanced at him and saw a young man in a hurry. “Whoa, slow down. As you know, I recommend you marry a good woman and settle down. I was looking at my notes about you, and I believe you want more for your life than to drift around the country, seeing what kind of trouble you can get into.”
She saw right through him. He remembered that day in the jail cell and felt the same feelings today. Bridgette was a woman who wouldn’t take no for an answer. What’s more, she was right.
He offered her a seat on the settee and sat in a chair across from her. “You’re right. I don’t want to get into trouble again. I want to turn my life around.” He ran a hand over his hair. “But I don’t know what I can do other than wrestle ornery cows and horses. I want more than that.”
Hannah Page 3
