Winning the Mail-Order Bride

by Lauri Robinson

  “This isn’t your fault. You didn’t make a mess.”

  “Yes, I did. I’m the one who wrote first. I asked Josiah to marry me.” Flustered, Fiona placed both hands against her temples. “Then after he agreed, after he paid for me and the boys to come here, I turn around and nearly beg Brett to marry me instead. Now I have Josiah attempting to buy a house he clearly can’t afford and Brett ready to send back the bride he ordered.”

  “Bride? Brett? What bride?”

  Fiona slunk farther down into the bed, wishing she could completely disappear.

  * * *

  Brett was in his shop, taking his frustration out on a hunk of iron, when someone slapped him on the back.

  “You ready?” Teddy asked.

  “Ready for what?”

  “To meet your bride,” Teddy answered. “By my calculations, she should be on today’s train.”

  Hannah Olsen could very well be on today’s train. Brett had already deduced that.

  “Figured I should meet her with you,” Teddy said. “Make her feel welcome.”

  “I don’t need anyone—” Brett stopped. Maybe Hannah would take one look at Teddy and think he was more to her liking. If she was on this train. There was a chance she wouldn’t be.

  The chances she was were more likely. His mother would have sent a telegram if Hannah had changed her mind. That was more of a certainty than the sun rising in the east and setting in the west.

  “You’re going to at least take off your apron, aren’t you?” Teddy asked. “You sure don’t seem as excited about this as I expected.”

  Brett removed his apron and swallowed a good ball of guilt as they walked to the train station.

  They were on the depot platform when the train rolled in. The metal-on-metal brakes screeched as the wheels were forced to stop rolling and steam hissed out of the smokestack as the fire was dampened down.

  “What do you think she’ll look like?” Teddy asked, eyes glued to the metal door that had yet to open.

  “I don’t know,” Brett answered. It had been a long time since he’d seen any of the Olsen sisters. Not that it mattered. There wasn’t a woman prettier than Fiona in all of this world. Nor one he could ever love. Not like he loved her. Shortly before Teddy had arrived, Dr. Graham had walked past the shop on his way to the house to check on her again. He’d wanted to follow the doctor right into her bedroom, and tell her that together they could work this out.

  Teddy let out a slow whistle before he asked, “Is that her?”

  Brett glanced toward the train door and the young woman holding on to the metal banister with one hand and a brown tapestry bag with the other. She was tiny with blond curls poking out beneath a flowered bonnet.

  Teddy elbowed him. Brett stepped forward.

  “Brett Blackwell?” the woman asked.

  He nodded. “Hannah Olsen?”

  She nodded at the same time as her eyes rolled inside her head.

  Brett shot forward and caught her before she hit the stairs.

  “I’ve seen people afraid of your size before,” Teddy said, “but I’ve never seen one faint dead away.”

  “Grab her bag,” Brett said, carrying Hannah into the shade of the depot awning.

  “What happened?” Wayne Stevens asked as he hurried out of the depot. “Did she trip on the stairs?”

  “I don’t think so,” Brett said.

  “Who is she?” Wayne asked. “Do you know her?”

  “She’s a friend of my mother’s.” The answer had come out of nowhere, yet it was the truth and Brett decided to stick with it. “She was scheduled to arrive today for a visit.”

  Her head was drooped against his shoulder, and Brett shifted slightly to look upon her face when she let out a little moan. A second later along with another moan, she opened her eyes.

  She pressed a hand to her head. “What happened?” Before he could answer, she said to herself, “I must have stood up too fast.”

  “I’ll get Doc,” Teddy said.

  “Bring her into my office,” Wayne said.

  Brett shook his head. “Nelson’s at my house. I’ll take her there.”

  For the second time in less than a week, Brett found himself carrying a woman to see the doctor.

  Hannah was fully awake by the time they arrived, and apologizing and insisting he let her down. Brett didn’t need her fainting a second time, so he carried her all the way into his parlor. There he set her down on the couch.

  Martha was beside him, asking all sorts of questions, and Nelson wasn’t far behind, with just as many questions.

  “She’s a friend of my mother’s,” Brett said. “Arrived on the train, but fainted as she was stepping off.”

  “A friend of your mother’s?” Martha asked.

  “Yes,” Brett answered while looking at Teddy with a glare that said no one needed to know more than that.

  “Brett’s mother sent a telegram the other day.” Looking at Hannah, who was staring at her feet, Teddy added, “And she fainted all right. Right there on the train steps.”

  “I’m sorry,” Hannah said quietly as she lifted her head. “I think I stood up too fast. The train ride made me queasy and—” She slapped a hand over her mouth.

  Martha’s response was to grab the ash bucket near the fireplace. Brett took a clue from Teddy and headed for the doorway at the sound of Hannah emptying her stomach into the bucket.

  “I, uh, got some work to do,” Teddy said, rushing toward the back door.

  Brett considered following him, but the open door leading into Fiona’s room snagged his attention instead and changed the entire direction of his thoughts.

  “Are you feeling better?” he asked her, once standing in the doorway.

  “I’m fine,” she replied dully.

  Searching for something else to say, Brett rubbed his chin. “Rhett and Wyatt went out to the Circle P with Maggie and Jackson.”

  “I know.”

  He stepped into the room and closed the door. “I didn’t have a chance to say anything to her yet.”

  Fiona shook her head.

  “She fainted.”

  Her expression grew soft and a touch sorrowful. “You can’t say anything to her, Brett. She’s here to marry you, and that’s what needs to happen.”

  “She’s awfully young, Fiona, and isn’t a whole lot bigger than Wyatt.” He’d been afraid he’d squish her just carrying her to the house. “I think she’s sickly.”

  “Which could be why your mother sent her to you,” Fiona said. “Because she needs someone to look after her. Take care of her. That’s part of being married too.”

  He hadn’t thought along those lines when thinking he wanted a wife but understood it once Fiona had been bitten. Seeing she was being taken care of had been the easiest thing he’d ever done. Not because Martha had overseen her care and Dr. Graham her recovery, but because in his heart seeing her well cared for had become very important to him right from the start. From that very first night when she and the boys had been so hungry.

  “I’m assuming your mother is a lot like you,” she said softly. “Willing to help anyone at any time.”

  He nodded but then shook his head, out of frustration, not denial.

  Fiona held a hand out and he took it while sitting down in the chair next to her bed.

  “That girl is your responsibility, whether you want her to be or not.”

  His mind was as cluttered as a log jam, yet she was right. Hannah was his responsibility and he’d take care of her. At the same time, he wanted to take care of Fiona. “We can work this out.”

  Fiona shook her head. “There’s nothing to work out. You’ll marry her and I’ll marry Josiah.”

  His frustration hit a new level and Brett shot to his feet. �
��No.”

  * * *

  Fiona’s heart was breaking at the same time it was welling with love for this man. He wouldn’t be in this predicament if it wasn’t for her. She couldn’t become his wife. Couldn’t expect him to break promises he’d made to other people on account of her. Couldn’t shatter dreams. “What’s her name?” she asked quietly.

  “Hannah Olsen,” he said. “Our families have known each other for years. Her family owns a logging company that supplies my family’s lumber mill with logs. My oldest brother, Hue, is married to her sister Gretchen, and another one of my brothers, Norman, is married to her sister Laurel.”

  “So you’ve known her for a long time,” Fiona supplied, hoping that would ease some of her own pain.

  “I can’t even say if I’ve met her before.” He sighed heavily and sat back down. “I’m assuming I did, but I never paid much attention to any of them. I was always working. Sharpening saw blades or repairing equipment. Even as a youngster I liked working with metal and knew I’d leave home someday so I could do that. There were a lot of us boys, and Hue and Norman, being the oldest, would be the ones to take over the lumber mill. The rest of us knew that and didn’t mind. It was fun talking about where we’d go and what we’d do when the time came. Furthermore, the last thing most of us wanted was to hook up with one of the Olsen girls. Their father is as mean as a bear woken up midwinter. He dang near killed Hue when he and Gretchen were caught kissing.”

  A good portion of empathy formed inside Fiona for the young woman she had yet to meet. Her father had died long before she’d met Sam, so she had no idea how a father would react to catching his daughter kissing someone.

  A knock sounded and Martha opened the door a second later, “Brett, Dr. Graham would like to speak with you.”

  “How is she?” Fiona asked Martha.

  The smile Martha provided looked strained, as did her voice when she said, “Feeling a little better.”

  Because it had seemed so natural, Fiona had forgotten she was holding Brett’s hand until his fingers squeezed hers before he pulled his hand away. She watched him leave the room and considered calling for Martha, but she could see the other woman was busy in the kitchen.

  Being confined to the bed had annoyed her all along, but right now she was beyond annoyed. Martha was making too much noise for her to hear any of the conversation that might be taking place in the parlor. It wasn’t any of her business, but Fiona wanted to know what was being said.

  The clatter that came from the kitchen had Fiona leaning over the edge of the bed. It appeared as if Martha was purposely being as loud as she possibly could. She wasn’t slamming cupboard doors, but she wasn’t exactly gently closing them either.

  “Martha,” Fiona said. “Could you come here, please?”

  “In a minute, I’m making tea.”

  Despite the noise, Fiona’s ears, tuned in to such sounds from being a mother, picked up on someone crying. Not loud sobs, more of a sad whimpering.

  “Martha,” she said, this time with more insistence.

  The other woman appeared in the doorway. “I can’t say anything, so don’t ask me to.” With a shake of her head, Martha shut the door.

  Fiona couldn’t say that she’d ever felt more isolated. She flipped the covers back and was lowering one leg to the floor when the door opened.

  “Don’t you get out of that bed,” Martha said. “I mean it.”

  When the door shut again, Fiona smothered a growl as everything inside her festered up good and tight. Her stomach grew so tied in knots that not even long deep breaths eased the frustration making her insides tremble.

  Her ears were still tuned in to what was happening outside of the room. The creaks of the stairs as someone went upstairs and then the muffled sound of people talking in the kitchen aggravated her even more.

  When the time came for her to finally get out of this bed, she’d pack up Rhett and Wyatt and they’d leave town for good. She had no idea where they would go, but—

  The opening of the door stopped her thoughts, and the sight of Brett had her asking, “Is Hannah all right?” It was odd to speak of the girl as if she knew her when they’d never even met.

  He was ashen and shook his head as he shut the door and then walked over to the chair beside the bed. She watched his every move, not realizing she was holding her breath until her lungs started to burn.

  She let the air out and, after refilling her lungs, merely said, “Brett?”

  His elbows were propped on his knees as he held both sides of his head.

  “Brett, talk to me. What’s wrong?”

  He lifted his head slowly and his eyes were full of grief as he said, “I’m gonna have to marry her, Fiona. I have to.”

  She’d been saying that all along, so the shower of regret that rained down upon her was completely unnecessary. “Of course you are,” she said quietly. “You asked her to come here for that reason.”

  He sat up and leaned his head against the back of the chair for a moment before he looked at her again. “She’s pregnant, Fiona. That little gal is pregnant.”

  Stunned and at a complete loss of words, it was a few quiet moments before Fiona was able to ask, “Who is the baby’s father?”

  “His name was Eric Olson,” Brett answered.

  “Was?”

  “He died last month in a log jam in the bay.”

  Empathy filled her. “Oh, the poor thing. How long had they been married?”

  “They hadn’t been married,” he answered. “Eric Olson was from across the lake, in Minnesota. We called them the Minnesota Olsons and Hannah’s family was the Wisconsin Olsens. They both own logging companies. The Minnesota Olsons spell their name with an o and the Wisconsin ones with an e. That’s what they stamped their logs with in order for everyone to know the difference—o’s and e’s. My father used to say the two families were related at one time, until a feud separated them. And they’ve been feuding ever since. That’s why she’s here. When Eric died and his father, and hers, found out she was pregnant, they cast her out. She went to her sister Gretchen, and Hue took her to our mother. Old man Olsen would have found out if she’d stayed there, and who knows what might have happened then. That was on Sunday. My mother arranged for her to get to the train station on Monday without anyone knowing.”

  As bad as Fiona had thought things were for her, Hannah clearly had it worse. “Oh, Brett, the poor girl.”

  “Doc says the baby will be here around the end of the year.” Brett stood and walked to the window. “That is if she gets her strength back up. She doesn’t want to eat because she says nothing stays down.”

  “She’ll need to eat little bits at a time and several times throughout the day,” Fiona said. “And drink tea made with ginger. That helped me when I was carrying Wyatt and Rhett.”

  He turned around and walked back to the chair. After sitting down, he took her hand. “I feel bad for her, Fiona, I sincerely do. I can imagine how mean her father and Eric’s father were to her. I’ve seen those two men go at it. They want to kill each other. It’s bad. Really bad.”

  “That’s why your mother sent her to you,” Fiona said, “knowing you’d take care of her.”

  He lifted her hand and kissed the back of it. “I love you, Fiona. I want to marry you, and—”

  She pressed a finger to his lips, and although it was heart-wrenching to admit, she said sadly, “It’s out of our hands now, Brett.”

  “No. There are a lot of men, good men, in this town who want a bride and—”

  “Stop, Brett.” She couldn’t take much more. Just couldn’t. “You’ve already said you have to marry her, and you do. You know that as well as I do. Hannah is young and scared, and if she’s put under much more pressure, she could lose her baby.”

  The look on his face told her she’d st
ruck a chord. “Dr. Graham already told you that, didn’t he?”

  “Yes, that’s what he said.” He closed his eyes. “He said it could take her life too.”

  “He’s right.” She swallowed at the lump in her throat. “Your mother knew all that, and that’s why she sent Hannah here. A mother knows her children. Just like I know Rhett and Wyatt, your mother knows you. She knows you’ll do right by Hannah. No matter what sacrifices you have to make, you’ll do right by her.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  For the first time in his life, his muscles weren’t enough. They couldn’t carry the load he’d been given. Because this time, the load was inside him. Fiona was right. Hannah Olsen needed to be taken care of, and whether he wanted it or not, he’d been given the job of seeing it happened. A man wasn’t much of a man if he turned his back on his duties. He’d never done that before and wasn’t about to do it now.

  A man didn’t begrudge what he’d been chosen to do either. That was something else he’d never done—begrudged anything he’d had to do. Accepting all that, he still wished there was another way.

  “How’s she doing?”

  Brett turned away from the window he’d been staring out of, watching his house for no real reason. Doc Graham had left some time ago. Shortly after Martha had sent him back to his blacksmith shop. “Doc says she’ll be fine,” he told Teddy. Nelson wasn’t one to share his patient’s ailments, but Teddy had a way of getting information out of people. Not as cleverly as his sister, but he still could muster up a good story when he wanted to.

  “This isn’t a story for your paper, Teddy. I don’t need—”

  “Hey,” Teddy said, holding up a hand. “I’m your best friend, remember? I sent the telegram to your mother.”

  “I know,” Brett admitted as guilt sliced across his stomach. “I just, aw, hell, I guess I’m second-guessing the whole notion about being married.”

  Teddy shook his head. “I don’t believe that, not coming from you, not for a minute. There’s something else brewing here.” Leaning closer he whispered, “And she’s in your house.”