Wisconsin was a beautiful state. It was green like Virginia but it stayed rather cool all year round and the air wasn’t as muggy. Adam told me about the Southwestern deserts and I was more than a little thankful I hadn’t ended up in a place like that. I liked plants and flowers and anything green. Adam told me I could expand my garden and add flowers. When I first moved he told me it was a waste of space but had since come around.
We moved through the plains and hills, riding until the sun began to set. Adam stopped the horse for the night and tied it to a nearby tree before pulling out the tent. It was simple but it would give us enough shelter from the elements for the night. After all, it was a clear, cloudless night.
I sat on a nearby log, watching him work, his muscles flexing and relaxing as he moved. He was the picture of perfection and watching him work brought a blush to my cheeks. We’d begun sleeping in the same bed, though I’d insisted that only sleep happen until we were married. He never pushed that decision and I was thankful for his understanding.
Once the tent was pitched he waved me over and I jumped up from the log, smiling. “Do you need any help?”
“Not at all. It’s time to go to sleep. I want to be up by sunrise tomorrow so we can get their before it gets dark.”
“Will we head back as soon as you get what you need?”
He shook his head and pulled me close as we settled down on top of blankets. “No, no. There’s an inn and we’re going to stay there for the night. I thought it might be romantic.”
I blushed a little and buried my face in his chest. “Really?”
“Yes Really. Now go to sleep, darling.”
I smiled and closed my eyes, doing just as he said. I was completely oblivious to the danger we were in.
Chapter 9
A shooting pain in my scalp jolted me awake and as my eyes flew open, I found myself screaming at the top of my lungs, squirming against whoever had their hand wrapped in my hair. I was being dragged out of the tent by my curls, the rough ground digging through my slip and leaving me with huge red welts.
I struggled against the hand, reaching up and digging my nails into the soft flesh, but it didn’t seem to do much. The person dragging me had a hold on me and they weren’t letting go. Finally, a voice spoke up and I realized the person who had me was a man.
“I got her, Ricky!” he sang, his voice low and a little slow sounding.
“Don’t use our names, BORIS!” another voice snapped.
“Why can’t we use our names?”
“If they get away they’ll know who we are!”
“They won’t get away. No worries, Ricky.”
“That’s what you said about the last ones and look what happened.”
Boris dragged me over to the tree line and fastened me to one of the trees. As he began to tie me up I got a glimpse of the man as he worked to tie me to the tree. He was large and brutish, though his middle was soft. He had a receding hair line and cloudy eyes that made it evident not all the lights were on upstairs.
“What are you doing?!” Adam barked, struggling against his own restraints.
For the first time since I was awakened, I realized that Adam was beside me, already tied to the tree next to mine. I looked at him, his words turning to echoes in my mind. Everything seemed so blurry and so surreal, I could hardly keep up.
The one named Ricky turned to look at us, scratching at his temple. “What do you think we’re here for?” he grunted. “We’re here to rob you.”
Adam was struggling with his restraints behind the tree, but doing his best to not show it. “Then take what you want and leave! There’s gold in the wagon!” he yelled, though I knew he was lying.
All of the gold was strapped to the underside of the wagon in a small, hidden box. Ricky smirked and came to stand in front of us, swinging the pistol around his finger. “That so?” He looked over his shoulder. “Boris! Empty the wagon!”
My heart began to race at the order. I knew they weren’t going to find anything, and I was terrified as to what they would do when they came up empty handed. Ricky stared me down, never once looking at Adam, which was a huge mistake. The look in Ricky’s eyes was easy to understand and it made me shudder in fear. He licked his lips and stepped forward, reaching down to touch my hair.
I screamed and snapped my teeth at him, desperately trying to sink my teeth into his arm as he reached for me. He just laughed and reared back, slapping me hard across the face. My eyes widened as blood began to pour down my nose and stain my dress.
Adam screamed, the sound coming from him sounding like an animal who’d been cornered. “DON’T TOUCH HER! I’LL KILL YOU!”
Ricky laughed and turned to face him. “Tied up to that tree? You can’t do a thing. You keep screaming like that and I’ll put a bullet in your head,” he said, waving the gun at Adam.
After a moment he turned back to me and I pressed my back against the trunk of the tree as hard as I could, tears streaming down my face. I was absolutely terrified. He chuckled and touched my cheek.
“I think I could figure out a use for you.” He murmured, reaching around the tree to untie me.
My eyes widened when I realized he was planning on untying me and taking me to the woods. My heartbeat pounded in my chest so hard I couldn’t hear anything else until Boris let out a scream. I don’t know why he screamed, but the sound was loud enough and jarring enough to get Ricky’s attention.
Just as he’d loosened the rope around my wrists, the scream ran out and he turned on the balls of his feet, gun raised and ready to fire. I managed to wriggle out of my restraints, and without thinking, I launched myself at Ricky.
He screamed and tried to shake me off, but my nails were dug into his shoulders and I made it clear to him I wasn’t going anywhere any time soon. He waved the gun around, flailing wildly in the air. As we struggled, Adam managed to get free and tackled us both to the ground. I rolled across the hard, dirt floor, scraping my knees and elbows but it didn’t matter.
When I finally lifted my head, I saw that Adam was on top of Ricky and now had the pistol trained on the other man. His hands shook and his eyes were narrowed with rage. I opened my mouth to beg him not to do it, but Adam lowered the gun of his own accord. I watched him closely and I knew exactly what was going through his head. He knew that if he pulled that trigger, he’d be just as bad as them.
I looked away as Adam raised the gun and brought it down, knocking Ricky out cold. Once Ricky was tied up he went to check on Boris before running over to me, cupping my cheeks.
“Darling. Elizabeth! Are you okay?” he asked, his eyes wide.
I was staring at Boris’s still figure, my eyes wide with fear. “What about him?” I’d noticed Adam hadn’t tied him up.
“He’s dead. He’s not breathing,” he said quickly. “What about you? Are you okay?”
I turned to look at him, my eyes wide and wet. “Yes, I’m okay.”
I was alive. I’d survived the attack, and not only that, but I’d even managed to fend off my attackers and help take them down. Adam pulled me so close and held me so tight that it became difficult to breathe, but I didn’t pull away. I let him hold me, enjoying the feeling of safety his embrace brought.
He pulled away and cupped my cheeks. “We have to go. We have to go now. We need to find the authorities.”
I nodded quickly. “Right. Right.”
We both stood and I rolled up the tent haphazardly as Adam dragged the two bodies into the wagon. We had to leave some things behind, but Adam thought ahead and buried them in a bag so that we could retrieve them on the way home.
Once everything was packed up, we rode all night and well into the day, though we didn’t stop until we reached the trading post. When we delivered the two men to the sheriff, the man seemed rather impressed.
Apparently the two men that we had in the back of our wagon had escaped from the local jail and were wanted for robbery and murder. We also learned that Boris had been bitten by a snake tha
t had somehow managed to get into our wagon and the poison had killed him almost instantly. When we heard the news, neither of us said anything but we looked at each other, thinking the same thing.
God had been watching over us that day.
Chapter 10
We stayed at the trading post for several days, wanting time to recover from the ordeal. We were given the reward money for capturing the fugitives and Adam bought an engagement ring with it. He managed to keep it a secret from me until the last day, when he proposed. It was during a lightning storm and it felt like the heavens were putting on a show just for us.
I returned to Madison an engaged woman, but I also returned a stronger woman. Any and all doubts I’d had about myself were completely gone. If I could take down two dangerous criminals, I could take on the world and nothing was going to stop me.
Our wedding was going to be a town affair and soon everyone was insisting on doing something for it. After a long, hard road of praying, I even decided to invite my parents.
They arrived just in time for the ceremony and my mother wrapped her arms around me, her eyes wet with tears. She apologized and begged my forgiveness and I just held her close, promising her I already had. I didn’t hold anymore resentment for my mother. Without the bullying I never would have come to Madison. I accepted that the Lord worked in mysterious ways.
Soon we were man and wife. It didn’t take long for me to become pregnant with our first child. As brave and strong as Adam was, he was a mess when I became pregnant. I never teased him or got onto him about it, though. I knew he was afraid for good reason. He didn’t want to lose me the same way he’d lost his first wife.
Even though there was always an undertone of fear, he was excited to welcome our child into the world. He had a crib built for the child, making sure to have a prayer carved into it. It was a sweet gesture and made my heart flutter. Somehow he was managing to make me fall even deeper in love with him, which I wasn’t even aware was possible.
We welcomed Abigail into our lives at the end of winter. The midwife said that her birth was one of the easiest she’d ever attended. When the midwife put Abigail in my arms and I stared into her warm face and blue eyes, I couldn’t help but feel that Louise was smiling down on our family that day.
That was three years ago and I was pregnant again. I smiled and patted my round belly, watching Adam snatch Abigail up out of the river. The bottom of her dress was soaking wet, but I wasn’t about to scold her for exploring the world. My own mother had always been extremely critical about girls who played outside. I wasn’t going to do that to my children. I wanted them to start out strong and confident. I never wanted them to face the insecurities I’d faced growing up.
Adam carried Abigail up the bank of the river, holding her under one arm as he walked through the grass and up to our porch where I sat, rocking. Once they reached the steps he set her down and Abigail ran over to me, her hands outstretched. She was holding an apple that she’d most likely plucked from the tree in our yard.
“Here you go, Mama! For baby!”
I smiled and took the apple, pulling her into my arms and kissing her on the cheek. “Thank you, child. That’s very sweet of you.”
Adam smiled and pressed a kiss to my lips, ignoring the disgusted sound little Abigail made. “How’s my baby?”
“Which one?” I teased.
“Both.”
“Well, my feet are sore but the baby is having a grand old time kicking around in there,” I said, patting my belly.
He put his hand over mine and cupped my cheek. “I’ve said it a million times, but I’ll say it again: you’re amazing.”
My heart fluttered and I smiled, offering him another kiss. “I love you too,” I teased.
He chuckled and pulled away, lifting Abigail into his arms and running off down to the river again. I watched them go and sighed happily. This was my paradise.
THE END
An Education at Ryan Ranch
Return to TOC
Chapter 1
“Charles! Charles, what have you got there? You aren’t getting up to any trouble now, are you? I know you couldn’t be doing a thing like that, not after all we’ve talked about. Do you remember what we’ve talked about?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And what was it, Charles?”
“What do you mean, ma’am?”
Caroline McCormack laughed, a musical little sound that always made anyone within earshot laugh along with her, or at the very least smile. She stood from the bench where she had been reading while watching the children, straightened her thick woolen skirts, and walked quickly towards Charles. Little Charlie Wells was the smallest boy in his class and somehow still the one with the most fire inside of him. She knew that many of his other teachers had little patience for him or for his antics, but Caroline didn’t feel that way about him at all. Quite the contrary, truth be told. She had a soft spot in her heart for the little children the others saw as troublemakers. The idea that there were any children anywhere that people could just give up on or cast off as being somehow lesser than was simply awful.
As far as she was concerned, she had never met a child she didn’t like. It was why she had been so drawn to teaching. It hadn’t been that she needed the money. She didn’t really. Her family was wealthy and well established. They had come to New York from Ireland and were one of the families that had really and truly succeeded. She had grown up in a large, sprawling brownstone with deep, rich wood and wrought iron as far as the eye could see. She had two younger sisters by the names of Adeline and Bethany whom she had always been devoted to, one four years older and one six. From the moment of Adeline’s birth, Caroline had known that she wanted to be a mother. She spent as much time as her mother would allow tending to first one and then two sisters, pretending that instead of siblings they were her very own babies. It was by far her favorite game to play and any time she was forced out of the fantasy, to attend to her schooling for instance, she was singularly devastated. As she grew older, her fondness for children grew as well, and although her education had only ever been intended to make her well-rounded and therefore more desirable, she decided long before she ever said it out loud that she would be putting said education to a good use. She was going to teach. It was an idea she felt overwhelmingly passionate about, held close to her heart and pulled out to examine late at night when she was meant to be asleep. She couldn’t wait to have children of her own, and once they came she would almost certainly have to leave her job in order to tend to them (something she intended to do herself and would never leave to a governess), but she would miss her children from the school. She loved them, each and every one of them in their own special way. She believed it was an essential part of what helped her to reach them, to teach even the students that other teachers had deemed unteachable. She truly cared for them and they knew it. Like rambunctious little Charles here, for example, standing in front of her with red cheeks and a lip poked out for good measure. She knelt before him, not caring a lick if it got her skirts dirty, and looked up at him with kind, patient eyes.
“Charles, you know I’m not angry, right?”
“I think so, ma’am.”
“And what have we talked about?”
“I must think before I act,” he recited with the confidence of a boy who had received the same lecture many times over. “And if I get myself into trouble I mustn't try to hide it. It only makes my trouble deeper.”
“Yes, that’s exactly right, Charles. So would you like to tell me what you’ve got in your hand? The one you’ve got clutched so tightly behind your back?”
It was still very clear that he did not want to, that he was very seriously considering not showing her a thing, but then his eyes dropped down to his feet and he opened his chubby hand for her to see what it had secreted away.
“Ah, I see. The clock. Is that right? Do you have a piece of the clock there in your hand?”
“Might be.”
�
�Might be?”
“Might be so.”
“Charles?”
His little face, the one he had been trying so desperately to keep stoic, crumpled into a million pieces and he threw his sweet arms around her neck. The contraband bit of clock fell to the ground, forgotten, and she used her free hand to scoop it up out of the dirt and slip it into her skirt pocket. She could mend it easily later. Either that or just purchase the classroom a new clock. It was no great task.
“I didn’t mean it, ma’am,” he blubbered, his wet tears saturating the crisp collar of her dress shirt. “I didn’t mean to break it all to pieces!”
“Do you want to tell me what happened?”
“I just wanted to see what would happen, is all. I wanted to see what was inside of it to make it work the way it did. But I ruined it instead and now it will never work again. It’s too broken and I’ll be in too much trouble now. I don’t want to be in trouble, not again.”
He continued to sob as if his heart would break and Caroline stroked his hair briefly, making soothing clucking sounds. She wouldn’t tell him not to cry. She never told a child that. She was of the belief that every person needed to be allowed a good cry, and that included children. Once he had calmed himself down and the cries had dwindled to a series of hiccups, she stood and held him out at arm's length, looking at him with a little smile.
“There now, do you feel better?”
“Mostly I do. Am I in trouble?”
“No, Charles, no trouble for you today. But will you do something for me?”
“Anything!”
“Next time you want to know how something’s insides work, tell me. That way we can explore it together. It’ll be our own little adventure.”
The boy nodded happily and then ran off to meet his playmates, as if he had never had a care in the world. That was the thing about children. They were so wonderfully resilient. Not like grownups at all.
*
Romance: Western Mail Order Bride Bethany's Love -Clean Christian Historical Romance (Western Mail Order Bride Short Shorties Series) Page 144
