Mail Order Bride: 9 Book Boxed set : 9 Brides for 9 Cowboys: CLEAN Western Historical Romance Series Bundle

by Faye Sonja

  She walked towards the door leaving a slack jawed Kayla behind her. “Do your job and tell my husband I have made a walk to the pastry shop. He can find me there when he is through.”

  She slowly closed the door behind her and walked out. She would be damned if she ever allowed another woman to speak to her in such a tone and get away with it. She was well aware that Kayla was important to Brian and the last thing she wanted to do was to destroy their friendship, but she would be respected come hell or high water.

  Deciding against waiting she signalled to Silas to take her home. After such venom all she wanted was to have Susan in her arms as she read the tiny one to sleep. She loved that child and she would be the best mother she could be, and if Kayla had a problem then that was her prerogative.

  Later that evening she had read a story to the little one before sleep took them both. Brian came home just hours later, and he crawled into bed with them. He smiled at the sight of them and tried not to wake them.

  “I love you,” she whispered to him so as not to wake their child.

  He smiled. “And I you.” He was surprised that she was awake.

  Those words were followed by a beautiful autumn wedding just a day later. The kaleidoscope of colors that dotted the lawn was the perfect backdrop for the small gathering of the close friends Brian had. Since she had no family to invite, though she had sent a letter to her mother, he wanted to keep it small for her. In the audience an apologetic Kayla smiled at her and then and there she knew they had an understanding that she would no longer be a problem. She enjoyed her big day and the feast that went with it.

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  9

  Chapter NINE

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  “ … I beg that we speak of things we

  have yet to address …Our marriage?”

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  Months had passed and Amy was growing more and more in love with Brian each day. They didn’t see each other every day, but she understood he had businesses to run and so she cut him some slack.

  Flowers always came for her when he wasn’t around, and a love note or poem always accompanied them. She was in heaven, until one day the thundering of horse hooves broke over the calm silence and she looked out to see a blond-haired woman riding with the fury of hell behind her.

  “Where is the woman I am here to evict?!” she screamed as she near broke the horses neck pulling it to a stop and stormed up the staircase. “I want you out of my house and away from my child!”

  Amy stood still unsure of what to do and poor Gertrude tried her best to still the storm brewing but the woman was having none of it.

  “I am sorry,” she said, walking down the stairs with Susan in her arms and trying her very best not to clobber the woman. “I am Amy and you are?”

  “Give me my child!” the woman said through clenched teeth. “I told him I was coming to see her and now he has her in the arms of another woman.”

  Amy took a step back from the woman as Gertrude stepped between them. “It was my understanding that you upped and left. You have no rights to be claimed here. If you feel you do, I suggest you lower your voice and wait until Brian arrives home.”

  “I will not wait!” the woman screamed and Susan began to cry.

  Amy knew then and there that she needed to leave the house before things got any worse.

  “Tell Silas to ready the carriage,” she told Gertrude as she pulled the older woman away from all the fuss. “And when Brian makes his way home let him know he can find me at Lyca’s until this mess is sorted.”

  “Yes ma’am,” Gertrude said and she rushed Amy into the kitchen and closed the door behind the screaming woman. Amy had soon managed to get Susan to calm down, and was piled into the carriage and headed to a place a little calmer. Lyca was eager to accept her and her family into her home, and before the night was out Brian sent word that he would collect them come morning.

  “Are you upset with him?” Lyca asked her.

  She smiled. “We all have a past that sometimes haunts us. I just did not want Susan to be in the house while they sorted out whatever bad blood they had between them.”

  They had a laugh about the situation and spent their night talking about life. It was refreshing. When morning came, it saw her rushing to the bathroom feeling sick to her stomach, confirming what she had already suspected to be true.

  “Are you sure you are ok?” Lyca asked her as she heard Amy getting sick for the third time in the past few minutes.

  “I’m pregnant,” she finally blurted out, and Lyca who usually had an answer for everything, fell silent. It was a deafening silence.

  “Say something!” Amy shouted moments later.

  “This is awesome, providing he does not run off with the woman who arrived raising all sorts of cain,” was all Lyca said. She frowned at her friend’s remark and prayed it was not so.

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  Brian had known that this day was bound to come sooner or later, he had envisioned it, but he hadn’t thought it would go quite that way. Truth be told he had expected a lot more fire from Amy and he worried her silent reaction might mean something more was going to happen. She had taken his child out of immediate danger in his absence and he was more than grateful for her doing so, he just hoped she would forgive him for allowing the event to happen to begin with.

  She loves flowers and wine, he thought. So his first midday stop was the florist to get a beautiful bouquet of the tulips she just adored and then to fetch a bottle of Bordeaux. He had introduced her to it and found she had quite an affinity for it.

  Then as he pulled the carriage up to Lyca’s salon and made the walk up the stairs, he hoped she would give him the chance to explain himself. But as he poked his face into the doorway Lyca called for someone named Junior.

  “Amy ain’t here?” the guy said to him as Lyca walked up behind Junior with a deadly looking pair of scissors.

  “When will she be in?” Brian was not worried about Junior who seemed to be more brawn than brains. It was the scissor in Lyca’s hand that he was wary of.

  “That is no longer any concern of yours,” Lyca said to him and he got the point and walked off.

  “I am here,” Amy said coming from the back with a sleeping Susan in her arms.

  “I know you probably hate me right now but let me explain,” he said as he walked in and handed her the things he had bought. “First of all, I am sorry.”

  She smiled and touched his face with love. “The last thing I will ever be capable of is hating you, but you do need to ensure that this does not happen again. What if I had not been home?”

  He looked at her in surprise and pulled her to him. “I have dealt with her and I promise you this will not happen again.”

  She sighed. “I hope it does not, because I am pregnant and I am sure I cannot make such a great escape again with a huge belly before me.”

  “What?!” he asked in happy shock.

  “I am carrying our child,” she replied kissing Susan’s sleeping lips. “With any luck she will have a brother.”

  He got down on his knees and rested his lips against her stomach in joy. “I love you Amy, and I swear I will protect you all with my might.”

  “You better!” Lyca interjected waving a styling comb in his face. He was happy she had such a good friend.

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  Epilogue

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  Ten months later

  The summer winds blew around her as she stood on the balcony nursing her son. Liam was his name and he had his father’s eyes and smile.

  “Mama!” Susan called from the lawn below. “Breakfast!”

  She smiled down at the two year old who was just learning to speak and seemed to never stop. “Coming my love!”

  She hoped nothing would ever happen to dispel the magic she had found, for she couldn’t take another disappointment. She just could not. And she did not
want her children to go through even half of what she had had to. As she walked down the stairs she said her Amish prayer for guidance and gratitude and with that she resigned the rest to the Lord.

  Brian looked up at her and she smiled. This was heaven. This was to be their paradise of love.

  The Poor and Widowed Bride for Two Suitors

  Courageous Mail Order Brides

  Book 1

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  b o o k 1

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  Widowed Jane is left all alone with her three year old daughter, worried and penniless. So she became a mail order bride and met a man named Byron. Never did she expect that Byron would be unable to bond with her daughter and this may just lead to the end of their arrangement.

  But when Jane meets Alan, will Byron sit by and watch this man steal her from him?

  Was he a man who would fight for what he wanted?

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  Prologue

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  Rock County, Minnesota,

  February 1903

  The sound of the horses hooves hurrying towards the cottage nestled on the side of the hill was enough to jolt Jane from her bed. Nothing ever disturbed the peace and quiet of the hillside she had chosen as home when John had come home from the war. It was exactly why when he had told her to choose where they would live that she had chosen these hills on the border of South Dakota. Growing up in town, she had always dreamt of the beauty of life surrounded by the mystery of the forest and that was exactly what she had gotten- peace and quiet and a world she explored endlessly in the early days of her marriage, and continued to do so, even after the birth of their daughter, Jemma.

  “Mama! Mama!” Jemma called to her from the doorway.

  “Hush now my love,” she said jumping out of bed and picking her child up in her arms. “What is all the racket about?”

  The answer to that question came in a loud knock on her door and her heart stopped beating for a moment. She had heard the stories of the Indians in this area. She had been told they could be quite volatile and her friend Alex had worried about her living up there by herself when her husband was away. Her husband, John was a Marshall, and so often, he was off riding across country on duties that took him away from his home and the warmth of the bed she kept waiting for him.

  “People, Mama. Lots of them!” Jemma said. The child’s voice went up a few decibels as she told her mother what waited on the outside of the house, but even then Jane knew that her daughter was not excited, but afraid.

  “Shhhh… let’s go see what they want,” she smiled at her and pulled a robe on.

  The brisk cold air of February greeted her as she pulled the door open and she could see why Jemma was so frightened. These weren’t just people, they were soldiers. Seems the whole battalion was now prancing around in her yard and she had no idea what all the fuss was about.

  “May I help you?” she asked the horseman closest to her as she took a tentative step down the stairs. Jemma clung to the tail of her robe as if her life depended on it.

  “Are you Mrs. Jones?” his gruff voice was abrasive to her ear as he spoke.

  “I am. What is the matter?”

  The soldier dressed in battle garb took one look at her and then her child before turning away. “Get dressed. You need to accompany me to town.”

  He did not wait to see if she complied, but instead rode off and she was left hesitant with the nature of his orders. It was clear that whoever he was, he certainly wasn’t one to wait around to see if the orders he had handed down were being carried out. As she watched him and a few others ride away, a carriage made its way up the path that led to her humble cottage. That instantly eliminated the need for her to question how she would take her child along with her.

  "You must hurry ma'am," a young soldier with sadness in his eyes said to her.

  She did as he said, rushing into the house and getting her and Jemma together, while the little child never ceased with her many questions.

  "Are we in trouble, mama?" Jemma asked as she bundled her into the thick wool jacket and led her out the door.

  She kissed her atop the head as the sad soldier led them to the carriage. "I hope not sweetie. I hope not."

  Jemma didn't look too convinced that all would be well, and she only continued with her questions as they were rushed down the mountainside and into town. When the carriage pulled up outside the doctor's house she knew without being told what would greet her inside.

  "Jane!" Her best friend Alex called to her as she entered. They embraced quickly and she could see Alex trying to brush away her tears.

  "What's going on?"

  Alex looked at Jemma whose big grey eyes were staring up at her. All the excitement was just too much for the small child, trying to figure out what was going on. Well... her mother had an idea of what it was. For only one reason would the soldiers have rushed her to the house where people often came to die.

  "I am so sorry," Alex whispered hugging her again.

  "No!" Jane cried, clamping a hand over her lips as she looked towards the door where two soldiers stood guard.

  "Mama, what's wrong?" Jemma asked her. She couldn't find the words to answer her child and as Alex pried the toddler from her hold on her mother's leg, Jane walked towards the door.

  The soldiers slowly opened it for her and the smell of blood was the first to greet her nostrils before her eyes even registered the motionless body of the man she loved. His bloody clothes had been removed and placed in a huddle in the corner of the room and he had been draped in the white cloth of death.

  She walked as if in a dream to the side of his bed and no words left her lips. She wanted to scream for him to wake up, but could not find the words or the strength, so she collapsed by his bedside and cried. For what seemed like hours she did nothing but cry and when Alex shook her shoulder, urging her to go get some rest, Jane didn’t have the energy to protest.

  On that cold winter's day her life had changed. She had always known the struggles of his job and the dangers that came with it, but never had she thought her husband would be taken from her so soon. She had dreamt of them growing old together and she had made plans for their future. Clearly that was not to be.

  "Papa?" Jemma asked her as the little girl glanced through the closing door at the lifeless body of the man who had tickled her into hiccups and thrown her high in the air in glee.

  "He is sleeping my love," she said, trying to hold her tears back.

  "Wake him! It's time to go home."

  She lifted her daughter into her arms not sure how to explain the situation.

  "I can’t my love. Papa is with God and we will see him again someday."

  Jemma's lips quivered at the thought of never seeing her Papa again, and Jane held her close, holding back even more tears.

  "I will come stay with you as long as you want," Alex volunteered selflessly, and just like that Jane walked out of the house and into a life she had never thought she would have to live.

  A life of hardship.

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  1

  Chapter ONE

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  “ It was so sad, how life could

  sometimes destroy your dreams …”

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  6 months later

  Another day, another dollar was the general thought going through Jane’s head even as she wiped the table tops clean. She was beginning to get tired of wiping people’s floors and washing dirty dishes, but in such a small town, she was lucky to even have a job. The one thing she was grateful for was that though hers wasn’t the only mouth she had to feed, she had a daughter who made all the troubles she went through seem worth it. That didn’t make things any easier for her though. Not even in the smallest bit. In fact, she found it difficult to
make ends meet, but to know Jemma was okay even after the death of her father was enough for her to keep going.

  “Hello!” one of her grumpy customers hollered at her. “I ordered coffee five minutes ago. Where is it?”

  She bit her tongue and forced a smile. “My apologies. It’s coming right up!”

  She hustled to the counter and waited on the bartender to move from one end of the bar to the next to serve the coffee she had ordered. He paid no attention to the fact that he needed to hustle. She wanted to shout at him to speed up, but knew it would do no good, so she settled for rubbing her temples and thought of a better place. Every so often she wondered why in heavens name people were afraid of dying. Death was not the problem, it is life that gave people so many heartaches. The bell on the door rang, signalling the arrival of a new customer and she turned and watched the tall man walk in.

  “Hi, do you have any free tables,” the man asked her. He was dressed like he should be dining in the Governor’s mansion and it begged the question of why he was there. He looked vaguely familiar, but then again she had been working this job so long that everybody was starting to look alike.

  “Ahhh, yes,” she said and pointed to an empty table to the back of the diner. It wasn’t ideal, being that it was right around the corner from the server’s station, but he didn’t seem to care. She watched him walk away and thought of how gorgeous he was. He definitely took care of himself and a quick glance at his ring finger told her he was single. How she had longed for a man like that, but those types didn’t look at women like her who mopped floors and washed dishes for a living.