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

by Faye Sonja

  “Why?” Nathan asked barely above a stone cold whisper.

  She turned to him, saddened by the look on his face, but knowing she needed not set a precedence of him being rude and she accepting that. No matter the circumstances that was not acceptable.

  “Just as you can get up and walk away from me rudely when I am doing nothing but trying to help, I am deserving of my time alone,” she snapped, realizing then how upset she actually was about it all.

  “But, I meant no disrespect,” he said and she could hear the remorse in his voice.

  “Whether you mean it or not, that was rude,” she said to him coldly. “I am your wife, not one of your farm hands or the people you might consider below you. I am your wife and I will not accept being treated like anything but that.”

  “I am sorry,” he said.

  She got up from her chair and walked towards him. He put a hand out to touch her and she pulled back. “Those words are a promise to do better, remember?”

  He dropped his hand and she walked past him into the house that rang with sickness and silence. She prayed that the days when the halls were filled with joy would come back around again. As they got ready for bed in silence that night, she opted to sleep in what had been her quarters before they got married. He tried to stop her, but with a stoic look she walked out the door.

  “I won’t ever do that again,” he called sadly behind her, tugging at the strings of her heart but she knew she had to show resolve. He was not a child, but much about him required the same level of patience and understanding.

  “I will see you in the morning for breakfast,” she said and walked out of the room. Checking on Kate and Aunt May once more she turned in for the night, but no sleep came. Try as she might she could not get her eyes to close and her body to rest, and it was not until she caught the sun rising over the horizon that she realized she had stayed awake all night.

  * * *

  With daylight she heard a shout from the barn house for assistance to be rendered. She pulled on her clothes as fast as she could and followed the other clambering feet down the stairs.

  “What is wrong?” she asked of Nathan who ran before her.

  “I think it is Little John,” he said.

  Fear gripped her as they bolted from the house. What could have ever been the matter with the teenager she had come to call her friend? She had seen him days before, but as she ran she realized how unusual that was. A day had never gone by when he had not checked on Kate, whom he absolutely adored. Something must have kept him away, and as she walked into his small room in the barn house she realized exactly what it was.

  Sweat ran down the side of his face in torrents and his teeth clattered so badly with the shivers running through him. His eyes were a bloody red and blood was oozing from his nose. Though he could not speak his eyes pleaded with them to end the suffering and no amount of running water over his forehead helped.

  “Aunt May’s medicine!” she hollered at Nathan who ran back to the house as fast as he could to do her bidding, but with each footstep away from the house Little John’s breathing slowed.

  “Tell Lady Kate I will miss her,” he let out seconds later.

  With tears streaming down her face she held him close. “Tell her yourself when you are better,” Alex said.

  He smiled up at her. “You are such an amazing friend. Don’t let this cruel world change you.”

  Those words were the last Little John would ever speak, and as she held his lifeless body close to her and wept unhindered she wondered why God had taken him from them.

  “Here it is,” Nathan said running back into the barn house, but he stopped short when he saw the spectacle before him. “No!” he shouted.

  Alex could do nothing but cry. This past year of her life had been laced with tragedy, loss, and rife with struggle. She wondered if this was the end of it. Rocking Little John to the oblivion of eternal sleep, she prayed this was the last of it, because they could not handle another loss. How they would break the news to Kate who doted on him like he was her little brother, she wasn’t sure. For now all she was sure of was the pain she felt holding his lifeless body to her chest.

  * * *

  As if it was weeping too, the wind blew wet raindrops on the small gathering by the edge of the river. It had always been Little John’s favorite place to spend his free time. Nathan had told her stories of days he would be searching for the young man, only to find him singing songs by the river as if his soul was crying for a place of peace he had once known. She cried as he spoke. She cried for the lost potential in a young man she was sure would grow to greatness. It was for this reason that she thought the world to be such an unfair place.

  “He is no longer in pain,” Nathan said from beside her as they lowered the small wooden box into the grave they had dug for him.

  “Is that to make his death easier to deal with?” Alex asked a little harsher than she had intended to.

  Nathan sighed from beside her. “No. Nothing will ever make his death easier to deal with, and believe me, he will be missed. But at least we know his hardship is over, and in that I take some solace.”

  She held her tongue not wanting to say a single thing least her words do her anger some justice, she was simply tired of the world working in reverse. It would seem that only the good people ever died and all the ones who sought to achieve evil carried on living like there would be no retribution in sight. She was angry at the world, for of them all, Little John deserved a chance at life.

  After he was lowered into the grave and the Psalms were sung as the cross was nailed into the spot to mark where he would lie for eternity, she sat on the ground and wept some more. Her tears burnt a path own her cheek and even then she wondered why it all affected her so deeply. The truth was she had not known Little John as well as the others who seemed to be taking his death far better than she was, but faced with her own mortality she realized one thing. No matter how well intentioned one was, you could be alive today and gone tomorrow. It made her realize that she had to do what was best in the time she had, and more so because here she was with the gift of life that had been taken so quickly from a young man who lived it to the fullest.

  She felt the anger seeping in again, and with it came more tears.

  “I will miss you Little John,” she whispered to the gust of wind she hoped would take her message to the great beyond. Then with one last prayer for his resting soul, she pulled herself together and made her way to the house. To the house where she would try her very best to keep Aunt May alive. The woman had been like a mother to her and Alex knew that she just couldn’t survive another loss.

  “I ache with loss,” she said to Nathan who wrapped her in a hug as soon as she made her way up the stairs of the mansion.

  “I know,” he whispered in her hair, gently rubbing her back to soothe her worries. “Life can be cruel and death comes without warning, so let us be mindful of the time we are granted here.”

  She dried her tears on his shirt and prayed for nothing but health and strength for him and the others. For should she lose another one of them she was not sure her aching heart could survive it.

  * * *

  8

  Chapter EIGHT

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  “… something she did not quite

  understand. His ad was not the usual ad

  a man would place when seeking a bride.”

  .

  It was shortly after midnight on Saturday after Little John’s burial when Nathan stood watch over Aunt May’s sleeping body. Her chest rattled with the effort put out to simply breathe, and he knew he had to do more than just sit by and watch her die. His backpack was stuffed and nearly bursting with food and clothes, his pockets with sweets and on the inside of the jacket Alex had shown him, was two hundred dollars.

  “Do you think they will have the medicine?” she asked him as he
walked out of the house in the middle of the night.

  “I hope they do,” he said caressing her cheek. “Keep her alive for me until I get back.”

  She kissed his lips gently. “I will try my very best.”

  Even as she watched him ride out of the ranch, heading north, she knew that he may never come back and even more so, by the time he did aunt May could be dead. She would do all she could and that was a promise, though she did not hide from the reality that sometimes her best just was not good enough. She went back to Aunt May’s room and looked down at the steady but shaky rise and fall of her chest and the cheek bones jutting out that were once hidden by blushing cheeks. Bending she brushed a kiss on her feverish forehead.

  “Do you think he will get the medicine?” Kate’s voice sounded from the doorway.

  Alex turned in surprise and squealed with delight. “You are out of bed!”

  She embraced the other woman with joy. Two days ago she thought she wouldn’t make it, but here she was on her feet. The Lord had answered their prayers and at least Nathan would come back to one of them alive and well.

  “We need to get you back in bed this instant!” she said and called for a maid to make Kate some broth and ensure she stayed in bed for at least another two days.

  “Do you think he will get it?” Kate repeated the question.

  “I hope so my love,” she said looking back at Aunt May. The town’s doctor had run out of the medication that seemed to help some and not others. Despite that fact, it had offered a little hope. Hope Aunt May desperately needed and so Nathan was riding two towns over to see if he could procure some from the doctor there, who he had heard had a healthy stash.

  * * *

  Nathan rode like the hounds of the great beyond were after him. He rode all night pushing the poor horse to its limits and when he got to the first town he did not stop for much longer than to change horses and then he was off again. Sunrise caught him on the border of the second town and by midday he had gotten to the doctor who told him that he had no medicine left.

  “The town’s clerk from El Paso came to procure all I had left and he did so by force,” the doctor lamented.

  Despair brought Nathan to his knees. “She will die without that medicine,” he said holding his head in his hands.

  “I have found another remedy that works, albeit far slower though, so it really depends on how far along your loved one is,” the doctor said walking around the small room with shelves going all the way to the ceiling and each one filled with bottle after bottle of remedies and treatments of various kinds. But to his surprise it was not one of the busting vials that the man went for. To the top of the shelf were some dried leaves.

  “What are those?” he asked sceptically.

  The doctor laughed. “Every medicine we have these days are made from a plant of some sort. This is the plant it comes from and this is my last bit of it. Make her some tea, and if she cannot drink by herself, uses one of these syringes to feed it to her by mouth, bit by bit. Ensure you give her two full cups each day. Chicken broth will also help. Try feeding it to her luke warm using the same method.”

  “And this will work?” Nathan asked again.

  “Young man, I cannot say that with certainty, but if you have ridden all the way here that means any shred of hope you can get is better than none.”

  He carefully packed the goods he was given into the backpack and turned his horse back the way he had come. He was thankful and should this medicine work, the doctor will be heavily rewarded. Racing the horse back to the next town, he switched out for his own horse and headed for home, his poor steed was laboring by the time he had arrived. He himself was in dire need of sleep, as he had left home at midnight.

  “Did your trip turn up anything?” she asked him.

  He gave her the leaves and the instructions, then quickly fell asleep. Unsure of how long he had slept for, when he finally woke it to was the voice he least expected to hear that had him bolting upright.

  “Nathan?” Kate said in happy surprise. His sleepy eyes took a moment to register who was standing over him and when he did he pulled her in for a hug and didn’t want to let her go. “I missed you, too,” she chuckled against his chest.

  “It is so nice to see you, Kate,” he whispered in her ear as she hugged him back. He then eased her away and looked at her with the obvious question written all over his face.

  “Alex did well nursing me back to life,” Kate answered but the look he gave her told her that response was not enough for him. “She has all but overdone herself trying to keep us alive so you would not know grief again. That woman of yours is amazing.”

  “I know,” he whispered and it really was the truth. He followed her up the stairs and back to bed then went in search of Alex. He owed her so much more than love and respect as his wife. He owed her so much more than that.

  “Alex,” he said as he slowly pushed the door to his Aunt’s room open. She was fast asleep on folded arms at the edge of the bed. The cup with very little tea remaining was at her feet and for a moment he panicked, thinking something must be terribly wrong with her. He rushed to her side, only to find that it was simply exhaustion that had finally done her in.

  He looked down at Aunt May, whose eyes flickered open at his approach and she lifted a hand up to him, beckoning him to lower his ears to her lips.

  “Take this woman to her bed, before she wakes with a terrible pain in her neck,” the old woman said. Nathan stood looking down at her with pure joy.

  This is the first time she had really spoken in days, and though her words were barely above a whisper he had heard them just fine. The doctor had said the medicine would be slow in acting, though he had been wrong. Not wanting Aunt May to whack the silly smile off his face he complied and lifted a sleeping Alex into his arms. He placed a kiss on her lips and held her small frame to his.

  It was then he realized how much he had taken her for granted. She had waited for him while he was off. She had taken care of him when he came back and needed nothing but love. She had taken care of the house and the ranch while he was busy ignoring her when Kate and Aunt May had fallen sick. She had wept for Little John while he lay dead in her arms. She had pulled herself together and had taken care of aunt May and Kate while he rode off in search of medicine, and through it all he had snapped at her and had all but forgotten she needed to be taken care of, too.

  He gently lowered her into bed and crawled in next to her, pulling her thin frame up to his.

  “Did it work?” she asked in exhaustion against his chest.

  “Yes, it did,” he said.

  “Okay, she must be given another cup in two hours. Do not let me sleep beyond that.”

  He smiled and kissed her head as tears fell down his face. Such a selfless woman. What had he ever done to deserve her? The truth was he had done absolutely nothing, but what he would do to keep her was not up for question.

  He held her while she slept, rubbing her back to sooth the weariness from her bones. And when two hours had passed, he carefully rolled out of bed so as not to disturb her. He fed aunt May her broth and then the miracle tea, checked in on Kate and then went to the kitchen to do something he had never done before.

  “Nyla” he said to the house chef as she stared at him donning an apron in bewilderment. “We shall cook my wife the tastiest dish she has ever had. She deserves it.”

  “And what dish is that?” the confused maid asked as the others giggled to the sight of him in an apron.

  “I have not the slightest clue, but we can figure it out and it should be done before she wakes.”

  Nyla laughed at him and slapped his hand as he went for the freshly baked desserts. “Those are for her, too. She loves them.”

  “What else does she like?” he asked her.

  Nyla frowned at him. “You should be the one telling me that.”

  “I admit, I have not been the most attentive husband, and so I am here to make amends. If there is anything you c
an tell me, I would appreciate it.”

  His humility had always been endearing to his staff who still found the sight of him wearing an apron to be the most hilarious thing.

  “She likes simplicity,” Kate said with a laugh from the doorway. “She would appreciate any meal you took the time to cook. She likes the simple things in life.”

  “A ham and cheese sandwich is her favorite thing to have,” Nyla said to him while she laid the ingredients out on the table.

  He looked at them in disbelief. “You mean to tell me of all the mountains of food we have in this house, my wife would prefer a sandwich?”

  “Made with love,” they all said in unison. He looked at them with a raised eyebrow.

  “That is what she says whenever she does anything,” Nyla smiled. “She says anything made with love has more power than one could ever imagine.”

  Yes, that sounded like something she would say indeed. And so he set about making the perfect sandwich. After four attempts and a lot of chiding from Nyla, he finally got it. Piling it on to a plate with a serving of the muffins made just for her and a tall glass of fresh lemonade, he made his way up the stairs.

  “Are you wearing an apron?” she exclaimed as soon as he walked through the door.

  He did a melodramatic twirl for her nearly spilling the glass of lemonade and it had her laughing so hard it made him happy. “Your dinner is served my lady,” he said.

  He sat on the side of the bed and watched her hungrily gobble it down. He was sorry he had not made two. As she ate, a bit of color returned to her cheeks.