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

by Faye Sonja

  “What had he been like?” he had asked Nathan as they sat beneath the almond tree talking about life. He listened to Nathan tell of the monster who had worked him to the bone and beaten him for the least of mistakes. The man Nathan spoke of was nothing like the father he had known. His father had not been the most loving of men, but he had been attentive and taught him all he needed to know. He had played with him and slapped him around when he was rude, but he had never felt like he hadn’t been loved. Then when he had come of age, his father had taught him the ways of an elusive criminal.

  Jason knew that in his own way, that was how his father showed him he loved him. It was dysfunctional but he had been there. The man he had grown to love was nothing like the man Nathan had run away from.

  “I am sorry,” he told his brother. Nathan simply pulled him in for a hug.

  “Everything happens for a reason,” Nathan told him, and he could hear the forgiveness for him and his father in those words. He was beginning to see true valor in his older brother, and like a child he wanted nothing more than to be like him. For that reason he was going to try his very best to provide for his wife. He had his pride too, but even then he knew he would need some help.

  That same night, sitting at his dinner table, he was staring at the frown Aunt May wore. It was subtle but it was there. He had seen it from the first night he had arrived there and had tried to look past it but couldn’t anymore. He waited until the others had excused themselves from the table before he addressed her.

  “You don’t seem to like me,” he said with lowered eyes out of respect. “Will you tell me why?”

  Aunt May moved closer to him so her words would not travel up the stairs or to the prying ears of the kitchen help who seemed versed in gossip.

  “I watched him as a teenager, work hard to rebuild himself from the rubbles of what your father had brought him to,” she said coldly. “And I will not see that destroyed by your sudden and convenient appearance in his life.”

  “Convenient?” he asked her in shock. “You think I planned this?”

  “Did you?” the old woman asked and he looked at her hoping she was joking. This was how he knew that no matter how hard he tried, some people would never consider him worthy.

  “I love her,” he said flatly. “She has brought hope into my life and that is something I don’t want to lose. It has nothing to do with Nathan and what he has here. You can ask Kate how many times I protested coming here. I came mostly because I knew it would make her happy and eventually the truth would come out. It was never my first choice and I am offended that you would think that.”

  He lifted his eyes then to stare into Aunt May’s and he felt no resentment for the woman. She was simply protecting what was hers. She was protecting what she thought he threatened and he could understand and respect that. He even held it in high regard wishing he had known what that was like. He had never met his mother, and what little Nathan had told him about of her before she died wasn’t much to go on, so he had no motherly standard to compare anything to. But if he did have any idea of what a mother was, he would hope it would be just like what Aunt May gave them all... His Kate included.

  “If it makes you more comfortable I will go,” he said. The older woman looked pleased at his suggestion but she said nothing. He smiled at her wisdom, for should he leave come morning, she could say she never told him to. With that thought he excused himself from the dinner table and went to his room to brood. Come tomorrow, things would change, and it would change for the better.

  He passed Nathan on the stairs peering curiously at a piece of accounting paper. “What are you doing?”

  Nathan looked up at his baby brother and smiled. “Trying to make sense of all these figures they keep giving me for the accounts I have. Seems the more money I make the more knowledge I need to have of figures, and I have always hated math.”

  Jason laughed. “At least we have something in common.”

  “We have many things in common, I am sure,” Nathan said squeezing his brother’s shoulder supportively. “We just need more time together to figure them all out.”

  Jason looked at the man he strongly admired and his soul felt tearful at the thought that he had accepted him so willingly. If only he could stay.

  “Why did our father treat you so horribly?” he asked, broaching a topic he was not sure Nathan actually wanted to talk about. The thing was he was sure his father would lie when asked, or just simply not answer.

  “He blamed me for our mother’s death,” Nathan said with a sigh. “When he came home drunk at night he would cause such a ruckus about it. He would pummel me all over the house, screaming that she had been sick ever since she had brought me into the world. You were just a baby and would be crying in the next room. Most nights after the beatings I would crawl into your room with you just so you could go back to sleep.”

  Jason looked at him in apologetic shock. “But she had me and it was after my birth that she died.”

  Nathan smiled. “Yes, but she had been sick for years before. I was four when you were born and she had been sick up until then. Years later the town’s doctor told me he had warned my father that her body could not handle another child birth. Then you came along and I was just so happy to have a baby brother. You were comfort for me on most days.”

  “How did I not know of you later in life?”

  “You were just a tiny, crying, pooping bundle when mother died. Too young to know anything of the world around you. After mother died I came home from the school house one day to find the house empty. When I asked of you father told me you had died of the fever. Only clearly that was not true, and he was hardly ever around after that. He would leave me alone with rations for months at a time, only coming back as if to check that I was still alive. He came around for an entire year shortly before I turned fifteen and it was the worse year of my life, so I ran away.”

  “I was raised in the town I now live in. My earlier years were filled with him and the baker woman who he had a romance with. They took great care of me. Then she died,” he lamented. Realizing how ill-fated his father was to constantly get involved with women who kept dying. “He only started leaving again after her death and by then he would constantly take me along on all these excursions he had.”

  “You mean criminal activities?” Nathan asked with a laugh.

  Jason hung his head in shame.

  “Don’t be ashamed,” Nathan patted his knee. “We are products of our past but not definitions of them. A man can change and you have been trying.”

  “I am sorry the man we called father was not the same for me as he was for you.”

  “Life is what it is Jason. The sooner you accept that, the easier it will be to change the parts you do not like,” Nathan’s words soothed his soul just enough for a smile to crease his lips.

  “And what happened when he came and you went missing for six months?” Jason asked and saw a shadow cross Nathan’s face as his jaws tightened. “I want to know. Kate speaks of your absence with such pain, and she said you were skin and bones when you came back to them.”

  With a breath of surrender Nathan spoke. “I went with him to town to give him some money so he would leave us be. Then he and his men tossed me into the back of carriage, bound me and we traveled for two days. The whole time he told me that he had come back for me… his son. He said I would learn that a man couldn’t just walk away from his parents and pretend to not know them. For the first month they kept me under guard as they moved from town to town taking what they wanted and generally being hooligans. The second month I was forced to join in, when I refused to they would refuse me meals and keep me locked in the carriage with the men they would bounty. Apparently, he was also a bounty hunter.”

  “How could he?” Jason said in dismay.

  “Our father is a complicated man, I have come to realize,” Nathan whispered. “For those six months I learned one thing, he loved me in some dysfunctional way, but our mother had been his l
ife. I think he went a little crazy after her death and I was a reminder of the treasure he had lost.”

  “That is no excuse for being a monster!”

  “I know, Jason. Trust me, I know. But I have learned to let go of the pain and instead try understanding. He is also the leader of a band of bandits so he will have to keep up appearances. After six months when he realized he could not turn me into one he let me go. He let me go and told me to go be happy. I think that for him it was a painful thing to do. He knows wrong from right, but for a man who has lived a certain life it is hard to become what we would expect of him. I accepted my release as an apology and prayed I would never see him again.”

  “He isn’t all bad you know,” Jason defended the man he loved.

  Looking at him Nathan lifted his chin. “He raised you to be a wonderful man with strong morals and a desire for things that are good. I know he is not all bad. I must have just been a reminder of the death of the woman he loved.”

  “I am sorry,” Jason apologized again. “If I could switch places with you or change the past I would. Just know that I am sorry. He was definitely not perfect, and times for me were very hard, but I guess I tried to always see the good things.”

  “Having you back in my life is apology enough. Let us just go forward being happy.”

  Jason smiled and nodded, but knew that as long as he stayed, Aunt May would continue to throw looks his way and his father could show up again and that would be an issue in and of itself.

  “I am happy I got to know you,” he said embracing his brother one last time before he went to bed. Tomorrow would be a new day.

  * * *

  It was the loud shout from Michael that woke Kate the following morning. She bolted out of bed and ran down the stairs to where her Aunt May stood clutching her heart to see Michael holding a giant sized rat that had clearly made its way into the house somehow.

  “What’s going on here?” asked Alex as she rushed down the stairs. Nathan who had been busy in the mud room came running out behind her.

  “Is everything alright?” he too looked at Michael questioningly as the young man looked to Aunt May in his defense. Kate was instantly thrown back to the day Nathan’s father had invaded and shattered the safety of their home. She made a mental note to tell Michael that such early morning outbursts didn’t spell well for the dwellers of the ranch house.

  “We had an early morning visitor,” Aunt May chuckled, trying to lighten the mood.

  The rat fought Michael’s grasp, no doubt assuming its demise was certain, as Michael took it out of the house.

  “Where is Jason?” Michael asked excitedly “He would love to see this big ole thing!”

  Kate squirmed and made her way back into the house, momentarily bothered by the fact that Jason was the only one who did not come down the stairs in response to Michael’s loud outburst. She went searching for him and found his room empty and his bed made. All that would not have been surprising had it not been for the fact that his small suitcase was missing.

  “Where is Jason?” she rushed down the stairs to ask the others. Michael was the first to look at her in confusion.

  “He is in his room asleep,” the boy said. “He hasn’t come down for the morning yet.”

  Aunt May stepped in then. “I don’t think so. I saw him leave before dawn this morning. Looked like he had to rush out on urgent business.”

  “Do you know where he went?” she turned to Michael.

  “N- No I don’t know, and he wouldn’t have left without saying something to one of us.”

  That much she knew was true. For the weeks she had been with him Jason had never once left without saying where he was going and why. He had even taken to telling her how long he would be gone for.

  “Must have been something urgent then,” Nathan said giving her a kiss on the cheek. She sighed and hugged him, groaning into his shirt. “Young love,” he chuckled and kissed her atop the head.

  She didn’t want to let him go. In many ways he was the big brother she never had. In his arms she felt protected from the world, but she knew she couldn’t stay there forever. With gentle urgings from a worrisome Aunt May, she made her way up the stairs and took a quick bath before walking hesitantly down the stairs and out the front door.

  She sat on the porch looking out for Jason to come back from whatever urgent business he had to tend to, and now she felt a small bit of what Alex must have felt when Nathan had run off after his father.

  “These men of ours,” Alex said coming to sit beside her as if she were reading her mind. “Now we know for sure they are brothers.”

  Kate knew the words were intended to make her feel better but they did not. They just made her worry even more. Then minutes later Michael came out of the house dressed as if he too were ready to leave her.

  “You are leaving?” she asked him, knowing even though he was a child he was far more independent than maybe even she was, and if he wanted to leave she knew she could not stop him.

  He looked at her, his eyes pleading for the understanding she willing gave despite the fact that her heart was breaking yet again. She didn’t know what this meant, and if Michael was leaving too then maybe that meant Jason was not coming back.

  “When?” she asked another obvious question.

  “Now,” came his flat reply. “I have to go see if my Jason is okay. I can’t have him on his own. He doesn’t take care of himself on his own.”

  She was nearly brought to tears by the boy’s words.

  “I don’t think I want you to go,” she said knowing it was a selfish request.

  “Then come with me. That big old house will not be a home without you there,” he said turning to her. The morning sunlight peeking over the corn in the field ahead and the chirping birds and the racket of the ranch hands making their morning rounds assaulted her senses as she disappeared into herself for a moment. It was a moment she needed in order to be able to answer his question with finite truth.

  She closed her eyes to avoid his stare, pleading with her to answer him the way he hoped she would. But she had learned from Nathan that when a man needed space she had to give it to him. Even worse was the fact that he had tried to get her to leave so many times. Maybe this was a sign.

  “I cannot come because I don’t know if Jason wants me there,” she said and he sucked in a breath of pure disappointment. She took his hand in hers and pulled his chin up so he was looking at her. Running her finger across his cheek bone, she smiled through the tears she tried to control.

  “Just tell him I love him and I am here should he need me,” she said squeezing his hand gently. “And take care of yourself, Michael. Come visit sometimes, too.”

  “I will miss you,” Michael said hugging her in a final farewell. She would miss him. He had been like the son she never had. “I hope you change your mind and come see us. That mail order ad was a mistake truly, but when you answered both our worlds were for the better. Maybe Jason can’t see that now, or maybe he is afraid his father will be a problem, or maybe he doesn’t think he is good for you, but you are good for us. I hope you change your mind and come.”

  “I will if Jason wants me to,” she said reiterating her previous point.

  “Sometimes I don’t think he even he knows what he wants, and if he knows I don’t think he knows how to get it.” He smiled at her and a tear slipped down his face. She held hers back and wiped his away with her thumb.

  “Be happy Michael. Be happy and free or I will be very upset that you left here where you could have been.”

  He laughed at her and pulled her in for a hug. “I will try and I promise I will come visit.”

  It was so ironic that they both had come to know Jason well enough to know that him leaving meant he was not coming back. It was a testament to the fact that despite what he might think, they had come to know him pretty well.

  He kissed her cheek. “What will you do while you are here? Don’t forget about us.”

  “I won’
t,” she said and minutes later with sadness in his eyes he boarded the coach Nathan had provided and made his way out. He waved at her until she could no longer see him. Nathan came to stand beside her again just then. They exchanged looks, a mixture of sadness, joy and resignation. She knew they likely would never return but if he did, she would be one of the few who would refuse to shun him.

  “You should go after him,” he told her.

  She chewed on the inside of her cheek before turning to answer him. “I don’t think he wants me to. He has tried to get me to leave on more than one occasion. I think it is best to just leave him be.”

  “His loss,” Nathan said trying to disguise his anger with a jest. “He doesn’t know what he is missing out on.”

  She tried to laugh at his pronouncement, but only tears threatened the corner of her eyes. “I miss him already,” she confessed.

  “Want me to go drag him back for you?”

  She turned a sad eye to him. “He left you too you know.”

  “I don’t think he left us. I just think he doesn’t think he deserves us. And as for me, I just got my brother back, so believe me when I tell you that I have no intentions on losing him again. I will just give him a couple days and then I am going after him, whether he wants me to or not.”

  That was one of the things Kate loved most about him. Nathan was not the man to hold a grudge or make things awkward. He was the kind of man that supported the members of the family he had found without fail. Had Jason stayed, he would have found that out in due course.

  “I think his leaving might have something to do with me,” Aunt May said coming to stand beside them both with a guilty look across her face.