Briggs took a step back, as if he didn’t want to hear any more of this, but she had to tell him. She had to explain and make him understand that she had not been as shallow-hearted as he thought.
“He took me driving in his fancy carriage every day and was always so attentive. After only a few weeks, he….” She stopped, uncertain she’d be able to confess the rest.
“He what, Sarah?”
“He proposed to me.” She moved past Briggs and sat down at the table, resting her chin in her hand.
“He proposed?”
Sarah heard the surprise in Briggs’s tone, the clear note of jealousy. “Yes.”
“Did you accept?”
She forced herself to meet his questioning gaze. “I did. But…”
“You did?” Briggs sat down again, his face drawn and pale. Sarah could see how shocked he was at this bit of news, and she couldn’t imagine what he was going to do when he learned the rest of it.
She couldn’t look at him. She was too angry with herself. She had been so fanciful, so trusting and foolish. She had been raised by good, decent parents and she had not known what other sorts of people existed in the world. She had wrongly assumed that Garrison would be decent, too.
If only she had known about his previous marriage, and where his money came from. She would never have become involved with him.
“Sarah.”
She jumped, her gaze flicking through the dim light to settle on her husband. She continued, her voice shaking. “As soon as I accepted, he insisted I never go back to the boarding house where I lived. No wife of his should have to live in a hovel like that, he had said. He booked me into an expensive hotel.” She stumbled around for words, wishing she didn’t have to continue. “That was when….”
“He stayed with you in the hotel?” Briggs leaned forward in his chair, his brow creasing with anger. “Before he married you?” He cracked his neck from side to side, fighting to subdue his obvious rage. “I’d like to get on a train bound for Boston right this minute, so I can wring his neck.”
Sarah froze with panic. Briggs couldn’t go to Boston. He simply could not meet Garrison. Not ever. If he found out about the things Garrison had done—that he was a swindler who cheated elderly ladies out of their fortunes, not to mention the unlawful marriage—he would try to turn Garrison in to the authorities, and that would incriminate Sarah as well. There was no telling what Garrison might do. She had left him because she feared for her safety. Why go back there?
But to keep it from Briggs when she wanted so desperately to trust him with this….
What was worse? To lie or to risk both their lives?
“So, why did you leave him?” Briggs asked directly.
“Because…because after we….”
“After you spent the night with him,” he finished for her.
She nodded and chose not to go into any more detail about how unpleasant that part of it had been. “Afterward, he showed a side of himself he’d not shown me before. I think because he had taken my virginity, he felt he owned me in some way. He tied me to a chair in the room and gagged me while he went out to take care of some business—”
Briggs shoved his chair back and stood. “He did what?”
She couldn’t look up. Tears were threatening, and if they came, she feared they’d never stop. Her hands began to tremble, her heart pounded like a hammer as she relived the experience. “He tied me to a chair.”
“For how long?”
She searched for strength to continue, trying to access the memories she had worked so hard to suppress. “Not long. As soon as he closed the door behind him, he came right back because I was making too much racket, thrashing around, trying to call for help.”
Briggs ran his hand over his face and paced back and forth. “I want to meet this man in person. I want to—” He growled like an animal.
“No, Briggs, please. Just leave it be. I want to forget about it. I just want to stay here with you, and never see him again.”
Briggs’s neck was corded, his hands clenching and unclenching. She knew that if he ever met Garrison, it would not end well, for any of them. She couldn’t let that happen.
He paced around the kitchen like a caged tiger. “He should rot in prison for what he did to you.”
“That would be nice,” she said, “but I have no proof of any of it. No one would believe it. He was charming and well-respected. I just wanted to get away from him.”
He looked at her. “That’s why you answered my advertisement.”
“Yes. He told me that he would never let me go, and I knew if I wanted to be free of him, I would have to go very far away where he wouldn’t find me. I slipped out of the room when he was indisposed, and I was wandering the streets trying to decide what to do when I stumbled upon the newspaper. I managed to stay hidden until all the arrangements were made.”
Briggs paced the dirt floor, shaking his head. His eyes had gone from green to icy gray.
Sarah stood and watched him. “I told you I loved Garrison before because I didn’t want you to think I’d give myself to a man I didn’t love. And I didn’t want to talk about what really happened, because every time I thought of it, the panic would return—as if I were back in that chair with the ropes cutting into my wrists. Even now, when I remember it, I feel as if my heart is going to explode out of my chest, and I’m going to die from the anxiety.”
Briggs sat down on the edge of the bed and said nothing for a long time. Sarah hoped this would be the end of it.
His eyes were full of sorrow when he finally looked up. “Sarah, the fact that you weren’t a virgin on our wedding night—that didn’t matter to me. What mattered was that I believed you loved someone else. Even though I never intended to love you or desire you, I was jealous and angry. Why couldn’t you have just told me the truth beforehand? I would have understood.”
“Would you? If I had written about all of it in my letter, you never would have accepted me. You would have taken someone else with a prettier past.”
He raked his fingers through his hair. “You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do. After Isabelle, you wanted calm waters. No unexpected difficulties that might cause another bride to walk out on you.”
He didn’t deny it.
“And maybe it didn’t matter to you that I wasn’t a virgin,” she continued, “but it mattered to me. I will always regret giving myself to a man I didn’t truly love, when a man like you was just over the horizon.”
He frowned. “Yet you came here and did it again. On our wedding night, you gave yourself to me when we were complete strangers.”
She shook her head at him. “That was different.”
“Why? Because you were no longer innocent? The first one mattered? The second one didn’t?”
“Of course you mattered!” she cried, unable to control her desperation. “Can’t you see? Now I understand that it’s not the first time that matters so much as the last. The last! There will never be anyone else for me, Briggs. You’re the only one I will ever want, because I love you. With every inch of my heart and soul. I would do anything for you. Doesn’t that count for anything?”
An unrecognizable emotion flickered across his face. She wished she knew what it was.
At last, he spoke. “Yes, it counts, Sarah—because I love you, too.”
All the breath sailed out of her lungs. She blinked a few times in disbelief.
“But I want you to write to Garrison now, and tell him that you’re married, and that if he ever tries to contact you again, your husband will hunt him down like a dog and make him rue the day he ever met you.”
Sarah saw the anger burning in Briggs’s eyes and realized it was not an idle threat he was making.
“We’ll post it tomorrow,” Briggs added. “We’ll go to town for supplies.” He brushed by her to leave, but stopped and turned. “And if this man knows what’s good for him, he’ll put you out of his mind for good. Because you’re mine now, Sarah, a
nd I swear, by all that is holy, I’ll never let anything bad happen to you again. Not while I live and breathe.”
Briggs stormed out of the house, leaving Sarah standing in the middle of the room, feeling overjoyed that Briggs had admitted to loving her—he loved her! Yet at the same time, she was doubtful and afraid, because unfortunately, Garrison McPhee did not know what was good for him.
He only knew what he wanted.
Chapter Twenty
Sarah swayed, rocked, and bounced in the wagon seat, holding her white woolen shawl closed with fingers that were beginning to feel numb with cold. The temperature had barely warmed since she and Briggs had left the dugout at dawn. The sky was pure white, the morning colorless. The prairie grass quivered beneath the relentless wind. Without the sun, the summer heat seemed to be relinquishing itself to autumn far too early.
A chilly breeze blew over her cheeks as she sat quietly with the letter to Garrison in her pocket, feeling its presence like a lead weight. She knew its contents by heart. She’d worked hard to find just the right words.
Dear Garrison,
I received your letter. Please do not write to me again or try to contact me. It is completely over between us. My heart belongs to another man now, and he will do whatever it takes to keep me safe from you. You would be wise to simply let me go and forget we ever knew each other.
Sarah
She’d been torn over the last line, because she didn’t want to incriminate herself, yet she wanted Garrison to understand that she would incriminate him if he did not leave her alone.
Briggs cleared his throat beside her. She wished he would say something. Anything. All he did was flick the reins and hurry the horses on. She guessed he wanted this mess over with as much as she did.
All of a sudden, the wagon rose and fell, then jerked to a halt. “Tarnation,” Briggs cursed quietly beside her. “Yah! Yah!”
The horses labored, but the wagon would not budge. “We’re stuck,” he said, throwing down the reins and hopping over the side.
Sarah felt like this was all her fault.
Briggs leaned into the left front wheel. “Take the reins and get the horses to pull.”
Sarah slid across the seat. The horses strained to walk, their large hooves thumping against the ground. Briggs grunted and groaned.
“Okay! Stop, stop!” he yelled, breathing hard. He went around to the front and tried to lead the horses backward, but the wheel was wedged in a deep hole.
“Maybe I should get off,” Sarah suggested. “Maybe the wagon’s too heavy.”
Briggs glanced up at her, his expression clouded with frustration. He nodded.
Sarah hopped down into the grass, seeing for herself the depth of the hole. From the ground, the wagon looked tilted at an impossible angle.
Briggs moved to the wedged wheel again. “Go in front and lead them forward.”
Sarah did as she was told, and for ten long minutes, she and Briggs pushed and prodded and grunted, but to no avail. Sarah walked back to examine the situation. “How long have we been traveling?”
“It’s almost noon. Four hours at least.”
She felt uncomfortable making a suggestion, but at the moment, things didn’t look very promising, and she couldn’t bear any more of her husband’s angry looks.
“Why don’t we have lunch?” she suggested. “You’re tired, the horses need a rest, and maybe if we just take our minds off it for a bit, we’ll come up with a way out.”
He ignored her suggestion and pushed the wheel again. After a worthy effort, he cursed and backed away. “We’re going to be late. The post office will be closed.”
Sarah wet her lips, understanding why he was so irritable. They’d have to stay over and wait until tomorrow which would mean another day of plowing lost. All because of that wretched letter.
Well, they were stuck and they were hungry. It wouldn’t hurt to eat something and then start fresh. She went to the wagon and withdrew the box she’d filled with corn bread and a jug of coffee. “Let’s sit down and eat and think about how we’re going to get the wagon out.”
After sitting down and spreading her skirts out around her, she tore off a hunk of bread for herself. Sarah was biting into her second helping when Briggs finally joined her and sat down.
“Cornbread?”
He nodded and helped himself. They ate the whole loaf without saying a word.
When they finished, Briggs lay back, bent one knee and covered his face with an arm. Sarah watched his lips and his unshaven jaw. The rest of his face was covered by that fringed sleeve and the brim of his hat. “We’ll get on the road as soon as we can,” he said, “then we could either camp on the outskirts of town or stay with George. I reckon he’ll string me up if we don’t come by.”
“That sounds like a fine idea. We can run our errands first thing in the morning.”
He didn’t say anything for a few minutes, then—“You never offered to show me the letter last night. I’m curious what you wrote.”
Ah. Now Sarah understood the true motivation for his surliness.
She reached into her pocket. “I have it right here. Would you like to see it?”
His wrist came away from his eyes and he sat up. The seconds it took for him to read it felt more like hours. Finally, he lowered the paper to his lap and his eyes rose to meet hers. His brow was no longer furrowed. “It’s a good letter.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
Everything was quiet for a moment, except for the chilly wind sweeping across the prairie. She gathered her shawl more tightly about her shoulders.
“I’m sorry I was so hard on you last night,” he said, “but I was angry, and maybe a little jealous.”
Surprised, she wet her lips. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
“After I saw you burning that letter, I assumed the worst. I should have given you a chance to explain.” He leaned back on one arm, plucked a blade of grass, and entwined it around his index finger. “Do you think, after we post your letter, we could…” He paused, swallowing. “We could start again? I don’t know what Martha told you about Isabelle and me, but I promise you, Sarah, that’s finished. I brought the necklace with me this morning. I’m going to sell it today so that we won’t have to be apart over the winter. Once your letter goes out to Boston, everything will be different.”
Sarah’s heart warmed with hope and joy, knowing that Briggs still wanted to be with her. He wasn’t giving up. “That sounds wonderful.”
They sat in silence for a moment, staring up at the thick, heavy cloud-cover. Then Sarah couldn’t help herself. She closed her eyes and said a silent prayer that her past would not catch up with her—ever—and that this new life on the prairie, with the most incredible, beautiful man she ever imagined to exist, would not turn out to be only a temporary respite from the nightmare.
It frightened her sometimes, that out here on the prairie, so far from the rest of the world, this new life she’d stumbled into felt more like a dream than anything real.
* * *
“Let’s unload the wagon,” Briggs said, feeling replenished after eating his lunch and watering the horses. He had to admit his wife had been right in forcing him to take a break and eat something. The horses had needed the rest, too.
Sarah helped him unload the cooking utensils, the kettle, the spider skillet, and the boxes of butter and eggs she’d brought to trade for blankets. Briggs removed his shovel and shot gun. “I’m going to dig us out of this hole and use the shovel handle as leverage to lift the wheel. You can lead the horses out.”
For the next half hour, he forced the shovel into the tough ground, thick with tangled, grassy roots. Then at last the time had come to try again.
Sarah walked to the team and took hold of the harness. “I’m ready whenever you are.”
Briggs speared the shovel into the dirt to lift the wheel. It came up an inch or two. “Start pulling!” he yelled, throwing his full weight upon the handle of the shovel to lift
the wheel, and feeling it cut into his palms. Sluggishly the wagon moved. “Pull them harder!”
The horses strained against the impossible weight, stumbling and groaning. The wagon creaked like an old ship, then soon shifted and rolled up the slope, picking up speed.
Then Briggs heard a scream. He scrambled out from behind, but saw no sign of Sarah. “Whoa!” he yelled. The team came to a sudden halt. “Sarah!” Dropping to his knees, he crawled under the wagon where Sarah lay on her side, clutching her wrist. “Are you all right?”
“It’s my arm. Gem lost her footing and stepped on it.”
“Is it broken?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let me see.” He tried gently to peel her hand away. A muddy hoofprint dirtied her long sleeve.
Why had he let her do this? Why hadn’t he just done it himself? “Can you move it?”
“No.”
Leaning up on his elbow beside her, watching her face go pale, Briggs carefully rolled up her sleeve. His hands shook as he closed his fingers around her tiny, wounded wrist, feeling for broken bones. “Am I hurting you?”
Stiffening, she stared straight up at the bottom of the wagon and nodded. “Yes. I think it must be broken. I’m sorry, Briggs. That was so careless of me, to lose my footing.”
Clenching her teeth together, Sarah tried to sit up.
“It’s not your fault. It’s mine,” Briggs said. “And we’ll go straight to Doc Green’s office when we reach town.”
After helping Sarah out from under the wagon, Briggs swept her into his arms like a new bride and set her gently onto the wagon seat. By now, her color was pasty gray. He tried to appear calm, but his heart was battering his ribcage. What if something worse had happened to her? What if the horses had crushed her? Or a wheel had rolled over her body? She could have died right there in his arms, all because he was too impatient to wait on posting that damn letter.
An image flashed in his brain suddenly, like a lightning bolt—his youngest sister, June, cradled in his arms.
Mail Order Prairie Bride: (A Western Historical Romance) (Dodge City Brides Book 1) Page 15
