A Sweet Mail-Order Bride for the Distant Rancher: A Western Historical Romance Book

by Lydia Olson

  “There’s always a choice, and you chose to save your own skin instead of looking out for your daughter,” Milton said.

  He looked over at Jane. He didn’t want to upset her, but he couldn’t hold back.

  “Don’t speak to my father in that manner,” Kate said. Milton was surprised that she jumped in. She had never stood up for George before. “He did what he thought was right.”

  Jane snorted. “Milton is right,” she said. Her eyes turned hard as she looked at her father and sister. “He did what he needed to do to save himself.”

  “You’re one to talk,” Kate accused. “You fled home to save yourself from a marriage that you didn’t want.”

  “And it’s easy for you to say because you weren’t the one being sold off like cattle,” Jane returned the barb without missing a beat.

  “Enough,” Matthew said. This time it was he who was angry with the behavior between the two women.

  Milton knew that feeling. The sisters seemed content to fight about anything and everything. This, though, was different. Milton couldn’t blame Jane for her anger toward her family. They’d been willing to marry her to a terrible person as long as they got something out of it.

  Even if I were destitute, I wouldn’t ever sell off my daughter.

  “Remember that the enemy here is Brandon.”

  Neither Kate nor Jane said anything. Both women crossed their arms, glaring at one another.

  “Brandon backed me into a corner. He knows a man’s desire, and he’s good at getting what he wants,” George said.

  Matthew and Milton shared a quick glance. The two of them were wondering what Brandon had promised George in return for Jane’s hand. It must have been something valuable for him to ignore Brandon’s many faults.

  “What else do you know about him?” Matthew asked.

  George shrugged. “I don’t know a great deal about him outside of the fact that he’s much richer than you are and well-connected. If he intends to sue you, you’ll likely go broke before you make too much headway.”

  Milton said nothing, but he couldn’t help worrying. He was not interested in losing the fortune he had worked so hard to develop.

  “I wouldn’t make so many assumptions Mr. Parrish,” Matthew said. “I’m a very good lawyer.”

  ***

  Milton and Matthew retired to Milton’s office after supper. Milton was exhausted. All he wanted to do was crawl into his bed with a stiff drink, but he knew that he couldn’t hide from his problems.

  Matthew had returned to Denver to help Milton, but Milton didn’t know how long his friend would remain in town. Though he’d offered to hire another lawyer, Milton did not wish to go that route if he did not have to. Matthew was his best friend, and he wasn’t sure that he trusted anyone else with such a delicate topic.

  “Well,” Matthew said, he leaned back in his chair, crossing his long legs at the ankle, “Denver is certainly more exciting than New Mexico.”

  Milton rolled his eyes. “I wish it was as boring as ever.”

  “Seems your wife has brought a little spice into your life. Maybe not the kind you were originally thinking but…”

  Milton shot his friend a look. He didn’t want to hear him talking about Jane in such a manner. Milton did not blame her for the things that occurred. He blamed her father, and he blamed Brandon. They were selfish men who used Jane in their schemes.

  “None of this is Jane’s fault. She was terrified when she saw Brandon in town.”

  “According to Sara, she was more than terrified.”

  Milton frowned. He didn’t like that Sara and Matthew were talking tales behind Jane’s back.

  “We need to solve this Brandon problem sooner rather than later,” Milton said. “He came here today, and I don’t want him anywhere near my wife or my property. He’s bolder than any man I’ve ever known before.”

  Matthew nodded in agreement. “I saw Brandon,” he said. “He was threatening Jane.”

  “What!” Milton yelled. He couldn’t believe this was the first time he was hearing this from Matthew.

  “Jane asked me not to tell you anything, and from the look on your face, I think she might have been correct,” he said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that your mind is clouded by your emotions for your wife. I never thought that I would be the one telling you to keep a level head about things,” Matthew said.

  Milton was taken aback by Matthew’s words. “Aren’t you the one who suggested I find a wife? Now that I have you insult me by suggesting I care too much about her?”

  Milton felt his voice getting higher and higher. He was angry. Not necessarily at Matthew, but his friend wasn’t helping him. Milton took his vows seriously, and he knew that in order to keep his wife safe he needed to get rid of Brandon Eimer. That man posed a threat not just to him, but also to Jane.

  “Jane’s clearly the reason he is coming after your ranch,” Matthew said, stating the obvious.

  “So, what would you have me do?” Milton asked. “Give Brandon my wife?” It was a completely ludicrous suggestion, and even if it were an option, it was one that Milton would never consider.

  Jane trusted him. She came to him in her hour of greatest need, and he made vows to her. He would honor those vows no matter how difficult things became. Matthew didn’t understand that because Matthew had never thought of anyone but himself.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Matthew said. He knocked back the third glass of whiskey they enjoyed that night. Milton wasn’t normally much of a drinker, but he needed something to take the edge off of his anger. “I have another suggestion.”

  “And what is that?” he asked. Milton was sipping on his whiskey. He wanted to be lucid as they discussed the future of his family. It was odd thinking of Jane and the Parrish family in such a way, but that was what they were; they were family.

  “Have Jane talk to him,” Matthew said.

  “No.”

  Matthew released a sigh of frustration. “He’s clearly infatuated with her,” he said. “We should use that to our advantage. Get Jane to find out what he wants. He can’t be doing all of this for her. Your marriage is legal and binding. It would be difficult to break.”

  “No.” Milton was not going to ask Jane to talk to Brandon. He shivered slightly as he recalled how distraught she’d been in the past weeks. She’d been different since Brandon came to Denver.

  “Matthew …”

  “I said no,” he told his friend. “I don’t want Jane involved in this if it can be helped, so come up with another plan.”

  Matthew ground his teeth together. His frustration was palatable, but there was nothing to change Milton’s mind.

  “Fine,” Matthew finally agreed.

  Milton shook his head. “I know that you think I’m being unreasonable, but one day, you’ll marry, and you’ll understand.”

  “You sound like my father,” Matthew grumbled.

  Milton said nothing. In some ways, he agreed with Matthew’s father. Matthew was always so busy carving his own path that Milton worried that he was missing out on living his best life.

  “Brandon has to have a past,” Milton said. He’d been thinking on this since George Parrish told his story.

  “So?”

  “So, what if we can get enough people to speak about his business practices? If we can discredit his claim, show that he’s making this personal, he won’t have a leg to stand on.”

  Water rights were an interesting gray area in the legal arena. A judge might suggest Milton and Brandon solve the problem amongst themselves if Milton could prove this was personal and not legal.

  “It could work,” Matthew said, “especially considering that he doesn’t have any cattle.”

  Milton nodded. He was starting to feel better now that a plan was forming.

  Now, if only I had a plan of how to keep Brandon away from my wife. Milton worried that that could prove to be a more difficult challenge.

  Ch
apter Twenty-Nine

  Jane stood outside Kate’s door. She felt like she was looking at the gallows. She didn’t want to talk to her sister after the way she’d been acting, but Jane knew that she had no choice. Milton, Matthew, and even their father all wanted Kate and Jane to stop arguing.

  Jane wanted it to stop as well, which was why she was standing outside her sister’s door when she really just wanted to crawl into her bed and go to sleep. Today had been emotionally exhausting for her, and she wasn’t ready for another fight.

  It doesn’t matter, she said. Jane raised her hand and knocked sharply on the door. She stood there for a while waiting to see if Kate would open the door. It was pretty late, and she wouldn’t be surprised if Kate were asleep.

  How could anyone sleep during a time like this? Jane wondered. Her stomach churned as she recalled how Brandon was coming after Milton. Jane felt guiltier than she ever thought she could.

  “What?” Kate asked. She wrenched the door open so quickly that Jane hadn’t even heard her walk toward the door.

  “I was hoping we might be able to talk,” Jane said.

  “It’s late, and I’m tired.”

  Jane sighed. She didn’t want to be frustrated with her sister, but Kate, as always, refused to make anything easy. Jane knew that she couldn’t give up. She wanted things to be soothed between her and Kate. She needed peace in her household.

  “I would like to talk,” Jane said. She didn’t want to press the issue too far. She worried that if she did that then she would keep Kate from hearing what she was saying.

  “Fine,” Kate said. She opened the door wider so that Jane could walk inside. Looking around, Jane was surprised to see that the room was sparse. She’d left it as such when she prepared it for Kate. She assumed that her sister would want to decorate it to her taste. Kate’s room had always been a mess. She normally had clothing strewn about with bottles of perfume knocked over, and ribbons all around like a colorful cacophony.

  Her room here was clean and tidy except for a few dresses that she had laid out.

  “What did you want to talk about?” Kate asked.

  Jane turned to her sister. She wondered what changed in her sister to make her such a hateful, spoiled girl.

  Stop it, Jane thought. You are here to extend an olive branch.

  “You know, Ma always thought you had the most beautiful hair,” Jane said. She laid her fingers on a brush that was sitting on Kate’s vanity. She smiled as she saw it. It was silver and intricately engraved. It had been a gift from Jane’s mom to Kate the first Christmas they spent together.

  “She used to brush my hair with that,” Kate said. She had a small smile on her face.

  “She loved you,” Jane said.

  She had always been slightly jealous of how quickly her mother and Kate bonded. Kate and Jane’s mother were nearly inseparable very early on.

  “She loved both of us,” Kate said. “She was a good woman.”

  Jane nodded. She moved away from that brush. She remembered how disappointed she’d been when her mother gifted Kate with such a lavish brush while giving Jane a new book. Of course, that book had ended up being one of her favorites.

  “She wouldn’t want us to be fighting,” Jane said. She turned to her sister. She noticed how slender Kate looked. She was always thin, but now that she was in her nightgown Jane could see that she’d lost even more weight.

  “I wouldn’t fight with you if you weren’t so entitled,” Kate said.

  “Entitled?” Jane asked incredulously. “I’ve helped take care of things our entire life so that you wouldn’t have to.” Jane didn’t realize until recently how much she resented Kate.

  Kate laughed. “You were always my father’s favorite. You were the one who knew the ranch, and you reminded him so much of your mother. He replaced me with you.”

  Jane’s eyes were wide. She could hardly believe what Kate was saying. She’d never assumed that Kate felt that way. She always seemed completely comfortable and confident in her role on the ranch and her role as George’s daughter.

  “He never replaced you,” Jane said. “You’re the daughter he decided to keep by his side. I’m the one he was willing to sell off.”

  Kate shook her head. “He only did that to save his own skin.”

  “I don’t disagree that he wanted to save himself,” Jane said.

  For a moment, the two women stood side by side. Each one seemed to be lost in their own thoughts.

  “I don’t want to fight with you any longer,” Jane said. “I’m exhausted, and we have too many enemies.”

  “You and your husband have enemies.”

  Jane shook her head. She did not want to argue, but she was frustrated that Kate was still determined to fight.

  “Brandon had information that could send our father to the clink,” Jane said.

  “What?”

  Jane nodded. She’d been unsure if her sister knew the full extent of their father’s dealings with Brandon.

  “Father wanted a seat on the Philadelphia Stock Exchange,” Jane said. “Brandon was willing to get him one, through bribes of course.”

  Kate said nothing. She simply stood there blinking as she processed the words that Jane spoke. “Why?”

  “He wanted to get rid of the ranch, but he couldn’t without a position that would bring him a great deal of money. He had to take credit out from the bank, and he needed a position that would give him money and status.”

  “That ranch belonged to my mother’s family. Pa received it as part of her dowry.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Jane said.

  She felt badly for Kate, and suddenly, Jane understood why Kate was so angry leaving her home. The ranch held much more sentiment than Jane had known.

  “Why would he do that? I thought that he was just trying to get money to keep the ranch. I didn’t know that he was trying to get a position in Philadelphia.”

  Kate walked toward the bed and sat on its edge. Her shoulders were hunched. Jane felt terrible.

  “I’m sorry,” Jane said.

  “What are you so sorry for?” Kate asked. She brought her hands up over her face. Jane felt even worse. She didn’t realize that Kate had been crying, but now, as she looked at her sister’s face, she could see the lines of the few tears that had escaped.

  “Maybe I should have married Brandon,” Jane said. “I would have saved all of us the trouble.”

  Kate shook her head emphatically. “No,” she said. Her eyes were shining with unshed tears, but her usual fire was back in them. “Brandon is much more dangerous than you think. I’ve heard a great deal about him from some of the ladies in Albuquerque.”

  This was the first Jane was hearing about any of this. She didn’t know that Kate even knew anything about Brandon. Kate always seemed so aloof from what was happening on the ranch.

  Jane looked at her sister. For the first time ever, they seemed to be on the same page. “What do you say?” Jane asked. “Will you help me get rid of Brandon?”

  Kate laughed. “I suppose that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

  Jane rolled her eyes, but she said nothing. She knew that her sister was simply being coy. She also knew they were forging a new path ahead. Jane and Kate might not agree on everything. In fact, they likely would never be extremely close, but they both loved their family, and they didn’t want Brandon to win.

  “I’m glad that I can count on you,” Jane said. She reached out and squeezed Kate’s shoulder.

  “Like I said,” Kate told her, the haughtiness back in her voice, “we have a common enemy.”

  Jane said nothing. She gave her sister a small smile and began to make her way out of the door.

  “Jane?” Kate said.

  Jane turned. “You should go talk to Milton. He’s going to need you in all of this.”

  Jane said nothing. She was surprised that Kate said anything at all. She didn’t think that she liked Milton very much.

  “Thank for the advice,�
�� Jane said. “Get some rest.”

  Walking out of Kate’s room, Jane couldn’t help but leave with hope that things might turn around. If she could build a relationship with her sister, then she was sure that she could build one with anyone.

  Maybe I can even salvage things between Milton and Brandon, Jane thought. In truth, Jane felt a great deal of guilt when she considered all that Milton would be going through because of her.